Ed Mylett Foresees Huge Opportunity for “Small Investors”

David:
This is the BiggerPockets Podcast show 620.

Ed:
I actually, I’m not telling you that I love when the market turns, but I love when the market turns. Because when the market turns like this, believe it or not, it allows the little guy to play at a very similar level as the big guy because of their creativity and their flexibility for the little guy. And so, this is really a great time probably coming for those of you that are newer into the game, smaller into the game, because a lot of these people you compete against for deals are going to go away and they’re not going to be as creative as you can be. So, I like this time for a lot of you.

David:
What’s going on, everyone? My name is David Greene. I’m the host of the BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast, the show where we teach you how to build financial wealth through real estate ownership, investing, and knowledge. We do this by bringing you all cool people that have done the same thing that are ahead of the journey from where you may be and that are experts in a specific market niche. And today we have a very special show with an incredible guest, but even more so an incredible human.
Today, Rob and I are going to be interviewing Ed Mylett, who is a very successful business person, author, speaker, coach of professional athletes, real estate investor. And if you listen all the way to the end of the show, you will hear about his newest project, which is frankly, mind-blowing. Joining me in my interview today is my co-host Rob Abasolo. Rob, what’s going on, my man?

Rob:
What’s up, man? I feel like we were just graced by business royalty with Ed. It’s one of those moments where I think happened a few times on this podcast, where you just forget that you’re interviewing someone and you’re like, “Uh-huh, yeah, keep talking,” and then it’s your turn. And you’re like, “Oh shoot, let me ask you, let me ask you a profound question really fast.” That was me this entire podcast.

David:
Yeah. Ed has a huge heart and a sharp mind. And when you put them together, it just has this intoxicating spell that makes you think you can run through a wall. I’m actually sitting here looking for the first wall I can find to go run through it. Because Ed has that effect on somebody. What were some of your favorite things that we got into in today’s show?

Rob:
He talks about the one more philosophy, and it’s very simple, just the concept of always doing one more, putting yourself out there one more time, making one more phone call, making one more offer on a house, and how that could just spark change, not only in your life, but how it could affect millions of people. He gave us an example in his own life, and how that one more moment change the lives of millions of people because it helped him become who he was. He also talked about setting goals, setting standards for yourself that are non-negotiable when living your life, things that you commit to, small things even sometimes that just set the tone for your day for your routine, for your life.
It was just-all around, very, very, very inspirational. I think he gave a lot of good feedback too, just with the outlook of the economy, and, Hey, are there still good deals to be had out there? And he also really talked about how the playing field is starting to level a little bit. And now we’re going to see the resurgence of the small fish investor competing against some of these bigger conglomerates. So, that was cool.

David:
Yeah. He gave some really good specific tips on what to look for in a seller, how to find people that own properties that are a little spooked that are going to be looking to get rid of them, and then ways to approach it. And this was an actual high-level conversation specifically regarding real estate investing, not just Ed who’s known as inspirational speaker. I don’t know if that’s fair because that’s one thing he does well. He’s a very, very intelligent businessman and a person who studies human nature and has that lockdown pretty good.

Rob:
Oh, yeah. I think we went into this, expecting to talk about the book, but you’re right, talked about human nature, psychology, economics, the real estate market. Man, this guy knows his stuff.

David:
All right, moving on to today’s quick tip. Today’s quick tip is when you’re going after a deal, you’re working with a seller. You think you got something that might work out. I’m going to advise you to play the long game. Understand that writing an offer is not your only shot. It is a shot. Writing an offer is like a jab in a boxing match. It helps you feel out where the other person’s at. The way they respond to that offer lets you know if they’re nervous, if they’re scared, if they’re motivated, if they’re working with other people. It’s a way to get information. And this is something I learned being a real estate agent, representing clients as well as buying things for myself.
I was telling my new assistant who I hired to help manage my portfolio, Hei Hui, shout out to you, that when we write offers on properties, it’s not just, did they accept it? No. Okay. Move on. It’s how did they respond? And what does that tell us about their situation? I want to get as much information as I possibly can from that person.
Recently, I just put a property under contract in Georgia, where we were originally told there’s other buyers, your offer isn’t high enough. You need to come up more. Well, I threw that jab. I saw how they responded. I determined that those other buyers weren’t serious and got it under contract at the price that I wanted. All right. Any last words before we get into today’s amazing show with Ed?

Rob:
No, man. I was going to ask him if I could open up an Airbnb on his newest big project, but I didn’t have the gut. So, maybe I’ll reach out after the show.

David:
Hey, that’s a good piece of advice. Listen all the way to the end of the show because you probably never heard about the type of deal Ed is putting together.

Ed:
Yeah. It’s pretty nut.

David:
It is wildly inspirational and creative. You’re not going to want to miss that. All right. Let’s bring in the man. Mr. Ed. Mylett, welcome back to the BiggerPockets podcast. So glad to have you here.

Ed:
Well, I appreciate it. I’ve been wanting to come back on so I’m glad you’re having me.

David:
Yeah. So, if people want to check out our first interview with Ed, it was episode 433. There are some hilarious moments in there. You got to check it out. I’m not even going to say right now what it was, but it’s definitely worth listening to. And Ed very graciously build me out of a verbal snafu I fell into. And then, also, thank you very much for your comments on episode 600. That was very nice of you to do.

Ed:
Well. Thank you very much for having 600 successful episodes. I just told you before we went on, I’m very proud of you guys, love seeing the show grow and dominate. And it’s because it’s such a great show. So, that’s why I came back.

David:
Well, thank you for that. If somebody’s been living under a rock and they don’t know who Ed Mylett is, just be prepared. You are about to be a fan. I think if you’re someone who’s capable of not liking Ed Mylett, I would find that fascinating. And I would love to talk to you to figure out how you got to be that way.
We just found out we have a mutual friend, and, Michael Chandler, congrats on his recent UFC victory. Pretty awesome move. And you said something that I thought was so cool is that you were telling me you cut weight and you said you did it to be in solidarity with Mike while he was cutting weight for his fight.

Ed:
With a few guys, yeah, guys were cutting weight and it wasn’t just Michael, but yeah, there were guys cutting weight. I just decided that I wanted the mental challenge of seeing if I could transform my body in a really short window of time. Because I think that’s an area you can control, which can help you exchange the external. Right? So, I was 221. I wasn’t fat. I’m a pretty big dude. So, 221 wasn’t fat. I’m like, “You know what? I’m going to get to 180”, which is a lot. It’s 40 pounds, right? And those guys do it too. You’d be surprised what they walk around at.
And so, I did. I did more intermittent fasting, calorie restriction. And then, like the last week, I hit my number before Mike was weighing in. And he messaged me. He goes, “Hey man, I’m so proud of you’re hitting your weight. And I’m about to hit mine.” He had five days left, and I said, “You can get it done, brother.” If an old man like me could do it, a finely tuned athlete like you can. And he did. And then, he just showed up huge and had one of the greatest knockouts in the history of the UFC. So, I was proud of him.

David:
Man, that’s absolutely true. And he’s so hard. He’s another guy that’s just hard not to root for because they don’t make excuses. They work hard. They compete like hell, but there’s not a huge ego that goes along with it. It’s very hard to find a person to look up to that is very successful and stays humble enough that they are relatable. It’s very easy to forget once you get far in the journey you’re taking, what it’s like for people that start with. I listen to a lot of your stuff just because it’s a great example for me to remember as I’m striving to be successful. Like the weight of balancing that with humility is extra difficult.
So, I appreciate a lot of the content you put out, the books that you’re writing, stuff like that. And that brings us to the fact that you’ve got another book coming out. I checked out Max Out. I know that was like that’s your thing is you’re all about teaching people how to max out their life. Can you tell us a little about this new book you got coming out?

