Birth to Net Worth with Dillon Goldman - Episode 11

Welcome to Birth to Net Worth, where we normalize the conversation and emotions surrounding money and wealth to effect a massive change for future generations in their relationship towards finances, building family wealth as a collaborative legacy. Here is your host, Trystan Trenberth.

Good morning and welcome to Birth to Net Worth, episode 11. We've had 10 amazing guests up till now, and we have another amazing guest for you today. A gentleman I met through a mentorship and the community I'm part of, um, probably a year and a half ago. 10 years background in sales and now selling real estate and buying deals around the country, um, based in New York. Marketing to Georgia. Let's please welcome Dylan Goldman. Let's get Dylan in here. Dylan, welcome to Birth to Net Worth.

Good morning. Good morning. Thank you for having me.

You're welcome. I thought it was your birthday today for some reason. I saw a Facebook post about it, but apparently that was complete lies.

So it's the algorithm messing with you.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Dylan, give us a little background on yourself. I know you've been doing sales for some time and you switched to real estate probably a year and a half ago now. Is that right?

Yeah, that's correct. Yeah, so I mean, I've been— I started off in the food and beverage industry. Um, I was serving and I was bartending, and you know, I've gotten so many compliments that I'm a people person, right? You know, I'm great with building connections and that I should really apply myself into sales. So where does everybody typically start when they enter sales? Either car or insurance sales. So I actually ended up doing both. So I ended up getting my wholesale license, and I was buying and selling cars from the auction, and I was making some decent money, you know, I was late teens, early 20s, you know, buying a few cars for a few thousand, relisting them on Craigslist for a little bit more, and just making a, uh, a little bit of money here. And I had to stop that, you know, I was doing that out of my parents' house in the front of my parents' uh house, you know, we had way too many cars for the neighborhood that we're in. So, uh, ended that pretty quickly, stayed in the food and beverage industry for quite some time, and, uh, got into life insurance sales. Uh, same thing, Uh, you know, I got into insurance just like everybody else, hungry for the money. And, you know, I'm a young buck and I'm telling people how they're gonna die. And, you know, that just wasn't really my flow. So, you know, I got out of that and, you know, I've been in telecommunications sales, you know, the corporate role, you know, climbing up the ladder. And, you know, I just always knew that there was going to be something a little bit bigger that, that I'd want to get into and kind of take control of my destiny. And, you know, and I came across real estate and, you know, the rest is history.

Fabulous. Yeah, I came from a hospitality management background as well. I went into hotel management down in a university in Cornwall, and it wasn't university at the time, and I kind of got lost at the end of my high school. First couple of years at college, I did 2 years of academic study or a year of academic study. Didn't really suit myself to physics, math, and design. I enjoyed the design stuff more than anything else. Architecture was— architectural design was my direction at the time. I then did something a little bit different, which was just going to hospitality school. And I've always been that people person. I've really enjoyed it. And in the last few months, I've really understood how I already had picked up on mirroring people and taking on, you know, the personalities of the people that I'm dealing with, not to such a specialized level as I have now, but just the basics of those foundations. I had already picked up. I've got letters in my drawer here from the hotel manager congratulating me on guests that had written to them that said they had terrible experience there, and me being involved to solve their problem and turn it around. So I very much understand how that was so helpful in dealing with sales in general, and now in the real estate business, solving problems for people and really applying compassion and empathy to conversation. So is that something you've realized as well, is some of those areas that when you, you dealt with guests having issues or just dealing with them, that, that was a help?

So what I find that's common, right, anytime that you deal with people, you pick up a lot of transferable skills. So whether you're bartending and serving, or you're talking to somebody about insurance, or you're helping somebody that's facing foreclosure, right, there's a lot of key points that you can pick up from one field and apply it to the other. So yeah, I could definitely, definitely agree with that.

Fantastic. So let's, let's reverse a little bit further into your life. What was your first experience of money that you remember? Your first memory of money?

Ah, where do I start? So, um, both my parents are from overseas, um, and they're both entrepreneurs. So, you know, I, I learned from a very young age that you got to work for what you want, right? You can't can't, you know, rely on other people. And, you know, if you have a goal, you got to kind of get there yourself or have your community around you help you get there. So, I mean, I just remember growing up, like, my sister, she's a little bit older than me, and I remember that she was on a paper route, right? She was delivering a newspaper, and I was helping her for free, right? Because, you know, I'm a young kid, and I think I was probably like 6, 7, 8, right around there. And I remember, uh, you know, carrying this backpack filled with newspapers, and it was so heavy, and fell backwards with it, right? So I was helping my sister kind of getting her entrepreneurship started there. So from that, I was like, okay, you know, I, you know, I'm excited to make money, right? I'm excited to get my first job. And everyone always told me, like, mark those words, you know, you're going to wish that you never would have to work. And I'm over here excited to start working. So when I was 13, I just remember the new Motorola Razr came out, right? All my friends had it and I wanted it so bad. And, you know, my parents, you know, kind of raised us where, you know, if you want something, you have to work for it. So I'm thinking, you know, okay, I'm 13. Where do I start? Do I start delivering papers? And I'm in upstate New York and the weather is just so bad up here and I'm not trying to be outside delivering newspaper once the weather gets bad. So I ended up having a friend that I went to school with and her father owned like a catering diner. So I talked to him and I said, hey, is there any work that I could do around here? Would you, would you be willing to hire me? And he was like, sure, you know, I'll start you off as a dishwasher. And I was like, great. You know, I'm super stoked to be a dishwasher. And, you know, it wasn't too far from my house. So every single day after school or before school or even on the weekends, you know, I'd ride my bike up there. I'd work for 3, 4 hours washing dishes. I'd get paid cash. And, you know, I saved up, saved up enough money to buy that Motorola Razr. And it was just so rewarding. You know, I worked for something and, you know, and that was my reward.

