Mike: Alright guys, welcome back to the Discount Property Investor podcast; your host Mike Slane joined by David Dodge. Hey Dod... hey Dave.

David: Hey guys, how we doing today?

Mike: Almost called you Dodge... getting a little informal on the old podcast here, aren’t we?

David: That's alright.

Mike: How you doing, buddy?

David: Doing good, man. A little stressed out about a lot of stuff going on right now; just trying to juggle too many balls I think. But all in all I am doing pretty good.

Mike: Yeah and that is what we want to talk about today, right? I think... even in our business, we are working constantly to build systems to try and make it into a real business, but it is really easy to get overwhelmed. I have noticed... and that is part of the reason I want to talk about what to do when you are feeling overwhelmed today. Just some techniques, tips and how we handle it, and some better ways to handle it. I know a lot of you guys are just getting started in real estate, right? So if you are, if you haven't checked out our free wholesale course do that, freewholesalecourse.com. If you have and you are doing the business and you are doing a full time job, then you are trying to do the wholesale hustle on the side; it is really easy to get overwhelmed.

David: It is, it's hard work.

Mike: It is, even when it is just your fulltime gig it is still easy to get overwhelmed, especially if you are a one man show, you are hustling out there to get the contract, you get one under contract, then you got to market it, you got to deal with your inbound calls as well as trying to sell that property. It quickly becomes a full time job. Wholesaling can quickly become more than a full time job. So Dave, I guess my question to you is; how are doing? I know you have been dealing with a lot of life events as well, and that just takes up a lot of time. So...

David: I'm good, I’m doing well. I am trying to buy a personal residence right now, working with a bank to finance that deal and that has not been the easiest process by any means.

Mike: I am very familiar with it, it is a bank we have used and...

David: I am not going to say anything negative about it by any means because we do a lot of business with them; but I think the thing I didn’t understand... and I wasn't really informed of this going into is... the primary personal residence alone is a lot different than a commercial business loan or product. I guess the reason is because in the way you can pay those back, and the way in which the bank can come after you is a little different for primary residence versus business type... of loans. It is actually easier to go out and get a loan for your business for a million dollars than it is to get 250 grand from the bank for a primary residence.

Mike: Especially for us because...

David: It is crazy, you would never think that.

Mike: Right. We went through the process for getting the business loans and it took several months, it took a long time. What you are trying to do for the personal residence... in addition to that you are trying to squeeze it down into this month long time frame so you can buy it.

David: It's true.

Mike: So it's all the paperwork, all at once, then there are additional requirements. They want everything all over again even though it is a bank we have worked with...

David: Yeah.

Mike: ... and it's not their fault. Again, they have got the regulations they have to follow so they need all of it. But again I know that has been on Dave's plate in addition to everything with our business. Our business is going well. I think we all enjoy what we are doing. But just like any business; this is our... going into our second year together; you have ups and downs, highs and lows. The past couple of months we all feel like we have been putting in so much time and we are not seeing the fruits of that labor yet. So again, what do you do when you feel overwhelmed? So one of the things I do... and again, Dave will be able to speak to this, I am very organized. So for me it is all about making a list and putting my priorities... basically getting first things first. It takes extra time, and a lot of people when you are overwhelmed don’t want to do that. But I would highly recommend taking... your Sunday evening or your Monday morning and just taking half an hour or an hour to yourself... block it on your calendar, go to work or go to your office or whatever you do; go down in the basement, whatever it is you do and put together a list of things you need to accomplish that week. Plan out your week around those things. Make sure those things are your first priorities and fit the rest of the stuff in behind that.

David: Right. That is a great idea, putting things down on paper, prioritizing. Creating lists is something I always do, I do it daily. But I am not the best at prioritizing those lists and that is definitely a good way to relieve some of the stress.

Mike: Well... so prioritize and delicate to. So Dave, we have got... a good team here...

David: We have a great team.

