Episode #805 - The Secret To Passive Income with Angela Duncan

Welcome to this edition of the million Dollar Mastermind podcast. This is where we pick the brains of high achievers from all walks of life and get their hard earned real world insights on winning. I'm your host, Larry Wydell.

When you have success like that, doors open to you. And what were some of those kind of doors that are open? So right now I know that you, you know, you've written a best selling book on, on money and we can talk about that. You've got your own podcast. And I don't know how long that's been going on, but you've got your own podcast, you've spoken. One thing is you've spoken at the, you're a keynote speaker recently. Is that true?

Yeah, that. I've kind of been working on that. It's, for me, I've always told myself that was never my skill set, but once I started doing speaking, I realized that I enjoy it. I got past that fear, you know, part of getting on stage because I, I envision just one person coming up to me and saying thank you. I needed to hear that. And now I'm going to go take action and it's going to change their life. So I stopped putting the pressure on myself about the fear of speaking and then focus more on the impact that I could make because I have been in this world for 25 plus years. I have knowledge that I need to share with other people. And if it wasn't for those early people sharing their knowledge with me, I wouldn't be here today. So I want to have the same impact on someone else.

And so what have you found from the podcast? What results have you noticed? How, how is that changing you?

I used to think that it was just me telling my story and somehow I would change people's lives. But having my own podcast, as you probably know, you get to meet incredible people who have incredible stories, who all have something to teach about money. And maybe the audience might not relate to me, but they're going to relate to that other person. And when they can relate to you and they start to trust you, that's when they're going to listen, that's when they're going to implement. Because until you reach them and they feel like they can understand where you're coming from, they're not going to listen to you, which means we're not going to change lives.

When you wrote your, you know, you had this desire to write your book, what was your thinking there? What was the compelling reason? Because it's, you know, it's a Big effort to write a book.

Yeah, I wanted something simple. I've read a lot of finance and money books over my years, and sometimes they. They're so long and cumbersome and it can be overwhelming to someone who's just starting on their financial journey. So I wanted to reach that market. I wanted to reach a market that said, hey, I want to control my finances, I want a different life. I don't know where to start. So I wanted to provide them with 101 tips that they could implement easily into their life today, or at least peak some conversation around money. And you don't need a dictionary, but it's a simple blueprint for you to start on your money journey today.

But right, you know, on the face of it, 101 tips would sound complicated right there. The idea of giving them a smorgasbord of things and they could pick the ones that fit their situation now and then maybe down the road do other things. What was your idea between putting this flood of tips out there? You learned a lot of tips along the way.

Yeah. And as a money person, you know, numbers speak to me and to a certain audience, numbers speak. So I did a lot of research on book titles. So empower your money. Your and money are one of the five most Google words ever. So if you're googling money and the word your, you're going to pull up in rankings. So that was the first part. And then when you do the subtitle, people like numbers. And so I wanted to put the word tips in there so it didn't seem like here's a whole dictionary for you. It's just a tip. Take the tip, run with it, implement it, or move on to the next one.

Yeah. Now, what was the main thing when someone reads that book, what are the main. The main thing you want them to go away with?

The first thing is my number one tip, which is invest in yourself. And it really means take the time to figure out what you want to learn about. So when you invest in your own education first, that's the start of the journey. And it goes into, you know, tips about retirement, it goes into tips about your children. So you're going to take away from it where you are in life today, and just to be able to take one action, implement really can change.

Now, you ran that office, you had success, but you got restless, I guess, and decided you wanted to go on your own and do your own coaching, which is what you do now. And we talked before we got started about your coaching. You coach people on passive investing, you're, you're a big believer in passive investing. And how did that, how did you come around to that?

People are busy. That's probably the biggest objection I hear from people is they don't want to invest or they don't know where to start because they're running their careers, their business, their lives. They're so busy they just want to set some money aside, let it work hard for them without having to put in all the additional effort to. They don't want to watch the stock market, they don't want to drive by houses or deal with tenants. And so I give them a couple of options that's part of their investment whole portfolio to be able to add some passive income opportunities to what they might be already doing. But that's where my expertise goes in. And then we bring in a financial advisor so that we at least diversify and get into some other areas because I never recommend for anyone just to be in one one sector.

