Scaling To 8 Figures Through Leadership With Andreas Pettersson

Hey everybody. Welcome back to the New and Experienced Investor Podcast. Today we're talking about scaling through leadership, scaling your real estate business. It's definitely a show you do not wanna miss. I'm Alex Barnett. I'm one of your hosts. I'm the new guy.

And I'm Joe Homs. That makes me the experienced guy.

Yes. And today we have an amazing guest. I'm super excited. He's a speaker, business mentor, and all-around amazing man. Before we bring him on, let's just remind everybody about our upcoming meetup really quick.

At the end of June, what is it? The 30th? Yeah, the 30th. They're going to have a special, special guest speaker who's going to talk to us about wholesaling.

Right.

Is that you? Oh my God.

Oh wow. Okay.

Alex is going to be talking to us about wholesaling and how he started and how he got his first quick deal.

Yep.

And, uh, where he's at today.

Where I'm at today. I have a beautiful wife. I'm living by the beach. I'm rich. Everything worked out.

Hammett is in his life. Hammett is in his life.

That's just where I make my money and then I come back over the mountain.

Okay.

Do it. But, um, yeah, I always like to remind you guys, this is a live show. Please share it far and wide with any new or experienced investor in your life and jump in the chat. We have an amazing guest here. You have full access to us for the next hour, so get in there, ask the questions and get them answered. It's definitely one of our favorite parts of the show.

Wait a minute, a whole hour I'm not getting lunch or coffee?

I know, I tricked you into that.

Oh man.

I owe you something, definitely. It's all for the views, Joe. It's all for the views. You're addicted to the views. Um, uh, so yeah, before we launch into, uh, the show, let's give our 2 tips of the week. Go ahead, start us off.

I don't know what, what, what are we tipping about?

It's just scaling.

Okay, you know what, let's, let's talk about the tip. Okay, let's get started. Let's put one foot in front of the other and get started.

There we go.

That's my tip. Okay, get started.

Do something. Get started. Yep. And then I would say if you're gonna scale, um, You know, if you have— if you have— oh shoot, I'm just gonna let Andreas talk about that. Okay, I'm gonna let Andreas talk about that. So just don't worry about that tip right now, we'll get to it. But let's go ahead, stop screwing around, let's bring our guest in. Andreas Peterson, welcome to the show. Thank you very much for being here.

Thank you so much for having me. I love the energy here.

Yeah, awesome. Cool. Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself to, uh, the audience? Um, yeah, kind of like what, what were you doing before you got into real estate, what you're doing now?

Absolutely. Um, I'll look in the camera for doing this. I've been a corporate executive for over a decade. Last 7 years, I was the CEO of a tech company owned by Canon Group. I exited out of it successfully 1st of November last year. And I'm doing the 3 things I love in life right now. One, I'm helping others scale their businesses. 2, I invest a lot of money and time into my own real estate investment fund. And then 3, I'm writing a book, which is something I've been wanting to do for a long time. And that book is scheduled to be released in mid-September this year.

Nice.

Other than that, my— I speak Swinglish, so Swedish English. So if you don't understand something or if I'm not clear, just let me know. I'll, I'll clear it up.

Coming in loud and clear.

Loud and clear.

Yeah, love that. Okay, um, to be a CEO of a tech company, do you need to be over 6 foot?

Yes.

Okay, I knew that.

6 foot 3. People have to look up to you, right?

Exactly.

Or you have to get a really good chair that makes you a little bit higher, taller up than everyone else, and never come back.

around the desk so they don't know. Perfect. Okay, awesome. So, um, yeah, so you mentioned you're, you're running, or you started and you're running your own fund. What sort of investments are you guys in?

Uh, first of all, I have my own, uh, personal real estate as well. I have multifamily, single-family, uh, up in LA. We started out doing that, I want to say we got into real estate 2014. when we moved to US and we started renting out our own house in Sweden. That's how I accidentally got into it.

Okay.

And then as I was making more and more money, I realized that, hey, I got to figure out how to get rid of all my taxes. And then we started buying other properties here in US 2019, up to, I want to say, 1.5 years ago, where we realized that because of the interest rates and they were starting to come up, the market was changing. It just got really hard to get the returns. We then started— then we started the fund. We started a fund, Leapfrog Funds, with Brenda Jones that you have had as a guest here as well.

Love Brenda.

And we were looking at multifamily in all different states for, I want to say, almost 12 months and underwrote— I'm not kidding— like 20, 30 deals a month. Could not find something that worked in the last year. And we pivoted into RV parks earlier this year.

Yeah. And I saw that it's just now like doing a grand opening and you guys added a bunch of pads to it. It looks insane. Yeah.

You should go check out the website. Yeah. We put a lot of really cool photos, videos there. InesSpring.com.

Right.

What we did is we bought a park. It was a pretty cool deal. It's— it was seller financed combined with sub-2. Combined interest rate was closer to 3% interest only for 7 years.

Amazing.

Nice.

Bought it with 54 pads. The one we bought, or end of March, 54 pads, adding an additional 25 pads. And we've been doing—

added—

we converted a 3,000-square-foot barndominium that was a primary residence before into an Airbnb. And a lot of other work.

Yeah, I feel like—

sorry, this is not a mobile home trailer park.

Thank you.

Please describe exactly what it is.

We have people on vacation. A mobile home is not always trailer park trash, but this is a destination where people come and they spend time with their family. They get away from having their kids in front of their screens and they just connect with nature again. Thank you for clarifying.

Yeah, but this is something that they drive They drive in, correct?

They drive in, they bring their own RVs or motorhome. And some of these houses or motorhomes, they are, I mean, million dollars basically vehicles. And it's not something that is stationary. Driving over here, I actually got the request. There was a guy who reached out and he has a tiny home and he asked, can I put it on your lot for 5 years? And we're like, yeah, if you pay monthly rent, like, Or monthly fee, why not? Wow.

Now, I know you're not from the US, you're from Sweden. So you may not know, when I was growing up, my dad had a motorhome, we used to go all over, but we would stay at KOA campgrounds. Have you ever heard of them?

Yes.

Okay. So like KOA campgrounds to me is like—

I guess middle of the road.

Yeah.

So I'm thinking yours is more luxury, more amenities. More things to do.

We absolutely— so there are the standard ones that are, that have barely proper hookups for the RV, and then you have the glamping, which is the other side of the spectrum. Glamping are super luxurious luxury. We don't know, we are somewhere in between. What we have is obviously full hookups, pull-throughs, all of that. And on the amenity, we have It's 24 acres, so it's quite a lot of forest. There is a river, people go there, Leon River. People come there, they go fishing, they go kayaking. And then we have a 250,000-gallon spring-fed pool, which requires a lot of work.

Wow.

Because it doesn't have— it's not a system where it's connected to normal water. It's basically spring water that you pump into the pool. And then we have amenities and everything else. The thing with this park, and one of the reasons why we bought it, it was in mint pristine condition, like really, really well maintained. A lot of love from the owners. They, the owners or the creators of this park, actually created the park during COVID as a way to have people over. They got lonely. They just had their primary house there.

Nice.

Nice.

And they started building more and more RV pads and more and more people showed up. And yeah, so it's somewhere in between. It's not the glamping, super luxury, old golf course conversion. This is, but it's not the 1960s, 1970s spiderweb either level.

Right. And the visitors that you get, local, In-state, out-of-state, a little bit of everything?

A little bit of everything, but it's families. A lot of families there. Typically you get 2 people actually, get people that are retired or that are doing an early retirement or traveling around in US. We get a lot of winter Texans 'cause this is 2 hours east of Dallas, but definitely families. I wanna say kids are typically 5 to 10 years old. Um, and a lot of them come in for camaraderie, sitting around a campfire, s'mores, fishing, just being with their kids basically. And we have 2 types of guests. We have the monthlies. A lot of the monthlies are people who go live in different places for 2 to 3 months. Typically they are working, and the back side of the park, that's where we sort of optimized it for them. And then on the front side of the park, closer to the trails and the forest. There we put the weekenders or people who come in for a week at a time.

Wi-Fi?

Absolutely. I'm going to— best Wi-Fi ever. I'm a tech person. I have to say this. Ubiquiti network, mesh network throughout the park, 500 megabits that we are— we can just add another 500 if people need it. It's included. Absolutely. We have showers, laundry facility. There's a small camp store. Yeah.

I feel like she was just—

let's go.

Yeah. Talking about this, that you guys were about to close on it.

