Selling Hacks & Overcoming Financial Tribulations With Scott Carson From What Are You Made Of With Mike Ciorrocco

I want to thank you for listening and your support of the Waymo movement. Please subscribe to the podcast on itunes, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform. You can also watch these podcasts by subscribing to my YouTube channel at MikeSearock Sirocco. As a thank you, I want to provide you with my blueprint to finding out what you are made of for free. To download for free go to waymocre.com blueprint that's waymo w A Y M O C r e w waymocrew.com blueprint it's your boy C Rock and I have one question for you. What are you made of? Join me as I share my stories and past experiences that I use to break through barriers and take things to the next level in my life. Along the way we will also hear from guests about their stories in hopes to help you uncover your past life events that you can use on your journey. To answer the question what are you made of? Welcome back to the what are you made of? Podcast with Mike C. Rock. Thank you so much for joining us again and just gonna keep coming at you hard man, bringing great content to you with people that can inspire you with their stories and also bring you great content to help you with your business and life and relationships and anything else that can help you. But today guys, my guest, I'm excited. He reached out to me and I looked at his bio and what he does for a living and I said this is a good fit for our show. So. Scott Carson is the host of the popular Note Closer Show Podcast and a nationally syndicated radio host. He has been an active real estate investor and entrepreneur since 2002, focused on the niche of distressed mortgage and note industry since 2008. And of course everybody knows what happened in 2008, but I'll let Scott get into more of that in a second. He is a highly sought after speaker and podcast guest with hundreds of speaking appearances at conferences, real estate clubs and networking events across the country. He has also been featured in many media outlets including but not limited to Investors Business Daily, the Wall street journal and inc.com he spends his free time attending sporting events, concerts, and traveling to new places he calls Austin, Texas home. I just got back from my first visit to Texas yesterday and Dallas and it's pretty interesting. Nice place. I like it. I didn't see one cowboy hat, one pair of cowboy boots while I was there, which surprised me. But Scott, listen, welcome to the show man.

Hey man, I'm honored to be here. The question is, you get some Good barbecue when you're in Dallas.

Yes, I did.

Yes.

They brought that in for our board meeting. They. That was our lunch. So. It was really good, man.

Really good stuff, man. Yeah. Well, hey, man, I'm honored to be here today. Love what you're doing, love the podcast. And I've got, you know, I'm an ex mortgage banker. Back in the day, prior to 2000, I owned my own firm for five years before everything happened in 2008. So honored to be here, man. And I love what you're doing.

Thank you. Thank you. So, you know, the show's about telling your story to inspire others. We get into content, but we always like to tell our story because we want to connect with the listeners and our audience. And so I'm going to ask you, Scott, what are you made of, man?

Man, I'll tell you what. Stickability is probably the term that a lot of people tell me. I have a quote that I'd like to share that the only thing that you guarantee by not doing is failure. That's the only thing you guarantee. I've learned more from my mistakes and failures than I think I've learned from my victories. I think that's true for everybody. But back in, like you mentioned in the intro there, 2008, everything was in the shit. Can I guess you could say out there with everything going on, the mortgage meltdown and foreclosures and stuff like that, and we did a really good job on the mortgage side of the business, but I saw the writing on the wall and sold my half of my company off to my partner. Glad I did. And then just jumped on the opposite side of the thing and started dialing for dollars to the banks and mortgage companies that we were originating with. I was reaching out to buy their debt to become the bank. That's what we've done the last 10 years. But there was a critical moment that has shaped the last 10 years more than anything else. In 2010, still a rough time. We had 15 million homeowners underwater out there. I had some properties that were underwater that I bought, I thought were gonna be great, that were underwater 50 to 100 grand. And I said, listen, I've gotta do something different. And we're starting to buy notes. And I said, well, what would it look like if I were to just take some time, get out of town? I'm a big baseball fan. And so what would it look like if I took some time to travel the country, get out and start talking to more banks and meeting them face to face, networking And I put out kind of a hypothetical travel to hit all 30 league, major league baseball parks in weeks and wrote it down. And lo and behold, I say divine intervention. Within a couple of weeks, I had five different investment clubs and companies reach out to me, asked me if I could come speak at their event because they were seeing me buying and selling notes. I said, shit, okay, sure, let's do that. I looked at the schedule and when they wanted me to come speak, lined up with exactly when I would have been there to watch baseball game.

