EP 222: Randy Smith and Don Wenner - Dream, Live, Prosper. Setting a New Standard for Real Estate Investing

[00:00:00] In a Mindset, We Are For You, Your Success, Our Success, Our Success. I want to be a part of your success.

[00:00:07] I know if I'm a part of your success in living, fully in accomplishing what you want in life, we're going to achieve amazing things.

[00:00:13] Hello, and thank you for joining us today on The Gentle Art of Crushing It, Show.

[00:00:18] Where we focus on learning and sharing with our listeners all there is to know about how to create success in our lives.

[00:00:24] This show stands on the shoulders of giants.

[00:00:28] Our mission is to empower and inspire our listeners

[00:00:31] to create the life of their dreams

[00:00:33] while having a blast in the process.

[00:00:36] Let's celebrate life together.

[00:00:38] Welcome to this show.

[00:00:42] Welcome back to the gentle art of crushing

[00:00:44] a podcast.

[00:00:45] My name's Randy Smith, I'll be your host today

[00:00:47] and I am really excited to have Dawn Winter

[00:00:50] with us today.

[00:00:52] Dawn is the founder of DLP Capital.

[00:00:55] He has been on the Inc. 5,000 for 11 years.

[00:00:59] He's an author of an amazing book,

[00:01:01] Bill Innell, Lead Organization.

[00:01:03] He's a father.

[00:01:04] He's a follower of Jesus.

[00:01:06] And he's just an overall great guy

[00:01:08] from what I've seen up to this point.

[00:01:10] So, Dawn, welcome to the show.

[00:01:11] Excited to have you here.

[00:01:12] Thank you, Randy.

[00:01:13] Pleasure to be here.

[00:01:14] All right.

[00:01:15] Well, why don't we just go ahead and show

[00:01:16] right in, Dawn.

[00:01:17] Can you tell the audience a little bit about yourself

[00:01:19] and DLP in what you guys are doing?

[00:01:22] How you got to wear your today?

[00:01:24] Yeah, I love to thank you, Randy.

[00:01:26] So as you said, I'm the founder

[00:01:28] and CEO of a company called DLP Capital.

[00:01:29] We're headquartered where I'm talking to you from right now

[00:01:32] and saying Augustine Florida.

[00:01:34] Where my family and I move to about nine years ago.

[00:01:37] After we grew up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

[00:01:40] Started the company there in 2006.

[00:01:44] But my quick backstory begins 39 years ago.

[00:01:49] Yet tomorrow.

[00:01:50] So tomorrow we 39 and my parents had me

[00:01:54] when they were 16 years old.

[00:01:57] And I grew up to my mom running a home day care in my home.

[00:02:01] And the oldest of five, plus row is five other kids in my home.

[00:02:04] And my dad was a correction officer, prison guard.

[00:02:08] And so grew up for very humble beginnings

[00:02:10] and parents who raised me in the church raised me in faith.

[00:02:15] But also had very limited beliefs

[00:02:18] to what they thought was possible.

[00:02:20] And nobody my family been to college.

[00:02:22] Nobody ever started a business.

[00:02:23] Nobody had ever earned six figures a year.

[00:02:27] And moved out of my parents house at 17 years old,

[00:02:30] knowing what I was going to do with my life.

[00:02:31] I was going to be a financial planner

[00:02:34] but was still a junior in high school when I moved out.

[00:02:36] So I waited tables, got through high school,

[00:02:38] was fortunate to get nearly a full ride to Drexel University.

[00:02:42] Knowing what I was going to do,

[00:02:44] went and worked at some interesting companies

[00:02:45] like Black Rock and Merrill Lynch and McGladbury and Poland.

[00:02:50] And big companies.

[00:02:52] But knowing I was going to be an independent financial advisor.

[00:02:54] And then I started a well-in college knocking on door,

[00:02:57] selling alarm systems.

[00:02:58] And the guy who owned that company was in real estate

[00:03:02] and real estate sales specifically

[00:03:03] and convinced me I could sell real estate

[00:03:05] if I could sell alarm systems knocking on doors.

[00:03:08] So at 20 years old, I got into real estate

[00:03:10] as a residential real estate agent

[00:03:12] and it took off really quickly.

[00:03:14] And what I learned early on was that all businesses

[00:03:17] are about solving people's problems.

[00:03:20] And in October 2006, when I got started,

[00:03:23] that was the peak of the real estate market.

[00:03:25] So homes were at their peak and the markets started slowing down

[00:03:28] and there were a lot of homeowners who were kind of

[00:03:30] an a tough situation.

[00:03:32] And we would either come in and help them sell their home

[00:03:35] and guarantee that sale or you would step in and buy their home.

[00:03:38] And that led us to running a home-flooping business

[00:03:40] which led us to starting a construction company

[00:03:43] which then led us to renting homes to people

[00:03:45] and launching property management.

[00:03:47] And then as we started building a portfolio,

[00:03:49] we needed more capital.

[00:03:51] And so I started offering investment opportunities

[00:03:53] to invest in private funds with local,

[00:03:58] high-net worth individuals.

[00:03:59] People call it family and friends money,

[00:04:02] but at that time when I got started,

[00:04:04] all my family worked for me and they all still do.

[00:04:08] And my friends were in their mid 20s as I was.

[00:04:10] So there was not a family and friends money

[00:04:12] but went to local individuals, professionals,

[00:04:17] business owners, lawyers, doctors, engineers.

[00:04:20] And they started investing in our funds

[00:04:21] and that allowed us to grow faster

[00:04:24] and then expand the way that we could do what we do.

[00:04:27] And we've been centered around investing

[00:04:28] in attainable workforce housing,

[00:04:30] housing that is in our main affordable

[00:04:32] for working families now.

[00:04:33] And we do that as a lender.

[00:04:35] We do that as an operator.

[00:04:37] We do that as a partner.

[00:04:38] We do that as a developer.

[00:04:40] Running a series of investment funds.

[00:04:41] As a day over 5 billion assets in our management,

[00:04:45] hundreds of employees or 250 in our corporate offices,

[00:04:49] many hundreds who are out in the field

[00:04:50] working on our properties.

[00:04:51] We own about 19,000 existing rental homes.

[00:04:54] We're providing housing to over 90,000 people.

[00:04:59] And our biggest way we declare money is as a lender.

[00:05:01] This year will lend over a billion dollars

[00:05:05] to real estate sponsors operators

[00:05:07] who are providing attainable workforce housing.

[00:05:09] And then I also want to bank too,

[00:05:11] which has been a really cool experience

[00:05:13] that I bought in 2022

[00:05:16] that works alongside the LP capital

[00:05:18] and doing what we're driven to do,

[00:05:20] building thriving communities.

[00:05:23] Are you interested in real estate investing

[00:05:25] but don't know where to get started

[00:05:26] or think you don't have the time or money?

[00:05:29] Are you stuck in your W2

[00:05:30] because the golden handcuffs make it hard to walk away?

[00:05:33] If this sounds like you, check out impactequity.net

[00:05:36] and schedule some time to talk with the founder Randy Smith.

[00:05:40] Randy went from massive income

[00:05:41] to leaving his W2 through passive income

[00:05:44] and he can help you do the same.

[00:05:47] www.impacequity.net

[00:05:49] You covered a lot of grout there.

[00:05:53] The first thing that kind of jumped out to me is

[00:05:55] and I know you started out in a large sales

[00:05:58] which I think is amazing.

