Lessons I learned from Real Estate investing | Note Camp

All right, everybody. Hey, we are back from our short break. We've got a great session here as our final speaker before we get into our happy hour tonight here on day one of no camp. And I will tell you, this lady here, it's just phenomenal. Got a huge heart. She's known as a tiny Canadian. You know, she is. She's big on stature. She's got a big heart and loves. I won't take any of her. I love some of her slogans. I'm not going to use them here. I'll let her use them because I've known her, I think it was going back about five years. Now, Katherine, we've known each other. Is that when we went first to magnify your wealth a few years back? Was it four years ago? Maybe?

Four or five years. Yeah, it was about four years ago.

Yep, yep. And you were picking my brain about marketing and raising capital back in the day. And it's good, you know, it's amazing. You guys have done some great work. You've got a ton of things you're working on. I don't want to take anyone with your thunder, but guys and gals, you're going to want to take a deep breath, pull out a pen and paper because I guarantee Kathryn is going to share some nuggets with you.

Homework. Some homework for everyone.

Oh, I love it. Yes.

Day one of the world coaching and some homework.

That's good. So. Well, I will shut up and we'll have. We've got Katherine Bell from Titan Impact Group joining us from Scottsdale, Arizona here, formerly from Canada. I thought you'd probably be in San Diego for the inner circle. Is that tomorrow?

I'm leaving at 5am okay.

There you go. So glad to have you here on no Camp for the first time, Catherine.

So first of all, thank you. This is a huge honor that you would ask me to come be here and super happy to share. You know, I'm, I'm one of your biggest fans. You know that, right? So first of all, a little bit about my background just to give the listening is I've been an investor for well over 20 years. Why notes is because. So my husband who's American, moved from Canada to the United States and had a company or had an idea company turn it I came down, turned it into a multimillion dollar company. We sold it and started out real estate investing just as buy and hold and discovered I don't like tenants and toilets and then through a series of events ended up in Arizona. And when we were here did about 500 fix and flips here with all with investors partnering on those, which was a lot of fun. And, you know, fixing and flipping works when the numbers work. And what I. One of the my Catherine Isms, as Scott calls it, is do the numbers. And the numbers tell you what to do, whether it be fixing and flipping notes, whatever it is. Did that. Then started my own hedge fund. We had several Airbnb portfolios and discovered I don't like gas and toilets either. And at the end of the day, it actually rolls back to 20 years ago. I was at a real estate investing meeting and one of the mentors there, he actually pointed out that in any real estate investing transaction, you can play multiple roles. You can be the buyer, the seller, the realtor, the title company, the bank, the contractor, subcontractor. And then he asked the question, which is the most secure position to hold any real estate investing transaction? And the answer is, is the bank? At the end of the day, it's the bank. Because if anything happens to the property, it's the bank that always gets it. And so my question was, how do you be the bank? And so of course, they went on and explained it. And so I've been on this mission to eventually become being the bank and have my own hedge fund and do all that. So that's why I'm here. That's why I do notes. I do a lot of other things. We have mobile home parks and other masterminds and medical office space and rehab facilities. So we have lots of things that we're actually the space that we play in with all our investors. So it's a lot of fun. But what I'm here to share with you today is my journey around notes. And so for those of you who understand anything, it's that hard work is cleverly disguised as an opportunity. And that's actually from Steve, so we'll give him that credit. So understand that anything that we're doing with notes is. It's going to take work. At the end of the day, this isn't. This isn't a get rich quick. That's not what this is. You know, you have to understand it takes time, like any business to actually build it over time. So you've got to be prepared for this to be a marathon, right? And you've got to put in the work, like anything, and work hard. You know, the harder you work, the more the opportunity to show up. The less you work, the less it shows up. I mean, it goes hand in hand. I know that we're in an instant de gratification society that, however this isn't that like you want to build a portfolio and an empire. It's going to take some work. So get prepared to roll up your sleeves, but it's absolutely worth it. So the first thing is finding the deals and I'll just go down from there. So lessons learned is that you're going to make a lot of phone calls. So a lot. And I mean, I've tracked literally like thousands of phone calls that I have personally made. And at the end of the day, you know, I'm not necessarily a people person. I may appear to be a people person, but I'm actually not. However, relationships do mean the world to me. So building relationships is everything. And in order for me to get on the phone and make literally thousands of phone calls, a couple of things that I did to do it is make sure that I put myself in a state that actually has me be grateful and happy to actually be making the calls because the person on the other end of the phone can absolutely hear it. And so I got myself a standing desk and I got myself a rebounder and I would literally bounce my way through calls. So as I'm sitting on hold or anything or the phone's ringing, I. I would be jumping because there's something physiologically that happens inside of our bodies when we can create energy. It creates energy in our voice. And people actually are happier to pick up the phone and have a whole amazing conversation. So taking care of myself and putting myself in a state that has me be like energized and energetic about making these calls is a big deal. And then the other thing I did that was a lot of fun with my team is create a game around it. And so we created what's called a go for no game. And so what I did was we, for every 50 no's that we got, then I got a massage. We got a massage, whatever it is. And so what it does was we were playing a game, obviously to get as many nos as we could to get the massage faster, which would make us make more calls. But on the flip side of that, we got way more yeses inside of that. So it takes away the sting of getting the no. Because here's at the end of the day is that, you know, along with, you know, shortages of everything else, toilet paper and everything, you know, it's here. So there's a lot of sorting and a lot of, like digging through to actually find deals work for you. So those are, you know, make it Fun. You know, at the end of the day, if you're going to work this hard, you might as well make it fun. Now you find a deal right now.

