The Secret Every Great Entrepreneur Knows About Suffering

Welcome back to the Hannah Hammond show. I am not Hannah Hammond, but we have Hannah Hammond and we finally have an opportunity for you to hear her story, her upbringing and a lot of practical business and investing advice from one of the best that I know. So Hannah, welcome to your own show.

Thanks. Josiah, you're the, the man. Well, and him. But you guys are the men behind all this stuff. So it's super exciting. And a year and a half ago I was terrified of being on camera and now here I am. I feel like I'm on camera all the time. So that's crazy proof you can just push your to do in this life.

Yeah, 100%. Why was it that you were so afraid of being on camera? Was it just like the stage fright.

Kind of aspect of it is much more complicated than that. I really was a very deeply insecure person growing up and you know, we didn't have a lot of money and my parents worked really hard to, to survive and to try to give us a good life. And my oldest brother struggled a lot just with addiction issues and anger issues and he wasn't exactly the nicest person to me. And we didn't also have the best health growing up. Just eating a lot of low income type food and you know, box cereal and ramen or donuts or whatever it was we were eating. So I was always like a chubby kid growing up and he would always make fun of me and his friends would make fun of me for being chubby and throw me to the floor and say tip a cow and grab my, you know, my, my fat rolls and squeeze them and my cheeks and squeeze them. So I always thought I was just like a really ugly, unworthy fat kid. And I was very insecure about being on camera and I always thought like my nose was too big and I had a sleepy eye and my hair was bad and my teeth were buck teeth because that's what they would tell me too. And so I just thought I was hideous. And any photo I would just break down because they, you know, he would use the photos to make fun of me and be like, look at you in this photo and whatever. So I was terrified of ever being on stage, ever being on camera. I mean, for the most, the majority of my life, there's not a single photo of me anywhere. And if there was, I burned it.

That's crazy. It's so crazy how your environment, as you grow up, it really shapes who you are. But you broke from the mold. I think most people, they kind of get trapped in that Identity that the people around them, their circle of influence, family, which is horrible, or friends, which aren't really friends, can, can turn you into. So way to like break out of that, like, look where you are now. I think people need to remember though, that people like that, you know, we love them still, but at the end of the day, like, they're deeply insecure themselves because misery loves company. And it's really hard for someone to want to pull you down if they're above you. So it's always the people beneath you that are trying to pull you down. So way to break free from that identity and continuing to just build this life despite the adversity. I'm sure though, that all of that kind of like created this fire within you to like, want to do what you're doing. Right. Can you talk a little bit about like, how that affected you and your drive that you have right now?

Yeah, I just. I was in so much pain for so long and had so many internal battles that I was struggling with and so much self loathing and self hate and misery. You know, I lived in, in misery inside of myself and inside my own brain and inside my own body. And I wanted to escape all of it to the point that I would fantasize about killing myself and how I would do it and I would, you know, drown myself and, or overdose on pills or like all these things. And I was so. I was a people pleaser. I wanted to have love from everybody else. And so I was always trying to prove that I was nice and kind and smart and worthy. Like, make. My dad would say, make yourself useful. Like make yourself useful. And so I was always trying to make myself useful and, and be that kind of person. But through all that pain, when I made the decision, like, okay, I'm, I'm doing this. I'm gonna get better, I'm gonna grow, I'm gonna heal, I'm gonna learn. I'm gonna become the person that I want to be. Because the person I was wasn't who I wanted to be. And I was gonna do whatever it took to get there. And I was so relentless in that pursuit of, of who I wanted to be in the life that I wanted to live and when I was able to go through that healing journey and really transform my life, which was a lifelong process, you know, And I'm finally at a point over these past couple years where I feel so happy and so fulfilled and so good for the first time in my life and have been able to actually sustain that and feel very grounded and connected in who I am. But that's where the passion for me came from. Oh, my gosh. Like, when I was in that dark tunnel for so long, I believed there was a way out because I had to, because I kept going.

Yeah, but.

But I couldn't conceptualize that being a reality because I had never known that. I had never known real happiness or joy or connection or purpose or service or love. Like, I didn't know any of that. So I just had to hold on to the hope that it was real because I had. I thought I had seen glimpses of it in other people's lives and other people's marriages. You know, I'd walk around and be like, oh, I really like the way this couple's relationship is. Or I really love the way this person's businesses. Or I really love the way this person looks. Or I love the way this person dresses. I love the vacations this person takes. I love the car this person drives. I love the groundedness of this person. And so I just grabbed these little glimpses that I found in people, and I never found someone that had all of them right. But I just saw these little things. I'm like, I can get there. Like, I can create that. And having wealth was a huge piece of that because the scarcity was so deep rooted in. There's never enough. How am I going to survive? I'm going to die. Nobody's going to take care of me, Nobody's going to love me. Like, if I don't make money, I'm going to be homeless. And these were all the fears that were originally driving me. But once I did get on the other side and I had enough wealth to start to rewire my brain and start to understand, like, abundance is real and I can create and I can. You know, money literally is printed like we. There's infinite amount of it out there, 100%. And we are now in a world where we. It's an even playing field. Like now, especially with AI. We were talking about that. Yeah, we can. Anybody in the world. Somebody, you know, with a phone. Anybody with a phone can create full SaaS companies from a $20. You know, Riplet is the. The app anyway, so that journey and getting to the other side really instilled a passion and purpose in me to help other people do the same. Because there's so much suffering in the world. I am living proof that you don't have to come from anything. You don't have to come from a great background. You don't have to not have your own challenges. Like, you can have any amount of pain and suffering and issues and you can get through it and get to another side and you really can have whatever you want in this world. And it starts inside of, of you, inside of your brain and being able to remove the bricks. My mentor, Garnett Morris, he says we all are walking around with bricks on our head. You know, these limiting beliefs and these stories that have been programmed in us from our parents, from our friends, from society, from social media, from all these various things. And it to rewire those that pro. That, you know, rewire that programming and shift the way you see the world. And when you shift the way you see the world, you can create whatever you want.