Now it's done.

Then it was like, boom. And then all the construction is done. That's up.

But I have to say this for anyone listening, and this is back to the scaling up thing. Uh, I have started and run multiple companies before. I believe anyone can get into buying an RV park. There is a massive opportunity because of so many people retiring right now. There are boomers that just done it for 30 years. They don't wanna do it anymore, but they don't wanna pay Uncle Sam a big tax hit.

Right.

So they want to do seller finance. But with that said, anyone can get into RV park. Just know the main difference between real estate and an RV park is that you're running a service business and you're running an experience business. So if you have any background running a restaurant, if you have any background just running any type of service business, I think you're going to kill it if you go into RV parks. It's been 3 months of heavy work.

It's kind of like an Airbnb type Yeah, format.

Yeah, that's a good, good thing. The beautiful thing though is you don't have to clean up too much after the guests. They basically haul their house out of there.

Yeah, got it.

Love that. Okay, um, let's, let's talk about that. So you, you've ran and started multiple businesses, and now you're teaching others how to scale. Can you get into Uh, some of the things that you teach people on how to scale?

Absolutely. Um, so first of all, when I work with people, um, they typically— fear is one of the— we start inwards basically. And a lot of people, they think about businesses in an organic way and not in a scaling up quick way. And that means they are very much like, what's my next problem? What's my next problem? That's usually when I start working with them. And often it's a mindset problem. So the first 2 to 4 weeks, I spend quite heavy time on What are your fears? Why are you not thinking big enough? What is holding you back? And I loved your tip. Just take one step. Like, take action.

Do something.

Just do something. Fear paralyzes people. And typically when I engage with companies or people, actually I have a lot of clients that are in real estate as well. Everything from flippers to people who run larger Airbnb, like we're talking hundreds. They often— first we start with that, and then we go into who do they need on the team. Because not only do they have fear of what can go wrong, and they spend so much time being anxious and worrying about that. And once you unlock that, then you get into who do I delegate to? And they often think plus one all the time. So one of the exercises I run with people after 2 to 3 weeks, it is double your business within 12 months. Who do you need? And then we work our way backwards to that. Once people have been able to imagine where they're going, it's so, so much easier to just get them to take that first step in that direction.

Mm-hmm.

Then we have to spend— often we have to identify who is the key partner. When people hire me, especially if it's businesses that are in tech, a software industry, or they've been around for 5 to 10 years, the number one thing people need help with is hiring and firing, often in the reverse order. Someone needs to go. Someone was really good to grow the company into linearly into one position, but they're just not the right person to basically take that company into the next level. And they know it. A lot of founders I meet, they absolutely know who needs to go. They just don't have the gut, or they don't want to face their fear to just make the right decision. And often I don't have to tell them, they tell themselves. Like, I just have to sit there and listen. And then after I hear the story about how they have known that they had to fire someone for a year, then I'm like, and why haven't you done it?

No.

Oh yeah, you're right. No, no, why? I need to know why. Like, what is holding you back? And then when I asked why, you know, the classical consultancy thing, when I asked why 5 times, they gave me the true answer.

Mm-hmm.

And that's when you see the, ah, that's why. I'm like, okay, so do it.

Right.

Um, you're fired.

No, no, no, I'm here to stay. It's like Kitchen Nightmares.

I will keep producer, but you're out.

You ever seen Kitchen Nightmares? It's like Gordon Ramsay comes in, he's like, what's going on? It's usually like one guy, and they're like, I've had this cook here for 15 years.

He's like, he's costing you millions of dollars.

And then they fire him that night.

And everything turns in great. Yeah. And then the third step—

Oh, except for the cook.

Well, yeah, he'll get on.

He's fine. He'll get on?

Yeah.

Okay.

I love this expression. I love to tell— when I don't like firing people, it's never fun. It always leaves a scar. But when there is always a great job for you out there, it just don't happen to be at this spot.

That's a good one. I like that.

Yeah. That is—

There's a great spot for you.

Oh no, it's right here.

But it's not here.

I'm not leaving. I am not leaving.

I'm practicing.

I'm practicing. You got to practice, right?

No, no.

You got to practice.

No way.

Practice makes perfect.

But last step, often what I help people with is, so first, let's figure out internally how you think, why you think the way you do about certain things. Second is, do you have the right team? Do you know how to delegate properly? Are we going quick enough or can we go faster? Then the third thing is just mapping out a strategy, a 5-year strategy, a 3-year strategy with them. And then I held— I hold them sort of through that 4 to 6 months, and then I back off because I don't want to become the crutch. Some people that do business advisory, leadership advisory, they do everything they can to latch on like a leech for years. I hated that myself, and I don't want to be a crutch for them. So I want to teach them how they self-correct themselves and then just go faster and faster.

Yeah, nice.

That's great. I mean, we've gone through different iterations of hiring. I mean, it's always been VAs.

Mm-hmm.

But then I'm like banging my head against the wall because instead of doing real estate deals, now I'm training VAs and, and trying to get them to do it. And then I just get frustrated. So I know it all falls on me, but it's, it just becomes annoying at, at a certain point. How do you break through that?

Don't compromise. Um, even you can find amazing VAs. I have one right now in the Philippines. She's a freaking rock star. If she lived here, she would be like a chief operating officer at a company somewhere. She worked with an executive CEO for the last 5 years. Super good. But I probably interviewed 40, 50 people before I settled on her. So do not compromise. You know what an A-player is.

Yeah.

Don't be like, hey, I just got to get someone in the seat. Let's hire that B player. I can groom them into the role. No, right? Because when you have the need to hire someone that is very important for the company, go for the right one.

Even if it costs you a little bit more.

Yeah, but then hire a temporary or an interim. I think we live in a time right now in business where interim is perfect. People who work 1 to 2 days, maybe a week, or fractional.

Oh.

I think the economy of having full-time employees for every role, I think, is gone.

Right. OK. Can you expand on that?

I see— a great example is chief financial officers. I hope we don't have one here in the room that is now getting worried.

I've been seeing that more. Yeah, fractional CFOs. Yeah.

Yeah. But you can do the same with a lot of different professions. I think COVID enabled this. We did it in our business. get someone in that is just a freaking rock star, have them work 1 to 2 days a week.

Mm-hmm.

And then when that is done, then you are basically— you grew super quick, you plateaued, then you hire in the right person to sort of go and take it from there. But in many cases, like, I see a lot of fractional chief marketing officer, fractional chief financial officers, fractional HR or chief people officer. I don't see a reason to hire full-time anymore as you needed before. Sure, if you're 500 people and a large company, different story. But if you're less than 50, no, it's absolutely overkill. I see some startups that hire number 3 to 5 as a CFO. I'm like, no, no, no, don't do that. Waste money.

Yeah, well, that's when, like, you work for a startup. I did sound design. I worked for a startup. I just show up one day after, like, 4 months, and they're like, ah, we ran out of money. Sorry, we're done. I was like, oh, that's it?

Because they hired the wrong people.

That's another one. That's a good one. We ran out of money. Sorry. I mean, it's not like, you know, it's not my fault. There's some money here. It's these guys' fault that, you know, you're not working. I like that one too.

They're like, we're gonna pay you in stocks.

And they're like, oh God, yes, no, don't do that.

It's gonna be the next Facebook. Yeah, but, um, Okay, that's good. Oh, we're getting free nuggets right now. How much does this normally cost for this kind of knowledge?

Uh, I charge— and I'm pretty open about my pricing— uh, I charge, uh, $7,500 a month for the company I work with. Uh, for that, I do— I come out, I spend a full day crawling through everything with the founder, uh, as a startup, uh, basically our initiation of the engagement. I do 4 months minimum commitment. And I meet people for 1 hour a week, and I typically spend 2 to 3 hours per client per week. If they're going through something, they maybe have to fire a partner, or they had a PR nightmare or something like that, I clear my calendar within 24 hours. I jump in and I co-drive the vehicle for them for the next 24 hours just so they can get past that initial fire drill.

PR nightmare. I'm curious what the PR nightmare is.

I'm looking at you.

Yeah, am I a PR nightmare?

I mean, first thing I saw when I walked in here was the Cybertruck sign, so I can guess what it is.

Exactly.

Joe's a marketing genius.

Joe starts off every meetup with, I hope I don't offend you, or no, I'm not meaning to offend you, but dot dot dot.

I never say that. I just offend people.

I want to buy the same car. My wife stopped me.

Really?

