Raise the Bar

TME 15 | Inside the Secret Network That Billionaires Use to Pay Zero In Taxes with Alex Sonkin

In this episode of Raise the Bar Radio, Seth Bradley welcomes Alex Sonkin, founder of the Due Diligence Project, to discuss the massive blind spot in tax strategy among CPAs and how his peer-reviewed CPA community addresses it. Seth Bradley and Alex Sonkin explore how traditional CPA firms, even those servicing ultra-high-net-worth clients, are often unaware of the many advanced tax mitigation strategies available. Alex Sonkin explains that his platform introduces vetted tax strategies reviewed by hundreds of independent CPA firms, creating an experience similar to an Amazon or Netflix model for financial services.
Rather than relying on static, siloed in-house teams with limited solutions, Seth Bradley and Alex Sonkin discuss how the Virtual Family Office model empowers CPAs and family offices. This approach allows affluent individuals, not just billionaires, to access world-class, peer-reviewed tax and financial planning strategies while maintaining their trusted CPA relationships. The conversation emphasizes humility, proactive due diligence, and massive action as critical principles for success in both tax planning and entrepreneurship.
Links to Watch and Subscribe:https://youtu.be/v8RSrMRslHU
Bullet Point Highlights:
Most CPAs, even in top firms, are not deeply versed in advanced tax mitigation due to limited time and exposure.
The Due Diligence Project functions as an independent, peer-reviewed network, allowing CPAs to tap into the collective knowledge of hundreds of top professionals.
Traditional large CPA firms and Wall Street structures are siloed and don't provide open-source best-in-class strategies.
The future CPA firm is a Virtual Family Office — proactive, advisory-driven, and built with world-class independent specialists instead of static in-house teams.
The Virtual Family Office model brings elite wealth management strategies to affluent individuals (e.g., $10M-$50M net worth), not just billionaires.
Humility, curiosity, and willingness to collaborate are essential for CPAs and advisors to truly serve clients at the highest level.
Success requires massive action and consistent pursuit of better solutions — complacency kills innovation and wealth creation.
Transcript:
(Seth Bradley) (00:02.094)
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. Alex, what's going on, brother? Welcome to the show.
 
Seth, thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure.
 
man. Fellow San Diegan. So, appreciate that and appreciate that you you love the weather like I do.
 
best weather in the world, All of San Diego County, even if it gets like 10 degrees hotter, it's as good or as better anything else on the planet.
 
(Seth Bradley) (01:05.698)
Yep, yep. Sometimes you gotta go outside of San Diego for a little bit to appreciate it because you forget that every single day is fantastic.
 
We're not going to get into the June gloom and the May gray because people outside of San Diego, don't want to hear that. uh, know, we get to complain between each other. everyone outside of San Diego, were like, we don't want to know about any of your problems.
 
Right, Exactly, exactly. All right, man. Well, let's just jump right in, Tell everybody a little bit about your background, about your story, and take it back as far as you like.
 
Sure, graduated University of Michigan Business School undergrad and became an options trader in Chicago as a member of the Chicago Board of Trade, the Mercantile Exchange, Chicago Board of Options Exchange was a market maker down there for many years and came up with a couple ideas and moved to California. What we do now is we have the largest independent peer review community of CPA firms in the country. We support
 
hundreds of CPA firms who basically introduced their favorite resources, favorite tax attorneys, favorite strategies. And then as a community and independently, everyone independently vets out every strategy, every resource. And we rank and rate all of the strategies, all of the resources. Very similar to what you'd experience in Amazon or Netflix or the streaming services when you watch a movie or you buy a product on Amazon.
 
(Alex Sonkin) (02:35.534)
you're going to go look for the 4.9 out of five stars and do a quick price comparison. So what we did is we've created essentially an independent peer-of-view ranking and rating system for sophisticated tax strategies and then cost mitigation strategies because the tax code is just way too big. No one knows how many pages there are in the tax code. It's constantly changing. we basically, we didn't even know we were doing this at the time because all we were doing was
 
putting together advanced tax planning institutes, filling them up with CPA firms, bringing speakers, specialists on to present their ideas. But the magic was happening in the hallway conversations between these tax attorneys and the CPAs in these Q &A sessions. And what we realized was that traditional CPA firms really have no clue how many pages are in the tax code, have no idea how many strategies there are that are available to them that have been fully vetted.
 
And they don't have the time and the resources to fully vet those strategies out. So we just realized we were onto something and we kept building and building and building. And we just had an event. Our last couple summits, diligence project summits had close to 700 CPA firms on one, close to 847 was our largest summit.
 
The more eyeballs, the more tax-focused CPAs are looking at the strategies and vetting out the strategies, the more refined the due diligence is and the more new resources they're able to introduce to our network. So we're able to go deeper, wider, and more refined in our due diligence when it comes to tax planning.
 
Yeah, that's awesome. So you you analyze and put a score on the actual strategy itself as well as the firm.
 
(Alex Sonkin) (04:25.76)
Yeah, everything, right? Because you and I both know there's so many moving parts in our business. And when a CPA firm is dealing with their most, their highest net worth clients, billionaires, centi-millionaires, multi-millionaires, and they have, they're selling an appreciated asset, whether it's real estate or their company or shares in another company they've invested in, they want that sale to be tax efficient. Then they might want that money to be invested in other
 
parts of their portfolio. want that transition to be efficient. They want all the estate planning to be efficient asset to all these different moving parts. But the area where most CPAs and attorneys are the weakest is in the income tax mitigation part. There's a lot of decent estate planning out there, asset protection, other planning. It's really the income tax mitigation part where very few people are excellent at this.
 
Financial advisors, attorneys have very little experience with tax court, with audit. They should really not be involved in income tax planning. The CPA firms are the ones who are signing the tax returns. They have the experience with audit. They have the experience with tax court. But they're spread so thin just trying to produce tax returns and financial statements and meet all of the deadlines that they have to meet throughout the year. There's actually very little time for them to do proactive tax planning.
 
and to complete due diligence and even start the due diligence on a tax strategy. Where do we start? Who do we call? How do we find out if the client's going to go to jail? If there's issues with this? They really need to get their confidence level up at a very high level before they call their clients that you really need to look at the strategy and do this. So that's where we really live is we really there to support the tax focused CPA or the family office that's supporting that.
 
that ultra high net worth family that's led by a tax focused advisor, hopefully a CPA with at least 10,000, 50,000 hours of experience in auditing tax court, where they could look at the notes, look at, part of, join the due diligence project community, look at the notes, look at the strategies, meet the specialists, communicate with other CPAs in our network to really understand the risk reward of.
 
(Alex Sonkin) (06:48.088)
the strategy when it as how it compares to other possible strategies or combination of strategies to bring to their client.
 
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I love the overall idea of kind of this Amazon marketplace for CPAs and tax firms and tax strategies. It's like, you know, I know when I'm looking for a new accountant or a new CPA with a different group, with a different real estate group or something, you know, I might have done some good business with one CPA and then some that I did not. And I don't have a consistent person to go to at this point. And it also depends on what we're talking about, right? This, the, the speciality of it. it's a
 
if we're talking W-2 tax mitigation or we're talking about real estate investment or we're talking about some sort of high cash flow entrepreneurial venture, it really depends. One CPA can't necessarily do all that. Maybe a large CPA firm that has all that stuff in house for sure. But when we're talking about your one CPA that you know that's been filing your tax return for the last 20 years, they're not very specialized in these sorts of things.
 
Here's what's interesting, Seth. You made some interesting points here. Here's what's interesting. Traditionally, people say, I need a CPA. My current CPA firm is not doing the job. That's kind of par for the course. They don't know what's wrong. They know something's wrong because they know that a lot of billionaires aren't paying any taxes. They're paying this 30, 40 % of their income in taxes. They feel something's wrong. So, I need a new CPA firm. So, what do they do? Hey, can you find me a great CPA firm that's local to me? Why is that important?
 
Why do you need someone that literally that is that's local to you right away? The business owner is already messing up. That is not the most important thing. Okay, then they'll want someone Okay, forget distance. I'm okay with just meeting them virtually. They need to be a specialist in real estate. That's fine Okay, you've got a real estate portfolio there, especially in real estate, but really That's that's a that's another that's a good question, but it's not the best question. It's not gonna get you to the promised land
 
(Alex Sonkin) (08:52.366)
How fluent is that CPA firm in tax strategies? Are they plugged into a network like ours where they have hundreds and hundreds of independent CPA firms, former partners of KPMG, Deloitte, PWC, Ernst & Young, all proactively vetting strategies and introducing, unless you're part of a due diligence network like ours, you might be part of a very, very large CPA firm.
 
that also is part of other groups, other associations and none of them know, you know, three, four, five different strategies that would be perfect for mitigating taxes in a specific situation. So going to a large firm that has lots of in-house resources, are those resources the best? Do they have access to the best tax attorneys in the country? If those attorneys are in-house working for a CPA firm,
 
Or let's just say they're working for Jeff Bezos and Jeff Bezos' family office. Seth, do you think the best tax attorney in the country wants to be W-2 working for a CPA firm or working for a family
 
Right, right.
 
No, no. So right away, you've already discounted. You are not going to work with the best tax attorneys in the country. You're going to work with a static, the best attorney that's willing to be W-2, working for a CPA firm, working for a family office. If you look at the top 1000 tax attorneys in the country, you might now be working with number 945. Is that what you want to be like? No, no, no, we're fine. Our tax
 
(Alex Sonkin) (10:29.484)
Our tax planning is done by my CPA and they've got this tax attorney that's the 945th best tax attorney in the country in their space. It's like saying, I'm building this orchestra and my trumpet player, instead of getting the very best trumpet player in the world, I have the 945th best trumpet player playing trumpet. You want to put that on your website? You want to market that? think your client's going to be like, this is going to be awesome. I'm going to have the 945th best.
 
You
 
(Alex Sonkin) (10:59.138)
Resource in that space giving me planning ideas. Whereas I'm a business owner I've had to get to this point to have a tax problem here to overcome all these challenges and now you're gonna bring me a tax planning solution. That's like D minus That's what's going that's puts par for the course. This is what's going on. What we know is 18 % of Fortune 500 companies are zeroing out their tax returns Okay, just listen to this 18 %
 
of most profitable companies in the world have a team of attorneys and CPAs that zero out their tax return. That means 82 % have no idea what they're doing on a relative basis. those 82%, we're talking about 82 % of the most profitable 500 companies in the world. What we're saying is their tax planning from our vantage point, it's not that it's not good.
 
It's like average to below average, whereas their revenue and income is off the charts. That's like a big problem. It's like saying, you know what? We have a basketball team where our point guard, our forwards, and our two guard are really good, but our center is like garbage. You know, we've got like a high school level center, and then we have all-stars at all the other positions. That's not gonna work.
 
Yeah, yeah. mean, why is that? I mean, it's like, you know, they should have access to the best resources. They should be getting advised by the, you know, the top experts in the industry. But, you know, they're just not. Are they not putting the effort? Do they not have access? Do they not know, like, what's the...
 
