19: Connecting Finances and Mental Health with Steven Pesavento

Welcome to my podcast called you'd Must Be out of youf Mind. My name is Dr. Don Wood. Everyone has experienced some trauma at times during their life. These traumatic events and experiences create a significant impact on how your mind works on a day to day basis. At the same time creates long term effects on your emotional and physical health. It will interfere with your ability to stay present and in the moment. After years of research, I used my knowledge of neuroscience to create what I call a memory reset. This memory reset reduces and eliminates the impact of the trauma and allows you to experience peace and clarity. My podcast will share many stories of people experiencing similar symptoms to you and how their lives have been positively impacted by our TIP program. I can't wait to share with you how the impossible is possible and why you must be out of your mind. And there it is.

All right, so welcome to another episode of you Must Be out of youf Mind. I have, as I said, I always bring on guests that have some interesting ideas that we can share. And today I have Steven Pesavento that is going to talk to us about real estate, passive income and all the experiences that he had. And we're going to somehow try to interweave how trauma can affect that. So I'm sure he's got some great stories. So welcome, Stephen, to the you Must Be out of youf Mind podcast.

Well, it's great to be here. And you know, you're absolutely right. Trauma and you know, people's beliefs can absolutely impact whether or not they actually go out and do the work and, and take the action needed to get involved in real estate and investing and frankly, in creating financial independence. You know, fear holds us back a ton from doing the things that we want the most because of our past experiences. So it's time we let go of some of that.

Yeah. One of the things that I always talk about when I, when I'm sharing with people is I'll say the number one fear for the human mind is uncertainty. That's what our biggest fear is. And so when you're doing investing and you're taking people through how to invest their money, there's a lot of uncertainty. Right. So even though real estate is a great investment, you know, the fear of what happens if there's a downturn, what happens if I can't rent these properties and the rental market dries up all those kinds of things.

Things.

So that big fear is something that you have to overcome. So tell me about some, some things that. So what you've learned about real estate why should people invest, you know, in passive income real estate? What are the advantages for. For them?

Yeah, well, I guess I'll just share, like, a little bit about who I am and why it even makes sense to listen. Anything about me is, you know, I'm a kid, grow up in, you know, outside of Minneapolis, didn't grow up with a lot. Two parents that were doing the absolute best they could. But one of the biggest stresses and pains in our household was money. You know, so much fear around it, so much lack, so much uncertainty that, you know, my parents still to this day, they hate each other. And not because of money, but with that, in a household without money, it, you know, it creates a lot of pain. So I grew up believing, like, we don't have it, don't ask for it. It's not coming. You got to work super hard for it. It's not easy. They got it, but they must have done something sketchy or wrong in order to get it. A lot of beliefs that just were not serving me, that really were holding me back. And I was lucky that I had a grandfather who was successful in business. And although he died early, he left me with this vision of a man who was a person who. Who could be happy, who could be fulfilled, and I could get my way out of the pain that I was in when I was growing up. And so I went on this journey of reading tons of books and diving into personal development and changing my beliefs and finding communities. And over that time, I've gone from this person who grew up working.

Earlier than age 10 so that we could survive and really from this survival mindset into a place where I'm truly thriving, where I'm making millions of dollars. I'm helping other people make millions of dollars. But more important than the money is what it actually means to me is that it's. It's allowed me to have and create that security, but also the ability to grow, the ability to do things that are bigger and better and. And go and do the things that I want to do. And so that's the reason why, to me, real estate is such a powerful example of a potential vehicle that you can use to get there. Because, you know, at the core, my goal, My goal for you in this conversation, my goal for you as an individual, is to change and upgrade the way that you think about money. Doesn't matter whether you do it through real estate or you find another vehicle. I just happen to know real estate's created the most millionaires, and it's a lot easier to Solve some of your problems when you got some money, though, when you've got none. And I know that so many of the things that hold us back are these beliefs that we don't take action on. And so for me, real estate's been a vehicle that's allowed me to get my foot in the door, to start believing that I can invest, to start seeing the results, to start seeing the progress. The most importantly, what I love about this space in particular, is that so many people who are in the real estate world, I'm not talking real estate agents and brokers, I'm talking about investing. Talking about owning property or owning investments that create wealth and generate income for you, is that these people are driven to learn, to grow, to achieve, and they're focused on how they can live a better life. And so the reason why I think real estate's one of the best vehicles is because it oftentimes connected really closely to real estate as a community of people. And when you get into that community and you get clear on what you want and why you want it, and you get people around, you can help support you changing those beliefs and letting go of that trauma, letting go of that fear, and having some faith to go and do it anyways, some just incredible things can happen for you.

