Questions from BiggerPockets’ Best and Brightest (Episode 600!)

David:
This is the BiggerPockets Podcast show, 600. When you get into real estate, what you find is that you can actually make money spending money. I went and bought a car a couple years ago, and the guy who sold me the car, I ended up helping him buy a house. And the commission that I got from that was more than I spent on the car. Because I’m meeting different people and I can find different ways to add value, I can stay busy doing fun stuff too, and still making money. And that’s one of the reasons that I encourage people to get into real estate, because it’s about solving problems. It’s about networking. It’s about being creative. It’s not about being locked into a cubicle doing the same thing every single day. What’s going on everyone? This is David Greene, your host of the BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast, the best real estate podcast in the entire world. I am joined today by my co-host and good friend, Rob Abasolo.

Rob Abasolo:
Hello. Good sir. And congratulations. I feel like I came in very strong. Hello, good sir. 600 episodes, man. That is a lot. That is a lot of episodes. That is just over 599 episodes. And as we look at the tallies here, I believe you’ve been a co-host on the BiggerPockets and now a host for just over 300. Is that right?

David:
Can you believe that? At this point, are we sure people are still listening or are we just talking into these microphones and no one’s even hearing what we’re saying?

Rob Abasolo:
You know what? I think they are because I heard the news that last month we broke the listenership records. I think I’m allowed to say that. We got the most downloads ever in the last month. I think that means that we can keep our jobs, which is really nice.

David:
That’s the other thing I’m wondering is I can’t believe I’ve been employed for this long.

Rob Abasolo:
Man, this is really weird because I wouldn’t say I’ve listened to 600, but I would definitely say I’ve listened to about 300 or so. Baby Rob here has been developing his real estate muscles here from listening to you for over 300 hours. Isn’t that crazy? I’ve heard you speak for more than 300 hours. That’s a lot of hours.

David:
Well, if we’re being honest here, Brandon was the host for most of those shows which I average probably about 14 seconds of mic time when that was going on. I don’t know if it’s been the full 300 hours, but now I think people are getting more David and more Greene than they ever would’ve thought possible.

Rob Abasolo:
That’s right. But I like to describe you from the earlier days that you were like this hawk where you sit back and you wait for the opportunity and then you come in as a hawk and you scoop up the prey with some amazing sound bite or some awesome metaphor. Can you give us a metaphor that would describe your experience moving from co-host to host of the BiggerPockets Real Estate Show and taken over for Brandon Turner himself?

David:
Well, basically I was a small basic Pokemon who just sort of had to hover around and just not say anything stupid for the most part. And then when Brandon left and I wasn’t able to live in his shadow, I sort of became this evolution of a Pokemon. I’m actually older than Pokemon. I know a lot of our audience listens and that’s why I’m going with this example here. What’s a good example, because your age range works for Pokemon, right?

Rob Abasolo:
I was a Pokemon guy for sure.

David:
There you go. When you look at me, what Pokemon was I and what did I evolve to?

Rob Abasolo:
Oh, man. I’d probably say you’re like a cute little Charmander that has evolved into the Charizard of real estate. That’s a pretty good accolade right there.

David:
All right. I appreciate that. The experience for me has been more like that analogy that you hear of you want to be like the duck where you look really calm on the surface, but underneath it your legs are going absolute craziness, pure chaos. That’s what this is like. We show up to do this show and I’m sharing all the things that I’ve learned in that week from running different businesses and buying real estate and talking to people that are buying real estate and trying to follow what the federal government is doing, what macroeconomic policies we have, how our relationships with other countries are affecting what’s going on here. That’s all the chaos that goes on. And then I show up and I fix my tie and I sit up nice and straight and I speak very calmly. And then when we’re done, I jump right back into the chaos of ah, what’s going on and how are things changing and how much higher can rates go and how quickly can they do that?

Rob Abasolo:
Well, hey man, congratulations on twofold here. All right. On 600 episodes, the BiggerPockets Podcast and being there for a majority of them and we are closing on our property officially, right after I get off the microphone. Right now, I’m going to go sign closing docs for our $3 million house that we’re closing on here today. It’s exciting.

David:
Yeah, that is a super exciting thing. And stay tuned folks because we’re going to be making some opportunities available where people can come and learn from Rob and I as we’re going to teach different elements of real estate at that property itself. And it is big and fun and cool. And I can’t wait to sort of share what we’re doing with more people, which is really the fun part of doing this on this podcast. And the fact that there’s been 300 episodes of me talking and people are still listening. That feels pretty good.

Rob Abasolo:
Yeah, man. Well, I’m going to let you get to it. Here you got a pretty stacked group of people that are coming in to ask questions and who knows? I don’t know. Maybe you may hear from me. I’m just going to put it out there. It’s a possibility, but I’m not promising it.

David:
Yeah. I have no idea what you guys are going to throw at me here. And that’s the way that I like to live life. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the government. I Don know what’s going to happen in the market. I don’t know what’s going to happen ever. It’s all about adjusting, reacting and re-accommodating yourself. The goal for this show is to make people think, laugh and learn to love again. Let’s see how we do. All right. And before we get into today’s show one final piece of advice and maybe ask from me.

David:
Wherever you listen to your podcast, please subscribe to this show there. They actually pay attention to that. And it affects the rankings that we have within iTunes and other ways that podcasts are broadcast. It would mean a lot to me if you could make sure that you’re subscribing to our show, to be notified when we have new content that comes out. As well as on YouTube, if you can like, share and subscribe what we’re doing and then comment below so that we see what you’re thinking, it would mean a lot to us. We can make better shows that way, that are more entertaining as well as more fruitful. Thank you very much for your support. Let’s get onto the show.