What?

So one of the things that's really important to me is always do the numbers. And I tell my team this constantly. Do the numbers. Numbers tell you what to do. So what I love about Scott is he has basically like 150 point checklist to go through to analyze all of the deals and, and use it like figure out the criteria that matters to you and hone in on that and then start analyzing by doing that rather than by feelings. Right. And remember at the end of the day that anybody selling you a note is a salesperson. No offense to salespeople. I've always been one. However, salespeople are really good at sugarcoating stuff and not always telling, you know, giving you all the details, the down and dirty of everything. So you must, must, must, must, must ask the questions and get it in writing to cover your, you know what. So make sure that you're doing that right. Cya, we all know what that means, right?

That's right. Cover your ass.

Yes, I'll let you say it. Not me. So, and then the other thing that was really great that I love about real estate and so many others do real estate, what's so brilliant about it is that there's multiple ways to structure any deal. Right. And just like anything else, notes are the same. It is fascinating to me about all the different ways that a note can actually be structured and restructured and what can actually be done with it, from foreclosing on it to getting it re performing, to like doing wraparound mortgages. Like there's all these things you can do. It's fascinating. So make sure that you are constantly have an open mind and learning all the different ways that you can continue to learn how to restructure and structure deals to begin with at all. And we do that through going to different networking events, listening to all Scott's podcasts, you know, listening to tons of people's podcasts, reading books, you know, you could. I just feel like you can never learn enough about all the different ways to structure any of these deals. So always be learning. You shut down that mind, you're going to shut down your opportunity.

Yep.

Then it comes to teams. So the reality is, is that any business you have, it's a team sport. And so building your teams is one of the greatest gifts that you can have. And if you don't build a team, you're not going to be able to scale this, at the end of the day, you're one human being. You can only do so much. And you didn't build this to buy a job, right? You built this to create a living. And so in order to do that, you need to be able to offload a lot of the tasks that it's going to take to be able to do that. From your marketing to your analyzing to your servicing, bookkeeping. So many things that you can create a team with, either through vendors or virtual assistants. And again, it's beautiful. What happened with technology through this pause that the whole world just took for the last couple of years is that it really brought out all the brilliant ways that we can use technology to connect with anybody around the world, literally like we're doing right now. So make sure that you're building your team and then making sure that you're building out your systems and structures in a way that you can automate as much as possible. We have used, and I love this because Scott, you always like find these brilliant tools and things that we can use to essentially like automate all our marketing. We can lay out all our marketing and then all of a sudden it automatically gets populated all the way through the week. Right? We don't have to think about it. So things like that make a world of difference. Or like Scott, you do the, you know, get all your recordings done all on one day and then have them, you know, populate, you know, all through the week or the month or whatever it is. So find ways and systems instructors and tools that allow you to do that. You do that, that's going to alleviate a huge amount of headaches. And time and again you can set up the systems instructors and then have a virtual assistant actually be the one to be using it and populating and getting it all done. Right. Again, leverage other people's time for sure. And then the other thing is being really clear with your team about conditions of satisfaction for job descriptions. Right? So we write job descriptions based on the outcome of whatever it is, rather than task based job descriptions. So task based job descriptions have people be in the position where you're constantly telling them what to do. Where an outcome based job description now has that person have the ability to now step up and use their brain and their genius to be able to find creative ways to have that outcome actually be realized. And ways that I promise you, you never thought about. So by doing that, you are bringing out their, their, their genius. You know, another Catherine ism is if it's your genius, it's your job if it's not your genius, not your job. So if it's not your job, then you need to find somebody else that that really is their genius so they take it on and honestly do a way better job at it than you do. So again, outcome based job descriptions makes life so much simpler. Next is marketing. What have I learned around marketing? So first of all, I am a numbers nerd. I love my spreadsheets. Marketing is not my favorite thing to do. However, it's absolutely necessary inside of this. Hands down, Scott's one of the best marketers I've ever seen and I still am. Like, how does he have the energy to do all this? Well, he's taught us lots of ways on how to do it. And I think for me, the biggest thing to understand about marketing is that just because I've heard my story, which feels like a bazillion times and I feel like a broken record, does not mean that everybody else has. So I must, must, must be on social media, doing on all the platforms and every single day because just because it's been, you know, a thousand times that I've heard it, it'll be the first time for somebody, for a lot of somebody. And the telling my story over and over again in different ways will touch somebody and the right person at the right time. So you can never have enough marketing out there, you can never have enough videos, you can never be telling enough stories. And then the other thing around this that's been really fascinating to me is personal branding. So I'm like way old school marketing training from 20 years ago, 20, 30 years ago. And the training back then was all about branding the company brand, the company brand, the company branding it. And what's interesting is it shifted to personal branding. And so I actually have my own radio show and we were talking about this on the radio show. Like why personal branding? What happened to the shift? And it's interesting because I think that there's something about like the younger generations that they are watching the bigger companies and conglomerates and stuff get away with stuff that really they're not being held accountable. Like they're kind of nameless, faceless organizations and more than ever they want accountability actually there, right? Like I hear my twins say, it's not fair. It's like I always say a bear is where pigs get ribbons. But on some level.

Hang on a second. What was that again? What was that quote? Fairs are where pigs get ribbons. Is that what you're saying?

Fair is where pigs get ribbons. Nice life Isn't fair.

That's a quote of the day. Fairs are where pigs get ribbons. I love it. Fair. I love it. We got to put that there's got to be a new Catherine ism. It's got to be an emoji of some sort. You got to put up there.

