Jim Sheils: Discover Why Quality Time With Those In Your Life Is More Vital Than Quantity Of Time, According To This Entrepreneur

I do really believe 100% from every part of me that everyone has the capacity to be able to do the things that they want and not to be held back by the mental baggage that's in our head that we want to push through.

Welcome to the do the Thing podcast. In each episode, we get down and personal with people who go after the things they want to make all their wildest dreams come true. Join us as we unveil and dissect a formula for what it takes to do the thing. Here is your host, Stacy Lauren.

Hey everyone. Welcome to the do the Thing podcast. This is your host, Stacy Lauren. I have an amazing guest in store for you guys today. He owns a family education business and a real estate investment company. He's also a best selling authority, which is how I first discovered him. I read his book and the way he talked about relationships and quality time really resonated with me. I find his story so powerful and inspiring. It's incredibly eye openening to learn how he prioritizes spending time and being fully present with everyone in his family. Not only is he the father of five kids, but he also manages to run two businesses without compromising his core values. He's a prime example of someone who does the thing in all aspects of his life. It's my pleasure to welcome Jim Shiels to the show. Hey, Jim, good to see you.

Stacey, how are you?

I'm doing great. How are you?

Doing well, doing well. Good.

I'm so excited to have you on.

Thank you. Glad to be here. Good.

Why don't we start off and have you just kind of share with the listeners more about you and your story?

I guess I've. I've had a couple of different adventures in my life like most people out there, but currently 48, with five kids, two businesses that are very different but complement each other, which is how you and I came into effect of a friendship and working together on different things. I have been a real estate investor full time for 25 years. And 10 years ago with my wife, we started a family education company called 18 Summers and we actually ended up writing a book called the Family Board Meeting that unbeknownst to us and surprise to us and many others, became a top bestseller for business for family and a couple of different categories. And I give credit to the message itself, not really to our, our Pulitzer Prize writing. I think it was more just. It was an important message for a lot of people out there. And I spend a lot of my time between quality time with family and friends, taking adventures, running My real estate investment company and our family education company.

That's great. And I love how the family board meeting came to be. I wanted to kind of start with that, if you don't mind, just about like how. How you guys decided to start 18 summers and where the idea from the book came from.

Yeah. So I think we always start something out of necessity for ourselves. So I never planned on writing a book about family. It wasn't on the periphery, it wasn't on the plan. It wasn't a big strategy. It just kind of happened. I talk about my story in my book. So many years ago now, my wife and I met and fell in love and she was divorced with full custody of two young boys. She had been in a horrible situation, marrying her high school boyfriend shortly after college and alcohol abuse. The whole nine of things that you know are not good. And she stood up for herself, got full custody, and I met her a few years later. And here I am, instant dad and running a real estate investment company that's come back from near extinction of 2008 just very recently, but fell in love with her and the boys pretty instantly. My friends were all like, oh, this is it for you. And because I was always the famous guy to go, ah. He'd date someone and say, but this was by far the one I'd been looking for. But I had an instant family and that's not something I planned for. And so I wanted to make sure I didn't mess things up and became the best I could. And so these, these quality time days are something that we started doing together. And the results I saw that happen with this relationship with a seven and a five year old, I started to share very reluctantly and very uncomfortably because it wasn't. I can talk about this years later, but it was not comfortable for me to talk about this. The things we were overcoming that they had been through and the connection points we were making. But I started to share them. And basically a few of my entrepreneur friends said, look, if you don't write a book about this, we will kill you. That was their big joke with me. And so my wife and I put it together because these simple principles and quality days that I was starting to have with my children, every quarter change the relationship, change the trajectory of where they were going. I think where I was going, our family was going.

And.

And it's done the same for thousands of families now over the last decade plus.

