Dan Rudder Coaching Testimonial

I had been, like you said, deployed. I had been overseas. I had done a bit of traveling back to the US But I really wanted to put something together that was going to, you know, last that I could have and start to build a business, start to, you know, increase my assets in terms of real estate. It had been something I really interested in since I was a lot younger and I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Yeah, absolutely. And that's something I think we connected over back in Beverly Hills all those years ago. Yeah, yeah, certainly. But we were, but I was overseas, so I hadn't had. When I was in Germany, I had an opportunity to try and buy a house, a rental property, but I ended up getting orders before I could execute that. So I kind of backed off of that. I went to Turkey. As you know, Turkey right now is kind of a hectic situation and it's. Yeah, it's a little bit of a shit storm. I don't know if I can say that on the Internet, but I'm sure you can. Okay, great.

Do whatever you like.

All right. So, yeah, it's crazy over there. And it was, it was working up to this point and it's still working up. So we were having a lot of issues over there in Turkey and it was one of those deals where I just wanted to get back to the US and so I could. So I can make something happen for myself more than just, you know, living on base and, you know, having, you know, having no assets, no real passive income or those outside sources besides my job. Right. So that's what I was trying to do is get that other train going, so to speak. And yeah, so I had, you know, kind of got to a point where I, you know, now it was kind of a possibility, now it'd be real because I was going back to the States and I was like, okay, now I have to kind of do something. Alright. So, you know, I saw you had posted, I think, on Facebook, most likely, hey, you know, all my friends and whoever. I'm doing 30 minutes for free chitchat for whatever topic. And, and I thought, oh yeah, what a, what a great resource my old buddy Brad would be. So I went ahead and I scheduled that call and, and I explained, you know, where I was and how I was kind of. I don't know if I was nervous or, or just didn't really have the whole picture in my head yet. I know I wanted to do something. I just couldn't articulate what form that would take. And I'm gonna get into what we talked about on the call, of course.

Yeah, yeah. So if there was, like, one thing that you got out of that call that was like, kind of flick the switch for you because you've been exceptionally successful up until this point and you'll continue, you're on a great trajectory. Right. So, like, what was. What do you think the turning point was as far as, like, one piece of advice or one strategy that really turned it around for you?

What you told me was, you know, I explained, you know, all the numbers and all the, you know, kind of direction I wanted to go and how. How that looked. And you said, well, then do it. You've gotta. You've got to execute. You've been, you know, overseas for this long. You've gotten all these things going for you, but when you get back, you just. You do it. So that was really what made it click for me was, you know, I can look at. Look at houses all day, but until I put together the funding and put together the people to execute it and hire the, you know, get the lenders and the property managers and everything else, until I get that, you know, I'm just fooling myself. I'm just doing research. So in order to become an investor, your advice was, you know, you. You're ready, do it. That's what you said. You said, dan, it's time for you to go and do it. And that, that really. That really clicked, like, yeah, you're right. I've got it. Just, you know, it's risky because I hadn't done it before. It's new territory for me. But, you know, failure is a key to success. I know that. So I said, you know what? I've got, you know, no kids or spouse at the time. So I just had to go for it, you know, put everything I got into this, see what I can make happen. And so that's when I really started the process. And then engaging with, you know, the real estate agents and the lenders and putting together that picture that would eventually lead to me. Headed to San Antonio. Excuse me? Yeah, Kind of fresh. Stay fresh early. So I headed to San Antonio and I. And on my way here, what happened was I ended up finding the housing market here to be. And what you actually told me, I know your website was all about airbnb, you said, people are making money on this. They can automate this. What you need to do, Dan, is go to Austin, get you a property, a condo, whatever, and rent that out during all these big, you know, seminars and events. And I thought, yeah, that that'd Be awesome. So I was looking into that a little bit and I just didn't think that the, that I could, you know, set that up with my experience in Austin, being and living and working full time here in San Antonio. So I ended up just, just buying a house here. I bought a duplex. I looked for several months for the right property I had. I ended up finding a real good partner here to work with who knew the area, who knew the market. And he sent me one house as I was doing my final drive here. And I ended up signing the paperwork at Meteor crater in Arizona. I signed on my phone, he sent me the, you know, documents to sign because I said, you know what? I was running numbers non stop, just everything I could find. I was just throwing the numbers into the, you know, Excel, right.

Just to consistently kind of like think about it from a numbers perspective. You don't get emotional about it that way. Is this a good deal?

Right? Yeah, I had, I had say, yeah.

Can I make money here or not? That's really the question you're trying.