Well, it sounds like what you were describing earlier when you're saying that your parents sort of grew up and money was always tight, so that could have easily formed a belief system in you that would have been difficult for you to get out of because it would have set a pattern, and especially before the age of seven. Right. Those early years are very, very dynamic. The Jesuit priests 400 years ago said, Give us a child until they're seven will determine their destiny. So those early years form a base foundation for our belief system. And so what I talk about is you had a grandfather that sort of helped, so sort of help you change that a little bit. I refer to all of those things as everybody has their own set of atmospheric conditions. And those atmospheric conditions are what sort of get set. So you can take two people in the same, two brothers, for example, in the same household, living the same experience, but one change in those atmospheric conditions, which could have been, in your case, a grandfather. For my wife. My wife grew up in a very traumatic childhood with a very angry father. So her and her sister, right, were living in the same house with the same set of conditions, except my wife really listened to the grandmother, who was very spiritual. So my wife said she always had hope that. Hope that something would be different One point that they would be out of this, where her sister didn't have that and sort of became a little different, a little more angry and bitter about her childhood, where my wife had hope. So that definitely helped change that. It sounds like your grandfather had a change. But the great part about this is that it can change anytime. It doesn't have to just change then. So, you know, you just tell me about going to an event, a Tony Robbins event, right. And the impact it had. So those are the kinds of things. So tell me a little bit about what you experienced and what you thought was beneficial from that.

Yeah, well, I think just touching on what you just said about kind of from the past, it's like I can look back and recognize now with the information I have and the filters and you know, essentially if you think about putting on a set of glasses, I can look back and see why I felt the way that I felt for so long. And for me, I had connected that pain of people leaving, of fear, of uncertainty to I've got to work extremely hard and. And I fortunately had some individuals, my mom even being one of them, that instilled some hope that it's possible for things to get better, even though bad, even though no matter how bad they were. And so I had connected that and been given a digital mentor of a book or a digital mentor of somebody to listen to and was able to start at least seeing a little bit more of a compelling future, a little bit more of what's possible now. Even during that, I've been driven by fear this entire time. I recognize it that even having the belief that something can be better, I was driven because I knew that what I didn't want. And so what's really powerful about going to this event and I've been to a lot of personal development events, I've spent some time in the Tony Robbins world and organization. And what I find is that when you go to a place like this, when you go to a place seeking an answer, you're going to find something. And the purpose of this event is really in order to find and understand your blueprint of how you see the world and how that blueprint is actually driving your actions, of everything that you want and everything you feel and what's so eye opening about it and the experience that you have is that it's emotional, it's visceral, it's connected. They end up bringing a lot of energy. But even beyond that, you're seeing other people go through these changes. You're seeing other people have Essentially a coaching experience or a therapeutic type experience. Live in person, in front of everybody. And while they're going through that experience, while you're hearing about which you can do right now, while you're listening to us and hearing about these changes, you can actually, you'll apply this to yourself. And so as I'm sitting there and I'm hearing about other people's challenges and their experiences and why they feel the way they do and where that comes from, I can start to see in myself the ways that I've been personally showing up that haven't served me. And so what's been so powerful about the event is that, you know, as a person who's extremely successful in business, I can also see exactly what anchors or what stakes I drove deep into the ground that have kept me put and I drove those into the ground in order to try to create safety and security and certainty. Because like you said, people fear uncertainty, people fear not knowing. And so even if it's extremely painful, I'm willing to stay in that place and do things that I don't actually personally want to do or isn't really me in order to try to create some certainty. And so one of the biggest realizations of the entire event is this, is that I have been a person who's been driven by growth, success and significance, meaning I've been driven by wanting to learn, to grow, to learn new things, to see my business grow, to be successful and to be successful in the eyes of others. And so I say that without shame because many of us are right. Maybe you're one of those people who cares about what other people think. I think there's very few people who've fully been able to let go of that. But for those that are, they're freer. And so with this, with these values and this view of what I was really being driven by and the rules that ended up deciding how I would feel those feelings, I can now see exactly why I've done what I've done, why I've spent so much time in my business, why I've spent so much time looking to get an outcome for others, why I've spent so much time trying to be bigger and better than I was before, and why I've focused so hardcore on not being that broke ass kid, that kid who's grown up with hand me downs, who's driving shitty cars, who's in really just a frankly a tough environment, and why I've tried to elevate myself is because I know how much pain was connected to that. And I believed in this better vision of the future. But on the flip side of that, exactly what was serving me, the good part, is that it drove me foreign business. And it's deeply accepted, it's deeply accepted to pour yourself in business as a man. It's deeply accepted to make a ton of money and focus on that. But when you're in this place of always looking for growth and always looking for success, and it's external, it's a place where you never feel satisfied. And I realize it's a little emotional thinking about it, that no matter how much success I would have, I wouldn't feel really successful. And so much of it was on the outside world that with those views, visions and beliefs of the world, it was nearly impossible to want to be in relationship, in friendship, and bring people close enough to maybe see when there is a failure or get feedback from a place where I wasn't ready for it. And so that is such a big realization because these things served me in a way, it's not like they're bad, but if I want to actually enjoy all of the fruits of the labor, and I think many of you guys might relate to that. Maybe you're working really hard in your business, or you're working really hard in your life, but something else is missing. Or maybe you've got a great life, but your business is missing. It's finding out that I was getting so much from that, but as a result of not focusing on some other things, I actually was missing the whole reason and purpose that I was so keen on doing the things that I've been doing.

