Using The Power Of Your Mind To Overcome Loss And Manifest Your Perfect Life with Rod Khleif

Welcome to the Next Level Income show where it's our goal to raise your income, investments and your life to the next level. I'm your host, Chris Larsen. You can get your free copy of our book@nextlevelincome.com just click on the book link. Also, if you're an accredited investor, check out our Invest link where you can learn more about our institutional quality real estate acquisitions like our latest multifamily deal as well as our self storage fund. You are not going to miss this amazing episode where we focus on Mindset with Rod Khleif. Rod shares his amazing story about gaining and losing $50 million, how he got to the mindset to get to that point and how he refocused to get back to there today. On today's show we have Rod Khleif. Rod is a multiple business owner and philanthropist who's passionate about real estate business and giving back as one of the country's top business real estate and peak performance luminaries. Rod has owned over 2000 homes and apartment buildings, built over 27 businesses in his 40 year career, several of which have been worth tens of millions of dollars. Today's show is sponsored by Money Insights and their investment optimizer strategy. In my book, I share how I use the same strategy starting over a decade ago to invest my money in two places at one time. This strategy has been used by the wealthiest for generations for estate planning, minimizing taxes, preserving wealth and increasing stability for their investments. Now you can do the same thing. In addition, you can build a plan to build an emergency fund, pay for college, fund a business plan for retirement and ultimately optimize your total financial picture. To find out more information, check us out at the banking link@nextlevelincome.com Rod, welcome to the show.

Oh, thanks for having me, buddy. I'm really looking forward to this. Let's have some fun and see if we can add some value today. Chris.

Absolutely. Your story is wonderfully exciting and inspirational. Rod, just like that background that you got there behind you.

Thank you, thank you. That's my backyard actually and I it's a green screen. But I'm blessed to live here in Florida. I absolutely love living here. I could be a poster child for the Chamber of commerce. I love it here so much.

Well, you'd have done with I'm done with a cold. I'm done with it. Yeah. And I mean with everybody that's moving there, the past year you've had, you'd have a pretty easy job if that's what you had to do here. But for the audience who's not familiar with the story, Rod, maybe you could catch us up a little, share a little bit about, you know, how you've gotten to the point you are today.

Sure, sure. Well, let me go back. I'm going to go back a little bit because it'll tie into kind of stuff we could talk about later. So I immigrated to this country when I was six years old. I was born in the Netherlands. You know, think wooden shoes, windmills. And we immigrated, came over on a big ship. My brother Albert, my mother Svancha and I. And I remember the first memory of the United States was my mom crying when she saw the Statue of Liberty. I have that memory. And the second memory was flying on an airplane for the first time to Denver, which is where we were going. And so we lived in Denver for 30 years. But when we first got there, we really struggled. I remember eating expired food because that's all we could afford, you know, drinking powdered milk with our cereal in the morning, wearing clothes from the Goodwill and the Salvation army all the way through junior high school until I lied about my age when I was 14 and got a job at Burger King because I was tall, flipping burgers so I could buy my own clothes. And we really struggled. And I'm sure you may have listeners or viewers that had it tougher than we did or even have it tougher now, but I knew I wanted more. And luckily, my mom had an incredible work ethic, so she babysat kids so we'd have enough money to eat. And with her babysitting money, she was a bit of an entrepreneur. She actually invested in the stock market successfully. She bought real estate. And the first house she bought was right across the street from us from a family named the Jewels. I remember. And when I was 14, she paid $30,000 for this house with babysitting money. And then when I was 17, she told me she'd made $20,000 in her sleep. And I'm like, what? You didn't do anything? You made $20,000? I said, screw college. I'm getting into real estate, Mom. So I went out and got my real estate broker's license. Right when I turned 18, I was going to be rich selling other people houses. And you could do that. Back then, I was not. Wasn't just an agent. I was a broker. And you could do that with education. Now you need experience to do that. They got smart. But I was a broker. And my first year in real estate, 1978, I made about 8 to 10 grand. 1979, my second year, I maybe made 10 to 12 grand, but in 1980 I made over 100,000. So what happened between your 10x? Yeah, so what happened between year two and year three that caused me to 10x it. Well, what happened was I met a guy that taught me about the importance of mindset and psychology and how really 80 to 90% of your success in anything is just that, your mindset and your psychology, only 10 to 20%. The technical knowledge, I mean, it was just knowledge. There'd be a bunch of wealthy librarians in college, professors out there. Right? It's the do and it's the continue to do. It's, it's the push through fear. It's the push through limiting beliefs. It's the, you know, get uncomfortable. A lot of people are in comfort and the comfort zone is a warm place, but nothing freaking grows there. So, you know, it's, it's, it's. But anyway, so you know, fast forward to today. I've owned a couple thousand houses. I've rented long term. I've owned thousands of apartment units. I've built 27 businesses. I don't, when they're, when they fail, I don't call them failures, I call them seminars. And I will tell you that, you know, several of them are worth tens of millions of dollars. Most have been spectacular flaming seminars. But, you know, we fail our way to success. That's how life works for an entrepreneur. In 2006, with my real estate, my net worth went up $17 million while I slept. And you're thinking, wow, that's impressive. Well, and so did I. And I did the math that. It's 8300 doll hour over a 40 hour workweek. And I got, I thought I was a freaking real estate God. I had a head so big I could barely fit it through a door. And you know, when that happens, God of the universe will give you a nice little smack. Well, that was 2008. I lost all of that and a lot more. I lost $50 million in 2008. And so one of the things that, you know, I love talking about is the mindset it took to have 50 million to lose in the first place. But then as importantly, maybe more importantly, it's the mindset it took to recover from that. I mean, there were people that jumped off buildings and killed themselves both, both in the Great depression and, and in 089 for losing less. And so happy to drill down on that with you if you'd like, Chris. The mindset.