Again, lots of mom stuff in here. So. But there is some level of brilliance inside of like understanding and really getting to know the names and faces and people and lives behind these big companies and corporations. Right. So by creating our own personal branding, which let me tell you, was really uncomfortable to me, however, getting more and more used to it and what's more, hilarious, my fiance is even he was more resistant and loves it more than ever now. And sharing like little tidbits of our personal life, but like weaving that into who we are and what we do, you know, because people at the end of the day want to do business with people they know like and trust. Right. And what the best way to get to know us. I mean obviously it's your face to face conversations. But if that can't happen because of this pause that happened or anything in the world, another fabulous way is through, you know, our social media. I mean through TikTok videos, Instagram, Facebook, it makes it so easy to do these simple little one to three minute videos of catching snippets and snip like of our lives and what's happening and sharing, being able to show them like the due diligence that we're doing on notes or even this last week on mobile home parks or you know, whatever. It's like more than ever it's been the easiest way to start to see into people's lives and who they really are. So the corporate branding is kind of going away and this I believe that, you know, and Scott, you can speak in on this. Like personal branding is here to stay more than ever, right? Like people care.

But I think it's always been that way in a lot of cases. Yes, everybody likes a brand, you know, Keller Williams. But people are going to identify with a realtor who works for Keller Williams and they're going to follow that realtor along. People that are good at sales. In banking, when I was moving banks, people would move their business and accounts because they liked how I treated them, that they trusted me to take care of them or help refer them to other businesses, stuff like that. I think that's really what it comes down to. It is we are all our own brand. And you have to ask yourself, and I know this was a struggle for you, Like, I don't want to be out in front. I, you know, use the logo. The logo has no life. And like you said, people want to like and trust us, but we also have. I love what you said at first, at point, getting even though we've said our story a thousand times and we've heard it, it's still for that one person or that 100th person that hasn't heard your story or hears it differently and they identify something, there's a hot button this time. Or they're now open and ready for the message when they haven't been ready and open support in the past.

Right. Yeah, that's been a big thing for me because I don't like to repeat myself.

That's right.

Marketing is a whole lot of repeating ourselves.

Kind of like parenting well, but it's also beautifully because you guys have embraced the fact of recording it and now you don't have to repeat it. It's out there for others to hear and, and leverage that. And I want to ask you that you mentioned your branding has blossomed. You've been giving some different opportunities outside, but it's been. Because you did focus on the note business and started sharing about what you're doing. Do you want to share a little bit of what irons in the fire you have working? I mean, you've been rubbing some elbows with some big folks and you had the radio show that came from somewhere. Let's talk about that stuff. Let's brag on Catherine a little bit here.

