Raise the Bar

RTBL 03 | Why the W-2 Grind Will Never Make You Wealthy with Jamie Bateman

Title: Why the W-2 Grind Will Never Make You Wealthy with Jamie Bateman
In this episode, Jamie Bateman shares his inspiring journey from being a competitive athlete and military officer to becoming a successful entrepreneur in real estate and mortgage note investing. Jamie Bateman emphasizes the importance of discipline, teamwork, and taking ownership of one’s financial situation to achieve lasting success.
Throughout the conversation, Jamie Bateman discusses his transition from a W2 job to entrepreneurship, explaining how he leveraged his experiences and strengths to build multiple streams of income. Jamie Bateman offers valuable insights into his current business model centered around mortgage note investing, explaining the key differences between performing and non-performing notes, and describing both the challenges and opportunities within this specialized field.
The discussion with Jamie Bateman also underscores the importance of long-term planning, continuous learning, and maintaining discipline as the foundation for achieving true financial freedom and flexibility in life.
Links to Listen and Subscribe:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/from-military-officer-to-mortgage-note-master-one-mans/id1618672867?i=1000643495099
Links to Watch and Subscribe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6nU0TtMAFc
Bullet Point Highlights:
Athlete to Entrepreneur: Jamie shares how his background in competitive sports instilled a sense of discipline and teamwork.
Financial Ownership: Jamie discusses the importance of taking ownership of your financial situation and actively seeking improvement.
W2 Quitter: The transition from a stable government job to entrepreneurship reflects Jamie’s journey of self-discovery and ambition.
Mortgage Note Investing: Jamie provides insights into both performing and non-performing notes, illustrating how to generate passive income through debt investing.
Value of Networking: He emphasizes the necessity of building a strong network for finding investment opportunities in mortgage notes.
Continuous Learning: Jamie advocates for lifelong learning, suggesting that successful people always seek new knowledge and skills.
Long-Term Vision: He stresses the importance of setting long-term goals and reverse planning to maintain focus on achieving one’s aspirations.
Transcript:
Jamie what's going on brother welcome to the show thanks Seth this is this is awesome um I'm excited to be here and I'm hoping to add some value absolutely man third time's a charm we've been trying to get this scheduled after I was on your show which was fantastic had a really good time uh on that show and I think it turned out pretty good so I know we're gonna absolutely we're gonna deliver on this one as well yeah we're GNA try to try to I'll try to do as good a job as you did so yeah that was that
 
was uh yeah no I that was a very very good episode from adversity to abundance I would highly recommend your your listeners check that one out to your episode on that show so thanks for thanks for doing that absolutely man you're an incredible interviewer I've I've that's the only uh I've been on dozens of podcasts and you know you pulled out a lot of things for me that I've I've never talked about on the air so it's pretty pretty awesome pretty awesome show man appreciate that cool man well let's just jump right into your
 
background man what's your story um take it back as far as you'd like to brother yeah um man uh I'd like to think that life has phases so I've had a few different phases in in my life um you I come from a a large uh family I'm I'm the oldest of seven kids and we always had a competitive uh background as far as team sports and things like that so um I played lacrosse in college that was always a foundational piece of of uh my life and just kind of I think from there learned how to be a part of something
 
bigger than myself and how to work toward a common goal with a with a team so that's been something that's been a a kind of a thread through my life and then um got married and uh joined the military and um actually joined the military technically before I got married but seemed like I got married and then ran off and and uh ran away from my wife but it's not exactly what happened but uh joined the military was an officer in the in the US Army did I did miss my first three wedding anniversaries through deployment and
 
things like that um and again it was a matter of trying to be plugged into something you know to serve and be a part of something bigger than myself and trying to trying to add value like I think we all we all want to do um I've obviously glossed over a lot of lot of details but those were uh a couple of inflection points I guess if you will um like you like to talk about I know um and so my military career transitioned into uh a a career with the Department of Defense as a civilian and um did 14
 
years as a civilian with DOD at Fort me and the first half so the first seven for all you math whizzes out there uh was full-time and then the second half the second seven years was part-time and that seven years is when I was really building my businesses which are largely um real estate investing and mortgage node investing Focus so we can get into the details there and then in 2022 I ended up quitting my job and and um now I have a few different small businesses that I run and like you Seth I've got a got a
 
lot of different things that I'm juggling and uh you know so but yeah I love talking about taking ownership of of your financial situation and taking ownership of your your life really and um I know that you and I have that comment so yeah that's a that's a high level overview of my background awesome man I appreciate that that there's a lot to unpack there you know going back to you know playing sports all the way up to the Collegiate level that's incredible I always like to to think even playing like poporn or football
 
back in the day you need a way to instill discipline in yourself and I I that's kind of the the oldest memory I can think of where it was hard right like it was like you've got a coach screaming at you like back in the day it's like you know they wouldn't give you water unless you like you know for like an hour which I don't think they do that anymore now but you know you had to earn that drink of water and and all those sorts of things but you you really learned what it's like to to work hard and you really learned what discipline
 
was all about and I would say that and you can you can expand on this but yeah I would say that you know being in the military yourself that takes it to a whole new level right it's like you you you got that from Sports you got that from the military yeah definitely I mean obviously they're very different in a lot of ways but that is certainly a common theme is is being disciplined and um and people people shy away from that word um because it just sounds like work or or no fun and no flexibility but I found that having
 
discipline in your life ends up adding more freedom in a sense um because you kind of have your foundational pieces set in stone you don't have to think about those and so um yeah regarding team sports it's it's really a matter of um you know everyone doing their part right and so there's a level of individual discipline and um and then just and then also just kind of putting the putting the group ahead of yourself um obviously the you know you want individual there's nothing wrong with individual accolades and I I was
 
certainly uh chasing you know those individual accolades it's not something I shied away from I was you know I definitely was wrapped up in trying to be an All-American and um that kind of thing and and did get that a couple of times you know but it at the end of the day nobody really cares about that and um the way I viewed it was if I was doing my part and I got those you know if I was scoring goals in Lacrosse as an example that means I'm contributing to you know to the team right and so there's obviously a fine
 
line there but of going too far either way um but yeah that discipline is critical you know even C I played at a high level in college and and there was year round you're training you're you're uh you're into it it was a division three school but it but the reality was we worked just as hard as any any D1 program and um yeah it's it's a these are skills that have paid off and are absolutely transferable to the rest of of life for sure yeah I think you've got to get those those intangible things you've got to develop
 
them somewhere along the way whatever whatever that is if that's Sports the military or you know from your parents I mean you can get it from different places but you definitely need it I mean you know we're in different stages of our life at this point we're talking about a lot we like talk about freedom and flexibility and fun um to try to get away from kind of the W2 uh mindset but in order to achieve Freedom flexibility and fun in a successful way you had you have to be disciplined to be able to get
 
there you you had to have done something successfully to be able to get there or maybe what separates you from you know the guy living in a van down by the river right like that guy that guy has Freedom flexibility um I don't know about fun maybe fun but yeah but you know it's it's a different obviously it's a it's a different outcome yeah and I I I still I think I still need you know I still use a lot of discipline today it's still still required but it's I guess I guess it's self-imposed and um you know I just love
 
love having that flexibility and that freedom um that comes along with being an entrepreneur so yeah it's been a central piece to my success for sure um but I I I still I don't think it ever you know goes away I just get to pick and choose what you know what discipline I want to kind of enforce on myself I guess um so yeah absolutely and and and as you said I the military was a huge part of that for me as well I mean that's a different kind of different kind of discipline and different kind of teamwork and different you know if you
 
lose a lacrosse game okay you lost the lacrosse game but military the stakes are a little higher um so maybe certain things are more important attention to detail are crit is critical and um but at the end of the day it's yeah it's that the same principles apply across both I I guess sectors if you will for sure for sure so let's dive into that that transition you started working kind of part-time there for seven years so that seems like a transitional period how are you able to progress from you
 
know that W2 and what what I've heard you say is call yourself a W2 quitter and I love that um you know how were you able to progress from a W2 person to a W2 quitter what enabled you to do that and what that transition looked like I mean you know I do remember in 2015 probably a little bit maybe maybe say 2014 but I just you get you know I had a wife and two kids and I had the commute the long commute that I I know a lot of people can identify with so um it it just was Groundhog Day it was the same
 
thing over and over and over and that's not me sitting here complaining about my family or having a having the opportunity to work um but after a while it gets old let's just be real right so it's like you're sitting in traffic and I just you start looking at you know I was I worked for the government and you look around you say who okay who's sort of ahead of me on this like you like I I think you probably mentioned on our on your your show on my my show your episode um you look around to the people
 
who are more kind of Al further along the path than you you say do you want to be that person is that the life you want and man I did not want that and um it just just having that just super long-term just you know the pot at the end of the rainbow I guess uh nothing driving me in the in the interum man it was it was just it was brutal so I probably did a little woes me for a little bit there a little victim mentality for a bit but then you start to realize like okay if you don't take ownership of your own life no one's
 
going to right so no one's going to come in and do this for you so I'm not sure what truly you know created the change in my mindset but my mindset absolutely started to change and I just made a shift and I and I stopped watching cable news I stopped uh just you know stopped paying attention to all the things that I can't control and I couldn't control back then and and started saying no what do I have what are my strengths who is in my who's back to the team thing who's on my team who's you know who's in my
 
network that I can add value to and who can add value to me so I started looking around and um you know my father was a realtor for many years my brother was a loan officer I we had uh one rental property at the time and so and IID worked at a I didn't mention I worked at a title company and I worked for a mortgage broker before as well briefly so I had this experience that a lot of people don't have and that's you know that that doesn't mean I'm better than anyone it just means these are my strengths so let's point to that and
 
let's use that so I started really being intentional about focusing on my strengths and my assets that I had in my life right and then another asset that I used to see as a liability was the time in the car so I started listening to podcasts oh you know and and then it turned into wait I don't even want to go into work yet because this this podcast episode is amazing and I'm learning so much you know Bigger Pockets and all the other real estate podcasts and different investing podcasts and um started using
 
that mental bandwidth instead of focusing on National media stories that I have zero influence over uh here's something that I can actually take action on and so um in mid 2015 uh I I I went part-time and and just so happens that at uh DOD it's one of the few agencies in the in the federal government where you can go part-time and still keep your benefits so I still had health insurance for my family you know most people don't have that option necessarily but oh oh well I did so that's what I did and and um you
 
know that's uh again decided decided to start building my my other streams of income outside of my W2 um had my circumstances been different if I was single I probably would have just quit the whole thing right but I was able to have that kind of laded approach I guess or tiered approach to kind of ripping off the Band-Aid yeah yeah no that that that's awesome I love just the idea of of taking ownership of your your life right like everybody has those moments where they're feeling sorry fors um but but the successful people they
 
don't sit there and stay in that that mindset they they move on they you're going to be there sometimes but you've got to get out of and you got to say okay what what can I control what can I change and you don't say you don't give other people the power to control you and your mindset and how you feel about your life right like that's that's that's the thing like if if you if you're constantly blaming someone else or saying this happened to me rather what can I do to get myself out of it then you're going to be stuck there
 
forever you're you're going to be you're going to be spinning your wheels forever um and a lot of that I think helps because you said you don't listen you don't watch the news I don't either it's a waste of time what control what does that do for us it's if I do watch it I literally do it for entertainment and you look at it as an entertain I look at it like I'm watching sports almost absolutely I I look at it like this is funny like I can you know what I mean you kind of analyze like this is funny
 
this guyy saying this in a debate this guy's saying that it's not taking it as fact and news and this is how I should live my life because of what they're saying absolutely and it's not to say that none of these topics are you know important right I mean right Glo Global you know war or I mean politics poverty global warming whatever that's all very important but I have zero control over it almost zero right and then um you know the other thing is fear sells and that's that's what they're selling and so doesn't mean that every
 
story is invented and it's all fake fake news but it it just doesn't serve me and so I'd rather focus on you know go ground up and kind of uh you just I see it in people maybe older people in my own life now who maybe are retired and and they watch the news all day and it's like they won't travel because they saw a news story that the airports are packed or something and you know it's I'm sure that story was was accurate right but it but the but the news can filter out and and you end up only focusing on the negative really and
 
it just didn't serve me so yeah um during that La the second seven years I was able to build out my wife and I were doing single family real estate investing and doing a lot of the Burr method that maybe some of your your audience is familiar with uh um and so kind of putting that Capital back into the the rental property um machine and expanding our portfolio um and then eventually last year Well in in 2018 I made the pivot I kept the rental properties but made a pivot to also add on mortgage not
 
investing and that's been my primary focus as of late um and uh if you want I can tell the story quickly about how I actually quit my job in 2022 I I think it's kind of kind of a funny one absolutely let's do it all right so um I uh so two years ago uh I was playing bad mitton and um I'd been doing now mind you I used to be like tough you know athlete and like I did you know did Jiu-Jitsu for three years right up before this and you know used to lift Waits a lot and still do it here and there but you know I think I'm tough
 
right and uh ruptured my achilles playing bad mitton so that's an ego blow uh to add on to the physical pain that you know especially with the recovery so I ruptured my achilles a little over two years ago today and um I was out of work it was my right right foot and the reason I bring this up is not for sympathy but um to say you know I couldn't drive for three months so I actually yeah and I had tons of leave from from work and by this time I was tired really tired of my I was pretty much checked out like I think you you
 
might have been at your uh your big law uh job but um that's right I was I was checked out I mean I I wasn't the best employee at this point and so I took as much leave as I as I could you know reasonably right and so but couldn't drive and so I was out for three months and I come back so come back into work and I'd had discussions with my wife about about leaving it was just a matter of of when not if um I can tell you truthfully had no idea that I was going to quit this day but I came back in from
 
having been out for three months mind you no one gave me a call no one from work no one from my management gave me a call the entire three months I was out other than to say to ask me are you vaccinated because you have to be vaccinated to be to get inside the building now I don't want this to turn into some controversial vaccine discussion or get your your podcast banned from something but um yes I'd been vaccinated to to answer the question but no one asked me how's your how's your recovery going like how what
 
do you you know how's your life you know what's it's just are you vaccinated you need to get that shot before you come in okay great thanks I really feel welcome here so I'm already just you know you know what screw this place right um come back in and just go to my desk and this is this is an office space kind of thing where I go to my desk and there's some there's an a force kid at my desk and long story short they' kind of move me somewhere else without telling me I can't find my desk I finally find it
 
it's got a box with my name on it with you know monitors sideways and all and clearly not a functioning uh desk and um you know office space so I literally quit that day and I just say that it's just like I knew 100% I was done I my wife didn't know I was I quit but I I quit that day still worked for another month or two but I I was there was no question zero question in my mind I'm done with this place so uh that was March of 2022 and ever since then I've just focused on building out my businesses and having
 
looked back that's awesome sometimes you just know right like sometimes it's time you just knew I I love that story man for me it was a little bit you already know the story but you know for me it was a little bit more of someone else's decision I got fired I mean and men that you know you you weren't the best employee at that point correct you know I knew the same thing and it's great to have awareness and perspective and kind of looking back now you're like I would have done the same thing like this guy
 
doesn't want to be here his output isn't what it should be like nope he's got he's got to go I mean he's not he's not the best employee and and as a you know as a business owner now I can you know I have really good perspective of that and and seeing that and they did they were doing me a favor by being like hey like your heart's not in it is it and I'm like no it's not it's not yeah yeah the reality is for me it's really hard to work you know when once you go part-time I mean I knew I was casting a vote
 
against my career progression there so as soon as I went part-time in 2015 I wasn't saying I'm in this for the Long Haul guys this is this is my focus you know it's the writing's somewhat on the wall looking back it's almost surprising I lasted as long as I did um but so yeah uh haven't looked back and just love love the entrepreneurial you know day-to-day and freedom that you alluded to and and just the multiple streams of income and certainly has its challenges I I probably work harder now than ever
 
than I ever have um but it's by choice right so I love it exactly same here man I mean it's you know my my days are long I mean I I get up way before I used to get up when I when I had a 95 I worked past when I would have worked a 9 to-5 and it definitely more hours but when you're doing it for yourself and you're doing it because you're working towards something that you believe in yeah it doesn't feel like it's you're putting that much time in definitely I I wake up early a lot of days it's not not on
 
purpose it's because I'm just excited to get Kracken so yeah yeah absolutely yeah well let's let's kind of get into your current business I know you you had mentioned that you focused on your strengths and your assets um and you know I think it's important I'll just I'll just say it's important to take an inventory of what your strengths are when you're kind of considering going into something else um because a lot of our listeners are attorneys they're doctors folks like that they kind of feel like maybe they're they're pigeon
 
hold right like well if I'm not an attorney what the hell else can I do right like I don't know anything about real estate investing or node investing or starting a business or anything like that but if you really take a step back you you probably have a lot of skills that you've learned and honed in your career that you can use for something else moving forward and that was that's what you were able to do definitely and one thing I'd say is that um you know one thing that's always comforting for
 
me is nobody knows everything right so you can always find somebody who knows more than you in a certain area um you know there's one quote about every man is my Superior in in in something right so um basically it gets me a lot of comfort to know like just because an attorney listening to your show knows way more than I do about a particular topic and probably many many other topics that doesn't mean I'm less of a person or you know I don't know more than that attorney does in another area so it's
 
okay I'm never going to know everything there are other people who've already figured it out so um you know that's that's always comforting to me is and when I say look to your strength it's also looking to the people in your network who know and can help you get to where you want to go um so yeah I mean so many things we take for granted that we do know and um you know example when I started working at a title company fresh out of college because it was my first real job and it paid you know a a
 
salary um I realized quickly how little I knew about title insurance settlements you know just just basic stuff now looking back pretty basic stuff but you don't know that unless you work for a title company or you're heavily involved in this you don't you're not trained in that in school typically right so you know you forget and so your your listener out there the the attorney the doctor I guarantee they have a lot of life experience not just from their professional world but just life experience that that they shouldn't take
 
for granted and the fact that you can go through law school and then be you know Be an Effective attorney or go through medical school and Be an Effective doctor that that means you you can learn things right and so again I go back to life has Seasons I mean you've shown that in your own story Seth like you know um it's uh it doesn't mean just because I started a certain business doesn't mean that's going to be what I'm going to be doing for the next 20 years or just because I'm an attorney now
 
doesn't mean that's what I have to do for the rest of my life so we always have options I mean you might look back and wish you'd done something differently or something but you only have one chance at this and so you know you just make the most of it and and just keep I think keep learning constantly um is critical I I just hired a business coach we've had one call um but one of his motos is um you know one of his sayings is that he's always he's in permanent beta so he's always changing always improving he's always
 
growing so I'm trying to trying to implement that as well yeah I love that permanent beta I haven't heard that before but I like that I like that phrase like that phrase um so tell me about your current business tell me about mortgage node investing start with the basics um sure what is it yeah so and and I'll try to keep it uh there's so much to it but again none of it is difficult it's just a lot of moving parts and you've got to you know it takes time to learn um we buy debt so we buy a mortgage note
 
and that could be performing or non-performing the the real highlevel version is is um a performing note is kind of like a a long-term Buy and Hold rental property but you're buying the debt and becoming the lender becoming the bank if you will um and so you're buying that performing note for cash flow so I buy a performing note the barer now pays me through a loan servicer and I get monthly payments so that's a great way to go the the problem with that is you can't really add value to that asset very well you're kind of
 
it is what it is and in fact with mortgage notes the value actually goes down over time generally speaking because the principal balance goes down so it's just it's worth less than you know than uh you know than it would than it was when you bought it then on the other side the non-performing side of things we buy those uh as well and those are more like a Fix and Flip property so um although we're still buying the debt we're not buying the property but there's a chance to add value There's an opportunity to buy distressed asset and
 
add value to that asset and then sell that that non-performing note either well I should say sell that asset whether that's as a rep performing note or as uh through the the real estate itself there there are a few different ways you can exit a non-performing uh note deal and but but back to your kind of one of the the themes um thus far one of the reasons I got into specifically that space was that I understood the real estate space so I understood the single family residential real estate space so it wasn't a huge
 
leap for me to go from owning the property to now owning the debt on that property whereas it would have been a lot bigger leap for me to say oh I want to start buying distressed you know multif family debt um which I know you could probably help me understand better but that you know it's like incremental progress and and and change isn't that scary so I kind of expanded my um you know toolbox if you will and got into the mortgage note space so we have a couple of note funds one is open um currently and they're they're they're
 
all for accredited investors um and uh the the income fund that's open pays a monthly uh aims to pay a a monthly uh per referred return I know you and a lot of your listeners are attorneys so I got to hold the line here and uh so the fund is structured to pay uh to aim to pay a a monthly return uh of 8% it's not a there's no growth in that fund it's literally a cash flow play and um diversification play you're putting your your capital in we buy assets across the country we we've bought notes in in probably 25 States at this point
 
um and so the investment is Diversified across Geographic areas across borrower types and um you know we buy for a certain yield we take a small management fee and then we um ideally uh pay a pay the preferred return that we're aiming for to our to our investors yeah nice 506c you're able to talk about it it's uh ACC credit investors only just want to throw that out there um so yeah I mean so just going back to the basics a little bit and we'll get back into the fund like how do you how do you even
 
find these things I mean how do you get started how do you find these things so I mean that is an ongoing challenge I'm not going to lie to you that's one of the the things that truthfully a a passive investor who doesn't have time to to develop the network to go find these assets they're just not going to have success um you know they might here and there but it takes time it's a it's a word of mouth industry just like real estate itself is and um so we've built out a network of of Sellers and you know that could
 
be quite honestly I I've never had luck buying directly from Banks it's really either a larger uh mortgage note fund that's closing so it might be a three-year fund and then they've got to they've got to liquidate they've got to figure out how to sell off what to do with these assets um and so that's a great opportunity to buy is just a fund that's closing or somebody a note investor who's getting out of note investing or they've had a life change or something um you know where they just uh there's an opportunity to buy from
 
them as well um and so there there are other you know I guess we buy from hedge funds note investors other note funds um those are there are also note Brokers as well out there um there are also some online exchanges like paper stack and a couple of others that you can go and I've bought and sold on on paper stack and other exchanges as well um and you know you can you can find assets there um but at the end of the day we have our list that we list of people that we work with regularly and I would say one thing
 
is that doing due diligence on a note seller is just as important as uh due diligence on the assets that they're selling and so it's it's taken some work and it's it's a work in progress always um but it is the million-dollar question is where do you where do you find these assets yeah so that's that's the hard part right that finding these assets is the hard part um have you ever had to foreclose on on any of these notes and actually acquire the property and I guess a followup question is do you ever
 
look at a non-performing note like hey I actually want to own that property great questions yeah great questions um to be clear we're not trying to kick people you know Grandma out on onto the street or anything like that um you know that's not our our goal typically well that's never our goal but we're never trying to kick someone out of their home um but the reality is some people honestly need a little bit of a kick in the pants and often times that's not really the best them staying in the house is not often
 
The best scenario for them I know that might sound sound harsh but at the end of the day if someone can't afford to live somewhere sometimes these people are living in squal and they really need a change of of environment um to answer your question about do we target the property yes sometimes we do in fact we just closed on two they're called uh heckum loans or reverse mortgages where the borrowers are deceased the property is underwater meaning you know the the loan amount is high greater than the
 
property value and it should be a quick exit through the property so HUD will sell off these uh big pool of of reverse mortgages and we were able to purchase two of them very recently it's a vacant property you're not doing an eviction borrower is deceased you've got to work through the airs or or foreclosure um and get and exit the property that way um if your listener wants to go to my website I've got a really good um it's a Jacksonville blog post I've got a couple of blog posts about this deal I still hold this rental
 
today and it was a non-performing note that we purchased a few years ago and um I had no intention of exiting through the property or holding holding the the property as a rental property but uh running the numbers it just was too good to to let go and so long story but we we uh you know ended up doing a deed in Lee of foreclosure actually in this case and got the property back and now it's a long-term Buy and Hold property for my own rental uh portfolio yeah that makes sense that makes sense there's there's always
 
multiple ways to look at an investment right um but it does sound you know is not something that that I've executed on myself but it sounds like this is an active business right and that's why you've put together an income fund for people that want to get involved passively um because as as everybody knows there's active Investments there's passive Investments if you're going to do something active maybe your returns are going to be a little bit better but you're going to give up a lot of time and effort to to get those returns
 
um so if you want to go to the passive side if you if you're still full-time in your career you're you're a full-time doctor or lawyer or or whatever you are you know these passive Investments are the way to go without having to know every single detail about a new business yeah and I don't know if you can see this but I I wore this specifically for your for this show there it is there it is passive income um you're absolutely right you know these gurus some of the some of the node investing gurus out
 
there will try to sell you know notes as passive um we have another blog post that talks about uh just the it's a spectrum there's active and passive on either end but at the end of the day if you're gonna node investing in my world is very very active and we have a non-performing note fund that's considerably more active than the Performing note fund so um you're dealing with foreclosures bankruptcies deed and L tracking delinquent property taxes do I have to physically go anywhere no but it is not passive um but
 
that's why we offer the passive investment to for you know people who like you said have maybe more Capital than time or energy and they want to put that Capital to work that's right there there are certain gurus out there that you know whatever it is that they are pitching it's they they tend to always pitch it as as passive even though it is an active business whether that's ma money yeah whether that's a mortgage note or I mean people pitch Airbnb short-term rentals as passive they're like well you can delegate this and you
 
can you know you can automate that and there's software for all these things but you still got to put all that stuff together you've still got to monitor all those things you you've still got to you still got to oversee all these different aspects of a business and that's what it is it's a business that you're running and it's not passive like it's not it's not and and it is on a spectrum some things are more passive than others but when you're inves in you know as a passive investor into some sort of a
 
fund or a syndication that's really leaning really far into the the passive side absolutely 100% and I and I'm as you are Seth I'm I'm I'm I I assume you are I know you're an active investor but I I do have passive Investments myself in other other funds other note funds and and my own my own note funds as well and so nothing wrong with doing both but I would say you need to be careful about you know you got to make a decision at some point do you want to scale this thing and and make this really a
 
business or do you do you are you satisfied with potentially a little bit lower return and you are giving up some control but much you know much fewer headaches and just a lot less work right right yeah and a lot of you know a lot of the listeners are high income earning professionals so they've already dedic put a lot of time and effort into being able ble to earn this much money from their W2 and absolutely that's probably your best bet to be honest with you I've been there I was in those shoes you're
 
probably better off putting your head down like let's grind for a few years let's let's not spend every single dollar that we make on all the new stuff on a on a new car every two years or every year in a bigger house that you don't need like let's set aside some of that and invest it passively and then maybe one of those will stick maybe one of those passive investments will be a mortgage note fund where you're like man I kind like this business like I like the sound of it I've learned about it
 
and then you start maybe progressing on the active side and maybe that takes over and and you want to get into that as a as a business as an entrepreneur but um a great way to kind of dip your toe in the water is to become a passive investor um that's the way that I did it into you know multif family syndications I invested passively in a number of deals first and kind of learned about it learned the ropes and I'm like I can do this and then that's when I made the transition yeah definitely it's it
 
