565: How to Take the Fear Out of Investing in New (or Bigger) Deals w/Bestselling Author Kindra Hall

This is the BiggerPockets podcast show 565.

Maybe you would say, I'm never buying a house on a corner ever again. And like you said, maybe you're like, I'm done, I'm out. I can't do this anymore. This is too. So keeping those stories in check, they happen to the best of us. They probably even happen right now. Even with all of your experience, those negative stories are going to be creeping in and it is up to you to keep them in check.

What's going on, everyone? It is David Green, your host of the Bigger Pockets podcast, the show where you learn how to harness the power of real estate to live life on your terms. Whether you dream of quitting your 9 to 5 wanting to retire early or just want a backup plan, you're in the right place. We help you do this by bringing on other successful investors that have found financial freedom through real estate so you can learn from what they did, help avoid their mistakes, and then at times gain the mindset of what successful people have. And in today's episode, we are speaking with best selling author Kendra hall, who is an expert on the stories that we tell ourselves. She's also real estate investor. So we get some really good information about how people sabotage their success as well as how to tell yourself the right kind of story to find success. And here with me today is my good friend and co host, Rob Robilt Abasolo. Rob, what's going on?

How you doing, man? I'm so excited to get into today's episode because I think Kendra really brings a different approach to real estate investing. Like, a lot of us get so wrapped up in numbers and nuts and bolts and details, but she really kind of helps open up a different way of thinking, I think, when you're wanting to get started in the game.

Yeah. When we were talking to her, I started to kind of conceptualize, like, well, how is this actually tactically applicable? And I started thinking about how so many investors just live in a spreadsheet and they let the spreadsheet make the decision, and so they try to move forward based on what the numbers are telling them in the spreadsheet. But then when it comes time to pulling the trigger and actually moving forward, there's fear, there's apprehension, there's doubt, and. And they never do it. And Kendra has sort of shifted away from the spreadsheet and into what's going on between your ears. What's making you take action or not take action? How are you actually setting yourself up for failure? In certain ways. And so this is a really impactful episode. I feel like for anybody who's listening, who either wants to get started or maybe who's already started and is looking to take the next step.

A hundred percent, man. I think spreadsheets are very useful, you know, tactic, obviously, for analyzing and everything like that. But today was a really good way to understand that the inner voice in your head that stops you from getting into that deal can be tamed and can be trained to help you think a little bit more positively about just jumping in and making it work.

I like that. How to tame and train your own mind.

With Rob, I just, like, came up with that.

Like, yeah, yeah, that's very Brandon Turner esque. Making something that rhymes or creating an acronym on the spot. Very good. So in today's show, you want to pay attention to a few things that will really help you on your journey. The first would be how the stories you tell yourself affect the way that you pursue your own goals. We also get into how Kendra took action when others did it because she told her yourself a different story than other people were telling themselves. And maybe most importantly, the four steps to recognizing the story you're telling yourself and then how to change that story so that it's something that would fit. Kendra's books are very good. She actually has a recommendation from Seth Godin on her book stories that stick. And he says, whatever you do, wherever you are in your career, this is the book to read right now. That's a pretty compelling endorsement. So make sure that you stick around and listen to the show because there's some very good content here.

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Rob, anything you want to say before we bring in Kendra?

Hey, you know, I'm just honored to be here as always. Actually, something just occurred to me, Dave. Has anyone ever dubbed you Sir Bur? Because I feel like that is. That's a great nickname for you.

I love it. This makes me feel like Brandon's here. No, I've never heard Sir Bur, but that's actually very funny.

I'm going to get you a like a family crest for the wall behind you.

It'll be full of like frozen emblems of like coldness for Burr. I like it.

Which is very topical because we do get into frozen.

That is a good point.

End of today's episode.

So make sure you listen all the way to the end so you can hear exactly how this will come full circle.

Let's do it, man. Okay, well, let's bring in Kendra.

All right, Ms. Kendra Hall. Welcome to the Bigger Pockets podcast.

I am so happy to be here. David, Rob, thanks for having me.

Yeah. So are we now? Rumor on the street is your husband is actually a really big fan of the podcast and we should give him a little shout out before we get started.

You should. He's definitely in the other room right now listening to everywhere. He might have his ear up against the door right now. But that is Mr. Michael Hall. Huge, huge fan.

That's awesome. We love when we get fans.

I think he's more nervous. He was definitely more nervous than I was. Very nervous for me. He, like, kept coming in this morning as I was, like, getting my thoughts together. He's like, oh, make sure you include, like, you need to leave. You're making me very. This is very stressful for me.

So he was like, hey, I've prepared some jokes.

I know he actually did. He was like, oh, say this. And I'm like, I don't know that the terms. Like, he was going to print out a glossary for me. It was. We'll talk about that after we're done recording.

Well, we're going to make sure we do them proud. Now, I understand the two of you are actually real estate investors yourself, and you've written a couple books. Can you give us a brief background on your history as an author? And then let's jump into how you guys buy your first investment. I know you have kind of a funny story about that.