That's fantastic. Um, my first job other than— I, I'd helped my brother with his paper round. I got two brothers, 8, 9 years older than me. So, um, yeah, I'd helped him a couple of times on his paper round and then got a paper round myself. And funny enough, the owner of that newspaper shop that I worked for had an Old English Sheepdog as well. I just introduced it to my sheepdog. Um, And then, and then, yeah, similarly, I was riding 5 miles each way from my house to the beachside to, to work at a place where I was flipping burgers and dropping fries and that kind of stuff at the back of a beach. So yeah, I totally relate to, you know, the excitement and that, that thing that you said about earning money for something you had a purpose for wasn't, I can't afford this, is how can I afford this? And I, my my takeaway from that summer was a Citizen chronograph watch. And I think I've still got it in a box in the UK somewhere. Just not that it works anymore, but just a symbol of, you know, the, uh, the graft and the, the decision to let's go and get something, you know, the reward for the, the hard work. So yeah, I really, really appreciate that.

Yeah, so I feel like that trickled down, you know, throughout my teenage years as well because you The school that I went to, I feel like there's a lot of parents that are very well off and they were able to afford to buy their kids, you know, brand new cars, even some luxury end cars, right? And, you know, my parents aren't going to buy me a vehicle, not that they can't afford it, but they're trying to teach me the value of a dollar, right? So, you know, right from, you know, washing dishes, I started working at fast food joints and, you know, I was buying cars off Craigslist and relisting them. And that's where I kind of found the enjoyment of buying and selling cars and I ended up getting into the industry, and, you know, that's kind of where my journey began.

That was a driving for dollars dream for some wholesaler out there, wasn't it?

That's right.

So, so, um, so your relationship with money kind of began really, you know, that sounds like that RAZR phone was, was the first thing that you really had to work for, or you want— chose to work for, more importantly, because some people have to work for things, and, you know, we're We're in a position right now where we're not having to do things that we choose not to do. So your parents were entrepreneurs. What were their backgrounds? Were they— how were they raised and how were they contrasting in how they were raised? And they've come together in alignment with, with their relationship to finances and wealth, or—

Yeah, I guess you can say so. So my parents are from Europe and so my mom is a piano teacher, so she's been playing piano since she was a little girl. So that's all she knows. And she She went to music school and I mean, that's her passion, right? You know, where some of us will sit on the couch and, you know, watch TikToks all day to kind of kill time. I'm going to go to the piano and play Mozart or Beethoven to kill time, right? That like that. That's her passion. My father, he's always been in the automotive industry. He's always been a truck driver from Europe. And when he— when we moved to the States, that's— he didn't know the language, right? So but he knew how to drive a truck. So he was always working, you know, he was either, you know, driving truck or delivering pizza or, um, God, I don't even know what else he's done, but I mean, he's just always been in the trucking industry. Um, and then 2008 happened, right? And he, everybody got laid off and, you know, he lost his job and, you know, he just didn't know kind of where to pivot. Do I try to look for something else or do I try to work for myself and give that a shot? So, uh, that's exactly what he ended up doing. He, uh, he, I think he pulled out some money, um, from his savings or 401k, something like that. Purchased his own truck, purchased his own equipment for that truck. He ended up becoming a tow truck driver and his business just exploded from there. So he started off towing like small cars and then he started working his way up to like medium, medium to heavyweight vehicles and trucks and buses and concrete mixers and, you know, you name it, he's probably hauled it. So, so that's how he kind of started off in his entrepreneurship journey. And now he buys and sells like large equipment. Enlarged trucks. So, um, yeah, he's been very successful since then, luckily.

That's amazing. I mean, sounds like, you know, we're both from immigrant families. I am an immigrant myself. And did you move over when— from Europe?

Yeah, I was, I was born overseas.

Yeah.

And I moved up, moved over.

Yeah, I think it's a very different perspective for immigrants. I kind of feel like a lazy immigrant, to be honest, because I've had a fairly comfortable life growing up, and it wasn't It wasn't, you know, it was thrifty. It wasn't, um, it wasn't, um, you know, without, but it certainly wasn't, you know, it wasn't, uh, very affluent, do you know what I mean? So really it was, uh, but I, I kind of, from having two brothers 8, 9 years older than me, I could really see how things worked. I picked up the, the boundaries very quickly and very easily. And, you know, I got into the W-2. My dad worked for a company where Most people have lifetime jobs there, and obviously that's changed in recent decades, but he worked there from his probably mid-early to mid-20s until, you know, he retired in the '90s, you know. So now we're in a very different age where it's not a lifetime job, and it's probably from our perspective, I wouldn't like to be doing a job for the whole of my life because it doesn't really offer much reward or advance in some ways. I mean, obviously, if it's rewarding for something, that's somebody, that's one thing. Sorry, I'm sweating here. I've just come back from this walk a bit late today. Um, but yeah, I can see how that, you know, you look at, you look at the, the guys at different businesses. There are so many businesses like Apple and Batch and different people like that that are doing so well because they've come from overseas They're hungry for success. They're hungry and they're willing to do things that Americans aren't willing to do. I mean, I think that's the simple thing. Obviously, a lot of Americans are doing it, and that's not to tar all with the same brush, but at the end of the day, there's just a different vibe. There's a different hunger from certain immigrants that come to this country. And I really admire that. I think it's a threat to a lot of people. But I think that we have to take it as a gift, an opportunity to, to see what other people are doing, what they're willing to do to, to be successful. And I think that could really massively affect the world if we look at that, that dynamic.

And that's just the thing, because a lot of people, you know, move to America for the American dream. And not to say that all Americans are this way, but I feel like a lot of Americans do take it for granted, right? You know, they get complacent, they get stuck with a job that they hate, but you know, it's that consistency that they're stuck to. And you You know, and, you know, they're also surrounding themselves by— with people that are doing the exact same thing as them. So they're just stuck in this vicious cycle where, you know, if, if somebody's willing to pack up their life and move over to a new country, they're not going to stay complacent, right? They're, they're, they're moving over here for a reason. And that's exactly what my parents said. Like, they moved only to give my sister and I a better life. They dropped everything, everything. Just to come over here. So, you know, I feel like in a way I kind of— I'm doing this for them, right? You know, if I was just a bum and wasn't successful or wasn't motivated, I feel like that's just a big slap in the face for the main reason why they tried to come here.

Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. From what you're saying, I think that so many people are in the States, they take it for granted, but in their mind they are living the American dream. But it's not necessarily the dream that was dreamt originally that enable the country to thrive with the enterprise, with the entrepreneurial business ideas and things. Working for somebody else is definitely suited to a lot of people, but I think there's a, a miscommunication of that through education because they don't teach how to handle money, how business works, how to run a business. And I think that is institutional, and there's a purpose that They're driving a lot of people through the education system to become the worker bees. Um, but you know, people like you and others are going to stand out. You, me, and others are going to stand out where we're actually stepping beyond that. And it takes our sort of mindset to get beyond that, not to make us better or different than anybody else, but just, um, a unique expression of the universe in many ways, you know.

Definitely agree.

So, so teenage years, how old were you when you were flipping cars?

So it started off with my first vehicle that I bought when I was 16. I bought a 2001 Hyundai Elantra, 145,000 miles, stick shift, and the back driver door was smashed in and the quarter panel smashed in. Um, I paid $800 for it. I delivered pizza for almost a full year on it, so I made some money off of it.. And then I sold it for like $1,500, almost double what I, what I bought it for after I put even more miles on it from delivering pizza. And, you know, a light bulb kind of clicked in my head. I'm like, that was really easy. Why don't I try to do it again? Right? So I ended up buying a vehicle. I can't— man, I've had probably close to 40 or 50 vehicles since I was 16, so I don't know the exact order that I bought them, but I just remember my first one. But I just ended up buying another vehicle off Facebook, you know, The guy would be asking $2,500. I'd ask, you know, $1,700. We meet at $1,900. I buy it. I'll take new pictures. I'll clean it up, relist it for $2,600 and sold that. And, you know, I just kept doing it over and over and over again. And my dad had a buddy that was doing this through the auctions, but you had to have a license. So he added me on to his license so I could go into the auctions and wholesale myself. And I remember the— I remember the first thing I bought from the auction was Well, rewind from that. So my dad always told me cars are— it's hard to make money on them. You know, so many things can go wrong. But where the real value is, is heavy-duty equipment or somebody— something that somebody can purchase and use it for business that they can make money off of it. So now fast forward to me going to the auction. I think I'm 18, 19 at the time. I'm walking around and there's beautiful like BMWs around me and then there's, you know, lemons that are around me. Um, and I'm like looking, I'm like, I have no idea what I should buy, there's just way too many options. And then I just remember my dad telling me, buy equipment, buy work trucks. So, you know, now I'm kind of narrowing my focus on, on what my father's telling me, and I come across this big 24-foot box truck, like a moving truck, right? I know nothing about it. The— it goes through the lane, auction starts at $10,000. And it goes down to 9, down to 8. No one's bidding on it. And then I just— and then once he hit $6,000, I'm like, I guess $6,000 works. So I, you know, raised my hand. Somebody bid against me. I ended up buying it for $6,500, if I can remember correctly. And I'm so excited, right? I call my dad. I'm like, Dad, you'll never believe what I just bought at the auction. And I told them, and he goes, okay, well, what kind of engine's in it? I'm like, I don't know, gas, diesel. I didn't check. Well, he's like, well, that's where the value is, right? Who cares about the shell? We want to know what's under the hood and what kind of transmission's in it. So I'm like, all right. I was like, well, let me go open it up. So I go open up the hood. First of all, I didn't even know how to open up the hood. I'm looking for a little lever like on a vehicle. Yeah, truck. It's like these two big rubber straps in the front. And I ended up finally figuring it out. And I look inside and I was like, yeah, I was like, Dad, I don't see a name on it. And he was like, well, what color is it? And I was like, yellow. He's like, yellow? He goes, you bought a Caterpillar, those are horrible, no one's gonna buy that from you. And I'm like, oh my God, and like that $6,500 is almost my whole savings, right? I mean, I'm thinking, oh man, I'm screwed. Like, I ended up going to the front desk and I was like, hey, you know, I'm brand new, I've never done this before, can I not buy this? I know I won the auction, but can I just like pull my offer back? And they looked at me like I had three eyes. They're like, no, you you raised your hand, you're buying this vehicle. You got 48 hours to pay. So I'm like, all right, well, you know, I got to figure out what to do from here, right? So I ended up taking it. I had somebody deliver it to my dad's property. I took some pictures on it, and not even 2 days later, I sold it for a $5,000 profit.

And I'm like, oh wow.

I'm like, I almost doubled my money on my first investment from the auction. I'm like, okay, like now I'm addicted to this high, right? Like this adrenaline. Running through me. So what do I do? I try to scale it, right? So, you know, I came in at first with only like $5,000, $6,000 with a budget. Next time I came back, I had a little bit more money. Now I got $10,000. Now do I want to buy 2 $5,000 vehicles or trucks, or do I buy one $10,000, you know? And I've kind of— and I always balanced, you know, versus buying 2 or buying one, buying one big one or a few small ones. And yeah, quantity was key, right? You know, buying one truck, let's say at $10,000, I may make $1,000 to $2,000 on it. Or I can buy 3, you know, $3,000 cars and make $800 on each. So I always— my main focus was I wanted to stick with a price point of under $10,000 because I'm focusing on people that have that kind of money in their bank that they don't have to go out for financing. So I was able to turn, turn these vehicles much quicker to generate a better profit.

And, and that scales to houses as well. That's why we're flipping, especially in these times, at that median price point where most people are gonna— at that price price point is going to be most in demand, that's where we need to stick to in these troubling times. Exactly. Absolutely. So I think that's a rule that scales across pretty much every business where you're doing a similar thing. That's an amazing story. I love that about the Caterpillar. Yeah. So fast forward a little bit further, you finish the flipping the vehicles and you get into something that's a bit more structured as far as work in sales. Was it hospitality next or sales?

