Freedom Pivots in Real Estate Investing

[00:00:00] Mike: [00:00:00] Well, it’s, I’ve already how we’ll come back to the show today. I have my buddy, Larry Higgins. We’ve been friends for a number of years, haven’t talked for a little while, so excited to get together today. In fact, we’ve been talking for about 45 minutes before we even started recording this episode, but today we’re going to talk.

About kind of this freedom life cycle. We start off wanting freedom and then we get caught up in the grind. And if you’re lucky enough to get past that, you get to this point of clarity in your life where you can stop doing stuff you don’t want to do anymore and focus on what you enjoy and what’s working well.

So I think it’s a great message that, uh, will help some of you that are behind the curve, that want to get over the hump and will help some of you that have. Kinda gotten to this place of freedom to hopefully inspire you to throw some of the crap to the wayside and really just focus on, uh, enjoying your life and focus on doing what you like to do best from a business standpoint.

So that’s what we’re gonna talk about today. Welcome to real estate investing secrets. We’re all looking for freedom and the opportunity to live better. More fulfilling lives, but most of us were trained our [00:01:00] entire lives to work for someone else and chase their dreams.

How can we use real estate

investing as a vehicle to

achieve

financial

freedom?

My life is

dedicated to answering your real estate investing questions and helping you build an investing business

that allows you to change your life

and the world around you

and to enable you to turn your dreams of financial freedom into

a reality. My name is Mike Hambright from flipnerd.com. And your questions get answered here on the real estate investing secrets show.

Hey, Larry, welcome to the show.

Larry: [00:01:34] Hey, Mike.

Mike: [00:01:35] Yeah,

Larry: [00:01:36] five minutes of talking. I don’t know if you have anything left to .

Mike: [00:01:39] We’re done. We just added it. Didn’t hit record on it, but yeah,

Larry: [00:01:43] I’ll be back on your podcast, man.

Mike: [00:01:45] Yeah. Yeah. So great to, great to see. Yeah. You’ve been on the show before. Um, I’d have to look it up.

It’s been, it’s probably been two or three years. It’s been awhile. Probably. So

Larry: [00:01:53] at least a couple of things.

Mike: [00:01:54] Yeah. So good to see ya. And, uh, so everybody that’s watching right now are listening. Larry is the owner [00:02:00] of skip, skip genie. Uh, that’s a skip Tracy company. And I’m also has been an investor in, uh, the Houston market and does a number of other things.

It has a lot of great experience, um, on skip Tracy. We’re not gonna talk a whole lot about that today, but really it’s, it’s just, uh, to talk about. We really, why we all get into this, right? Which is kind of the freedom and Larry, we’ll probably get to it. He loves the fish and he’s, he’s, uh, trying to find reasons to go fishing more often.

And there’s nothing wrong with that. And you just have to get to a point to where your business supports that lifestyle. Right. So, uh, before, before we kind of get, go down a rabbit hole here, Larry again, I guess, uh, why don’t you tell us a bit about your background and it kind of how you got into the business and where you’re at today.

Larry: [00:02:43] Okay. So, um, I’m from the Houston area originally graduated from Texas state. Noun, went into construction management after that build apartment. Worked overseas for a few years. I’m giving you the very condensed version.

Mike: [00:02:56] Of course.

Larry: [00:02:57] Long story short, uh, 2014 out by [00:03:00] myself in a job that I hated. I mean, people were great.

Money was good. It’s just for the first time ever, I was in a true office job. And slow was days of my life. I and I, I’ve had some crappy jobs growing up, tearing off roofs. I came from a family of roofers and farmers. I’ve done all kinds of stuff, but I never minded working. This job was killing me. Uh, I knew within a month I made a mistake when I took it.

And, uh, I said, Hey, life’s too short. And I really started thinking more about financial freedom and flexibility. Not that office really put things in perspective for me going into that little. Hell hole office. Nothing wrong. It’s just me. Lots of oil in there as like life’s too short to be doing that. And, uh, I just jumped into real estate.

Uh, uh, didn’t have never purchased a property, not even my own house yet. Knew nothing. And I knew I could. It wasn’t rocket science. My, Hey, all these people are over here making millions and I can [00:04:00] do that. So I jumped in and, uh, it was a trial by fire, but I thoroughly enjoyed the, just jumping in like that and just immersing myself in everything, studying every, everywhere I could get information.