Because the difference is when you look at Amazon and you look at Netflix and all the other streaming services that are providing an independent peer-review because back before Amazon and Netflix we had Blockbuster video and we had Barnes and Noble right and we did do diligence very differently going to all the different Blockbuster videos going into Blockbusters and Noble trying to find a book to buy right it's very different experience now we live in this very different world now with
 
(Alex Sonkin) (13:09.196)
independent peer review and all these things. However, the financial services world was created by who? It was created by people like Bernie Madoff. It was created by Wall Street, right? So everything in the financial services world is really created by Wall Street, people like Bernie Madoff. And so Goldman Sachs doesn't want you to know what Morgan Stanley is doing. Morgan Stanley doesn't want you to know what JP Morgan's doing. And so really the financial services realm is
 
is kind of built in silos. No, come into the Goldman Sachs silo. Come into Ernst & Young. You don't need to worry about what our competitors are doing, what these other CPA firms are doing. We're Ernst & Young, we're Goldman Sachs, we're JP Morgan. You can have the products and services that we have in our back room. So essentially, when you look at JP Morgan, Ernst & Young, Pricewaterhouse, all these huge shops, they're just stores with back rooms. And it's like shopping at a store.
 
It's like going to Toys R Us. What do we have in Toys R Us? Well, what do we have in our back room? Whereas when you walk into Amazon, what do you have? When you walk into Netflix, you have the full scale universe, open source. So what we've done is we've basically taken the financial services industry and we've created this open source peer-reviewed model. And we started with sophisticated tax planning because that's where most people are really, really bad at it.
 
And then we've added cost mitigation and other resources. You know, we're not trying to compete with asset management and money managers and all those other, know, certainly we vet those people out. But, you know, there's millions of people that manage money and our financial advisors. And certainly we do our vetting and due diligence on those people. Where we really differentiate ourselves is the income tax planning resources and solutions. Because what we found is the top biggest
 
most profitable, most famous CPA firms and law firms, that's their blind spot. That's where they're really, really bad because they don't know how many are in the tax code. They don't have the time and the resources and they don't know who to call to actually start and complete a successful due diligence process for sophisticated tax structure.
 
(Seth Bradley) (15:29.708)
Yeah, yeah. So when you say independent peer review, what exactly does that look like? mean, walk me kind of through that and how that works.
 
I'll show you like this is what you and any let's say if you're a real estate investor right and you're about to sell let's just say a 10 million dollar asset that has nine million dollars of gain in it you're gonna do the same thing that we've done if you're smart what are you gonna do you're gonna go out there and be like what are all the tax strategies that are possible to help me mitigate this huge tax liquidity event right then you're gonna get a bunch of ideas and then what are you gonna do
 
You're going to show those ideas to your most trusted financial people who are probably your CPA, your lawyer, your advisors, all these other people that you think are financial gurus and really most of them are not even qualified to comment on the tax structure except your tax-focused CPA who has at least 10,000 hours of experience in audit and tax courts. So really you should only bring this to your CPA. But now you brought it to your attorneys and your advisors.
 
So they're all going to comment on it because they're financial experts even though they have almost zero experience in auditing the tax court. So what do these people do with this idea? Some of them will like, oh, I don't know, just pay your tax. So you're going to get all sorts of answers. Now, you're the business owner. You have no idea how to quantify these answers. So you're really the tax expert trying to manage all this information and trying to be like, what do I do? And what are you going to do?
 
you're gonna basically go with what your CPA kind of tells you that they're comfortable with. Now your CPA doesn't know all the strategies, so they might know 10 % of the possible strategies. So you're gonna go with the most comfortable strategy that your CPA is comfortable with, that they've completed their due diligence on, which may be strategy number 443 out of the possible thousand strategies that are out there. And now you have the 443rd best idea.
 
(Alex Sonkin) (17:35.522)
that you're implementing and your ROI on that is going to look just like that. Meanwhile, it's taking you all this effort to create $10 million of asset and it's going to take you just like this to completely give away the tax on that because your CPA is not plugged into an independent peer review environment where they can work with other CPAs who have experience with other resources, be able to ask your questions, get your questions answered, maybe ask another round of questions.
 
But really at that point, you really need to be dealing with the thought leaders in that space, not some local attorney or other CP that also has no clue what's going on. It has no idea how many pages there are.
 
Got it. So when somebody comes to, you know, they have that issue, right? And they're trying to find the right CPA that can help them with that specific situation and find that number one best tax strategy. You know, what do they do? Do they come to your website to try to find someone in the network? Because anybody in your network can tap into everybody else in your network and find that optimum strategy.
 
There's really two ways of doing it. They either find a CPA in our network, which is one of the easiest things to do, or they have their trusted CPA plug into our network and complete their due diligence. That's probably the best way because they are this way. This gives them another warm and fuzzy. Hey, I've had this relationship with my CPA for 20, 30 years. I really like them. I understand the challenges that they're under just because they haven't plugged into the network doesn't mean they're a bad CPA or bad person.
 
It's like having a, you know, I just bought a gold plated cell phone. It's the greatest cell phone iPhones ever produced. But if I don't plug it into Verizon, if I plug it into Bob's telephone network that only works in four locations in America, I'm gonna have this $5,000 cell phone that's basically just a brick that I could just use as a paper holder. But if I have a normal cell phone, I plug it into Verizon and I can make a phone call from anywhere.
 
(Alex Sonkin) (19:43.298)
That's a much better experience. it's not the quality of it. It's partially the quality of the CPA, but it's more so the quality of the network. and certainly these, the CPAs that really are attracted to us are the ones who have these huge hearts that want to do the very, very best for their clients. And they know that they need to pick up every rock and flip over because they know their clients don't want tax returns and financial statements.
 
They need those. They don't want any of that. What they really want is proactive tax planning ideas. And what the CPAs don't have time for is that. So they have to create time. And we show CPAs how to create that time. We eliminate all, 95 % of the time. It takes them to complete the due diligence because we just show them the notes. We get them 90, 95 % there. Then they take the notes. They take the resources.
 
They jump into the tax code and then they complete the last 5-10 % of the due diligence process on their own because they're going to have to actually do a little bit of work to get this done. But we've reduced their time and increased their confidence level in completing this project by a factor of 10x, which is a huge value to them because they don't have the time and they don't have the resource to get this work done, but they want to get it
 
(Seth Bradley) (21:07.616)
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Right. Yeah. And I can imagine it takes a certain degree of humility, right, from those CPAs to say, I don't know everything. I'm not just going to make up something. I'm not going to make it up. But I'm not going to do kind of half-assed research for a few minutes and tell you I know everything about the subject. Right? Like, I can admit that I don't know everything. I'm not an expert in every single tax strategy.
 
You nailed it. mean look we do a whole program about the ten pillars of extraordinary due diligence Curiosity is one of them independence is independence versus group think and you nailed one of those pillars. It's it's it's it's humility and You know being curious being humble when you're the tax expert as you know CPA that's been around for 30 years you like I've seen everything right? That's kind of how you feel
 
But if you have that idea, I've already seen everything. I already know everything. How many people, by the way, how many pages are there in the tax code? I have no idea. Well, that is that's not congruent. What's congruent is I've been in the industry 30, 35 years. Do I know the tax code? I don't know the tax code. It's constantly changing. I'm humble, but I'm working hard. Yeah, there are sections of tax codes that I know, but it would be awesome to be part of independent peer community of hundreds and hundreds of other tax geeks like me.
 
where we're chewing, know, we're eating this elephant one bite at a time and working together as a community. That's hard working humility. And if you think about it, those are the kind of people that are winning in every, in your profession, in my profession. Think about a basketball player. It's like the best basketball players, they are working to improve their game every day, every month, every year. As soon as you think, oh, I'm the best. Nobody does that. Kobe, Michael.
 
(Alex Sonkin) (23:25.034)
Everyone was constantly improving their game every offseason even though they were achieving they were the grace of the world So when you see a CPA going, I already know everything. I'm not humble run for the hills You're in big trouble
 
Right, right. So I mean, I can see where this is. This could actually just change everything, right? I mean, it can change. Like if you get enough CPAs on this network and it's kind of the authority, the accepted way that things are done, it could really just change, you know, set the bar, right? So like, you know, where do you see the CPA firm or the future going? What does it look
 
Yeah, you know, we started out as the virtual family office hub. We're still the virtual family office hub. What we do is the due diligence project. So we've had a vision, you know, more than 15 years ago where the CPA firm of future, the CPA firm of today is no longer just a CPA firm, right? They're not just an accounting firm looking backwards. What does a CPA firm mean now? They're a proactive looking firm. So they're really
 
providing advisory services. They're bringing ideas to the table. That is not what accountants traditionally do. So right away, the CPA firm of the future in our world is a virtual family office led not by a money manager or an attorney or a financial advisor. It's led by a tax advisor who really has a tremendous amount of experience with audits, with tax court, with income tax planning.
 
that's plugged into this community. really let's build Wall Street underneath an elite tax advisor and let's give them vetted best in class peer reviewed resources for estate planning, money management, all the different resources underneath them. And let's make sure all these resources are trained to be part of a team that's led by the captain, which is the head of their family office. But in this case, it's a virtual family office because in our opinion,
 
(Alex Sonkin) (25:30.732)
Like we said, the best people in the world don't necessarily want to be W-2 static living next to the family office or living next to the CPA firm that they support. These resources could be anywhere and everywhere. And it's like Lego pieces. Let's build out a custom build, a virtual family office with your favorite advisors, with your favorite CPA, plug them into due diligence project, and then maybe replace some of the resources with best in class peer reviewed.
 
I'm going to keep my estate planning attorney. I'm going to keep my CPA, but then let's build out the rest of my virtual family office with resources, specialists, specialized attorneys that my two estate planning attorney and my CPA need to help me do what I need to do and get from point A to point B.
 
Yeah, yeah, I love that. Let's let's unwind that a little bit. What what exactly is a family office? We have a lot of listeners that are, you know, high net worth individuals, wealthy, probably a high paying job of some sort. And, we still don't know what a family office is. Like, what is a family office? We hear about it all the time. People talk about it. You know, what is it? Is it just, you know, the Trumps and the Bidens that have them or what?
 
Well, look, when we first started doing this, we had to educate everyone. What is a family office? And there's still people that don't know what a family office is, and that's okay. So traditionally, what a family office is, is when a family or a business owner sells their business, and now they have a big pile of money instead of running their business where they don't need CFOs and C-level executives and marketing people. Now they have a big pile of money. Maybe they're building a real estate portfolio, private equity, various investments.
 
They, instead of having to make 17 phone calls, hey, I'm gonna call my CPA, I'm gonna call my attorney, I'm gonna call my advisors, they make one phone call to the head of their family office and their family office is gonna house their entire financial team. So their CPAs, their attorneys, their advisors are all part of a family office and there's usually a CEO of that family office.
 
