Over 40? Here’s How to Build Your Personal Brand (Start Now!) | #TheDept Ep. 51

is it too late to start building your personal brand absolutely not if you've been through some stuff you're 40 years old maybe you've unfortunately had a divorce or heaven forbid you've lost a child or just you've had some some real life stuff you have a lot of value to share with folks here's the framework of Michael Zuber quarter million doll framework I don't have a plan I don't have a team I don't have any marketing it's generated over a million dollars by accident and it all started with welcome back to the department Mr Michael Zuber

thank you sir pleasure to be here I have called you or deemed you the the uh the quarter of a million doll personal brand oh wow that's very nice that's pretty accurate right oh yeah for sure yeah know so um I wanted to bring you back on and uh have this conversation that actually we made a video previously a couple months ago called content advice for people in for people over 40 I saw that Y and it just the way it resonated was very surprising uh I think what it did was like it made people

like say rais their hand the the comment sections were so rich and there were like paragraph comments of people saying like I have so much that I would love to share about and so I'm sure people are like still stuck at like where do I get started and I think your your uh approach was very um it's like it's an accessible approach you know and and I think I think you you give people a a permission to not feel like they need to like try hard but I did want you to we start this off

by uh just answering this question okay is it too late to start building your personal brand absolutely not I I think especially if you're over 40 the beauty of being over 40 and again I started building my brand at 45 I'm now 52 right so I'm six seven years into this thing you look amazing and you just told us you're going about to run a marathon I am the Vegas Marathon baby go November 3rd be my first one young Soul right here I love it got to do something hard every year but um no so

it's it's you can absolutely I would argue you should be building your brand in your 40s and you got to be you got to watch the word brand and especially in the world of social media because people will gravitate to you know Gary ve or Alex arosi or you know the Legends but you can just be a little guy like me and just do my thing was rental real estate and it's it's built it's generated over a million dollars by accident wow right I don't have a plan I don't have a team I don't have

any marketing nothing and it all started with picking up my phone and and talking to the camera no editing no thumbnails no vid IQ yeah nothing just was was there a reason why you went to to YouTube to start that as opposed to another platform yeah absolutely because it what seemed like it was the most accessible and it didn't cost me anything I already had a phone um I actually remember using my uh earbuds in the mic for like the first thousand videos with the wire with the wire which by the way is a nice

little Life Hack That microphone's amazing it is like the probably the best $20 microphone exactly exactly yeah but but the real key for somebody in their 40s is in the why the reason they should do it now is they're likely still working right because when you're building a personal brand and you're watching social media today a lot of folks get attracted to it because they hear brand and think money right and what I have seen is if you want to grow a brand fast and it's usually because you need money now right you need to

pay rent now you need to buy food now you're G to have to go down the the uh the path of fear and crash and negativity because that's how you get and that's how you um can grow AdSense rather quickly yeah if you're in your 40s and you have something you love and you have likely loved it for at least a decade but probably two you're not interested in the fear of it you want to share this gift that you have acquired over a couple of decades with the world and just share it out there

in a positive light and again the first 50 videos nobody's going to watch but you will feel like you're contributing to the world I love that and then you just get consistent you get a little bit better every day you make a little bit of changes and you could really build a community right so again what I would tell somebody in their 40s all everybody I know 40 and above they have a hobby that they've they've done for probably two decades and it could be anything it could be classic cars it could be Pokemon cards

it could be Nike shoes what whatever it is if you have one of those true passions pick up the camera and start talking about it and then as you get older right if you fast forward like where I am right so you start at 45 you have no idea what you're doing you've never paid a coach in your life and seven years later you've got a a community online of 60,000 subscribers you've got 18 million watches you got 10 million podcasts you sold two you know one best-selling book and a second book you know it

can all happen you just one one day at a time yeah one one rental at a time one rental at a time there you go uh which is Michael's YouTube channel you said like do your first like 600 videos like how many videos did you do that like nobody watch because like you have like over 13,000 videos Onan I do well I'll tell you this when I went back and looked one time uh I wasn't monetized for a thousand videos I did a thousand videos before I was paid a penny that's wild thousand not a

hundred not 10 a thousand yeah most people would give up right but I wasn't doing it for the money yeah that's the that's the hack and I think that's like a something that Rory Vaden taught or he kind of leads with this is like we should always have a why when we start something right like always have a strong enough why my friend Peter vug says reasons come before results but something I love that Rory pointed out was that most of the time pretty much all the time your why is a who and when you

