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Visit AskForPrevnar20.com. Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, the show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge, skills, insight, and encouragement you need to live a rich and meaningful life now while building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less. My guest today is Joe Fairless. Joe, do you think you can fulfill that tagline and give some ideas and tips and tactics and tools from your own experience to help my audience along that road?

It's a tall task, but yeah, let's get rocking. Well, your website presents you as being a master of these, so we'll do the best we can. What's your story? Well, what's my story? I am from Texas. I majored in advertising at Texas Tech University. Graduated in 2005, moved up to New York City.

Right afterwards, worked on Madison Avenue at advertising agencies. And I went from being a junior project manager all the way to the youngest VP of a New York City advertising agency. When I was a junior project manager, my check every two weeks was about $750. My rent was $775, so as you can imagine, I was financially strapped living in New York City.

As I grew, financially and within the companies, the advertising agencies, I maintained my same level of expenses. My rent at most was $1,100, and my paycheck went from $30,000 to $150,000. So what I did by keeping my expenses fixed for the most part, is I was investing on the side.

And my friends would make fun of me. They'd be like, "Dude, you're living like a college kid. You're eight, nine years removed from college, and you got a dorm-style refrigerator, and you don't even have a living room in your apartment, and you have a roommate." And I said, "Yep, that's true." But I was also an investor on the side.

I was investing in single-family homes while living in New York City. I was investing in Dallas-Fort Worth. I ended up having four single-family homes that I bought. People were wondering, "How the heck are you doing that?" And I said, "Well, let me tell you." And I told them how I would invest in single-family homes.

I'll get into that in more detail if you'd like. And after I invested in some single-family homes, I realized that I wasn't digging advertising anymore. It wasn't fulfilled. I learned how to buy apartments and raise money, or buy apartments with investors and share in the profits. And that was in July of 2013 when I bought my first place.

I left the advertising world, and now I haven't looked back. And I now control $54 million with the real estate, primarily multifamily communities. Who taught you to take this approach to your investment life? A bunch of books, a bunch of authors that don't know me, and a bunch of seminars, as well as some consultants.

So, specifically, some books that I read. The first one was "Investing for Dummies." It talks about the three different ways of investing, stocks, bonds, LLCs, and real estate. I gravitated towards real estate. Then I went to more seminars. I went to a Rich Dad Poor Dad seminar. I went to a couple other local seminars in New York City, where I was living at the time.

I now live in Cincinnati. I went to a couple of those seminars. And my sister is a real estate agent in Dallas-Fort Worth. My dad used to be a real estate agent. So, I've grown up around real estate. It just made more sense to me than stocks and bonds and investing in LLCs.

And then I've brought on some consultants. Since then, I have a life coach right now through the Tony Robbins program. And I have a podcast that's the world's longest daily real estate podcast. And as a result of that, I meet a bunch of people, some of them who are in my space.

And I stay in touch with them. And if I come up with some challenging questions or some issues, I reach out to them and they help me out. Did your parents encourage you to read about finance? No. No, they did not. It wasn't ever really a discussion. I always had a job.

I had a job whenever I was 15. I think before I was legally able to have a job, I was pouring concrete and asphalt at Lockheed in Fort Worth, working for a contractor. My buddy's dad, who was a contractor for Lockheed. And I worked at Discount Tire in high school.

I worked at Office Max. I had my own lawn mowing business. Always had a job. A party warehouse was another job all in high school. But the actual financing part wasn't. What I realized is whenever I was making $30,000, when I moved to New York City, and my rent was more than half of one of my pay-- more than one of my paychecks, I realized that I needed to figure out how to budget.

And as I was climbing the corporate ladder, I was making money. And I just naturally wanted to just kind of command my own future. And I just kind of realized that was the thing I needed to do. How old are you now, Joe? 34. And do you consider yourself to be financially independent, meaning you're working because you want to, not because you have to?

Yeah. Yeah, I have four or five different streams of income. And I'd say two or three of them alone would qualify me for working because I want to and not because I have to. And if you were going to guess, do you remember at what age you kind of woke up, looked at your financial statements, and realized that, "Hey, I've done this.

