"DO THIS To Go From BROKE To SUCCESSFUL Entrepreneur!" | Don Costa

See, a lot of people are like, you lost everything. You had a million dollar judgment. You were in a hole. I wouldn't change it for the world. I'm a better human being. I'm a better husband. I'm a better father. I'm a better business person for it. And, you know, I think most people, most entrepreneurs would say the same thing, like their failures. They wouldn't. And I wouldn't change it.

Welcome to Stuck to Unstoppable, where we interview the world's foremost thought leaders to break things down in order to help you get past your hurts, habits and hangups and finally level up and move forward. And I'm your host, Stephen Scoggins. Now let's go ahead and get into today's guest and our featured conversation. You're not going to want to miss it. As a nationally recognized and highly successful real estate investor, Don Costa has become one of my personal inspirational superheroes. And not because he built a huge real estate organization, because that's impressive, but because he did so while fighting back from losing it all. Don is an amazing man, amazing friend, and host of the hit Flip Talk podcast, where thousands across the nation come to get real advice in a real way without getting lost in all the BS of the world. Guys, help me welcome my good friend, Don Costa. Dude, what is going on? My man, how you doing?

I'm doing good, man. How are you doing?

Good, man. I think I'm ready to get out of this social distance stuff and actually get back to life. I know everybody else kind of feels me that way, but as we get closer and closer to the end of the year, I'm a little more and more like, come on, come on, we can do this. We can do this, everybody.

We can do this.

So trying to get back to business as usual.

I'm right there with you. I've actually snuck out a little bit. I've been to a couple of events in the last couple weeks on the down low, I guess, and I've been in three different states on 10 different planes, and one of them even had 200 people in it in Florida. So I'm a rule breaker. I needed the social content.

I should say content and contact. And. And it was definitely worth it. I was careful. I'm Covid clear still, so. But it was definitely worth it.

Yeah. And I don't want to take away from the fact that it obviously is serious, but at the same time, it's getting to that point now where I think we as people are going to have to get back to the place where we're just going to have to accept it and then kind of work our way through it. Protect yourself the best you can, but it's got to get back to start helping people. I know that you can only do so much, obviously from behind your microphone. Not saying that nothing can be done because obviously we both practice that on a regular basis, but, you know, person to person contacts, obviously.

Good.

But anyway, we didn't mean to talk about that on the show, but what.

It'S part of the reality we're dealing with. Right, so.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

For sure. Well, look, you know, tell the listeners a little about yourself. Obviously you're a highly successful real estate investor, but it hadn't always been that way. And I like for entrepreneurs to understand the backstory simply because a lot of entrepreneurs don't understand that it's okay to start small and build big. So walk us through a little bit about your background and how you kind of got started.

So I've always been entrepreneurial as long as I can remember. It was one of those people that felt like a cage animal when I was confined to a clock. It was like the longest hour ever, you know, whenever I was on a time clock. And so I always knew I wanted to do something. I'd explored different businesses. I actually had owned some different businesses. Some of them were, you know, mildly, moderately successful, some of them weren't. Part of the entrepreneurial journey that I think people overlook is the fact that you don't just. Most of us don't just start a business and knock it out of the park. We have to grow into being an entrepreneur. And that's through some trial and error. Right. And I definitely did my trial and error trying to figure out like just how to be a business person, how to manage people, how to manage money, how to, you know, figure out kind of what fit me. And so when I came across real estate, it was like the widget that fit. It was that one thing that just excited me and made sense to me. So I was really good at it. Back in 2003, I started door knocking. And in 2003, 4 and 5, everybody knows in the US the real estate market was on fire. And I made a lot of money really fast. Kind of was a jerk. It went to my head. I thought everything I touched turned to gold. Thought it was never going to end.

Yeah, I'm laughing because, you know, that's the typical entrepreneur journey.

It is. Well, because most of us haven't had money in our lives. And the first time we make Money. We just think it's. Oh, my goodness. Like, this is. We cracked the code, right? So.

I was a horrible business person. I was a horrible leader. I was, you know, I didn't know my numbers. I was. I was growing, you know, faster. I need to be growing, and. Because I thought it was never going to end. So I had, like, you know, multiple companies, multiple offices, and I was running this business that had a ton of flaws. But back then, the real estate market was on fire. And if you took longer and you made mistakes in a project, it actually made you more money. So it hit a lot of those mistakes. And so when 2008 came, it was like 2008 was this giant spotlight that just shined onto every single flaw and highlighted every flaw. It's like taking the black light into a room and showed every flaw. So from about 2008 till about 2010, I proceeded to literally lose everything.