Yeah, and that's. I love that. The thing that I love the most about the book was that distinction between Quality of time versus quantity of time and how you can make any moment and convert it into quality of time. And that was really a powerful thing for me because it's so easy. And I think you said something in the book really resonate. I mean, there's a lot of things that really resonated, obviously, for everyone that doesn't know. I ended up investing in his real estate fund. Is it. Is it called a fund? I don't even know what it's called.

Yeah, it's in our income fund for.

In that. Like, I was so obsessed with the book that I talked to you on the Internet and was, what else does he do? And then I found out about your. Your real estate fund and then did that. And that's my. One of my favorite investments because it's just so easy. Anyway, but the point being is that idea of what did you say? I think you even said this, or I interpreted it this way, but pretty much, if you're taking your phone out and the kids don't see you, because that's what I used to do is I used to take my phone and maybe even hide in the bathroom, you know, like, and go on it.

Oh, yeah, the bathroom visit do work.

Right.

And so.

But then it's taking away from your experience because you're still not being present. And I. That was. Oh, my God, you totally got me there. And it was just a huge difference with how I've been able to live my life, just in general, not even from a parenting perspective, but just from being more present in life and realizing what that quality versus quantity distinction means.

Yeah, well, I. All of us, I think, still struggle with this. I've gotten a lot better, but aren't perfect yet. But we need times of complete and total unavailability. And if not, we are not grounded in what's in front of us, who's in front of us. It just doesn't happen. It's being proven more and more. And you're not alone when you just say, oh, I sneak to the bathroom. You know, how many millions of people will raise their hand in guilt of that same thing? I mean, it's really quite amazing how that can take hold. So, as you know, I don't not like technology. We wouldn't be having this great conversation today. But you have to have periods of unavailability, otherwise the people in front of you are going to suffer. You know, And I talk about that in, in the book. I remember getting on the trampoline with my daughter one day after work and I usually have my phone off for an hour or two at the end of the day just for family. And I broke my own rule. I had it in my pocket and the phone buzzes and again, bad judgment. I pull it out. I've just gotten on the trampoline with my daughter and someone messed up a real estate closing. A simple thing. And I'm going, ah. So there I am, swearing under my breath, trying to fix this scenario in my head. And you know, my daughter looks at me, my five year old at the time, and she says, daddy, why are you so mad at me? And so your heart just rips and it's like, how many times do we send that signal where we've just read a disappointing work text or email. We read a thread that pisses us off because we don't agree with the person. We read a really disheartening article and then five seconds later, join our family. We don't realize how we're spreading ourselves thin and then sometimes putting on to the people in front of us something that we just had on that device. It's very interesting. And so I'm not saying that you can't be on it, but I'm saying you will start to feel more calm, more patient, more presence, more connected, I believe, if you have some time where it's just off.

Yeah, definitely. And I think that's. You really hit it on the head with that idea of it's not just the time that you're on the phone and we're talking about the phone. There's so much more about the book. But this was the piece that I really wanted to mention because I think a lot of people think you're just, you're out, you're not with them in that moment that you're on the phone. But it's not that. It's. That energy is then there of whatever happened, whatever you just saw. And then you think that they're not seeing it, but they are and they're feeling it too. It just sounds like your daughter felt it that day.

Big time. Big time. We're not as good as we think we are, Stacy. We think, oh, we can hide it, we can fake it, we can, you know, internalize it, we can shut it off and return right back. We're not that good, you know, if we had a hidden camera on us sometimes, if we. It'd be interesting to see you and I read four really pain in the neck things about work, let's say. And then we turned right to one of our kids or our Good friends. You're not that good. You know what I mean? There's still stuff rubbing off. So this is what I call in half in friendship, half in parenting, half in marital status. You're not really there. You're always kind of working and kind of with them, or we're kind of with them and kind of working. And it really does cause a flatness, if that makes sense.