Uh, Mitch Steven was one of my tutors early on, cause I really like the or mentors. I really liked owner finance

Mike: [00:04:22] model. Yup.

Larry: [00:04:24] And yeah, that was it. I was in real estate trying, chasing freedom and, and financial security, I

Mike: [00:04:30] guess. Yeah. The same thing. We’re all, we’re all in this for, it’s interesting. We’re all in this for financial freedom for sure.

And to have kind of control over our destiny. Yet most people immediately get stuck in the grind of like working. Really hard. Harder than we thought we would. And there’s, there’s nothing wrong with that when you get started, right? But I think some people get stuck in it for way too long and never find their way out.

And some people get to a point to where, um, they find their way there. Right. And it’s [00:05:00] through a series of pivots and through probably a lot of hard work and a few, uh. Phew. Uh, sprinkles of luck in there.

Larry: [00:05:08] Know I, while I worked overseas, uh, plenty of weeks, I worked, our average week was 84 hours, plenty of weeks, especially as I was promoted up in different positions.

I was working 90 something a hundred hours. I think the most I ever worked was like 118 hours a week. It was insane. While we said, Hey, money was great, but I always said, I’m not going to say I’ll never work as much again, but it’s not going to be for somebody else. And for a long time in real estate. It was.

Especially when you start out, you’re like, I have to, I’m so far behind the curve, so you’re willing to put in all the hours and just give yourself no break and just grind, grind, grind, grind, grind. It. Maybe not everybody’s like this, but it was me. I’ve become accustomed to it. I’m like, okay, you forget to slow down, or Hey, this isn’t how it’s supposed to be.

This isn’t why you got it. It just happens. It just [00:06:00] kind of organically. Initially you have to, you’re trying to learn as much as you say. You have to. Most people jump into real estate. They’re trying to accomplish as much as they can, as fast as they can.

Mike: [00:06:10] Right?

Larry: [00:06:10] There’s no shortcuts around putting in the hours and, uh, just learning initially.

But then once you’re past the learning, you’re in the execution. You just never, you never come up for air or, you know, that was my experience. And, uh. It’s it. Yeah. Uh, maybe some people got realized that faster than me, but uh, I did that for a long time.

Mike: [00:06:31] Yeah. I think those that realize it are probably like in a mastermind, like investor fuel or something like that where you get around other people and there’s always, when you start to get together with other people that are like you, that have or have either are where you are or have been where you are like.

Some discussion starts to happen, right? Like, and you see somebody that you just more likely in a circle like that where it’s getting a little more intimate and you’re talking about what’s working and what’s not working, and you start to realize that, Hey, that person was where I [00:07:00] am and they made it through so I can kind of, you start to visualize what it’s like on the other side, if you will.

Larry: [00:07:06] It was actually one of the investor fill meetings that really connected with me. I was like, Hey, I’m. Um, yeah, I’m making money, I’m doing things, but I’m not doing it right. I’m not, I’m not happy with, uh, you may remember a couple of meetings. I’m like, you know, I’m doing my presentation. I’m out the door.

Cause I, I was just hectic and I didn’t have things set up and I just wasn’t, I wasn’t a good spot, but that really drove home for me. I’m like, Hey, I’ve got to fix this now. My fix was completely wrong. Initially it took me a year to see that, but, or a little over a year. But, uh, it got me going down that path.

Like I’m going to get my, my flexibility back, my time freedom.

Mike: [00:07:46] You tend to thank, and if you, especially if you have a family or spouse, you even verbally say it like, well,

Larry: [00:07:52] things are going to get better like

Mike: [00:07:53] next week, or do I just need another month of doing this and it’s going to get better? And it’s like, ah, rarely does, [00:08:00] you know, you gotta work hard, don’t get me wrong, but to get where you where you want to go, but rarely is more work over a longer period of time.

The answer,

Larry: [00:08:08] that’s it. It’s. Yeah. On the, on the opposite side of that, you see people that try and scale or automate too early when they still don’t know enough that that, so it’s a balance. But once you know what you’re doing, you’ve done some deals and you’ve, you’re going to mastermind like investor fuel or talking with the more experienced investors.