That I'd ever had, even before I started the real estate investing career and went into this deep depression, like, literally going to the gas station with quarters by a gallon of gas. My wife called me from the grocery store because her debit card wouldn't clear, and she had a cart full of groceries, and she's crying on the phone. There's nothing to do about it. Taking my family to Taco bell for a $20 meal and literally having my car declined and having to collect my family and leave Taco Bell with my kid asking me why the mean guy wouldn't give us our food. I mean, soul crushing mom. Um, and I literally had stuck my head in the sand for a period of time, thinking that, you know, real estate had let me down and, you know, I should just get a real job. And. And I'd given up. Everybody asked me, like, how'd you bounce back? I'd given up. And what happened was back then, if Everybody remembers, like, 2009, 2010, you couldn't get hired anywhere. Yeah, I was overqualified. I was under undereducated, and I couldn't get a job. And so out of the fact that, you know, of necessity and desperation, I had to take an accounting of what I was good at. I was good at putting deals together. And so I got. I rebooted in 2012. I did my first deal in June of 2012 and got back into the real estate game. And it's been kind of game on since.

Let me ask you this, because I think there's so many different stories we can impact there in a typical life of an entrepreneur.

My.

My experience has Been that most entrepreneurs don't necessarily know they're going to be entrepreneurs. Something happens, they figure out they got a niche or something they're really good at. They work, they decide, they just discover that they really enjoy the process. They go through a rise and a fall. A humble, so a humbling. So you obviously just hey, I'm king of the world to oh my gosh, I don't even know if I should have been created kind of moment. Right, right. And then there's something incredible happening. And that's when the humble, confident entrepreneur is born. When the entrepreneur finally has common sense and some wisdom and stuff like that. But you know, real estate specifically is typically a capital heavy game. You typically have to have a large stash account of down payment money to get a note or to get some to leverage yourself or you're. So you think right, yeah, well, you know, but that's one of the myths I wanted to spell. Cause obviously you got back in the real estate game.

At a point where maybe there wasn't a lot of resource there and you began to rebuild from there. So walk us through a little bit about that because I find that a lot of entrepreneurs underestimate the value of just being creative.

They do. They underestimate their own personal value. They underestimate how resourceful they can be. They can underestimate how many people out there would be willing to help them, you know, if they're just willing to come from a position of service and be willing to be helpful back. So, or at least intentionally helpful upfront. And, and so yeah, I mean when I got back started in 2012, I had a million dollar judgment against me in, in, in November, September of 2010, it was actually just shy of $700,000 judgment that I had gotten against me. And by the time 2012 rolled around with attorney's fees and interest, it had climbed to almost 900,000 and change. And so I was not credit worthy. I mean be very clear, I had no job, I was not credit worthy in any way, shape or form. But what I had was knowledge. One thing that everybody says is once you have the knowledge, you can't take it away. And that knowledge was so resourceful to me because I knew how to put a deal together. So for me I was a rehabber. And there's actually two strategies in real estate investing. One is wholesaling, which you literally don't need any money, you're just flipping paper, you're just literally controlling the contract. And the other one is rehabbing, which is cash intensive. To a certain degree, I was a rehabber by kind of trade. That's what I had grown up in the industry doing. And so that's where I was going to start. And I literally placed an ad on Craigslist. I just basically said, experienced rehab. We're looking for private money. Partner must be close enough to have a cup of coffee. I had six people call me. Okay. One of them, I ended up having coffee with the guy, talked, I mean, literally for hours. Sit there and talking. And I don't know if it was me lacking confidence at the time or, you know, him just trying to get to know me, but we had many conversations where I could not get him to commit to me to fund a deal. And. And on the last meeting we had where he committed, I literally was sitting there and got a text from my wife that our water been shut off. And I looked at text. I'm like, I can go home with my tail between my legs or I can sit here until this guy says he's going to back me on a deal. And I sat there until the guy said he's in the back of the deal. I got the commitment. And the way we structured that deal was a JV partnership. He put up the money, I did all the work, and whatever we made, we were going to split.

For me, that was the shift. He said, yes. I went out there like I had millions of dollars behind me, and I started looking for deals. And that was about May of 2012 and June of 2012, we actually closed on one. And in September, we sold that thing, made 20 grand. I had to give him half of that. But still, it was proof of concept and I was back in.

You were at least back on your way, right?

I was back on my way.

I love it.

I love it.

I want to hit something real fast because I think it's important you actually mentioned it before you even told the story. And that is the importance for entrepreneur. So being an entrepreneur is one of the most isolating feelings that you can possibly have, especially if you're in a season of what I guess we could refer to, since we're talking real estate and flipping the rebuild phase.

Right?