Oh, man, it's awesome.

Total divine intervention. I said, okay, let's do this. Well, what I thought would take 30 weeks turned into three and a half years traveling and working with banks and working with investors across the country. And I wasn't afraid to say, I mean, I literally sold everything I own here in Austin, Texas, signed some. A couple big checks on two deals as I walked away from and turn them back in and pay the investors off. But I think it's the biggest thing is what is. I don't have a no, I'm a bulldog when it comes to overcoming obstacles. I think a lot of people are getting bogged down or get. They have a dream and they. They get disenfranchised a little bit or they get beat up by society and maybe they have to go back to taking a job or they want to be an entrepreneur, but maybe they've got to take a step back from it. That's okay. Everybody out there, it's okay. Just because you say no now doesn't mean not ever. And I think it's the biggest thing that's helped me over the last 10 years is that I just keep growing and growing. We've had ups and downs. We've done a great job, though. We've helped educate and really train a lot of investors that want to dive into my niche of real estate investing in the notes space. I was really honored to be the educator of the year in my field in 2014 and was a runner up for it last year. And I think that's the biggest thing is that we still live in the greatest country out there of opportunity. And if you want to accomplish something, it may not be a straight, narrow road, it may be a little winding. You got to take a few steps back. But no is not my vocabulary. And I think that's what's making me going out and finding a way to get things done and being coachable and reaching out to people that I admire and peers that have done where I want to be or going Where I want to be and surrounding myself with them and being a sponge to soak up whatever I can. So that's kind of. I think, a little bit of what I'm made of is doggone determination and. No, no, in my system.

Right, man. There's a lot of stuff to dig into there, man. I'm thinking, as you hit each point, I was thinking, okay, I want to ask him about that. I want to ask him about that. And I just bought it, by the way. I just bought a new iPhone to go along with my galaxy because I needed two separate numbers and I wanted to try the iPhone, and I don't know how to shut the volume off. So as you guys are going through this, you can laugh at me. And as we're listening, as you hear notifications come through, I'm transparent as hell. And so I have two phones now, so I'm not going to give one of those numbers out except to just some special people. But anyway, so where did the stubbornness come from? I'll call it bullheadedness. Cause I'm like that. Where do you think that came from?

I know exactly. It came from my dad and my mom. Both were entrepreneurs. I saw my dad work originally from Minnesota. My dad was a dairy farmer and then moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, when I was young. And I saw him bounce around, move to one position and another position at companies. And then he left corporate America to start his own. To open the local hardware store in a small town in Ingleside, Texas. And I saw my parents build that basically from nothing. And they run it for over 15 years. It was successful. And I, you know, I saw my parents just my work, his. His work ethic. He was my hero growing up. And so that's. I think that's where a lot of it comes from. I saw my mom go back to school and become a nurse, and 20 years after graduating high school, go back and get straight A. So that's never a good thing when you're going to college and your mom is comparing her grades to your grades. You know what I mean? But that's where it comes from. It's just the work ethic from my parents. I saw them, you know, work hard and treat people like they wanted to be treated. You know, you don't build a company by just working 40 hours a week. You. You don't build success by just clocking and clocking out. You've got to give that a little bit extra. And they were there on the weekends for people or going in after hours. To open up the store, to help a friend or somebody who had a clogged toilet or broken pipe that couldn't wait till 9 o' clock in the morning. And seeing that, and just seeing how you build relationships, you give and if you, what you give comes back to you tenfold. And I think that's the biggest thing that we've always, I know that I've always prided myself with our company, is that we try to give and give people the tools to help them achieve success. And it's up to them whether they want to achieve it or not. So that's just definitely for my parents.