My main message to people is keep that, that end goal inside. Don’t lose sight of that because it’s real easy to get caught up in the day to day, hour to hour. Transaction, a transaction, how hectic we all have. Well, not all transactions can go right sometimes. And then, uh, you know, y’all know, you’ve seen it guys there.

There’s some guys that do serious volume, but they have no life and they’re not happy.

Mike: [00:08:54] Right?

Larry: [00:08:54] Uh, I will gladly take less money. Now I’m at a point now where. I don’t, [00:09:00] I haven’t had to, I’ve been fortunate in that regard, but I would gladly take less money to get more time back. It’s just,

Mike: [00:09:06] that’s a wisdom thing that kind of happens over time.

You’re like, you know, I can get, I could work like half as much and still accomplish 90% of my goal. Like he’s, you start to realize like that all that extra effort is going towards. Oh, a relatively small resolve. They’re like, you know what, that’s just not worth it. Right.

Larry: [00:09:26] You know, you, you mentioned, yes, I own skip genie.

Uh, start off a partner with will and, and we, we started that up. So we, we were busy wholesaling and then we had this awesome idea of skip genie. Yeah. The idea was great. The way we executed it could have been a little bit smarter because we didn’t. We were using deal using money from deals to fund. Uh, we just shifted some existing assets over

Mike: [00:09:53] to startups,

Larry: [00:09:54] get genie as far as personnel and manpower and all of that.

And anyway, [00:10:00] financially it, it became, it was a drain for a little while because we had no customer base and it wasn’t, and then you say you’ve got that stress and then you know, you’ve started, you’re still wholesaling, but I was kind of the, the, the out front face of, I was like, mr skiptrace. So I was out there.

I was, I can’t tell you how many hours I spent on the phone early on and talking to people. Cause skip tracing was two or three years ago. Nobody really knew what it was like, what, what skip tracing or cold calling. Everything was still pretty new for a lot of people. So I’m just getting pulled in both directions.

And it was, I didn’t realize at the time how much it was really just exhausting me. And. As things leveled out, it got kind of, the pendulum would swing. It’s like, okay, still wholesaling, skip Jeanie’s condo established now, and maybe you have to put more of her over here for a little while. And then it kind of goes, it would go back and forth.

And, uh, I just, I kept like, I tell people to them for too long. That was a big reason, a big [00:11:00] part of that. And, uh, I got finally got to a point. Where I realized, Hey, I’m doing both of these. Okay. But I’m not happy. I’m not, I don’t have near the time I want, and I know I could be doing a lot better and I’m more passionate about this other business that being skipped eating.

Mike: [00:11:18] Yup.

Larry: [00:11:19] And I’m, that’s why I decided this other, the other thing was with wholesaling, I’d start buying some rentals and some other things. It started to feel like a job and that was the first time ever since I’ve been in real estate. I say that like it’s a derogatory, well, it is a derogatory thing cause it always been fun.

The deals were fun. You know, especially early on you’re learning, you see, you get your first successful deals, things that you’re doing new and different things. After awhile it just becomes routine. And a lot of people experience that in the workplace when are in the same job for a long time. It’s like there’s no challenge.

You start getting less and less satisfaction out of it. [00:12:00] And, um, so I ultimately, I just made the decision a couple of months ago actually to put but doing deals on pause because I knew there were some things on the skip genie side. My other business that I should have seen months ago, if not a year ago, a lot of opportunities, but I was too busy in the day to day.

And again, things are working just not nearly nearly as well as they should have been. And, uh, the minute I met, literally I was, I was talking to Mike before we started, the minute I made the decision to put the marketing and doing deals on pause, it felt like I was walking out of prison and I was joking around.

I was like, the clouds parted. The sunlight came down on me. That’s why I knew I made the right decision. I had zero regrets. Yeah. Just I felt energetic again, and it’s giving me, obviously giving me my time back. Um. Yeah.

Mike: [00:12:57] Not that everybody should do this. I think what you kind of went through with [00:13:00] some of the stuff that I’ve gone through too, is in a lot of real estate investors do this, you start off, maybe you’re just wholesaling or even fixing, flipping, and then.

