How to Lead a Successful Lifestyle as a Real Estate Investor

Mike: Welcome to the flipnerd.com podcast. This is your host, Mike Hambright. And on this show I will introduce you to VIPs in the real estate investing industry as well as other interesting entrepreneurs whose stories and experiences can help you take your business to the next level. We have three new shows each week which are available in the iTunes store or by visiting flipnerd.com. So without further ado, let’s get started.

Mike: Hey, it’s Mike Hambright with FlipNerd.com and welcome back for another exciting VIP interview, where I interview some of the most successful real estate investing experts and entrepreneurs in the industry to help you learn and grow.
Today I’m joined by my friend Mark McKee who is a Las Vegas real estate investor and has been investing – I don’t mean to age him here, but – for over 30 years in a market that has been very volatile, so he’s seen lots of ups and downs. Mark has tremendous learning experiences and lessons to share with us.
Today we’re going to talk about how to lead a successful lifestyle as a real estate investor. Not necessarily how to be successful in real estate investing, but trying to think about why it is that you do what you do; what is this all for?
Before we get started with Mark, though, let’s take a moment to recognize our featured sponsors.

Advertisement: RealtyMogul.com is an online market place for real estate investing, connecting borrowers and capital from accredited and institutional investors. Get a rehab loan fast and close in as little as 10 days. Rates start as low as 9%.

We’d also like to thank National Real Estate Insurance Group, the nation’s leading provider of insurance to the residential real estate investor market. From individual properties to large scale investors, National Real Estate Insurance Group is ready to serve you.

Please note, the views and opinions expressed by the individuals in this program do not necessarily reflect those of FlipNerd.com or any of its partners, advertisers or affiliates. Please consult professionals before making any investment or tax decisions as real estate investing can be risky.

Hey, Mark. Welcome to the show.

Mark: Hey, Mike. How are you doing? Good to see you.

Mike: Good to see you, too. Hey, thanks for joining us. Before we started filming here we were talking about how old both of us feel. Didn’t mean to age you with saying that you’ve been investing for 30 years but wow, what an accomplishment in a market like Vegas.

Mark: I still feel good. I feel great. I still feel like I’m 25 most of the time.

Mike: Yeah, and you’re very attractive. You’re very attractive.

Mark: Yeah. But I have been doing real estate for quite a while. I actually bought my first property in 1983, back when I was in college and flipped my first house in ’88. Right when I got out of college I got into real estate, I say by accident, but in life there really are no accidents. Somehow I ended up in real estate, working as a realtor.
I was young. What was I, 21, 22 at the time? It was just kind of a baptism by fire, sink or swim. I was young and just started doing everything I could, studying successful people. Success leaves clues. I think it was Tony Robbins that talked about that a lot.
I just found what the successful people were doing and did the same thing. Within five years of getting started I was the number one real estate agent in the whole state.

Mike: Yeah. That’s awesome.

Mark: I did really well. I had a whole team of people working for me and had my own mortgage company for a while, and really had a lot of success with that, but got a little tired of it after awhile. Fortunately, when I was a real estate agent when I was young, I had one of my first managers who said, “Hey Mark, you can make a lot of money in real estate in commissions, but you need to start planning for your future and start buying properties,” because commissions, it’s just a treadmill. You know, sell a house, get paid. Sell a house, get paid. Stop selling houses, stop getting paid.

Mike: Even a lot of real estate investors are like that. If they’re not keeping houses as rentals or building up some other sort of passive income you get caught in this hamster wheel of flipping properties, right?

Mark: Exactly. You know, flip a house, get paid. Flip a house, get paid. Stop flipping houses, stop getting paid, so you’re on that treadmill. That’s one of the things I learned early on, was the difference between linear and residual income.
Residual income is the mailbox money, that money that comes in no matter what you’re doing. I was fortunate, I had some good mentors and I was always a big – I’m going to date myself again – tape junkie, because back when I first started listening they were cassette tapes back in the ’80s and into the ’90s. There were no CDs. Of course everything is podcasts and MP3s and everything now.
I would listen to Brian Tracy and others like that, talking about money. If you want to be wealthy you need to study money. Again, it’s all about cash flow. Fortunately, I started buying properties back in the late ’80s and have been doing so ever since.
I transitioned out of real estate. I told you was a realtor. I have not been a realtor for, gosh, 15 years now. I retired from that, and sold my business to an up and coming real estate agent. I had over 100 listings at the time but I just got tired of it.
I had actually kind of created some information products and training materials for realtors and mortgage people because I had a lot of people who would just come up to me and say, “Hey Mark, you’re 28 years old, you’re the number one agent in the state. What’s the secret?” Of course, you and I both know there are no secrets. Number one, you need to work hard. Number two, you need to have the right strategies. You can run east as fast as you can but if you want to see a sunset, I don’t care how fast you run, so you’ve got to be pointed in the right direction.
I was determined and motivated and I created the information products. I spent a few years traveling around, teaching and training realtors. I was doing 8 to 10 seminars a month there for a while. I had books and tapes and things that I sold and had a lot of fun doing that, but all the while investing and continually purchasing properties. I got into a couple other different businesses. I’m kind of serial entrepreneur, always looking for opportunities and things, so I did some other things and made a lot of money doing some . . .