Yeah, she said it can't fit the garage.

So your wife— mine is in my garage.

That's right, he measured it before.

Oh yeah, it's in my car.

I was out there measuring. There was no way.

Oh no, mine's in my garage. Yeah, absolutely.

Well, yeah, different size garages.

So we, we know who the CEO of your family is?

My wife.

Your wife?

No discussion.

Okay.

A thousand percent.

Okay.

She's born in Sweden, but she's half Serbian, and that means she has a temper.

Yeah.

Half Serbian, half Romanian. So I'm staying away. Like, there's no discussion.

That's just— no words need to be said. That's just a look.

Yeah.

And you're like, back.

I bring in the money, she spends them. That's the rule.

That's it. I mean, that's a classic setup.

We know a Romanian Okay, very, very nice guy, very well spoken. He was doing real estate for a while. We also do property management. We were having some difficulty evicting a tenant, and he goes, in Romania you would not have any difficulties. I get my friends and we go and kick them out. I go, oh God, please, this is the U.S. Don't do this in California. Yeah, don't do that.

That's a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Yeah, yeah, no kidding.

No, thank you.

Yeah.

No, yeah, no, I need to say it. Like, I come— there's no discussion. But my wife, actually, she's active. She's super active in our businesses. So we do, like I said, I have multiple businesses, multiple initiatives. She runs all the numbers. She is as a COO, basically, for a lot of our different things. We do a lot of investments ourselves as well into other people's deals as well. Just here the last few months, I probably lended close to half a million in bridge debt to people who do pad splits.

Oh, nice. Cool. We're doing that.

Yeah. Yeah. I didn't know. Oh, well, talk to me.

Okay, perfect.

So, I mean, in your bio, you mentioned you walked away from a 7-figure salary just to go after your passion. Now, was she on board with that, or what was that discussion like?

I love you.

No, that was a long discussion.

OK.

When we merged the company with— so we merged in with a much larger company. We were about 150 people. The other company was 2,500 or 2,000 people. We were asked— all the executives were asked to stay for 2 years, 50% increase, basically. I should maybe not say that, but we were asked to stay. I had a moment where I was like, I've been busting my ass for years. I graduated 2007, but even during my 4 and a half years bachelor-master studies, I worked 40-hour weeks during— I studied, basically. And I have never taken more than a week vacation in the summertime. And this was, I'm turning 45 this year and I just felt, okay, if I'm gonna have an opportunity to do what I love to do, which is helping others, and I have been coaching and mentoring women and people of diversity for the last 1.5 decades, especially after I moved to US and I saw how freaking unequal it was in the top of these companies. Only white men in the top of the company. I'm fully aware what I am, but it was just I was brought up to like see past all of that and look for the uniqueness in every single person. But anyway, I was doing it pro bono for many years. I am not dodging your question.

That's okay. Yeah, yeah.

She knows that passion, and we have enough money where it was like, okay, let's just do what like take a year. Do what you're passionate about. And if you can do other things that still produces, not maybe the same level, but enough for us to be comfortable, I'll support you. But it was hard, like walking away from healthcare insurances, good pension plans. There's a lot of things when you've been a CEO for 7 years and you founded it, you get access to a lot of people, you get access to a lot of networks, to a lot of free things. And it's been a different lifestyle. I mean, I'm used to flying business. Now I'm like, oh, is there a Spirit seat in the back or Frontier? And I'm like, I'm thinking about it now way, way more than I used to. I still don't always do that, but you get my point. It's like, I'm very conscious about money. I haven't thought about it for years. So yeah, it was a hell of a discussion.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, but That's why you guys make a good team, you know.

And I'm gonna say she won. Yeah, of course. Because she allowed me.

Exactly. There you go. And I strongly recommend you travel when you're young. I strongly recommend that you travel when you're young.

Yeah.

You know, I'm actually going on a cruise with my grandson here in a couple of months, and that'll be very close to my 100th cruise. Wow.

Where are you going?

Alaska.

Oh, that's on my bucket list. I haven't done that one.

Oh yeah, I've done it like 8 times or whatever, but—

Is it amazing?

It is amazing every time you go up there. Yeah. I mean, if again, you know, I was born here in the US and, you know, the US bird is the eagle and where do you find them? In Alaska. I literally open up the balcony door, look out and there's a bunch of eagles there just looking back at you. It is amazing. That's someplace you need to go.

Yeah, I love it. It's on my bucket list. And I agree, you should travel.

You should.

My kid— my— I traveled a lot in my, um, 20s and early 30s, especially with work. I had one year I did 7— no, I did 5 laps around the world in one year, but that was a different story. Now I have kids, they're 8, 10, and 12, and now is the prime time to be traveling. So I'm with you. No grandkids yet. I like that you looked at me and used the word young, by the way. Thank you. I like it.

Yeah. I've got kids your age. We had an opportunity to go to Hawaii on a deal, but, you know, that fell apart. And it started out where, you know, Alex and I were just going by ourselves, but then producer got involved and said, you ain't going to Hawaii without me. So, yeah.

Yeah, it's an unspoken rule.

Why did it go south, the deal?

Oh, it, it was actually, it was gonna be a co-living property. So it was 15 beds, 5 bath already built out. But because it was kind of a hodgepodge of previous multifamily into one big house, getting funding for it was, was kind of tough. And the new, or the sellers would not entertain seller finance because they were in their 90s and they were getting divorced.

Ah, yeah.

Okay. So, um, we tried every which way, but—

That's on my bucket list. I want to have a boutique hotel one day, actually, on Hawaii.

Yep. Yeah.

Wow, you got a big bucket.

Beautiful.

I do.

Yeah, you do.

Life is long if you know how to use it, and I know how to use it.

Okay.

That's right. Now, one thing I want to ask you, when you're deal— when you're specifically with real estate investors that come to you and they're, you know, they're looking to scale You know, you get into real estate because you, you're looking for time freedom. That's kind of like the promise that, you know, every guru gives you. Invest early.

Bullshit.

Yeah, exactly. I was gonna say, I never told 'em that.

No, but it's like, you know, every book's like, invest early, you're gonna retire by the time 3 years in, you know, then you get into the business and oh my God, you're spending so many hours, you know, looking for deals. So you kind of have to love it. Where do you see, I guess, the people that come to you, what are they looking for? Are they looking for time freedom? Is that why they're trying to scale or is it always monetary?

50/50. Half of them are, have already, they're running a, I mean, I'm thinking of one client now specifically. She does both real estate and she is, she also own other businesses. For sure, she wants to spend time with her kids. Uh, she— with her, it's like, how do I build a succession plan? And how do I hire someone I can trust to basically keep running what I've been doing? I want to work one day a week, or I want to at least— I can come in and work 2 half days. But over the next 12 months, she wants to get to a point where she only sits on a board and shows up every quarter. Um, that's not an easy process. When People are at that level, they are giving up a piece of their identity, and their work is their identity. So yeah, if she's listening, she can do it, but she has to change quite a lot to get there. Other people, absolutely, they are—they have been grinding in real estate, and all the gurus have been telling them get all the get rich quit scheme. By the way, buy my masterclass, buy my book, and invest in my fund. That's sort of the spiel they're giving people. They have been trying that for three years. They ended up owning a few. Single-family, maybe a multifamily, maybe another half business, half restaurant, real estate type of thing. And then they are, oh, I tried everything. Uh, I listened to this person and did that. I listened to this person that did that and this. And I'm like, okay, you had differentiated— like, you have spread yourself thin. You can't master all these things at once. Pick one lane, master it, and then move to the next one. I see so many people that are shiny object syndrome. They just have acquired everything from— I'm not kidding, um, I turned this person down, so I feel okay saying it— but it was like Airbnbs to I want to do boutique hotels to I own 2 businesses. Oh, assisted living. I had an opportunity, so I partnered up with someone. It's like, oh, but I don't have time for my 2 daughters. I'm like, yeah, you think? Yeah, right.

Just doing one of those is hard.

Let me, let me ask you, like, uh, Sweden real estate versus U.S. real estate, uh, how different is it? And did you get like hooked when you got here, or did you bring something from there?