Before you know it, you’ve, you’ve technically got a few businesses going on, you’ve got like a rental business going on and you’re, if you’re an agent or a broker, you’re dealing with that. And you know, other, other potential things, like for me it was coaching as well as those other things I just mentioned.

And so not, I was never a broker, but, um, in terms of, you know. Rentals, property management, you raising money, like really a lot of the traditional real estate investors business is really a couple of different businesses kind of slammed together, right? The little marketing and acquisitions piece is really a business in and of itself.

If you’re a rehabber, that’s a whole different business. The dispositions is a whole nother business, right? And, uh, and you start to bolt these things on and. I think what happens with a lot of people if they don’t like get totally burned out and just, you know, shut down, you start to find one of those.

Like if you’re spending a bunch of plates and one of them seems [00:14:00] to be spinning better than the others and you just start to say, you know what? I think I’m just going to spend this one for a little while, or a couple of them, or you start to be able to get rid of some stuff that probably is something you enjoy doing more, which is why it’s running a little bit more efficiently for you, your skip tracing business, I’m sure you saw.

Yeah. The, the, the negative side of real estate is that it’s very transactional. Like you’re only kind of as good as your next deal. Right. And so, uh, we’re like a business like you have with skip genie. Um, you just see the opportunity to scale it more like you can stair step improvements. You’re not start every when you, when you buy and sell a house, generally.

You’re buying from a brand new person? Did he ever talk to you before? It never bought from before. And when you sell a house, you’re selling to a person you’ve probably never sold to before. So it’s just like you never get like scale. It’s just like starting over in many ways every time. And I think for a business like yours and, um, similar ones, like you can start to see like, Hey, if I put some effort into that, it just has a longer kind of.

Runway [00:15:00] of the benefit you get from it. Right.

Larry: [00:15:01] I get more energy from it. It’s love cause I get to deal with a lot of investors from, from guys that are doing, you know, wholesaling over a million a year to the, the guy trying to do his first deal.

Mike: [00:15:13] Right?

Larry: [00:15:14] And they’re all over the country. I enjoy those conversations and ultimately I’m doing something nobody else is really doing it in a way.

I say that there’s, there’s different variations of what we do. For sure. It’s something I’m, I just, that that gives me energy. It’s not, it doesn’t suck the energy out of me. Literally. Now, I’ll tell you this, we, we had an old lead that came, came back about two weeks ago and they accepted our offer from two or three months ago.

And I’m not kidding when I say it’s not because I’m mr megabucks and I don’t need the money and I’m too good for what, or we might make 15 $20,000 on point on that in with the paperwork. I just, crap, I got ride a car here. I’ve got to do a [00:16:00] contract open time. It’s just another little reminder. I was like, that’s, that’s sucking your energy right now.

I will go back to it. Yeah. Depending on how the market turns out here in the near term, uh, you know, I may wait until there’s a significant price correction that that would kind of be fun. I say fun. I’m not hoping anything bad happens, but there’s a lot of opportunity in that. And maybe I could go on a little buying spree, but, uh, just to, to be able to focus on something that you enjoy more, ultimately it’s, it’s less stressful and, uh, you can put more focus and attention to it.

It’s. Don’t fight it, you know, just try and put your focus on whatever it is. It may not, may not even be the most profitable thing that you, that you’re involved with, but do you enjoy it more? Does it, does it, does it work towards giving you the lifestyle you want as far as freedom and things like that?

And the flexibility

Mike: [00:16:53] without, you know, kind of. Say anything you don’t want to say. I know you, you enjoy fishing and you said you might be getting into [00:17:00] business in the fishing space and a kind of a hardware, a space without getting the details there. It’s interesting cause you for all of us, I think whether it’s you finding your way through something you really enjoy doing and it gives you the lifestyle you want, it gives you the resources and the lifestyle that you want, or whether it’s a real estate investor stacking up enough rentals or whatever it might be.

I think, um, it’s easy on social media to, to basically feel like the hustle and grind is, is like this badge of honor. You know, it’s kind of identifies you as I can not work anybody, but that’s, nobody said when they got in this industry. My job, my goal is outwork everybody. Like nobody started it that way.

