Real Estate Investing Mindset How I Rebuilt After 2008
In this personal narrative, the speaker recounts losing his entire real‑estate empire in the 2008 crash, the emotional turmoil that followed, and the spiritual and mental disciplines that enabled him to persevere. He describes the concept of an inner "fire" that must be resurrected, the importance of relentless perseverance and intensity over mere knowledge, and a daily three‑legged routine of spiritual, mental, and physical grounding. The speaker explains how these principles helped him recover from the COVID shutdown in just 60 days. He leverages 30 years of experience—over 200 flips, 300 units purchased in a single year, 6,000 property underwritings, and nearly $1 billion funded—to differentiate his coaching program, which combines mentorship, partnership, and direct lending to guarantee higher profitability for clients. He stresses that success requires the client’s own fire, willingness to work hard, and a desire to create a generational legacy by teaching others. The overarching goal is to transform lives and build a ripple effect of success.
Chapters
You know, for 30 years I've always wanted to transform lives. I've always wanted to be the guy that helps everybody that wants to be helped. Every time we think we're there, something happens. It's 30 years later. I'm armed. I'm prepared to be that individual that can do and pass on the vision that I've always wanted. I don't think I was ready before. There's been enough molding, sculpturing, developing, maturing that with our courses, with our history, with our experience, with who we are today, we're more empowered than we've ever been. We're ready to take on that challenge. ¡Hola! So it was right after the 2008 real estate crash. Um, we had lost, um, everything. We lost millions of dollars. Fancy material, houses, boats, everything. And, um, I was angry because we had nothing. I couldn't control it. It was the financial market. We, you know, had built a great empire, had a great life. The kids were having a wonderful life, and we went from a big mansion, yacht, fancy, you know, cars and all that to nothing. To having to move into a double-wide mobile home that my in-laws owned. So I couldn't pay rent, so we had to live rent-free. Sold all our cars and had to borrow a van that my grandfather had, uh, and was, you know, scraping by. And for the first year or two, was very, very mad, very angry, because there was nothing I did wrong. And I didn't understand it. And so, but I still had a family, still had a wife and 2 kids, and I still had responsibilities. And many, many, many times, you know, driving— I had gotten a job in insurance— and driving to work, I wanted to give up because I felt embarrassed. I felt tremendous pain. I felt like I was a failure. And so the first reaction, the first thought was just, just give up, just end it all. Got a good life insurance policy, end it all, family goes on. Then the second thought was, do they really go on? Is the pain they're feeling now greater than what the pain they would feel if I ended it all. And that would be a lifelong pain that they had to go through. Plus, I also believed that I was not destined for failure. I also believed that I knew that there was a higher authority that controlled everything and that there was a reason and a purpose. Even so, even though one side of me wanted to quit, another side said there's something greater out there. And I have a fiduciary duty, responsibility to my family. So when those thoughts of giving up came on, I would pull over on the side of the road and I would say, you know what, if you truly believe in a higher authority, if you truly believe that you're destined for something greater, then you must move on. You must persevere. And I would always say to myself, if it's going to be It's up to me. And I would keep going forward. And so I went through a long transformation, couple of years of not really understanding, but the anger started to subside and we did good and we made progress and things started evolving in a positive way. So to resurrect means to revitalize the fire within us. Every one of us has a fire in us. Some understand it, some don't. Um, but when we're able— when we're seeking and searching and looking for answers, the first thing that has to be understood is the fire that's inside of us. And once we understand that fire, once we believe that that's a true passion of burning, we think it's an emptiness, but really it's a fire. And when we resurrect that fire, we inspire the, uh, the greatness within us. And that's what I like to preach and teach about. So we have a lot of clients that have been there. So 90% of our clients have gotten into real estate because they didn't like, um, their financial future. They didn't like the job, the retirement, the plan that was in there. So they got into real estate investing thinking that that would be a better source of opportunity for retirement or for generational wealth. And most of them got in without knowledge, without understanding, without training or coaching. And failed. And so they get this disappointment, they get this desperation of, "I tried that, it didn't work." And what we do is talk to them about why it didn't work, share with them why it didn't work, and show them how we can do it differently for success. And then see that fire build back up within them, see that that opportunity is greater than what they thought it would be, and that that opportunity is the right path for them. And we've got multiple, multiple clients that tell that testimony on all our, you know, reviews and all that. That it wasn't that they made the wrong choice, they just didn't have the right tools. They didn't have the right ammunition. They didn't have the right plan for that combat mode to be able to take on that task. So I think that most men today are missing confidence. Um, today's society gives up too quick, whether it be a marriage, whether it be a job, doesn't matter. They give up too quickly. Um, they don't understand that perseverance trumps everything. Perseverance and intensity trumps knowledge, trumps education, trumps everything. I've always preached that if you don't quit, you can't lose. So I help them understand that by quitting, you gave up, you quit, so you're going to have failure. But if you don't quit, if you believe this was a true calling, a true passion, a true opportunity, then see it all the way through with intensity and perseverance no matter what. Therefore, then they start seeing the results. That they were seeking. They gave up too quick. They gave up too soon. And so we try to push them through that roughness, hardness, to show them to break through. Then they understand that all I gotta do is keep going. You do it once and have success, you'll do it every time. Because there is no such thing as get rich quick. There's absolutely no such thing as get rich quick. And if you look at and talk to or read