Are you tired of dealing with stress, anxiety, panic attacks, depression, even feeling broken? Have traumatic events and experiences in your life created post traumatic stress for you? Perhaps you're an athlete, an executive, trying to reach that next level of performance. Well, there's nothing wrong with you and there's nothing wrong with your mind. Your mind is dealing with some glitches and error messages as a result of these traumatic events or disturbing events earlier in your life. It's interfering with your ability to stay present because the memory keeps on looping, activating your nervous system. I've helped thousands of people deal with anxiety, panic attacks, depression, feeling that sense of brokenness, we can clear that in as little as four hours. Check out our website, inspiredperformanceinstitute.com and check out some of the stories and testimonials. Some of these may relate to what you've experienced in your life and we look forward to helping you Reach your next level of performance and there it is.

And that's exactly what I talk about as well, is that sometimes what happens is those atmospheric conditions are going to, you are going to be used. Your mind filters through them. So your mind has all of this memory about maybe some painful experiences. So now you get into another situation that looks like, sounds like, smells like that. Your mind is actually Google searching that old data and seeing it in real time. So your mind's never. So people say to me, well, I sabotage myself. I go, it's impossible. The brain is survival based. It cannot sabotage you, it only protects you. So they'll say, well, why would I miss out? Or why would I go in this direction when I was on a good track? Because your mind was trying to protect you from what it perceived was coming up to some danger or pain. So it'll move you in a completely different direction to protect you, not to hurt you. And so a lot of people are like, well, I always thought I was sabotaging myself. And I said, how can a brain that is only mission is to keep you alive, sabotage you? It can't. But it's filtering through your own set of experiences and coming up with a calculation on what you should do to protect yourself now. And that looks counterintuitive at times, but in actual fact it's protecting you. So all you have to do is to reset that. And that's sort of what we do is we take this traumatic or disturbing information that your mind keeps looping through using as a resource to respond to the current environment and we get it to reset so it no longer. And I can do that, Stephen, in four hours I can reset traumatic, disturbing information that is being set up throughout your lifetime and get your mind to reset it. And then it changes the way it responds to its current environment. Because your subconscious is fully present, it's in the moment 100% of the time and it's designed to keep you safe and then second to move towards reward. So you're selling people and, and trying to train people to learn about reward where, where if they've had a lot of pain about those kinds of rewards, it would stop them from moving forward. Because the number one mission is to keep you alive. Number two mission is to move towards pleasure or reward. So it becomes number two and there's where it would be difficult to get out of that stuck pattern. And so I work with a lot of executive CEOs as well. And I say everybody has another gear. We just have to eliminate what's interfering with you getting to that next gear?

Well, it's so interesting because think about it from this place. It's like if your subconscious mind is doing what it does best, it's looking to keep you safe. You can have this. This view, you can have this goal, you can have this desire, you can want something deeply, you can believe that it's a part of you. And yet if your subconscious is saying, well, based on my past experience, that's going to hurt me, you're going to go against the things that you actually want. You're going to go against the things that will make you happy, because your body and mind just wants to keep you in that place of safety. And so it's so necessary to sit down and do a process like you're talking about, because without that, you essentially just running old programming. I know I bought a new MacBook Pro this year, and I happen to buy one every couple of years because they seem to not work anymore. But oftentimes the problem isn't necessarily the machine. It's the software that the machine's running. And could we actually go in and upgrade our software? Instead of thinking that, oh, well, I'm broken, or this person's broken in my life, it's like, well, you know, how do I look at this differently?