But if you look at it on social media. There’s, there’s kind of this, uh, success badge tied to that, which is kind of BS. That’s total BS, right? So I think at the end of the day, like you found your way into doing more of what you want on your terms, when you want to. And I’ve, I’ve found that through some of the things that I’ve done, and that’s what everybody aspires to get to.

You’re right. So [00:18:00] we kind of, you know, any kind of guidance you can give people, they’re listening right now on how to not lose sight of why you got into this business in the first place, and to kind of find your, your happy space, if

Larry: [00:18:09] you will. Uh, well, you know, well, it’s hard for me to give that advice cause I

Mike: [00:18:18] know what I mean.

Just guidance of kind of getting through you gotta you know, the truth is we all tend to pivot, whether it’s market cycles changing or our extra strategies changing or whatever. We just are kind of constantly pivoting our way through through clutter. Right.

Larry: [00:18:33] You know, I guess the biggest piece of advice I could say is if you’re getting pulled in a direction, don’t fight it.

You may have your mind set up that you’re going to do this. I never, I was never going to be a wholesaler while I started off. I was the only, I was going to be only owner finance. I have no desire to be a wholesaler. And then I turned, it turned out I loved wholesaling. Absolutely. I was like, Hey, this is fun.

You getting some of these big paychecks. And I was like, this is, this is awesome. [00:19:00] But, uh, it was skipping and he popped up. And that all the opportunity in the world there and at some early on, I couldn’t do just give Jeannie, we had to keep doing deals, but I should have shut down, either gotten better to where, uh, put systems in place that, that the wholesaling and house buying wasn’t as stressful, didn’t take as much as my time.

Or, or shut that down a long time ago to just focus on the thing that I was at. I know I was, I’m a 10 at, at that, at that business. Uh, instead I was kind of doing both things. Okay. Uh, so that, that saying that the very long winded way, but I would, all the signs were there. I should have been putting more time and attention.

And the thing I truly enjoyed and I was the best at, I was good at doing deals, but, uh. Had I done that? Who knows where I’d be in talking about you, you mentioned that, uh, I started getting, you know, with flexibility, I started fishing a lot more. [00:20:00] Uh, some, some that people would see those I’m probably connected with on Instagram.

That’s my little fishing page. Well, it’s interesting. What happens is, as I’m putting more time, is I, as I, as I’m taking the time to, you know, take some personal time and not be, I’m not. Yeah. Grinding, talking about how, you know, how many hours I work every week and all that. It’s funny what happens. All of a sudden I’m fishing more.

All of a sudden, Hey, there’s some unique opportunities that present themselves and the ability to, I like real estate, don’t get me wrong. I can’t say. I love it, but it’s a great, it’s fun. It was all, it’s always been fun.

Mike: [00:20:37] Yeah. It’s, it’s a, it’s a vehicle to get you where you want to go. I mean, we were talking about this a little bit ahead of time.

I think some people, and this, this for people that if you’re the first time at this first time you listened to this show, you might think that I’m crazy. But, um, you know, at the end of the day, I, real estate, I think is a vehicle to get you what you want more of in life. Any business is really that. It’s a tool to [00:21:00] get you.

More time and resources and freedom and stuff like that. And so I think a, I used to, I’ve said it before, I, I’m not in love with transactions anymore. I like doing deals. I like it. A big paydays. It’s all good. Uh, I have to do those things and I always will, but I’m not in love with it anymore. I would love, so you, you, uh, our buddy Matt Andrews has this famous line that I, if I ever, I’m not a tattoo guy.

If I ever get a tattoo, I might get this. It says. Real estate is not the thing. It’s the thing that gets you the thing that’s, it’s, it’s a vehicle to get you where you want to go. Right. That’s how I feel about it.

Larry: [00:21:36] Yeah. And I said all that to say as well, I want to start taking time off, and I started kind of working my way back to putting, you know, scaling down on, on the business and the marketing on the wholesale, on your marketing, taking some time off, taking in, focusing on skip genie.

Well, I’m fishing a lot more and because I had the energy and I’m taking the time, all of a sudden these unique opportunities [00:22:00] present themselves. I’m like, Hey, I am. I do love fishing. That is a passion, a very, you know, it’s a hobby, but I’m passionate about it. The ability to combine business and a hobby like that, a passion that’s truly fun.