Yeah, And I love it, Rod, because, I mean, I'm. I'm huge. One of the. Actually might be the first book my wife gave to me was the Alchemist by Paul A. Coelho. Talks about mindset, Napoleon Hill, all these things I think are so important when it comes to shaping these things. And I do. Yeah, I want to. I want to talk more about that, but I want to go back. Your mom, how did she know? How did she figure out how to buy that house? Where do you think her mindset came from to figure that out?

Boy, you know, I don't know that I can answer that question honestly. She was not schooled in business. Now, her father was a scrappy entrepreneur. My grandfather, I remember in World War II, he actually cut the front off of a vehicle because they didn't have gas and connected horse to it and created a taxi to be a taxicab driver. And he was an entrepreneur and ultimately ended up owning a garage after the war. But I don't, you know, honestly don't know. I'm. You know, you've caused me a question that I'm going to ask her myself because, you know, I know she. I know she wanted more for us, and. And so she. She wanted to create, you know, as great of a lifestyle for us as she possibly could. And she ended up buying quite a few houses. And then, of course, I went crazy with it and ended up, you know, buying a lot more. But, yeah, no, I don't know, honestly.

You know, because that's. That is amazing. You know, I just hear her going from babysitting. Right. To going and buying that first house, and I just. I think that's. What a tremendous story. Yeah. But she.

She invested in the stock market, too, and made money.

Yeah.

Yeah, she had it all.

She had it all figured out.

Yeah.

It was really. So, yeah, let's talk about how, like, what helped form your mindset, Rod, and that, you know, to. As. As you went through that initial early.

Sure. Well. Well, really what I teach my students at my live events. I mean, really, within the first hour of. Of my live events, we do a goal setting workshop. First hour and 15 minutes. I call it goal setting on steroids. And, you know, and I'm really kind of excited because I was supposed to have 800 people at a live event in Orlando in May of last year, and we all know what happened with that. And it was kind of a fire drill, so we had to go virtual. And I've had thousands of people now my virtual events, but I'm excited because we're about to have a live event again in December, third, fourth and fifth in Orlando again. And we've already got hundreds of people signed up. But the first hour is going to be goal setting. And so why. Because how do you get anything if you don't know what it is? Okay. Napoleon Hill calls it a burning desire that you need a burning desire in his book Think and Grow Rich. Right. And so that, and that's what we do. That's how you determine that burning desire and you get in touch with it, figuring out exactly what you want and more importantly, why you want it. And it's the why that's the real driver. And I'm happy to describe that process for you if you'd like. Chris. It's. I can kind of give a high level overview. I mean obviously you can come to the boot camp if you want to actually after I've described, if you want me to describe it. But, but if you want me to guide you through it. If you're not interested in multifamily, if you ping me on any social media channel on January 2nd of this year, I do it every year. The first of year, I did it on the first year before, but this year was January 2nd. On my Rodcliffe official Facebook page, I did this process where I went through goal setting and I've got this guide. You can download this goal setting guide, it's free and I do it with music. And even if you're not interested in, you know, learning the business, this is really powerful thing you can do with your spouse, your kids to get you juiced and discover that burning desire. And I'll guide you through it. So if you, if you DM me on any social channel, myself or my team will send you the link so you can watch that and participate if you like.

