EP – 534 Launch Your Business To New Heights With Jen Du Plessis

This is the no Closer show where you get the latest developments in distressed note investing and learn the secrets of how you can control millions of dollars worth of property for pennies on the dollar. Get educated and entertained by someone who has closed thousands of deals and lives to support you in achieving the same. Now here's your host, CEO of We Close notes, Scott Carson. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening everybody. Welcome to this episode of the Note Closure Show. As always, Scott Carson. Excited to be here with you today. It is a gorgeous day here in Austin, Texas. Little sunny, little, little chilly. We've had our first cold snap of the year, but we are here rocking and rolling around and I am so excited for our special guest today who's going to leave, I think a lasting impression for many of you guys out in Note Nation across the country, especially as we're coming into the end of the year as we roll into a new decade of everything. But I'm excited because I've got my friend Jen Duplasis joining us here today to talk about some of those things that we're struggling with or we're working on as we kind of have that I hate to say horrible word to say right now is balance. But how we kind of manage being a investor, especially for those of you that are balancing or trying to juggle another full time position or a job and investors, your side hustle. But Jen is the founder of Kinetic Spark Consulting, Black Fox Investments and Valor Home Solutions. He's the author of Launch how to take your business to new heights. Awesome book. She's also the host of the first mortgage specific and top rated podcast, Stop talking and take action, get results. She spent over 35 years in residential mortgage lending and was ranked in the top 1% of loan originators in the US for many years, as well as being in the top 200 for four years. So you guys know we bring the best, the brightest and the most awesomest to the podcast. So good morning, Jen. We're honored to have you here on the Nook Closure show today.

Thank you so much, Scott. I am so excited to be here and I can't wait to share as much as I possibly can in the time that we have together.

Well, you've been a busy gal lately. You just finished a retreat with some of your clients in Tampa. I think you were in New York a couple a week or two ago hosting a big real estate event too, huh?

Yep, I was in Austin that same the day before I flew into Austin and right back out. Yeah, yeah, the New York event was the New York Real Estate Expo. There was 3,000 residential and commercial realtors and lenders there. It was fantastic, fantastic event.

That's awesome. So when we dive in there, because you just spent. And one of the things I like, I think you had your. The gal that was recording a retreat in Tampa was doing a live stream for a few minutes there. As you're asking the people in there to make A list of 10 items of kind of goals and things that they wanted to accomplish with stuff, what's kind of your focus as you're diving into the era, or maybe, maybe a better way is what do you really like to have your clients and your students kind of focus on this, this time of the year as we get into the end of 2019 and roll into 2020.

Yeah. And actually on that video that's, you know, what we were talking about is identifying 10 core values. You know, and I think when people think core values, they're not really sure what they, what it means. So if I dissect it into a different term, you know, it's like writing down what 10 things make you happy or fulfill you, right? On a daily basis. If it's watching ants carry food or if it's watching someone be able to have a home, right? I mean, and everything in between, playing jacks on the floor, playing football with your son, what really, really fulfills you and makes you happy? But it starts with the core values. What are your core values? And I believe that you can make better and faster decisions when your core values are aligned with your business. Right? And so the biggest one, and I know we're going to talk a little bit about some time management, is that the biggest one is that if your family is a core value, because a lot of people say family, right? Then why are you working till 11 o' clock at night? Right? And so that really isn't a core value. So not that it's a core value, but you're not in alignment. And that's what I'm telling people is get yourself in alignment with your core values so that you can make better decisions as you go forward. And it's easier to make decisions. We tend to him haw around a lot, you know, from New Media Summit. You know, I spent my entire career in the top 200 of loan officers in the country. It's actually better than the top 1% because it's the.003% of loan officers. But I spent my entire career sabotaging my personal life, my health, my relationships, cultural experiences, right. All of Those to chase the almighty dollar. And I finally found a way that I can get the almighty dollar without sabotaging my life.

You know, that's the big thing, is the thing I remember the most about Renmart is always, okay, what's closing before the end of the month? We've got to hit our numbers. What are we doing in those late nights? Last week, my other office I was at, we probably had a dozen mortgage companies in there. And the last weekend, last Friday of the year, people are always in there till midnight. I'm driving by people working, and I'm like, you know, it's. That's not really good. That's not good for your health and not good for. Exactly, you say, your family and your life in the long term, because you put a lot of great things to the back burner that really can help drive you, invigorate you, if you learn how to be in line with your core values. Right?