That would be a blast. I to make something like that happen if I was still spread my, you know. Head down, just plowing through work and working 80 90 hours a week and Hey, look at me, or I’m grinding. I never see that opportunity. I’ve never left. Right. You know, you don’t have that clarity to see that stuff that’s right in front of you.

Um, so it’s again, Hey, if you, if you like working out like that, more power to you, but it’s, uh, I don’t think anybody, like with me, I did, I did not envision myself jumping into real estate in five years later. Still working the way I was, and again, I’m not, was it killing me? But I definitely wasn’t optimal.

I’ll put it that way. Yeah. Yeah. I look back now, it’s like, yeah, I was, you know, [00:23:00] financially I was doing fine. It’s like, how much better could I have been if I, if I hadn’t been so unfocused for so long?

Mike: [00:23:07] Right. Yup. No

Larry: [00:23:08] doubt. In the font, I call it the fog of war. You feel like you’re super focused and yeah, you’re kicking ass and taking names and, and you’re not totally not.

Mike: [00:23:17] It’s

Larry: [00:23:18] uh, yeah.

Mike: [00:23:20] There’s a level of business maturity too that happens, and it could happen through. Burnout, like you do some of her so long that you just don’t enjoy anymore. You’re just like, ah. You just, you kind of have this wake up moment. It could be through a health issue, right? It could, it could be through something as simple as getting married or having kids, and you get to a point to where you’re like, you know, I can’t do, I can’t do it the way I used to.

I don’t even want to do that anymore. So I have to change. And there’s just a level of how you get, how you get forced into it. But it’s. You don’t want, nobody wants anything bad to happen, but hopefully everybody listening to this, I know you’ve been through it, I’ve certainly been through it too, is there’s, there are these moments or these things that happen that are kind of like this.

[00:24:00] The sky’s like the clouds, like part, like you said, and you just like have this clarity of like some level of business maturity or whatever that. Simplifying is what you need to do or focusing on what you enjoy more. Even if the financial results are aren’t, uh, you know, you might have a house flipping business that’s doing really well.

Just like you said, when you, when you started a new business, the financial results are not there yet, but if you took that level of effort that you’re spending over here on something and you put it over here, what could happen then? Right. Yup. For house flippers, it could be, if you, if you kept more of those houses as rentals or seller finance deals, is that a wholesale on them mall?

Like what would that, what, you know, how happy would you be with that decision five years from now? Right. And I think most people, most wholesalers wake up at some point and say, cause I’ve said it before. Man, I wish I, I wish I would have kept a lot more houses as rentals cause I’ve flipped hundreds of them and I wish I would’ve kept another hundred of those that I sold off.

You [00:25:00] know? But it takes time and business maturity to kind of see that hindsight and learn from

Larry: [00:25:04] it. And I think one thing I’ll touch on is people that maybe they’re, they have multiple different operations or businesses or whatever the case is. Uh, I kinda knew I needed to do something with the wholesaling and house buying business.

I pretty well knew months ago. I really need to like put this on pause. My heart wasn’t any more, I wasn’t getting any, just it, it was, it was, it was actually kind of negative, just the drain. It was on me, but part of it in my head was like, Hey, um, I’m the, I also have this other business and it’s like street cred.

You gotta be doing deals, you gotta be doing deals. And you know what, what are, what are people gonna think if you’re not doing deals, you’re talking about it. But just part of that maturity process is like, look, I’ll put my resume as far as talking about using skip Trey’s data for doing deals. I’ll put my resume up against anybody’s.

[00:26:00] And we’ve, we, we’ve grown to a point where there’s plenty of people, newer investors, older investor, more experienced that, Hey, I’ll let them vouch for me. Something so silly. Like, Hey, what, what are people gonna think. And I don’t know that I really gave it that much thought. I think it was more subconscious.

It was like, Hey, you can’t, it was, well, I actually came close to right before I officially made the decision. It was a consideration. I was like, wait a second. You’re going to sit here and talk about how to do these deals, but you’re not going to do them. And I was like, yeah, uh, but anyway, has a problem with that.