(Alex Sonkin) (27:36.814)
So that structure traditionally can cost anywhere from $250,000 a year up to $2,000, $3,000, $4,000,000 a year if you're dealing with very high net worth billionaires. our idea was to rebuild that structure and make it a virtual family office instead of a single family office or a multi-family office with everyone working W2 in a static place, was let's create a virtual family office environment where we can have a world-class tax attorney support
 
multiple virtual family offices led by CPAs around the country. And based on what their clients want and need, they may not need a full $250,000 or a million dollar yearly cost. Maybe they can have a family office with $50,000 worth of yearly expenses and they just need, you know, two, three advisors, six meetings a year, get their hands around what you're doing.
 
And they don't need check writing. They don't need a lot of these other services that maybe a ultra high net worth family needs where they just want to make one phone call instead of 17 phone calls and say, take care of this for me. In the virtual family office model, it's the same one phone call, except now the team underneath that person that's getting the call are vetted best in class peer reviewed resources who might be all around the world who will all get together on a virtual meeting.
 
to support the client when the client has, hey, I have a liquidity event or I have a tax event or I want to update my plan. Hey, let's bring the team together and let's look at all the moving parts and let's rebuild your plan. But now we're going to take advice and ideas from the smartest people in the world. We're all working together as part of a team.
 
Got it. Yeah. the virtual family office, makes it seem like that it offers wealth management, the best wealth management, more, it makes it more accessible to more people, right? Like not just billionaires, but maybe lower than that, right? Like maybe we've got $10 million or something like that and we can still get the best of the best.
 
(Alex Sonkin) (29:42.068)
Exactly. And so our idea was, you know, you have these people who are worth $50 million and they can't afford a family office, but they want to, you know, the $50 million, they want to live life too. They want to be able to go play tennis. They want to give time to their synagogue, their churches. They want to do something else besides actually running their own, you know, basically overseeing their $50 million portfolio, which is a full-time job. the problem is they're not qualified to be doing that work.
 
Yet can they identify investments that they like? Sure. Can they identify the best planning around those investments? They're not schooled in that. So they really should not be involved in their family office. should identify a tax-focused CPA, have them build out a virtual family office for them. And then now they have the benefit of making one phone call instead of 17, which saves them lot of time. And they can now trust the fact that they have best-in-class peer-reviewed resources to give them the very, very best ideas.
 
So now what happens? Their confidence level goes up. So their time and planning goes down, confidence level goes up, the quality of the solutions goes up, and they're all of a sudden out, they can create a lot more wealth by doing world-class planning because we're seeing a lot of wealth just go away to state and federal governments and unnecessary taxes simply because the team does not know and has not completed their due diligence on all the possibilities.
 
That's we want.
 
Yeah, that's incredible, Alex. You know, I want to have you back on the show to maybe get into some of the more of nitty gritty stuff, right? Like what are some of these tax strategies that we might not know about or we might not hear about every single day because we tend to hear about the same ones over and over. And you've probably seen some pretty exotic ones, some very specific ones that people have never even heard of. But, you know, we're running out of time today. But, man, I would love to have a whole episode just kind of based on that.
 
(Seth Bradley) (31:40.91)
But before we jump into the freedom four, you have one last gold nugget for our listeners.
 
Yeah, you know, just work hard, write your goals down, read your goals and update your goals. You know, there's a magic formula of being able to just writing down your goals, looking at your goals and just updating your goals. Be grateful. I know you get a probably get a lot of people just with gratitude and hard work and all that stuff. writing down your goals is something that very few people do. And of the people that write their goals down, a very high percentage of those people actually achieve those goals. So
 
simple way of getting successful and I do it and I recommend that little idea to every one of my friends and family.
 
Yeah, absolutely. you know, I think people sometimes they get caught up in, you know, the the mental stuff, they don't want to jump into that. But goal setting is more of a tangible thing. And all those things you hear about, like whether that's a vision board or affirmations or visualizations or setting goals, like it's all kind of the same, right? It's just even if it's like,
 
I want to update my tax planning. I want to have a better tax planning team. know, write that down. And every day you look down at all your goals and make them balanced. You know, some of it is they'd give back to the community, have strong relationships with my family members or have no relationships with certain families. I don't know, you know, what the goals are. But balanced goals where you're constantly reviewing those goals and then you're updating those goals. And every day you do something to take a step.
 
(Alex Sonkin) (33:15.278)
towards achieving those goals. Those are little things. It's not a huge deal, but when you do that over time, there's a compound effect to it that is incredible that people just can't appreciate. It's been said, we think we can do a lot more than we do in a year, but we don't realize how much we can do in a five or 10 year period. It's incredible.
 
much we can do in a five or ten year period if we're just consistent every day for that period of
 
Absolutely, you get some momentum going over time. All right, let's jump into the Freedom 4. What's the best thing you do to keep your mind and body healthy?
 
I do strength training six days a week and I actually prefer using a rubber band training. This X3 bar program that's out there. There's a bunch of different competitors now, but it's like a 20, 30 minute training.
 
Nice, nice. With all your success, what is one limiting belief that you've crushed along the way and how did you get past it?
 
(Alex Sonkin) (34:18.968)
Great question. You know, I think everyone experiences fears, fear of failure in different areas. And I think you have to attack your fear of failure. Whatever you're scared of, whatever's on your radar that's popping up as a fear, you have to literally identify it and attack it and just prove to yourself that you're really not scared of it.
 
Love that. What's one actual step our listeners can do right now to start creating more freedom?
 
They can take action. Action is the key. The real problem is people just sit around, they get in front of themselves. They're too much thinking, too much analysis. What I've seen is people who have achieved incredible, let's just say business success, those people weren't smart enough to know.
 
that how hard that business was actually going to be to build. They were actually not, if they were smarter, they would have never done the business because they were like, the odds of me actually achieving this business and creating it are so small. I'm just better off not doing it. They weren't that smart. So they just went ahead and jumped into it. And so what I found is just taking massive, massive action. Even if it's a failure, that massive action creates a pattern because it's going to
 
Success is going to require massive action. And when you have a pattern and know this is going to take massive action and it's okay if it doesn't work out, I'm going to go for it anyway. I'm just going to assume it does work out. So being positive, massive action. If it fails, boom, you learn something and you go do something else and you just keep taking massive action.
 
(Seth Bradley) (36:10.402)
Perfect. Last but not least, how's passive income or entrepreneurship made your life better?
 
You know, I've been very blessed. 20 years ago, I came up with an idea based on a diet that cured cancer for my aunt, my mother-in-law. And I suggested to my wife and my mother-in-law that they start selling my mother-in-law's cookies that were based on a diet that cured cancer for my mother-in-law. And so now today, we have a company called Go Macro, MacroMars, that my wife and my mother-in-law built based on an entrepreneurial idea that
 
you know, that I had over 20 years ago. And as soon as we had a little bit of success in the beginning, I knew this was bigger and better than we had even thought of. And I just continually supported my wife and really just in every way I could to watch this opportunity grow. So to me, that's been my my passive, even though, you know, I'm married to this business owner, you know, supporting her and watching this idea grow and flourish into a really
 
Successful health food company called comacro where we sell these macro bars. They're super delicious
 
Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, it's passive for you, maybe not quite as passive for her. I have the same issue with the gyms. You know, they make really good money and it's passive for me, but my wife is running those things, so no.
 
(Alex Sonkin) (37:31.174)
Exactly, well you know she's had to be there to support you so yeah so for her it's passive and it's a great story for her and it's a great successful story for you as well. know how hard it is to build.
 
Yeah, awesome Alex. The list has been incredible, man. We're gonna let you find out more about you.
 
DoDiligenceProject.com or info at DoDiligenceProject.com. You can introduce your CPA to us or you can reach out to us if you hate your CPA and want us to recommend a great CPA for you that's already plugged into our...
 
Easy enough, man, easy enough. All right, brother, thanks for coming on the show.
 
Seth, it's been my pleasure. Thanks so much for having me.
 
(Seth Bradley) (38:09.986)
Absolutely.
 
(Seth Bradley) (38:13.944)
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
 
Alex Sonkin’s Links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexsonkin/
https://encoursa.com/presenters/alex-sonkin
https://www.facebook.com/asonkin/

FBF 02 | Flash Back Friday | From Hustle to Holdings: The Smarter Path to Passive Wealth with J. Scott

In this episode of the Passive Income Attorney Podcast, host Seth Bradley discusses the importance of transitioning from active to passive income with guest Jay Scott, a seasoned real estate investor. Seth Bradley and Jay Scott explore various investment strategies, the significance of due diligence in syndication, and the differences between house flipping and multifamily investments.
Jay Scott shares his journey from tech to real estate, emphasizing the need for teamwork in multifamily projects and the importance of understanding market conditions. The conversation concludes with Seth Bradley and Jay Scott providing actionable insights for listeners looking to create financial freedom through passive income and strategic real estate investing.
Links to watch and subscribe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V26Rze2S9TM
Bullet Point Highlights:
Active income is trading time for money, while passive income allows for financial freedom.
Investors should focus on the highest and best use of their time.
Flipping houses can be tedious and may not be the best use of time for high-income earners.
Transitioning to multifamily investments can provide more control and cash flow.
Market conditions can significantly impact investment strategies and outcomes.
Due diligence is crucial when vetting syndication sponsors and deals.
Understanding the underwriting process is essential for passive investors.
Building a strong team is vital for success in multifamily investments.
Investors should seek to understand the risks associated with their investments.
Passive income allows for a lifestyle centered around family and personal interests.
Transcript:
Seth Bradley (00:10.188)
What's going on, law nation? Welcome to the Passive Income Attorney Podcast, your favorite place for learning about the world of alternative passive investments so that you can practice when you want to and not because you have to. Now, if you're ready to kick that billable out of the curb, start by going to attorneybydesign.com to download the Freedom Blueprint, which will also get you access to partner with us on one of our next passive real estate investments. All right, let's talk about
 
the highest and best use of your time. We've talked about active versus passive income and for good reason, they are completely different. They're on opposite sides of the spectrum. When we talk about active income, we're talking about your job as an attorney, as a doctor or a business owner, where you trade your time in for money out. Depending on your skill set, background, education, work ethic, et cetera,
 
You know, this could be a great use of your time or it could be a terrible one. But when most people think about getting into real estate investing, they're torn. Should you do a fix and flip like you saw on HGTV? Should you invest in a REIT like your financial advisor and Charles Schwab told you to do? Should you buy a single family rental or invest in a syndication? There are endless options so I can understand why it's so confusing. Well, start with this.
 
ask yourself, what's the highest and best use of my time? If you're thinking about doing an HGTV fix and flip and your partner at a big law firm, for example, is that flip really the best use of your time? And don't be mistaken, a flip is transactional and it is active. So will you make more per hour on that fix and flip than you would at your job?
 
After you factor in the learning curve, the deal sourcing, the headaches, what it takes away from your job and everything else, it's not even close. Unless you truly love doing it, which some people do, it just doesn't make sense for high income earners. You should be focusing on transforming the income you earn actively into passive income streams. At different levels on the passive scale, that could very well be a single family rental or an Airbnb.
 