I'm financially independent"? It would be within the last 12 months. Great. We're talking about kind of a time frame of about 13 years, something like that, from the time you went through college and moved up to New York City. It took you a little over a decade, something like that, to achieve financial independence?

Yep. That's awesome. Congratulations. Yeah, thank you. I just point that out because one of the things that I've spent a lot of time on Radical Personal Finance talking about is that there are ways to short-circuit the process of becoming financially independent. You don't have to wait until you're 65.

And those ways are simple. They're not easy, but they're simple. And they involve increasing your income. In your story, I hear dramatic increases in your income, going from $30,000 to $150,000 on Madison Avenue. How many years did that take you? It took me about seven. Okay. So there's a significant increase there, a lot of hard work.

I'm sure there were a lot of hours, a lot of building expertise, living on less than you make, in your case substantially less, and then investing the difference wisely. And if you do that in a reasonably short period of time, a decade or two, you can build financial independence.

Yeah, that's what happened. It's exciting, right? Yeah, I guess at this point, it doesn't really register with me, quite frankly. It's more about what can I continue to do to optimize what I'm doing, and then what's the exciting project that's coming up next, and how can I win that project, and how can I add value.

So it's funny, I never really thought about it. I've more thought about how can I grow the different businesses that I have, and how can I optimize them and scale them. Why is it important to you to grow your businesses and scale them? Because if we don't grow, we die.

So if I'm not growing, then I'm stagnant, and there's complacency, and any time you're stagnant, just look at stagnant water. It just becomes filthy and disgusting. So I have to constantly grow, and as human beings, we have to constantly grow. So I think there's also a component about it that's just a whole lot of fun.

It's fun to track my podcast downloads from the point when I started the podcast, when I was bringing, you know, I had like 800 downloads, to now where I'm over 130,000 downloads a month. It's fun to track that stuff, and see how I can bring on team members, and then scale something, and then get the notoriety.

I mean, it's just pretty cool, as well as it's fun to play at a higher level in business, on the different businesses I have. So I have my podcast, which is a business. I have a consulting program, which is a business. I buy apartment communities with investors and share in the profits.

That's my main money maker. And I have a couple miscellaneous things, like online classes and stuff. But those are the main revenue streams, and those are the main businesses, launching a conference. So I just enjoy it. It's just a lot of fun for me. Do you ever get tired?

Yeah, yeah, I get tired. I don't get tired of what I just described, but I get sleepy. What I mean is, do you ever just look at all these things and say, "Maybe I should simplify. Maybe I should pull back. Maybe I should rest on my laurels and enjoy what I've built a little bit more"?

Well, everything in that question is the implication that I'm not enjoying it. And it's actually the opposite. I thrive off of it. I love it. And the businesses that I just described, the common denominator is real estate. So it's not that I've got a consulting gig where I'm teaching people how to make pancakes.

The consulting thing is how to buy apartments with investors and share in the profits. The podcast is The Best Real Estate Investing Advice Ever. My book is The Best Real Estate Investing Advice Ever, Volume 1. There's going to be a new volume released every six months. The conference is The Best Real Estate Investing Advice Ever conference.

And so they all ladder up to real estate investing. And I think when we have that focus of what we enjoy, then the variety comes into play when we spin off of that focus and see how we can expand with little areas of it. And those little areas are what I described.

You mentioned that you began your career on Madison Avenue in an entry-level position and you grew it to a six-figure income. I don't know how impressive $150,000 is in Madison Avenue terms in New York City prices and wages, but it's certainly a dramatic difference from $30,000. What did you do to grow your income?

A couple things. Let's see. When I first started, I was making $30,000. I was working at an advertising agency, a very prestigious one. I realized that I didn't want to do what my boss was doing. I also realized that the next step up was just-- it wasn't going to be financially rewarding.

So I left after nine months. I left that agency, very prestigious, and went to an agency where I was the seventh employee. The agency was called Mr. Youth. Now they're called MROY. My first salary there was $38,000. From $38,000 when I started, and then I got probably five, six, seven promotions, somewhere around there.

When I left, I was making $120,000 about five and a half, six years after that. Our agency also grew from me being the seventh employee to over 100 employees during that time. We went from being the company that was on the ground passing out flyers at a spring break event to meeting--I was meeting with the chief marketing officer at Microsoft within being an MSN because we're the social media agency of record.