Okay. I got more to share, but okay, we'll sidetrack onto this. So insights. Okay, so this actually leads into something really, really important. I feel like this is the most important piece to all of this. If you don't get anything, get this. Relationships matter. It's all about relationships. And it's not what you know, it's who you know. Like all of the deals we've gotten, again, it's all because of who we know. Hands down, that's what it comes down to. Had nothing to do with what I knew. Like, I didn't know anything about this and took the coaching, you know, built the relationships and inside of building the relationships, it's being in integrity, you know, and we were talking about this on our radio show last week. Is that that. And if any of you want to hear my radio show, you can go to my website, titanimpactgroup.com all our radio shows are there, but we talk about this. That listen, at the end of the day, it's about Integrity. And integrity in relationships. Right? Integrity is doing what you said you would do by when you said you would do it. And the minute that you know that you're not going to do it, you immediately get into communication with all parties affected and remake the promise. Because at the end of the day, all you have is your word. And I promise you, you keep breaking your word. This is a small world of investing. Your reputation will go out, you honor your word. No matter what, that reputation will go out as well. So no matter what it comes down to, building relationships and being a person of integrity is, hands down, the foundation of what will make or break you in any business. So with that, what came. What Scott's talking about is funny is so many things came out of this. So what happened was. So my husband. My husband passed away a few four years ago now and unexpectedly. And at the point my twins were 14. And a couple years ago, I realized that they're going to move out soon. And there was a mom checklist I had of all the things I needed to teach them before they go out into the world. Because my job is to raise kids that are productive, contributing members of society. And so in order for that, there's some things we have to cover. And one of them is financial literacy. And clearly school wasn't teaching it, so what was I going to do? So being typical teenagers, they don't want to listen to mom. So me, who I am, I decided that we are going to have a family mastermind, and it is going to be every second Friday at our dining room table. And so we started the mastermind. And I had some books that had homework in them and a workbook. And every single week you had homework to do. And you better come to that meeting with your homework done and ready to go for us to move to the next level. Yes, I run a pretty tight ship, but I have some pretty amazing kids because of it. Anyway, so we started the mastermind. And here is what is crazy is my fiance, his family ended up catching wind of what we were doing. Well, they decided to invite themselves to our table. This was crazy. So one by one, they all, like, started to come to the table. And at the end of the very first year of us doing the family mastermind, several things showed up out of it. And again, this is crazy. So the first thing was we had a. We did the completion at the end, I believe in completing and celebrating. And at the completion of the Mastermind, there was over 40 people there. And what had happened was, collectively, they had earned more than $100,000 more because of what they learned in the Mastermind. That year. They had eliminated over $70,000 in debt collectively, and they had invested over $50,000 collectively, all in that first year of being a part of that Mastermind, which was crazy. And it was literally just started for my twins. So because the financial literacy is an issue in this country that it's not taught in schools, what ended up coming out of that was we were invited to Sotheby's to be a part of the auction where the Constitution had been sold for $44 million, which. That was a whole thing. But at that event, I ended up meeting some people and they were talking about financial literacy and had a little nonprofit back in Philadelphia teaching financial literacy to inner city school kids. And they asked me to come on board and. And incorporate my family Mastermind program into it. And what this is rolled into is that Arizona, Florida and Pennsylvania all have passed laws that now require all high school students to have financial literacy prior to graduating. So we literally, in the next week, two weeks, we are rolling this out to several schools across the United States. And eventually it's going to be in all high schools across the United States. And so, yeah, we're really excited. And that all came out of, you know, me sitting down at the kitchen table teaching my kids financial literacy. So that came out of that. And then more friends heard about the Masterminds and wanted to be part of year two. They asked to be a part of it, which is where the radio show came from. And then because I built so many relationships over time, I've had several people circle back around, and now we're partnering on multiple projects. So we now have a mobile home park. We're literally in the middle of closing another one right now as what I've been spending all today doing. And then we're just flew across the country analyzing more. So we're going to have more of those deals for our investors. And then we have medical office space that we are developing, which, again, an extraordinary program, but these are all for accredited investors to be a part of. And then we have rehab facilities that we are expanding into, and those all have government contracts and really complex things, but again, all about making a difference. And what's the other one we're working on? I've got a hotel. We're in the middle of analyzing, doing that deal. So lots of things that we're doing, but all of these, every single one, came out of not what I knew, but who I knew. Everybody that knows me knows my reputation. Knows where my heart is. And so people seek me out and want to do business with me. You know, my whole thing with Titan Impact Group, my whole life is that, you know, and I wrote a. Read a book, I read a lot of books is start with why. And in that book, it's what I got down to was my why is to leave every person, property and community better than I found them. And every single project that I do, from a note to a medical office to a mobile home park to whatever it is, leave every person, property and community better than I found them. So that's a critical piece to me. And it doesn't always look pretty, but at the end of the day, I have some pretty powerful conversations that move some amazing things forward. So those are just a few of the things that we're involved in. And what was really cool was I just got to go back to the financial literacy because they're texting me right now. So I got to go back to Philadelphia and actually teach to these inner city school kids. And my whole backstory, I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I grew up in, you know, through multiple homes, in and out of foster care as a kid. It was horrible. I wasn't adopted till I was 16. But at this program, I got to really share my story with these kids, which really resonated with a lot of them. But right now, literally right now they're doing these presentations that's wrapping up this eight week program. And apparently I might. My story touched a lot of them and made a difference, but which I gave them a lot of homework. So I think that's a big deal when you give kids a lot of homework and they actually still like you at the end. So those are just a few of the things that I've been involved in. And you know, again, doesn't matter what happens to you, matters what you choose to do with it, right? And here's the other piece, is that inside of everything, it's like whether you're a new investor or an experienced investor, whatever it is, like, give yourself permission to try lots of different ways of investing, right? Like, I did buy and hold, discovered what I liked and what didn't like did you know, the fix and flips. Discovered what I liked and what I didn't like. Discover airbnb is like everything just. It's that beautiful journey of discovering what we like and what we don't like, what our genius is and what our genius is not, right? Like, don't feel like you're locked into One thing for the rest of your life, right? Give yourself some latitude to learn and learn. Right?

So I want to add one thing in there. Learning is great, but it's taking action. It's the doing. It's the taking the action. I think it's helped you guys more than anything else is. Okay, let's go do it. All right. I'm not, you know, I'm not going to give you anything that I wouldn't do myself or haven't done a million times myself. And, like, you're going to be okay. You just got to work your way through it a little bit and find your groove.

Okay. I'm going to jump on that because I wanted to bring that up, too. So what I love about your coaching is you give a lot of coaching that occurs as really scary only because we've never done it. Right. And so my coaching is put your feelings aside and just do it. Have the feelings later, right? Like, we all know how to be rich and thin. Are we. Knowing isn't enough. It's the doing we have got to do. So whatever the coaching is, just do it right. And this is another one I have to say so you can say this. So what I like to say is, if you're being coached by somebody, don't waste their time. Right? Don't be an ask hole. You can actually Google it. It's a word.

It is. Exactly.

If you're an ask hole, it's somebody that constantly asks questions and doesn't bother to take any of the coaching. Don't do that. Don't do that to yourself. Don't do that to the person you're taking the coaching from. Like, actually be the 1% that takes the coaching and then figures out something from it, whether it worked or didn't work. Whatever. Do it right. Just do it.

It's pronounced as cool, but you're right. But that's. That's. And here's the thing. That's really what separates those that find success, not only just notes, but just about anything. It's success. The successful people are the ones that have taken more action. They've tried and failed more often than most people even attempted or dreamed about.

Oh, yeah, we failed so many times it's ridiculous. I have a whole series, thanks to you, Scott. We did Halloween horror stories. People can go back and watch them on YouTube. Oh, my gosh. We have a whole series of Halloween horror stories. We could talk about that for hours, right?

What has been what, when you think about this, because you guys have been serious for what about, I think it would be December, be 24 months, roughly.

Yeah, it's two years. It's two years, two weeks.

That's right. That's right. What I mean, things. We've had some conversations about COVID kicking us in the teeth in some cases. All right. But you know, you look at things, it's going to come out smelling okay. In most of these deals, you guys have bought some, you got performing, some that were non performing, you got re performing, some have been non performing. We thought we tore close out that taken longer than expected. You've had the borrower that delayed things, filed bankruptcy. There's been a learning curve in some of this stuff for you. Right. But, but, but the number one thing it solves it all is everything was purchased at a great price. That.