Ed:
Yeah. The book is called The Power of One More. They always tell me, hold it up. So, there it is. This is my, like, this is my book. So, this one I wrote, it’s called The Ultimate Guide to Happiness and Success. I’m 51. I put in a book everything I know about becoming happy and successful. And it’s heavy. If I have any criticism of the book, it’s like, if you don’t want a tactical book, if you don’t want real strategies, then this book is too heavy for you. Because I go for everything from time management to the reticular activating system in your brain, to standards, to equanimity, to how to form habits, leadership, how to do one more, your identity.
I got a chapter on the matrix. And the reason I wrote it is other than my scripture, my favorite book is this one, Think and Grow Rich, which is about everybody’s. It’s my fav. But the truth is you don’t think and get rich. You don’t just think. There’s things you have to do. And I wanted to write the definitive book on what do you think and what do you do in congruency together? What’s the thought? What’s the action when you do them together, they produce a result and I wrote it?
Last thing I’ll tell you. I wrote it because my dad died. I was with my dad when he died, and my dad was the guy who taught me about the one mores in life. My dad was an alcoholic. First 15 years of my life, I watched him get sober. And the reason I believe so much in human’s potential to change is I watched my hero do it. And I decided when I was holding his hand when he passed away that I would honor him and write a book about everything I know about life. Because the other thing that occurred to me is I’m next.
I don’t know when that will be. It could be in a week or it could be in 50 years, but I am the next Mylett to go probably. And so, I wanted to write something my great grandkids could have on what I’ve learned to produce results. Because that thing on humility, and I’ll come up for air that you said, like Michael, like you, being insecure and being down on myself is easy on me because I was the child of an alcoholic. So, the confidence part is the hard part for me, not the humility part.
My default position is pretty humble. The confidence part, even after 100s of millions of dollars, even after whatever level of success people think, that’s still the part in me that I have to work on all the time like most people is my self-confidence, my ability to believe in myself.
And I needed the tools, bro, to become a baseline functioning person. I got into doing all this just so I could be normal in my own mind, and I’m still not normal. And then, I learned all these strategies and I became better than that. So, that’s why I did it. And that’s why I wrote the book.

David:
So, you’re someone, Ed, that works with top producing high-performing people. If someone doesn’t know your backstory, you worked with a lot of professional athletes, but not just that like Apex professional athletes. We’re talking that could be the Kobe Bryants of the world. And so, you’ve been studying what high performers do, how they approach life. And a lot of it is mental, how they think about it.
I want to ask you a question about those that resist this information. When they hear, you can think this way. You watch your dad change. You’ve changed. You’ve seen high performers do it. There’s still the majority of people that hear this information that for whatever reason, it doesn’t seep in, they don’t run with it. What’s your opinion or your theory on why some people have a harder time believing the message that you’re putting out there?

Ed:
They don’t believe in themselves truly. They have an identity issue. We talked about this last time, but I just want to be really clear. The second chapter of the book, I call it The Matrix because this is the core thing in life. There’s a part of your brain as you know called the reticular activating system. And it is going to reveal to you about your life what you truly believe. It is. And what’s most important to you. It’s the filter. It filters your life. So, for example, what’s ever important to you, you feel deeply, it will reveal. You’ll hear.
That’s why like when you walk in a room, noisy room, not even very loud, David, you can hear your own voice auditorily over the rest of the room, right? Because it’s become important to you. So, it’s revealed to you. They say, David, I don’t hear anything. They say, Ed, I hear it. So, it’s the same principle. I just bought a Tesla. I like what Musk is up to. I told my staff, I said, “Get me a Plaid. Get me a Tesla Plaid.” Next day, it’s in my driveway. I’m driving this sucker. I didn’t even really want a Tesla, to be honest with you.
Now I drive everywhere. There’s freaking Teslas every single where. Red one, babe, there’s a white one, three lanes over going the other direction on the highway. I’m like, “Babe, black Tesla,” right? This Tesla was always there. They were always there. Why do I see them now? Because they’ve become important to my RAS. What if you could learn to make your goals, the meetings you need? Because here’s the truth. There’s a lie that you’re way further away from your dream or your vision than you believe you are.
Because you believe it so far away, you perpetually keep it there based on your patterns and your behaviors. That’s your problem. It’s not that you don’t have visions. It’s that you have a depth perception problem. And so, what if that’s a lie? And what if the premise of my book is true, which is this? Your one decision, one new deal, one relationship, one encounter, one meeting, one podcast, one book, one thought, one new emotion away from completely changing your freaking life, which you are.
And if you begin to believe that and you do the repeated visualizations I teach, guess what starts to happen? Those relationships, those meetings, those thoughts become your Teslas. And you see them here and feel them. The whole world was always there. It’s your perception of it, your matrix of it that is causing you to be in that state because your identity is low. Because your identity is low, every time you try to heat your life up, you turn on the thermostat of your life and cool it back down to your identity thermostat setting that you believe you’re worth.
That’s how identity works. So, what you need to work on if you have those thoughts is your identity. And I teach you in the book hardcore real strategies on how to change your identity.

David:
Yeah, that’s the work no one really wants to do. I think about this a lot of the time is if you see yourself as a victim, you will find things. We call that confirmation bias in psychology. I was a psychology major.

Ed:
You got it. It’s the exact term I use in the book.

David:
Yep. You’ll find things that support what you already think. And this is part of the reason why we see such a polarized political opinion right now is each of the news segments that share their side hammer just their side. Then you get this echo chamber in social media where you continue to see the stuff that already supports what you believe. And you end up spiraling deeper and deeper into this identity that you don’t realize you’re forming.
And I think if I hear you right, if you hear something about yourself that does not fit the current understanding of your own identity, you won’t receive it. You’ll brush it off. Say, “That’s not for me.”

Ed:
And even if it’s not your own understanding, it could be where you’re talking about the market in a minute, if the culture begins to believe the market’s in a tank, it’s a seller’s market. There’s nowhere for a buyer to be. And they begin to believe this mentality about the market. You are going to find the deals to prove yourself right about that. But if I believe firmly, there are deals to be had. There are situations where I can make more money in this market than I’ve ever made before. I will find those deals and you will not.
And the truth is I’ve watched people make money in good times and what people think are bad times. I’ve watched people lose money and what people think are good in bad times. And so, this identity thing governs your whole perception of your life. And you’re so deeply in your matrix. It’s oblivious to you. You’re just oblivious to it. And so, in life, just remember this, you’re not going to get your goals most of the time. You’re going to get your standards. Long-term, we always get our standards. So, what’s your standard?
The principle of the book’s really simple. If you lack self-confidence, we’ve already covered this. Here’s why, you have a terrible reputation with yourself. You have a reputation yourself that you don’t keep the promises you make. So, if you want to become baseline functioning, great, keep the promises you make to yourself. You want to become superhuman though. That’s not the standard. The standard is I do what I say I’m going to do and I do one more. That’s a different standard.
I’m going to make 10 contacts today for deals. Nope, I do that. And one more. I’m going to do 10 reps on the bench. Nope, I do that. And one more. I’m going to tell my daughter I love her today. No, I’m going to do that, plus one more. You start stacking up the one mores of your life, not only mathematically, are you better, experience are you better. But you shift your matrix.
You shift your identity into believing you deserve to get stuff you didn’t get before or that other people get because you’re doing stuff other people aren’t willing to do.