So we as an agency, as a company, matured, and through that process, we grew our company and I elevated within it much faster than what would be typical at a more established agency. I then used that experience and got a vice president position at another more established agency, and I said--and I looked at the job description.

I was someone who had to be in the business for 10 plus years, and I'd been in it for six or seven. But I told them that their agency reminded me of how we grew and how we expanded our offerings, and I can bring that to their company. Regardless of how much experience I have, it's the type of experience that I had.

It's not a number of years. It's actually the quality of experience, and I sold them on that. I was able to get a job with them for $150, and I don't think that included the bonus either. I think there's probably going to be a bonus, but I didn't stay there for 12 months.

I actually left after about nine months again because I realized that that wasn't what I wanted to do, and that's whenever I got into my entrepreneurial ventures. In the real estate field. Yeah, well, actually, I should also mention, right after I left advertising, my focus was going to be to help college students and young professionals learn how to get to the level I was at as fast as I got there.

So basically, consult them to rise through the ranks. But I launched a website, paid a designer $3,000, and I didn't get any clients. I mean, it was like crickets. And so I quickly pivoted, and I was like, "Okay, this just isn't working." And at the time, I had been teaching a class on the side also on how to buy those homes that I was buying, and one of a couple people who I knew pretty well, they're like, "You know what?

"If you ever do something larger, let me know." I heard that two or three times. And when you have clients, before you have a product, you know you've got a good business. Whereas on the consulting thing with advertising, where I wanted to consult college students and young professionals, I had a product, but I didn't have clients.

And it didn't work out. But once I heard from potential clients that they wanted a product, I was like, "You know what? Maybe I'll look into this." And so I spent six months from January to July of 2013 looking for a place, got it under contract, and ended up making it happen.

The reason I'm focusing on your career, rather your business, your career in New York versus real estate, is that your career, from what you're telling me, served as the foundation for the money to get started in real estate. That progression, what were you teaching in your class, or what did you intend to teach to college students and young professionals to help them rise through the ranks as quickly as you did?

Was there some kind of daily practice? Did you have some kind of psychological juju that you were working on? What did you actually do? What were you teaching them tactically? Well, and we can focus on whatever you want, it's your show, so I'll just roll with it. I'm fine with it.

I want to make it clear. So I was teaching a class on how to buy houses in other states while living in New York City. I was teaching that class while I had my full-time job in advertising. I wanted, after I left my full-time job, I wanted to have clients to teach them how to climb the corporate ladder in PR and advertising.

I did not get any clients with that business venture, and I folded it within a month. So I did not teach anybody anything about that, with one exception. I was also interviewing people for a book that I was writing called "Join the Remarkable 75 Tips to Have a Remarkable Career." And I interviewed a bunch of people who have had remarkable careers in all the different professions, and I also, on the side, was teaching a class on that.

So I was basically doing a bunch of stuff while I had my full-time job. I also did improv. I did stand-up comedy at Gotham Comedy Club in New York City. I was doing as much as I could except for my full-time job in advertising because I wasn't fulfilled towards the very end of it.

Got it. Tell me about your first two real estate deals. My first two? Those would be my first two single-family homes. The one I bought in 2009 and the other, 2010. My first one I put 20% down, typical loan. I bought it for $76,000. 20% would be-- I think all in, I was at $20,000 when you factor in the closing costs.

It rented for, at the time, $1,100. It's in Duncanville, Texas, four-bedroom, two-bath house. I still have it today. It was in 2009, so it was a time when things were pretty tough to get loans. Additionally, it was my first loan, so I had to write a letter to the lender telling them why I-- and I rented in New York City.

I'd tell them why I was renting in New York City but buying in another state, who I would have as property management. There was a couple things I had to overcome on that one. The second one was a three-bedroom, two-bath house in Fort Worth, Texas. The purchase price was $81,000.

I got it through a loan program called HomePath, which no longer exists. But HomePath was pretty cool because it allowed me to only put 10% down. So I put $8,100 down on that property plus closing costs, all in about $12,000. And it rented for, at the time-- rents have gone up on both of them since then-- but it rented for, at the time, $1,150, I believe.