Right. Your confidence is shaken. Your identity is inconsistent. You've got. You know, fortunately for me, when I was homeless and stuff like that and working my own way back, I didn't have children, so I can't imagine what it'd be like to, you know, because I know what I. What it's like now. I'm a dad now, right. I got. I got a 19, a 20 and a 24 year old. You know, all of them are looking from time to time looking at me as the provider, for lack of a better word, as the pastor of the homes. But to speak like they're coming to me for multiple different things. Talk to us a little bit about the importance of an entrepreneur having an outlet through a mentorship, a coach or something like that. Because, you know, there's lots of different ways that that could come to fruition. But essentially I'm of the opinion that entrepreneurs should never be isolated. That's my opinion.

I agree 100%. So, you know, that's. That was part of the reason why, you know, I attribute some of my failure to, you know, me being a tool, right, Is the fact that I didn't have the right mentor to guide me or advise me. I didn't have the right circle of people. You know, back when I was starting this business, you know, YouTube was in its infancy. You know, the Internet, Facebook didn't really pop. I don't think Facebook. Facebook was on the map. We didn't have the kind of collective we have now, you know, So I did everything in a vacuum. I was making decisions in a vacuum. I was, I was learning and growing in a vacuum. And that's like the worst way to do it. And entrepreneurs today have no excuse. I always tell people, especially if they want to get started in real estate investing or any other avenue, any other widget that fits them, right, like you have YouTube and you have Facebook and you have Instagram and you have podcasts, and you have all these things that a lot of us didn't have back then. Plus you have these incredible mastermind communities and coaching programs and stuff like that. And I'm a big proponent of that. Mastermind communities, for instance, are a huge component of my success. I'm able to sit in a room with people that are going the same direction I'm going, fighting the same battles, having the same struggles. We're able to have conversations about what's working, what's not. Hey, I got this idea. No, I tested. That didn't work, but this is what actually worked for me. And swapping information and even having conversations about employee issues or leadership issues or home issues to have people like, you know, that have, you know, they're struggling. Because sometimes as an entrepreneur, most of us entrepreneurs, our spouses aren't. Our spouses are completely conservative. Like, my wife's a school teacher and doesn't always get some of the things I want to jump off the cliff and Build the airplane on the way down. She's like, no, I want to know exactly what the airplanes.

No, you need a parachute, dummy.

So, you know, to be able to sit in a room and have that conversation about, hey, you know, I'm trying to get my wife on board on this. Or, you know, we're struggling with. With X, Y, and Z. You know, have you and your. You. You and your spouse went through that. Even on the personal level, having the right community around you is important. Having the right mentor that's been through it. I mean, can you imagine, like, you're trying to figure something out or trying to go through an issue, and you can talk to somebody that's already been through it, and they can tell you what mistakes not to make. That's so powerful. It cuts so many years off of your growth. You know, I don't understand why people don't embrace it.

I think it comes down to fear comes out. You know, it comes down to people that just. They don't want to admit they don't know what they don't know because they feel like if they do, they're gonna look weak. And the reality is just that that's just not the case. I mean, you take any. Any majorly successful Warren Buffett, for example, multi billionaire. He's constantly getting advice from advisors, constantly looking at deals a different way. And I think there's a lot we can learn from those. From those folks, you know, in this process. And the other thing that I think that strikes us a little bit is the simple fact that most entrepreneurs are doing one main thing wrong when they're building their businesses, and that's not building themselves 1%.

Yeah.

So talk to me a little bit about how the. Obviously, the experience shaped you. Restarting shaped you. The rebuild shaped you. But talk a little bit about, you know, Don before and then Don after, meaning the two different types of entrepreneurs and what the differences are, so maybe we can cut some years off somebody else's heartache.

Well, so, Don, before I was. You know, I think like a lot of entrepreneurs, I always use this analogy of, you know, we're dragging this car to uphill, right? And we're putting the widget in there, putting the team in there. We're putting these different aspects of growing a business into this cart. As we go over the hill of success.

We think we got to carry that cart on the way down, but that cart is gaining its own momentum. Our team is starting to be able to handle things for us. You know, our business is starting to be able to stand on its own. And we tend to hold that cart back. And so I was guilty of that the first time around. As a bottleneck. Every decision, every choice, everything that happened had to come through me. And I ended up, you know, impeding and really starving off my business because I didn't allow it to just do what it was going to do to a large degree. So I was a bad leader, number one. You know, I didn't know how to manage money. I didn't know how to manage systems and processes. I didn't know how to really kind of streamline my business and structure my business so that it can, you know, kind of get all the things that suck out of the way and allow my team to focus on the efficiencies that mattered. I mean, there's so many things, you know, taking things for granted, ego, you name it, you know, all of that was a product of why I failed. Now, you know, I'm, I'm more cognizant of the fact that, you know, I am imperfect and I need to put people around me that are better than I am, smarter than I am, and let them do what they do. I need to let them fail, too. I need to let them make mistakes and learn from those mistakes. I can't save them from that because they're not going to learn the way I learned, which was by making mistakes. So, you know, just working, working hard on, I think, being, being more humble, understanding that it could end if I don't, if I forget where I came from, allowing my team to be successful and really be fruitful in their labor. And, and yeah, I mean, there's so many. I mean, I could go on and on. I would, I wouldn't change it for the world. See, a lot of people are like, you lost everything. You had a million dollar judgment, you were in a hole. I wouldn't change it for the world. I'm a better human being. I'm a better husband, I'm a better father. I'm a better business person for it. And you know, I think most people, most entrepreneurs would say the same thing, like their failures. They wouldn't. And I wouldn't change it for anything.

