Andy Nathan

Andy Nathan is a social media consultant, property investor, real estate broker, and entrepreneur. He speaks on using social media for a business, and he started programs including Start-up Gap and Smart at the Start.

His site is andynathan.net. Smart at the Start is at smartatthestart.com. He is on LinkedIn at andrewmarcnathan.

This is episode 7 of Flipside Frolic. It was recorded January 19, 2025, published May 19, 2025, and runs about 2 hours and 38 minutes.

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Transcript

This is the conversation, proofread from the auto captions. Clear errors in names and places were corrected. The conversation itself was not rewritten.

Hey there. Thanks for joining us at Flipside Frolic, where we learn to understand each other's perspectives by flipping the script and having some fun. Here we go. All right, we're live. So, welcome Andy Nathan. Um, it's been a while, that's for sure. Uh, initially we met, you were doing some social media stuff. um doing some network things on I believe it was probably Meetup.com or something along those lines that maybe initially maybe we did. Um it's kind of funny. I dug this out so we can have we can have you uh sign sign your book. Oh my lord. I I I actually have one or two copies left of this. But uh if you really wanted it, you you can have it obviously. That's okay. You could have it. I I have my own version of it left.

So, we could have you I can have the signed copy from uh published author Andy Nathan here in the marketing experience. And you even have the date when you bought it. See that? That's kind of funny. Yeah, that Well, the one of the things that we did was uh I helped contribute to one of the chapters in the book through my story, which was was uh pretty amazing back in the day. Um, you guys heard it a little bit with uh overcoming obstacles and different things that that uh Andy was working on at the time. Um, and and at that time I was off of work because of my work injury. So I had a little extra time to to dive down marketing and um some networking things and some computer skill things and websites and blogging and social media and all these different things cuz I wasn't sure if I was ever going to return to work.

Um, so I was just uh, you know, checking out other avenues or whatever. But But you did. I did. Yeah. Fortunately, I did get back to work. Uh, or or whatever, however you want to. It was in the cards that I was going back to work. But um, all those skills that I learned over all that time um, obviously helped with trying to get some of these, uh, things rolling. So, you just kind of feel your calling and feel what what feels right. And and the main thing for me with this podcast is is really just reconnect with people, just catch up, you know, um see what's going on, what they've been up to, how the kids doing, all that kind of stuff. And it's it's just a a great way to connect with people that you haven't seen in a while. And I just feel like, you know, we're all here to help each other in some way.

And sometimes it's just so serendipitous how you you run into somebody and then something comes up and then there's some contact or whatever. and the whole magic of networking is what a lot of your experience is about. So, um but yeah, so so what you've been up to 10 years ago or 12 years ago probably that's uh that's a lot. Uh so I I I I I had my digital marketing agency for a few years. So when you when we talked I uh I think I was I was just starting to do trainings cuz that was probably near the beginning and I did trainings and I also did uh a lot of services for a number of years and probably about 2016 2017 I actually had the opportunity to get a one of those fun things called a job. Nice. You've heard of those right? Yes I do. Unfortunately I've too much experience with them. Yes. So, I uh sorry, hold on. So, my apologies.

That's all good. Uh so, I essentially uh made the transition because I was at that time I I had actually gone through a divorce. So, I've been married the first time and didn't work out. A lot of things. I'm not going to go into that. Uh but uh took a job because I just you know I I figured there was an opportunity there to to play around with HubSpot to start going to some conferences to to get some real learning and I worked there for about a year. I learned a lot.

It was a big corporate environment and you know I didn't even know what a stakeholder was until until I started working there because I I why would you know that when you're working with small businesses and they were very much you have to involve all the stakeholders and like that you know they wanted me to create 20 landing pages and I said well what happens when I'm done in a month with those landing pages and at a large corporation the time to spend on that I think I finished two landing pages in one year because it was so ridiculous how much time it took and how many people you had to get involved. So left there, went to a digital marketing agency that was a little bit smaller, which was more my speed. Unfortunately, they lost some clients and they had to let me go.

I did some copyright for them, then worked for a nonprofit, had some transitions and then uh started working with the tech company I was with for about five years. I left them last at the end of last year and it was interesting because I you know at every company I learned a little bit more. Um but I definitely felt like at the end I I just like you know I was I had left mortgages initially. So, I was a mortgage broker and real estate investor and I got caught up in 2008 and everything that happened and that was a lot of fun, you know, losing all your properties and and all your money going away and then every like I remember getting I I had a comm I had two commissions and this is what this is what made me leave the industry. I had two commissions. I got one commission for a job that took me three months.

It was it was a pro it was a client I finished the mortgage. It took me three months to finish and there was an error that was like on the processing side. I can't remember what it was cuz this is so long ago. And I made like a like $7 on the commission. And I'm just like cuz you're you're you're a you're the 1999 so you're not a W2 employee. So I made $7 on something that took me three to six months. That should have been a 6,000 $8,000 commission. I said if that ever happens again I'm leaving. Mh. in about six months, a year later, because I had had information that if I do deals in Indiana, I could get a full 5% on the commission on smaller deals, which was a big deal in Indiana because a lot of times Indiana, it's a $50,000 purchase. And they were saying you could do you could get 5%. Apparently, that's the rule there.

And this is the instructor who did the certification course for the mortgages. And apparently, they were wrong. I don't get that amount. I get whatever's left after processing. So I made a buck 75. So I said, "This is nuts. I'm leaving." And you know, like all the stuff going on, everything else. I left. I kind of like I said, I I lost some properties. I tried to get some of it back. Um, I ended up having to short sale a property in Florida, which was ended up not being as bad as I would have imagined, but it was just the property was losing $1,000 a month because it had gone from cash flowing a hundred and then the rents just just bombed in 2008, 2009. So all of a sudden the $100 in cash flow went down to like negative6700. And then in addition to that, the association was losing money because all the other people were leaving.

So they said, "We're putting on a special assessment just to tack on to this." Right? So then it's like, "I can't pay $1,000 a month on a property I'm not living on that's supposed to be an investment." And it lost it went from $200,000 in value to $50,000 in value. I short that property. Uh ended up figuring out a way. And this you can't even do this anymore, by the way. Sorry. This is all might be getting way into the weeds, but I know it's cool. Uh, I I when I I short sailed the property in 2011. And when I short saleailed the property, I I had asked my CPA, "What can I do to avoid the taxes because there's a $150,000 tax bill on this?" And then he's like, "Well, you can declare you could do a a bankruptcy." And I'm like, so I went to go see a bankruptcy attorney.

He said, "You can't do a bankruptcy because the way I purchased another property made it impossible for me to do that without wrapping up other people in that bankruptcy." So, I'm like, "Okay." So, I started researching it and I found out that you could declare yourself insolvent if you have no money, which was really great because, you know, they wiped out all my money. So, they wiped out all my money. So, I said, I'm I'm insolvent. And it was the last year an investor could actually declare themselves insolvent on a loss for a foreclosure. So, I declared myself insolvent. So, I ended up walking away from a 200 $150,000 loss on a $200,000 property. And I think I had to end up paying like a few thousand dollars and some fees and that was about it. Nice.

So that doesn't sound too dissimilar from some of my experiences because 2008 was the same kind of thing for me. I I had uh um we we had first got married. I bought a house in Chicago. It was $326,000. And and the idea was it was a smaller house. Well, I I had plans uh drawn up for a second story edition. We're going to, you know, remodel this house, do a second story edition, flip it, make some money, buy something bigger, and just start that whole process of of doing some work on the side while you're, you know, all that kind of thing. And 2008, what we bought right at the peak. So, a year later, it was $150,000 upside down. And at one point, I was thinking about moving down to Florida just because I'm like, maybe if I live there, but I'm like, even if I live there, I'm still upside down. Yeah. Yeah.

Obviously, having rentals out of state is a challenge in itself. No, no question. And to build the relationships it takes to have people that you can trust because everybody wants $1,000 a day to do anything. So, it's impossible to make a profit if everybody's making a ton of money. So, it's a challenge. It was it was it was $1,000 a month. Sorry, I just want to make sure I'm clear. Did I say $1,000 a day? I'm saying I'm just saying tra tradesmen nowadays are pretty much looking for about $1,000 a day with regardless of what they're doing whether it's carpenters hanging doors or whatever. It's amazing. Yeah. Um how everybody's worth so is higher than you know co definitely inflated a lot of stuff. Yes. So I mean I'm not saying that they're not worth it. No doubt. No doubt.

And we have guys who are getting a little bit less than that but I mean there's definitely some there's definitely some increased value. Like we were working on a rehab when CO happened and I I'm pretty sure that increased the the cost of the rehab by about 10 20,000. Just co you mean? Yeah. CO actually I think we saved some because even though I am not the greatest handyman in the world that's why I have my guys that's why if they were over there you heard me talking to them earlier. I I was the one who was painting this one of our rental houses. I painted I primed and painted pretty much the entire house just because you're trying to save a little. We needed to save something. So, I mean, it was a rental property. So, it's I did a pretty good job. I would not be I would not hire out my services professionally.

Well, well, painters is one of those trades too that they definitely are at the top level of of price point sometimes and and but to do it right is so timeconuming if they're really patching and they're really do doing all that prep work and then it seems like they paint the walls in a day and it's like oh that they're getting a lot of money for one day of work but if there's three days of prep work or whatever and that's what really makes it turn out nice. Um, but then if somebody else is coming in and trying to charge the market rate, and then they just come and don't do any prep work, well then obviously they don't deserve that top dollar, you know. So I I once replaced the bathroom tile in a house I was living. This is years ago.

I wouldn't do it anymore just because I'm smart enough to know I shouldn't be doing it because I watch my guys and they You okay? Yeah. Yeah. Uh I watch my guys and I know they they know what they're doing. I mean, you know, you if I when I was I was getting rid of some subway tile and it took me like a week or two just to get rid of I mean I wasn't doing every day but it's like you're chipping away and I'm like how do you get this faster and I'm like I couldn't figure out what to do and I talked to the guys and there's we just go like that and they're just done and I'm like oh yeah but they but they go so fast when you do it and I'm it's like they can get it done in two to three days no matter what they're doing because they know what they're doing right for me I I I it took me three weeks to do it. But you know what?

It was it was for a house I was living in. It was a second bathroom. It was okay. I got it done. But you know, like I wouldn't say do it again. I mean, I definitely made mistakes in there and I there was definitely a creek in the floor at one point because I I kind of was low on concrete at the end. Yeah. Yeah. And so I well that obviously the the the ability to know exactly like how hard you can hit things without creating extra damage that's going to cause more work later and you know all those fine lines and that's what experience is about. I've done quite a jack of all trades, master of none. So I've done a lot of construction. Um right now my bathroom down here my this whole basement has been remodeled and I did almost everything. Okay. So, I did the drywall, I did the painting, I did So, I'm looking now.

Yeah, now you could look the I did the flooring. Um, and right now LVP. Yeah, there's a few there's a few seams separating. So, I'm going to have to address that with the little two-sided tape and and a little bit of clear silicone to tap them together and hold them together or whatnot. But the bathroom right now, the shower is is dured but not tiled. Okay. So, so it's the same story that I know I can do it. I've done it before and it's just like I it's just going to take me three times as long and maybe not turn out as great. Yeah, but then that's the agg, you know, they they the end product is like, well, I could have done that. Like the like like if if if it's not great, you know what I mean?

And and sometimes attention to detail and like our upstairs bathroom, there's like just some of those little details that sometimes matter and sometimes don't matter, but maybe you would like it this way and not that way. Like there's one spot that it it's just like kind of you pointed out. Um, one thing you have to be careful with folks is is like if you're doing work and then you have that one little thing that you screwed up, nobody else is ever going to see it until you point it out. And that just it was it kind of just happened earlier with us in in a little detail. Um, but then you'll always see it, right? So So you're not trying to hide things from the customer when you made a mistake.

you know, you don't you're not trying to deceive them by not telling them about it, but if you don't tell them about it, they'll never notice it and, you know, so there's a fine line between between screwing yourself by trying to be honest. Yeah. Um and and creating an unsatisfied customer. So, like one example is we have the stainless steel edging for the tile in the bathroom upstairs and they brought that down to the top of the molding. Okay? And and and it's like it just looks unfinished. Like I would have just multi-toolled out that molding and ran that down to the ground. Okay. And then it would have it just would have looked a little bit better.

And so when you see you see things like that and then you're sitting on the toilet or whatever and you're staring at it and you're just like, you know, I paid these guys and then you know this is how they do things or whatever. And if you're I'm at work. So it's like either I'm going to be working or I'm going to be doing it. But if I'm going to take off of work to babysit somebody else doing the job, that's pretty annoying too. weather, but you almost have to be there these days. It's it's it's bizarre. Well, that's why we have uh like we have some one of the guys that works with us. He's there to check out the projects. It's not it's not that the guys aren't going to do the work. We just need to make sure everything's done in the right time, make sure we catch stuff.

And you know, one of the things that was happening was we had uh we had a this the property you heard me talking about earlier. Uh we were working on that earlier and all of a sudden you came in on a Monday and on Friday everything was fine. And on Monday it was 37 degrees, 38 degrees. And as it's December, January I think I can't remember if it was which one it was. It was right around the the beginning of the month, end of the last month. And we we called the we called the the owner and we told him, "Hey, look, there's there's some problems here." And he had his own HVAC guy go out and take a look. And we're like, well, that's fine. You might need to have him come out again. We took a look. I mean, the guys took a look at this stuff to see if they could fix it, but I mean, they're not they're not HVAC specialists.

They're they're the guys who are doing the tiling and stuff like that. They were actually doing the tiling, which is part of the reason why they need the heat, cuz, you know, when you're tiling stuff for the bathroom, when you're doing the grout, you need it to be hot because otherwise, I mean, you don't want it to be steaming in the house, but, you know, you need it to be 60 70°. So, it could it could it could it could dry off, right? it's 38°, it'll take 3 4 days to dry off. And that's not good for anybody. So, we we called him. We went through everything. All of a sudden, we discovered uh at the end of the day, apparently when he set up the people's gas, he thought everything was set up on automatic payment and it wasn't. It's like, so we spent the entire day trying to figure out what to do.

So, and then the guys were working in like 38°ree weather, which sucked. Cool. We're going to we're going to pause for one quick second because I I might be having a little techno issue here. Hold on a second. Products with that. Now, I don't think she gets her entire her salary from that, but I know she gets a few thousand dollars every month from doing these essential oils. And that's basically what you're talking about. It's she she has people underneath her and she trains them how to do that. Now, my wife doesn't isn't active, so she just gets a few. We get enough to basically pay for essential oils every month. It's not But we're not spending time on this. Yeah. So, but we we will buy some stuff every month. It does it does help. It's good stuff to have, but at the same point, it's like she this is she makes some extra.

She supplements her income from that, but she spends a lot of time on that. Now, is she wealthy and can she retire next week from that? Heck no. Right. But she still makes enough that's helping her to supplement so she can live the type of life she wants to live. And you know, she has two kids. one's going off to c well they're going to go off to college or do something else next year and then the other one's 15. So like for her she'll have more freedom to do that afterwards. So it's like she really wants to just grow that business and that for her that makes a lot of sense and and there's a lot of people like that who you could use that to supplement your income. There's nothing wrong with network marketing. I personally have never really found one that fit what I wanted to do. Like that's the biggest problem.