Mike: Yeah. Mark, correct me if I’m wrong, but you’ve literally never worked for anybody else in your entire career. Is that right?

Mark: You know what? I was just thinking about that. Yeah, I have never had a job. I started at a gas station when I was 13. I worked in restaurants as a bus boy during high school . . .

Mike: Yeah. But as an adult you’ve never . . .

Mark: In college I worked at a five-star restaurant. That was really interesting. But no. Your point is well taken. Since I’ve been 21 I’ve never had a job. Never had a job my whole adult life.

Mike: That’s probably the single biggest piece of advice, or regret I guess, that I’ve heard people that have a lot of experience in real estate, successful people say, is that, “I wish I’d started earlier.” They wish they had done what you’ve done.

Mark: Yeah. I started early. Fortunately, you know, I still have most . . . I mean, I’ve only sold two of my properties ever my whole life. Well, I mean for rentals. Obviously flipping them yourself, but my long term rentals, I only sold two. That was way back when I was building a big custom house and I needed a little extra money. That was 20 years ago.
I still have all my properties, properties I bought in the ’80s, ’90s, and recently, you know, a lot of them are free and clear. My goal is, in another four or five years, to have all of them free and clear . . .

Mike: That’s awesome.

Mark: . . . just, again, for that cash flow. I’ve done a few different things and talked with a lot of people. One of the keys is just that discipline. You’ve got to be aggressive and you’ve got to be focused. Sometimes people talk about it, it’s your why. You know, why are you doing this?
Sometimes people say, “Well I want to get into real estate.” I say, “Well why?” “I want to make a lot of money.” “Okay. Well, why?”
To me, it always came down to lifestyle. We mentioned this a little earlier, but the key to a great lifestyle is just being able to do what you want when you want. There are two main types of income: that linear income when you’re on the treadmill and that residual income.
You and I were talking earlier. I live in kind of an exclusive neighborhood and there are doctors and lawyers. We have a 24-hour guard and all that, but I see them driving by, going to work, and some of them make a lot of money. They have money but they don’t have any time, any free time really.
Then on the other end of the spectrum, you could find a homeless person who has plenty of free time, but they don’t have any money, so that’s not good either. The key is to have plenty of money and plenty of free time, and the way to achieve that is through residual income, that mailbox money.
I’ve got other investments and things as well, but the key thing I’ve done is just create a lot of free and clear rental properties. As long as you manage them fairly well, hire a manager or you manage them and get decent tenants, you know, I always try to keep my rents reasonable. If a house fair market rents $1,000 a month, I’ll rent mine for $950 and the people stay there.
I have one tenant who has been in 17 years. I’ve got another for 13 years. I’ve got a bunch of them at 8, 9, 10 years. They don’t bother me. They’re afraid to call me sometimes because they’re afraid I’ll raise their rent or something. Of course I want them to call me if there’s a problem that needs to be fixed. Again, that mailbox money is really the key.
You talk about different advice that I would give if you were starting out is, number one: know your why. What’s the reason why? Is it to have that lifestyle? Is it to provide for your family, your parents, your kids? It’s really important because, people think, “Oh I’m going to be a real estate investor,” and that’s great, but you can’t just say that and maybe buy a course and put it up on the shelf and think that by some kind of magic you’re going to be successful. It takes action.
Yes, it is a lot easier if you have the proper strategies. There’s no doubt about that. Again, you can’t walk east looking for a sunset. Even if you have the right strategies, you’ve got to take action.
Back in the day, maybe some of the younger guys don’t remember, but Nike used to have the commercials and the slogans that said, “Just do it,” J-D-I. Just do it. I remember back when I was younger and really trying to get traction and in real estate and everything, just really motivated, I’d have big signs on the wall of my office that said, “Just do it.” No excuses, no organizing your paper clips, you know, just do it. Get on the phone, make the calls, go on the appointments. Do what you’ve got to do, and just get out there and make it happen. Knowledge is important but it’s about action.
Looking back at my real estate days, when I was a realtor I’d see people . . . you know, there’s a lot of turnover in real estate, like in a lot of things. I’d see people come in and I remember looking at people that would come in, new agents in the office, and I would say, “Oh man, that guy can barely even talk.” He stutters, you know, he’s got no real people skills and whatnot.
Then the next thing you know the guy’s doing pretty good. He’s making money. Why? Because he was just motivated. He was just a machine. He’d just get out there and work and work and work.
Then I’ve also seen people come in that were all slick and polished and handsome, had the gift of gab and all that, and you thought, “Oh man, this person’s going to do really well,” and then three months later they’re gone, out of the business. Why? Because they were really good at sitting by the coffee machine and sitting around talking and organizing their desk and getting ready to get ready. That’s what I see a lot of people do.

