Rod Khleif On His $50 Million Loss & The Mindset That Helped Him Rebuild

This is Real Estate Team Builders and I'm your host, Lars Hedinborg, the founder of Real Estate B School. The real estate team building world is driven by big egos who boast about how many homes they've sold or how much GCI they've earned. We don't hear much about their low profit margins, the long hours they put in each week, or the unbearable stress they endure. In fact, I've discovered that most real estate teams are losing money when you consider the amount of personal production their owners must do to make ends meet. I believe that if you want to profitably scale your real estate team without working crazy hours, enduring unhealthy levels of stress, or coming up short at home, then thinking like a business owner, building sustainable systems and empowering your team are absolute musts. You won't find any smoke and mirrors or hype here on my podcast, just the real world tools, systems and strategies that work. So if you struggle to balance growing your real estate business with focusing on the areas of life that truly matter, then this show is for you. All right, welcome back to Real Estate Team Builders. This is going to be a fun conversation. Rod Khleif, you'll get to know him here in a second. I'm going to let him introduce himself, but this is a guy that has succeeded at a very high level and then I think really failed at a high level. And now you've sort of come back and recreated yourself differently. Philanthropist, entrepreneur. And just what were you saying? Like, how many million downloads on your podcast? Like 13 million or something crazy.

Yep, yep, yep. Just broke 13 million.

Yeah, yeah, Just with a message in his heart to entrepreneurs and in the real estate investing space and apartment buildings and all that. Rod, just give us your intro and then I would love to kind of hear your story and I'll interject with. With any questions that I have, but I'm excited for this today.

Oh, thanks, buddy. Well, listen, my story is my intro. So let me, let me go back and give you a little background because I think it'll really add value to some of the messaging think we want to give today. So. So I immigrated this country. I'm an immigrant. I was born in the Netherlands, Holland. Wooden shoes, windmills, you know, and we came over with my. My brother Albert, my mother's Vancha, and we ended up in Denver, Colorado. And we really struggled when we first got here. I mean, I remember eating expired food. She shopped at an expired food store when that was legal. And we drank powdered milk with our cereal in the Morning instead of real milk because it was cheaper. And trust me, it sounds better than it is. And, you know, I remember wearing clothes from the Goodwill and the Salvation army all the way through junior high school till I finally lied about my age at Burger King so I could buy my own clothes and got a job flipping burgers. But, you know, I'm sure you've got listeners that had harder than we did, or maybe even have it harder now. But I knew I wanted more. And luckily, my mom had an incredible work ethic, so she babysat kids, a lot of kids. We always had a house full of kids. And with her babysitting money, she was an entrepreneur. And she invested in the stock market successfully in IPOs. She invested in real estate as well. And the first real estate acquisition was the house directly across the street from us, where I grew up, that she bought for about $30,000 when I was 14. When I was 17, she told me she'd made $20,000 in her sleep that had gone up in value. $20,000. I'm like, what, you just made 20 grand? You didn't do anything? Screw college. I'm getting into real estate. So I went out and got my real estate broker's license, right when I turned 18, I was actually a broker. I wasn't just an agent. Like I was telling you before we started recording Lars, back then, you could do that with education. Now they need, you know, you need some freaking experience before they'll let you run your own office. But I was a broker. But anyway, so my first year in real estate, I made about 8 grand. This is 1978. My second year, maybe 10 grand. But my third year, I made over $100,000. So what happened between year two and year three that caused me to 10x my income? Well, what happened was I met a guy that taught me about the importance of mindset and psychology. I was actually dating his daughter. And just how, you know, 80 to 90% of your success in anything, including real estate sales or investment, is mindset. It's psychology, you know, only 10 to 20%. The mechanical stuff, you know, we talk about on our podcast, Lars, you know, the real estate, technical stuff, you got to actually take action with what you learn. You got to actually push through fear, push through limiting beliefs. Or maybe you're comfortable and the comfort zone is a warm place, and we know nothing freaking grows there, right? So, you know, fast forward to today. I've owned a couple thousand houses that I've rented long term in three states. I own thousands of apartment units in 2006, my net worth went up $17 million while I slept. And you might be like, wow. And I was like, wow. And you know, that's about 8,000 an hour over a 40 hour workweek for the year. And of course, anybody that holds still long enough, my ego had to tell them that. And I got a head so big I could barely fit it through a door. I thought I was a real estate God. And you know when that'll happen, God of the universe will give you a nice little smack. Well, that was 2008. I lost that 17 million. A lot more. I lost $50 million conservatively in 2008. 9. And so what I'm known for talking about on my podcast, it's called Lifetime Cash Flow through Real Estate Investing, is the mindset it took to have 50 million to lose in the first place. And then maybe as importantly, or maybe more importantly, the mindset it took to recover from losing 50 million to the success that I'm blessed to have today. So would love to drill down on that with you if you feel like it's valuable, Lars.

