Show Summary
Today, we’re here with my buddy Lucas Machado and we are going to talk about work-life balance. There has been this kind of badge of honor put on hustling hard in the real estate investing industry. Especially over the last few years and with the proliferation of social media, everybody can see how hard you’re working, but none of us really got into real estate investing for that reason. So today, we are going to talk about work-life balance. Let’s get started!
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FlipNerd Show Transcript:
[00:00:00] Mike: [00:00:00] Hey everybody. Welcome back to the show today. We’re here at my buddy Lucas, and we’re going to be talking about work life balance. I think there has been this kind of badge of honor put on hustling hard and the real estate investing industry, especially over the last few years and probably with the proliferation of social media, where everybody can see how hard you’re working, but none of us really got into that into real estate investing for that reason.So today we’re going to talk about work life balance.
Professional real estate investors know that it’s not really about the real estate. That real estate is just a vehicle for freedom. A group of over a hundred of a nation’s leading. Real estate investors from across the country meet several times a year at the investor fuel real estate mastermind to share ideas on how to strengthen each other’s businesses, but also to come together as friends and build more fulfilling lives or all of those around us on today’s show, we’re going to continue our conversation of fueling our businesses [00:01:00] and our lives.
I’m glad you’re here.
Hey, Lucas, welcome to the show.
Lucas: [00:01:13] Hey, thanks for having me.
Mike: [00:01:14] Yeah. Good to see you, buddy. Um, so, uh, it’s interesting. I know you, you, you have a one year old, a one year old baby and, uh, you know, I think you started in real, everybody starts at different stages. I, I guess I started in real estate when I was my early thirties.
And so some people start earlier, so it kind of depends on what your background is as to. As to, you know, how, how hard you want to hustle when you come in. Some people like left what they were doing, because they didn’t want to work that hard. Some people, and everybody has a different goal and everybody has a different background.
But, um, I do think that, and you know, we talk a lot about it in investor. Fuel is like, it’s a, it’s about building a life that you enjoy. Not about, not necessarily about money, although you want to make enough money to be able to live the life that you want. Right. And give back and all that. So, [00:02:00] but there’s more to it than just money.
It’s about. Lifestyle design. Right. So as we’re gonna talk about today, so I’m sorry I’m doing all the talking at this point, but before we jump in, why don’t you just tell us your, your background and how you got into real estate investing?
Lucas: [00:02:13] Sure. Um, so my background by education, uh, at a computer and electrical engineering degree, I’ve never done either one professionally in my entire life.
Um, I think as soon as I left, uh, college, I wanted to get into video games. So I got into the video game business. Um, and I’ve always been more of a fan of like guiding other people in doing something as opposed to like doing it myself and getting my hands dirty. So my, my career has always been as like a project manager, product manager type.
Um, and so, uh, did that for a few years in the video game space. And then after that, I decided that I wanted to change and I’ve always been interested in real estate because of the freedom that it provides people. Um, so [00:03:00] then. I decided to get into real estate. And I didn’t really feel like it was that big of a leap.
Right. As a project manager, product manager, but just different kind of product. But instead of a video game, now it’s a house.
Mike: [00:03:11] Right? Right. Yeah. Real estate is a, it’s a, it’s not rocket science. It’s pretty fundamental business. I mean, you’ve got to generate leads and you have a production. Like when I get it, here’s how I sell it.
And so it’s, it’s, it’s a, that’s obviously way over simplified, but it’s, it’s not. You know, there there’s no, uh, not a lot of secrets in making the sausage, like some of it is just, uh, focusing on never giving up. Right. Uh, just working hard initially. But I think eventually, like we talked about, that’s not really the goal and,
Lucas: [00:03:38] and, and the project management aspect of it is also a simpler than a video game.
Right? Like, It’s not just a piece of technology, it’s also kind of like part, right. Um, so like how long does it take to make a great meal, right? Like who knows? Right. You try to predict how long it’s gonna take and how long different things are going to take. But it’s really difficult, whereas [00:04:00] real estate it’s a little bit more straight forward, right?
