Birth to Net Worth with Mike Morawski

Join us as we unravel our deep-rooted relationship with money, from earliest memories to eureka moments and building wealth. Birth to Net Worth with me, Trystan Trenberth. Hi and welcome to another edition of Birth to Net Worth. Today we got a great friend of mine I've met through a mastermind I've been part of now for third year coming up. Incredible human being, incredible story to tell, and one of the biggest hearts in the world that I've come across so far. Met him through a mindset mastermind, personal growth, and we very quickly aligned in real estate. Let me introduce you to the amazing Mike Morawski. Mike, welcome to Birth to Net Worth.

Hey, Trystan, thanks for having me here. I appreciate it. Of course, you're welcome. Nice introduction, appreciate that.

Of course. So, well, let's get going, Mike. So, um, we met through Matthew Ferry, um, the Quiet Mind Epic Life Mastermind, or the Ignite Mastermind as it's known. I'm wearing the merch today. And, um, we, we've just really aligned with so, so many people in such a short space of time. The environment. And, and let's really get down to the gist, it's really the community which is such the powerful part of what we are part of ourselves. Um, and that's, that's what really brought us together. I remember meeting you in, in California, and, you know, just the story that you had to tell, which I'm sure you'll share some of today, was just mind-boggling. Um, you know, whether it's trauma, whether it's just experience and the way that we perceive those experiences to be. I'm just excited to have this conversation with you today and, you know, move through your life and the story and how this has brought you to your today, your now, as Eckhart Tolle would say, the power of now, right? So, well, Mike, give us a little bit of your background. We're talking about You know, birth to net worth, what was really your genesis with money? What was your first memory of money?

Wow, that's a very interesting question. I don't know that I've ever been asked that. You know, my first memory of money was my mother frantically being able to pay a $28 telephone bill because our family was broke and she was worried about the phone being shut off. Now remember, this is a long time ago. This is a phone on the wall, uh, back when telephone bills were, you know, $20, $25, right?

Yeah, yeah. So obviously it sounds like there was struggle very early on. You are aware of struggle financially. How, how were your parents together at that point? Did, did they, you know, have something in alignment? Were they in alignment with what was going on? Was it, was it— tell me about that situation just a little bit.

Sure. So, yeah, my parents were together, you know, very dysfunctional relationship, very dysfunctional household growing up, craziness. And, you know, your mom— mom's alcoholic, dad's a compulsive gambler. You know, dad's always spending money and never having any money around. Mom's freaking out about it. You know, I grew up hearing that old cliché that money doesn't grow on trees, right? Yeah. Or that the love of money is the root of all evil.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear you. Well, that's— I mean, that first experience is generally one of the things that forms our opinion or, or perspective with money, at least for a number of years until something else changes that. How, how was that like at school? What did you see in other kids at school? Was it a similar neighborhood where there was a lot of scarcity, or was there abundance around you? And were you aware of abundance as well as the scarcity at that time?

You know, listen, I think when you look at money classes, right, you have poor, middle class, and, and rich. I don't think that I really ever realized that there were rich people. I grew up middle class. Yeah. You know, lived in a nice neighborhood. And I knew that there were, were poor and slums. You know, uh, that type of environment. But I don't know, I don't know that I really ever knew that anybody was rich or wealthy back then. Yeah, I was— I lived in this protected kind of environment of middle-class America, you know. Yeah, where, where that house my dad, you know, my parents built a custom home. And I remember this, it was $38,000 to build that home. Yeah, it was a 4-bedroom, you know, 2-bath house. Today, that house, you know, a few years back, I remember just kind of looking it up on Zillow just to see what it traded for, and it was somewhere in the $400s. Wow. Well, you know, that just shows you the power of real estate right there, though.

Absolutely. And the cost to build that thing, as we would look at, well, what was the cost to build if the retail was that price?

Yeah, yeah. Back then it was $38,000. Today to build that house, it'd be $200,000-something.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So at what point did, did your awareness change that there was, um, you know, there were rich people around, or there was abundance around, but you just hadn't been part of that or aware of that? Was that in your teens? Was that in your— when did that kind of come to mind?