Now does that mean when people start at with you as a new client, do they have to have a minimum amount of money to invest? And you know, because you'll go through the object, what are your objectives and how serious are you about this? And you know, are you going to, you're going to stay with us for a while? Because it's got to be worth your while to coach them. You know, they've got, they've got two, you know, you can't coach somebody who's not willing to be coached. I'm sure you have a question area that you put them through. So what are you looking for as a professional?

You understand that I am looking for someone who's already experienced in some investing. The brand new people, I will refer them to financial advisors in my world that I might think is a good fit for them. This is in addition to their existing portfolio. So I'm looking for clients who have already been in the market. Perhaps they understand real estate tax liens, things of that nature. Commercial real estate, that's more of the lane that I stay in. So your, your brand newbie investor is not going to be my client, but I can help coach them and get them to a place where they're, they will be able to invest with me and we look at a lot of budget income and bringing other partners so that we're all part of the same team to help the client achieve their own financial goals.

You're starting to sound like a hedge fund now.

No hedge funds. I am not securities licensed, Larry. I'll leave that for you.

Now when you go and look at the opportunities out there, if you're speaking to people right now and you're a keynote speaker and they're saying, show us some passive income opportunities in commercial real estate. What are some things for them to think about and possibly get excited about that maybe you've overlooked?

Yeah. So two areas I focus on. The first one I touched on is tax liens. We have a fund that we have people that are going out and acquiring tax liens. They could be foreclosing on properties, they could be giving cash to keys for people. So we're looking to acquire required discount on residential properties. And when I say passive, you're giving money and allowing the fund to do the work and we give you a promissory note in return for a certain percentage on your investment. So that's one sector I focus on.

You said fund, you said fund. Now you're getting into a, you know, financial enterprise or something.

Not necessarily nonprofits have funds. They're not securities license. It's just a fund is a pool of money.

Okay, so these pool of monies can be coming from anywhere, right? Absolutely. Now do you have access to, do you create funds from your clients that you'll go out and get these tax liens and like who's managing these funds? You know, who's calling the shots?

Yeah, our company does. And so they've been around for, you.

Know, they've been investing in a third party company, Right.

It's the company I'm a broker with, correct?

Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. So we collect the funds and then we have a team that goes out and does the physical and aspect work of it. And so as you know, my client coming in, they're not going to do any of the work, they're not going to do the research on the properties, they're not looking for tax liens, they're not hiring attorneys or title companies doing lien searches. You know, all the work that goes into it, we do. They're lending money to this fund and in return we're paying them a percentage interest rate.

Now when they lend the money in, is it going to stay in there for a period of time? You know, is it like a five year commitment type thing, something like that?

Yes, this specific one is a three year time commitment, but your interest is paid annually.

Uh huh. And so what other kind of things are out there that people have maybe overlooked that or opportunities for passive investment?

Yeah, so the other one that we have to offer is more of a commercial or developer fund. And so as you probably know the banks are a little bit leery right now on investing. Or say for example, a developer went over budget and they just need a little bit more capital to finish a project. Those are more short term requirements. And so that's the where we focus on the other one. I primarily work with the tax lien fund, but those are a couple of the options that our company has to offer. And again, the client is giving the money or loaning the money to the fund and they just collect their interest. So that's passive, meaning they're not putting in the work to generate the income. We do that. We're just promising to pay a certain percentage called an interest rate back back to them for the funds that they're giving to us.

Yeah, and that's more attractive than standard investments because.

You know what you're going to get at the end of the day. I don't know what's going to go on with the stock market. One crazy headline can take a stock down for, you know, whatever various reasons. I don't believe in investing in crypto. To me, bitcoin, there's no financial statement. I can't analyze a bitcoin. So I stay away from that market. And those are very active. You need to be active in those roles or hire someone like yourself who's active in the industry to give you advice on other aspects of investing.