Yeah, I mean there's so much good stuff that you just barely touched on, especially the mechanics versus the mindset. Like take weight loss for example. We chatted about that before we hit record. Right, right. Is there any shortage of strategies to be physically fit and skinny? There's none. It's 100% mindset.

Right.

So yeah, so let's dig into as much as you think helpful. Right. Because I do give a lot of tactics and tools and systems.

Yeah, let's, let's save the tactics. Psychology stuff. Yeah, let's save the tactics for another episode because I'll tell you, I really think that, that especially with the fact that we're heading into a recession. Okay. There's no question. I mean all the big, big names, big money finance people, big CEOs of the banks are saying some one just called it a hurricane. Yesterday, Jamie Dimon called it a hurricane coming. So, you know, and that's going to impact our business. And if you're selling real estate, it's going to impact your business. And so mindset is going to be critical to get you through that. So, you know, how did I recover from losing 50 million bucks? Well, I'll tell you the first thing I was, I reassociated with what I wanted and why I wanted it. Okay. Goals are freaking critical. If you come to one of my boot camps, and I've got one coming up, three day bootcamp coming up, the end of July the first thing we do, it's in Denver and I'll give you guys a hell of a deal if you want to come, but it's in Denver. And the first thing we do is goal setting on steroids. The first hour and a half, that's all we do. Because how do you get anything if you don't know what the heck it is? You got to know what you want and why you want it. And so you know, and it's very, very important because you've got to have what Napole Napoleon Hill calls a burning desire. Okay? That's how you push through fear. That's how you push through. You know, Napoleon Hill wrote the book Think and grow Rich. And you need to read that if you have. In fact, you should read it a couple times a year. It's that important. But you got to have that desire to push through the fear, to push through the limiting beliefs to, you know, get uncomfortable and make things happen. And so let me describe that process real quick. That goal setting process. If you can't come to my boot camp. But basically you pick an hour when you have a lot of energy and you sit down and you write down everything you could ever want in life. All the stuff, the houses, the, the cars, the boats, the jet skis, the planes, all the stuff. And take the lid off your brain. Imagine if you write it down, that you're going to get it, which is not outside the realm of reality, ok? Because what that does is it triggers something in your brain called your reticular activating system. And what that is, is it's a subconscious filter that you're not aware of it consciously, but your brain points you in the direction of what it thinks you're interested in. And the greatest example of this is when you first buy a car. You never really notice them. You buy them, then, they're everywhere. I mean, were they there before? Of course they were. And that's your reticular activating system. And it's the same thing with your go. So write down everything you could want. Write down how much cash flow you want from your real estate investments, say in three years and again in 10 years. Write down how much money you want in the bank in three years and 10 years in case the, you know, what hits the fan fund. You know, write down, and also write down all the things you want to do in this lifetime. You know, I've got a friend that's climbing every mountain over 14,000ft. Stuff like that. Maybe you want to write a book. You know, I jumped out of a perfectly good airplane a few years ago. I'll never freaking do it again. But it's off the list. That stuff, too. That bucket list stuff, write that down, too. Then also write down everything you want. So it's not just the stuff, it's everything you want to do, be, or have. Here's what's sad, Lars. People spend more time planning a freaking Christmas party or birthday party than they do designing their lives. This is designing your life. And so, you know, write down all that stuff. Write down what you want to learn this lifetime. If you want to learn a, you know, foreign language or a skill set, if you want to learn multifamily, for God's sakes, come spend three days with me in Denver the end of July, and I'll give you. I'll. You give. If you're a people, Lars here, I'll give you tickets for 197 bucks. And it's not a sales pitch to spend three days with me and learn this business. So I'll tell you how to do that later. But the point is, if you want to learn something, write that down. And then lastly, write down who you want to help. Why? Because we'll do more for others than we'll ever do for ourselves. And this is the fuel to get you to get up early, to stay up late, to work on Saturdays, to grind for a few years like most people won't, to live the rest of your life like most people can't. This is that fuel. So once you can't think of another thing, I want you to put a time limit on each goal. I want you to write down a 1, a 3, a 5 or 10 or a 20 for how many years you think it's