Well, that's interesting, Trystan. I believe I started realizing that there was more out there when I first went to work. Yeah. When I had my first job and I realized, which was at like 15 years old. Yeah, when I first had my first job and I realized that the guy who owned the business that I worked at drove a nice car, a really nice car, and, um, lived in a bigger house than we lived in. But until that point, I think, I think I thought, you know, pretty much everybody was the same.

Yeah, yeah.

Because back then, back then, growing up, middle-class America was, was a huge part of the population, right? There wasn't a lot of talk back then about millionaires and how many, you know, people become millionaires every year. I don't think that, that— I don't think I realized that stuff until I probably was you know, out of high school, starting my own business, um, and, and building, you know, seeing that there was more.

Uh, it's, it's, it's amazing, isn't it? So when you had your own money, as far as, you know, having your own job, how did your experience of your parents' perspective towards money either align with or, or change? Was there that kind of, I got to hold on to this, or it was kind of you could go and spend money and do things. Were you trying to reserve to, um, maintain over time, or were you— were you, wow, I got some money, and you weren't really concerned about the foundational cost of your life and, and building away from maybe parents? I don't know if you moved out at an early age, or, you know, what was that in your mind at that point? Was it to move away from parents, not because of money, but just to get your independence, that, you know, working your own job does give you that feeling of independence. It did for me. Was that something that was like, now you've got some sights on something higher, or was it kind of, you need to stay, you know, you are part of this middle class that is stuck in the middle class? Were you thinking about that?

Yeah, I wasn't thinking about getting rich, but I was thinking about having more than, yeah, right. So it was scarcity. I think I grew up in scarcity, but now I had a job and I could go buy my own, you know, I went, I would spend, I spent money on clothes, right? Blue jeans and, and, you know, more stylish clothing at that time because we lived in scarcity and we didn't get a lot of new things like that. So I enjoyed I can, I can specifically remember really caring about, you know, clothes and stuff like that. Yeah. Today I'm a, you know, I'm still a t-shirt, blue jeans guy.

But yeah, I remember my, my brothers are 8, 9 years older than me. And of course they're, you know, not a generation ahead, but enough ahead of me to be different. But I remember my, my brother buying these jeans, which were the brand was Smithy. And they came with this little— it was like a little clip for putting keys on and stuff. That was one of the things that every pair of jeans from them— I mean, they weren't amazing jeans, but they were amazing at the time, you know. And that was just their little stick, do you know what I mean, that they came with that. And Galini was another brand of a— he had a hoodie. So I, I remember, you know, growing up and growing into the— I want a nicer hoodie, or, you know, whatever it might be, you know.

So we used to buy Levi's. Yeah. And, and we would take the, these, uh, hem out of the bottom of them so they would fray. Right. And tear the knees. Right. So that they were— and today you buy jeans like that for $200.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's amazing, isn't it? Yeah.

We had our own.

Yeah. We had Levi's and stuff.

Yeah.

So what was the point at which, you know, did you go to college? Did you go to you know, any university after, after school?

I went to, uh, I went to the University of Get Your Ass to Work and Learn About Life. I didn't go to college, uh, for many years. Um, yeah, yeah, you know, I, I think that, um, I started reading— I was probably in my early 20s and I started reading books. Yeah. And I started to get all, you know, I hated reading up until then, but in my early 20s I started reading books. And I think over the— I just told somebody yesterday I've read over 1,500 books. Wow. You know, over the years, just business and biographies and, you know, self-help books and Yeah, just try to learn more.

Um, excuse me one step, Mike. I'm gonna have to just take this call real quick. Go ahead. Hey, Roy, how are you?

All right.

Does it seem like there's nobody here? There, there isn't anybody there. He's, he's out at work at the moment, but the gate's open, he said.

Okay. Yeah, I know.

You see Okay, all right, it's the white— it's the white Impala in the backyard.

If, if you—

if you can leave me a message, I'm actually recording a podcast right now, but I can give you a call back in about 45 minutes. Would that be okay? Thank you, Roy, appreciate you.

Bye-bye.

There's an abandoned car at one of the houses that I just bought and sold, and I actually sold it to the sister of one of Alan's best friends.

Okay, and are we editing this podcast, or—

Yeah, I'll chop this out. I'll chop that out.

Oh, that's lovely.

I'm on do not disturb, but because the computer's unlocked, it still rings. But I'm glad I talked to him because So anyway, so where were we? We were talking about college, the university, get your ass to work.