So I always say, think of the brain as the computer, the mind is the software. And the mind is constantly getting updated with new software, new experiences, which is then changing the way it responds to its environment. So if you've had a lot of traumatic events and experiences in your lifetime, your mind is going to filter through those to respond to what's happening now. And I say, there's nothing wrong with anybody. There's nothing wrong with anybody's mind. Your mind is doing exactly what it's designed to do, which is to protect you. And sometimes that's happening well below your conscious awareness. You just don't know why you do these things. I'll give you a great example. I had a guy, very successful business guy, making about $2 million a year, trading stocks, derivatives, options, doing very well. But what he said was, he said, here's where my issue comes in. Every time I get into the fourth quarter of the year, he says, I lose all my motivation to work. I just don't want to go into work. I make excuses. I. I take a week off and I try to travel, thinking I'll just recharge. And he says, I think I'm tired. I don't know what it is, but I totally lose motivation. But I'm driven for the other nine months. And he says, and my partners aren't happy about it because I sort of leave them for that last three months. So we went back through his history, and what we found is, is that when he was a young child growing up, his father is his hero as his mentor, very successful guy, but went bankrupt four times. And he says, I remember as a child flying in private jets and then packing up in the middle of the night, being chased by creditors for a while, and then flying in private jets and then being chased by creditors again. That was his history. So what his mind was trying to do is he got to a certain success level that he knew he could. He could roll out of bed and make $2 million. Once he got to some sort of a level that he felt comfortable with, his mind would basically say, don't risk it anymore. It's going to be dangerous. Fourth quarter is a dangerous time to make investments. It's not the best time, so back off now. He wasn't consciously aware of that, but that made a lot of sense to him when he understood why his mind was shutting down at that time. Now, was he successful? Yeah, most people would be happy with a couple million dollars a year. Right. So it wasn't that there was some obvious flawed that he could pick out. It's not that he was broke. It was a fear, unconscious fear of going bankrupt, like his dad did when his dad got maybe too strong. Then we get knocked down.

Yeah. Yeah. And so imagine how many of those experiences we carry that we don't even know are there, that are really preventing us from engaging in business at the level we're capable of, of investing into projects or property, that we're capable of investing into ourselves, our relationships, any of those things. We've all got those experience. It's a guarantee that they're there. The question is, are you. Are you willing to go in and find them?

Yep.

And reprogram?

Yeah. All we need is a reboot. Just like a software program. You just reset the software. I, you know, if I touch the M key on my computer, every time I hit the M key, my computer shuts off. Well, there's nothing wrong with my computer. It's a software coding issue. Right. So I'm not going to get rid of the computer. Right. And if I take my computer to my computer therapist, my computer therapist would say, well, don't touch the M key. Stay away from words with M's in them. Avoid M's at all costs. No, we just need to recode the M key so it doesn't shut off the computer and becomes an M key again. It's the same. That's what I use with, with everybody. As I say, when we just need a reset, let's eliminate what's interfering with you reaching that next level of performance. And I work with athletes as well. I love working with athletes because you can see it so quickly when we reset that I've had athletes like two days later win a world championship, right? From one of Rob Killian, a Spartan world champion in 2019. Two days before I took him through our program. Two days later, he runs and wins the world championship for the Spartan races. Not that he's not a great runner. And I said to him, I said, rob, I didn't make you a better runner. You're always that fast. You didn't have that extra access, that extra gear because your mind was looping through some trauma. And he talked very openly about one of his traumas. He was a special forces Green Beret. Right. But he also had a trauma. And this is sort of goes back to what you were talking about earlier about what people think of you. He was running in a race and he picked up one of those 50 pound sandbags. I mean, these guys are incredible athletes, the things that they do. So he has to run up the mountain with this 50 pound sandbag. But he didn't realize the baggie picked up had a small hole in it. And so the sand was coming out of the bag as he was running. Now, he didn't know it, right. And then what happened is one of his competitors, right, saw that he had picked up that bag and then went on social media and started calling him a cheater.

So now that's all over social media. So now what's he thinking next time he runs in a race? What do people think about me now? These special forces Green Beret guys, integrity's everything to them. And so that energy was slowing them down. It was taking away the power he needed physically because it's mental. Your brain uses about 20% of the glucose in the body. Even though it's only responsible for about 2% of the body weight, it's using 10 times as weight. Right. And power. And so when we release that, now we just gave them, just give that those elite athletes or elite CEOs and executives that 1% edge that makes all the difference in the world at their level.