Yeah, 100%. That's so powerful. It's like, it reminds me of the hero story. Like the example that I heard was like, you have the superhero and you have the super villain. They both went through extreme adversity and suffering and pain. Except the hero chose to use that pain to help other people not experience that pain. Whereas the villain said, I'm going to use this pain to make other people experience why I felt this pain. And so they use the pain for evil, whereas the good person uses the pain to help people. And you used it to help people. So starting in the midst of all of this craziness and like the suffering that you went through, it's, it's so inspiring to see that you like pulled yourself out of that pit. But a lot of people will be wondering, like, where did you start? Like, what did you do first? Did you seek like a mentor? Was it I had to go and like change my environment or I had to just start like working and ignoring the feelings. I had to ignore my past or I had to take on my past head on, like, what was that thing for you? And maybe if it's like learning from what you did, you're like, I went and did this first, but that didn't help. What was ultimately that first step that you did do that made the biggest difference in pulling you out of that?

Yeah, it was awareness.

Awareness.

It was awareness that I wasn't free and awareness that I was in pain and awareness that I had a lot of self sabotaging beliefs and programming that were going to keep me stuck in misery for the rest of my life. And if I wanted to truly get out of it and not just numb my pain with addictive behavior like work addiction, you know, which has been my biggest addiction, but it was realizing that just setting another goal and numbing myself out into trying to achieve that goal for that dopamine hit that I would get once I achieved it. And then immediately followed by more pain and then more. Well, let me just set a bigger goal and let me numb this pain more and give myself something to stay busy on and stay disconnected from my body. And yeah, so first it was the, the awareness I had to really understand, okay, I'm seeing patterns here. And Tony Robbins talks about this is like the greatest people in life are the ones that are able to recognize patterns and then be able to act on those patterns and then ultimately be able to create new patterns. And so for me, when I hit about 25 is when I stopped and I said, okay, I see all the patterns. I see exactly. I'm the common denominator in my life from all these outcomes. I could blame anybody and everybody if I want to, but that's not going to change my pattern. So I know I'm the common denominator here. I see a pattern that I'm addicted to work and accomplishment and that's the only place I have self worth. I truly self loathing. I hate myself. I'm very mean to my body. I, I'm self harming. I was addicted to toxic personal relationships. And that the, the highs of, you know, certain types of people, certain types of like power and these things that I was attracting into my life. And I had to get real honest with myself and be like, okay, the people I'm choosing are the people that are bringing me pain. And so I am giving off an energy and I'm making these decisions to continue a cycle of pain in my life and the work that I'm doing and the money, you know, the goals that I'm setting. When I hit these goals, the high wears off real quick. I mean it feels good for a second when you hit that dopamine, but it wears off. And then it's like, now what do I do? Now I gotta set a bigger goal. Now I have more responsibility. Now I gotta go do this. And the energy behind it all and the intention behind it all was all coming from the wrong place. And so I was gonna keep getting bad outcomes if I didn't change my energy, my intention, and the way I was showing up in my own life and in other people's lives. So yeah, that was step number one is awareness instead of avoidance. And most people, they just shove it down. They shove it down, they don't want to face it, they don't even think they have a problem. Most people, they're like, I'M fine. I'm happy. I'm great. Da da da.

Facts.

Yeah. And that was the first one.

That's so good. I like what. I'm not sure if you know who John Asroff is, but he talks about, like, brain science, and he's, like, really big on neuroscience because understanding the brain and psychologically how we operate helps us to free ourselves from these prisons using awareness. And what he defines awareness as is, awareness is to observe your own thoughts without judgment. To observe your own thoughts without judgment. And the reason that's powerful is because we can oftentimes observe our thoughts, but then we judge our thoughts, we judge ourselves. And then as soon as judgment enters the mix, we're no longer actually, like, stepping outside of ourselves with awareness and saying, where am I at and where do I want to go? And it paints this picture of, like, the map at the mall or your gps. It's like you can't get to where you want to go if you think you're somewhere else. Like, if I'm trying to set a GPS destination from a point that I'm not at, I'm never going to get there. I'm going to be lost. I'm going to be taking the wrong turns. And that's why you're so powerful when you say your awareness, because it allows you to take control when otherwise people are kind of in prison in their mind, and they don't realize it. Yeah, like, for example, you went to Hawaii, and you're like, I'm going to sell everything and I'm going to get out of here, and this is going to be where I find my happiness and fulfillment. Because it's Hawaii. Why not? But you ended up having a. A new awakening and realizing that wasn't where you were going to find happiness. Can you talk to us about what that experience taught you and why you did it in the first place?