Yeah. So the core values are important. And then the other part of his priority management. So I don't feel like we can manage time, but we can manage our priorities. And when you have those core values in line now, you know what your priorities are. Right? And so if. And how about this. Every time we go on vacation, don't we get really, really busy and really, really intentional? And then all of a sudden, business comes in and we're like, gosh, how are we going to be able to go on vacation? Because now we got all this business in that intentionality, that priority management. If you could do that every day, then technically you could go on vacation every day, right? You could. And what I mean by that is you could enjoy the things that you love in life every single day. But the bottom line is we've got to get very intentional about our business. So the last eight years of my practice, I worked four days a week. I did not work on weekends, and I made more money because I was more intentional when I was working. So that my goal was, I got to get this done so I can go do what I love to do.

That's such a great thing and focus to have, because I think so many people drift. You know, one of my favorite books is Outwitting the Devil by Napoleon Hill and Sharon Lecter. And talks about how so many times we're drifting, getting attention is being directed by the shiny objects or the squirrels. And I think you said it right, Bess. When you get very focused and very direct in what you do, you get things done so you can get out and chase the squirrels. That you want to chase, not with others that are distracting you.

Right, Yeah, I agree. And I always use the analogy of driving down the road, and you know how we hit rumble strips? You know, we're driving down the road and we're not quite paying attention, and we hear brrr on the car and we go, oh, yeah, that's right. So, you know, when you have your priorities in line, that's. Those are your rumble strips. Because if you don't have those, you go off the road. Right. You take the wrong exit, you go off the road, you flip over. You have all kinds of chaos in your life. And so those core values really, really help you stay in line. And that's really. And so metaphorically, we've kind of dissected that right into the metaphor of saying, be very, very intentional and laser focused on what really is important in your business.

Yeah. Because rumble strips can easily pop up pretty fast in today's world if you're not paying attention to things. I think everybody's struggled with that at some point. I know we have. And it's always good to try to be focused. And I think, I'm sure you probably agree that sometimes. Well, not sometimes, but saying no a lot of time allows you to say yes to what you want to accomplish, right?

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Those are. Those are baseline things that you should be doing. Right. And. But again, you know, when you can build. When you can identify what you want in your life and then build the lifestyle, I mean, build the business around it. Instead of what we all do is we go in and we build our business and we say, well, we want to make X amount of dollars, and then we just focus on that. We don't track it, which is another issue. Right. But we don't track what we're doing. And, you know, we're still focused on having that. Our eye on that $1 figure, that accumulation of I want five properties or I want to have 25 new notes this year. Right. All of those things. Everything else gets sacrificed. And so what we want to do is we want to focus on what's important, and then we'll fit our business in, but in a way that's very disciplined. So it's very disciplined work. But that's okay, because I'm gonna be disciplined for a couple of hours, and I'm gonna go have fun.

Yeah, you're gonna get the big rocks done and then go have fun is always a big thing. The thing is, I like that's such an important aspect of things, because a lot of people when they're trying to especially they're looking at a job, they want to get into investing of some sort, they really think they, you know, the big question is like, how many hours do I have to dedicate to this? I'm like, well, you don't have to dedicate any hours if you don't want to. But I think it's good to dedicate 10, 15 hours. You don't have to work 40, 50 hours a week if you're focused and doing the right things at any given point. Right?

Yeah. And, you know, you bring up a good point because I'm also an investor, right? And so I've invested in, you know, a gazillion dollars and all this. And all you need is one hour of, you know, time. And in order for me to manifest that goal, you know, and be able to start investing, because I started investing 30 some years ago, still had this thriving practice, it's not really a matter of just, okay, I'm going to invest an hour a week, an hour a day, an hour a night. Because what we do is we come home from work and we're exhausted, right? We're exhausted from work and we're not really taking the time to understand that, well, the thought is we go to work and then I just need to spend an hour on this secondary business. But we didn't realize that we needed to spend two hours with our family. We need to spend two hours before we get home going to work out to get a release first so that we're re energized and we've sharpened our axe that we can attack that one hour. But if we come home saying, I have to give an hour, I have to give an hour, that's where the problem begins. So again, it's prioritizing that and saying, you know what, what will rejuvenate me and sharpen my axe is if I spend an hour to doing something I absolutely love and then I can dedicate my time to the investing and I have my get a checkup from the neck up first. And that's how it worked for me, you know, as I had the energy to now go after the one hour a night that I needed to do to start putting into place, you know, formulating the business.

You say something very well there. I think a lot of people take our health and take our personal mind game or energy and put it to the back burner trying to accomplish everything else. We kind of take care of ourselves last when it really needs to be taking care of ourselves. First, right? Yeah.