Yeah, yeah. I can make huge change for people. Absolutely. I mean, I see it all the time. So in my business, we're in the business of Helping people create financial independence. And I coach a number of people through this process of understanding, what do you want? Why do you want it? What, what's the target? How do you connect to an emotional reason why behind that? And then, of course, there's a ton of strategies, real estate being one of them, but there's many different strategies. But what I find is, even when I'm talking to clients and they're interested, they've got a hundred thousand or they got a million dollars, and they want to invest it, and they're looking for exactly what it is that we do, it's always interesting because you end up running up against what are some of those beliefs? What are some of those traumas that they had in the past? What does it mean to them when they invest? What could happen, and why would that be bad, and how would that be painful? And a lot of people end up holding themselves back from taking advantage of something that's so powerful. You know, a lot of these people are. They've got money in the stock market because it's what they know. There's massive amounts of uncertainty in the stock market. There's huge losses that can happen in the stock market. You're going against. You're going against the biggest and most sophisticated investors and hedge funds and institutions. But for some reason, because it's comfortable, because it's been the norm, there's a higher level of certainty there, even though there's uncertainty, because somebody else external to them, who they believe they should trust is telling them that it's good. And then when they come and they look at alternative investments, whether that's real estate or investing in mineral rights or many different types of opportunities, they look at those and they say, oh, this must be too good to be true. Yeah, this must be too good to be true. Because if it. If it's as good as they're saying, then everyone would do it. Why have I not heard about it? Why have I not thought about it? Why is my financial advisor, who's getting paid for me not to do this, not telling me about it? Right. There's all these things that end up coming up. And so there's a. There's a journey that most people have to go on to bridging the gap, to actually taking that action. And the people who have a really embedded trauma or fear, they don't. They never take that journey because they're not being intentional. They don't even recognize it's there because it's so far under the surface. So What I'm curious Dr. Don, is, you know what, what would you say to those people who, they want to take action, they want to invest, they want to do something they know is going to be better for their family. They logically, they understand it, but there's something in them that's holding them back from moving.

What I always tell them is of your brain, 5% of your brain is your conscious, logical, reasonable part of your brain, right, that's running the executive functioning. So those kinds of decisions, 95% of your brain operates on a subconscious level. You don't think about heart rate digestion. All the internal functions, all the programs that are running are run by the subconscious part of your mind. You don't have to think about them. So its number one mission is to keep you alive and safe. So logical, reasonable, 5% of your brain is saying, this makes perfect sense, right? Stephen just explained, laid out this plan. I get it right, I'm gonna do it right? And then the 95% goes, hold on, we've checked this out. And don't you remember, you know, our father? Or five years ago we went and we bought a house and then the market dipped and then all of a sudden we lost all our money, we got forgotten, closed off. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Right? This sounds like that again. No. And then the fear is so overpowering, there's nothing wrong with them. You can see why their mind would do that. So until they get that glitch out of the way, it's an error message that their mind keeps running through. How in the world could they make that call? They couldn't. All the logic in the world gets overridden by survival every single time. So until they get that cleared up, they will continue to fall into that same pattern and code the mind. Like certainty. Habits and behaviors are certainty. That's why they built them. So if you walk two miles every day to get food, and every day, every time you travel, there were snipers and landmines, but you got there and back and had food and you ate. And then somebody goes, well, why are you doing that? There's a safe way a hundred yards down the road that way, and it's safe and there's lights and there's police everywhere. It's really safe. Your mind doesn't know that's true because it has no evidence of that. So it's going to say, I know I can go the two miles, even though I have danger, I can make that trip. I've proven it. So the only way to get them to be able to do that is to walk down and repeat a pattern. So you got to build a new neural pathway. So we're going to walk down 5 yards today and then 10 yards tomorrow. And eventually, what I say is think of repetition as research for the brain. The brain's not trying to do anything to hurt you. It's trying to protect you. So until it has enough data to back up that move, it's not going to want to make that move. And so that's just how our brain works. And I always talk about my wife because she grew up in this traumatic household, right? Always living in fear. And so even though she was living with me and I had no trauma in my life, I really had this idyllic childhood. I'm not seeing the dangers that she can see. And so even though we were doing well, we had a great business, we had three beautiful children, we have a beautiful home. Everything's going well. She never looked like she was truly enjoying it. It's not that she wasn't like, great mom, great wife. I mean, everything that side of it was great. But every time we were going to make a move. So if I said, so, Stephen, you come to me and say, I got this great investment opportunity. I'm like, I'm in. Makes sense. I got it. I go to talk to her. Yeah, but what happens if this goes wrong? What happens if that goes wrong? And then we're going to lose that. So she would be. And I never understood it until I really developed the program is that as a child, her father was a terrible businessman. So he would make a lot of money, spend it as fast as he made it, and then crash. And then the yelling and screaming and violence would happen. So what she was trying to do was protect herself. She didn't want to get too happy and enjoy this, because we know what happens when we start to enjoy it. We're going to get hurt again. So if we don't get too high, we can't get hurt by dropping too far. Let's stay low to the ground and keep ourselves protected until you get that out of the way. There's. And the only way to do that is to reset the memory, to reset it out of high definition. Tremendous amount of detail in that mem. And those memories, reset it. And so a simple way to explain it is if I say, can you, Stephen, tell me what you ate for dinner last night? Can you tell me what you ate?