But we're going to put that and we'll put that in the show notes, Rod. So we'll make sure that everybody's got info on your event here coming up in December.

Oh, well, let me, let me talk, let me just, let me say something on that real quick. If you're interested in that, I'd love to give your listeners a hell of a deal. And if you text the word Rod in Orlando is one word Rod in Orlando to 72345 or go to rodinorlando.com It's a direct link to that, you know, to that, to that page where you can get the tickets. But remember this, use the code Rod friend. So Again, rodinorlando to 72345 or rodinorlando.com use the code ROD FRIEND. You come for $197, and this is three full days of training. It's not a big sales.

Amazing deal.

I talk about my coaching for about 40 minutes. That's it. The rest of time is all content. And I've never had a complaint other than stupid shit like the room's too cold or the food wasn't any good or something, you know, but. But anyway, so. So you've got to know what it is you want and why you want it. So if you'd like, I could describe that process. I think your listeners would enjoy it.

Absolutely. Because we're. This is. This is going to be Aaron here. We're going to charge into the end of the year. And if you're listening to this and you haven't already formulated and starting to think about your plan and your psychology for 2022, this is the time to do it. Let's kick it off with this process, Rod.

Love it. Love it. So here's what you do. You pick an hour when you have a lot of energy. You make sure you're well hydrated. Drink some water. You don't do it right after a meal. And you sit down and you write down everything you could ever possibly want in life. All the stuff, not just, you know, the stuff you want next year. Everything for your entire lifetime. All the big things, the little things, the houses, cars, boats, jet skis, planes, jewelry, clothing, whatever, watches, stupid crap like watch whatever it is, right? Write it all down. Write down also. And write down how much money you want to make from your investments, okay? In cash flow. Like say in three years what your number is in three years, and then again what your number is in 10 years. Write down how much cash you want in the bank, say in three years, and in 10 years, in case the stuff hit the fan, fund. And write down also everything you want to do in this lifetime. I've got a vision board behind my green screen here. It's my travel vision board of the places I want to go or places I've been that I want to go. Again, write down all the places you want to go. If you want to write a book, write that down. I've got someone that's climbing every mountain that a friend of mine, over 14,000ft. Whatever it is, everything you want to do as well. You know, like I jumped out of a perfectly good airplane a couple of years ago. I'll never freaking do it again. But it's off the list. It's done. Okay, so write all that stuff down. Then write down also what you want to learn in this lifetime, okay? If you want to learn a foreign language, you want to learn a skill, for God's sakes, if it's multifamily, come see me. But you know, whatever it is, write that down that you want to learn because you never stop learning. In fact, don't think that you're done with college, you're done learning. In fact, that's when learning really starts. Okay? So, so learners are earners, so write that down. And then lastly, write down who you want to help. We'll do more for others than we'll ever do for ourselves. And again, this is the fuel to get you to take action. It's never about these things. It's that they will propel you and create that burning desire to actually take action. So once you can't think of another thing and don't stop writing until you literally. And by the way, take the lid off your brain, Imagine if you write it down, you are going to get it. Don't limit yourself. I don't care if you want a private island, a jet, a yacht, write it down. There is truly nothing you cannot do or be or have. You just have to decide and take action. And so, you know, don't limit yourself. You know, I remember when I was 18, I wanted to live on a beach, okay? And there's no beach in Denver, but I would visualize the palm trees and the sand and the surf and all that and the waves and you know, 20 years later I built this $8 million, 10,000 square foot house on the beach here in Sarasota, which was unthinkable when I was 18. So again, I'm not trying to brag, I just want to tell you, don't limit yourself. You know, if you can imagine it, write it down. All right? Then once you can't think of another thing, pick your number one goal. I mean that goal. When you get it, like oh my God, that goal. And you know you've arrived when you achieve that goal. Now if there's more than one, it's okay, just pick one for what we're going to do next, it won't matter, but pick that goal, that just mind blowing one. Then pick your top three, three one year goals. Now put these on a separate sheet of paper. Again, if you ping me on social, I'll get you this guide and you can do it on there. But you just, you can use a piece of paper for this. But Leave room in between the goals. Now, once you've got your number one goal and your top three one year goals, you're ahead of 99.9% of the people on the freaking planet that do a New Year's resolution that's forgotten by February. But there's a couple more steps, important steps. I now want you to write down why those goals are an absolute favorite freaking must to achieve, okay? So underneath each one, put right why it has to happen. And use emotionally charged words. Words are very powerful. Use them. Words like beautiful and amazing and incredible and wonderful. You know, like you might say, so I can show my kids what amazing abundance looks like. I can show my wife what it means to live a life of complete freedom. Whatever it is for you that's going to juice you so we can have the freedom to do whatever we want, whenever we want, wherever we want, bring whoever we want, whatever is going to juice you, write that down, okay? And you might have some redundancy between the goals. It might be similar reasons why, but it's the why that's going to juice you. It's the why that's going to get your butt up early in the morning to stay up late to work, Saturdays to grind for a few years like most people won't, so you can live the rest of your life like most people can't. So the whys are critical. Now, once you've got your positive reasons why, I'm going to put a little pain in there. I want you to write, I want you to make it painful if you don't achieve the goal. Write that down so I don't feel like a fail and make it hurt so I don't feel like a failure, so I don't fail my kids, so I don't live a life of regret. Put that down for these goals if you don't achieve them. Now, I will speak to this regret for a minute. There was this nurse in Australia named Bronnie Ware. She was a hospice nurse. And so she took care of patients when they were about to die. And she asked him a question, Chris. And that question was, do you have any regrets? And she wrote a book about it. It's called the Five Regrets of Dying. You know what the number one regret was? Not living the life I could have lived, living someone else's life, not knowing, not doing what I know I'm capable of. Guys, I can't think of anything worse than that. That's a real hell right there, you know? Don't fear failure, okay? We fail our way to success. You know, fear, regret. I met the billionaire owner of Spanx at a mastermind that I was in, Sarah Blakely. She started with $5,000. Yeah, she is amazing. And she started with $5,000 and now she's a multi billionaire. And she told me that her dad used to ask her brother once a week on average, what have you failed at this week? What an incredible question to ask your kids so they don't fear failure. I freaking love that. But anyway, so you've written down your positive and negative reasons why. The last thing you must do is you must get pictures of your goals or make declarations. Let me give you some examples. So Jim Carrey, when he was flat broke, wrote himself a check for $10 million. And those of you millennials, a check is something we used to use to pay for things now, but anyway, so he wrote himself a check when he's flat broken, he'd go up by the Hollywood sign and he'd look at it and visualize cashing. And that's how much money he made for Dumb and Dumber. A more recent example, Demi Lovato, when she was unknown 10 years ago or 11 years ago, posted on social media. One day I'm gonna sing the national anthem at the Super Bowl. Not this last one. Go watch the super bowl before this last one, see who sang the national anthem. So, so that's really important. But get pictures. Okay, I'll give you some, I'll give you some personal examples. For me, when I was 18, I got my real estate broker's license and I was going to be rich selling other people houses, but I figured I had to have a four door car. So I got this bone ugly Ford Granada. I mean, bench seat in the front, just a real piece of crap. And, and, but kind of like my.