Like you look at the cops, that’s what you expect to get for. Okay. Now, what is it going to cost to get there? Get some bids like, okay. What’s more straightforward.
Mike: [00:04:11] Yeah. So we were talking ahead of time and I know you were, you worked really hard, uh, before you got into real estate and you, you kinda, you and your, I think in your words, you said I was already kind of burned out, so I didn’t get into this to work, continue to work that hard.
Right. So talk about that a little bit. Cause I think a lot of people, a lot of people get into real estate. I think, especially when you’re younger and you’re like, I’ll do whatever I’ve got to do to make this work. And I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have that mentality, but sometimes people don’t realize their opportunity cost or, you know, they’re, they haven’t been burned out yet.
And so they’re, they, they they’re on the path of getting burned out. They just don’t know.
Lucas: [00:04:47] I, um, I’ve never been a hustler, right? Like someone who has souls and just like, always like going after it. But I just, this has never been me. I’m in high school. I just like skated by. [00:05:00] Right. And did the least that I needed to do, um, in college, actually my freshman year, I was determined to Excel, uh, because all my friends said that I wouldn’t because I was too lazy.
Um, and, and I did pretty well, but after a year I got burnt out and the next few years I. Worked a lot less and did actually a lot better than I did my first year. Um, and then, you know, after college, um, I went and worked in video games. Video games is notorious for, you know, long hours, crunch time, stuff like that.
Um, after my first company that I worked at, I went to work at a company making, you know, online games, uh, games on Facebook and mobile games, games that were always on. So you’re having to wake up, you know, three o’clock in the morning because you know, someone, someone discovered a bug that’s preventing players on the other side of the world from playing the game, like literally working, you know, you’re on your available on, on four seven.
Um, so, you know, um, when I I’ve gone through like phases [00:06:00] of being worked out, right, like I got burnt out on, on video games and working for other people. So then I was like, okay, now I’m going to go do something for myself. I want to, I decided to pick real estate. Um, and the first few years I think I was really, you know, working hard at it because you know, something new is exciting.
Um, but then the same thing happened, right. Just over work, you kind of get burnt out and, and slowed down a little bit. Um, you know, so, so I’ve had, uh, some, some stops and starts right. Of, of, of the, uh, burnt outness.
Mike: [00:06:33] Yeah. Yeah. I think, uh, you know, this is a perfect business to have some lifestyle design in and when you’re an entrepreneur, you know, um, I mean, there’s some businesses, you know, there’s, there’s like in my neighborhood, there’s a woman, there’s a little village area and we’ve got some shops and stuff.
There’s one that I was a coffee store and, uh, she’s always there though. It’s like, she never leaves a job. She’s on call from. Before, most of us get up until, you know, the evening or whatever. Right. And so lifestyle design is not really in the [00:07:00] cards for her apparently. I mean, there’s a lot of those small businesses like that you’re owner operator.
Right. And so, and. Sometimes it’s okay to have an active role in the business, but we just have more control. It’s not like we have customers coming in all day long. It’s like, you can largely live your life through a cell phone and a laptop and you’re kind of in business. So I think there’s more of an opportunity than most businesses to control your lifestyle.
Right.
Lucas: [00:07:23] Yeah. And I grew up around that too. My mom owned a small business, a little like kitchen in Delhi and my hometown for like seven or 10 years. And in that time that she owned it, you know, she never could take a vacation. Right. Hard to find someone that you can trust to run your business, you know, for a week.
Mike: [00:07:39] Yeah. Yeah. So you started and you had, you kind of had some wisdom of, uh, you know, what you wanted your life to look like. And now you’ve got a, a one year old and I know you’re committed to, you know, spending time with your, with your baby, right?
Lucas: [00:07:52] Yeah. I mean, the one thing that I absolutely didn’t want to do is just.
Continue to just pour all my energy [00:08:00] into, into the business and all my time in the business. And then look back a few years later and feel like I missed, you know, this time in her life that everyone says, you know, just flies by so fast and you end up missing it. And so not only, you know, spending time with her and not, you know, working all the time, but, um, it’s one of the reasons why I really love working from home.