Yeah. And the thing is, man, a lot of people need to focus on something. When you wake up in the morning, I always talk about this. How can you be the most valuable person possible? Whether it's a husband, wife, son or daughter, employer, employee, how could you be the most valuable and to top that off, the most dependable person that you know. And if you think about that and you start understanding that that's an obligation that you have, it's not really an option. Too many people operate on options of whether I should do that or not. It's not a big deal, it's my choice. But really we were put here on this planet for a reason, and I really believe this. And that was to be dependable and valuable to those around us. And like you said, when you do that, everybody wants something for themselves and they're selfish a lot of times. What about me? What about me? Well, let me give you a little tip. The more you do for others, like you said, you'll take care of you or me, right? And so, yeah, that's a great point, man, I love that. And now going back to 2008, when you're in the mortgage business and that hit thinking about that, like, was that a time where if it was like us, a lot of time, like uncertainty was going on, right? We'd have loans in the pipeline ready to close and we'd get a call and they said, now we're not, we're not closing any more loans. You're gonna have to find someplace else. And we're like, we had it approved. Are you kidding me? I gotta go to these people and tell them that now, like, this can't be happening, right?

I call that my million dollar Black Monday. I can remember it greatly because we were doing a lot of optional arms for investors in California, getting four points on the front end and a point on the back end. And I had, oh man, it was seriously a good. 9 million loans scheduled to close on a Friday. They all got pushed to Monday. And of course, that company filed bankruptcy first thing Monday morning. And so it wasn't just that, hey, I didn't make a commission on all that stuff. It was having to call both realtors, both buyers and sellers, the title company. And it was just a mess for the while. One of my favorite movies is the Big Short. And I can remember specific times when they're talking about that movie. I can remember specific days when companies were going out of business or things were happening and it was a likely time. But I think things like that happen. And I think a lot of people realize, look back, I reached out to them, we found alternative solutions for them and it maybe took a little bit longer to close. But I didn't come to them and just give them a problem. I said, hey, listen, we've got a problem. I'm working on a solution for you. Or hey, I've got a plan B or a plan C. This can take a little bit longer. Let's work to get this done. And that's what I think people really want. Everybody understands that we all have hiccups and problems pop up. God knows there's rarely a loan that closes A to Z in like seven days. It takes a while. Right. With appraisals and values and tax returns and credit reports, all that good stuff or things that pop up when you see title. You just have to have a solution. And I think that's one of the big things that we pride ourselves on here in my office, I tell, listen, things are going to happen. You've got a 30 second stopwatch to bitch about it. And then we need to move on from there. Yep. And get beyond it. There's a solution. This is a way that we really pride ourselves. Okay, what went wrong? Well, let's find an opportunity to go around it. And there's rarely a situation that happens that we can't fix. And so that's the mindset. And I'm sure you're the same way, Mike.

Yeah. And this goes back to the other thing. When you have a small pipeline, everything's a 911 in an emergency. And so if you focus on developing a system where you have numbers and you have a loaded pipeline, you just build and build and build all the time. Things happen. You want to get things done, obviously, for your clients and customers. Don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about not servicing them, but everything is not a 911 in an emergency. If you have a lot going on and people need to understand that. But the other thing is when we were talking about those days and by the way, we did a lot of refi cash out refis. FHA went from 95% loan to value down to 85% and we thought the world was coming to an end. It's just funny to think back, but one of the things I came to realize, and I talk about this all the time too, everything we go through, as long as it doesn't kill you, is a training session for your future. I am so happy to be where I am right now with the what do youo Made Of Movement in Lives that I'm, you know, getting feedback on, that I'm inspiring and it just blows me away, man, all over the world. It's just crazy. And for you as well, where you are now, you wouldn't be where you are if you 2008 didn't happen.

That's 100% correct, man. While it was, there were some tough times back then and a lot of people hit the skids on the things you always have to look at. It's an opportunity to grow. I'm not a real religious person, but I have a lot of faith. Not only myself, but I'm a big believer that there's nothing that's put on our plate that we can't handle. Sometimes it seems like we got to stretch, but that's where we see the most amount of growth, is when we got to stretch and get outside of our comfort level. You don't grow inside a comfort level. You know what I mean? You've got to really. Things have got to happen to get out. It's either going to be time, money, or something that's going to push you outside your comfort level. But look at that as an opportunity. What am I going to learn from this? How is this going to benefit me in the future? I may not know the right answer right now, but I guarantee there's a silver lining to this that's going to help me in the long run.