First car, Chevy Celebrity.

Oh yeah. Okay, okay. That's neck and neck pretty bad too. Yeah. Anyway, so I went and worked with a guy the guy was telling you about that taught me about mindset, the first one, and he had a couple of Corvettes and he let me drive one and I'm like, oh my God, this is freaking incredible. So this is before the Internet. I went in a magazine, got a picture of a Corvette, put her on the visor of that bone ugly Granada. So every time I sat in, the car was right there in my face. Within a year or two, I had a beautiful Corvette that I bought. Now let me give you some more examples. And again, I want to pre frame this by saying I'm not bragging. Okay. I just want to inspire you to. What's.

You're rolling. This is amazing.

Okay, so. So this is back when the TV show Magnum PI Was out and the actor's name was Tom Selleck, and he drove. And that's the first time I saw an exotic car. He drove this Ferrari 308. And I'm like, oh my God, look at that thing. And so I got a picture of that actual car put on the visor of my Corvette. Within a year or two, I had a Maserati look just like it. Last example. I'm the guy that always wanted a Lamborghini. I had the posters in my room growing up, and the Lamborghini was the. It was a countach back then, I think is when Mike Tyson bought for him and his wife. I think they were married for a week. But anyway, anyway, so, so. But what's interesting is my son collected models of exotic cars. He had about 30 or 40, you know, Ferraris and McLarens.

And that's so funny. My younger son is the same way.

Really?

Yeah.

And I helped him. Of course. I love. I love buying them for him. But. But he had a model of the exact same color and style Lamborghini that I ended up getting, which I ultimately wrecked. So get pictures. In fact, let me show you something. This is my planner.