I I tried Amway and I I I I was looking at they were what did they call themselves at one point because they were Amway then they were not Amway then they were Amway again. There was a name they called themselves in between. Yeah. And I can't remember the name of what they call themselves. Yeah. I just I remember Amway was so popular. It was they they they tried to rebrand and that didn't really work. So they went back to the original or whatever. So they this is before they went back to the original. So I I I had taken a look at them and I had asked them two questions. I said look this because I was already in digital marketing. I said I if I'm doing this I'm promoting this every day on social media. Is that okay? They said no. Oh okay. They told So the guy who who brought me in said yes. Yeah. Then I s I saw the contract and it said no.

You absolutely not local market. Right. And and the main reason for that is because compliance and FCC regulations and all these different things. was too much to try to school everybody on what you could and couldn't say because you cannot offer a promise and you can't falsify income and you have to have disclosures and there's all these rules that could get the company in trouble because you're an affiliate of that company. So that it was easier to just say you can't use social media and that's and but that was the exact but my entire plan was to use social because even at that point I like I said I had a few thousand people on social media and I'm like okay great maybe I could just start meeting those people and start talking to them because even on Facebook I had four to 5,000 people at that point.

So I'm talking about friends, not not followers on a fan page, right? So the So that was one thing. And then the second thing I said was like, look, if I'm gonna do this, I'm going to reach out to people in my network who are investors who are probably more likely to do something like this. But then I'm going to be honest with you, I'm going to go back and then I'm going to talk to about joining like Legal Shield in a few years or something else, right? Because like if I'm doing this, I'm going to have him join another network. And apparently that was a big no no. Yeah. Yeah. They didn't want you doing multiple streams and it was like just any financial advisor or anybody that's out there would tell you don't put all your eggs in one basket and have multiple streams of income. That's the smart thing to do.

Um but of course they want all your time dedicated to their company. So so there were different companies. There was another um I my experience with it was um initially there was a uh one of actually one of our my past guests was doing some work with a vitamin supplement company. Yeah. and and uh so COVID hit or not I'm sorry not co the housing crisis hit 2008 or whenever it was and I was get they they were um I was just like you know I I don't think I can sell a $150 a month vitamin habit right now because everybody's kind of hurting you know what I mean and then the company ended up closing which happens often so there goes your residual income and you screw all your people in a sense but you know stuff happens and then Um they kind of got merged in with a coffee company that was called what was it? Organo Gold.

They were they were I remember that Organo Gold. Yeah. They were selling a coffee that was infused with a ganoderma mushroom that was supposedly an oxygenator and had a health benefit. And so it was like well I can sell a dollar cup of coffee. You know what's when you're looking at Starbucks at the time being five bucks a cup and all this other stuff. And so I we played around with that a little bit. So, we did do a lot of research in different um team setups with the with the legs and how the compensation plans work and how to how to how to balance that out in the best way. So, we did a lot of research on that and then we ended up going into um we ended up I ended up going into another one that was through the through an educational platform for blogging and marketing.

If you remember, I was doing empower network for a little while, which was interesting. Now, they screwed the whole industry up by offering a 100% compensation plan, which people were like, "That's got to be a scam. You can't do that. There's no way the company would be in business." But what their their plan was was that your first sale was 100% commission. And you have to buy the product in order to sell the product. So, you got your money back if you sold one and now you were even, which is kind of crazy. And then the company would get the next two and then you would get the third, the fifth, the so you'd get a 100% on like the third, the fifth, the eighth, something like that. But it was still if you sold a $1,500 training course and you get a $1,500 commission. That seems like you're making some pretty good money.

Yeah, I think I remember talking to some people at Empower, it seemed decent. I mean it it was actually decent to the point that everything we do is trading when when when you just define what money is, right? What is money? You know, you're trading your dollars for value, right? Or perceived value even or even potential value. So whether it's a real estate investment program where they're teaching you how to buy houses and flip them and all these other things, again, it's not a scam. you're getting new information. Maybe you could find all that information for free on YouTube, right? So, if you know what to search for, but sometimes you don't know what you don't know.

So, if you were to set up a program where everything is step by step, easy for you to follow and understand and learn all these things you didn't even know you didn't know, then potentially you could make some money, right? So, they can justify selling you a $15,000 course because after your first flip and you make 20 grand, you're even. And and and but most of the people that get into things like that don't do the work and don't take the action and don't follow the suggestions or they start they start thinking they're smarter and so they start changing things their way. And if you really have a lot of experience in the market, then that's fine. You might be able to interject some of your personal experiences to make it your own and to do good to do well with it. Yeah. But most of the time it's like you don't know you're broke.

So why don't you just follow the plan, you know, and and and there's a lot of truth to that's probably the right thing. Just follow suggestions and learn and then once then you can implement your own things later. There's also I mean there's two parts of that. one, as someone who's experienced investor, I I I have trouble going to a lot of those things cuz it's just it's too basic for me for sure. It's like it's hard it's hard to go back that far in terms of some of the stuff they talk about. So, it's like, you know, I'm I'm debating like maybe at the end of this year, do we go to Bigger Pockets? But at the same point, I don't want to hear 15 different stories of this is my story and we're going to inspire you. No, I want to actually hear what's your cool strategy and give me that now.

give that up front because if I have to if I have to listen to 20 of those, I'm gonna go nuts. Um, same thing with but like at the say at the flip side of it, you know, one of the things that's interesting is that, you know, like some of these courses, they they're right. They they have some they have great ideas, but you know, I've had some where I was I was taking I was an agent a few years ago and I was I am still a licensed agent. I should clarify that just for record. Yeah. Everything else. Disclosure. Full disclosure. Full disclosure. I'm a licensed agent. So, I'm saying this as an agent. So, I real estate agent, not FBI agent or anything. Okay, that'd be kind of cool, though. Can I say I'm like a CIA agent for the fun of it? Yes. He's He's a He's a He might be a a secret a secret agent, man.

Chinese spy real estate investor that's buying up all our property. Yeah. Who's Jewish? Yeah. Uh so, yeah. I know the uh the cool thing was that I mean I I took this investor around and she wanted to flip a property and the problem was she want she's like well let's find a property down in this area. This is what fits my market and she wanted me to find MLS properties. I'm like well they said yeah just get an agent and they'll take a they'll show you around to different properties. I'm like, well, I could show you the property, but if you buy a property for $100,000 and then you go around the next day and if you buy this on the MLS, there's a record of that purchase.

So, any other agent could track that purchase and you don't do anything except for maybe clean everything out, if you go to sell it the next day for 140,000, they're going to be like, "What the hell?" Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if they should swear like my apologies, but yeah, they they're they're not they're not going to like it. So, I mean, the fact is that it's just like no one's going to just go in there and pay. They're like, "Well, they're only So, they she went to this entire program. She paid 10 20,000.

She spent all of her money on the program." And the program basically said, "Well, we'll give you an access to our $600,000 line of credit, but with this line of credit, you can only do flips." I'm like, but that's crazy because if you kept the $20,000, you would have had the ability to just put a down payment on a property, turn it into a rental, maybe even able to get a hard money loan, and then rehab that property, got some money out of that rehab because this is 2020, 2021, and then you could flip that into your next deal and you could still make you'll maybe have 50 or $60,000 for your next deal, and you'll be able to build up more. and they're telling you, "No, you put your money into our program. Now you only get a line of credit and we're gonna restrict how you actually use this money." Right?

Like, well, that's that's crazy to me. Yeah. Why wouldn't you just do it on your own and then have the freedom to do whatever you want, right? So, it's almost like, you know, paying extra money for taxes or whatever. Like, why would you give your money to the government to use for whatever they want instead of you having it if you needed to? But if you don't have the discipline to put it to the side so when the tax bill's due and you could write a check for 15 grand, then maybe you should give it to them in advance, right? So it's really all about how our own personal financial disciplines are. Um, and with those investments, that's the same kind of thing. It kind of triggered into like there was another company for instance that was uh it was a a book thing, right?

So, so, so it was like three books a month you'd get and I was like really I was really interested in trying to read more. So, I was like, you know what? I think this this would be cool. Then you could do like an online book club or you could do different things on book reviews and all this kind of stuff. And and it was the same thing that so it was a place where like you were saying I personally had some experience in the industry. I understood compensation plans very thoroughly and and and and I understood a lot when it came to disclosures and and being able to market online whether they liked it or not or whether that was available or not. So he was definitely sold into the idea just follow the plan. Just follow the plan. Just follow the plan. And I'm like, listen, man, I get it.

That's for people that know nothing and I'm not I don't know nothing. I've done this a few times. Yeah. And so then we ended up like, you know, the empower thing was funny because I went to a few of their their conferences, one in Miami, one in and and there was, you know, thousands and thousands of people. They had 15, 20, 30 speakers that were all being successful, you know. So you're hearing all these stories. Ra. It was amazing in a sense and very motivational. A lot of motivational speaking. A lot of great stories. And like you said, sometimes the stories get old. I want the meat and potato. I want the secret handshake. Let's just get rolling. And so it was funny. I went to this event with with this book one in in in in uh Milwaukee or maybe it was Madison, but either way, there was one couple for 4 hours.

They only had one couple that was telling their success story. There was a a husband wife couple for four hours. For four hours. Like it was her for an hour and a half, then there was a lunch break, then they came back, then it was him for an hour and a half, then there was a small break, and then it was both of them together for and I and I was like, "Okay, well, how much you're looking around at 400 people in the audience?" Like, how many successful people are in this room that that they only have one couple on stage? This is crazy. And then it was like then it the funniest part was I did look at the Were they the founders? They no because that's the only reason I ask. It's like it's like you know like hey the success story but then it's the founders right and then you're like oh you know you're in problem you have problems with that.

Yeah that's a that's definitely a red flag folks if it's the only only the people running the company are the ones making money. Um but so it was just the funniest part of it was like I I did my research. I looked at the compensation plan. I looked at the plan and then I'm listening to their story after this guy that brought me in is telling me follow the plan, follow the plan. And then I'm hearing their story. I'm like, is that the plan? Because the only people successful that are on stage right now are not following the plan. They're doing something different and that's what's making them break free from everybody else. Yeah. So maybe sometimes it's something that could be done. There was um I this is Oh man, this goes back. My first job out of college was a was a 100% commission sales job. I I knew nothing about nothing.

Like I mean I I I didn't I would go into some it was literally going into business small businesses and I was selling like AT&T services like phone services for small businesses seeing if they wanted to change. They I the the entire idea was let's go out and go talk to people. and they had one week of training for us and they took us out one day and they walked us around and I don't even think the sales guy made a sale when we were out because we only went out for like an hour or two around our neighborhood and I'm just like okay great this is not helpful. I did it for like two, three months. But you know, like the the classic example of a salesperson where you just get frustrated, you get angry. But their basic model was, "Okay, great. So here's what you do.

If all you do is sell these phone services and you do like seven lines a day, which it was like $15 a line, at the end of one year, you'll have like $90,000 in salary, which to me at the age of 23, 22, I don't remember, something like that. I'm like, that's a lot of money. I can't. This is great. So, I I went I I I started going out there. I did everything else. I think I hit seven lines one time cuz I sold and I and every time, by the way, my wife and I drive by this place cuz the restaurant is now closed and they still have they have a for sale sign out. So, I I when I go up to my grandmother who's 96, it's right around her area. And I drive by there and I always tell my wife, "That's where I sold my Seven Lines." Nice. Cuz it's just like it's like the place is closed. And she said, "I know.

every time we drive by this, you have to make a comment. I said, "Yes, but it's like but the thing was it's just like their their entire model was go walk doortodoor until you do that." But like, you know, you go walk door todo to businesses and you run out of places to go. And it's just like the idea here is that you could just keep walking around to places. It was just not working. And I I almost did another job at the same time like like like that.

I think like it was a few months after that where they were selling website services and they were like well you have to sell three websites a day and this is when websites were very new so they were going around to businesses and try to sell services and it made sense because I know small businesses needed websites even then but they they wouldn't they wouldn't go through and the guy actually did sell one website while I was out there with him. So, I actually will say it was interesting, but I they wanted me to start the next day. And I'm like, well, I'm I'm going to go up to Madison because I was in I just graduated from college. I said I had to go up see some friends and I had to pick up some stuff for my dorm or whatever or the apartment I was living in so I can move out. I could start on Monday. They said that that doesn't work.

You either have to start tomorrow or we're not going to work with you. I'm like fear of loss kind of crap. Like, yeah. I don't know. Yeah. Have a good day. It was just like if that's your type of attitude, I can only imagine how horrible you're going to be to work with. But I remember all those different type of sales models where they're just like, "Yeah, you go out there every day and you get this done and this is how many you have to get." It's like those are they're right. You do have to hit a certain number of goals and there is a lot of activity to to do for sales. And even now, like I even while we were talking, by the way, I saw my I have a daily reminder, make 10 calls cuz I have to if I don't make at least 10 calls every day and like doing follow-up with people and I don't do it on the weekend as much because I have family time.

Yeah. But during the week, I have to religiously hit at least 10 people. It doesn't matter if I'm driving around. I'm calling people and and and I'm making sure that I reach out to 10 people because I I need to be able to follow up with leads, follow up with with with what's going on with prospects and clients. And then having a good CRM or or something that that really can keep detailed instructions because my brain is not set for sales. Like there's just there's there's different people that are better that remembering names, remembering families, remembering your kids' names. That works, man. Of course. Right.

And and if some of them are kind of cheating with a CRM that are keeping notes and documenting phone calls and tracking how long you're on the phone and different and and trying to be at least be able to have some form of of analysis of your production. Yeah, that's a good thing. And then, you know, leaders are readers. multi-billions of dollars spent on psychology of sales and all these other things and and that's one of the things that the higher level courses in certain things like empower and different things would get into with neurological linguistic programming and embedded commands and all this kind of stuff and it's fascinating when you get into it and and and the funny thing is is like the greatest salesman in the world right the the the Bible for sales back in the day um but now obviously most people.

It's very difficult to make money selling cars because the, you know, the price points are so tight and there's not a lot of leeway. You you'd almost have to be you have to kind of be into the used market in order to have a little more flexibility on making a $500 commission on a car. You know, you're selling a $70,000 car and you get a $100 on it. It's like the crazy, right? So, and even the uh even a lot we even was in the mortgage industry, like I was a mortgage broker before the crash. Even a lot of the car guys got out then. And I could tell you half of our team at one point was car guys, former car guys, because they they they knew how to sell. They had a decent network because of the fact they had gone with the cars and they they would go out there and do that. Yeah. They got a list.

They got they got client lists so you can reach out. They knew what they were doing and it was insane. So I I agree with you and yeah, I am I I'm I'm with you on that. Like my I I I don't remember everything. I I put I I take copious notes when I'm on HubSpot whenever I can. And that's the one thing like if I'm in the car that like I'll have to like then do voice to talk because I like I will not rem the moment I leave that car I will forget every single thing that happened and if I don't do anything nothing's going to happen at that point because it has to be taken right then and right there. I I it's it's my superpower and it's also my weakness cuz it's like the I'm with you. It's like I I will leave something and then I'll 100% forget about it. And it's great because it's like I'm not like burdened by it.

But at the same point, I need to call somebody in 3 weeks and I need to do that and I I put it in I put it in my phone on HubSpot and do that. And actually, one of the things that we're working on for our contractor business is that I need to get we probably need to get into the team aspect now because we're starting to have some issues cuz we have like I'm doing some follow-up and then one of the other guys is doing followup and we need to make sure we're coordinating on that and not double calling somebody. It looks unprofessional, like you don't know what's going on or whatever. Yeah. That and that's that's wild stuff. And you know, and then there's obviously that's where the technology comes in. That's magical. Like when Dragon first came out, that was like the first script to talk to text. And it wasn't perfect.