My mom told me when I called her crying in Hawaii, saying, this didn't solve my problems, you know, and she said, oh, honey, I'm so sorry. She goes wherever you go. You go with you. And I was like, I didn't think about that one. I'm like, yeah, and I'm here, you know, me and all my. My misery. So that's it. I think we all. Think we all look for the. The thing outside of us to solve the thing inside of us. You know, we look to fill our internal holes with external filling, and it's just not possible. It's not. And I learned that. And so that was the same thing. I was like, I'm gonna fix me, but. Or I didn't even know it was me. I was like, it's my environment. You know, an environment plays a huge role a hundred percent. All my pain and all my misery just went with me to that island. And it didn't solve anything other than getting out of the direct, you know, environment that I was in. But from an emotional standpoint, I wasn't any more emotionally free once I was out of it. And that's when I realized that I have to do the work. Like I have to turn inward and I gotta fix me. And the answers are inside of me. And there's nothing outside. There's no man, there's no money, there's no state or place or vacation or anything that's gonna fix it. I gotta go inside and look for the answers inside of myself.

Wow. Wow. Like rewind, everybody. Just watch that like at least one more time. When it came to all of these habits you developed since that time, I'm sure you've been able to see the patterns. Just like Tony Robbins talks about, you've been able to see the patterns of success. So based on those patterns that you've seen, you've obviously been in business with a lot of successful people, just been friends with them. What would you say are the most common habits of a rich person versus the habits of a poor person? Maybe you can touch on like rich person habits just versus those poor habits.

Well, I think there's, there's a study that shows. I saw Cody Sanchez talking about this a couple days ago and I forget who did the study, but some Harvard professor or some super smart person. But she said the single most important indicator of success is simply one's ability to handle pain. And the people who have an ability to handle a massive amount of pain are the people that are going to be most successful in life. And the people who aren't able to handle a massive amount of pain will break and they will be addict addicts or they will have really bad habits and tendencies and self sabotaging behaviors that are going to continuously cause them to end up in the same spot or a worse spot than they currently are because they just can't handle the pain. And that is something all humans have is pain. And there's going to be more pain and there's going to be more storms. And the further we push ourselves in life, the further we push ourselves to grow, the further we choose to scale our business, the more employees we take on, the more overhead we take on, the more we push ourselves in health and fitness and, you know, meditation and silence and experiences and breath work and all these things, the more storms are actually going to present themselves. It's not the opposite. And when I was growing up, I thought that the only way out of the storm was to be rich. But then when I realized, oh, well, I'm sitting in here in this mastermind with all these very successful people, and by this time, I was already a multi millionaire, so I had some level of wealth. Now my ideas of wealth are totally different because my perspective changed because now I'm around people that have, you know, hundreds of times the wealth that I have. But what I realized is their storms were bigger than my storms and they were going to continue to get bigger. The more wealth I made or the more I put myself out there, the more videos and the social media and the thought leadership and sharing my story and the vulnerabilities is like, you become a bigger and bigger target for bigger and bigger storms. And so it becomes like, the real winners are those who are truly able to navigate the wind of the storms and learning to really embrace them and, and not resist them. Because when you resist it and you fight it and you're constantly like, why is this happening? Like, you asked me, like, well, what storms are going on in your life right now? And I'm like, I honestly embrace them. Like, yeah, every day there's storms. And I know some things are much greater than others. Like if you have a bankruptcy or you have a death or you have a severe sickness, like, there are definitely certain times in our lives where we're going to have bigger storms. Some people. And I was talking to my friend who has a private equity firm, and he. He lost out on an opportunity, on a deal that would have made, you know, a couple million bucks or whatever. And I' the winners, they're like, I don't care. It's part of the game. Like, who cares? It's like, we're not doing this just for money.

Yeah.

We're doing this to serve. We're doing this to grow. We're doing this to learn. We're doing this to create. We're doing this to reach our highest potential and help others do the same. And it's just part of playing the game. And if we resist those things from happening, we're never going to make it through.

Yeah.

But if we're just like, yeah, whatever, I learned what I learned. How do I grow? How do I get better? How could have I done this differently? But just be kind to yourself. And not be so attached to the outcome and. And just understand the storms are always going to keep rolling in no matter what. Like, every single person is either entering a storm in the middle of a storm or just got out of one. Every single person in the world. And it'll always be like that. So just start to welcome them and start to embrace them because your ability to grow and do so with much more ease is gonna exponentially increase when you truly are like, okay, come on, let's do it. Like, I'm excited what I'm going to learn out of this one. And I'm not attached to the outcome or what I lose or how much time I spend or whatever, because we inflict most of the pain of the storm on ourselves instead of just learning how to navigate the wind better and becoming a better sailor.

100%. That's so good. What's that quote? It says smooth seas never made good sailors. Yeah. You know, and it's funny because when you think about it, like, every storm is preparing you for that next storm. Because there's like, every time I go through, like, a shoot show, there's always something in that storm that I learned that prepared me for the next storm. And then.

Do you see a shoot show?

Yeah, I try not to.

I love that.

I don't judge anybody that does. No, it's funny when I say fudge instead of the other one, you know, you make people laugh like I just did, you know.