Tim Grover:
David, congratulations on your 600 episode. Now let me tell you something. Usually I don’t make this acknowledgement until someone gets to their 700 episode, but for you I’ll make an exception. Congratulations, my man. But I got a question for you. How do you keep performing at the highest level after all these episodes. One of the three things that you do every single day that keeps you at peak performance? I’m interested to know.

David:
All right, well thank you Tim. And first off, is there anyone with a voice like Tim Grover? I love that. Tim that was is fantastic. Thank you for your contribution. I am now going to answer your question. All right. When it comes to peak performance, this is a really good time to be asked this question, because I’m finishing up the last book in the series I’m writing for real estate agents is called SKILL. The first book was SOLD, then SKILL. And it’s all about taking a job and turning it into a business. Very similar to how real estate investors start off doing all the work themselves. And they hire that out. They end up running a portfolio. And in that book, the last chapter or maybe the second last chapter, has to do with leadership and I was writing that out and I realized that we make money or were compensated in proportion to the difficulty of problems we solve. There’s a Elon Musk quote, where he says that. And I really like it.

David:
Now there’s two ways that you can ensure that you solve difficult problems. I use this analogy of stacking weight on your shoulders. You can go look for something hard. You can go try to find problems, which would be weight in this case, put them on your shoulders and get stronger from solving them. That’s really the best way to do it. The problem is many times we hit a level of comfort where we’ve escaped the nine to five, we’ve escaped the W-2, we’ve escaped poverty, we’re comfortable and it gets harder and harder to proactively go out there and look for more difficult challenges. At that point, you have to sort of look for ways to motivate yourself.

David:
And Tim Grover was the personal trainer for Michael Jordan. And he knows a lot about how driven the guys like Michael and Kobe were to get out there and look for ways to stay motivated because naturally they weren’t. They’ve already won a bunch of championships. They’re already making a ton of money. It’s really hard to stay at top performance. And what I have determined is that if you put yourself in a leadership position where others are depending on you, they will naturally pass their problems onto you that they don’t want to solve. And you’ll end up stacking things on your shoulder, just inherently from being in the position of a leader. Leaders have to solve everything. Michael Jordan was the leader of the Bulls. He set the standard. We’re going to try to win a championship every single year. If he doesn’t meet that standard in his mind, he failed. That means he’s forced to deal with every single problem that a Chicago Bull would have becomes his problem.

David:
If Steve Kirk can’t play defense good enough, if Scottie Pippen’s not happy with his contract, if B.J. Armstrong isn’t passing the ball where he needs it to go, Michael Jordan’s going to go address that. And that’s one of the things that I do to stay in peak performance is I make sure I’m always in a leadership position. With the David Greene team, with the One Brokerage, with the different businesses I’m starting, a lot of people ask why are you doing that? You’ve already hit financial freedom. Well, the answer is it forces me to grow. This forces me to deal with problems, to become a better person, to become a better leader to solve the issues that we need for that company to thrive. And because I’m competitive, I want them all to be number one. Please hit me up if you are looking at buying or selling your house or need a mortgage, I definitely want that because I want to stay number one. But also understand that the first way that I stay at peak performance is I make sure I’m in a leadership capacity.

David:
The other thing that I do is I look for ways to put myself in a position where I am not comfortable or not confident because we get the best out of ourselves when we’re in the most uncomfortable or in the most pain. And jiu-jitsu and weightlifting is one of the ways that I do that. Now I’m getting a older, weight lifting isn’t as easy as it used to be. And I’m also very busy, so it’s hard to stay consistent. By forcing myself to exercise in ways that are not easy, I feel bad. I feel fat. I feel out of shape. I feel old. I feel weak. I don’t like those feelings. Not liking those emotions creates a natural motivation to go work harder at them. That turns into confidence, oddly enough in other areas of life. By forcing myself into situations that are not comfortable or in a lot of pain, it puts me in a position where I can be in peak performance in the same way that being a leader welcomes that. To me, these are the areas where I actually go seek it out.

David:
The third thing is I put myself in a position where people depend on me, which is like hosting this podcast. A lot of people listen to this show to get their knowledge, their information and advice on how they should construct portfolios and move their life along. There is a lot of pressure in that. I don’t want to mess it up. I don’t want to have someone else that could be better than me that listeners go listen to instead. By putting myself in this high pressure situation every single day, it forces me to stay sharp, to keep learning, to keep growing myself and always be looking at where my competition is and trying to make sure I’m a step ahead of them.

David:
Tim, you ever need a little bit of extra cash, I’d be happy to hire you to be my personal coach because you my friend are awesome. Thank you very much for making this video and your beard to is looking great. If you guys would like to learn more about Tim Grover, his amazing story and amazing individual he is, check out episode 471 where we interviewed him and check out his book Winning. He’s got several books including Relentless, but this one was really, really good. I would love it if you guys would order that book and go on his social media and let him know that you heard him on the BiggerPockets Podcasts, and you appreciate his contribution to our world.

Mindy Jensen:
Hey there? This is Mindy Jensen, the host of the “BiggerPockets Money” podcast and licensed agent in the state of Colorado where we are having a hot market. David Greene, real estate agent extraordinaire in this incredibly competitive market, how are you getting offers accepted? What is it that you’re putting into your offers over and above highest price and covering the appraisal gap and waving inspection, which I don’t like to do because sometimes there’s houses that have problems with them? What David Greene are you doing to make sure that your offers are getting accepted? Thanks.