No. So hospitality. So right from there, so I was still delivering pizza as I was wholesaling vehicles. I ended up becoming a manager of 2 different pizza places, and I think I was like 18 or 19 at the time. So that was pretty cool to say that I was a manager at such a young age. I was hiring and firing people that were 2, 3, 4 times my age, old enough to be my parents, and I was in charge of managing them. So I did that for quite some time. I did that as I was in college. And then after college, that's when I got into the food and beverage industry. I just needed something that was a little bit more consistent. The area that I was delivering to, it started getting bad and I just didn't want to put myself in, you know, sketchy situations. So I figured there was a new mall that was just built nearby and there was a restaurant, TGI Fridays, they just opened up. It was a brand new restaurant. I was thinking, you know what, why not, right? So I applied as a server, but since I didn't have any serving experience, I started off as a chef. So I cooked for probably about 6 months and then worked my way up to front of the house and then I was serving and then I did a little bit of bartending and then front of the house management, and it was, it was a great experience for the time of my life. You know, I'm early 20s, you know, with that nightlife, you know, staying, you know, working until 2:00 AM and then hanging out with friends till 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning. Just no responsibility. So I, I'm, I'm happy of the time in my life that I was doing that, but I couldn't imagine doing it now with a, with a child and a fiancée. It's, that's just, that just wouldn't work with my life. So I just knew that as I get older, I needed something a little bit more structured. So I got outta the hospitality and then got into insurance sales.

Yeah, I remember that lifestyle. I really do. I did hotel management for 2 years, and as my friend Matt was there, a guy called Trolls from Denmark came over to learn English. We shared a room, and yeah, we were up to all sorts of hours, up to mischief and all sorts of stuff.

So yeah, I couldn't— That's it. Waking up at 1:00 PM was normal. Having breakfast by 2:00, that was a normal day.

Yeah, I totally get it. Totally get it. You're bringing back memories now, beaches and all sorts of stuff. So what skills did you take away from managing the pizza place and then getting into TGI Fridays? Because TGI's is well known for being a very structured, well, you know, a great training environment, even in the UK. I think Whitbread was the owner of the brand in the UK. They managed all of the restaurants, and I know they were fantastic at training people. Was it the same over here where you learned how to sort of— how the projections for profits and income were based, and then you had a better idea when you left the company of what that mix of expectation versus actual revenue and trying to drive an upsell?

Right. Yeah. I mean, from delivering pizzas, I mean, there was not too much structure or transferable skills that I got from that. I guess the most I can say is probably just like time management and scheduling. Because I was in charge of scheduling the drivers for, you know, peak hours, have 2 drivers or 3 drivers on versus, you know, 1 driver for lunch. But when I got into TGI Fridays, it was definitely a culture shock, right? Because it was super structured. It was very corporate. You had to say things a certain way. You know, you had to present food a certain way and you had to be well dressed and clean shaved. And, you know, that was a little bit of a shock to me. But, you know, it wasn't anything too crazy. You know, I've definitely experienced much worse. Um, but I mean, the, like, the transferable skills that I definitely got from TGI Fridays is just, it's all about the user experience, right? It doesn't matter if you're serving, you're bartending, or just dealing with people, it's all about the user experience, right? So even if the food was terrible or, and they waited for, you know, you know, half hour to get sat, it's my job to make their experience great, right? And I've, and I've had times where, you know, my ticket orders, you know, for food were 40 minutes. And I still got, you know, a 30 or 40% tip, um, because, you know, I made sure I checked in with them, you know, I made small talk, I made them feel welcome, right? So that was definitely something that was instilled to me from the training that we got from Friday's that has transferred over to all my other endeavors.

Yeah, so, so financially, that was another step in your life, probably more consistent income, although it's kind of probably minimum wage-ish plus your tips at that point. Still obviously an element of exchanging your time for money for that base income, but it was really performance-based. And referring to Kiyosaki's Rich Dad Poor Dad, it was more along the lines of reward for performance at that point. Whatever you put in was going to be directly relational to what you received back. And I guess that is more of the conversation that we're going to sort of move into is As far as your growth in mindset throughout money, obviously from that first experience buying cars to this point, huge transformation of how you saw money, how you saw money from the very early start of a vehicle to do things with instead of a means to just go somewhere and get paid for, you know, exchange your time for money at that very basic level. What age were you when you got to TGI? Is 22, 23?

Uh, I, I turned 21 when I was there, so I started working there when I was 20.

Yeah, I mean, that's a huge advantage over so many people that are already in that corporate cycle, or the, the cycle of just being getting that salary every year. I mean, I was until a year and a half ago, until got into real estate 3 years ago and then let go of the day job, that sort of thing. But it's, it's a great, great reward, so Um, what was the next sort of big change in your relationship with money? Obviously, I think you mentioned corporate sales was something that came next, probably even more of a, a performance change as far as income and the ability to earn. The capacity to earn at that point shot up, I would imagine.