Yep. And if you can become aware of that when you run into the tough times and know, hey man, this is just a training session, no matter how bad it gets, we can get out of it. A lot of times that tough time doesn't last as long as a lot of times the length of the tough time is brought on by your reaction to what's going on, right?

Yeah. Well, that's the thing. You have the ability to control your emotions and whether you get out, been out of shape, you know, we've got friends, I friends that little things and it gets out of bend of shape and it's like a domino effect. Their whole day is messed up, you know, and I'm the big whoa, whoa. You control how you want to spin this. Don't let this one little thing, a 10 minute or 5 minute thing, ruin the other 23 and a half hours of the day. You know, let's figure, fix it out and move on and go from there. But that's so many people and we're in such an inflammatory society with Facebook and knee jerk reactions and people liking or bashing or things like that. I think a lot of times people just need to take a deep chill pill and either take a deep breath, light up with something, take an edible to relax a little bit. Like listen, this is not life or death. It's not going to matter in five hours, let alone five days or five months from now.

Yeah, you know, listen, I used that numerous times and I don't think people get it, including myself. And what seems to get people is the question do you want to be the puppet or the puppet master? Because when you are controlled by other events and other people and your responses to their actions or words makes you the puppet man. You don't want, nobody wants to be a puppet. So that, that, that little, you know, I'm a big guy on painting pictures and that, that seems to work better. And it's worked for me actually. And anytime I'm talking, I'm talking about myself a lot of times. So you know, I talk about people though, it's really this guy. Right. So I preach to myself a lot. But that's, that's one way I've done well with, you know, having kids, employees, events at work. Same thing. It's just like, hey man, I'm not a puppet, I'm the puppet master.

Well, that's the thing. The more you can realize that and realize, okay, what am I going to do here? And I think leaders do that. Leaders realize they rise above the emotion to try to keep an even keel and they are the puppet masters versus being a puppet. I think it's what separates a leader will see in a situation and know how to deal with it versus just sitting here and whining and getting down on oneself and just try to find, okay, there's a reason for this happen, what do we need to fix this and what did we learn from this so this doesn't happen again?

What can you get out of it? What can you get out of that situation? I wanted to take a brief intermission to remind you to subscribe to the Waymo podcast on itunes, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform. You can also watch these podcasts by subscribing to my YouTube channel at MikeSearocksiRocco. As a thank you, I want to provide you with my blueprint to finding out what you're made of for free. To download for free, go to waymocr.comblueprint that's Waymo W A Y-M-O Crew C R E W.comblue now back to the show. All right, so a couple questions on what you do now. Man, when you got out of the mortgage business and into the investing and notes, how did you know how to do that? Did you have a mentor? Did you have to, you had to find investors obviously to bankroll you. How did that Give me a little bit of a rundown on that?

Yeah, that's a great question, Mike. So I had an investor mentor that was our co sponsoring broker originally in the mortgage company and he taught creative investing. He was traveling the country speaking on owner financing, wraparound mortgages, non performing notes. And so for four years, while me and my buddy Boyd were doing the mortgage business, I really had kind of an apprenticeship into the real estate investment side. Very, very fortunate. And so I learned a lot of techniques from going to these seminars and being the guy that was doing mortgage back of the room, but also listening to every speaker and trying to absorb as much as I could because I knew what the opportunity was. But I just started going out and dialing for dollars from banks. When everything went south, I reached back out to him, hey, what am I doing right? And this doing wrong. And literally it was just dialing for dollars. I'd make 50 phone calls and get one yes, that one yes would be a great deal. That make me 50 grand or a tape. And so that's, that's the biggest thing is I learned that. But then I started using the power of social media back then, even 10 years ago.