really comes down to what you what your goals are and what your situation is for sure I I'll say I was too passive initially when I went into notes um because personally I just don't you're you're you were probably a little better student Seth not that I was a bad student but you know I I invest unless I'm actively in investing you know I'm just not going to learn a lot so the reality is yeah it's fine to learn about the asset class you definitely should learn about the operator for sure if you're putting Capital with them but
 
you're not going to once you're getting your checks and your dispersements you're not going to probably learn a whole lot about how to do that on the active side and so that's what we're here for yeah yeah it's more of like a spark of an interest right like may you already have that spark and then you invest passively then you're like okay well now I'm invested like let me learn about this you have to you have to actively go out there and educate yourself and network and talk to people that are in the business definitely 100
 
per. all right man before we jump into the Freedom Four you have one last gold nugget for our listeners oh man um I would say within when it comes to investing um you know take the long-term view um don't chase immediate returns um you know I do think just yeah it's certainly we all want to make a million dollars tomorrow but I think it's it's play the long game when it comes to investing I think that's critical love that man all right let's jump into the Freedom Four what's the best thing you do to keep your mind body
 
healthy yeah I mean one thing that I instituted this year actually um is breath work and it's um you know it's so it takes 10 minutes um and per day for me at least and it's been phenomenal and it's something that quite honestly as a as a you know athlete back in the day or even in the military I would have scoffed at something like this to be honest with you because it's just you know it's not manly or whatever it's like it is phenomenal so uh breath work I mean I do other things for sure but that's certainly this year it's been a
 
game Cher for me I just feel like it resets my central nervous system and it just gets me focused and uh I know there are other physiological benefits that you can ask uh Dr Andrew huberman or somebody else about cool I have to look into that actually have I mean obviously everybody talks about it's a Hot Topic I haven't gotten into it I haven't gotten into that plus like the cold plunges and that sort of thing um but I really want to explore that a little bit I don't know how much you can cut this out if we
 
don't have time but I had a I'm just going to be be open about this I just had a you know in late December I got a viral infection like a neuro virus and then I had I had a what I think was a pretty severe panic attack and it was super scary and so that's why I started uh doing this and somebody on my team actually sent me a a I guess we'll call it an implement or a tool that uh I use for the breath work it's BL there's a Bluetooth connection to your phone and it's pretty cool so it's structured and
 
back to that discipline right but um yeah so it's there was a reason I started doing it and um it's it's so accessible five to 10 minutes a day you can start doing it so yeah very cool highly recommend cool thanks for sharing that man um with all your success what is one limiting belief that you've crushed along the way and how did you get past it um I think just uh you know being afraid to you know that you have to be perfect right so um I used to be an editor back in the day and so many things would just not get done
 
or not get completed within our team our organization um because it had to be perfect and and it's like I think as I've progressed into more of the entrepreneurial lifestyle and and uh it's just it's not a it's not an option anymore um so um yeah I think just taking action has kind of overcome that limiting belief of of of chasing Perfection yeah yeah I can I can I can agree with you there done not perfect um as you know my background as an attorney I mean we're we're paid to be perfect like we can't make mistakes especially
 
in contracts and the way that we write things but when you kind of make that transition over to being an entrepreneur there's too much there's too much to to be to be perfect you got you just got to get it done good enough absolutely good enough has to you have to be open um willing to accept that for sure y what's one actionable step our listeners can do right now to start creating more freedom so I'll use the military here you can um which is where I learned U kind of reverse backwards planning reverse
 
planning so literally just and I'm not going to tell you I'm perfect at this um but you know think about what create a vivid vision for your life in in the next three to five years pick a pick three years out from today and what do you want your life to look like and then backwards plan and now I'm not saying you need to plan every minute of every day but you can be that will that will increase the urgency uh sense of urgency in your life and the intentionality of every every hour and every day because you realize this is
 
doable but I got to take ownership of of my current situation if I want this to be the reality in three years so I would say create a vivid vision and and kind of reverse or backwards plan to get there perfect perfect last but not least how has passive income made your life better yeah I mean I think in multiple ways but a big one that stands out is is giving me I guess we'll call it margin um to take some more risks on the entrepreneurial side and because I do have alternative sources of income
 
passive income um it's allowed me that kind of mental and financial bandwidth or margin to maybe invest in a company that even if it doesn't per go perfectly it doesn't go well it's not profitable that's okay I still have that cushion um for for me and my family so that's yeah it's a huge it's been a huge factor in that regard yeah absolutely Game Changer man it just changes your mindset changes your life in so many ways uh Jamie this has been incredible dude you've got so much great content to to share in your
 
brain man you got to get it out there um I know you've got an awesome podcast that I was on adversity to abundance everybody should check that out um other than that Jamie where else can people find out more about you yeah just two things I'll mention very quickly uh literally got my book delivered today like an hour before I hopped on here it's uh from adversity to abundance it is based on the podcast so I encourage your listener to check that out from adversity to abundance is the book that's out and then Labrador
 
lending.com l b r a d o r.com is where you can check us out all right man awesome I'll drop all that in the show notes thanks again for coming on brother thanks for having me Seth this has been great
Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6nU0TtMAFc
https://www.instagram.com/p/C2sKtrAPX50/
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=pfbid029mGsZgw2DFvrvFV6QPkwf2U2ewUxCGoRmnjGvuBicaWmM9oHWbemP7NCVFFXz8jxl&id=100089126144055
 
Seth Bradley’s Links:
https://x.com/sethbradleyesq
https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq
www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq
https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq
https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/
https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/
https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq
https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq
https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en
 
Jamie Bateman’s Links:
https://x.com/batemanjames
https://www.facebook.com/batemanjames
https://www.threads.com/@batemanjames11?
https://www.instagram.com/batemanjames11/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamie-bateman-5359a811/
https://labradorlending.com/about/

TME 07 | Trump's Wealth Strategies for 2025 (and How to Apply Them Today)

In this episode, Seth Bradley breaks down the financial landscape following the 2024 election, focusing on what to expect under Donald Trump’s anticipated presidency. Seth Bradley shares an optimistic outlook on how Trump’s return could stimulate the U.S. economy, creating new wealth-building opportunities in real estate, private equity, and emerging markets. Throughout the discussion, Seth Bradley explains key strategies for taking advantage of Trump’s pro-business agenda, including deregulation, tax incentives, and renewed support for American manufacturing.
Seth Bradley also highlights the importance of proactive investing in high-potential sectors such as real estate, capital raising, and cryptocurrencies to capitalize on the upcoming economic shift. By emphasizing increased investment activity, network-building, and leveraging favorable regulations, Seth Bradley provides a clear roadmap for maximizing returns while managing risks in this evolving financial environment.
Links to Watch and Subscribe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFD3v9ERpNI&list=PLSfheWyV7beFqERLX4ebBUJ4SmzmF6z8e&index=3\
Bullet Point Highlights:
Pro-Business Environment: Trump’s presidency is expected to create a pro-business atmosphere with decreased government intervention.
Deregulation and Opportunities: Anticipated deregulation will likely open up new financial avenues and incentivize investment in real estate.
Real Estate Boom: A predicted resurgence in real estate investment is positioned as one of the most lucrative opportunities during Trump’s term.
Capital Raising Simplified: Reduced scrutiny on capital raising will facilitate more investment opportunities for entrepreneurs and investors.
Tax Benefits Forecast: The return of substantial tax incentives, including retroactive bonus depreciation, will benefit real estate investors significantly.
Crypto as a Key Component: The speaker notes the potential for increased investment in cryptocurrencies, positioning it as an essential part of modern investment strategies.
Building a Network: Emphasis on establishing a strong investor network preemptively to capitalize on emerging opportunities in the evolving economic landscape.
Transcript:
(Seth Bradley)
the election is over and guess what you're still not wealthy and you're still not in Nazi Germany but Donald Trump is about to make a lot of people rich and I plan on being one of them if you're smart you will too whether you love him or you hate him there's one thing you can't deny when he's in office the economy moves money shifts New Opportunities open up and old ones disappear and if you know where to look you can set yourself up to win big in 25 so I'm going to break down exactly how I plan to capitalize on Trump's return
 
from real estate investing to Capital raising to attx strategies so you can get ahead of the game and build some serious wealth let's get into it all right let's start with the big picture if Trump is in office this is what you can expect deregulation and business growth Trump has always been Pro business pro- entrepreneur and anti-g a that means less government interference fewer roadblocks for businesses and a pro capitalist environment expect them to cut funding to agencies like the SEC the IRS and
 
other regulatory bodies that slow down investment and deal making so also expect more tax incentives for small businesses investors and real estate developers and of course tariffs right America First manufacturing Trump has made it very clear he's bringing Manufacturing back to the US expect tffs on China Mexico and other foreign producers forcing companies to reinvest in American infrastructure factories and real estate so what does that mean that means more demand for industrial real estate warehouses and Logistics hubs
 
right here in the US and guess who's already looking at those opportunities this guy next think about stock market volatility private Market opportunity things like that the stock market will always be a roller coaster investors will Panic foreign economies will overreact to tariffs and our economy will overreact to Mean Tweets but the real money it's going to be in the private markets real estate funds direct Investments small businesses smart investors will pull money out of the stock market and put it into hard assets
 
and that's where the real opportunity is let's talk specifics next now that we know what's coming let's talk about where the money is moving and how I'm going to capitalize number one of course real estate real estate is about to explode again Trump is a real estate guy he's going to bring back policies to favor investors I'm calling it now 100% bonus depreciation is coming back and it'll be retroactive that means massive tax writeoffs for Real Estate Investors making syndication funds and Commercial properties even
 
more attractive Trump will push for more opportunity zones making it easier to defer and reduce capital gains taxes by investing in you know it real estate and we're going to see lower regulation which means easier development faster approvals and more investor-friendly lending so what am I doing doubling down on multif family things like self storage and especially industrial real estate also raising Capital raising Capital aggressively to get in before the next wave of incentives positioning myself to capitalize on tax advantages
 
while everyone else plays catchup that's the key start thinking about your real estate play now number two raising Capital will be easier than ever under Trump trump will likely gut the sec's budget of course he's already doing it now which means less scrutiny on private Capital raising more capital is going to flow into the private Equity markets syndications and alternative assets fewer restrictions on fundraising advertising and deal structuring those sorts of things and institutional investors will reallocate big money to
 
private markets as the economy shifts so what am I doing specifically scaling up my Capital raising strategies for these syndications for funds for fun to funds using especially 506c offerings to publicly Market deals and attract accredited investors and positioning funds to take in institutional Capital that's going to be fleeing the stock market and that volatility and getting into the private markets and number three a lot of people hate him for this but it's true and it's going to happen happen the rich get richer so you better
 
play the game to win Trump won so expect major tax cuts for businesses and investors in a pro capitalism Market expect lower corporate tax rates more deductions for business owners and a friendlier tax code for those who actually know how to use it he'll defund the IRS and possibly eliminate it all together we'll see he's talked about the external Revenue Service replacing it we'll see but anyways less audits less enforce less aggressiveness from the IRS if it even exists anymore this will favor
 
business owners investors in high net worth individuals so what am I doing structuring my investments to take full advantage of bonus depreciation and tax loopholes using cost segregation studies to maximize tax deductions on real estate and remember it's highly likely predicting it now 100% bonus depreciation will be restored and on top of that be retroactive to the previous few years so I'll be advising High net worth investors on how to legally keep more of their money number four investing in
 
crypto and Bitcoin Trump is pro crypto and creating massive tax shelters and deregulating this will be the perfect storm for another crypto Bull Run so start setting some money aside for crypto it's got to be part of your portfolio get educated make sure you know what you're doing invest wisely and again make it a major part of your portfolio moving forward and if you're still playing by the old rules W2 income stock market Investments zero tax strategy you're going to get left behind that's all all right so here's what I'm
 
doing right now to prepare number one stacking up capital for real estate deals before these policies actually shift number two building a bigger investor Network because when the floodgates open it's going to be too late I've got to be ready I've got to build that Network number three structuring my business entities to take full advantage of tax benefits number four focusing on Industrial real estate and always multif family as well because if Trump brings back us manufacturing that's where the
 
Gold Rush will be number five using my legal and investment expertise to help investors navigate and win in this new economy huge help you guys out along the way number six investing in Bitcoin and crypto crypto As Trump is pro crypto and creating massive tax shelters deregulating is going to be huge look guys this is not about politics it's about understanding how money moves and positioning yourself now ahead of time to get ahead of the curve so here's the deal you can either sit back you can let
 
this opportunity pass you can let everybody catch up you can sit on the sidelines and let things happen let it pass you by or you can get in the game right now if you're serious about raising capital Capital investing in real estate and multiplying more of your money in 2025 let's talk drop a comment hit that subscribe button and follow along because I'm going to be breaking down exactly how to play this game in real time let's go get it
 
Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFD3v9ERpNI&list=PLSfheWyV7beFqERLX4ebBUJ4SmzmF6z8e&index=3
 
https://www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq/posts/pfbid0YM2q1WNHabhysUrF6eSRyeGFHErEFG88pFgxsjQjgxcuXpBMwndSRXJkVYUR4APal
 
https://www.instagram.com/p/DGBUz4uzg-m/
https://x.com/sethbradleyesq/status/1890086851630997992
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/sethbradleyesq_trumpeffect-donaldtrump-wealthbuilding-activity-7295852153070333952-p_px?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAAKVay0BMf-qnL2v6W-30PvVRZnCs0eCFQU
https://x.com/sethbradleyesq
https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq
www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq
https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq
https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/
https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/
https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq
https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq
https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en
 

RTBL 02 | The Truth About Capital Raising That Your Attorney Won’t Tell You with Devin Robinson

In this episode of the Funds on Fire podcast, host Devin Robinson interviews Seth Bradley, a seasoned SEC attorney and long-time friend. Together, Devin Robinson and Seth Bradley share powerful insights into the world of capital raising, investment funds, and legal compliance.
Seth Bradley discusses his extensive experience as an SEC attorney, highlighting the key legal frameworks that govern fund formation and capital raising. Devin Robinson reflects on his own background in raising millions for real estate ventures, and with Seth Bradley, explores the value of maintaining compliance with SEC regulations when sourcing investor capital.
Throughout the episode, Seth Bradley clarifies common misconceptions surrounding securities law and emphasizes the importance of investor education, particularly for those involved in passive investments and syndications. He also offers actionable advice on launching investment funds, collaborating with experienced SEC attorneys, and navigating the evolving trends in alternative investments amid changing market conditions.
Seth Bradley concludes by stressing the importance of diversity in investment management and the need for entrepreneurs from all backgrounds to gain access to financial education that empowers them to raise capital, scale their ventures, and build sustainable wealth.
Links to watch and subscribe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-w_w6WAUVw
Bullet Point Highlights:
Capital Raising Insights: Devin Robinson shares his journey in successfully raising millions for investment projects.
Legal Compliance Importance: Seth Bradley emphasizes the significance of understanding SEC regulations to avoid legal troubles in fund management.
Fund Management Strategies: Discussion on navigating funds, from 506(b) to 506© offerings, providing clarity on compliance requirements.
Education Gaps: The necessity for education in the finance and investment space is underscored, highlighting the lack of resources for aspiring fund managers.
Diversity in Investment: Recognition of the disparity in investment opportunities for minorities and the importance of fostering diversity in fund management.
Trends in Capital Raising: A shift towards fund-of-funds structures and other innovative investment vehicles as alternatives to traditional capital raising models.
Confidence Building: Advice encouraging newcomers in investment to be confident and educated, asserting their place in the industry.
Transcript:
raised tens of millions of dollars myself as well as um you know we purchased just in 2022 Alone um I was a GP on over $120 Million worth of commercial assets we don't want to say anything that might get us into trouble you know I'm I'm an entrepreneur first so I'm out there to to educate it started going down you started seeing some people get in trouble but all along the way on that rise up he's suing anybody because they've been getting their returns and they've been everybody's been crushing it and even if
 
you're a terrible operator you've still been crushing it because the market saved you and nobody's getting sued so it's all good until it's not welcome to funds on fire the podcast that ignites The Passion of investment funds in capital raising here we turn the complexities of fund management into clear actionable steps that drive results I've invested into diverse real estate across the United States and managed thriving funds and I'm committed to transforming lives through the vehicle of investment funds and helping
 
others to do the same join me as we document the Journey of scaling businesses raising capital and impacting tens of thousands of people around the world my name is Devin Robinson and welcome to funds on fire on this episode of the podcast I actually interview Seth Bradley who is an SEC attorney and has become a really good friend of mine so him and I met a couple years back at raay Fest and which is we're part of a mastermind for Capital raising and fun launching and then both of us as we've become friends
 
as we did this podcast interview gosh a couple of months ago and then now I've launched the podcast and even since then this is pretty cool him and I have actually started a partnership on um on helping people to launch uh manage scale and raise capital for investment funds and it's something really cool so you'll hear more about that later but it's really cool that it started uh with this podcast we both are very like-minded people we both have very similar goals and desires especially when it comes to
 
Capital raising and the access to information with when it comes to that and for other people to be able to learn how to um honestly be able to launch and scale an investment fund and there are so many people that have the ability to do it have the um the skills and the knowledge to do it but don't have the opportunity to do it or honestly just think it's too hard to do and so I'm so excited because partnering with somebody like Seth is incredible he's a guy who has helped hundreds of people to launch
 
and manage their funds or would just really launch their funds he has raised hundreds of millions of dollars and invested into hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of real estate himself and so to be able to partner with him on something like this is really really awesome so I'm excited for that as we talked through his journey talk through all the things as we go through his progression from just being a real estate attorney to then an SEC attorney that goes and helps people to launch and manage funds his involvement
 
in that some of the things he's doing and honestly it's going to be a really good conversation for you all to hear how to stay compliant how to make sure that you guys are raising Capital appropriately how to make sure that you guys aren't going to get in trouble with the SEC because of how you guys are raising Capital so excited for this really pumped for this episode just thought I'd give you a little preface before we dive in you are going to want to listen to this cuz he is awesome and I'm excited so thank you so much enjoy
 
the episode all right what's up and welcome to this episode of funds on fire I I love this uh because today we have a friend of mine Seth Seth we go back I don't know like at this point I feel like it's like two years now or a year and a half what we met at Ray's Fest a while ago and I'll tell you I was super impressed by this dude because we met we met at a bar we were like at this event we had guess us that's right that's exactly right we were at this event for Ray Fest and like I'd gone downstairs he was
 
chilling I was chilling we started talking and I was like I like this dude because one he's not like the typical like white dude that's here he's all tatted up he's really cool and then I realized he's by far the smartest in the room and I was like yo Seth is the man so Seth I would love for people to tell or for you to tell people like who you are and what you do I've enjoyed keeping up with you over the years content you're putting out is incredible and so if you haven't give this man a follow
 
ESP if you want to stay compliant with funds and the legal aspect of it cuz he's doing some really awesome stuff and I love how just like fit you and your Wi-Fi that's pretty cool too so I respect that too so Seth like tell people who you are where you're from what do you do cuz I think it's going to be important for people to know you all right man Deon I appreciate that intro brother yeah it was it was great meeting you back in the day now we've kind of followed each other on social media and
 
kept in contact and loved it love it man love it but I'm I'm a Securities attorney so anytime you're raising capital from passive investors you can get me involved I've got I've got the pedigree I worked in big law for seven years before starting my own Boutique Law Firm I think what people like the most about working with me is that I actually come from the business side as well so I'm a syndicator and a fund manager myself so um you know I've raised tens of millions of dollars myself as well as um you know we
 
purchased just in 2022 Alone um I was a GP on over $120 Million worth of commercial assets so you know I come from not just the legal side but also the business side and I look at every single deal like you know whether I'm you know actually an equity holder or I am just the vendor as the Securities attorney I look at the deal like hey how are we going to get this thing done right a lot of attorneys kind of get in the way um I don't want to get in the way I I will tell you what the risks are what your liabilities are what you might
 
be opening yourself up to what the gray areas are but at the end of the day you're the business person and you're the entrepreneur so you make the decisions based on the information that I give you so I'm I'm there to help you you get the deal done that's cool man cuz like I know man there's a lot of misconceptions about funds and so one I can tell you I really appreciate I really appreciate you because I have had some not so great SEC attorneys that I was not a big fan of then I've had some good ones and so I'm thankful for it and
 
so when it comes to that uh we're going to we're going to talk about compliance because that's super important but we'll also talk about uh because I I I guess so I'm in another Mastermind I think I was going to bring this up a little bit later but I'll bring it up now and I want to talk about the importance of finding a good attorney because like I I'm in a different Mastermind and it's more of an operators based Mastermind like how to a lot of single family things and I I talk to people and I'm like and because I'm
 
going to set the groundwork for this podcast but I talk to people and they're like oh yeah I've got some friends they've let me borrow some of their money and I'm just using that money and I'm like oh hold on uh what do you mean and so I talked to like I mean I can't tell you the last po I was there two months ago three people told me this said three people and so they were like they were like yeah so I have an LLC and they wire the money into my LLC account it's like three or four friends they
 
wire this money into my LLC account and then I use it and I give them a return and I'm like you need to call an attorney right now because you are literally violating Securities Law like you you you are and they're like wait wait wait okay but but what if what if they they say we we sign up you know a promisory note they put it in here and I'm like security and then they're like okay but what if that the the the people hold it an escrow our attorney is holding an escrow I'm like security and so like just to even like set the
 
groundwork what is like what what is a security and and and what do you see most often when people come to you and they're looking for an attorney and they're like hey I'm doing this is this legal and you're like no that's not legal but what do you see like what is the security and what is the misconception or the mistake that you see a lot of people make when they come to you yeah I mean you just said it so the number one problem or the the biggest problem I see every single day is just the lack of knowledge like
 
people just don't know and there's there's maybe a fine line there between not knowing and not caring enough to know right exactly you're like I know I'm doing something here and I don't care to look into it a little bit further to figure it out but that's but that's really what it comes down to is just not having the knowledge because you think like you know I'm just going to you know me and this guy are going to partner he's going to give me all this money and they're not going to do anything and they're going to they're
 
going to expect a return on their investment and all that kind of stuff and it's all good but it's not you're getting yourself into into issues you know to define a security in a in layman's terms I like to just say look if you've got a passive investor involved in your deal and they're expecting a return on their money and on the actions that you're taking as the active participant then that's a security and that that's it like if if you have a passive investor meaning they're not you know making decisions
 
they're not managing they're not helping you out on the active side that's a passive investor and you're probably dealing with the security right and this is what I think separates like syndication from the fund right so like if you have a syndication and then you have somebody who is brings the capital typically they're making some of the decisions which makes them a little bit more active so then it's not in that sense of violating that Securities laws if it's just either like one person or even a couple a group that's actually
 
making decisions on that and I guess that's not the main differentiator between a syndication and and a fund but I think that's where people get confused is the passive part of things that's right that's right it's the passive part of it right like you have people that come in whether it's a syndication or a fund if if they have um some sort of managerial rights or meaningful voting rights because you'll see if you if you invest passively in a deal and you read through the PPM and the operating
 
agreement you'll see that you really don't have any rights to make any sort of decisions there might be some convoluted way that you might be able to get the manager out if a b c d and f happens but probably not so you'll see that you're really passive right and if you're passive then that's a security that you're dealing with you're investing into security cool that's cool and I appreciate us understanding that groundwork because I want people to listen to this I want people in my Mastermind to listen to this I want
 
people to just hear and understand that more often times like more than you think there are people clearly violating SEC like security law and so I just want to make sure that people are compliant and this is like you mentioned it earlier and I think that's really important is just the lack of Education side of things and you and I talk about that we talked about this before this of like really there's only like two main Educators in this space that are doing this and unless you know those two you
 
run the risk of not really being honestly educated enough to run a fund unless you have the self-education side of these and so I love like what you're doing and the content you're putting out especially from a Securities attorney aspect to be able to help that what what have you seen has been like the main sources of Education because even just like outside of what I do outside of what you do uh are there other sources of Education since you've been in this space longer than me that people can go to to gain more
 
information about what it looks like to raise a fund or uh or even start looking in that direction yeah dude it's tough out there right like you just you just said it and I I'll just name him I mean Hunter Thompson has some really good content that he puts out love Hunter super intelligent guy great stuff it's about raising Capital 4 real estate specifically which is great for the for your audience um and then Bridger Pennington of course um his is a little bit not necessarily real estate related
 
more in the private Equity space but also real estate sometimes and those are really the only two guys that are putting out content um typically before them you're really getting your education from your securities attorney that you engage with you know that can you know they're going to give you legal advice they're not going to give you kind of like you know they they'll review your marketing materials and things like that to tell you hey this is compliant this is not maybe this is what you should do this is what you shouldn't
 
do but there's not really anything comprehensive out there where you put the whole package together when you're really trying to start a capital raising business other than those two guys right now so you know there's a lot of room in that space for people to to step in and do it and and also you know Securities attorneys if you look I mean there's only a few of us putting out any kind of content cuz you know as an attorney most most of us are pretty conservative we don't want to put ourselves out there we
 
don't want to say anything that might get us into trouble you know I'm I'm an entrepreneur first so I'm out there to to educate and that's what I was going to ask so for you man just like a little bit about your journey because like it's not every day that you meet a a Securities attorney now granted we are at a fund event so then like of course you're going to run into a Securities attorney but like honestly you you I feel like and this is kind of cool I feel like me and you don't fit the molds
 
of our role like for like we're tatted like you know like you know I'm saying we're tatted we're a little bit more laid-back I got I think I posted this the other day I graduated college with a 2.3 GPA like I I just am not very qualified of what you would put the normal qual qualifications of a fund manager would be but for you like for you how did you get started and like what Drew you to Securities Law cuz it's a very specific Niche to be in for sure yeah and I really got started in real estate law so I was always drawn to real
 
estate I just knew it was a great investment I've just like intrinsically loved real estate I don't know what it was like even when I was in undergrad I was like man it would be so great to own these tow houses that I'm living in like things like that I've just always been attracted to it and investing in it so I started investing in it myself I started out doing real estate transactional law oh cool from that from that perspective and then I realized that you know raising Capital was a little bit more
 
sophisticated I I like that aspect better and I started gravitating towards that and got into Securities Law and and again at the same time as I was doing that I was also starting to Syndicate my own deal so um pretty interesting that I got kind of the legal side got the business side going at the same time so it gave me really good perspective that's cool so you talked about your journey a little bit I love like diving into that Journey because you you said that you you were in on some of your own
 
deals so you started as real estate attorney chop that like started doing that were you like a closing attorney yeah yeah okay so like a closing attorney uh and then started did you get to a point where you're like yo I see all this money that people are making I kind of want to do that is that how it like switched into you becoming an active investor into real estate uh yeah somewhat man I mean I took kind of the traditional route of real estate investing I read Rich Dad Poor Dad I started listening to Big Pockets the
 
purple Bible you know it man what it is um yeah did all that and house hacked into a duplex I mean that was my first property started fixing and flipping a few few property still own some single family those sorts of things um and then you're San Diego right I'm in San Diego yeah but I'm originally from West Virginia West Virginia West by God Virginia that's right all right I mean like I feel like if you I feel like if you're from there you would say something like that that does make sense that does make that's the say that's
 
what we say West by God Virginia no I don't know anything about V West Virginia but now but now I do so now do you own some of your properties in in very two very different markets West Virginia or San Diego is that like where you own them or are you in other markets they're all over the place so like we invested I lived in Charlotte for a little bit like you know so own a couple properties there own a property in West Virginia that duplex that I was telling you about cuz I moved there for a job really you know California is
 
tough like to make anything cash flow there's some Adu opportunities right now for that but really just own the house that I live in then I have a condo that I rent out up in Orange County and that's about it but the other ones are all kind of all over the place like we invested in Cleveland for a little bit as well oh yeah some multi family stuff in Cleveland that that was kind of in the single family phase but as far as like the multif family the retail a lot of that was like in the midwest um in
 
the in the um in the sun sun Bel area so all over the place and we did like industrial we did retail we did multif family um all all sorts of stuff man on the commercial side and it's good to know that background for you like not that background but like you had the ability to understand and how to structure some of those deals um and so I'd love to I'd love to talk about the structure of funds a little bit because this is sure I'm going to as the question that I think like everybody wants to ask an SEC attorney about the
 
difference between a 506b and a 506c and then what constitutes like having that pre-existing relationship right because like if you have a 506b or a 506c there's certain stipulations but those are the two most common right like 90% of funds are 506 BS or 506 C's and so and if I'm wrong just just let me know but I believe that's like the statistic and and with those what constitutes the differences and then the pre-existing relationship part is one that a lot of people have questions about for sure man
 
yeah you're spot on so far I mean 506b I like to Remember by buddy so it's typically going to be a buddy right like yeah you have to have so the rule isn't that you have to have a pre-existing substantive relationship the rule is you're not allowed to solicit or advertise that's the rule and the way that you show that is by having a pre-existing substantive relationship with those investors so that that's a little bit of a Nuance there the rule is really you can't or advertised you can't go on Facebook and talk about it you
 
can't take out Google ads and and put it out there you can't even talk about it really to strangers and invite them into your deals you have to have that pre-existing substantive relationship because otherwise think about it well how would they know about your deal if you didn't right like that's that's kind of the the mindset there so yeah be but the the advantage there of course is that you're allowed to bring in 35 non-accredited investors so that's why people go with the 506b route number one
 
you can bring in a limited number of non-accredited investors uh number two there's there's less requirements for you as the uh fund manager or the syndicator the capital raiser on proving if they're accredited or not because they just self-certify so those are really the two big reasons you would choose a 506b versus a 506c which you can remember that by community so it's a bigger pool of people all right it's 506c for Community those folks when you have that exemption then you can go out there to your community you can solicit
 
you can advertise you can put it on Facebook you can put it out there in your m mind you go speak on stage and say hey guys come invest in my deal you can do whatever you want really it gives you the freedom to operate and not feel like oh am I doing something wrong but obviously the big thing there is accredited investors only so if you choose that 6C exemption you're only allowed to bring in accredited investors and they're all you're also going to have to take reasonable steps to verify that and that's typically through uh a
 
third party vendor or through that Investor's attorney or uh CPA that's going to write them a letter that says that they're qualified yeah which typically and you and not typically but like this is why you see even older more established funds go with a B because it's easier to just bring them in so they don't have to do all that stuff yeah what you see is they'll do a 506b but they won't allow uh non accredited investors in so it'll be 506b but only allow accredited investors so that they don't have to they don't they can
 
self-certify yeah which is makes it just a whole lot easier of paperwork standpoint so then uh that's which is really really interesting so for for me and I'm actually I'm going to just dive in a little bit deeper because there's so much gray here and like you can it's fine if you don't bring any like Clarity to the situation but there's so much gray here because I hear people that are like all right now when you meet that person add it to your calendar that you met that person and then you could talk
 
to them three weeks later and then like then you could pitch your fun to them and then like then now you're showing the SEC that it's a a pre-existing relationship and then it's like well where the heck is the line if there isn't even a line and then it's like then then what do they what is the expect me to do you know like if somebody introduces me to somebody how the heck do I make sure that I'm compliant in that in that relationship that we have if I know that they even come into the relationship interested in
 