So you have the energy and the fortitude. I mean, my gosh, our brains are mushboard by the time we come home from work. Right. If you have a real job, right, you come home from work. If you're not in a real, you know, not a real job, I shouldn't say that because we all have real jobs. But if you're not in a 9 to 5 type of job and you are an entrepreneur, you still have to look at that and say, you know, let's say you're an entrepreneur and you're, you know, you're a professional plumber, electrician, or in financial planner. You still have to come home and you still have to debrief yourself and make sure that, that you're taking care of yourself first. And, and yeah, and I can go into that whole finder mind or grinder, which, you know, is in the book.

Great book. Great book. By the way, as I said before, just an absolutely awesome thing that's just great across the board. Don't. If you guys listen out there, you definitely want to go grab a copy of that and listen to it or read it. But listen also to Jen's podcast out there as well, which is phenomenal. Now, let's talk a little bit. Let's talk about that transition going from, oh, I'm just working so much to that four day work week that you talked about, how you transitioned. How difficult was that for you? What are some of the things that you put in place to kind of help make that happen for you?

Yeah, well, the first thing again is putting in the big rocks, right? What's important to me. And so I decided that Friday, Saturday and Sunday, my husband and I would be on our boat. That's what we're going to do. So to kind of break it down a little bit again, it's putting in the big rocks. We always going on vacation. So I work 13 weeks a year and then I take four weeks off, and then I work 13 weeks and then I take four weeks off. I mean, that's my plan, right? But inside of those weeks, the four days, I have to make sure that I am time blocking for finding activities, minding activities and grinding activities. And that's what I reference in the book, you know, and as entrepreneurs, we tend to put all these hats on all the time and no one, I mean, just watching me do that, it's chaotic, right? So just put on a hat and work in that zone, you know, work in that zone and be very efficient in that zone and then take off that hat and put another one in instead of trying to scramble to do everything. And one of the things that we know, and it's kind of a silly example, but I think it will drive this home, is that if all of your groceries, you went to the grocery store and all of your groceries were just kind of thrown in the back of your car. Just thrown in the back of your car, that's chaos, right? The reason we have them in bags is because it's more efficient, right? They're compartmentalized. But furthermore, when you get into the house and you try to put everything in the fridge and in the cabinet and whatever, you compartmentalize them on the kitchen counter as well. You tend to put everything that's going to go in the fridge. You don't open up the fridge and put something in and close the fridge and then find something and go over to the pantry and do that and then come back to the fridge and open the fridge because it's not efficient, right? And when we get email, our email every day is like having all of our groceries in the back of our car spread out and we go through it. We go, oh, let me respond to this. Oh, now let me do that. And so I'm suggesting that we compartmentalize. Instead of, instead of going through and saying, you know, do you want to go? This networking event can take a look at this contract. Oh, hey, watch these cute little puppies on this YouTube. It's such a waste of time, right? But it isn't such a waste of time. And so if you can compartmentalize them, you will be more efficient and more thing, you'll be able to grab more time back, right? You're not trying to trade time. You're just utilizing your time in the best, most efficient way. So that will save you time. And I'm always looking for ways to do things faster but more efficiently. And so by compartmentalizing, if you're gonna write contracts, like for your notes, right? If you're gonna write all your notes up, then do them all at once. Do them all at once. If you're gonna do some research, do it all at once. Because if you've ever written Christmas cards, you start off going, hey, Aunt sue, it was a great year. Love you. Na na na. And you fold it and you stuff it and you lick it and you stamp it and you write it out. By the time you're at your 10th one, you're like, great year. Love ya. Great year. Love you. And then you stuff them all at once because it became Faster. So I would encourage you to just think about compartmentalizing the types of activities that you do. So that's, you know, that's the second thing to do. Because the first thing is if your child is having a recital, you need to go to the recital. If you need a massage, go get the massage first and then fill this. These items in. Yeah, me on that. Does that make sense?

Totally makes sense. It's the whole jar with big rocks, gravel, caliche, pebbles, sand, and water. Totally agree with that 100% with time blocking. Because honestly, one of the big things that we love to talk about is that, hey, if you will not control your schedule and value your time, nobody else will value your time. And you'll find yourself drifting all over the place. And at the end of the day, you've, like, checked off a lot of items but not been successful in any of the bigger rocks. Kind of.

Yeah, yeah. And I mentioned that, too. It's like eating soup with a fork. Right. You come home and you're exhausted, but you're not full. You've been eating soup with a fork all day long. Right, Right. Your quote is right on. I mean, it's a great Jim Rohn who said that if you don't discipline yourself, everyone else will.