David:
All right. Thank you very much, Mindy. This is a very good question. And I will pull back the curtain and tell you everything that we’re doing on the David Greene team to help get our buyers in contract in this very hot market. First thing, we advise our clients to stop looking at the deal from their own perspective and to start looking at it from the seller’s perspective. Everybody wants to find the house that they like and then find a way to get everything that they want in the deal. Oftentimes this comes from a place of fear. They don’t know what they’re getting. They feel safer by working the negotiations out to always favor them. Well, if you’re afraid, that usually means you’re without knowledge and if you are without knowledge, that’s where we have to address things.

David:
You mentioned waving an appraisal a contingency. Yeah, we really do try to avoid that. One way that we address it is if we’re not sure where the house is going to appraise, we advise you not to write the offer on that house if that’s what you have to do. The other thing that we will do, and this is a little more practical is I will talk to you or one of the agents on my team will talk to the listing agent and we will say hey, what do you want to do if the house doesn’t appraise? Well, we were really hoping you’d waive the appraisal contingency. Everybody else is going to do that. And we say, okay, what if we agreed to pay $10,000 over whatever the appraise price is or $20,000 over whatever the appraise price is? That way their client doesn’t have to worry about us backing out and not getting to sell the home. And our client doesn’t have to worry about paying a hundred grand out of pocket. We make sure it’s an amount that they can actually stomach over the appraise price.

David:
And when the market’s this hot, oftentimes by the time they close in another couple of months, it’s worth whatever it is that we paid for or more. That’s one practical tip. What you really want to do is avoid this problem altogether. When we have clients that are wanting to buy a house, we advise them don’t look at houses on the market for less than two weeks. You really want to be looking at something that’s been sitting a little bit longer, because you’ll have much more leverage when writing your offer. You’ll be able to get an inspection contingency alone, an appraisal contingency if it’s not a house that everyone is shooting for. In many ways we have clients that want their dream house at their dream price with their dream terms. And we split that up into smaller chunks.

David:
I say hey, you should buy the ugly house first, that’s in the area that you want. Find a way to add value to it. Then either refinance that house or sell it and use your proceeds to buy the house that you like. Then do the same thing two years later and get the house you really, really like and let your real estate buy. Your real estate a lot of times it’s negotiating with our own clients and helping them realize they’re not going to get everything they want in one shot in a market that’s hot. But they can get everything they want if they split it into smaller steps and create an actual process that’s systemic and strategic to get where they want to go. The last thing I would say is that when you’re choosing your agent, you want to find someone with a personality that is much more assertive.

David:
In a hot market like this, you don’t want a church mouse. You want a pit bull. You want someone who’s going after it. We stay in touch with listing agents. We call them constantly. I even pressure them. When a listing agent says, “Hey, write your highest and best. And we’ll see what’s happening.” I say, that’s BS. Tell me what number you want. And I’ll see if my client is willing to pay it. I stay on them and make them give me a number first that would work for them. And I’ve now set a baseline. And I see if my client would want to work with it or if they don’t, how much less than that number my client would be willing to go to that would make them happy and still make the seller happy. One piece of advice that I can give you, if you’re trying to buy a house you don’t know what you want to pay for is to ask your self, if someone else got the house for this price, would you be happy for them? Or would you be jealous that you wish you’d paid it?

David:
A lot of buyers make the mistake of doing is they say, “Hey, they’re asking 700. Do you think we have to go to 710? Or can we get it for 705?” And someone else comes in and says, “I’ll pay 775.” And blows you out of the water. The problem is after the close, often our clients will say, “I would’ve paid 775 for that house. I was just being greedy.” One way you can know what price that your client should be paying is to ask them at what point would you be happy for someone else? If someone else paid 850 for that house, would you be like, “Good for them? I don’t want it.” Or would you say, “Oh, I would’ve paid 850.” Find where that number is and get as close to it as you can when you’re writing your offer so you don’t have regrets. Thank you very much, Mindy. I appreciate that. If you guys want to hear more Mindy Jensen, you can check her out on the “BiggerPockets Money” podcast, where she gives great advice for financial freedom and personal finance.

Dave Meyer:
Hey, what’s going on everyone? This is Dave Meyer, occasional guest host of the BiggerPockets Real Estate Show and newly appointed full-time host of our newest podcast on the market. And David, I just got to say congratulations. It has been so fun working with you as a host of the BiggerPocket Show. You’ve done an incredible job. You’re changing so many lives and I’m just so proud to be a part of it. I do have a question for you. It’s actually a two part question. First question is David, if you had to pick one data point or one indicator that you pay attention to judge your investments, what would that metric or piece of data be? And the second part of that question is if you wanted to learn more about the data and metrics and news behind real estate investing, what podcast would you listen to?

David:
All right Dave, I see what you’re doing here. Shameless plug for on the market. Very clever. But you actually did ask a good question. When it comes down to what is the metric I look cat when judging my own portfolio? I try to make things apples to apples as much as I can. Everybody makes money in real estate, if they hold onto it for long enough. I think a lot of people think that they’re making more money than they really are, because they don’t understand the impact that inflation is having on the value of our currency. If your house went up 8% last year, you may think that you made money, but you maybe didn’t because inflation could have been on 11% and you didn’t know it. Instead of looking at did it go up in price or did my cashflow increase? What I like to look at is if I had put this same money into a different property, would that property have cashed out more or appreciated more? And I’m looking for the delta between what other people could get and what I can get as an experienced investor.