Totally. And just for people listening, if you don't have kids, this is related to anyone you're with, from a partner to a friendship. And just having those moments of pure connection and deciding when that's when you're able to do that. And the other thing I like about the book is whenever I get into things, sometimes I can get obsessive and I'm like, I'm going to do this every week when it becomes too hard to maintain. And you really speak to that by these quarterly born things. And I really liked that as well because you made it something that everyone can do because anyone can take four hours a quarter to have this quality visit with whoever it is kid. And this book, it happens to be kid, but it could also be relationship or whatever, whoever you want to connect more to. And so that's what I liked about it as well.

Yeah, it's a very simple thing. Again, I learned if I have simple rhythms in my life, it runs better. So I do date night every Wednesday with my wife. Every quarter, I do half a day with each one of my children. Now that's what the family board meeting is, just one on one time every quarter with each of my children doing a day that they want to do and having some time to have conversation. Sounds simple, sounds almost too simple. But it's had breakthroughs for me and thousands of other families now, so I definitely encourage it.

Do you mind sharing? Like how do you get the kid into the mode of wanting to do the half a day? Are they typically gung ho wanting to go for it or is it a way that you have to present it to get them excited?

Yeah, I've been kind of lucky. Where since the inception was young, there wasn't really any big buy in. I just said, look, you're going to plan the day. I'm going to turn off my phone, go all in. We're going to have a good time and just have fun together. And when you start that at 7 and 5, it's pretty easy. They have so much fun with it. And now even my 19 year old, you know, our oldest is 19 now, so he still has time with Me, if he starts, he's still at home right now. But if he moves out, we might go down to twice a year or once a a year. I know friends of mine that do them once a year now that their kids are over the age of 18 or 21 and living further away. But even to get a day a year, one on one with your kids, that's better than most. But I haven't had a lot of buy in needed but some people do just because I started young. And if you're starting older, I think honesty and vulnerability is the best way and just say hey, it's not. This is not a trick strategy to have those 50 lectures you've been planning of how they need to fix their life and do better and do more of what you say. That's not what this is about. This is about having genuine fun and quality time together with no hidden agenda. Just say, look, I want to have more time with you. It's something that I really value, you know. And you know, you won't be around forever and I won't either. So I just like to have a day, you know, we're turn off our phones, having some fun together, maybe some conversation, that's it. And teens might have their, their guard up, but they learn that from us most of the time. So you just got to stay with it, make the offer. I like to encourage people, although this is a little controversial. Miss a day of school, who cares? When it comes to 50 years from now, what's going to be better? That day of school or the memory of being with you for a whole day, connecting, having fun and maybe some meaningful conversation. And it's a no brainer for me, especially if you've ever lost loved ones of that saying which, which would have served you better. So that's one of the ways to buy into. Nothing wrong with missing as far as I'm concerned, a day or two of school to have that best relationship and set example that this is most important, more important than work, than school. I think that's kind of a value people need to see again.

And what else are you guys doing with 18 summers? You mentioned the educational learning. Is there other things that you're, you're doing with that company?

Yeah, it's funny, Stacy, going into the pandemic, we had about 15 talks, workshops and retreats planned. And then the pandemic shut everything down. And I've started to go out and do some more real estate events where I talk about family. It's I am so not a straight line it's so funny. Our relationship is a perfect example, isn't it? You read our book, you liked our principles, we did some different consulting, talking about family values and that. And then all of a sudden you said, well, what do you do in real estate? This is interesting. And then you look over our stuff and you said, I want to invest in this. And now we've been investing together for a few years. This is what's happened to my life. It's the weirdest thing. I was always told, you're a real estate investor, you're a family educator. I tried to keep the world completely separate. Always. I just thought I was told, oh, I couldn't let people who knew me in family education didn't know I did real estate. People in real estate didn't know I did family education. All of a sudden I said, what is this imaginary wall? So all of a sudden I started to say, look, I can come to your real estate event and I can do a family talk. They're like, wait, what? I said, well, people value family, right? Why don't you bring me in and see how it goes? Now I have these tons of these wealth creation real estate top events that invite me to do family talks because there's a value people want. And then what happens? Well, same thing would happen with you. You kind of show your values. This is something that I care about, something that I do. And it's only grown my real estate business. The two really work in unison. It's been very interesting to watch. And then obviously real estate investors who came to me said, wait, what is this family stuff you're doing? Well, we want to come to one of your workshops. We want to come to one of your retreats. So it's. They work yin and yang. And I never would have thought that 10 years ago when we started this, I thought I had to be this big secret between the two, which was really silly. And we play these silly games in our head sometimes or get bad advice. But right now, 18 summers has been more served with our podcast growing, with me taking some limited amount of talks because I don't like to be on the road away from my family right now. It's been really nice to be home and save that travel time for our adventures and just taking time to do things like this. We are working on another book right now as well, which should be pretty interesting.