You could train it, you know, and you could say, comma, and you, you know, you could do different things when you really learned how to use it well. But Dragon, it was frustrating. It's Yeah, cuz then you're 3 hours editing, you know, on on on on 7,000 words that you just spoke or whatever. And it and Yeah. So, the idea is simple that if you can compress time and and be more efficient, like if you have a 40-minute commute to work every day and there's this book you always wanted to write, I mean, the reality is is you can just jot down an outline. Yeah. And do one chapter a day talking to your phone on the way to work. 100%. and and and so you really could be working a full-time job and cranking out, you know, three books, four books a year easy.

And what I would say is also if you're looking to crank out a book and and truthfully selling books online is could be hard today because it's just there's a lot there's a lot it's there's a lot of competition. I wrote my first book in 200 Well, I think we published it in 2008 2009. So, and I and I did a few more after that as you know. Sorry. Mhm. I get all choked up over this. Uh the uh but like one of the first books I wrote like it was one of the first ebooks I wrote because I I wrote a lot of books that were like physical books and I wrote some ebooks and one of the first books I wrote was I there was a there's something called Amazon MTK and I don't know if you've ever used it. It's basically like little microtasks.

So, one of the things that was great was I was so I went on Fiverr and I said, I'm gonna write when I started writing content, I went on Fiverr to actually write content for other people because I wanted to micro test if I could actually write content for other people. And somebody hired me to do some articles. I wrote three articles for him. Then he cuz I'm I put my name on there. So, he reached out to me on Facebook and said, "Hey, look, let's do this off of Fiverr." which you're not supposed to do, but like truthfully for if someone kicks me off of Fiverr that I don't really care cuz I was making I made $12. It's not like it's a big deal. So he said, "I'll pay you $250 to write uh divide by five. So 25 articles." So I said, "Great. Let's do that." Or, "Yeah, did I do the math right?" Uh something 20. No, 40 articles.

40 50 articles, something like that. It was it was insane. So, but I went on Amazon MTurk and I basically I basically would write one one version of the article and I said, "Here's what I want you to do. I need cuz I need it was like all keyword- based articles and back then you could do different versions of different keywords. You can write them as different articles." Yeah. So I would have them I would pay like a dollar or like 50 cents and I would I this is like the budget for the entire project and I would have five to 10 people write one paragraph each for each of these different things and some of the people would just come back with like six pages and I'm like no you just copy that off of Google and I'm not paying you and you could actually say no but like people would write the entire article for me. Yeah.

And then I could go and I could twist it around and repurpose it and something like that. And this is 2010, 2011, and you were able to do that. I wouldn't do that now, but it was crazy cuz you could still have that capability of doing it, but it took time. It was a pain in the butt. And I would never do that. I would never do an article again for $5. But I I I wanted to learn the process. And by actually breaking down an article into individual paragraphs, I was able to study what to do for each article. And it was crazy because like, you know, like I could see how everything works. So like when chat GBT organized stuff, I understand how they organize it because I had to learn how to organize an article so it would work for for people to read. So it would work for for Google. So it would work when people are reading the article.

Do you get from the first paragraph then go to the second paragraph? What sells them on each one and where do they drop off? So you I learned a lot from that. But at the same point it was so timeconuming. Same with thing with dragon like you were saying. Yeah. It just like there was no way. Like that's the thing. If I was a copywriter now, I could write things on I could do it really quick because you could do it through chat GBT and then edit it. But at the same point, what's the point of having me if I could just do it through chat GPT, right? Yeah. I and and and my typing skills aren't off the charts. I have a friend that was on the forms back in the day and there was I was into the saltwater aquarium hobby and and uh this was the most uh Reef Central was the most popular saltwater aquarium form out there. Okay.

And it's kind of funny cuz then everybody thinks that they're making all this money so everybody wants to do their own thing and then they go start something and then they go they run out of business because that was a a funny because censorship was always kind of a thing and shilling and advertising and you know but the the reality was is it was the beginning of the social media buzz of all these online experts. Yeah. And and the interesting thing is that you know if people have negative attitudes you think everybody out there is trying to destroy the world and it's really not the case. Right? So so so most people are trying to help others and they don't even realize they're not really helping by just regurgitating something that they read somewhere when they can't even cite the resource.

It's like in an experience like with threads with uh with forms like that the only thing I'm interested is your personal experience. I don't want to hear about what you heard about. If you're a successful reefer that has this beautiful tank and I could come to your house and see a jamming system that's unbelievable and it stays like that for a year or two or three and I don't hear about you posting my tank crashed, my tank crashed or whatever, well then obviously I'm not going to trust your information as much as somebody that's been in the hobby for 20 years and I never heard him posting about a tank crash. Right.

So, so it was kind of funny and it's so it's like I just want to hear your personal experience and and it was funny that the um the the people that really knew might not have been sharing the same information as what some of the books might say. And then the industry was a little strange because then you have your five key authors and then these authors in the industry are citing each other as resources and it's kind of like this thing where it's just like it's they they they lose the touch because they get so busy with circuit speaking and writing books and all this stuff. It's like do you even have a tank at home anymore?

like you know like so it's like the people that would like give their information of their experience then they start getting shredded you know people start criticizing them like oh you can't do that it's like well this is what I've done for 20 years so you know what I mean um and I don't I don't I don't know exactly bigger pockets sometimes with for real estate investors you get that all the time like people will just give out advice because they heard it at a conference or something like that and then then you'll have an experienced this investor come in like some people like what do I do with this tenant with this just and then someone will say kick him out it's like well that's a stupid comment cuz clearly you've never dealt with an eviction like saying or people say cash for keys which is if you've ever done an eviction is not a bad thing especially in Chicago where you have where it's a horrendous eviction schedule and $2,500 is a lot of money in for somebody that's struggling or something like that and it's nothing compared to what it's going to cost you?

It's going to be 5 to 10 grand to evict somebody and it's in about a year. Like my um my business partner, we've been fortunate. We I think we had to do cash for keys on somebody, but we haven't had to do a full eviction. My partner had to do a full eviction the he had one he he did cash for keys like a month before CO started, which was the greatest stroke of luck because that would have been four years. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Been a year or two. It's just like it delayed everything. But he he had uh but he had another one that was CHA one and this was a tenant who was a hoarder and he had evict her and it took a year.

I mean and he had to get a CHA involved and CHA had to remove her from the program because it was so bad and then the property cleanup and everything that goes along with it because it just for any of you guys, you know, any any local to Chicago area that's listened and interested in property investment and all that sort of stuff. So that's what Andy's main focus is right now. But a great tip that most people don't realize because I I have two I have two rentals.

I'm I'm not a huge um landlord, but and and that's the interesting thing that, you know, a lot of these background check companies and all these different resources um they want you doing, you know, 200 hits a month or something for some subscription, you know, you know, and it's just like for a small investor that's only like doing background checks twice every 3 years, five for five applicants or something, there's resources out there to help them, you know, and one of the things like pushing away from building I think we'll see. We're not sure yet, but we we found something that's a free service that we just have to pay for like transaction fees and or the client possibly pays for transaction fees and then or the tenant pays and then they also they'll pay for the uh the reports and stuff like that. That's cool.

And then a lot of real estate brokers, they have through their brokerage company might have access to some of those services as well that are paid for by the corporation or whatever. But if you're a small guy out there trying to start off, that's difficult. So what my story is, I had a house in Elgin that I bought and I lived there. Then I got a roommate to help with the paying the mortgage and then Schaumburg. Then I got married, moved out, moved to Chicago. Yeah. With my wife. And then he got a friend to move in. So now I have my friend and his friend. Yeah. And then maybe 6 months or a year later, my friend moves out and his this guy gets somebody else. Now I got two strangers living there. It's all kind of a cash deal on the side. There's no lease. Nothing's on paper, you know? I'm like, this is not good, right?

This is this is not a friendly handshake anymore. I got to get legit, right? So, I start jumping through the hoops to figure out what I got to do to get legit. And in Elgin, there's actually a landlord uh there's first there's a landlord license you have to get to in order to be a landlord. It doesn't matter if you have one property or 7,000 properties. It's the same almost the same process. And it's like it's like 50 bucks for the license, which no big deal, right? And then and then you had to go to this 8 hour class on a Saturday. And I was like, man, I'm trying to do the right thing here and they're going to send me to detention first eight hours on a Saturday. This is ridiculous. And I'm sure it was they were very popular on a Saturday with a bunch of landlords. Well, it there was 40 people there.

I I'm sure they weren't there by choice. And well, you would think, right, until you show up and I had a legal pad and a pen and my pen did not stop moving for that full eight hours. It was ridiculous how informative and how wonderful this was. So, Elgin's strategy was basically this. If we teach our landlords how to keep how to background check and how to screen their tenants legally without getting into trouble for discrimination and all these other things, we're going to teach them the rules cuz most of the time unfortunately that the the the tenants know the rules more than the landlord because the landlord's busy and they game the system. So if we can teach the landlords the game, then they can screen people and then that brings better clients into our neighborhoods. Yeah.

So then they'll be well then word gets out and if all the landlords are doing background checks for evictions and these different things then those scammers can't game the system in Elgin. Now they can hear that oh well carpenters don't Carpentersville don't check so they'll go in Carpentersville but then you're also getting a lot of the crime a lot you're cleaning up some of these apartment and complexes and and it really was a pretty good way to clean up a lot of Elgin. I I'm not. And you know what? As a realtor, I will say like, look, we're licensed. I'm licensed now as a licensed realer. I'm a licensed we're licensed contractor. And by the way, I've learned more about how to be a better investor and better landlord from being a contractor than I think I ever learned, of course, from any course on real estate investing.

And same thing with being a realer. I mean, you know, there's a lot of stuff there that I will constantly be telling people about and they're like, "Oh, really?" I'm like, "Yeah, you can't do that." that it's because you know I I I mean any real anyone serious about being an investor at some point should you probably get a license. I know some people will resist cuz I don't want to be licensed. I don't want to do this and I don't really need it. But at the same point there's so many things that you learn from that and there's so many other things you could do with that that just it doesn't make sense why you wouldn't. And what's what's the process for those that don't know on getting a real estate license? So may I hopefully there's real estate brokers out there going to be like you can't tell them it's that easy.

You're going to flood the market. It's not easy. First of all, I'm not telling you it's easy. I'm telling you you should you should you know look even if you don't get licensed you take the class and I mean so the classes so basically what they do is Illinois changed this a few years ago. So it used to be you would take one class then you would get you take your you you would go get uh you would do the test and you get licensed. Now you take a 75 hour class, you get licensed, then you find a brokerage, and then because you the you you used to be able to become your own managing broker by yourself, but now you have to have two years experience, which makes sense. You don't really want So I actually have a managing broker's license. I I got it because I was debating if I wanted to ever set up my own.

I haven't done it because it doesn't make sense financially, but if I wanted to, I could. Plus, I got to learn extra things. But the the the other thing is that you you you take the 75 hours. Going back to this, sorry, I got a little bit off track. You take the test, which is not easy, by the way. I don't like I I I I still to this day wonder how I passed both of them. Um and then uh then afterwards, you get you find a broker that'll work with you as and and be your sponsoring broker. Once you do that, you then have like I want to say six months or something like that to then take another 40hour class that you have to take afterwards. Now after that, you then have to be out lic 12 hours of licensing every two years or something. So what kind of stuff is on the test?

Like I would imagine there's some contract law, some interpretation stuff. So it could almost be like the bar in a sense that that's what lawyers are looking at when they're looking at contracts and precedences and and legal, you know, rules. And 100% there's a lot of legal stuff. And by the way, one of the things they actually talk about is how uh agents cannot just like write in stuff on a purchase contract.

It's actually there was a uh what was it 1968 there was one of the rest I think it was like one of the respit laws or that they basically said you know agents don't have the right because they're not they're not lawyers to fill in information and like write their own contract like you could do as an investor by the way it's kind of interesting I could write a contract for myself to buy a property but if I go represent you to buy a property I have to follow the well I mean I should probably use the same form anyway this, but you know, I I have to use the MLS. Now, it's 8.0. And the idea behind that is all I do is I fill out and I check whatever needs to be checked because I am not licensed as an attorney. If I was licensed as an attorney, I can do that.

So, they do have a lot of stuff in there, but they have a lot of how to market yourself, like all the different rules on that. There's a huge amount of stuff on there. Um, they they talk about title, like you talk about the different types of title you own. So, for example, like you own your your this property with your wife. Um, that's I know there that's not joint tenency in the entirety. I think it is something. Sorry, I should probably know all the different there's a there's a lot of different title variations on how you own a property. There's also different ways that you can own the property like if you own it through an LLC, if you own it through yourself individually, a trust or whatever. Yeah. A trust. So, they talk about a lot of the different types of ownership.

They also go through like how property taxes work by which by the way still it's confusing as all can be because like that formula is insane and and I still don't always get it right cuz it's just like the way that they have it set up is just confusing. But like you you have to look at how they set everything up and then they'll go there's a lot of math in there and just going through how the mortgage is and percent of value and that you know even to just doing property tax uh uh appeals is complicated for a lot of people don't understand because you're doing the board of review and then you're also doing the county assessors. So it's complicated and just so everybody knows out there this is the state of Illinois and and so it's and the state of Illinois makes it confusing. Sorry. Yeah.

probably purposely in a lot of ways and and and but either way, these rules are different from state to state. There's all these different things. So, like a perfect a funny story is I bought a property in Colorado and then when I was injured, it was a vacant property, but I put 20% down because it was a commercial property. Now, the house I bought in 2008 was a veteran uh first-time buyer program for a veteran benefit. So, I put zero down and did an 8020 loan. Yeah. So, I had zero dollars invested in this property that was $150,000 upside down. So, if you wanted to turn the keys over to anything, here you go. I I I have not I put 10 grand in remodel in the basement. That's, you know, but that other property I put 20 grand down on. So, if I lost that, it's a bigger deal. It was a huge deal, right?

And but so there when I when I was work injured and then I lost income and then I was working deals with everybody and and we could talk about bankruptcy laws and different things too cuz I I had a a spiritual adviser early on when I really straightened out my my life and some people know that story. We could get into that a little bit. It doesn't matter. But um and then I was like, you know, what's the financial plan to get yourself out of debt? I'm like, well, I got to file bankruptcy. And it's like the hell you do. you that you know you call and you work out the best deal you can and you pay your debt. Yeah. Okay. So, so then when I got hurt and then I was off I didn't get paid for 10 months. All my properties are in foreclosure. There's nothing I can do about it.

Then there was a judgment that was put out against me on the 8020 loan because the the 20% loan I said listen I'm if you lower my interest rate cover the second one in the I'm like if I if I go if I file bankruptcy and I thought I I think I knew that you can't like threaten bankruptcy Yeah with creditors or whatever. But I said if I was to to to file bankruptcy you're not going to get a penny cuz it's $150,000 upside down and your $60,000 is gone. Yeah. And so why wouldn't you work a better deal out with me? and I guarantee you get all your money. Just lower my interest rate by h by by two points and I promise you you'll get all your money.

And he's like, "Well, I should actually increase the interest rate cuz this is a higher risk loan now." And I was like, "Well, if that's what you want to do, go ahead and do that, right?" So, he ends up filing a $60,000 judgment against me because he knew for a breach of contract because he knew he wasn't going to get a penny out of bankruptcy. And so, then I was forced into having to file bankruptcy to clear that judgment. And I thought I was screwed. And then I I'm I'm like stressed out and all this other stuff. And I'm talking to the same spiritual adviser that told me that I can't file bankruptcy. And and he's like, "No, file bankruptcy." And I was like, "You said I can't file bankruptcy." He's like, "No, listen. This you had an work injury. You have a loss of income for 10 months. You were in dire straits.