Okay.

I use a paper planner. I'm a bit of a dinosaur. And I don't know if you put these on YouTube or not. If not, and I won't bother.

We do check it out if you're on YouTube.

All right, so in the back of this thing, I've got pictures that have been in here for 20 years. Okay.

Oh, awesome.

This, this used to be called a daytimer. I've had multiple covers for this. Now it's Franklin Covey. But. But in the back of this thing, the first pictures are my gratitude pictures. So my kids are 30 and 26, but these are when they were young. So these are my gratitude pictures. Everything starts from a place of gratitude. That's how you manage. This is how I guys. Now, those of you that are analytical going, come on, let's talk real estate, for God's sakes. I'm telling you, this is more freaking important. So trust me on this, okay? So this is how I had 50 million to lose and got back to what I have today. So anyway, gratitude. It starts with gratitude. So I got my gratitude pictures. Then I've got pictures of the stuff that I wanted. This top picture, okay. Looks just like the house I built on the beach. I had 10 foot high glass like that, you know, but together, travertine floors. This is before I ever built it. This. Now what's really crazy is I lost that house and all the craziness, you know, when I lost everything. And because now I live in a compound. I've got six buildings. I've got a big main house, a two bedroom guest house on the water as well. I've got a media building with a video studio on top, a theater room, a beautiful exercise facility, on and on. It's just spectacular because God's got a sense of humor. I can see my old house across the bay. It's literally right. But anyway, you know what's crazy is look at this, Chris. Now, those of you on itunes can't see this, but on the bottom here, I've got pictures. Do you see the white wall in both those pictures? The white concrete wall? Okay, look behind me. That's my backyard. See the wall? Is that freaking insane? I mean, I just noticed that not long ago that, that, that I've got. These pictures are 20 years old. And it's the same wall in my backyard that I had in these pictures then. I've got stupid crap like watches. I've got a few hundred thousand dollars with the watches now. You know, the Lamborghini before I ever bought it. You know, the Rolls Royce, the Bentley, all the stuff that I got because I had pictures. Now, again, this stuff may not interest you, but. But use this what interests you. And, and, and it doesn't even interest me anymore. But, but it's great for illustrative purposes. So get those pictures. Get them around you. Screensaver on the walls. Get vision boards. I've got vision boards on the floor here behind my green screen for the things that I want. Now get them because they freaking work.

All right, I'm off my list. Rod, that's amazing. And I will tell you. So I went through this process. Tony Robbins had a similar thing. And in one of his, his courses that my wife and I did back in early 2000s, I wrote everything.

That's where I got it. I mean, that's where I got it.

Honestly, it's so powerful. And I became a believer because we moved into our house, our dream house my wife and I built just over a year ago. And I unpack that journal back there and I'm flipping through it. I'm not a car guy, but around my 40th birthday, I end up buying a BMW M5. It never really dawned on me that I wanted it, but it kind of happened. To me.

So that's the midlife time. That's the midlife time.

And I was.

Buy a Harley or you buy a nice car.

Absolutely. Well, here's what's crazy. I didn't think. I. I didn't think in my past I wanted one. I opened that journal up and what did it say in there? By the time I was 40, I would have a BMW M5.

No shit.

Right there in that journal. And then I also saw the money, the real estate, all that stuff. But also the other things, you know, the family, the trips, the ability to do all those things. So listen, if you're like me, you have an engineering mind and you think, ah, Chris, this is like. This is crazy. You've been in Asheville too long. You know, you and Rod. I don't know what you guys are smoking. Believe me, this stuff works. And it begins with mindset. So, Rod, you started with this. You had a mentor that helped teach you these things. You get to the point, $50 million in real estate. Then 2008 happens, you go back to zero, essentially.

Actually less than zero, because I owed money that I was. I wasn't able to pay. So less than zero.

But anyway, so how do you. No, that's. No, that's. That's. I mean, that's even more amazing. Right. So where was your mind then? And how did. How did you maintain that resiliency to get back?