Oh, well, what's that going to be? Are you allowed to talk? Yeah.

So we're still. It's kind of a project around family wealth, so it's going to talk about being legendary in your family life and what does that look like? How can you become legendary in your family life? You know, we're all here for a certain blip of time and then it's gone to say to be legendary. And it almost sounds scary or conceded, but I've. The book's about the opposite and it talks about some of the fundamentals of and principles I think, to become legendary. And one of those is, is financial freedom and passive income. And that's something helped brought us together about, you know, if it wasn't for the developments in real estate that I've done to create income coming in every month and I couldn't do a lot of the things, I couldn't have the space to take the time. And I want to see that. But even for some people, once they get that, they don't know how to foster. So I'm trying to help both sides, whether you're trying to build that part of the, of the ship for yourself or the other. But so it's the over. What does overall family wealth look like? What are the full components? And that's what the book's going to be about.

That's amazing. I love that. The legendary in your family life. It's funny, I just was talking earlier about that, talking to my holistic coach about really creating that generational, you know, mindset of. And that's part of the do the thing formula is like teaching people how to go through the formula to create this generational thing. So it's funny you should mention the legendary in your family life because it's sort of that same concept. Which kind of brings me up to what you were saying earlier where you didn't, you were doing both of these things, like you're following your passion and you're not like having a specific plan on everything connecting together. But I'm calling it, and I think this is a thing that's out there, but I'm just pointing it right now. But you're following the breadcrumbs of life, you know, and you're like, interested in this. I'm going to follow this. I'm interested in that. I'm going to follow that. And then it's so cool to see now all these connection points and how things connect together. And it's not like you could have planned that. You had to just follow where your passion was and then it sort of just flowed that way.

Yeah, it's, it's, it's been interesting. I think I've also heard it Called the Surrender Experiment. That's a great book if you've ever read that. One of my favorites. And so I just said, okay, well, I'm going to do my best in this. I'm getting asked to do more of this. And it's something that I really have an intuitive pull towards and ties to my deepest values. So why not? Just because it hasn't been done before, surrendering to those things and I think sticking within your genius, you know, this is just something that I really care about and I really enjoy. And I've been told I can relate to people really well on it, and so I'm following naturally my. They're called your genius. You know, we all have our genius of things that we naturally are good at. I think I'm really getting better at admitting what those are and really running with them and being okay with the things I'm not.

Yeah, that's great. No, it's funny that you mentioned the Surrender Experiment. I have that on audible. I just haven't read it, listened to it yet. So now I need to, like, go back.

One of my favorites. One of my favorites. It's not. I've never gone to visit, but that's only about two, three hours from here.

Oh, wow. Huh?

Yeah.

Yeah. And this is kind of an example of breadcrumbs just for anyone that want. That's listening. It's like just even having this conversation, you reminding me about that book. Now I'm going to listen to it and then something else. Who knows? Maybe I'll go. You know, I didn't even know there was a place to go. So now I'm going to look into this place and go. And it's all from just this breadcrumb, me not knowing where it was going to lead. And so that's what. That's so fascinating to me, how those dots connect. Eventually.