This is the reason that that program exists. You're not gaming the system in this specific instance. This is why that program exists." So, it was figure out what your option like like the problem is people get into those scenarios and a lot of times they're just like they're so frustrated and they're so and you and I have both been there at that point where you're just you're you're dealing with something it's it's overwhelming like you know first of all you can't even associate it with it being your problem at some point there there was definitely a point where like when I was losing that property in Florida I was telling you about that it was just hard to associate like hey I'm actually losing a property and I I I had some properties in Indiana as well that I I lost. It's a whole different story. I'm not going to go into that.

But like that's the thing like you need somebody to help you out. I had a I had a coach, rest in peace. His name was James Bud. He was an amazing person. And he was the one who actually mentioned to me. He said, "Well, do some more research on what you could do." Because like the CPA said, "I don't know what you could do." And so I went out there and I took a look and I found that that you could declare insolveny. It was the last year do it. And the CPA took a look at he said, "Oh, yeah, you're right." And I did it. And this is And I know it worked because this was more than seven years ago, so I'm all clear for the IRS. Yeah. Yeah. So I whatever I did was 100% legal because I they never came back and they never said anything. But I wiped out $150,000 in debt, which was scary as can be. And I didn't have to.

And like I said, I I think I maybe paid a few thousand dollars. And I I did that. And there were also times like even on a small level like I learned from that like I had a comed bill where or a com a comcast bill where they they didn't give me service for the last month and they they charged me for it and I said I'm not paying you. Five years later we're going to get a hard money loan and the hard money judgement. You have a you have a judgment or collection. I think it was $47. Yeah. It was 250 bucks and I'm just like I said yeah I refused to pay like I even bought my house with that collection on there. They didn't say anything. Yeah. And then we go to do a hard my loan and they said we can't do it because of that one collection. They said you have to get it cleared from your record. And this is five years in.

So in another two years it would clear. And I'm just like I don't want to pay them a scent. They don't deserve it. Right. And so I I called up com I I called keep saying comment I mean Comcast. I called up Comcast and I said look I said you didn't give me service. They said well we did blah blah blah. It's back and forth. So I said they said I said look I'm not going to pay the full amount. I said, "What what what's the minimum amount that you need?" I think they said they wanted half. Fine. I paid them $125. Said, "I want a letter from you saying the moment I pay this, I can remove this from my credit and you won't do anything about it." I I I know there's a word for what you call it, but there that's a good tip for anybody trying to clean up their credit.

If you request in writing that that that paid letter gets sent to you, then it immediately comes off the credit report. If you don't ask that, a lot of times they just forget about it. Yeah. So, I specifically requested I said, "Look, as long as you get it, as long as I have something in writing saying that once I pay this, it's done." So, I think I got something like an email from them ahead of time just outlining everything. I paid the collection and within a month, I think my score was around the 680 mark, 68 690. I think it jumped to like 740, 750 in a month. Yeah. I mean, it was insane. I mean, it's just I've had some large swings on credit scores and stuff because, you know, with with I, you know, those hits are weird.

Like, you know, they don't want more than two per, you know, blah blah blah or whatever and it's like a year, you get three and now all of a sudden your score drops 100 points. It's like crazy. But yeah, you know, Lord willing, we could, you know, not have to use credit and, you know, and be a little more, you know, save money, have money to put down because obviously you put 20% down on most loans, you're you're a little bit of credit issues is not going to be a problem. But it's funny, just to close the loop on the Colorado story. Um, oh, sorry. What happened was No, so that was in foreclosure. It was going to auction, right?

And and and then there was this whole deal where I thought that this second mortgage company guy might have really been trying to target me because he's like this guy's got two rental properties, an investment property in Colorado, and he's not going to pay me kind of thing. Yeah. Like I think this guy's trying to buy my property from underneath me just just for spite. And now I'm like, am I paranoid? What's going on? It's like cuz there was some weird things that were going on. and and and so I end up calling up the realtor in Colorado and I was like, "Look, man, there's this thing with the deed and and I'm just like, I'm not really sure exactly what's what in this thing.

Is there a real estate attorney that you can refer me to in the state of Colorado that I can ask some questions about this this the way that this process is working?" And the broker out there is like, "Well, we don't really do that. You don't really do that." And I was like, "You you don't do what?" She's like, "Yeah, we don't use attorneys. We just write the contract ourselves and shake hands." And I was like, "Wow." So, you know, it's it kind of goes into the whole government regulation world where, okay, so we have far much more regulation in Illinois, which initially was designed to protect the consumer, but at the end of the day, law that I'm talking about originated in Chicago. I I I I remember reading that cuz I thought that's the funniest thing ever. Of course, Chicago would ruin it for everyone else, right? Or try that.

I mean, I I know that they don't ruin everything, but they do ruin a lot. I mean, look, Chicago is great and there's a lot of great things about being Chicago. I know people will if you're from not from Chicago, they knock it all the time. And I'm not saying there's not bad things, but there's a lot of amazing things about this city. The bad thing is is that the government is slow, doesn't work right, and you know, current leadership. Yeah. There's regulation that's initially designed to try to protect people that gets manipulated into an advantage for some over others and then it gets into corruption and all these other kind of things. But I mean, just to just to talk Chicago a little bit cuz you know, um, like you said, it's a great city and it's amazing what's happening. We'll see what happens in the next couple months.

There's some rumors about some ICE agents and some sanctuary city fights with the new administration coming in with illegal you know criminals immigrants not just illegal by crossing illegally but also illegal and criminal by have having had committed many crimes. There was just an article about uh like a 68 or 70 year old woman that got stomped in the head by somebody that was an eight-time felon that's running around the streets, you know. So, so crime is an issue regardless of what people in the media want to say. Um the numbers are manipulated unquestionably because if you're releasing people and not convicting them, then it doesn't count as a crime, right? So, that I guess that crime never happened if they never got convicted. I will say just before we I'm sorry. Go ahead.

No, it's like one of the things that just, you know, you go you go to a Walgreens, you go everywhere and it just it kind of just breaks your heart watching because they, you know, like what was it? Dantis and uh who's the tech governor in Texas? Abbott. Abbott. They they basically said, "Hey, we're going to ship everyone up to Chicago, New York, and Boston." Yeah. And see how they like it. And they Martha's Vignia first. Which was even funnier. Yeah.

which and and you know the funny thing was is that you know a lot of times they they tried to help them but it's just it was an overwhelming amount that they sent to I mean they sent bus loads and bus loads and bus loads and they did it deliberately to make it overwhelming and I and you know like look and I know they've helped some people with everything and it's it's not as bad because there were definitely some tent cities that were popping up and I I you know even I just drove by Irving Park today on the highway on on Kenzie and or um I'm sorry Kennedy and that was a huge tent city for years and I don't I didn't see anyone underneath there which I was shocked because like for years you couldn't even walk through there because it was just it was just it was tent after tent and I know they're trying to clean that up but like it breaks my heart because of the fact you know you have all these people that are trying to make a better life for the family because they're just they're not illegal people they're they're human beings like everyone else and I don't I I you know look if I could hire them I would because I'm a contractor but you know they're not licensed.

If we can have them do some basic work, that's fine. But, you know, like the problem is that, you know, then we have to do a 1099 with them. Then you can't pay them, right? Then we're liable for that. And it's like, you know, that the problem is that you can't have the you need to have a way of like helping them out. And people say, well, they're taking our jobs, who whose jobs when we offer this job to somebody else, they won't take it. Well, anybody will do any. So, so Flipside Frolic is kind of funny. So, like if if we do come across an area where we disagree, the the game plan and the mission of the of the podcast is that we talk about it. I'm not here to convince anybody or change anybody's mind. I just want to understand your positions better.

And so, if we explain our positions for a little bit, the fun thing is is that at some point maybe we'll flip and then we have to debate the other person's position. And I think we're a little bit off on this. Not not quite. And and most of the time I think that most people are 95% in the middle on most of these issues. So yes, if you're a small business owner and you would like to help people, there's a there's an element of bad people out there too that are looking to game the system or scam the system. So now now you try to help somebody out and next thing you know, 3 days in, now he's got a back injury. Yeah. And now your workman's comp insurance doubles. And so so so you have a liability and you have risk by doing these so-called nice things and that has to be taken into consideration with people.

So with with Chicago particularly it's interesting well and you could look at LA right now. You could look at the money that they spent in homeless problem. So they spent whatever the number was more than I think $3 billion on on home curing the the homeless issue and it went up 40%. So it seems the more they spend the more they create homelessness and that doesn't necessarily mean it's due to blatant incompetence. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's it's it's people scamming the system. There were probably also more people who came into LA because they heard they were helping. Yes. There's no question that you're creating an incentive to go there if you have all these benefits. Yeah.

But also that if you're if you're creating a market for money to be made helping homeless people, then you're creating nonprofits, organizations, all these different things that are out there to supposedly help people. And unfortunately, uh, some of the work that I do with veterans and I do work with, uh, recovering alcoholics and drug addicts, I do a lot of different things and and and creating a market for that is a dangerous place because altruistic service and the idea of helping somebody and not wanting anything in rep return is kind of rare.

And of course, people have to live, people have to eat, but when your sole focus of a veteran organization whose core mission statement is to end veteran homelessness in Illinois and you have a salary, your main focus as a board member is the preservation of the organization when the reality is is you should be trying to work yourself out of a job. If you solve that problem as the CEO of this nonprofit organization to cure veteran homelessness, yeah, you would think you'd be marketable after you finish and say, "I solved that problem. Now I'll solve your problem, too." But that's really not how it seems to work that. But if you're making some of these salaries that I've heard um to help people, I It's dangerous. I told you I worked for a nonprofit for a little while in one of those jobs.

And you know, one of the problems I had with that job was it first of all, it was a a dream job in some ways. And then I had three different managers in one year that went from telling me exactly what I was going to be doing, which is exactly what I wanted to do, to the third manager saying, "No, you should do something 100% different," which I have no skills for, and then didn't understand why I didn't have the ability to do it. But you know, one of the things that was kind of interesting was that the founder who created this nonprofit, I don't want to give names, but uh they they started with the the idea to eliminate a specific illness. And I'm not if I go into the illness, I'll I'll brought them out. Sure. Of course, it's never mind.

Um the the thing was that like she was frustrated, I think, in a certain level that we had it had been 20 years since the nonprofit had been started and they hadn't solved the illness. It's like is it a she had a daughter who suffered from it and this is a very wellto-d do family who's very successful and you know like it's frustrating because you know you're right like a nonprofit it works to help solve a problem but at the same point like you know the people who are there they're you're getting paid a salary like I got paid a nice salary to be there and I'm not saying like I'll be honest it was very inspiring to be able to be there to do something to help with that and there were some moments in there that I will never forget. I had some some lifealtering moments there. Like we did I I was able to do interviews with PE.

I was helping do the production for interviews with one of the people who was suffering from it. And one of the women who was hosting it, she eventually after I left, she lost her daughter.

And like I I can't even imagine being a father now what she went through like the but she but you know like one of the things is that you know we had the opportunity to go into their house one day and see what a day in their life was and we actually recorded the daughter and got to interview her and do things that just I think like that was probably the single best day I ever had working for somebody else because I had the opportunity to do something but at the same point to your what you're saying I don't think we the goal of the organization was to solve the illness and I don't think we I don't think we made that much progress in a year if if if any progress was made at all in 20 years. I mean there were some there were some new medicines that came online but it wasn't like they had gone in and had like revolutionary change.

I know that they had made change and they've definitely made they've probably made changes since I left. I can't tell you that or not but they it still exists as a problem. Yeah. And that and that's that fine line between you know if we could accept the fact that we're responsible for the effort not the results you know and we we our job is to try and and we leave the outcome to whatever magical powers out there that some might call God or whatever. But um I by the way one more thought on that.

I was listening to your I was listening to the first episode you had um and the person who was there who had cancer and I he made a comment about how like look I he had prostate cancer I think it was he said look I won't die from that anymore but I need to help protect the next generation I think that's the problem next nonprofits don't get into that idea sometimes I think they get too much into your salary and then but just to raise awareness is something also so that that's Bill Moore was the first guest and that's part of why I have the beard in a sense that he he always did Movember every year. So I we would always grow the mustache out for that and then COVID happened. So then the next year I was like do I have to shave on October 31st or can I just keep going because I didn't shave the whole year.

So this I call it my COVID beard just because that's uh that's that's how how I just didn't stop yet. Just because I if I really thought it for I I thought being in a possible uh a shop working on equipment Yeah. in 100° like this thing is going to get annoying. And and the reality is is after the itchiness passes and you put some product and you got some tips and watch some YouTube videos and and on proper care, it's actually I feel cooler in the summer cuz it's it's almost like maybe some sweats in there and it might almost act like a swamp cooler or something. But um but yeah, so as far as altruistic service beard than I do, I mean I I I know the side is I I I takes me forever to grow the side. The mustache just grows in like that. Yeah. Yeah.

a lot of people, you know, have it differently and it doesn't make us, you know, it's not a, you know, uh, there's not anything to read too much deeper into that, but the alluristic service though, like you said, for a nonprofit like Movember or something that's really just about raising awareness and then so that gets into lobbying and and trying to get things passed and and there's obviously resistance if there's companies making money on medication and, you know, other part that's whole different story pharmaceutical companies and everything else because you know like the what what is it like the all the we don't have real food in this country and like you know like it's like you have um like everything that you have is like it's so genetically modified which by the way some GMOs is okay like like there's G the original GMOs are made to prevent pesticides from getting into crops naturally without having to get pesticides so there are realistic use cases for GMOs and they didn't harm the the the nutrient value of the crops, but the way we use it now to help modify things because it it just makes it cheaper, but it doesn't help the nutrition value and sometimes you just strip the nutrition value out of it altogether and they we don't have real food and everything like that.

Then you combine that with the fact that then after we have a problem, we have to go to the doctor. Now, I I can tell you personally that I've had great experiences with doctors, but I've also had bad experiences. And you know, like like everything else, there's bad to both, but you know, we just have to fix some of that stuff. It's annoying. It's frustrating. Well, just like you know, you can have a bad mechanic that can't fix your car. Yes. It doesn't mean that everybody that has a medical degree is a genius by any means. And it is a free market. And so for the most part, if you're obviously you're you might be limited based on your insurance or PO, HMO, whatever, go to certain doctors or whatever the case may be. Yeah. But if something don't feel right, just leave and and go get another doctor. It's not that difficult. Yeah.

And and that's I just recently did that because there was a scenario with it's interesting. There was just a study like six days ago that that was talking about the bad cholesterol and how having some additional cholesterol in your body might actually help prevent Alzheimer because it prevents uh there's cholesterol in your brain and it helps prevent the plaque buildup and and whatever the case may be. So, and then there's there was a lot of talk about good cholesterol, bad cholesterol. Is it really bad? Is it really good? Is it some other genetic thing that some people are more susceptible to clogging than other people? And so it may or may not even have to do with cholesterol in some ways. But either way, it it was like my personal story was I I I the bad number was at the bottom of high.

So it wasn't high yet, but it was at the peak of almost trouble. Something to think about. And I specifically was like, look, I I I've done fitness routines in the past. I've had uh 40 pound transformations in 16 weeks in the past. I I know nutrition. and I know exercise and I'm not in the best place right now and my diet is horrible right now and I'm planning on fixing that. Now, a lot of people I can understand that a doctor is going to hear that from most of his patients. Yeah. Even if he's his main diagnosis was or or his main prescription was eat right and exercise, which we should all do, walk a little more, these sorts of things, and most of us don't. All right? So if they're not going to do that, then maybe the only answer is this pill. And that's and that's people looking for that short pill as well.