Love the question. Here is why. In Sweden, real estate as an investment vehicle is almost impossible. The government puts on— if you want a bank loan, you basically get the loan for one house and a summer house. That's pretty much it. After that, they won't lend you. Here in the US, I think you cap out at 10 loans or something, and then you can restructure them into some holding and then do it again and again. The other thing is you need more down payment in Sweden. Now, the cool advantage in Sweden, for many years, they had principal— or sorry, interest-only loans, and their interest rates were subsidized by the government to get you into the house. And the first house you buy, you only have to put down 5% or something like that. Used to be the rule. Now, they have modified the rules a little bit where you have to pay down to 70% or 75%. Debt can be left, and then it moves over to interest only. And it's 30 years, but at the rates of— I mean, my house in Sweden, when we moved to US, which was locked at 0.75%.

Nice.

Because it was government helping you.

Yeah.

So I got the interest when I moved here. There's, I mean, you need a lot of capital to get started there. People do do it, but it's not common to raise capital and use the same model.

What about appreciation? What does that look like?

Appreciation have been fairly similar. I've seen houses double in the last 5 years in both countries. The main difference is we don't have the tax write-offs. And the tax write-off for a high W-2 income earner, this is the main reason why a lot of people get into real estate to do, uh, what's it called, um, accelerated depreciation and put one of the partners in the marriage onto being the active participant in real estate. And then you can deduct the high W-2 off the losses from the other one. None of that exists in Sweden. Like, they would be handled completely separate. We ended up selling our house in Sweden because there is a tax treaty between— this is too detailed for listeners, but there is a tax treaty between US and Sweden, and basically we had to pay taxes in both countries. So no.

It sounds like California.

Yeah. Oh yeah.

Yeah, it's like, wow, talk about tax hungry. I know. I mean, you can make your money in New York and California is still going to tax you.

Oh yeah, not getting out of it. You got to pay for the ocean. But whenever people—

I'm with you, like, I'm tired of the taxes here as well. But listen to this. When I was living in Sweden and I worked in Denmark early in my career, I remember getting one paycheck and it was taxed 75% because they have something called top tax. And top tax is like if you earn above a certain rate. So basically the economies of Scandinavia are built to create a massive mid-market or Uh, what's it called when you're in the middle class? Middle class. Thank you. Middle class. Well, here in the US, it's not built around that, right?

Well, I was gonna say, in the ABBA documentary, they basically said they were making so much money, but like the Swedish government was taking like 80% of it. So they had to constantly be touring.

I've been to that museum.

Yeah, in Stockholm?

Yes, I've been there.

What do you feel? Is that like—

can you see photos of you dancing there?

No.

No.

To Dancing Queen.

I don't do dancing.

It's amazing.

Did you go to the Vasa Museum as well?

No.

The big ship? No?

No, we were on the hop-on hop-off bus and they went by and then they— we stopped and went in, you know, because like everybody knows ABBA, right?

Oh God, yeah. Yeah. Ace of Base or ABBA? Yeah, which one?

Uh, ABBA.

Yes, good answer. That is correct.

I still grew up in the '90s.

I know. No, no, you can't touch ABBA. No, you can't, you can't. But anywho, yeah, I thought that was interesting when they said that. They were like the biggest band in the world, and then they're like, but our government was taking 80%, so we had to constantly be on tour on the grind. But they loved it, so it all worked out.

There's a lot of Swedish companies where, this is the cool part actually with the high taxes, you can get away from it if you give your employees a lot of the profit instead of paying taxes. So when Minecraft was sold to, Minecraft was a Swedish invention, when that was sold to Microsoft, The founder actually gave away millions and millions of dollars to the employees just so he could avoid the taxes.

God bless him.

Yeah, I bet you the employees really liked him.

Yeah.

Nice.

Well, and that's why everybody points to Sweden as why we're bad as far as our whole economy. And they're like, it could be different and the middle class could be booming if we were like Sweden.

I think politically, like hear me right, like, I love the US. I have no plans of moving back, especially here in California. The weather— I mean, you pay taxes for the weather basically some days. Um, and just being very safe, and especially Orange County. Um, the one advantage I see of at least having the opportunity to do business in multiple countries and seeing the different cultures, it enables you to pick the— cherry-pick the best and then apply it where you're at today. So culturally, as a leader, I focused a lot on team dynamic, the culture, divide and conquer, lead from the front, these very Swedish cultural aspects. And that had worked extremely well here in the US. And I— it's going to sound weird, but the pick— about picking the best in Sweden, for example, it's perfectly okay to say You're vulnerable or you screwed up and say how you feel as a leader, while here in U.S. sometimes vulnerability is seen as something negative. And I've been trying to teach others that if you truly want followers, not only when you grow the company, but if you plateau or it goes down a little bit, make sure you truly say when you make mistakes and say who you are to everyone. Say how you feel, and that's how people will follow you because they will care for you even if you can't.

That's good.

Real quick, back to taxes.

Okay.

My daughter, 16 years old, gets her first job. And in a panic, after getting her check, she calls me and she says, Pop— she calls me Pop— Pop, like, who is this guy named FICA? And why did he take money from my check?

You had a good laugh?

I had a good laugh, yes. I had a good laugh.

Yeah, exactly. Like, welcome to the working world.

Yeah. Oh my God, that's funny.

Oh my gosh. Okay, so everything that you've done in a very— you're very young, you know, in this short life that you've had so far. Um, how do you define fulfillment today for you?

Uh, it shifted. It has shifted over the last few years. Fulfillment for me, I mean You know how it goes when you're depending on what you believe in. The priority for a lot of people, especially now that you're mid-40s, is religion, spiritualism, God. Number 2 is family, health, and then friends, family, blah, blah, blah, other outside of the core family, and then money.

Yeah.

But I would say money was something I was way more focused on before. Now, I am I'm fulfilled more when, for example, let's say I have a client who has been really struggling to overcome something mentally, or they have just didn't pull the trigger on something they should have done years ago, and then they're rejecting it. And then all of a sudden I just get a text message in the morning like, hey, just want to let you know, I finally implemented the change. I added a product, I removed this. It's amazing. The company love it. Why didn't I do it sooner? I keep all those. I take a print screen and I save all of those text messages. And when, if I ever have a shitty day or a shitty moment, I usually don't have shitty days. I'm a fair, like, I think you should just snap out of it during the day. But I always look at that and that fulfills me more. Now I'm still very result-oriented. So of course I like to see my investments keep growing and I'm passionate about it, but I care more in here, in the heart. It fulfills me more to see others succeed today than financially succeeding myself. And then I think it also shifted a lot over the years. My— I had a— I have had health issues and I think so even though I'm 40 turning 45, I have done 2 heart surgeries and I have, I have restarted my heart probably, or, you know, like it's called a cardioversion where they shock you. Yeah, probably. 10 times by now.

Oh my God.

And I think when you— and I have truly like accepted death is the one thing you for sure know, because I thought I was one of those situations. I thought I was dying and I just made peace with life and everything.

And— Wow.

But I didn't. I passed out, but I came back a while later. But the point is, after that, different things fulfill you. And I get joy from very, very different things. I wake up happy every single day to be alive. I didn't used to do that.

That's great.

So there's a whole story around that as well.

Yeah, when you get to be my age, that's how you think.

Here you wake up, another day. Yes.

Oh, thank God. No, but I'm not— it is like that. I wake up and I'm literally like, I'm alive. Yeah. I mean, like, and today's gonna be amazing. That's the first thing every morning. Doesn't care how tired I am, what I've been doing, how much work I have to do. That's the mindset is like, I'm alive. Like, screw everything else.

Wow. That's so—

let's go on another cruise.

Yeah, exactly.

Let's live a little. Let's live a little.

Yeah. And you're so right. Like when you, I guess, I mean, it's probably true when people come to you, they're in their business every day. They can't see the holes. And then you, they explain like this one thing to you and you're like, oh, it's just that and that.

That happened actually at the latest this Monday. They're like, oh no, it's just, it's that. No, the person just asked me, can you sit in on a meeting? And I'm like, yeah, I'll sit in on your management meeting. And what ended up happening was— I was about to say, should I keep talking?

Yeah, keep talking. Keep going. We have technical difficulties every once in a while, but yeah, keep going.

Okay. So I go into a meeting in the morning, or she asked me to join her management meeting. I'm sitting there and I'm listening to how they're talking about it. And I don't want to say exactly what it was because you could maybe figure out who this is. And I just go, have you thought about doing this? You're seeing it the wrong way. And the whole room was like, first, like, what are you talking about? Some people were fighting me. And then the CEO goes like, why haven't I seen this?

Yeah.

Like, this is so obvious. And you're in the gut. You can't see the trees for the forest type of thing all the time, or the other way around.

Yeah.