You never know. That's why I think one of my big adventures, that was my big. I do try to do reflections when we do big family adventures. And I remember one time we're up, we were going to Nova Scotia and we were going to go to one part and they said, no, no, go up to this Cabot Trail area. Anyway, it took us on this adventure of the northern part of Nova Scotia, which is just stunning. I mean, it is. It's mythical. And. And I remember we were going to miss this park because we were trying to hop a ferry to go somewhere else, which is nice, but the whole thing was have a plan, but don't be too rigid on the Agenda and. Because if you are, then you leave out these breadcrumbs, say, no, no, no. You know, you're almost. If you're too rigid, then you're going to miss some. Some things, I think. So it's great to have a plan, but don't be too rigid on the agenda. That's. That's something that I've really discovered.

Yeah. And that's the other thing I like about it too. It's like that's the. From the people that I've interviewed that have trouble doing the thing. That's what catches them up.

Right.

Is that analysis paralysis or being too overthinking or trying to have 20 steps ahead planned, which. There is a place for that, depending on when it is. But it's also. Sometimes it's like just do one thing in the direction of something you want and then kind of see where it, where it goes.

Yeah, absolutely.

You mentioned the reflections. What does that look like for you?

Reflections, you said.

I thought you said something about reflections. When you travel, you do.

Well, I try to write some reflections after I, you know, take a trip or things just almost memoirs or reflections just of things. Ahas of the trips, highlights and just mental realizations, emotional realizations, you know, it's always nice to kind of earmark those things and look back on them.

That's great because a lot of times you can. You'll remember the experience potentially. But then a little thing that you read could bring it back to get you back to that emotionally placed. So before we. Because I want to move on to the investment stuff, but before we do that, I just wanted to ask, so for the people that are parents listening and they want to do the thing regarding parenting, what would be some advice you would have for them?

I would say get rid of the same perfect family because it doesn't exist. I haven't met one in thousands of families in over a decade of doing this. So there is no perfect family. It's not about perfection. It's about bridging imperfections and. And just realizing that you're going to have them. And I think that's really important. So don't beat yourself up and aim for perfection. And again, most of the stuff you see me write, sometimes we're not as far away from the improvement we want as we think we are. Sometimes again, like I talk about my book and the new book coming out, if we will set a couple of just a few more rhythms and principles into our focus, it can make a huge difference. Maybe not get us all the way there, but 80% of the way there, and that's, you know, that's a huge improvement. So you might not be as far away from it as you think. So that's. Keep hope on that.

Can you speak a little bit more to the rhythms and principles into focus? Like, what does that look like to you?

I think that rhythms are just powerful. You think of music, you know, that musical element, a rhythm, you know, that beat of the drum can keep the whole song together. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. So rhythms are just consistent rituals or allotments of time that you keep on your schedule. Like I said, date night with my wife is every Wednesday. 5:30-8:30 quarterly board meeting with each one of my children, a day, a quarter with each of them. Family meeting every Sunday. Meet for an hour and just say, hey, what was good? What was bad? What's coming up next week? You set a couple of little rhythms. Every Tuesday night, my wife and I, we let our younger ones watch a movie and our older ones and I sit and we usually play a financial intelligence game, review a book we're reading together, talk about anything from addiction to sex to entrepreneurship to relationship building. So we have our Tuesday teen mastermind. You know, you put a couple of rhythms into your life, it can be a really important thing. You know, waking up in the morning with a morning ritual. You know, these things help bind me together, and I'm a crazy ADD entrepreneur, that these are the things that keep me in place, keep me going deeper, and are really important. So that's what they are. And again, principles are things that will really speak to you and you don't have to have a ton of them. A few core principles, a few core values. Go deep in those, and it makes.

Life a lot easier for someone that wants to really dive into their core values and their core principles. What would be the best way for them to do that based on your experience?