And look, I I I had um I had high blood pressure a few years ago and I I take a pill for that now. And it just you know what I I I I am better with my I am better with my health in my 40s than I was definitely in my my 20s. I ate like crap. Yeah. Yeah. Like everybody else in the world. chicken wings and bar food and burgers. I remember I remember being hungry at 9 10 o'clock at night diet and say I'm going to Taco Bell. Yeah. Oh, the idea of Taco Bell right now sounds disgusting. Um but you know and I have I I did a cold stop on a lot of fast food places about 1015 years ago. I mean I'll still go every once in a while but like I I I had to do a pickup for some of my contractors. They want I told them I would get them some food. So they wanted McDonald's.

I got them two number one Big Macs and I got myself some fries and that was it cuz that's all I really want from them and I don't even think that's real food but no it's not I just needed something but and I just like I couldn't figure out what else to get from there but uh the uh because I was on the road but the the other thing is that you know look I mean I took that it does help lower it but it also like you know yeah look I have to eat better. I'm always doing better at that. And yeah, like you said, there's doctors. I had a doctor who told me, "Well, I want to do a I want you to come in and pay me $75 and we'll do a uh a food and nutrition thing." I said, "Well, my sister-in-law is actually a nutritionist." And he's like kind of mocking her.

And I'm like, "Well, that if you're not having respect for other people," I'm like, "I'm I'm a little confused on why I should trust you to do that." She just she's licensed to do this. And he's like, "Well, I I I'm a doctor. I can tell you about all the stuff you need. I've been studying up on it. I'm like, great. But you're not a licensed nutritionist. So, I'm just like, the the ego is never a good thing to deal with in those cases. This power of authority or this this argument from authority is just horrible. And and and I I actually have an uncle that's a or a cousin that's a general practitioner. And and and it's funny because years ago I asked him because I heard that statistic like how many classes on nutrition did you have to take out of your six years of schooling to become a general uh practitioner?

And his his answer was he's like he knew where I was going. He's like I think I took one and I'm pretty sure it was an elective. It wasn't even a required class. And that's just common sense says that's ridiculous, you know, and and and and I so I've recently switched doctors to a great guy. We've had some crazy conversations about everything that's going on. He's a great guy and some things he'll he won't say on the record. I'm trying to get him on the podcast cuz cuz he's very up on he does a full blood work panel of everything. So, you're checking liver function and kidney function and vitamin content and and I actually just asked him too if he tests for heavy metals and and he's like the insurance definitely will not cover that.

And I was like, well, even if it's something that is somewhat reasonable, like I would be willing to pay 250 out of pocket or something maybe. Yeah. And he's like, "No, it's probably more like 700." But, you know, like just for heavy metals just so you could test, you know, if you if you have lead or there was a story Rogan just told about having arsenic in his blood and and they're like, he's like, "Is my wife trying to, you know, poison me or what's going on?" And it turned out that he was eating a lot of sardines and olive oil, which high protein, high omega-3 fatty acids, good oils. It's kind of a healthy healthy thing. But uh mercury and arsenic and some of the other heavy metals from from uh from coal production, whatever whatever is the causes and some of that.

Um but yeah, it's something you should be aware of because if you're slowly poisoning yourself because your water supply has got a lot of lead in it and all you got to do is put a whole house filter on and you can alleviate a lot of the problems. But if you're unaware of it, you know, you're just creating further problems down the line. We're uh we're doing a we're talking to someone about doing a full gut rehab in Bronzeville. Is it No, is it Bronzeville? It's close to Bronzeville. Um but uh one of the things that she wants to do is she's like, "Look, I've owned this house for 90 years. I know there's lead coming in." I said, "It's like we need to cuz her dad, she inherited from her dad.

It's like a two flat, but they they use it more as like a single family." But the the point is for her, she's like she wants to leave this as like a legacy for her son and she's in her 70s and she's like one of the things we're going to do is we're going to have to go in and we're going to change out the lead pipes and everything like that cuz the pressure isn't good and it also I just don't trust it anymore. It's never been done and it's a big deal for her. I mean because and she knows it's just I and we're starting to see that more where people are want I mean Chicago is very big on that and there's there's definitely program and I am talking specifically about Chicago if you do have a lower level income and you're having those type of problems from your lead service delivery they do have programs right now to fund that.

I mean it takes time to get it through. Yeah. But that's something that we're starting to look at because like people need that and the city of Chicago will fund anyone who's below 80% of the medium income. Yeah. And and it and it's a little suspect too when they send you a free water filter in in the mail if Chicago did that. Yeah. So and and so in a sense because they have to notify you by water tests and so they did notify you and then if they sent you a filter, it's almost like that's protecting their them from liability after they notified you but then also provided you with this filter so that you should not be drinking any of that water coming out of your tap. And it's like, and I could show you the system I put is very reasonably priced, but obviously I I did plumbing for 15 years on the side.

So, you know, anything one inch and below as far as an in main coming in. Um, it's too small. Well, one inch is fine for a single family house, but if you're getting saying it's one inch and you said below, sorry. Yeah. Yeah. 1 in is fine for cuz most of the time most of the houses in Chicago are 3/4 most of most of them only actually 5/8 meter coming in and so water pressure and how that works with volume and you you never really should downsize it and go back up because you're you're cutting off. It's not like gas pipe is different that you have volume. Um so if you have a inch and a quarter meter and you step down the one inch for the for the service you're you're good. you know that.

And then water pressure in Chicago has a lot to do with the galvanized pipe and calcification and and a lot of times you can you can isolate where the main problem is. It's always going to be on the hot side. You get rid of some of the elbows on the horizontals and you could really help uh alleviate a lot of those pressure issues without changing all the pipes in the house. But she she's at the point where she's like, "We're doing it now because we're doing the rest of the house." Then it's worth doing for sure. just like it. She knows it's going to cost money, but it's like, you know what, it's peace of mind. But I I get what you're saying. Yeah.

I I just have two whole house filters that that are just 1 in inlets with the with the with the larger um the 6-in filters, and I have one sediment filter, one carbon filter, and that's better than nothing, for sure. and and you know it it I didn't you know when you get into well systems and different things it could get more complicated because there's salt systems and salt water softeners and then you can't really be watering your lawn with softened water because that's salt. So now you're killing all your vegetation. So you have to isolate your outside hose bibs.

And then if you're fil if you have a more expensive water filter system, you don't necessarily want to be filtering the water you're spraying on the lawn either because you're just utilizing your filters, but also you're filtering out some of the nutrient that might be beneficial to the garden. So you know, but that gets into more, you know, we're going into a lot of detail. And also keep in mind this is city of Chicago water which is coming from the lake versus like you're talking about well water which could be I know a lot of suburbs like um I used I grew up in Arlington Heights or Prospect Heights. We always had this conversation about how the water tasted different in Prospect Heights because it was well water.

It was and you could discernably taste it like how it tasted different because in Arlington Heights you got the you had the lake water. in Prospect Heights, they never switched, so it was all well water and it tasted very different and you would know the difference if you if you go back and forth. So, it's just something to be aware of. Yeah. And and you could test it yourself. You could do free samples at the county and or you could pay out of pocket to have more advanced tests done if you're if you if you're concerned about it. But it's it's worth being aware. That's all. And then it's funny because we don't know what's good and bad. So, with saltwater aquarium, I I do have some experience with water filtration, reverse osmosis, deionization, all these sorts of things. And I have a TDS meter. TDS is stands for total dissolved solids.

So, you could dip this into a cup of water and it'll give you a number, parts per million of foreign stuff in the water. It doesn't tell you what it is. It could be calcium. It could be good things. It could be a little bit of iron, which is beneficial, especially with well water. Um, or it could be arsenic. It could be lead. It could be whatever. But when you do have a reverse osmosis filter, it you can get the TDS to zero. So that's just water. But there is some talk about nutrients and and and electrolytes and some things that should be in water. Um, so it's funny. There was an episode on that uh Ephrine and that other what's the guy's name? the he he he they they run around the world like look searching for like uh miracle foods kind of thing in the jungle and these different fruits and different things.

So there was one episode where very healthy kind of thing but there's a guy that's actually calls himself like a somalier or whatever it's called for wine. He does that for water and so they did this whole episode on where he brought natural spring waters in from various places around the world. Yeah. And then how they taste different, right? Some might have some sulfur taste to them which maybe not might not be pleasant to some people, but the sulfur springs in in like the NORC Nordic regions that claim that that could be very beneficial. So we, you know, we we'd have to do studies on this stuff. We don't really know what's great and what's not. But some of the waters actually were testing. He started off with like 150 parts per million, then went to 500, then 1,200.

Then he had some that were in excess of like 30,000 parts per million of stuff in this water. But again, if it's coming from a natural spring, you know, what is that stuff? you don't. Yeah, we uh my aunt just went to to Iceland and I was I was looking at this because it's like Iceland and like I think it was one there's some other country but they they have some of the people some of their have some of the best skin ever because they they all do the natural springs and they're doing that and they're doing the ice baths and everything like that and it's just the combination of that and probably there's something in the water as well but it it makes them it makes their skin glow, makes them feel better, they're healthier and that's partly because of the water. It's it's a big deal. Yeah, it's an essential.

I had a friend that had a a saltwater aquarium that was on a well and he didn't do like reverse osmosis because there's so much sediment in that water. Um and and there's you really clog the filters up very quickly. And so he didn't bother and and people are like you can't do that. Like there's the main problem is like nitrates and fertilizers and phosphates that create algae, right? Cuz they feed off that. It's almost like putting miracle grow in your tank for which you don't want. Um, but his water seemingly was very high in in carb in in in calcium. So, he almost didn't even have to supplement calcium and his tank was jamming as a result of having high calcium because the corals all like calcium to grow. So, that you know, but that's that's kind of interesting. Kind of going back to Chicago, get off the water thing, I guess.

um when we we talk about diversity and we talk about um racism and we talk about all these different things that's all in the media nowadays and they seem to be using it to divide us when most people you know are are good people. Um, and Chicago is an interesting one that I I haven't really talked about on the podcast much because it's so amazing that they're trying to create, you know, this diversity, even though one of the best attributes to Chicago growing up or even 15 or 20 years ago was the concept of the Chicago neighborhoods. Yeah. and and that the Southside and the culture and and Pilson, the Latino community with their own history museums and their own art exhibits and their own food and culture and Chinatown and Korea Town.

And so you had all these ghettos which was a benefit to immigrants coming to a place that could move into a neighborhood that spoke their native language. And so which one conversation that's really not happening very much that I hear but the idea was to make it easy to come here and survive but then at some point assimilate to some of the American culture right so you can hold on to your native culture I get that and yet still be considered an American as opposed to you know whatever the case may be but now they try to diversify they try to split they try split all the the neighborhoods up and bring, you know, poor communities and spread it around into better more affluent comm community communities, which definitely help them make it a little bit easier because there's better schools and this and that.

What do what do you think your thoughts are on some of the diversity Chicago neighborhoods? I don't Well, first of all, it's always funny when two white guys talk about diversity. That's true. Yeah. Well, I I just have to point out the irony of this and I'll dive into it. Um, sorry. I just uh I I look and here's the thing. It you know for I can't really talk about like like I know there are a lot of people who grew up in like like you were talking about Chinatown and Korea Town and and all those different neighborhoods and you're right and they're pretty still pretty strong. I mean we live right by Vietnamese town Viet Vietnamese town Vietnam town so he's like they have all the restaurants in that one area up by Argyle and it's amazing to see that type of culture. I mean I I love going up there.

I mean, we love taking our our daughter and up there and son's a little too young, but uh it's great to see. Uh I do feel like the fact that yeah, you had a lot of changes in in the last few years, but you know, part of it is the change is inevitable. So, I mean, you know, here's the thing, the neighborhood that existed, I don't know about you, the first people from the first I don't want to say I don't know if ancestors is the right word. We're talking about great-grandparents, great great grandparents that came to this country. They came I I think I I think I think my great great grandparents came here in the 1880s or 1890s. So, you know, I'm I'm I'm a few generations removed. I mean, my my grandfather immigrated here, but he he was born 1902, 1900.

There's some debates on his birth certificate because we think he lied about his age, made himself a little younger. Yeah. But, uh, he's not the first. Not the first. But, uh, I mean, here's the thing. It's just like, you know, I can't testify like, hey, was it great? Was it not? Because, you know, like I know that they talked about it. My grandparents talked about it. They they were part of the My parents grew up a little bit in that that because it was a Jewish community. It was a very There's a lot of especially your your your pretty is this Jefferson Park? No. Um, Oriole Park. Yeah. So, I mean, my my my dad grew up what's now West what's now West Ridge, and my mom grew up in a little bit north of Albany Park, so pretty close to here. And those are two very Jewish communities in the northwest side of the city.

So, we definitely had I I definitely I mean, my grandparents still lived in uh in the place where my dad grew up when I was when I was younger. I mean, they sold it years ago, but I remember going over there and we'd go to the synagogue and I would say, "Why do I have to go to the synagogue?" because I was three or four years old and didn't understand it. My dad said, "Well, maybe you'll start to absorb the language. That did not work." Um, but I mean, the thing was I think he wanted to just try and teach me about that culture because, you know, like he grew up in that culture and he he he doesn't even speak that much Hebrew. He speaks a little bit Yiddish. I speak less.

And so I, you know, part of it is that I know those cultures existed, but I could tell you that, you know, like the first generation, like you look at history, first generation stays close to the people they know. And that's what you're and the second generation, they're the ones who will start going out there and start doing stuff. And what you're really starting to see right now is the reason why you're starting to have a break up with some of those neighborhoods is you're getting into the second, third generations. It's not that there's anything wrong. It's not that people are doing anything bad. It's just it's a natural flow of history. And and I'm a I'm a former history teacher. So, I mean, I I I look at this and I say it's not about, you know, you could you could try and make it about race. You could try and make it about diversity.

I don't see it that way. I see it as, you know, like as people change, they're going to start changing where they live. And, you know, because like, you know, the American dream is not about, hey, you're going to define what you do and you're going to stay right where you are right now and that's it. and you can't move anywhere. No, if we did all of that, everyone would still be living with their parents. It's not like Europe in the Middle Ages where you everyone's still live with their family their entire lives. I in this day and age, people move around and they do stuff. So, I think that makes that makes a lot of sense cuz the the just the you know the lack of children willing to take over the family business, right? That it's it's very low these days.

They don't quite understand that it helps for generational wealth that you're catapulted off the hard work of a previous generation or your parents to do a lot and and so that's where generationally most generations were always getting better. So like in my experience and and I it's one of those things where that's another cool thing about the podcast is I I want to have uncomfortable conversations sometimes. Yeah. Because sometimes people just avoid that. Now, now even just the fact that be having coming from a Jewish culture is different in a lot of different ways. And what are those differences and what are the benefits and what are good, what are bad? Like I had a friend that one of my way I tell people I'm Jewish. Jewish Jewish. I mean I am Jewish. I'm I I I speak Hebrew.