Right. Um, I don’t necessarily feel like I only see her. From, you know, six to whatever she goes to bed. Right. I see her throughout the day as I take a break or, you know, step out of the office for a minute. Um, you know, and I, I get to interact with her for a few minutes at a time. So I don’t feel like I’m, um, um, as a way know.
Mike: [00:08:39] Yeah. Yeah. I think it’s, it’s interesting. Cause I, you know, there was some people too, and I’m probably guilty of this that I find a way to fill the time up. Like work wise. I mean, I’m out, like I told you, I’m I’m workaholic. Right? So, but, uh, I, I definitely I’ll say this. I work hard, but whenever I want to do something, I’m just like, let’s go, you know, I can have that flexibility.
I would [00:09:00] say that when I was growing up, my parents were, I grew up in a very blue collar family and, you know, they were always there, but during the work day they had no control. But after that they had control or maybe they have two weeks of vacation a year and that’s kind of it. Right. But for us, it’s like, you know, I mean, you know, I take way more.
Uh, vacations or trips or just getaways then two weeks a year. And I can, I can build my business and my life around that, right.
Lucas: [00:09:25] Yeah. Yeah, no, it’s nice to just be able to like, decide last minute, you’re going to take a Friday off and go out of town and make the weekend a little more.
Mike: [00:09:32] So how do you, how do you, cause you, you could work harder, right?
You could fill up your day, you could be focused on 10 X in your business. You could do all that. And you have the fortitude inside of you to say. I could, but I don’t want to talk about that a little bit. Cause not everybody can control that. Like some people are just like, you know, the problem with entrepreneurs is we move the damn goal line all the time.
Like we say, I want to get here and then you get there and you’re like, well, that’s nothing. Let me go to the next level. And so you never get there if you were kind of air quotes there. [00:10:00] Right. So just talk about, you know, that balance, I guess.
Lucas: [00:10:04] Well, it comes a lot from. You know, one, my goals are more related to like the actual freedom, right?
I think a lot of people’s goals around like number of deals a year or number amount of money. They want to make it a year. And it’s like, for me, it’s never been about that. Right. It’s just about having the freedom to do the things that I want to do. Um, and so, um, when I’m making the decision, do I work more, do I not work more?
It’s like, well, what am I goals? My goals are to. Spend time with my family, do the things that I want to do. And so working Morgan to get you there, it might help me do that more later, but it’s not going to get me there in the near future. Right. Whereas if I just, if I leave that work to the side and go do the thing that I want to do, I’m getting the freedom that I want right there.
Right. Um, I think it’s like we have this goal of freedom and we have some of it, but I don’t think [00:11:00] we realize we have it. To like use it now. I think we always feel like it’s like coming later when we achieve a certain amount of money and a certain amount of deals done with it. And also just one thing I’ve, I’ve gone back and forth with struggling with and not struggling with is, uh, comparing yourself to other people.
Um, Tyler in the group, I think about them all the time, because I’m always thinking to the thing that he keeps saying, right. Um, comparison is a thief of joy. Mmm. And I love that saying I didn’t learn it until recently. I heard him say it. Um, but I I’ve, I’ve struggled with that over the years. Right. You go to RIAs, you talk to people who see what other people are doing.
And you’re just like, man, like, how come I’m not having, you know, the same, the same level of success or what have you,
Mike: [00:11:48] that was Tyler. Russia says that or.
Lucas: [00:11:50] Yeah,
Mike: [00:11:51] you got a couple of Tyler’s, you know, so yeah. Yeah. That’s a great quote. I’m gonna, I’m gonna, I’m going to every once in a while I hear a good quote.
I just steal it. I’m going to steal,
Lucas: [00:11:58] stole it from a book [00:12:00] because, uh, I was looking yesterday for book recommendations in the group and he wrote a post where he recommended a book. And when I looked up the book to say that, um, I think it was one of the Assad, his description. Um, but I’m glad you said hello.