If they're going to do with their family, write them down and do them with their family and share them and then do a list of shared core values. We did one years ago. There's a simple page, kind of poster board page, and we did a surfboard with the ocean around it. And on the surfboard, we wrote our main core values and that one simple thing. We've done others since then, but that one's still is up in mine in Jamie's bedroom. And it's like our blueprint. We go back to it. Well, here's what we're thinking about doing. Do we want to be in Costa Rica part time. Do we want to be involved with this charity? Do we want to. How do we want to do school and learning? And we go back to these values that we wrote on there. And it's almost like you think of a spaghetti strainer. It's our strainer. The good stuff will stay and everything else will kind of shake its way out. And that's. That's what a simple thing like that will do. Again, you'd be amazed how many people probably listen and be like, man, I've never sat and written down my values. I certainly haven't done it with my wife or my children or my husband, whatever it is. And I would encourage that because it can be all telling and also very unifying.

Yeah, no, that's. That's so good. And so you're just getting, like. Because I've seen those values cards. You're just getting those and then deciding from there which ones speak to the family, and then going to the value.

Cards, or you might even be able to just identify some of your own, you know, so one of our family values is adventure. We love going on adventures. So obviously that's going to root how we live, where we live, you know, how we set up our schedules. That's a pretty big one. We also like to be involved in service and contributions, so we want to be able to give to certain things. So think of things that you really care about. Maybe it's athleticism. You really like being an athlete. Well, good. You're going to make decisions on that then, of what you want to do, where you want to be, where you want to live. You know, people have some of their values within them, or they're very clearly, they just got to ask themselves and put them on paper.

Yeah, I like that. And I like that idea of what do you care most about? Because that's gonna connect easier without you just thinking, exactly what is the value that holds dear to me? And that would be helpful for your kids to do that, too. I think it speaks in their. In their language. Is there another. Is there another question like that that could kind of pull that out more?

I like the question, what lights you up? What do you lose track of time doing? Those are values that you obviously have. You might find you have an artist or an athlete or a mathematician or something within your presence or within yourself. Say, what do we lose track of time doing? What lights you up when you're working on it or involved with it. Those are always good questions because you want to do more of that.

Yeah, that's good. Then you mentioned the Tuesday Teen Mastermind, what does that look like? You gave an overview, but how does that actually, is it a structured thing each time in terms of what you're doing?

Yeah, I wanted to be involved in my kids education more and my two oldest, they decided they wanted to be homeschooled so they had the chance to go to high school and they said no, we like the flexibility and this and that. And one of them is really into working out, one of them is really into fishing and one since graduated. So we've always given a lot of flexibility and education. But there's some lessons that I was very clear that I knew I wanted them to learn. Whether they were the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, there were things that I knew no matter what they chose, it could help. And so I wanted to be a part of teaching that. That's what a lot of our family retreats were about, in fact. So time's fast, everything moves quick. Right. And so like you said before, I put this pressure. I'm going to try to do this once a quarter thing, once a week. You know, we try to overachieve or overbook our schedul. So what we decided was, well, with work and this and that and activities and sports, we're going to have one night a week, one night a week where we take a few hours just to go over these lessons. You know, we talk again. Our matrix is personal development, relationship skills and financial intelligence. So I always want to teach my kids in those three areas. Their games, their books, their conversations. And we reserve Tuesday nights to do that. And it makes a big difference. And you think, oh, what's Tuesday night for two, three hours going to do? We start to add that up week after week, month after month, year after year. It's some pretty important bonding time and some pretty vital education time. And we took the amount of time we could get in and made the most of it. And I know some of the lessons are really starting to stick.

That's amazing. What are some give us just a little T beat into. What are those conversations look like? How do you open that door up to make that part of the rhythm?