Mike: Getting ready to get ready. Yeah.

Mark: They get ready to get ready and, man, you’ve just got to get out there and do it. Nothing is ever going to be perfect, as far as . . . just get out there and do it. Just do it.

Mike: Just do it. If you’re so young that you don’t remember the Nike slogan, “Just do it,” then we’re both in trouble, Mark. It hasn’t been that long ago.
Why don’t you share some general advice on . . . because there are a lot of veteran real estate investors too, that haven’t really built up passive income. They’ve created this hamster wheel of flipping or wholesaling houses, either being a rehab and resell or wholesaling, and they haven’t created that passive income either.

Mark: Maybe I’ll just take a minute and kind of tell you what I do. I mentioned that I haven’t been a realtor for 15 years. I’ve done a few different things but always investing. I want to say in like the last seven or eight years I’ve really been focused. Our market was just a slow appreciation and then it went nuts in ’04 and ’05, and then it peaked in ’06 and then just, whoosh, came down, so I started really buying in ’07.
I had a pretty good pile of cash and I ran across a buddy of mine in California that was a realtor at one time. He said, “I’m not a realtor anymore either and I’m just buying and flipping,” and so it just kind of sparked my interest. I just started buying properties like crazy in ’07. Back then I was doing TV commercials, “Hey, behind on your payments? Facing foreclosure? I can help,” and had success with that.
Then it got to the point in ’08, into ’09 and ’10, there were so many foreclosures here and they were on the MLS. Even though I was not a realtor anymore my wife has a license, mainly just to facilitate my transactions. There were so many properties on the MLS, it was almost like turning on a faucet. It was like whoosh! “Okay, okay! Enough! Enough!”
God, I look back on it and I’m just thinking, “God, I wish I . . .” I mean, I was buying properties like crazy, but you look back and think, “Gosh, I should of bought more.” I don’t know if it was in the Dallas area or Houston or wherever, I don’t know if it was in the late ’70s or ’80s, they had a big oil boom and then it went down again. I remember people in Texas saying, “God, just give us one more oil boom. We promise we won’t mess it up this time. Just one more boom.”
Things were just fantastic. That was the glory days – ’09, ’10, ’11. But then they passed some laws here that made it very difficult for the banks to foreclose, which is a whole other story. It allowed people to live in their houses for years and years without making payments. How that’s good policy, I don’t know. We don’t want to get into that discussion.
So things kind of changed. I’d always been doing mail. Even back when I was a realtor I did a lot mailings and things like that, so I do a lot of mail, inherited properties, probates, evictions, vacants, a lot of things that a lot of the guys are doing. I am considering starting back up my TV commercials. I met the guys from Nashville, the cool guys there doing commercials. It kind of got my mind thinking about doing the commercials again.
Also, I have a lot of what I call scouts or bird dogs. I’ve been around town a long time and people know that if they find a property, they bring it to me and I’ll give them a finder’s fee. I have one on my cards around here, but on the back of my business card it says, “Earn easy cash.” It says, “Hey, do you know of anybody that needs to buy or sell? I’ll talk to them and treat them with respect, and if I buy it, I’ll pay you $500 or $1,000 or whatever I can.”

Mike: Yeah.