Let me stop you, not to be rude, to stop you there. I want to do the math on that. Guys, if you're listening to this and gals, I'm sorry, I say guys a lot. I mean everybody you're listening to that number is what he just said. I know it's not exact, but he said 50 calls. And the one call he would get a yes or this works and it's 50 grand, that's $1,000 a call. So if you have a job in sales and you're making calls or you're going out and visiting people, do yourself a favor. Take the amount of money that you can make on the sale based on the number of calls you made, divided by the number of calls you made, and then start thinking about your calls being worth that amount of money. There you go. Thank you. And because what's going to happen is it's going to change your mindset. You're not going to mind making that. You're not going to mind having a rejection. You're not going to mind no's. Okay. And that's a big, big, big, huge thing in sales in general, in business in general, is understanding how much each contact or reach out is worth. And so I wanted to stop you there and ask it, but then go ahead. And social media.

So let's come back to that. Though I agree. I made a game out of it, like you just said. I knew that every now was a value and so I said, okay, I'm $500 or $1,000 closer to having a deal. And so I'll give you an example back that make 50 phone calls before I got my first yes was to a mortgage company in Houston that was going out of business. The lady that was working there was her and the president of the company. That was it. Kim was her name. And I remember her basically just being in a horrible mood in the phone because the minute she sold that last loan portfolio, she was unemployed. But that phone call turned into a $5 million portfolio that we ended up selling to somebody else. It took me four other partners and people to put it together. But our commission was 250 grand off that $5 million sale. And I got a fifth of that. But that was the 50 grand. I was like, okay, now I know this is just a numbers game. And so that's the biggest thing we talk about. Determination. I would call bankers until they would actually answer the phone or tell me, no, they don't have anything. I would follow up four, five, six times because I had this poster that I hung in my wall that says 80% of sales remain for the fifth contact. And so that was one of the things diving into social media is that I would share that on LinkedIn, I would share what I was doing on Facebook, I would share in an email blast out. I didn't have any of my own capital, so I was just moving and flipping notes really fast. But then people started to pay attention to what I was doing, like, oh, that's a sweet deal, or oh, hey, that's an awesome deal. How'd you get that due? And I said, well, we're negotiating the debt down at a discount. We're buying it, becoming the bank and then negotiating an exit strategy of some sort or a modification of the borrower. And then it just started growing and then traveling the country like I did, I just started having more and more people reach out to me. I started sharing videos of what I was doing, share a three hour video of me dialing for dollars and getting told no over and over and over again. And then it'd be the one. Yes. And then it would lead to a portfolio that I could cherry pick from. And so I just shared the journey, I shared the day in, day out struggles and people like if this idiot can do it, I can do it. You know what I mean? I just helped really leapfrog me to a lot of success in the future now.

So does that go on cycles based on the economy and the mortgage business and all that? Because I was thinking to myself as you did that obviously after 2008 there's a window that was just massive. But has it slowed down since things changed?

Yeah, it's a very niche industry, maybe 5,000, 10,000 people that are doing this for them. So I mean you get some big firms, I mean if you've ever seen the big short or too big to fail, something like, you'll understand some of the things that we deal with. Because it's really popped up this niche of investors that buy, I guess you say the crumbs from the bigger banks and firms have popped up since 2008. We still see stuff, there's still defaulted mortgages out there. I think the national default rate is about 2.5%. And you figure that across all the new originations, all the new refinances, that's still millions of loans that are in default every year. Then you also figure about how people default. You know, when they buy a new home. A lot of times they may understand that their budget mindset and if they get laid off of work or their overtime goes down or now it's being reappraised for the full value versus just that they may not have that money available to you. So we're constantly seeing more. It's not, it's not the same thing as it was years ago where I was buying condos in Miami beach for five grand, five cents on the dollar was owed. But we're still picking up stuff at 50, 60 cents of as is value and still opportunity out there now.

So hold on a second, did you keep any of the Miami condos.

Oh, I had them for years. But when you're foreclosing and they get sold at 60, 70 grand, you know when you make 10 times your money in 18 months? Yeah, I took it and we invested in new deals. I would take one asset and buy two or three.

But you didn't just keep just one.