And it was built in 2006. That was the kicker. It was pretty darn new. No, 2006--somewhere around there. Early 2000s, somewhere around there. So it was very, very nice. Low to no maintenance. And both have been rented with the exception of maybe in total 12 months between both of them since then.

But with single-family homes, what I've realized-- it's easy to talk about the potential profits on them, but not a lot of people talk about, "Well, when someone moves out, "you're going to be paying a good chunk of your money "towards fixing it up and getting someone else to move in." For example, I just had a move-out on that second house, and all in, it cost me $5,000 to get it to be move-in ready again.

Paint, carpet, trash out, fix the toilet, put a couple screws in the wall, whatever you need to do. And when I'm making $250 on a month, and you pay $5,000 on that, well, that's what, 250 times 12, that's $3,000. So it's going to take you almost two years to recover the loss of when one person moves out.

Not a lot of people tell you that. That's been one of the eye-opening experiences that I've learned with single-family homes. And the way to solve that is a couple. One, once the mortgage is gone, you're going to be doing really well. So one of my homes I have on a 15-year mortgage.

The other two are on 30 years just for cash flow reasons, because I don't think I'd cash flow with a 15-year on the other two. And then the other is, I realized I wasn't going to do single-family homes anymore after these, because the amount of time it took me to find one, to run the numbers, to get financing approval, to coordinate the insurance, get the taxes every year, it was just annoying for $250 a month, and then to have that erased with a $5,000 move-out fee.

So now I focus on large apartment buildings. So my intention of bringing up those two deals is just simply to describe them with no offense intended. They sound like just pretty ordinary deals. They sound like you just simply went and bought a house, and probably you got a decent deal on it, but you went and bought a house.

But the fact that you had a steady job, the ability to get bank financing, and the fact that you had a down payment, which was saved from your income, allowed you to get started and to go ahead and get some properties, which you were buying at a good time in the market, where they were able to cash flow the mortgage.

And they just sound like pretty ordinary deals. Is that accurate? Yeah, totally ordinary. The only thing that's not ordinary about them is I bought them at the right time in the right market. I was just going to say, right time in terms of 2008, 2009, and also in Texas with Texas real estate prices being substantially depressed at that time especially.

So you transitioned then to multifamily because of recognizing the shortfall of these individual houses that you were owning? Yeah, a couple of reasons. One, I realized that I had to buy a whole bunch of them to get a substantial amount of money coming in every month. And it was tough to get one, let alone a bunch of them.

Two, when I left advertising, the irony is that I couldn't get approved for a single family home because I didn't have a W-2 income, but I could bring in a group of investors and we could buy a multi-million dollar apartment community because they're evaluated differently. They're evaluated based on the income the property generates, the net worth and liquidity of the buying group, and the experience of the buying group.

So all I had to do was be resourceful and put the pieces in place to do bigger deals. And you can and you do, if you're doing it right, make more money on the bigger deals than the $250 of pop deals. Tell me about your first multifamily deal. It's 168 units in Cincinnati, Ohio.

We actually got it through a creative financing method called a master lease with option to purchase. The reason why we did that is because there was a, about a nine hundred, almost a million dollar deficit or prepayment penalty on the property if the loan was paid off early. So we had one of two options.

We could do an assumption and assume the loan with a 1% fee, but the loan was 6.19% and to pay that assumption fee to just to assume a loan that's 6.19% because they got the loan in, I think, like 2009-ish. So their rates were pretty high. It just didn't make sense.

The other was to do something creative called a master lease with option to purchase. Other states, it could be known as a land contract. We were able to take control of the property and then we were responsible for all the expenses, including the mortgage payment, insurance, and taxes, but we also get to keep all the income.

The kicker that made it most appealing to us was that while we had the master lease, we would get credit on the principal pay down of the mortgage. So every month that we make the mortgage payment, we decrease the principal balance by roughly $15,000. So the longer you hold on to it, the more equity that you build as a result of just paying down the mortgage, and we agreed to the price of $6.35 million for the purchase that we'd eventually buy it at in three and a half years at the time--or four years, actually.