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start again that's funds onf fire.com Founders or click the link in the notes now let's get back to the show yeah uh pre-existing uh actually just means pre-existing the offering so pre-existing your syndication pre-existing your fund so that makes it a little bit difficult when you've got let's say an evergreen fund right it's like well you got that offering open forever right so you can't even bring anybody in after you've opened it um that you don't already know but there is a there is a kind of a loophole I'll
 
call it it's not really a loophole it's it's actually a regulation but you can actually convert um a 506b to a 506c now you didn't used to be able to do that but I think that pass um maybe like two or three years ago where you can convert the 506b to the 506c now you can't go back after that but once you make that conversion you know get all your 506b investors in if you want to fill that 35 non accredited pool and then convert it to a see you can do that and then you can go out you can solc it you can
 
advertise you can talk about it you can bring in strangers yeah now that's really interesting too well and I do know that I think you just have to close subscription for like 24 hours right or something like that and then you can open back up you really just have yeah there's not really a Time requirement you'll hear something you you'll hear where there's like a cooling off period and they'll say 30 days 60 days but it really just comes down to closing that first offering because it's separate
 
that 506 B exemption offering and then opening that new C offering and just to be safe because again we're dealing with Securities it's always gray maybe give it that 30 days to cool off and then open up that 506c and then you're good to go and you have to refile like a form D and everything like that you do okay you do okay cool I wonder if you're your blue skies you can use the same documents but You' need a new form D yeah okay cool all right very interesting so that's cool to know too so I use a platform and I think we've
 
talked about it briefly called aester and I'm a big fan because it's a customizable fund they actually don't I think because of the nature of the customizable fund they actually said that I can't close down my be and open back up as a c just by nature of that type of fund and I thought that was really interesting and I know you and I have talked about potentially chopping up like what the heck is the I I think I sent you the stuff for it I can't remember but uh yeah I think so yeah talking about that customizable fund
 
because it sounds like um you know there's different fund models there's um there are the reg d506 B and C's there's reg CF reg A's and then you also run into like syndications and then you have fun of funds right and so it sounds like and for you you've kind of done all of them I think oh yeah but right now you're really focused on one major one right is that what you like so the fund that you currently operate and you're running uh I'd love to hear a little bit more about that yeah for sure so just to
 
comment on the the aester fund you know it's it's a kind of a new product right the customizable fund it's pretty new it hasn't really been tested on the legal side quite yet it's pretty complicated right like complicated from well what it spits out is simple right they say Hey you create this Evergreen fund and then you get you know each investor only gets 1 K1 even though they might be invested across a bunch of deals things like that which is great um but you lose that flexibility so I don't know the the
 
intricacies of it but you know you can imagine you've got this this customizable fund that's invested in let's say 10 different other deals or whatever and some of them it's acting as a fun of fund some of them it's acting as u a lead sponsor or all these different things so trying to convert that to a 506b from a or 506b to a 506c I can see where you can run into some complications there it might not be possible yeah and I think so because the structure sorry the structure of it they tell me what makes it customizable is
 
the fact that like our investors can log in and I don't actually like I have an overarching PPM they log in and they choose the their investment that they want to I'm not telling them the investment that they have to like invest into they read the deal disclosures and decide decide that that's what they want where they want to allocate their money to which allows for for the customizability of this type of model so I think like that's where converting it to a c would be yeah what you're saying for sure y that's that's kind of the
 
defining I guess piece of that customizable fund is that investor actually gets to pick and choose within your fund that you created where they invest um and that actually I can see where that why they do that I mean it's a it's a great concept but also that keeps you from actually making any decisions as the fund manager so that keeps you out of some certain regulations I'm like hey this is what we offer yep you can look at the deal disclosures and decide on where you want but like they could and this is like one
 
of the things that they like is I can say oh you could you could essentially diversify your portfolio within one fund because you could choose this one this one this one this one but you choose how much you want to go into there so that's that is a very interesting model and so that's really cool um or like yeah the investor chooses it yep the investor chooses it and yeah and and I'll you know that contrast to what you're alluding to which is an SPV fund of fund so that's what we do over at tribe vest
 
in full disclosure I'm Chief legal officer and a and a shareholder of tribe vest um so I'm a little bit biased and aester is you know we don't like to call him a competitor honestly they do fund of funds and we do fund of funds is like the overarching product but it's completely different you know one situation which why I brought it up it's the only reason why I brought it up because I'm excited to dive into tribe vest and what you guys offer um because this is not a pitch for tribe vest and like I didn't even know about I did know
 
I've heard of trivest but didn't even know you were a part of it before this podcast but I love hearing what you're a part of and that's why I want to dive into that a little bit because I think it's cool yeah and I like it it it might be a good to kind of lay it out right you've got these customizable fun of funds out there avor is really the only one offering them there's a couple other uh groups out there that are going to be offering them soon you can actually go to a Securities attorney and they can
 
put it together for you as well um and yeah and then you've got the SPV fun of fund again you can go through triest or you can SPV just for clarity special right special purpose vehicle or single purpose vehicle kind of either either one really applies then you've got your typical discretionary fund which you would go directly to a Securities attorney and that's where you're actually making some decisions you're saying okay I'm going to raise 10 million bucks and I'm going to invest in Deal one two three four five six seven
 
eight um and you're kind of making those decisions and there's a lot of rules and regulations that you've got to abide by to be able to do that without a license but anyways back to the SPV the single-purpose vehicle instead of a customizable fund where you know the investor is making the decision and you as the fund manager in you know you make all these different things Avail all these different Investments available the SPV is designed as a single purpose vehicle to invest in one single deal so
 
if there's a Target deal let's say a 200 unit multif family property in San Antonio um we're going to spin up an SPV for you to invest as a passive investor into that Target deal and that's it it's super simple it's super contained it's not complicated it it just keeps everything compartmentalized both from an asset protection standpoint and from visibility right you're going to know as the fund manager and as the investor exactly what you're investing in what you're how you're going to get paid what
 
your projective returns are and it doesn't really get mudded by other Investments and this is what I CU I've talked to other SEC attorneys and they've talked about it's funny they've talked about how rare what I've done so I've like maxed out my 506b on a my first fund being a blind fund and they were like that's super rare because you're saying hey just trust me but what you guys are saying what you're doing is saying hey this is the specific and that makes it a lot easier to raise Capital because like you said ton more
 
transparency they know what they're investing into and so for people starting out that's probably the route that they want to start with is something where they can bring transparency and then the investors that they're coming in know exactly what they're investing into that's right de yeah what you did Devon was incredible like it's really difficult to do most people don't start there they can't start there they don't have the ability to um to be able to build that up that level of trust and track record prior to
 
you launching the fund that's why you're able to do it but most people can't do it most people have to get their first few in the door by showing the investors hey this is the exact deal that you're going to invest in and you're getting you're going to be a part of and they can do their own due diligence and underwriting and those sorts of things and they're say oh yes I believe in that property or that deal and I also believe in you as the the fund manager or the syndicator and it's easier to raise
 
Capital that way as opposed to a blind pool fund where it's like hey just give me your money and we're going to invest in something that looks like this and yeah exactly exactly so I actually I want to dive into more into tribe vests cuz like so where does the benefit come in because like somebody can just go and get with an SEC attorney and create their own SPV and and kind of go that route but where's the benefit of somebody coming in and working with tribe vest like why I mean honestly like I please I like tell me like why have
 
you invested into it why do you believe in it so much and then yeah tell me a little bit more about it man yeah because it it just makes everything super simple and super contained and we handle everything so if you go to an SEC attorney like myself I'm going to come in and I'm going to I'm going to draft your offering documents I'm going to file your exemptions do your blue sky filings and that's it and I I'm going to wipe my hands of it and I'll say you know good luck you know more than that I'll help you out of yeah exactly I'm
 
going to charge you a lot of money I'm going to charge you at least 25k right Tri vest includes everything that you could possibly imagine so all these different parts that you would have to put together as a capital aggregator TR vest handles so that includes not just the offering documents the legal stuff the filing of the exemptions and the blue sky filings but we're going to file for your entity we're going to get your EIN we're going to be your registered agent we are going to uh onboard your
 
investors so we're going to act like an like an investor relations person on your team so all you do is send us your list of investors and we start reaching out we send them the docs we walk them through how to sign and get them through the signing ceremony we hound them or we call it hurting the cats to get them to actually fund the deal cuz sometimes people get cold feet so bug the hell out of them yep bug the hell out of them until they make that wire we do all that we do the uh the accounting in your k1s
 
we configure your cap table very cool we do your distributions we open your business banking account we do uh everything on the back end uh we've got the investor dashboard or investor portal that you can use which alone is you know you're going to pay $500 a month at minimum for that by itself so it it's incredible and we do it at an incredible price and I mean we're not we're very transparent about that it's $5,000 upfront and then $2,000 a year annually and that comes with docs and everything that comes with docks and
 
everything there's just you can't be beat I mean it literally can't be beat and the other thing is the speed so as soon as you sign the greenl docks which is basically just like hey you agree to the services that we're going to provide we will have you raising capital in five business days no way man that's really cool that's fantastic if you come to to me if you come to me as a security attorney I've got that hat on you know we're not doing in 5 days I'll tell you that now how much education do you help
 
with because I tell people all the time like here's the questions you should have beforehand because your SEC like your attorney will be the most expensive education you have ever paid for if you don't have that information beforehand so like what what type of because they'll charge you like if you don't know if you want a 506b or 506 C you don't know if you if you want your waterfall this way if you want this and you're just asking questions they're going to charge you by the hour to ask those questions and so for you like how
 
much help do you guys help for people who are like I've never started a fund I'm really looking forward to starting this but I don't know where to go what does that look like for you guys yeah I mean for tribe vest we're putting together some modules actually right now we're going to roll them out literally before the end of the year which will be fantastic because we're going to share that with with the world you're going to be able to self-educate on what is a fun to fund how does that look like in the
 
fundraising ecosystem like you know what is a preferred return what is the profits what kind of fees can you charge all kind of the nuts and bolts that you need to know we're going to have that out there so soon enough that'll be available to the public and that'll be a huge value ad and huge help for us as well because we don't have to educate one-on-one anymore as a Securities attorney I I will advise on people I mean I'm I'm happy I'm I'm more of a mentor and a coach when it comes to that sort of stuff and I'll I'll be like look
 
attorney hat off right now I'm going to tell you this and here's kind of your gray area and that sort of thing so you know I I I think I get into those sorts of things a little bit more than most attorneys will um but if you go to like a a large Law Firm or even a regional Law Firm they're they're going to charge you per hour and that's going to be anywhere between you know $400 to $1,500 an hour yeah there's no doubt there's there's no doubt so and this is really interesting because one of the questions
 
that I had just going into this um and not even knowing about uh the not even knowing about tribe vest and and all of that is what have you seen as far as like trends that you're seeing in the industry right now because Trends seem to be changing one just even I I'm a disruptor you're it seems like you're a disruptor of Industries and we're trying to disrupt this huge investment fund industry um but it seems like there's being like there's different type of offerings there different structures there's different
 
things that people are doing what are some of the trends that you're seeing that people are kind of pressing against or starting in as far as funds as a whole you seeing that being the case of being become more common yeah I mean so like biggest picture right is trying to get these types of alternative Investments to the masses because most wealthy people even rich people whatever you want to call them that have some Expendable income that want to invest the only thing they know are 401ks stock market mutual funds
 
and those sorts of things and they we just need to get that out there and I think you're seeing a trend towards that I think bringing in more people that want to raise capital and start a capital raising business is how you do it right because they've already got their built-in networks and then those networks know other people and and it kind of spiderwebs out from there so that's that's kind of the biggest picture trend is just trying to see well we're seeing you know alternative investments just become more available
 
to the masses second you're seeing the industry go away from the CP model which I like to say the cgp model is dead and you're seeing people turn to the fun of funds route yeah because the cgp model has just been abused if you do it the right way if you're actually an active partner and you're actually participating in the meetings and and decid on Asset Management typee decisions then all good that's how it's supposed to be but when you're just raising capital and not doing anything else that's when the CP model gets
 
abused and it's not just oh well you shouldn't do that it's illegal it's plain and simple illegal so that was like the conversation I'm telling you when um I was having the conversation with that guy at my at my Mastermind and he was like we're doing this and I go like stop and he's like haa and I go no no it's illegal and he's like oh haha and I'm like no no like prison illegal and they I feel like just people don't understand the severity because they feel like what's wrong with it it's not that bad and it's like no no it's
 
illegal yeah and you know that this is just what happens right like you just kind of everybody just pushes boundaries pushes boundaries and you know fortunately or unfortunately however you want to look at it the industry's been fantastic for a long time right the real estate industry's went up since the the crash in 2009 2008 all the way until really covid and that was just a blip and then it took off again and then B basically up until last year 2023 is when you started seeing it kind of take
 
a nose dive a little bit because of interest rates and not because of the actual state of the market but the interest rates but either way it started going down you started seeing some people get in trouble but all along the way on that rise up all the investors have been happy he's suing anybody because they've been getting their returns and they've been everybody's been crushing it and even if you're a terrible operator you've still been crushing it because the market saved you and nobody's getting sued so it's all
 
good until it's not and then you've seen in yeah and then you see in 2023 you see you know potential foreclosures and workouts and you know Capital calls things like that investors aren't happy and we're in America and people are like yo how can I get my money back well you try to sue somebody and that's when you start seeing some of these things where the cgp model was abused or people weren't raising Capital the right way or they didn't f exemptions all those sorts of legal things that nobody really
 
worried about because everything was great start coming up and you're you're seeing that now so you're seeing that shift away from the CP model to the fund of funds model because the fund of funds model is compliant obviously if you do it the right way but it's more compliant and it's always been the answer but at the end of the day it's expensive it's more complicated you've got more attorneys you've got a whole separate offering all these different things that you have to take into account and people
 
were like I'm not doing that but now we're kind of forced into having to do that and that's where you know tribe vest and aester and some other folks are coming in and having coming up with solutions for that yeah that's really cool um because one one more thing I'm really curious on that you've seen because I feel like there is a fairly irreg irregulate asset you know coming into a very regulated um like structure right so one the things I'm talking about is like the rise of crypto in these crypto funds and these blockchains
 
based funds have you seen that start to affect like the legal landscape of funds and the formation that people have of that and the way that people are thinking through that and even how the SEC is starting to figure that out and uh and stuff like that have you seen like an emergence of more of those blockchainbased funds I have yeah and not just like strictly you know blockchain and and crypto but also just spin-offs of that right like you saw tokenized real estate was a big thing for a little while it's kind of turned
 
down a little bit but that was huge that was like I was crazy that you could be like I'm tokenizing my my bathroom and when I sell it you get like that much of the footage and the appreciation it's like what that's crazy yeah so it's kind of cooled out a little bit you know I don't I honestly don't follow that that closely just because I know that it just changes so fast and especially now that we've got the new Administration in here you're probably going to see a lot more loosening of that which would be good
 
for us but yeah I mean you know you're going to see that right like CU we are just on the the precipice of just crazy technological advancements from tokenized Real Estate to you know crypto to AI like all this stuff is going to like this landscape 5 years from now is is going to be unrecognizable yeah that's it's it really will just because of the way that contract law is going to go from the from the from um from I guess blockchain based like because like you'll see that where the blockchain will take a lot of
 
those uh a lot of that aspect and change it and flip it on its head so it's going to be super interesting to see how that goes man I want to respect honor your time I appreciate you being on I guess one thing I guess one more question that I have before we kind of go into the exit if there's somebody that's thinking about starting a fund because what you were saying earlier really there's only two main people if I'm fully transparent I want to be able to be uh the voice of funds for minorities and women in this
 
country because like all those other they all the white dudes they could have all the other white dudes that's fine with me but there's a lot there's a there's a huge disparity I heard uh don peees once say and this has changed my my my thought my process like my mindset ever since he says in the history of America there has been $94 trillion to come in through private equity and real estate in the history of American and history of America 8.3% of that had no sorry 1.7% of that have gone to minorities and women that means 98.3% of
 
that has gone to white men and so there's this massive disparity between access to education like you're saying access to Capital Access to I think there there's this quote that says the world equally distributes talent but doesn't equally distribute opportunity and so there's this huge disparity of opportunity of people that look like me and look like you and look like women around this country that I would love to make sure we're the voice for and so for people who don't have a lot of that education one what's a big piece of
 
advice that you would give them and when they're starting to think about starting a fund because I think like if I'm full of transparency most of the people I talked to and I told you I saved from prison there were black dudes they're just trying to do the right thing but don't have the education to do the right thing and so for for that like what what's a big piece of advice you would give people that are thinking like I think I want to start a fund um what should I look out for how expensive does
 
it matter because we've talked about a better solution for how expensive it can be but what's the thing that they should be looking out for yeah I mean you know right off the bat like be confident and don't be intimidated because I think some people yep in those groups that you described might feel a little discouraged because of that because you walk into a room that is maybe all fund managers or all capital risers or you know those types of people and you're like who I don't look like everybody
 
else so maybe I don't belong here or maybe your confidence goes from here to to hear and you're like and then and then you come off that way right like you've got to you got to step into that room with confidence and a lot of a lot of that comes down to self-education right like it comes from education and it's out there now I mean we mentioned that there's only a few really good sources but you can still piece it together I mean you can find anything on YouTube University just to at least get the you know being able to talk to talk
 
and walk the walk and and feel confident doing that so just get educated to start get that Baseline and then get out there and just be be confident like I said don't be intimidated don't feel like you don't belong because we got to get folks out there that are that are doing it from from those groups yep that's right man well I appreciate it Seth where can people find you where can people hire you where can people join what you're doing um because I think that they should I'm a big believer in you and
 
what you're doing and I'm excited for for all those things appreciate it man I usually update all my Links at Seth Paul bradley.com so you can find everything there I'm all over social media so all my handles are Seth Bradley Esq cool man I appreciate you thankful for your time thankful for your friendship I really look forward to uh to Growing growing together man it's fun to see other people that like we're about the same age I don't know you look like you're in your 20s but you're you're not I know
 
that but like uh but like like for us to just rise together on this man and so I'm thankful for this journey that we're on together and I appreciate you being here today love it brother appreciate you yes sir talk to you later man wow I hope you enjoyed that I have a quick favor if you've been enjoying the show there's one simple way you can support us and it's by hitting that follow button or that subscribe button on the app app you're listening to I want to level this podcast up in every single
 
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https://pfcapital.us/
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Devin Robinson’s Links:
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TME 06 | Rare Earths to Truffles: Diversified Investments You've Never Heard Of with Louis O'Connor

In this episode of Raise the Bar Radio, Seth Bradley welcomes back international investor Louis O’Connor for an insightful discussion on diversification, rare earth metals, and a unique agricultural investment opportunity. Seth Bradley and Louis O’Connor explore the importance of global diversification, with Louis O’Connor sharing how living between Europe and Latin America provides both peace of mind and financial flexibility.
Throughout the episode, Seth Bradley dives into the geopolitical factors shaping the rare earth metals market. Louis O’Connor explains how China continues to dominate the refining process and how recent export restrictions are driving increased global demand. Together, Seth Bradley and Louis O’Connor unpack what these developments mean for investors seeking exposure to strategic commodities.
The conversation then shifts from metals to agriculture, where Louis O’Connor introduces an innovative truffle farm investment. With guidance from Seth Bradley, Louis O’Connor outlines how the project leverages agri-science and Ireland’s ideal climate to offer investors ownership of inoculated truffle trees, complete with professional farm management. Projected returns begin in years four to five and can extend up to 40 years, with potential IRRs ranging from 14% to 69% based on historical truffle prices.
Seth Bradley also explores the associated risks, including natural factors and management challenges, while Louis O’Connor explains how strong biosecurity measures and proven success records mitigate those concerns. The episode concludes with Louis O’Connor sharing a powerful mindset tip: improve by just 1% every day to compound success over time, a philosophy Seth Bradley reinforces as key to long-term investing growth.
 
Links to watch and subscribe:
https://youtu.be/9nckOKE0Jt8 
Bullet Point Highlights:
Diversification across countries and industries provides flexibility and peace of mind
China’s control of rare earth refining and export restrictions create scarcity and opportunity
Truffle farm investment offers strong IRR potential, with returns starting in years 4-5 and lasting 30-40 years
Minimum $30K investment includes 400 saplings and full farm management with a 70/30 profit split
Primary risks are mismanagement and nature, mitigated through biosecurity and replacement guarantees
Lou’s golden nugget: Focus on improving 1% daily to unlock exponential long-term growth
Transcript:
(Seth Bradley) (00:02.062)
What's up, builders? This is Raise the Bar Radio, where we talk about building wealth, raising capital, and all in all, raising the bar in your business and your life. This is the No BS podcast for capital raisers, investors, and entrepreneurs who are serious about scaling their business and living life on their own terms. I'm Seth Bradley, securities attorney, real estate investor, and entrepreneur, bringing you world-class strategies from the best in the game.
 
If you're ready to raise more capital, close bigger deals, build a better you and create true financial freedom, you're in the right place. Let's go. Lou, what's going on, brother? Welcome back to the show.
 
Thank you very much Seth. Thank you. I'm very happy to be here. Good to see you again.
 
Yeah, absolutely man. Great to catch up with you. Are you tuning in from where?
 
Well, in Europe still, you know, I'm back and forth between Ireland, Germany, mostly, a little bit of time in Panama as well, because my wife's from there, but I'm in temporary in Ireland, horse breeding country and agricultural heartland actually of Europe. And at the moment anyway, yeah, so in Europe.
 
(Seth Bradley) (01:16.664)
awesome, awesome. That's the beauty of being on a video conference call that you can talk to anyone from anywhere in the world now. That's the one good thing that came out of COVID is it made it normal to do it.
 
Yeah, it's funny, unbelievable. Just yesterday I was contacted actually by CNBC in the US, I'm in Europe, about the metals. We're not talking about metals today, but I've spoken with you before about the rare earth metals. And I guess the US chamber, secretary chamber of commerce is in China this week because China is restricting the export of certain technology metals and that's their area.
 
And within a day, there's like an hour after I speak with you, I'm doing an interview with CNBC on, I think it's Power Launch or something they call it. So it's fascinating really how quickly you can sort of ping around the globe and find somebody and do this.
 
Yeah, yeah, very cool, very cool, man. Well, thanks for taking the time to tune in with us today. And we've got a brand new thing to talk about and we'll jump into that. But before we do, just for listeners who didn't listen to your previous episode, give us a little bit about your background and your story. Just a general synopsis,
 
Sure, thank you. Yeah, so I'm obviously, you can tell from the accent, I'm Irish or Scottish or Australian, but it's Irish. And I suppose you could say I'm bit of a world traveler who has come back home specifically for this project we're going to talk about. Ireland is known as sort of the breadbasket of Europe. But yeah, I lived in Germany for 10 years, lived in Central America and traveled extensively in South America during that time.
 
(Louis O'Connor) (03:05.422)
But my niche, if you will, you know one other business we're involved in. And my niche, what I'm looking for is always what I call, I don't know what you might call it in the US, but we sort of call it a path of progress play here, which is if you sort of look at an industry or a product, what's happened in the last 10 years, or even a country or even a business for that matter, if you look at what's happened in the last 10, you can sort of
 
have a look at likely what's going to happen in the next 10. So I'm always looking for somewhere where demand is increasing and supply is either going to be limited or subject to disruption and somehow, and that's what we will be talking to an agricultural product and we'll talk more about it. But I like to be diversified in every way. So I have business in Germany, this agricultural product is in Ireland.
 