Definitely. So right after TGI Fridays, um, I actually got into insurance sales, um, and that's because, you know, everybody that I've worked with, um you know, serving them, you know, they always told me like, you're just so great and personable, like you do great in sales, you know, get into sales. And I've heard that for about a year or two until I was talking to my sister who actually was selling life insurance and she is doing incredible, right? So, you know, I saw that she could do it and, you know, I thought if she can do it, why can't I? So I got into life insurance sales and it was a little bit of a struggle at first. It was a different change of pace from what I was currently used to, right? You know, that fun, hip, you know, loud, you know, be yourself type of person to, uh, in exchange for money. Now I have to be professional and suited up and, you know, talk about times that nobody wants to talk about, right? And again, I'm coming in at this, you know, at a very young age. I was 23, I want to say, and I'm getting into life insurance. And, you know, a lot of our clientele that, you know, I'm sitting down and working with, they're in their 50s and their 60s, and You know, it was, it was 100% commission, no salary, no nothing. We only get paid from what you sell. And my territory was pretty far away from where I lived, and it was just like, I felt like there was a lot of things that were working against me, and I was ready to quit within the first month. I just said, you know, I can't do this. This is— I'm too young for this. First of all, back to the self-limiting belief. While there were other people that were my age making six figures and up, you know, it was just me and my self-limiting beliefs, you know, like, I can't do this, I have to I have to quit. But again, you know, my parents didn't raise a quitter, so I told myself, you know, I worked so hard to get into life insurance. Um, I had to take the state test multiple times in order to be licensed. So I figured, you know, since I worked so hard to get into the industry, I got to give myself at least 12 months, and at month 12 I'll decide, am I going to stay or am I going to go? Um, so that's exactly what I did. I mean, I had a lot of bad months and I had a lot of good months, um, but I ended up deciding to leave at month 12 just because I felt, you know, that industry is just not for me. I've tried it. I gave it exactly one full year to the day. And while I did learn a lot of things that I can use in other places, I just, I just knew deep down in my heart, like, this is just not what I was meant to do. So I ended up getting out of life insurance and then got into the corporate world of like telecommunications, working with like business accounts, working on like, like fiber optic networks, coaxial networks, and, you know, worked my way into mobile technologies. And I've done that for quite some time, and that's where I kind of, you know, started branching off with my success and, you know, you know, sharpening my axe in sales and just learning a different industry and just learning different types of people. And I felt like that definitely helped me kind of like get me into the situation that I'm in now.

So between those two sales jobs, the foundation being very similar in the sales, what do you think was, was the shift that— was it the, the people you were around? Was it the product that you were selling? Or was it just a— and, and what was the compensation? Not specific numbers, but it was— it was there a base rate in the corporate sales, or was that again—

so there was a base rate, yeah. So I think it was really down to the product itself that I was selling. It was hard, so I, I had to tell people why they needed my products. And one transferable skill I, I learned was paint the picture and fill that, that need. Yeah. Right. So here I am, young 20s, early 20s. Tell— I had to paint a picture of how they're gonna pass. And you, and you have, and like, you'll know once you have that sale, once that person is envisioning themself in that horrible situation that nobody ever thinks about, cuz nobody wants to think about the worst day of their life. Yeah, it was my job. And don't get me wrong, I think insurance agents are underpaid because what you have to do is so tough and nobody wants to do it, right? And that's why you get compensated so well. Yeah, everybody needs insurance, you know. I'm a firm believer of that, you know. You know, everybody that— one thing that always stuck with me is that everyone that's laying in the grave wasn't planning on dying that day, right?, right? So a lot of people that I was talking to, they're like, you know, oh, I'm too young, I don't need insurance, I'll wait, wait on that when I get older. Yeah, well, tomorrow's never promised, right? And it was just like trying to instill that into people. And, you know, and, you know, there's been multiple people that I worked with where they're like, oh, well, maybe next month, you know, let's recoup next month, this month may not be so good. And now they get put on a prescription that makes them uninsurable, right? And now they want it, they'll pay any price, and I can't sell it because of, you know, their current situation. So I really think it came down to the product. Like, even once I made the sale, I know I did something very good for them, but deep down inside, I didn't get that fulfillment.

Yeah, yeah, got it. Well, fabulous. So, so what were your financial choices like through this journey? As far as, you know, were you more of a, you know, go out and party kind of guy? It doesn't sound like you were quite that way, but I'm sure we have good, some good times through life. But have you changed from, you know, your behaviors financially, what you do with money? Obviously you have now, you're looking to invest in real estate. Um, but in the past, what were you doing as far as setting up, setting yourself up for your future? Obviously, I would imagine you had life insurance coming from that background. What were you doing with money, and how did you relate to money differently over these times?

So I was definitely a partier. But nothing too crazy. I definitely like to have a good time. I definitely invested in vacations. You know, I was— I always said I'm here for a good time, not a long time, right? So I definitely made my early to mid-20s worth it. But my relationship to money, I mean, I've always said to my family, my friends, like, I want to buy real estate. I want to buy real estate. So I wanted to learn money. So where do I go? I go on YouTube, right, where typically most people go to. And, you know, I— what really started fascinating me over the money was credit. And I remember following Graham Stephan on YouTube, and I think he was the first person I've ever subscribed to on YouTube years ago. And he taught me a lot about credit, and I, I'm very well versed on the topic. Um, I monitor my credit like crazy. I know how to leverage it. I know how to work, you know, kind of manipulate my utilization by opening up more, more cards and increasing limits. And now my credit score is phenomenal, right? I can get approved for anything anytime. Um, so that kind of brought my attention into, into money. But what I liked about Graham is that he transitioned, or he incorporated his knowledge with credit to real estate. And I just remember listening to him and I'm like, man, this guy's a god. Like, he's doing so well and he's doing such big things at such a young age. So I felt like I could really relate to the guy. Yeah, um, so that's kind of like where my— where, where it started. I remember I was looking at houses on, on Zillow, um, when I first moved out of the house because I had a buddy that, you know, we were living together and I was thinking, man, how cool would it be if I bought a house? Like, I have the capital saved up for— from all my endeavors that I did at a younger age. Why don't I just buy a property and have my buddy move in with me and he pays my mortgage? Like a little house hack.

Yeah.

Um, but but I just didn't stay focused. You know, I got, I got the young age, you know, the young age got the best of me where I was more worried about what vacation I'm going to go on next or what cool car I'm going to order next. And I kind of lost focus until, you know, just about a few years ago, I ended up meeting my beautiful fiancée and we decided to buy a house. And, you know, we were looking at a lot of, you know, big, beautiful houses that we could afford, but it just wasn't practical for us.

Right.