It is so common. I worked with, when I was a CEO and an executive, like I said, for a long time, I had always 3 mentors, coaches, advisors. I had one that was very leadership-focused, one that was very business and sales-focused, and then I had one that was very mindset-focused. And by having those 3 and having them for a long time, I would never have got to the point where I'm at today if it wasn't for other people. I mean, I meet people who you— I always tell them, you can live 70 to 90 years old physically, You can get 70 to 90 years of experience, or you can try to accumulate 1,000-year experience in your lifetime. The difference is you gotta get it from other people. You can't just live it yourself. And when you realize that, that's like a quick hack to quickly making a life change.

Well, how do you deal with the fact that there are so many fake gurus trying to pull you in and just extract your money, basically?

Quit listening to it.

Well, I know, but you can also find the right mentor. Like I found Joe. He didn't ask for a dime except for lunch.

That's it.

Um, I hope it wasn't expensive lunch.

No, no, he took me to Carl's Jr.

Did you realize what you took on?

He took me to Carl's Jr.

The big Carl's.

That's what you were.

Back then it was $2.99 too. Times are different.

We were there the other day, weren't we not?

Yeah.

Because he asked me, where do you want to go? And I go, You know me, I love Carl's Jr. I do. I love Carl's.

He's like, he's not gonna like it.

We went to Carl's, you know, I had a Big Carl's, a double.

A double Big Carl's. We splurged. We would have never gone if I was there. True. But yeah, I guess my point is, how do you become not cynical? And, you know, when someone— I don't know, how do you find the right person? I guess.

I'm, I mean, some are, some are good. I have to say that some of the, um, networks or the communities, they're actually good. Others are very scammy. I can think of a few where they're bringing in people to— we'll teach you how to raise capital for your real estate, but they don't really teach you how to raise capital. All they do is educate you enough to understand sort of the terminology. And then they go, by the way, you should go raise only capital from me in my fund. How do you deal with it? I always ask for references. And then after that, I network my way around other people who is not maybe the spokesperson that they pointed to. Go to, I mean, you can go to Facebook, other Facebook groups, you can just search their name. And if there is a bunch of people who's saying it's a scam, it's a waste of money, don't do it. It's that simple. I think education in many cases in these groups are good, But you're paying a premium for something you can read in a book. Local networks are typically better that are not selling something, like local meetups. But please shop around, ask a lot before you join them. But like I said, there are good ones as well that I personally am part of today, and they're fully legit. And they don't ask for— like, they— yeah, there was a fee to get in, but they don't ask me to put in money.

Right.

Oh, exactly. And I don't mind paying for somebody's time, especially if you're gonna level up in your business, you know, especially for one-on-one time. So I don't mind doing that, but you just, I guess you just run the risk of, you know, sort of a dead end.

But one-on-one time is the most valuable thing. And I'm not just saying that because that's what I offer, but having one person that tailors something for you is massive. in comparison to go look at these hundreds of videos on Kanjavi or Skool or whatever it is. And by the way, give me $20,000 to give access to it, it's going to be amazing. Like, all of that is BS. Try to find someone local. Go to meetups, go to and find a person. And don't just go in and tell them straight up like, I want you to be my mentor. Get to know them, get to know many people in the community. And if I mean, in many cases they will tell you what to do. It's exactly like you two did.

Mm-hmm.

He's right. It is like us.

He is right. Beautiful love couple.

This is the part of the show where we've curated a few videos, and I would love to get your reaction on them.

Sold.

Perfect. Producer, what do we got? First video is the best way to motivate your team. Oh, hold on.

Uh-oh.

You're an idiot if you think you could motivate salespeople to do something that they're not already motivated to do. So you know what the best way is to build a motivated sales team? Hire people that are already motivated and put them into a motivating environment With a great sales leader, you're an idiot if you think you could.

Yeah, thoughts? Yes, and fire the person that is the cancerous, the negative, the person especially in a sales team. If you have someone who don't pull their weight in or just toxic going around and complaining, get rid of them. They're gonna they're gonna drive down the morale and the mindset of everyone else.

You have a job.

What is it? Am I firing you again?

I'm trying to get the line. What is it? There's a great job for you somewhere. It's just not here.

Correct. Now, I think salespeople, it's extremely hard to hire, but they should absolutely be motivated, hungry, and salespeople need to be coin-operated. That's just the way it is. If you hire, sometimes there are what I call masked salespeople. I call them social butterflies. They don't know how to sell. They know how to build relationships. They should not be in a sales situation unless it's a key account, then you just need to nurture it.

Gotcha. Because the sales— What's your thoughts? Yeah, no, I would agree. I mean, you can provide the training, but it's like sales is so tough because you've got to go through so many nos before you get a yes that if you don't have the psyche prepared for that, you just give up. And you're like, I made 10 calls, and I didn't get a deal yet. We hear that all the time. You have to make 1,000 calls.

Exactly. The most common sales training, especially for cold outreach, is they basically— unless you have done 1,000 calls, you shouldn't be complaining at all.

Yeah, exactly.

And many trainings start with just having people sitting and pounding the phone, even if they're really skilled salespeople, because you've got to start believing in your own narrative and how you're pitching something. And it doesn't come naturally unless you do it.

Yeah.

I think the most successful phone people that we have that, you know, do cold calling and stuff are motivated to do it. And you can tell by their conversations. And after a while, you can tell the people that are not, and they kind of fire themselves.

Yeah.

You know, they just, okay, I'm not coming tomorrow, Joe. Okay.

But doing a, doing like a sales retreat to motivate salespeople and get them going? No. Either they're in or they're out.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, wait a second. Timeout. If we can go to Hawaii and look at a deal, yeah, different story. That would work.

Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Especially if you give me a little GP split in it, then I'm in.

There you go. There you go.

He's a deal maker too. I love it. Next video, what do we got? Okay, the next one is why so many leaders fail.

When things are going well, it's never because of the boss. When things are going poorly, it's only because of the boss. Everyone wants to be the boss until you get punched in the face. The Mike Tyson quote is, everyone has a plan until you get punched in the mouth. It's the same for wanting to be the boss. Everyone wants to be the CEO. Anyone who's ever worked for someone else says to yourself, I could do this job, I could do her job, I could be a better boss. But what you don't understand is To be the boss, you have to, one, only ever handle problems. That's your job. You handle problems all day long because everything else that everyone else can't do or can't answer, they bring to you, boss, and you got to handle it. The ceiling is limitless, but the floor is painful when you smack it hard. This market that we're going into right now, we're going to see who is really cut out to be a boss in their company, in their industry. And I think a lot of people are going to experience a brutal failure. When things are—

Ooh, deep but true. Being a CEO is— and a boss. First of all, I'm not always subscribing to the whole leader versus boss versus manager, but let's just say they're all the same. Okay. For simplicity. Here in the US, everything is good and bad, and people say a leader is something good and a boss is something bad. Like, I think I think bullshit. Sometimes you need to be a leader. Sometimes you need to be a boss. Sometimes you need to be a manager. That's just the way it is. I think it's a job that doesn't always give you gratitude. It's a job where absolutely, when things are going great, I do believe it's because of the team. It's the team's execution. It's you. But what you have done as a boss, as a CEO, as a leader is growing people create growing organizations. And the opposite is also true. And what I mean with that is you have to spend time to grow your employees, but they are the reason why you're getting the win. When shit goes bad or when things happen, yeah, you gotta, as a leader, as a boss, step in and say, I'll take a responsibility. That's why resilience training is so incredibly important. I'm a big, uh, Stoicism philosophy I love that Daily Stoic. Everyone should look at that. But that mindset of, yeah, things, things will happen. They're going to be negative and you have to own up for it. That's just the way it is. Many times I've gone into board meetings, deliver bad quarterly results. I know that I am responsible for that. I also gone into the room and celebrated wins, and I clearly made it sure that everyone knows it's not because of me, it's because of everyone else. So yeah, I agree. And he's a really good Guy. Mm-hmm. I like him. Mm-hmm. You're always pick— you're picking easiest. I know. Pick something controversial.

I'm like, your reaction. Yes. Concur. I concur. I think we got one more. We got one more. This is scaling to $500 million real estate business.

Slow to load today.

That mesh network.