going to take you to achieve it. So, and recognizing that as human beings, we'll overestimate what we can do in a year and massively underestimate what we can do in 5, 10, or 20 years. And I'll give you an example of this. I'm going to give you some examples. Please know, I'm not bragging. I just want to add value, okay? Please know that. So, you know, when I was 18, I knew I wanted to live on the beach. And there's no beach in Denver. And so I would visualize the palm trees and the sand and the surf. And years later, I built this $8 million, 10,000 square foot mansion on the beach. On the beach on one side. And I had my boats on the backside. It was a Gulf debay, a slice through an island and that was unthinkable when I was 18. So that the point I'm making here is take the lid off your brain. If you can imagine it, you can have it. You just got to write it down and then take massive freaking action. And then once you've got a time limit on each goal, a couple more steps, pick your number one goal. I mean, that goal, when you get it, you're like, oh my God, this is amazing. That goal, you know you've arrived. When you achieve that goal, put that on a separate sheet of PA then. And by the way, I did this on January 1st of this year. And if you can't, you're not interested in multifamily, you don't want to come to my bootcamp, go to rod slings.com I did it professionally with music. There's a guide you can download and I will guide you through this process. Do it with your spouse, your significant other. Do it with your kids if they're old enough. It's very, very powerful to get aligned on what you want. Again, don't spend more time on your birthday party than you do designing your life. Come spend an hour with me. Do your goals. You'll be glad you did. So again, that's rodslinks.com the bot is where that stuff is. And that, by the way, it's all my social media there. My, my, my podcast is there. There's lots of free resources there. So it's an incredible resource. If you're interested in multifamily and frankly, if you're out there selling real estate and you're not buying real estate for your own account, what are you thinking? You're in the catbird seat to get the best deals and build cash flow. You get hit by a truck, you're screwed. You know, if you have a, you don't have a retirement plan in most cases with most real estate companies, so start investing in real estate. And there's no greater asset than multifamily by, you know, if you can spend a few days with me in July, you'll be glad you did. But anyway, so you picked your number one goal, put it on a separate sheet of paper, then pick your top three one year goals, put them on a separate sheet of paper, recognizing, like I said, that people underestimate what they can do in a year and mass, I'm sorry, overestimate what they can do in a year and massively underestimate what they can do in a longer period of time. So you've got four goals. Leave Some room in between them. Like I said, if you download that guide@rozlinks.com, you'll be just right on that. But you can use a piece of paper. Okay. At this point, you're ahead of 99.9% of the people on the planet to do a New Year's resolution that's forgotten by February. But there's one more really important step you need to write down underneath each one of those goals. Why it's an absolute freaking must for you to achieve. Ok? And you want to use emotionally charged words. Words like amazing, beautiful, incredible when you're writing your descriptions. So I can show my kids what incredible success looks like. So I can show my wife what it means to live a life of amazing abundance. So we can have complete freedom to do whatever we want, whenever we want, wherever we want, bring whoever we want. Whatever's going to juice you, write it down and make it compelling. Because it's the why that's going to drive you and much more than the goal itself. Once you've got a reason why underneath each goal and we're almost done, put up negative reason. If you don't achieve the goal, put some negative impact in there. If you don't achieve the goal, make it freaking hurt. So I don't feel like a failure. So I don't fail my kids. So I don't fail my husband or wife. So I don't live a life of regret. Here's why this is important. Important. As human beings, we'll do more to avoid pain than gain pleasure. And you want to use this as the fuel that's going to get you to get up early and make things happen for yourself. So put some pain in there. And, you know, I'll give you an example of this. There was this nurse in Australia, a hospice nurse. So, you know, she took care of people when they were about to die. And she, Laura, she asked him a question. The question was, do you have any regrets? And she wrote a book about it. It's called the Five Regrets of Dying. You know what the number one regret was? Not living the life I could have lived. Living someone else's life. Not doing what I know I'm cap. Capable of. I can't think of anything worse than that. Okay? You know, if you're out there and you're afraid of failure, fear regret much more. We fail our way to success. I call them seminars. You know, that was a $50 million seminar. And I've built. Gosh, I've built. I just counted them a