have the who that you're trying to serve and help and connect with you know and and I think sometimes it because because there's a there's two different approaches in regards to showing up you can be the the source of information and be the educator which is kind of the route you kind of took and then you can also be the the community leader or the facilitator so if it is the Pokemon or sport cards or memorabilia whatever like you're kind of like a community leader um and and that's kind of what you're building yeah um

yeah like I I mean it's it's it's fascinating because like you got a thousand videos not so much traction what was your your biggest lesson on a YouTube strategy standpoint from doing a thousand like or what did start taking traction uh it's funny because again when you started at least when I started a channel I had no idea what I was doing you can actually go back and look at my playlist and you can see that I tried all kinds of things yeah right this that and just nothing really hit until I started doing the

daily financial news so I've been doing the daily financial news now for probably 5 and a half years it was 7 days a week for the first three years uh now it's 5 days a week that one show people can count on 7:30 a.m. you know 99% of the days Monday through or Sunday through Thursday and it has about 250 people that watch live because they they know it's 7:30 7:31 Zuber is going to be there and then about four or five thousand people will watch that by the end of the day hey Department fan

wanted to take a brief break from this conversation I hope you're enjoying it as much as I am and the first thing I wanted to talk about is that did you know that 75% of the people that watch this podcast on YouTube actually aren't subscrib which is a high chance that you're not subscribed so number one I want to say thank you for listening or watching the podcast and number two if you can hit that subscribe button that would be amazing the second thing is if you are an entrepreneur content creator or somebody looking to

make money online I want to encourage you to come to this online event called the content to cash challenge this is a special 5-day event that it's going to give you access to the system I use in my business to make multiple six figures with my content if you've been Desiring to either get your business and brand more exposure grow a YouTube channel whatever it is when it comes to video I would encourage you to jump into the content to cash challenge we'll be sure to post the link to the challenge down in the show

notes or the description and I want to encourage you to jump into the VIP experience this will give you access to a 1hour Q&A call every day of the challenge this will guarantee myself to answer a personalized question you may have so I'll see you on the content to cast challenge now let's jump back into the conversation so good I love that like that's pretty powerful yeah I would argue that like local news isn't even getting like that much no I wouldn't I would which is crazy that you you built something significant like that here's

a cool thought have you ever considered like putting a link in your description that puts the live stream on people's calendars I didn't know you could do that yeah like that's why they pay me the big bucks I had no idea that could happen so like I mean like I I think what it would it would just be it's like a fun call to action hey if you're somebody who loves listening to this and you want to be on the live sometimes I you know can it can you don't get the push notification or what

have you why don't you just throw this on your calendar and it'll just ping you and so there there's a know you could do that yeah called calendar link kind of like a zoom call when you set up a zoom call it gets on people's calendars but I mean for the for the real uh that would be something cool I I want to point out something that you tapped into that actually is a it will kill a limiting belief and that is the feel or the or the the the um the thought that you have

to edit your videos and cut out your mistakes I would say if you are starting out on any platform start with unedited content 100% if you wrap yourself around the axle of trying to make it perfect or better you you will at best significantly reduce your learning curve because it's all about it bats yeah right it's all about practice you won't learn the Rhythm the all of that the hook right the first 10 seconds yeah I would I would tell everybody to do non-edited videos it's I think it's actually going to we if you fast

forward to your the whole highly produced stuff I think it's going away I think it's going far yeah that's what we did a we did a podcast called like three trends that died this year content Trends and that was one of them I think so um over stimulating or like um jump cuts yeah just a bunch of stuff and and the thing is is because I think it's not just that people are tired of working like just like content being in their face like that it's that I I believe there is a a large group

of people that desire to just learn and consume and relax while they listen you know watch somebody it's funny the other thing that I you know just take a right turn here the thing that I think change this year is for the last three to four years I've had a lot of people ask me how to like how' you do like what are the what are the one two three one two three steps they always won it in three steps yeah whatever right maybe five but the whole idea was is there was a lot of

stuff that you could do there and we I had a teachable course and and all of that but I don't think that's where people are today I think people today want a community right they want to be you know it used to all be virtual and all this stuff now they want to go in real life right these challenges that you do are pretty pretty amazing I've been watching from afar and and I think that's I think it's about Community going forward yeah I think that's definitely been a big change this year yeah and and