Good question. Yeah, and it was ugly. I mean, I hid under a rock for a few months and actually longer than that. And what's sad is because I was so caught up in fear, I didn't capitalize on that incredible freaking opportunity. I mean, I actually believe the market is frothing right now. And with some of the current administration's policies, with 1031 exchanges and capital gains and some of this other. Throw in trillions of dollars in the economy, yes, we're going to see inflation, which helps our business, but I actually believe we're going to have a contraction. I think it's inevitable. And real estate goes through cycles. I've been through several of these cycles now, but I was caught up in fear, so I didn't capitalize on that incredible opportunity. Like, right now, I am in cash and I'm ready, and I'm going to. Instead of getting crushed by that wave, I'm going to surf that damn thing this time. Okay. But, you know, I was in pain and feeling sorry for myself and got caught up in my story. Oh, woe was me. I lost 50 million. Dol. Million. And it's easy to get caught up in a story, and you need to be very careful that you don't allow yourself, if it's negative, if it's disempowering, to get caught up in a story. You know, I'm too old. I'm too young. I'm too analytical. I'm not, you know, not strong enough. I'm not, you know, influential enough or whatever. I don't have enough money. Don't. Don't get caught up in those disempowering stories. And it's really easy to do that as a human being. But, you know, luckily I was in a mastermind. I was in Tony Robbins platinum partnership, and I was around people that were thriving in that, and they're like, okay, get up, get up, you whiny baby. Get up and go make something happen. You know? And so peer group is so freaking incredible. You show me your three best friends, I'll show you who you are, okay? Because you're going to be like, they are in your happiness level, your fitness level, your health level, and your financial level. And so, you know, I was in. I was in a good peer group, and I've. Since then, I've set up my own mastermind, and I've got like 14 billion in assets in this thing. I think it's the largest one there is for multifamily. But. But the point is, you want to be around people that think what you think is hard is easy, and people, you know that. That aren't suffering. And so, you know, luckily I was in that group. That helped a lot. But really what the big thing was was I managed my focus. You know, as human beings, you know, we connect through negativity. You know, like, if you came up to me, Chris, and said, how are you doing? I was like, oh, my God, I'm freaking awesome. I'm fantastic. You might step back. Well, you might not, because you're pretty evolved. But you might step back and say, okay, he's off his meds. But if you came up and said, how you doing? I'm like, oh, dude, I guess got my butt kicked on this deal. My back hurts right now. You put your arm around me and say, oh, I feel you, brother. Let me. How can I help you? Because we connect that way. You got to be careful of that. And, you know, if you're listening or watching Chris right now, you're a leader. No question, you're a leader. And the world right now needs leaders, okay? And so it's so critical to pay attention to what you're focused on. Don't get me caught up on the freaking fake news of the politics right now. But, you know, whatever you focus on is going to get larger, both positive and negative. And so bring in the good stuff. You know, my podcast, I'm blessed to say we've. We're well over 11 million downloads. And part of that reason is because I do these Own youn Power clips. They're motivational clips. Only five minutes. I've got hundreds of them. But, you know, bring in that kind of stuff. Listen to my podcast called Lifetime Cash Flow Through Real Estate Investing. Or go on YouTube, you know, and watch those motivational clips. Or soldiers when they're coming home. Bring in the good stuff, you know, not that negative crap. Because again, whatever you focus on gets larger, positive or negative. Here's a great example of this. Well, I get a personal example. I get. People call me and say, you know, how do I get out of student loan debt? And I'm like, wrong question. How do you make so much money? The student loan debt just. It's inconsequential. They asked Mother Teresa when she was alive if she was anti war. She said, no, I'm pro peace. Right? And so, you know, focus is so freaking important. And so I managed my focus. I focused on what I wanted. I reassociated with what I wanted. I did the goal setting consistently and, you know, and got pictures of what I wanted. All the things that I knew how to do that I had done. Didn't even realize I just did it subconsciously. When that movie the Secret came out, you know, and they talked about the Law of Attraction, I'm like, holy shit. That's what I've been doing for decades. I didn't even know it. You got it behind you there. Yeah, I didn't even know that's what I was doing. I gave away literally a few thousand copies of that dvd. I bought a bunch and gave them away because it was so powerful. Now, the one caveat with that is you have to actually take action. You can't just. You can't just sit there in your corner and wish for this stuff. But wishing for it and bringing it into your life freaking works, guys. So. But of course, then you got to take action. You got to push through fear. And I know you probably have a lot of analytical listeners and followers, Chris. I know you're pretty analytical. And, you know, the most successful people in the multifamily business are analytical, and they're the hardest to get to freaking take that first step they have to check off every freaking box, every single one, you know, and get caught up in analysis. Paralysis. And so, you know, if that's. You take that first step, it's like. And really, in our business, it's the law of the first deal. It's the scariest, it's the hardest. I see with my students all the time. My coaching students, you know, they don't do a deal for six months, eight months, even a year sometimes, and they're scared out and stressful. Takes the hardest. But then once it's done, next thing I know, they have five. Like, what the hell happened? You got. You got five, six deals now. And it's. And it's because they pushed through that and took action and made it happen. And let me brag for a minute. I've been teaching about three and a half years. My students now own over 46,000 units that I know of.