And I honestly believe, Trystan, that, you know, I'm not a college advocate. I don't believe that you have to go to college to be a success or that it's necessary.

Yeah.

I believe that everybody should, should go take some finance classes and understand money, understand finance. But you could go into the world of business just, you know, with that background.

Yeah, I thoroughly agree. I, I wanted to be— firstly, I wanted to do architecture. Then I— then when I realized it was like 7 or 8 years at university, um, you know, to be honest, I think that it was partly I didn't want to do that long at college, and, you know, parents' financial capability probably wasn't, um, wasn't there for that, and it certainly would have been a strain. I ended up going to catering college because I didn't know what to do after high school. I thought about automotive design and a couple of other things. And did something vocational for a couple of years just to sort of get a foundation in, you know, business. There was a business finance class. It wasn't terribly in-depth, but I went into a commercial kitchen, worked at the Breakers in Florida during the 2 years at college, and that set me up so much better than anything else. I did go into the W-2 world for, you know, most of my life up until, you you know, even 2 and a half, 3 years ago. But the ability to solve problems, to be in front of people, and to build those relationships was so important to what I'm doing right now and everything along the way. I'm so grateful I didn't go to university. And I'm not saying I'd wasted the money, but like, like you and I know, we're at the perfect place exactly where we are, and having the experiences has brought us to where we are now. You know, they think that— I, I really, I, I told my kids 2 or 3 years ago, my eldest wanted to go and travel for like a year. She wanted to finish high school, go and travel for a year. I thought, that's brilliant. And I said, I don't expect you to go to college. If you want to go to college, um, go and enjoy the world and find something you're passionate about that you really want to study, not something you think you want to study out of high school. And that way at least you're gonna go there with some, some passion, some, some connection to what it is that you are studying and why. And that way it's gonna be a more fulfilling experience if you got something inside you that relates to that. Yeah. And yeah, I, I think there's obviously a place for college for doctors, et cetera. But even with that, they can't teach cutting-edge technology that's available. They're stuck back in the Stone Age of medicine. You know, run by the pharma companies, et cetera. We shouldn't probably get too political or, or here, but at the end of the day, really, it, it, it is set up to make the world a certain way. Each country, you know, the Rockefellers said, give me two generations of, of, and I'll change the way America thinks.

And they have.

But now to, to get through all of these self-help books and these You know, and did— at what point did you read Rich Dad Poor Dad? I'm sure that's probably one of the books that you've read and so many people have read.

Yeah, that was, that was a bit down the road. I went to my first experience with, with a change in my thinking. So Robert Allen seminar. Yeah. I, you know, there probably a lot of people listening to this who have no idea who Robert Allen is, right? I think he was really the grandfather of real estate investment trading. Yeah. And I went to this half-day free event, right? And oh my gosh, Trystan Trenberth, I can remember leaving there going, what just happened? You know, what is this world all about? And at that point, I was in my own— I had my own business and I was a business owner, entrepreneur, long before it was sexy to be an entrepreneur. But I went to this event and I remember hearing how you could buy real estate with no money down, using other people's money, creative financing. Yeah. How you can take advantage of, of, of this, this piece of the world that if you didn't have cash or credit, you could still go do it. And I walked away. I actually signed up for a 3-day event at that half-day event. And went back like 2 weeks later for this weekend event. And I remember just being amazed. And I was hooked. I was absolutely hooked. So it was Sunday. We got out of there Monday morning, and I'm going to date myself a little bit, but Monday morning I'm scouring the classified ads in the newspaper. Looking for houses for sale by owner to call. Yeah. And I'm calling, calling, calling. And this is long before cell phones. And I, I get— I set up 3 appointments and I go look at these houses. And by the end of the day, I came home and I purchased my first multi-unit building it was a 4-flat. I gave the guy $1,000 down and he held the paper on the rest. And we owned and ran that building for the next 3 years or so before I wound up selling. Yeah, but that was my first brush with real estate investing, owning real estate other than, than a house I lived in.