Yeah. So that’s the only thing is I think just like not comparing yourself to other people
Mike: [00:12:23] it’s so hard to do. And I think there’s so much, you know, uh, social media, uh, which many of us are on, I spent too much time on it, for sure. But. It’s so one sided, it’s not the whole story. And we tend to like assume that wow, their life is awesome.
And it’s like, you know, I’ve known people that have that do a lot of deals for example, and their life sucks. Like they just have, you know, they’re like things aren’t good at home and health wise might not be good. So there’s, there’s, there’s always more to the story. And social media never rarely tells the whole story.
Rarely.
Lucas: [00:12:58] That was something that, uh, one of my [00:13:00] mentors in Florida, you know, kind of said the same thing. He was like, you know, It’s only half of the picture, right? Like for all, you know, that guy, you know, Lisa’s is Bentley lives with his mother. Right. Um, so, uh, you know, you can’t, can’t always, I gotta take everything you hear with a grain of salt.
Yeah,
Mike: [00:13:17] for sure. For sure. So, um, uh, you know, one of the things that I, that I. I’ve thought about those over the years. I ha I’ve done it a little bit before, but didn’t really work out. Right. And I think one of the challenges is for, I think, one thing that could help us. Right. And I think sometimes I, I give advice and I’m like, I’m giving it to as much as myself as whoever I’m talking to is, you know, we have level 10 meetings in our business.
We have all these KPIs. We track, we track performance on our business, but sometimes I don’t track it on my personal life. It’s like, what’s my level of joy. How, how am I acting as a husband, as a father health wise, you know, spiritually, whatever it might be for you is having a scorecard for those things.
It’s so easy to do, but we tend to do it for our business and then not so much for personal life. I don’t know about you, [00:14:00] but, uh, I’m guilty of that. And as I’m talking here, I’m like, I got to get that. I got to get that back in
Lucas: [00:14:04] play. Yeah, absolutely. Um, Trevor talked about this, uh, at the last right at the end, he talked a little bit about his system that he uses for.
I’m kind of evaluating how he’s doing and all the different aspects of his life, you know? Um, and I did that exercise after he spoke about it. Um, and it definitely helped me kind of crystallize that stuff a little bit. Right. Um, just helped me realize like, um, where I might even think that I’m, you know, putting in the effort.
Right. It’s, it’s kinda the same thing with work, right? Like. Being busy versus being productive. Right? Like sometimes you’re working, but you’re just, you’re just being busy. Right. You’re just doing busy work. You’re not really doing the things that are really going to get you to the, to where you want to go.
Um, and it’s kinda the same thing even with, you know, personal stuff, right. Like [00:15:00] I think in doing that exercise, I realized that I might be spending time with my family. If you like, look at the clock and look at what I’m doing, but like, am I really there with them? Right. Am I really engaging? And yeah. And, and, and actually like, are we just like sitting there next to each other and not talking, or are we actually like engaging in having, uh, furthering the relationship now?
And so that was the thing that kind of doing that exercise kind of, you know, Showed me is that it’s not just spending the time, but also like what you do with that time. Yeah,
Mike: [00:15:37] no, I’m definitely guilty that we we’ve done some, you know, there over the years, we’ve done some, some big trips. I remember my son when I, I didn’t, I don’t think I flew on a plane until I was like 18.
Like he was like, he came out of the womb, like being a world traveler, just because that’s, that’s what we wanted to do. And so we were doing all these trips, but when I look back, you know, it was pretty common that. We’re [00:16:00] out in the out somewhere really awesome. You know, like a dream trip of some sort. And I’m thinking about, you know, I’m on the phone talking to my contractor or dealing with issues or whatever way more than I should have been for sure.
And it’s just because it’s such a connected world. It’s so easy to do that, but you gotta draw those boundaries for yourself. I think we all, we all have to draw those boundaries. I mean, it’s so easy to be connected to anybody in the world right now, but it doesn’t mean you have to be, you could, you could shut the door.
You know, you turn the phone off, I guess. So.
