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

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 I 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, 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 F 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 smackdown. Well, that was 2008. I lost that, 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, you know, 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. Is there any shortage of strategies to be physically fit and skinny? There's none. It's 100% mindset. 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 away in the podcast. Let's, let's say 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 did was I reassociated with what I wanted and why I wanted it. Okay? Goals are freaking critical. If you come to one of my bootcamps 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 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 bootcamp. 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 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, okay? 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. 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 goals. 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 fricking Christmas party or birthday party than they do designing their lives. They. 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, you know, foreign language or a skillset, 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. 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 that gets 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 20 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 to bay, 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, it's 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 paper 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 dot 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 box bottom is where that stuff is. And that, by the way, it's all my social media there. 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 far. So, 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 heading 99.9% of the people on the planet that 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 is going to juice you, write it down and make it compelling. Because it is the why that is going to drive you and much more than the goal itself. Once you have Got a reason why underneath each goal, we are almost done. Put a 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. As human beings, we'll do more to avoid pain than gain pleasure. And you want to use this as the fuel that is going to get you to get up early and make things happen for yourself. So put some pain in there. And, you know, I will 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 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 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, a 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 this last 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 on the visor of my bone ugly Granada. So every time I sat in there, it was right in front of my face. Within a year or two out of Corvette. And I'm going to give you some more examples. Couple quick ones. 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 picture of that actual car out of the, out of a magazine, put it on the visor of my Corvette within a year or two out of Maserati, look 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 9, 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, ok? That's how you manifest things to prayer, manifestation, whatever you call it. So this is a picture of my kids when they were very young. 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 and all the craziness, but I had 10 foot 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 and my compound. I have a compound now. I've got six buildings. And you see the white wall. It's 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 you know, and because 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 is freaking hilarious. But then I've got, you know, stupid shit like I've got a few hundred thousand dollars with the watches I got that. That's still a vice, 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'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.

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

Yeah. 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 coming. There's going to be a lot of that. I mean, I'm seeing deals getting done right now that, I mean, I'm scratching my head 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, which is why I'm in a lot of cash. Right. 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're interested in multifamily, for God's sakes, come to my bootcamp. It'll 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. But so if you don't mind, if you don't, if you humor me, I'll answer your question. But let me, 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, 8 to 10 hours a day. I've got three panels each day with probably 2 or 3 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 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, 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 as one word. The price is going to go up to about 700 bucks. But you can come for 197 bucks. Kind of a no brainer for three days of training and without a sales 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 272345 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 of bonuses. You get my deal evaluator software so you can 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, 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 love it, 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 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, because it would have been real easy to focus on the pain 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 I started my podcast and about six years ago, 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. It would have survived if I hadn't cross collateralized them with packages of houses. But the bottom line is, so I started the podcast. 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, everything else, but it's been a wild ride. 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, you know, into this recession, you know, 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. So 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, 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 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 like 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. And I'm going to tell you, sometimes that's family. And I will 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 of here in the country for multifamily is 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 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're going to play tennis, do you want to play somebody that's better than you or worse than you? Right. I mean, the obvious answer is better than you. And that's why I started that. And. 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. 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 08 and 9. In fact, I couldn't even do the last event. It was just too. I was too shock. 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 hold you to a higher standard, and, you know, that's who you want to align with. 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. Well, I think something you just said is like, 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. You got to have that. Because. Because we all have limiting beliefs. You know, like, when I immigrated this country, my. 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. My mom, thinking she'd help me, would chase him off with a fly swatter. Another ass kicking. And so, you know, I came up with this limiting belief that I wasn't good enough. 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. And 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 there is. It is coming. The opportunity is coming, and there's going to be blood running in the streets, and. 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 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. It's 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 her 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 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. But 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 on 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. 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 was going to 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 the 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 too. The older ones started crying. I started crying, and I was hooked up to date. In the last 22 years, we've fed somewhere between 110 and 120,000 kids for the holidays. We've done tens of thousands of backpacks filled with school supplies for local kids. We've done tens of thousands of teddy bears to give to the 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 it into 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.com yeah. Really easy way to Just kind of enter into your world. Your YouTube channel, 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 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. Very, very powerful.

Awesome. I just lift you up for this coming event, and then just the impact 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. We'll for sure.

Thank you. If you want to come. If you want to come. You're. 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 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 his 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. Not the case. So appreciate you doing that, and we'll talk to you guys soon. Be good, everyone.