Yeah, yeah. So many people have come through Robert Allen. I mean, I think it's Robert Allen, and then, you know, between him and Kiyosaki, how many lives have been changed? Not just the direct lives, but the impact of those lives of being able to maybe wrap a property or sell or finance a property. All of those ways that lives have been changed, giving homes to people that wouldn't otherwise be able to get rentals. I, I had a great conversation last night, and Um, they were telling me about Kiyosaki going to Africa and somebody turned up with photocopies of the book and said, I'm sorry, I couldn't afford to buy the book, but I read your book and it's changed my life. And Robert Allen the same way. I mean, I know the story of him going to, with the LA Times turning up, they gave him $125 or something. He shared a room with the reporter from the LA Times. That was keeping him on the straight and narrow, knowing that what he was doing to, to make the money, or, you know, to, to find the houses, that it was no money out of his own pocket. And he had bought like 3 or 4, maybe 6 or 7 houses in the 24 or 48 hours that they gave him. And he said, I haven't finished yet. And they were blown away by that situation. And yeah, he's, he's such a such a warm character. I've never met him, but he's such a warm, warm character.

You know, I— yeah, right. He had that spirit about him too, where he was just easygoing. You know, here's the thing that, that why I got attracted to him, right? He used to say, put me in any city in the country, take my money, and I'll have real estate in 3 days.

Yeah.

And money in my pocket. Finally got— I think it was the St. Louis Times that finally took him up on that.

Yeah.

Dropped him in the middle of St. Louis, a city he'd never been in. Yeah. Wallet left him. $20. Picked him up on Sunday afternoon. He slept and he slept the night before at the Marriott, had a couple thousand dollars in his pocket and had bought 4 houses.

Yeah. Yeah.

You know, So, I mean, how do you not think that that's possible? I mean, I've bought— I've bought multifamily apartment complexes. I bought a $450,000 apartment complex. I'm sorry, a 450-unit apartment complex with— with no money down and owner finance. Yeah, we actually just went to contract yesterday on a 65-unit deal. You know, call it subject to master lease, you know, whatever buzzwords you want to use, but creative financing. Yeah.

So congratulations.

That's awesome. Awesome.

So real estate, was that your first business that you got into? It was real estate, or you then after you met Robert, that's when the, the dam broke, and then it was buying your 4-flat. What, what happened from there? Did you get into agency? Did you get into just investing directly? Tell me about the next—

yeah, so interesting, right? No, my first business was a swimming pool business, right? Ever run a swimming pool business in the Midwest? It's brain damage. It's like that, you know. You, you can only use a pool in Chicago for 3 months a year, maybe.

Is it a nice skating business in the winter?

Say it again.

Is it an ice skating business in the winter?

Yeah, uh, I wish, I wish it could be, but it's not. Um, so I was in the swimming pool business and And I had this, this crazy chaotic thing going on where I'd hire guys in the spring. I'd train them and teach them how to do certain jobs, have to lay them off in the fall thinking they'd come back next spring. They didn't come back. So I spent an ungodly amount of money and time training people. Finally, I said, I have to keep these guys busy all year. So I started to do kitchen and bath remodeling in the off season.

Oh, really?

Yeah. So I went from doing kitchen and bath remodeling to building room additions. And so my, my swimming pool business morphed into a general contracting business. And I ran a general contracting business for, you know, a number of years. And I burned out, you know, because like any entrepreneur, you're doing the hiring, the firing, the marketing, the sales, the ordering. And I was still in the field banging nails. And I can vividly remember one morning waking up, sitting up next to my wife at the time going, I'm done. I can't do this anymore. I was burnt out, you know, 4 hours of sleep and, you know, consistently 7 days a week and So I was fortunate. I had somebody knocking on my door to buy the company and I sold the company and I said, okay, let's take a year off, figure what we want to do. But, you know, like any entrepreneur, I didn't take a year off. Yeah, we wound up house hacking. And again, long before it was sexy, we house hacked a couple of two-flats. And, you know, I had been listening to motivational guys, Jim Rohn, over the years. I kept listening to Robert Allen stuff back when cassette tapes, you know. Yeah. And, you know, I never— I did that first 4-unit but never did anything else till I sold the construction business and bought a 2-flat. Yeah. We have the 2-flat, lived in one, rehabbed the other. Moved in that one, rehabbed it, sold it. But I remember Jim Rowland saying, Trystan Trenberth, he said, success leaves clues. And for some reason that always stuck with me. So I looked for other successful people around me to see what they were doing. I always had an interest in why this guy drove this Rolls-Royce or why this guy drove this Mercedes. I can remember going to a seminar one time and pulling in the parking lot, just overwhelmed by the amount of Rolls-Royces and Range Rovers and Mercedes-Benz in the parking lot, thinking, man, what else is going on at this hotel? Yeah, go inside. And realizing that the people in the room that I was in drove those cars in the parking lot, and they were there to learn and grow more. And, you know, it was always a bug of mine to go to seminars. I've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on training and coaching and books and tapes over the years. And, you know, when you talk about did you go to college? Yeah, I went to college. I spent— I spent more money than a college education on, you know, books and training and seminars and coaching. Because I'm an advocate for that. Yeah. None of us grow professionally unless we grow personally.