[00:05:59] I think there's no better way to cut your teeth

[00:06:02] as a salesperson versus doing the door to door.

[00:06:04] I had the bloody knuckle all syndrome myself early on.

[00:06:09] I wasn't doing door to door home sales

[00:06:12] but I was doing door to door small business sales

[00:06:14] in selling trash dumpster of all things.

[00:06:17] So very cool.

[00:06:19] Back in the day in Orange County,

[00:06:21] bloody knuckle in it in a Costa Mesa

[00:06:23] Newport Beach selling dumpsters.

[00:06:26] So now I'm curious, I find that that's in one.

[00:06:31] It's an amazing way to learn like core sales skills.

[00:06:35] Generally, these are very, very intense sales expectations

[00:06:40] and goals very few people actually make it.

[00:06:43] But do you think that was kind of paramount

[00:06:48] to the success that you're seeing today

[00:06:49] going all the way back there?

[00:06:50] Or do you think that was just kind of another notch

[00:06:52] along the process?

[00:06:54] Yeah, it's a interesting question.

[00:06:56] And I got a couple kind of perspectives on it.

[00:06:58] So one is, I'm a father of three boys now

[00:07:00] or 11, 10 and two.

[00:07:02] And so certainly I spend a lot of time thinking about

[00:07:05] what are the things that make a difference

[00:07:09] in living a life of success and significance

[00:07:12] and joy and joy and I've spent a lot of time

[00:07:16] trying to figure figure that out.

[00:07:18] And what can I do as a father

[00:07:20] to help put my boys in the position

[00:07:22] to live fulfilled lives as adults?

[00:07:26] And a couple of the things that I've learned,

[00:07:29] I've kind of put together this list

[00:07:30] of the six keys to a life of success significance

[00:07:32] and happiness.

[00:07:34] And two of them that I've spent the most time focusing on

[00:07:36] my children with our grit and a growth mindset.

[00:07:40] And so grit is that passion, perseverance,

[00:07:43] towards long-term goals, kind of that hard work,

[00:07:46] not giving a perseverance.

[00:07:48] And then a growth mindset is the belief

[00:07:50] that I can learn anything if I'm willing to do the work.

[00:07:54] The belief that there is no ceiling, there is no limit.

[00:07:57] And a lot of people struggle, even really driven people

[00:08:00] who are willing to work hard,

[00:08:01] struggle with these low ceilings

[00:08:03] and these limiting beliefs to what's possible.

[00:08:05] So I spend a lot of time trying to instill those skills

[00:08:07] and abilities and put my children in positions

[00:08:09] to improve their actually on my right back from basketball

[00:08:12] with my oldest son yesterday.

[00:08:13] We had a 20 minute conversation about growth mindset as an example

[00:08:16] but for me, I don't know what instilled it in me

[00:08:20] but I had this belief from a very young age

[00:08:23] that if somebody else could do something, I could do it

[00:08:26] better because I have an example to follow.

[00:08:29] And I had that innate ability when I was an eighth grade,

[00:08:31] I started shadowing financial advisors

[00:08:33] and I was confident in eighth grade,

[00:08:35] I could do their job, not better when I was an adult

[00:08:37] but a better now.

[00:08:39] And so I don't know what gave me that natural confidence

[00:08:43] but I always had it.

[00:08:46] And when I got into alarm system sales,

[00:08:48] how I took the job was the gentleman who owned the company,

[00:08:51] I was waiting tables and if anybody ever waited tables,

[00:08:53] you might have experienced where part of often at restaurants

[00:08:57] they'll say, hey, whoever sells the most of this tonight

[00:08:59] gets 50 bucks or gets this or get that right.

[00:09:02] And so that night when he came into my restaurant

[00:09:04] I was working at which was a Texas roadhouse,

[00:09:07] it was flamingyons.

[00:09:09] So I was selling his table of eight people, filets.

[00:09:13] And he was a sales guy who trained up a lot of young sales

[00:09:16] people so he took a liking to me and convinced me

[00:09:18] to come talk to him.

[00:09:19] And when I came to talk with him, he told me

[00:09:21] that it was normal to make $2,000 a week selling alarm systems.

[00:09:26] Told me that that's what I should make.

[00:09:29] And so I went to work for him with that expectation

[00:09:32] that that was the norm, right?

[00:09:33] Which made you to sell about 10 alarm systems a week.

[00:09:37] And so I had that belief that that's what I should do.

[00:09:39] My first paycheck was $5,280 and I thought

[00:09:43] I was doing an average job, right?

[00:09:45] I only found out like literally years later

[00:09:47] that I became the number one sales rep in America

[00:09:50] for 80T's security out of 100,000 plus sales reps.

[00:09:53] But I didn't know that at the time,

[00:09:55] which was probably a good thing

[00:09:56] because I just thought I was doing what I supposed to.

[00:09:58] I thought going out and knocking on $152 plus doors a day

[00:10:02] was normal, right?

[00:10:03] And I thought this level of success I was having was normal

[00:10:06] because it gave me that belief that that was expected.

[00:10:12] And that was a big part of I think gaining

[00:10:14] and growing the confidence that if I could do that,

[00:10:17] I could sell anything.

[00:10:18] You could face rejection for me with rejection 50 out of every 51 doors.

[00:10:24] And that gave me the confidence going into the next step

[00:10:27] of a real estate.

[00:10:29] I love it, I love it.

[00:10:31] So you mentioned crits, which I love.

[00:10:34] I had a moment of my core core companies as well.

[00:10:37] I actually was a, I waited tables for years as well

[00:10:42] and a red lobster all through college, all right now.

[00:10:44] And we had the same thing where we sold bid up sell,

[00:10:47] we had add-on sales.

[00:10:48] And I was the guy like I would literally,

[00:10:51] I would do anything I possibly could to wait

[00:10:52] at $10 Starbucks gift cart and I don't even drink coffee.

[00:10:55] I just wanna be the guy that's waited for coffee.

[00:10:57] The coffee gift cart.

[00:10:59] So now I know in your business, you guys have,

[00:11:02] you have core belief systems that you have.

[00:11:04] You mentioned grit.

[00:11:05] There's another one that really is important to me

[00:11:09] but I'd love to hear your thoughts around stewardship

[00:11:12] and I'd also love to hear a little bit about living fully

[00:11:15] because I think the stewardship, I think is great.

[00:11:18] A lot of people talk about that but living fully,

[00:11:20] I think is something that most do not.

[00:11:22] So can you talk about both those as well?

[00:11:24] Yeah, so we had DLP have 10 core values,

[00:11:30] which is a lot but I think those who,

[00:11:34] we get the pleasure of coming in contact with

[00:11:36] and we get the pleasure of serving will say

[00:11:39] that we exemplify these core values

[00:11:42] and I say we meaning the team members who work at DLP

[00:11:44] and we spend a lot of time building

[00:11:46] intentionally the culture we have

[00:11:48] and cultivating the right type people

[00:11:50] who in many cases have these beliefs

[00:11:52] to support they join us

[00:11:53] and then put them in a fireman

[00:11:54] where we really reward and make decisions

[00:11:56] based on these values.

[00:11:58] And stewardship is a really, really important one.

[00:12:00] Arguably the most important core value

[00:12:02] to one of our four big stakeholder groups

[00:12:04] which are the investors who invest with us.