Oh well, I did. And then I saw the price, like I paid 70 grand for it and it ballooned up to 450. Holding onto it's like, okay, now it's the time to cash out of it. Because it's peak. If you keep thinking things are keep going up, going up, which it'd be great. But we have downturns on average every seven to eight years. Well, we've exceeded that. It's time for the market to correct itself. I was just talking with a realtor in Miami this morning on a couple assets that we're foreclosing on and she's talking about seeing similar trends where all these higher end condos are now being short sales because people overpaid for them and then they're not moving as much as they could. And so you're seeing that pop up across the country in different markets in the higher end stuff specifically. And so at least me start thinking, you know, I watch trends. You know, I was talking to a broker at a bigger bank, a mortgage region, and he was talking about how they're, you know, doing lower FICO scores and they're donating the down payment and they're giving like eight grand towards closing costs. I'm like, you've got somebody with no skin in the game buying a house or a new house, who has credit score that shows they should be buying a house. It's building up what we saw 10 years ago. It may not be as extreme as it was 10 years ago, but we're gonna see a correction, I think next six or 12 months. And when that happens, I get excited because I go shopping on sale.

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. So you don't think you'll get back in the mortgage side of things?

No, I, you know, we do a little bit on the private side with some commercial loans or some hard money lending. And private lending, we dab a little bit in that. But on the origination side, I love what I do here and it's, it's very similar because you, when you're doing a loan, you're doing a loan qualification package, right. You're seeing behind the kimono. Right? I, it's the opposite for me. I see behind the Kimono. But then I see everything that happened. What happened, what, what?

You know, you basically have 2020 vision.

I do. I see where they were.

Yep.

And now I'm talking to those borrowers and see what happened. You know, what was hindsight?

2020.

Right, exactly. And our biggest goal is, honestly is try to keep them in the house. And so when we're buying this distressed debt with somebody who hasn't paid in six months or six years in some cases, my biggest goal first and foremost is like, what happened? Do you want to stay in a house? So if you do want to stay, let's worry, let's fix something here. So in a lot of cases, I am still on the origination side because I work with a lot of homeowners and about 60% of the deals we buy, we actually are able to keep them in the house by modifying or doing a trial payment plan or forbearance agreement to keep them in the house. And that becomes cash flow to us. We just bought the debt at a big discount and then in 12 to 18 months, we can resell that loan. If we bought it at 40 cents an hour, we can often sell it at 80 to 85 cents back on the secondary market.

Right now, do you guys do where a bank's trying to do a Fannie or Freddie or an agency loan and something happens, something happens in underwriting or whatever the case is, and we call it scratch and dent. Scratch and dent people.

We'll do a little bit of that. I mean, we do. Some of it all depends on what the yield comes out to and what kind of discount we're looking at.

Right. So if it makes business sense, you do it. It doesn't matter where it comes from.

I get phone calls all day and if it's not something I'm interested in, I've got partners and other banks that are looking for that stuff for their portfolio. So, yeah, we're brokering stuff off and then, you know, making a point or half a point or something. It's still something that puts money in our pocket, but it really creates a win, win.

So now tell me about the show that you have, the radio show, the podcast. Give me some details and background on.