Seth Bradley (02:34.26)
or could be passive investments into commercial syndications. But if you truly want to obtain financial freedom as quickly as possible, don't create more time consuming activities that aren't as fruitful as the active income stream that you already have. Focus on passive investments until you are financially free. And then you will have the freedom to transition or not into any
 
active activity you have a passion for. Today, we have a very special guest, Mr. Jay Scott of Bigger Pocket fame. Jay is an entrepreneur, investor, advisor, and the co-host of the Bigger Pockets Business Podcast. He has bought, built, rehab, sold, syndicated, and held over $70 million in residential property, and currently owns several hundred units. Jay is the author of four bestselling books on real estate investing,
 
with sales of over 300,000 copies. Get really excited for this, folks. You're in for a treat.
 
This is the Passive Income Attorney Podcast, where you'll discover the secrets and strategies of the ultra wealthy on how they build streams of passive income to give them the freedom we all want. Attorney Seth Bradley will help you end the cycle of trading your time for money so you can make money while you sleep. Start living the good life on your own terms. Now, here's your host, Seth Bradley.
 
Jay Scott, what's going on, brother? Welcome to the show.
 
Scott (04:09.196)
Thanks. Appreciate you having me here Seth.
 
Absolutely, man. Appreciate you taking the time out of your day, We've got a little bit of history, but let's jump into your history, man. What's your story? Tell us about your background. Take it back as far you'd like to.
 
Yeah, I'll keep it short because nobody really cares about what I used to do. So I'm a tech guy by education and former trade. I worked in Silicon Valley for a long time, spent about 15 years doing the engineering thing and the product management thing. 2008 decided to get married. My wife and I, she was in the tech world also. We decided to leave and do something different so we could start a family.
 
focus on our family. Basically, we were both working ridiculous hours and it just wasn't sustainable if we wanted to start a family. So put our jobs in 2008, moved to the East coast, ended up flipping houses. Long, boring story about how that started, just kind of serendipitous. We didn't really plan it, never really considered real estate, but fell into flipping houses. Over the next eight years or so, we flipped about 400, 450 houses, was great. It ended up being the,
 
next career we were looking for, it gave us the flexibility to kind of raise our kids and never have to miss a soccer game or a piano recital, which was fantastic. But then around 2017-ish really got burned out on flipping houses and that's when I started to look for some new stuff to do. and that kind of leads me into what I've been doing the last few years.
 
Seth Bradley (05:41.742)
That's awesome, man. That's a ton of houses you flip, man. think that that's, know, a lot of the folks who've been in the game for a long time, they've heard you speak on, you know, on bigger pockets and all of that. So, you know, what attracted you originally to house flipping rather than, you know, buy it holds or anything like that?
 
So I'll be honest, I don't love real estate. I love business. I'm a business guy. like when I was even when I was in the tech world, I got my MBA and I did some business development and I moved from the engineering side to the product side where I could be more involved in the business stuff. And I'm a business guy by heart. And that's what I love doing. So when it came to flipping houses,
 
For me, was, I could have been buying and selling anything. It ended up being houses. And again, not an exciting story. mean, literally the story was my wife was watching a show on HGTV with some people flipping houses and she said, let's give that a try. Just as kind of like a fun thing to do on the side while we were waiting for our wedding to come up. So it wasn't something that I ever thought about or planned to do. It just kind of happened.
 
And so if it weren't flipping houses, it would have been buying and selling something else. would have opened a restaurant or I would have opened a retail store or who knows what I would have done. But for me, the challenge was in the business. It wasn't the real estate piece of it. And so I've always enjoyed the scaling part. So yeah, flipping a house is great. Flipping five houses is great. But I always wanted to know, how do I go from flipping five houses to flipping 50 houses in a year? What are the systems and processes I have to put in place?
 
how do I build that type of business? That to me is what's exciting. And so for me, it's always been about not the real estate part of it, but about the building the business part of it.
 
Seth Bradley (07:25.248)
I love that man. I don't think I've heard anyone just come out and say that, even though a lot of people are probably in the same boat as you that, you know, you don't have to love real estate to recognize that it's a great business. Right. Yeah. So that that's awesome. So tell me a little bit about your, your transition and what you're doing now, your current business, how you kind of progressed from house living to what you're about to tell us about.
 
Yeah, so 2017, I just got really burned out on flipping houses. It was good to us financially. We got good at it. I wrote a bunch of books on it, but I'll be honest, it was never fun. And as the years went on, it just ended up getting more tedious. I felt like I wasn't learning anything new. It was revising processes and creating new systems. it was fun, but I needed some new challenges.
 
So 2017, I decided, okay, done with flipping, actually went and started doing some business stuff. So I do some advisory work for some tech companies. I do some angel investing. And so for a few months, I actually considered getting out of real estate altogether, focusing on other business pursuits. But I actually, what I realized was that I didn't like the nuts and bolts of real estate. I liked the mechanics of real estate.
 
I loved the negotiation piece. I loved the asset management piece. I loved the putting deals together piece and I was good at it. And so while I really didn't wanna be flipping houses, didn't want to be involved in the day-to-day aspects of managing the projects. I enjoyed the deal part of real estate. And so in addition to that, after I stopped flipping, I had all this cash.
 
And I was like, okay, what am I going to do with this cash? I was using it to flip houses. We were doing 50 houses a year. It's put a lot of cash to work. Now I had all this cash. I'm a control freak. do invest in other people's syndications, but I don't sleep well at night when all my money is being managed by other people. So I said, how do I kind of take back control of my own cash as well as kind of get back into real estate? What can I do in real estate that I would enjoy? And now I can also deploy a bunch of my own cash. And what I realized was multifamily.
 
Scott (09:38.648)
That was a great opportunity. And I had been thinking about multifamily for a long time. But what I realized was from the syndication side of multifamily, could, one, I could have the control. could be a general partner. could control the deal. I could put the deal together. I could manage the deal. But also I could come in on the limited partner side as an investor. And it was a great place to deploy my capital. So I could deploy my capital in deals that I had full control over. So 2017, I decided I wanted to get into multifamily, probably wanted to get into syndication.
 
I reached out to a friend of mine, Ashley Wilson, who managed a company called Barred Down Investments. She and her husband had started the company a couple of years earlier. They were doing exactly what I wanted to do. And so I reached out to Ashley and I said, hey, I would love to learn multifamily. I don't expect you to like just take all this time and teach me so I can often be your competitor. But here's what I am willing to do if you're willing to do this. I will come work for you for a year.
 
And in that year, you've got all my time, you've got all my energy, you've got all my knowledge, you've got all my contacts, I'll put money into your deals, whatever it takes. You mentor me for a year, you've got my commitment for a year. After a year, we can figure out if like, there's a place for me on the team or if I'll go off and do my own thing. But basically, let's work together for a year. And she loved that idea. mean, I think she liked the fact that I was really good with the systems and the processes and the operation stuff.
 
And I obviously loved the fact that I could jump into a team that was high functioning, already owned a lot of properties and was doing deals. So for the next year, I worked with her team. It took about a year and a half before we finally did a deal. But 2020, just before COVID, we started putting together a deal. That deal went really well. Ashley and I realized that we were like, just we made a great team.
 
We had a bunch of complimentary skills, the things that she was really good at, I wasn't, the things I was really good at, she wasn't, it was just a good partnership. Around the same time, her husband decided that he didn't really want to be doing real estate anymore. He kind of wanted to be a stay at home dad. He liked helping with the business. He ran the underwriting team and he did a lot of the analytics, but he didn't want to be a partner in the business anymore. So about a year and a half ago, Ashley came to me and said, Hey, would you want to join me and be a partner in the business?
 
Scott (11:57.678)
2020, 2021-ish. Ashley and I joined forces. She and I now run bar down investments and we do value add multifamily all around the country.
 
That's great man, said you weren't having fun anymore, you having fun now?
 
I'm having a ton of fun. And I think the big difference between then and now is when you're flipping houses, flipping houses is a very, it's a solitary venture. Yeah, you have contractors around you and you have eight real estate agents and you have closing agents and lots of 1099 people, lots of vendors and people that come in to help you. But at the end of the day, you're running the show. You're doing the four big things that you do when you flip houses.
 
you're acquisitions or you're running acquisitions, you're doing the rehab or you're running the rehab, you're doing the disposition or managing the disposition and you're raising the money. mean, all four of those things, you don't generally have a big team to do those things because it's just hard to scale a big team when you're flipping houses. The profits aren't there, the margins aren't there. Unless you're doing real high-end houses, the deal size isn't there. But in multifamily, the thing I love about multifamily is it really is a team sport. When you're doing it,
 
$10 million deal or a $50 million deal, it's not something that I could ever do myself. It's not something anybody or very few people can do themselves. Typically you have to be part of a team because things are very specialized. mean, the acquisitions piece, you need some of the best acquisitions people in the world to be finding deals in this market. The renovation piece to be renovating a 200 or 400 or 600 unit apartment complex, it's not like flipping a house. You need to have really good systems and processes. need to...
 
Scott (13:36.448)
really know the renovation side of things. Managing the property, I mean, you have to know the asset management side. You have to know how to carry out a business plan. You have to know how to increase and reposition rents. You have to know how to decrease expenses and improve the efficiency of the management. And then on the sales side, that's a whole other world where you have to really know the market and be able to work with the brokers and know how to position the company for sale. And then finally, there's that raising funds piece.
 
And that's a whole world by itself, whether you're dealing with raising debt through a broker and you're going like just typical, like getting loans, or you're going out to private investors or institutions and you're raising equity, people that come in as partners. And I mean, that's a full-time job in itself, those two things. So when you do multifamily, you really need to figure out what are you great at? And then you need to surround yourself with people who are great at everything else. And so that's what I loved about multifamily. It allowed me to focus on what I was really
 
and then bring in people who are literally the best in the world at all the other stuff. And now it becomes a team sport. It goes from playing tennis to playing basketball. It goes from being yourself reliant and you have to do everything and be the best versus you have to be able to put together the best team and manage that team in a way that not only is everybody fantastic, but working together, they're better than the sum of their parts.
 
Yeah, yeah, that's fantastic, man. The whole team game part of multifamily and commercial real estate. It's really interesting because when you get into other businesses, it feels more competitive and kind of like if you if you have the secret sauce, you keep it close to your vest. You don't you don't tell everybody about it. Whereas when you're in this commercial real estate world, everybody's sharing ideas. Everybody's trying to partner. Everybody's trying to see how they can help you rather than just looking about, well, how can you help me kind of?
 
I call it, I'm gonna get in trouble here, but the Hollywood mentality where it's like, what can you do for me? Oh, you just drive a three series, you probably can't help me. So it's a different attitude.
 
Scott (15:41.294)
Absolutely. I like to refer to it as co-op petition. It's like there are deals that you're going to do with other people and then there deals you're going to do yourself and you may come back to those people later. You may never come back to them, but everybody kind of looks out for each other because you never know when you may end up in a deal with somebody that previously you were competing against. And so anytime that you're not in a deal with somebody, you're still treating them as if, the next deal we could end up being partners. And the deal after that, we could end up being partners.
 
because it really is, it's a small industry, everybody knows each other. we really, again, going back to the sum of the parts is greater than the parts themselves. mean, working together, we can really do a whole lot more than if we just are purely competitive and try and take each other down.
 