I do my banking in Belize and Panama and different parts of Europe. So just trying to be as diversified as possible.
 
Right, right. And that's part of your kind of plan as well, right? Like to be kind of this international man of mystery, right? Like you have different ties to a couple of different countries, which gives you flexibility in case something goes wrong in one of them, right? Like, you know, I think a lot of people were worried here for a while and I think it's still in the back of people's minds in the United States about, you know, the strength of the dollar and
 
You know, people were talking about getting a second citizenship and things like that. Can you speak to that a little bit about kind of, you know, how you've done that and what your kind of thoughts and feelings are around that?
 
(Louis O'Connor) (04:46.552)
Sure, sure. Well, you my feeling always has this peace of mind, you know, I just want peace of mind. I want to be at peace with myself and the world around me. that's, I mean, I'm probably talking about more philosophically and spiritually as well, but also, you know, in business or residencies or banking. I suppose it's because I left Ireland quite young and I did live.
 
I didn't just go on a vacation somewhere. lived in Germany for 10 years. I learned the language. Ireland is an island, even though we're part of Europe, continental Europe is completely different. And then I went to Latin America, which is a completely different kettle of fish altogether. And I suppose it was those experiences that the perspective that gave me was that, that sounds very simple, really, root of entry, but there's...
 
there's good and bad, know, you we do certain things in Ireland very well, and maybe other things not so well in Germany, they do, you know, they've made better cars and better roads. And we do and you know, Latin America, I think they dance better and drink better maybe than you know, but so yeah, what I learned is, you know, you know, you can pick is a bit like life can be a bit like a buffet, and you can pick what you like, and you know what you don't like leave behind, you know, so and the idea, I suppose the point I should make is that
 
What I've learned is it's not expensive or difficult to be diversified. Like have your banking in different jurisdictions really doesn't cost anything. Having a second or third residency if you do the right homework on I'll go into more detail if you want. have residency still in Panama and I three passports. I'm working on the fourth and it has been a little bit of effort but not expensive or costly.
 
And will I ever use it? I worried that the world's going to end? No. But it's just that peace of mind you have when you've got these other options that, God forbid if something did happen here in Ireland or Europe, I have a residency in Panama, I banking there. So it's just that, suppose it's like having a parachute or a safety net that's always there.
 
(Seth Bradley) (07:00.13)
Yeah, yeah, I agree. mean, that's, you know, especially the way that things are today and people kind of just worry about things generally, right? If you have that peace of mind and you have that, you know, second or third option, it's just something that can kind of let you sleep at night a little bit better. It's like having a nest egg or, you know, having a second, third, fourth, fifth stream of income.
 
things like that that can let you sleep at night and while other people are panicking and worrying and making, you know, maybe even bad decisions based on that, you know, based on those worries, you can sleep soundly and make decisions that are best for you.
 
Yeah, yeah, and you're not limited, know, if you're just, you know, like, I mean, it's funny though, as well, I think it's timely. I think the time has come. I you see people, you know, we were chatting earlier, you know, being involved in multiple different industries and, you know, with technology, we're allowed to do that. We can reside in one country, we can do our bank in another, we can do our tax responsibility somewhere else, we can do our business. So it's probably just in the last 20, 30 years that we can move so freely.
 
with all this stuff, know, you know, only maybe 25, 30 years ago, I wanted to, I couldn't really do business in Germany, but live in Ireland, it'd have to be one or the other. There was no internet, you know, everything. So, so yeah, I think, I think we're heading in that direction anyway. And it's just, yeah, there's great freedom in it and great peace of mind, even though, you know, I mean, I'll be in Ireland for, you know, my two kids are, there's another six or eight years.
 
before they finish school. So I plan to be here, but I just have other options as well, you know.
 
(Seth Bradley) (08:41.42)
Yeah, yeah, that's fantastic. And speaking of diversification, mean, your investments are very diverse, right? I mean, in the previous episode, we jumped into rare earth metals. And then in this episode, we're going to jump into something new. Before we jump into the new thing, though, give us a little update on what has changed in your business with the rare earth metals or if anything has changed or how those things are going.
 
Yeah, well, thanks. Thanks for asking, Seth. Since we spoke, actually, the big news is just in the last 60 days, I think I mentioned to you that China pretty much sort of dominates the rare earth industry. it's, I think really, it's possible and we understand now that China sort of saw before the EU and maybe before the US or they understood at least that rare earths would become
 
the backbone of manufacturing in the 21st century and they've been, you know, they've taken action on that. So we're in a situation now and it's not really an economic strategy. It's more of a geopolitical strategy that China has big plans for electric cars, big plans for solar, big plans for wind. you know, they, they've hundreds of million people, they're, taken out of the poverty, into the middle class all the time. So sort of
 
thinking strategically and long term, they rightfully secured their supply of rare earths. And what happened just in the last 60 days is the US sort of initiated a sort of a block. Now it was also supported by Holland and Japan and they're blocking sort of the latest sort of semiconductor technology from going to China. And in retaliation for that, China
 
You know, they have, you know, an ace up their sleeve, which is where it hurts. So the West has the technology and China has the raw materials. And just in the last 60 days, China has said they're going to, well, effective August 1, which is a month ago, they're restricting the export now of gallium and germanium, which is two of these technology metals, and that China, you know, is responsible for 95 % of the global production. so we're seeing the prices go up and this is sort of.
 
(Louis O'Connor) (10:57.826)
what I talked to you about that these metals are in demand on a good day, you know, you will make a nice return. But if something like this happens where China sort of weaponizes these metals economically, then you'll see prices increasing quite dramatically, which they are. Yeah, that's that's what's happening there. It's basically a market where there's surging demand and you have sort of political landscapes affecting as well. So
 
It makes for interesting investment.
 
Yeah, yeah. Are these rare earth metals, are they not something that we can mine or is it something we're not willing to mine, like let's say in the West?
 
(Louis O'Connor) (11:44.142)
Yeah, good question actually. that actually gets right to the heart of it, Seth, because despite the name rare earths, they're not all that rare. Some of them are as sort of common as copper and stuff, but there's about eight or ten of them that are rare and they are available in the US. But this is what's changed dramatically in the last 30 years is the rare earths don't occur naturally. So they always occur as a byproduct of another raw material.
 
They're sort of, they're very chemically similar. they're, sort of all stuck together. So they have to be extracted and separated and then refined and processed into, you know, high purity levels for jet engines or smartphones or whatever the case might be. what's happened where China dominates is, is China is responsible for 95 % of the refining. Now there's about 200 or sorry, $390 billion available in subsidies in the U S.
 
from the Inflation Reduction Act, which despite the name is all about energy transition. And that's all very well, except the human capital and the engineering expertise to refine rare earths is depleted in, it doesn't exist in Europe, and it's very much depleted in the US. Just to give you some context, there's 39 universities in China, where they graduate degrees in critical minerals.
 
So the Chinese are graduating about 200 metallurgists a week, every week for the last 30 years. I think the US has a handful of universities. I'd say there's probably 300,000 metallurgists in China and there might be 400 in the US and probably none in Europe at all. So it's not just a question of if they're there, it's how do we get them into 99.99 % purity? Without the engineering expertise, we can't, not anytime soon anyway.
 
Wow, yeah, yeah. mean, that just alone sounds like a recipe for a pretty good play for an investment. you know, there's these bottlenecks, right? Whether that's people that can refine it or the actual element itself or willingness to mine it, you know, all these different things come into play to make it a good investment. All right, let's switch over a little bit here. Let's talk about the new investment vehicle.
 
(Seth Bradley) (14:06.99)
that you talked to me about. It's an agricultural play, correct? we're talking about truffles, talking about mushrooms, right? Tell me a little bit about it just to get started here.
 
Okay, well, you probably I mean, you know, truffles are in the culinary world, they're known as the black diamond of the kitchen, you know, they're, they're a delicacy going back to, you know, thousands and thousands of years. Traditionally, the black perigord, which is the Mediterranean truffle would have originated in France, but for the last sort of, you know, the last 100 years or so,
 
they've been growing abundantly in sort of South, Southwestern France, Northern Spain and Italy. So traditionally, you know, that's where they grow and they sort of, know, because the truffle, as you said, it's a mushroom that has a symbiotic relationship with a a native tree, an oak tree or hazel tree or sometimes beech. So it's a very delicate balance, you know.
 
And although I have invested in agriculture before, we started, we, I mean, a collective does not just me involved here, and I don't want to sound like I take credit for any of this really. I was just a part of a team where we had some agri-science people, and we had sort of four generational farmers involved. But we were looking at, it is no question that climate, there's a climate change, right?
 
It doesn't matter to me whether people, whatever the causes of that are, the reality is if you talk to an olive grower or a truffle grower in Italy or France, they'll tell you the climate has changed because their harvests have been decreasing for about the last 30 to 40 years actually, but really more so in the last 10. So we were sort of, I'll tell you basically the AgriScience partner involved in this.
 
(Louis O'Connor) (16:10.958)
As a test back in 2005, they started to plant and the trees inoculated, the baby trees inoculated with the truffle sort of in the root system as a test all over different countries, not just Ireland, England, UK, also the US. So this has been in sort of research and development since about 2005.
 
And we got seriously involved in about 2015 when history was made and this Mediterranean truffle was grown here in the British Isles for the first time. we then with our agriscience partner in 2015 planted a thousand trees in five different locations in Ireland where I am.
 
and one of them is about 20 minutes away from me here. They're all secret locations. I won't even tell you where they are because they really are. They're highly valued or highly prized. And so it takes about four or five years to see if you're a business. So yeah, we now are growing the Mediterranean truffle, not just in Ireland, but in other parts of the UK. But the real interesting thing, Seth, it's just now ready for scale. And all of the farmers,
 
who were involved in the original research. None of them are going to take it to scale. The one that's local to me is a lovely gentleman. in his 60s and he planted a thousand trees really just as a retirement. His daughter works in banking in Switzerland and so there's nobody really to take over the farm. So we're the first to do it with scale. So we're inviting in...
 
a portion of some investors in as well.
 
(Seth Bradley) (18:05.87)
Gotcha. Are there specific, I assume there are, are specific growing conditions where these things can prosper? Like I can't, I'm in San Diego, I can't just plant them in my backyard and wait five years and be a millionaire.
 
Well, if you you if I hear you're growing truffles death, you know, we should assign an NDA we should assign. You could try but no, they wouldn't grow in San Diego because I mean, there's a very delicate balance and you're what you're you're what you're using here is agri science and nature. You're working with nature. And because the reason they've grown so well in demand is
 
No way.
 
(Louis O'Connor) (18:48.738)
just because of that balance up they get a sort of a dry season or sort of they got to get a lot of rain and then they get the dry season and what's happened is they're getting more drought and less rain and it's just upset the balance. So it's a very, very delicate balance. But what people wouldn't know, I think, is that truffles have always grown wild in Ireland.
 
There was a time five or 600 years ago when Ireland was 85 % forest and our native tree is the oak and the hazel tree, is the tree that's also where the fungus grows. And what happened was when the Brits were before, you know, when shipbuilding was the thing and the British Navy were, you know, the Spanish were, so the Brits sort of chopped down a lot of the forest for the wood for shipbuilding. you know, our forests were depleted. But to this day,
 
Truffles do still grow wild here, but we're doing it differently. know, we're only planting on land where you have like certain protein and pH levels and limestone. And then we're planting baby saplings that are already two years old that were inoculated with the truffle fungus like at birth, like in the root system. And we only plant them after we see that the root system and the fungi are already thriving.
 
So if you get into the right soil and it's already thriving, then two, three, four years later, you'll get truffles.
 
(Seth Bradley) (20:17.216)
the interruption, but we don't do ads. Instead, know that if you're raising capital for real estate, my law firm, RaiseLaw, is here to give you the expert legal guidance you need to raise capital compliantly and structure and close your deal. And if you're looking for a done-for-you fund-to-fund solution, Tribest is the industry's only all-in-one setup and fund administration solution. Visit Raise.Law and Tribest.com to learn more.
 
That's awesome. just, I think about like wine and like, you know, you can grow it, you know, vines in different places. Some places they grow, some places they don't, some places they grow and the result isn't good and some places they grow and the result is awesome. It's probably a very delicate balance between, you know, environment plus how they're raised, how they're taken care of and all those sorts of things.
 
It is 100%. I mean, first and foremost, mean, because of angry science and technology today, you know, I mean, we can plant baby saplings that are already and not, I mean, we're playing God a little bit with nature, but you know, I mean, it's just amazing, you know, like you could do it. And then, you know, the biggest threat is actually mismanagement. You know, if you don't then manage it correctly. If you have a root system inoculated with the fungus and you have the right soil conditions,
 
after that and it's management and it's sort of bio security meaning they have a very pungent smell. mean, squirrels and pigs and they love them. They love to eat. So you have to, mean, you're literally it's like protecting a bank, know, you have a bio security fence. You've you know, you limit visitations to the farm, you've, know, special footwear and cleaning and stuff. so yeah, it's serious stuff, you know.
 
Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That's awesome. Well, let's dive in a little bit to the kind of the investment itself. Like what does that look like for an investor? Like what are your projected returns? You know, what, how does it all kind of, how does it all shape out? Like you've grown these wildly valuable truffles and now I guess the first step would be what's the business plan? Who are we selling these truffles to? What makes them so valuable? And then get into kind of the investor
 
(Seth Bradley) (22:33.794)
portion like how would someone get involved in whether projector returns.
 
Okay, so we sell, first of all, the estate that the farm is, it's called Chan Valley Estate. People can Google it, it's beautiful. It's 200 acres of north-temporary farmland. The estate itself, it's a bit like a smaller version of Downton Abbey. It's a Georgian.
 
a three story Georgian home, it's over 200 years old. It's also a museum and we have events there and it's also a working farm. And it's a herbal farm. So we grow plants and herbs there that we then we have our own, we work the value chain where we also sell those herbs for medicinal purpose and we convert them into medicinal oils and things like that. So the location is already up and running.
 
And what we're doing with the truffles is for every acre, we can plant 800 trees. And so what we're doing is we're offering investors, well, a client, the minimum investment is $30,000 and the investor for that price gets 400 baby saplings already inoculated with the truffle fungus. And then they get the farm management
 
included up to the first four to five years. takes about, there'll be truffles after, bearing in mind that the sapling, the baby tree is two years old. So after three years in the ground, it's already five years old and there'll be truffles then and the returns don't begin until then. But what's included in the price is all the farm management, know, all the, you know, the,
 
(Louis O'Connor) (24:23.508)
implementation of the farm, the irrigation, the electricity, the hardware that's needed. So all the management right up until there is production and then when they're producing, the investor gets 70 % of the growth and the farm management company, we get 30%. So it's a 70-30 split. Now the great thing about the oak and the hazel is they'll produce
 
for 30 to 40 years. it's a long term, it's a legacy investment, you might call it, because you won't see returns until the fourth or fifth year. But once you do, you'll see returns then for another 30 to 35 years. And they're very, very good. mean, we have three numbers in the brochure. We looked at what's...
 
price half the truffles never dropped below. So we have the very low estimate, which is they've never gone below this price. That brings in an IRR, which would be from day one of about 14%. And then the highest that they've sold for, you're looking at about 69%, but the average is about 38%.
 
So the returns will be very, very good once production kicks in and then they'll maintain. We've included an inflation for 30 to 40 years. I hope, I think I answered everything there.
 
Yeah, definitely. sorry. I gave you about six questions there to answer in a row. But yeah, I think you covered everything. And having an IRR, which is time-based on something that has this long of a horizon and even takes four or five years to even start producing, those are really, really strong numbers.
 
(Louis O'Connor) (26:23.63)
Yeah, well, again, even the, you know, one of the reasons obviously we like truffles because they're very, very expensive. mean, they're a luxury product. You know, we're about an hour from Shannon Airport here, which is the transatlantic hub between Europe and the U.S. So we can have truffles in U.S. or anywhere in Europe or even the Middle East or the Far East, for that matter, in less than 24 hours. that's important as well. But they're a luxury item. There's huge demand for them. mean,
 
You know how the world is. mean, there are, unfortunately, you know, there's always sort of, people are getting richer and some people maybe are getting poorer. But the luxury, you know, high end market and the culinary, international culinary explosion means that, you know, there's huge demand for truffles. And also you have to factor in the fact that the harvests in the Mediterranean are less and less every year. And I mean, very, very sadly,
 
I mean, it's an opportunity for us, but very sadly that they've done very specific scientific studies and it's going to over the next 50 years, the truffle harvests in the Med will go will decline between 73 and 100%. So literally, they will not be growing truffles there in 50 plus years from now. So that's an opportunity for us. you know, again,
 
We've been working on this really since 2015. And it was only, you know, it was only 2019, 2020 when we began to get to truffles we knew because there was no guarantee, you know. But yeah, now that we're growing them, we just need to scale up.
 
Gotcha. Gotcha. what's kind of the I see that you know, for that minimum investment, you get X number of baby saplings. How many was that again? 400. That's what I Okay, 400. What's kind of the survival rate, I guess, of those saplings? Do you have kind of a percentage on that? Is it like?
 
(Louis O'Connor) (28:17.102)
400
 
(Louis O'Connor) (28:27.086)
Yeah, well, we expect you got what's happening so far is within in about year three, which is actually year five, because the sapling, you should get three of the five trees producing. But once you have production, once that fungi is thriving, it will just continue to grow. So in year four, you should have four of them. In year five, you should have all of them producing.
 
Now we also put a guarantee in the farm management contract that if any tree, you know, if it dies or if it's not, you know, producing truffles, we'll replace it free of charge at any time. in the event, you know, for some reason, I mean, we put a tree in that's inoculated and it doesn't take, then we just replace it. So either way, over the first four to five years, we get them all. And the great thing is if you protect that soil from
 
pests and diseases and other sort of unwelcome sort of mycorrhizal or fungi, then it will thrive. It will thrive. It'll keep, you know, it'll spread, you know, it's a symbiotic relationship underground between the tree and the fungi.
 
Got it. Yeah, that's awesome to know. like survival is not one of the things that we should consider because if for some reason it wouldn't survive or is not producing, then it just gets replaced. So you actually are getting those full 400 saplings turning into trees that will be producing.
 
almost they mature and produce and you know as I said barring you know any pests or diseases or you know interference then they just continue you just protect them you just allow nature then to do its work.
 
(Seth Bradley) (30:18.848)
Yeah, yeah. So what are some of the risks then? What are the downsides that you can foresee if something were to go wrong? What would it be?
 
Well, the greatest threat is mismanagement, literally. I obviously we're doing this with scale, so it's a professional endeavor, you know, people from time to time, know, I mean, some of the test sites here, mean, I don't know, it seemed like a good idea at the time, and they're not that hard to manage, but people just lose interest, or the younger kids don't want to farm. But the greatest threat is mismanagement. So as long as you put in these biosecurity measures,
 
and manage, you know, there's got to be some clearing done, there's got to be some pruning done, there's got to be tree guards. So there is a process involved in bringing them to nurturing them along and then keeping everything, you know, neutral, if you will. that's first, weather is always, you know, factor in agriculture. We don't feel it's as much of a threat here, because although we're for the first time,
 
growing the Mediterranean truffle. Truffles have grown, they grow here wild anyway. So the climate is right and has been right for thousands of years in Ireland. So, you know, and again, we'll have irrigation as well. You know, we get a lot of rain here. It's not likely we'll need any more rain, but yeah, we, you know, the agri-science will kick in there as well. And then, you know, as I said, like,
 
you know, biosecurity we call it, which is, you know, very, very serious fencing, limited visits to the farm, know, special footwear if people are going up to the area and sort of rinse. We have a pool area where they have to disinfect before they go into, you know, it's a very, very, very protected area from pests and from diseases or anything, you know, that could be brought in from the outside on whether that's machinery or humans.
 
(Louis O'Connor) (32:22.892)
So yeah, it's almost like a laboratory. mean, you keep it very, very delicate balance and keep it very limited on who visits and, you know, people are a visit, but they have to be properly, you know, the feet have to be cleaned and footwear has to be worn and stuff like that. So, but, know, at the end of the day, Seth, it's, you know, well, any investment really, but agriculture, you know, the final say is in nature's hands, you know, not ours. mean, we...
 
We like to think, suppose, we're in the results business, but the reality is we're not. in the planning business and all we can do is plan everything as well as we can. It's just like, you if you planted a rose, you know, bush out in your backyard there today, you wouldn't stand outside and will it to grow, right? You know, grow quicker. You know, we have to allow nature and the cosmos to do its work. so yeah, nature has the final say, you know.
 
Yeah, yeah, no, totally, totally understand. And any investment has its risks, whether you're investing in truffles or real estate or any of the above. Quick question on this. Don't want to paint you like in a bad way at all, but we have had and it's not you, of course, of course, but we've had an influx of bad sponsors and people that are anything from mismanaging investor capital on one end, which can happen pretty easily. And there's not a whole lot of
 
Not a lot of bad blood there. Things happen. And then on the other side of the spectrum, we've seen everything from fraud to Ponzi schemes and all kinds of stuff lately. One thing that I tell investors is to make sure you know who you're investing with and make sure your investing dollars are actually getting invested where they're supposed to. Could an investor invest with you and actually go to the farm?
 
and see their saplings or see the farm and see this business.
 
(Louis O'Connor) (34:24.654)
100 % in fact, we would rather people do I mean, I it's not always possible. Right. But Shan Valley Estate, I mean, I'll give you the website and stuff after Shan Valley Estate. It's a 200 acre farm. It's already a museum. have events there. It's a herb dispensary as I said, as I said, it's our our manage our farm management partner is the Duggan family, their fourth generation farmers and they're being in temporary, you know,
 
longer than that even. absolutely, you you know, of course, there's legal contracts. mean, people get a legal contract for the purchase of the trees and then we have a legal contract for the farm management that we're responsible for implementing the project, we're responsible for bringing the hard, the trees to truffles to harvest. But we do, we just beginning, we just had our first tour, but it was sort of Europe from Germany. Last, sorry,
 
the 18th, 19th of August. But we will be having tours every quarter. And if anybody wants to come at any time, we'd be delighted to have them because it's like I said, it's like a smaller version of Downton Abbey. And we've accommodated, we converted the stables into accommodation, you know, because we have weddings and events and stuff there as well. It's not just a field that we bought.
 
Yeah.
 
And so it's a big deal. I'll give you the website. The location is spectacular and clients can, you know, stay the night, you know, and there's a three story Georgian estate house and the bottom floor is a museum. So it's like walking into a pharmacy from 1840, all the bottles and the counter is 200 years old, you know, and then the middle level, we've an organic vegetarian restaurant, all the
 
(Louis O'Connor) (36:17.24)
food is grown on the farm. There's an old walled garden that they used to wall the gardens years ago to keep out the pests. And all the food that's served is grown on the farm. And then the top floor is accommodation as well and the stables have been converted. look, it's all about trust, Seth. And, you know, I would say to anybody, you've
 
I mean myself, if I have any doubt about anything, don't do it. And it might not be that somebody's a scam or a fraud, it's just if you're not 100 % sure about it, don't touch it. But what I would recommend is people do their due diligence because we've done ours. We've eight years invested in it, put a lot of time and effort into it. And at the very least, we'd like people to check it out and see it all the way through.
 
for what it is. yeah, we'll be, we're hoping to, we have a partner in Europe and we're to connect with somebody in North America. I don't want name anybody here because it might not come off, but there's a few sort of marketers and there's plenty obviously that we might sort of do a sort of an agreement with where they'll, you know, I mean, we could even have sort of investment real estate conferences on the farm.
 
you know, and do farm tours as well. so definitely 100 % we'd love for people to visit and, and they get to drink some Guinness and they're really brave, they can swim in the Irish sea.
 
Yeah, and I'm looking at the website right now. We'll drop that in the show notes, but it is absolutely gorgeous. I mean, it's making me want to get on a plane right now and check it out. It's incredible.
 
(Louis O'Connor) (38:00.046)
Yeah, that's the estate, shambali.ie. I mean, what I love about it's 100 % organic or members of the Irish Organic Association, track ref, fourth generation. You know, this is not me, I'm a part of this, but the farm management team are, you know, they're already like growing herbs and plants and converting them to medicinal, you know, oils and things. And this is just another, it's more of a farming enterprise, I suppose, than a farm.
 
And then the other partner is the Agri Science Partner, which is this team of scientists who basically made history by growing for the very first time eight years ago, the black, the Mediterranean truffle in Ireland, you know, so there's a lot of professionalism and thought and effort being put into a chap.
 
Love that. Love that man. Is there anything else about this type of investment that I didn't ask about that I should have?
 
I think you know Seth, you should be on CNN or something because I you did. I'm pretty sure you did, you definitely covered it. I mean I may have left something out but I think it's a good foundation for somebody if they're interested, I'll give them my email and you know it's not that expensive to get to Europe and it's a great way to mix a holiday and you know come to the farm and stuff you know.
 
Absolutely, absolutely. Well, since you're repeat guest of the guest of the show, we won't go into the freedom for but you have one last golden nugget for our listeners.
 
(Louis O'Connor) (39:34.446)
You know, I knew you were going to ask me that, Seth, you caught me off guard. So I have one ready and I stole this from someone else. So I'm not going to take it. But I was listening to a guy last week and he, sort of a big operation in Europe. And he was talking about a phrase they have in the office and it's 1%. And they always look at each other and when you pass them, they go 1%. And I love what it's about. It's about the idea that in a way it sort of comes back to what we talked about earlier, which is forget about.
 
Yeah.
 
(Louis O'Connor) (40:04.664)
the fact don't think you're in the results business. You're in the planning business. And the 1 % is every day, try and improve every little action. I'm not just talking about work. I'm talking about family, your spiritual practice, if you have one, increase it by 1 % every day. And you know, it's like compound interest, isn't it? That in a way, then you don't have to worry about the big picture. And the results will just look after themselves then, you know.
 
Yeah, yeah, I love that man. Always improve. mean, you you've got to take small steps to get to those big goals. And a lot of times you just need to ask yourself, did I improve 1 % today? If the answer is yes, then it was a successful day.
 
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And it's great because, you know, if I was to try and think now, or you were to try and think now, everything you have to do in the next three weeks, right, you just be overwhelmed, right. And sometimes my head is like that, you know, I mean, I've got meditation practice and stuff, but I watch my thoughts and you know, I mean, it's it's a fact. I mean, it's a human condition. I don't know, some disestimates of how many thoughts do we have a day? How many are repetitive and how many are useless?
 
A lot of them are repetitive, a lot of them are useless. So it's good just to narrow it right down to what's the next thing I can do right now and can I do it 1 % better than I did yesterday, you know?
 
Absolutely. Love that man. All right, Lou, we're gonna let us find out more about you.
 
(Louis O'Connor) (41:34.954)
Okay, so they can email me. It's Truffle Farm Invest. Sorry, it's a new website www.trufflefarminvest.com or they can if somebody from your your audience wants to email me directly, it's louis at trufflefarminvest.com
 
Alright, perfect man. We'll drop all that in the show notes. Thanks again for coming on the show. Always a pleasure, brother.
 
Thank you very much, Seth. A pleasure.
 