Yeah, well, my background is my entire expertise, my study. My field of work is in the power of stories. The stories that we tell outwardly as we grow brands and businesses, for sales, for marketing, and the stories that we tell ourselves inwardly. The stories that are on repeat in our minds all the time, really dictating the way that our life shapes out. So I write books, I talk on podcasts, I speak sometimes at live events, sometimes from my bedroom, as the case has been recently, all about the power of storytelling and in terms of investing. So my husband, Michael, has been interested in real estate since as long as he was allowed to have access to. He'd been saving from his paper route. Like, he's one of those guys that saves the money from his childhood paper route. And so investing was always something that he wanted to do. He had a property before we met. I bought a house. Gosh. I signed the paperwork the day before our wedding and it was. Gosh. That would have been in 2009. But our first investment together was shortly after that. As a matter of fact, very shortly after that, I was at a happy hour at a girlfriend's house. She had just moved in. It was a really hot and up and coming neighborhood. This is in 2009, in Phoenix. Everything was hot and up and coming. And I was at her house. He was back at our place. We were just visiting. And my girlfriend said, hey, there's a really great house across the street from us that's going to be going up for sale. And again, it was hot. If you had any insider information, it was a really big deal. Kind of similar to where we are right now. The numbers were a lot lower 10 years ago, but similar feel. I never thought I'd say that, but here we are. And so me and my two girlfriends, like left her house, walked across the street. We're appearing in the window. She's like, no, I know the neighbors. Like they're going to sell that house. And we came back to her house. I called our agent. We had, you know, just wrapped up a deal on a different one. Made the. Oh, first. No, no, no, first I called Michael. That's what happened. I called Michael, hey, there's a great house available. But he didn't pick up. And again, this is a hot market. I called him again. He didn't pick up. So I called our agent and said, please put in this offer. And I listed the offer exactly how I wanted. I was feeling pretty cool because we just finished a house, you know, we had just bought a house. She put in the offer. Michael finally called me back. He was in the shower. He takes very long showers. And I said, oh, I was just calling because I put on the house. And he was shocked. I told him what the offer was. He said, that's actually pretty good. We eventually got the house and. And that was the beginning of our career of investing together, if you could call it that. Yeah.

Okay, so you, you were getting married and around that time, the day before you actually were going to get married, you go to a closing. I got to imagine that was like somewhat crazy, right, to deal with the whole like extravaganza plus closing.

Yeah, it was in the house that we bought. It was something with. Now I'm going to get my. He will fact check me afterwards. But it had something to do with an $8,000 tax credit. If you were a first time home buyer. Does that Sound familiar? From 2009?

It does.

President Obama put that in places like $8,500. Yep.

Yeah. Okay, so 8,500. Hey, I get 500 bucks back or something. That's. I thought it was eight. And so I was still a single woman. Right. I'd never bought a house before. So we found this house. We were like, hey, we gotta buy it, but we have to sign the papers before, before we get married because I won't be a single woman anymore. And so the house was in Phoenix. We got married in California. We had a doc presenter come to my in law's house. We're sitting there like people are running, getting the wedding dresses, flowers are coming in and out, and I'm sitting at the dining room table signing documents for a house that's, you know, we, we like a little chaos in our lives. Who doesn't?

Yeah.

Pretty low key wedding, I would say, right?

Yes.

So I'm kind of curious, like, we're like, hey, Michael, I put an offer on this house. Was this like a surprising thing or are you one to just kind of put offers in houses, you know, when the right opportunity pops up? How did he react to that?

I, in our relationship have always been the crazy idea one, like, hey, let's just, let's do this, let's go with this. So I don't think it was necessarily surprised because that one of my, one of my positive stories that I hold true as we're talking about the stories we tell ourselves is that things will work out for me. I just kind of have this sort of like, things will work out for me. So why not put in an offer on the house? I know that there's multiple steps in which they could reject me. I can reject them. Right. Michael, on the other side was dealing with a lot more limiting belief stories and the things that you're supposed to do and what is risky and what you should do and what you shouldn't do. So the clash of those two things at once, I think it probably took him aback when he realized that I had done it. But overall it has served us very well. And it's helped him, I think, overcome some of those limiting beliefs and push him forward into making decisions that have served us and our family very well.

So was that like a. That was one of the first kind of purchases in your overall portfolio?

Yeah. Well, no, it wasn't. He had a first one which was a condo. And we can talk about the condo a little bit later. But that was a condo in Scottsdale, Arizona at about that time was as far underwater it could have discovered new sea creatures at that point. So that was, it wasn't a success from the get go, but that was one of the first things we did together.

Yeah. So can you give us a little bit of the, the kind of the nitty gritty financials on those deals because I'm a really big fan of the mentality of like, let's get the offer in. We've got many opportunities to walk away from this if it doesn't work out. You ended up closing on this house and kind of moving forward with it. So can you give us a little Bit of like the top level of like how that deal ended up panning out.

You know what I remember about that deal panning out or not panning out, the house across the street from my girlfriend's house is we had put in an offer and we heard back from the family that was selling the house that they already had an offer in, and they were going to honor that offer because it was in first and whether or not ours was better, it really didn't matter. And it was one of my first experiences of the heartbreak of putting in an offer and it not going through. Especially once you've decided that you love the place, you can you start creating the story of what your life will look like in that house. I wasn't looking at it as an investor. It took me a while before I started thinking about these things as an investor. And it was a lot of like, oh, we, we lost it. We tried to put more money down, but we only had so much cash that we could put. And then I remember we actually worked together. We were working together at the time. I was sitting in my office, the deal was done, it was over, and I was on a conference call and he walked around the corner and was holding a little sign that said, we got the house. And apparently the first offer, it had fallen through. They were, you know, they went through all of their rights to cancel it, and we're kind of dragging their feet. And so then our offer came together. Now, as far as the nuts and bolts of the financials that I can't remember, it would have been, yeah, it was like 2009, but it was the beginning of the entire emotional rollercoaster of what it is to buy a home.