Yeah, because you always make the money on the buy, not the sell ever. No matter what real estate investing transaction you're in, it's always on the buy, which is why you do the numbers and the numbers tell you what to do. You know, and here's the other piece that I really love and appreciate about your coaching and is that we have it in our systems and structures that any deal we do, we actually run it by you first. Like you're one of the checklist items for us because again, this is a team sport and you see other things that we don't see. Right. So it's an opportunity for us to learn and go, oh, okay, fantastic. Like we'll never stop learning. Right. And so having more sets of eyes on doing the numbers, I think is a critical piece to being successful.

Yeah, I think that's so, that's so true. I mean, when I learned to note business, I was very fortunate. I had a four year apprenticeship where I was in the same office with three of the smartest people in note. But I could turn around and say, look, hey, let me run the numbers by you on this deal. And you'd be surprised how little my phone rings when people are making offers and I get after the fact most of the time like, oh, I bought this note. Well, why did you buy pay for that? Well, I didn't think about that. Well, why did you call me? Well, I didn't want to bother you. I want to save you time. Trust me. Five times.

Father Scott. That's my coaching. Father Scott.

Yeah, exactly. If you're doing, I will always try to find time for you. If you're doing and making offers and being coachable. And that's the biggest thing is you have to pivot. You have to adjust things and everybody's business plan is going to be massaged a little bit differently for where you're at in life and what your long term goals are. You know, like, like Blaine's business plan for him and B is a little bit different than other people then different than Alison's, and they're different than David's is, different than Gerald's, and Hakeem's is going to be different than Matrice's on there. You know what I mean? Yeah. And that's okay. It's okay to have a business, different business model as long as you're actually doing business versus just ready, aim, ready, aim. You actually have to fire and pull the trigger on some things to make things happen.

And sometimes you may miss and sometimes things may go sideways, and sometimes things may turn out better than you planned.

Yeah, exactly.

But you got to get on the court.

Well, that's the thing too, is you never know. And this is the thing I think is such a good strong suit is you're really good at finding connections to get that it is to work with people on a variety of different facets. How can I have. Oh, hey, you need a connection. Let me introduce you to this connection. And we work together and that's how things become stronger. You know, it's, it's the whole thing. I don't know if you ever seen the analogy where you take a. Let's just say this, if you had this was a pencil, you could break a pencil pretty easy by itself. Right. But if you got 3, 4, 5, it almost becomes unbreakable.

Right.

To do that. And that's really the power of note investing is it's not just you by yourself, you've got this team of vendors around you that are helping support you or in your investing, you have a team like, like the Catherine's, the Max's, the Mike's, the Will, the Rachel's, the Jacks, the Paul's from today, helping you be a stronger investor. But so many folks don't take advantage of that. They're like, I gotta do it all myself. I can do all myself. And that's how you end up breaking and failing in a lot of cases.

Yeah, agreed. You know, and here's the thing. Like if I'm the smartest person in the room, I'm in the wrong room. Yes, right. Like, I've always put myself into positions of like, okay, who's smart? Smarter than me, I want to go be around them. Right. Like stop, put, set your ego aside and stop thinking you have to be the smartest person and know everything. Like, stop doing that. You know, I feel like one of the greatest gifts we give you, Scott, is you get to show us your genius. Right.

Well, here. But it's a point I'm not afraid to say.

Well, I don't know.

Let me answer that question. You know, I've done that many a time. Well, that's a good question. Never had that happen before. Let me make a phone call to my attorney, or I'll make a phone call to the bookkeeper. Or let me think about it and then let me come back to you. Or we'll be working on a deal. And I'm like, hang on a second. We can go this route to make this work instead.

Yes. Yep. And so here's another piece of homework. Everybody needs to go read this book.

Oh, it's a great book. It's a great book. Who? Not how.

Not how. This is a game changer, I have to tell you. So I've been working through a couple of these deals, and I've never done, you know, this type of particular deal before. I've done lots of deals, but this. And I. So when I started, like, just spending time on who could help me with this? Who could help me with this? Rather than how, how, how, how, how. All of a sudden it was like, oh, yeah, that person called them up. She's like, hey, send me over all the information. I'll analyze it for you. I'm like, hallelujah.

Light shine down.

These people helping me on all these deals with their genius, and I'm just the connector bringing them all together because that's my genius. Right? Like, I don't have to be everything to everyone. Right?

And that's the thing. It's so many folks. We let ego and we let. Let our ignorance dictate our. Our value. And not knowing is okay. It's okay to say, I don't know and let me get somebody. Exactly. Let me find out or let me get somebody. Let me get the whole. Not the how, who do I need to talk to? Not how do I do it myself. It's such one of the most important books out there you'd ever read.

Like Henry Ford. Seriously, like, one of the smart. That Matt is a genius when it came to connecting the right people. Right.

He.

And he admitted he's like, I don't know how to do all this. I have no idea. But I know who can.

Right?

Just again, success leaves clues, so learn from them. Right, Exactly.