David:
In order to hit those numbers that are higher than average, I have to look for value added properties. I have to buy in the best areas that are going to go up the most. And then the last thing I want to look for is I don’t want to buy anything that becomes a headache for me, that takes a ton of time because that to stops me from making money in other areas or affects my quality of life. The three things that I like to look for are no headache. I want it to be in a great area because it’s going to go up more. And then lastly, how can I add value to this property? And then after that’s done, I look at how much equity I created, how much cash flow that I created and how much of at is basically easy on me that somebody else can manage it relatively simply. And I compare that to what someone who maybe buys a turnkey property or buys real estate isn’t as experienced as I would make. And I want to know that I’m making significantly more than that person.

David Osborn:
Hey David Greene. Good morning brother. Congratulations on 600 podcasts of BiggerPockets. That’s quite an accomplishment. My question for you from Cabo San Lucas is how does a crazy busy super ambitious guy like you maintain balance in his life? Hey, thanks for all you do. Thanks for your contribution. David Osborn peace out.

David:
All right. Thank you for that, Dave. You’re making me a little jealous that I’m not in Cabo myself. I’ve been there one time and I loved it. I actually tried to set up my team to take a vacation there and we couldn’t get everybody into any of the resorts because they were all booked up. Think you made a good call and you picked a very good time of day to make that recording. That sunset is beautiful. Well first off, you’re a huge reason why I am where I am here today. I was first introduced to Brandon and Josh by Hal Elrod, who I met at a GoBundance event that you put together. If you guys are interested in joining GoBundance, you should definitely check that out. Did a lot for me. And it was you Dave who said, “Hey, you don’t have to be a cop anymore. If you wanted to be an agent, you should check out Keller Williams.” And you got me started there.

David:
And now I’m one of the top agents inside of Keller Williams. And I’m able to rub elbows with some of the executives in that company and get really good mentorship from those people. And it was you that gave me a piece of advice in Las Vegas, Nevada when we were having sushi. Where you said, “David people want to be led. Don’t worry so much about what you’re going to do. Get out there and do it and people follow you.” And sure enough, that’s been incredible advice. And the more steps I’ve taken in becoming a leader, the easier that my life has become. When it comes to your practical question of what do I do to maintain balance when I’m busy? What I look for is how to get the most bang out of my buck. Whenever an opportunity comes my way, I don’t say yes to everything. I say yes to the things that fit into my other businesses or the lifestyle that I like.

David:
For instance, I was invited to go to UFC in New York and watch a couple of my buddies fighting. And I didn’t take that trip because looking at the plane ride from one part of the country to the other was going to stop me from being able to get anything else productive done for a four to five hour period. Plus when I’m in those environments, it’s very hard to stay in touch with everything that I have. But I would definitely go to an event if it was somewhere closer. Another thing that I look for is how to always be focusing on generating leads. I want people coming to me, if they’re going to sell their house, coming to me if they have an off market deal, coming to me if they want a job to work as a loan officer or real estate agent, coming to me if they need a loan. That’s the most valuable part of the businesses I have. And that’s what I’m always focused on.

David:
Well, I can do that from anywhere. I can do that from Cabo. I can do that from Hawaii. I can do that from the gym. I go to jiu-jitsu and I’ve had three people that have refinanced their houses that I met at jiu-jitsu. When you get into real estate, what you find is that you can actually make money spending money. I went and bought a car a couple years ago and the guy who sold me the car, I ended up helping him buy a house. And the commission that I got from that was more than I spent on the car. Because I’m meeting different people and I can find different ways to add value, I can stay busy doing fun stuff too and still making money. And that’s one of the reasons that I encourage people to get into real estate because it’s about solving problems. It’s about networking. It’s about being creative. It’s not about being locked into a cubicle doing the same thing every single day.

David:
Dave, that’s something I learned from you. The next step in my evolution is going to become more like you and learning how to partner with the right people so that they’re doing a lot of the work and I’m providing a lot of the sort of open door for them to be able to make more money than they did before. Thanks a lot, Dave. Appreciate you, can’t wait to see you soon. If you guys want to hear more about Dave’s story, you can check out his book Wealth Can’t Wait. He also wrote a book for BiggerPockets called Bidding to Buy with Aaron Amuchastegui where they detail their process for buying homes that are in the foreclosure process. And he was interviewed on the BiggerPockets Podcast episode 226 from deSTUDENT to 400,000 in rental property cash flow. All right. We’ve some great questions so far. Thank you for everyone who is submitted. We’re going to skip the comments this week, but here are a few tips that are shared by some fan favorite past guests.

Ed:
600 freaking episodes. That is flipping amazing. Speaking of amazing, [inaudible 00:24:13]. Anyway, I digress. Hey, my brother David Greene, the entire BiggerPockets family, congratulations. This is epic. And I’m so honored that I’ve been one of those people that have been on the show. I think I’ve been on there multiple times. It’s a truly remarkable and incredible achievement. And you guys are the best at what you do. One of the things I would share with everybody one tip of the day is that’s why these podcasts matter so much is you’re much closer to the life you dream of to the things you want in your life than you think you are. You’re one relationship, one meeting, one podcast, one thought, one emotion, one decision away from a completely different life. It’s that close and so fight for the one mores in your life. God bless you. And congratulations again guys. Mark’s out.