Mike: ... that we can lean on for other things to. If there are other things... you just... we have to be realistic about our time to. We talked about this the other day... if you are going out there and you are looking at two or three properties in a day; it is very difficult for us to come back, get all the pictures uploaded, get all the notes we need, get the contracts out, to do all that and then on top of that do everything else we are doing for our business. So we have multiple other pieces of our business in addition to our wholesaling.

David: Yeah, keeping track of the text messages and the e-mails. If you use Slack, that's another form of communication platform like Skype. Between all the different things that are going on... it is very easy to become overwhelmed very quickly.

Mike: So I am going to harp on making that list and prioritizing what you need to get done; but also being realistic about it and cut off about half of it. Realistically if you have got a list of 15 things you want to get done; chances are you are not going to get all 15 done today.

David: That and half of the list... I would say the bottom 7 or 8 items... they are not necessarily required to be done today. People can easily get overwhelmed by looking at that large list, but maybe there is only one or two things that need to happen like today or the next hour or two hours or... whatever the case is that need to go. So prioritizing the list is super important, absolutely.

Mike: So... then to look at that even further; this isn't necessarily talking to Dave directly anymore. But I will be talking to everyone... we use something called Traction here in our business. We plan our business around a calendar year, but then we break it down into quarters. We have quarterly rocks which are our big goals. I liken it to a book called 'The 12 week year'. So you look at your goals for 12 weeks. Basically what you want to accomplish in a year, you want to accomplish in 12 weeks. Because when you give yourself a full year to accomplish something... you are going to put it off until the end, you are just not going to focus on it. So if you have got your list of things you want to accomplish for the year, break it back down to the things you want to accomplish this quarter. So what can you realistically accomplish this quarter? Then look at that every day. That is what I am doing right now, so I take my list of things I need to get done in the quarter, I look at it every day, then I plan my week so each Sunday or Monday I plan my week out around the things I am going to accomplish that week, that are going to bring me to closer to the things I am going to accomplish in that 12 weeks.

David: That is a great way to kind of work the numbers backwards.

Mike: It is.

David: Because I do a very similar... essentially you say I am going to accomplish this year this. In order for me to do that I need to do this... in the first quarter, the first 12 weeks. Then I got all the way down to even... not quite the day but the week. So I will say okay, if I am trying to get this done in this quarter; I have 12 weeks to do it, then I need to do a little bit of it every week for 12 weeks, or I need to do something every other week whatever the case is. But the further you can break it down, if you can get down to the daily or the hourly level... which may or may not even be possible. But if you can that is the best way to do it.

Mike: Possible or beneficial. It depends on your personality and how well you work. One of my big things for these 12 weeks was to help more students, to help more people. To be totally honest with you guys I have fallen short. I have not reached out to the number of people I need to, I have got on the phone, made a lot of calls. Again, part of my 12 weeks to try and hit so many people. I have not been hitting it, so we as a company said we are not helping enough people, we are not reaching enough new students, we are not helping enough people get in, we are not doing the number of cold wholesales we want to do. So for people here in St Louis, we are not reaching out to enough of them and helping them sell their deals. So there is a huge opportunity we are missing because I am falling short. So one of the things we did was totally revamped it... our whole idea behind coaching and helping. We are actually launching a live event.

David: Yeah let's talk about that.

Mike: It's a pretty exciting one to.

David: This is really cool.

Mike: So if you check out REITraction.com, that's the full landing page for all the information on that. The idea is to help people get started in real estate the way that they want to.

David: Yeah so the reason we chose the words that with REI Traction is... there is three basic ways to get started investing in real estate; wholesaling, land lording, rehabbing. You could break each of those down into even more and more categories. But really that is the main three you can get into, there is obviously more, you can do a funding business...

Mike: Crazy niches like Note box...