I mean I'm not well maybe not devout religious in a sense of cultural. Yeah. And I I've had this conversation because some of my so my wife's family, keep in mind her her dad, he was he was born from two survivors of the Holocaust. So it was a very different scenario. My entire family had moved here before 1913, 1920. So, it's a very different experience being Jewish living here in the United States for three or four generations versus being a second generation or a direct descendant of survivors. Yeah. And and I know like my business partner, he he his parents were both survivors as well. And there are things I think he dealt with that you know I I can't even imagine. It's a different experience for sure. Yes.

cuz they like they like people don't understand like they there was a lot of trauma that was never resolved and they they didn't have access to therapy like we do today. Yeah. And I do believe learn behavior is passed down genetically and I believe that some trauma can be passed down genetically as well as a result. Obviously that would just make sense. Um but an interesting story is it's like sometimes we don't know our friends are Jewish. Okay. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's almost like the Brender Frasier movie where he was at Harvard or whatever and they're like, "Oh, wow. You're Protestant." And I didn't even know. Imagine that. I remember watching that movie and thinking, "Oh, I'm really excited to be Jewish." But it's a great flick for sure.

And and and there's discrimination and racism and religism or whatever we call discrimination or religious discrimination. And that's something that's part of the history. There's no question about that. And and that's why like even some sometimes today it seems people are tentative. The idea of having an American flag outside your house being some sort of right conspira right conservative thing is insanity, right? Like like I can be proud to be an American. It doesn't mean I'm proud for everything that this country or government has done in its history. You know that we've made some mistakes unquestionably and hopefully we could learn from them and do better. But overall, things are doing the things are going pretty well in a lot of areas, right? I I I'm going to say I hope Trump doesn't ruin it. Well, right. I'm sorry.

I I don't I I didn't vote for him and I don't know if you did or not. I It doesn't matter, but it's just like So, so the way when we talk about even when we we're talking about altruistic service, right? In a sense, politics is supposed to be like that. I I have an interesting a quick little story about even in my property in Colorado. We have a vacant property and at some point one day we're going to build a cabin. I got some plans. I'm going to drill a well. I got a backho out there. I got some things going slowly. But it's not easy to build in the mountains and it's not easy to just scrape cash together and all these sorts of things with three kids and blah blah blah. Um so the first year we went out there, we tent camped on our property, which by the way, two kids in daycare right now.

Uh, he's starting next month $3,500 a month in Chicago. Oh my god. It's more than my mortgage. Just to be just to be on the same page. When people say they don't want to move to Chicago, I do understand. I mean, I'm not telling you that, but it's just the cost of living is insane. Well, and then the, you know, government intervention and subsidized daycare is only going to make the price go up more than they don't even fully subsidize it. I mean, you think about the fact that um I mean, the good news is that when she turns four, she city of Chicago gives free prek to all kids. So, we could but we have to do a lottery to see which school she goes to.

So, we don't even know like having a four-year-old do a lottery for prek is the stupidest idea I've ever heard because I'm not going to I I because like first of all, you don't even know their full capabilities at four. I'm not saying that like like like one of the funniest things was when we first did daycare when she was like I want to say four or five months old. We had parent teacher conferences with the teachers and and and they're like what exactly are you going to report to her? She doesn't poop as much in the morning as she does in the afternoon. I mean they said everything was positive, but it's like you don't know enough about this yet. Yeah.

all this evaluation and early childhood education and a lot of things are weird cuz they work and there's a lot of people that spend a lot of time and educated themselves on a lot of different things and sometimes you go to preschool and kindergarten and everybody's just playing and they're not really doing anything and you're like what's going on here but next thing you know they're reading. So, so those those slight as a teacher you you're you you very well much must be aware that attention span and introducing some knowledge in a game or building these skills in different ways. All amazing stuff and there's a lot of smart people thinking about it.

But like you said, it was it's so amazing that I've watched a shift and and I always been anti-labeling and and and so especially with academics because the Khan Academy, I don't know if you that story from the old TED talk. So So the guy the the story is is real quick is is is he went to some family reunion in Atlanta or something. He was from California. This was when YouTube was just coming out. And so he met some distant relatives that their kids were struggling in math and he's like, "Well, I'm a math teacher. Maybe I can help him because, god forbid, we help each other and help family, right?" So he goes, "There's this new thing, YouTube, out there." So if it's like I could post a video and he could watch the video and just do the assignments and I could tutor him from California. Yeah.

And they're like, "Whoa, that's weird." And they're, "Wow, imagine technology. This is crazy." So he does these videos and he starts going through the settings and he's like, "Public or private." He's like, "Well, why would I do it private? If somebody else can get something out of my videos, great." Yeah. As it turns out, he was really great at explaining basic mathematic principles. And he the way he he did his videos, he was a teacher, and his videos start going viral. Yeah. Just because they're awesome. Then at some point, you have to find a way to compile all these videos and put it in a website and organize things and all these different things. And he's always committed that it's always going to be free.

And if if you're out there and your kids are struggling in any area, I even was taking I was even doing some uh videos on economics and stuff just because I was at work and sitting on a service truck with, you know, there's time. Do you want to better yourself or do you want to sleep or do you want to, you know, um just, you know, scroll on TikTok, which we can't do anymore. 100 Audible books because I listen to them. I mean, some of them I repeat, but it's like, yeah, I always have earbuds in. I'm always listening to a podcast or a speaker or an audio book or whatever. It's it's it's it's important. Um but so anyway, the Khan Academy was the TED talk is unbelievable telling that story. And and but one of the things that he notices that was the point is that you label somebody deficient in math. They'll never be good at math.

And what he had found is is that some people just are different on this curve. the way their brains develop. Like for me, for instance, when I was in college, I never really took that many notes because I was so concentrating on trying to understand what the professor was saying. And if I understood what he was saying, then I didn't have to remember it because now it just makes sense. Yeah, that's how my brain works. Other people are more at memorizing dates. History is a prime example. You can read a people's history of the United States and read the real story from journals and letters and you're like, "Oh my god, this is so fascinating." And somehow we're not taught that fascinating aspect of history a lot of times. And and we uh so I'm going to add a personal story to that. Go for it. So when I just have to remember the dates, right?

Speaking about history, uh so when I was in fifth grade, I loved math. up like up to fifth grade, I loved math. I was really great at basic numbers. I mean, I did great. When I got to sixth grade, they put me in the advanced math uh group, which I I I I passed the I passed, but it was because the teacher would give extra credit and I would do all the extra credit. And he noticed that like I wasn't he told me he said, "Look, you are very hard worker. you did nothing wrong, but we're gonna have to place you back in math. From that moment on, I hated math. And it was because of the fact, you know, he didn't do anything wrong. He was probably right. I probably wasn't fully ready, but at the same point, you perceived it as a failure.

I perceived it as a failure cuz I was I was 12 years old and it was, you know, I was I I I, you know, I I remember being little and you cry. I remember being 12 years old. was one of the last time I remember as a kid crying because I was just so devastated that you basically told me I had to repeat the same year and I did I had to repeat the same class the next year and I think I got A's and B's in it. I think I got one semester I or one quarter I didn't do that great just because I still didn't fully understand the concept, right? But for the most part I had to repeat it and I still did pretty good. But I still had that that image in my head that I'm not that great at math anymore and because I didn't proceed with the people I was with before that it wasn't that important. And it you know like I said I'm I I was a history teacher.

So like when I did history I when I went into high school I did AP I did AP US I did AP Euro I think I did one other one. But I I had like by the time I went to college, I had all my basic history courses laid out because I had already done it. So I actually saved like like a semester of college because I had done that and I also had AP English AP English as well.

So the thing was that you know you have that vision of who you are and that's the thing that kills me with this these tests like they they create a vision of who you are and like you know you know I I remember my mom saying no don't worry it's fine it's understandable and and and she was doing her best to try and calm me down and explain you didn't do anything wrong but at the same point you just you get that vision in your head and I see that happening to kids it's just like you have that and I'm I've been trying to tell my daughter by the way she you can't use the word can't. You must recant the can't. And she's three and a half. So, I was joking around to her the other day and she said to and I and I and I was like I was doing it in a funny voice and like don't do that. You can't do that. And she said you can't use the word can't.

Nice. And she caught me on it. But like but like you know she even that at three three and a half she's starting to it shows how sharp they are. They're born they're born geniuses. We make them dumber every day. That's my theory. But I like I don't like the idea of having to have her be tested to see I I know she's smart. I mean, I'm sorry. Like, you ask me, I'm 100% not biased. My daughter's a genius. I mean, I know that I I I know that there like there are things that she she could probably be better at and there things that she can and I I can tell you like already like we have a three-month-old and a and and with boy, he's probably going to be more athletic than her. Well, I I think that what you said what you're talking about with labeling is part of the problem 100%. that if you think you're bad at math, you just never will be.

It's a self-limiting belief that gets programmed into you that's not true. And and to add to that, by the way, I'm sorry, one more thing. I I I was a mortgage broker for for five for six, seven years, and then in addition to that, all the math I have to do as an investor, all the math I have to do as a business owner. I I I'm the one who does all the bookkeeping for our company right now. I'd like to be able to offload that at some point because I I'd love to not do that, but I have to understand that and I have to understand all the finances. So, whatever they did say about Yeah. I might not know if you asked me to tell you all the calculus stuff, I might not be able to tell you all that stuff. But if you ask me for practical math, yeah, I'm really good at it. And it's like, but it took me a long time to kind of adult to Yeah.

to try and bridge that gap because I just didn't I didn't see it in myself, right? And and I realized I'm like, "Oh, yeah. I'm really good at like I would talk to people about some stuff for finances and talk about how like with a property like we're we're doing a property right now. We bought it for 30,000. We know it's 150,000 to rehab. And then I did the CMA as a realer to say, "Hey, here's the value." And then the appraiser pretty much came out and said the same thing. So, it's worth 310. I think it could maybe 320 if we stretch it. But if we sell that property, this is how we're going to make $100,000 off that. Now, do we find that property every week? No, but like we know how to do the numbers on that. And you know, my partner and I, we bought that property in less than a month.

We had a rush to get financing cuz he put the contract in place before we had the financing. So, we had to rush to do it. But we had to basically make the decision that day and we were we're on the phone going back and forth with numbers on what everything costs. And like for us, when we do it when we do it for a client, we had to write out full proposal for our contracting company. But for the two of us, like that was one of the biggest challenges when we started the contracting company because the two of us would sit there and say HVAC is this, electrical is this, plumbing is this, don't forget the permit, then you have to do drywall, then you have to do painting, then you have to do you have to do insulation, and then we go through the cost and we'll figure it out. And then, oh wait, this needs a porch. So this be another 15 to 20,000.

So you guys could but you obviously you could just like do a shared Google sheet if some and then and then people enter the numbers and then everybody gets to look at it. Yes. Which is probably the easiest way. I I actually have a friend Paul that I I'll we'll grab coffee or something sometime because we were talking about doing a few more things and he's got a little bit of time on his hand and he's a freak when it comes to account. He is a CPA. Yeah. And and and and and with spreadsheets and data analysis and stuff.

So it's like if that's something that can fill in a gap and free up some time cuz like even when we were talking about the time but before it's like the whether we're doing our own tile work or whether if we can generate more income by doing other things then it's it make only makes sense to outsource certain things that's just smart business and efficiency and management and but when when we I'm not a licensed electrician I'm not a licensed plumber or HVAC truthfully you don't want me doing any of that right yeah for sure I'm just I'm just being like look the the I we have guys who are amazing at doing that. Like you know one of the things I had struggled with the idea of starting a general contracting company. I'm like well I'm not licensed at anything. You don't need to be right.

You don't need to be well general contract you get to be licensed but at the same point like but I had the guys who could do it. And that was the thing. It's like I I know where to find those people because I've worked in this industry. I've done that and I had the right people. So, you know, that's one of the things it's like it actually was kind of one of the most interesting because when I did the marketing, I did a lot of stuff myself, right? I was the copywriter. I was the social media person. And that was one of the problems with my business. It it did it only grew as far as I could grow because I didn't hire I couldn't find people that I liked to hire on that would work. Yeah. Managing a team and growing.

These are some of the things regardless of what people think of Elon Musk or some of these people that accomplish massive tasks, they're not doing most of the work. Okay, whatever. But somebody's got to facilitate that. Somebody's got to find the greatest people to do these tasks and stuff and and to really achieve things and to and to grow. But just to close the loop on the on the on the labeling thing like with the Khan Academy thing, they were documenting now that things there's a website now and then you take tests on the website and then you have to get X amount right in this area before you move on to the next section and time on page is all tracked with with websites in Google.

So now you have all this additional data with how long has he taken to answer this question and then and then then you can have all the students in the same class doing the same work and then they're like okay so now you could say well Tommy's kind of struggling in this area area but Mary and Joey are really doing great on it. So maybe we could team them up in a little classroom assignment and they can help each other and then so you'll get the negative people. Oh, so you want the kids teaching each other instead of the teacher some% like Yes.

Sometimes the teacher just the way they're explaining it just needs a different perspective and and and then all of a sudden something clicks and now this kid that was definitely going to be put in a remedial math class is now skyrocketing and is above everybody else because he's confused at the process. Then he understands the process and he'll never forget it. These other kids might just be good at memorizing equations and memorizing why things work or their multiplication tables and and so they can do the work, but they don't really have a grasp and an understanding of the process. And so he's actually more advanced even though he's testing lower and that happens a lot. It happens a lot.

And by the way that um like one of the as a as someone who has a masters of education I can tell you one of the greatest advances in education right now in education theory is having the like is there's different levels of understanding um it's uh Howard Gardner Robert Gardner I think it's whatever it is I can't remember multiple intelligences if you ever read that but it's it's a genius book I've referenced it in multiple different ways of using it I when I was in marketing I used I talked about it a lot and one of the things that is amazing about it is when you hear something you understand maybe 17% of it. When you see something you get like I think it's like 30%. When you hear it and see it and you could you can interact with it you get like 50 or 60 but when you teach it you remember 90%.

And like that's one of the things like the reason why teachers are so much better at a lot of topics than their students. They're the ones teaching it. So, not only one do you have to prepare the lesson, but also in addition to preparing the lesson, you then have to teach it and reexplain it to people. So, you have to think about how do we make this more accessible to our students so they'll understand it. Like like like that's one of like, you know, it's like like I said going for I have a three-year-old now. So, how do I explain stuff to a three-y old? I'm constantly saying stuff and I'm realizing I just made it way too complicated for a three-year-old. How do I make it more understandable? And it's just like you have to go back. So, it's like you understand more because of the fact that you taught it.

Like having students teach each other is actually one of the most proven ways to help them learn how to how to understand a topic cuz they're coming from where they're coming if they're coming from equal ground. And it's you lose that power of authority that might be intimidating too. And you know there's a million things I could we could see how that should work better. There's definitely a lot of psychology involved. Yeah. And the student but on the on the on the on the flip side of that, the student is always better than the teacher, right? But and why is that? Well, it's because once that student teaches, right, now he's going to become better than the teacher in a sense that he knows what the teacher knows, but then he also brings all his experiences into the mix, too.

So, it's it's it's really incredible and and just learning, education, all those sorts of things. It's it's it's so so so one question I guess that comes to mind is as a history teacher and and I would assume a lover of history, course, why do you like history so much? And does is your brain the brain type that it comes easy to memorize dates or are you more interested in the story? Because obviously through evolution the the the the storytelling was a way for people to remember stuff through allegorories or through whatever sorts of processes of remembering stories that are fun. My brain is more of a you tell me a good story and I'll never forget it.

I I'm full I always joke I'm full of more useless information than anybody and I usually could recall that in I could usually recall that that useless information much easier than a certain equation that I memorized or something along those lines. So how does your brain process work and and what do you like so much about history? So, okay. So, there's two. When I was younger, I would say it's definitely more the dates because I I remember like I remember doing like when I was 15 I was I was in a history class and this is before I took the AP ones. So, this is one of the like they had me in a regular like general world history course and the teacher before every test would do like uh to help give kids extra credit, they would allow us to do teams.