about every multimillionaire, every billionaire, it took them 10, 15, 20 years. They started at the ground level. They started in their garage. They started in their basement. They started with no money, with no team, but they persevered. They never quit. They never gave up. They saw a laser-focused vision and they stayed focused on that regardless of all the hurdles, regardless of all the obstacles, regardless of all the failures. They had a vision, they had a passion, and they stayed focused on that. And so this is what we kind of inspire and teach, is that you have to understand your true calling, and then you have to continue going forward and know that it takes time, but that's where that perseverance and intensity comes into play. So I think that the first thing that we all have to do is be spiritually— are spiritually, mentally, and physically solid, sound. And that's a daily discipline. If we are not spiritually, mentally, and physically sound every day, then when life comes at us, we aren't prepared. So with the mental warfare that you're talking about, we have to be grounded. It's like a three-legged stool. There's like your tripod. If one of those legs is shorter or longer than the others, It's crooked, it's off balance, and anything can knock it over. So we as humans have to have that three-legged stool that's balanced spiritually, mentally, physically to stay grounded and solid, to be able to achieve our goals. Because life's not easy. Nothing's easy. To be successful in life, it's not easy or everybody would be successful. But if you have a true passion, a true fire, and you understand it and you believe in it, And when you do the daily discipline of spiritual, mental, and physical every morning before you start the day, then you're well equipped to handle all life challenges and all battles. So the Unshakeable Investor is somebody that cannot be wavered from their passion, from their path. They're unshakable means they are solid, they are strong, they are driven. And so with an Unshakeable Investor, they're saying that I am driven to have success in real estate investing, and through the daily disciplines, I I will always be solid grounded and prepared. And if I deviate from that, then now I can be shaken. The storms can come. I can be bent over. I can be knocked down. But the unshakable says, I will not waver from my true calling and my true passion. COVID. So, I had lost everything in 2008, went from being dead broke to rebuilding a company. And when I was rebuilding it, I knew all the things that I did wrong the first time. So I prepared to not have any more issues if there was a financial crisis, if there was a, a, a Wall Street, you know, if the Wall Street market crashed, we were protected financially. But I wasn't prepared for COVID. Because when COVID came again, shut us down completely, and I was lost. I was like, you've got to be kidding me. I just not less than 10 years ago went through this, 20 years ago, and now I'm having to do it again. Now I'm a ship without a motor. I'm just floating around here, not able to do anything. But it didn't take me 7 years to regroup. It took me about 60 days. And, and, and again, I stayed with my disciplines. I stayed with my mental, spiritual, and physical discipline, and I waited for God to answer what's next. And within 60 days, an opportunity came. We capitalized on it and right back up and running. And then we've been running Full speed ever since. So what makes us different is multiple things. Number one, we've been there, done that. I have, uh, probably have purchased and I've flipped over 200 properties. I bought almost 300 units last year during the, this real estate disruption. I've underwritten over 6,000 properties. I funded almost a billion dollars in loans. And so today I take that 30 years of knowledge of being boots on the ground, hands-on, and I can transform that to you because I can now show you how I did it, as a mentor, as a coach, as a partner, and a lender. Most coaches out there don't do all of it. Most coaches out there have maybe done a little bit of buying real estate and all that, but they've never gone through the crisis we've been through, and they've never put their own money into it. So not only do we coach you, mentor you, partner with you, we also lend on it. And this guarantees success, because if I'm going to put my money into it that I'm going to make sure this deal works. I'm not going to do a deal and you fail. If you go buy a coaching program today, there's a strong probability that you may not have success because it doesn't matter to them. You bought the program, you bought the course. Now it's up to you to make sure you handle it. And you may have a mentor, but we're going to go one step further. We're going to put our money in the deal to make sure that our eyes see everything that you don't see. You don't know what you don't know. So our program guarantees a higher chance of profitability, and that's what makes us different. They gotta want it. They gotta want it. I can't want it more than you want it. And that's the biggest problem that we see as a coach, as a mentor, is that I see the talent you have, I see the fire that's burning in you, but you don't want it. You want the success, but you don't want the effort, the hard work to get there. And so the hardest part is if you don't want it as bad as I want it or more, it won't work. And when we want it more than you do, it's a failure because now you're not hitting the expectations that needs to happen for success. And most people don't understand how hard it is to overcome. And so this is probably when we— if you have that fire in you and you know you have that fire and you're ready to do whatever it takes, I'm your partner, I'm your master, and I will ensure your success and profitability. But if you don't, if you're not willing to, to, to bleed, sweat, cry at night, be beaten, be broke down, but get right up the next morning, then this won't work. So my ultimate goal is to transform lives. To whatever level that needs to be. Because I might, you might only want to be at this level and that's success to you, but you're down here. And if I can get you there, that's wonderful. And then you can then pass that on to others. So my ultimate goal is generational legacy, is that the lives that we impact today transform into multiple lives tomorrow, meaning that they said, this person reached out to me. And because that person reached out to me, because Toby reached out to me and he lifted me up, he inspired me, I now have got that fire and I'm passing that on to everybody else. And we— our ultimate goal is not just to make you successful, but to make you understand how you became successful and that you can teach, that you want to teach it to others. If I only make you successful, then the generational legacy dies. But if I can show you and inspire you and, and, and show you the value of helping others, then I've done my job.