Rob:
So, yeah, I want to jump in on this because I’m big believer in what you’re talking about here, because this is something for me over the last year or two, I’ve had a lot of changes where, meaning, if I could go talk to myself a year ago, I don’t think I could ever believe that. My current reality is my reality. And so, by doing that, I’ve unlocked like what I know I can be. For me, now setting monetary goals or financial goals or real estate goals aren’t really that crazy because I’ve done way more than I ever thought I could in the last year. So, I see a lot of people struggling with this.
A lot of my friends are still working their nine to five jobs, and for me it’s so obvious of how they can achieve financial freedom. It’s so obvious how they could become a millionaire if they wanted to do that, if that’s their goal. It’s so obvious how they could quit their nine to five by starting a business. But they can’t see that.
So, when we talk about this version of us that we have a bad reputation with ourselves, it sounds like when you’re saying one more, should we really be setting small goals for ourselves in hitting those and incrementally getting there, versus just pie in the sky?

Ed:
Yes, you’re brilliant. Yep. I talk about it in the book in The Power of One More. Here’s the thing. I’m 51 years old. I’ve been blessed that I’m worth a pretty good chunk of change. I still set my clothes out the night before for the next day. Why do I do something like that? I could have someone do it for me. I also have the time in the morning. Because it’s a commitment I can keep. It seems super small. I make my bed every day. I get up at the time of day I say I’m going to get up. I drink a gallon of water a day. I’m holding it right here in my hand. Why? I can control how much water I put down my pie hole. Right?
I can’t control whether you say yes to my deal. I can’t control interest rates. I can’t control the market. So, I want to control the things that I can. And I start with very small manageable things. Like when I’m going to train, like when I’m going to work out, like how many contacts I’m going to make? Like how many friends I’m going to reach out to in a given day? People say that’s BS. Really? Well, I’m where I am. And you’re where you are. And I want you where I am. And I’m telling you exactly how I did it.
I’m one of the very, if I can just say, I’m one of the very rare people in entrepreneurship in real estate or personal development, who’s actually done it. None of my stuff’s theory. I don’t make money selling you on how to do things I think might work. I’ve made my money doing these things. And so, I know that’s what works. What do you work on with the top athletes or entertainers, Ed, or politicians when you work with them? Their self-confidence, their habits. I have a whole chapter on how to actually build a habit.
How do you do that? These are the things I worked on with the top people. They’re the things I worked on when I was the child of an alcoholic boy who had to go to school every day and figure out how not to run out of school. It’s the same single things every single day. It’s the small things. Once you build this reputation with yourself at the small things, you can then point your mind like a weapon at the big things and actually have belief you can do them because you have this reputation and pattern with yourself of doing the little things.
Your mind, by the way, cannot distinguish between the big ones and the little ones. It doesn’t. It doesn’t know the difference. Only you know the difference. And so, if you’ve got this pattern, it’s a weapon when you pointed at the big ones.

Rob:
So, would you say it’s almost about setting small commitments versus setting goals, or do you think they go hand in hand?

Ed:
I write the goal chapter and the standards chapter together. Here’s what has to happen. Your goals have to be in alignment with your standards. And so, for example, it’s not really a goal of mine to set out my clothes every day. It’s a standard. It’s not a goal of mine to work out every single day. It’s a standard. It’s become who I am. Okay. And that’s different. A goal is something that’s external to me. And I want you to have goals. I have a whole chapter on how to set up goals correctly.
But the truth is you’re going to get the standard. The standard is, you know what, I train every day, the standard is I drink a gallon of water. The standard is I live by a certain set of principles and values. Those are my standards. You’re always going to get those long-term. Always, always, always. And let me say one thing to you. My dad’s decision to get sober. This is not in the book, but I just want to give it to you guys on your show because I’ve said this only one other time. I want everyone to hear me.
They go, “Yeah, that’s great for Arod or that’s great for Michael Chandler. That’s great for David and Rob, but like, look man, I got a job. I’m trying to do my first deal and I don’t have any confidence. I’m not even sure I know completely what I’m doing. Right? So, this doesn’t apply to me. Actually, it does. Let me tell you guys something. The things you’re most embarrassed by, the most ashamed of that you think are the most insignificant things about you are actually the reason you’re going to change the world or change your world.
My dad’s decision to get sober changed our entire family tree forever. I have a chapter called One More Try. My dad tried to get sober about 100 times. He gave it one more try. And then, when he got sober, I said, “Dad, you’re going to stay sober the rest of your life” He goes, “I don’t know, but I know I’m going to stay sober for one more day.” And when I thought about quitting many times and went, “You know what, I’m just not going to quit for one more day.” Stay with me on this.
Two weeks ago, I wake up crying, which is not a manly thing to admit on the BiggerPockets Podcast. Right? And I woke up my wife, 3:15. I said, “Babe, wake up.” She says, “What is wrong?” I said, “Honey, someone helped my dad.” She said, “What?” I said, “I never thought about it. Someone helped my dad get sober.” And she went, “Oh, my God.” And I said, “Isn’t that amazing? This person doesn’t even know it. But they changed the world.” I reached millions of people in my dad’s darkest moment in some coffee shop or place somewhere.
They helped my father in the worst moment of his life. And I said, “Babe, here’s the nuts part of it. You know what qualified them to help him? They were all screwed up. They were a drug addict and an alcoholic.” The things they were most ashamed of, most embarrassed by, the worst moments of their life were the very things that qualified that human being to help my father as a human being in the darkest moments of his life. And it made me so emotional.
There’s someone running around this world if they’re still alive, that has changed my great, great grandkid’s lives and millions of people I reach every week because they were a drug addict or an alcoholic and they were all screwed up. And so, this very thing that you think disqualifies you, you, your experience, your little whatever that you’re embarrassed by is the very thing that qualifies you to do something great with your life.

David:
It’s amazing thought and it also ties to not every reward we get in life is going to be financial. That’s just another thing to think about. So, that person that helped your father, odds are they didn’t receive a whole bunch of money from that, but who knows what rewards they have coming in the next life and how impactful that was in other people’s life. You mentioned the market and how, if you’re looking at it saying there are no deals, then that’s what you’re going to find. Versus if you approach it that there are deals your brain goes to, “Well, where would they be? And how would I find them?”
Would you mind sharing a little bit about in 2022, what type of deals you’ve been doing, what opportunity you are seeing based on the shifting demographics that we’re seeing of higher inflation, rising interest rates, and frankly more competition for income producing assets than what we’ve seen in the past?