leveraging you know Gathering people online around your you know brand and then like just yeah put a date on the calendar and gather people you did that last year yeah what were like some of the first thoughts that came to mind like as far as like getting will people even come like did you even have those thoughts yeah so we we put on a 50,000 sub celebration here in Vegas last uh President's Day weekend and I um I didn't know what to expect right I in my career I had put on lots of events and

thousand people and all that so I knew I knew the basic building blocks but the problem with putting on events is it's always the audience that makes it right yeah you could be in some events and and the audience is just sitting there taking notes living in their little bubble not socializing or you can have an event like I was at or we ran and everybody was talking to everybody networking it was like you could just feel the energy the positivity of the room growing I it's addicting I I remember going home because I only

promised to do it one time and I remember going home the first night and I couldn't sleep and that that if you know anything about me that doesn't happen wow I couldn't sleep I felt like I was levitating on the bed it was wild so we're going to do it again in in February you're speaking at yeah I know I I'm pumped and I honestly I loved seeing it I love seeing like the Inception of things and and then even just what what my brain does is just like how did one get here and that's

why I love like even just having M you know continuous conversations I know we always like brainstorming and you hit me up and we think through some things and honestly it comes from a place of like how can we better serve people where they're at which kind of like I think is is a a challenge people have like you made so many videos I think people would probably wonder okay I might have three to five videos in my head that I can do without you know just like let me give you a hack for that

yeah so how can you get unlimited video ideas unlimited video so again the the beauty of what I've done is let me say it this way if I had to do solo content I would do the daily financial news and nothing else okay right because that's that it changes every day yeah which if if we just break that down that's you taking on something that's going on in the world it's and be clear it's something I've done for 30 years I've just talked to a camera for the last seven years or whatever it's been but

yeah I get up in the morning very early I read the financial news for about 90 minutes now I take notes and then I talk to a camera but I've done I did that for 30 years that's my morning routine right um but now I do you know three or four videos a day because I've attracted 12 to 15 other millionaires in real estate with different experiences and we talk for you know I have everybody scheduled for you know an hour a day yeah so what I would tell someone is if you have your thing

and let's just call it Pokemon cards for just to have fun fun go find other folks that like Pokemon cards and schedule an hour call on Tuesday and another one on Friday and you know maybe some guy doesn't do Pokemon cards they do basketball cards and talk about the differences and that's and this you'll just if you have true passion for something and someone else does topics are so good just quick 60 seconds done let's go yeah and I love that you're leveraging rather than leveraging like practical information which I think is something you probably

pull out you pull out the the principles of course but like you're not having to come up with the content it's it's it's telling stories we have real people doing real things what happened in your business this week yeah right what are you are you refy are you buying are you selling are you evicting rent I mean we're we all have real businesses in in real estate and yeah it's it's if you just attract two or three other people you have unlimited content so good and I love it's like the the interview sty is what

I I love it because like the reason why I even chose podcasting was because I could I I could come up with content weekly uh but I know the power of leveraging somebody else's expertise or somebody's story right and and then the the the work required on my end is just to like position and package this conversation in a way that would get the you know the best viewership as possible right but I love I love seeing a a friend of ours I think you're cool with Brian Dilla yeah who's a real estate investor who

somebody would look like a traditional person would look at his podcast and think I mean he's not getting that many views but I see that he gets about a thousand views like as soon as he drops a podcast conversation which that tells me that everyone in that that clicks that is into the idea of real estate but his qualification for interviewing people is simply somebody that's doing it right and so he here's what he's leveraging he's leveraging the the story the what did you do differently what was the challenges you had which which I think

is just wise because then you don't run out you will never run out you can't run out you can't you can't run out and I think that's that's a great unlock that you found with even doing a solo thing uh bringing your commentary I think that's like something that people don't realize that like you know like because you've had 10 20 30 years in the thing you've been interested in the amount of commentary you have around it is unlimited no and again when you really care about something and you put out content for a while

you're you will find your tribe you'll find your other folks that Community then becomes really like a family and then if you wanted to monetize it there's endless ways of monetizing all of this yeah which I'd love to get into can can you try to speak to someone so like yeah I I think the sport cards like the the cars coffee food whatever like those are travel travel what what would you say about somebody who wants to do something more like life like um you know I'm thinking about people that want to like help couples

in with marriage is I think you know one of the things I heard somewhere I don't remember where it was we have too many 18-year-old life coaches yeah right no 100 yeah it's like that's kind of wild right but if if you've been through some stuff you're 40 years old maybe you've unfortunately had a divorce or heaven forbid you've lost a child or just you've had some some real life stuff you have a lot of value you to share with folks and let's be clear sometimes sharing that also removes some of the burden from yourself