So, we would do like a little quiz bowl beforehand and all the kids wanted to be on my team because that meant that I would just answer all the questions. Um, actually, I did a scholastic bowl because I was the history person and I remember there was even some times where I answered the question before the guy finished because it was like he mentioned one word and I'm like, "Oh, you're talking about this." I remember it was like the War of 1812 or something like that in Europe or something. I don't remember anymore. Yeah. So, trivia is one form of Yeah. But I will say as I get older, yeah, it's definitely the story because, you know, like even doing general contracting, I'm tying it back to that because like we deal with a lot of older houses because it's city of Chicago and a lot of these are Victorian.

There are a lot of and for me like I walk through a house and it's it's in damaged condition and I could show you some of the pictures. Some of these properties are just in horrible condition. And it's like I I try and picture who lived there. I try and picture what their life was like in there. I try and even just like see, hey, this is what like first of all, like if this is the layout of the house, what type of family do you think would live here? I mean, who who would be able to live there? Because like, you know, if you have a a two-bedroom, one bath apartment, it's a very different scenario than or even we've done two-bedroom, one bath houses, which are interesting. And it's very different than a five B like we have some rentals are fivebedroom, two bath or fivebedroom, three bath, and those are very different types of families.

No questions. I mean, ideally, you're not going to have the same number of people in each because but back in the day, you could have had 10 people. And I've seen places where like you go in and they have they have curtains in one room because they're dividing the room into like half or three. My first house in in by uh Harlem and Addison um we had bunk beds in our living room and and then we had the nursery because it really was only a twobedroom 1 and a half bath. The half bath was a toilet in the basement and the laundry sink was the sink so they could call it a half bath. There was a small room with just a [censored] in there. And so, so that's that 10 grand that I invested because I put a a corner shower unit in there and a a sink and a bathroom and then I had a fish room and I I I did underground plumbing and fixed everything there.

Um, but the the point being is that it was a predominantly Italian neighborhood. Yeah. And I guarantee there were six kids living in that house that we couldn't seem to find enough space for. So now in this, you know, consumer world that we live in with hyperconsumerism and everything else, we think we need 5,000 square feet or 3,000 square feet per kid. And it's just absolutely not the case, you know. So we move from that house to this house. We are debating because I have the Honda CRV. I don't know if you saw it when when I came in. It's uh I think it's fine. We're we're almost paid off on that car. So like I think it I think end of this year, beginning of next year, it should be paid off. And to me, the greatest thing in the world is when you pay off a car because then you you could drive it around for eight years.

You pay for some maintenance or whatever it is. And you say like I I've had three cars since I graduated college. The first one only lasted seven years and that was because it had a complete engine breakdown. And that was buying new, you're saying? Yeah, buying new. Okay. Bought the second I bought a Honda Civic that I had for 13 years, 14 years, something like that. And my wife and I had got to the point where it's just like we kept fixing stuff and there was it it was end of life and we're like the we we came back from Geneva, Illinois for a trip for the two of us. This is before we had kids and it was 95° and the air conditioning in the car broke and I I kind of broke down. I said, "Let's buy the car. Let's buy a new car." And so this is we're on we're on the third car right now. We've had it for four or five years.

But it it's I'm telling you like I love the feeling of like you have a car and it's paid off and then you don't have to worry about it. It's just it just there's a little bit of relaxation in knowing that like same thing if you have a house that like is paid off. It's just well just as uh as without being a financial planner or or or helping somebody financially. If you can have the discipline of knowing that this car payment that no longer exists should be directly put into something worthwhile, whether it's paying down debt or whether it's saving up for an investment property or something along those lines cuz, you know, that's where the, you know, 20% to God, you know, or 20% of savings, 10% to God live off the rest. Yeah.

The Richest Man in Babylon, you know, some of these some of these books that are just mindblowing um about how simple it is to gather wealth regardless of if you're making minimum wage or whether you're a CEO. And I will tell you that I will tell you my wife wants to my wife and her family are like, "Well, you need to get a bigger car because you have two kids now." And I'm like, "Why? There's a seat for each kid and there's a because there there's only a little space in the middle. So if we we can't bring other people in." I said, "Well, that's not my problem." Yeah.

like for the two to three times a year where we like her mom is in town right now so it's like like we want to she has she doesn't she can't really fit in there that well and I'm like so my wife will sit back there but you have three right two oh I thought you had a third okay no I I I was good with one and I was told that was incurring okay that's I agree I we we have a boy and a girl we're good two 2.2 to population decline. So, we had three because we want to be above the curve. But the we have two. I figured, you know, boy and girl 100% fine. That's all. Beautiful. That's all you need. Like I I I I don't need to keep going. Like I I know someone I was talking to had like has like four girls and they were debating if there I think probably for a boy. I think there's a boy like I think it's they're having twins now.

I think they have two two right now and they're having one of my contractors. He's two girls right now and they're having twins. I think one of them's a boy and one of them's a girl. I I forgot what the the scenario is exactly, but they're like, "Yeah, if that didn't happen and they're both girl twins, we're going to see if we should go for a fifth." Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's that's that to me is not No, I'm sorry. Especially knowing all the costs of everything. So So you were talking about old Chicago buildings and stuff and if you want uh No, no, no. That's cool. But but listen to the episode with Tom Va.

He's from Restore M Restore uh uh I'm sorry, Restore Masonry is a pretty big company in Chicago that does a lot of brick work and masonry, but he was talking a lot about the older buildings and the different styles and all those it's it's in it's it's character. It's wonderful. Whenever you could save a little bit of that old part of the house, I mean, there's some that just it's too broken down. Yeah. But if you could save a little bit of that old place and put it in the new, it makes it so much better. It gives it a little pop, especially when you go to sell it. We talked about that too.

Just because cheap construction and box on house and cinder block and you know cinder block house just all this sorts of oh that's how we did it in the big in the old country and all this other stuff and box on house I call it when they do second story editions that just look horrible because there's no character. Yeah.

Um, so even just one extra peak or one something like put something do do something and and that's what we talked about like you know the the construction of the old days when a little bit of limestone a little bit of brick pattern a little bit of something instead of nothing cost that yeah it's but you know like here's the thing even if you don't do it right away you know if you build a second edition if you're planning on living there you know at some point you could prep for that Yeah, be I understand if like your your budget's 150 and that that second floor costs 150 and that's it and you're like, "Okay, I just don't have the budget right now." But, you know, if you're living there, maybe in a year, maybe in five years, whatever it is, make it pop a little bit more cuz you're right, it's you could definitely tell the difference between new and old.

And I and I understand it's not it's not, you know, you can't go back in time, but it's like at the same point, there are differences in the in the quality there. And you could definitely tell like sometimes you go into those properties and the the foundation is still great. They built it. So Yeah. And then and then like that initial plan of putting a second story edition on that house. I still own that house. And when I did the downstairs and redid all the water lines. I ran chases up to the for the second story edition. I ran a home run for the electric for the second story edition. I I insulated I It's okay. I insulated the floor and I screwed down 3/4 in plywood decking on the whole attic so it's all tight and it's ready for just walls.

So, so that it's it's like pre prepped for the second story edition which would save you a lot of time if as long as you know doing stuff in phases if you need to. I understand like the cost of stuff is prohibitively more expensive than it was even three to four four years ago. Yeah, co definitely changed a lot of the pricing structures because the supply and demand is not. No question. We run into that all the time because like uh we have we're helping some investors on the south side right now and we've been working on their h we're working on their one of their units and we had a pause because they had a they had an issue with their commercial unit below it. But we were basically every month we were doing a little bit here, a little bit there.

They need to get something settled because they had some legal issues on the first floor with the tenant. They had they were They were actually the property was raided. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not the unit that we were fixing. The one below. Our guy was actually there and he called he called my partner. He said, "Uh, there's cops all over the place here." Nice. So, they they had to rate it, so they have to fix that, but they're having an attorney work with them first. So, and then they're going to we're going to talk to them, see if we can help them, but it's on pause. But, like, you know, we're doing a little bit every month. And, you know, that's the thing. It's just like it's okay if you need if you can't do it all at once. I get that. Yeah.

I mean, if you're living there, it's a little bit different because you're there's some people like, "Look, for living there, you need to fix it in like a day or two days because if there's a bathroom or something like that, but if you can if you could delay it over time, it definitely makes a difference." Yeah. No doubt. No doubt. So, I guess we did get a little separated from the uh from the history thing. Yeah. So, history in terms of what you were talking about, the stories. Yeah. Yeah. I I definitely love the stories. I mean like I um I don't know if you ever read it. I wrote Startup Gap and I wrote it a few years a That's I think that's the one that I think that's the one that I contributed to for was it there was one well one of them was for overcoming obstacles was the chapter.

I think that might have been startup gap but the the startup gap pre premise if for those that don't know I mean that was fascinating because you know you can explain it better I'm sure but I my take on it was that you really took an interest in the area in between great things happening yes so from from the inception of the idea to making ideas happen is a great book there's there's a lot of different things that and tools that people use for categorizing and making and persevering ing and determination and failing and get doors slammed in their face and continuing and continuing and then things start working on and then they get an episode on cribs or something and then bam, next thing you know they're they're they're super successful. Yes.

And everybody's like, "Oh, he got lucky." That's exactly what that's exactly what the thing we had the conversation about. So, I interviewed about 20 people and, you know, I I need to go back to this book at some point because I need to edit it because I I did do a good job or a followup even where they where are they today? That'd be another one as well. I I would love to have a conversation with some of them because I know um one of the people I interviewed, they were on Shark Tank. I don't think they got a deal, but I I I actually ended up watching that episode of Shark Tank a few years ago. It was interesting.

But the um the the thing that's kind of cool about this and it's like you know you're like you said you know I had a conversation uh with uh was it Joel K I think I'm saying his name wrong man I'm bad with names just like you said. Yeah. Um it's so I had a conversation with Joel and he is a he's a digital marketing guy. He's so we were very similar really great guy. I actually grew up in the north north shore somewhere and one of the things is that he was talking about was look I started doing my business in the 90s and I had no money coming in.

He he had a moment similar to me where he had like a buck 50 in his account at one point and I I I I had that also where a homeless man came up to me and I had like a buck 75 in my account and I said he said can you give me 50 cents and I'm like I don't want to give you a third of my I mean that's how that's how broke I was at the time just it was after I had to get rid of all my real estate properties and I I still hadn't built up my business and you know I I I I end up you know at one point volunteering at a a community kitchen to help to try and give back.

But in terms of going back to this the first startup gap is he was talking about how he had no money and at one point eventually he was uh he was working working and someone in Japan called him randomly because he was about to give up and they said look we'll pay you to write content for us and this is at the beginning of the content revolution so this is like the late 90s and he said okay great how much do you want to pay me for that and I think it was like $4,000 a month which at that time was very significant.

it for someone who had no money and it was enough to pay his bills so he was able to continue working and he started developing I know he started doing Google ads and everything else and I think he made a few million dollars off of that and whatever the case is but it's like he he had that one moment which saved him and he was able to start continue doing that and that's one of the things that's so cool is because a lot of times people think like you know hey you are successful and you're great and like look at Elon Musk everyone looks at him right now well you're he's Elon Musk no Elon Musk basically lived in a house with his brother for like a year or two, starting what was it? Ezip or whatever the first one they tried to do. I can't I know it was something with a zip. Um but uh he ended up selling his house.

He might not even own a house right now. He doesn't own a house. So he just he doesn't have an income and you don't pay no taxes. You know, you get people that are all negative and stuff or but he but he basically when he was starting they worked him and his brother uh they lived out of their house and they basically worked there in all they did for 18 hours a day for a year, two years was code and they coded that first project together and this is in the mid 90s. They sold that and then he needed another product. Now he had millions of dollars. Now, by the way, you know, you have millions of dollars. You're you're in your 20s. You could you could do whatever you want in life. It gives you it puts you a step ahead for sure. So, having a little capital to burn. I mean, but people didn't really know who he was at that point still.

So, what does he go and do? He decides to start a little a payment processing company called PayPal. And PayPal obviously sold for billions of dollars. Now, at that point, you're talking about someone in their 30s with a billion dollars or I think it was a few hundred million. He didn't get all of it, but he had a few hundred million dollars in his account. And he went back and he he started investing in Tesla, Solar City, and um uh space SpaceX. So, and he divided that. But, you know, like here's the thing. He did that in 2002. I I don't remember hearing about Tesla until 2008 2009. And even then, it wasn't something that was very common because only a few people had it. It wasn't really until you start getting to 2015, 2016 that Tesla started even getting beginning to get value.

And now you talk about the fact he's the richest man in the world. Same thing with uh with Jeff Bezos. Well, internet company until 2002. Yeah. Did you ever play Slug Bug with Volkswagen Bugs where you punch your brother and and say slug bug red and hammer? We call it we called it punch buggy. Punch buggy. Okay. Same thing. So similar similar a little different. I started that with my kids to keep it alive with Teslas a few years back. Right. So it's like Tesla red. Bam. Right. So then the kids are hitting mom. It's like okay take it easy. Um but it was it's pretty funny because we did that. You noticed how much more often you're seeing them on the street where you'd see one or two a day maybe. Yeah. in Chicago.

I not to mention some rural area or something where now I see I've seen I've seen at least four Cyber Trucks that I know are different. It's not the same one. And and so it's just amazing. And then and then yeah, it's definitely a different thing. There's no question. And and and um but but it's funny. I saw older interviews um and kind of similar to your passion for the startup gap and and that idea of perseverance and that idea of having a vision and trusting the muse kind of thing to where holding true to the vision.

I I I don't know if it was partly through you or through the the I'm pretty sure the the founder of of Home Depot had an interesting story of struggle with this vision of Home Depot and and he would go to investors and and capitalists and looking for cash and looking for money and they'd be like, "You want to do a bigger hardware store? Like, do you see what True Value and Ace Hardware are doing right now? They're dying. Like, good luck." So, nobody would back him, right? And then when he started his first store, I believe was out in California, West Coast, somewhere. Was it East Coast? Somewhere I think I think Home Depot is based in Georgia. Okay. But but the story I might be wrong on the story or I might have crossed it state. Yeah. Yeah.

Um but but the story was like the the the vision of the tiered rack system with the inventory up top. Yeah. Um but he had no money for inventory, but he had to hold true to the vision. So, so he ended up contacting the manufacturer and getting product stickers and putting them on empty boxes. So, it looked like it was full of inventory even though he didn't have the money for it. So, it seems silly, but it it it's it's something magical about holding true to that vision and trusting the vision. And then look what happens now. You got Lowe's and Menards and Costco and and Sam's Club. that whole system of of shopping wholesale style or at least the feel of wholesale style revolutionized the the the marketplace. Yeah. And and you know what the same holds true for well Microsoft was the same way. Um I mean Apple was the same way.

Obviously Google Google I mean people looked at Apple though and they said like why would I need a computer? Yeah. I mean, it's silly, man. It's silly. But you know what? And even uh Walmart. I mean, you think you hear the story about like Sam Walton now started Walmart. And the the idea was basically, we're going to put Walmarts in rural locations. And people are like, why would you go to a rural location when everyone's moving out of the rural location? But the thing was, no one else had anything there. By the time Kmart, by the time um I uh what was the uh like the the penny the dime stores like the uh dollar dollar stores? Yeah, the dollar stores like Benjamin Franklin type places. By the time they realized what was happening, he was so dominant that they couldn't they couldn't catch up.