[00:12:06] I mean about 2,800 families

[00:12:07] who give us the honor of being stewards

[00:12:10] of their resources

[00:12:12] and you know, stewarding the capital is the obvious thing,

[00:12:15] Stewarding the financial resources

[00:12:17] but also stewarding our resources of our time,

[00:12:20] stewarding our resources of the opportunities

[00:12:24] that we have every day across the spectrum

[00:12:26] of what we do and thinking like an owner

[00:12:31] and doing the best we can to execute

[00:12:33] on what people expect from us

[00:12:35] and for us our investors expect us

[00:12:37] to generate consistent distributions each and every month.

[00:12:39] They expect us to protect their money

[00:12:41] and never have losses

[00:12:43] and they expect us to generate double digit return.

[00:12:46] And those are the expectations we've set with our investors.

[00:12:49] Those are the kind of messaging

[00:12:52] and the approach we've delivered that they expect

[00:12:54] when they come to work with us.

[00:12:55] They give us the responsibility

[00:12:58] and the expectation that we're the experts

[00:13:01] in what we do, right?

[00:13:02] We don't bring in investors who want to be us

[00:13:04] and their investment with us.

[00:13:06] They want to put that money with us

[00:13:07] because they believe we're the best at what we do

[00:13:09] and can trust us do.

[00:13:11] That's a really big deal

[00:13:12] and when we spend a lot of time on

[00:13:14] and turn on and make sure every one of us is empowered

[00:13:16] to be steward and to make the right decisions,

[00:13:18] make the best decision,

[00:13:21] to best steward the resources we have.

[00:13:24] Living fully,

[00:13:25] it's interesting that you asked about those two together

[00:13:27] because living fully in many ways

[00:13:28] is being a great steward

[00:13:31] of all the areas of our lives.

[00:13:33] And so, way we've described it

[00:13:34] and think about it as,

[00:13:35] people ask me this question all the time,

[00:13:37] especially in say podcasts like Wednesday,

[00:13:38] people say, how do you balance everything?

[00:13:41] How do you balance all the priorities

[00:13:43] and the number one people think people say

[00:13:45] they need more in their lives is more time.

[00:13:47] They struggle with work-life balance, right?

[00:13:49] Everybody feels that they don't have enough time today

[00:13:51] and the way I think about it

[00:13:52] is its work-life integrations.

[00:13:54] How can I integrate all the different areas

[00:13:56] of my life together?

[00:13:57] And we call it the compass

[00:13:58] and the compass is a circle

[00:14:00] and we have the eight F's of life around that compass

[00:14:03] which is faith, family, friends, freedom,

[00:14:05] fun, fulfillment, fitness and finance.

[00:14:07] And Jeff Bezos came out a couple of years ago

[00:14:09] and he said the same thing essentially.

[00:14:11] He said that people talk about work-life balance

[00:14:13] and that he said that's a deabilitating term.

[00:14:16] It's actually more like a circle.

[00:14:18] It's integrating those priorities together.

[00:14:21] And that's what we try to do

[00:14:23] and try to teach is that you don't have to

[00:14:25] while you're building your career,

[00:14:27] that doesn't mean you have to not be able

[00:14:28] to take care of yourself physically.

[00:14:29] That means you have to be a,

[00:14:32] not present as a father.

[00:14:33] That doesn't even mean that you can't focus on golf

[00:14:36] with that's your priority.

[00:14:38] It's about figuring out how to integrate these priorities

[00:14:40] together.

[00:14:41] Does that mean you have to be selective

[00:14:42] and say no to certain things?

[00:14:44] Of course, right?

[00:14:45] But figuring out how do I go

[00:14:46] about living a life of the filmant

[00:14:48] where I'm taking care of myself

[00:14:49] physically, where I'm a great father,

[00:14:51] a great husband, I'm engaged in my church.

[00:14:53] I'm pursuing the things that give me joy and passion.

[00:14:56] While I'm building my financial wealth and income

[00:15:02] and so forth.

[00:15:02] And so that's what we spend a lot of time on

[00:15:04] and embracing and teaching and helping our team members

[00:15:07] live fully and for us at the LP when people are so motivated

[00:15:10] and so driven to achieve our goals that we said,

[00:15:13] a lot of times that's actually where

[00:15:14] finance will have to help throttle people back

[00:15:16] and make time and get out of the office.

[00:15:19] And I try to live that by example.

[00:15:22] And so I coach, I'm on season 17

[00:15:23] of flag football coaching my kids, right?

[00:15:26] I coach basketball.

[00:15:28] We virtual school are kids.

[00:15:30] And we travel the country in the world.

[00:15:32] We have full-time teacher travels with us.

[00:15:35] We've built a lifestyle that allows us to live

[00:15:37] to fully despite the fact

[00:15:38] that I certainly have a very demanding amount

[00:15:41] of responsibility and work as a steward to our investors

[00:15:44] and my team members, but integrating it all together

[00:15:48] and we put a lot of cool tools in place,

[00:15:50] which anybody wants any of those tools.

[00:15:52] We've website called dopelete.com.

[00:15:54] You can download it, set all the free tools

[00:15:56] that we teach and we provide on how to live fully.

[00:16:00] And the first book I wrote called Buildingly Organization

[00:16:02] is really building a great business.

[00:16:04] I wrote a second book called Building and Elite Career,

[00:16:06] which is really as much but anything about personal development

[00:16:09] as it is, building your career

[00:16:11] and talk about these different tools

[00:16:13] and how you go about living of so-called life.

[00:16:16] I love it.

[00:16:16] Thank you for walking through that.

[00:16:17] I think that when I saw living fully that

[00:16:21] it ties a line with what we talk about in GoBund,

[00:16:23] it says well.

[00:16:24] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:16:25] Great to talk about the wagon wheel,

[00:16:28] where if there's any piece of that wagon wheel

[00:16:30] that's off, it's going to be a pretty bumpy ride.

[00:16:32] And I like the think of the balancing piece,

[00:16:35] balance piece more of balancing

[00:16:38] and there are going to be certain areas

[00:16:39] your life that are going to require more time

[00:16:41] at certain stages or seasons.

[00:16:43] And I think it's almost irresponsible

[00:16:47] to think that you could be 100% in all areas all the time.

[00:16:51] I don't think it's practical.

[00:16:52] So I love your, is it seven Fs that you said?

[00:16:55] Eight Fs?

[00:16:56] Eight Fs.

[00:16:56] I need to go back and revisit that.

[00:16:57] I think there's one or two that I might have this

[00:17:00] and not my wagon wheel.

[00:17:02] So thank you.

[00:17:03] And so that no ready to,

[00:17:04] one of the free tools in that link

[00:17:06] that we can allow it is a tool called life assessment.

[00:17:09] I stole the original idea of this actually

[00:17:12] from Darren Harding, Darren Hardy

[00:17:14] and the compound effect

[00:17:15] and we kind of evaluated across the eight hours.

[00:17:17] But going and I do this at least quarterly

[00:17:19] probably closer to monthly where I go through

[00:17:21] and I assess my life across these eight areas

[00:17:23] and it takes five, five, seven minutes to do it.

[00:17:26] And to your point, never am I a 10 in all areas ever.

[00:17:30] And if you are, you probably need to raise the bar

[00:17:32] on what you expect out of yourself.

[00:17:33] So never am I a 10 in all areas and it fluctuates.