Ed:
Yeah. So, there’s a collective psychology that drives all these markets, right? And that’s why collectively, so many people lose money in them. And so, first thing I have to ask myself is what do I need to believe about this market that will serve me that’s also true? So, that’s a powerful question. The questions we ask ourselves matter. So, what would I need to believe about this market that’s true, that would serve me? And so, what I’ve been doing, if you want to be specific, I’ve been doing more triple net stuff myself.
So, like I just bought a couple of Walgreens in Macon, Georgia. I bought two big Walgreens because I’ve got a really solid tenant. And so, for me, the concept of whether or not prices may go up or down are mitigated right now by the quality of the tenant. And so I’m looking for deals now. I’m looking for things that I don’t always just focus on. Typically, I’m just analyzing a deal based on the merits of the deal. Now I’m looking at things for me on the merits of the security of the deal, meaning the cash flow of the deal, not necessarily the price of the deal.
I may make a mistake right now. In fact, I probably will. I’m probably going to make a few mistakes on my entry point into the market one way or the other. That’s possible for me. What I won’t let myself do is make a mistake on the volatility of the deal. Meaning, for me, it’s the tenant. For me, it’s the quality of the tenant or the potential quality of the tenant and the deals I’m doing now are driving a lot of the decisions that I’m making, because I can ride out price fluctuations if I’ve got good tenants in the market. I’m not going to sit around waiting.
The other thing I know is I know that collective psychology of the market will let some people flinch, some people panic. And that I will find sellers, if I’m a buyer, I will find sellers who have responded to this collective psychology and overcorrected. And I’ve made most of my great deals in markets like what most people think are coming right now for me. I’ve made most of my great deals because it distinguishes me in those markets and those properties usually return faster than the other ones as well.
So, I’m still doing multi-unit, but I’m really looking at my occupancy rates and my ability to fill occupancy rates. And I’m looking at the quality of the tenants. And for me, everyone can do different deals, but I like triple net deals that I can find with really quality tenants in there that are long term so I can almost set it and forget it type thing, even though I know, and the quality of… I’m relatively sure that Walgreens is a safe tenant for me.
And I’m not saying all of us can do deals that are that big either, but I would just evaluate the quality of your income stream maybe even to an extent greater than just the price entry point on the deal.

David:
So, let me see if I understand you correctly. It sounds like what I’m taking from this is in a market where we’re seeing a lot of opportunity, people tend to focus on offensive metrics, like a value add opportunity, right? They’re like, “How big is this chunk of pie that I can get?” And when the market’s getting really hot and you’re seeing there’s competition, you’ve actually shifted to I’m valuing defensive metrics more like stability, reliability. You may not have the high ceiling, but you’ve got a more solid floor. Is that a fair assessment?

Ed:
Yeah. Here’s why it’s fair. This is my 18th rodeo on this. I don’t know what the ceiling is. And I know people really lose when they get greedy in markets like this, still trying to get big pieces of the pie. Here’s what I want. I want enough food on the table so to speak, that when the eating gets good later, I got plenty of food to eat. And so, I am still collecting quality properties that I believe will have value add that can sustain the potential downturn in the market if that happens.
And I also really believe this. There’s still going to be buying opportunities at great prices because people get flinchy, people get crazy. The other good thing that’s coming is people are fixing to get a lot more creative. So, you’re going to have a whole lot more creative buys that you can do. And a lot of the tools that a lot of you are learning at your disposal will come into display and play during this time that when the market’s hot and rolling, no one wants to get really that creative it seems to me or fewer do rather not no one, but fewer people want to get creative because they don’t have to.
They can get clean deals done in their own mind. So, as a young person in markets like this, when I didn’t have a lot of capital, I was able to really navigate some very creative deals, seller carrybacks, right, lease options, stuff I’ve even done. I’ve done trades. I’ve done stuff where investors have been willing to get involved because stuff like this during this market is where the most creative people make their hay.
And so, I actually, I’m not telling you that I love when the market turns, but I love when the market turns. Because when the market turns like this, believe it or not, it allows the little guy to play at a very similar level as the big guy because of their creativity and their flexibility for the little guy.
And so, this is really a great time probably coming for those of you that are newer into the game, smaller into the game, because a lot of these people you compete against for deals are going to go away and they’re not going to be as creative as you can be. So, I like this time for a lot of you.

David:
I love your comment about the collective psychology. So, this is something that when you’ve been investing for a little while, these patterns start to emerge, that I think the newer person doesn’t see right away. I can give you some examples of how this has showed up in my investing. I bought a place in Hawaii a year and a half ago in the middle of shelter in place when travel restrictions were really hard and no one could travel to Hawaii. So, you got all these people with short-term rentals that have had vacancies for 250, 300 days.
And then, they try to put their house on the market and nobody wants to buy it. So, they’re bleeding money that they didn’t have enough reserves. Now, no one’s buying their house. I’m seeing houses sit on the market, 250 days. I went and wrote 12 offers, got it down to six properties, ended up getting two of them to close because I had, like what you were saying, I could sustain that period of time. Well, as it works out, I didn’t know this, but shortly after I bought them maybe three months later, restrictions get lifted. Bam. These things have gone up about $400,000 each in just a year and a half.
And what it was, it was that flinch that you described. It’s these temporary little pauses in the collective psychology where the sellers thinking, I don’t want to own this asset anymore. I’m afraid, I can’t survive this. And we see this when interest rates go up. We see this when there’s rumors of war, like there’s little things that have these big ripples that shoot through the market that don’t collapse it. But they cause the collective psychology of everyone to step back. And the good investors like, “Ooh, that’s an opening. This is where I’m diving in.” And you’re highlighting that’s when the little guy gets a shot.
So, it made me think about, I’ve been learning jujitsu, which is incredibly hard. And I’ll ask like my black belt friend, “Hey man, I get locked in this position right here where I’m in half guard and I can’t get out of… or I’m in his half guard. I can’t get out. And I’m pulling hard and he’s got me locked in. He’s like, “Yeah, dude, don’t pull, push on his upper body, force him to adjust and move. And in the space that’s created when he moves, that’s where you can move out.”
And I see that happen with the market. It’s when you have that little shift, that little movement that there’s an opening that people jump in. Is that someone in your position? Ed, are you just like at this point, your reticular activating system is set to look for those openings?

Ed:
Yeah. I’m just going to be honest with you. I’m going to use my word. By the way, I love to jujitsu analogy. It’s perfect. I’m going to use the right word. And I mean this in the right way. I’m predatory in these markets. And I don’t mean that like… by the way, I’m helping this person alleviate their psychological pain by getting them out of their property. So, I’m doing them a favor too, but this is where I go, “All right. This is where they flinch. This is where there’s frankly, there’s blood in the water. This is where they overreact. This is where they don’t understand that they could sustain this. This is in six years. They’re going to look back and go like everybody does.” I can’t believe I sold that property. I can’t believe I did that.
And by the way, I also have some properties I will sell right now. But they’re the properties that I put through that is they’re the potential in six years, I’m going to go, “I can’t believe I sold that property, “and I’ll sell those that I don’t feel that way about. But yeah, there’s going to be a big room. And I can’t express enough that I promise you that this is when the little guy flourishes. And I say the little guy, I just mean you’re more flexible. You’re more creative. You’ll hustle harder. You’ll make multiple offers.
You’ll do everything that you just said because the rest of them are now bleeding. And a lot of these guys that are much bigger, that own these properties and stuff, guys, their whole psychology starts crashing. It’s not just this, that happens. There’s other things in their lives. They’re leveraged out of the gourd in their life. And there’s a whole psychological situation that starts to happen in this market that when you’re newer and you don’t have 80 properties, you don’t have 200 properties, you can keep your wits about you and start finding those deals that suits you and you step out there.
I have a chapter in the book called Equanimity, one more level of equanimity. What does it mean? Equanimity is being calm under duress. This is what all the great ones have. Tom Brady walks up to a line and there’s 1.5 minutes left in a game. There’s 70,000 people. It’s to go to the super bowl. It’s the AFC Championship. Things slow down and he becomes more calm under duress. He exemplifies equanimity.
The market right now is going to be full of a bunch of people who exemplify no emotional control, no equanimity whatsoever. And as the smaller investor, if you come in with a little equanimity, a little calm, you can begin to see things that are deals there or structures, more and most importantly, structure of deals that other people won’t be able to see because you have that equanimity that I write about in the book.

Rob:
Yeah. I’m curious here, Ed, because obviously, you’re very established, especially in the real estate space and you just bought a couple of Walgreens, which is something I feel like we glossed over that’s quite the feat. But going back to your principle here of one more, can you give us a little bit of an example of what that looks like in your world as it pertains to the real estate space? How are you actually tactically applying that being so established?