David: There is lots of ways but... the main three, if you are looking at the high level, you are either going to landlord properties, either go to be wholesaling properties or you are going buy them, fix them up then you are going to flip them, or even flip them without even fixing them up. Essentially landlord, wholesale or rehab are the three pieces of real estate that we are kind of focused on. The idea of the event is to get people to understand that it is very difficult to do all three of these at once. If you are new to the business especially; we suggest you pick one and run with that one. We are not saying you can’t be a rehabber that wholesales properties or a landlord that rehabs or... any of the scenarios you can think of. Those are all possibilities but if you are new to the business and want to get into real estate... and you don't know where to start; we suggest you pick one of those and jump in with both feet and you dedicate your time to learning, and focusing on that leg of the business.

Mike: Not just pick one, it is pick one that you are best suited for.

David: That's another great point.

Mike: The other thing is that... in a previous episode we talked about what if wholesaling isnt working. There are other real estate investing options for you... that is exactly part of the event...

David: Some people just don’t have the personality to be a landlord. Don't have the funds to flip properties. It is expensive to do a $50,000 rehab if you don’t have somebody helping you with it, or you don’t have the money, it is impossible for you to do that.

Mike: Right.

David: Got to go out and find it.

Mike: Right, find the money, then find the deal.

David: Along with the personality to go find the money. So yeah it is all about getting people lined up with not only... what they think they want to get into but what they are also capable and have the capacity.

Mike: Yeah, that's the most important thing. Capable and have the capacity... and that ties really well back into feeling overwhelmed. What do you really have the capacity to take on? If it's... if you have a lot of money then maybe rehabbing is what you can take on.

David: Right.

Mike: If you don't... or land lording, again it is one of those things; if you have a chunk of money ready to invest, maybe one of those makes the most sense. Maybe it doesn’t, maybe you have a lot of money but that's your retirement you don’t want to touch it, you want it to sit in the stock market because the stock market is doing okay right now. Nothing wrong with that, maybe try wholesaling.

David: But back to the topic of this particular show... becoming overwhelmed. So our business is primarily focused on wholesaling. We have kind of pivoted over the last couple of weeks to... keeping a few rentals here and there. We are not super heavily invested in rentals but we are buying a couple of rentals a month. Some of the rentals that we are buying, they need small rehabs. So we are essentially... again we are focused on wholesaling but we are doing all three legs of this business at this point. We are buying to hold, we are rehabbing...

Mike: And that is brutal honesty.

David: ... we are wholesaling. It can really become very overwhelming even with a good team like we have, we have an awesome team, I wouldn’t want it any other way. Going back to doing it on my own isn’t even an option at this point; I wouldn’t want to do that. But it can definitely become overwhelming. So having the right person on the right scene goes back to what you were saying, Mike... with the whole Traction, the book and the EOS system. Having the right person on the right seat, versus having five people trying to make a decision on one.

Mike: What I was going to say was that is brutal honesty right there, and that is part of the reason Dave, myself and our other partners... are feeling a little bit stressed and overwhelmed. We have taken on a little bit of extra stuff, and like we just said; if you are not cash positioned well enough to take on some rentals... so some of our income we normally have we are diverting into holdings. So it’s... there is a whole snowball of things that... all of us are dealing with. I am going to tie it back into our event; the traction thing is getting the right person doing the right job. We are lucky to have the team we have and we are going to start focusing on one of us being the owner of each one of those different businesses we are working on. Again that should help relieve some of the tension.

David: It's exciting. Let’s talk about this event, Mike. REITraction is the name of the event, you can check out the landing page we put together; REITraction.com. It is going to be held October 7th, so if you are listening to this and this event has already passed; this is October 7th 2017 that we are going to be having this event. But we are probably going to have these events quarterly I would imagine.

Mike: That's the plan right now, we will see how the first one goes, then it might be every six months or something like that.

David: Yeah so we will at least have four per year. But the idea is to get the individual... this event is really not for the guy already having lots of rehabs, or not... the guy who is already doing three flips a month. This is for people that are just interested to learn more about real estate investing here in the St Louis area, that's where we are located. We are really excited, we have local people, local pros including ourselves who are going to be focused on one of these three legs. We have a gentleman named Tim we have partnered with and he is an awesome rehab...

Mike: We've got to get Tim on the show; we keep forgetting to do that.