Exactly, yeah. I said, you know what, I don't want anything crazy. I'm not trying to get a floor plan that I like, you know, anything like that. I just want something that's going to be, you know, like, like the student rentals. Like Floyd says, you want the close to the highways, it's close to a school, it's close to something that people are going to go and work and live. So that's what I found. And I ended up finding a good deal on a brand new duplex, new construction that went up and I ended up living in one side of it and renting out the other last summer. And it's. Yeah. And one of the things that else that I put into practice from our conversation and from your, all of your content online is the Airbnb. When I moved into my house, my mother lives in Austin, so she came down to help me and she couldn't understand why I wanted to live in one of the smaller bedrooms. Because I'm, you know, single, I didn't have anyone else. And there's a big master bedroom in the house with a huge walk in closet as big as this conference room. It's a nice house and I like the, and it's a great bedroom. But I knew that if I was going to rent that, rent that out on a room, you know, on a nightly basis in terms of Airbnb, that that master bedroom would fetch a lot more than something with a smaller bed or a smaller room or Separate bathroom. So when I got there, I kept the smaller room to myself. And it was actually pretty good upgrade because once I did get to San Antonio, I ended up staying in my friend's shed on a ranch a little bit towards the outskirts of Sound when I. Outskirts of town. Yeah. When I first got back, I was trying to save money. Yeah.

You went from deployed to getting back to living in a shed, and now you're in a duplex, you're renting. And tell me, like, some of the numbers, like, how's it doing for you?

It's doing good. I've got. I didn't. I don't have the exact percentages, but I've got. The expenses are covered by the duplex and then some. So I am making a nice little profit on that. I've got. I did the Airbnb, I rented it out to. And the Airbnb side with those other two bedrooms that I'm not living in, makes more money than the traditional rental side. Nice, right?

So like, two to three times as much. It's great.

Yeah, yeah. It's not. Sometimes it is on a good month, if I'm doing real well and depends on who's in there got. And then eventually I transitioned to student rentals. And what I mean by student is there is a school real near here where foreign military students come and learn English.

Sweet.

So I kind of tapped into that to that vein a little bit, and my Turkish really comes in handy because I've got Turkish soldiers in there now paying, you know, six, seven hundred dollars per room per person. And it's been really great just having them in there because it's a longer term than, you know, the Airbnb can be. It's very steady on a monthly basis. So I've, you know, I still do the Airbnb when I don't have those guys, but for the last, I haven't had an Airbnb guest since March or April, I think, and we're in July.

That's great.

Yeah, so it's great. And I'm booked up through the summer.

You got flexibility. You're making money on it. You're paying down the mortgage or whatever.

You did with it.

That's awesome, man. So, okay, that's great. So what? So, all right, that's great.

Let me.

Let me make that clear to our audience. So you went from. You're kind of, like, deployed. You were. You were kind of in a rut. You're like, all right, I want to do this thing, but I'm not sure what it looks like, you know, I'm kind of an analysis. Paralysis to coming back to the States, to building up your little, you know, real estate empire, so to speak, right? You got your cool duplex, you got your job, you've got this, you got that. Like, how does that feel, how. Coming. How far you've come?

Right?

Because I think people at Holland, they see like, this trepidation of looking at the future, and it gives them pain instead of like, what they should be looking at is how far they've come. And I think that's a really important thing to understand. It's a good distinction to make.

Absolutely. That's a great point. And for anyone who's watching this, you just have to know that tomorrow is only going to be better if what you do today makes. Makes it better. If you take. Take those steps, if you execute just like our, you know, call 18 or so months ago, more. More now, I think, you know, you have to. You're. You're wherever you're at, that's where you are, and that's where you have to. That's your jumping off point. If you don't jump off from right now, then where are you gonna, you know, how long are you gonna wait?

You really.

The longer you wait. Yeah.

And you really can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking back. Like, you can only tie your success now to what you know in the past. But you couldn't at that time, really take, you know, a good look and see what it's gonna look like and all this stuff and what you're gonna learn. And I'm sure there were hiccups along the way you had to figure out. And people get so nervous they don't take action. When action is the only thing will ever get you to result. Like, period. Really, action is the only thing. Can you think of anything else in this world besides action that actually gets results?

Nothing. Nothing at all. If you take action, if you're flexible, if you're willing to make. Make adjustments on the way, then. Then you can definitely get. Get something different, get something going. If you want to make a change, if you want, you know, whatever it is, you just have to step out there. I couldn't have foreseen this happening. You know, back when we talked last time, I knew I wanted to, you know, something, but I didn't know that it would be this. And I'm really glad it is what it is. I've got, you know, those. That social network being those foreign, you know, people come to my house and they love it and they send me, you know, they leave me a little present on their way out. And it's a lot of fun.

It's a lot of fun meeting people talked about kind of some of the business results. But tell me about some of, maybe some of the personal transformations that have happened as a result of all, all this. You know, what has changed?