Mark: Because there are a lot of people out there that, they want to be real estate investors but they don’t really have the expertise, they don’t have the money. I know people will say you can be an investor without having any money. Technically that’s true, but if you want to go out and buy properties on the scale that I do or that you do, it’s tough if you don’t have any money.
Are there ways to do it? Yes. But there are a lot of guys and gals out there that don’t have the money, so they’ll bring a deal to me. If it makes sense, I’ll take care of them, so I have a lot of those bird dogs out there that bring properties to me. In fact, I was just on a call right before this show here with a guy.

Mike: Yeah. Great. Well, Mark, talk a little bit about the topic of the day, which is how to enjoy your life. A lot of it has to do a lot more with time than with money. There are some successful real estate investors that have created a job and they do well, just like the doctors and lawyers in your neighborhood that you talked about that do well but they don’t have time.
Then there are people that are new, that are getting started, though this even applies to veteran folks, that balance of time and money, because if you have time and you don’t have money, there’s not a whole lot that you can do. If you have money and no time then of course you don’t have the time to do anything. You just say, “Some day I’m going to get to that.” As you and I both know, you don’t want to bank your life on “some day.”

Mark: Yeah. Exactly. Again, it’s about creating that residual income and the lifestyle. To me, again, it’s all about lifestyle. Another thing I may mention as well is I just came from the gym and it’s a good thing there’s not a sniffer on the computer. You’d be like, “Man that guy needs a shower.” I believe strongly that there’s a big correlation between physical and mental fitness.
I’m not 20 anymore but I’m in better shape than a lot of 20 year olds or 25 year olds. I was at the gym this morning, just cranking on the stairmaster, dripping wet. I just believe that, especially when you get involved in something like real estate investing which, it’s not complicated but it’s not easy.
When I say it’s not easy, as you get things set up and you build a team and you get things going, there’s a little, as my buddy Jason says, brain damage involved in getting that all going. As you’re getting it going there may be some long hours and some potential stress and you’ve got to use your brain.
I just really believe that there’s that big correlation between mental fitness and physical fitness because when the hours are long and you’ve got a choice, “God, I can go sit on the sofa and watch . . .” I don’t even know what’s on TV because I don’t even watch TV, other than when I go to bed I might watch “Mythbusters” or “How It’s Made” or the Science Channel, something informational like that, but I really don’t watch TV.
My point is, when you get worn down and you don’t have that . . . it’s energy. That’s where I’m going. It’s energy. If you don’t have the energy, instead of finishing up your work and making a few calls or doing something, you may just sit down and watch TV.
I really believe in that correlation. That goes back to the definition of success. What is success? To me, success is living your life how you want to live it and having that time and that money, but also having your health because if you don’t have your health, I mean, if God forbid somebody gets a call, you know, they go to the doctor and they get that call, “Hey man, you’ve got cancer.” Holy smokes. That’s a game changer. That’s a life changer right there. Hopefully it’s something that’s curable.
I’m fortunate, I’ve never been sick my whole life. I never get sick. I feel great, but I see people, “Oh gosh, this guy did 200 deals last year and he’s a rock star,” and this and that and he’s 50 pounds overweight, and he’s got high blood pressure and high cholesterol. He’s got diabetes and this and that. I’m not thinking of anybody in particular, but we’ve all met people like that.
I just think, man, to me, that’s not success. I’m not saying you need to be in the gym for six hours a day or anything like that. I just go every morning and do my workout for an hour, hour and a half or whatever, and I like to do fun stuff. I ride motocross bikes with my kids. Last week I was with my wife up in Zion. We spent three days hiking and, man, some brutal four or five hour hikes. I just love to be able to do that kind of stuff.
I’ve got a handful of kids and as you get grandkids, I want to be able to run around and throw the ball and play. I don’t want to be the dad that can’t even make it up a flight of stairs. Again, this is all about real estate investing. It’s not a health and nutrition show, but I really believe, again, if we’re talking about having a successful life, health, if you have great health, you have plenty of money, and plenty of free time, sounds like a good start on a good life to me.

Mike: No doubt about it. As you’ve been a real estate investor for a while, and I haven’t even been one for that long – six, six and a half years for me – you start to take things for granted. I’ve talked to some people lately that we talk about, “How about we go do this next Wednesday?” “Oh man, I’ve got to work.”
You start to realize that – a lot of my friends are in the corporate world – when you talk about vacation they’re like, “You’re going on vacation again?” In their mind, and I understand it, they get two weeks paid vacation a year and they covet that. That’s just for very special occasions, so you start to realize how important that is.