Oh no, not me. No, no, no, not, not me. I'm not going to get into the buying and selling.

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Now the thing is that let's switch gears and go back. You've observed a lot of people you know coming up and you started on the underbelly of the financial side of life and you've had a chance to analyze people and make up your mind because a lot of times when you're, you're coming from the poverty side of the tracks, you're ignored and people don't realize you're watching them and you know, you're in any you unique position to observe. But then you move into a situation where you're running an office and you see people come in and you know, out of a hundred people you recruit, you know, in real estate, it's just like any kind of commission environment. It's like gym memberships. You know, out of a hundred people to sign up, you know, you're going to get the top 10%, the bottom 10% that don't do anything and, you know, never come, and then the top 10% that are in there all the time. And, you know, so what trends did you notice? Let's just talk about your real estate. In running the real estate company, what did you observe about the people who came in and were successful? What were their traits there? And talk about some of the success stories you witnessed with people who came up through your system. And you know, maybe they developed them there, maybe they came in with a lot of these things in place. But what do you, first of all, what did you notice about the people who win and the people who lose in that environment?

Yeah, so one of them, I think people need to be disciplined. They need to know that they have to check their ego a little bit and learn from other people. Because you could be in real estate 20 years and not be successful. So if something is not working for you, you need to be disciplined enough to check your ego. Also consistency, you know, people will, especially real estate agents, I think they get the rap about like chasing the shining object. You have to allow for something that you implement, give it time to work and figure out, can I tweak it and make it better or do we scrap it all together? But if you don't allow it enough time to go through a cycle, then you never really truly know if it's really going to work. So those are a couple things. And then also looking for places that other people are not. Early in our real estate, when we were developing our team, there were no real estate agents on radio. So we launched a radio show and we talked about real estate. So that was an early adapter for us. Then we started being on billboards. There's lots of attorneys on billboards, but you don't necessarily see a real estate agent. We wanted the audience to see that we were real people. We wanted them to be able to relate to us because they're not buying or selling a house from a company. They want someone on their side. And so building the brand around a person really worked well for Us?

Yeah. And in terms of developing people skills, do you find that people can really change?

Oh, absolutely. I mean, I've been through many changes myself in my life. You need a compelling reason, too. So like, if a new agent is coming in and maybe they're doing a career switch, maybe they got married or had a kid, and maybe they have a chip on their shoulder because they failed at a previous business, figuring out where that pain point is will help them to make that change or that transition to be a better version of themselves.

What would you say is your looking back the biggest pain point you went through? And maybe it happened to you, maybe you did it to yourself, but regardless, there you are and you got to deal with it. You know, like, for example, yesterday, I won't get into it, but something happened with someone. I won't even say who they are in my life, but they're in my inner circle and I'm still furious at them, you know, because we, we had a plan. Very clear. Explain it. You know, it's like, you know, you're. You build day, week, month, year off tightly, using your schedule, and then they proceed to go like you never even had the conversation. And then all of a sudden it's up to you to go rebuild the God blessed skyscraper that they bungled because they just must not been paying attention. And so this happens to us. You're never going to get away from it. But the worst time is when you do it to yourself. And I almost got run over for by a bus coming over here from the. I told you, I came off the mountain skiing early, and I was so preoccupied with this one thing that I was telling you. I thought I was. I walked across the street, I thought I was on the curb. I was actually about 4ft out the middle of the road and a bus almost ran over me. And that would have been hard to explain to everybody, but it's worse when you do it to yourself. But these things are happening all the time, but they're really severe ones where it cuts to the bone. A lot of times we don't want to talk about it, Angela, but sometimes they're the most important.