Yeah, absolutely. And I think kind of going back, there's a lesson to be learned about how you were transitioning from house flipping and you were the best at it. And then you're like, okay, I want to go into multifamily and a syndication. You went and you sought out someone that was already in the game that knew what they were doing, that had the experience. And you said, what can I do to help you? What value can I bring to you to help you so you can teach me what you've done? And there's a lot of value to be found in that lesson for folks that are trying to
 
you know, get into the active side. A lot of listeners out there are passive investors already and they're, you know, maybe thinking about, maybe I want to do in the active side. And they're like, well, what can I do? Cause a lot of attorneys, especially in doctors and folks like that, they think they have this one track mind. They're only trained to do one thing. And they're like, what value can I provide as somebody else? But there are a lot of skills that you've learned in your W2 profession that you can apply to help other folks that are already in the industry.
 
Absolutely. I mean, I talk about it a lot, but even outside of real estate, I do a lot of advisory work and I'm still pretty active in the tech world. And I find companies that kind of bridge that gap between technology and real estate. all know about the Zillows and the Airbnb type companies. There are a lot of startup companies in that space too called property technology type companies. so...
 
Scott (17:46.998)
I love to use my experience, my knowledge, my relationships to go into those companies and help them grow their companies. In return, I'm not an employee. I'm not even a 1099 contractor. In return, I'm getting equity so that if I can help make them successful, ultimately my equity is gonna be worth something. I'm gonna be successful as well. And so what I like to tell everybody like figure out what you're good at and then figure out who needs that expertise.
 
and then figure out how you can offer that expertise in a way that isn't trading necessarily hours for dollars. Figure out how you can trade your expertise, your knowledge, your Rolodex, your whatever it is for equity or potentially passive income so that you can grow potentially many fold as opposed to I charge $200 an hour or $300 an hour. mean, everybody loves $300 an hour, but the minute you stop working, you stop making that money. But if you can get equity, that equity can work for you for a while.
 
Yeah, absolutely. And it's tough for a lot of the WTs out there listening, they're highly paid professionals. It's tough to get off of that treadmill. For some folks it's easier because they're not making as much money, but for the lawyers, the doctors out there that are making a good amount of money in their profession, it's tough to try to see, you know, to stop trading time for money. But you've got to kind of see through the weeds there.
 
Yeah, well, what I tell people is, there's two types of income. There's your active income. That's the stuff that you're trading your time for, whether you're a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer or you're a house flipper or you're a consultant or you're a small business owner, whatever it is, that thing that when you stop working, you stop making money. And then there's a passive income. It's the thing you trade money for money. So you put your money out there and hopefully it continues to come back to you for the rest of your life or at least the next several years.
 
And so what I like to tell people is don't think about those the same. Those are completely different. figure out for your active income, figure out what the highest and best use of your time is. If you're gonna make more money as an attorney than you are flipping houses, don't flip houses just because you eventually want to retire on real estate. You can always use real estate for the passive side of things, but if you're gonna make more dollars per hour as an attorney or a doctor or a consultant, then do that because you wanna get out of that active income as quickly as possible.
 
Scott (20:05.9)
And the way you do that is you make as much as you can and you move it over to the passive side. So focus on whatever it is that's generating the most dollars per hour for a shorter period of time so that you can then start moving that money over to the passive side and start building up the passive side. don't, people ask me all the time, should I flip houses or should I buy rentals? And I'm constantly telling them that's not the right question. Flipping houses is your active income. Compare that to all the other.
 
potential active incomes you can have. And rentals is passive income. Compare that to all the other passive investments you can make. And so don't say flipping houses or rentals say, should I be flipping houses or should I be an attorney? And don't say, I be flipping houses or rentals say, should I be doing rentals or should I be investing in syndications or dividend generating stocks or something else? And think of them very differently. then secondly,
 
Make sure as much of that active income as you can, move it over the passive side so that you can start that snowball rolling. I compound interest is the key to financial freedom. And the sooner you can put more money to work, the faster it'll compound and the sooner you can start to live on.
 
Yeah, I love that man. mean, lot of folks, you know, calls that I take, they're like, hey, they're attorneys. Should I quit my job or how do I quit my job? I'm like, if you want to quit your job, don't be hasty about it. First of all, you're probably making a good amount of money in your active income. You just need to figure out a way to transition that active to passive income and don't just quit your job. It's very difficult to flip houses, to do an HGTV fix and flip while you're working at a big law firm or something like that full time.
 
I tried to do it, I didn't do it very well. You're not even gonna make it nearly as much money as you would as a doctor, as an attorney, unless you get to level like you did, Jay, but that takes time and that takes a buildup of accumulation of skills and money to be able to get to that level.
 
Scott (22:05.826)
Yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, it's a math equation. mean, your passive income or your ability to build up enough income to be able to retire, whatever your number is, is based on how much can you put in per month into that wheel, that passive income growth machine? How much are you generating every year on what you're putting in? So what do your returns look like? And three, how long do you have to compound it?
 
And so everybody can go out into a compound interest calculator and say, okay, I have $5,000 a month that I can invest passively and I can return 12 % per year and I need $6 million to retire. Well, based on those three numbers, you can now figure out that fourth variable, is how long is it going to take? And so figure out how much do you have per month to put in? What's the rate of return you can generate and how much do you need? And that'll tell you how long it's going to take or
 
figure out how much you have to put in, how much your return is gonna be and how long you wanna spend. And that'll tell you how much you'll end up with at the end, either way you wanna look at it. But again, it's a pretty simple math equation, but too many people don't actually do that equation where they don't think about it until too late and they think, I wish I would have taken that $5,000 a month that I was spending on my second home in the Bahamas and put that into real estate so that I could have been.
 
compounding it and so now I could buy that home for cash five years or 10 years later.
 
Absolutely. Attorneys hate math, but I think they can handle that little equation. I want to take a step back for a minute because you got into house flipping in 2008, which is kind of like around the big crash. And now we're kind of at the height of a market. We don't know where that height is going to end, but we're definitely in it. Right. So can you maybe compare and contrast getting into, let's say,
 
Seth Bradley (24:01.652)
one real estate venture in the middle of a crash compared to getting into another venture kind of towards, towards the upswing.
 
Yeah, so it's one of the reasons I like multifamily and I like commercial and I like syndication. Anytime you're doing purely transactional deals, buying something and then selling it, not generating any cashflow in between, you run a risk. If the market turns in the middle of the transaction, you're gonna lose money and you don't have a lot of ways to mitigate that risk.
 
Whereas if you're buying something like an apartment complex, or even if you're buying a rental property, or you're buying a self-storage complex, or you're buying anything that cash flows, the nice thing is if the market turns, you may not be in a great position. You may not be thrilled with what's happening with the value of your assets, but if you're still generating cash flow, you can weather that storm. Maybe it's gonna take, the average recession lasts about 18 months. And so if you can make enough income that you can keep yourself afloat for 18 months, or maybe
 
it's a horrible recession and it lasts three or four years. If you're still making income and you can keep yourself afloat for three or four years, the market's gonna come back. And so when we do our multifamily deals, yeah, we typically say we're planning to hold three to five years, but we also do all the underwriting to ensure that if we have to hold for six years or eight years or even nine or 10 years, that the numbers still work because.
 
Again, who knows what's gonna happen three years down the road, we could have a major recession that lasts four years and now we're seven years down the road. I wanna know that my multifamily investments in seven years, they're probably gonna be producing more cashflow. We're probably gonna see more growth in terms of population. We're probably gonna see more growth in terms of employment. Hopefully we're gonna see more wage growth once we come out of that recession. So all the economic indicators that kind of lead towards value growth in multifamily,
 
Scott (25:58.486)
are going to happen over those seven years if I can just get my property seven years and not lose it. With a flip, well, I'm not generating any income. So if the bank calls the loan due or if my two-year loan comes due and I can't refinance, I'm screwed. But in a multifamily, I just waited an extra couple of years and I'm probably in a better position than I was anyway. So that's one of the reasons I love multifamily because we can't predict
 
what the economy is gonna do in the next couple of years. But I do know that whatever the economy does, it's probably gonna come back in the next five or 10, and I'm still gonna have the problem.
 
Yeah, yeah, that's great. That kind of rolls into this next question. How does a passive investor that's kind of vetting a sponsor, how do they check kind of the boxes to see if their sponsors are taking the extra measures to look into those risks that you just mentioned, to mitigating those risks, to taking those risks into account in their underwriting and things like that. How can they best vet the sponsor to make sure that they're thinking of those things?
 
So I invest in a lot of other people's syndications as well as my own. And so when I do that, I kind of look at five areas for due diligence anytime I invest in a syndication. Number one is the team. And that's probably the most important thing. For a lot of people, I have been pleasantly surprised that a lot of our investors have recognized that team is the most important aspect of the deal. I know in the flipping world, everybody was concerned about the deal. Nobody cared about
 
what was my experience, but in the multifamily world, a lot of investors recognize that the team has to be great. So number one is the team. Number two is location. Location is often overlooked, but at the end of the day, the thing that's gonna drive value for multifamily and for commercial real estate in general is gonna be population growth. So you want more people coming into an area, employment growth. So you want more employers coming into an area that will bring more people in. You want wage growth because that will ultimately drive rents up.
 
Scott (28:06.082)
and you want employment diversity. You wanna know that if one industry takes a big hit, so for example, we invest in Houston, but we won't invest in the energy corridor of Houston because it's so reliant on oil and gas, that if the oil and gas industry took a big hit, the real estate around there would probably take a big hit. So we wanna see that there's good employment diversity. But at the end of the day, location is that next big thing. So team, location, number three is the deal itself.
 
So you need to know that the deal is gonna stand on its own. I wanna know that if I took a deal and I handed it to pretty much any other indicator, they couldn't mess it up too badly. Obviously, again, we're gonna go back to the team is super important, but I want the deal also to stand on its own. And I wanna know that the business plan for the deal, the hold period, the numbers and the underwriting, the pro forma for the property makes sense. So team location deal.
 
Number four is the returns. So obviously when I invest with somebody, I'm in it for the money. And so I wanna see that the returns are commensurate with the risk. I wanna know that the returns, if somebody tells me I'm gonna get 10 % returns in this deal versus 20 % returns in another deal, I wanna know, well, why am gonna settle for lower returns? I want the answer to be because it's a lot lower risk or because you're gonna get your money back a lot sooner, which is gonna allow you to compound it or whatever the answer is.
 
I want to know that the returns make sense given everything else. And then finally is the risks. At the end of the day, I'm always going to sit down with the syndicator and I'm going to say, what are you most concerned about here? Like where, if I'm going to lose money on this deal, where am I most likely going to lose money? They say, there's no shot of losing money. walk away because we all know every deal has risks and every syndicator knows what those risks are. And they're thinking about those risks. I just want them to tell me.
 