Oh, for sure. I mean, I think if you look at it, some of the most successful entrepreneurs on the planet have been through at least one crushing, at least one, if not multiple.

And the thing is, is everything that I was scared of before I went through it. I mean, what, what I went through, the worst I could possibly go through and recovered. And so it, like, what do I have to be afraid of now. There's like, stands in my way at this point in time. I know what I'm capable of. I know it's not going to kill me. And I know that the only obstacle is me taking the time to learn it.

Right. You know, I'm glad you said that because I think one of the best things that someone could be doing right now during the co this Covid season, if you will, is making yourself more valuable and silent. Right? Be doing the Mastermind calls, be reading the books, be watching the YouTube, you know, be listening to the podcast, whatever you do. You know, spend several hours a day making yourself more valuable in case you have to restart. You know, for example. Let's, let's, let's don, if you don't mind, talk to the entrepreneur who is facing having to start over right now. What do they need to know right now?

They need to, you know, God, you know, there's so many things that I could really run with on that one. And for me, you know, at the time that when I was starting over, I think one of the biggest struggles was knowing my power, knowing what I was worth, knowing my value. So the first, first thing is, is a lot of us will define our value by the success we're experiencing in the moment. And you got to understand as an entrepreneur that you're beyond the success. Your value is beyond the success you're experiencing in the moment. Even those failures you have, have value. Those are lessons that run deep that are going to create a foundation for you to be successful in the future that no one's gonna be able to take away. Like I said earlier on, that knowledge allowed me to spring back faster and more forceful than I ever could have. So knowing your value, understanding your value, getting in there and owning who you're going to become, like you're having to start over and you don't feel it. I had a million dollar judgment against me and it was hard for me to look people in the eye and say, I'm a real estate investor and I'm going to do X, Y and Z. But I just, I assumed that person I owned who I was going to become. And that's not fake it to make it, that's just knowing that this is the path I'm on, this is who I'm going to be. When you start to embrace that and you start to kind of, I guess, wear that coat, right, it changes your confidence, it changes, you know who you are and how you go at life. So. And again, there's so many ways I can go with this. But the biggest thing is these obstacles, these challenges.

They haven't killed you. You're still breathing, you're still living. And that means that you have tremendous opportunity to recreate yourself in a better way, in a different way and an unstoppable way. And I would embrace it. Like I said, I would not change the failure. I owned my value. I owned who I was going to become. I went out there and acted as if I was that person already. And I really grabbed life by the horns and I made it, made what I wanted to have happen, happen. And it was, it was hard at moments. There were, there were scary moments. But the fact was, is, let me, let me say this way. Most people, like, if you're in fear right now, most people say that, you know, oh, just overcome your fear. I'm saying use that fear to propel you. I use that fear to propel me because instead of being afraid of what was before me, I looked back and I'm scared of what's behind me. I'm scared of. I don't want. I don't want that life I used to have. You know, I don't want to have a life of regret. I don't want to have a life where I should have, you know, should have done this or should have done that. I want to have the life I deserve. And I'm going to make the fear of not having that life really drive me. And that's one of the things that propelled me forward.

Well, let me ask you this, because the next side of the entrepreneur is obviously the home life side of the entrepreneur. You know, it's. My wife has reminded me on more than one occasion that being with an entrepreneur is unlike. She's every think she's ever been around an idea, every five seconds, a new thing, a new exciting thing, and then, you know, all the, all the responsibility that typically comes with being the entrepreneur, being the, being the CEO, the chief, everything, officer kind of scenario.

Talk to me a little bit about home life and how working into working together. I mean, I've got some, some things that my wife and I have done. She's. She's brutally honest with me a lot. Right. But, you know, there's a. Yeah, right. So, you know, there's, there's a, there's a season. So you and I. There's several things that you and I share. One of which is having to start over and kind of rebuild and having a spouse that is with you on, kind of on the journey maybe has Some questions and doubts. It's like, hey, you. I feel like you ran the train off the track last time. Why should I kind of lean into you again kind of thing. How are you able to use that second opportunity to not only build a business, but also kind of rebuild your family and everything around it?

You know, the first time, you know, when I got into this, it was funny, because my wife and I were getting ready to get married, and I was like, I'm gonna go back to school. And she's like, no, you're gonna get a job, because we're gonna have kids. And I was like, well, if we're gonna have kids, I'm not gonna get a job, start a business.