So we were agreeing--basically, from taking a step back, we were agreeing to purchase the property for today's value in four years from that day, and over those four years, we'd get credit for the principal pay down on the mortgage, which would help us build equity, even if we didn't increase the value of the property.

And what was your contribution to the deal? Putting it together. For the first deal, I didn't put any of my own money in it because I didn't have any of my own money to put in the deal. I raised over--I raised about $1.1 million. $843,000 came from a total of 12 investors that I brought in, and then the difference of $1.1 and $843 came from the brokers who were representing the buyer.

They put in their commission into the deal as a form of down payment so that we could get to the down payment mark, and they became 25% owners with us in the deal. And then there were some prorated deposits and taxes that we got credit for, and all in it was around $1.3.

So this sounds like a neat deal, and it demonstrates that using what you-- using the resources that you had-- you didn't have the money, but you had the time, the skill, the network--use those resources to put together the deal that-- has it paid off financially for you at this point?

Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, at closing, I got a check for $22,000 to put the deal together. It's what's called an acquisition fee. And just to take a step back to get into some numbers, because I know you like numbers, and your audience likes numbers, how I make money on multi-family-- what is called multi-family syndication-- how I make money is three ways.

One is an acquisition fee, which is usually 2% of the purchase price. In this case, it was not. It's less than 1%, probably less than one-half of a percent, but that was my first deal. Now, for every other deal, it's 2% of the purchase price. The second way is 2% of the income that's collected every month.

That's an asset management fee-- the fee to oversee the numbers, oversee the property management company, oversee the business plan. And then there's equity ownership that you have in the deal, and that's the big one, where you get equity ownership in the deal because you put the deal together. And that can be anywhere from an 80-- you can get 20% for putting in 5% of the deal, so basically you're getting 15% putting the deal together.

It can be any number of combinations. You're only limited by your investors and your creativity for how you put it together that meets your investors' goals. But going back to the first deal, yeah, I got a check at closing for $22,000. Now, I also learned a bunch of lessons on that deal-- a bunch of hard lessons.

And I have not, nor will I ever, repeat those mistakes again. A couple lessons-- one is--this is so stupid, but if I did it, maybe someone else will do it-- or no, they won't do it after they listen to your podcast, but maybe someone else might have done it.

And that is, I raised enough money for the down payment, but I was so stupid that I didn't raise money for operating budget or capital improvements. And capital improvements are basically parking lot, you know, fix a pool, just do certain things around the property, fix AC units that need to be done.

That was a mistake. And what I've had to do since we've closed is put in my own money to cover that. And we're actually about to close on the property in two or three days from now. And the investors will make a pretty darn good return on it. And I've had investors invest in other deals who are in that deal.

But that was one lesson I've personally learned. Another lesson that I learned the hard way is I learned the difference between economic and physical occupancy. At the time, I would ask, "What's your occupancy?" And they said, "98%." And you know what, we could make it 100% if you wanted.

I mean, we're just rocking it. I'm like, "That's amazing. That sounds great." But the question I should have asked is, "What's your economic occupancy?" And the difference between occupancy and economic occupancy is that occupancy is people who are on the rent roll, people who are living there. Economic is people who are living there and paying you rent.

(laughs) So, it turns out that the property had a physical occupancy of 98%, but an economic occupancy of 80%. Big old difference. Just stupid rookie mistakes that I made. I will never make them again. Not those mistakes. I'm sure I'll make different ones. I'll never make those mistakes again.

And now I've also evolved my business to recognize and to compensate for what my strengths and weaknesses are as a person, as an entrepreneur. I brought on a business partner, and he has a background in underwriting, multifamily analysis. The time when I was working in advertising agencies, he was working at large multifamily companies that were doing what we do for a living.

And he has the traditional background, and he's good at running the numbers, doing the asset management, and getting the debt financing, so the lender financing. What I'm really good at is getting the equity, so the down payment from investors, as well as marketing and investor communication. And so that's what we do.

That's how we structure our business. He's focused on his stuff, and I'm focused on my stuff. And that has taken us to another level, because we're able to put our heads down. He doesn't like raising money. I enjoy it. I like building the friendships. And we've gone from, you know, I bought my first place 168 unit in July 2013.