Well, a good book is a good way. What we do is I guess called a family book club. So you have, we'll read a book from richest man in Babylon to the Alchemist. Different books with different lessons to them, but we'll read it slowly. You know, we made 10, 15 pages a week and then come back and talk about what's going on in the book together. That's a great way to start these kind of conversations on different subjects that are harder to breach. And then I think again, vulnerability. I remember when you were my, when I was your age, you know, there was a lot of this going on or a lot of that going on. You know, that goes a long way. You show your own vulnerability. If you're Superman, nothing ever went wrong and you know, and your generation has no idea it's not going to go so well, I don't think. But you know, sharing kind of your own vulnerabilities and setbacks and what you were going through at their age. So. But that's a great way as well. But a book and, and, and those kind of you starting the conversation is real important.

Yeah, that is really good, really good stuff. So, okay, now let's talk about the real estate side as well. Just for anyone that might be interested in that. Because I love it. I get a check. It's not a check. It just goes right into my account every, every month. So it's just an amazing way to, to have just constant cash flow with an investment. I mean, I've done a lot of, a lot of different kinds of investments and this is just one of my favorites because of that automatic cash flow. Do you mind just kind of sharing that a little bit more? Oh, so do the thing regarding investing. Do the thing regarding investing.

Doing the thing regarding investing. Well, I have been a real estate investor for almost 25 years now. And we focus on build to rent. So we build new construction investment property in high growth areas in Florida. So we're in about 15 different markets in Florida and we build single family duplexes and quads for investors. There's a lot of population growth, economic growth, good affordability, something desirable. People are moving there and the supply and demand is in our favor. There's a lot of houses needed. And so I've always believed in real estate and passive income. That's what I went into at a young age. And now we're able to do that for other investors. For yourself. We have an income fund where you just invest into the fund completely silently. And that's kind of the front engine of our whole build to rent venture. And you get a nice pref payment and profit share of the overall houses we're building and selling off. We also have investors that buy their own portfolios. They buy, you know, build their own small portfolios of rental properties. With our new constructions that we're building, we have management in place for that. So we we help people create that cash flow or passive income through two avenues, either home ownership or investing directly into the fund that helps fuel our company. But the end result is cash flow and passive income through real estate.

And then how do you even get. I want to use the word guts, but, like, how does that even come up for you? How did you. That's such a big thing that you're doing. And I was just wondering, like, how that even started. Like, how or how did you. How were you able to do it, essentially? I mean, you had to learn a lot. I'm just thinking of all that must have gone into that.

Everything starts a lot smaller than we want it to. I remember my first property was 24 years ago in Lompoc, California, and I was hyperventilating when it got accepted. Read a few books and said, all right, I'm going to buy an investment property. The agent, Tammy, I remember calling and said, congratulations, you got it. And I'm like, so that first deal, 432 North M Street, Lompoc, California. So that was my big lesson. It started with one. And I remember I'd been saying, if I could. If I could just buy one property, just one. And so I did that. And it's like, okay, next year I'm going to buy two properties. It was like, no way. There's just no way. All right, next year I'm going to buy three properties. Okay, you're just. This is getting crazy. What am I going to do? And then you hit it. And then it was. I remember a big jump of saying, all right, I'm going to buy one property a month. Whoa, that's insane. And then, you know, you stack it on you, then that's all right. I'm gonna do three properties a month. And it grew from there. So it's. But it's a slow start. Does that make sense? You can see how it's. It's not this fast roll. It is a slow building. It's crawl, walk, run, Right? That's the old saying.

Yes.

And then your muscles start to build for things that you can handle better, things that you're more prepared for, things that you have more of a. Just an understanding of. So it's starting small and learning the lessons on the way. Again, for real estate investors out there, people always say, what's the best real estate class you ever took? And I said, 432 North End Street. First property I ever bought. I learned so much from that first one that I couldn't learn in the classroom or through lecture or Theory. That was my most important deal, bro.