Couple of years ago, 27 businesses so far, several worth tens of millions of dollars. Most spectacular flaming seminars. Okay, but again, we fell our way to success. I got to meet the the billionaire owner of Spanx, the woman's undergarments. Her name's Sarah Blakely. She's a beautiful human being. You know the stuff that holds it together for women. Well, she started with $5,000 and she's worth several billion now. But I met her at her mastermind and she told me that her dad used to ask her and her brother once a week, what have you failed at this week? And I thought, what a great freaking question to ask your kids so they don't fear failure. Anyway, so you've got your negative, positive, negative reasons why go get pictures of your goals or make declarations. Let me give you an example of this. Jim Carrey, the actor, comedian, wrote himself a check for $10 million when he was flat broke. And for those of you millennials, the check is something we used to use to pay for things. Zello or Venmo or whatever. But anyway, so wrote himself a check and he'd go up to sit by the Hollywood sign flat broke, and he'd look at it and visualize cashing it. And that's how much money he made for Dumb and Dumber. Okay, more recent example, Demi lovato, the singer, 12 years ago when she was unknown, posted in social media. One day I'm going to sing the national anthem in the Super Bowl. Not one go watch the one before who sang it. I'll give you some personal examples for me. When I was 18, I figured I had to have a four door car to show people houses, right? So I got this bone freaking ugly piece of crap Ford Granada. Bench seat in the front, just a piece of junk, but I figured I had to have that. But then I dated the guy I told you about, taught me about mindset. I was dating his daughter and he had two Corvettes and he let me drive one and I'm like, oh my God, this is freaking amazing. So I got a picture of a Corvette out of a magazine, put it on the visor of my bone ugly grown Granada. So every time I sat in there, it was right in front of my face. Within a year or two. Out of Corvette. Now I'm going to give you some more examples. Just know I'm not bragging, I just want to inspire you. Replace what I'm going to share with you with what you want. So this is back when the TV show Magnum PI Was out, probably before you were born Lars. But anyway, the actor's name was Tom Selleck and he was a detective in Hawaii. And he drove this Ferrari 308. And it was the first time I'd seen an exotic car. And I'm like, holy shit, that is incredible. So I got a picture of that actual car. This again, this before the Internet got a kicker. That actual car out of the, out of a magazine, put it on the visor of my Corvette. Within a year or two, had a Maserati looked just like it. Last example. I'm the guy that always wanted a Lamborghini, okay? I had posters in my bedroom growing up. And my son, when he was nine, collected, had a. Had a collection of model of small model exotic cars, you know, Ferraris and Porsches and McLarens, all that stuff. He had a model of the exact same color and style Lamborghini that I got, which I ultimately wrecked. So get pictures, put them around you. Now, let me ask you this, do you put this on YouTube? Yep. Okay, let me show you something. This is my planner. It's on today. Now, in the back of this thing. So those of you that can't see this, this is a paper planner. I'm a dinosaur. He's a paper planner. In the back of this thing, I've got pictures that have been in here 20 years, okay? They're in plastic. The first pictures are my gratitude pictures. Why? Because everything you bring into your life, you do it with gratitude, okay? That's how you manifest things to prayer, manifestation, whatever you call it. Then I've got pictures of things that I wanted. This top picture looks just like that house I had on the beach. I lost it in all the craziness, but I had 10 high glass like that, but together travertine floors just like this before I ever built it. Now this bottom picture, you can see it. You can see the white walls in there. Lars, see those white walls? That's my backyard. In my compound. I have a compound now. I've got six buildings. And you see the white walls. The same, exact same white wall. It's just crazy how this stuff works. But I've got, you know, six buildings here. I've got a big main house, I've got a two bedroom guest house right on the water. Another building with a video studio and an exercise facility. And I've turned media like a theater room. And God's got a sense of humor. I actually see the old house that I lost that I was telling you about across the bay. It's literally right out my backyard. It's freaking hilarious. But then I've got, you know, stupid shit like I've got a few hundred thousand dollars worth of watches. I got that. That's still advice. I will say that. You know, but like the Lamborghini, before I ever got it, there's a picture of that Rolls Royce, Bentley, all these things that I got because I had pictures. So get pictures, put them around you, get vision boards, do it on your screensaver, put them on your wall because they freaking work. Okay, so I, I'll drop the mic on that one. I can keep going. But no, it's come up for air here.