David:
Thank you very much for that Ed. And thanks for your digression, where we got to see the view from your property. That’s very motivating. And so is hearing the waves crashing in the back background as you made that video, you handsome devil. For those of you who don’t know Ed, we interviewed him on the podcast episode 433. And I’ll tell you what doesn’t Ed just make you feel good about yourself more than anybody else would. That’s a super power that guy’s got. Thank you very much, Ed. For all of you listening here, check out episode 433, where you get to hear a funny gif that I made about Ed and his wife. And the classy way that he handled it as well as the impact he will have on you, where you will just run through a wall to be more successful.

Henry:
Wow 600 episodes. What an incredible achievement. Thank you so much BiggerPockets for all you’ve done for the real estate investment community. You have been such a resource of information and inspiration for people. It was my main go-to resource when I first got started and now I get to be a part of the BiggerPockets family and share my inspiration with members of your platform. And I can’t thank you enough for all that you do. If I could give people one piece of advice for their real estate investing journey, it’s get comfortable in uncomfortable situations. Growth comes and wealth is built just outside of your comfort zone and the more comfortable you can get in uncomfortable situations, the more successful I feel like people will be. Congratulations, BiggerPockets. I hope to see you for 600 more.

David:
Thank you very much for that Henry. If you guys want to see more of Henry’s incredible story, you can check him out on the podcast episode 366, which is also our most downloaded podcast of all time. As well as you can see Henry on recent episodes where he fills in as a co-host for the real estate podcast.

Scott Trench:
Hey everybody? Scott Trench here, CEO of BiggerPockets. I am so proud and grateful and amazed and all these other emotions that we made it to 600 episodes here on the Real Estate Investing Podcast. That is awesome and really, really exciting. Thank you so much David, for taking the reins as our host of the Real Estate Podcast here. Just awesome. My question for you is this. If I’m a new or aspiring real estate investor or entrepreneur, someone who’s building a real estate business and I need to hire not just my first employee, but management. People who are going to lead my organization, sales, marketing operations or other components. How do I determine a set of criteria for that job? How do I set clear expectations when I don’t even know necessarily what I really need done in my business at a fundamental level? And then how do I interview for that? How do I get started in hiring leaders for my team?

David:
All right. Thank you very much, Scott. That is the brain source of all BiggerPockets right there. Thanks for your contribution my friend. When it comes to how you hire a manager or someone else to help take you to the next level, there’s a few things that I’ve learned and I’m still learning quite a bit. One of them is that you want to find someone who has done something harder than the thing you’re asking them to do now. I just want you to think about something. If you go find someone and the toughest job that they ever had was scooping ice cream at Baskin-Robbins, and they come to you and they say, “Hey, I’m going to lead your company to the next level.” I would say, tell me about the hardest thing you’ve ever done. And I’m really hoping I hear something that’s tougher than that.

David:
Because if you take someone who the hardest thing they ever did was scooping ice cream, and they haven’t been super ambitious with their life. And you say hey, I need you to make 50 calls a day to find someone to hire for exposition that we have. That will feel incredibly difficult to them, and they’re not going to have a great attitude about doing it. Making 50 calls a day is harder than scooping ice cream when a guest comes in. But let’s say you find a Navy SEAL and you say hey, I need you to make 50 calls a day. And they’re going to say, “All I have to do is push some numbers on a phone and read a script that you’ve told me. I don’t have to do pushups while I’m doing this. I don’t have to be trying to out swim an alligator at the same time.” It will be confusing to a Navy SEAL, how their job is nothing more than making 50 phone calls and asking something.

David:
And that’s just a dynamic that I’ve learned with human beings is we tend to look at something in our attitude towards it is a direct reflection of if we think that this is harder or easier than something else that we’ve done before. Always find out from the person you’re going to be hiring, what’s something very difficult that they’ve done. And how does that compare in relation to this? Another thing to think about is none of us really learn anything completely new. What we do is we stack what we’re learning now onto something that we’ve already learned. I find that when I’m hiring people and I say hey, here’s something I want you to do. They always approach it in the same fashion as something else that they did, right?

David:
If you hire a bookkeeper and you ask them to make phone calls, they’re going to spend six out of their eight hour day, six hours of it making the spreadsheet to track the phone calls without actually even making it, which is not a very big productive use of time. But that’s how they did everything before this. And so that’s how they’re going to approach this. Remember when you’re hiring someone, you’re bringing somebody in, they’re going to approach every single problem from the perspective of how they’ve approached it before. You’re really looking for someone that you can just stack knowledge on top of a stack they have that’s useful to you. That they have a stack of knowledge from their previous life that’s completely different than what you’re asking them to do. Even if they have a great attitude and a great work ethic, they’re probably going to approach things in a way that isn’t effective or productive because that’s all they know.

David:
The last thing I would say, when I’m hiring someone to be a leader, they’re going to be forced to get results, not to perform tasks. Most people in life are set towards waiting for someone to tell them what to do. And then they either do it with a good attitude or a bad attitude. But in either case, they’re wanting someone else to tell them, go do this, go do that. What happens is you hire someone to help manage your portfolio. And you say, go put my listing on Airbnb and they do it. And then they sit around and wait for you to tell them something else. And you say hey, did you look up the price of what we should be asking for that? And they go, “Oh no, do you want me to?” Yeah. And then they go do that. And then they do nothing else. And you say hey, what do you think we can actually rent it out for? “Oh, I don’t know. I just got a list of prices. I put them in a spreadsheet for you to look at.”