That for the audience. So, you know, I started, I was at. I know you're going to Vegas tomorrow. I was actually in Vegas November 2016 and was at a big event and spent a little time with Gary Vaynerchuk. And there was also one of the sharks, Robert. I can't even think what his name is. I'm drawing a blank. But anyway, he came out and he's like, hey, you need to do video. You need to do more video. Share what's going on. Because all this video thing, this is back in 2016, just as Facebook Live was coming. I said, okay. So I came back and I got with my team, so we're just going to share a little bit what's going on in the office. Every day we'll do a short live video. And so we said, let's just call it the note closure show, because the note show was taken by somebody else. So we said the note closer show because we're closing deals, and my main companies, we close notes. So we started doing Facebook lives. Nine months later, a buddy of mine convinced me to turn it from just a Facebook series into a podcast. We did that. And then last year, last March, actually, we had a radio network that does is in charge of 17am and from radio stations come to me and say, hey, would you like to have a show six days a week? I was like, yeah, let's do it. And so we became nationally syndicated. We've had, what, 17 million downloads that we can tell from the radio stations alone. We have over a half a million downloads on our podcast, on itunes and all the podcasting platforms. And so we have people listening in over 100 countries out there. And it's just really blossomed because I've always embraced the fact that no matter what we're in, whether it's real estate, mortgages, buying, selling, whatever you're in, in today's world, we're all in the media business. And so using video, using podcasts is another way to get your audience just like you're doing, you're doing a phenomenal job. We have to keep that in mind, because that's where we're going. You look at, everything's going video. Netflix, Hulu, Facebook, YouTube Live, all that stuff is there. And we as entrepreneurs have the same opportunity that these huge companies have to get the word out what you're doing. And so, you know, I joke that we're in the media business, but every day we walk in the office, the first hour of every day is some sort of marketing to get our message out and bring value to our listeners, bring value to our investors, bring value to our audience.

Yep. And what's the difference between the podcast and the radio show?

It's really the same thing. I mean, it's the we take, when we record an episode, we'll throw it on YouTube. People record video, 24 hours later, YouTube, Facebook, in the next day or so it goes, we take the audio and they ship it. We just email it out to the radio station and they rebroadcast it across their networks from Tampa to Long Beach. And it's an hour show. I'm able to add ads in there. It helps me get sponsors for it, but it also gets the word out. And we're doing investment wise and deal wise as well too. So it's basically the same thing. It's just, it's a different medium because not everybody listens to podcasts. Only 26% of the population in the United States actually listens to podcasts. So that leaves another 74% of people that want to get their news from somewhere else. So that's why we try to have a full court Press on YouTube, Facebook, you know, audio, the podcast, and then also audio of the airwaves and the AMF radio stations.

Omnipresence.

Yeah, that's right.

My favorite words.

Yeah.

So how can my audience get in touch with you and how can we help support you, Scott?

Well, I think the best thing out there is, look, you can always find what we're doing@weclosenotes.com that's where our kind of mothership is with our classes, our training, our investments and our radio shows hosted. But I think the best thing is if you're listening to this, do a couple things. One, make sure you go over and subscribe and leave Mike a five star rating. That's the most important thing. If you're listening here. You didn't pay me for that. Later on you will, but support, look, just educate yourself. That's one of the biggest things that we find in our industry when we're talking to homeowners and home borrowers is know what your options are, know what you're doing. If you ever find yourself in default or going through a financial hiccup, pick up the phone and call somebody. Pick up the phone and talk to somebody. We're here to help. And I was just talking with a lady last night for about an hour, helping her through her different options. And you know, she's not. We're not buying our mortgage. We don't usually do that. We deal directly with banks. But just know the options out there. There's a lot of creativity that you can get involved with and to stay in your house and turn a bad situation back into, you know, the dream that everybody wants to have is home ownership. And sometimes it turns into a nightmare. But if you know what you're doing and there are options that are available to you, you can turn it back into a dream for you. So our goal, as I always say, is to make. We're making America great again. One defaulted mortgage at a time. Yeah.

I mean, and bottom line is, none of us want to see anybody lose their home or not. You know, if you can't, if you get into a rough spot, I mean, shoot, there's help out there for sure. And nobody, you know, nobody wants people to have to move out, pack up, you know, so just always ask for help. Like, that's another thing. People need help. A lot of times, they don't ask.

Yeah.

And I don't know what that thought process is behind it. If they're scared, I don't know. But, you know, maybe. I don't know.

I think people get embarrassed. They get prideful. They're keeping up with the Joneses. You know, that's a big thing that we see out there. And I stopped that a long time ago, you know, if. Trying to impress Sheila from across the road. Sheila's not paying my bills, you know, so I need to do what's best for me, not what's best for everybody else. But, look, the most successful people are also the most approachable people, and I think that's a lot of us. We set an air about ourselves. But some of the most successful people I know have gone through trials and tribulations.