Awesome. And this is one of the things that, and I want to ask you, you know, coming from, from massive success, at least in your own mind, not realizing that, you know, maybe it was a shaky foundation, the 50 million. But talk a little.

Well, I was only at a, I was only at a 30% loan to value. So I, I, by all outward appearances, it was not shaky. But countries went bankrupt, you know. Yeah. But anyway, yeah, so, so talk a.

Little bit about your mindset when that sort of went away.

I mean, like. Yeah, no, that's good. Good. Because that's, that's coming. There's going to be a lot of that. I mean, I'm seeing deals getting done right now that I'm, I mean, I'm scratching my head how the, how the hell. There's no way they're going to get the returns they're promising to their investors. They're not stress testing these deals. There's, which is why I'm in a lot of cash right now. Because with crisis comes opportunity. And there's going to be some incredible opportunity coming. And you know, and so, and which is why, you know, learning this business, if you' and multifamily, for God's sakes, come to my bootcamp, probably be the last one before the recession really hits. And if you're trying to learn this business while the midst of the recession is happening, it's going to be too late. So if you humor me, I'll answer your question. But let me just plug my bootcamp real quick, if I may, just so I don't Forget. So it's three days, it's July 29th, 30th and 31st in Denver. It's not a sales pitch. I talk about my coaching for about 30 minutes on day two and that's it. The rest of the time is full on training. Eight, eight to ten hours a day. I've got three panels each day with probably two or three billion in assets represented by the panelists answer questions but I go through every aspect of the multifamily business. If you have an interest it's, you know it's building your team because it's a team sport. Unlike single family you do it in a team, you know, picking a market, evaluating that market, evaluating deals, finding deals, underwriting those deals, doing the due diligence on those deals, financing them, syndicating joint ventures, property management, you name it, soup to nuts, the entire business. And and I make sure and spend time on mindset. Okay. Because you got to take action with what you learn. Like I said the first thing we do is goals because it's so important and you will, if you come you will laugh, you will cry. It's not like your typical real estate event. And to go and if you're a friend of Lars here, if you text my Name Rod to 72345 but just remember the code Rod friend is one word. The price is going to go up to about 700 bucks but you can come for one 97 bucks. Kind of a no brainer for three days of training and without a sale pitch.

And so you know it was, it was 72345.

Text ROD to 72345 and remember the code Rod friend and if you have any trouble just DM me on any social channel where we monitor all of them very closely. You'll hear back from us within five or ten hours.

There were two things there. So text R O D to 72345 and then on checkout it's Rod friend.