Yeah, I want to be better about that because I cause so much. Not intentionally, but I. Yeah, for me.

It'S just another form of discipline. Like, I don't judge anybody that does. But I'm like, if I can control my words, then it's another act of discipline which can train other areas as well in with awareness, you know, it's like another form of training your awareness. And I think you. There's levels to it, but yeah, it's always like preparing you for a bigger season. Like, you think about, like, even the Bible, like David and Goliath. Everybody's heard that story. But what people don't know is David fought a lion before he fought Goliath. So there's like, bigger and bigger giants in your life that are preparing you for that next thing. And if I was to have today's struggles five years ago, I probably would have quit because I wasn't as prepared as I am today with all of the mistakes that I've made. You know, so, like, kind of transitioning to, like, businesses, they say about, I think 90, 95% of businesses fail. Why do you think that is? Do you think it's just that they weren't able to endure the pain? You think they gave up too fast? Do you think they just had a negative mindset which caused them to quit faster? Like what? What's your perspective on why you think most fail?

Yeah, I think one is they're not able to endure the pain. Most planes crash during takeoff and once you are in the air and flying, your likelihood of crashing is much less. And so with a business it's the same thing. It's really hard to get a business off the ground and into the air. And most people crash during takeoff. And so that's why they say, you know, within for the first five years or whatever, 95 of businesses fail. And I've had a lot of those businesses. And so the second piece that I'm going to add on to that from my personal experience is the entrepreneur is starting the business from the wrong intention. They're just chasing something. You know, they're trying to fill these holes inside of them. They're just trying to chase money. They just are doing something that they saw worked for someone else. And they're not starting with the intention of real like passion and love and abundance and joy and purpose and mission and service and all these things. And I think if you are not truly passionate about what you're doing, then you're never going to be able to sustain the pain that you're going to have to go through because it's a lot of pain.

Facts.

Yeah. And like people ask, well, are you truly passionate about real estate? I am truly passionate about real estate. Not just because of, oh, I, you know, I like commercial buildings, they're nice to look at. But I am passionate about the life that real estate has provided to me and the life that real estate helps provide to my clients and the freedom that it brings and the amount of abundance and that it brings to my life and my clients lives and communities. You know, like it provides housing to people. It provides experiences for people where people can come and enjoy their friends and their family and eat and drink and play and live and work and all these things. And so that's what I love about real estate. The actual deal itself and the survey and the reports and the analysis and all these things like yeah, it's, it's, it is part of it. But so passion I think is in different ways, but it's. Are you doing the thing on the daily basis that is your unique gift and ability that you truly love to do now when we're starting as entrepreneurs we have to wear a lot of hats and we're not going to be the best at all those hats and we're not going to love all those hats. And we have to understand like that's part of if you're a founder, that's part of being a founder. When you don't have the resources to go out and hire a COO and a CEO and a CFO and a CMO and a CTO and all these things as you grow. But you, if you have the awareness of okay, my intention behind this business is whole. Like it's coming from a place of connection and wholeness and service and love and passion and all those woo woo things that I'm sure people will tell me right now. But if it truly comes from those places and you know what your gift is and what your mission is, that is far beyond just the money that the business could provide. Of course that's a big aspect. You want to get into business where there's a market to actually be profitable and make money. But then you will be able to sustain and weather the storms that you're going to have to face to get it off the ground, get it in the sky and then start to hire the who's to help you with the hows of the day to day operations of the business. And now it's an amazing time to be alive because we have AI. Like the capacity for anybody to be able to start and scale a business now with very limited resources is going to be so much more of an equal playing field. And I mean you could have thousands of people working for you for very cheap like AI people, you know, AI agents. And it's, it's amazing. Now there's going to be a lot of disrupt disruptions because of that with you know, a lot of jobs aren't really going to be needed in the near future, but more jobs will be created in other ways.

100%. That's how it always is. Was it with the Internet, with social media?

Same thing, yeah. Equipment, Industrial revolution, cars, autom. It's been everything. So. But yeah, I think those two things is just really knowing why you're doing what you're doing and really having the passion behind it. So you have the ability to weather the storms that it's going to take to get it really off the ground 100%.

And I think there's so many areas where it's like oh well, I don't know what to do here and I'm stuck on this step. And what's crazy is you're right. Like, we have AI like, you can ask Chad GPT give a clear explanation of where you're at and where you're trying to go. And like, it could give so much inspiration. I get stuck so often. And then Chad is like, oh, why didn't I think of that? That's so simple. I'm like, give me 10 alternative routes I can take on this, on this venture. So it's so powerful. What a great time to be alive. For you personally, how did you, like, get into what you're doing? So I know it's kind of evolved, your real estate, you know, capital raising, but like, you're. You're generally in the same industry. But what got you there was it because most people get out of college or they don't go to college, or they just have no idea what the heck they want to do. And I think that's one of the hardest things in life is when you just don't know where you want to plant your flag. So how did you find this little place where you did plant your flag in real estate and started to work on these types of developments and capital raising? Was it somebody that you knew? Was it just like, oh, I know real estate is very lucrative. Like, what kind of started you on that journey?

Rich dad, Poor dad by Robert kiyosaki. I was 13 years old.