[00:17:37] And it changes.

[00:17:38] But by assessing where I'm at today

[00:17:40] that allows me to make the conscious decision,

[00:17:43] do I need to spend more of my most precious resource

[00:17:46] my time in one of those areas of my life?

[00:17:49] And there might be seasons of your life where you say,

[00:17:50] no, I'm okay right now that I'm not having this much,

[00:17:53] maybe fun as maybe we're gonna have later

[00:17:55] because I got some really important things

[00:17:57] I'm working on right now, or maybe family's not as big

[00:18:01] or priority right now at a certain season.

[00:18:03] And whatever the case is that's fine,

[00:18:06] but at least consciously understand that

[00:18:07] because when you make the conscious decision to say,

[00:18:09] hey, I'm okay with this area and not be okay,

[00:18:12] you're gonna feel a lot greater level of fulfillment

[00:18:13] than you're not feeling the guilt

[00:18:15] that you're not executing in a certain area

[00:18:17] as much as you'd want to when you made the conscious

[00:18:19] decision around that.

[00:18:21] I love it.

[00:18:22] Yeah, and I think it's, you know,

[00:18:24] you've got influence into your life

[00:18:26] whether it's family or direct reports or whatever that is

[00:18:29] and if you're communicating with those people

[00:18:32] where those focuses are as well,

[00:18:34] you might go to your colleagues that you're working with

[00:18:37] and say, you know, I'm into the season of family

[00:18:39] because we're coming into the holidays or whatever it is

[00:18:41] and you need to spend more time here

[00:18:43] and if they know that you've got a track record

[00:18:45] of doing what you say you're gonna do

[00:18:46] when you say you're gonna do it,

[00:18:48] they know you're gonna come back to them

[00:18:50] at some point in the future,

[00:18:52] which let's then take the reins too.

[00:18:54] So, well said, let's talk a little bit about

[00:18:58] the business itself and I, you know,

[00:19:01] anybody that spends any amount of time with you

[00:19:03] can tell that your energy is contagious,

[00:19:06] you clearly are on top of it,

[00:19:08] but I suspect that there's a culture at DLP

[00:19:10] that goes beyond like probably a culture

[00:19:13] that I knew in very large corporate Americans sounds

[00:19:16] like it's family, close knit,

[00:19:20] sounds like trusted integrity is really important there

[00:19:22] but can you talk a little bit about

[00:19:24] that process of building the culture

[00:19:26] or did it just evolve?

[00:19:28] Here's to hear your thoughts on it.

[00:19:29] So I say in the very, very beginning,

[00:19:32] it started just happening naturally

[00:19:34] and it started just kind of building a culture centered around

[00:19:38] people like me, right?

[00:19:40] It's kind of what you do in the beginning

[00:19:41] and a culture of nationally into work hard

[00:19:45] and be driven and have a high level of curiosity

[00:19:49] because you had to figure stuff out things

[00:19:51] when I'm in place, but probably within two or three years

[00:19:54] of my journey, I'm on your 18 now of DLP

[00:19:56] and it started becoming very intentional

[00:19:59] in how we were building the culture

[00:20:00] and started putting a lot of real focus around

[00:20:03] what kind of culture we wanna build

[00:20:05] and really building cultures around

[00:20:06] what type of people am I gonna bring into the organization

[00:20:11] and more than anything, right?

[00:20:12] You know, Howard Schultz, the founder of Starbucks,

[00:20:16] you know, once said in an interview

[00:20:18] for some sort of article they said,

[00:20:21] how do you get people at Starbucks to smile so much?

[00:20:24] I said, well, it's really simple.

[00:20:27] A higher people that like to smile, right?

[00:20:30] And so, so that's, you know,

[00:20:32] first thing I say is getting clear about

[00:20:33] what kind of culture do we want,

[00:20:34] what values do we wanna exemplify,

[00:20:37] what kind of environment do we wanna be

[00:20:38] and then attracting those kind of people

[00:20:41] into the organization?

[00:20:43] And then at the center of that,

[00:20:44] then there's a terrible code,

[00:20:45] this is business would be so easy

[00:20:47] if it wasn't for the people.

[00:20:49] And a lot of companies have that kind of mindset

[00:20:54] and our focus is around investing in people.

[00:20:56] We are for you, right?

[00:20:58] And there's a great book on that.

[00:21:00] I think it's called For You.

[00:21:02] I can look it up real quick, Jeff,

[00:21:04] something who was the head of marketing

[00:21:06] for Chick-fil-A, know who you're for,

[00:21:09] what's called, it's a great book.

[00:21:11] And that's kind of mindset.

[00:21:13] We have, we are for you, right?

[00:21:15] Your success is our success, right?

[00:21:17] I wanna be a part of your success.

[00:21:19] I know if I'm a part of your success

[00:21:20] and living fully in accomplishing

[00:21:22] what you one in life,

[00:21:24] we're gonna achieve amazing things.

[00:21:26] And that's the mindset we have

[00:21:27] when you genuinely believe that,

[00:21:28] when you genuinely believe that people

[00:21:30] are on the asset side of the balance sheet,

[00:21:32] not the liability side of the balance sheet.

[00:21:35] And you have that focus in that mindset.

[00:21:37] It's amazing what happens.

[00:21:38] Yeah, I think that's such an important point.

[00:21:40] And people will self-select in and self-select out

[00:21:44] based on that as well

[00:21:46] where if they know that they've got to show up fully

[00:21:48] in all areas of their life,

[00:21:50] if they're becoming a member of GLP

[00:21:52] and they're not that individual,

[00:21:53] they're probably not gonna raise their hand,

[00:21:55] I suspect, to be a part of the team.

[00:21:57] So yeah, and clearly that's had a big piece

[00:21:59] to the success that you guys have seen.

[00:22:02] And I think it's such a neat story how you,

[00:22:04] essentially, sales guy, younger sales guy,

[00:22:07] moved into house flipping.

[00:22:09] And then it's kind of like,

[00:22:11] as you progressed through different phases

[00:22:14] of the business growth,

[00:22:15] like new opportunities open up

[00:22:17] where you can help more and more people

[00:22:18] to where you are today.

[00:22:20] I think you mentioned 90,000, 90,000 people

[00:22:22] are living in the homes that you're building.

[00:22:25] So can we talk a little bit about

[00:22:28] what you guys are doing today

[00:22:30] with the attainable housing

[00:22:32] and the solution that that's solving for

[00:22:35] and why it is that you chose to go

[00:22:37] down that path in the first place?

[00:22:39] Yeah, I love to.

[00:22:39] I just wanted to add one other quick note

[00:22:41] sort of as I get into that.

[00:22:43] So, you know, the verse of my life

[00:22:44] that I live by is to who much is given,

[00:22:47] much is required, 1248.

[00:22:49] And I know, and probably just whatever

[00:22:52] you're on this podcast, hopefully feels this way

[00:22:55] that I've been blessed so incredibly, right?

[00:22:58] I live in the greatest country on earth,

[00:23:00] the best time to be alive.

[00:23:02] I know, no Jesus was raised in the church

[00:23:05] and was given many specific skills

[00:23:09] and abilities and opportunities

[00:23:10] that it's my responsibility

[00:23:12] to shepherd and make his big of an impact

[00:23:15] with my time on earth,

[00:23:16] big of a kingdom impact as I can.