Is the correct correct and I'm glad you said that again because I almost forgot with that you also get a couple bonuses. You get my deal evaluator software so you can and evaluate multifamily because you don't do it like single family with comps. And you also get my document library with I've spent tens of thousands of dollars on the documents in there which are worth those two things are worth 10 times the 197 so and you get those instantly. So it's truly a no brainer but you know it'll be a lot of fun. And if you go to rodindenver.com, that's the website and if you go to the bottom of that you'll see hundreds of testimonials of people that rave about it. In fact if you come to the event and you don't love it, I don't mean like it, I mean freaking after it's Done. You let me know, I'll give you your money back, no questions asked. It's never happened, but there's a first time for everything, so. And thousands of people have attended. Just thousands. Not hundreds. Thousands. And so. But anyway, I'm real proud of it, and it's the only one I do a year. And because this business is a team sport, you want to get around other people that are doing this. And I want to talk about that in a minute. In a minute, Peers. Because it's so critical right now, you know, because if you're listening or watching this show with Lars, you're a leader. And right now, more than ever, the world needs leaders. And right now more than ever, you need to pay attention to what you're focused on and being around people that want more out of life, not the people that are afraid of success. So, you know, we can talk about that a little more if we have time. But. But. So how did I recover? I got reassociated with my goals. That's number one. Okay. And why I wanted it and what I wanted and why I wanted it, because it would have been real easy to focus on the pain and. And the loss. And it's a natural human tendency to connect through pain. And then I just made a decision, you know, that I had to pull myself out of this, and I actually built a $10 million company helping people save their homes. And ultimately, I wanted to get back into real estate and podcast. And about six years ago, and because I wanted to tell people about my story that, you know, I lost everything because it was single family that pulled me down. I had 800 houses, and those pulled me down. My apartments did just fine. I had several apartment complexes that would have survived if I hadn't cross collateralized them with packages of houses. And. But the bottom line is. So I started the podcast, and I used to tell people, I'll never sell you anything. Now I'm a liar, because I never planned to. I just wanted to add value. Now I've got courses and coaching and everything else, but. But it's been a. It's been a wild ride.

But.

But like I said, I made a decision. Latin root for the word decision means to cut off. If you're going to attack the island in battle, you'd burn your ships because you're taking their damn ships home. That's a fricking decision. It's done. And as you get into this recession, you may have to decide to innovate and pivot and do some different things. That happens as well, and don't be afraid to make that decision. When you do, you're committed. You're like a train on a track. And if you don't, you know, you can get knocked off track, but. But, you know, so that's a critical piece. And then, you know, and then if you've got that burning desire and you've got your goals, you'll be able to push through the fear and all that stuff. And then this the thing I was talking about earlier, get around people that want more out of life. You know, like my students, I'm real proud of this. They own somewhere between 60 and 70,000 doors. And I've been teaching a little over four years. My coaching students, that is. And, you know, and most of those were done between students because it's an incredible peer group. They're called my warriors. So get around people that, that want more out of life, that aren't afraid of success, that aren't, you know, jealous of your success or, you know, don't have their own limiting beliefs that they bring to the party. And I'm going to tell you, sometimes that's family. And I would tell you, love your family, but choose your peers proactively. Most people will default to people that they hang out with, that they go to school with or went to school with or, you know, work with, and that's a mistake. You need to proactively seek out people that want more out of life, and otherwise, you know, they'll pull you down. Like I said, like I started a mastermind. In fact, we're meeting next week. It's the largest mastermind of its type here in the country for multifamily, about 14 billion in assets in it. We're meeting next week in Houston. And I started it because I wanted to be around people that think what I think is hard, is easy, you know. You know, you show me your two best friends, I'll show you who you are. You're going to be just like them financially, physically, happiness, everything. And I want to be around people that want more. You know, if you want. If you're going to play tennis, do you want to play somebody that's better than you, you or worse than you? Right. I mean, this obvious answer is better than you. And that's why I started that. And, you know, there's guys in there with 100,000 doors, you know, and 20,000 units and 10,000, 5,000. So, you know, peer group is critical. In fact, you know, when I was losing everything in 2008, 9, I was in Tony Robbins Platinum Partnership. And it was a lot of money back then. It's even a lot more now. But there were people that were thriving through the crash. So this is. I was in it. I was in there in 089. In fact, I couldn't even do the last. Last event. It was just too. I was too shocked. I was too much in shock. But there were guys there that were thriving through it, and they're like, okay, pussy, get up. 50 million, shmillion. Just get up and get back to work. But that's the kind of people you want to be around. Right. That are going to push you and, And. And hold you to a higher standard and. And, you know, that's who you want to align with. But anyway, I keep going. I'm rambling here.