because you'll be helping people so sometimes it's a healing process at least that's what like whenever I get grinding on something I got to share it right and maybe that's that'll be a healing thing but yeah if you're 40 50 you've been through some stuff we got a lot we can help people yeah and again just think about it how many what what did you go through when you were in your 20s yeah you bought some dumb you had some dumb relationships you you know you your friends suck CU they're out partying and which is

all worth talking about absolutely yeah and oh by the way you know you're 20 years in you can tell him what happens yeah right by the way you know my friend got addicted and then he got fired and lost his wife and yeah you know don't go down it's a slippy Road right right so again I think if you're in your 40s or 50s you have what you have something you have value I don't think enough people realize that um would you be able to speak to this like how how does one become a good

Storyteller so let's say like I want to tell a story about that that takes practice and I and I don't claim to be very good at it what I would tell people the story um there's that you can you can you can read books on it you can you know do practice but you've got to open tell a story and close I mean that's it's there is a framework for telling a story um just got that takes practice just like public speaking it's it's a practice how has making videos made you a better public speaker

oh I can definitely pull on a lot of different strings now um I'd always been a decent public speaker because I'd spoken in front of thousands of people before um but video is a different game right we're sitting in a studio now there's probably like four cameras and seven lights and like all the stuff around us I don't even see it yeah right you know in the beginning it's like terrifying yeah um right for it just feels like you and I are here U but you can just block that stuff out but it's practice practice

practice sweet and I wouldn't even call it practice just do the work yeah yeah you skip it yeah just record stop upload move on yeah and don't grind on it and just worry about the next one I love it you know it's funny because like my Approach is I actually my my time Horizon with Le this podcast is like it will evolve with me and one day I'll literally just be like shooting it in the I don't know if we'll have a farm or something but this like this is my retirement plan that's what I

want 40 and 50 old worlds to to realize you w you're you're 10 or 15 or 20 years away from retirement right you already have something you love why don't you take one hour a week create one video or have one podcast conversation with someone else that loves the same thing do that for a decade right you'll have what 500 videos you'll probably have 10,000 to 100,000 followers and then you can do that into retirement that was my mistake yeah my big mistake in life was quitting my job on a moment's notice m I had

no plan think about being 45 years old you already have enough money to pay all your bills you have enough money you can eat out all the time and travel when you want to travel right that that stuff is set but you're freaking depressed like Suicidal Thoughts yeah because you're not contributing yep don't do don't do that I should have been building one rental at a time at least 5 years earlier so I could have rolled into something and not missed a beat it was a create create the momentum um so what was like the

so you're making these videos years go by people are starting to like maybe pull on maybe they're asking you questions and in your mind you're like how how do I do something off platform right what what was the first thing you did that was like I'm going to do something off platform so you know part of the part of the you know I still look at all my comments right I don't have a team around me right so I I still look at all the comments so in the beginning the comments were just the next

videos but after a while you started to real at least I started to realize in my space a lot of the questions were repetitive so what I decided to do with that information is create you know at the time I created a $49 course on teachable off platform that was the first thing first thing off platform was was teachable it was basically I don't know I remember what it was 10 or 15 common questions right and then it sort of Mor morphed from there but yeah I would take YouTube will always be where I do

most of the work yeah and then I monetize kind of around it right so now we have two books on Amazon both are on Audible we have the teachable thing we have just launched a school Community we get some affiliate links you know it's it's wild it's wild to me have you done any brand deals I've not done a brand deal yet I mean it's probably is I just signed first brand with this nice yeah 0 80k nice for a year of saying check out this stuff that I actually love already yeah well that that

works right that's the beauty is you get to stay loyal to the stuff you like yeah yeah no I haven't nobody's ass near was I can tell but um and also I don't I don't reach out I don't Market I don't have a one sheet kind of who is I mean yeah you got the stuff dialed with the I see that's it's really funny I I sometime this is a this is a challenge I have I sometimes look at where I'm at and let's just say the brand one rental at a time will make 250