I waited two long years to buy the second one, but I bought the second one with my business partner, Frank, and it was a 250 unit in Houston. Then we bought a 155 unit in Houston. Then we bought a 320 unit in Carrollton, Texas, really nice area in Dallas, north of Dallas.

We are closing on a 296 unit in a month, and we just put another 217 unit under contract in Dallas. So the business within the last 14 months has just gone bananas. That's why you asked financially free. Well, it's happened in the last 12 to 14 months, because of the key of me identifying what I'm not so good at and what I'm really good at and focusing what I'm really good at.

How did the relationship with your business partner develop? Through my consulting program, I have a client, and I encouraged him to start a meetup in Los Angeles, because that's where he lives. He started a meetup, and he met Frank, and then he introduced me to Frank, because they needed to close on this 250 unit in Houston.

They saw the good deal, but they didn't have the money. They didn't have the investor network, and I said, "I do have the investor network. I will partner," and that's how we got the first deal done. What did you do to develop the investor network, which you now have?

I spent time on earth. That's really what it boils down to. I try to help people out, and I just live a good life. Let's go back to the 12 people who invested in my original deal, because that will give you some specifics. Let's see. I'm on the alumni advisory board at Texas Tech.

I had two investors from that, and I joined the alumni advisory board at Texas Tech years and years before I was in real estate. I just joined it so I could help out young professionals, and I went to Lubbock, Texas every year for the conference. Let's see. I had three of them invest in my deal.

I have a friend who only knows me from my flag football team that I had in New York City where I was a captain, and he invested $25,000. A roommate from college, and actually two roommates from college, and then a roommate that I was living with in New York City invested.

It was a bunch of different networks, and one recommendation if any listener is looking for how to raise money or how to think about it for maybe it's their business that they want to raise funding for or whatever, doesn't have to be real estate related, I recommend that you put in the spreadsheet the first name, last name, those would be columns, and then network.

That's another column, and then write down how you know that person. The goal is once you list out 50 people, the goal is to take a look at the different networks that you're a part of and get one person from each of those networks, ideally an influential person, but at least one person from each of those networks to show interest.

Then you can name check that person with other people within the network. I found that firsthand that worked on my first deal because one of my investors, he's like, "Oh, well if Brandon's investing, I know he's really smart with his money, so sure, I'll take a look at it." That person who said, "I'll take a look at it," ended up being my biggest investor in my first deal.

What do you mean by name check? Brandon says, "Okay, I'm interested," and you take that to Brian, and Brian says, "Okay, if Brandon's interested, then I'm interested?" Yeah, as long as you get approval from the initial person. You're trying to find somebody with some credentials, somebody with maybe some experience who's looked at the numbers and says, "Okay, I can see this working, Joe.

If you get enough other partners, I'm in." Exactly. Right. Joe, if I wipe you out, you just went through bankruptcy, and I wipe out your investor network, wipe out all your relationships for whatever reason, and you got to start fresh. You're 34 years old, you got a thousand bucks in your bank, and you're going to try to start again and rebuild.

What would you do today, 2016, to get started rebuilding what you've built so far? I'd start a daily podcast. Really simple. I'd interview successful people in real estate. Since my first one was wiped off the face of the earth, I guess it would be Best Real Estate Investing Advice Ever, Part 2.

(laughter) Dot, dot, dot. Hope this one stays. I'd do the same thing I'm doing. I would do a daily interview with a real estate professional. I would build credentials. The beauty of it, as you know, when you interview people on a podcast, they share it out with their network, you're getting exposed to a brand new group of people who are learning about you, as well as learning the person's story, who you're interviewing.

Once I have that daily podcast seasoned, so about six months or so, then I'd start looking at sponsors. That would allow me to delegate out the editing and finding the guests, because I'd be able to pay people to do that for me. That would free me up to just do the interviews, and then I'd be able to focus on other revenue streams.

That would always be the foundation for my business. What else would you do? As far as going out and looking at property, you don't have any money, but you want to actually build a real estate business. Would you try to go and bird dog single family houses? No. I would start a meetup.

I'm in Cincinnati. By the way, the first thing I did when I moved to Cincinnati last year was I started a monthly meetup, and we've met every month for the last 12 or so months. I would start a meetup here in Cincinnati. I would identify a commercial real estate investor who is already making things happen, and then I would volunteer my time for him or her.