Ed:
Well, I just did it today. So, I have three oceanfront homes here in Laguna Beach. I’m going to sell two or three of them. They’re very expensive properties. They’re probably collectively worth 100 million dollars. Right?

Rob:
Wow. Will you sell our finance one to me?

Ed:
What’s that?

Rob:
Will you sell our finance one to me, speaking of creative deals?

Ed:
Absolutely. We get the right deal. You bet your tail, I would, right? So, I had talked to two of the most prominent realtors in the area, about two of them. I just did this week. That would be my normal thing about selling these particular properties. And so, I talked to the two realtors, were like, “Yeah, we could probably list it. We could do this.” I said, “Nah, I’m not putting them on the market, but you can show them.” And I was done. One of them was really excited.
I decided right before this call. I’m talking about 15 minutes before this call. I said, “You know what? I’m going to call… I won’t say his name. I’m going to call so and so.” And I called him. Why’d I do it? It was one more, it was one more. And I called him. I said, “Hey, I don’t know if you know this or not, but I own blah, blah, blah on Pacific coast highway.” He goes, “Oh, my gosh, you stole that property. When you bought that property, Ed, I had people that I could have brought to that property to pay $2 million more for it like yesterday.”
I go, “Well, I got some news for you. I’m going to sell it. I’m getting out of this one.” And he goes, “I got the guy right now. He’s in a 1031. He just sold a 35 million, blah, blah, blah.” And he said, he goes, “Ed, I can write the deal today.” And I said, “Let’s write it.” And so, that was the power of making one more call, one more agent, one more deal. And here’s what’s nuts, at the same time, he goes, “Do you remember that triplex off of Gaviota that you looked at, which is a triplex that I looked at forever?” I said, “Yeah, dude, that guy was out of his mind.”
And he goes, “He’s sketchy right now. He’s real twitchy. He’s real sketchy.” And what’s really weird is he’s got all three tenants in there for five years. I said, “You’re kidding me. Why is he sketchy?” He goes, “He feels like the world’s coming to an end.” I said, “Show me it.” So, I’m actually going to go look at it on Monday. I’ll probably buy it. And so, that’s the power of one more. I made one more contact, looked at one more deal, reached out to one more person.
You just never know. And sometimes that one more is timing-related. You got to catch them on the right day. Right? But if you throw out enough one mores with a big enough net, three or four of those come back, you got me the right day, dude, you got me. You know what the right day could be? Crypto just dropped another 15% and they go, “All right, now I really got to go out to my property.” Or you know what? Tesla’s down 17%. Man, the world’s coming to end. I got to dump that triplex. Right? And you catch them on the right day all.
And by the way, you guys are so prominent real estate, both of your faces are like, that’s exactly how it works. Those of us that know know. And so, throw those one mores out there, because you may catch them on that day where litecoin drop 26%. And they’re like, “Oh my gosh, I got to dump something. I can’t sell light coin because litecoin, man, I got to hold onto that. Because that’s going to be the one that’s going to be worth a billion dollars.” And they to do a real estate deal with you.

Rob:
Well, the litecoin, it’s funny because in that specific scenario, the litecoin is specific, it’s significant to that specific person. It’s not necessarily significant to everybody, but it’s just the fact that it’s a right time right place. But you’re in the right place because you actually, because you did one more, just like you’re talking about.

Ed:
You did one more.

David:
Here’s the irony that I see and why this is challenging for people. Like you said, Ed, if you know you know, if you don’t, this doesn’t make sense. Let me try to explain why some people don’t know. When you don’t have confidence, your identity is not wrapped up in the right things like what you said earlier. You will subconsciously find your confidence in the collective psychology. So, you bought crypto, crypto’s going up. You feel great about yourself. Okay? The problem is when whatever you did and the collective psychology turns against you, the market tends to drop, you drop too.
You are not disconnected from the collective psychology of the market. You are caught in the wave going back and forth. But the only way you take advantage of this is when you are disconnected from it, detached from it, you see it moving where everyone else is getting scared. They’re thinking the market’s going to drop. This happened for me really big when COVID-19 first came and the shelter in place rules came out. A lot of the people, even in my circle where chicken little, the sky’s falling, doom and gloom, sell everything, get into cash.
And I was like, “No, I saw this happen too many times. I know what our politicians will do. They’re going to print their way right out of this thing. They’re just going to freaking create money out of nowhere. They’re going to give everyone the feeling that everything’s okay even though it’s not, and we’re going to see inflation.” And I took a lot of heat telling people, this is what I think is going to happen. Well, it’s what happened.
I think the only reason I could see that was I was detached from the collective psychology of the market. I wasn’t making decisions based on what I saw everybody else doing because I recognized that as a substitute for real confidence, right?

Ed:
It is a substitute. And anything in life, brother, when you attach your identity to something external like that, man, you’re really risking it. If you’re athlete, you attach it to your ability to hit home runs or your career, you’re really risking it. I’m going to confess something to you when, and by the way, it’s okay to learn from mistakes. When COVID happened, I sold a property in the way that I’m describing dummy sell properties. I did that.
And within a year, the guy who bought it from me, sold it for double for $11 million more than I sold it to him in one year. But what happened was right when I made that deal, I realized what I had done. Why do I share this with everybody? And then, I became the predator and I did about eight deals that more than made up for it because I understood the psychology because I was living through it temporarily.

David:
And did you do it with the money that came from that one?

Ed:
Actually, funny thing that you’re saying that, the money that came from the deal I lost on was the money I deployed in the other deals. Is that you’re asking me?

David:
Yes. That’s exactly what I’m asking.

Ed:
That’s exactly what I did. Yeah, that was same money. And here’s what’s crazy about it. I share this with you because it’s okay if you make a mistake in this industry. It’s okay if you call one bad shot. It doesn’t mean you’re not cut out for. It’s okay if you missed a deal you should have done. That’s okay. I’ve had lots of those. But what I don’t do to your point is tie my identity up in one deal or even in the collective psychology of the market. I have missed deals I should have done. And I’ve sold deals I shouldn’t have sold, but I learned from them really quickly.
And so, this thing about not tying your identity up in the collective psychology, think of any business person you admire in any segment. And they are counterculture that way. Warren Buffet never gone with it. Right? Think of Steve Jobs. Think of Elon Musk right now.

David:
Elon Musk.

Ed:
They’re not with the collective psychology. Most people think Twitter’s totally dead right now. Clearly, Musk doesn’t at $47 billion, right? So, they’re counterculture. Whether you do or don’t like Trump, doesn’t matter. Right? I have very mixed opinions. Doesn’t matter. The dude doesn’t go with the trends. Joe Rogan in the podcast space, right? He’s the first dude to go, “Nah, I’ll do a deal with a big company. Let me see how this goes.” Right?
So, the people that don’t buy into the collective psychology, Dr. King, Dr. Martin Luther King, did not buy into the collective narrative of that time. So, these are the people we admire most in our lives. The reason we admire them is that must be something valuable to have in ourselves.

David:
Yeah. You give me chills when you’re talking here. You’re putting to words a feeling that I’ve had for most of my life that I followed but I didn’t know why I was following it. That’s just a gift you have, Ed. The same thing happened when you were talking about one more. It reminded me of being back in high school, playing basketball. And I used to always find a way to make my workout a little bit harder than everyone else. I would do one more lap where I would stay after and do one. Literally, it was like, okay, if they’re doing 20, I have to do 21. And I look back now and I realize I was not confident.
And there was a part of me that was screaming, you got to build confidence. And if you go a little bit harder, you’ll start to believe that you’re worth it. And every time you talk, you do this type of thing. And this is what I really think our audience needs to hear because a lot of the people that follow podcasts like this that are into real estate, they don’t realize they’ve been sucked into the current of the collective psychology, which is a phrase I hadn’t really heard about before and they’re just swept away in this.