David: We need to get Tim on.

Mike: Yeah.

David: Tim is going to be talking about rehabbing and how you can make 20, 30 or even 40,000 dollars on buying a house, rehabbing it then selling it to an end buyer, then he is going to be focused on the whole rehab side of things. Our partner Bill is going to be taking up... well both Bill and Mike are going to be taking up the whole rental side of the business; what it's like to be a landlord and how you can grow rich in your sleep. But it is a slow play game. There are pros and cons to these different businesses. Me and Ray are going to be talking about wholesaling and how we can flip properties, we can do 10/12/15 of them a month, some of them we are making 2-3 grand on them, some of them we are making 20-30 grand on them. You have your pros and cons with each, but it is going to be a really great event to show people what each of these three things consist of, how they can get involved in these types of investing scenarios. Of course we will be offering additional services like coaching and courses and what not at the event.

Mike: I am looking forward to it though. If you are in St Louis or near St Louis and you want to come check it out, we would love to meet you guys on October 7th, come check it out. Yeah we are going to giving a ton of information, probably benefit the novice. Brand new guide to kind of a little bit of experience with real estate investing, that’s who is going to benefit the most. Yeah we would really love to meet you guys, answer your questions, just get introduced if nothing else.

David: Where is it located, Mike?

Mike: Spazios(??) Westport here so...

David: 9 till 4?

Mike: 8am till 4. We are starting early so we can jam as much as we can in the day.

David: Sweet.

Mike: Again, it should be a good event. We are really... yeah all of us are really excited about.

David: Westport, Spasios(?) St Louis Missouri, October 7th 2017. Again, we are going to have a lot more of these events down the road. I am really excited, this is our first event and I am really excited to help people. Especially those who have a 9-5 job, living check to check. They are unhappy, maybe they are overwhelmed with their current life and they want a life or a career which gives them a little bit more freedom. It is not always about the money, if you can work a little less sometimes and make the same, that could really change people's lives.

Mike: That's something I just talked to one of my friends about is... or former co-workers. We were talking about how much he makes... what I was doing. He loves it but he is interested in starting in real estate. I said listen, you don't have to make the same amount working for yourself that you do working for somebody else, because you get to keep more it. Working in real estate you get to keep more of your money; that is a huge advantage to buying these tax deferred assets. So yeah, it is very exciting... being able to work for yourself and that is another thing; we get stressed out, totally different. We are doing it to ourselves because we want to have more done. Shoot man, we can wake up whenever we want; we can stop working whenever we want.

David: I heard... this is kind of off topic but it's not, kind of but... I heard a funny quote the other day, I can't remember who said it or where I heard it from but... essentially the meme behind it was, "Don’t worry about things, because essentially you suffer twice." I thought about it for a minute... at first I didn’t understand what they were getting at.

Mike: I love that.

David: But then I started thinking... man that is so true because if you worry about it, it puts you in a state where you are essentially suffering, you are making yourself worried and stressed out. If that thing you are worried about happens; again you get stressed out and you are suffering. But if it doesn't happen, then that worry... you could have prevented that suffering. So don't worry about stuff because you suffer twice versus... just going...

Mike: So I... told this to my wife to, this is getting a little bit personal... I tell her not to steal her own happiness. What you are doing if you are worrying about something in the future that you have no control over; you are basically stealing happiness from yourself in the moment. Dogs live in the moment and they are just happy, they are always happy because they live in the moment; they are not worried where their next meal is coming from... so don’t steal your own happiness worrying about things.

David: Great quote.

Mike: So similar to yours... but it is extremely important and... that is part of feeling overwhelmed. You are stealing your own happiness, don't... you can only do one thing at a time. We all have 24 hours in a day, you can only get done so much.

David: That is so true. Do you have any other pointers for when you are feeling overwhelmed?

Mike: I didn't, I just wanted to talk it out and see if you had anything else.

David: I have also recently got engaged and we are planning a wedding right now. So on top of dealing with buying a new house, running 16 businesses... that's an exaggeration, but also planning a wedding which is a very expensive endeavor... time consuming.