Absolutely.

Yeah. So Jim Rohn said success leaves clues, right? And along the way, when I was house hacking these houses, I met this real estate agent who was extremely successful and went to him, said, I think I'd like to go into business. He said, I think you should. I think you'd be really good at it. So he encouraged me to go into the real estate business. And while I was getting my license, I went to him and said, could I shadow your team? And he said, no, I'm going to do one better than that for you. I said, okay. He said, I'm going to make you a cassette tape. Now this is, you know, long time ago, right? Because I don't think you would find anything to make a cassette tape on anymore.

Yeah.

But he made me this cassette tape and I equate it to podcasts, right? People listen to these, go back, listen to them again. But I listened to that cassette tape over and over and over again. I burned it out. And here's what I learned. The fundamentals, the simple fundamentals of selling real estate a specific way, a specific model. And I went to real estate business. My first 9 months in the business, I sold 78 houses. Wow. I was RE/MAX Rookie of the Year. I went on to build a team. I sold 100 to 125 homes a year. 70% of my business was investor-based business because everybody said, don't deal with investors. They're, they're awful, they're manipulative. And I said, I'm going in that direction. I've always been one to go the opposite way. So I, I, 70% of my business was investor-based.

Yeah, and probably a lot easier because there wasn't the emotional connection to the properties that consumers have, right?

Yeah, it's more business to business.

Exactly. I think you'd be called a unicorn agent these days.

Probably.

So, so yeah, it's amazing how things come around because you know that now that's a huge thing in our business now, especially in, you know, the residential spaces, the unicorn agent, the one that's familiar with investors or is an investor themselves. That is purely catering to that market. I've met many of those in town and, and it, there are specifics and I think, you know, I think we're both contrarians in, in one way or another that when people run that way, we kind of run the opposite way and, and do, do something that seems to make more sense.

Well, here's what's amazing to me is if you get a poll of 100 real estate agents and ask them if they invest in real estate?

Probably one.

I would say, I'd say 90 of them would tell you no. Yeah.

Yeah.

Because I learned a long time ago that you need to invest in your own product. You know, I heard a trainer say one time that you should buy your best listing every quarter.

Yeah.

I don't know that I bought my best listing ever quarter, but I bought 2 a year. Yeah. At one point I had, you know, 200 single-family homes.

That's, that's, that's a great piece of advice because it's available to all of us just with that shift of mindset. Like we're talking about birth to net worth, just changing the way you look at things. Yeah. And it could be just a simple comment by somebody. Obviously that, that, that tape that you were given by, by that broker was an amazing piece of information for you, what Robert Allen shared. And when we start putting these pieces together, you start to see the puzzle take place, you know, the, the picture of the jigsaw, you know, come together. And it's incredible just to see those changes. And we look back, I mean, I did my first flip, saw, saw my friend Chris last night. He was the guy that I found a deal, I do a joint venture with somebody to get it closed. I then got it for half the assignment fee and, you know, brought it to Chris. I brought some capital to the deal as well. We flipped it together. That was my very first flip. And I was thinking, oh, I don't think I can do a flip, but doing that with somebody, and now I'm like 16, 17 flips in after another 2 years down the road, it's like, what was I thinking? Why, what was that limiting thing that thought that I couldn't do it? But it's that coming back to that community again. You had community in that, that team that gave you the tape, that instead of just giving you shadow in the team and maybe picking up some bad habits, he boiled it down to what he felt you needed for your character, kind of like Robert Allen did and what Jim Rohn does— did with his messaging, just to boil it down to the important pieces. And we take in what we take in, and, and you, you know, you're off to a sprint, 78 sales in your first year.