I had a chicken salad.

Chicken salad. So when I asked you that, you saw pictures, right, of what you ate? Maybe where you ate it where you bought it, right? That's how you stored the information about dinner last night. Now, because last night wasn't threatening or disturbing, it stored as a fairly low resolution file some detail, but not a tremendous amount. If that had been a threatening event, a lot of trauma in it, right? All your senses are heightened, sight, smell, hearing. So how's it going to record that event? High definition, tremendous amounts of detail. And because your subconscious operates in the present, if it recalls that information when it does its Google search, it thinks something's happening now, and it's comparing it to what is happening now. And can you see why the mind could not. It's just too much information about danger, comparing it to what's happening now. The logical part of the mind can't override that. And it'll tell it, abort, abort, abort. We're in trouble because it's looking at the old data.

Yeah, I can totally see that for sure.

So until you reset that old data, that's going to constantly come up and it's going to interfere with their ability to perform at their highest level and to hear the good news you're giving them. So it can be overwhelming. You know, when I was reading the information and, you know, before we got on the air and started talking here, right, you did some tremendous things, like you went out and bought like 200 properties and be able to grow your business. Now, you talk to the average person who struggled to get a mortgage on the single house they own, right? They would look at that and go, 200 houses. I had to pull my hair out and, you know, jump hoops and convince the bank that I could afford this one house and they didn't want to almost give me the money. How do you do 200 houses? It would be overwhelming to them because they don't have the research right in their own mind to back that up.

Yeah, no, it makes perfect sense. Makes perfect sense for me. It's clear because I've done it, I went through it, started doing it with no money. I have a different set of beliefs because I have new experience that I know no matter what, I can make as much money as I ever need or desire. But there's still other beliefs that are there that, you know, an opportunity to upgrade. So some really powerful stuff. Dr. Don.

Yeah, and, and that's what we do. So what we're able to do is help you do your job better, Right. Because you've got the knowledge they need. Why can't they act on it? Fear, Right. A lot of times. So, so let's say you have somebody who comes to you and says, I have a hundred thousand dollars, right? What would you tell them to do? How would they turn that 100,000 and start investing or put it into real estate?

I probably asked them some questions. I probably asked some questions like, what do you want? Why is it important? What does that look like? You know, what, what's the outcome? Like, if you were to picture what your life looks like in the future and you've done this successfully, like, what, what does that look like? Like, what are you looking for? I think one of the things that I've realized is that most people's real big issues when it comes to investing, when it comes to really doing anything, is they don't have a clear target. And so when you name your number, when you get clear on what that target number is, there's a million ways for us to get there. One way is to understand what your expenses are today, what you spend every month, double it. And by doubling your expenses, setting that as your passive income target, that's your number. That's, that's where you start. But then the question is, like, what is that going to do for you? Like, why is that important? What's that going to feel like? What is that going to do for your family? And really being able to connect with that on a deeper level. Because what that does is it's not so much about the number. It's not so much about the number. What it is is about having a very clear, single target of what you want, having a really clear target so that your brain can focus on doing one thing. What's that one goal? Because most of us, the truth is we have a lot of goals. We want to make money in our business. We want to grow, we want to learn, we want to travel with our wife, we want to have kids, we want to travel with our kids. We, we want to fix this health issue we're dealing with. We've got so many different things that it can easily be easy to be overwhelmed. And so when it comes to finances, because there's so much emotion to it, because so many people carry those, those feelings that I was talking about, those feelings of fear, those feelings of past experiences that really prevent them from embodying what they truly do know, because that 5%'s being overwhelmed by the 95, by choosing that one target, by naming your number, you're able to kind of put a lot of that aside. And then when you connect to it, when you really understand what that's going to do. And it's bigger than you. When you can connect it to the community, when you can connect it to your partner, your spouse, your wife, your husband, when you connect it to your kids, when you connect it to the people who are going to be inspired by you, when you can get to that point where it's more than just a selfish ego desire, when it's more than just materialistic, because you need the materialistic. You need to understand why and what that's going to do for you physically, but also what that's going to do altruistically, like how that's going to do something bigger and better, something truly greater. And that's when you can actually step into the place I found where we can have the conversation about what to do with a hundred thousand dollars. Because from that place it's easy for us to answer the question. It's easy for us to say, oh, you want to create passive income today? Great. Well, we need to find a property that's going to create, you know, 8 to 10% a year. So you're getting 8 to $10,000 a year from that one seed that you plant. Oh, you want to create passive income in five years. You're younger, you're growth oriented, you don't need the money now, you don't have a family to worry about. But in the future, this is going to be a thing. Great. Let's focus on something that in five years your money is worth twice as much or three times as much. I know it sounds crazy to you, I know you're new to this, but it's possible. And we can find that. We can reduce risk and we can do all these things strategically that will get you there. Because the big problem I find is people are looking for an answer, so they look for a strategy. And when you're looking for that strategy, you can find a lot of different tools that you can pull off the tool shelf, but it might not actually be the tool that you need for the problem. Because I've been a guy who much of my life, I've been a hammer looking for a nail, and I've been able to push through and fight through. But sometimes you need to step back, you need to pull back, you need to do nothing, you need to take a softer approach. You need to go around the outside. And when you can learn these different tools and be able to understand why you're going to go down that challenging journey, why you're going to step into that place of unknown and uncertainty, because you have A bigger, compelling reason why, and that pain is bigger of you not doing it than it is. Then it's easy. Then you can learn all the things that I know and the ultra rich know and all the family offices and the people who've been doing this, who learned something different know, and you can know it yourself and know that it's totally possible and that you deserve it or worth it and all those things. And then at that point, it's easy for you to place that hundred thousand into investment and say, yeah, I feel good about that. This is going to really help me and my family.