Mike: Do you hear that? He's buying a new house that he is going to rehab, he is getting married so he is planning a wedding, then... the Discount Property Investor we've got... just in our company we have got 6 or 7 LLC's.

David: Obviously exaggerating but we have a couple of businesses. Like Mike said, prioritizing, putting lists together, I definitely do that, I have been trying to do better at that but... also eating healthy and exercising...

Mike: Man, that's a huge one.

David: I haven't made it to the gym in three days and I feel like hell because of it. Usually I will go to the gym 3 or 4 times a week... you just... it is one of those things where if you chose healthy habits; you tend to continue to chose healthy habits versus the flip side, where if you chose unhealthy habits... here is a perfect example; if you go out and meet your friends for happy hour and have a beer, you are probably not going to go to the gym that night. If you have two or three bears or whatever, you get hungry later...

Mike: Probably not cooking chicken, rice and asparagus...

David: ... because you have already had a beer so you are going to get that cheese burger. But if you wake up in the morning and you go to the gym and get off to a really good start, you are probably not going to chose that cheese burger for lunch, you will chose a salad. So just like positive... healthy habits... they tend to inspire and create additional...

Mike: And reinforce themselves.

David: Yeah, positive and healthy habits... so eating healthy and... exercising definitely helped with... helped with the stressed of being overwhelmed.

Mike: God damnit Dave, that is pure gold, man. I totally forgot about that. We even put that in our... home study thing, our daily activities. One of our things is... did you exercise that day? Because it's important.

David: It's so important.

Mike: It is something I probably need to re-evaluate myself because this morning... I was just kind of feeling down for whatever reason, it was early, I just didn't feel like going to the gym.

David: You didn’t feel like going, you were tired.

Mike: You do, you make worse decisions all day... because of it. You really do...

David: Yeah the last thing I would like to add, this is something I don't do that often, but I have started doing it more and more is... just a 10-15 minute meditation. You don’t have to know how to meditate or you don’t have to have guided meditation. I have an app on my phone I think I pay 60 bucks a year for called Headspace. But there is tons of free stuff out there on ITunes of YouTube. YouTube is great and you can do a little guided meditation and they are 10-15 minutes long, they don’t take a long time. You just kind of sit and breathe. It's breathing exercises what it really comes down to. Really helps.

Mike: Have you read 'The miracle morning'?

David: I have read 'The miracle morning'.

Mike: I wasn't hugely impressed with the book, but the concept itself is really good and it kind of just encompasses what we just said.

David: Yeah.

Mike: So you wake up in the morning...

David: It's all about...

Mike: ... getting up early, exercising, meditating, and reading. Reading and writing so... those are the things in the morning you’re supposed to do; wake up, exercise, do meditation... then read, spend some time reading something educational or self improvement. Then writing out your vision... I am not describing it that well, but 'The miracle morning' that is a great book, again if you are feeling overwhelmed, maybe revisit that one.

David: Writing your goals down is another thing. Even if they are goals that you don’t think are something you are going to achieve right away. Just write them down often. It just reinforces those goals if you see them. I don’t know if that is going to necessarily help you with stress or being overwhelmed, but definitely a good thing to do on a higher frequency than most people are doing. Most people are not doing that at all.

Mike: Absolutely. Alright guys...

David: Check out REITraction.com, if you are listening here and you are in St Louis we would love to have you at one of our events. The first one is on October 7th, we are real excited. We just want to help people out, we want to help teach them and show them... what  the business consists of and how they can get into the business... how they can make money in this business, how they could essentially possibly reduce the amount of time they are currently spending at their current job...

Mike: Help them avoid mistakes to that we have tripped over.

David: Absolutely, so it is going to be a good even guys and I am looking forward to seeing you there. Mike, do you want to go ahead and close us out with a closing quote?

Mike: I forgot I have a quote. "It is not the load that breaks you down, it is the way you carry it."

David: Thanks guys, we will see you next time.