Yeah. And, you know, it's interesting what you said about you didn't think you'd ever be able to do those flips. I didn't think I'd ever buy a 200-unit apartment complex. And before I knew it, I was buying 300- and 400-unit apartment complex, right? Yeah.

You know. Yeah. So what was the shift in— because I'm probably there right now. I'd love to be in multifamily. I feel tied in some way to the single-family area. But, you know, what, what are those types of shifts that you've seen in yourself? And obviously, being somebody that coaches people at a very high level, what are the shifts you see in other people that just— maybe it's a light switch moment, maybe— what are those things that you see in yourself that you see in others now that make those big changes with a very subtle shift in perspective?

Yeah, I only work with a select few people. Yeah. On a one-on-one basis, you know, and like you said, high level, right? I want somebody who has a desire, deep desire, not just, yeah, I'd like to do this, right? But I want somebody who's got a deep burning desire to go and buy large multifamily apartment complex. They want to learn all of the things that have to happen can figure out what they're really good at and build a good team around them to do the rest and to go and successfully purchase and operate and profit from large multifamily deals. Yeah. And, you know, it's been the sexy thing the last few years, but, you know, cool. It's cooled off. And it's going to come back. And the people that are ahead of it right now are going to be very successful. Yeah. And we are redistribution of wealth in this country. You know, back in 2005, I saw the market shift and I knew I wasn't going to keep my residential production where it was at. I said, you know what, I've always wanted to be in the apartment business. Let me go in the apartment business. Thought it would be an easy transition. Thought I knew enough. I didn't know anything. So I had to relearn, reeducate everything. You know, I asked a lot of questions of attorneys and my broker and sellers, and I got the knowledge. I went to the internet and I got information and grew and, and just took the next step. I took the action. You know, like I said, I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on coaching and training over the years. Which would have been worthless if I didn't take any action.

Absolutely.

Yeah. You know, so it all comes down to the action that we take.

And when we look at some of these rooms, even, you know, the Elite Legacy that I did, you know, wholesaling, it tends to be like 2% of the room that are actually really successful with the business. There's probably 30% that take serious action, but, you know, maybe last 2 or 3 years and the rest You've probably got 40% that really don't take action and, and as in that bucket in the beginning. And then you've got the people that are taking some action but just never really switch their mind around to it. So one of the huge things in multifamily and in any part of real estate as an investor is raising capital. And that's one of your fortes. I'm going to circle it back to struggling to pay the telephone bill. How did that— what changes in your mind to go and raise $5, $10, $20 million needed to happen? Where did your perspective shift? Were there any things that held you back? Was it maybe thinking of, well, I'm asking these people for money rather than offering an investment opportunity? Because I think that's something that I've come across in the past for myself, and others think they, with the relationship to money, it's not necessarily seen as the investment opportunity you're offering, but it's like, mum, can I have some money? And they don't have money. Do you see what I mean? There's that attitude towards money that needs to shift in the mind to, hey, got a great opportunity, we're going to make a lot of money. Would you like to work with us on that? Tell me about that journey in your mind and in your soul to let go of the past, or if you needed to at that point in your career. Because, you know, I think, you know, we've probably got about 10 minutes. I'd love to hear your 10-year story as well as, you know, some relationship to how that changed before and after your stay at the unexpected institution.