So that's a good segue into sort of your area of expertise, which, like you mentioned earlier, is the stories that we tell ourselves. At this stage in your investing career, were you already sort of looking at the world from that lens or was this something that came up later?

This was something I hadn't realized, actually, David, to be honest, that we weren't seeing these properties as stories at that point. We weren't necessarily aware of the stories that we were telling ourselves that were serving us, nor were we aware of the stories we were telling ourselves that were holding us back. But now, looking back on our 12 plus years of investing, I realized that the single greatest thing that has happened to us is our ability to crush those hesitations, those things that you tell yourself, I can't do this, or why you can't or why you shouldn't. You Know anyone who has a dream of investing and is listening to this podcast and is wondering, how do I even take the first step? The first step really is recognizing that you have these stories holding you back. And as I look back on our 12 years, our success in it has accelerated only because we have shrunk the amount of time that we spend stuck in these limiting beliefs. We've gotten really good at telling ourselves the stories and reminding ourselves of the things that have gotten us to where we are so that we have the faith in ourselves to take the next step. So at the time, no, now definitely that's what was going on.

Would you mind sharing what it was that happened in your life that caused you to be aware of this aspect of telling ourselves story and maybe how much control that has over the outcome we end up getting?

Yeah, I mean, I started this passion for storytelling in general at a very young age. I told my first story when I was 11. It was an assignment for fifth grade. I had to go tell a story to a room full of third graders. And I remember, I remember exactly what the classroom looked like. I remember the teacher sitting in the back of the room. I remember the third graders bouncing off the walls. And I remember putting the book down and just telling the story and holding these third graders in the palm of my hand and realizing that, hold on a second, like, is this. Is nobody else realizing what's happening here? All I'm doing is telling a story. And I could get these kids to do anything that I wanted them to. So my interest in stories started there. And throughout my lifetime, I, I was telling stories, I was studying stories, I was practicing stories. My, my research is on storytelling in organizational culture. I worked in sales and marketing and was recognizing, even in real estate, like, the difference telling a story can make in having a house sell or getting a buyer to say yes to you if you're an agent. It's all nothing. There's nothing more storied than the homes that we live in or the homes that we buy and sell. And so my first book actually was about that science and skill of outward storytelling and how you can use stories in your sales, marketing, et cetera, to capture an audience's attention, to influence their behaviors. Now, what's interesting, and I will say that I was planning to keep developing that. I mean, I even had, I was like, oh, I should write a book about stories and real estate because it's such a 360 experience, right? There's so many interested parties, so much story happens there. But then as A part of my work. I do a lot of keynote speaking, and so I'll speak on stages. I can see the audience there in front of me. And I was going through various transitions in my career, my personal life at this point. You know, I was at the top of my professional game, traveling, speaking 75 times a year. But we also. I was a mother. I had young kids at home. So there was. I felt this conflict about what counts as being successful. Can I be both a business owner and be a mother and be successful at both? And the stories I was telling myself about that in particular were holding me back or at least siphoning off the joy. And anytime I mentioned in a keynote about storytelling in business the importance of the stories you tell yourself, that is what the audience would stop me for afterwards. That's what they wanted to share their stories about. And so from that interest, I started to backtrack and realized that so many of my decisions, personal and professional, were focused on the stories that I told myself. So I dove into that research, and here we are today.

So you have four steps to changing your story. Do you mind going over those with us?

Yeah, I think that that was a really important part of this whole process is. I don't want to just say, like, hey, you can change your life by choosing better stories. You know, the next question is how? And that's why people tune in here too, right? They. They want to hear that they can be successful. They also want to hear exactly how. So there are four steps on this path, but the first step is to catch these automatic stories that we have in the act. And I feel like if it's okay, we pause there even just for a second, because a lot of times we don't consider. We don't even realize the fact that we are telling ourselves stories all day, every day. They are automatic, and we don't even know it's happening. It's as automated as the breath in our lungs, the blood in our veins, the stories in our head. And depending on how these stories are play out, they can allow us to take action towards the success we desire or hold us back. So the first step in the methodology is to pause and catch these oftentimes limiting stories in the act so that we can address them. The second step then is to analyze it, like, where is this coming from? Why is it here? And probably most importantly, like, is it true and does it serve me? The third step then is really simply, if the answer is no, this story isn't getting me where I want to go, I Need to choose to tell myself better stories that do, and then finally to install those chosen stories so that they become the automation instead of the negative stories that your brain often prefers.

Now, I'm curious. It seems like someone could take this information and manipulate themselves into telling themselves a story that they want to be true, even if it's not true. Like it could actually create delusions of grandeur. Is this something that people should be worried about or does that not happen?

Well, I mean, you can, any storytelling can be twisted to serve a delusion. I mean, we can take a look at Theranos. I mean, that is an ultimate storytelling example. Right. However, if you know where you want to go. Right. So, for example, my husband and I knew that we wanted a successful real estate portfolio. We really had a divide and conquer plan in our lives. I was going to handle the upfront, you know, revenue, the generation of money with speaking and keynotes or books and keynotes. He is managing the long term game with our real estate investing. We're very clear that that's something we wanted to do. However, being clear about it and believing that it's possible, we all have those doubts, we all have those inner thoughts that keep us from moving forward. And so, yeah, is there a chance that we would have gone down this path and it been a disaster and we both work at Best Buy for the rest of our lives or what? Fine. Yes, of course. But if that's what we really want, then why not tell ourselves the stories to at least play it all the way out?