David:
And this pattern continues forever, where they wait for you to give them direction. What I look for is the type of personality that walks into a messy office or a messy kitchen and just starts cleaning it up because they cannot stand to see a mess. And sometimes I set up the environment where the person is coming into a messy or cluttered situation and I don’t go right away to meet them. And I wait and see what they do to impact their environment. And what I’ve found are that the people who have this compulsion to make things better just for the sake of making them better, are the ones that are going to be really good within your company. I will often ask people questions that will try to get at the heart of where they are when it comes to this. Another one I like to say is hey, if I ask you to furnish a short term rental for me, what would you do?

David:
And if the first question they say is, what’s my budget? They’re telling me right off the bat, I would spend as much of your money as you allowed me to. Okay. What I want to hear instead would be something along the lines of well, how much money is available to us and how much freedom do I have at making decisions? And I’ll say well, tell me what you would do? And they would say, “Well, I would want to go see how I could find items on sale. I’d probably approach Facebook Marketplace in the individual area where it is, where I would call furniture stores and ask if they’re having a sale, if they know about someone that’s on clearance.” I’m wanting to see, are you trying to save the company money or make the company money right off the bat? Or are you asking how much money you’re allowed to spend because it makes your job easier?

David:
You’re trying to get to the heart of where somebody’s coming from. I hope that helps because when you hire somebody, you don’t want to have to micromanage them all the time. And if you don’t want to manage them, find someone who likes to manage themselves and has a track record of doing that. And they’ll make adjustments when they actually get in your company. That’s a great question. Thank you very much for asking that Scott. All right. Our next question comes from my original mentor Tim Rhode. You can check out Tim on episode 353, which is our second most downloaded episode of all time. Tim says, “My question is David Greene. Why are you doing all of this? What is your long term outcome?” My outcome was to retire young, which was at 40 and enjoy the rest of my life with enough to DOE to fund the party.

David:
What is your overall intended outcome DG? By the way congrats. I’m so proud of you, David. You’ve come a long way from Isadore’s. Isadore’s was the restaurant I was working at in Manteca, California when I met Tim, who had heard that I had a really good work ethic and I was a person of integrity and he offered me a job as a prospector in his real estate. It was a real estate sales team. I did not know what a prospector was. I did not know what I was signing up for. I just knew that if Tim Rhode has offered me a job, the answer was yes. Tim was the top salesperson in our city. He had commercials on TV at that time. He was really ahead of his time when it came to marketing. And I was a cold caller for Tim for probably about a year where I just read a script.

David:
And that was my first experience getting any exposure to real estate, which really had a big impact on me. And then as I started buying rental properties, Tim was the guy that I would go to ask questions. I remember one time he just had me explain my portfolio. And he said, “Oh well, you got an interest rate of whatever you could refinance that right now and save some money.” And I felt so dumb that I had never thought of that on my own. This is where David was back then and having a person like that I could run a deal buy before I bought it, gave me the confidence to move forward. And then Tim’s also the one that really put the screws to me and said, “You need to stop being a cop and you need to become a real estate agent.” Which led to where I am now.

David:
Tim’s had a huge impact on me. And I really appreciate that about you, Tim. As far as my big why? I’m not entirely sure, but what I know is I want to create an ecosystem where people who want to find a trustworthy representative that is going to handle their transaction with integrity and from a financial perspective can come to get advice. I’m creating the David Greene team, which focuses on real estate sales. The One Brokerage, which focuses on getting the loan. I’ll be starting an insurance company. I want to start an instruction company. I’m trying to find all the pieces that people need, that they can trust. If I go to this company, I will be taken care of and they will help build my wealth. All of you listening to this, please come to me before you find another agent or another person. Don’t come to me after because now it’s awkward when I’m trying to give you advice that might conflict with somebody else’s.

David:
The other thing that I want is to create leaders and help other people to build better lives. If I can create opportunity for the right people to come and work hard and make money and grow, that’s definitely a win for me. The last piece is that staying in this position of stress and leadership forces me to grow, makes my life better every day than it was the day before. I’m not sure exactly what’s going to happen with our economy. And I’m not worried about just having enough money for me.

David:
I am on enough wealth that I can take care of everyone that I care about in case worst case scenarios happen, we hit something like the great depression. I’m not hoping that’s going to happen obviously. But that’s one of the things that motivates me to keep my foot on the gas pedal is I know that I may have enough money for me right now, but the ability to create wealth may not exist the way that it is right now forever. And there may come a time where we have much more scarcity. And I’d like to be able to continue to accumulate wealth and save money and build cashflow so that if that ever happens, I’m in a position where I can take care of the people that I love. Thank you very much for asking that question Tim.

Britt:
Hi David? It’s your friend investor girl Britt here. And so much has happened since I was on the BiggerPockets podcast last, when we were all hanging out in Maui. I’ve grown my social media and we have been doing larger deals in commercial real estate. And with all of that, my team has grown alongside it. It has happened very quickly and you have just been such a huge inspiration to me as I’ve watched your real estate journey. And as we all know, you run a large team. My question to you is what are your top three leadership tips?

David:
All right. Thank you very much for that Britt. If you guys want to find out more about miss Britt here, you can catch her on episodes 320 and four 470 of the BiggerPockets podcast. Britt, you’re looking pretty tan. It looks like you’re still spinning some time out there in Hawaii. Give Brandon a hug for me. All right. My three tips when it comes to being a leader. The first thing is you should practice extreme ownership. If you have never heard of that phrase, Jocko Willink and Leif Babin wrote a book about it that I highly recommend Leading. And basically if you were to boil that book down, it’s that everything is the leader fault. When you’re the leader, you don’t get to put blame on anyone else, because if somebody on your team made a mistake, you’re the one that hired them. You’re the one that trained them. And you’re the one that delegated that job to them.