Exactly. Now, let's talk a little bit about some of your investment stuff on the side, because I know people are always interested in that. And hearing from our guests, what are they invested in and kind of what their kind of background is on the investment side. Why don't you share a little bit about what you're doing? Is Black Fox is the name of it, right? Black Fox Valor.

Yeah. Black Fox and Valor, they do two different things, but. So Black Fox is my company for buy and holds. Right. It's the buy and hold investment property. So we did step investing when we were younger, and because we had jobs, all of the positive cash flow went to paying off the first one, and then all the positive cash flow went to paying off the second. And so we've accumulated numerous properties as a result of that. I think we're around 55 properties, maybe 75. 75, 78 units. Nice. So we've done that through Black Fox. Black Fox also manages all of the properties as well. And Black Fox is also my note company. I did not start doing notes. I inherited notes from my parents, and I knew that they had them for years and years, but I inherited notes from them. What they did was they. And not everybody would do this, but it was my dad's way of. He was A class A contractor and an architect. And so what they did is they bought five acres of land in Colorado, up in the mountains. They bought five acres of land. He'd do the well and septic, and then he'd go down to the auction and get mobile homes, have them carted up. I mean, I wouldn't do all this because it's expensive, but he would have them carted up there and he'd put them on a permanent foundation, he'd renovate it, and then they would rent them out to people. And then if they stayed for four or five years and they were good renters, then they would ask them if they'd like to do, you know, a lease option with it. So those are the notes that we have on those particular properties. And then under valor, I do wraps and subject to's, and some are lease options and some are not lease options, and those are the types of properties that we have there. And then the last thing is, I'm also the founder and CEO of Bedaway Escapes, and I have 15 Airbnbs. Some are my buy and holds converted into Airbnbs. Another set, a very small set, is me renting from a landlord and then turning it into an Airbnb. It's not a sublease, a sublet. And then I also Airbnb my own property, own home, because we're on the boat, you know, right. In another property all the time. So those are some of the things I've done right. But as a lender, traditional lending, you can only do so much right. And so if anybody's listening, have questions, you know, I'm excellent. That was one of my, my niches was investor financing, but I had my own need where I couldn't even get a regular loan because I had so many properties. And so I learned all of the aspects of the other world of investing as well. And so we utilize that to our advantage when we're needing properties.

That was one of the great things that I love. When we met at New Media Summit, you came up to me immediately. And we, like, we had to start talking about notes and owner finance. Sometimes like, oh, my God, I gotta get you on. You were the first one that I actually scheduled or sent the links out from New Media, something to have on. It's just that we both had busy schedules to get you on here. But that's the thing is that there's. When I see with subject to's and wraparound mortgages and Airbnb, there's so many different ways to use that creative Financing with a note business that most people don't even know about.

Yeah. And I think, you know, if you're starting out, it's, you know, and of course, if they get your course, they can learn how to do it real quickly if they have, you know, capital. Right. But if you're not, you're not sure you want to go in that direction, you actually want to accumulate wealth through, you know, equity and appreciation and properties, go to a lender who really, really knows what they're doing so that you can. It's not about the first house that you buy. And you know, first of all, the first one that you buy, you have to get your emotions out of it because you buying your own home is totally different than you buying an investment property. The rate doesn't even matter because it's the bottom line. You have to draw a line in the sand on what is important to you. Right. So the rate can be 18%. Gosh. My company has lent my company money at 18% to buy a house. So it's not about the rate. It's making sure I can get the right return on it, but making sure that when you buy that first one that you have the long game in mind so that you don't go back and say, I shouldn't have done it that way. Right. So make sure that you're working with someone who really knows what they do. And I also think real estate agent that knows what they're doing too. You know, they're excellent in that market.

Yeah. Those are the two most important aspects of things. I think when you're putting a team together or vendors around you or dream team is having a good realtor that understands investing and some of the different options. And then also a really great lender banker, you know, mortgage broker, who can help you and understand the creative solutions that are available out there for you besides traditional mortgages. I mean, some people. Oh my God, 18%. That's ridiculous. No, it doesn't. If you look at the time frame and what you're using it for, and that's a problem. Proper tool to help you get where you want to go. It can be a really great tool for you. Right.