(Seth Bradley) (42:08.088)
Thanks for tuning in to Raise the Bar Radio. If you enjoyed today's episode, make sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who needs to hear it. Keep pushing, keep building, and keep raising the bar. Until next time, enjoy the journey.
Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links:
Seth Bradley’s Links:
https://x.com/sethbradleyesq
https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq
www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq
https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq
https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/
https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/
https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq
https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq
https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en
Louis O’Connor’s Links:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100054362234822
https://www.linkedin.com/in/louis-o-connor-a583341b8/
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2023/08/30/strategic-metals-founder-louis-oaconnor-breaks-down-china-u-s-rare-metal-wars.html

RTBL 01 | What They Don’t Tell You About Raising Capital (Until It’s Too Late) with Ben Fraser

In this episode of the Invest Like a Billionaire podcast, host Ben Fraser sits down with Seth Bradley, the Chief Legal Officer at TribeVest and an experienced securities attorney. Seth Bradley shares his journey from a big law background to becoming a passive investor, then evolving into an active capital raiser. During the conversation, Seth Bradley breaks down the key steps in his transition and the lessons he learned along the way.
Listeners will gain valuable insights from Seth Bradley on private placements and syndications, as he emphasizes the importance of understanding legal documents such as Private Placement Memorandums (PPMs) and operating agreements. Ben Fraser and Seth Bradley also explore major trends shaping the capital raising landscape, including the rise of the fund-to-fund model, which allows passive investors to leverage their networks without directly managing deals.
In addition, Seth Bradley explains how TribeVest helps streamline the investment process for both passive investors and emerging fund managers. The discussion concludes with Seth Bradley’s perspective on the current state of the alternative investment market, offering insights into the opportunities and advantages available even in today’s challenging economic environment.
Links to listen and subscribe:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/155-moving-from-passive-to-active-investor-feat-seth/id1587171662?i=1000652125962
Links to watch and subscribe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiRq38II33s&t=1047s
Bullet Point Highlights:
Seth Bradley’s Journey: Transitioned from big law to passive investing, and now to active capital raising.
Understanding Legal Documents: Importance of critically reviewing PPMs and operating agreements as an investor.
Red Flags in Investments: Identifying key terms and clauses in legal documents that can affect investor rights and returns.
Fund-to-Fund Model: Insights into how new capital raisers can operate without needing to be actively involved in deals.
TribeVest Services: Overview of how TribeVest supports fund managers with a streamlined legal and operational framework.
Market Trends: Discussion on the evolution and current opportunities within the alternative investment space.
Advice for Investors: Encouragement to dive into the market now to capitalize on upcoming opportunities as conditions stabilize.
Transcript:
hello future billionaires welcome back to another episode of the invest like a billionaire podcast today's guest is Seth Bradley very fun to talk with him he's friend of mine for several years and he's the chief legal officer at tribe vest which is a really cool company if you haven't heard of them we actually had their CEO and founder on about a year ago but they're kind of doing a really new cool push that I'm going to talk about in a sec but his background he's a big law Securities attorney spent a lot of time in kind of
 
corporate world transition really to kind of becoming a passive investor invest a lot of syndications so he talks a lot about his journey making that transition kind of going to generate passive income Financial Independence but then he's actually shifted back to becoming an active Capital Riser and he's seen a lot of people make this transition that been investing for a little bit and now want to kind of activate their Network and some of the stuff they're doing at Tri bestest is making this really really easy for
 
people so it's a really cool interview we kind of hit a lot of his journey from his perspective as a Securities attorney what are some of the big things you got to focus on when you're reviewing legal documents what are the red flags yellow flags Etc and then he kind of shares a little bit about some of the things and the trends going on in the kind of private placement syndication and capital raising worlds that if you haven't heard about some of these ideas you definitely want to tune in and listen because it's pretty cool I'm
 
seeing the same thing on my side of things so you're going to enjoy this episode he's a very very sharp guy and a lot of great insights that he shared I think you're going to love this episode please enjoy this is the invest like a billionaire podcast where we uncover the alternative investment and strategies that billionaires use to grow wealth the tools and tactics you'll learn from this podcast will make you a better investor and help you build Legacy wealth join us as we dive into the world
 
of alternative Investments uncover strategies of the ultra wealthy discuss economics and interview successful investors looking for Passive Investments done for you with and funds we help accredited investors that are looking for higher yields and diversification from the stock market as a passive investor we do all the work for you making sure your money is working hard for you in alternative investments in fact our team invests alongside you in every deal so our interests are aligned we focus on macr
 
driven alternative Investments so your portfolio is best positioned for this economic environment get started and download your free economic report today welcome back to another episode episode of the invest like a billionaire podcast I am your host Ben Frasier and joined by a very exciting guest Seth Bradley I've know Seth for several years he is the managing partner at Ray's law and the chief legal officer at tribe vest and uh Seth and I have done some business over the years and different things he's an
 
attorney and uh a very experienced Securities attorney and even has his own podcast called the passive income attorney podcast and so he comes with a really unique perspective both being an entrepreneur investor as well as an attorney gives him some really unique insights in this space of kind of private placements alternative Investments and super excited to have on the show so Seth thanks for coming on man Ben appreciate it man we finally got around to to recording this really really appreciate it man yeah it was
 
kind of fun because we reached out a couple years ago and uh we're we're gonna do something that never worked out and then all of a sudden you're ready to do the podcast tour and Pops back up three years later so hey let's do good I'm I'm gay man so looking forward to doing this now so give a little bit of uh context for your background uh for those who maybe aren't familiar with you and just kind of what you do in kind of the areas of expertise that you focus on as an attorney sure man so I worked in
 
big law for about seven years um most recently at a top three globally ranked Law Firm um as a real estate started out as a real estate attorney made my way over to Securities um at that point um I started kind of getting that you know mo as most entrepreneurs do that feeling like you want to do something else you don't want to have all these bosses you want to get out there and do your own thing um but you know I'd worked pretty hard to get where I was so I wanted to make sure that I knew what I was getting
 
myself into um I'd already been working with Real Estate Investors and folks like that as my clients um started talking to them started talking to some of the partners in my in my firm about how they invest what they do um really Lear learned about you know passive investing um and making my way kind of to the equity side and that's really where I my journey began as a passive investor in in syndications so I invested in a number of those um and also invested actively you know I kind of did the the Bigger Pockets uh you
 
know path where I listened to Bigger Pockets I did a you know house hack I did fix and flips I did buy and hold single families things like that as well as past investing in larger Investments um and at that point I realized hey I've got this network of attorneys and other folks that I can raise capital from so I made my way from passive investor to active investor man so you've done done the the full circle here I love it so started Big Lot and your bio says you Clos billions of dollars in real estate
 
transactions over the past decade so you've you've seen a lot of deals um I'd be curious because you know a lot of people that maybe newer to real estate investing newer to Alternative investments in general and just the world of private placements they kind naturally think hey the only way I can do it is you know the Bigger Pockets path which is a great path if you want to go and you know do it actively and have a second job so to speak where you go and buy your own real estate and and fix it up or work with contractors to
 
fix it up but you went straight into syndications which in a lot of ways uh fits better for uh people that are working professionals and you know don't want to necessarily trade time for wealth building already have a great income uh generator through the their job or their business and they want to just redeploy that into syndications so what was kind of the journey for you understanding the world of syndications and really with your background um insecurities law and how did you kind of get comfortable with that and what was
 
the Journey For You diving head first into syndications early on yeah I mean you really have to have skills uh money or time that those are the three things you can really offer right so it depends on how much of each one of those you have as to what your investment profile should look like and what you should get started in um I was actively wanting to participate in deals from the get-go but I did already have exposure from my real estate uh real estate practice to syndications and and watching other
 
people raise Capital knowing that those types of Investments are out there so I think I had an advantage there because prior to that I had no idea the only thing I knew was kind of that Bigger Pockets path it's like okay well house hack into a single family or dup or a duplex and then rent the other side out and then Fix and Flip This or wholesale that um I didn't really know about syndications other than through um my my law practice so I think I had that Advantage um get getting that exposure
 
and being able to transition to that quicker yeah talk a little bit about I mean your podcast is called passive income attorney and your your big goal is passive income and what was really kind of the idea behind that or why was that your primary goal and what does that mean to you yeah I mean the idea behind that was to be passive and I think we kind of as entrepreneurs we go back and forth I think we all want to end up on the completely passive side eventually but sometimes you don't get there as quickly
 
if you don't go on the active side for a little bit and I think I'm I'm seeing that a lot myself I did that I started investing passively and now I went to the active side as an active syndicator as a fund manager raising capital and participating in deals even on the operational side um because you can accelerate quicker that way if you the more time and effort that you put in the faster you can accelerate now a lot of folks out there especially pive investors listening if their doctors dentist lawyers they don't have time for
 
that so they need to invest passively that's probably the best use of their time because their highest and best use of their time is in their career being a doctor a dentist a lawyer an engineer where they're making a lot of money in their active income it doesn't really make sense that for them to start a fix flip business or wholesale business or even a syndication business really out of the gate until you figure out what what you want to do it makes more sense to take that active income put it into
 
passive investment vehicles that don't take any time away from your practice Yeah I love that what' you say there's you you one of three things skills time or money right and so one of those you're going to be trading to generate more passive income or wealth and wherever you're at in the Spectrum and where you're willing to kind of trade for for that invest I love that it's very uh makes a lot of sense so talk a little bit you know I want to get to what you said this in the minute kind of transitioning kind of bluring the line
 
of going back and forth between passive and active I think this is really interesting I've seen the same Trend but before we get there you know a lot of a lot of our listeners you know that are maybe newer to syndications newer to passive investing they um get a little bit shell shocked when they see a PPM or a set of legal docs to review for a deal and they they don't know what should I be focusing on what should I be looking for what are potential red flags or yellow flags and you know from your perspective and
 
I'm sure you probably saw a lot of things early on they like okay that's interesting or um you know making that transition you already had a leg up uh given your background but what are some kind of key things that you know maybe even coming into it you already had a leg up but now even 10 years later down the road have learned and things that you said you know hey this is way more important than I thought it was originally from from a pure passive standpoint because I think that's a roadblock for a lot of people yeah yeah
 
and you know it's intimidating right when you get that first PPM which is going to have exhibits to it and the exhibits are going to be an operating agreement subscription agreement maybe um maybe some marketing materials a business plan things like that you're looking at at least a 100 page document maybe it's 200 pages and if you're not a lawyer and used to looking at 100 page documents that is intimidating you're like what am I supposed to do this is going to take me you know this is like a month's worth reading if I'm actually
 
going to read this thing and really most past investors don't read it um but you should I mean you should at least start reading them um because it gets it gets easier and easier to read because they're all going to be very similar they're all going to have a similar structure and similar pieces and things to look out for I think one really important thing and you might not be able to do this the first time but you can start um kind of thinking about it but just really matching the PPM to the oper room because the PPM should really
 
be um kind of a a summary so to speak of the operating agreement because the operating agreement is the meat of what's actually going to be the the terms uh within that LLC within that investment and at the end of the day if something goes wrong or not even goes wrong but if there if there's some sort of um agreement or disagreement that needs to be figured out you're going to look at the operating agreement not necessarily the PPM to figure out uh what the next step is what is the mechanism for fixing this problem so you
 
know just making sure that the people PM accurately reflects what the operating agreement says is very important and and then taking a step further that the operating agreement and the PPM match what the lead sponsors are telling you let's say in the marketing materials or the webinar like just making sure that there's a clear picture between all the marketing materials the webinar um and the legal documentation is really important and sometimes if it doesn't make sense or there are certain terms
 
that don't match up you know maybe they're not as meticulous as they should be and you need to look elsewhere that that's a really important thing to look out for um kind of coming back to your question you know when when you're first starting as a passive investor all you're really looking at is the returns right you're comparing kind of your projected returns in this deal to your projected returns in this other deal and you might get a 2% more irr return projected in this one than that one so
 
you're going to go with this one but at the end of the day those are just projections right those are just projections and those can be manipulated those are based on assumptions from the lead sponsor and those are not the most important things the most important things are the the sponsor and their track record what they've done how they've performed um and you know the market and the deal itself but just those projected returns can be manipulated so that's really you know it's important at the beginning or at
 
least you think it's important and then later on you become a more um wiy vet in passive investing you'll realize it's not as important as as as some other things like hey are your fees aligned things like that like what are the Voting Rights like how what if something happens and the manager is doing a terrible job how can you possibly get them out like what are those mechanisms um what are the mechanisms for a capital call when things go wrong what what happens those are the those are the more
 
detailed things and the nuances you need to look at as a past investor rather than just looking at the projected returns that's a lot of lot of good nuggets right there you just listen to that skip back a few minutes and listen to it again because that's really good I think you're so right right if it just it can feel intimidating to look at a 100 page 200 Page document and where do I start but just start at the beginning just start reading it it just got to skim read it skim read it and just the more
 
you get familiarized with um these different document sets the more they all kind of seem similar over time and you can kind of notice the the things that are common among different deals and then you also kind of notice the things that pop up as oh that's kind of unique or that that's kind of different than what I've seen in other deals and that's maybe outside of the norm um and just kind of getting familiarized with it you're going to pick up a lot on it but I think you hit a few of the sections that I think are really
 
important that a lot of people kind of glaze over because if you're getting just looking at the here's the irr projection here's where turns are going to be like you said there's uh a lot of assumptions that go into what those numbers are derived from and you know I always come back to my banking background you know risk adjusted returns right because every element of uh every deal you know whatever return you're projecting there's different levels of risk and if you're you know taking a lot more risk in a particular
 
deal or strategy or structure the same level of return it's it's not Apples to Apples right and so understanding what that is from a deal standpoint but there's also risks uh some of the points you made within the legal structure and so he's saying go straight to the operating agreement as a starting point because that's ultim timately what's going to govern the the deal and the mechanisms for potentially firing the sponsor as a manager or like you said the capital call and the waterfall section understanding how does do
 
profits flow through the entity and what are the splits between them what are some things that maybe 10 years down the road now invested I don't know how many deals you've invested in passively but you look back you're like oh man you know what I I read that section and you know I kind of knew that maybe was a little outside the norm but I was so excited about the deal didn't really wasn't too concerned about it now looking back like oh man now that was that was a good learning experience because now you know maybe I can't vote
 
out the manager or you know different things that you would say looking back are more important that maybe you put weight on in the front end and maybe some examples of um you know especially right now I think a lot of a lot of deals that people invested over the past few years you know unfortunately are requiring Capital calls or are kind of headed in a direction that may not be good and um you know maybe it's the fault of the operator maybe it's not but if it is a fault of the operator What mechanisms do you have and what voting
 
rights do you have as a passive investor and talk a little bit about that because I think that's going to be very relevant especially over the next few years is sure certain older deals are kind of not hitting the projections they thought originally yeah I mean I think I already touched on most of them from a high level but like for instance um voting out the manager like if the manager is doing something um fraudulent or misrepresented what they were doing or you know really just doing a terrible
 
job is probably not a reason enough to get them out but it could be um if it gets to a certain certain point um but that's really one thing to to look for to see like what the mechanism is like does it take a unanimous Vote or does it take a majority vote or does it take a majority or super majority of each share class each membership class within the LLC so it it and typically they're set up so it's really difficult to get the manager out right because the lead sponsor is going to be the manager and
 
they're the ones that are going to be making all the decisions and they don't want to lose control so they wanted to make it as hard as possible um and still make it legal um to stay in that seat and not get voted out so you know you will see some pretty onerous um Provisions within the operating agreement to be able to get them out but there should be a reasonable way to do it whether that's a super majority vote perhaps that's that's reasonable so super majority vote um in the event of a misrepresentation fraud you know any
 
sort of like bad boy act by the the manager or if their bad performance reaches the level of you know negligence or something like that there just needs to be a mechanism to get them out that's that's just one example when you had mentioned Capital calls as well so Capital calls it's like what is the mechanism when the LLC or or the syndication needs additional operating expenses to survive what what is the mechanism to do that like can is the first step to actually do a capital call and is that Capital Call Mandatory
 
meaning that the investors have to participate um on a proat a basis or that's not typical so if you that's one thing to look out for if it is mandatory that you do and and if you don't then you're basically out or you lose uh you know an unreasonable amount of your Equity if you don't participate then perhaps that's a red flag right like if you don't participate um well I should say the capital call should be optional and if you don't participate that's okay um but you will most likely be watered
 
down your Equity will get watered down on a prata basis rather than something above a pro basis right so that's an example you're saying of if it's required which is uncommon right that that's that's a red flag potentially um or if you get diluted a higher than the proat mount is another another negative and you're exactly right I mean I think you know part of this is when you're when you're investing passively you're you're giving up control of of operating the deal to the sponsor right is so that that's kind of
 
the the trade-off is you're hiring experts you're investing with experts that hopefully know what they're doing so that you don't have to be doing the day-to-day stuff and so it can be difficult to replace managers and and uh you know have uh impactful voting rights uh that can change the outcome unless there's fraudulence or negligence but I think it kind of goes to the point too of understanding what these kind of parameters are and what's normal and then also like I think you can pick up a lot of what you're saying and just the
 
congruence between PPM the operating agreement the the offering memorandum the webinars and um and then really the alignment of Interest right because if ultimately if the sponsor stands to lose alongside the investors if they're not just getting rich just off of fees and you know does they don't have a whole lot of skin in the game then ultimately it might not be you know a great deal but if they have a lot of lot skin in the game and even if it's written in these certain ways it doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad a bad
 
investment so okay love it get a little bit in the weeds there for for some people and if this is you know um newer to you I I definitely encourage you um to just start this you know opening up the bpms or reading them and you're going to pick up a lot by doing that and then just ask questions right and I think it's a great thing too that if you're reading the PBM and reading operating agreement to ask questions of the sponsor and that's usually pretty indicative of one how well do they know their own documents and to how willing
 
are they uh to address certain questions that maybe maybe concerns to you right and I think you can actually get a really good sense of um how they and how they respond of of what that interaction is going to be so love that thanks for some of that Insight Seth I'd love to shift a little bit uh you mentioned something earlier I I wanted to come back to is you you kind of you have said before you the future of capital raising is kind of Shifting and evolving and I think a lot of people are realizing and
 
I've seeing the same thing too right I'm a a coach and you know masterminds for Capital risers and this fun to fund model is becoming very popularized and people that maybe think oh I'm not really a capital Riser or you know that's that's not my you know what I've learned to do went to school to do or whatever or realizing hey actually I've been investing passively for a while I have a pretty great Network because I'm around a lot of accredited investors I've done enough to kind of know a good amount and
 
I can actually turn this into a business right and so talk a little bit about what the fun to fund model means and maybe someone that's in that boat where what you said is I think I'm gonna go 100% passive but then you know you're also learning a lot along the way and you have a a network that maybe you can activate and also raise capital and get get paid to do it compliantly that's right and and you said it and I'm seeing it time after time where past investors they invest in a number of deals and and
 
you know folks that are investing in these deals typically have a little bit of money and they probably have friends that have money as well and their their friends start asking them about the deals that they're investing in um and they start thinking hey you know what what can I can I get paid can I have a is there a business here that I can develop that I can build um by bringing in all my friends and family that might also be wealthy might be able to put these These funds together um and invest
 
in the deal together um you can certainly do that but you start to run into lots of Securities lots of rules and regulations that some people know about and some people don't you'd be surprised uh um that you know you see people out there raising capital in ways that they shouldn't do it um but what's great about the fund of funds model is that you know you're not a what's called a CP so you're not an active partner with the lead sponsor that's kind of the I'll call it the old way and I you know
 
I've been saying that the CP model is dead just to kind of put it out there that um you know we shouldn't be raising Capital with lead sponsors and then not doing anything else not participating in deal and and having an active role if you're a true cgp you need to have an active role in in the deal and that's kind of what deters um passive investors and doctors and dentists and lawyers and people like that that already have a career they don't want to take an active role right like they don't want to do
 
the asset management or manage the property manager or talk to tenants or anything like that and that's where the fund of fund solution comes in the fund of fund solution is really creating another syndication or another fund um that invests into the lead sponsor syndication or fund and that's where the name fund of fund comes from now traditionally the issue with that is well it does come with responsibilities for the fund manager they they have to put the deal they have to put their own fund together they have to put their cap
 
table together open a business banking account form an LLC get a Securities attorney um you know manage their investors manage their distributions do taxes all those sorts of things and so it turns into an active business and on top of that it's expensive because we are creating a second syndication a second fund to invest in that uh lead sponsor Target Fund um so that's the the problem that's always been the solution the fund of fund has always been the right solution but those problems that I
 
just mentioned are why it hasn't been widely adopted but you're seeing a big shift in the market as we're able to provide a more affordable option and a and a solution to bringing all those different services that a fund manager would normally have to go out and get themselves and putting it into a package yeah that makes a lot of sense and so like we said we're seeing the same thing where people are um they've been investing they they like what they're doing they have their friends and their family asking about the different deals
 
they're doing and then they have thought well hey I mean that's I can make money doing this and what most people have done historically is cgp model and for those that are unfamiliar with that is basically you raise money directly into the lead sponsor syndication or entity and then you get uh granted certain General partner shares for doing that but and you're the you're the attorney so I'm I'm gonna say at a very high level as I understand it by by doing that you are um uh well you can't raise
 
money and get paid for it unless you're a registered broker dealer unless you're General partner and uh are continuing to operate the uh the deal the business and have an active role in it but most people that are just raising capital or just want to raise Capital as um you know on the side of what else they're doing that's not a realistic expectation so what what we've seen I'm sure you probably see a lot more than me is these different uh uh folks that are raising capitalist cgps and then you know this
 
this new SP has about 10 different CPS on the list on the roster here and it's pretty hard to make an argument that they're all actively participated in managing the deal because you just don't need that many people right if it's the same deal and so then you kind of run into compliance risk and you just you don't want to mess with that I mean that's that's just let's leave it there and so the fun of fund model has always been around it's basically you create your own fund and as your own fund manager you're exempt from um uh some of
 
these uh securities issues to basically raise capital from your investors into your fund then that fund invests into the uh kind of the mothership fund or the the lead sponsors fund and by doing that you um you know it's you're in the in the you're not in the gray area anymore where it can kind of be um maybe not great from a compliance standpoint and the challenge as you mentioned though is it can be expensive maybe it's a little complicated to know how toell up and I'm not really a professional fund manager
 
how what do I know um but that's that's what you're doing now at triest and we've had Travis Smith on the podcast before so if you haven't listened to that episode um it's probably a year or so ago we'll put the put the link in the show notes because it's a um a great episode talking about tribe vest and what what you guys are doing really trying to from my perspective simplify the access and the kind of backend back office functions of um both for Passive investors and for fund managers to continue to increase
 
access to more to more deals so talk a little bit about kind of what you guys do at at tribe vest and to kind of help people um you know both from a passive standpoint that's want to direct the investors past investors that don't really want to do it as a business but then also kind of the new fund manager programs that you guys are putting together to help people that want to kind of activate their Network want to you know use this as a way to make money and um do it without having to be an expert in all the the backend side of
 
things absolutely at at Trio I'm the chief legal officer for tri best I help create the fun to fun product that we have out there right now it makes it simple TurnKey and affordable for anyone to really start a capital raising business um all those things that I mentioned before opening your business bank account um starting your LLC drafting your offering documents um getting your EIN onboarding your investors creating your cap table doing your distributions doing your taxes all those things you normally have to put
 
together and find different uh platforms and different people like attorneys and CPAs to help you out and put those put the the fund of fund together we do that we put it in a fund of fund we call it a fund of Fund in a box it's really a Lego block that you can use and invest in a deal like with Aspen if Aspen has a fund you can create your own fund you try best bring in your five or 10 uh best friends that want to put in some money you can carve out a piece for yourself so you actually get paid a fee a front
 
maybe you get paid a fee um during the uh hold period and then perhaps you get a percentage of the equity on the back end so it can be a very lucrative business for someone to get started and because triest makes it so easy to do it meaning put all these different services and things together for you it it really anyone can do it yeah that's so cool and we we've worked with you guys and have seen it in action and you know to say f Fund in a box sounds almost uh trite because it sounds like can you really do
 
that but it's it's cool because you guys have have solved it and and not only have you solved it but it's also pretty cost- effective right I think one of the big challenges with the fun of fund is generally you can invest if you kind of pull Capital together in a fund you can invest at better terms with a sponsor so you can have a little more margin that you can kind of get paid from and your investors still make the same returns um but if you have a lot of legal costs a lot of ongoing um kind of portal and
 
back office expenses and tax returns everything else then it gets kind of expensive and eats away at the margins that you know you're hoping to to use to pay yourself so you guys have kind of Crea a really streamlined um kind of off-the-shelf product that can fit majority of of offerings and make it pretty easy right that's right it gets really difficult to make it work that's again the fund of fund like we've talked about it's always been a solution it's just really expensive and really hard to put
 
it together um especially for someone that that isn't a professional Capital Riser um that just wants to put together $500,000 a million a million5 something like that it it it doesn't even make sense cost wise in the old way of doing it you're going to pay a Securities attorney minimum of like let's say 15,000 maybe 20 maybe $25,000 to put one of these together maybe even more I used to work at a big Law Firm where it cost $75,000 it's crazy the expenses that add up and that's just the legal piece that
 
doesn't include all the back office administration things that we talked about doesn't include um engaging with a CPA to do your taxes it doesn't include all those things that's just the legal cost by itself and tribe best has made it super inexpensive to be able to do this and to be able to do it time and time again so it works with a $500,000 raise it works with a million dollar raise you don't have to raise $20 million to make it work from an affordability standpoint yeah that makes sense so do
 
you guys also have like any kind of education or different coursework to help people that are you may want to make the transition of like yeah I think that that sounds like something I could do I my friends are always asking me what what I'm investing in and it wouldn't be that hard to go get five 10 friends to go and invest and create a fund and you know but they just don't they've never done it before they never thought about it till just now so right you guys have I know you're really more given the solution but do you also have
 
like any kind of education or do you have resources you guys can point people to to learn more about what does it look like to you know what what's what's the process you have to go through to um kind of go from idea to actual uh you know making a fund yeah yeah I'll tell you we don't have any formal legal or sorry formal educational things out there at the moment but we are working on that um but we have made it so simple that we can jump on a zoom call with anyone that that's in is potentially
 
interested in being a capital raiser and putting together a fund of fun and walk you through a pitch deck and it should be pretty clear what you need to do because we handle basically everything you you put together your investors you put together your terms and how you're going to get paid and then we'll be able to do kind of all that back office all that legal all those things that you don't want to know or don't want to do we handle all it yeah makes sense awesome well kind last question I just
 
love to get your insights on just the market in general for Alternatives and and private placements and you've obvious been in this space for over a decade and we've been in the space for about 11 years now as as an operator and it just feels I mean it's it's already been the amount of capital that's kind of come into kind of private Equity into real estate into private placements in eneral it's totally shifted the game but it also feels like we're still kind of early Innings right it still feels like
 
people are just discovering this for the first time and and even the conversation we're having of you know um activating people to raise Capital right in a compliant way that's just an easy way because you guys are creating a system that just reduces friction to continue to increase more Capital to come into the space like do you feel the same thing are you seen I know there's kind of some potential proposed regulation to you know increase the requirements for accreditation and you know there's
 
always a battle going back and forth on on that but what's kind of your sentiment just at a broader level of just the alternative kind of private placement space in over the next 10 years yeah I mean I'm I'm bullish right like we're we're kind of in a little bit of a lull right now um you'll hear that capital's a little bit harder to come by investors are holding on a little bit tighter um but that's because there's actually deals out there right now I mean said right now is actually a great time to invest right now is a great time
 
to invest because prices are are depressed a little bit um investors are a little bit reluctant to invest um there are less buyers in the market because a lot of them are getting kind of washed out um but there are some properties coming online through foreclosures through things like that this is where you know when you talk about during good times you're like oh man I cannot wait until there's blood in the streets and I'm going to pounce on it I'm want to pounce on those opportunities that time is right now it
 
it's not it's not you're you can be waiting on the sideline for years and you're gonna you're gonna miss it it's right now right now is the time to to figure out how to invest how to raise Capital how to do deals how to make them work because right now it's difficult to make them work that's that's the truth of it right now is the time to act and you're going in five years from now for instance you're going to look back to this time and say man I wish I would have got started because we're we're
 
we're going to be in the upswing again very soon totally no I was just uh I was a one of the guys I follow who's been in real estate for a long time he was talking and reminiscing about he bought uh I think he said three dozen single family homes between uh 2009 and 2011 right and he's held on to them since then and you know looking back he's like the only thing he wishes he did was buy more right because it's but at that point it was you know everything was on sale everyone was like real estate's over and it's it's so hard to
 
be contrarian I think it's Warren Buffet this said be uh you know fearful when everyone else is greedy and greedy when everyone else is fearful right it it's it's a simple idiom that makes sense but it's really hard to do and right now we're kind of in that that time where investors are reticent there's a lot of pressure on deals right now that's kind of creating a great buy opportunity you know we're seeing I know you're seeing it and uh you know I think I agree with you I think it's a great time to be to
 
be jumping in right now and uh Seth thanks so much for coming on man what's what's the best way for folks to get a hold of you and learn more about uh your law firm uh raise law and try vest if they want to learn more about what that looks like for sure uh the best place where I keep all my links is Seth Paul bradley.com um you'll have links to try best there links from my uh law firm and social media it's all posted on there okay we'll put that in the show notes and definitely appreciate you coming on
 
today set it awesome all right Ben appreciate it [Music] [Applause] [Music] man
Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiRq38II33s&t=1047s
https://www.instagram.com/p/C5mNnwsv2fs/
 https://aspenfunds.us/private-credit-
https://www.investwithaspen.com/free-economic-report
https://www.linkedin.com/in/benwfraser/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/aspen-funds/
https://www.instagram.com/aspenfunds/
 