Grand this year yeah Allin that's when no overhead so that's like what 95% margin crazy that's crazy and I I of to think about you know what what would happen if I found somebody to run a couple ads if I had somebody you know create a funnel a landing page I don't have any of this stuff yeah I'm like what could we do and then I then I step back and go oh that sounds hard that sounds like work I don't want to do that no yeah but I I I think about that a lot

yeah I think uh but okay I don't want I don't want to peruse through some of those things like like what what did it look like when you launched that teachable course so so when I so when I launched teachable it was probably two years into YouTube so I probably had 8,000 is subscribers so not not great but 8,000 is and I just announced it again I never marketed didn't have any ads any of this I everything I do is on on YouTube I just said hey guys I I you know you guys ask these

questions all the time I just created this $49 blah blah blah and I sold like I don't know five grand in in like two months or something I was like oh my God that's awesome I again I didn't think it was possible I'd never done anything like that and I mean I think a lot of people don't realize the that like social media YouTube is a they're feedback engines when you give it information you get feedback from all from the platform telling you like hey this maybe consider making this type of stuff yeah and then

you get feedback from the people watching your content and and and I think it's it's a funny continuous like Pro Progressive uh loop where it's like I put out great content people tell me what they want to hear or things even like hey you got this wrong thank you yeah I'm glad now I know I now I know because I put the content out and then I'm better because of it and then the next piece is even better and then like you grow over time as as a Creator you know yeah so I definitely consider

myself a YouTube Creator now or YouTube or whatever that is I I probably I pushed back on that probably the first four or five years mhm but I mean when you spend I don't know I spend I don't know 15 hours a week on platform right creating content for it you you that's you know like that's what I am but what again for the 40y olds out there you don't have to do as much as I do yeah right right I'm doing this to feel like I'm contributing my mission again this is what I wake

up every day thinking about my mission is to create something that out lives my physical body by 50 years that's what I'm playing for it's not another dollar it's not another unit it's it's for people to say nice things about me Years After I'm dead so good so that's what that's why I show up every day yeah because that mission hasn't changed it was on my very first video I want to steal your idea of making a book from your content so you said you have two books I do what was the first book you

you created the first book was actually the answer to being depressed I had never done a good job of looking at my history so one rental at a time the bestselling book one rental at a time is basically uh one guy reminiscing about his 20 years in the business it's very much written for me it just happens to people really love the book but then what I did in my second book 15 conversations with real estate millionaires is I took 15 unique videos from 15 different people one of them is me Kevin for example and

I broke down their stories in a chapter and there 15 different stories this is why it's it's great to get on different interviews and all that and that book almost itself I just had to write an intro for each chapter and a wrapup and it was just the conversations so absolutely your content you're the Creator you could architect it could absolutely become a book and probably several books did you use like a company or no I did it I did it myself uh and then I had somebody transcribe yeah I did transcribe right audio to

and you had to clean up some of the words yeah but yeah no I did that all myself D that's sick I'm excited 2025 write a book I I I mean like I just the some of the conversations have really resonated and they've been some of them are story driven some of them are very like practical tactical but I I feel like I could release a book on how to build an online business um with a personal brand absolutely and you should yeah and this conversation can be in there good so congratulations you're a co-author

no did you have to get people to sign something NOP I see what I did in that book I could have gone down that route but I didn't name anybody oh wow that's the difference that's the difference so but I I did say in the book if you want I had a playlist of all the creators so if you want to go back and get the video you can go get the video but I didn't name anybody oh wow so I didn't have to ask permission that's really good dang that's freaking but what's cool is

like the for me like the names would probably be like an added Authority play but I would have to go then reach just is more leg work and I didn't want to because I had Elena Cardone and I had all these other I'm like not gonna go through all the lawyers and stuff forget it and from these books that you've written after putting out content like like how do those how have those I still make a thousand bucks a month wow on Amazon books and about 600 on Audible so let's call it 1500 that's really

cool and I have and the first book's like eight years old yep and what's cool about that is like you know there's something powerful about having something physical uh in people's homes oh it's absolutely I I have people come up to me you know a couple of times a month with the book where I'm at and they want me to autograph it you want you want to get a you want to get a real ego boost have some autograph your book right yeah it's kind of cool yeah you and that's what you've probably created in

an industry you this this um and maybe maybe you don't like the word but like a celebrity Factor yeah yeah certainly don't like that word but people want to take selfies with you absolutely all the time people want to shake your hand yeah I get spotted I get spotted out there yeah so I mean just for an example right meet Kevin had an event in Vegas I want to call it three months ago right Ben Malo was there and some other folks and I got up to speak last and I was talking to people in