[00:23:19] And that's really fundamentally why we're focused

[00:23:22] on attainable workforce housing

[00:23:24] and realize that it's a space

[00:23:27] that we are a desperate crisis

[00:23:30] in America of affordable housing.

[00:23:33] But as I learned a lot about affordable housing

[00:23:35] and the challenge of people being able to,

[00:23:38] and I'm talking about housing for working families.

[00:23:42] And as I realize that, you know,

[00:23:44] our purpose at DLP,

[00:23:46] dream lift prosperous with DLP stands for

[00:23:48] and so dream lift prosper,

[00:23:50] passionately making extraordinary impact

[00:23:51] through building thriving communities.

[00:23:54] And so for us, our focus and everything we do

[00:23:56] is we're on building thriving communities.

[00:23:58] And I think about that as a thriving community,

[00:24:00] a place where people are thriving

[00:24:01] and making an impact and living fully,

[00:24:04] it starts with having attainable housing.

[00:24:06] But that's just the anchor that's just the starting point.

[00:24:09] That's not all it takes to be a part of a thriving community.

[00:24:12] We have eight elements of a thriving community

[00:24:13] that we try to, we try to focus on

[00:24:15] and that need to be able to build a thriving community

[00:24:18] not just a safe place to live

[00:24:20] as what let us down a path of really investing in communities

[00:24:24] so not investing in scattered real estate.

[00:24:27] But almost all of our investments are where it's a whole community

[00:24:29] where we have on-site staff,

[00:24:31] we have a full set of amenities, services, church service,

[00:24:34] Bible study, community events,

[00:24:37] places for people to connect and congregate activities

[00:24:39] for kids, real community.

[00:24:43] And so for us that's multi-family,

[00:24:45] that's built for a single family,

[00:24:47] that's a manufactured housing.

[00:24:49] And that's even, you know,

[00:24:54] and our focus is that we want people to average,

[00:24:58] at least eight-year average occupancies within our properties.

[00:25:02] And industry, normal, and apartment communities

[00:25:03] about 15 or 16 months.

[00:25:06] And we want every year, we want 90% of our residents

[00:25:09] to renew and actually our least is renewed every two years,

[00:25:12] not every year, because we want people to stay,

[00:25:14] we want them to build relationships with the neighbors.

[00:25:15] I believe in the statement

[00:25:16] that it takes a village to raise a child.

[00:25:19] And I want our neighborhood to be that village

[00:25:21] where people have real relationships

[00:25:23] with one another.

[00:25:26] And I didn't hit me.

[00:25:27] So this has been the business model we've been on

[00:25:29] for a long time.

[00:25:30] We've been focused on it.

[00:25:31] How do we scale a business,

[00:25:32] focus on providing attainable workforce housing,

[00:25:35] which has never been harder to do than it is today?

[00:25:39] And it didn't hit me until just a few years ago,

[00:25:41] actually one of my leaders mentioned this to me.

[00:25:43] When I was a kid, I moved 37 times

[00:25:47] before I was 17 years old.

[00:25:49] I went to four different schools in third grade alone.

[00:25:52] The number one indicator of success,

[00:25:55] if you look at a population as a whole,

[00:25:58] is third grade literacy scores.

[00:26:01] It is such an indicator of future successes

[00:26:03] that many counties in America size their prisons

[00:26:06] based on third grade literacy scores.

[00:26:09] Because they know if you have low third grade literacy scores,

[00:26:12] more people are gonna end up in prison

[00:26:15] and whatever that is 15 years from now, right?

[00:26:18] So I went to again, multiple different schools

[00:26:20] and third grade move four different times.

[00:26:23] Fortunately for me, I didn't have any learning problems

[00:26:25] and it was very blessed.

[00:26:27] And I didn't have those challenges,

[00:26:28] but for many kids,

[00:26:30] changing neighbors, changing schools,

[00:26:32] changing support systems is very, very challenging.

[00:26:36] And so knowing that that's such a big priority,

[00:26:38] education is a big part of a thriving community,

[00:26:40] but stability in the household is a big focus

[00:26:44] and a big part of what we're striving to do.

[00:26:47] That's not a feeling.

[00:26:48] I'm curious, are there communities?

[00:26:50] Are there communities that you're trying to mirror

[00:26:53] or that inspired what it is that you're trying to create?

[00:26:57] Or is it, that's a great idea of target.

[00:27:01] That's a great question.

[00:27:02] I think I never thought of it that exact way,

[00:27:06] but I live in St. John County,

[00:27:08] which is St. Augustine Florida and St. John County

[00:27:11] has been the fastest growing county in America

[00:27:14] for last three years in a row.

[00:27:16] And I chose to move here about eight, nine years ago

[00:27:19] because I determined, my oldest kids were two and three.

[00:27:21] This is where I wanted to raise my kids.

[00:27:23] And it's the bottom of the Bible Belt.

[00:27:25] It's great weather, it's great lifestyle.

[00:27:27] It's very family-centered.

[00:27:29] And I think it is.

[00:27:31] And one of our goals is to officially make St. John County

[00:27:35] the number one place to live in the country.

[00:27:38] And I think it's the closest thing I've come across

[00:27:41] to a thriving community,

[00:27:43] where there are incredible amount of activity

[00:27:46] for families, for kids.

[00:27:49] There's a tremendous amount of people here who have strong faith.

[00:27:53] There's great education.

[00:27:54] We buy far the best schools in Florida,

[00:27:56] like it's not even close.

[00:27:57] Our third grade literacy scores are 88%.

[00:28:00] The next close is county is 72%

[00:28:02] and then it falls under 60%.

[00:28:04] So by far the best schools in Florida,

[00:28:06] some of the best schools in America.

[00:28:08] So it has a lot of these key elements

[00:28:09] of robust job market coming off of Jacksonville,

[00:28:13] which is the number three job market in America.

[00:28:15] So it's got the elements of a thriving community

[00:28:18] as a whole kind of county that we thrive to emulate

[00:28:22] within the physical properties we build

[00:28:24] and develop and operate.

[00:28:26] Interesting, yeah.

[00:28:27] And generally those type of statistics

[00:28:30] are available to, I would say, not the average earner.

[00:28:36] So it sounds like that's a driver

[00:28:38] to make that available to a broader population

[00:28:41] than just the elite essentially.

[00:28:44] Exactly.

[00:28:44] And that's the problem in the nicest places

[00:28:46] that most of us would like to live

[00:28:48] are the places that have the biggest challenge

[00:28:50] with having attainable housing for working families

[00:28:52] for your proverbial teacher, social workers, et cetera.

[00:28:55] So here in St. John County,

[00:28:57] a working and average family earns about $90,000 a year,

[00:29:01] or $100,000 a year, which is good, right?

[00:29:02] Compared to the national average, it's pretty good.

[00:29:05] But when you can't find any housing even for rent,

[00:29:08] for our family, if you need more than one bedroom

[00:29:10] for less than $3,000 a month, that's not affordable.

[00:29:13] And so even in places here,

[00:29:15] which is St. John County is the highest average income

[00:29:17] in the state of Florida, the cost of living

[00:29:20] is so high that it still challenge

[00:29:21] that many people who work here in this great job market

[00:29:25] have to now commute far in or are struggling

[00:29:27] to make ends meet because there's not housing here

[00:29:29] they can afford.

[00:29:31] So absolutely, that's the case.