Yeah. So I just, I wanted to ask because we've kind of talked about it from the conceptual level and you know, I think it's fair to say that you know a thing or two about stories. Right? And we've got our four elements of the stories. We have Catch, analyze, choose, and install. Now, what I'd love for you to do, if you can, if you have a story that can maybe anchor some of these elements down for the, for the listeners at home, you know, that maybe can help us understand each one a little bit more on the conceptual level, starting with Catch.

Yeah, happy to. And actually, as we go through each of the four steps, I have a house, an investment that illustrates each one of them and how each one of these four steps played out. So the first one is Catch, as I mentioned, it's to stop the automation and become aware of the possibly limiting stories that are holding you back. So I want to take you to the end of 2010, 2011. Again, we are in Phoenix, Arizona, and there is a, I mean, I kind of feel like there's always a lot going on in Phoenix, Arizona when it comes to real estate. I used to say the real estate agent was the state bird of, of Arizona. You couldn't throw a stone without someone being involved in real estate, including ourselves. And so my husband had this suspicion that now is the time, like now is the time to really start picking up some properties, making a difference, a long term plan. However, he had some stories playing in the back of his mind. One was from a family member who said one night at a dinner, which we don't even see these family members that often, but Michael could tell you exactly where he was when he heard this comment. One of the family members said, oh man, you know that, that foreclosure stuff, that is risky business. You just never know. I wouldn't touch that with a ten foot pole. That is scary stuff. That one story right there from a guy who doesn't even do real estate investing. He's like, oh, okay. So he gathers that that's a story that's in Michael's, in the back of his psyche. Then there's also this story that you hear so many people saying, other financial experts, and it's not necessarily untrue, but it's kind of this dogma of whatever you do, do not touch your 401k. Do not mess with your investment or your retirement. Don't go there. Nothing is worth it. Well, we had this healthy 401 would serve us really well if we were to parlay that into real estate. But oh, I can't do it. I don't have the cash. Yes, I have the cash in the 401k, but I can't touch the 401k. And there was another story. I mean, there were several stories, but here are just a few of them that are again, keep in mind, playing in his head. He doesn't even realize it's there. They're just in the back of his mind. One of them is, you have a baby on the way. Yes, I was pregnant. I had just quit my job and because I was going to pursue a path as a professional storyteller, which we had no idea what that was. But we fixed our family finances so that I could pursue this passion. And we found out a week after I quit my job that I was pregnant. And so here he's got a wife at home, no income, pregnant, and he has this itch to buy a foreclosure because in fact there was a foreclosure. There were several of them. One of them was just down the street a little bit. And it was 1400 square feet for $47,500. I'll say that again. 1400 square feet for $47,000. And he was like, what? I can't. All these stories were playing, but he had this, like, wait, what if this. What? But I can't imagine. You can't rebuild this house from the ground up for less than that. He was really struggling with taking action, the action he knew he should take. And so it was in some of our conversations that we paused that automation, and he was able to. To realize that, yeah, he had his relative story playing in his mind. He had all the stories of the financial advisors, but what retirement is supposed to look like. He had the social story of having a baby on the way. We decided to pause all those stories. We broke open our 401ks. We made the cash offer, bought the house, and he renovated it. He rented it for a while, was able to sell it several years later, and Parlay made. Oh, man, he's gonna be mad at me that I don't know how much he made. It was a good amount of money, and we parlayed that into another project. But that right there is catching those stories, all these beliefs that he had of why he couldn't do it. And once you identify those, now you've got a place where you can move forward.

It feels like it's pretty common for. I mean, for the bad stories to be a little bit stickier than the good stories when you're starting out. Because for me, when I'm teaching people how to, like, for example, Airbnb, I tell people that I do Airbnb, and I've got a pretty big portfolio doing that. And everyone is very quick to say, oh, well, you know, what about the housing crash? Or what about all the big parties that happen every day? And I'm like, that's never happened to me. I know someone who's done it. But I think that just comes with experience and recognizing that.

Yeah.

Do the bad stories out there exist? Sure. But with a little bit more experience, I think it makes total sense that you can start to cancel out the bad story, the bad inner monologue in your head that stops you from making an investment.

Well, and to know that a. Our brains are programmed to collect and focus on the negative stories because our brain is programmed to keep us safe. I mean, it's no wonder that, you know, he's got his first child on the way, and his brain is gonna be like, don't do anything that is gonna put you out in the your brain is as people around you. We love telling negative stories so of course people are going to tell those negative stories more often. So it's kind of this combination of two wrongs make it make it worse.

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So what about the second stage in analyzing? I understand you also have a real estate story that goes along with that.