Well, gosh, when I first got in the business, regular mortgage rates were 18 and a half percent. Right? Yeah. And I would ask this question too. I'm really going to go, not really go on a limb, but I want to make sure everybody understands this too. It amazes me how many loan officers and how many realtors don't have investment properties. Right. And so they're saying, I've heard this question a thousand times from a borrower, is it a good time to buy? And the realtor says, yeah, it's a great time to buy. You should definitely buy. I'm not buying, but you should buy. And I just said, you know, my retreat and some other place. I was, I was just speaking at something and I said, I don't understand why you aren't buying property. As a loan officer, why wouldn't you buy property? Right. So it's not just someone who's good at what you think they're good at. Oh yeah, I'm really good at that. But how many properties do you own? What type of financing do you do? Because we need someone who's going to be creative working with us and not fraudulent creative. Right. Who understands how to maneuver different situations and scenarios.

Now that takes me into asking you the question, if you've got your crystal ball there and with your experience, where do you think the markets go on here in the next 12 months? Because I think we're.

I never use that crystal ball and analogy, but I do use my expertise in understanding mortgage backed securities. Right. And the market. And my son is expert in options trading. So he'll tell me what's going to be great on that side and then I can correlate that to mortgage backed securities. And so what I can tell you is that we're going to have rates stay low. In fact, we might even have a little dip again in interest rates. And so I would say get your ducks in a row so that you can be prepared to take advantage of that. Do I feel like we're going to have. We're already in a recession, first of all. And one of the bad things about a recession or any appreciation, you know, any market is that you don't know you're in it until you're in it for a quarter. Right. Cause that's the definition. And so we're already in it. We're already in a recession. Would I say now's the time to buy condos? I probably wouldn't buy condos. Right. Right now. Because I think that that's going to be the first to go in this round. It's not always what is going. But the real estate market accumulation has been really tough in the Airbnb market because so many condominiums have been very fussy about that. So we're actually. We sold off all of our condos and we have directed our funds into multifamily and converting multi families into Airbnb units. Right. And so that's. We're focusing our time and attention is into the small multi families. I'm not talking about 50, I'm talking about 5, 9, 12 unit properties. I see that. That's where that's going really well. We have a major, major issue with not having enough properties. And the name is escaping me for some reason though, I'm thinking what is the word? But we don't have enough housing for the economy.

Affordable housing for everybody.

Yeah, yeah. It's not even affordable. We just don't even have housing. There is just not enough homes out there for people. And so I think you're going to continue to see construction going really well. But I do think, and I'm seeing it in different markets as I'm traveling around, you know, regional issues that are going on where I'm seeing a lot of commercial buildings being converted into residential and in some areas you can't. There's not enough commercial. Right. So I would look at those markets really, you know, really closely. But now is the time to get. And what you're going to find when we have a recession is that people are going to need your type of financing as a note holder more frequently. So save your money and be prepared to, you know, help people out because there is going to. There are going to be people who need help.

And we're already starting to see that especially on different markets have been softening for a while. Dallas, Houston, Vegas, name a couple of the Denver's been kind of hitting a little bit of a softening in the market as well too in other areas too, Miami condo markets and uproar especially for the high end condos. And I made a lot of money in condos at the last downturn because I picked up a bunch of them at like five and ten grand on Miami beach years ago.

And you put it on your credit card, you just like.

Oh yeah, yeah, exactly.

Credit card over the phone.

Exactly.

Let me buy that note like that in Denver actually.

Yes. Or even in areas like where you're at. I can remember like 20 years ago and now it's considered the arts District of D.C. neck of the woods was all these brownstones that were dollar days you could go and buy a property for a dollar.

Yeah. Northeast. Well, you know, and I bought. I think there's a deal, the deal of the century. Every day you just have to find it. My deal of the century was I was calling a mortgage company and they had six houses in a row in Detroit Sands one. Right. It was Five and then skip and then one. And they had these six houses in a row, and they were in foreclosure or they had them in reos. And I kept calling and offering them $1,000 for these homes, and they just told me I'm silly. And I did it for about, I don't know, four or five months. I kept saying, I'll take it off your books for $1,000. And then they happened to call me one day and said, okay, so now we're kind of interested. I said, well, that's great, but now you have to pay me $1,000 per property. And I had done the due diligence, found out about where it was located. I mean, come on, it was Detroit in the really bad days, and what I could do with the properties. And anyway, I ended up negotiating. They bought every one of those properties. I bought every one of those properties for negative $1,000. I donated three of them for a tax deduction prior to our new tax laws. Right. So I donated three of them for tax deduction. And one of them was for a Ronald McDonald house, which was really cool. One of them was being rented by a karate studio. And so I did seller financing for the karate studio. And then I kept one because the taxes are 300 a year. And one of them I gave. Not gave, but I sold to a renovation investor. And for me, that was the deal of the century. You know, going to closing and not bringing any money to closing whatsoever. I mean, we do a lot of no money to closing, but I actually bought it for a negative 1000.