That’s something, they’re not my customer anyway, so like I’m selling a $100,000 coaching package. That’s a different story. Sure. So anybody that’s kind of considering pulling back, scaling back in some way or one of their operations, whatever it is, who cares. I have your word, like what it may look like to other people.

Mike: [00:26:56] Yeah.

Larry: [00:26:56] Yeah. The thing is, yeah, for if

Mike: [00:26:57] anybody listening to this is, if you get [00:27:00] caught up in, and I struggle with it sometimes too, cause I, I put myself out there so much. So, um, if you, you can’t get hung up on caring what anybody else thinks about you. The truth is, is, uh. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.

It just doesn’t matter. You know?

Larry: [00:27:17] I have no idea what it’s like walking my cane. Bright shoes. I you, you’ve got so much on your plate. I’m going to judge you. If you said, Hey, I’m going to shut this thing down, but man, I did that long. But that’s just it. Why people have their social media faces and we have, you know, they always put the best foot forward and all of that, but I have no idea what it’s like to be in your shoes, nor you mind.

And it’s like, you can’t. Most people. I think most people, you’re not going to have a problem. And then the ones that do, if you get any. If you feel like people are judging you, I don’t know what to tell you. It’s like those people don’t matter if they would join you not knowing anything, it’s

Mike: [00:27:56] that’s,

Larry: [00:27:58] yeah, I

Mike: [00:27:58] can’t,

Larry: [00:27:59] yeah.

Yeah.

[00:28:00] Mike: [00:28:00] But I think the message here too is for other people, no matter, not that you have to go start a another company or anything like that, it’s just that, you know, don’t forget why you got into this business, which is for some level of freedom, probably financial freedom and probably time freedom.

Getting your time back and you know, if you’re working hard right now. Yeah, I would advise that that’s not the goal. It’ll get. It might get you over a hump, which is fine, and we all have, I mean, we’ve all worked. You’ll have to work hard to start in this business or any business, but that’s not the goal.

The goal is to find ways to systematize and simplify things and put people in place or whatever it is to allow the business. The truth is, is if you have a lot of drama in your business. You’re not really a business, like the best businesses run like a fine tuned machine and there is no drama and that

Larry: [00:28:48] you don’t hear about what

Mike: [00:28:52] just happens.

Shit’s just happening. Right? So that’s how your business should be. And you know, I’ve said it before, like if you have a lot of drama going on in your business, then [00:29:00] you’re, you’re not a success. You’re just a. An accident away from a crash probably, you know,

Larry: [00:29:06] and we talked, we’ve been talking a lot about having multiple businesses or multiple sides of the business or whatever.

Maybe it’s just how much business you’re doing now. Ultimately, I think through systems you can do as much as you want and still have a lifestyle. I’m not the one to talk about that, but. If you’re killing yourself right now and you’re doing, you know, I say 12 deals a month, that’s a pretty good volume.

Maybe scale it back. Is your life substantially different? If you go to seven deals a month, I don’t know, but just look at your current workload and I would say, just look at, even if you’re only in one business, maybe scale it back a little bit. Get yourself some breathing room. Then go to somebody like Mike and vote, whoever it is, a mastermind.

I would recommend investor fuel. I’m a big fan of y’all. And then work on, okay, I’m catching my breath. Help me plan it out. How to, how to [00:30:00] properly scale so you can get those systems and processes in place and have that lifestyle you want.

Mike: [00:30:05] Yeah.

Larry: [00:30:06] But it’s, it’s, you know, just make a very intentional, very intentional pullback, temporary pullback while you gather yourself your energy.

And. Uh, put some thought in and, you know, do your research, talk to these guys and put some thought into it.

Mike: [00:30:21] Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Well, thanks for sharing your wisdom. You’re like, you’re like the Houston Yoda down there sharing some wisdom with us.

Larry: [00:30:31] Wisdom is, uh, not making the mistakes I made and getting it right the first time.

But

Mike: [00:30:35] no, I think the wisdom is learning from those mistakes and you know, the, it’s not wisdom. If you keep making those mistakes and you don’t learn from it.

Larry: [00:30:42] I have, one of my favorite sayings is there’s, there’s people that, 20 years of experience and people that have one year of experience 20 times.

Mike: [00:30:49] That’s right.

Larry: [00:30:51] Resonated with me. Yep.