So Revell asked a question. Who's the author. It's by Dan Sullivan. Who? Not how. By Dan Sullivan. Dr. Benjamin something, but Dr. Benjamin Hardy. There you go. That's right. Hardy. There we go. But that's, that's, that's. That's the whole thing. So many of us get so bogged down, like, oh, my God, I gotta have a website when they go out. Try to create my website yourself. No, no, just get somebody to do it. Find something or, you know, I need to review all these loan documents. No, no, no, just have an attorney do it for you. I mean, I get it that many folks are bootstrapped when it comes to some things with finances. And we've all been there and all have gone through that stuff like that. But you have to realize that there's a lot of other opportunities out there. I mean, one of the best ways to find the correct legal documents is go look at the county records to see other legal documents have been filed.

Right.

And people don't realize that. And I'm like, no, no, no. Just go there and pull up a loan mod agreement off the county records. Just do a search and then PDF the word doc. Yeah.

Get creative. Yeah, right.

You know, one of the things. One of the things that I think is. Let me ask you this too. This is a little bit different because I know somebody asked this on the YouTube stream.

Yeah.

What's been more challenging for you? The marketing, the finding the deals or the raising capital? And I know that the three are all kind of intertwined with the marketing. But what's. What's. What. What is. What. What did you think was. Be more difficult? That was. Aha. Was easier. And then what did you think would be easier? Has been harder. I know. Maybe Laura should jump in here too, huh?

So. Right. So for me, for me, emotionally, marketing was the hardest. Okay. That. So there's. For me, there's different levels of hard. So emotionally having to, like, get past. And Steve actually tells a story about this. So we have a. He has a ton of history documents. So we created this YouTube channel called History Notes, like tying in history documents to investing today and notes and stuff. And literally he talks about the very first video we ever did together. Almost ended our relationship because he. He wanted absolute movie quality perfection. And do you remember the coaching? You're like, dude, stop it. So Scott was brilliant at coaching him. I couldn't coach him. So anyway, Scott was brilliant. So. So again, it was just. And now it's just like he flips on the camera and the funniest videos. So socially inappropriate. But funny, like, that's Steve.

Well, but, but, but the thing is, is you, you created that. You, you. He identified with the idea that he could use this in helping his expertise. He didn't have to be an expert on notes. He could talk about, use it to talk about being a compassion patriot.

You know, talk about capitalist.

Yep, that's a capitalist. Yes. Used to be. Used to patriot somewhere back in the day.

Yeah.

You know, but that's, that's the thing. He's like, okay, let me. This works for me. I can do this. It's not so difficult. It doesn't have to be movie quality. I think somebody get caught up on the market's got to be perfect, perfect, perfect. And you've heard me say, dude, perfection equals broke.

Yes, we have that road on our, our whiteboard. Yeah. Perfection and delivered equals dollars. Yeah, like that's it right there. Perfection equals broke, delivered equals dollars. That's what it comes down to. So finding deals again. I've been investing for over 20 years, and so for me, it's just a numbers game. Like, I knew going into this we would have to analyze an obscene amount of notes, which I think we're up to like some ridiculous, like $17 billion of notes we've analyzed. I mean, it's kind of ridiculous, but it comes down to. So there's lots and lots and lots of deals, but the deal that fits our criteria, where the numbers work, that's been definitely challenging. But like anything, it was with the fix and flips, it was with Airbnbs, it was with all of them. Even everything else I'm doing. Right. I love that. So Todd just said, often people mistake activity for productivity. Isn't that the truth? So I love that. So, Todd, here's what's awesome about that, is that I track absolutely everything. All the activity that we do is all on our KPIs, key performance indicators. And we have a team meeting every Tuesday about our key performance indicators to actually track the activity that eventually turns into adding commas to bank accounts. Right. So what I say to my team, like, what I'm known for, is adding commas to bank accounts and collapsing timelines. And how we collapse timelines is by this being very deliberate and tracking all the activity. Because if the activity can't turn into commas and bank accounts, we need to stop doing it. Right. So just because you're busy doesn't mean you're doing income producing activity. Right? Income producing activity is getting on the phone, making those calls. Right. Building those relationships with investors, with banks. Whatever it is that is direct income producing activity now, you know, making all the videos and stuff, that's indirect, which may be more fun for people. But it's in my experience, it's the income producing activity that is the most confronting for people. So for me, I don't know, for me, it's like, I'm more interested in getting actual results. So finding investors and finding deals is. It's a huge motivation for me because at the end of the day, I just want commas and bank accounts because, let's face it, part of my why. And all of you need to get clear on this. It's like, yeah, we can make a lot of money doing this. We can make a lot of money doing a lot of things. But at the end of the day, money is money. Like, why are you doing it? You know, what is your why? And I believe that, you know, every person on the planet really wants to be a contribution and make a difference. So you need to figure out what are you called to make the difference in and find a way to start making that difference now, because I promise you, in anything, this business, you'll get bored, it'll get hard. But when you can actually go out and volunteer and make a difference where it actually matters, that'll fill up your soul. And you'll be like, you know what? Yeah, this is why I'm building this empire, so I can make the difference here, right? So figure out a way that you can be that difference in the world that you, you know, you're here to make. And it's only you, whatever that, that thing is that's been placed on your heart, figure out a way. Because, listen, we didn't all come here to just have another job, be created for ourselves. We came here to create a life of that we love, which usually means spending time with who we want, when we want, doing whatever we want, right? So if you haven't created, essentially, in my family, call it conditions of satisfaction so that those are actually met and built into our calendar, then all of it starts to feel like, you know, what's the point, right? So we got to be really intentional about building that piece into our lives as well. You know, like Scott, I know you guys, you do all this gardening and this cooking, and you share it all the time. It's fascinating, right? And, you know, Stephanie loves her. Her. All of her animals, right? So it's like those things matter. So creating ways to build that into our lives so that we're living lives that we actually love. That's what we're here for. Right. Thank you, Ravel, that's really sweet of you. So, couple more things. Really, really important. Ok, so building a team. Building a team is really important to me. So whether it be vendors or coaches, mentors, employ, whatever it is, here's a couple of things that have saved me more times than you can imagine is anytime before we bring a team member on, I asked to speak to three people, three referrals of people that they have worked with and coach, mentored, whatever that, whatever it is, whatever service that they've provided has literally added commas to their bank accounts as a direct result of that relationship or the coaching or mentoring or whatever. If they can't give me three people to talk to, that's a serious red flag. Run. Seriously run. There's a lot of posers out there, shall we say. And so then you want to also ask any vendors or whoever you're working with what hidden fees that they're not actually telling you about. So hidden fees, other other fees. Or ask them what questions that they, that you should actually be asking them that you're not asking. That's usually very revealing as well. And so that goes for your attorneys, your bookkeeper, your accountant. And again, here's what I love, is that like for instance, the attorney we work with, the attorney I work with is chose because he himself is an actual real estate investor. He has real estate in his portfolio. So he more than anything understands from a holistic point of view what I'm talking about, what I'm going through. And his brain understands to think like an investor as well as an attorney, not just an attorney. Because I find more times than not attorneys kill deals, but that's a whole other conversation. Same with bookkeepers, bookkeepers and accountants. They're not all equal. You want bookkeepers and accountants who are real estate investors themselves so that they think like an investor. Therefore they're going to help you do your, your books and everything as an actual investor. Like they're in it, they understand it. Same with your, your tax planner, all these people. If, when you can find people who are investors themselves, themselves, it just makes the relationship and the understanding like you're on the same wavelength so much easier. And again, get the three referrals, it'll save you. And so again, here's another Catherine ism, Trust but Verify. Just because somebody has told you something doesn't mean it's true. Make sure you verify, especially today, like goodness gracious. And then again, always be building relationships and always be in integrity, because I promise you, they'll always circle back, either in a good way or a bad way. So make sure you're doing that. And then the last piece is coaching. This is a really important part. And again, I don't care if you're in notes or in whatever space you're in, having coaches and mentors who have been out in front of you doing what you want to do, you know, who are farther ahead down the road than you, makes a world of difference. Now, when you're finding, you know, whether you're coaching with Scott or, you know, whoever, you want to make sure that these people are making their money doing what they're coaching you to do, not just making the money from coaching. That's a big deal. There's a whole lot of posers out there. We've seen them everywhere. Again, another huge lesson. So take heed. That's a big one.