Yeah, so this goes back to that condo that I told you about. So the analyze phase. Once you realize that you've got some stories at play, these stories that are maybe holding you back, the next step is to take a closer look at them, to figure out where they came from, to figure out why they're there and ultimately if they're true or not. And do these stories serve you in the ultimate goal that you're seeking? So I had mentioned that Michael had a condo which for a long time in our lives was a four letter word, even though it is five letters essentially. He bought the condo in 2005 in Scottsdale, Arizona. And it was like super cool, open concept. He was just a single guy living it up. He painted the walls maroon, got a matching maroon couch at Costco. So it was, he was living the life. And then it was 2007, 2008, there was the crash, the value cut in half and the HOA went up like 200 bucks a month. And this sustained for an extended period of time. It was costing us three grand a month and the most we could get for rent was 1500. So again, just like this open wound that on a monthly basis we were just. Blood was gushing out of our financial accounts, right? And you have something like that happen and you just think there is nothing you can do about it. You're so far underwater that you can't see the light of day. And so we just did, we just wrote the, you know, we just bled out the money and assumed that this is just how it was going to go. And there were a lot of those stories around us at that time, right? It was, it was just chaos. It was mayhem. People were, it was a disaster. So we were listening to those stories and then one New Year's Eve, I'll never forget, we were talking about our goals because that's something that we love to do on New Year's Eve. Everybody else goes out and gets drunk, we get Drunk at home and look at our goals. So it's great. And. But we decided to take a closer look at this condo and the stories and ask ourselves, well, is it really true? Are we destined to bleed money indefinitely until the market corrects or, or I don't know what else. And by taking a closer look at that story that just seemed so definite, is it true? Led us to ask ourselves, well, are there other options? Like is there a way we could make this a one time pain point instead of a monthly pain point? And for us, I should say, because we had future real estate investment goals, foreclosure really wasn't an option. We just didn't see it as an option for us. We couldn't walk away. We wanted to maintain a clean record. And so at that time, rates were coming down a little bit, we had a little bit of cash. And so we decided that maybe the two of those things could come together. We put in the cash, we had the rates work on our side. We were able to keep the condo. We are now break even. It's break even. We're not bleeding and we can carry that thing until the end of time. Which I don't think we would have made those decisions. I know we wouldn't have if we hadn't just stopped and analyzed what the situation and the stories really were.

Awesome. So can you give us an example of kind of moving in through this? Four elements going to choose because as I understand it, this is kind of around the time where you considered actually building a house instead of acquiring a house for the first time.

So now we're in the present day and since this time we've bought homes. We had that first one, that was the happy hour house. Right. It is now long term rented. We've had renters in there for a long time. We actually left that house, we lived in it for a while, moved to a different house, which is that we bought and, and it is now long term rented. We moved to. We used the house from that cash buy. Remember I said we sold it. We used that cash to buy this pristine house on a golf course that we remodeled. And then on a whim, we decided to move to New York City. So we rented out the house on the golf course. Like there's been a lot of things that have happened over time. And of course you start to think like, what can I do next? And the bug in Michael's ear right now is I want to build a house. I want to build a house. I've never built a house. I've remodeled homes, I've fixed them up. I've been kind of the general contractor to not necessarily have the flip in mind, but be able to have it take a dilapidated property and either live in it ourselves or rent it out to someone else. I've never built a house. Now, of course, you start thinking about that. The old stories come up. You've never done this before. Like, who do you think you are? Think of all the problems that could happen. And it's in those moments that it's really important that you start choosing what stories you tell yourself. Now, David, this is where that idea of delusion can come in, right? Like, just start telling yourself fantastical stories. But what I recommend is to rely on the stories from your past. And one of the strategies is to reroute. So true. Michael's never built a house before, but we have made real estate moves for the first time. Like, there was a time where he never bought a house for cash. There was a time where he never bought a house from an opposite side of the country. We've done things we've never done before, and we've figured it out. So rerouting some of those experiences can help build up the belief that, all right, maybe the same is true for this opportunity. Maybe I really could do it. There's another strategy, which is to research, which is to look for other people, which is one of the reasons that this podcast is so great, who have done it. We have a friend who is a designer all the way to a builder. That's his business model. He buys the lot, he designs the home, he builds the home, he sells the home. Like, that's his job. And so Michael, seeing that as a success from someone else, he can use that story to at least bolster the belief that maybe he, too, could do it. And then finally, one of the other options for choosing a better story is simply to write one for yourself and, like, prepare yourself. Create the story you'll tell yourself if it all falls apart. So we're sitting here. This was actually just this New Year's Eve when we were like, no, this is something we're going to pursue this year, 2022, let's try to build a house. And the question comes up, well, what if it fails? And we decided that, you know, if it fails, yes, we will lose, but that's the price of the education. Like, he would pay more than we could lose on a MBA at Columbia, right? So being ready with the story, all of those things put together, we're ready to start pursuing that in A way that we probably wouldn't have if we hadn't been applying this self storytelling approach 100%.

I mean, I feel that. And first of all, let me just say that you guys have to build a house. I think you can do it. I know you can do it.

I.

When I was getting started in real estate, one of my very first deals, I mean, my biggest project as someone who's like in this space now was I moved to LA from Kansas City, where the cost of living was a lot more than Kansas City, about four times more. We bought this house and I wanted to build a tiny house in my backyard. And my wife was like, like, do you know how to do that? And I was like, no. But I. But you know, it's like two by fours and plywood. How hard could it be? And it was very hard. I learned a lot through the process though. And I had, you know, like breakers in the electrical panel blow up in my face, you know, water leaks and just a bunch of different things that I'm really glad for me, I think it's really important to kind of embrace all the mistakes and all the bumps and bruises along the way, because at the end of the day, I think it makes for a better story. And, you know, I've kind of gone on from there to. We picked up on a whim and moved to Gatlinburg, Tennessee to build a tiny house village out there. And I built a tiny house in Joshua Tree. And every single project that I've ever taken on, I had no idea how to do that. So I think it's actually really quite exciting to take on a project that you've never done before or like a new construction. Because at the end of the day, the worst that can go wrong is you learn a really good lesson. I think a very expensive lesson.