Lucas: [00:16:28] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I’m, I’m guilty a lot of like, you know, working from the couch. Right. Um, because it feels like you’re, you’re killing two birds with one stone. Right. You’re getting work done and you’re spending time with your family, but like you’re kind of half ass and go.
Mike: [00:16:43] Yeah. Yeah. Well, Lucas, you’ve been an investor fuel for a little while now, and we’re proud to have you as a member of the group. Can you, would you mind just sharing a little testimonial of what investor fuel, what the experience has been like for you and maybe how it’s impacted your business or your life?
Lucas: [00:16:56] Uh, it’s been amazing. Um, [00:17:00] you know, I think, uh, it’s been really pivotal for me because I am the kind of person where, uh, I can become very, you know, in my own world. Right. Like I work from home, I’m a home body to begin with. Um, and then with everything going on, right. Uh, Florida was South Florida, at least where I’m at was pretty shut down until very recently, like a week ago.
So, uh, you know, I can get very just in my own world and, and like, I don’t, I have colleagues, you know, in the area, but it’s not like we interact a bunch. Right. So, um, in the past I had a business partner, so it was mainly, you know, my business partner, who is that person who I would go to, you know, to like bounce ideas off of her and whatnot.
Right. But we’re also like just too similar, I think. Right. Um, think too much in the same way. So it wasn’t always necessarily super helpful. Um, and now that I, you know, me and my partner kind of went our separate [00:18:00] ways, um, investor foolish has really helped me have a group of people that I can go to, you know, to talk to about what’s going on in my business, what’s going on and in the real estate market in general.
Um, and just kind of getting really good feedback, right. Um, people there have so much experience. Um, and everyone’s just really big on sharing, um, social spin, uh, invaluable, really. Right. Um, I think, uh, I think, you know, I would not be able to be a solo entrepreneur. I think without, you know, a group like invest for fuel, you know, having my back, I’ve got to have someone that I can go and bounce ideas off of.
And it’s gotta be someone who really shares a lot of the same. You know, values and in terms of what’s important to you, right? Um, it’s, uh, it’s hard to find in your, in your local area, right? In your local area, you might find one or two people. Right. But to have that large of [00:19:00] a group, um, with such different experiences, right.
Um, I mean, I think, I don’t think you can get it without, you know, joining the mastermind, like
Mike: [00:19:10] invest with you. That’s awesome. Well, thanks for sharing that. We appreciate you for sure. I think, you know, we’ve got something really awesome here and it just takes bringing members into the group that kind of share those same values.
Like you said, that are willing to share and open up. And not everybody knows that they have that in them until they come in the group. I think you’ve probably experienced it. Two is become into the group. And you heard that, we talked about that before you joined, then you come and you’re like, wow, this is like, people are more open than I thought they would be about things in their life.
And I know you said you were. Talking to another member here for like 90 minutes the other day, just talking through some issues. And I think for people that are willing to do that for one another, because we all reciprocate that as is a really cool thing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Cool. Well, look, as if, if folks wanted to get ahold of you, they wanted to reach out or connect anyway, what, what’s a good place for them to go.
Lucas: [00:19:54] Uh, so they connect with me, you know, if they go to my, our website dot com, um, you [00:20:00] know, they can get our contact info there. Uh, they can also reach out through Facebook. Uh, I’m on Facebook a good bit, so they can find me on Facebook or house heroes on Facebook.
Mike: [00:20:10] Awesome. Awesome. We’ll add those links down below.
So thanks for spending some time with us today and thanks for sharing your story a little bit.
Lucas: [00:20:15] Yeah, my pleasure.
Mike: [00:20:16] Awesome. Awesome. And everyone, thanks for joining us for another episode. Uh, we’re cranking through these every week, bringing you awesome guests from investor fuel. In fact, our next meeting is actually coming up here pretty soon.
If you haven’t checked this out yet, if you haven’t, you can schedule a call with us. We’d love to tell you more about it and see if we’re a fit for one another. So appreciate you guys a ton. We’ll see you on the next episode,
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