the audience longer than I spoke on stage the line was like I don't know 70 people or something it was pretty wild it was I was wild it blown away yeah I mean you've created an approachability with your brand I mean you're like yeah you're The Millionaire Next Door yeah I would love that I would that I would take that as a compliment yeah and uh which I think is really cool because like in a world where like Fame and influence marketing and all this stuff it's like some people don't realize as they're actually creating

a wall between your ability to be approached I think like going back to kind of what we said a few minutes ago about the community aspect is everything M like cuz I feel challenged with that I'm like dude why don't I do meetups like when I when I land in a city uh part of it is like I get a little bit insecure like will anybody show up or I don't know what if weirdos come you know like it's all those things where it's like no or people are really cool and they just want to

hang like I don't know yeah yeah I think I think um I think you build you build your get a book you do those kinds of things it it'll become a natural yeah for you yeah so um I I would say like what what do you feel like is like the next wave for you being like I mean you're you're you're a veteran Creator I guess at this point if you're seven years in I would say so yeah yeah um yeah what do you what do you want to try or what do you feel like

well the good news is I'm very I so the one thing about me is I don't feel like I always have to improve MH right one of the things I love about you and you still coach me on all the time is my opening 3 seconds yeah I love how you come up like we have a conversation you're like this is what I doam like how do you do that just like I got of I wrote it down and I'm like how does Omar do that um but also I don't beat myself up on it

for sure because I know I I know my tribe yeah right I don't grow fast I add about 25 new Subs a day right 25 to 35 a day all right so I'll eventually get to 100,000 but it's years from now yeah and I'm okay with that because again I'm not about if want to grow fast you got to go negative I'm chasing impact yeah it's it's just if if you are going to be a Creator you can either chase money or chase impact yep I am only chasing impact I am playing a fundamentally different

game than most people yeah dude you're like the most content person that I know I am very content yes I'm I'm content lucky and I I get to help people every day I have these little cards I give out this is another great thing I did um I have a a golden ticket which anybody who does the work and all they get their first deal I send them a golden ticket I give them a shout out on the daily financial news co uh and then I got these black cards you can get as many black

cards as you want right you second deal third deal fourth like some people have gotten 20 of these wow and then I give them a shout out right so I did two this morning um I forget who they were Matt and and and Mark I think something like that but the idea is is it's it's as much for them as for me mhm I I send these two cards out I help them right um I've sent out uh almost 2500 or 2600 cards in total wow I've helped 2600 people get a deal let alone you

know the 20,000 people that watch my stuff a day right right this is like Financial like impact so yeah dude it's like video is impact on automation right yeah um it's overwhelming sometimes like cuz cuz you're in your world right you like you got your house in Vegas you got the you do your thing you don't really come into contact with too many people on a weekly basis yeah physically correct but yeah I think I think sometimes you I know I I forget I I forget the the the amount of people that have watched the

content and stuff because I don't you don't feel it it's like a yeah no I would I would definitely steal that I mean I don't know what it would be for you maybe it's somebody who creates their first 10 videos or or some number have them tell you they've done it and just create a card man and it's you know it's five you know 3x5 card or whatever it's probably 5 by seven I guess and mail it to them but again it's really not they love it I have people with it on their walls and

their fridge but it means something to me yeah right oh there's two more in the mailbox there's two more in the mailbox it's it's a it's a kick really cool so okay can you give me some like Financial wisdom then like like coach me of course I've coached you of course uh okay so like we we have a lot of money in the bank cash cash and and like I know like the thing that I hear your voice in my mind is discretionary income discre dude we have so much discretionary income it's insane however good

problem to have it is a good problem uh I just don't know sometimes in this regard when it comes to like investing is where to draw the line between fear and wisdom like cuz sometimes times maybe maybe it should sting a little bit I don't know sting sting as in like you know seeing the money go if we get a property or I you know like so not the sting of a loss it's the sting of risk yes that is um something you're going to get comfortable with it it's sort of like buying shoes or

buying cars you know the first time is always the hardest second Time's A Little Less hard and then by the fifth time you're like not going to kill me nothing yeah you're not going to die yeah right so you know there's something to be said for that but again I think what a lot of people who have discretionary income what I where I see them fall down is they try to skip the line they say things like you know I got 100 Grand or 200 whatever the number is and they just almost throw it into

the wind they they find somebody with a good story they didn't vet them they didn't double check and they get burned they get taken right people who have money at least in my world are not exempt from doing the work what is your buy box have you looked at your buy box every day have you understand what an average deal is you know are you writing disrespectful offers are you following up every seven days what I do takes work it's just like learning golf right you go to the driving range you swing a thousand times