They were giving them away at some point.

They paid me. Yeah, they paid me to take them over. Those were. That was probably the best, you know, and they're little Archie Bunker houses.

Mm.

Yeah, little Archie Bunker houses.

So definitely is a good stuff. But that's. That's the. That's what I love about your brain, love about what you're doing, because you're really taking that and spreading that knowledge across different platforms, not only just being the mortgage broker, but the investor and the creative financing side. And that's the thing that I really, really respect about you is you don't always see that, as you mentioned before, you don't always see mortgage brokers or real estate agents who are trying to be that, who are actually taking that step outside of the box, I guess you could say. Yeah, investing, putting their money where their mouth is and actually put it to work or looking for opportunities themselves. Why do you think we don't see more of that, Jen?

Well, I think for realtors, it's feast or famine, you know, with them. They either make money or they're not with lenders, because remember, with realtors are 1099, right? So it's feast or famine with loan officers. All loan officers are commissioned, but they're all W2. And so when they make money, you know, they make money. So much of it is taken by taxes, you know, that they just don't have any place to save the money. And so it just sits in their bank account. And then they go, ooh, yummy, Let me go buy a $10,000 watch. Which I think is hilarious. Instead of buying a house, you know, they just don't think about it. They're in the now. And I just seen it so many times, you know, over my. My career, you know, and now that I'm retired, I see it even more. I see it even more that people are doing that. And, yes, I think that's why that happens. And I think that they may not have been taught either. Now, I'm fortunate enough that I have. Well, I'm one of 37 cousins, and I have. My mom was one of 10, five boys and five girls, and all the men are real estate investors. So when I was a little girl, you know those little machines that shine the floor, those round things? I used to sit on those when they were cleaning commercial buildings, and then they eventually owned those commercial buildings, and now they own casinos and, you know, all kinds of fun stuff. But I learned all that. I learned that skill. And of course, Mom. My mom did it. She was the only woman who did it. And so mom and dad did it. And so when I've been married for 36 years, I got married in my high school sweetheart, and we got married when we were 19, and we bought our first home for 42,000. The rate was 4.75 on an arm. And we still have that home. We still have that house. And it's been renovated a couple times, right? But I think that we learned it. It's a learned skill. So if you're listening in and you're thinking, gosh, should I get a coach for doing all this? And while we've all spent, you have, too. I've spent tons of money in this coaching. We take all those nuggets and pull them together. And that's why my podcast is called Stop Talking, Take Action, get results. It really was, just shut up and go do it. Right? That's what I wanted it to be. Just shut up and go do it. But a lot of People don't know how to do it. They know what to do, but they don't exactly know how to do it. And that was why the book came out. And although it's not about investing, that's why it came out is because people stand and they get stagnant and they don't move forward because they just don't know how to apply it. And so if you can do something that freshens you up at night before you come home and it's one hour, one hour a night to formulate your business, take bite sized pieces. Rather than saying, I need to spend 20 hours to make this happen, just take little bite sized pieces, if I may. There's four stages of growth. It's formulation, concentration, momentum and stability. You can't go from, I went to a class and now it's stable. You have to formulate, you have to figure out those smaller things and once you have the formulation done, go out and concentrate and do, do, do, do. And then you will see the momentum start happening and it'll take you to stability. But it's a pattern and a lot of people, their expectations is that I learned it and now I should just be able to be at stability. And that's not going to happen. You have to work at this. It's not sexy. Success isn't sexy. People see all the great things you've done, but they didn't see all the mistakes and the, you know, back and forth. And that's okay because mistakes will teach you what not to do the next time and you can apply that across every business you then go and do.

That is so, so true. Success is not sexy. It's just that you're dedicated to, to the process, dedicated to working through that and overcoming obstacles. Because we all hit obstacles along the way.

Oh, yeah.

And that's why I think it's so important to have a coach or mentor there so that somebody can reach out to, hey, I've hit this hurdle, what do I do next? How do I overcome this and go from there? Right?

Yeah, absolutely. Coaches have coaches. I'm sure you do. I know I have seven coaches that help me with seven different things, you know, while I'm coaching people as well. And I just firmly believe that I need to have someone to hold me accountable, someone to lean on so that I don't feel like I'm a little island out there. Certainly masterminds, you know, you're talking about going and doing mastermind, which we just did at a retreat. It was a big mastermind. That masterminding really helps because what you might be struggling with someone else is doing fantastic with and has no issues and vice versa. So don't think that you're a little island out there and you're just struggling on your own. You know, find a community that can help you.