Yeah, for me, I've gotten a lot more, I don't know, I've got a lot more grounded. I've got a lot more confident right in, in taking that action. It led to me saying, okay, well, what other changes can I make in my life? If this was the result of a lot of hard work and dedication and change and investment time, money, you know, all that, then what else can I commit myself to and then also succeed at? So I've got, I'm engaged to a beautiful woman and I'm very proud to be, you know, joining her family next year and got, you know, some other opportunities coming up career wise outside of the real estate thing that I'm real excited about and I'm ready to, to go ahead and execute if possible. It's putting something together in the military to hopefully, because I am right now active duty enlisted. Excuse me, when I finished my degree. Oh yeah, that was the other thing. I just finished my bachelor's degree, thank you very much. And I get. Yeah, yeah. And it was. And I got 4.0 my last three terms on the president's list. I'm real proud of that. Happy to report that success. And it's all, you know, just building on that confidence, you know, can I get an A in this class? This semester is the same as, you know, can I buy this house? Can I, if I buy it, will somebody rent it? Will somebody want to live in it? You know, just, you know, I just keep running the numbers and it keeps coming up. Yes, the numbers look good. Do it right. Don't, don't let you know if you've got good numbers, then, then why wait? Yeah, right.

So that's kind of, it's like be flexible. Be flexible in your expectations and rigid in your rules. Right? So your rules are. Yeah, numbers are such cool. You know, I don't need. It doesn't need to look right. It doesn't need to, like, you know, you don't have to trust your emotions so much if the numbers make sense.

Right.

And it's nice to trust your gut, but at the end of the day, most people trust their gut all the way to the grave. They Never take real action. Because it's both, right?

You need both.

You need to be trusting your gut, and you need to be putting hard numbers paper, and you need to be making enough decisions over time where, you know, the good ones will work out well enough to override the bad ones, because you're gonna make bad decisions. In hindsight, it's just life, right? But if you can consistently make enough decisions to overweigh the bad ones, you know, it's like. It's like planting the orchard I talk about. You know, it's like an orchard is not one tree, it's a thousand trees, because you have no earthly idea which ones are gonna thrive and which ones are gonna die. But ultimately, the orchard will, if you continue to plant good trees and water.

Them and nurture them.

All right, cool, man. So are you still on that point?

I just want to say I remember back when I signed the documents committing to the house, I wasn't nervous until that point, and then my gut just kind of told me, what are you doing? What are you getting? I was already, you know, I had already committed myself by everything else, and, you know, that those my. I relaxed eventually and got. Got things done. I furnished the house. I found a tenant I, you know, advertised on Airbnb. When I first put the ad up on Airbnb, I. The room was not ready. The room was far from ready. It was full of stuff because they had just dropped off a truckload of stuff that I had had in my room in Turkey at my front door, and they had put it up, and I had had them put it in that room. So be out of the way. So I put it out there, and I remember I put it up for free. It was flooding in Texas, and they said, hey, Airbnb hosts, we're trying to help people. If you're willing to put it up for $0. I said, yeah, I'd love to help someone who's maybe has been out, you know, put out of their home because of flooding.

Remember that flood? It was pretty gnarly.

Yeah, it was awful last year. The rain just would not stop. But what happened, what ended up happening was, I don't think at that time. I don't know about disaster relief now, but they weren't matching that type of thing. So what I later realized was my room was just out there for $0 for anyone to click on. And I didn't realize it until a few people had, you know, booked. And I said, well, if that's what it says it is, then yeah, come on. Over zero. You know, I can't go back on that if that's what I'm advertising and that's what I'll commit to. The first couple weekends I gave away for nothing. And somebody called me, they're like, is the room available tonight? And I said, yeah, come on over. And I rushed home from work and I got all that stuff, and I just, you know, cleaned the room out real quick. And I do all that myself. All the cleaning and the. The key transfers are easy because I used to have a lockbox on the front, but now I'm doing the electronic keypad so I can lock and unlock the door from my phone. I can give you a number, you can type it right in the door and you're in.

Which one do you use? The August to the smart lock. Which one do you use?

It's a smart lock, but it's part of a security home security package that I have with AT&T digital Life.

Right on. That's awesome. And that's a great.

So I can see when people come in, I can see who's in the driveway.

All right, cool. So just to kind of bring it home, are you still experiencing the trepidation or the feeling of analysis paralysis that you were before?

Do you.

Are you, Are you. What are you experiencing nowadays compared to.

What you were at before day to day? I'm definitely not experiencing anything like the level of analysis paralysis that I was where I'm just going over and over the numbers and not wanting to reach out, not wanting to make that call, not wanting to spend that money or put myself out there. So what I've got now is just a can do attitude. I mean, I don't know if that sounds cliche, but I'm, you know, just taking things in, and if it sounds like it might be a good fit, you know, I'm willing to pursue it until, you know, it doesn't work or. Or we get, you know, find success.