Wow. It's like, I talk about this a lot on the podcast. The idea of flexing the muscle. And so once you flexed it, you saw you. You learned your lessons, and then you were able to do it. Then it's like, okay, let me do it again. And now it's probably. I mean, I'm imagining it's pretty effort. I'm sure there's some. There's some struggle happening, but for the most part, it's probably effortless now because you have it so synced in.

Yes, yes, for sure. It's. It's. You're always learning, but there's things that become second nature that you don't. Things. Things that I was so worried about 500 deals ago. I. They're just becoming secondhand nature then. Right. You understand it better, so. And there will always be new questions, but certain things just become understood, and so it makes it easier.

Yeah. So good. So what do you think regarding doing the thing, what do you think is the hardest thing that people. That gets in their way for people.

I think that people don't focus. There's a ton of different niches and avenues in real estate. Pick one and go with it. The second is analysis to paralysis. They don't do anything. So if. Let's go back a few years to whatever, two years, three years. If you were still asking me questions about the real estate fund, I probably tell you, hey, Stacy, it's probably. Maybe you want to look at something else. And I mean that lovingly, but we get paralyzed, and inaction has cost me more than action. And, you know, there's so many people. Gosh, when I first started and we were taking these classes together, you know, we're talking 20 years later, and they're still about to buy their first deal. And it's just. You can get really caught up in that. So you want to take educated action and avoid analysis paralysis.

Yeah. And there's something really powerful that you said. Well, there's a lot of power, but this one really resonated is inaction costs more than action. Yeah, Than action. So inaction costs more than action. What do you think it costs? I'm curious. Off the top of your head.

Well, I mean, for me, it would cost everything. I didn't come from money. I didn't have money. My parents didn't have money to give me. So any of my net worth. Sure, I've had tough deals and we survived.08, but it was really painful. But I'm still way ahead on the net. So really it's everything. I'd be at a zero game right now if I did not take any action in my real estate investing. Think about it. Maybe not zero because I would have done something else, but not to the point that I'm at. So really it would have cost me everything when you think about it. Everything of what it lies on to. Living the life that was different of my dreams. Being able to be involved in causes I care about, being able to take the adventures with my family, being able to, I mean, go to a restaurant and order any sushi roll I want and not think about what's that cost. So we're talking some simple pleasures here, but ones that were really important to me.

Yeah. Yeah, that's good. Okay, Jim, so you have one piece of advice for the listeners on how to do the thing. What would it be?

It would be start small and go deep into what you're good at. And when you're good at something that has value, don't be afraid to fine tune that and keep working on it. And one, you know, I guess this is two pieces, especially when it comes to real estate. One deal is not going to retire you, but what you'll learn from that one deal and what you'll build off of that one deal and the next will. So don't put your pressure over one deal's gotta retire me or this. It's a building block. It's a forward motion.

That's really good. I was just thinking, I want you to share where people can buy your book and then your fund and all that stuff. And I forgot to mention, I was so entranced with your book when I got it that I bought it for, I don't know if you remember, I bought it for everyone at my company when I was still there.

Yeah, I really appreciate that. And that's been one of the biggest compliments that we've had is that so many people buy it for their, for their staff, for their entrepreneur club. That's. And look, I know Stacy too, it helps that it's an easy read because we did keep it short. But that's very humbling and I appreciate that with you. And anyone can grab it at 18summers.com or on, or on Amazon. And if you're interested in our real estate, you know, you can just go to jaxwealthinvestments.com perfect.

Yeah, and I mentioned that too at the company because that's how much it meant to me and how impactful. It hit me where I was like, oh my gosh, everyone's got to read this. So anyway, I appreciate you guys, both of you for everything that you're doing and I think it's amazing and this was wonderful. I can't wait to listen back and put some things into action that you said.

Love it. I love it. Well, it's always good talking with you and I appreciate the different levels of conversation we can have together. So thanks for bringing me on today.

Thank you.

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