Rob:
No doubt.

Ed:
Yeah. And they live it. And by the way, they’re obsessed with it. Their emotions are governed by it. I’ve got a bunch of friends that are like, “The world is ending, man. It is over. Look at Ukraine.” Like, Hey man, I got news for you. It ain’t ending. It ain’t ending. Now, could it be bad? Has it been better before? Yeah, but I have to have an overall outlook that is not being shoved down my throat by the collection of people in the world, because I’ve never seen anybody in my life who goes with the crowd all the time, be happy and successful. I just haven’t. It’s such a sheep way to go through life.
By the way, let me give you the counter. Then you can build this whole idea of I’m counterculture. Right? I’m a contrarian. And then, you’re too much that way too. Just form your own opinions. Just look at things as they are. One of the things that you have to have in life is emotional control. And we talk about the power of association a lot in every area of life. Forget it for your identity even though you need it. Forget all that. What are the people around you? What’s their maturity level emotionally?
Do they lose their wits when things start to get a little bit shaky, like when COVID happens or the market changes or interest rates are going up? Oh, my gosh. Is that like the time that they lose their wits? Who the heck wasn’t positive the last four years when every single thing went through the roof, crypto, stock market, real estate, everything’s up. Yippy, right? How about now? This is where you separate yourself. This is the good time. I’m telling you. This is the good time.
Look at Amazon formed in a crash, Apple formed in a crash. And these aren’t crashes yet. But you understand the point. Most big enterprises, big wealth is created when everyone’s running for the hills and the little guys starts doing deals that other people aren’t willing to do. Factoid. That’s why I’m on your show. If there weren’t bad markets, I’m not on your show. I couldn’t afford the deals traditionally.

Rob:
Yeah. I was actually just thinking about this today because it’s very funny how the psychology of all of this works. Like when Bitcoin is at an all-time high of $65,000, everyone wants to buy it. And I just tell myself, I just dream of the day that it hits $30,000 again. Because when it does, I’m going to buy so many of them. And then, I looked at my app today and it was like, Bitcoin hits $30,100. And I’m like, “Oh, hell no.” [inaudible 00:43:59]
But I was like, “No, I don’t want to buy it.” It is bottoming out. It’s going to bottom out more. But that is the psychology, right? Because we all want to buy stuff at the all-time highs. And then, the moment when stuff starts crumbling a little bit, it’s like, oh wait, never mind. No, I don’t want to reinvest.

Ed:
There’s a principle there too in the chapter, I don’t know what chapters in the book, it’s called One More Inconvenience. Here’s the thing, man. You have to be willing to do inconvenient things in your life, hard things. And then, Napoleon Hill says, listen to this, such a great, I love Think and Grow Rich, but he has this one thing that just stands out to me. He says on the other side of this temporary pain you’re going through, if you can survive the temporary, on the other side of that, you get introduced to your other self and this other self produces another life.
And so, the way you survive things is you do inconvenient things. You look at one more deal. You jump in to do something that’s inconvenient and difficult. You make the phone call you’re embarrassed to make, you call the investor you don’t want to call. You call the realtor that you know is not going to want to do a deal with you because you’re a dweeb, right? I used to think that. This dude’s not even going to return my call. Well, maybe he will. And I make one more until they do.
And so, do the inconvenient things no matter what the industry is, but particularly this one, and you’re going to find yourself if you’re willing to do the stuff other people aren’t willing to do, this is not hokey. I could take you through 100s of deals I’ve done, 100s of them. And most of them were really inconvenient, very difficult deals to do that I’m so glad I finally put them together because they made me wealthy.

David:
I remember 2010. Everybody in the world of real estate investing says, “I wish we had another 2010. I would buy up every property I could get my hands on. I’m waiting for that next opportunity.” And that’s when I actually got into the market was in 2009. And I remember there was not a huge contingency of people saying, you should buy real estate right now. It was everyone telling me, you’re a fool. What are you doing? You’re going to lose your money. Real estate’s the worst thing to own.
It’s hard to imagine now because these assets are very valuable and coveted, but at that time, it was viewed more like an anchor. Everyone just thought buying a house was buying a 30-year loan that you were never going to be able to get out of. That was the way it was perceived. But you fast-forward with the benefit of hindsight. And we’re like, “Oh, those were the good old days.”
That’s the problem with following the collective psychology is when there’s opportunity, everyone’s saying don’t do it. This is a terrible idea. And when you feel confident about it is when it’s already gone really up and there’s a lot of psychology, or sorry, there’s a lot of confidence.

Ed:
Yeah. I want to just second that. I made so much money after 9/11. I’m older than you. Right? So, I made so much money after 9/11. Everyone’s like, “Dude, you’re buying real estate? The world’s over just so you know. There’s going to be terrorist attacks every 13 seconds in our country. They’re going to blow up half of our houses. They’re going to do this the other day. Do not be buying real estate right now. You don’t understand, the world will never be the same again.” I’ve heard all of this before, all of this before. Right?
So, I’m old enough that I know in the ’80s, there’s a point don’t buy real estate, there’s going to be a nuclear war. Russia is going to blow us up. There’s no reason to do it. So, listen, just have some wisdom from someone a little bit older than you and tell you these collective psychologies take root all the time and you’re about to hear it all again. And you’re starting to hear it all again.

David:
Isn’t it amazing though, Ed, how quickly the complete fear and panic shifts to everything’s fine like the minute that, oh, the environment feels safe. Every time there’s a presidential election, they’re going to destroy the entire country no matter who they are. I’m leaving if this happens. Two weeks after the election, like, Okay, whatever, I guess it’s our next president. We forget it even happened.

Ed:
Right, exactly. By the way, elections do matter. I think part of what’s going on in the economy right now is probably to some extent driven by certain agendas. And that’s the other thing you should all be aware of. You know what? There’s going to be another election in the middle of this supposed really long cycle that’s supposed to go so bad. And you don’t know that when that happens, that there’s another change that’s for the favorable part of real estate, right? So, it’s like, listen, real estate is not a one and two and three-year game unless that’s the game you’re playing.
By the way, I’ve made money in that game too, where I’m like, “I’m buying and selling it in six weeks.” I’ve sold deals in escrow. I’ve flipped things well in escrow before. So, there’s certainly that game, but the vast majority of deals don’t operate that way. So, if that’s the segment, you’re in great. What’s amazing to me is that the people in this industry that sell these properties don’t remember the last time it happened, even though they were in it.
So, these people you’re going to talk to about properties, they know what 2010 was. A lot of them remember what 2002 was. And so, it’s just like, “Take a little wisdom here, find a good deal, execute on it, protect yourself in the ways that you need to. You’re playing offense but you also need to look at the defensive prospects of how you’re going to do a deal so you can stay in the industry. That’s my only advice.

David:
That’s amazing.