They can be expensive, and that is certainly the case. But even if you're playing a long.

Like that is, again, that's the expense of the education and each one of those setbacks, each one of those things that blows up in your face, hopefully not literally, though that does happen, becomes then another story that you can tell yourself after you're on the other side of it. Like, listen, if I can handle this thing blowing up, I can handle whatever unknowns there are ahead of me.

Absolutely. I mean, I think it's the long game. Real estate is the long game. Very rarely do I meet someone who's been in the industry for 30 years, 30 years, who absolutely hates their job. Right. Because they've seen it all and at the end of the day, it's something that you can laugh at. Granted, not everything is funny, but for the most part, when I'm talking to a pretty seasoned vet, if I come to them with a problem that I'm having, they're always like, yes, I remember back in 73 when that happened to me. And it's always just remembering that at the end of the day, 30 years from now, all the different mishaps that you might have had on your journey really just end up making you a much, much better, stronger investor in the long run.

Yeah, I think if you tell yourself the right story, though, there's a lot of investors that have something go wrong. And then, you know, I tell the story in the podcast of this crazy mindset that I had. The second house that I bought, it was on a corner, and some drunk driver missed the turn, drove over the front lawn and crashed into the fence and went into the backyard of the tenant's house. And when my property manager called to tell me about it, I started blaming myself. I was like, what an idiot. Why would you buy a house on a corner? You should have known that something like this would happen. Like, only an idiot investor would ever buy a house in a corner. And I started thinking like, I just want to sell these houses, be done with it. I don't want to do this anymore. And in the middle of that, I thought, like, what are you saying? You're actually going to blame yourself because there's a house on the corner? Every, like all these corner houses, they don't have that happen. Like, you just need to have lower expectations for what you can control and what you can't control. And instead of being mad at myself because I didn't get, like, the right insurance to replace a fence if some drunk driver went into it, I just said, okay, I'm going to lose a little bit of money this month. And then, you know, a couple months later, I realized the house had appreciated $100,000 and that $1500 fence really wasn't. But it was the first moment that I recognized my mind will just go on these ridiculous tangents, telling myself all kinds of crazy stories that are not rooted in reality at all.

Yep, that is a perfect example of what that is. And if you aren't paying attention to that, maybe you would say, I'm never buying a house on a corner ever again. And like you said, maybe you're like, I'm done. I'm out. I can't do this any. This is too. So keeping those stories in check. They happen to the best of us. They probably even happen right now. Even with all of your experience, those negative stories are going to be creeping in and it is up to you to keep them in check.

Yeah, I see this all the time with the clients that we're helping on my real estate team, when they're buying a house and like, one thing goes unaccording to plan so rates go up a little bit because they took too long to get their paperwork turned in. Or they wanted a house, but they needed to ask like seven people what those people thought. By the time they came back, the house was gone. And what we're looking at is like, we tried to talk to you about getting your criteria lined up before we got into the situation. Now I hope you understand why that's important. Let's adjust and move forward. And you know what they say? You know what? This is just God's way of telling me that I shouldn't be buying this house. Right. I get that one all the time. You know, fate just didn't want me to invest in real estate because it didn't work out.

Yeah. And that is. I mean, that's a story of delusion too. So that can split one of two ways. Maybe they didn't really want it, and so that's an easy out. Fine, Take the exit ramp and go on your merry way. Or two, if this is something that they really want, then that is. That's a really sad way to let it go. And actually one of the things instead of, oh, this is fate telling me this, one of the more useful, I think, perspective is to say, well, look at this middle of the story. Like, this is. The middle of the story is messy. It's confusing, it doesn't make sense. The middles of stories are where things go wrong. But if what you really want now, again, if you don't want to be a real estate investor, if you're just doing it because, and make no mistake, to do anything to write a book, you have to really want to write a book. Like, there is nothing easy about the entire process. You have to really, really want it. Because it all comes with so much crap. It really does. And so if it is something that you really want, but you're stuck in one of those setbacks and you have, you feel the old stories coming in, whatever it is, to pause and say, oh, this is an interesting middle of the story. I can't wait to see what happens next.

Very cool. Now, have we got into the fourth element yet? The install. Okay, let's hear about that story.

The resolution.

The resolution. And really the installation is kind of like the insulation. This is where we reinforce where we're changing that automation so that we take back control of it. And you do have to be an active participant in doing this at first. Soon it will become the automation. Your limiting beliefs are going to pop up from time to time. That's the way our brain is programmed. But this is also something that we. So a story for that is still for us, a story that hasn't happened yet. In addition to wanting to build a house, we have the other interest in buying real estate in New York City. So right now, we live in New York City. We rent in New York City. And you know, there are so many stories about why you shouldn't do it. The yields are so low, there's so much red tape. It's really just a money pit. Like, these stories are everywhere. Right. However, and it could end up that, like we were just saying about the exit ramp, it ends up being a goal that really wasn't that we want to exit. We're like, ah, no, we don't want it that badly. We'd instead rather do this or that. However, now, knowing what we know, having been through all these experiences, we already know the storytelling process. And so we've already gone through catching it. We've analyzed what our hesitations are. We've chosen better stories. We have a lot to choose from. And now it's installing them, carefully curating the stories that we're telling ourselves. Anytime he starts looking online at properties that are available, we tell ourselves the stories of the things we haven't done before. We tell ourselves the stories of people we know who have successfully bought real estate in New York City. It's one of the big reasons that he's such a fan of this podcast is taking in other stories of creative thinking and keeping your mind in that. That space because the rest of the world is gonna tell you no. It's gonna tell him no at this point, because these stories, like, they will dictate your actions. So you have to be very cognizant of which ones you're putting in. For example, he told me, he was like, remember when I used to always watch. So here's two different real estate approaches, right? You can listen to this podcast or he used to watch Homes on Homes. Did you ever. Do you know the show Homes on Homes? Right?