If you don't mind sharing. What's one of the coaches that you work with or a focus of your life or business that you have a coach for that maybe most people don't know about, if you don't mind sharing?

Yeah, well, I have several. So I have a speaking coach. I have a speaking coach who helps me with my speaking and not so much anymore that, I mean, because I've been speaking for many, many years. But I felt like I needed a coach once I retired out of lending, you know, to say, okay, so now it's a different world because I'm. This is my job, this is my livelihood, right? So I have a speaking coach. I have an investing coach for my. I'm trying to think what for my raps, right? I have an investing coach. I have an Airbnb coach. I do have an airbnb coach because I'm trying to, at this point, provide technology and make the most efficient piece of it. At first I had to know what I needed to do, and now I'm ready for efficiencies. I have an online funnel coach. Right, A funnel coach. I have an icon maker coach, which is not this, you know, but new media summit, obviously, for podcasting. I have him as a coach now. But yeah, I have. And by the way, I am a competitive ballroom, Latin and swing dancer. So I have a dance coach.

There you go.

As well. I have a dance coach as well. And luckily my brother's an NRA instructor, so he helps me with my shooting because I'm on a competition team.

Very nice.

But he's not great.

Guys and gals out there. She'll see you coming. All right?

Yeah, Right.

But that's a beautiful thing. You've got coaches for not only stuff that you're doing, business wise and career wise, but also for the fun side of things, the things that really invigorate you. Dancing, shooting always invigorates and they hold me accountable.

You know, when you make an appointment to go to a dance, you know, to have a dance lesson, and you don't show up at 65 bucks. Right. And so he. That holds me accountable to be. To make sure that I do the big rocks, you know, that you're saying, and it gives me pleasure. So I love That I have someone to hold me accountable for something that I feel like I should always be doing, but I don't do anyway, you know, if I'm not. If I'm not careful, I won't do it.

Yeah, that's the thing. Free has no value a lot of times. And if you've invested. I have a coach that I'm working with afterwards here. It's my fitness coach that I work with on a regular basis. If I didn't have that investment or as I say, money in the bank and my goals, things, I don't think I would do it. We'd all find other things to do with our team. But if it's important to you and it's in one of your core value to what you want to accomplish and achieve, it's important for you to invest in it and invest in yourself as well, right?

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, it's, you know, I hate 10x because everybody says, but it's 10x is 20x, is 30x, it's 1x. Right. Let's just say it's, you know, just one time x. And it will pay for itself because they will hold you accountable. There's no question. And, you know, and that's what I do with my clients, too. I help them be accountable and be a mentor to them. And it's a third eye, you know, it's a third eye that you don't see. And so you can bang your head against the wall all day long, but if you bring someone in, they go, oh, well, this is easy. This is how we solve this. And how much time would you have wasted? How many opportunities, you know, that opportunity cost? And how much money did you leave on the table? Trying to figure it out by yourself, don't you?

Isn't that one thing.

I know.

It always drives me bonkers with coaching students is when you're like, hey, you should reach out to me. You have questions and the phone doesn't call, and then you find out they're dealing with issues. I'm like, why didn't you just call me?

I know. I contend with that all the time. It's funny you said that.

It just drives me bonkers. I'm like, oh, you're so busy. No, I want to help you.

That's what we're here to do. Yeah, that's what we're here to do. Yeah. Take Scott up on that offer.

Take Jen up on an offer, too. There for you. I love what you're doing. You're doing so many things I know I'd be missing somebody asking me a question here. We're kind of lasting this year. Where are you finding your deals for your Airbnb, especially your smaller multifamily? And you don't have to give too many specific secret sauce for you, buddy.

Oh, yeah, no, no, I don't, I don't mind a secret sauce. First of all, I tend to not invest in high end areas. I know there's a lot of people that buy million dollar homes and renovate million dollar homes. That's not me. That's not me. So we, we tend to go to college towns. That's where we spend our time in college towns. Because we find that there are a lot of people, you know, yes, there's a lot of investors in college towns, but they're really focusing on the little one offs. And so we went in with, you know, the elder person who has had it forever or a family that inherited this, this multi unit thing and it's never been renovated or it's been renovated years ago and we find that that seems to work best or someone bought off more than they can chew. Bit off more than they can chew, you know, in a five to nine unit property. And housing in college towns is always a need. Right. And it's always difficult for people to find housing. And it doesn't matter where you're at because my kids, they're grown up and I have grandkids now and everything, but then, and even now, they are just there. We're always full, right? We're always full. And my daughter went to Alabama, went to University of Alabama and George Mason University in Virginia. So I had to find housing locally. My son went to Indiana, University of Pennsylvania and then went to University of Virginia. Every time we were in those situations, it was very difficult to find housing. Right. We had to get it a year in advance. And in fact, I know my kids, we just signed a lease on one of our properties at IUP for next year.