Rob:
I think this is such applicable advice because right now everyone is freaking out about interest rates. When I bought a house two months ago, granted it was 4.375, and then a year ago that same loan was 2.75. So, it hurts. But then, even from one month to the next, it was 4.375, and then me and David just closed on a house in Scottsdale. I think that was 6.375. And everyone right now, we’re in the sixes and like all of my students and mentees and they’re all like, “It’s over.” I can’t get a good return. If it doesn’t pencil out at 5%, it probably doesn’t pencil… The 1% difference on the interest isn’t really what’s killing it.
I was like, “You’re scared to do this because of the 1% interest.” But as long as it pencils out and you have a return, like that’s what you need to be focusing on. But in their mind, they equate the rising interest to the big crash, the big 2008 crash. And I’m like, “No, just run your deal, analyze it, give yourself a little room for margin or for error. And if it doesn’t pencil out, then move on. But don’t stop just because interest rates are climbing.” Because at the end of the day, like you said, I think there are deals everywhere. You just have to work a little harder for them.

Ed:
Yeah. The truth is, I don’t know what’s going to happen with rates and I don’t even know what’s going to happen with prices. Could there be a correction that’s significant? Yeah. There may be a correction that’s significant. That’s entirely possible. It’s happened before. But you have to remember this, the current interest rate environment, I have enough perspective that if you’d told me at some point in my career, I could get financing at 6%. I’d have said, Oh, my gosh, that’s absolutely incredible. So, there’s a perspective there. You just got to price the rate into the deal you’re doing and that’s got to be priced.
And by the way, everyone’s now paying the same rates. It’s not like it’s only you that’s at 6% now. The collective markets at those interest rates now. So, you have to remember this. It’s not like just the rates changed for you. The rates have changed for everybody. And so, there’s deals to be found all the time. Do you have to work harder for them? Yeah. Do you have to be scrutinizing? Yeah. Is everything going to go up the minute you buy it? Probably not. And so, you got to be able to make… this is where you really got to be good. You really got to execute. But everyone’s paying the same rates.
It’s like, playing in a baseball game. You’re like, “Man, I can’t hit this thing out to right field.” The wind’s blowing in 30 miles an hour. It’s blowing in for them too. I watched this football game last year and the playoffs are like, ah, snow. And like they’re playing on the same snow. That’s the market. And so, it’s not like it’s just snowing on you.

David:
That’s exactly right. And that’s what we’re talking about is how you can adapt. I don’t have a crystal ball, but I feel fairly confident here’s what’s going to happen. Rates have gone up. We’re seeing this freeze, human nature. You’re walking through the woods. You hear a twig break. The first thing you do is freeze. Is that a tiger? What is that? I got to wait and be ready to make a move. So, when there’s ever a shift or a change, typical human beings freeze. If you stay there too long, fear gets in, oh, it’s a tiger. You panic. That’s when they’re going to say so.
What will most likely happen is the fed will launch another rate hike and everyone will say, Oh, my God, they’re going to go even higher. I better go by right now. And it will go from, is there going to be a crash? Because they raise rates to another run because the collective psychology is that everybody jumped in. So, I look for those little pauses literally in the psychology of the market. And then, you’re just feeling out these individual sellers to see who’s spooky.

Ed:
I like that. I agree.

David:
Right? Just like an athlete would do when you’re playing the other team and you see, oh, that guy’s scared. He does not want the ball. That’s the one you’re going to be going after. It’s how human nature works. I want to shift a little bit, Ed, and you mentioned there is a deal you’re putting together that sounds pretty significant. Do you feel comfortable sharing that like what the idea is for that deal? How you’re putting it together?

Ed:
Which deal are we referring to? I’d be glad to share with you.

David:
The one you said off of Maine.

Ed:
Yeah, I just did a deal. I bought an island in Maine. It’s about 100-acre island. It’s an incredible property and I’m going to develop it. I’m going to do a value add on it. I’m actually going to keep it for my family. But I’ve been looking for what I would consider to be one of the best properties in the world. It’s one of the things I’ve been looking for. And like that island would probably worth $300 or $400 million if we’re in California, but it’s not. It’s in Portland, Maine. And I happen to like that area better myself.
So, what I’m doing is it has the electricity, it has infrastructure. I evaluated it on all the different bases and I’m going to put a bunch of money into it. My design fee on this island is over a million dollars, just in design fees for what I’m going to do to it. But I’m doing a value add on it and I’ve got the vision to see what this property can be. And I think it will end up being one of the great properties, not just in the country, but in the world, but it took some guts to do the deal. Who buys an island, and then pricing it? How do I evaluate the worth of the island?
And here’s what I did. By the way, I really liked the guy who sold me the property. So, I’ll just say this to you. He was asking a certain number and I gave him my number. And I just tell everybody how I did this deal. I’ll just be really honest with you. And he came back and met me halfway. And I said, “Actually, in this case, this is my number.” And he said, “No.” And I said, “No problem. I’ll wait.” And then, he waited, and then he waited, and then he waited, and then he came back and said, “I’ll take it,” at the exact number that I started at.
So, when I’m doing a speculative deal, I pick the number and it doesn’t move. If I’m doing a deal that’s not as speculative, I may be able to move, but if it’s a speculative deal, I evaluate it independent of what anybody thinks. And I have my number and that is the number and I’m not moving $9 above it when I’m buying. And I didn’t. And I believe that number protects me from any downside in the marketplace.
I also happen to believe that more and more people are moving towards higher end or second home status because they are worried about travel. They’re worried about going to different places, especially the affluent. They want to live in homes now and not necessarily stay at hotels. And so, I’ve moved into that space a little bit where higher-end residential, second home residential, I believe will be the last to get kicked in this market and the first to come back in the market.
And so, I think COVID did a permanent shift in a lot of people’s psychology of, I want a beautiful home I can go to in case I can’t travel. And then, there’s a whole element of society that’s worried about safety in all that other stuff. And if you own your own island, you’re pretty safe. So, that’s the deal I’ve done. It’s the most crazy deal I’ve probably ever done is this deal.

David:
You know what, I bet when they were doing the Louisiana purchase, they felt the same way.

Ed:
Probably right. Yeah. You’re probably right. I didn’t think of it when I was doing the island, but you’re right.

David:
Well, that’s just the thing is every deal always seems scary and risky when you’re doing it. There’s never a house I bought where I didn’t have all this what if, but then you talk to someone who bought real estate 30 years ago. I still haven’t found the person that says, you know what, I definitely shouldn’t have invested in real estate. I should have bought something else or I shouldn’t have done it. Like you said, if you can hold it, you end up looking really smart just letting inflation do what it does.

Ed:
You sure do. You sure do.

Rob:
Yeah. I’m curious. What is the game plan for the island, man? I know you’re going to develop it. Are you going to monetize it at all? Because I know you said you’re doing it for your family.

Ed:
Kind of. I’m going to do events there. I’m going to do my business coaching events and I’m going to shoot my NBC television show there. So, I had alternative concepts. So, I’m putting a golf course on it that’s just for me. It’s got eight homes on it or something like that. I’m building another main home. I’m building a bar. I’m building a pub. I’m building a grocery store. But believe it or not, it’s just for my family legacy-wise, but I will do events there. I’ll tell you how I think. I’m still always afraid of being broke. So, there’s a part of me that someday I lost everything I’ve got, which would be hard to do. But if I did, I could monetize it.
I could turn it into a resort. I could turn the golf course into something profitable. It’s got a farm on it. So, I’m growing my own food and I’ve got horses and all that stuff there and chickens and geese and all this other crap there and Brewsters and all that. I did it for a legacy for my family. It’s pretty special. And I think it will be the greatest property in the country when I’m done with it.

Rob:
I don’t really suspect that you’ll ever go broke personally. I would take the bet that you won’t, but I’m curious just to bring this full circle. You seem like somebody, let’s just say that you did lose it all. With what you know now and the self-confidence you have now, do you feel like you could rebuild what you have knowing what you know today?