I said the only way that this works is if I come up with a system that works to produce the most amount of income possible and provide the best service possible. I started to add support. I basically started with a scheduler. I never set my schedule. This one person sets up every appointment. So if you're a buyer, you deal with her and I, and she sets the appointments. I don't have to track down and do any of that. Then I hired an admin. They do all my paperwork. Then I hired a photographer. They do all the photography. Then I hired another admin. Then I hired a transaction coordinator, then I hired a driver. So every step of the way that there was a kink, I was like, I need to hire someone because I can't do that anymore. To keep the service at that level, I had to make sure that people were getting back to the clients, that I was getting back to the clients. So we had to have enough staff. I said the only way to—

First reaction to his haircut?

Beautiful. Okay. So the advice he is giving is correct. I think the title of that video is very misleading, right? That's not how you scale a $500 million revenue business. That's how you— what he's talking about is putting the systems and processes in place. That's typically what I see in companies that do $3 to $12 million, $15 million maybe.

Okay.

But when you get past that, you need to scale leaders that scales other people. Basically, it becomes— you move from a process system perspective, which is what he's talking about. He's talking about individual contributors. Everything he said is true, but early stage, mid— not even mid-stage. And then to scale to the next level, it's, it's a completely different game after you hit that $15, $20 million mark up to $100 million, it's all about the leadership. It's all about the leadership practices, the company culture, and then just delegating and elevating and trusting the leaders you have.

And that's true. It seems like for any business, it doesn't matter what it is. And that's kind of my point about, so if I love real estate, I love doing deals, I start hiring people. I'm getting further away from that. I'm getting further away from that. Now I'm on the, you know, the boardroom, like, yeah, come on everybody, that I'm not even like in real estate anymore.

You're an asset manager at that point.

Okay.

But it is— we're an executive, right? No, but I know exactly what you mean. But that— do you want to get your hands dirty?

Yeah.

Or do you care about the results?

Yeah, I guess that's I guess that's the question I need to ask myself.

And I've seen a lot of people who, they need help scaling out of their companies. They know how to sometimes how to scale the company, but they don't know how to scale out of it themselves. And that's hard, building the succession plan. I did this, which is why I also could leave. I hired a person who was an integrator. If you know Rocket Fuel, I love that book, or if you take Traction, EOS, but I hired an integrator, a COO, And I basically groomed him into doing what I was doing. And the most rewarding thing as a leader is when you start a company, you scale it up, and then you're not needed anymore. But except you, except you. Yeah, my God. He clearly needs me.

We already concluded that. That's right. You're not going anywhere. Yeah, and you're like, all right, I'm off to Europe and around the world. And they're like, wait a second. You guys got it. You're good. And then you're just cashing the checks at that point. Then I guess that's your time freedom. Isn't that why we all started? Then what's next?

I think I will work till I die. I, I love it. Like, even if I don't need to. Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Because I believe the brain dies twice. First is when you retire, you, or you say you are who you are. And the second time is when your heart stops beating. And I want to time them in the same second.

You've had that 10 times, you said.

Yeah.

Oh God.

I tried.

Yeah, yeah.

No, I'm kidding. Jokes aside, I think if I die, if I lay on my deathbed and the last thing that I say is a question because I'm curious, then I think I lived a very fulfilling life. I don't think I will ever be able to stop working. I, I think it's not going to be good for me then.

I agree 100%.

It's not a money thing. It's a— I think this is the one thing.

I agree.

You want to keep active. Exactly.

Yeah, I mean, it's like, okay, you go— I mean, some people's minds are like, I'm gonna be on vacation forever. Yeah, good luck. Yeah, you'd be bored after like 30 days.

Exactly. Then you have invented— you bought the bar at the Hawaii place and you have— exactly, you hired 5 people just to run it for you.

Damn it, I said I'd never do that.

You're in the middle of a merger with another bar. I know how it goes.

That's great. I mean, what do you do for hobbies? What do you do to unwind?

Family time. My 3 boys, 8, 10, 12. This is the— I have 3 things I can do to sort of slow down my brain. Number one is obviously exercise, which everyone should do. I believe in healthy body, healthy mind. The second thing used to be golf until I messed up my back a little bit. Every golfer screws up their back sooner or later, but I don't have time for it either. I don't prioritize it. So it's family, and family is the best one. It's the one that makes me absolutely in the moment, no cell phone, just love it. Yeah. Why are you working on it? You're looking pretty aggressive over there. I'm worried now what's going on.

What? We're working on that. Family. We're working on that F. Family. Faith.

I told them I'm getting old. Like, you know, I'd like to see a child one of these days.

Right, right, right.

It's happening. They're like my kids. My kids, you know, they're your age. When did you get married? How old were you? 30. Yeah. See, like my kids are the same. It's like, I was married at 22. And in my generation, everybody was literally married right out of high school, 18. You know, I waited a long time. Yeah. When are we getting married? My wife, when are we getting married?

I'm 22 already. I never understand that actually.

Totally.

For me, it's so hard to understand that concept of marrying young because when your frontal cortex of your brain is still developing till you're like 23 to 25 years old, you don't even know who you are.

They didn't know that back then.

No, they didn't know that back then.

True. No. When I got married, my mother-in-law pulled me aside. She goes, you're an old soul. Have you ever heard that before?

Yeah.

She told me I was an old soul. Well, my brain was fully developed when I believed it. And I knew, I knew, my daughter's the same way. I knew where I was going, what I needed to do, what I needed to accomplish. And that's why it took me 3 years before I got married, because I wanted to have a good job, stable, you know, all the stuff that people tell you about, and a house. So we had all that. And here we are today.

There we go. Yeah. Beautiful.

You still have that house.

Still have that house.

And it cash flows like crazy.

Awesome.

Well, um, this was very eye-opening, and I appreciate you making the time for us. How can people reach out to you if they want to get more information about your services and deals, anything like that?

Uh, best way, Instagram, uh, Andreas the CEO. I also have a website, leadersadapt.com. I answer all the DMs I get on Instagram. So often I get people reaching out asking me for business advice, and I do spend the time actually answering them. I leave voice memos. It's the quickest way because I can do it when I'm driving.

That's insane.

What's Instagram?

It's on this thing that is coming up. It's called the internet.

Ah, okay. Okay.

It's a new thing.

It's all the rage. Okay, all the kids.

It's the reason why your Tesla gets upgraded every week.

Yeah. Did you put all his stuff on there? How to get a hold of him?

I sure did. Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, I want to try something new. Okay, we're gonna go into like 10 or 15 minutes overtime if that's good with everybody. And the reason I want to do this is the first time we've ever done this. I've never had a guest— before we started, you said, can I ask you guys questions? Yes. So here we go. 10 or 15 minutes. Ask away.

What made you start the podcast?

Well, it's not me, obviously. It was you.

I would say, um, it initially started as just more content that we could chop up and share, but now it's evolved into when people come on, And give their story and their perspective, it's directly affecting our careers. For example, I had a deal. I couldn't figure out what to do with the probate situation. A guy came in, he's like, oh, you should just do adverse possession where you just take it over. Now I did that. Now we're turning it into a cash-flowing property.

That's awesome.

And then I had another buddy come in, or not even a buddy, just somebody that I met the first time when they came on the podcast, a few capital raising Boom, raised capital for some flips. So now you dropped some knowledge today. I'm going to go implement that. So now it's turning into just straight meeting people, growing the network. So that's, that's what it is. But initially started as just a content thing.

Yeah. And on the same token, I'm actually meeting with somebody for lunch on Friday who reached out and wants to learn how to do an assumption of a loan on a property. And it's like, The only time we've ever talked about it is here on the podcast, or I, I, he, he does some Instagram stuff for me as well. Um, so, you know, that was like literally a social media lead that, that we ended up getting.

That's amazing. So it's like almost, it's directly correlated with business, but it's also a mentorship basically. Yeah, super smart. What has been the most frustrating part with doing, you said you had done 50, 60 episodes over the last 2, 3 years. What has been the most frustrating part with it? I would—

I don't know that we've had any frustrating parts other than we did do an episode once where Donald Trump was here and we were interviewing him. But the producer would not let me post that one. I don't know why. Because, you know, it was the Donald.

It was really good.

It was really good. He was like, He was like right there. He was very— in between us. He was still, but he was right between us and we were interviewing him.

Are you sure you didn't post that?

You said you didn't post it.

I don't know if it's on it. We gotta go. That was like episode 6.

Yeah, that was, that was early on.

And, and just usually just technical things, the editing and all that stuff. And we've streamlined it into something that's pretty—

There's no we there. That's Alex. That, that was— he does everything. Yeah, that was just— he really is.

You have a nice setup here.