Amazing.

I'm super proud of that. I mean, I really am. And so this is just my direct coaching students that are not even the boot camp. You know, thousands of people come to my boot camps, and I know there's thousands more there as well. But anyway. But it was redirecting my focus. That's how I got past this, reassociating with what I wanted, not what I lost. And that's how I did it.

I love it. So you said a couple things in there, Rod, that I want to underline, underscore, repeat the first thing you open your planner. Gratitude. Start from a place of gratitude. Get a clear vision on what you specifically want going forward, focus on that, and then take massive action. And the thing I really want to end with, Rod, is some of the things that you talk about, you know, in your interviews, on your website, you know, what you now do that's different with the Tiny Hands Foundation. Thank you, thank you back. And, you know, you know, a couple of things you said really kind of, I think, kind of touched on this. You know, how these things don't really matter that much to you anymore. So talk about what really does and what you're focused on here.

Well, thank you for that opportunity, buddy, because that actually prompted me to remember something that ties into goals. And you said gratitude. I've got a gratitude vision board back there behind me. Ok? So what I do is I will sit in that recliner behind this green screen. You can see the recliner back there, and I have got my vision boards, and I will sit there and I will just do gratitude for my amazing, beautiful wife. She is spectacularly physically Beautiful. But she is also beautiful on the inside. My coaching students, my kids, my foundation, not just do gratitude just for a few minutes, but then I will do gratitude for the things that I want as if I already have them. And I know, I know some of you are going off, for God's sakes, talk real estate, please. No, this is how you get the stuff, guys, okay? And I'll even get emotional sometimes being grateful for things I don't even have yet, okay? Because it freaking works. And I'll look at those vision boards so I get more crystal clear picture of what I want. Because that clarity is really important. Clarity is power. But so. But I want to talk about an epiphany that I had. I'm really glad you reminded me of this, so. Because it ties into goals. So I was talking about that house I built on the beach. I mean, this house is spectacular. I mean, just let me describe it a little bit more. So, you know, it was 10,000 square feet. I owned the beach on one side. I had my boathouses on the backside. It was Gulf to bay, you know, sliced through the island. I mean, I had a wine cellar, elevator, giant waterfall from the second floor balcony into the pool. You had to walk through the waterfall to get the pool pools and magazines. I mean, giant spiral staircase up through the middle of the house on the second floor. I'll just stop with this. I had aquariums that I built that or I had built that cost me almost $200,000. So that gives you an idea of the house. So I worked for this thing for 20 years. Okay? Two months after I moved in. Two months, okay? 20 years worked for it. Two months after I moved in, I'm floating in the pool at night. My family's inside sleeping. I'm looking up at this testament to my ego. I mean, the pool is changing colors, it's got fiber optic lighting. But I'm calling it a testament to my ego because that's really what it was. It was to prove the world I was good enough. And, you know, it's embarrassing to admit that, but that's the truth of it. And I'm looking up at this thing and I got depressed. And I don't mean just a little bummed. I mean, I was really bummed. I'm like, what the hell is going on? I mean, I've just achieved success, like, times a thousand. How could I be? I mean, I had the cars in the garage. I had the boats, the jet skis, the, you know, I mean, this magnificent home. And I was really Bummed. And when I look back on it, there were several things going on. One was, don't achieve a big goal without having other goals lined up behind it. You know, you need a vision for your future. Like the good book says, without a vision, the people perish. And I didn't know what I was going to do next. So that's one big thing. The next thing was, it's never about the goals. You know, they have that saying, the best days of a bone owner's life or the day they buy it and the day they sell it. It is never about the goals. It is about who you become on the path to the goals. But happiness comes from progress and growth. Okay? It never comes from the goal. Yeah, the goal feels good for a day or two, but then it's gone. And like I said, I worked for this thing for 20 years. Two months later, I'm depressed, so. But happiness comes from progress and growth, and I didn't know what I was going to do next to progress or grow. But the big thing was, I'd been totally focused on me. You know, show the world I'm good. Good enough. Show the world I matter. Rod. Rod. Rod. Rod. So I went out and bought a bunch of books. I bought, you know, Napoleon Hill, Dale Carnegie, and I got a Tony Robbins book. And I started reading Tony's book, and I'm like, wow, this is good stuff. So I went and saw him live. This is 21 years ago, and. And I saw that he fed families for the holidays. And I know you know about this because you've been in his environment. And I was like, you know, what a concept. Do something for someone else. So I decided to go back and feed some families. And I was going to Thanksgiving in Denver, and my brother with my brother, and I called him, I said, you know, let's feed five families. So we went and we went to his church and said, who really needs help? And they gave us five families. And the third family changed my life. I mean, we go up to this place, and we got toys for the kids. We knew they had kids. We had frozen turkey. We had baskets full of food. And she comes out, she sees the food, she starts crying. Her kids come out. The older ones start crying, I start crying. And I'm freaking hooked. And so I'm blessed to say in the last 21 years, we fed over 100,000 kids for the holidays here in Sarasota and Bradenton and Tampa. We've done tens of thousands of backpacks filled with school supplies. Don't get Me started on the fact we live in the greatest country on Earth and kids don't even have school supplies. And, you know, I've done tens of thousands of teddy bears for local officers, police officers, to keep in their vehicles to give to children that are, you know, they encounter, that are traumatized. And I'm not saying this to brag, either, but what I am saying about this is that you may be watching Chris, and you may be thinking, yeah, I'll do that when I have the money. Big mistake. Do it right now. Find a cause that you're interested in. I don't care if it's kids or the elderly or the environment or animals, whatever it is that you're passionate about, and do something right now. Why? Because as we've been taught, to achieve, to be happy, but when you are giving back, you are happily achieving, okay? And that's not a play on words. That's reality. And frankly, even if you haven't got a you know what to pee in right now, give back. Even if it's just your time. Why? Because you're going to get it faster. You're going to get the success faster. Now, you don't do it for that reason, but that's just the byproduct. What you give, you give back a hundredfold, a thousandfold. And so give back right now. Anyway, that's the story.