[00:29:32] Yeah, I love it.

[00:29:34] Well, I love what you guys are doing.

[00:29:36] And I think that's partly why I've chosen to pardon

[00:29:38] with you guys and invest with you guys as well.

[00:29:42] And we'll thank you.

[00:29:43] Bringing that, bringing that to my investors here

[00:29:46] a little bit.

[00:29:47] And I'm certainly in the time that we have left here,

[00:29:50] we can't do justice to the offerings that you have

[00:29:53] for investors.

[00:29:54] But can you give a very high level overview

[00:29:57] of the different types of opportunities

[00:29:59] you have available for investors

[00:30:01] for folks that would like to partner with an organization

[00:30:03] like yours?

[00:30:05] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:30:05] And I'll give the kind of level.

[00:30:06] So everything we do is centered around attainable work

[00:30:09] for housing.

[00:30:10] So we have funds that invest in existing housing communities,

[00:30:14] invest equity in existing housing communities

[00:30:15] where we own the communities,

[00:30:17] we own the properties.

[00:30:18] And that fund, we have about 15,000 apartments

[00:30:21] in that fund, 15,000 rental units right now.

[00:30:25] Then we have fund that build brand new housing communities,

[00:30:27] invest equity building brand new housing.

[00:30:30] And then we have two funds that lend money

[00:30:32] to other sponsors operators who are building

[00:30:34] thriving communities who are investing

[00:30:36] in attainable work for his housing.

[00:30:37] So all of it's housing, but sometimes we're on a lender

[00:30:40] so we're developers, sometimes we're an operator.

[00:30:43] And all the funds are similar in the respect

[00:30:45] that they're all private reeds.

[00:30:49] They're all have tax efficiencies

[00:30:51] some even more than others.

[00:30:53] They all are centered around putting investors first,

[00:30:56] being great stewards in which we provide,

[00:30:58] preferred returns out before we even are in a management fee.

[00:31:01] All of our funds provide preferred returns

[00:31:04] with distribution options and a regular basis.

[00:31:06] All but one provide distributions every month.

[00:31:09] The other one does quarterly.

[00:31:11] They're all targeted to essentially provide double digit returns

[00:31:14] and all have done so on every period since we started.

[00:31:19] And there are a lot of similarities,

[00:31:20] but different reasons you choose

[00:31:21] one of the other based on tax efficiencies

[00:31:23] or how much current income

[00:31:25] or if total return you're looking for.

[00:31:27] All of them you can invest via qualified money,

[00:31:29] non-qualified money.

[00:31:31] All of you can invest through Charles Schwab,

[00:31:32] fidelity, et cetera, large custodial platforms.

[00:31:35] And they're all making an impact in our,

[00:31:37] and our impact funds mandated to make an impact

[00:31:39] on providing housing that is

[00:31:41] or main affordable for working families.

[00:31:44] That's a great summary.

[00:31:46] I am looking actually at a 220 page document

[00:31:50] that goes into that in much, much more detail

[00:31:53] for folks that are interested

[00:31:54] in it certainly Donald provided his contact info

[00:31:57] and website things like that afterwards.

[00:31:59] So thank you for walking through that.

[00:32:01] And I feel like this could be like a 10-part series

[00:32:05] and I won't fill your camera with that,

[00:32:07] but hopefully would love to have you

[00:32:09] on maybe in the future.

[00:32:10] I guess you guys need to go over it.

[00:32:13] But let's if we can talk a little bit.

[00:32:16] I have a handful of questions I'll like to ask everybody

[00:32:18] at the end, but I want to be respectful

[00:32:19] of your time and the listeners' time as well.

[00:32:22] But can you talk a little bit about mindset?

[00:32:26] It seems like there's a very big piece

[00:32:28] of what you're doing.

[00:32:29] Can you talk about some of the tools

[00:32:32] or some of the strategies that use

[00:32:35] you used to continue to focus on things like grit

[00:32:40] and growth mindset and those types of things as well?

[00:32:43] I love that space, so I'd love to hear your thoughts

[00:32:45] on it as well.

[00:32:46] Are you growing?

[00:32:46] Yeah, I thank you.

[00:32:47] So we have a lot of different tools that we've built

[00:32:51] and provide for free.

[00:32:52] And many of them when I say we built them,

[00:32:54] in any case is we stole them from others

[00:32:56] and admit that kindly, but all the tools we built

[00:33:00] are on DOPLE.com, click on free tools

[00:33:03] and a lot of different things for personal development.

[00:33:06] At the end of the day, things come back to a couple of hours.

[00:33:11] Number one is how you spend your time

[00:33:13] in number two is who you spend your time with

[00:33:15] and focusing on those two areas, I think are really important.

[00:33:20] And so some of the specific things I do,

[00:33:22] so number one is having the term from my friend Hallowrod

[00:33:28] fellow GoBunnets member, Miracle Morning.

[00:33:31] So starting off with specific routines in the morning.

[00:33:34] I start off with a walk with Jesus every morning,

[00:33:36] which is I listen to Scripture, read and listen to Scripture

[00:33:40] while I walk and get going and drink a little coffee

[00:33:42] or then I do some meditation.

[00:33:46] I use a tool called Muse, which is like a headband.

[00:33:50] And then I work out, I use most days I use tonal,

[00:33:54] which is that kind of workout machine.

[00:33:56] I put my earbuds in, this is the first time I'm in my studio here

[00:34:00] that I've used not used earbuds in probably 10 years.

[00:34:03] So sorry for the string hanging here, but I couldn't get this hooked up

[00:34:06] to this computer, but anyway, but I've used audible

[00:34:09] and so I completed this year 84 books.

[00:34:13] So I read a lot of books, I love to read,

[00:34:15] so any chance I get I'm listening,

[00:34:18] so I do that while I'm working out.

[00:34:20] I try to conclude my day, it doesn't get to do it every day

[00:34:22] before I go home, I try to at least walk 30 minutes outdoors.

[00:34:25] I believe in this great power and walking

[00:34:27] and walking outdoors.

[00:34:30] So I try to walk as much as I can

[00:34:31] and face to face meetings on calls,

[00:34:33] but then also just taking time to wrap things up.

[00:34:38] So those are some of the things that I do

[00:34:41] that have helped me a lot, but biggest thing for me

[00:34:44] is getting the mindset of reading lots

[00:34:45] or whether that's reading personal development books,

[00:34:47] reading autobiographies and biographies

[00:34:49] of incredible people that help inspire and motivate me.

[00:34:53] And then creating space to focus on the areas

[00:34:55] of life outside of business.

[00:34:57] And then the last thing I'll say is,

[00:34:59] you know, and living fully a lot of people get confused

[00:35:02] about trying to multitask

[00:35:03] and trying to do a lot of things at the same time,

[00:35:05] which there's no one with some things

[00:35:06] you can multitask and do it the same time.

[00:35:08] Some things you can't, and the main secret to that

[00:35:11] is being present.

[00:35:13] And so what I try to do is be present

[00:35:16] in whatever I'm doing, right?

[00:35:17] So I know some people say,

[00:35:19] hey, I'm gonna get home every day with my kids at 530

[00:35:21] because I got a bill that I have it and be there for my kids.

[00:35:23] But then they're either worst case on the phone,

[00:35:26] whether that's on calls or on emails,

[00:35:28] or a text or whatever, or their mind somewhere else.