Mark: I couldn’t even imagine that being my reality. A lot of my friends are investors and entrepreneurs that can do whatever they want like I can. I guess you just naturally gravitate. You know, if I say, “Hey let’s go to Napa and do some wine tasting in two weeks,” I want to hang with people that can do that because that’s what I do. I’m going to go here or go there.
I do have other friends that have nice jobs and things. Me, I just couldn’t imagine saying, “Oh gosh, I’d like to go do this but I can’t get the time off.” To me, just slit my wrists. Get shivers thinking about it.

Mike: I have a feeling that even for you, Mark, and I know that, if you’re like me, and it sounds like you probably are able to enjoy your life more than . . . I’m a glutton for punishment so I tend to keep starting a new business or piling something else on.
I don’t know if I should even say this out loud but my wife and I went on a 10-year anniversary trip to Grand Cayman. Two weeks ago we were in Grand Cayman. I shouldn’t say this out loud because this is going to make me sound bad . . .

Mark: Just the two of you?

Mike: It was just the two of us, yeah. It was awesome. We actually get to do a lot of things like that. Now, I will say that we actually worked a fair bit while we were there, too.
I guess some of it for me is the life . . . you know, we’re staying at a super nice place so I have to get up in the morning and work for two or three hours to make sure some stuff gets taken care of and then go enjoy the rest of the day. Not so bad.
I think even if it’s not, “Hey I get to totally take off and disconnect from my business completely,” that’s not always the case for a lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of real estate investors, but having the flexibility to be able to check in, whether it’s jump on a laptop or a phone from virtually any place in the world and try to keep the wheels on the bus, that’s still worth a lot to not have to be locked down to a desk somewhere and have a job per se.

Mark: Absolutely. Yeah. As you were talking I’m thinking, man, like I said, I’ve never had a job. I have never had a job since I was in college. Just the thought of . . . I guess, like you said, you take it for granted.
Somebody watching this may say, “Wow, that’s great,” but hey, I didn’t start that way. When I started in real estate I’d gotten out of college and I didn’t have anything. I remember I was so broke I had . . . somehow Texaco had given me a credit card. They sent out these things and I’d sent them back. I had a few other credit cards but they were maxed out and I was getting started in real estate and I had a Texaco credit card.
I remember there was a Texaco gas station that had a food mart, like a little supermarket in it. I would go there and buy soup and noodles and things, seriously. I was down to that to eat. I had to buy my food with my gas station credit card so I had something to eat. Of course I was single back then.
Nothing was handed to me on a silver platter. I worked. I still work. I kind of had ideas of taking it easier at this point, which I could financially. We have five kids total and I still have three at home. The youngest at this time is 11. I’m all about, I’ve got a real big nice motor home, one of the big buses and stuff, and we travel and do stuff. To my wife I’m like, “Let’s go here, let’s go there.” She’s like, “Mark, we have three kids at home. There’s baseball and all this stuff. We can’t. No, we can’t do that.” We do some, but I’m thinking, “Let’s just take off.”
I’ve got about seven or eight years left until my youngest is out of high school. Just recently in some of the Mastermind groups . . . in fact, that’s where you and I met, at a group about a month or so ago, a couple months ago. I just said, “You know what? If I’ve got about seven or eight years left of . . .” Let me put it this way. I’m not the kind of guy who does things halfway, so I’m like, “You know what? I’m taking this real estate investing business to the next level.”
Just in the last three weeks I’ve hired two more people and stepped up the marketing. I probably work three or four hours a day. Well, I’m doing some other marketing stuff that we do, but I don’t mind going to, like, I’ll work and say, “I need a break,” and I’ll go drive around and drive to a few houses and just stop by a couple times a week. “Hey, how’s it goin’ guys?” and check on stuff. To me, I don’t mind stopping by the houses now and again, seeing what’s going on. To me it’s kind of fun.
My dad was an engineer. I’m a guy who can fix almost anything. I enjoy taking houses and fixing them up. I’m a guy who likes fixing things. By the way, we do mostly rehabs. We do some wholesaling, like when the guys are maxed and the plate’s full, I’ll wholesale deals off, but typically we rehab most of the time.

Mike: Yeah. You’re a glutton for punishment like me. But when you get a system down, I mean . . .

Mark: Old school. I don’t know.

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. Well, in all honesty, that tends to be, at least for me, where we make the most money so that’s why we do it.

Mark: Yeah.