Seth Bradley’s Links:
https://x.com/sethbradleyesq
https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq
www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq
https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq
https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/
https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/
https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq
https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq
https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en

Raise The Bar Radio Trailer

Raise The Bar Radio Launch
In this episode, Seth Bradley unveils his rebranded podcast, Raise the Bar, a bold evolution from The Passive Income Attorney. This show goes beyond passive income, it’s about scaling real businesses, raising serious capital, and leveling up your life. Seth shares his personal journey from big law to real estate empire builder and lays out the podcast's structure, purpose, and powerful call to action.
Highlights:
Rebrand from Passive Income Attorney to Raise the Bar to better reflect the audience: not just attorneys, but all capital raisers, investors, and entrepreneurs
Focus has expanded from passive investing to include business building, capital raising, and deal structuring
Seth’s background: former big law attorney, now securities lawyer, real estate investor, founder of RaiseLaw, Tribevest CLO, and co-founder of multiple startups
Personal story: fired from big law, used it as a catalyst to go all-in on real estate and entrepreneurship
Podcast is for real estate investors, capital raisers, and entrepreneurs ready to level up and ditch limiting beliefs
New podcast structure:
Monday – Million Dollar Mondays: how pros build and scale wealth
Tuesday – RTB Live / Q&A: live shows, events, guest features
Wednesday – Main deep-dive solo or guest interview episode
Friday – 1% Closer: tactical, short-form deal-closer insights
Theme: go all-in, raise your standards, and raise the bar in life and business
Final call to action: subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and share with someone who needs to hear it
Transcript:
Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:05.196)
Welcome to the brand new Raise The Bar podcast with yours truly Seth Bradley. This is the show for real estate investors, capital raisers, and entrepreneurs who are ready to take their game to the highest level. If you've been following me for a while, you know this isn't my first rodeo, but we're making a big shift. And today I'm going to break it all down for you. So first, why the rebrand? Why now?
 
and most importantly, what's in it for you. So let's dive in. So why the rebrand? If you've been rocking with me since the Passive Income Attorney Podcast, first off, cheers to you. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. It's changed my life for the better, and I hope it's changed for yours too. Our show is all about helping high income professionals escape the golden handcuffs, start building wealth through passive investing, and it was a killer show. Tons of incredible conversations. But over time,
 
I realized something. I wasn't just helping attorneys and I wasn't just talking about passive income. I was teaching people how to build a business, how to raise capital, how to structure deals, and how to build legacy wealth. So I had to ask myself, is my brand serving the people I want to serve? And the answer was clear. It was actually yes, but I needed to go bigger, bolder, more direct, and that's how Raise the Bar was born. This show is all about raising standards, raising capital,
 
and raising the bar on how you build your wealth in your business. I still love and believe in passive investing, but now we're also getting tactical and strategic, providing you with ways to explore active capital raising and entrepreneurship. So you can stop playing small and you can start operating like a real pro. So who am I and why should you listen? I'm Seth Bradley. I'm a securities attorney and a real estate entrepreneur.
 
who has closed billions of dollars in real estate transactions over the past decade plus. I'm a former big law attorney turned boutique securities law firm founder of RaiseLaw, and additionally, I'm the chief legal officer of TribeBest. I'm the co-founder of Klaviss and StackRack Battery Systems, and also the managing partner of Law Capital Partners. I've closed every kind of real estate transaction you can imagine, from house hacking into a duplex, to closing hundreds of syndications and funds. I've built businesses, I've raised millions,
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (02:29.92)
and worked with some of biggest names in the game. But here's the thing. I didn't start off in this world. I grew up deep in the mountains of West Virginia. No silver spoon, no family connections in real estate or finance, just grit, hustle, and the willingness to learn. And the willingness to take risks that most people were too scared to take. I walked away from the traditional path. I gave up the cushy, multiple six-figure, big law firm job. I broke free from the golden handcuffs and went
 
all in on building wealth through alternative investments, capital raising, and entrepreneurship. And now, I help entrepreneurs just like you do the exact same thing. Who is this podcast for? If you're a real estate investor, a capital raiser, or an entrepreneur, or interested in any of those things, if you're interested in raising capital, structuring deals, building a real business, and raise the bar in your life, you're in the right place. If you're ready to ditch the limiting beliefs,
 
to raise more capital and start thinking like the top 1 % that you are, you belong right here. Let me tell you a quick story. So I was flying high in a big law firm, prestigious law firm, big paycheck, fancy title, all that kind of stuff. But behind the scenes, I was absolutely miserable. I had no control over my time, my future, my life. Then one day I was involuntarily shown the exit. I was fired, just like that. Gut punch.
 
Looking back, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Because that was the moment I realized, if you're not all in, whether that's a big law firm job, your W-2, whatever it might be, you're going nowhere. That experience forced me to commit 100 % to my own entrepreneurial path. No more safety nets, that was gone. No more playing it safe. So I went all in on real estate, capital raising, entrepreneurship, buying businesses, and I never looked back.
 
And that's what this show is all about. It's about going all in, raising your standards, raising your game, raising the bar. Not just for yourself, but for everybody around you. And if you're ready to level up, stick around because we're about to take things to another level. Raise the bar structure to give you a mix of high impact content, balancing deep dives, expert insights, short tactical takeaways. And here's the quick breakdown. Million Dollar Mondays, Quick Hit Insights.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (04:56.288)
how top entrepreneurs, investors, capital raisers make and keep and scale millions. RTB Live, Q &A Tuesdays, guest appearances, top podcast interviews on When I'm on Other People's Shows, webinars, live speaking events, direct audience Q &As, send me your questions. And of course, the main episode will air on Wednesdays. Deep dive solo episodes for high impact guest interviews, breaking down success, capital raising, entrepreneurship.
 
On Fridays, we're going to do the 1 % closer, close out your week, fast-paced, short, taxable episodes, focus on closing deals, raising capital, leveling up to get you to be the top 1 % that you are. As we grow, we'll refine and evolve, of course, but right now, that's the game plan to help you level up fast. If you're ready to stop playing small, start raising the bar on your business and your life, hit that subscribe button, and make sure you don't miss that one show, that one single show,
 
It's going to make a massive impact on your life. And of course, if this has resonated with you, please leave a five star rating review. Share it with someone you love, your acquaintance, your loved one, your family, your friends, someone who really needs to hear it. That's how we grow. That's how we change the game. Welcome to Raise the Bar. Let's go.
 
Links from the Show:
https://x.com/sethbradleyesq
https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq
www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq
https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq
https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/
https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/
https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq
https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq
https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq

TME 05 | Stop Chasing the Woman in the Red Dress: Multifamily Is the Smartest Move with Joe Fairless

In this episode, Joe Fairless and Seth Bradley discuss the importance of authenticity in business, the current state of the multifamily real estate market, and effective strategies for raising capital. Joe Fairless shares valuable insights on staying committed to multifamily investments despite market fluctuations, leveraging technology such as AI and EOS to improve operational efficiency, and the importance of building authority and expertise in the real estate industry.
Throughout the discussion, Joe Fairless and Seth Bradley reflect on personal growth, mindset, and long-term vision, emphasizing how character, consistency, and commitment shape success in both business and life. Joe Fairless underscores that true leadership and credibility come from aligning actions with values, maintaining authenticity, and continually striving for excellence no matter the market conditions.
Links to watch and subscribe:
https://youtu.be/B-LUu6QJRMM
Bullet Point Highlights:
Authenticity is key in business interactions.
Focus on your strengths and expertise.
The multifamily market fundamentals remain strong.
Utilize technology to enhance capital raising efforts.
Building authority is crucial for new capital raisers.
Networking through influential connections can be effective.
Character is more important than reputation.
Sticking to one niche can lead to greater success.
Continuous learning and adaptation are essential.
Coaching and mentoring can be fulfilling personal pursuits.
Transcript: 
Joe Fairless (00:03.629)
Hey, how you doing?
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:04.881)
Alright man.
 
How are you? I don't know if we've actually met in person or not, but funny, I'll share the story once we start officially recording, but once upon a time when I was trying to find my place in this syndication world, had a phone call with you and it was awesome to actually get to speak with you at the time because it was just like, whoa, this is Joe Fairless, right? So it was a huge deal, so it's awesome to have you on the show.
 
Joe Fairless (00:34.966)
You know what? I take notes of every conversation and I see it was around May of 2019. Yeah, yeah, I see that. It's awesome. Well, looking forward to every five years we should do this.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:43.988)
There you go. There you go. Awesome, man. Awesome.
 
Yeah, let me...
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (00:53.1)
Sounds good, man. Sounds good. Sounds good. So just to give you a little bit of groundwork here. So I'm a securities attorney by trade. I've raised capital for syndications, those sorts of things. I'm currently with Tribest, I'm chief legal officer over there. So we do, put together fund to funds in a box for capital aggregators. And I'm rebranding the podcast. So once upon a time it was Passive Income Attorney. I was really focused on bringing in investors into my deals, raising capital, that sort of thing.
 
Now I'm rebranding this as raising the bar gonna be kind of more of a general General podcast on business and raising capital and in real estate that sort of thing. So It's gonna be more of a general audience before it was past investors This is gonna be more kind of business people active investors because I'm actively trying to bring in you know capital raisers and People like that. They're putting deals together for my law firm and for for tribe vest
 
Joe Fairless (01:33.998)
Mm-hmm.
 
Joe Fairless (01:48.354)
Mm-hmm.
 
Joe Fairless (01:51.884)
Makes sense. Thanks for that context.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (01:53.544)
Yeah, cool cool. So and then format wise we'll just do it'll be pretty short We're gonna do like 25 minutes 30 minutes And then we'll go into kind of these like mini segments because I want to do these mini episodes And I think I sent those over to you one is just million dollar Monday. Just kind of how you made your first million How you made your last million how you're make your next that sort of thing and then the next one is the the 1 % segment which is kind of you know, how did you become basically?
 
Joe Fairless (02:00.504)
Sweet.
 
Joe Fairless (02:15.47)
Mm-hmm.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (02:21.364)
1 % like the best top 1 % in what you do and that sort of thing and just kind of giving actionable steps to the listeners about how they can get there too.
 
Joe Fairless (02:25.442)
Mm-hmm.
 
Joe Fairless (02:30.314)
Awesome. Sounds good. Sounds like fun.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (02:32.98)
Cool. All right, man. Well, we're already recording, so I'll just kind of jump into it and then we'll make the, I'll make the cuts later. cool. Welcome to Raise the Bar with me, your host, Seth Bradley, where we have elevated conversations on raising capital, real estate, and entrepreneurship. Today, we have an incredible guest, Joe Fairless. If you've been living under a rock, then maybe you haven't heard of Joe, but everybody in my industry knows Joe as an industry leader, a thought leader.
 
real estate entrepreneur, extraordinaire, marketer, master marketer, all of the above. So Joe, welcome to the show.
 
Joe Fairless (03:10.36)
Looking forward to our conversation, Seth.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (03:12.884)
for sure man. So, you know, I like this question because it's kind of unusual and I have a hard time answering it and you might too, but we'll see. you know, when a stranger asks you what you do and it just comes up to you maybe at a conference or on the streets, what do you say?
 
Joe Fairless (03:28.398)
I'd I buy apartment buildings.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (03:30.546)
I love it. Keeping it simple, man. I guess that was an easier answer than I anticipated.
 
Joe Fairless (03:35.182)
Well, yeah, I've been to in my early days I went to seminars and they have much longer more thought-provoking responses like, know, I help high income earners create passive income or something along those lines, but I keep it simple. I buy apartment buildings and then, you know,
 
let the conversation go where it naturally would go.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (04:06.366)
I love that man. Yeah, and you know, to be honest, know, that response that you just mentioned is a little bit played out. Don't you think? I feel like if you're on LinkedIn or if you're on, you know, conferences, everybody's like, yeah, I raised capital from passive investors so I can help them do this and do that. Do you think that's a little bit played out? Do you think that people need to kind of change that marketing strategy at this point?
 
Joe Fairless (04:25.697)
Well...
 
I think you should just be authentic. think just go with what feels right for you and what you'll enjoy talking about. Just go with what feels right for you. That's what I do. I am not a salesy person.
 
I feel uncomfortable if I'm trying to sell someone something. I believe in what I do, but I feel uncomfortable if I'm trying to force it. And so if I'm like, I was just at a dad-daughter dance this past Sunday and we met up with some couples that I didn't know any of them. was just couples that, you know, my daughter...
 
goes to their parents of the kids who go to school with my daughter. And so I was talking to one of the dads and he said, what do you do? I I buy apartment buildings. And he said, that's interesting. Then we started talking about what I do because he was naturally interested. And I enjoy that much more than trying to intentionally bait a hook. I'd just rather just have a conversation.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (05:40.03)
Yeah.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (05:43.57)
Yeah, yeah, I think that's the key, right? Especially in today's world where everything's online and you just get marketed to and advertised to all the time. You've got to be authentic and you need to have an elevator pitch, it's got to be authentic. It's got to be really who you are. And it can't be sales because people are so sensitive to that nowadays, whether you're raising capital or whether you're W2 doing your job. And we're all salespeople to a certain extent, whatever we do.
 
But people are very sensitive to that. So you've got to really focus on being authentic and coming from a place of genuineness.
 
Joe Fairless (06:20.91)
Nobody in the world can do you like you do you. You've got a unique strand of DNA that no one else can be the Seth Bradley that you are, the Joe Farrells that I am, because it's impossible. It's impossible. There is no one like you. There is no one like me.
 
And it's just the more magnetic, the more genuine and true to who I am, the more magnetic I feel like I become because people enjoy authenticity and it's just the right way to play it, right way to do it.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (07:01.684)
Totally, totally, totally. For our audience, just tell us what you're doing nowadays. mean, there's been kind of some changes in the market with the interest rates going up, those sorts of things, maybe starting towards the end of 2022. I know for myself, I was in the capital raising game for a number of years and then I kind of slowed down there towards the end of 2022, beginning of 2023, just to kind of see what the market was gonna do, just to see if we could still get some really good deals going, see if some of the other deals were going bad.
 
you know, what, what are you up to nowadays? Like what's your focus? right now.
 
Joe Fairless (07:36.77)
The focus has been and always will be on our current portfolio and the deals that we have and operating those deals the best that we can and continuing to improve the NOI. So that is the focus.
 
There we have some deals that have floating rates with rate caps and the focus is to figure out how not to have floating rate with rate caps that you have to continue to renew once they expire. So that comes with refinancing and in order to refinance and sometimes you have to do a capital call or if you don't do a capital call you gotta bring in equity in some form or fashion to refinance.
 
some cases, it just depends on the deal. So the focus is on the portfolio and always will be. And then the secondary thing that we look at is acquisitions. How do we capitalize on the market that we're at right now? mean, the best way to describe it that I've read is it's stagnant. You know, it's just...
 
Not sure. The water, there's stuff growing in the water, but not sure if you really want to be part of what's growing in the water right now. Like it's just, it's stagnant and what will, but we also know what is coming.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (09:00.486)
Yeah.
 
Joe Fairless (09:12.264)
and that is the supply demand shift in multifamilies favor depends on the sub market and the market obviously. But generally the Sun Belt is going to greatly benefit in the next year, year and a half, in some cases six months from now.
 
with the supply-demand dynamic with new supply drying up and increasing the demand for the existing supply. Again, depends on the market, depends on the sub-market. So how do we capitalize on that? is there any way to be opportunistic with what's happening with some deals from other operators that
 
didn't work out. know, there haven't been a lot of foreclosures, but there have been some. And we have relationships with our lenders that are pretty strong. And in fact, one, a large lender that we have a really good relationship with, that we have properties with, they foreclosed on someone else's deal. And I won't name names on who they foreclosed on, but they foreclosed on someone else's deal and they came to us
 
Afterward and said hey here here. Here's a here's an opportunity. It's in a great area of Fort Worth and I'm from Fort Worth so I know we have a lot of property there too, but I know the market also I grew up there and We'll give you this special financing of around 3 % or so interest rate fixed interest rate
 
for year one and then it's fixed through the whole period of the loan but then the interest rate steps up to around four, four and a half percent over the five years. So to get that type of essentially seller financing but it's lender financing direct from the lender lending institution that foreclosed on the deal in a very good area of Fort Worth.
 
Joe Fairless (11:29.326)
There are opportunities out there also. So it's how do we become opportunistic and find these deals. And so we're in the process of closing on that deal or doing due diligence on that deal. We're under contract and we're scheduled to close in about a month and a half from now.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (11:49.316)
Awesome, awesome. Have you found it difficult at any point in time, kind of over these last couple years where the market has slowed down?
 
Joe Fairless (11:56.654)
Whatever you're gonna say, yes. So finish your question, but the answer is yes. Yes, I found it difficult over the last couple years, but what exactly are you asking about that's difficult?
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (11:59.732)
Yeah. Sure. Specifically, should say sticking with multifamily because you are a multifamily guy and you you've seen you've seen where everyone, you know, everybody wanted that on that multifamily train for, you know, a decade, if not longer.
 
Joe Fairless (12:15.598)
Mmm. Man.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (12:23.696)
And now you've seen a lot of these same people change their tune and say, okay, well, you know what? Let's pivot to something else. Let's pivot to car washes or private credit funds or all these other things.
 
Joe Fairless (12:29.998)
Man, I'm actually, I know you're an attorney, but can I strike my yes actually from that question? Cause no, actually the answer is no. I haven't found it difficult to stick with multifamily. Hell no. No. You know, you go to a restaurant at a diner and they offer lasagna, California roll and what else?
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (12:41.16)
Hahaha
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (12:49.107)
Ha ha.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (13:01.204)
Ha
 
Joe Fairless (13:01.356)
Pad Thai, you know, are they gonna have the best lasagna, California roll, and pad thai? No, no. They've got something for everyone, but they're not gonna be great at any of it. I'd rather go to an Italian restaurant that makes their own noodles, right? Makes their own pasta. And where they specialize in one thing.
 
Not at all. No, we I believe in the fundamentals of multifamily. I believe in the supply demand that is here. I mean we had a record number of supply across the board and multifamily and the occupancy maintained 90-91 percent depending on the market but it maintained in the 90s in a record number of supply and by the way at the same time you got
 
the capital markets raising interest rates the way they did. And a lot of people have been able to hold serve. And the fundamentals of the supply demand and how much...
 
how many renters there are out there and how that will continue is there. That's cold hard facts. There is demand, a lot of demand, and there will continue to be even more demand because the supply is trailing off. We have never looked.
 
outside of multifamily because it's so strong. I think that is a cultural thing actually because if you, anyone who's in the sports, college sports, they'll know about the NIL and
 
Joe Fairless (14:54.784)
how you can bounce from one team to another year after year. And so you'll find some people who aren't starting and if they put in the work then, and I'm for NIL, I think players should be paid, but I don't think that they, I don't think they should, I don't think it serves them as young men and young women.
 
mostly young men in this case who are bouncing from place to place, to not compete and not work for a starting position and instead just go somewhere else the path of least resistance. That's not how you build character. There's a really good book, it's called The Road to Character.
 
and they talk about in the book, they give different examples of people throughout history. And they're not exceptional, like saintly people. They're people who are normal people, but what they did that is atypical for what our culture does now is they stuck with things even when it was tough.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (16:09.682)
Mm-hmm.
 
Joe Fairless (16:09.998)
and instead of bouncing from thing to thing because what happens is when you bounce from thing to thing you don't get an expertise you don't get the the depth of knowledge the scars that that you need in order to be truly exceptional at that one thing and it's just surface level
 
And it'd be like if you feed your kids candy for every meal. I mean, it's same thing. You can't live on mental candy, right? You gotta have some substance. You gotta go through things.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (16:43.06)
Yeah, I love that man. I love that metaphor. I love that. Like you've got to get reps, whether the times are great or an easy or whether they're hard. And those hard reps are the ones that are really going to set you up for success down the line. Like if you're able to execute in the hard times, then when times turn good again, you're going to be at the top, right? You're going to be cream of the crop. What do you, what do you think it is about you and maybe your company that's enabled you to do that, to stick?
 
to multifamily and not say, ooh, you know what, I'm a really good marketer so I can raise capital for anything if I really want to, right? You're in that position and what is it about you and your company that's been able to allow you to stick to multifamily and just stick to it during these hard times?
 
Joe Fairless (17:32.762)
the fundamentals are there. I mean, you could make an argument that if we were office investors, and I have some friends who are really keen on investing in office now and in the future, but you could very easily make an argument that with the amount of office space that people have currently, you don't need as much of that space.
 
It's not a five, you know, three to five to seven year play. Maybe it's a 20 to 50 year play. I don't know. Who the hell knows what's going to happen with office and working from home and AI and automation and all that. But with multifamily, the challenge is capital markets. Now there are some other aspects like the hyper supply, which has tapered off.
 
because of the higher interest rates increase in you know insurance which has tapered off back to the single digits by and large but that that was a big thing property taxes depending on where you're at but the fundamentals are there people are renting and consumers for yeah unfortunately for generally you know for the general consumer their credit card debt
 
is going up. They're still paying off their credit card debt from purchases almost 12 months ago. More than half of people are paying off purchases for more than 12 months ago. that's so right now they've been out earning their income because income has been increasing. But what happens if that income stops increasing the way it has been?
 
the debt's not going anywhere, especially credit card debt, and that's certainly not going to make more first-time home buyers that dynamic. So the fundamentals are there, and not to mention we already have a housing shortage deficit, major deficit.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (19:50.866)
Yeah, so it's the belief and it's the knowledge like it's the education like you you know that the fundamentals are there you you're you're basing your resilience in the market to What you're seeing in the data like hey, it's you know We we believe in this asset type because of the data that i'm Well educated and well versed in
 
Joe Fairless (20:09.752)
Mm-hmm.
 
Joe Fairless (20:14.346)
Absolutely.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (20:16.168)
That's incredible. That's incredible. Has anything changed in the way that you potentially because you've got a deal that might be going through in the way that you either have raised capital recently or how you are going to raise capital for your next deal as compared to when it might have been a little bit easier, let's say five years ago from passive investors?
 
Joe Fairless (20:38.612)
Yes, we have implemented a system that I'm sure a lot of your listeners have heard of EOS, Entrepreneur Operating System, and that has been very helpful. We just did our focus day a month ago, but we've hit the ground running and we have our, I think, Vision Day part one later this month and Vision Day two.
 
next month and that has allowed ownership among the team members to really thrive because team members are responsible for rocks or their goals but if you say goals instead of rock they'll the EOS person will slap your hand so I'll continue to say rock so they're responsible for rocks and it's just
 
It takes more, the individuals on the team have more ownership. So that's not something sexy or flashy that I think your question was getting to. So I'll say something else that has been helpful would be doing Facebook ads for getting new accredited investor leads.
 
at scale. That's the best way that we found to get credit investor leads at scale is through Facebook ads. And we have an agency that we work with. And I just hired a director of marketing who has some really good experience and he's overseeing them and the marketing team. And then
 
Another thing that has been helpful that where I'd say just scratching the surface I'm a big proponent of AI and how I believe We are in the middle of a major change for our society with because of AI I think it is just as major of a change as it as it as when we all got internet in our homes
 
Joe Fairless (22:51.602)
on a personal computer. I think it's that big to have access to, just think about phone books to Googling something on your computer. So with AI we've incorporated it and are incorporating as much as possible in one aspect to address your question about how we're doing things differently. One aspect.
 
is that on our investor calls, our prospective investor calls, we record them. They know it's being recorded and on a recorded line. We have an AI service that then takes the information from the call and grades the call. But then not only that is we look at, those investors, which ones of those investors invest?
 
What did we say? What did they say on those calls? What are some common commonalities? Which ones didn't invest? What did they say? What did we say? And starting to identify trends and words and topics to talk about and to address on the calls to increase the conversion rate.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (24:07.048)
That's great, man. I love it. You kind of went full circle there. You've got EOS, which I'm a huge proponent of. We use that across the various companies that I have, some form or another. There's got to be a framework of organization and accountability and being able to look back and say, hey, we've had this problem before and here's how we solved it before. Or hey, this problem is still occurring from last week's L10 meeting. What do we need to do to improve it? How do we solve that issue?
 
Joe Fairless (24:33.166)
Mm-hmm.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (24:36.712)
How do we keep moving forward rather than, what did we talk about last week or what did we talk about last month? You've got to have a way to organize things and a way to solve issues organizationally, especially as you grow. So EOS, huge proponent of it, man. I mean, it's awesome. Like you have to have some form of it, even if it's not to a T with the book, Traction is where that comes from. You have to implement some form of organization and framework for your company. And then like you said,
 
Joe Fairless (24:41.389)
Yeah.
 