So I went into business in 2005 in the apartment business and I went out, I bought a 11, I put an 11-unit apartment deal under contract. Contract. And I said, all of a sudden it occurred to me, I was like, holy crap, how am I going to pay for this? Right? And so I put it, I put a small classified ad in the newspaper and all that ad said was real estate investors wanted. And I wound up and I wasn't, you know, talking about a deal or anything. I just said real estate investors wanted— people called me. I told them what, what we were doing. And I wound up raising from a $45 ad about $700,000 over the next 8 or 9 months from, from people that called on that ad. But here it's a mind shift. You're not— I'm not asking you to borrow me any money. Yeah, right. I'm not coming to you saying, hey, do you have $25,000 I can borrow because I'm going to go buy this apartment? Mm-hmm. I'm coming to you saying, would you like to double your money? Would you like to grow your net worth? Would you like to offset inflation? Would you like to be able to lessen your personal income tax responsibility this year? Would you like to build a financial future for yourself that most people don't have the opportunity to do that. Oh, it's about me giving to you an opportunity that you can— you can grow your wealth. Yeah. I'm not— I'm not borrowing anything from you. And you know what? Some people will. Henry Ford said, some will, some won't. So what? Someone's waiting. Yeah, no, it's, it's enough conversations, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I remember in California I turned up at the hot tub and you already most of the way through your, your conversation with that software developer guy. I can't remember his name now, and his wife. And, uh, yeah, I'm— I, I was really interested to me just to hear your perspective on those things. And, and it is, it is a shift for so many people. And I'm gonna go through that shift as well in, in my own perspective. And, and I love hearing, you know, the some will, some won't, so what, someone's waiting, you know, I think that's great. But again, everything comes down to numbers and KPIs. You know, it might be 100 calls to get one, it might be 100 calls to get two, who knows? But the calls have to be made, the relationships have to be built, and the confidence needs to be in yourself. In the product you're offering to be able to bring that confidence in.

Listen, it's like this. When I was selling residential real estate, you don't just go out and sell 78 houses or 100 a year, right? It takes— there's a work ethic behind it and there's a lot of work that goes into it. I used to make 20,000 cold calls a year. I talked to, you know, I dialed the phone 20,000 times a year and people go, you're crazy. Well, am I crazy? Every time I pick the phone up, I make $20. Yeah. Every time I pick the phone up to dial it, I make $20. Is that crazy? I said, how many times do you want to do that? Because I knew what the end result was. 20,000 dials got me 125 listings sold. By the end of the year. Yeah. And it was like it was clockwork because I knew my numbers, right? It's the same thing with raising capital. Yeah, it's the same thing with putting offers in on deals. You know, it's the same. It's the philosophy is the same. You're running a business and running a business. You have to know your numbers and run your business profitably. Yeah.

So tell me about the, the void in business that you had up until about 3 years ago, Mike. Tell me about the, the story you told powerfully, you know, only here 2 or 3 weeks ago in Phoenix.

So, so I grew a business, 4,000 apartments in 5 US markets, built a property management company. Between 2005 and 2010. I had a company valued at $100 million and 2008 rolled around. And because we grew so fast as a company, I made, I made some mistakes along the way that I definitely learned from. But one was I grew too fast. I was very unstable. One was I was overleveraged. I owned $60 million worth of real estate at 85% loan-to-value. I tell people today, don't— you know, you want to be at least 65% LTV. I was at 85% loan-to-value. That was brain damage. I was undercapitalized. I didn't have enough money to run that business. I didn't pay attention to the key performance indicators, those KPIs, metrics. I didn't pay attention to the numbers. And I didn't listen to people around me. I had people that were, were key people in my life that I didn't listen to them when they said, I don't like this, this shouldn't be going on. I don't trust this person, you know, these types of things. And I lost everything. I tried to save my company. As the cash flow started to, you know, run out, I tried to save my company by moving money back and forth between companies. And, you know, my accountant and my attorney both said, hey, it's okay to do that. You know, just leave a paper trail. When the money— when the markets bounce back, put the money back. And hey, I thought it was a recession, right? I thought You know, I've been through a couple of recessions. Typical recession lasted 17 or 18 months. There was a 10 or 12% correction in the market. Not this time. This lasted 7 or 8 years with a 47% correction in the market. It's a hard storm to weather. So I moved money and I didn't tell my investors. And for non-disclosure, I wound up being charged on wire fraud and mail fraud charges. I got sentenced to 10 years in federal prison. So, so in 2013, I lost absolutely everything— family, money, apartments, business. And I got, I got ripped from that lifestyle to live. And I always tell people, Trystan, I say I never flew private. I didn't have a big house. I didn't have a fancy car. I didn't have a boat. I was the neighborhood baseball coach. I was home every night for dinner and got ripped from that lifestyle to live in a 12-by-12 room with 3 men I didn't know, nor did I like. Yeah. Wondering what the hell happened in my life. Yeah. And, you know, for the next 8 years, I lived behind a wall in prison. And most people at this point would say, oh my God, my life's over. I think for a period of time, I wanted to kill myself, but just didn't have the courage to do so. And, you know, I think we all have defining moments in our life. And one of mine was a guy walked up to me in prison one day, and he said, hey, don't let these people beat you. Get over it. He goes, they can take all that stuff from you. They can destroy your family. But what they can't take is who you are and what you're made of. They can't take what's inside of you, your desire, your knowledge, because you can go back and build that company again. Yeah. He said, start working out every day. You'll start losing weight. I was gone from running marathons to being 35 pounds overweight. I absolutely hated myself.