The OG yeah.

The goat.

The goat.

And you know, Mo, most people that watch my stuff know that he's very close. Dear personal friend of mine now, which I never could have imagined when I was 13 years old reading his book, they call it taking the purple pill. The, you know, his book's purple. So I took the purple pill when I was 13 and I was like, you know, Robert has a skill like I have seen nobody else in history have, which is the ability to break down such complex financial topics into third grade and dollar ideas.

Yeah.

That billions and billions of people can understand. You know, he, I mean, he sold like, I think 50 plus million copies. And he's spoken on massive stages all over the world and still does. He's still traveling to every country all over the world, teaching the cash flow game and making a difference. And anybody can understand it in any language, you know, and it's so simple. And that was the same for me is like I was 13 years old and I understood it. I was like, oh, assets, put money in your pocket. Liabilities, take money out of my pocket. My goal is to build assets so I don't have to be a slave and work for money and I can make money in my sleep and I can have financial freedom and I can live a life that I want to live. I was like, I don't really need any more information than that. I'm going to do that. That sounds really good. And then you know, the entrepreneurship piece, which is mind your own business. Like you want control over your life and your business and your ability to produce. And Robert teaches me that the and everyone, the three most important skills that his rich dad taught him were capital raising, public speaking, and sales. And if you have those three skills, you can really create anything in life because it ultimately comes down to one of those three skills that is missing to, to prevent you from being able to continue to grow. And so reading that book, I decided I'm going to be a real estate agent or real estate investor. I'm going to get my license at 18 so I can have the tools to learn real estate, to search for real estate, to underwrite real estate comp. Real estate. And I'm going to, in my, my head, I was going to be a real estate investor. I was going to be in the business of real estate. And of course I still had fear because I didn't know what I was doing and I didn't know the likelihood of that happening. And I didn't have a savings account or a trust fund or anything like that. So I still worked really hard in school to get a full ride scholarship and chose engineering because it, they said it would pay me the least amount of money or the most amount of money in the least amount of time. And I knew I didn't want to go into debt or go into med school or go do any of that. So I was like, perfect, I'll have that to fall back on if I, it'll be a good thing on my resume if I do want to work in corporate America or, you know, maybe I do want to become a CEO for a big company. Like, at least I'll have that ability and I could try it out, which I did. And in parallel, I got my license at 18, started selling real estate as a broker. My first deal was a commercial sale. My second deal was a luxury sale. Bought my first property at 18, lived in it, renovated it, bought another one with my real estate commissions, rented the other one out as an Airbnb. And I, that's just how I kind of got rolling. And then I was doing that while I was an engineer for corporate America for a, you know, billion dollar company. And that was a Great experience and I absolutely loved it and learned how to like how a corporation is run from the inside out and but I also learned from that job is I have zero control over my income, I have zero control over taxes, I'm working like a slave non stop. And I didn't really see a path to freedom through corporate America. Even as a high paid engineer that was young at 21. It just wasn't a path that resonated with, with my goals. And freedom has been the, the foundation of every decision I ever make in my life.

That's so good with. So like you went into real estate. But it's funny, like I read Rich Dad, Poor dad and I was like, oh, I gotta get into real estate. But I was like, I don't know, I don't know where to start. So you still like took action and you did a lot to like make it happen. So. But what you also said is you had engineering as like something to fall back on. But most people, you know, who, who've made really big success would say never have a plan B. Did it feel like that was a plan B? And if so like do you recommend people having a plan B or like based on your experience now would you say like go all in on what that thing is? You know, have something for security at first maybe like what would you recommend or say about having a plan B?

So some people will tell you you got to burn the boats. You know, you got to burn the boats and, and not have a plan B because you have to go all in and to be successful you have to go all in and give it all you, you have. And I believe in that for sure. I also hedge on the side of risk aversion or risk mitigation. I do take big risks and I've taken massive risks and I've made wrong calls on a lot of things and lost a lot of money and a lot of time and a lot of direction. But I always that and that may be a different thing in you know, male versus female. I think females generally speaking are a little bit more on the risk aversion side because they are usually looking a bit more for safety than ego or status. And men generally historically are looking more for ego and status. I actually, this is way too, too much tmi, but I actually have always suffered from like no estrogen and high testosterone. So I kind of side on the, the side of like the men's side, like less, less safety and more, you know, status driven, ego driven. Like I want to build and go create, but I always did have some sort of plan B and that's where the engineering degree came in on. Not necessarily of like a plan B, but this is an experience that I'm only going to do now. If I don't go to college, I'm never going to go back. Like my merit scholarship doesn't just stay forever. I either take it or I leave it. And I wanted to experience working in corporate America because I wanted to have that knowledge and experience. And so yes, if I would have just gone all in on real estate, I would be way further. I really 100 would be way further. Like my best friend, she dropped out of college two weeks in, had a mentor in real estate, taught her everything and she's making a lot of Money and she's 23 years old and she just skipped that. You know, she got a four year or five year advantage. And that would have been the same for me if I would have done it. However, I don't regret it because it did give me that, that experience and it gave me the peace of mind that I would never go back wondering like, what if I should have gone that route, you know, and now it's too late. Like now this is all I have. So I don't know. I think you can go both ways. I think don't plan on a plan B necessarily. Like decide what you want to go all in on and go all in on it. And I've always been that type of mindset and mentality. But also make sure you have safety or protection, like whether it's your family or savings or some other skill set. I know a lot of people say be a specialist. I believe in being a generalist. And I believe now that with AI, being a generalist is much more important because you can create these AI specialists. And a lot of specialists are going to be out of work because they, you know, like for instance, an anesthesiologist or some sort of surgeon that could potentially be replaced at some point. With AI, they studied for 30 years or 20 years or 15 years or whatever to, to have that ability to do that. And if they're replaced, they're so specialized they may not be willing to pivot. And so now more than ever, the ability to create and pivot and shift and use technology to make your ideas come to life is where the most value is going to be over these like, specialist, you know, skill sets.