At the time, we were still dating. We weren't engaged or anything, no kids. So I ended up telling her, I said, listen, rates are so good right now. This is right before COVID This is November 2019. I'm like, rates are just so good right now. Let's just buy something we can make money off of, right? So we ended up buying a nice house in a very, very highly desirable rental area. Need a little bit of work. But I said, you know what, let's move in, live in it. You know, 6 months down the road, once we finish, uh, renovations, is buy something else. And 3— about 3 months into owning the house, COVID happens, right? And that slowed everything down for us. But I mean, that's kind of like where, um, my interest in real estate kind of started. Um, you know, just, just, you know, shopping and finally being serious about real estate or looking for real estate. That's where it kind of started picking up.

Fantastic. That's, that's amazing. So since you found real estate, obviously we met through a community that was real estate based. Um, how much has mindset shifted in this time towards money and obviously investing and the way that you approach your life in general?

So a complete 180. So from my understanding, which I'm sure a lot of people that are listening today, um, could definitely agree, is, you know, buying a house, you need to have a lot of money saved up. You have to qualify, you have to go to the bank and see if you can get approved. And, you know, there's just a lot of underwriting that goes down. And, you know, my fiancée, she's very big on like self-education or just investing in yourself. And, you know, she always told me like, on your free time, listen to some podcasts, kind of get your mind right and kind of, you know, listen to stuff where you want to kind of end up in. So, you know, I started listening to podcasts and I ended up coming across So I'm a big fan of the movie Wolf of Wall Street. So Jordan Belfort has a podcast called The Wolf's Den. And I'm like, okay, so, you know, I started listening a little bit of him and then I listened to some other people, I listened to some BiggerPockets. But I listened to this one episode on The Wolf's Den and it was by the guy Pace Morby. And he kind of started talking about creative financing and, and like, I've done a good amount of research on YouTube and I never came across creative finance. So that shifted my mindset on, on money, first of all, completely, right? So I was just so excited to come home and just show my fiancée and be like, look, look what I just found. Like, I can buy so many houses without waiting years to save up 20% to go off from there. And, you know, after a lot of research, I ended up joining his community and, you know, I learned a lot of same thing, transferable skills and, you know, mindset of, you know, you know, you don't have to save up that money. You can, instead of trying to wait years by saving up that money, instead of using that same time to find lenders that can lend money on your entry fees on these creative deals. And man, that just opened up a whole new chapter in my mind, in my future, in my business. And you know, that's kind of like where my journey's starting.

Fantastic, fantastic. So think about, you've got a child now, is that right?

That's right.

How old is— how old are they?

Uh, I have one child, uh, his name is Jacob, and he's going to be 11 months in just a few days.

Fantastic. Say that out loud, that's amazing. So have you got a life insurance policy for Jacob already?

Oh, of course. I waited the 14 days, and as soon as that 14-day hit, put a policy.

See, this is one of the wonderful things that, you know, I've learned over the last few years, and a lot of people need to become aware of as well is, you know, there's life insurance, there's term life, there's group life, there's all of these different things. Um, but with whole life insurance, where it's a self-directed product where we can get some tax benefits, even self-directed IRAs we can get for children at a young age. And I think it's important to— one of the reasons for Birth to Net Worth is not for me to preach on these different things, but to learn about other things people are doing and share that with the world on how we can best set up the future for our children and the next generations. Um, and one of those things is, is life insurance, uh, whole life. That's something I've got for myself, will be getting for the kids before too long. Um, and also self-directed products. If we can put these things in front of parents— financial literacy is one of those keys to, to success. If we can't handle money correctly, you know, life is not going to be fun. As we've, we've all, I'm sure, in different contexts and different levels experience, you know, scarcity, or, you know, just, just making a bad decision, or a decision that we made turned out not to be the best decision, left us very short for a period of time, or quite a long period of time, depends on the experience. And I think it's so important to be able to set our kids up with a legacy that we build together instead of just handing something over to them at death. Because like, you know, like you said, death might be today, it might be in an hour, might be next minute, could be 100 years from now. Who knows? With technology as it is, if we keep our bodies healthy, we can be more wealthy in the fact that we could potentially live longer. But we don't know until that day that we stop breathing, and obviously we don't know at that point because we stop breathing. So Right, uh, you know, to put these things in front of parents so that we can help set our kids up to understand what it is to, to handle money. Obviously, 11 months old is a bit young to be able to be handling pennies and whatever it is, but at the end of the day, if we can put that methodology in front of kids— Mike McCallowits, right, wrote a book called My Money Bunnies. It's a scaled-down version of Profit First, which was a book he wrote for business owners that has some time money, one time money, and any time money, where it starts kids thinking about that dollar bill that comes through, that maybe split into thirds or 50% and two $2.25s, whatever the parents want to kind of direct. But if you were to put a book on financial literacy in front of an adult, an adult-style written book, they would probably be in denial that I know how to handle money. So what we're finding through conversations and research is that If we can educate the kids at first grade level, second grade level, fifth grade level via the parents teaching the kids, the parents are actually going to absorb that level of education at a very foundational level. And hopefully we can affect their relationship to money as well as then benefiting the child that comes through, because they want the best for their kid. And if we can present opportunities where they can get life insurance for themselves and also get something for the kids Maybe you, Dylan, can invest in a whole life for yourself and your child and pull out some of that money as a loan and buy property with it. So you can either invest in a fund where you're putting in and getting a long-term return. You don't have to be the person, and this isn't speaking directly to you, but in general, if you don't know what you're doing with real estate, maybe there's a fund that can take, you know, reg CF fund that you can put $5,000 in, $10,000 between you and your child, and then you can direct that money to get a return over time. By the time your child is 16 and they're— or 14, whatever time they start to pay tax, they've already got a write-off because they've got depreciation involved in investing in that fund. Or maybe they make charitable donations, maybe it's their clothes that they donate to whoever it is that gives them a write-off. They can start learning about how to utilize and, you know, use the tax code as it was intended and how it's written not just that first chapter that says thou shalt pay taxes at whatever rate that is. We can help leverage that with our kids. And then when they get to 16, maybe they've got $50,000 or $100,000 in the bank where they can go and leverage that to go and buy a property, whether it's a foreclosure with a very small amount in, or even utilize that for leveraging a private money lender to go and get some money and they can do whatever they want with it. But that really sets them up for a future together. Where my dream is to build a legacy with my children so they understand what cash flow, depreciation, all of those benefits are, so that it's a relay race. It's handing the baton over during life before the next, you know, before the forerunner stops running. We're actually enjoying the benefits of that together at a much earlier time. We can enjoy life with our kids, take them overseas, take them, you know, on trips that we can write off because we're talking about real estate, invest maybe in multiple places in the world. And then enjoy time together. So that's kind of part of the direction of Birth to Net Worth, is really primarily how can we educate kids through the parents that can also learn at the same time. What have you got out in your kid's future for how you would plan for, for your son to, you know, understand money? Have you got to that point in thinking about how that works at this point?