[00:35:31] And if their mind's not there,

[00:35:32] it's worse than not even being there with your kids, right?

[00:35:35] So being able to be present in whatever you're doing

[00:35:37] and keeping yourself organized and focused

[00:35:39] so that you can be fully where your mind is,

[00:35:42] where your body is.

[00:35:43] That's sort of the secret of getting fulfillment out of life,

[00:35:45] I believe, and where I've tried to put a lot of focus.

[00:35:48] Well, yeah, yeah, just everything you say

[00:35:51] I've got more and more questions.

[00:35:52] So yeah, you will have to stop here at some point,

[00:35:54] but I'm curious, 84 books.

[00:35:57] I'm curious your thoughts on,

[00:35:59] I hear, I do the same thing I set up,

[00:36:01] listen to two or three books per month

[00:36:03] as a goal of the beginning of the year.

[00:36:05] And then I struggle with, should I listen to more books

[00:36:08] or should I just really focus on a handful of books

[00:36:14] and do exactly what they say in it?

[00:36:16] So I'm curious your thoughts on that,

[00:36:17] have you 84 books this year?

[00:36:19] That's, I think I know we're doing it.

[00:36:20] And probably, probably nine or 10 of those books,

[00:36:24] maybe even more, I'd have to check.

[00:36:26] I've read before, so I'm reading them again.

[00:36:30] And some books like Chase The Lion by Mark Patterson,

[00:36:32] I read every single Thanksgiving week, every year.

[00:36:35] And I usually have two or three,

[00:36:38] some four going at a time.

[00:36:41] And I completely, before I started some books,

[00:36:44] I didn't finish that didn't resonate,

[00:36:46] didn't learn something new, I didn't hold my attention.

[00:36:50] And a lot of times they're on similar theories,

[00:36:51] or similar theories, right?

[00:36:52] They say, hey, I need to grow in my coaching ability

[00:36:55] of my leaders, right?

[00:36:56] I'll read through your four, five or six or seven,

[00:36:57] or eight or ten books on coaching, right?

[00:36:59] If I say, I need to get better at having

[00:37:01] difficult conversations, right?

[00:37:03] I'll read a bunch of books on that.

[00:37:04] If I need to skip a better leadership,

[00:37:05] or I need to get better in a specific business area,

[00:37:09] read a bunch of books on that topic, or that area.

[00:37:12] So I think that makes a lot of great to do for a while.

[00:37:14] I wanted to become a better storyteller

[00:37:17] and so I've consumed a lot of books on storytelling.

[00:37:19] And then what I tend to do is whenever I start going

[00:37:22] on a path, I want to get really great at something.

[00:37:24] And I find who I think is the best at it.

[00:37:25] Then I reach out to them.

[00:37:27] And then I get them not only to come talk to me,

[00:37:28] but come talk to our investors, come talk to our team.

[00:37:31] And then we read a book together as a company every month.

[00:37:33] We have for 13 years now called Driven For Greatness

[00:37:36] and different leaders present on that book every month.

[00:37:39] And so I don't have all the answers of it,

[00:37:41] but that's kind of what I've done.

[00:37:42] I think you just do whatever works for you,

[00:37:44] but I love to go down a rabbit hole

[00:37:46] a bit of topic I want to get better at

[00:37:48] and read multiple different books,

[00:37:50] kind of one after another,

[00:37:51] sometimes even a couple at a time around that topic.

[00:37:53] Awesome.

[00:37:54] Any particular book in the last couple of months

[00:37:57] that really sticks out when that you think

[00:38:00] folks should go out and listen to?

[00:38:02] Well, I'm gonna cheat here a little bit

[00:38:04] and look at my audible account

[00:38:05] and tell you exactly whatever it has been great of recent.

[00:38:08] So Chase the Lion I just mentioned

[00:38:09] that it just re-read hidden potential by Adam Grant.

[00:38:12] Everything Adam Grant is great.

[00:38:14] Hidden potential Grant.

[00:38:15] He actually talks in that book

[00:38:16] a lot about the power of walking outdoors.

[00:38:19] Pretty interesting.

[00:38:21] Decisive by Chip and Dan Heath,

[00:38:23] great book on how you think about making crucial decisions.

[00:38:26] And most people think there's two options.

[00:38:28] There's always a third option.

[00:38:29] I think it's really interesting.

[00:38:30] Probably many have read this one already,

[00:38:32] but the Elon Musk book.

[00:38:33] I'm not like the biggest Elon fan in the world,

[00:38:35] but I like them and it was an awesome book to listen to.

[00:38:38] I was a really good one.

[00:38:40] Purpose driven life by Rick Warren.

[00:38:41] I just completed playing to win by Roger Maryn.

[00:38:46] I just re-read that one.

[00:38:48] So those are some of the ones I've read recently

[00:38:50] that were really good.

[00:38:52] And oh yeah, some one more sacred paste by Terry Looper.

[00:38:55] Terry's now after I read that book

[00:38:57] become a good friend of mine or becoming a good friend

[00:38:59] of mine, I guess you just say a little bit of a mentor to me.

[00:39:01] A really great book called Sacred Pace about

[00:39:04] and Terry runs a multi-billion dollar company.

[00:39:08] And he says he hasn't worked more than 40 hours a week

[00:39:11] in the last 30 years while growing his multi-billion dollar company.

[00:39:15] And it's a really interesting approach

[00:39:16] how he calls it gets neutral and listens

[00:39:19] to God's guidance before making big decisions

[00:39:21] and how he's going about integrating

[00:39:23] or balancing life's priorities.

[00:39:25] It's a really great one.

[00:39:27] Awesome.

[00:39:27] Awesome.

[00:39:29] Yeah, so I've got plenty of books here for the next few days.

[00:39:32] Well, my thank you for that.

[00:39:34] Are you a podcast guy or any?

[00:39:36] I don't listen to that many podcasts.

[00:39:38] I mean, I listen to people who give me

[00:39:41] the great honor of coming and joining them like you.

[00:39:44] But I'm always so consumed in books.

[00:39:46] I don't listen as many podcasts as others do.

[00:39:49] Anything you do to kind of stand top of economic trends?

[00:39:53] So we have team here at DLP who's very focused on it,

[00:39:59] who are doing a lot of that research

[00:40:00] who are bringing it forward to me in our other bases.

[00:40:03] I prescribe to a number of different trade publications

[00:40:07] more now kind of email and push information.

[00:40:11] So in getting asked to go speak,

[00:40:12] I guess I did a panel with 500 or 500 investors in the room

[00:40:16] and I was on a panel with three economists

[00:40:18] and me and then the head of a tri-con global

[00:40:21] in such and just getting to be in those kind of environments

[00:40:23] with great people.

[00:40:24] And I'm in a group called Tiger 21.

[00:40:25] We meet every month.

[00:40:26] We bring in all kinds of economic experts all the time.

[00:40:29] So fortunately, just in the business I'm in

[00:40:32] and the kind of circles I'm in,

[00:40:34] I probably get more opinions around the economic situation

[00:40:37] than I'd like at times.

[00:40:41] But yeah, so there's some of the things that I do.

[00:40:43] I'm not a big.

[00:40:44] I really don't look for the,

[00:40:46] I don't pay attention to news.

[00:40:47] I don't read the news.

[00:40:49] I don't use, I probably should admit this,

[00:40:51] but I don't really use social media.