I love it. I love it, Rod. You've been so generous with. With your time, with your experiences, and I couldn't agree more. If you're. If you're saying, oh, my gosh, I thought this was just going to be a real estate conversation today. There's plenty more where that came from. But begin with mindset, Rod, if people want to find you in Orlando. When is your event coming up?

Yeah, it's December.

One more time.

Thank you. It's December 3rd, 4th, and 5th. It's not a sales pitch, man. It's three. And I bring your A game because I'm telling you, it's drinking through a fire hose. But if you're serious about, you know, real estate being the vehicle for you, you don't want to miss this. And again, it's rodinorlando.com or text rodinorlando as one word to 72345 and use the code, ROD. Friend, you come for $197. It is a duh. Okay? I mean, seriously, I believe in the. In the adage of adding as much value and adding value till it hurts, and it has served me very, very well. So you will you know, if you go to that website, you'll see the hundreds and hundreds of testimonials on the bottom, unsolicited of people that rave about it. And I spend time on mindset too. Okay? I mean, you know, I want you to take action with what you learn. So it's not just the goal setting. You'll do your identity statement because your identity pulls you into it. You'll do lots of other things to push through fear. People cry, they laugh. I mean, it's a lot of fun. And you'll learn. You won't get tired. It is freaking awesome. So again, Rod in Orlando, if you want to just learn a little bit more about me, go to realestatewithrod.com that's a direct, direct link to my website. Nobody can spell my name, Rod Cleave. So go to real estate with Rod and it'll take you there. And, yeah, there you go, man. And, you know, and I've got lots of free resources, books and videos and articles at my website. If you want to, you know, kind of poke around in this business, you'll get a lot of free resources there at the Real Estate with Rod link.

It's absolutely amazing, your website, Rod. Just like this interview has been. Today, we're going to have all those links in the show notes we're going to have to code. So if you missed something and you don't have to go back and listen to it, just check out the show notes today. Check out Rod in the beginning of December down in sunny Florida. If you can't feel the enthusiasm he has for it, go and feel it face to face with him. Rod, thank you so much for sharing all your tips, your tricks, and your story with our audience today.

Thank you, brother. It was great to meet you. I appreciate you having me on.

It's been a blast. Hey, Chris, here again. I hope you found this episode valuable. Now, I have one more thing to gift you. We have a page for my coaching clients where you can get a free copy of my book as well as much more from previous guests on the show. Just check out nextlevelincome.com coaching to get a free copy of my book, audiobook and much more. I'll send you a copy of my book and cover all the shipping costs as a thank you for listening to the podcast. Also, please, like share and take just 90 seconds to give us a rating on Apple Podcasts.

Sam.