Well, what's interesting, and anybody listening to this, one of the things that Stephen said is so powerful and a lot of people breeze over it or they go, yeah, yeah, I heard that is you talked about having a plan and why that is so critical. And it sort of sounds like because everybody talks about that. But by having a plan, what is the thing that we said was the biggest fear for the human mind? Uncertainty. What does the plan do? It reduces the uncertainty. So if you have just say, oh, I'm just going to go in and do this, but you haven't set a plan and then one little thing goes wrong. All of a sudden it's like, oh, hands go up, I made a mistake, I shouldn't have done it. And you go into this fear mode again when if you knew based on the plan that that's part of what's going to happen. There's going to be ebbs and flows. So if you're investing in, so the, you know, multi family, and all of a sudden now you just lost three tenants, right? Well, that's how this works, right? And then you replace the tenants as opposed to you get focused on losing the tenants, and then you stop thinking about anything else. And then it dominates and it brings in all the uncertainty. The plan is the key, right, to the whole thing. Because without that, you're going to face uncertainty over and over and over again, even with the best plan.

Totally, totally. But where most people screw up is they think to themselves, hey, I want to get. I need to put a map together about how I'm going to arrive at my destination. And they don't even know where they're at now. And they don't really know where they're going. So it's unclear, like, should I take a bus, should I take a plane, should I rent a car, Should I walk? Like, there's a lot easier path that's available. And so once you get really clear on naming your number and getting clear on all those compelling reasons why, it's then simple to be able to decide, like, this is the vehicle that I should actually get in that's going to help me get there and arrive and get me where I want to be.

And I always talk about the key to any kind of a plan is adapting. So where the danger comes in is I see a lot of people go from planning to predicting.

And that's where the danger comes in. Because they predict what's going to happen. And then if it doesn't match, right, what just happened, then they start to create fear again. They start to panic because, oh, something happened. And that's in relationships, that's in everything. So not just talking about from. From real estate investing, it's okay to plan, don't predict, because it'll catch you every time and it'll start to affect the way you start responding to things. Even in relationships, right? So you have a relationship plan for what you want to be able to do. But the secret in any relationship is to be able to adapt to the plan. And I use sports. I'm a big sports guy, so I always talk about everybody has a plan. I played hockey. That was my big sport. You're from Minnesota, so you get it with hockey, right? You'd always have a game plan. But as soon as that puck dropped, you better start adapting to what's going to happen because the other team doesn't want to use your plan, and they've got their own plan. And then you've got to, you know, it's a constant state of. Of flexibility and adapting to it. And sometimes your plan goes flawless, and sometimes your plan goes up in smoke and at the drop of the puck.

Sometimes people get caught up in thinking they've got a plan, and they have to be rigid. They've got a belief that it must go exactly this way, otherwise we won't arrive at the destination. But oftentimes there's traffic, there's stoplights, there's bumps in the road, there's things that happen that are unknown. And this is especially true in any kind of business, right? So when people invest in the stock market, they're investing in Apple, and Apple might have a bad quarter, but if they're looking at it from a time horizon of 10 years, they're not worried about this month or what's happening this week. They're thinking to themselves, are we going to be able to get to that end destination? And yet when people are investing, for example, in a piece of real estate, let's Say it's a rental property you own or something that we own and manage.