Yeah.

And he said, you can get it all back. I don't know what it was, but that switch flipped. Yeah. And I went back and I started, started working out. I started to lose weight. I started to feel better. I wound up going to college. So back to your college question. Yeah. And I wound up going to college from prison. I got a bachelor's degree in theology. I wrote two books. One of them is Exit Plan: Your Complete Guide to Multifamily Investing and Why You Need an Exit Plan Before You Buy. My second book will be coming out this fall, Winning Strategies in Property Management. I, I wrote an ethics course. I taught real estate investing, property management, and ethics in prison for 6 years. I was on an outreach program. I went into the community and told my story to small business owners and local college students. Along the way, I met a professor from the University of Minnesota and he and I co-authored a paper together that we had published in the Business Journal of Ethics and gets taught today at the collegiate level for forensic accounting and sales and marketing classes. I came home the week they closed the world down for the pandemic. Well, I jumped from my prison into yours. Yeah. And, you know, and I tell my story, Trystan, because I think people are stuck. Yeah, you know, I might have been behind a wall, but so many people are trapped in a prison in their own mind. Whether it be addiction, alcohol, drugs, gambling, whether it be abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse, whatever it is, people are stuck in their own mind and they need to get out of that. Yeah. And I want people to understand that there's more beyond life. You can't let your past define your future. Yeah. I came home, I went in the coaching and training business thinking that I was going to do these large events. And you know what? My focus has changed. I'm back buying apartment complexes, partnering with individual investors, sharing in those profits. But along the way, my securities attorney got me approved by the SEC to go back and be an issuer of securities. Do it again, to raise capital again. And, um, you know what, I'm passionate about what I do. I'm more cautious about what I do today. Yeah, I help people look at the long-term vision deeper, and, um, I, I watch things along the way today more than we did before.

Yeah, and it's almost the last 2 or 3 years we've been in that situation where you couldn't really lose, and people probably weren't watching things. And there's a lot of people that have suddenly dropped out of the business at every level in the last 6 to 9 months, you know. Yeah, so I think that's a great, great thing to share. Is there anything else you want to share with the, the audience before, before we wrap?

No, um, I just, you know, if, if people would like a copy of my book, reach out to me. I'll send you a copy of my book. If people have questions or want to chat, I'm more than happy to talk with them. They can reach out to me on, you know, I'm everywhere on social media, right? Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, you name it. LinkedIn. I'm there. Fantastic. I love to network. And if I can help anybody, you know, if you're, you're stuck or you're trying to learn something or trying to grow, And I can help, I certainly would try and do that.

Thank you so much, Mike. Um, I'm so grateful for meeting you for so many reasons. I mean, the, the connection that our group has is, you know, second to none. You know, we've got all those people that we just get to spend time with every week or every couple of weeks on the calls and get together with. Um, I've just learned so much from you. Perspectives like we talked about with money here and just attitudes towards life and how we look at things. So I'm so grateful for you and so grateful to spend time with you down here. I want to play golf badly with you next time you're in town. I'm not badly to play golf with you, but I will play badly and I look forward to doing that and just having a great time. Hopefully Joe could be down with Jonathan as well.

You can't play as bad as me, so. Oh.

Yeah, I, I'll take that challenge on. I appreciate you, Mike. Thank you so much for your time. Contact Mike, his information's coming up on the screen. You'll be able to see where to get his book, how to reach out to him, LinkedIn, all of the socials. Um, thank you again, Mike. It's been such a pleasure.

It's been an honor, Trystan. Thank you. I appreciate you. Thank you.

Follow these links to check out more about Mike. You can find him on the socials and also on his website. Amazon has Exit Plan, his book on complete multifamily investing and why you need an exit plan before you buy. See you on the next edition of Birth to Net Worth.