He's amazing.

Um, what about your meetup? Tell me a little bit about it because we didn't have time before we started and I would love to understand more. What is the meetup? Who is it for? Or what do you mean?

The meetup started 10 years ago and, um, honestly, I was just looking for something to do. I love teaching. I love teaching others. And I found this group in Lake Forest and it was being set up by a couple of real estate agents And went there, and you know, not to bash on them or real estate agents, but they just had no clue. They didn't know what they were doing. And the meetup group was about you know investors and buying properties and stuff like that. And and ten years ago, you know, there was you know things you could buy. You know, you could cash flow on and stuff. Not anymore. But anyways, they decided not to do it anymore, and I asked them. I said, "Can I take over the group?" And they said, "Yeah." Sure, and and one guy goes it was on Meetup, and one guy goes, "Well, you know you'd have to pay me for all the people that I've generated so far," and I go, "Pay you for what?" It's like I could just start my own Meetup at the same place. So anyway, he finally saw the light, and he says, "Well, I paid for the year. Can you at least pay me for that?" I said, "Fine, I'll pay you for that." So I've been doing it for ten years, and it's literally just. Anybody who wants to come, no experience, experienced people, meeting up, listening to people like Alex or me or whoever else, people like you that would like to come and speak, and then networking after that. And literally, that's what it is. It's been going on for 10 years. And, you know, I've got, I think, about close to 3,500 people that are signed up. We average about 75 people that come to the meetup.

That's really good.

Every month, you know. Um, I, I mean, I see— I've seen numbers at like 110, but usually you get half to two-thirds of what people sign up for.

Yeah, life happens.

Yeah.

Okay, if you had a magic wand, one wish— you have to make a business-related wish though— what would it be? What's the one thing you're looking for?

Alex, you can start. I don't, I don't know that I have— Joe wants leads. At my age, I don't know that I have— No, I just want leads. Honestly, any wishes?

Free leads.

Leads for what? Yeah.

For listings, for investments. Right?

He's happy in life.

He's like, I'm going on my cruise. All right, I'll take— I'm happy.

Mine would be unlimited capital.

Is it harder to raise capital or harder to find the deals?

I was going to say deals was my wish, but yeah.

Yeah.

Um, it seems to go in like steps. So we'll have more deals than capital, then we'll have more capital than deals. And it's like this.

Which cycle are you in right now?

But I've, I've always said deals and capital. I've always said, no, that's, I've always said that the deals is where it's at because the capital will flow to good deals.

You know, gold is gold.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You— I mean, you know, if you, you sell it correctly and, and people at the end of the day make money, then they're going to come back for more. You know, it's, it's deal flow right now. That, that's what I would say. Deal flow. Okay. Yeah, yeah.

Since you dropped a lot of experience, I'm gonna ask you a weird question. Okay, weird. When did your childhood end?

I'm gonna say definitely at 18. Oh, Joe.

Not legally.

Why did you end it?

It ended at 18 because, remember, I'm an old soul. I figured out that, oh my God, it's like, yeah, I've got to earn an income. You know, I'm looking to to hopefully have enough money to buy a place and all that. I had a great childhood, don't get me wrong. I had a wonderful childhood. But 18, it was like, not that I was being forced out or anything like that. Oh my gosh, my mom cried when I left. I left at, let's see, I bought my first house when I was 20. So I was at home for a couple of years before I bought my first house. And I'm not a boomerang kid. You know what a boomerang kid is? No.

Yeah. Oh yeah, I do. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. I didn't go back home. So yeah, 18. I would say 18.

The reason why I ask, you still have a young mind. Thank you. I try to. Based on how you told me about like the 100 cruises and everything else. Yeah. That for me is still someone who has the young mindset but have— how do I say it? Live like a child in the mindset, in a positive, everything is possible. Even though they're physically older.

I think that's what one thing my dad taught me is there is no, there is no no. There is a solution to everything. You just have to figure it out. And he would go to sleep some nights and we started flipping cars, you know, before I flipped houses. He would, you know, we're trying to figure something out and he wake up the next morning, he goes, Joe, I got it. I go, what do you got? I figured out that problem that we were having last night in my sleep. Like, okay. It's like, okay. Yeah. No, I try to make this office entertaining. Okay. I sometimes, I pick on younger people because I love young people. I'm looking over there. She's not looking at me. Yeah, I'm looking at her. I love picking on young people. She's really good. My son-in-law's assistant agent, whatever you want to— whatever fits. Especially young people, because I'll say something that I grew up with or whatever, and she goes, what's that? You got to love that.

That phone that you were spinning around.

Yeah, it seems like every day he's like, you don't know what that is?

Yeah, you know what that is? Yeah, What was it the other day? Third degree.

Oh, yeah.

She had never heard what the third degree was. Maybe because you're not from the US.

Oh, yeah. No, I—

Okay. Yeah, it's like a police officer interviewing somebody with a bright light and they're interviewing you and they're giving you what's called the third degree.

Huh. I didn't know that.

Yeah. So, she didn't know that either. And that's, you know, it's just fun.

It doesn't make you old. It makes you knowledgeable.

It's fun.

Yeah, it's fun. You're roasted around here. It's okay.

That's what I meant. There was a lot of roasting. That's why I was like, I'm curious to see, like, did the childhood ever end?

That's true. Yeah, maybe the 18 thing.

It ended at 18, but it's always, it's always there. It's— yes, I agree. It's always there. Yeah. Are you going to continue to pick on me? Are you going to ask me?

No, I'm going to ask him a question. Okay. I just thought it was an interesting—

Yeah, you got that twinkle in your eye. We wanted to know where it came from. Who was your superhero Um, oh, I gotta go back in time here.

Like Winnie the Pooh.

Um, honestly, I can't remember. Um, it was my dad.

Yeah, yeah, I love that answer. Do you have kids?

No, I'm trying. We're trying. We're working on it. We're working on it.

Okay, now I see the connection.

Yeah, I'm pounding them every day. It's like, yeah, the clock is ticking.

It is. It is.

Yeah, I aspire to be that superhero for my kids as well. That's why I love that question.

Yeah. Yeah, no, it really was.

What's the— okay, 10 years from now. What's this company like?

Oh, well, we all have our own companies, but—

What's your company like?

Okay, exactly. That shit. Yeah.

Um, it, it probably looks similar. I mean, I love, I love the day-to-day of doing it, but then knowing that everything is covered and we have the security of investments That's pretty much it. And then you get to go to Hawaii like 6 times out of the year.

He moves— that's literally it. He moves from this chair to this chair.

Got it.

Wow.

But he has the shirt on for Hawaii at least.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's your goal. Move from that chair to this chair.

Then who sits here?

We have to find a new person.

Oh gosh.

Yeah. And I know you love young new people.

Tell Andreas about The 22-year-old you met.

No.

You know where this is going.

I don't want to know where this is going.

No, exactly. And that's why I told Joe, I was like, I can't talk to anyone that young because then I get sad about the future of America.

It is sad. I don't know how many young people you talk to. I mean, I talk to anybody who wants to talk to me and buy me coffee or lunch. Remember I said lunch. Okay.

Not coffee.

I prefer lunch, but coffee's fine. But yeah, lately I've met a 19-year-old who wants to get involved in real estate. And I mean, I ask lots of questions like, okay, well, like, would you wake up this morning and say, I wanna do real estate? I mean, where's all this coming from? You know, please tell me so I can help you, okay? And then a 22-year-old that I met with today, I don't think he's listening, but yeah, Joe, I wanna do real estate and I wanna be an investor and I wanna buy real estate and make money and, Oh, by the way, I've taken the real estate exam and I failed 5 times. Okay.

Do you really want it then?

No, I don't know. I kept asking him, I was like, okay, well, what happened? Oh, I couldn't memorize. Okay. It's like, seriously? It's like, that's what the test is all about. Just memorizing the answers. They give you the questions, they give you the answers. You just have to memorize it, go in there and then, oh yeah, I remember this question. This is the answer. It's not that hard. It really isn't. But there wasn't like a gleam in his eye. He kept looking away. It's not like, I don't know, it's not like if me, if I meet somebody and I have a nice conver— like if I were to meet you, I mean, it would be conversation back and forth. It's not like I'm not gonna waste your time. You know, why are we meeting for an hour? You know, it's just like any other meeting, like a Zoom meeting or whatever. It's like, why are we meeting? Like, there has to be a reason, a purpose. But anyway.