So if I'm gonna lose money on this deal, where am I most likely? Why am I most likely to lose money if I'm going to lose money? So those are the five things that I look for. Talking about each individually a little bit more. the team, I like to know that one, I wanna see how many deals the team has done together because again, like a basketball team, you can put the best basketball players in the world together. And if they've never played on the court together,
 
Scott (30:31.672)
they're not gonna be necessarily the best team out there. You can find another team with five inferior players who have been playing together for 20 years and they're probably gonna be better because they know each other better. So I like to see teams that have worked together for a while. I like to see teams that have gone full cycle in deals. So it's easy to buy 10,000 units. It's hard to buy 10,000 units and also sell 10,000 units for a profit. So I wanna see that if a team has bought a lot of deals, they've at least sold some for a profit.
 
I wanna see a team that's putting their own money in the deals. So I want people that have skin in the game. If they don't have skin in the game, and I've seen plenty of syndicators that don't like to put money in the deals, well, they need to sweeten the pot for me somehow. So maybe they're saying, we're not gonna take any profits until at least year three, or we're gonna give you a better preferred return, a better split than you would get if we were putting money in the deal. I wanna know if you're not putting money in.
 
that you're at least giving me something that aligns our interests and ensures that you're gonna be working hard even though you might not have as much financial risk. So those are the types of things I like to see in the team. I like to see things like at least one or two people working full-time. If everybody's part-time, that's kind of a little bit scary. Obviously not everybody has to be full-time because there are a lot of jobs on a GP team that aren't full-time jobs. There are a lot of jobs that might stop the day you purchase the property. Like the person that's raising money, job's
 
pretty much done other than communicating status when the property's been purchased. But I do want to know that whoever's managing the asset is doing it full time. So that's kind of the team stuff. Location, again, population growth, employment growth, wage growth, and employment diversity. So those are the four big things I look for. Next is the business plan. So I want to see the biggest question when somebody goes in and...
 
does what I do, which is a value add multifamily. Basically they buy it, they raise the value of the property and then they sell it for a big profit. Where is that profit coming from? Generally the profits coming from raising the rents. There's also some lowering the expenses, but at the end of the day, raising the rents is kind of the big thing that's gonna generate the big profits in multifamily. And so I wanna know how are you raising the rents? And two, when you tell me that you're raising the rents from X to Y, where is Y coming from?
 
Scott (32:55.182)
Show me the comps that tell me that why is a reasonable new rent, market rent for this property after you've done the renovation. So I wanna see the comps. So that's kind of the deal. The returns speaks for themselves. I wanna see like the structure of the deal. So when's the money coming back to me? Is it paid monthly? Is it paid quarterly? What are the returns look like? What's the preferred return? So is it a low preferred return, which means
 
that the syndicators are getting paid sooner, whereas at a higher preferred return, which means the syndicators have to do more for me before they take anything home. So that speaks for themselves. And then for the risks, I wanna know both the catastrophic risks. So what's the thing that's like going to make me lose all my money? Is there something out there that can cause me to lose all my money? Hopefully the answer is no, but there are probably some risks that are bigger than others. So we do a lot of deals in Houston. If somebody were to say to me, what's the biggest risk on your deals?
 
The answer is generally going to be weather. If we have a really bad hurricane, if we're in a flood zone, we probably have flood insurance and we have hurricane insurance. But if it's in a place that's never experienced the negative impacts of a flood or a hurricane, and we are not required to have flood insurance, but there's still a massive hurricane that wipes out that property, that's not going to be good. We're going to have to pay for that ourselves. So what's our mitigation there? We don't have a great one. Luckily.
 
the risk is really low. We don't buy in areas where there is that risk. And if there is, we're gonna get flood insurance. But I do want my investors to know that no matter where you invest, whether it's a risk and especially in Houston, if we see a storm bigger than anything we've seen the last 50 years, some of our properties could be at risk. And then there are the smaller risks. So maybe there's five other complexes being renovated all around us. Maybe there's class A, brand new class A being developed.
 
all around us. So basically our absorption of units is going to slow down because there's so many more units. Maybe there's one big employer in the area. Amazon just built a warehouse that's employing 8,000 people. Well, what happens if Amazon has a bad year and has to lay off 4,000 of those people? How's that going to affect us? So, so risks is the next thing. And the way I approach it is I literally sit down with the, with the syndicator and say,
 
Scott (35:15.554)
What keeps you up at night? What are the biggest things you're concerned about? And so those are the things that I do. I have no problem basically saying to a syndicator, I need 15 or 30 minutes of your time to ask these questions. Typically the good ones will either find the times themselves or have somebody on their team that will sit down and answer these questions. If they're not willing to answer those questions, well, that's probably a good indication that that's not a good team.
 
Yeah. For our listeners out there, that breakdown was incredible. Rewind that, listen to those five items again. That's a quick, but thorough and awesome rundown of what you need to do. Just as at least the starting points for your due diligence. And that's, that's great that you said if they won't book a call with you either themselves or an investor relations person on their team, then it's time to, you can just walk away and look at the next, look at the next deal. One question I had on the deal.
 
So a lot of folks, it's kind of overwhelming to see an underwriting model or something like that. And being a passive investor, I don't know how much you even want to dive into it. Some people do, some people want to nerd out on it. Most people don't. And we don't generally have access to the T12 or the rent roll or anything like that. What are maybe some quick tips on how to maybe proof through that pro forma to make sure that the assumptions are reasonable and the pro forma is generally
 
a reasonable prediction of what we might expect from that investment.
 
Well, let me start, me take a step back before I answer that particular question and just say that even for you and me, mean, you know how to do an underwriting, I know how to do an underwriting. If you or I were gonna invest in somebody's deal, Joe Smith's deal, we're probably not gonna have enough information even though we know this business really well and we know the underwriting models really well, we're probably not gonna have enough information.
 
Scott (37:08.908)
that we're going to be able to know for certain that Joe Smith's not trying to scam us out of money. So if Joe Smith is really smart and he could probably put together an underwriting that could fool us because we're just not gonna be putting in as many dozens of hours underwriting as he and his team are. So the number one thing I would say is make sure you trust your syndicate. This goes back to why team is so important.
 
because there's two types of things that Joe Smith can do. One, he could do a bad job of underwriting and come up with bad numbers. That's not good, but that's not nearly as bad as Joe Smith wanting to scam us out of money. So number one is make sure Joe Smith's not the kind of guy who wants to scam us out of money. And so work with people who are reputable. And that's why I would invest with you before I would invest with 95 % of syndicators out there because you're an attorney, you passed the bar.
 
you know that if you go and somebody finds out that you're trying to scam somebody, well, you're putting your entire career at risk. And so what I tell people is, so what do you have that really proves that this person is on the up and up? And maybe it's a track record. Maybe it's 10 or 15 years of doing deals. Maybe it's, I like to think with me, I've been doing this business for 15 years. I've done thousands of deals with hundreds or thousands of people.
 
And if you go out on the internet, nobody's gonna, you're not gonna find anything that's written negatively about me. So that's a good sign. But make sure that there's something out there that gives you faith in that syndicator, even if it's just somebody else that's invested in a couple of deals with them. So that's number one. So that's the way to rule out that catastrophic, they're trying to scam you risk. Then there's the more likely, what if they just didn't do a good job of underwriting risk?
 
And so for that, would say for people that have very little knowledge of how the underwriting works and how the numbers work, it can be really difficult. And so what I like to do is, or what I recommend people do is sit down and ask to do a Zoom call for 15 minutes with the investor relations person and say, hey, will you kind of walk me through the high level underwriting? And at least force them to go through and then just ask questions.
 
Scott (39:30.958)
when they say something, even if you have no idea what you're talking about and they say, well, it looks like we're gonna be able to reduce expenses by implementing a rub system, blah, blah, blah. Oh, okay, well, what is rubs and how does that work? And at least make them explain it to you. At least then you'll get an idea that they're not making it up as they're going along, or at least you'll get that confidence that it sounds like they know what they're talking about. But the biggest thing that I would say is that whole comps thing.
 
And this is a question that a lot of people don't like to ask. But I actually, and when people ask me this question, it always makes me nervous because it's the hardest part of the business, but it impresses me when people do. to the underwriting or the investor relations person, what are the comps that you used for your post renovation market rents? So again, the thing that drives values in multifamily is after the renovation is completed, in theory, you should be able to bring your rents up higher.
 
and your rents, those higher rents, you should be able to figure out what they are by looking at other units that have already been renovated and seeing what their rents are. So if I buy one, two, three Main Street, and I know I'm going to put $8 million into it, well, now that property is going to comp out to 678 Main Street. And well, what are the rents at 678 Main Street? And so by asking, hey, so you're buying one, two, three Main Street, what are the comps for the rents after you renovate?
 
and they tell you, it's going to be 678 Main Street and 123 Smith Street, whatever it is, you can then go look up those properties and say, okay, well, it looks like a two bedroom at those properties is renting for 1200. Now I go back to the investor relations person or whatever information they gave me I see, oh, okay, after renovation, they have their rents at 1200. Makes sense. If that's a reasonable comp, they now have the rents at kind of where they should be.
 
If he says that six, seven, eight main streets, a comp, and you go look in a two bedroom at six, seven, eight main streets, 1200, but their underwriting tells you that after they do the renovation, they're going to be charging 1500. Well, why are you now $300 above this property that you said was a comp? And so that to me is kind of the first thing that I look at or the biggest thing I look at is what are the comps that they're using and does just a kind of first pass.
 
Scott (41:57.762)
jumping on apartments.com or calling the complex and asking them what different things rent for. Does that coincide with what they're telling you their post renovation rents are gonna
 
Yeah, I love that man. I mean, it's not as simple as just going into an old dilapidated apartment building and saying, I'm to put granite countertops and hardwood flooring and stainless steel appliances in there. And then I'm going to triple the rent or double the rent. It's not that easy. If it's not in the right area that could support those, those market rents or that have potential tenants that want those types of things, it doesn't work. So that's why that's so important to check those comps to see what's around those apartments that you're going to be investing in to see if, they can achieve those.
 
those proforma rents. All right, man, before we jump into the freedom four, what's one last gold nugget for our listeners?
 
Absolutely.
 
Scott (42:45.634)
Yeah, so again, what I would tell people is figure out your highest and best use on your active side. And then for the passive side, figure out how you're gonna scale. And I know a lot of people like to invest in a whole lot of different things, but I'm a big fan of doing some work so that you don't have to diversify as much. Diversification is great, but diversification,
 
is for people who aren't really an expert in anything. If you want to get your best returns, the way to get your highest level of returns is not to have to diversify. And the best way not to have to diversify is to get knowledgeable about whatever you're investing in. So if you decide you wanna invest in all your syndications, just cause that's what you and I do. So it's an easy example. If you want to invest in syndications and that's how you wanna grow your nest egg, my recommendation is,
 
get as much information about syndications as you can. Pick up a good book on syndications. Go find somebody that does syndications and say, hey, I'd to pay you a thousand bucks for five hours of your time. Or you just to walk me through what a typical deal looks like or what the underwriting looks like. Or go sit in on a hundred multifamily syndication investor videos, presentations. So you can see all the different things they're talking about and become as much of an expert there as you can. So that way you're reducing your risk without having to do a lot of the.
 
diversification. So focus on whatever your highest and best use of time is on your active income and then become as knowledgeable as you can for whatever you're investing in passively. What I like to say on the passive side is it's not truly passive. Nothing's truly passive. But the best investments are the one where all the work is done upfront. You do your due diligence and then it becomes passive.
 