Wow.

Because, yeah, they're just saying, can we just get in next year? You know, we want to make sure we have housing. So housing's a problem. And then it's manifested, of course, by housing, you know, for students as well. By the way, my family, my uncles that I was telling you about, two or three of them live in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, where Central Michigan University is. And that's where they have all of their wealth, all of it. And that's where they started. They built them, they built multifamily. We're just going in and now Looking for the multifamily. And if the town or the county allows us to do Airbnb, then we'll do Airbnb. Half of it Airbnb and half of it rental sometimes. Because that was also a challenge when I came in to go to. Can you imagine going to Tuscaloosa, Alabama? 94,000 people go in that stadium. I can't find a place to stay at all. So what a great way to have parents come in. And all of them can stay in the Airbnb multifamily. Airbnb. So that's where that has come from. So the answer to the question is Craigslist advertising. You know, the advertising that's down there. I just look for the advertising and the housings that are in those little, you know, smaller towns.

Smart, smart play. Because I am a big fan of college towns, too, because there's always a need, especially when you have big things going on in the weekends with home games and basketball and all that.

Yeah. And as a parent, you know, I'm watching my son play. I mean, that's what he played. Right. So I want to go and watch him play, and I can't find a place to stay. Mm, crazy.

Exactly. Jen, what's the best way for people to reach out to you to find more about what you're doing or if they're interested in working with you? Because we've got such a broad audience of people out there.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for asking. Yeah, the best way is just go to Jen dplesses.com and I know you'll put the link in there. And then, you know, I also wanted to just offer if anyone would like to have a strategy session with me, you know, to see where I could help them, and maybe not. You never know. Just to text the word strategy to 66866. And by the way, I'm going to steal your little idea here on the screen. I absolutely love that. But you can text the word again, strategy, to 66866, and you can sign up for a strategy session. I'd love to chit chat with you and have a conversation to see where, if I can help you with your business.

Such great advice. Now, I was gonna say advice, but counsel, because that's the thing. Everybody has advice, but few people give you counsel out there. And Jenna's one of those people. You guys should know that we love to bring good, quality people on that can really help you in your business, no matter where you're at. And Jen is one of those People out there can really help you, especially if you guys are struggling trying to figure out, hey, 2019 maybe wasn't as successful as you want to be. You find yourself kind of banging your head against the wall on a variety of different issues, especially some of the things that Jen specializes in, not only on the mortgage side, but on the time blocking and the goal setting. But also some of those investments that she talked about that they're doing are a fancy something you want to focus on or fancy do a little bit more of in the new decade. Yeah. Once again, text the word strategy to 66866 and we'll get in her pipeline and be able to spend some time with Jen and talk with her and what is it, a 15, 20, 30 minute session with people?

Yeah, 30 minutes or so. Yeah, I don't really block it off. I'm a giver. I'm a giver. I want you to get something out of a strategy session. If you decide you want to move forward with me, great. And if not, you know, my goal is that you walk away. Scratch smiling and saying, that's exactly what I needed.

Awesome. Good stuff. Well, hey, Jen, you were exactly what we needed on this episode of the no Closure. So. Well, thank you so much for giving and sharing. And once again, guys, go out, check out it, get a copy of Book Launch. It definitely is well worth it. Like I said before, such great information and got some great stuff on here, 220 pages, but it's just packed.

That might scare people. Scott.

No, I'm not scaring. I think it's great because so many people, as I was saying, people like, oh, I'm gonna buy this and this and this. I'm like, this is all you really need a lot of the time after looking through this. So this is a beautiful thing.

Well, there's not any chapter that's more than two and a half pages long. You can just open it, read it, and then there's actionable items and do it every day. Yeah.

Bite sized nuggets. Bite size. Your way to success with launch.

I love it.

Good stuff. Thanks so much, Jen. You be safe now. All right?

Thank you.

All right, guys and gals, that's going to wrap it up for this episode of the Note Closure show. Go out, take her up on that option to spend some time on the phone with her. Once again, text the word strategy to 66866 and I guarantee you will not be disappointed. Jen just has a huge heart and loves working with people. Comes across and everything she does, and it'll be a joy. Trust me. It'll be a highlight of your day. Spend some time with her on the phone to help you set your goals, set your direction, and go out and take some action. And by doing that, we'll see at the top. Bye, everybody. Sam.