Well, that's a big thing is that they're making money doing the deals you're doing on a regular basis. We all. I mean, there's so. I mean, you know, I've been a part of different Masters. The guys are just selling coaching, and they haven't bought a deal in five years or ever. Ever.

Yeah, I remember that was one of my first, like, 20 years ago, and I don't know what. I don't know. It was like, one of my first coaching, and, you know, this lady gets on the phone or whatever. And finally, I was interviewing to, like, you know, is this going to be a fit? Because, one, I don't get coached by a lot of people. Let's just be clear about that. There's literally a handful of people I've ever been coached by, and that's by my choice. Because, again, the caliber of people where I'm headed, like, there's only a really small amount of people that have actually met the criteria. There's a whole lot of coaches out there, but very few have met the criteria for me of having the free three referrals. Are they making the money doing what they're coaching me to do? Not just off of my coaching. And so anyways, I asked her the question. I'm like, how many deals have you done? And she was like, zero. I'm like, then how the heck are you coaching me?

Right?

She's like, well, I have a manual. I'm like, then give me the damn manual. Like, that's stupid. I could read that. That's dumb. Like, anyway, that was a whole other thing. So, yeah, make sure you ask. Ask. Don't be afraid. To ask, be bold. You know, you need to know it's your hard earned money. So do that. Right. And you know what? I teach all of my, you know, people that are coming to invest with us and I taught my kids and our whole family, listen, poor people buy things from dollar stores, corner stores and flea markets. Middle class people buy houses, cars, ski boats, skidoos, jet skis, fun things like that. Wealthy people buy assets that provide cash flow that now pay for their very fun lifestyle. So for all of you, I challenge you and invite you to answer the question, what are you doing with your earned income and where are you spending it? For real? Right? So the last piece I have to give, last piece of homework is. So the three books is the who, not how. Right. The other book, I don't have it somewhere anyways, called Profit. First one of my favorite books. So good. And then this is my last one. So my last one is the Science of Getting Rich. This book was brought way back when and still applies today. And here's what's really cool about this. Success leaves clues. Every wealthy person that I know literally reads this book or has read this book. So here's the homework for you to deal with what's going on in between your ears. Because Steve actually said something really powerful. He said, and he's my fiance, he owns mobile home park. So he talked about like the easiest thing he ever did was make his first million dollars. The hardest thing he ever did was believe he could make a million dollars. And so you've got to deal with what's going on in between your ears. And this book does it. It's a teeny tiny little book. And so the homework that was given to me eons ago, which is where we met, is to read chapter. So read through the whole book and then every single day for 90 days, you read chapter 4, 7, 11 and 14 for 90 days. And if you miss a day, you start all over again. I promise you, you do that. It takes 20 minutes to read those four chapters. It's not that long. You do that, your molecules are going to be rearranged for sure. Like this is going to be your biggest obstacle right here. This. You've got to deal with this. So that's my little soapbox. So repeat the poor, rich. Okay, I'll repeat that. So Alison asked about. Okay, so the poor. The poor spend money on dollar stores, corner stores and flea markets. The middle class spend their earned income. So I'm talking about earned income on houses. Your house is not an asset liability. Sorry to Tell you that on houses, cars, jet skis, boats, you know, whatever it was the fun things. Then the wealthy. The wealthy spend their earned income on assets that provide cash flow, that pay for their lifestyle. And I'll give you another tip with this, Alison. So here's what the wealthy do. And listen, I've got a few friends who are billionaires, lots of friends who are multimillionaires, and I have these conversations with them about what they do. So here's how it works. For every dollar they earn, we call it the 10, 20, 20, 50 rule. Okay? 10% goes to whatever charity, church, tithe, whatever it is you need to give back. That's the first 10% right off the top. Then 20% goes into your Save to Spend account, which is at first, it's your emergency fund. Your emergency fund needs to be funded. It's six months of expenses. And do not touch that once. That's like, you put that aside, leave that there. Then the rest, the 20% goes into that save to spend account, which means you're saving for, like, vehicles, down payment on a house, Christmas vacations, whatever. Then the other 20% goes into an investment account. So save to invest, right? And then the last 50% is what you actually live off of. Okay, so by doing this. Oh, my goodness, now you're telling your money what to do. Like, you know, you're sending it. You'll be able to send it out there and have it come back with lots of friends. But you need to be intentional about doing this and having separate bank accounts do this. You do this over time, I promise you, your bottom line is going to look way different in a year from now, as it does today, just by doing these simple practices right again. Success leaves clues. So everybody's asking me, what are the three books? I love it. So who, not how. Okay, Profit first, which I don't have a copy. It's in another office. Profit First. Scott, put it in here. And then the Science of Getting Rich. Okay, Those are the three books and then the chapters. Shelly, the chapters are 4, 7, 11, and 14. So I hope that helps. Great questions, everyone. So I hope this was helpful. I hope that it made a difference. Thank you for letting me stand on my soapbox. This is fun, as always.