Well, yeah, I could tell you right now that back in 2000, we went through a tough spell in 2017 when we switched companies, and I'm taking full responsibility for it. At that time, I didn't think it was, but I'm just gonna. I could have prepared better for it, but I relished the opportunity to get knocked down and have the greatest comeback ever. And anybody that was around me during that period of time knows I was stressed out. But I was telling everybody, watch this comeback, baby. Just sit back and watch, because it's going to be huge. And that's when this. What do you. Made up movement started. And so I had to be knocked down. My team had to be knocked down. And. Yeah. Was it embarrassing? Yeah. But you know what? Then you get over that quick. You're like, okay, how far is embarrassment go? I mean, at some point, it's like, give me a break. And luckily, we were able to, you know, I did prepare. And when I went through this and had some, you know, had some emergency funds set aside, and we made sure all of our employees were paid and. But that comeback is what it's all about, man. And I love that. I relish that, man. I love being an underdog.

You know, it's, it's, it's the thing that, you know, if you think about some of the best movies, Rocky, you know, as an underdog, go back. Or Muhammad Ali or J.J. braddock from the Cinderella Man. Those are some of my favorite stories and my favorite things to look at because it is about getting back up. Everybody does great when things are running great, but you really can tell the mettle and the mental fortitude of a person when they do get knocked down or going through tough times and how they react to that and how they come back. And so I've always made the saying that you're not going to make everybody happy. And I think it's where a lot of people get bogged in trying to make everybody happy. Make yourself happy. Work with the people that love you. That's a 33% of people, you know, are gonna love you because they know you and they, hey, they're gonna support you. There's a third of people out there. They're gonna enjoy seeing you hurting because they just have a dark soul for a hole. I mean, a dark hole for a soul, I should say. So realize that you make yourself happy, make the people that love you happy, and then work on that middle ground. Forget.

And the other people don't. That the other people's opinions don't matter.

They don't.

They don't matter, man. If anybody's a decent human being, those are the people you want around you anyway. And the other people are doing you a favor by, you know, staying away.

Amen to that, man.

Well, listen, Scott, thank you so much for joining me. I appreciate you reaching out to me, man. I'm glad to be connected with you now. And if there's anything me or my listeners can do to help you, support you, man. We're here for you with the Waymo movement and I just look forward to any way I can do that with you.

Hey, same here, man. If anybody, if I can help in any way, don't hesitate to reach out scottclosenotes.com or check out the website. And glad to help out anybody that I can.

And we'll put all that in the show notes for you, brother. And guys, thank you so much for joining us again. Hope you got some great content here. Please. If you think about people, think about people that are going through these situations, if you know any of them, then know just that there's help out there. That's what this is all about. And thank you so much and what are you made of is a movement that I started and this is just like this. The first step, guys, because I have a grand plan here to help billions of people. I just realized something when I was on an airplane the other day about the opportunity that I have to change like so many people, a billion people's, billions of people's lives. And you have to think this way first for it to happen. But watch what happens, guys. I'm going to say this on this show. Scott, you're lucky to be on this show when this is happening. I'm going to do something crazy and you can call me crazy for saying what I'm saying, but guys, I have a way to do this and I'm going to be announcing it soon. I'm going to be looking for great people to jump on board with it because remember, we're in the people building business and there's how many billions of people on this planet that need to be built. So thank you for listening. Thank you to Nations Lending. You've been listening to the what are you Made of? Podcast with Mike Sirock. Please go subscribe to the podcast, itunes, Spotify or your favorite platform for podcasts as well as YouTube. YouTube channels. Mike Seawock, Sirocco and I will be at the 10x growth con and I got word that I'm actually going to be getting on stage and doing a Q and A and testimonial and telling my story. So I'm excited about that. So I will share that with you as soon as I can. Guys, till next time, it's your boy, C Rock. Talk to you soon. Thank you for being a part of the what Are youe Made Up Podcast so that you don't miss future episodes. Please rate and subscribe to the what are you Made of Podcast on your favorite listening or viewing apps and follow me on your favorite social media platforms. I would love to hear your stories and past experiences and engage with you further.