And the whole time she's like, you know, this isn't real. This isn't real. And then I. She's like, well, then it's not consistent. It's not gonna last, and I make more money. And then she started to let her guard down, and we lost everything. And it was weird. The second time around. I expected more pushback from her, and she. She was reluctant, but she was more of a cheerleader the second time around because she knew. I think at that time, she'd realized what we're up against in the economy, what the world was up against, and she knew just kind of who I was at that point, that I was one of those in a box. So she's been more of a reluctant cheerleader the second time around. But a lot of that is a lot of. Yeah, a lot of it is communication. She is my wife. I'm big on personality tests, and I. I'm a fact person. Just bring me the facts. I don't care about emotion. And she makes all our decisions on emotion. So that used to cause us to butt heads a lot, because I would say something, she'd react in emotion. I'd be like, you know, what the hell? And.

Now I understand I've got to drop it and walk away and let her process it back and have a discussion. And so I think becoming more mature and understanding, you know, if you have a partner, I think personality tests are great. I think understanding how each one of you guys makes decisions will help you communicate better. That's been huge for us because now, you know, I at least get her to the point where she's going to have that conversation, and we can have a conversation about kind of where she stands and. And what her fears are. And she's been pretty good about just kind of letting me do my thing as long as I commit that I'm not going to put it all on black.

Yeah, right. No more roulette. You're gonna have to play a little more black shot where your odds are a little better. Yeah, that's kind of the same thing. You know, I find that entrepreneurs that are supportive of their spouse typically have spouses who are supportive of the entrepreneur.

Right.

I feel like the entrepreneur many times makes the mistake of thinking that they have, that their family life is, you know, set to the side while their business life is set to the other side. And the business life has to work in order for the family to work, not realizing that they both take equal investment.

If that makes any sense. And you know, I can tell you that my wife is. I would also quantify. I'm still your phraseology from now on. I think I just made up a word phraseology. My wife has been a reluctant cheerleader. Like, I sincerely think she wants me to, you know, inspire and help the people, you know, all the people I possibly can. At the same time, she doesn't want me to lose sight of my house.

Yeah.

You know, and I know as entrepreneurs that can be a little bit tricky and stuff like that. But anyway, I had to go on the sidetrack between the family and the beginnings because I think a lot of entrepreneurs, there's so much that goes into being an entrepreneur. You know, there's isolation, there's risk, there's opportunity, there's starting over, there's building teams, there's leadership. And it seems like it's. They have to take in so much content and then cipher through so much of it that I wanted to spend some time there. My next question is this. Why Flip Talk? Why did you start Flip Talk and why is it one of the fastest growing podcasts?

Yeah, let me answer, let me just say something real quick about my wife that I think is funny real quick and then I'll answer that question because we're talking about entrepreneurial wife. So I started the podcast and the podcast led to me being on stage and me doing different things more in social media and content wise. And she rolls her eyes. She's the funniest thing. She's like, you think your wife be like, oh, you know, you're accomplishing all these things and you're, you know, you got this podcast and you got some fans and she's like, she rolls her eyes and she's like, just don't let it go to your head.

I gotta interject for you just for a second. So this is my wife and baby, I love you, right. I'm at home. I've had a long day. I've been on podcast. Maybe I've been on stage. Maybe I've been on camera or whatever. And she'll walk up, she goes, I love you. I'm like, I love you too. She goes, hi, I'm Steven Scott. Guys, welcome to the Journey Principles. Stop it. That's not how I am. She's like, you used to be that way.

I know, but I don't want to be that way no more.

That's funny. That's funny. Yeah, they're. They're cute, aren't they?

My wife blocked me on Facebook, by the way. She's like, I'm tired of seeing your stuff. But anyway.

So, okay, no more of that. So Flip Talk. Yeah. You know, 2016 rolled around.

And I had got my business systematized and kind of structured in a way that operated on its own, and I was bored, and I wanted to stay in my lane. And so I was like, a podcast would be kind of a cool thing, and I get to talk to people. It'd be kind of like, masterminding, and so I want to do that. So honestly, that's really where it came from.

I didn't really.

I didn't really have a plan for it when I launched it. It was just more of, I want to stay ingrained in what I'm doing. It's important to make sure they don't get distracted from real estate investing, and why not talk to people smarter than me? It sounds like fun. So we launched Flip Talk, and it's just. It's been really. It's been a fun ride, you know, so, you know, it's been around for four years now, and it is. I got just a really wonderful audience when it comes to the show, and I've gotten to talk to some incredibly smart people. It's opened the doors to so many opportunities. I would encourage anybody that's entrepreneurial, even if you're just trying to learn, like, if you're trying to learn social media, you're trying to learn how to build a factory or start a podcast and start asking experts the questions and put it out. Put the content out there. One of my biggest regrets is not starting the podcast. When I launched back up in 2012 and documented every single step of the way, I think that'd be huge.