Mike: Well, Mark, can we take the last couple minutes and just talk about guidance you would give people, whether they’re new or whether they’re even veterans, is just that time component. I think a lot of people get hung up on, “I’ll worry about enjoying my life after I have the money.” Sometimes, as we talked about, that someday never comes.
Or when you look back, I kind of have this . . . and I work way harder than I should right now, and it’s because I keep starting new things, which my wife is about to leave me if I start anything new.

Mark: And you enjoy that.

Mike: I do. I’ve always been a fixer or a builder, and when it comes to maintaining something, I just get bored with it. Even though we’ve had some stable businesses that run really well, it’s like, “I need a new challenge now.” I’ve got issues, Mark. That’s something I’m going to have to overcome.
But I think for a lot of people though . . .

Mark: We all do.

Mike: If you’re on your deathbed and you had a chance to look back, what would your regrets be? And try to tackle those now. I’m saying to people more, “Do as I say, not as I do,” but I think of that. I don’t think most people would ever say, “I wish I had worked more. I wish I hadn’t taken that trip to such and such place,” or whatever it might. And that’s all coming back to the importance of that free time in your life.

Mark: Yeah. There are very few people on their, you know, it’s one of those deathbed things. Heavy. You don’t find too many people on their deathbed who say, “I wish I wouldn’t have taken that vacation with the family.”

Mike: Yeah. “I should have stayed back and worked more.” Yeah.

Mark: Nobody says that. Again, to me it comes down to having fun and doing what you enjoy. You see so many people that hate their jobs and hate their boss and it’s just agony every day. I’m like, “My goodness, life’s too short.” You only get one go around, that I know of anyway.
Just do what’s fun, what’s truly fun to you. To me, sometimes going by the houses, and I’m not there swinging a hammer or anything like that, but stopping by and seeing what’s going on, that’s kind of fun for me sometimes. I don’t want to be there 10 hours a day or anything like that. Again, it’s about delegation and building a team and having a business, not a job, and working on your business, not in your business, that type of thing. You have to have a system and organize and delegate.
Do what’s fun. Do what you love to do. Again, back to your question, if I was talking to somebody who was just starting out, find your why, what is it that drives you and motivates you, and keep that mind because there are going to be some challenges. There are some times when you’re going to feel like somebody’s beaten you down with a hammer and you’re going to have to pull yourself up and just keep on going. That takes determination. It takes determination and discipline.
Real estate investing is like anything else in life. If you want to be successful – you could name any field of endeavor – you’ve got to, I don’t want to say pay the price, but you’ve got to put in the work. You’ve got put in the effort.
Now, there are smarter and dumber, for lack of a better word, ways to do things, so you want to do things smart, but you’ve got to put in the time. If you’re building systems, you’ve got to put in the time to set them up and find the right people.
Then once you get everything really clicking it can be a lot of fun. I mean, I had fun from the beginning. I guess there were some very first days in real estate when, man, that was just so brutal when I was young. If you don’t sell any houses you don’t make any money. I was just sink or swim.
I remember I’d been in real estate about not even quite a year. My office, they teach you to call FSBOs, for sale by owners. I’m picking up the phone, I’m calling for sale by owners, and I had one transaction that was in escrow. Then I got a phone call and they said, “Oh the buyer couldn’t qualify,” so that deal was toast. I was just like, “Oh no!”
I remember looking down, and I’m like, “I have a college degree. I’m calling people out of this newspaper?” I remember looking out the window of my office, and across the parking lot was an armed services recruiting center and I just started thinking, “Man, maybe I could join the Air Force or something and fly planes. I wouldn’t have to deal with these FSBOs and phone calls and these deals that cancel.”
I didn’t do anything but I remember just looking over there and I kind of thought, “No I don’t want to do that,” and I just pushed forward. But it’s one of those pivotal moments. There are going to be times when you’re going to be beaten down. That’s when it’s good to have mentors and people that can help pull you up.
Just have that why, have that motivation and, again, going back to that Nike commercial, just do it. Just get out there, do it, get out of your own way. Stop getting ready to get ready and just take action, man. Get out there and make it happen.

Mike: Yup. Yup. Hey Mark, thanks for joining us today. That’s great stuff. Appreciate you sharing your story and some advice.

Mark: You got it. Good to be with you, Mike. Look forward to seeing you again.

Mike: Yup, we’ll see you soon. Take care buddy.

Announcer: Thanks for joining us on today’s flipnerd.com podcast. To listen to more of our shows and hear from incredible guests, please access all of our podcasts in the iTunes store. You can also watch the video versions of our shows by visiting us at flipnerd.com.