I definitely have, and I'm glad you're really touching on the, on the subject here. So your analogy of, you know, this is a rally race, right? You got to hand it off to him. So, you know, just like what I was saying earlier and about credit and how important credit is, you know, there's a lot of people that I talk to to this day that are, you know, my peers, and they have, you know, one credit card at, you know, some shopping center, right? And they don't have any credit and they can't buy a house, they can't get approved for that car, um, because they have one credit card with a $500 limit, right? Um, so with my knowledge behind credit and how to leverage credit as well, because you know, you could definitely leverage, you know, private money lenders and hard money lenders, but a lot of people don't even think about leveraging their own credit cards, right? Um, so what I ended up doing was I added my son onto a lot of my high-limit cards as an authorized user, and this kid's gonna have an 850 credit score before he hits kindergarten, you know. So, you know, I'm setting him up so when he is 16 or 18 and wanting to, you know, get that first car, or he wants to buy his first rental property, right, maybe let's say it's not creatively, you find something on market, right? At least when he's 18 years old, he'll have 18 years of credit worth, um, with a high, you know, high credit limit with good on-time payments. Um, so I feel like that is something that I just started not too long ago. I added him on to a few of my cards so we can start building up his creditworthiness.

Yeah. So which of the banks that allow you to do that? I think Citibank is one of those that I heard that you can add a child as a user who has their Social Security number attached to it. I've got one card at the moment which is through one bank. They have an additional card, but they don't have their Social Security number attached to it. So I've got to see if I can modify and update that.

So I noticed—

can we do—

yeah, so I know Discover, um, they'll just send out another car— or no, is it Discover? Apple Card will do, um, just another card. So they don't do social. Um, I did Bank of America, um, that one, uh, I did for him. I did Discover was the other one. Um, I'd have to open up my wallet. I have like 30 cards. Um, but yeah, but I know Bank of America, Bank of America was the, the best one. So all that they asked was his first name, his last name, his social, and his address, and that's it. Boom, added him on. I don't know what his score is, but I'm sure it went up well.

Fantastic. Do you monitor that as well?

Every day. Every day. You know, it's so funny, my fiancée tells me that I open up my Credit Karma as many times as most people open up their TikTok or Instagram. I'm on it all day. I don't know why, it just fascinates me. I monitor it, you know, I, I see where, where I stand with cards, what cards I should focus on more. Um, I love shopping for new cards, like it's some weird addiction of mine. Um, you know, I like to leverage cash back. Like I opened up a business card through, um, Chase. Um, and if I spent, I think it was $5,000 or $6,000 or something, yeah, I think it was $5,000 in the first 3 months, I get $750 back.. But if I redeem it on certain categories, I get an extra percentage on top of that. And I calculated I made $1,000 in 6 months just from using my card. I got rewarded a grand to use my card. And I, I find that so fascinating. I think people that aren't— that who are not educating themselves on credit, you're just hurting yourself. There's free money out there.

Yeah, I, I got the Ink card about a year ago, and they've just doubled my credit limit in the last 2 weeks., and I got 150,000 air miles from, from, for transferring to British Airways, which I've got 600,000 air miles now, I think, from, you know, doing fix and flips. And I think I had about 180,000 when I started, but now over 600,000 in less than, you know, about a year. And I got another credit card personally through them. But yeah, I, I should educate myself more on these things because Yeah, you're right.

Think about it this way. Think about it this way. You mentioned how you do a lot of fix and flips, right? So I'm assuming you raise capital for, for the renovation costs, right? So you can raise the capital for the actual labor. But let's say you go to Home Depot and you open up a credit card with them. They— 9 times, like 9 months out of 12 months, I think they run promotions where if you spend $1,000 or more, you get 24 months interest-free financing.

Nice. Yeah, that's amazing.

You can go to Home Depot, put every single material on that card and you pay zero as long as you pay it back. Yeah, why aren't people leveraging their cards, right? Yeah, maybe under their personal credit. Open it up under your LLC, right? You may start off with a lower limit, but now you're building your business credit at the same time. So the more time you use it, the more times you can request a limit. And some, uh, cards don't actually hit you with a hard inquiry if you do a, um, a credit limit increase. For example, the one that's on top of my head is Apple, uh, the Apple Card. Every 3 months I put in a request. I put a reminder in my phone for every 3 months of the day to text Apple, because they do everything through text, requesting credit limit increase. And you can do that every 3 months and it will never, never negatively affect your credit. But they're really increasing your credit, which increases your, uh, or lowers your utilization, which increases your credit score. So I mean, I maintain between an 820 to an 840, um, and I typically have like $5,000 to $10,000 of revolving credit because I always, you know, leverage 0% interest deals. But Coming to, you know, talking to somebody else that may have a $20,000 credit limit and having $10,000 of debt, revolving debt, now their utilization's at 50%. Now they can't get approved for anything, right? So it's, it's kind of a game, but it's super interesting. It takes like 1 to 2 videos to do some research online and you can become an expert.

Yeah, that's awesome. I've got to hit Apple later today because I think about it about 4 months now.

So yeah.