And.

It would give me an opportunity probably to accelerate my growth. But it's opened so many doors. I have so many incredible friends because of the podcast. I've gotten to talk to so many incredible people. I've gotten to be on stages. I've gotten, you know, I get access to opportunities that I probably wouldn't get access to. And it's been. It's just been a fun ride. And so, you know, a year ago, we launched a Mastermind. We're launching some coaching stuff around it, and just watching the impact. Somebody coming up and saying that one thing you said on your show changed my whole business. So that one thing you said in this meeting changed my whole business. That. That is. That's a legacy, and it's huge.

That's so awesome. Yeah. I mean, your audience is fantastic. I've heard nothing but rave reviews from a lot of folks that obviously that know us both, and we're like, you know, hey, you guys need to beat each other and hang out and that kind of thing. And they were saying that your audience is just amazing, you know, But I would. I would say that they. While they are amazing, I would say that your teaching style, after being with you just for these few minutes, your teaching style is what gravitates people towards honest thought. It's one of the things that's been. It's been resonating in my head for the last, gosh, couple months now on. Some of the things that I've done is I keep saying it over and over, and it comes out every. Every time I do a podcast recently is that people are tired of gurus and they want guides. The difference between a guru and the guide is the ability, is the amount of crushing They've received.

100%. Yeah.

And as a result, I think that that's one of the reasons why you have one of the fantastic audiences, because they know you're telling the truth.

Right.

They're not worried about whether or not you're sugarcoating something because you're like, no, dude, this is how it is.

Yeah. And I'm running a real. Real estate business. Literally. I mean, my office, right outside this door, I have my team, you know, on the phones right now locking up deals. So, you know, I can relate to the struggles they're going through right now. And I'm not afraid to say, hey, I just did this today, and it sucks. That's part. That's part of being the right kind of mentor. Right. Is saying, okay, I just stepped in that pile. Don't walk behind me.

Clean your shoe, will you? And I don't know if it. For most entrepreneurs, and you may have figured this out on your own, a life in the day of an entrepreneur is not Necessarily driving Ferraris and flying airplanes.

It's not, not saying that you can't.

Get there and enjoy some of that stuff maybe later on, but it shouldn't be the primary focus. I think one of the things that's making your impact so powerful is the fact that it is impact focus. The deals and the excellence and the stages and stuff that are coming with that are byproducts of serving.

Well, 100%.

So tell us a little bit about your. Just because we're talking real estate, tell me a little about your favorite kind of deal.

Oh, well, as far as I love wholesaling, obviously I'm a rehabber. I like the idea of taking something that is the worst house in the block and making the prettiest and selling to a family and letting the family have a wonderful home. But wholesaling, like I said, just kind of flipping the contract. It's hard not to love that a little bit more. And that's. We had a deal where literally we closed it via text messages. Never even had a conversation with the seller until just before we closed escrow and we were able to wholesale that property, make 165 grand. I never, I don't. I couldn't even tell you where the property was, you know, so I just personally locked one up on Friday. My team, I walked through the. We call it the Pit, but I walked through and I'm always teasing them. Hey, give me something to close. And so one of my acquisitions girls threw one at me and I got on the phone with a guy in about 30 minutes. I had locked it up and my disco guy sold it within 24 hours for 50 grand. We made it. We're making a $50,000 assignment fee on that property. So those are the. It's just exciting. I mean, when you get to your business to a point where you couldn't tell. I could not tell you where the cross streets are. Like, you know, I've never seen the house and I'm making, you know, 20,000, 30,000, $50,000 in that property. That's a good feeling. That's exciting. You know, I like to get in there and I like to do it and I like to manage projects. But when you get to the point where you're not even seeing the projects, that's exciting.

Oh, love it. Love it. Well, I like the fact you're with your team atmosphere. So talk to me a little bit about how you keep your team like, you know, kind of tightly unique.

Unique.

Tightly knit. I swear, I can't talk today. How do you keep your team kind of motivated and tightly knit? Especially if you're the. If you're known as the closer, walking around with the leather jacket and stuff, and you're the closer.

Oh, I don't have the leather jacket.

I'm just playing.

You know, I think it's just part of just the. We try to, you know, we do things and we have an office setting. We try to do things in the office that keep the energy up. We go to lunch together. I'd make sure they're taken care of. You know, as far as, you know, pay structure and everything else. I get out of the way, I let them be successful. You know, we try to get them in the right seat and just get out of the way and let them be successful. I think a huge part of having a close team is the team knowing that you rely on them and you count on them. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs are afraid to do that.