David:
It’s a very tough row to hoe. It’s hard when every single thing that goes wrong, ends up being on you. But it will definitely force you to grow as a person. Taking extreme ownership is the first leadership tip that I would give. The next is that you have to build around yourself. And a lot of people are just not comfortable doing that. They want to follow a blueprint of somebody else’s business. But you’re going to be the cornerstone of that team. You have to hire out your weaknesses and then surround yourself with people that amplify your strengths. It’s much more similar to trying to build a professional sports team than it would be following a blueprint. If you’re trying to build a really good NBA roster, you’re going to try to find a superstar, a LeBron James, a Stephen Curry, a Giannis. You’re going to try to find someone like that. That’s incredibly skilled. Then put role players around them that minimize their weakness and amplify their strengths.

David:
A lot of us are afraid to step into that position of being a rock star, where we think we’re worthy of having people around us that cover up for our weaknesses and amplify our strengths. But you got to be comfortable with it. As the leader, everything’s going to fall on your shoulders and all the success is going to come from your leadership. It’s imperative that if you’re unorganized, you hire people to be organized. If you’re already organized, but you’re not very charismatic, you got to hire somebody else to handle bringing in opportunity because they have the personality that people are drawn to. Recognizing your weaknesses and replacing them in your company is going to be vital. The third thing that I would say is leaders need to always be casting vision.

David:
They’re constantly saying here’s where we are and here’s where we’re going. Here’s where we are. And here’s where we’re going. And people like that. They want to know what’s the plan? What’s the direction? Most people that are good employees will go really hard if they know where they’re going. But think about if you’ve ever been on a trail, walking through the woods and the trail spiked, and there was no sign that said which direction you’re supposed to go in. Almost everybody will stop and freeze and wait until they can try to figure out where they’re supposed to go. And if you consider moving forward as being productive within a company, you want your employees moving all the time. Your job is to constantly be putting up the sign posts. Your job is to constantly be staying in communication with them to say, here is where we’re going. A lot of leaders forget that people don’t know what’s in their head. Continually reminding people this is the vision, this is the goal will help a lot. Thank you very much for that Britt. Hope you continue to crush it.

Brandon:
Hey there, my name’s Brandon. I’m a long time listener, first time caller. You can find me at Beardie Brandon over on Instagram, or you can follow my company Open Door Capital. David Greene man, you remember me? Yeah, it’s been a while. I heard this was a pretty monumental show. And you were taking questions. You had no idea what you’re getting yourself into. Here’s my question for you. If you had to pick a tall, handsome, well, bearded bestie, who would that be? That’s first question. Second question is a bit less serious, but you and I talk a lot about not building too many bridges, right? And not getting too distracted. At the same time both of us do that a lot, right? We’re always doing way too many things. You got the mortgage brokerage, you got the agency. I think you’re getting into a bunch of other cool stuff. How do you balance that in your life? I struggle with that. Adding too many things. How do you balance ambition with being good at stuff?

David:
All right. Thank you for that Brandon. As far as picking a tall, handsome, big bearded bestie, I feel that’s a bit of an oxymoron. There is nobody who is handsome and also has a huge beard. Thank you for the trick question, but that’s not going to work today my best friend. Now, as far as building too many bridges man, you just go right for the gut every single time, don’t you? You find that one little chink in the armor, the soft underbelly and you go right at it. Let’s talk about why we build multiple bridges? The first reason is oftentimes because it’s fun. To deny our self building bridges could be denying fun, which isn’t always healthy. Now let’s talk about why we tell other people not to do it? Well, often that’s because you give this great example of building a bridge from California to Hawaii.

David:
Now, theoretically, California is where you don’t want to be and Hawaii is where you do want to be. And so what we’re saying is don’t build multiple bridges until you get to your destination. In many ways, I’ve got there. I’ve gotten out of having to have the W-2 job. I don’t have to work in law enforcement anymore. I don’t have to worry about paying my bills. I have financial freedom. I have enough cashflow to support me. I can sort of take some luxuries with building several bridges at the same time. But I look at it more like building several lay lanes on the same bridge. I have a one lane highway going from California to Hawaii, which is cashflow. Now I’m looking to add different businesses and different opportunities that will allow me to put more trucks on that same lane so I can deliver more cargo than having even better life. It’s not just about having financial freedom, but now it’s about having more comfort, being able to do are fun things and maybe take care of more people, get more Californians into Hawaii.

David:
The way that I justified doing this, whether I’m right or wrong is I look for synergy in the opportunities that I’m having. Starting a real estate team taught me a lot of the same tools like building systems, hiring people, managing people. That worked when I started the loan company. I’ll be starting an insurance company at some point, probably a construction company. And a lot of those same skills will transfer onto those lanes get built faster than the original bridge was. When I write books, they often give me credibility. That makes it easier for people to say, “Hey, that’s David Greene. I want him to sell my house. I’m calling him and he’s going to be the one to get me all the money when we put it on the market.” Because I’ve written those books.

David:
Same thing goes for running our social media channels. What we’re really trying to do is create a synergistic environment where people get to know us. They trust us. They feel comfortable with us. And then they use our businesses for the services they need, where we can make them money and they can make us money. And we have the best relationship possible, which is a win-win. Now I don’t know how well I’m actually doing at that, right? That might be another question that I should be asking you is where do you see me succeeding? And where do you see me failing? Where do you think I could do better?