Like a 200 unit building. We might buy it and find out there's more skeletons in the closet than we thought. Maybe there's a delay, maybe something takes a few extra months. But on a ten year time horizon or a three year time horizon, you're not worried about what happens this week as long as you're consistently making that progress. But it can be easy to get overwhelmed because you think, hey, from a rigid standpoint, everything has to go exactly this way, otherwise I won't be able to arrive. And that fear kind of kicks back in and, and people get scared.

And I think that's what sports taught me more than anything is the ability to make that alteration constantly. I remember one of the stories I always talk about too is we were playing in a game and it was that whoever won this advanced to the finals. And we got down to, there was three seconds left on the, on the clock. Our coach calls a timeout, right? And the plan was I'm the centerman, right? I'm really good at face offs. So the coach said, I generally don't lose a face off. So he says, all right, so Don's going to go in there, he says, we're going to all line. He's, we're going to line up our best shooters behind them. He gets the puck back, we take one shot on goal. They're not going to be able to score in three seconds. So he pulled the goalie to put an extra attacker on, right? So we have the play all set up and I look at it and I go, they set up expecting that. So they've got all their players lined up to go back against our players to be able to block the shot. And in my mind I looked and I went, nobody's going to expect me to go forward. Everybody's going to go in the same direction, right? So the puck drops and what do I do? I punch it forward. Everybody goes past me, right? Not expecting me to go is me and the goalie now. That's it.

Yeah.

And I was able to score, right? And that put us into the finals. And I still remember the coach right afterwards, he comes up to me and he goes, you are very lucky that that plan worked because you went against what I told you to do. And we were pretty disciplined. They didn't like that. But I saw the opportunity and it was because after the game we got in the car and my dad said, I saw you just take that look. And I knew exactly what you were going to do. Right. But that's the key to success. You have to be not afraid to go against. Now, had I not made that, that goal, I probably would have for the net during that intermission, I would have been chewed out by my coach because he thought the best shot was getting one shot on the goal.

Yeah, no, and it makes perfect sense. And, and that's why, you know, I, I really believe in growth. I really believe in giving and being able to help share some of these lessons. And I think what you're doing, Dr. Don, is you're helping people be able to understand how can they get out of their own way in a lot of ways, how do they reprogram, how do they change? And you know, so for those people who have been listening and, and like what we're talking about and are interested in getting involved from an investing standpoint, I've got a great gift I'd love to give.

Absolutely. Yeah. Just share with what, what you'd like.

To share with the audience called the, it's called the Passive Investor Playbook. And you know, it's a 52 page guide. It's got, you know, great summary at the beginning if you're just a short bullet point type person. But what you'll get out of, out of receiving this is to be able to start understanding about some of these strategies that are above and beyond Wall Street. Start understanding what's possible when you're investing in apartment buildings, what you're investing in, something that's different. Start priming and placing some new information in your brain so that whether you're ready to take action right now or Tom or in the future, you start to understand what's available to you. And so if you guys are interested in getting the Passive Investor Playbook, you can download it@von Finch.com playbook. That's Von Finch.com playbook. And if you're interested, I'd love to also offer something we don't always make available, but I'd love to offer, you know, a, a, a financial.

A financial independence kind of success call where we'll dive in and we'll have a conversation getting to know you and, and your situation, understanding, you know, what is that target for you? What do you want, why do you want and how are you actually going to get there so that whether you're investing with us or you're taking another path, you're able to, to go down and, and do that so you know, you can again grab the playbook and then just respond to that email saying, you know, I want to take you up on the free coaching session that you talked about with Dr. Don. Love to be able to give that to you. I got nothing to sell you with that, but I would love to be able to. To give back and share some of these lessons that, you know, typically people pay me a lot of money to. To learn because I happen to be in that state of mind right now. So super appreciate the opportunity to share all of this. Dr. Don. It's been great, and I frankly, I look forward to getting able to dive deeper with you as well.

Awesome. Well, thank you so much, and that's great. I encourage everybody to take advantage of that because how do you learn? How do you grow? You learn from people who've already done it. You save yourself a big learning curve. Right. So you don't have to have too many traumas when you can already just take advantage of Steven's dramas and use those to your advantage. So, absolutely. Thank you so much for your time. I look forward to continuing our conversations. And again, thank you for listening to another episode of you must be out of your mind. And there it is.