My team knows that your position is critical to my business, and I count on you for success. One of the things that I think really helps from my perspective, because I don't want to be in the weeds anymore in my business, is when I hire somebody, I always let them know right from the beginning that the definition of success for you in my company is if I never have to be here again.

And that means you're successful. So right off the bat, I communicate what success looks like. I, you know, we try to train them and coach them and guide them to be the best they can be in our organization that we get out of their way, and then we just support them through the process and include them, you know, from that point on. And that's. I think it's a huge part of why I have a good team that I can count on. And anytime that I haven't done that, it's all falling apart.

It's kind of like me when I touch my calendar. My executive assistant has to. Has to look at my calendar. I break it every single time I touch it.

And I think it's understanding as we break things. Right? Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, well, that's our job. Right. So as an entrepreneur, I mean, you are the. Essentially, you're the guy with a machete guy or gal with machete.

Right.

You're heading to the jungle to cut out a road, and other people are coming behind you, putting in the barriers and the concrete and drawing the pain on the lines and all that kind of stuff for other people to travel on.

Exactly.

That's my analogy, anyway, so.

And they do not want you to turn around and come back the same direction. That's right. You go forward.

Well, let me ask you this, all right? So you got the team, you're spending time with them, you're promoting and empowering their overall success. You're working hard to teach them and mentor as needed.

One fear I think that entrepreneurs would have, and I say this from personal experience, is I teach you everything that I know, I empower you to do everything you need to do, and then you turn on me. Right. How have you been able to overcome or work through fears that come through that? Because I, you know, I own several companies at this point in time, one of which is a sizable company with a fairly large leadership team. And even though they've even, and I'm just being transparent here, even though my executive team has given me millions of reasons to just get behind them, every now and again, I have to fight myself not to get involved.

Right.

So talk to me a little about how you kind of compensate for that or, you know, work through that.

Well, you know, that fear of you're going to teach them everything you know and they're going to turn on you or they're going to leave. I mean, it's a valid fear to have because I've had it happen to me. But the one thing that I know is most of you out there aren't me.

And you can go ahead and try to do what I do on your own, and one or two of you may succeed, most of you may not. So, and I don't mean that from the entrepreneurial base, I mean that in from the employee mindset based. Right. Entrepreneurs, you know, I think you're going to carve a path no matter what, you're gonna figure it out. But that's a distinction I'm trying to make here, is that most people with the employee mindset, the employee built individual, they're not entrepreneurs. And I think we make that mistake of thinking that everybody sees the world through our lens. You know what I'm saying? They don't. And what motivates me, like, I'll think, oh, if I, if I promise you all these opportunities, that that's going to make you want to stay with me and make you happy to have this job that actually overwhelms most people. People, yeah, they just want to come in and be told what to do and put their head down and get a paycheck. And so understanding again, personality tests and different things like that, Understanding right seat, right person, different how he's out there. You know, and the type of person, like the type of person that I need in my sales, on my sales team, the acquisitions person, is going to crush it. It's going to be somebody that's probably going to go out and compete with me. And then I just got to know that I'm going to get one or two good years at them before they go try and that you have to live with that. That's just reality. But the rest of my support staff, they're not built, if they're built to be successful in their role, they're not necessarily built to go out there and compete with me. And they don't see the world through the same lens I see the world through. And that's just a fact. And anything, you know, if I try to superimpose any of my beliefs onto them, all I'm doing is creating turmoil and distress in my organization. Doesn't need to be there.

Love it. Love it. See, this is what happens when, when real entrepreneurs sit down for a few minutes and just talk real.

Right.

You know, we're not, we're not, we're not trying to sugarcoat anything. Yes, it's. Yes. I've got your bus waiting right over here, sir. Ma'.

Am.

Come on over here. This is like real, real life stuff because I too, have. I've. And I've had. I've faced embezzlement. I've faced all kinds of things myself. And, you know, I, I love the fact that you've. You've leaned into creating a team environment that, that allows them to grow and prosper. I love the fact that you've already kind of said to yourself, your high D, your high I or whatever type personality is going to be the person who's probably going to go out and at least try. I will say this much, too, of the people that go out and try, when they go through a Covid or they go through a 2008 downturn, they go through a late 90s downturn.

Right.

When they go through those downturns, only one out of the 10 will actually get back up and try again.

100%. Yeah.

So, that being said, so it's okay to let people go, meaning it's okay if you want to go try. Awesome. I just ask out of common respect that you compete in a different market. That's. Sometimes they'll say yes and sometimes they won't.

But hey, yeah. Or at least if you handle yourself with a certain degree of decency and you don't, you don't succeed, the door is Open to come back. You know, I've had people download our database and go out and try to compete, you know, still my customer base and try to compete. I mean, it's going to happen.

You're.