Yeah, for me, the most recent one would be my divorce. So it's been three years now. And I'm a firm believer that in any type of relationship, marriage, business, whatever, it takes two people to win. It takes two people to lose. And so I really had to reflect on myself. How did I lose? What did I do? And what could I have done differently? And what do I need to change Going forward. And not only that, but being married for a long time and now being a single. He bought out the companies. So I had to find a brand new identity. Who am I now as a single? Who am I not as a remax owner? Who am I in this new environment? And to re kind of revamp the person that I wanted to be was really difficult. It was a dark period in my life for me because I couldn't figure out what tomorrow looked like, let alone how do I continue on this new path. So that was a pain point for me because I had to re identify myself and figure out what's next. And going through divorce can be a really hard time. But I also chose. We are still good friends today. We, you know, I have a daughter that's 20 and we're very much part of her life. And so we had to choose to be friends and amicable afterwards. Whereas a lot of people choose differently. But I can only control myself. And so I want it to be the best version of me going forward after I get through the darkness and the self reflection.

Well, the thing is that when you're thrown into a tailspin, you have to go through recovery and you know, the first steps of survival and get your feet, you know, like I told you, I hadn't been able to ski in 16 years. And now I'm back on the mountain and I'm going very slow, getting my legs underneath me, getting the strength back and not, you know, not being stupid and going out there getting an ACL injury or something. But you have to do that pretty much anytime you go through a traumatic change in your career path, your life path. And so one of the things that we do is like what do I really want now? What you said, right there was one thing I want overall beyond anything is I want to be there to support my daughter and I want my ex and I to be there to support. We don't want it to ripple over and have a negative impact or minimize a negative impact in her life. And so that gives you starting whenever you get one thing like that, like, okay, I can agree on that, that's worth fighting for. When you get one thing like that non negotiable. I want that to happen, whatever that is, you know, and then you could start to build off, you know, it's kind of a. Becomes like a foundation for you moving forward, isn't it?

Yeah, absolutely.

Now and then you start adding other things like, you know, what was in my past life, what would I not only what was I good at or what was I not good at? But what, what did I really enjoy? What's really fascinated me that I have not been able to do before? And you got into the, you know, the personal, you know, the podcasting, building your own brand basically, but working with clients. What have you observed from dealing with investors that are successful and investors that are not successful?

It comes down to them kind of trusting me in my process because they could be real estate investors before that, or maybe they only believe in like stock market. And so you'll get those objections from people and if they don't ask enough questions to truly understand what it is that I do and how that I can help them and fall. And a lot of that falls on me too. I do ask them questions and sometimes you might think that they understand what you're talking about and then they walk away and they don't know what you're talking about. I think that can lead to an unsuccessful relationship. And so you have to take the time up front. I'm not going to do what I used to call or what they called in banking, which is product popping. Oh, here's this investment. You need it. I don't know if you need it. If we haven't had a discussion and really understand what you need from financial planning or from your investments, this might not be the right fit for you.

Yeah, yeah, that's the, you know that, that's what the stockbrokers have been accused of all the time. You know, smile and dial. You know, we, you know, we got 10,000 shares of this came in this morning. We've got to move them by, by 5:00 clock today. You just go through your Rolodex and try find somebody to buy a thousand of them, whatever, but that's not what you're doing. And are these, when you get in with these things, these are people that you're hopefully going to be having long term relationships with. So you have to be careful about getting started.

Yeah, it's just like a marriage, right? You're picking the right partner if you know that you're going to spend three years with a client. I want to work with someone that we can, you know, build a great relationship together, that we want to work with each other. I don't want to be stuck with someone who doesn't like me for three years because that's not going to serve them or me. And I'm grateful enough where I'm in a financial position where I don't have to make a sale. And that's the big thing. This is the wrong industry to be in. If you have to make a sell, go work somewhere else, build up your income and portfolio, and then come to this industry. Because I feel like I am a servant to my clients. I am helping them achieve goals. I'm not creating an income. While that's a byproduct of it, that's not my purpose. My purpose is to help my clients achieve their goals and and I don't have to have a cell in order to keep my lights on.

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