I'm on page three of notes. So when my head is down, I'm taking notes. If you're watching the YouTube. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think something you just said is like, you know, you know, the peer group is critical, but I've never heard it said this way. Be around people who think what you think is hard is actually easy.

Yeah. And they're out there for every aspect of the business, you know. They're out there.

Yeah. And just, you know, really, really powerful. And, you know, it's not like anyone hasn't heard of goal setting, but the way you kind of put it together in a way, there has to be emotional. Yeah, like emotional juice, you know, to pull you toward it. But also like something that you don't want to have happen.

You got to have that. Because we all have limiting beliefs. You know, like, when I immigrated this country, I didn't speak English, and my mom threw me in school. And so I found out what bullies were. I was six years old, got my butt kicked, hadn't learned how to fight back yet. And then. And then my mom, God bless her, proud Dutch woman, that she just thought it'd be a great idea to send me to school in wooden shoes and those leather shorts the Germans wear for Oktoberfest, the lederhosen. So I got another ass kicking. And then, you know, then they chased me home from school, and my mom, thinking she'd help me, would chase them off with a fly swatter. Next day, another ass kicking. And so, you know, I came up with this limiting belief that I wasn't good. And a lot of people have these. And that's why you need that burning desire to push through that crap. Because there's a reason the acronym for belief systems is BS because 99% of them are. You know, I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough, I'm not old enough, I'm not young enough. I don't have enough money, I don't have enough time. It's just bs, okay? It's just stories you're telling yourself, and you need that burning desire to push through that. That's why the goals are so important. And I spend so much time on that at my event. You know, creating your identity is another thing we do. And just becoming really clear how balanced you are as well. We do some really cool stuff, but the point is, whether you learn it from me or not, if you're interested in real estate investing, I don't care. The asset class, multifamily is the best. But in general, learn it right now because it is coming. The opportunity is coming. And there's going to be blood running in the streets and, you know, and if you're not in fear and you're focused on what you want, not what you don't want. Like I said, if I hadn't been hiding under a rock, I'd be on the back of my yacht right now because I would have capitalized in 089. But it took me a while to get my mojo back. But the point is, that's coming, and there will be incredible opportunity if you're ready and knowledgeable and have built relationships and you're ready to rock.

Awesome. Let's end with this real quick. Tell us about the foundation. I know you're a philanthropist.