David:
But when it comes to building multiple bridges, I guess I’ll sum it up by saying, don’t even consider it until you get out of the situation you’re currently in. And then once you’ve accomplished that and you’re ready to expand, look for ways that this bridge will benefit another bridge. And that’s why I call them lanes on the same highway. I’m not building another bridge from California to Alaska or to Australia. They’re all going in the same direction. They should all be complimenting each other. Miss you, my friend. Hope you’re having a great time in Europe. And thank you for this question.

Mr. Rob:
Hey David, how’s it going? I was wondering if you could take us through your ideal Chipotle order. Are you a bull guy, a salad guy, a burrito guy and please feel free to go into excruciating detail. I’ve got question for you and please don’t read too far into this. Because I’m actually asking you for a friend that’s going through this right now. But what do you do when you’re partnered up with somebody in the real estate world and they’re way better looking than you? Significantly, they got the hair going on. They’ve got a really nice beard, a sparkling charm and wit about them whenever they’re on camera, all those kinds of things. And again, don’t read too far into this. Asking for a friend.

David:
Well, I’m going to answer your second question first there Mr. Rob. I don’t know that I can because I have no experience with anybody who’s actually better looking than me, more charismatic or in any way a better male. In many ways I’m like Dwight Schrute from the office and I am the example that others aspire to. You’re probably asking the wrong person how I would deal with those insecurities because I’ve never had to. If I had to project myself into your situation, I would say the best thing that you can do is make yourself compliment the person who you want to be more like. And luckily for you your skillset is very in line with doing just that. You are a great compliment to me. We have great chemistry. You’re a super smart guy.

David:
I’m actually jealous of where you are at your stage in life. Because when I was where you are in life, I didn’t have any of the things that you’ve got. You are way ahead of me and many others and many other ways. And I really appreciate that we have you around here to share your insight and help other people build their wealth. As far as Chipotle, total millennial question should not be surprised that you asked this. This is why we use Pokemon examples because brother, this is where you’re at. Here’s my Chipotle dilemma. I could do the bowl thing, but I don’t love it because I feel like if I was going to do that, I would just go to a Takorea and I would get something better. I like to go the burrito route at Chipotle because they’re good, but I don’t like rice. And when you leave rice out of a Chipotle burrito, it gets very soggy.

David:
And you can try to ask them to not have as much juice in the beans, but most of them don’t care because they’re also not loving their job. They just throw it on there. And the first half of the burrito’s fine, but then all the juices are running down to the bottom. And by the time you get to the second half, it’s a mess. It’s falling apart in your hands. And for that reason, I don’t go to Chipotle. What I have started doing is going to the grocery store to start my day and buying pre-made vegetables and protein. That’s one of the ways that I’ve been trying to get in better shape. I show up to work with chicken wings or chicken pieces, and then a broccoli salad or an asparagus salad or they’ve made a brussel sprout salad with cranberries and that’s been making a lot easier to eat more vegetables. You didn’t ask that. But I answered the question that you should have asked instead. Thank you very much, Rob miss you, looking forward to seeing you on our next show.

Jay:
Hi there BiggerPockets. It’s Jay and Wendy Papasan coming at you from Austin, Texas.

Wendy Papasan:
In honor of your 600 show. And in honor of the amazing David Greene, we wrote you a poem.

Jay:
A short one. There once was a man name of Greene.

Wendy Papasan:
Who in short was a podcast machine.

Jay:
He worked without rest.

Wendy Papasan:
Teaching us to invest.

Jay:
Congrats David.

Wendy Papasan:
600 shows is so keen way to go.

David:
Oh man. That was so good. I don’t even know what to say. I’ve got to say that video highlighted both Jay and Wendy’s personalities perfectly. Wendy hits you with that whole you’re so great. She’s your biggest cheerleader, makes you love her against your will even. You just have no choice but to like Wendy Papasan. She’s that likable very much like Ed Mylett. And then Jay is probably the best author that I’ve ever come across in my life. Every single time I write a book, I think it’s good until I read one of Jay’s books and I realize how far I have to go. It’s like thinking that you’re fit. And then you show up at a CrossFit gym and you’re like, oh God, I don’t know anything about fitness. Jay is such a good writer. You’re so succinct and powerful with what he says. Really look up to you and respect you in that way and many others, both Jay and Wendy. Thank you very much for the poem and your contributions.

David:
If you would like to hear more of Jay and Wendy check out episodes 113 and 362 of the BiggerPockets Podcast, where they share a lot of their wisdom, particularly around goal setting and having harmony with your spouse or your partner in your business endeavors. All right. That was what we had for episode 600. Thank you very much for joining me here. I hope you got as many laughs and smiles out of that. As I did at BiggerPockets, we are going to continue cranking out the content, making several shows a week and remaining the best real estate podcast in the world. Thank you very much for your support.

David:
If you would be so kind, please comment on YouTube and let me know what you like the most, what you think people should have asked or what questions you have put them in there and I’ll do my best to answer them on YouTube. You can find out more about me by follow me on social media at David Greene 24, or messaging me on the BiggerPockets platform. To everybody who submitted a video or a question thank you very much. I really appreciate, especially the kind words. And to everybody listening, thank you for your support and for your attention. I hope you continue to give it to us and I want to make you proud, giving you the best real estate advice that I can. This is David Greene for the 600th BP episode signing off.