Awesome, man. So not only did you go from being in a place of analysis paralysis, you know, not having a ton of resources, not having a ton of connections, you're in a new place relatively to now you have this home, you've got this duplex, you've got this business, you're helping the community, you're serving people in a new way, and thank you for your service overseas, but at home is like, it really kind of touches. You can change people's life overseas and it's okay, cool. But you're always disconnected from that. But when it's like somebody in your neighborhood or somebody in your family, it's like an entirely different experience.

So.

So have you also seen the ripple effect from this action in your life, helping other people in your life? Have other people been either inspired or informed by your journey as well?

I would say yes, absolutely. There's been people. One guy mentioned to you earlier who is a real young guy, you know, real ambitious, real excited and I see a lot of, you know, kind of my younger self in him and I just encourage him every day. I say, you know, what you're doing is great. Make sure that you, that you execute, put down, put your money where your mouth is. I tell him, if you want to have a successful business, you're going to have to give up a lot of sleep. I said, it takes time and you gotta just commit, commit, commit, learn as much as you can and be willing to lose sleep over it because be willing to lose sleep, be willing to lose money, be willing to make those risks personally and in your life. I would never advocate taking food out of your kids mouth, but even yesterday I was reading a blog and someone or a forum and they're talking about whether or not they want to invest in a house and if they're going to use cash or if they're going to leverage things like that. And they said, oh, I just lose sleep if I'm not 100% sure I can pay the mortgage. And that thought never occurred to me. Maybe that's just who I am. But if, you know, I'm happy to pay the mortgage, but it's not something that I'm that emotionally invested in that if I thought I.

Your self worth, whether or not you can pay for something or whether or not you have money is not tied to your, who you are as a person.

Right? Right.

Yeah.

And I tell my fiance I'm happy with less.

Like there's. There's a difference between being broke and being poor. Poor is a mindset.

Right.

Broke is just a temporary condition.

Right.

It's a resource, it's a lack of current resources. But resourcefulness is a mindset and resourcefulness is all that matters because you tap into that abundance and flow around you. Then you can have anything you need.

That's the case. Yeah. One other person that I don't know how much my influence has had on them, but I know my little brother, since I got back has moved into the real estate field as well back in our hometown and he is rocking and rolling there.

Your little brother's into it too. That's awesome, man.

My little Brother's into it. Yeah. He's not investing the ways that I am right now, but he's. He went the other way. He's doing the. He's a licensed agent now, so he's got, you know, the buying and selling and fixing them up and working with clients. I'm sure that as soon as that gets rolling for him, he'll be putting his own dollars down and building his net worth, his portfolio as well.

That's killer. Dan, is there anything else you want to add for the audience at home?

I think we've said a lot.

This is a great recap of everything that's gone down. It's been awesome. This really. This is why I do what I do. Like, this is why I take the time to reach out to people, to encourage people, to coach people, mastermind people, to get on the resources they need. Because you just don't know what the ripple effects will be ultimately and how many lives you're going to touch as a result. And we've talked about not only the results in your life, but in your family's life, but in the community across the world. I mean, for fuck's sake, like your little brother, everybody is now better off because you made a decision. Step up instead of shrink.

Right?

To grow instead of. Instead of cake.

You know, absolutely, if you're open to it. You know, I've got one guest that's actually been coming back and coming back and coming back over and over and over. And I've got one guest that stayed with us once for a few weeks a year ago, and she just moved. She just traveled, was traveling back through San Antonio. I didn't have any availability for her, but we met up a couple times and she took my family to dinner and we went out for. To have. To hang out. And I've just. My relationships are better because of my commitment to myself and my willingness to trust myself and to perform those things. And I've got people in Turkey that I still keep in touch with or in Yemen, you know, people that have come through and, you know, they've touched my life and they insist that, you know, they're so grateful to me, but I'm grateful to them for letting me, for putting their trust in me to come to my home and to spend time with us and me and my family. And, of course, thank you for your time and for being willing to coach people and for being willing to be that encouragement. You were on the others. You know, the way I really felt was, you're a thorn in my side. Yeah. Brad said to go. To go do it. I'm not gonna. Not gonna sit on my hands. I've got to go do it.

Well, did it work out for it or not? I mean, come on. It works out for the greater good, right? That's awesome, man. Well, I'm gonna thank you so much for sharing your testimonial. If you guys are watching this and you're interested in doing something similar to Dan, you can check out our Airbnb guide. You can check out all the content. I make more marvels. I'm making new videos all the time. I'm even doing some daily vlogs now. Reach out if you need Mastermind, help, coaching, whatever you need. Good to go.