Yeah. He's a bald guy, a little bit shorter than me, not quite as good looking.

Not nearly.

Not quite.

Not quite, but close not nearly as handsome and. But basically what the entire show is is buying homes and they're complete disasters. And like, oh, the ceiling. And oh, the, like, it is a. Now it's for tv. But he would watch that show and want to invest. This was way back in the day and it still haunts him today. And think, oh, but all these things could go wrong. Well, hey, it was in Canada. Like at the time we were investing. When he was really watching it, we were investing in Phoenix. Like, the problems are not the same. Right? But carefully curating the stories and then retelling them to yourselves. The stories that get you to your goal versus the ones that don't. That's where we are right now.

Tell me about the Montauk example that sort of incorporates all this into one project.

So Montauk, I think really what Montauk is, is an example of. So of course the title of the book is choose youe Story, Change youe Life. I recognize that that is a bold title to suggest that you could change someone' but this Montauk investment really is an example of applying this method over and over and over again and how you can quickly move from a place, if you're stuck to a place of action to a place of prosperity. So it was March 2020. I'll remember those days. We have our real estate portfolio. It's very healthy. But a big chunk of our income, as I mentioned, like that's our retirement and our money, our liquidity is from me giving presentations to large audiences of people multiple times a month, sometimes multiple times a week. March 2020 was chaos in so many ways. But as a person whose job is to speak in front of large conferences, it got really ugly, really fast. Fast. Events were postponing, events were canceling. They were moving forward a year, in some cases two years. The liquidity was frightening. We had post its on our kitchen door of how much money we could spend like at the grocery store to pull it off. It was a dire situation and we realized real quick that while real estate investing is a great long term strategy, when you need cash. Cash. We were hurting. So we decided to sell that first house that I bought as a single woman. Remember that house? Yeah. So we sold that house. There was a ton of equity in that house. We'd had it for 12 years, so there was 10 years. There was equity there. So we had some cash. I also had a two book deal just signed at that point. So it looked like some really good income. These two things combined looked really attractive. Give to a bank and they were real. So this was. Right. We were able to then pull a HELOC on another one of our investment properties that had a lot of unused equity. And now we were on track. These were our defense moves, right? We had the cash to pay for rent, to buy the groceries, to do whatever we needed to do until whatever was going to happen with my business, which is the front end, which is the liquidity for us, until that sorted itself out. I would love to say that it has fully sorted itself out, but, you know, 2022 is just 2022. So here. So here we are, we're doing good. We're on the defense. Like. Like, we've. We've got our thing. And then all of a sudden, in late April, Michael looks at me and says, hey, do you remember that house? We looked at that in Montauk two years ago. So that Montauk is this little beach surfer town at the end of the Hamptons. You wouldn't call it a Hampton. I don't think it refers to itself as a Hampton. It's at the very end of the Hamptons epic surf break. And there was this shack talk about homes on homes. There was mold in the basement that was furry, like it looked like a wallpaper texturing. The mold was so thick, nobody was touching this house. It was such a disaster. They had it listed for one point in 2019. We offered 1.2 and they turned us down. We're like, all right, we went on with our lives. We had other things to do. But here we are, late April 2020. We have the cash. And usually what our stories would have done was say, we gotta play it safe. There's so much uncertainty. We don't know what's going on. Like, we have our cash, let's sit on it so we're safe. But we already know what those stories are. And we know that we don't wanna be defense people. We wanna be on the offense as often as possible. And the fact carefully monitor our stories puts us in a place that we're able to mentally at least get there. So we call the people back. The house is still available. We offer under a million dollars, ocean views like it's two blocks from the beach. And they took it.

Yay.

And so all I know, if you can believe it, so we got like an automatic discount. But we would not have have taken that chance, made that investment at that time, if it hadn't been for the practice of already being able to know what the negative stories were going to be and how to get Rid of them to move forward on something that we really wanted to try.

Wow. So that really is kind of like the full circle house. Right, because you said that you started with your, your house, the one across, you sold it and then that kind of ultimately all just snowballed into the Montauk beach house. Looking. Can you give us a little bit of context about kind of where you are in your portfolio? Like how much have you grown? Like what are your aspirations kind of moving forward is do you plan on expanding it pretty significantly here in 2022?

Yeah, we like doing the single family homes, so renting them for a while, maybe selling them, letting the equity grow. So I know that we have ready for this five doors in Arizona, one in Montauk, and depending on where we either build or if we, we decide to buy and renovate in the city, we'll go from there eventually. Some of those homes in Arizona are extremely under built at this point and with the way the market is going, we could, you know, that could be one of the builds and build those up and sell them. And it's the slow game. It's not the massive multi family, but for right now it's serving our desires well.

That's awesome. Yeah. I'm mostly single family myself and super jealous because I love Arizona. I think there's a lot of opportunity there. And just in the last year I've seen like a tremendous amount of growth.

I mean, it's insane. It's crazy.

And I think it's going to continue. So I would encourage you to buy in Arizona.

Just keep doing that.