So 100%, yeah, especially with, you know, AI agents. Because AI agents essentially can run a task for you 24, 7 without you needing to Oversee it. Because it's like, here's what to do now. Do it on repeat.

Yeah.

So super powerful. What was that one quote? It's like the quote you're talking about on your other podcast. The jack of all trades is the master of none. But then there was an extension to it where it was like, but, but.

Yeah, but a jack of all trades is usually better than a master of one. Yeah, something like that.

Yeah. So it like basically contradicts the first part. They're like, that's why you don't cut out part of the quote. So it's super, super interesting, especially with how you can train AI models to think as a specialist, like using custom gbts and AI agents. Where do you think AI is going to take real estate? Do you think it's going to create more jobs or reduce jobs? Do you think it's just going to increase the output of what people are doing? Like, they say AI won't replace you, but somebody using AI will replace you.

So yeah, and for some people, like AI will replace you. There will still be the creators, the managers, people that have to feed AI data, the people that need to quality assure the outputs of AI. Like those types of things are always going to be, in my opinion, very important to have that level of, of human touch and, and oversight to it. But I was actually just watching the Diary of CEOs podcast with, you know, Stephen Bartlett and so good. He had the, the grandfather of AI on his show who basically created AI. Like he's been, his whole life has been building AI. And one of the guys that was behind, you know, what became Chat GPT in the beginning and all this stuff became so afraid of the security risks to humanity. Like he's afraid human humanity will be killed in the near future because of AI, like you know, 50 years from now or something like that. But the guy was so afraid of the risks of AI, he left open AI and created a AI security company because he was so afraid of that. But yeah, this guy was sharing how he's afraid that AI will be able to hack banks, sell everybody's money or units or all these things, and, you know, create viruses that could wipe out humanity pretty easily. Some crazy severe risks. But I tend to sit on the side of optimism. I do believe in people and I do believe in people's desire to continue to exist. And I think just as much as AI could be used for evil, like everything that's ever been created, it's also going to be used for good. And there's going to be things and people that create businesses to combat, combat the potential evil uses of it. So I think it's going to shift a lot. But I, I'm someone that adapts like I'm all in on AI. I have, am, I have and am currently as AI is increasing and growing and all these things, I am actively every single day. That's actually the next hire I want to make is a specialist for AI research only. And that's all they do is research. What are the new changes in AI that we can implement in our business to get more clients, keep more clients and provide a better service and solution. And so like a couple of things that we're doing in our business with AI is our whole team is trained on it now and they're using it to help with write ups. So we can send out to all of our lender database for like selling a really good package on this loan opportunity with all the details and all the criteria. You know, helping underwrite deal packages, look for inconsistencies that might flag lenders to be like, oh, is this, was this right? Is this wrong? Because now AI can do that. So quick, handle objections. You know, we've had lenders come back and be like now we don't want to lend on this deal because this, this, this, this we can plug the entire email thread and the entire deal into our company AI that's, you know, privacy protected and tell it act as a top objection handler in the commercial finance industry. And how would you handle this objection for this lender to see through these issues that they initially had? And we've sent that back and the lender's done the deal. So like crazy. Yeah, so we're doing that. We also have an AI software that has all of our 7,000 plus lenders in it, you know, both on the lending, the debt side and the equity side. And it knows all their underwriting criteria, it has all the activity of what loans that they're currently closing. And it's constantly updating everything because their criteria shifts and changes. And it allows us to create a beautiful offering memorandum for the loan opportunity, a full deal room. And then it'll put, it'll analyze the deal, it'll look through all 7,000 lenders and tell us exactly which 1, 2, 5 or 500 are the best fit for that deal. And then it'll send out the package and the email to all those lenders that are the best fit for the deal and then follow up with them like daily until they hear back and then it'll track if they pass on it, if they have questions on it or if they want to move forward with it. And then it'll create quote sheets for our clients to have side by side comparisons of every single opportunity they have so they know they're for sure getting the best rate in terms for that project. So like total, total game changers, total.

Makeover, business makeover using AI.

Yeah.

And you're right, like there is going to be a new position in all companies. Like what we've started rolling out with our AI academy is having a top tier service where you can have a CIO come in, which is a chief AI officer, where they come in and they keep you up to date on all the trends and then they fully integrate it in your business. And I think that's going to be a great opportunity for people is to just like be the CEO of AI that can enter a company, ask the right qualifying questions to see where AI is being used in that business and figure out which tools would best fit for that business model. And if you stay in the same industry, like that's extremely scalable. So I think you're so smart, you're implementing so much of it and then if anything, maybe in the future that could be an additional service you provide. You're like, here's how we plugged in AI into our business. And if you have a similar, you know, competitor rather than competing with them, you know, it could be like, hey, there's no shortage on success. Just like you said, there's an infinite amount of wealth and being able to share with your competition be another. There's so many different things you can do with it.