I mean, he basically took over rural areas and then once that was done, he went into the suburbs and now that you have stuff in the city and stuff like that. I mean, so some of those marketing tactics we could talk about, that's a whole almost a whole another podcast because there's some there's some evil that happened there. And then obviously Union and But it it's funny because like like Kmart was Union and Kmart had all the if people remember history when they first came out and they were just crushing it, doing it bigger, doing it better than everybody being able to save because they're buying in bulk and have these advantages that smaller places didn't have. And they're killing Main Street. They're killing the mom and pop shop. They're doing all this sorts of thing.

And and and and it was it was like it they were the big bad demon then even though they were union and and then and then Walmart comes across and they do it even bigger and better than them. So it's like at some point how much can you criticize them? But then again, there was other tactics that you know weren't great. But to to go back to to the Elon Musk to watch some of these interviews and see how everybody said he's crazy on everything he's ever done and he did it anyway. And when you hear him say that and you hear this the these long form interviews that he had that were even before podcasting, I'm like, you're crazy if you don't let your kids listen to this guy talk because it's encouraging. I have a whole bunch of theories on Elon Musk. I'm not there. There's a lot. Yeah. A lot. There's a lot of good that he's done.

There's a lot of things that lately I'm just Well, one I I I just I besides for the tax benefits, I don't understand why I support Trump, but that's that's a whole different story. Um I think it was more about the the freedom of speech aspect of censorship that he does feel is could be the end of the of democracy or or the American way of life. and the Democrats weren't going to be the ones that get behind that. Quick quick pause. I have to get going soon. Cool. Cool. We'll we'll wrap it up very soon. We're we're we got obviously more than enough. So, to to your point, Yeah. No, I I get Look, I get Kamala Harris had some issues with some of the things that she was saying.

I I I fully understand that there were also problems with switching from Biden to Kamala Harris because I I I know that like that seemed very wonky especially especially when you're talking about how Trump is killing democracy and then they kind of they kind of want to the uh the democratic process. I mean that said, you know, Trump kind of forced the issue and he kind of got bit he got lucky because he could have gotten bitten in the butt by that because, you know, he was the one who basically said Biden should be running. So Biden said, "Okay, I'm not going to run." So yeah, it Well, it was it was almost like a a a dare in a in a sense, right?

So, so if if you back up the history a little bit before that, it's funny that there wasn't a politician on the planet that would even mention immigration because it was too much of a controversial issue. Yeah. Right. It was death, political suicide. Don't even talk about it. And so when you get this crazy person that comes out and starts talking about things he's not supposed to talk about because he just wants to get things fixed that he thinks should be fixed. It started a conversation that would not be here today had he not came on the scene. It's possible. But but but I don't think anything he does is to help America. I think it's to get he does everything because it benefits him.

But he knows if he says stuff to a certain percentage of Americans, they'll agree because, you know, common sense wise says that immigrants don't provide value. The reality is if you look at the numbers, immigrants provide more in tax dollars than they actually take. Yeah. There's there's a lot of articles that are kind of spray spread out in a few different ways on on that issue.

And and so so so one thing like Benh your your countryman Ben Shapiro but he had a take on on an interesting way that he talked about the history of immigration right so oh we're all immigrants unless you're Native American okay yes there's truth to that and a lot of poor people came here struggling looking for better opportunity Irish during the potato famine you know all these different phases of of of the wops the without passport Italians that came through you know So, so all that happened, but they all came through Ellis Island. They came They all came through the gate and put their name on a list. That's different than swimming through a river. So, that's one point. Yes. Yes. And no, like like to be screened or to be have a background check or to know who they are. I understand that they don't know who they are, but you know what?

It they wouldn't be coming here if they weren't facing some type of hardship in their life. Now, I'm not saying you should let in everybody and you should I understand why you have to have limits, but I I will say that, you know, look, if someone's crossing the border with their kids and they they're coming from a country where there's a war there and they had to cross all of Mexico to get there, which a lot of these people, they're coming from famine, they were coming from war, they're coming from poverty, that coming from tyranny, then they're coming to this country because they're in desperate strength. Yes. And and the the thing is we can't demonize people who are already struggling. That's that's the thing that annoys me.

It's not Yes, there are one out of a 100,000 or one out of a million is maybe a mass murderer and and that's the person we talk about, but at the same point 900,000 999,000 of those people are probably those numbers might be a little off only because obviously if it's a if No. Right. Right. I'll just just for disclosure sake that there the when you're coming from a war torn area and murder is common. Yes. It's a different culture. Yes. So, so whether they would be considered a criminal there or whether they'd be considered a criminal here or if you're bringing some of the worst types of cultural things here, that's not great. Okay.

But but the better side of it also there they're the there's a lot of people if you're coming if you're if you're first of all the people who are coming here are not the warriors and the soldiers who are who are decimating things. They're the people who were decimated for the most part. I'm not not saying this is 100% true, but in most cases, the people who come here are people who were told, "Hey, look, you don't have a voice." And they come here without a voice and they don't know how to speak up. And the ma the main thing is the incentive of of what they're coming for. Yes. Okay. So, so like if they're coming because they know there's a social safety net, they know they can get a free free welfare food stamps to get started, they might be able to get a loan for start a business that maybe other people can't or can't.

You know, there's a lot of different things that are controversial with all of that. And so one of the things one of the things Shapiro was talking about is when the mass migrations happened from Europe. Yeah. Those people were coming from a place that had social safety nets, food stamps, government cheese, uh socialized medicine or socialized healthcare. They didn't have that in Russia. But they're coming to a place that had nothing. Yeah. and they got in a wagon with their life savings and went west with the for with the hopes of the American dream and the possibility of having ownership of land which was a foreign concept from somebody coming from Europe, right? To have your own land and they had to pull their resources together, start a community just to even build a church and a school, right?

There was no doctors, there was no hospitals, there was nothing. So that was a different type of person that came here to hash out a country with their bare hands. Okay, I'm going to I'm going to disagree with you here. I think the people who come here now, not all, I'm not going to look, someone murders someone in this country, they do that, they should be deported to their own country. They should be arrested. They should be in prison. Whatever crimes fit that punishment. All right? I'm not I'm never going to defend that. But if someone comes to this country because they want to have a better life for their kids, then there's nothing wrong. I'm not saying nothing wrong with them being here. Obviously, they have to be healthy. And I understand that if they're not healthy, it's going to be a drain on the system. But you know what?

By and large, they are coming to benefit their system. I've known many illegal immigrants and a lot of them are the hardest working people. Unquestionable. And the thing is, when you villainize them, you're villainizing people who really don't have a voice, who don't have the ability to fully speak up. And because and they're also terrified to speak up. Like I know that there's been a mass exodus going backwards to the border in the last month or two because people are afraid that when Trump comes in they're going to be hurt. They're going to be killed. They're going to be separated from their children because you know realistically Trump separated families the first time around. I we forget about the fact that we did it. But he basically was no better than than like doing the pograms or doing some of the stuff that Hitler did.

And I'm not saying he did it on the same level, but the scary thing is he separated children from their parents. And there were children who died in the jails he created for children because they were not set up properly. Well, well, so so do you remember do you remember the kids in cages debate with Obama? Uh they see it's I mean it's amazing that we have short-term memory loss with a lot of these political issues. So So Obama was building I voted for Biden. He was trying to expand the processing facilities so that we can bring in more people safely and properly. Okay. And that's where there was the kids. He's building kids in cages. And there has to be sections of processing. You get fingerprinted, you go to this process. You get health checked. You go to this process.

So you're going to be sitting in a caged room or some sort of divider. That's the a fence is the cheapest. A chain link fence is the ch cheapest way to separate a room or whatever. But but the point is is that in the fact that you divide kids from their parents. Well, that's where sometimes there are some complications with that, especially, you know, like I would I I'd be interested to see if there's um enough support for a constitutional amendment that states that in order to be a naturalized citizen born here, one of your biological parents needs to be a citizen in order for you to automatically be a citizen. That would it'll be a very touchy debate. But but the the whole point of being born here automatically being a citizen was to populate this country because we needed natural defense.

We needed people to be citizens to fight against what? And why was the constitution written in this country? To stand up against tyranny, right? So if you're being ruled by a tyrannist government and you as the citizens of that country decide to get together and fight that tyranny and start your own thing by writing a declaration of independence and by writing a constitution and forming your own experiment in self-governance which is what this country this constitutional republic right this test of democracy well test of democracy it's interesting how you how how we would term that um because it is it it is a constitutional republic. It's not really a it's it's not a it's not populism. It's not democracy per se. Um so populisms everybody seems to be against and yet everybody thinks their voice should count. Um but yeah, cool.

Um, so, so, so that's that's could be into a long form debate on some of the on and the actual citizenship or whatnot, but at some point if you're living in a country that's messed up, Yeah. do you have an obligation to stand together and fight against that system and make a better place for yourself and if if you you should try to do that or maybe we can assist people with that in some ways, not necessarily the same ways we're assisting Ukraine or different areas like that because into 2021. They tried to do a revolution because of the fact that they didn't like what would happen with the election. Who's they the maggots who who tried to invade uh Congress they didn't like the election result. By the way, there was no evidence whatsoever of any fraud. Multiple checks on this. Multiple checks.

And by the way, you have recordings between Donald Trump and the Secretary of State of Georgia who is a Republican where he's saying change the numbers and the guy saying no. Yeah. And he basically I I'm sorry after that how I I I I and I'm sorry I might be bumping you in because I don't know who you voted for after that. I don't understand how anyone in this country could vote. And my mother-in-law voted for him. I know my aunt and uncle my aunt my uncle called me after the election this last year and he said hey I'm gonna get you an honorary Trump watch the day after the election. I'm like seriously you you just destroyed democracy in this country cuz like that's what Trump did.

I I I understand like if you flip side you were talking about I understand why people voted for him because you know what Kamala Harris was probably not the best choice. I mean I I think there are better democratic choices than her. That said, voting for that man is an absolute aber is an absolute horrible thing that's happened to democracy. And that's what I don't like is that I think he is the worst person in history for that job. And he proved it last time by not even telling people about CO and denying it for three months and letting it get out of control to the point where we had to do the shutdown.

I mean he then when he lost the election which he lost in a fair and true election which was decided by the people he decided that he didn't like that result from the election and he was okay telling his supporters I don't like this election do what you want when they're 100 ft away from the capital building and basically didn't stop them didn't call in the national guard he didn't necessarily say it in those words because he's smart enough not to say it but he basically did everything possible to incite them to be mad and rush it and try and even there were people who died on that day who didn't need to die and I'm saying that on both sides because of what he does and I I I think that's the problem and then you know what he incites so much violence so much hatred that I I can't support someone like that and it's like that's where I get really frustrated makes sense and but unfortunately the the the the the media and the way that things were portrayed um is not fair and balanced.

So there's a problem with mainstream media in reporting facts and not um what facts have they not report in in this case? So So again, if you we could come back another time maybe and talk because because I I mean I can answer for sure and give you my my quick thought on it, but if you really got a roll. Um but but there is a legal process to question things and there's also a lot of lawyers in this country, right? We all know that. Yes. And and there's a lot of ways to interpret different laws and different ways that things are supposed to be done legally. And so you can have one side that is in your ear saying, "No, this is constitutional and you can you can do this." and other people would say no absolutely that's not constitutional.

So the process would say that it would have to go to the Supreme Court or there there's a process to figure out what is or is not legal in in in in all those sorts of circumstances. But there is the a potential that there was theory that contesting the election and and if you thought if you were shown the election I don't argue his right to contest. I argue his I I argue for his actions after he invested it when he's decided to tell his supporters this is not and I forgot the exact word so please I I'm I'm misquing here but when he decides to basically tell his supporters this is a crime this is bad oh they they're crooks I can't believe what they're doing in Congress that's not right and I and I'd have to get a zai speech that yeah so so there's a lot of different stories that may be considered election interference from both sides.

Just like like you said, I'm lifelong Democrat. My father was blueblooded union member. You know, you always just vote straight Democratic. That was the only way. And and and and and I've always grown up that way. Um and and and from the dem the DNC side of planning, how they couldn't have screwed this up anymore if they tried. Did they try? You know, then you could get into, you know, just craziness and conspiracy theories with some of that stuff. But the idea of Hillary taking out Bernie because we know that that was a promise made prior to Obama. So they said, "Let Obama go first. You're our horse next time. Guaranteed." Then Sanders came out of nowhere.

And then if they manipulated polling and data and different things to not select Sanders through the Democratic promise process because of a promise made to Hillary, I think that rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. And and regardless of my mother was a Hillary supporter, 100% probably still is. How dare you not want to vote for a woman like I'm some misogynistic pig. I'm like it has nothing to do whether it's a woman or not cuz at that time Elizabeth Warren was a rock star talking about education and and and and student loans and and different things and processes. So there was a lot of people Tulsi Gabbard, some of these other people that are I would vote for a woman in a second. Yeah. and and and so we're going to roll. So we could wrap up. Sorry. No, that's awesome. I um first of all, we got we have a few gifts we always do.

There's a episode number seven ch eng engraved challenge coin that is that is part of the uh Flipside Frolic gift package. We got some poker chips. If you want a hat, we'll get you a hat. But for anybody listening, um, your main focus now is property investment and and and there could be if you have questions, general contracting, um, those sorts of things. Let let people know where they can find you or what what what you got going out. Any of your books there were out there or social media accounts. So, well, one, and I didn't even talk about this, but uh, we have a meetup that we do for people who you ever read Rich Dad Poor Dad. Uh, we do Casual Game. Uh, actually we're doing one this coming Saturday, January 25th, but we do it once a month.

So, if you go to meetup.com, Chicago Cash Flow Group, you could find information about our cash flow group. That's a great way to meet me in person, meet other investors, meet discover a little bit more about the process. The other thing is, uh, if you're looking to learn about the contracting business, go to creativesmartcontractors.com. Again, creativecontractors.com. And I could send you the link if you need it. Sure. and uh uh the investment company, we we do have a link, but we don't really use it that much. So, the website's I I'd rather just if you want to talk, we can talk. Okay. So, that's that's probably the best way. And then uh you could find me on pretty much any social media channel except for Tik Tok right now because they're not around. Yeah, we we didn't even get to cover that at all. It's an interesting one.

Yeah, that's uh so Tik Tok just went down this morning. Uh but uh sorry. Uh we'll see if it's around by the time this episode comes out. Uh, well, this should come up maybe even later today or tomorrow because I do have some time. Um, so I will do that. And I was supposed to have another one Saturday that didn't happen. So I I thought I was going to be backed up a little bit on post-production. We'll see how our little hiccup needs a little additional editing. Uh, I create my own problems sometimes. Um, with there was a file thing on the last one. It took me almost two weeks to put the episode up just cuz I you know you get some little glitch thing and um I'll put Yeah, we'll get it out. Um and and man, I appreciate it. It's been fun and we'll do it again cuz we definitely have uh we could we could have went six hours easy for sure.

And that's how these things roll. It's amazing. My wife told me no six hours. No. Yeah. No. No. Three. But but you could but again you can always come back and do another one or whatever and we can cover different areas. I I appreciate you and and appreciate you coming out. Absolutely. Thank you. Thanks, homie. Thank you so much. Thanks for joining us at Flipside Frolic. We hope you enjoyed the conversation and maybe learned a little something about other people's perspectives. Don't forget to subscribe, share, and throw us a like on the video. Comment if you have any questions, and we'll see you on the next episode.