Joe Fairless (24:56.575)
Mm-hmm.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (25:03.284)
you know, with AI, everyone has to stay on the forefront of what's going on right now. I know I was even a little resistant myself. was like, chat GPT, is that? Eh, you know, and put it off for a little bit. And then once you start using that, along with all the other things as well, I'm just using that as kind of a baseline, but just learning how to use chat GPT in your everyday life, it's just a game changer. Because now your whole thought process changes. It's not like,
 
Joe Fairless (25:08.547)
Yep.
 
Joe Fairless (25:20.14)
Mm-hmm.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (25:31.22)
I need to put together this entire article or blog post. It's like, how do I prompt it correctly to to produce this blog post or this article in my voice and then edit it through that or, you know, all these different things you figure out, like how to prompt rather than how to actually take this solution all the way from start to finish. Let that technology tell you how to do it. So it's awesome. And then Facebook ads as well.
 
Joe Fairless (25:45.206)
Mm-hmm.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (25:58.964)
you've got to really dial those things in, right? It can be a money pit, but at the same time, if you can master that, and it sounds like you hired an agency that's very industry specific, which helps out a lot. And from what I've seen, we have gems, we have a capital raising business, we have all these different things, and finding somebody that's niche to that industry is super important.
 
Joe Fairless (26:22.434)
That's right.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (26:25.756)
I'd love to go back and stay on this capital raising subject, especially for people that just started out. So like now you're doing EOS, now you're using AI, now you're using Facebook ads, do you have some capital to be able to invest in those ads? What about for somebody that's just kind of starting out? they're, you know, maybe this is their first fund to fund or, you know, their first property that they're raising capital for. Like how do they effectively launch their first
 
Capital Race.
 
Joe Fairless (26:56.59)
Well, I would read the book that I wrote on syndication because I walked through the whole process of that best ever syndication book. So, but for this this relatively short conversation, I'd say first,
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (27:04.404)
Great book.
 
Joe Fairless (27:19.606)
People have to make sure you have to make sure that people perceive you and you are actually a real estate expert and That because you might have you might have been if this your first one first deal then I'm assuming you came from some other industry or
 
If it was real estate, maybe you're a property manager, they don't know about all aspects of your expertise as it relates to real estate. you've got to, by having a thought leadership platform, you'll interview others who have that experience, you'll continue to learn, hone your skills, and then you'll also be associated with those who have those skill sets, and that will be helpful for you.
 
Once you do that, assuming that you are the expert and you are also perceived as the expert, then what I would do, and what I did actually on my very first one is I created a spreadsheet. And the spreadsheet had the name of the person, how I knew them, and then,
 
What I did is I wrote down all the different names and then how I knew them. So for example, I was on the alumni advisory board for Texas Tech. I was on a flag football team in New York. I wrote someone's name down there. On my flag football team, was working at different companies. I worked at different companies, so I wrote down different coworkers at different companies.
 
the key here for doing it this way is identifying the person. So then you sort them by how you know them. all the people from the flag football team would be sorted together. All the people from XYZ company would be sorted together. And then you identify the most influential person within that group. And you talk to him or her.
 
Joe Fairless (29:39.306)
about your opportunity. And once you talk to him or her about the opportunity, and if they find it appealing or at least they want to learn more about it, then you can go to the next person in that group and you can name check. You can say, I was just talking to Seth about this and he's got some follow-up questions about it and I thought it also would make sense to talk to you about it too.
 
So then you come in a little warm with the group dynamic versus if you come in cold on an individual level.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (30:11.924)
Mm-hmm.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (30:18.822)
I like that man. That's a very, very nuanced strategy tidbit there. What I really heard was, you know, authenticity and authority, authenticity in that. Yeah, you've got to educate yourself. You've got to be a real estate expert if that's what you're raising capital for and authority. And then you've got to show people, you know, why you're the expert, why you know all these things, why they should listen to you to invest in something like this and even leveraging the authority of others with that.
 
that strategy where you go to this influential person and say, look, this person likes this deal too, and here's why. And then they can go to them and they kind of look to them as additional authority because they kind of look to them as that thought leader or that leader in general. So pretty great, man. Start wrapping this up, but this is kind of a nuanced question that I love to ask and ...
 
Because once upon a time I went to I went to med school for a little while and then I dropped out and because I just I hated it knew it wasn't for me and I'm going to law school and then got into real estate. So you know in a parallel universe tell me about a different version of you a different but likely version of you if you didn't exist as you do today because right now you know you're you're an apartment buyer you're a great marketer you're an entrepreneur.
 
Joe Fairless (31:38.164)
I'd say I really enjoy coaching my daughter in soccer. I do not know soccer. I grew up in Texas. I played football. I played baseball. I ran track in that order. There wasn't a soccer option or maybe even a soccer ball in Texas when I was growing up. But I enjoy coaching and in an alternative universe, I would
 
I would do more of that because time is, it flies whenever I'm doing that.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (32:15.036)
Awesome, awesome. All right, Joe, for our listeners out there, what can they find out more about you?
 
Joe Fairless (32:21.494)
You can go to AshcroftCapital.com and if you're looking at passive investing or if you're an operator or someone who is partnering with others, then my conference is a good place to be. It's besteverconference.com. It's gonna be March 3rd and 4th in Salt Lake City this year.
 
I can get a discount code to your people too.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (32:52.51)
Great, yeah, I'll drop that in the show notes and I'll see you there, Joe. So we'll shake hands in person. So thanks again for coming on the show. Really appreciate it and we'll catch you next time.
 
Joe Fairless (32:57.304)
Sweet. Awesome.
 
Joe Fairless (33:05.518)
You know what, in just a second, I'm gonna just tell you the code, that way you don't have to do any work. Whenever I do a podcast and someone says, I'll send it to you, I'm like, more work for me to do later. So, all right, here's a code. Hurry 25, it'll be 25 % off all ticket types. H-U-R-R-Y, all lowercase, and then number 25, you get 25 % off all tickets, except for the LP ticket.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (33:09.917)
Okay.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (33:13.808)
Yeah, I know then you gotta follow up.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (33:35.924)
Let's roll right into these million dollar questions and then I'll let you go.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (33:44.884)
Alright Joe, let's jump into this. So, how did you make your first million dollars?
 
Joe Fairless (33:52.185)
Same way I made my last one so spoiler alert. It's it's selling when a deal exited so The is probably The seventh or eighth Deal I had one million dollars on one transaction, right? Like is that chunk about? Yeah, I
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (33:55.56)
Hahaha
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (34:12.767)
Really million dollars in your net worth
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (34:17.96)
What puts you over the edge there? How did you grow that first million?
 
Joe Fairless (34:21.626)
I lost my first million before I ever came across it. That was on the very first deal. It would just be, it'd probably be through an exit of a deal.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (34:26.056)
Ha
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (34:35.614)
Sure, yeah, and I'll bet it's probably similar. mean, how are you gonna, how are you planning on making your next million dollars? Same thing, the apartments, all about apartments, man. I love it, singular focus, that's where it's at. mean, riches are in the niches.
 
Joe Fairless (34:41.144)
Same thing. Yep. The apartments. All apartments. That's right.
 
Yep.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (34:52.564)
All right, you're clearly in the top 1 % of what you do. What is it about you that separates you from the rest of the field?
 
Joe Fairless (34:58.958)
Mmm.
 
I do what I say I'm gonna do. And sadly, that separates me from a lot of people, not all people.
 
but that's a big focus of mine. And it's not about my, I recently read something that resonated and that was don't focus on your reputation, focus on your character. Reputation is such a vanity metric, but the character is who you are when no one's looking and being proud of who you are. And that's vital to me.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (35:37.524)
Yeah, and it's not just saying what you're going to do to other people, but also with yourself, right? To yourself.
 
Joe Fairless (35:43.726)
Mmm good point. Yeah when you're when when I'm on those runs and I can just stop Whenever I want But then I'll be I'll know I'll know I didn't go through this, you know, you know made up finish line that I had predetermined in my head and And that's that's there's there's something to be said there. I'm glad you brought that up
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (36:10.644)
Yeah, that's that's the key right? It's not just when somebody when it's dependent on somebody else or somebody else is watching It's you know, what do you do when nobody's watching and what do you do when it's just a promise to yourself? Do you follow through do you keep those promises things as easy as hey when you set your alarm in the morning and you wake up Do you do you get up or do you hit the snooze button? Like you made a promise to yourself the night before to wake up and get up when that alarm goes off Do you keep that promise?
 
Joe Fairless (36:15.415)
Mm-hmm.
 
Joe Fairless (36:25.229)
Yeah.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (36:39.12)
Awesome. All right, brother. I think that should do it. I will see you. I'll see you at BC, man.
 
Joe Fairless (36:46.42)
Awesome. I appreciate it. yeah, if anything you can do to help get to get the word out about the conference to your email list, I'd appreciate that also. All right. Thanks, Seth. All right. Bye.
 
Seth Bradley, Esq. (36:57.404)
Absolutely. All right, brother. Talk soon. See you.
Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links:
Seth Bradley’s Links:
https://x.com/sethbradleyesq
https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq
www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq
https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq
https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/
https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/
https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq
https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq
https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en
 
Joe Fairless’s Links:
https://www.facebook.com/imjoefairless
https://x.com/joefairless
https://www.linkedin.com/in/joefairless/
https://ashcroftcapital.com/our-team/joe-fairless/
https://www.instagram.com/besteverpodcast/?hl=en

TME 04 | From Burnout to Balance: Holistic Health Framework for Business Leaders with Justin Roethlingshoefer

In this episode, Seth Bradley sits down with performance and holistic health expert Justin Roethlingshoefer to explore his powerful journey from being an overweight, data-obsessed kid to becoming a leading authority in elite athletic and executive performance. Justin Roethlingshoefer shares how his personal struggles and years of research led him to redefine what true health means, not just for athletes, but for anyone seeking fulfillment and sustainable success.
Rather than approaching health from the “body up,” focusing only on diet, exercise, and technology, Justin Roethlingshoefer emphasizes a “top-down” approach rooted in spiritual identity and emotional clarity. When the inner foundation is solid, he explains, the mind and body naturally follow, creating lasting, authentic change.
Throughout the conversation, Justin Roethlingshoefer reveals why so many high achievers, billionaires, business leaders, and franchise owners still feel unfulfilled and burnt out. They chase symptoms instead of addressing the root causes of imbalance. Through his company, Own It, Justin Roethlingshoefer combines data-driven physical insights with deep mental, emotional, and spiritual coaching to help clients achieve real, aligned transformation.
As Justin Roethlingshoefer puts it, true health and high performance come when every aspect of life works in harmony. The process may take time, but the results are profound, sustainable, and life-changing.
Links to watch and subscribe:
https://youtu.be/9NH2nAYzmlc
Bullet Point Highlights:
Body-up health solutions are backwards. Real, lasting transformation starts with spiritual identity and mindset before physical optimization.
Holistic integration is required. Mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical health must be aligned for true healing and performance.
Success ≠ health or fulfillment. High-performing entrepreneurs and executives often suffer because they chase outcomes, not alignment.
Transformation takes patience. Sustainable results require commitment to small, integrated steps, not quick fixes or shortcuts.
The solution is full integration, not fragmentation. Own It’s model addresses all aspects of health in one place to create life-changing outcomes.
Transcript:
Seth Bradley (00:02.062) What's up, builders? This is Raise the Bar Radio, where we talk about building wealth, raising capital, and all in all, raising the bar in your business and your life. This is the No BS podcast for capital raisers, investors, and entrepreneurs who are serious about scaling their business and living life on their own terms. I'm Seth Bradley, securities attorney, real estate investor, and entrepreneur, bringing you world-class strategies from the best in the game.
If you're ready to raise more capital, close bigger deals, build a better you, and create true financial freedom, you're in the right place. Let's go. Man, excited to have you on the show. Let's just jump right in, Tell the listeners a little bit about your background and take it back as far as you like.
Justin Roethlingshoefer So man, how long's the show? I think the big thing, to be honest with you, anytime I kind of get asked about my background, my background shaped me. My background kind of brought me through to what it is that we're doing now. And I kind of speak in terms of anointings and callings and what it is that was stamped on us from a young age. And for me, it was health. I knew that.
When I leaned into that as a young boy at 12, 13 years old, I was a fat kid. was the one that I was just made fun of. But I also had this deep desire to know and understand my body at a level that didn't make sense to a lot of people. And there was, I still remember I did this study at the University of Alberta, born and raised in Canada, and was a very athletic kid, but was just overweight. And I did this study.
And they were looking at how kids and based on their habits and behaviors, whether you could actually be fat and fit. And so they brought me in and we did all these tests and all these studies and my VO2 max was at the 99 percentile. My muscle mass was at the 99 percentile. My time spent watching TV, playing video games, all these other things was at the 99th percentile of not doing those things. But yet I had a BMI that was obese. I had a body fat percentage, I think of 34%, something in these areas. And I still remember the article that came out, it was the front page of the paper, because it was a really groundbreaking study in Canada, and it said, and fit, question mark, with a picture of me.
and I was on the bike and it really just started, like it messed with my mind. And obviously only continued the teasing, continued all these things. But I was the kid that wore a heart rate monitor to bed, wore a heart rate monitor all day long, had a pulse oximeter that I would look at three, four times a day. When I was reading, when everyone else was reading comic books, I was reading medical journals. And this was something that I was just fully enthralled with. Well,
That experience threw me the other direction and from about 14 to 18 became severely anorexic. Had a really hard ability to see myself well and just love who I was and I had a major body composition issue and that propelled me down into the United States. I still happen to be a very good athlete. I came to the United States on a hockey scholarship.
Did two undergraduate degrees one in exercise science another nutrition went got my master's degree in exercise physiology concentration and sport performance Went and got my massage therapy license went and got my postgraduate doctoral studies in heart rate variability sleep and recovery science and that propelled me into the National Hockey League I started to really understand the body in a way that not many people did and realizing that health is
Holistic health is integrated health is mental physical spiritual and emotional conditions or states of the human being and they all have to be aligned and if there's any type of Disintegration between those four you will not be healed you will not be healthy and you will not realize what I call true health and so I took that philosophy of using data technology and Information to help heal the entire person to the NHL and all of a sudden we started to see
injury rates drop, we saw recovery times drop, we saw sickness rates drop, we saw performances increase, we saw energy increase, and the owners, the GMs are coming to saying, what are you doing? Like, I don't understand this. You're bringing a philosophy that is very weird to us, we don't understand it, but yet we see the fruits of it at the end of the day, what's happening? That, over the course of eight years, caused me to become a thought leader and really take...
some stages in some unique ways in professional sports and change the culture and the dynamic of how we approached performance. But going from Washington to Anaheim, I had one of the ownership team members of the capitals come and say, hey, I need to meet with you when you come out. And I'd seen this person and as they walked through the door, I was like, my gosh, I'd seen them six months previous.
And as they walked through, was like, you've aged 30 years in five, six months. Like what's going on? He's like, I don't know. I don't feel well. Like I'm not sleeping. I'm stressed. I feel like I've got no control of my body and I don't understand what's happening. Can you help me? And the back of my mind, I was like, this guy's a billionaire. He's just making copious amounts of money. He's a businessman. I work with athletes.
But then all of a sudden I realized, no, this isn't an athlete problem. This is a human problem. And I put him through the same philosophy. We did testing. We looked at heart rate variability. We started to track information. We started to have conversations that were very philosophical in nature, mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally aligned, starting to go through a lot of these identities that he had that he wasn't able to shake. And all of a sudden, eight months later, the guy looks like he's 35 years old and
He's 80. And that was the turning point for me to be like, hey, I can no longer just stay in the national hockey. Like I have to walk away and be able to impact the health of the world because like I said, this is not just a athlete problem. This is a human problem. And the more that we can empower people, the more that we can help them understand their bodies and understand
how to heal. The definition of integrated is the exact same definition of heal. To make one, to make wholeness, to create oneness. And that's what we have to do mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally if we truly want to heal. You just can't be a muscle head on the outside and be sick internally and think that you're healthy. On the other side, you can't just not go to the gym and go to the therapist all day and be so aligned and do meditation and just know your purpose and be preaching from the stages.
there's still disintegration. We need to make sure it's holistic, all-encompassing and integrated to realize that deep healing. And that's what we've been doing for hundreds of thousands of people who are business owners and business leaders, entrepreneurs for the last two and a half, three years. So it's been, that's kind of been that journey in what looks like about six and a half minutes.
Seth Bradley That's incredible, man. There's so much to unpack in six and a half minutes there. Man, I don't even know where to start. I mean, it sounds like you've had this almost an obsession with data and reading that data from your body before everybody had a Fitbit, right?
Justin Roethlingshoefer Oh, for sure. A Fitbit or some sort of watch, right? And you were doing this before that kind of hit the stage because it just interests.
So like on that note, they're like definitely doing it before it was cool. But like quick story, when I was 12 years old, I asked my parents for a heart rate monitor for Christmas. And you have to realize this is back in 1998. So the heart rate monitors were not like they are now. You can't get them for 100 bucks. You can't get a wearable device that's cheap and easy. I think that the heart monitor then cost like $1,600. And they're like, why do you need a heart monitor? Like, are you sick? Is there something wrong? I was like, no, I'm just interested.
Well, they're like, we're not buying one of these things. And I said, no, like, pool your money that you give me for Christmas, my birthday, and pool grandma and grandpa's money and pool like aunt and uncle's. Put it all together and that's all I want. You can just never get me a gift for the next year, not till next Christmas. So that's what they did.
And that was literally how I got my first piece. And I've just been obsessed with it ever since of really being able to just provide information. Because I think understanding, knowledge is one thing, understanding is something completely different. And we need to be able to dissociate between information and understanding and help cross that bridge so that you can be empowered to take action in your own health.
Seth Bradley Yeah. Yeah, that's incredible. Your parents kind of made that sacrifice to make it happen for you. I don't know if you would have been a little bit set back because they didn't provide that for you at that time, but it kind of catapulted you on this journey. You know, do you think that, you know, reading that data is maybe the first step in kind of working towards analyzing that holistic approach? Or where do you kind of see all this beginning?
Justin Roethlingshoefer First step is, that's to be honest with you, that's the world's approach. The world's approach I say is a body up approach. So it's, there's four entities of health, right? Mental, physical, spiritual, emotional. And I attach each one of those to a different entity.
So physical, your body. Emotional, your heart. Mental, your mind. And spirit, your spiritual component.
And the world's approach is to take a bottom up body first approach. You need to get the wearable device. You need to start tracking all this stuff. You need to look at everything under the sun. You need to go get your DNA tested. You need to go get your blood tested. You need to go and do the cold plunge, the sauna, the red light, the intermittent fasting, the high intensity interval training. You have to do all the things because you have to get the six pack. You have to lose 20 pounds. You have to do whatever it might be. It's the body up approach.
Well, that body up approach creates a poisoning of the heart, poisoning of the emotions, it brings on anxiety, it brings on fear, it brings on this feeling of overwhelm. All things that I experienced as a child, which is why I continue to pair them through, I was fearful of becoming fat again, thus I took things to an extreme. I was fearful of...
not being able to have the energy to do what I wanted, thus I was acting out of certain things and I would have to go do my workouts and it would bring up massive anxiety because it was just so much and I was overwhelmed by it all. That poisoning of the heart creates a separation of the mind, thus I'm not good enough, I'm not strong enough, I'm never gonna get there, I'm not consistent enough, I'm not worthy of all these things. And that separation of the mind creates a cloudiness
in our spirit, a cloudiness of who we are and what we identify with. I identified as a fat kid. I identified as the anorexic sick kid, the weird kid. That's what stuck with me and that's why I was never fully healthy even though at 20 years old to now at 36, I don't look any different. I've still got the six pack. I've still got the muscles. I still can lift a house. I still feel really strong.
But it's not until about two, maybe even three years ago that I was holistically healthy, that I loved who I was, that I was really rooted. What we have to do is we have to take a top-down approach. We have to really create oneness in our spirit first. Who are we? Why are we here? What's our calling? What's our identity? What is that true desire that we're wanting to live for?
Once we have that, we have a sense of oneness of our mind. We are worth it. We are good enough. We're exactly where we need to be. We're in a journey that's exciting. Thus that eliminates and creates a purification of our heart and eliminates the anxieties, eliminates the fears and puts us into a state of enthusiasm, energy, mental clarity, empowerment to go and step forward into these things powerfully, which then
we're able to create consistency, sustainability and longevity of our body through our habits, behaviors and lifestyles that are now something we look forward to. And so coming back to your comment is the first thing we have to do is not get the wearable device, is not do the thing. The first thing we have to do is get our self right spiritually, which comes back to identifying who we are. Who do we identify as? What are we?
What is our goal, our mission, our purpose? Because once we align that, once we get clear on that, everything else starts to fall into place.
Seth Bradley Got it, got it. Yeah, and it's like that body up approach. It's easier to sell. The culture that we live in, it's just easier to sell products. It's easier to get people thinking they need to look a certain way. It's just that sales kind of approach, but it's backwards. You've got to get yourself right spiritually, mentally before the more the body type of physical things can even matter to you internally.
Justin Roethlingshoefer I think, yes, I think you're right, but even as you start to look at that, why do you think we're more unhealthy now than ever? We are living in a place where there's more mental illness in our society than ever before. There's more anxiety than ever before. There's more depression than ever before. We're actually sicker physically than ever before. Diabetes is on the rise. Alzheimer's is on the rise. Alzheimer's is just type three diabetes. That's all it is.
An inability to control blood sugar. We have an obesity epidemic rising. We have now 52% of Americans that are obese, not overweight, obese. And so it's not more information. It's not getting more of these things. It's not go do this, gym, go and do this thing. There is 77% of people who lose weight and get healthy, gain back the weight they lost. Why?
Because it was done in an unsustainable way. They had a hole that they were searching to fill that didn't align along the way. And once they accomplished the certain outcome, it didn't make them feel any different. And so it comes back to this component of integrating everything together. And when I built Own It, that was the big thing I was focused on.
Do you have to have an exercise routine? You're darn right you do. Do you have to have a new way of eating? You're darn right you do. Do you want to be able to supplement the right way? You sure do. Do you want to make sure you're sleeping well and have a recovery routine? You're darn right that's important. But you also have to have...
the person who's gonna help you with self care, the person who's gonna get your mind right, the person who's gonna get your heart right, the people who are going to help you align in this way, which is why we've got everything in one place and everything had to be integrated. You can't be trying to put your own wheel together because when you put your own wheel together, you miss out. And so I wanted to create a space where somebody could walk in and everything is there.
You're gonna come in, you're gonna have your team, your team that wraps their arms around you. You're gonna get your DNA testing, you're gonna get your cellular blood testing, you're gonna get your custom supplementation, you're gonna get your workout plan, you're gonna get your wearable piece of technology so that your health coaches and your functional medicine docs and your RDs can track everything and help you and guide you and put these things in place for you in a slow, iterative way so that over 12 months, you don't even recognize the habits you were in before. But on the same breath, you're gonna be working
mentally, emotionally, and spiritually on identifying who you are and how do you get over this gap so we can create a bridge so that you do come in this state of oneness and you step into everything powerfully. And so as a business owner, as an executive, as a business leader, you have become transformed, not conformed to what we're telling you in the world.
Seth Bradley Got it. So it truly is holistic, right? It's not let's start one thing two three four. It's all at once small steps to lead to a major change.
Justin Roethlingshoefer 100%. And I think the reason that people aren't willing to have patience with it, they're not willing to be developed. Everybody wants to arrive. Everybody wants to get to the end result. But nobody's willing to take the trip. Nobody's willing to have great story.
So we had a client who started, this guy owns 17 different franchises and he came to us about three months ago. Four weeks into his process, he called and goes, I'm unhappy, I'm not seeing changes. I've been in this for four weeks and I've just been adding some different habits. I'm looking at my wearable devices. I've just got my testing done. Nothing's changing yet.
I said to him — and let's call this guy Chris — I said, Chris...
We don't even have your full testing results back yet. We've only really started to implement a lot of these lifestyle changes and routines about three and a half weeks ago. We've only been able to get two really deep in-depth calls to get you realigned. We've only just started to add some of these things in. And you kind of talk him off a ledge, talk him off a ledge. He comes back, continues to be consistent. And just last week...
He's been with us, like I said, for about three and a half months. Just last week, he sends us a screenshot. His quality of sleep used to be at about 37%. So REM and deep sleep totals over total time of sleep time. His quality sleep was always about 37%. He just passed 50%. His HRV, which is an intrinsic measure of how your body's adapting to stress and strain...
was his average was about 24. Just for a little bit of context, your goal is to always see a trend line upwards. His trend line was always downwards. He has an average HRV now of 54. His respiration rate, meaning how many breaths per minute he's taking throughout the course of the day is dropping, meaning he's becoming more efficient. His blood glucose levels, because we've now tested twice, are half of what they were before. He was at a pre-diabetic level previously.
His anxiety in terms of just talking is half of what it was and he's down 16 pounds.
Seth Bradley Got it, got it. Yeah, and it's like that body up approach. It's easier to sell. The culture that we live in, it's just easier to sell products. It's easier to get people thinking they need to look a certain way. It's just that sales kind of approach, but it's backwards. You've got to get yourself right spiritually, mentally before the more the body type of physical things can even matter to you internally.
Justin Roethlingshoefer I think, yes, I think you're right, but even as you start to look at that, why do you think we're more unhealthy now than ever? We are living in a place where there's more mental illness in our society than ever before. There's more anxiety than ever before. There's more depression than ever before. We're actually sicker physically than ever before. Diabetes is on the rise. Alzheimer's is on the rise. Alzheimer's is just type three diabetes. That's all it is.
An inability to control blood sugar. We have an obesity epidemic rising. We have now 52% of Americans that are obese, not overweight, obese. And so it's not more information. It's not getting more of these things. It's not go do this, gym, go and do this thing. There is 77% of people who lose weight and get healthy, gain back the weight they lost. Why?
Because it was done in an unsustainable way. They had a hole that they were searching to fill that didn't align along the way. And once they accomplished the certain outcome, it didn't make them feel any different. And so it comes back to this component of integrating everything together. And when I built Own It, that was the big thing I was focused on.
Do you have to have an exercise routine? You're darn right you do. Do you have to have a new way of eating? You're darn right you do. Do you want to be able to supplement the right way? You sure do. Do you want to make sure you're sleeping well and have a recovery routine? You're darn right that's important. But you also have to have...
the person who's gonna help you with self care, the person who's gonna get your mind right, the person who's gonna get your heart right, the people who are going to help you align in this way, which is why we've got everything in one place and everything had to be integrated. You can't be trying to put your own wheel together because when you put your own wheel together, you miss out. And so I wanted to create a space where somebody could walk in and everything is there.
You're gonna come in, you're gonna have your team, your team that wraps their arms around you. You're gonna get your DNA testing, you're gonna get your cellular blood testing, you're gonna get your custom supplementation, you're gonna get your workout plan, you're gonna get your wearable piece of technology so that your health coaches and your functional medicine docs and your RDs can track everything and help you and guide you and put these things in place for you in a slow, iterative way so that over 12 months, you don't even recognize the habits you were in before. But on the same breath, you're gonna be working
mentally, emotionally, and spiritually on identifying who you are and how do you get over this gap so we can create a bridge so that you do come in this state of oneness and you step into everything powerfully. And so as a business owner, as an executive, as a business leader, you have become transformed, not conformed to what we're telling you in the world.
Seth Bradley Got it. So it truly is holistic, right? It's not let's start one thing two three four. It's all at once small steps to lead to a major change.
Justin Roethlingshoefer 100%. And I think the reason that people aren't willing to have patience with it, they're not willing to be developed. Everybody wants to arrive. Everybody wants to get to the end result. But nobody's willing to take the trip. Nobody's willing to have great story.
So we had a client who started, this guy owns 17 different franchises and he came to us about three months ago. Four weeks into his process, he called and goes, I'm unhappy, I'm not seeing changes. I've been in this for four weeks and I've just been adding some different habits. I'm looking at my wearable devices. I've just got my testing done. Nothing's changing yet.
I said to him — and let's call this guy Chris — I said, Chris...
We don't even have your full testing results back yet. We've only really started to implement a lot of these lifestyle changes and routines about three and a half weeks ago. We've only been able to get two really deep in-depth calls to get you realigned. We've only just started to add some of these things in. And you kind of talk him off a ledge, talk him off a ledge. He comes back, continues to be consistent. And just last week...
He's been with us, like I said, for about three and a half months. Just last week, he sends us a screenshot. His quality of sleep used to be at about 37%. So REM and deep sleep totals over total time of sleep time. His quality sleep was always about 37%. He just passed 50%. His HRV, which is an intrinsic measure of how your body's adapting to stress and strain...
was his average was about 24. Just for a little bit of context, your goal is to always see a trend line upwards. His trend line was always downwards. He has an average HRV now of 54. His respiration rate, meaning how many breaths per minute he's taking throughout the course of the day is dropping, meaning he's becoming more efficient. His blood glucose levels, because we've now tested twice, are half of what they were before. He was at a pre-diabetic level previously.
His anxiety in terms of just talking is half of what it was and he's down 16 pounds.
Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links:
Seth Bradley’s Links:
https://x.com/sethbradleyesq
https://www.youtube.com/@sethbradleyesq
www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq
https://www.threads.com/@sethbradleyesq
https://www.instagram.com/sethbradleyesq/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbradleyesq/
https://passiveincomeattorney.com/seth-bradley/
https://www.biggerpockets.com/users/sethbradleyesq
https://medium.com/@sethbradleyesq
https://www.tiktok.com/@sethbradleyesq?lang=en
 