Yeah. And being small and nimble really helps because you know, my competition is CBRE and JLL and North Market and Walker and Dunlap, like these massive conglomerate, multi, multi hunt, you know, billion built multibillion dollar companies and they're so political and so corporate, it's a little bit tougher for them to implement these drastic changes. And I learned that in corporate America when I so true was there. I'm like, just to make a tiny little change in the process is a massive undertaking.

And like 10 levels of authority you have to go through.

Yeah. And it's kind of. I was talking about this with my friend yesterday is democracy is inefficient. And like in America we love our freedom and our democracy and it is the heartbeat of America and I love it more than anything in the world. But it is very inefficient because to put up a building in paradise Valley, you have to know this political party and this person and this zoning official, and you have to be some sort of power over here and you have to get all the neighbors to approve. And the lady with the cat doesn't want to do it. And this doesn't want to. Versus in a, you know, Marxist or communist society. They want to build. They build. Dubai wants to build. I'm not saying Dubai is communist, but just an example of Dubai. They want to build the biggest tower in the world. They build the biggest tower in the world. Like, they probably. I don't think they care what the neighbors think. Or you write like they're just, they just build. Or in China, like they're going to produce. They're going to produce. They're. They don't care what Susie next door has to say about the building. And so we see that in America because it is a democracy, which is amazing and beautiful, but it allows you to be a little bit quicker and have an edge, even if you're smaller and have less resources because you can implement these things faster. And that's what it comes down to is ultimately everybody's going to get there, but who can get there first? Like, who's the leader and how are you? Yeah, yeah. And that's the thing is like, when. Because I was thinking about that yesterday, I'm like, okay, well, if I have an AI agent that is going through LinkedIn sales navigator and is looking for all the people with these roles and the investors like this, and it's helping me reach out to them and communicating with them and booking meetings and scheduling calls with them and all this stuff, that's a huge edge. But at some point everybody's going to be doing it. Everybody's going to be reaching out to everybody. Either that or the regulation will shut it down and nobody will. But it, let's say everybody's doing it eventually. So how can I capitalize on getting there first and be ahead of the curve and build those relationships and capitalize on those tools before the whole market is already doing it? And then everybody's like, okay, I get 10 billion messages a day, and you again, we're in this position of how do we set ourselves apart and how do we stand out and how do we have an edge? And so I'm always just like, what is the edge here and how do I stay ahead of it? Because most people, they wait until it is massively adopted before they feel confident in doing it. And by that point it's not too late. But your benefits aren't going to be, of course, a thousand X. Like, they could be if you have the edge. Like, if you invested in Bitcoin when it was $2 before it was adopted, and now you invest in it, it's still good, but you're not going to have the same return as if you were an early adopter.

Exactly. And that's what people forget. They see this AI boom and they're like, oh, it's too late. But it's like, like, that's what all of your competition is saying. They're all saying it's too late. Or they're like, yeah, no, I'm ahead on the trend. I use chat GPT. Then there's like a thousand other tools. And I think that's what people are missing is they. They make assumptions based before, like saying, you know, let's do some research first before I make assumptions like you, you know, other people are using it, but you're like, I can still be the first. And I. And like, Mr. Beast talks about that. He said the reason, like, I'm dominating this space on YouTube is because I was the first one to come up with this idea. And when you're the first to, like, he wasn't the first one to make a YouTube channel, but he was the first one to make a YouTube channel like his. And so everybody became copycats, but the copycats can never catch the original. And that's why, as you're leading this way, you're able to innovate. You're learning the mistakes first and you get a lot more ahead, whereas people who are just dabbling in it will never be able to catch up with you. So I guess that kind of like transits me to one of the last questions I want to, like, start asking you is how important is speed to implementation for being successful? Some people just say, oh, you know, I'm learning a lot. You know, I'm. I'm learning faster than anybody. And then there's the people who are like, I'm implementing faster than everybody else. Like, what do you have to say about speed to implementation?

Speed to implementation is. I want to say everything. It's a lot.

It is, right?

Yeah. It's not everything, but it's very, very, very important. And that has been, you know, as I reflect on my own wins and my own losses and different journeys I've navigated, speed has been something that I have always done. I have always been the fastest exam taker. I was always first in, first out, like, as far as, I mean, I'd get there Right on time. I'd be the first one to finish my exam, and I would always set the curve, like speed, you know, speed. Actually, one time I ended up having to rewind, rewrite an entire essay because I finished my essay before anybody else had started, and she decided to change it because it was too difficult and everybody was pissed off about it. And so I, because of my speed, I actually had to rewrite the whole essay. That was in high school. But, yeah, just everything. I have just gone all in. Like, let me get the, the information that I need to at least have enough knowledge to decide that this is something what I, that I want to do. And I probably have failed on that because I've jumped into things so fast that I didn't have all the information. And I was so impatient. I just pushed for it. And then I was like, oh, like, oh, shoot, I should have. I, I, I wish I would have known these things. But ultimately, the best way to learn is just to do it. And I have been so fast to drop things when I realized they're not working anymore. Not to say, like, I'm just gonna quit, but when I know, okay, this isn't right. This isn't really what I thought I was going to be. This isn't the business model I really like. This isn't really where my passion lies. And a lot of that has come from throughout my personal development. And as I grow, I kind of outgrow the environments that I created for myself when I was, you know, at a different level. And so speed is so critical. Like, you know, fast to implement and fast to pivot and fast to let go. If it's not working. Like, cut the losers. I was never afraid to cut the losers. People, employees, partners, businesses, like systems. Cut them out. If they're not working, cut them out. Find something new, try something new. If that doesn't work, learn from it. Try something new, find something new.