Oh. So let me tell a story around goals. Okay. So you know I told you about that house I built on the beach. Okay. I worked for that thing for 20 fricking years. I mean, just to describe it, I said a beach on one side, boats on the backside, big spiral staircase up through the middle, wine cellar, elevator on the second floor. I. I had aquariums built around that spiral staircase. Cost me almost 200 grand. So this gives you an idea of the house. So I'm floating in the pool at night. The pool is in magazines. A giant waterfall from the second floor balcony into the pool. I'm floating in pool at night, changing colors. It's got fiber optic lighting. And I'm looking up at this testament to my ego, which is really what it was. It was to prove the world I was good enough. And I got depressed. I mean, this was two months after I moved in. I'd worked for it for 20 years. Two months after I moved in, I look up at this thing and I get Depressed. And I don't mean a little. I mean I a lot bummed. And I'm like, what the hell? I've just achieved success like times a thousand. Well, here's a couple of things that I realized when I look back on it. One was don't achieve a big goal without having other goals lined up behind it. Like the good book says, without a vision, the people perish. I didn't know what I was going to do next. I need a vision for the future. There were a couple other things. It's never about the goals. It's about progress and growth on your path to the goals. Happiness comes from progress and growth. Like they say, the happiest days of a boat owner's life are the day they buy the boat and the day they sell the boat. It's that way with goals. They're short lived, but you need them to create that burning desire. But the big thing was I'd been totally focused on myself. Rod, Rod, Rod. Show the world I matter. Show the world I'm good enough. And that's the year I came across Tony Robbins and found out. I went to one of his events and if you can see him, just do it. Trust me, you'll thank me while he's still talking. But I spent 20 years following him around the planet after that. I was so impressed with the technology, but I found out that he fed families for the holidays. I'm like, what a concept. Do something for someone else. I had to be 40 to get that memo. So I went home and I called my brother. I said, let's feed five families. I to was going, going to him, see him in Denver for Thanksgiving. And so he went to his church and found five families who really needed help. And the third family changed my life. It was a single mom with five kids. We brought her to frozen turkey, the food, toys for the kids. She came out on the porch, she saw the stuff, she started crying. Her kids came out to, the older ones started crying. I started crying and I was hooked. To date, in the last 22 years, we fed somewhere between 110 and 120,000 kids for the holidays. We have done tens of thousands of backpacks filled with school supplies for local kids. We have done tens of thousands of teddy bears to give to local police departments for their officers to keep in their cars when they encounter a child that's been traumatized. And I'm not bragging, there's a message in this. We've been taught to achieve, to be happy. Like we can't be Happy until we've achieved. But if you're giving back, you're happily achieving. Tony Robbins calls it the science of achievement versus the art of fulfillment. Achievement really is a science. If you want to learn multifamily, come see me. I'll give you the blueprint. You just got to go do it. But fulfillment is an art. You got to find out what juices you. For me, it's kids. It can be the elderly, it can be the environment, animals, Whatever it is, incorporate to your life right now. Don't say, I'll do it when I have money. Do it now. Why? Because you'll be happily achieving and you'll get the success faster. That's the way God works the universe. Whatever you believe, you get it back a hundredfold. So incorporate it right now, even if it's just your time.

Man, that's awesome. Really, really good. And I would say, I mean, I just went over to your rods links dot com.

Yeah.

Really easy way to just kind of enter into your world. Your YouTube and all your stuff is there. The last two, like you said, is the goal setting workshop and worksheet, which is just you walking through everyone. A deeper dive into what we talked about.

Do it with your family, do it with your kids. It's so powerful and so, so important to see if you're aligned. You and your spouse are aligned, headed the same direction now. Do it separately. You can sit together, but then compare notes. It's very, very powerful.

Awesome. I just lift you up for this coming event and then just the impacts of the work you do to continue to have ripple effects around the. Around the globe. Thank you. Awesome.

Appreciate you.

We'll definitely keep in touch. We'll for sure.

If you want to come. If you want to come. You're my guest. If you want to come, brother. So let me say that.

Awesome. I wrote it down and circled the dates. I'll definitely check and we'll come up with another reason to do another. Another episode here.

Yeah, we can go technical next time if you want. Yeah.

Appreciate you. And you guys take action on everything Rod talked about and get to is event, you know, with COVID and whatever you think of COVID you know us, we've sort of like brushed off in person events, you know, and kind of rationalize that it's easier to do things digitally, and that's just not the case. So appreciate you doing that and we'll talk to you guys soon. Be good, everyone. Thanks for listening. Would you please take a minute to share the show with other team leaders? Who may be struggling. And if you love the podcast, please leave us a five star review on Apple Podcasts. If you want to learn, step by step how to build a profitable real estate team that allows you to get out of the real estate grind and live the lifestyle you've been dreaming about, Visit us@joinrebs.com that's joinrebs.com Our coaching, training systems and support will help you get more high quality leads, increase your conversions and sales, improve your client experience, and allow you to scale your real estate business, all while reducing the amount of hours you work and the stress you endure. Just go to joinrebs.com for more info now. See you on the next episode.