You know, everything's been on time and paid in full. So I know, uh, Marlon was throwing around the code for, uh, the Gold Card for American Express last week, so I've got to share that link and see if we can get some bonus miles and referrals or whatever it is on my end as well, right? Plus there's those things as well, like this is if you, if you send out your affiliate code with them, you get a boost as well because you're sharing their product where they're going to make more interest from, from that.

Just off my Chase business card, I made $1,500 this year. About $1,100 from the introductory bonus plus my cashback rewards. And I refer 2 people to get the card, and they pay you $200 each time you refer someone.

Wow, I need to talk to you offline about that. Definitely. We should do a Zoom on that.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Fantastic. So that's great to know about the cards. As far as life insurance, you mentioned you got that for your son already. What else are you looking to do as far as, you know, are you looking to buy property with your son or, you know, just set up? There's a lot of people, you know, where kid goes to university, they go and buy a 6-bedroom house and then they house hack where the, the child can live for free. They, they can rent out the other 5 bedrooms. The kid can get the biggest room if he wants the biggest room, or he can have a smaller room and make more money off, off that by managing the, by managing the, you know, the, the renters, the leases, that kind of stuff. What have you got in mind? And I know it's a very early age right now, but you know, there's, there's the best time to start was yesterday, the next best time is to start today.

That's it. So I mean, I'm, I'm still fairly new in my real estate game, so I've been in real estate for about a year and a half, um, you know, just started picking up momentum about 6 months ago, um, so my main focus right now is just wholesale, wholesale, wholesale until a a great deal comes along, right, um, that just makes sense to take down. Um, but my end goal, um, so I mean, a lot of people want to own some Airbnbs and like all those sexy rentals, and I'm kind of doing the opposite, right? I want to focus on things that people are overlooking, and I'm really intrigued by Section 8 housing. Yeah, you know, it's pandemic-proof, it's recession-proof, you know, no matter what happens, the government pays every first of the month. So I mean, don't get me wrong, I would like to own some Airbnbs. Um, it's just that doesn't excite me, you know. It's sexy to look at, but if, if, you know, 2020 happens again, it's not, it's not that much fun, you know. So that, that's, that's gonna be my main focus. I'm mainly gonna be wholesaling, and then, um, if, if the deal makes sense to pick up creatively, um, I would, I'll take it, um, and turn into Section 8 housing.

I think that's great. I mean, from, from going to Cody Sperber's summit in, in April, looking at— I can't remember if it was Dan, Dan Fleischman or, um, Cole that's talking about the 20-40-40 rule. 20% high-risk investments, 40% medium risk, 40% low risk. So I think, yeah, definitely if Airbnbs are interesting, that may be coming later on. But if you set your foundation up with the the guaranteed return investments that are going to be lower risk, lower return. Then you get into the medium risk and you just set your foundation of cash flow so that replaces whatever income you possibly had before, takes care of your monthly living expenses. That takes care of your survival relationship with money. Once that's taken care of, then you're in abundance at that point. Obviously, you could be an abundant mindset already, but as far as financially, you're no longer in a survival of meeting those month-to-month bills.

Yeah, the name of the game is cash flow, right? No matter how big or small it is, it's all about the cash flow. So eventually, you know, I would want to work my way up into something larger, multi-family units and all that. But, um, you know, I, I'm like a lot of mentors say, you want today money, tomorrow money, and forever money, right? So right now I'm focusing on today money and tomorrow money, and then I'll be working my way into forever money.

Yeah, yeah, fantastic, perfect. Well, is there anything you'd like to leave us with from, you know, having the conversation, and any thoughts that you, you'd want to leave with us on any of the topics we covered or anything that we didn't cover?

Not much of something that we have covered, but this is kind of like a message for everybody, you know. If you're just starting off and you're thinking, man, you know, I'll wait till next year, or I just can't do it, I don't have the support system, you know, don't get complacent. Get comfortable with the uncomfortable. To this day, I, you know, before a lot of these phone calls that I'm making with the sellers, I'm thinking to myself, man, what am I doing? Like, I don't know what I am doing in my life right now, but all I know is that I'm failing forward, right? I'm not taking perfect actions, I'm taking imperfect action. And at the end of the day, you know, my, my first 6 months of real estate, I was taking no action and everybody around me was being, you know, becoming successful. And once I started taking imperfect action, money's just appearing now, right? So that, that's my biggest takeaway. Just, just don't be complacent, continue to take action, and most importantly, surround yourself with people that are doing what you want to do at a higher level.

Yeah, yeah, I think that's great advice. I think there's a lot of comparison in life, but if we were to contrast instead of compare, and by that I mean, what am I doing differently that the other person isn't doing to get the results they're getting, and how can I change what I'm doing to get those results instead of, oh, that guy's doing so well and I'm just not doing anything, that changes the mindset of, like you said, of failing forward and abundance. It's a growth mindset. And I, I think that's really key to, to take away because kids on social media these days, it's just a comparison right now. It's not a contrasting view that they're having, and it's breeding a lot of negative things for them in their mindset because they're just comparing themselves again with what appears to be online, but that we know that that's more of a movie situation. It's a, it's a perfect, perfect life, always great. And you know, it's important for us to share the wins and the We don't have losses, we have lessons that we learn that we share and what we did to overcome those, or what we think we may do to overcome those if we haven't quite got past them yet. Because I think those are equally important to people to know, is that it's not a perfect life and taking massive imperfect action will often turn out to be great results, but it will also, also turn out with some of those lessons, those learning opportunities as well. So I really admire that and I appreciate you. So that wraps it for this episode 11 of Birth to Net Worth. Thank you so much, Dylan. I really enjoyed the conversation. I know we've spoken before. We spoke when you were in Phoenix. Was it 4 or 5 months ago now?

Yeah, in March.

March, yeah. A lot of time has passed, a lot of things have happened, and I think that it's really great watching your journey and the journey of everyone that we're a part of this community, very supportive of one another. And I appreciate you sharing your wisdom and experience with us today.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

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