Ed:
Okay. Honest answer. I don’t think I could rebuild everything I have, but I could certainly become wealthy again. I could certainly become wealthy. I feel like if I went broke, you could drop me into Des Moines, Iowa, or you could drop me anywhere in the world and I could become wealthy again pretty quickly too. What I know about acquiring wealth, doing real estate, influencing people, persuasion, money, thinking, emotions, basically what’s in the power of one more.
I’m not saying this, forget the book, you make no money on a book. I did this book to help people. I honestly believe that if I had a copy of this book and I read it and I did the things in this book that I would be wealthy again very quickly. Would that be worth 100s and 100s of millions of dollars? I don’t know that quickly, but I know I would be wealthy again quickly.

Rob:
All right. Sounds like the premise of a good show though. We drop Ed down in Des Moines, Iowa with the backpack with $100.

Ed:
I was doing that show. Cardone did it when I backed out called Undercover Billionaire. I was doing that show. I was season two, and then COVID happened. I don’t want to leave my family. So, I was already doing that show.

Rob:
That’s awesome.

Ed:
Hopefully, I would’ve made it.

David:
Well, thank you, Ed. This has been fantastic. I appreciate you sharing what’s going on in your personal portfolio, your take on the market. It’s absolute goal to hear from somebody who, to be frank, you’re not just a real estate investor. You do a lot of business. You do a lot of personal coaching. You have incredibly unique perspective on human nature because of all the different things that you’ve excelled at.
And those are always the perspectives that are most valuable. A lot of people can tell you about one specific element, but your perspective changes when you see the mountain from a different view. And you’ve got like the closest to anyone I know of a 360-view of this whole thing, which makes you a great teacher mentor. And I appreciate that you’re willing to take some time to share this with other people.

Ed:
I love doing it, guys. Thank you for having me again. I hope everybody goes and grabs my book.

David:
All right. We got one more section. It is called the famous four. We’re going to ask you the same four questions we ask every guest. And the first one is what is your favorite real estate-related book?

Ed:
My favorite real estate-related book. My goodness. Wow. My favorite real estate-related book. Okay. I’m just going to tell you. I read How to Buy Real Estate, Nothing Down by Robert Allen in 1992 and it changed my life. So, I would say that book till of this day, it changed my life.

Rob:
Great. Okay. What is your favorite business book?

Ed:
Favorite business book is The Power of One More by Ed Mylett.

David:
I’ve heard of that one. Got to check it out.

Rob:
And just by the way, just so you know, in the last five seconds I have officially pre-ordered it?

Ed:
Yes. Sweet.

David:
Rob thought he had enough books, but he needed one more, that one more that can change your life.

Rob:
I got to add it to the collection. That’s right. One more book. Ed, when you’re not writing books and buying Walgreens and renovating islands, can you tell us about some of your hobbies or habits that you’re developing or traits that you’re working on?

Ed:
Yeah. My favorite hobby is I golf and I work out. My favorite social thing to do, I’m a comedy club, dude. Man, I love comedians. A lot of these dudes are really good buddies of mine because I love to laugh. And I also think they’re the ultimate communicators, the ultimate public speakers. And so, I’m really, really big on doing that. You’ll see me in a lot of comedy clubs. I’m a big concert guy. In the last three weeks, I think I’ve been to eight concerts in three weeks. Because COVID’s over, I’m going to see everybody play again.
And then, the thing I’m working on right now is my meditation. I’m working on my morning meditation, just getting better at getting quiet. I struggle with that because my mind’s always racing. And so, just giving myself, adding to my routine, just some emptying of my mind and getting some quiet time and slowing things down a little bit.
And the one other thing I’m working on is saying no. I’m not really good at saying no to people and saying no to things. I’m a people-pleaser by nature and I’ve got to get better just saying, Hey man, I’d love to help you, but I can’t. And so, just once in a while, saying no. I’m working on that.

Rob:
Fantastic. All right. In your opinion, what sets apart successful investors from those who give up, fail, or never get started?

Ed:
Yeah, we’ve talked a little bit about it. The thing that separates us is our long-term view are… everyone needs to remember this because you’re going to need it more in the next year or two than you think. Really practicing the process of equanimity. And here’s the thing. Equanimity is that calmness under duress, but it is also your willingness to step into environments and spaces that you don’t believe you’re prepared for. And if you’re going to wait around till you’re completely prepared to do something, you’ll be waiting the rest of your life and you are going to miss opportunities.
You’ve got to do all your due diligence. You’ve got to prepare as much as you can. And then, you have to move into some areas of your life with faith and with confidence that when you get there, you can navigate it and make it work. There are a lot of ways to make a deal a winner once you’re in it, when you’re in escrow, after you’ve closed, et cetera. You’ve got to have, once you’ve called the shot, you’ve got to believe in your ability to make a deal win one way or the other long term and not think you have to know every single thing.
Even though the education, all you guys provide is required, you’re not going to know everything because this space, there’s unknowns, escrows crazy. No deal goes smooth. There’s just going to be things you got to be able to navigate that you’re not prepared for. And just trust in your ability to handle it and to be equipped.

Rob:
Awesome, man. Well, Ed, I’ve been on the podcast now for a couple of months. I’ve been through a lot of famous four questions. I got to say, this is my favorite set. You’ve got the crown for best famous four interview questions. Last one here for you.

Ed:
I’ll wear it proudly.

Rob:
Nice. Tell us where people can find out more about you. Where can people find out more about the book? I just ordered it on Amazon, but if there’s other outlets presented, oh, where can people find you on?

Ed:
You can get socials, Ed Mylett, which is E-D M-Y-L-E-T-T. I’ve got a pretty top-rated podcast as well with my name. I got a YouTube channel. Just find me, Google me, and then the book, books anywhere. But there’s a website called thepowerofonemore.com. If you go in there, there’s extra tools that’ll enhance the book experience for you. You could go there as well. And all my stuff’s free. I don’t have anything to charge you. So, go get my stuff.

Rob:
Is your YouTube channel Ed Mylett, too?

Ed:
Yep. Everything’s Ed Mylett.

Rob:
Oh, my goodness. Wow. Dude, you got… I need to talk to you about YouTube. You got quite the pollen over there.

Ed:
Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate it.

David:
All right. Well, thank you, Ed. We really appreciate your time as well as your transparency and just your overall heart. Again, if you guys want to check out Ed’s other interviews with us, please check out BiggerPockets episode 433, and then he makes a brief cameo on episode 600. Ed, thanks so much. Any last words you want to leave everybody with?

Ed:
You were born to do something great with your life, step into it. And there’s a power in doing one more in your life. And the last thing is, I’m just proud of you. The success of this show is inspiring to me. I always appreciate how prepared you are and the great questions that you ask. I do a lot of shows and this is first class. So, thank you for having me again.

David:
Well, thank you, brother. All right, everybody, go get The Power of One More. As you’ve seen from this interview, this is just a small taste of what Ed can do to give you a better life. And that’s what it’s all about. Rob, any last words from you?

Rob:
Oh man, that is an unfair question after Ed left us with such words of wisdom. So, no, no, that’s it. Thank you, Ed, for coming on. I look forward to binging your YouTube channel from one YouTuber to another and thank you for your time. We appreciate it.

Ed:
Thanks, guys.

David:
Following Ed Mylett is like being the next person called up on American Idol after a children’s choir has sung I am the wind beneath your wings or you are the wind beneath my wings. It’s a tough, tough act to follow.

Ed:
Oh, boy. Thank you. I never heard that one before.

David:
This is David Greene for Rob ‘One More Book’ Abasolo signing off.