then you go to a you know a mun course and then you go to a nicer course you don't just go to the nice course you be an idiot yeah right there's a process to this there's a process to investing so what I would tell someone like you is find your thing it doesn't have to be properties it could be stocks it could be index funds find your thing spend an hour a day on it for 30 days let you and I get together and talk about it then do another 30 days and pretty soon

you'll be investing it takes work it takes work when did you start the um the idea or the idea of investing my income so I started investing uh probably when I was 24 or 25 right other than a 401 which I didn't really count so we we were doing having discretionary income in the stock market and I successfully turned seven Grand into almost 200 Grand in about two and a half years problem I started by doing the work reading financials going deep on a company looking at their balance sheet and I was doing okay I

started doing less work and having better returns and then I started gambling and I was still winning oh wow I remember one day Olivia and I were in Hawaii and we put on some we bought some options we went to breakfast we came back and we made like 10 grand pure speculation pure gambling what I didn't realize at the time is we were investing into a bubble and that bubble popped and I lost 80% oh wow but I owned that that was my mistake M I went from being an investor doing the work to somebody

you Gam and speculate and then what I came to realize in my case is I didn't have the luxury of continuing to do that depth of work in the stock market and of course I was burned I was bitter I invested in two two companies that that were frauds World Comon Enron if you don't know what those are look them up they're just nasty frauds and um I was bitter about the stock market so I didn't touch the stock market for 15 years after that wow but what would you say collectively that loss was make

feel good about a loss I had a year ago well again I had about 200 Grand I lost 80 so it's 160 Grand wow gone like two and a half weeks gone how much would you say people that you see are successful is there pattern there I see a lot of so it's really an age so I see a lot of folks early in life have a good run and we've seen this just in the last couple years in our spaces real estate and and social media and then they get cocky and once you get

cocky the universe is going to smack you right there's there's just something about it that's that's you know circle of life I guess but yeah there there's a lot of people that get smacked and some people never come back and some people learn the lesson it's like okay yeah not going to do that again I always have to keep doing the work the Bible would call that the principle it's just pride pride uh you know you get humbled yes that's that's I REM this is really funny I remember saying in 2001 I think it was

I'm smarter than Warren Buffett and if you ever say that no you're not that's a bad thing to say right yeah I remember saying that I remember I told Olivia that I was like man I'm turnning wine in the gold or whatever it was water in the wine okay so big loss put off stocks and then then it's then then I knew two things wasn't never going to do stocks again I was going to do real estate and I dove in I consumed endless amount of material until I figured out my core principles right Focus

AKA buy box daily discipline look at every day I and I didn't even do the hard stuff right I just bought off the MLS wow I didn't do mailers and all this other stuff you see people like Ryan pan and Brian Dilla and all those folks doing I didn't do any of that stuff didn't wholesale stuff didn't do any that I just I did my day job and I bought real estate you know on the side so and um yeah because like I I think the I think the tension we're in right now is we're

like thinking maybe we should move into our next house and then rent out our the house we're in a lot of people do that I mean some people call that being an accidental landlord I think it's a genius move if if if that's the plan I think I think a lot of people should do that especially in your age group right the first house you get is not your forever home right but it could be a rental for sure and then I just sometimes feel like I'm doing I like I could do the wrong thing

by us like upgrading rather than just staying in our house and just like hold it hold it down for a little bit more and then get an investment property like well how let's let's have this conversation because that that lot of people in that like you don't have what I'm hearing you say is you don't like you're not out of bedrooms right you got enough bedrooms for the kids right it's just like we want to entertain a little bit um I'd love to actually have like host host some like masterminds and stuff at the house

you know um but yeah yeah that that thing like they it would be nice to have a little more space yeah espe as the kids are getting big well I think yeah your kids are G your kids are going to start getting bigger and bigger you know I don't think it's a bad idea I I really don't think it's a bad idea especially if you do the work you get a good deal right don't pay list price or anything silly like that there's nothing wrong with turning your existing home into a rental and calling that

your first rental yeah you do have an investment property at that point right it's that and then you're in a you know and again you get the best financing because it's an own rock and you get all those other benefits got the VA loan there you go yeah there you go yeah good stuff dude that's very helpful what do you need from me oh I just need you to keep being who you are keep helping me when I ask questions uh I have no idea what I'm doing half the time I just I keep doing