All right, well, that was fantastic. We're going to move into the next segment of our show. It is the world famous famous four. All right. These are the same four questions we ask every guest on every episode. Your husband no doubt is very familiar with these.

These.

Yep.

Don't worry, none of them are very hard. Question number one, what is your favorite real estate related book?

The real estate related book that I have read is Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

Very nice.

Awesome.

I mean, it's classic, right? I remember see meeting him at a holiday party once and being like, oh my gosh, you're Rich Dad, Poor Dad. So yeah, it was embarrassing, but that was a good one.

It's classic for a reason.

It is.

Question number two, favorite business book.

I would say so most people maybe wouldn't think of this as a business book, but I believe that it is. And it is Big Magic by Liz Gilbert. It's more the creative side of business, but I believe there's a lot to it there of paying attention to the magic in it.

Awesome. Question three, what are some of your hobbies?

I need to get better at that. I would say a hobby is building Legos. I love Legos. That is one of the things that I enjoy a lot. And going to Broadway musicals when I can. I have a series secret desire to be in a Broadway musical. I will first have to learn how to sing, but from there, sky's the limit.

That's funny. Tell yourself the right story. I'm sure you'll be there.

Right?

Exactly. Who knows? Like I will. Uh huh. We'll see.

I think you could play what was the lead character in Frozen? Was it Elsa or Anna? I always mix those up.

Elsa. Elsa was the. Yeah, there was Elsa. They were kind of shared leads actually, which was controversial.

The one that had the magic that all the little girls wanted to be.

Oh, wicked.

No, she wasn't that. No, that was Frozen. It was Elsa.

Oh, did I not say Frozen?

Oh, you did say Frozen.

Okay, good. Yes, you could play a mean Elsa on Broadway. That's what I was.

Mean Elsa. I should. They just not like, not like an.

Angry Elsa, but like a very good Elsa is what I was trying to say.

Take that. I'm going to work on my. My upper range. She's a belter, that's for sure.

So if you listeners are not listening on YouTube, make sure you check out the show and you can see just how much Kendra resembles Elsa from first Frozen. All right, question number four. Kendra, in your opinion, what sets apart successful investors from those who give up, never get started or fail?

Oh, well, that's easy. It's that what sets them apart are the stories they're telling themselves. Come on. That answer, right?

Come on. That was a gimme, right?

All you had to do is slam it.

It really was. It really was. I'm gonna say the stories they tell themselves. No, but again, back to that middle. I think that's what it is, is if even if you dip your toe in the water. Water, there are going to be setbacks. There are going to be things that go wrong. Actually, just today, Michael was talking to a guy that he found on Craigslist because there was a ton of rain. We just had to put a new sewer pipe or something in the Montauk house. The guys who did it didn't level it out right. We had water pouring into the basement that wasn't moldy anymore because we fixed that, but now it was going to be moldy. So he's on the Phone with a guy from Craigslist. The rain's coming in. They're leveling it out. It's going to be a mess on some days, but as long as you can be like, well, this is going to be a good story to tell someday. That's the difference between the successful ones.

And the not awesome. And last question and maybe the most important. Kendra, can you tell us exactly where people can find out more about you?

Yeah. Kendrahall.com is my website. K I N D R A H A L L. Of course, my books are available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, anywhere books are sold. And I am on LinkedIn, Twitter. I spend the most time personally, though, on Instagram at Kendra Hall.

That is awesome. So Instagram at Kendra Hall. Rob, where can people find you?

They can find me on the YouTubes at. Rob built Instagram. Rob built Tik Tok. Rob build toe. Because someone took. Rob build any of those you guys can.

Right on. And I am David Green, 24 on all the social media. Kendra, I'm going to give you the last word. Anything you want to share with our audience before we get out of here?

No, I think it's really. I remember being at the very beginning of it and how scary it was. And, yeah, there are a lot of things that would keep you from pursuing this. If you've been listening to the podcast, if this is the first time, if you've been listening to it for a long time, I would say, go ahead, choose the right story, take the first step and we'll be cheering for you.

Awesome. Well, thank you very much for your time. Rob, anything you want to say?

No, thank you. That was very impactful. I think you have given, given the listeners an opportunity to think very differently how to approach real estate investing. So thanks for your time. We appreciate it.

Nikhindra, what was your husband's name?

Michael Hall. The great Michael.

Thank you for being a great Bigger Pockets fan, supporter and listener.

Is he there? Is he still kind of on the other side with the glass?

Well, yeah, he had to go. He had to go get the kids from school. So now I think he's back, though, at least I hope he went to get the kids from school. It's one never knows.

Hopefully somebody is at least. Right. I know.

I hope so.

All right, well, thank you very much for your time. This is David Green for Rob. Rob ILT Abasolo signing off.

Thank you all for listening to the BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast. Make sure you get all our new episodes by subscribing on YouTube. Apple, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Our new episodes come out Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I'm the host and executive producer of the show, Dave Meyer. The show is produced by Ian K. Copywriting is by Calico, content and editing is by Exodus Media. If you'd like to learn more about real estate investing or to sign up for our free newsletter, please visit www.biggerpockets.com. the content of this podcast is for informational purposes only. All host and participant opinions are their own. Investment in any asset, real estate included, involves risk, so use your best judgment and consult with qualified advisors before investing. You should only risk capital you can afford to lose, and remember, past performance is not indicative of future results. BiggerPockets, LLC disclaims all liability for direct, indirect, consequential, or other damages arising from a reliance on information presented in this podcast.