100. And it takes real discernment and, like, a good awareness of experience to be able to make those cuts, too. Like, we had someone on three months, like, should have been fired three months ago. But, you know, you have compassion for people, and sometimes you stick with it. And they're good people, and you're like, they fit the culture. But, you know, like, we even lost a client because, like, we didn't get rid of the person. But, you know, sometimes it, it takes making those mistakes to learn these lessons. And that's also why speed to implementation is so important, because you're making mistakes faster than everybody else. I Think that's also partially why probably you and also myself are very open to sharing, like, all the stuff that has helped us because we're not afraid of scarcity and not having enough. Like, what I've learned is like, I can give you my whole business model and you still have to go and make the same mistakes I did unless I'm able to point every single one out, which is almost impossible because I don't know what mistakes you're going to make. And so speed implementation allows you to make those faster. And as long as you don't give up and you just make the pivots like you said, fast to pivot, then like, I think that's how you get the competitive edge over everybody.

Yeah, just act, act and make the mistakes. It's okay. Lose the money. Yeah, lose it. It's fine. Like, don't be irrational. You know, gather research, get information. It research is free now. Infinite amount that you could have at Ivy League levels and beyond.

Yeah.

And just try it, try it, implement it. If it doesn't work, cut it out. If you lost money, great. Learn and grow. And so it was something I never really got so attached to was like, looking at the money that I lost, I'm like, I don't really care. Yeah, it sucks. But I learned experience, I gained knowledge and I grew my confidence because now I'm not afraid of taking something like that on because I've done it and I learned from it and I grew from it. And so. But the risks just get bigger. And so the setbacks can get bigger. But speed is so important. And especially when you are younger, you, you can afford to take on bigger risks. And if you do lose, like, you still have time. Now when you're in your fourth quarter of life, you may shift that fourth quarter, right?

Yeah, 100%.

Yeah, you may shift that. And so that may change a little bit. And you may be a little bit more cautious on the decisions you're making and a little bit slower and a little bit more analysis paralysis. But the analysis paralysis, it holds so many people back. And Joe Rogan was talking about that is like, if you don't go all in and you don't take the risk and take the shot and put your life on the line for, for what you want and for your dreams. The cost of not doing that is so great. It's everything.

Yeah. Like, I think we think of the worst case scenario instead of the best case scenario. Like, we're like programmed to fear failure. And like your buddy Robert Kiyosaki says it's because we've been conditioned this way. Like, I'm scared to get an F in class rather than, oh, you know, I learned from my failures, you know. But when it comes to life, you can only fail if you give up up, because you can always make a pivot, you can always adapt. And that's one of the most valuable skills even Tony Robbins talks about, is the ability to adapt. I think a lot of people will make the same mistake over and over again. But what does Albert Einstein says? He says insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. So I think it's important to make mistakes. But like Alex Mosey says, don't make the same mistake twice.

Right.

So it's all super powerful stuff, Hannah.

And that's where the awareness, you know, full circle back to awareness is you have awareness of the mistake and the lesson that you learn from it so you don't make that same mistake again.

A hundred percent. So just to leave viewers with one more little nugget before we go, what's the one thing that you think all people should avoid as a mistake when it comes to going into the business world? Like just a more common thing that people do, whether it's like going into business with the wrong person, or maybe it's like, I'm going to figure this all out on my own, or I'm only use YouTube Academy because it's free or what. What is that thing that you see a lot of people do as a mistake that maybe causes them to quit early or just not be successful at all?

Yeah, for entrepreneurs, it's so many things, but really just trying to do everything on their own. If you try to do everything on your own, you can't scale, you can't grow. And that goes back to Dr. Ben Hardy, one of my friends. His book who not how and with whatever you want to create, there are the people out there to help you do it, where that specific thing is their gift. And so just being willing to let go of the reins, invest in yourself and your growth and your network and your education, and invest in finding the right players, the right A players on your team to be able to find the who to get through the how that you're looking to accomplish.

So true. There's that quote that says, would you rather make a hundred percent of 100k or 50% of a million? And it gets you to start thinking, I need to start using money to get. Because that's what Robert Kiyosak talks about, use money to buy your time back. I think that's the first place I ever learned that. So.

Yeah.

So good, Hannah. Well, I'm so glad that we finally got to learn a little bit more about you and your story. And there'll be more of these to come if the audience likes it, so hit that subscribe button. Remember, if you want more content like this, you just gotta ask. Thanks so much, Hannah.

Thanks, Josiah.