Yeah, no, the chapters are not for each book. The chapters are for the Science of Getting Rich. There. Allison, reread chapters 4, 7, 11, and 14 for the science of getting rich.

For 90 days.

Yep, for 90 days. If you stop, start all over again. And Mike McCulloch's great guy. Buddy of mine had a chance to hang out with him. He's a.

You gotta introduce me. I love that guy.

Yeah, I met him. I met him. George Anton sent me the book first and then I met, then I met Mike at podcast. We hung out, had a few beers and stuff like that. Still trying to get him on the podcast because he's, he's running all over the place, but he's got another book out too. That's good. But yeah, it's, it's well worth it, guys. It's all. As Catherine said, your biggest asset is also your biggest hurdle. So turn your hurdle into an asset and you'll be able, the whole world will look different and look like for opportunities for you to make things happen versus like, oh, woe is me. Oh, I can't do anything. No, you can do anything you set your mind to.

Yes. Oh, I got to give you one more. Okay, so to put yourself in a state, this is really important. Okay. So when you, when you don't want to make those calls and you're like, oh God, I don't want to. This is really powerful. They've scientifically proven when you do this with your body, this literally changes the neuron pathways in your, your brain. So everybody's. Stand up, Scott, stand up. Everybody stand up. So stand up. I can't see you all, but I'm trusting you're being coachable right now. Be coachable. So stand up. So what happens is you take your hands and you put them here and you look up like you're Superman, like a superhero pose. This position, you stand like this for two minutes with your feet hip width apart. You stand like this for two minutes every single day before you're going to make calls. What happens neurologically is it puts you into a state that has you actually like, be successful no matter what. And I do this when I'm on my calls. I'll actually stand like this on my calls. And the difference it makes in my physiology and in my being, my spirit, my brain, let me tell you, like, you will notice a shift. It is insane how amazing that is. Yes. Look up to heaven.

It's a power pose. It's literally the power pose out there. I joke with stuff. Give me your power pose. Give me your power pose. You know, strike a pose. It's kind of like the Tony Robbins aspect. Strike a pose. Yes, exactly. Because I can see the little, the happy signs from behind your head there. The little. Yeah, uh huh. The power pose. But this is also too, why I don't Sit on my butt when I'm making phone calls. I walk because the energy is better walking versus sitting down here. Oh, and me, I got to get up. I got to get. Go outside. I got to change it a little bit. If you are having a rough day, change the physiology. Change your movement. Get bouncing. Do something to get the energy going.

Yes. Get on a rebounder, whatever.

Move. Yeah. Get up and move. Exactly. Kathryn, thank you so much. This has been such a fun thing. You've got some new fans on here now.

I love it.

For Kathryn's website where you can find the radio show. It is pretty simple. It's. It's titanimpact group dot com. I'm gonna type this in the chat.

You can find me all over social media on Catherine Bell, Katherine Bell, Tig, I think on Instagram and on TikTok. I've got thousands of videos, so. Yeah, yeah, zero.

Well, I won't say thousand, but you got a ton of videos going from zero to a bunch really quick.

So I have over 140,000 views on my video since January because of my social media director that I hired because it's her genius, not mine, who know how. Anyways, thank you, Scott. You're awesome.

We love you, too, Catherine. Appreciate it. Love you to you.

Okay, bye. Bye.

Let's see here. Let's see. Yes, I heard about standing up on the phone conversations. Very good presentation.

Thanks.

And full. Got it. Yeah. Great advice. Thanks for sharing. Yeah. Good stuff, everybody. Great, great stuff. Don't go anywhere. All right?