Mike: [00:30:53] Well, there, if folks want to, uh, get ahold of you, where can they go? And obviously they can go to skip genie, uh, just  [00:31:00] dot com to learn more about your skip tracing business and where are some other ways they can connect with you or learn more about what you’ve got going on?

Larry: [00:31:05] Uh, they can find me. So my email address, feel free to email me. It’s just [email protected]. And, uh. Check me out. I’m, I’m back and forth on Facebook. Uh, I hit with a lot. I’m sure you do too. I get, I’m getting email men back in the day. You should get my phone number too, a lot. I’d get random text messages, Facebook messages, emails, and, but now you can message me on Facebook, email me, uh.

If you’re into fishing, I’m on Instagram. That’s strictly fishing, but Hey, uh, you can find me there too. Anyway, so,

Mike: [00:31:39] yep. Cool. We’ll add some links down below for, for all those things. So thanks again for sharing your message with us today. I get to see you

Larry: [00:31:44] again. Oh, no problem, Mike. It’s good to be here.

Thanks for having me on.

Mike: [00:31:48] Absolutely. And everybody, thanks for joining again. Little little update. We, the flipping our show has been going on for six and a half years, if you can believe that a long time now. And uh, we changed, you know, kind of changed [00:32:00] direction a little bit here and there over the past year.

Or so it’s primarily been me sharing tips and little nuggets here. And there are things that I think might be nuggets. And, uh, so kind of shifting back towards more of an interview style, at least for about half of the shows, if not more, interviewing good friends of mine like Larry. And the truth is, is, you know, uh, I have a lot of friends like this that I don’t talk to all that often.

The show was a way for me to catch up with them. And. And get to introduce you guys, my audience too, to some friends of mine. So I’m going to start doing more of the interview style again, which is kind of how things started and really how it was for the first five years or so. And so appreciate you being with us.

If you haven’t yet subscribed to us on iTunes, Stitcher, Google play. Um, anywhere else where you might be watching or listen to this, of course, YouTube, and you can find everything on flipping and.com actually over 1500 podcast episodes over the last six and a half years. You can find on flipnerd.com I’d encourage you to go out and, uh, subscribe, give us a positive review if you got some value today.

We appreciate you a ton. We’ll see on the next show. Thanks for listening to today’s show. There are three [00:33:00] ways I can help you start or grow your real estate investing business if you’re a new investor and just getting started. The FlipNerd investor coaching program is the most effective program in America.

I’ve been coaching and mentoring new real estate investors for 10 years. And my students have literally purchased thousands and thousands of properties. Many of them started with little to no experience at all. Our program is a paint by numbers program where we tell you exactly what to do week by week to make sure that you don’t get distracted on your way to results.

We show you how to build a real business, not just create another job for yourself. New memberships are limited. You can learn more and apply. Or schedule a call with me and my team at flipnerd.com/coaching if you’re an experienced investor doing a minimum of 10 deals a year,

Larry: [00:33:52] up to

Mike: [00:33:52] 500 deals a year or more, or have a multimillion dollar real estate portfolio already, you should check out [00:34:00] our powerful investor fuel real estate investor mastermind.

Over a

Larry: [00:34:04] hundred of the nation’s

Mike: [00:34:05] leading real estate investors are members, and it’s not uncommon for our members. Two, two to five X their business just from getting around other members at investor fuel and investor fuel. Each of us are business advisors to one another’s businesses, but we don’t stop at business.

We focus heavily on becoming better people and living fuller lives.

Larry: [00:34:27] If you’re looking

Mike: [00:34:29] for fuel for your business or fuel for your life,

Larry: [00:34:31] please check out

Mike: [00:34:32] investor fuel.com

Larry: [00:34:35] applications

Mike: [00:34:36] and interviews are required. As most investors are not a fit for our community, please learn [email protected]

Larry: [00:34:43] if you’re

Mike: [00:34:44] not ready for coaching or masterminds, but eager to start learning more about investing, please join our private Facebook group by visiting flipnerd.com/facebook new members.

Get access to free training from us right [email protected] and it’s a community to [00:35:00] safely ask your questions. A great place to get started. Simply go to flipnerd.com/facebook to request your access

Larry: [00:35:08] today. .