[00:40:54] And so I try to distract myself with things

[00:40:55] I can't do anything about.

[00:40:58] It's kind of my role if I can't do anything about it,

[00:40:59] I'm not gonna pay attention to it

[00:41:02] and it's just kind of mindset I take.

[00:41:04] Love it. Love it.

[00:41:05] We're very quick, I've got just a couple of other questions

[00:41:07] that we're asking them, we'll wrap this thing up.

[00:41:09] Sure.

[00:41:10] Yeah, sure, you're way, but knowing that both of you

[00:41:13] and I are part of GoBundance,

[00:41:15] one of those, one of the pillars there

[00:41:18] is bucket list items.

[00:41:20] So is there a recent bucket list item

[00:41:21] you've checked off your list

[00:41:22] or when you're hoping to in your future?

[00:41:24] Yeah, I love bucket list concepts

[00:41:26] and a good friend of mine is Travel,

[00:41:28] the bucket list guy is, yeah.

[00:41:30] That is.

[00:41:31] And I think I might have had an intro,

[00:41:33] trap, trap to go abundance

[00:41:37] and but I've had them come to my events a couple times.

[00:41:40] It's a really cool way to think about and encourage people.

[00:41:41] It's more than just going on cold trips,

[00:41:43] but it's a really cool way to think about bucket list.

[00:41:46] So for us, we virtually school our kids

[00:41:48] and we travel a lot.

[00:41:49] And our B-Hag is a family,

[00:41:51] it's about 1,000 extraordinary days

[00:41:52] and 100 different places before our kids go to college.

[00:41:55] So we travel a bit of out.

[00:41:56] So the biggest bucket list item I'd say

[00:41:58] on my list this year was New Zealand

[00:42:02] and we actually went and spent eight weeks in New Zealand

[00:42:05] and then we did another trip

[00:42:06] where we kind of did the big west we called it.

[00:42:09] And we did Jackson Hold, a glacier,

[00:42:10] a yellowstone, a bozeman

[00:42:11] in between there to Vancouver, to Alaska.

[00:42:15] I kind of did that over 30 days

[00:42:17] and did a lot of cool, kind of unique experiences

[00:42:20] over the course of that as well.

[00:42:23] Love it, love it.

[00:42:25] Okay, one final question.

[00:42:26] And this I'm gonna tailor a little bit different.

[00:42:28] So if, and you're very far from this obviously

[00:42:32] but if you were currently in a W-2 role,

[00:42:37] similar to a lot of the listeners that are listening today

[00:42:39] and you had $100,000 that you were going to invest

[00:42:43] and you could not invest into a DLP fund.

[00:42:46] Where would you place that capital?

[00:42:48] You'll expect specifically?

[00:42:49] Or category is fine too, yeah.

[00:42:52] So I, you know, I tend and I do passively invest

[00:42:54] actually, you know, made a $500,000 investment today

[00:42:57] into another fun manager.

[00:43:00] This one happened to be in private equity.

[00:43:03] But you know, kind of lower mid market private equity

[00:43:06] but typically what I end up investing in

[00:43:08] and this is because of my bias of my areas of expertise

[00:43:12] is I end up investing in real estate and private credit.

[00:43:16] I'll be at Insightly Different Area.

[00:43:18] So example, I invest in self storage, I invest in car washes

[00:43:22] with, you know, people I build personal relationships

[00:43:24] with, I believe, investing in anything

[00:43:26] but certainly investing in private funds.

[00:43:28] It's about the leadership team.

[00:43:31] And do I believe that the person I'm looking across from

[00:43:33] is gonna make the right decisions

[00:43:35] when things are difficult and am I betting on that jockey?

[00:43:38] And so when I find great jockeys, people I believe

[00:43:40] and people I think of the right values,

[00:43:41] we're gonna do the right thing

[00:43:42] who have a business model that works.

[00:43:44] That's why I like to invest in.

[00:43:46] So so I invest in in a lot of kind of adjacent areas

[00:43:51] to what I do other private credit

[00:43:53] and other real estate fund managers.

[00:43:55] Also, thank you for that.

[00:43:56] I think yeah, that's really a great answer too as well.

[00:44:00] Well good.

[00:44:01] Well anything that you'd care to share

[00:44:02] with the audience today, how to reach you

[00:44:04] or any final thoughts before we wrap up?

[00:44:07] I'll just say, you know, we're big,

[00:44:08] you know, I believe that part of my ministry is,

[00:44:11] is and we do a lot around ministry, a lot around trying

[00:44:14] to make an impact outside of our for-profit business

[00:44:17] on starting with the housing crisis,

[00:44:20] our ministry focuses the same as our for-profit

[00:44:22] just different approaches to how we build thriving communities.

[00:44:25] And part of our ministry is trying to pour into

[00:44:29] people's lives from the 200 families that invest

[00:44:32] with us, the sponsors we partner with to our team members.

[00:44:34] So we do a lot of different forms of content.

[00:44:36] We do kind of big events every year,

[00:44:38] every a couple times a year.

[00:44:40] We do lots of webinars.

[00:44:41] We give out lots of free tools.

[00:44:42] There is no sales pitch to it.

[00:44:43] People can't ever believe they come to our events or whatnot.

[00:44:45] And we never try to sell them anything.

[00:44:48] So there's lots of content.

[00:44:49] If you go to our website, dealpica.com

[00:44:51] and click events, you'll see lots of virtual and live events.

[00:44:53] We don't make any money on any of them.

[00:44:55] They're all free.

[00:44:57] Some of the bigger ones are invite kind of only type thing.

[00:44:59] We want to make sure we're going to give value to you.

[00:45:01] But it's all part of our ministry.

[00:45:02] We're not making money.

[00:45:03] We think pouring into people is a big part of our responsibility.

[00:45:07] So check that out, go to the OP lead for the free tools I mentioned.

[00:45:11] My email is Don at theopica.pl.com

[00:45:13] but theopica.com's our main website.

[00:45:16] Check out our events and content.

[00:45:17] Lots of free resources there.

[00:45:19] Awesome.

[00:45:20] Well, John, thank you so much.

[00:45:21] This is far better than I even expected.

[00:45:23] It would be a lot of time listening to your stuff.

[00:45:26] Pretty cool.

[00:45:27] But this has been fantastic.

[00:45:28] Thanks so much for being here.

[00:45:30] Thank you, Randy.

[00:45:30] It's been a great pleasure.

[00:45:31] Appreciate you.

[00:45:32] Awesome.

[00:45:33] All right, and to our listeners as always, thank you again for joining us today.

[00:45:37] Encourage it to continue your education process.

[00:45:39] But more importantly than that, make a decision to invest in your first past investment.

[00:45:43] I'm convinced once you do, you'll be so happy that you did and wish that you would

[00:45:47] start a sooner.

[00:45:48] So be sure to join us again next Thursday for another great episode and thank you again

[00:45:52] for joining us today.

[00:45:54] Well, there you have it ladies and gentlemen.

[00:45:56] Another episode of the Gentle Art of Crushing In.

[00:45:59] It was an amazing episode.

[00:46:00] We know we sure learned a lot and we hope you did as well.

[00:46:05] We want to take a second and thank you so much for viewing our listening to this episode.

[00:46:09] And please just know that holding us for one favor, and that is to make this life magnificent.

[00:46:15] Thank you and have a wonderful day.