Yeah, that's awesome, man. And then what you can do though is diversify within that strategy, right? Absolutely. Yeah, different asset types can have different business strategy, value add, or maybe you're dealing with just a class A where you're chasing yield or across different cities, different geographies, or across different sponsorship teams. There's other ways to diversify within that same type of investment strategy. Yep. All right, man, let's jump into the Freedom 4.
 
Scott (45:05.598)
It's time for the Freedom Four.
 
What's the best thing you do to keep your mind and body healthy?
 
So for me, it's admitting when I need a break. I know so many people that it's a badge of honor to work 80 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, never take a vacation. I'm just the opposite. If I wake up one morning and I'm tired and I don't feel like working and I don't feel like I'm gonna be productive, I will grab a book. I might even turn on the TV. I might say to my wife, hey, let's go to breakfast or let's go spend the day, let's go to a movie.
 
And I have no qualms with just saying, I need a break today. Today's not gonna be a productive day. I don't need to pretend to work just so I can have that badge of honor that I work hard. And so, yeah, and that's one of the nice things about real estate. mean, I don't have a hundred percent flexible work-life balance. I can't do anything I want any time I want, but if I wanna take a couple hours off, I normally can. And so I'm not scared to do that.
 
Yeah, yeah, that's a great answer. With all your success, what is one limiting belief that you've crushed along the way and how did you get past it?
 
Scott (46:15.734)
Yeah, I still have a lot of them. I think we all do. But I'd say the biggest one is that doing a big deal is not that much harder than doing a little deal. I'm not going to say a hundred million dollar deal is just as easy as a hundred thousand dollar deal. But if you're smart enough to do a hundred thousand dollar deal, you're smart enough to do a hundred million dollar deal. And the people that are out there doing those hundred million dollar deals, mean, we have, we now have a hundred million dollars assets under management.
 
I remember a couple of years ago, looking at the people that had nine figures under management and thinking, they're different. I can't do that. These are people, went to some school that I will never go to, or they were born into something that I was never born into, or they know people I don't know, or whatever it is. No, they're normal people. And the only difference between them and me was I wasn't thinking big enough.
 
and I wasn't willing to take some risks and I wasn't willing to acknowledge the fact that doing again, a hundred million dollar deal is certainly within my capabilities. So that to me has been probably the biggest one and it's made it a lot easier for me now to say, okay, $50 million deal, let's go do it, not think twice.
 
Yeah. I had a similar experience working in, in, big law, doing house flips, doing single family rentals, things like that. And even though my clients are doing 50, a hundred million dollar deals and I'm helping them close those deals, it was just like the mindset shift that, a minute, I can do those deals too. I'm actually giving them advice on how to, how to do this thing. I need to step up my game and, and, take some.
 
Exactly, it's the difference between people doing a hundred million, a hundred thousand, it's all mindset.
 
Seth Bradley (48:00.866)
Yep, absolutely. What's one actual step our listeners can do right now to start creating more freedom.
 
take action. So the biggest thing that I see stopping people is just this fear to take the first step. And I know this doesn't apply to a lot of your listeners, but I talked to a lot of people who want to get into house flipping or they want to get into rentals and they've been thinking about it for years and they just never take that first step and then they end up giving up. One of the the few truisms I see in this business
 
is that there are two types of people I meet. Number one, I meet people that have never done a deal. They've done zero deals. And maybe they're still working on it. Maybe they've given up whatever it is, but they've done zero deals. And then the other type of people I meet in this business are people that have done a lot of deals. They've done five or 10 or 20 or 50 deals. There's one type of person I never ever meet in this business. And that's somebody that's done one deal. Because if you get that one deal, you're gonna get the second and the third and the fifth and the tenth.
 
Nobody does one deal and then says, okay, that's it, I'm done. can't do this. So what I like to tell people is, and that applies to a lot of things in life. If you can get over the hump and do it once, you're gonna get that snowball effect and it gets easier the second time. It gets even easier the third, it gets even easier the hundred. So don't give up until you achieve that first step or that first iteration of whatever it is you wanna achieve because that's gonna get that snowball rolling.
 
Yeah. Yeah. We preach that on their show all the time. Just like, you know, just do a deal, just invest in a deal so you can get that experience and it'll just kind of open up your mind to other opportunities. You'll just see opportunity all around you. Once you just do one deal last but not least, how it's passive income made your life better.
 
Scott (49:51.886)
Passive income has given me the ability and the confidence to raise a family. Before this, my biggest concern with raising a family was I didn't want to be, I had, my parents were great, but my parents were always working. And I didn't want to be the same type of father that my parents were. Again, they were fantastic, but I wanted to always be there. I wanted to be at every soccer game, every piano recital.
 
I wanted to be able to go into school for the parent-teacher conferences. so passive income has really given me the ability to build my life around my family as opposed to building my life around
 
Love that, love that. It's been fantastic, brother. We're gonna listen and find out more about you.
 
Yeah, anybody wants to get more info, go to www.connectwithjscott, just letter J, Scott, connectwithjscott.com, and that'll link you out to everything you might wanna find.
 
Awesome man. Talk soon.
 
Scott (50:54.945)
Awesome. Thanks,
 
All right, Mr. Jay Scott from Master House Flipper to multifamily syndicator. He's a master of creating profitable, well-oiled business machines. I've been reading Jay's bigger pockets books for years and it's awesome to have the opportunity to have him on the show today. Major key, focus. Focus on transitioning your active income to passive income and don't get distracted. All right, if you're ready for a change, you're ready to take action.
 
partner with us on one of our next passive real estate deals. Go to passiveincomeattorney.com and join our Esquire Passive Investor Club. All right, kiddos, as always, enjoy the journey.
 
Thank you for listening to the Passive Income Attorney Podcast with Seth Bradley. Do you want more ideas on how to generate multiple streams of passive income? Then jump over to passiveincomeattorney.com for show notes and resources. Then apply for the private Facebook community by searching for the Passive Income Attorney on Facebook. And we'll see you on the next episode.
 
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
J. Scott’s Links: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jscottinvestor/https://www.instagram.com/jscottinvestor/
https://x.com/jscottinvestorhttps://linktr.ee/jscottinvestor

TME 14 | How to Quit Your W-2 and Never Look Back with Jamie Bateman

In this episode of Raise the Bar Radio, Seth Bradley welcomes Jamie Bateman, a military veteran turned real estate and mortgage note investor, who shares his story of transitioning from a W-2 career into entrepreneurship and financial freedom. Jamie Bateman discusses the phases of his life, including collegiate sports, military service, and a long tenure at the Department of Defense before pivoting to real estate and eventually mortgage note investing.
Seth Bradley and Jamie Bateman explore how discipline shaped Jamie Bateman’s journey, and how shifting mindset, focusing on strengths, and leveraging his network were key to taking ownership of his life and finances. Jamie Bateman dives deep into the mortgage note investing space, explaining how performing and non-performing notes work, the active nature of the business, and how he now offers passive investment opportunities for accredited investors. The episode concludes with Seth Bradley and Jamie Bateman highlighting the importance of planning with intention, overcoming perfectionism, and using passive income to create margin and freedom in life.
 
Links to Watch and Subscribe: https://youtu.be/nRyX8_YA9YI
Bullet Point Highlights:
Discipline builds freedom - Sports, military, and entrepreneurship all instilled the value of discipline, which Jamie says is critical for success and freedom.
W-2 life wasn’t the path - Jamie recognized through his commute and stagnant career trajectory that he didn’t want to follow the traditional path, sparking his exit plan.
Mindset shift was essential - He stopped consuming negative news and started focusing on education and his strengths to shift into entrepreneurship.
Mortgage note investing explained - Performing notes offer cash flow while non-performing notes offer the chance to add value, akin to fix and flips. However, both are active businesses, not passive.
Passive income fuels risk-taking - Creating passive income streams allowed Jamie to take entrepreneurial risks while maintaining financial security.
Action beats perfection - As an entrepreneur, chasing perfection isn’t practical. Done is better than perfect.
Reverse planning drives clarity - Backwards planning from a vivid vision 3-5 years into the future increases urgency and helps set clear, intentional actions.
Final advice - Start by investing passively to learn, and later you can decide whether to become active. Don't underestimate the transferable skills you already possess.
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. Jamie, what's going on, brother? Welcome to the show.
 
Thanks Seth, is awesome. 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 on that show and I think it turned out pretty good. I know we're going to deliver on this one as well.
 
Yeah, we're gonna try to try to I'll try to do as good a job as you did. So yeah, was that was a yeah, no, I that was a very, very good episode from adversity to abundance. highly recommend your your listeners check that one out to your episode on that show. So thanks for thanks for doing that.
 
(Seth Bradley) (01:20.086)
Absolutely, man. You're an incredible interviewer. I've net, that's the only, 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? Take it back as far as you'd like to brother.
 
Yeah. Man, I'd like to think that life has phases. So I've had a few different phases in my life. I come from a large family. I'm the oldest of seven kids and we always had a competitive background as far as team sports and things like that. So I played lacrosse in college. That was always a foundational piece of my life and just kind of
 
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 kind of a thread through my life and then got married and joined the military and actually joined the military technically before I got married, but seemed like I got married and then ran off and ran away from my wife. But it's not exactly what happened. But
 
(Jamie Bateman) (02:36.02)
I joined the military, was an officer in the US Army. I did miss my first three wedding anniversaries through deployment and things like that. 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 add value like I think we all want to do. I've obviously glossed over a lot of details, but those were a couple of inflection points, I guess, if you will, like you like to talk about, I know.
 
And so my military career transitioned into a career with the Department of Defense as a civilian, and did 14 years as a civilian with DoD at Fort Meade. And the first half, so the first seven, for all you math wizards out there, 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 real estate investing and mortgage note investing focus. So we can get into the details there. And then in 2022, I ended up quitting my job and now I have a few different small businesses that I run. And like you, Seth, I've got a lot of different things that I'm juggling and
 
You know, so, but yeah, I love talking about taking ownership of your financial situation and taking ownership of your life really. And I know that you and I have that in common. So yeah, that's a high level overview of my background.
 
Awesome, man. I appreciate that. There's a lot to unpack there. You know, going back to playing sports all the way up to the collegiate level, that's incredible. I always like to think even playing like popcorn or football back in the day, you need a way to instill discipline in yourself. And that's kind of the oldest memory I can think of where it was hard, right? Like it was like you've got a coach screaming at you.
 