I would learn from him or her. I would do whatever they needed me to do, and then I would eventually do what they are doing, either with them or outside of them after I've been able to stand on my own two feet and got the connections and learned the process.

And specifically what that is, don't know. Depends on the person, because whatever is working for them would work for me. I just have to follow the process. I mean, you can make money in any type of real estate. You can make money in any type of business, right? It's because people have, and so it's possible.

And the path of least resistance, if I were to start over, would be to simply find someone locally who I have rapport with, who I can help out through just grunt work, and then get in good with them, spend six months, a year, two years, whatever it takes to add value to their life, and then just build up my business as a result of latching on to their success and going from there.

Why did you choose Cincinnati to live in? Two reasons. I'll list them in order of importance. My girlfriend and future fiance lives here and is from here. That's number one. I met her whenever I was visiting my property in Cincinnati. I was living in New York, but I was visiting my property in Cincinnati.

I met her here, and that's number one. Number two is there's a lot of good real estate opportunities. But I suspect that if Colleen, my girlfriend, who I love with my life, did not live here, if I did not meet her, then I don't think I would be living here.

But I'm glad I'm here, for the record. Indeed. What is the best investment that you have made thus far in your life? Oh, I'd say, I would say the Internet, because that allowed me to watch YouTube videos. And through the YouTube videos, I discovered Tony Robbins' TED Talk. And from Tony Robbins' TED Talk, I went to his website, signed up for a free coaching session, then got a business coach when I first started as an entrepreneur.

He told me about Entrepreneur on Fire, which I'm sure you know, John Lee Dumas, a very successful podcaster. Podcasting wasn't on my radar, but my business coach, who I met through Tony Robbins' program, he's like, "You should look into doing something like that." I did look into it, then I did it.

And the podcast has been a game changer for me, for my business. And without that, without the Internet, without paying Time Warner, even though I'm not a fan of Time Warner, without paying Time Warner, none of that would have been possible. How important has your 401(k) and your mutual funds been to your overall wealth and business success?

Well, by cashing them out whenever I didn't have any money, they helped me survive and get my first deal done. So, they were important. I don't recommend that, but that's what I did, because I was running out of money and basically ran out of money and I needed to survive.

Cobra insurance was incredibly expensive. I don't have that anymore, but it was like $800 a month. I mean, something ridiculous, plus my rent, and I didn't have money coming in besides $250 from each house that I had. So, they helped me, but I don't have them now. So, there you go.

It's a trick question, because that story is probably the dominant one that I hear in terms of business people. It seems rare for me to meet a business person who didn't do that or get very close to using their 401(k)s to invest in their actual business instead of just leaving them aside for the future.

Oh, that's funny. I didn't know that. I thought I was the only one. It was a trick question. I didn't prep you for it. If you're going to give any final advice, something I haven't talked about, to encourage somebody else who is looking at things and saying, "I'd really love to build something more," any tips or advice that you'd love to share with somebody or you'd love to have had shared with you when you were back at the beginning stages of your wealth building journey?

If you want to build something more, then don't think about it and just do it. Just build it. Take consistent daily action. That's the main thing. No one in the world, in the entire world, has done a daily real estate podcast as long as I have. And by simply being just doggedly focused on putting out an episode every day, there has become a tipping point.

A tipping point has happened with my business. And that's the foundation. So if you want to create something, then great. Just spend time every single day doing something towards creating it. That's it. There's a lot of advice. I'm sure I could say something much more poetic, which is if we stop thinking about it and just take steps every single day towards what it is we want, we might not get exactly what we want, but I suspect that we will get something better than where we're at right now.

Joe, thanks for coming on. Share with us your website, any follow-up action steps that you'd love for my audience to take on your projects and your resources. The money-raising spreadsheet that I described, I actually have a template. My assistant, Samantha, would be happy to send that to you if you email info@joefferless.com.

That's info@joefferless.com. And that's that spreadsheet where you list out the name, the network, how much you're going to invest. There's a couple of other things that I have in there. If you're raising money or want to raise money for real estate or for your business, small business, this spreadsheet would be helpful.

Info@joefferless.com.