Interesting. I think there's a lot of young people, especially sub-25, they've grown up with a screen. They've been looking at it. That's the interaction they have with other people. Yeah. And they're they kind of freak out. Like, if they're used to seeing sort of the face, and if you start using your hands or other things, it's— they don't know what to do with that because that's not what they see on social media. I think there's a lot of Gen Zs as well that have very short concentration span because of social media. They're struggling to memorize, they're struggling to learn. A lot of undiagnosed ADHD people as well.

Yeah.

So what do you do as a dad? Are you like with iPads and, you know, you see the toddlers with the iPads and like—

We, we, now that they're a little old, like the problem you have when you have a 12-year-old, he is, he wants a gaming PC and all these other things. It's really hard to not get the 8-year-old the same thing. Right. We have screen time. Uh, we also in the evenings, we cut it off. And if we're going to do something, I don't want anything to be interactive. No social media, like absolutely not allowed until they're older. It's addictive, too addictive. What I'm doing instead is I'm saying, we can watch a movie together in the evening. I don't want them to sit and play a game. I don't want them to sit by themselves. It still have to be something social. And then we remove screens at times, or some days they just don't have it at all. But it's hard. It's hard when you're both working. We have sort of a house manager, nanny, whatever you want to call her. And she does a phenomenal job allowing us to work a lot. But the day she's not there, we don't have a choice. So, I believe you have to have screens as part of their lives. It's how the society runs today. I'm just seeing it in a lot of younger people I meet, especially at meetups. They don't know how to strike up a conversation. They don't know really what they're passionate about. Mm-hmm. They feel lost for some reason. And they look at all these social media stars, and they're trying to figure it out through that lens. Which is the exception, not the rule. I ran into a woman; she started a super interesting AI company that helps younger people with career development or understanding what career path they should take because again, they're trying to find answers on social media. But she made some form of AI where you still use your cell phone, you answer a bunch of questions, you upload different videos and everything, and then it analyzes it to sort of help guide you in a certain direction because she kept meeting a lot of young people who don't. don't know where to go in life. It's sad. Um, yeah, it's so different. I'm still a Gen X, so I'm right on the edge.

Alex and I actually met on a screen. It was during COVID so there was an excuse, and I took my monthly meetup on Zoom, and Alex was there, and he was on the other side of the screen, and I'm looking at him and going like, oh my gosh, like, is he lost or what? He looks scared. He hasn't said anything, you know? It's like, what's the I've seen that face multiple times today. Yeah. Just fear. And so, you know, the way I am, the personality, I picked on him. I said, you know, hey, what'd you come for? You know, why are you here? Tell us. You know, I don't remember if he even said anything. He probably did. He probably answered you. Yeah, he probably did. You know, and then I said, yeah, if you want to meet, let me know. But he did. He took the next step, you know, and here we are 4 years later. And he keeps taking a step forward. Sometimes it's towards the cliff and producer has to grab him and pull him back because he says yes to everything. So we've gotta like, wait, don't do that. That's not good.

Joe's like, that's mortgage fraud.

Yeah. Don't do that. All right. All right. Details. Yeah. Don't do that. Don't do that. Joe, what do you think? Can we do this? No, that's mortgage fraud. Yeah, it's good.

Surround yourself with the right people. It really helps you.

So what made you— what— how did you build up the— like, how did you face the fear of asking him for lunch and actually picking his time? Like, you must have been worried prior to it.

Were you fearful?

Oh yeah, I was scared. Yeah.

Seriously?

Well, I mean, I came from just music background, music production, nothing realistic.

They were living in a van traveling Playing music, and obviously COVID. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It stopped. So yeah, and I knew I needed to find a mentor. So found Joe. He's like, "Yeah, come on down." How did you know you needed a mentor? Every book that I was reading so far said that. Then I went to bigger pockets. It's just always like find a mentor, find a mentor, find a mentor. Now looking back, I wish I would have done that every single. Thing in my life, you know, find a mentor. But then when it came to this, Joe was lucky or nice enough to respond and then also, you know, give his time. So then I came down here and took advantage of that.

Yeah, it's a win-win. I see the love.

No, no, it is a win-win because he said, I want to do wholesaling. I want you to teach me. And in return, I will do videos for you just like this. Smart. Yeah. And so there was like, nobody's ever asked me that before. It's like, you know, here's a value add. So yeah, it was, it was, and he's still doing it today and I appreciate it. I mean, he just literally puts me in front of the camera and, you know, I do a Biden thing. There's a teleprompter there and I just read, you know, I was like, hello. My name is Joe Holmes. I've gotten way better than that. Here's my first video. Hi, my name is Joe Holmes and I'm a realtor, investor. And what was the other thing you told me? Come on, man. Mentor. Oh yeah, that mentor. You know, so no, I've gotten a lot better since we've been doing this. Yeah, a lot better. Yeah. Yeah.

Fun stuff. Anyway, one more question.

You have one more question? If not, then we'll cut it off.

Yeah, I mean, we're—

What advice would you give me?

That's you.

I don't know that I would give you any advice other than travel. And you said you're going to go away for 10 weeks?

10 weeks to Europe this summer, 5 countries.

But I would say, I would say batch all your podcasts before that so you're not having to shoot the podcast while you're in Europe with your family and worrying about all that junk.

Yeah, what is the purpose of you doing your podcast? What, what is that?

2, 2 reasons. I am fascinated. So the podcast is going to be called Adapt or Die, and I'm fascinated by change. I'm fascinated by people that are resilient. I'm fascinated by leaders who faced fear, handled rejection over and over again, and still got the result. They just kept going. So when you said start, just take one step, I'm saying like, just keep going. Like, just keep— like, just keep swimming. Just— but it's like, just keep going. And when I met so many founders and CEOs that built businesses, sold them, but they lost a piece of the identity of who they were. And I, I wanted to do a podcast. I believe that a lot of them truly adapted or died. There have been many conversations throughout the life of that company, like, unless we do this, we have to shut down. Unless we do this, we're going to screw this up. So everyone always talks about the successes So I'm going to structure the podcast in 3 sections. It's sort of the, what was that moment where you had a massive, like, the adapt or die moment? How did you handle the adaptation? And what was the success you got from it? I want to hear that not from a, oh, we hired this person, everything was great. Like, I want to know it from a psychology perspective. Like, what went through up here? What did they have to compromise in here in order for them to get get to where they're at today? And I'm just curious about it. And I don't want to commit to doing this. I'm writing one book. It's, like I said, it's done in September. That's a very different one. I might write a book about the concept around change and adaptation later this year as well. I'm so fascinated about it. I can't explain why.

Are you— and I know we said we're going to end, but you bring up a different— are you into politics at all?

I don't care at all. I well, that's wrong. I do care, but I don't have a strong political opinion. Okay. Let me ask. I would be a swing voter if you ask.

Let me ask you this way. I guess I shouldn't have said are you into politics because where you went is like where normally somebody would go. Where where I want to know is okay we have President Trump. And we have all his cabinet members. And again, I've lived in this country my whole life, and you haven't, but I've never ever in my lifetime seen people that he has representing him in a cabinet acting the way they are, which is like literally pushing back against these people in the right way. It's like, dude, this is common sense.

Why?

We've had 3 trials for this guy and now you're still not letting us take him out of the country? Like, what's going on?

I'm not following news. Here's what I learned years ago. Like I said, I would politically standpoint, I would be a swing voter, but I learned years ago that if I follow everything that goes on in the news all the time, I waste a lot of my positive energy and brain capacity to thinking about it and caring about it. Instead, I rather put that into growing other people or more a positive mindset. I learned that the news makes me— it's the one thing that— there are a lot of things that can get to me, but few things can really get to me. But I just like, I don't— I can't explain it. It just drains me.

So I just stay away from it. I agree.

So I don't actually keep track on everything right now. What I did do is I pulled out all my money out of the stock market before it crashed. Yeah. And I Moved away from every equity investment and I'm doing much more debt vehicles right now. That's the one thing I'm tracking. But I have a lot of advisors around me who gives me the insight of how the political landscapes impact the investment landscape.

Thank you. Amazing. Appreciate it.

Got to keep it on, keep focus on what I can impact.

That's right. Love that. Thank you. All right, you guys, make sure to follow Andreas on Instagram and reach out to him if you have any questions. Or if you want to get some coaching from him, and we will be back here next week. Thank you so much for joining us. It was a blast. See you.

If you want some more advice on real estate investing, reach out to us one on one.