There's going to be dishonest people. And honestly, instead of me looking at them and saying, you know, they're an awful person, I look at myself as a leader and say, okay, what were the. What were some of the things I did to choose that person wrongly? And then what were some of the things in our leadership, in our business that allowed them to stay as long as they did? And how can we not let that happen again? Because the failure is ultimately on me as a leader. At the end of the day, I'm the one that hired a person. I brought the wrong person in my organization, and I overlooked opportunities to see potential issues along the way. So, you know, that's. That. That's a fact of being a business owner and a leader, you know, but that doesn't mean the whole team has to be punished. You know, it doesn't mean the whole team has to be distrusted. You know, at the end of the day, you can't. You can't have people you can count on if you're always looking over their shoulder. Question everything to do that's so good.

So good, so good. One final question for you.

In order to properly hire the right person, right? So a lot of experience comes into that because obviously you have to hire a lot of bad people, People that just don't make sensation. Right.

Turn a lot of dirt to get the gold. 100%.

Exactly. What are some techniques you're using even today to hire great people from the experience that you've got? Maybe the experience that you wish you'd had 10 hires ago kind of thing.

You know, most entrepreneurs, I can't say all, but most entrepreneurs have a gut instinct like this. This radar thing that will just tell us, bad, good, bad, good, Right. Or we should take this move. I have found that the more I trust my gut in a situation, I've had some people that have been really bad interviews. My gut said, give them a shot, and they turn out to be great employees. And I've had some people have some wonderful interviews that my gut said something's not right. And I've been a part of them because they had great interviews that turned out to be bad. And so just kind of learning from that. You know, obviously you go through all the aspects of, you know, you're looking at their resume or checking their experience, checking Their, their references. We do some personality testing. If they're a fit for the seat. There's, there's a predictive index and the culture index out there. There are two great personality tools. The one thing I will say is don't live or die by them. They're more based on communicating with your team and learning how to lead your team, especially against your own communication style. But they are great indicators of when that somebody's going to be good or bad in a role. But at the end of the day, instinct, like trust your gut. I mean, that is, you know, if you're, if you're a born and bred entrepreneur, if it's in your DNA, that instinct is going to be there. Start listening to it because if you do, nine times out of 10, you're going to be right. Love it.

Love it, dude. Well, I've appreciated, I've loved hanging out with you, man. It's clear you've got a lot, lot of wisdom there. Like me. I'm sure it was learned very, very diligently.

Hit by a few buses.

But hey, yeah, right. Well, tell me a little bit, tell everybody a little bit of how they can stay in contact with you and learn more about what you're doing and even hear more about Flip Talk. Obviously it's on itunes and Stitcher and all the, all the places that cool podcasts are, so they can definitely check it out. But how else can they stay in contact with you?

Yeah, I mean, you can always email me at Donna flipdoc. Com. I do respond. You can find me on Instagram at Therealdon Costa. I have groups and pages all over Facebook. I'm an easy find there as well. And yeah, I mean, the Flip Talk podcast, obviously FlipTalk.com is the website for that. And then I also have a second podcast called Flip Talk Playbook which is about 49 episodes. It's been out for a little while, but it actually goes week one. Like, if I have this crazy idea and I want to be a real estate investor, where do I even start? And it goes each week through 49 weeks. So. And I got four years of content out there, people. I mean, there's so much stuff.

That's awesome, dude. Again, I appreciate it, man. People are gonna love it. Love having you on. Can't wait to do this again. What else can we do for you to man, to help you, help you become more successful, what you're doing to get your word out there better?

You know, if somebody's gotten value from this, share it obviously make sure that they're getting the word out about your podcast and as well as this particular interview. Check out what I have going on. If you find value, share it. You know, for me, this is the legacy play. You know, I've always been about, you know, either impact and service, like helping sellers, and obviously that translates into making money, changing lives, you know, open stores and opportunities for me as well, so. But I want to make as many lives impacted as I possibly can. So the more people who see this and hear this and see what I'm doing, the more opportunity I get to do that. You know, I want my sons and my daughter to know that. That I've made an impact. You know, they say you're like, what, two or three generations from being forgotten. So my whole thing is I want to make the ripple right. You know, you can't touch water without making a ripple. I want to make the ripple so big that even when I'm forgotten, there's an impact that they may not know where it came from, but it's there.

So people are still surfing.

So people are still surfing. That's my God.

I love it, dude. Awesome, man. Well, I can't wait to do this again, and thank you for coming on and sharing your WISD wisdom and time with us today. I wish you the best, and like I said, can't wait to do this again.

All right, buddy. Appreciate it. All right, take care.

What can you say? Don Casa is amazing. I hope you enjoyed that interview. And if you did, make sure you check out this next one right here.

I also realized, Stephen, is that they had knocked me back into a second best version of myself. Okay. I had begun thinking, well, I'm not going to be first best Peter, so I guess I'm going to be this other guy and 30 really?