and sometimes maybe I should slow down and ask ask for help no well there yes yeah I got you cuz as long as I use your story on my web class bro ask me whatever you want keep going man full permission I created like it's it's kind of like how I end the web class I'm like all right here here's the last story I'll tell about this awesome friend of mine it's a picture of us on a on our last podcast we did and I'm like this is Michael Zuber who you know I I tell

the story a little bit who got retired and 3 weeks in just like didn't like life so started turning on a camera and started teaching and then I said but here here's the framework of Michael Zuber here's the uh quarter million dollar framework number one he he uh he knew his audience like you knew who you were talking to number two you created content for that audience correct and number three you tended the content you were creating meaning you were listening and you were you were improving little by little evolving and it's it's a an

acronym for act like you took action nice and so and then I go into my office I didn't know I was part of your oh that's a that makes me feel good yeah dude you're the coolest dude in the world man honestly look at it came with the Jordan 1es with the purple the the's my color you know to get these yeah um yeah what where can people find you and I I've done very few things right in life but one rental at a time is everything YouTube website books School everything one rent yeah we'll

link up some some stuff below I would say it's very it would be really wise to subscribe especially for that Daily Show you do yeah the daily financial news I mean people tell me all the time almost daily they don't even watch the news anymore they just it's 125 minutes it's not political it's none of this other nonsense it's boom boom boom you know fed said this economic data that you know key earnings this yeah you know oh good no I love it I think it's really good for everyone that that that's how you made

your Niche have broad appeal yeah so like you're not a generalist however you're leveraging financial literacy to open up the door into real estate investing or just investing in general which is actually absolutely right I think I think in the beginning I was very much you know 99% real estate but now I would call it more finance and just understanding economies really good what would you say like what's your what is your projection for the next year oh dude this is I just said it this morning I think 2025 is going to be a very

hard year for most people flip that over it's going to be a pretty great year for a few I think next year is going to have higher cost of capital interest rates I think the economy at best is going to be stuck in stagflation if not an allout recession I think there's going to be I think I think if you get unemployed you will be unemployed for a longer time right because we don't have the same amount of jolts uh job openings on the jolts report I I I the worst thing I can say for

folks is it feels very much like 8182 and if you don't know 1981 and 82 was a horrible back-to-back nasty recessions High inflation it was yuck I think that's what we're headed for now why is it a good year for some well if you have dry powder if you are an investor if you aren't overburdened by debt you're going to be able to pick up some assets on the cheap so that's that's what I'm looking forward to dude that's you know I actually find encouragement in that because you should I think it's just cuz like

I'm you know I'm 33 and I'm I'm I'm seeing Cycles right and I think that's the the every time the cycle comes around the first time you're like dang yeah yeah you're too afraid and what does Warren Buffet a when everybody's afraid yeah get greedy and when people are greedy yeah slow down that's exactly what you should be thinking again i' the thing about finance and the Cycles you're absolutely right you're you you're 33 you're going to probably live through five or six recessions mhm most wealth is built in a recession right right you might

recognize it during the expansion but here's the deal you make your money when you buy right not when you sell yeah so if guy like you you could make you could make two or three moves in 25 26 that fundamentally change your like like your kids lives wow that that's what's coming I think I receed that I I I I really do do am a firm believer you can become Recession Proof I feel it you know like I feel protected by the grace of God but I also feel protected by the field or the the

the skills the skills that I've Acquired and developed over time communication sales content creation uh these are skills that I think regardless of a recession because what will people do when when they're a little depressed what will people do when they're trying when they're trying to make more money they're going to consume content they're going to assum they're going to follow people that are going to show well just think about how we open this conversation if you want to if you're 40 years old let's just have an honest conversation if you start getting laid off

when you're 40s and 50s getting that next job is hard right because you're probably middle management upper management whatever it is if you started building a brand a couple of years ago yep there's something there that could minimum add to unemployment but you know maybe it's it's your next thing it's like your time to move on right you can make yourself you can make a recession less pay pain and again I want people to hear me I'm excited for what's coming right this is my fourth nasty right recession so I'm you're not going to scare

me but I do have to tell people it's going to be hard yeah and I really feel bad for folks that get laid off for no fault of their own because we're going to have a lot of layoffs companies are going to get bought sold for you know Pennies on the dollar and it some people are going to struggle yeah which you you know Now's the Time to prepare for that turn on the camera start building something good dude thank you for being on uh definitely we'll do a part three maybe at your live event

we'll do part three yeah absolutely look forward to thank you thank you