Justine Roethlingshoefer’s Links:
https://www.youtube.com/@justinroethlingshoefer
https://www.facebook.com/justin.roethlingshoefer
https://www.instagram.com/justinroeth/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-roethlingshoefer/
https://justinroethlingshoefer.com/

TME 03 | Truth Bombs I Wish I Knew in My 20s Part 2

Title: 20 Brutal Truth Bombs I Wish I Knew in My 20s | Part 2
In this episode, the speaker lays out 20 impactful lessons that serve as vital truths for achieving personal growth and success. Ranging from the importance of gratitude to actionable steps for overcoming complacency, these insights aim to challenge viewers’ perspectives on life and instill a sense of urgency to take control of their destinies. Key themes include the necessity of gratitude for happiness, the importance of seeking mentorship, and the significance of taking decisive action instead of waiting for the “perfect moment.” The speaker stresses the idea that relationships are built on effort, the value of time as a non-renewable resource, and emphasizes personal growth through embracing solitude and cutting out toxic influences. Ultimately, the speaker urges the audience to adopt a proactive mindset and build a fulfilling life, free from the comfort zones that often limit potential.
Links to watch and subscribe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXcFrxrn7rE&list=PLSfheWyV7beFqERLX4ebBUJ4SmzmF6z8e&index=5
Bullet Point Highlights:
Gratitude is Key: True happiness stems from being grateful for what you already have rather than endlessly chasing external markers of success.
Value Mentorship: Asking for help from mentors accelerates learning and growth, showing that seeking guidance is a strength, not a weakness.
Act Now: There’s no ideal moment to start; taking messy action is crucial for progress.
Relationships Matter: The idea of a ‘soulmate’ is a myth; strong relationships are built through hard work and mutual respect.
Time is Precious: Time is the only non-renewable resource; once spent, it cannot be regained.
Embrace Solitude: Learning to be alone is fundamental to personal growth and discovering one’s true self.
Flexibility Over Rigidity: Life is unpredictable and plans may need to change; being adaptable is essential for success.
Transcript:(Seth Bradley)
if you survive part one welcome back but fair warning these next 10 bombs they're sharper they're louder and they might just punch you right in your ego it isn't feel-good advice this is not motivational fluff these are the lessons I wish someone drilled into my head when I was starting out so sit up lock in and let's finish what we started let's go gratitude is the secret to happiness you're chasing happiness in all the wrong places the secret to being truly happy is simpler than you think happiness doesn't come from money or
 
success or status it comes from gratitude when you're grateful for what you already have you stop obsessing about what you don't gratitude shifts your perspective instead of focusing on all the problems you have you focus on the possibilities you focus on the things that you have and that doesn't just make you happier it makes you more effective it makes you more productive it gets you in the right mindset to optimized moving forward grateful people are more resilient they're more resourceful they're more likely to
 
succeed hey and look people like us are never going to be complacent or satisfied and that's not what we're talking about we're talking about gratitude regardless we are hard driving people we're obsessed with success and we're obsessed with the next thing but that life in itself can lead you to an unhappy life if you don't have gratitude and respect for what you already have and what you've accomplished even today I'm moving towards Big goals eight nine figure exits and I'm focused I'm driving
 
I desire more I always have I always will but I do remind myself how far I've come and the incredible friends and family and people I have around me my good health and countless other amazing things in my life and that keeps me happy it keeps me centered it keeps me in the right mindset so that I can focus on my big goals and to keep driving forward start every day by appreciating what you already have it won't just make you happier it'll make you Unstoppable number 12 ask questions ask for help get
 
a mentor stop being so damn proud stop acting like you know everything you do not know everything you don't and if you think asking for help makes you weak you're wrong success uccessful people don't succeed alone they ask questions they seek advice and they surround themselves with people who've already done what they're trying to do a mentor isn't just someone who gives you answers it's someone who shortens your learning curve calls you out on your [ __ ] and helps you avoid mistakes asking for help
 
isn't a sign of weakness it's a sign of strength a sign of confidence it shows your serious about leveling up constantly seek advice constantly find those people and engage with them in my 20s I rarely asked any questions I tried to figure everything out myself I was too damn proud to seek help it stymied my growth today totally different mindset I pay tens of thousands of dollars every single year to coaches to be parts of masterminds and to surround myself with people who can help me level up faster and to avoid mistakes don't be
 
afraid to ask the right advice from the right Mentor at the right time can change everything number 13 don't wait for the perfect moment it does not exist you're waiting for the stars to aign you're wasting your damn time there's no such thing as the perfect moment conditions will never be ideal you're never going to feel fully ready and if you keep waiting for everything to be perfect you're going to be waiting forever or you're just going to miss the opportunity entirely the people who succeed consistently are the
 
ones who take action they're the ones who start before their ready they take messy action they figure it out as they go they build the plane on the runway and they adjust along the way I've launched over a dozen businesses and each time I had no clue what I was doing sure I get better at it each time I launch a new business I get better at evaluating the risk and the reward and whether or not it's a great opportunity or just another opportunity but each time that I jumped in I made mistakes and I figured it out if you recognize a
 
great opportunity the time to take messy action is now not later fortune favors the Bold take action start now 14 there's no such thing as the one this one will probably be a little bit controversial and if my wife's listening you get it if you're out there searching for your soulmate I've got bad news that person does not exist there's no single m iCal person out there who completes you who fixes all your problems and makes your life perfect relationships aren't about finding the one they're about finding someone who
 
compliments you who works together with you to build an incredible life together there are billions of people on this planet so guess what there might be more than one that could work out for you the best relationships are Partnerships they're not built on fate or fairy tales or anything like that they're built on effort and communication and mutual respect stop searching for Perfection and start focusing on connection when the chemicals fade what do you got left if that doesn't sound romantic then so
 
be it that's the truth my wife and I we make an incredible team we work on our relationship and we're willing to do so we have trust we have boundaries we love and respect each other and that's all that matters the one isn't found it's created through hard work and shared Vision 15 I told you I'd get back to this one time moves faster than you think blink in a decade is gone let me tell you how to stop wasting the most precious asset you have and that's time time is your only nonrenewable resource
 
you can make more money you can build more businesses you can meet new people you can find new opportuni ities but you can't buy back your time the problem is most people live like they've got all the time in the world they say I'll do it tomorrow or I'll do it next week or I'll do it when I'm retired they procrastinate they waste their days they put off their dreams and then one day they wake up and wonder where the hell all the time went don't let that be you and on top of that your perception of
 
time speeds up as your mind slows down and guess what your mind is slowing down right now it's doing it right now you'll continue to do that every single minute you're alive enjoy being bored now you won't even know what that is later your future 60-year-old billionaire self would give up every scent to be your poor ass right now let that sink in so stop wasting time on things that don't matter use your time wisely because once it's gone it's gone forever 16 learn how to be alone if you can't stand to be alone you're never going to
 
figure out who you really are you're never going to know what you're made of being alone isn't loneliness it's time for clarity it's the space where you can learn to understand what drives you your goals what you really care about and what what you really care about most people are so afraid of being alone that they fill their lives with noise Doom scrolling meaningless relationships distractions but real growth happens when you Embrace Solitude that's where you're going to find your strength and
 
your confidence when I first moved to California I didn't know a single person in La I lived alone ate alone I went to bars alone I know it sounds sad I learned a lot about myself and I'm a more confident person now because of it I'm not afraid of being alone in fact I love it I love going to a new city or city that maybe I haven't explored before by myself learning things seeing things talking to strangers answering to nobody learn to love your own company when you do you'll never need anyone else to validate you all right here we
 
go 17 cut out people who don't Elevate you I'm not even going to repeat it but you know what it is the five people around you right and keeping toxic people around is like drinking poison and wondering why you feel bad let me tell you why you need to cut the dead weight out of your life your environment determines your success if you're surrounded by complainers pessimists and lazy unmotivated complacent people who don't believe in you they'll hold you down and they're going to kill you slowly it's not about being heartless
 
it's about protecting your energy if someone isn't adding value to your life if they're not helping you grow and supporting your goals then they're holding you down and the worst part unfortunately sometimes that's the people that are closest to you close friends that you grew up with even family members but look some people change some people stay the same some people grow some people don't it's a fact of life and this life is too short to be held back and to not fulfill your potential I used to hang out with people
 
who thought working a 9 to-5 and partying every weekend was the peak of life right when I started hanging out with multi-millionaires with doers with Builders with winners I had no choice but to level up my own life your circle should inspire you it should challenge you it should push you forward if it doesn't it's time to let those people go surround yourself with winners number 18 finding yourself is a waste of time books and movies Floy flowy gurus out there they'll say you need to find yourself you need to discover who you
 
are I mean what the hell does that even mean you don't you're not lost you're just avoiding doing the damn work here's the thing you don't need to find yourself like you're some treasure buried in the sand you build yourself you create yourself you create the best version of yourself through action and effort and experience people who spend years or their whole lives finding themselves are usually just spinning their wheels they're avoiding the uncomfortable things that they don't want to do or the uncomfortable truth
 
that that prevents them from growing those people are lazy those people are losers stop searching for some magical answer and start doing stuff start doing the hard things that's how you figure out who you are when I quit medical school I didn't have a grand plan or a Clear Vision I focused on bettering myself in whatever form I could taking business classes getting my MBA even trying to teach myself mandering at one point but I didn't just sit there I didn't sit around trying to find myself I got to work I tried new things I
 
learned new skills and I let the process shape who I am that's how I built the life I have now you're not found you're made stop searching and start building 19 stop following your heart and listen to your brain brain follow your heart sounds cute but your heart can't think it can't reason and it can't make rational decisions start using your brain if you actually want to get somewhere your heart is emotional it's impulsive and it's shortsighted it'll lead you into bad relationships and bad business deals wasting time and bad
 
decisions that you're going to regret your brain on the other hand knows how to think critically it can take its time it can weigh options and it can make decisions based on logic and facts now I'm just going to say there's a little caveat here that doesn't mean you ignore your emotions it means letting your brain take the lead and using your heart really as a kind of a gut check in the background but not actually making the final decision the older I get the more I make decisions with my brain and the
 
better my decisions become and it's not a coincidence anytime I feel rushed or I feel emotional you know what I'm talking about you get forced into a sale or you get forced into giving an answer if I feel rushed or I feel emotional about something I just stop I stop I think and I wait and then when the emotion dissipates whether that's a minute or a day or a week then I make a rational decision based on facts and reason but also listening to my gut your heart feels but your brain leads remember that
 
use them both but your brain is the leader trust it here we are at the Finish Line number 20 your life plan is a waste of time life doesn't care about your 10-year plan or your long-term plan or your white pick fences we're taught at an early age to pick what we want to do to marry who we want to be with forever to find our passion to work a million years and retire when you're too old to enjoy it but here's the reality life is unpredictable you can plan every detail but it's not going to turn out like you plan it the
 
people who thrive in this life are the people who not only accept change but they welcome it the fastest adapting people the people who can deal with the most adversity and problems and continue on those are the ones who experience massive success it's called resilience your life plan is a comfort blanket not a road map it's fine to have goals but don't get so attached to this exact plan that you miss opportunities or you can't handle curveballs be flexible not rigid when I was five I wanted to be a monster
 
truck driver when I was 15 I wanted to play in the NBA when I was 20 I wanted to be a doctor I don't know if I ever wanted to be a lawyer but here I am leveraging my knowledge and skill set to create massive wealth and build a life In My Dreams enjoying all of it the life plan changes you've got to be flexible your life plan is not the final plan be resilient be flexible adapt pivot Thrive and there you have it 20 truths that'll hit you hard if you're paying attention life isn't about Comfort it's not about
 
approval it's not about patiently waiting it's about taking risks it's about making moves and doing whatever it takes to build something that actually matters you've got two choices now you can nod your head and say h wow that's great and go right back to doing the same old [ __ ] that kept you stuck for how long or you can take what you've learned look in the mirror and say I'm done with average let's go the truth is no one's coming to save you not your parents boss not your friends not the president it's on you to take action to
 
take the leap to take the hits and to build the life that you've been pretending that you want it's time to get to work the clock is ticking it's always ticking share this with someone who needs to hear the truth and if you're ready for more unfiltered no BS advice hit the Subscribe button and join me for the next one all right enjoy the journey [Music]
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TME 02 | Truth Bombs I Wish I Knew in My 20s Part 1

Title: 20 Brutal Truth Bombs I Wish I Knew in My 20s | Part 1
Links to Watch and Subscribe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHW8jd2YpRw&list=PLSfheWyV7beFqERLX4ebBUJ4SmzmF6z8e&index=6
Bullet Point Highlights:
“Follow Your Passion” is Bad Advice: The speaker argues that pursuing passion without developing relevant skills leads to wasted time and frustration.
No One is Watching: The fundamentally liberating realization that most people are too engulfed in their own lives to scrutinize your choices.
Growth Comes from Discomfort: Becoming comfortable with discomfort is essential for personal development.
Work-Life Balance is a Myth: Prioritizing your energy according to the season of your life is more crucial than trying to achieve an impossible balance.
Failure is Feedback: Instead of being paralyzed by the fear of failure, view it as an opportunity to learn and grow.
Not Every Opportunity is Worth Chasing: Recognizing distractions that do not align with long-term goals is vital for sustained progress.
Take Risks While You’re Young: The speaker advocates for seizing opportunities and taking calculated risks early in life when responsibilities are fewer.
Transcript:
(Seth Bradley)you've been fed lies your entire life they told you to follow your passion wait for the right time and keep everyone around you happy does that sound familiar well I'm here to tell you that's all Bs those ideas aren't just wrong they're keeping you broke stuck and miserable at the time of this recording I'm 41 years old even though I was moving forward educationally getting my MBA and law degree during my 20s I was also wasting my time and health Away by partying chasing women and caring what other people thought about me today
 
I'm dropping 20 truth bombs that no one else wants to say out loud this isn't your typical motivational stuff it's raw it's real and it's going to make you uncomfortable and that's the point if you want a life worth living it's time to wake up and stop playing by the rules that were designed to hold you down if you want to be average turn this off now if you want to be exceptional buckle up by the time this video ends you'll have no excuse to keep living small this is the advice I wish someone had told me
 
when I was in my 20s even if I were willing to listen so pay attention because if you're serious about winning these 20 truths will change everything let's go all right let's start out with a banger finding your passion is trash advice Follow Your Passion has to be the dumbest piece of advice out there you know who says that broke ass dreamers who've never actually accomplished anything let me tell you why chasing your passion is is a one-way ticket to wasting time and frustration you don't need passion you need skills a plan and
 
the ability to solve problems people will actually pay for you're not born with some magical purpose you're supposed to uncover that's Disney what works in real life is developing a skill set becoming so good they can't ignore you and then using that leverage to build something meaningful and guess what when you get really good at something and you get paid a lot of money to do it suddenly you've got a passion for it passion follows success not the other way around you know I skipped around from exercise science to
 
medical school to business school to law school asking myself the whole time what's my passion never could find it and I'll explain when I started in law school I wasn't passionate about Securities or real estate law and even still I hated working at a big stuffy law firm with a million bosses with every 6 minutes accounted for sounds miserable and it was but I did see an opportunity I learned the game I mastered my craft and I built my reputation now I get to call my own shots I'm building businesses with a
 
basis of Highly valuable knowledge and skill sets that people will pay a ton of money for more specifically legally raising capital for Real Estate well now it's my passion if I just Chase my passion I'd probably still be broke chasing my quote unquote dreams that wouldn't pay me passion doesn't create success skills do build something meaningful valuable and get paid properly to do it and I promise you that you'll find your passion and the freedom that it gives you stop waiting for inspiration and start creating
 
opportunities number two no one gives a what you're doing here's the cold hard truth no one is watching you as closely as you think nobody cares what you're doing it's called the spotlight effect look it up and really it's a bias that you believe that people are paying more attention to you than they really are most of us waste so much time worrying about what other people think of us but let me break it to you people are way too busy worrying about their own lives to care about yours that business you're
 
nervous about launching that big risk you're afraid to take because you might look stupid too nervous to talk to that girl at the bar look nobody's thinking about it as much as you are so stop holding yourself back it's all you if you fail no one will notice or even if they do they'll soon forget look I used to worry about what other people would think I used to think about what would they react if I left big law and shifted to real estate or started my own business but the second I did it I realized that nobody gave it they were
 
too focused on their own lives they've got things to do they don't care what I'm doing they don't care what you're doing so free yourself from the illusion that the world is watching nobody cares so do what you want to do live your best life get out there take some chances take some risks no regrets baby number three get comfortable with people not liking you I know it's a hard pill to swallow for some of us more than others but not every every one is going to like you and you've got to get comfortable
 
with that being okay in fact it's a good thing trying to please everyone is the fastest way to lose yourself some people aren't going to Vibe with you no matter what you do your opinions will piss them off your success will make them jealous and your authenticity will make them uncomfortable but don't worry about it get comfortable with it guess what that's their problem it's not yours you were not put on this planet to make every one happy you were put here to live your life and do your thing the
 
right people will support you and the wrong ones will fall off and you're going to be a better person for it and you're going to be better off because of it when I started sharing my journey online I got a lot of criticism I was very uncomfortable doing it people were saying you know what are you doing why are you doing a podcast why are you leaving law are you crazy but the more I stayed true to myself and the more I attracted people who understood my vision the rest honestly totally irrelevant it's a little bit of
 
short-term pain for some long-term gain so be you no matter what the people who matter will stick around and the ones who don't let them go four your comfort zone is slowly killing you the most dangerous place to be isn't Rock Bottom it's your comfort zone Comfort zones feel safe but they're just sand traps nothing grows here no progress no change no success the longer you stay comfortable the harder it becomes to break out it's easy to be average it's easy to accept your weaknesses and it's easy to collect a paycheck every 2 weeks
 
it's hard to be exceptional it's hard to turn your weaknesses into strengths and it's hard to take big risks but growth comes from discomfort pushing yourself taking risks facing challenges and if you're not at least a little scared or uncomfortable you're not growing and you're not doing it right and if you're not growing you're dying I'll tell you about something that makes me extremely uncomfortable you know what I'm kind of doing it right now not long ago like many my biggest weakness was public
 
speaking or really just speaking generally it doesn't even need to be in front of a ton of people it can be in front of a camera it could be in front of a handful of people introducing myself I mean I would nearly have a panic attack just having to introduce myself to a room and I hated that about me but did I just accept it and did I avoid it honestly for a little bit I did and then I said look if you want to grow you've got to learn this skill and you've got to get better at it so I launched a podcast I accepted speaker
 
invitations and I took every opportunity possible to make myself uncomfortable and now I've turned it into a strength and was tough because when you get asked that question hey do you want to do this do you want to speak do you want to have this meeting my first inclination no but then I thought to myself yo let's get uncomfortable and I respond yes every single time until I got good at this Comfort zones kill dreams step out take the risk and watch yourself transform number five work life balance is a myth
 
we've been told a lie your whole life work life balance it does not exist and if it does man it's not for you I know it's not for me chasing it's only going to make you miserable life is not about balance it's about priorities some Seasons you're going to be grinding some Seasons you're going to be sacrificing sleep weekends relationships and build your dreams instead other Seasons you'll have time to celebrate and enjoy but there's no balance here if you want to be super successful your balance is
 
going to be way over here and then it's going to maybe swing back here later on and then way over here and then swing back staying right here this is that comfort zone that I talked about avoid it trying to balance everything equally every day it's a recipe for Burnout the anxiety that it creates just by trying to stay right center it's going to kill you the people who suceed Ed know when to go all in and when to take a step back balance isn't about splitting your time perfectly it's about putting your
 
energy where it matters the most at that Optimum time for example right now I'm in grow mode I'm completely unbalanced I'm scaling three startups to nine digigit companies while also running my old businesses running my Law Firm investing in real estate growing my brand balance is out the window right now the grind though is temporary and I've conditioned myself to love it I know at some point I don't know when that is it's going to swing back and I'm going to be able to enjoy myself and I am actually really good at taking a
 
vacation putting things on the side keeping things moving forward but also taking a break but balance isn't something you find it's something you create over time by being intentional with your priorities number six failure isn't fatal you know what pisses me off watching people treat failure like it's some kind of terminal disease it's not failure doesn't kill you your fear of it does so let's talk about why you need to stop being a little about failing here's the hard truth failure is inevitable and you need it you're going
 
to fail you have to have it to succeed you're probably going to fail a lot nobody who's actually successful ever got there without face planing first Michael Jordan you know got cut from his high school team maybe he was a freshman going out for uh Varsity whatever Steve Jobs fired from his own company failure is feedback remember that failure is feedback so instead of crying about it learn from it and keep moving I've had tons of epic failures I've dropped out of medical school I got fired from a
 
multiple sixf figure job on New Year's Eve I raised exactly 0 from investors for a real estate project at those times I felt like it's the end of the world but you know what failure was the best damn thing that ever happened to me it forced me to look in the mirror be humbled learn improve and then the next time with a chip on my shoulder so what's the lesson here failure isn't the end it's the beginning if you're too scared to fail too scared to to succeed stop playing it safe take the leap when
 
you fall you'll be fine get back up and let's go number seven not every opportunity is a good opportunity opportunities are like shiny objects they're distracting you and most of them look good at first glance but not every shiny object is worth chasing some will drain your time energy and your sanity faster than a toxic relationship the truth is good opportunities align with your goals and your long-term Vision the bad ones they're just expensive distractions in Disguise don't confuse movement and being busy with progress
 
the more successful and experienced you get the bigger the opportunities you're going to have to turn down 15 years ago I would have killed to have an opportunity to partner with someone anyone on any real estate deal today I turn them down daily I don't even look at anything that doesn't align with my long-term vision and my goals no matter how big the opportunity is if it's a distraction from my long-term strategy it's a no for me dog saying no to the wrong opportunity frees you up to say yes to the right one when it comes along
 
you've got to get comfortable with saying no that is an expensive lesson to learn your future saying no to the wrong opportunity frees you up to say yes to the right one when it comes along you've got to get comfortable with saying no that's a valuable skill the ability to say no your future self will thank you number eight don't wait for permission or approval if you're sitting around waiting for someone to say all right go ahead you can do it now playing the wrong game let's get real the only
 
person who needs to approve your dreams is you not your parents not your family not your friends not your significant other or you should have chose better waiting for someone else's permission is just another way of procrastinating and it's a one-way ticket to the Comfort Zone don't need a committee you don't need a cheerleader you don't need a green light what you need is the balls to start and you don't need anybody clapping for you when I started my first gym while working at a big Law Firm
 
everyone told me I was crazy what if it fails why are you doing this how will you have time but I didn't need their permission I didn't need their approval I didn't need their green light I just needed the confidence to bet on myself and guess what it worked so stop waiting for approval that's never coming stop listening to people who are less successful than you want to be take control make the lead and prove to yourself you can do it green light baby number nine you've heard this before but this is so true comparison is is the
 
thief of Joy scrolling through someone else's highlight reel is the fastest way to hate your own damn life let me tell you why comparison is a disease and how to cure it we've all done it we've looked at someone else's car or their house or their career or their girl and thought why not me or man they got really lucky what do they do it but here's the thing comparing yourself to others is a losers game because it's never a fair fight you're comparing their curated Picture Perfect moments to the raw unedited life that you live
 
every single day social media is fake even still their success does not equal your failure there's enough room for everybody to win it's abundance mindset I couldn't even imagine growing up in today's social media environment we did so much crazy growing up and I'm just so thankful that we didn't have all this because it might be on the internet somewhere fast forward though I'm guilty of all this as well looking at my peers seeing what they're doing seeing what success they're having but look I use it
 
for fuel I don't let it affect how I feel about myself and about my accomplishments and I learn from what others are doing better than me stop looking sideways focus on your own Journey your own progress and your own W's consistency and confidence that that's how you move forward number 10 take more and bigger risks when you're young if you're in your 20s and you're not swinging for the fences you're wasting the biggest Advantage you have in its time let me break it down when you're young you can afford to take
 
risks you don't have a mortgage you don't have kids you don't have the weight of responsibilities that come later frankly you don't have the weight of your conscience either you don't give a hopefully and that's a competitive Advantage whether it's start a business or investing in yourself or making a bold career move the worst case scenario isn't as bad as you think you recover faster than you expect and even if you fail you'll be 10 steps ahead of the person who didn't try when I bought my first rental property I was terrified
 
had no clue what I was doing what if I lost money what if it all went wrong what if it burned down but taking that risk paid off I got the experience I got a great property I still own that property but even if it hadn't the lessons I learned would have been worth it don't play it safe play with a little reckless abandon you've got a little bit of time now we'll talk about that later but you've got more time than most and you've got less to lose than most use that to your advantage all right that's 10 bombs raw and probably
 
made you a little uncomfortable but if you made it this far you're already winning because most people out there just can't stick with anything long enough to gain any value from it but that's not you and we're not done there are 10 more truth bombs in part two that hit even harder so make sure you're subscribed and share with someone who needs a wakeup call now go take some action and I'll see you in part two
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