(Seth Bradley) (04:38.134)
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 you had to earn that drink of water and all those sorts of things. But you you really learned what it's like 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 I would say that, you know, being in the military yourself, that takes it to a whole new level.
 
Right. It's like 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 being disciplined. And people, people shy away from that word, because it just sounds like work or no fun and no flexibility. But I found that having discipline in your life ends up adding more freedom in a sense, because you kind of have your foundational pieces set in stone, you don't have to think about those. And so, yeah, regarding
 
team sports, it's really a matter of, you know, everyone doing their part, right. And so there's a level of individual discipline and, and then just, and then also just kind of putting the putting the group ahead of yourself. Obviously, you know, you want individual, there's nothing wrong with individual accolades. And I was certainly chasing, you know, those individual accolades. It's not something I shied away from, I was definitely was wrapped up in
 
trying to be an All-American and that kind of thing. And did get that a couple of times, you know, but at the end of the day, nobody really cares about that. And the way I viewed it was if I was doing my part, and I got those, you 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. But yeah, that discipline is critical.
 
(Jamie Bateman) (06:36.73)
you know, even it's certain I played at a high level in college and there was year round your training your your your into it. It was a division three school but it but the reality was we worked just as hard as any any D one program and yeah, it's it's a these are skills that have paid off and are absolutely transferable to the rest of life.
 
For sure. Yeah, I think you've got to get those intangible things. You've got to develop them somewhere along the way, whatever that is, if that's sports or the military or from your parents. mean, you can get it from different places, but you definitely need it. I mean, we're in different stages of our life at this point. talking about a lot. We talk about freedom and flexibility and fun to try to get away from kind of the W-2 mindset.
 
But in order to achieve freedom, flexibility and fun in a successful way, have to be disciplined to be able to get there. You had to have done something successfully to be able to get there or maybe what separates you from the guy living in a van down by the river. That guy has freedom and flexibility. I don't know about fun, maybe fun, but it's a different, obviously it's a different outcome.
 
Yeah, and I, I think I still need, you I still use a lot of discipline today. It's still, still required, but it's, I guess it's self imposed. And, you know, I just love, love having that flexibility and that freedom that comes along with being an entrepreneur. So yeah, it's been a central piece to my success for sure. But 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. So yeah, absolutely. And as you said, 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 the lacrosse game, okay, you lost the lacrosse game, but military the stakes are a little higher. So maybe certain things are more important attention to detail or critic is critical and
 
(Jamie Bateman) (08:53.73)
But at the end of the day, it's, the same principles apply across both, I guess, sectors, if you will.
 
For sure. So let's dive into that transition. You started working kind of part-time there for seven years, so that seems like a transitional period. How were you able to progress from that W2? And what I've heard you say is call yourself a W2 quitter. I love that. 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 know a lot of people can identify with. So it just was Groundhog Day was the same thing over and over and over. And that's not me sitting here complaining about my family or having having the opportunity to work.
 
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 worked for the government and you look around and you say, who, okay, who's sort of ahead of me on this? Like you, like I think you probably mentioned on our, on your, your show and my, show, your episode, you look around to the people who are more kind of 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 it just just having that just super long term just you know, pot at the end of the rainbow, I guess, nothing driving me in the interim, 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
 
(Jamie Bateman) (10:54.934)
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 it just made a shift. And I, and I stopped watching cable news. I stopped, just, you know, stop 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 in my network that I can add value to and who can add value to me. So I started looking around and my father was a realtor for many years. My brother was a loan officer. We had one rental property at the time. I had worked at, 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 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. you know, 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.
 
know, bigger pockets and all the other real estate podcasts and different investing podcasts and started using that mental bandwidth instead of focusing on national media stories that I have zero influence over. Here's something that I can actually take action on. And so in mid 2015, I went part time and it just so happens that at
 
DoD is one of the few agencies in the in 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 well, I did. So that's what I did. And, and, you know, that's, again, decided to decide to start building my my other streams of income outside of my W two.
 
(Jamie Bateman) (13:15.752)
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 laddered approach, I guess, or tiered approach to kind of ripping off the bandaid.
 
Yeah, yeah, no, that's awesome. I love just the idea of taking ownership of your life, right? Like everybody has those moments where they're feeling sorry for themselves. But the successful people, they don't sit there and stay in that mindset. They move on. You're going to be there sometimes where you've got to get out of it. You got to say, OK, 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 you you're constantly blaming someone else or saying this happened to me rather than what can I do to get myself out of it, then you're going to be stuck there forever. You're going to be absolutely going to be spinning your wheels forever. 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. No, it's a waste of time. What control? What does that do for us? 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. I look at it like this is funny. Like I can, you know what I mean? You kind of analyze it like, this is funny. This guy's saying this in a debate. Right. This guy's saying that it's not taking it as a news and this is how I should live my life because of what they're saying.
 
sports almost.
 
(Jamie Bateman) (14:43.341)
Fact.
 
(Jamie Bateman) (14:48.078)
Absolutely. And it's not to say that none of these topics are important, mean, global war, politics, poverty, global warming, whatever, it's all very important, but I have zero control over it, almost zero, right? And then the other thing is fear sells and that's what they're selling. And so it doesn't mean that every story is invented and it's all fake news, but it's
 
it just doesn't serve me. And so I'd rather focus on, you know, go ground up and kind of just, I see it in people, maybe older people in my own life now who maybe are retired 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 you end up only focusing on
 
the negative really, and it just didn't serve me. yeah, during that lot, 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 BRRRR method that maybe some of your audience is familiar with. And so kind of putting that capital back into the rental property machine and expanding our portfolio. And then eventually last year, well, and
 
2018, made the pivot, I kept the rental properties, but made a pivot to also add on mortgage note investing. And that's been my primary focus as of late. And if you want, can tell the story quickly about how I actually quit my job in 2022. I think it's kind of a funny one.
 
Absolutely, let's do it.
 
(Jamie Bateman) (16:38.318)
All right. So, I, so I, two years ago, I was playing badminton and, I'd been doing now, mind you, I used to be like tough, you know, athlete. And like I did, you know, did jujitsu for three years right up before this. And, know, I used to lift weights a lot and still do it here and there, but, you know, I think I'm tough. Right. And,
 
ruptured my Achilles playing badminton. So that's an ego blow to add on to the physical pain that you know, especially with the recovery. So rupture my Achilles a little over two years ago today and I was out of work, it was my right right foot. And the reason I bring this up is not for sympathy, but 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, might've been at your, your big law job, but I was, I was checked out. mean, 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. was just a matter of, of when, not if.
 
That's right
 
(Jamie Bateman) (18:04.43)
I can tell you truthfully, I 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 podcast banned from something but yes, I'd been vaccinated to answer the question. But no one asked me how's your how's your recovery going? Like how you 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? 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 Air Force kid at my desk and long story short, they kind of moved 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 desk and, 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. My wife didn't know I quit, but I quit that day. Still worked for another month or two, but there was no question, zero question in my mind, I'm done with this place. So that was March of 2022. And ever since then, I've just focused on building out my businesses and having look back.
 
That's awesome. Sometimes you just know, right? Like sometimes it's done. You just knew. I love that story, man. For me, it was a little bit. You already know the story, but for me, it was a little bit more of someone else's decision. I got fired. mean, and you mentioned that, you you weren't the best employee at that point. Correct. 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.
 
(Seth Bradley) (20:21.292)
His output isn't what it should be. Like, he's got to go. mean, he's not the best employee. And as a business owner now, I have really good perspective of that and seeing that. And they were doing me a favor by being like, hey, your heart's not in it, it? And I'm like, no, it's not.
 
It's not. Yeah. The reality is for me, it's really hard to work. know, 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. But so, yeah, haven't looked back and just loved love the entrepreneurial
 
you know, day to day and freedom that you alluded to and just the multiple streams of income and certainly has its challenges. I probably work harder now than ever than I ever have. But it's by choice. So I love it.
 
Exactly. Same here, man. mean, it's, you my days are long. I mean, I get up way before I used to get up when I had a 95. I worked past when I would have worked a 95 and 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, it doesn't feel like you're putting that much time in.
 
Definitely. I wake up early. A lot of days not on purpose is because I'm just excited to get cracking.
 
(Seth Bradley) (21:55.886)
So, yeah. absolutely. Yeah. Well, let's kind of get into your current business. I know you mentioned that you focused on your strengths and your assets. Yeah. And, you know, I think it's important. just say it's important to take an inventory of what your strengths are when you're kind of considering going into something else, because a lot of our listeners are attorneys, they're doctors, folks like that. They kind of feel like maybe they're pigeonholed, right? Like, well, if I'm not an attorney, what the hell else can I do?
 
Right. And 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 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
 
to do. Definitely. And one thing I'd say is that, 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. You know, there's one quote about every man is my superior in something, right? So basically, it gives me a lot of comfort to know, like, just because an attorney listening to your show knows a
 
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 you know, that's, that's always comforting to me is to when I say look to your strengths, it's also looking to the people in your network who know, it can help you get to where you want to go. So yeah, I mean,
 
So many things we take for granted that we do know. 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 salary. 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.
 
(Jamie Bateman) (24:10.03)
trained in that in school typically, right? So, you know, you forget and so your your listener out there, the attorney, the doctor, guarantee they have a lot of life experience, not just from their professional world, but just life experience 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'll go back to life as seasons. I mean, you've shown that in your own story, Seth, like, you know, it's a, 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, it doesn't mean that's what I have to do for the rest of my life. So we always have options. 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, just make the most of it and just keep, think, keep learning constantly is critical. I just hired a business coach, we've had one call. But one of his mottos is, 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.
 
(Seth Bradley) (25:40.64)
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Yeah, I love that permanent beta. I haven't heard that before, but I like that. I like that phrase. like that phrase. So tell me about your current business. Tell me about MortgageNode Investing. Start with the basics. What is it?
 
Yeah, so and, and I'll try to keep it, 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, takes time to learn. We buy debt, so we buy a mortgage note, and that could be performing or non performing. The real high level version is, is a performing note is kind of like a long term buy and hold rental property.
 
but you're buying the debt and becoming the lender, becoming the bank, if you will. And so you're buying that performing note for cashflow. So I buy a performing note, the borrower now pays me through a loan servicer and I get monthly payments. So that's a great way to go. 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
 
principal balance goes down. So it's just, it's worth less than, you know, then, you know, then it would then it was when you bought it. Then on the other side, the non performing side of things, we buy those as well. And those are more like a fix and flip property. So 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,
 
(Jamie Bateman) (27:49.826)
I should say sell that asset, whether that's as a re performing note, or as through the the real estate itself, there are a few different ways you can exit a non performing note deal. And but, but back to your kind of one of the themes 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, I to start buying distressed, you know, multifamily debt, which I know you could probably help me understand better. But at that, you know, it's like, incremental progress and change isn't that scary. So I kind of expanded my, you know, toolbox, if you will.
 
and got into the mortgage note space. So we have a couple of note funds. One is open currently and they're all for accredited investors. the income fund that's open pays a monthly, aims to pay a monthly preferred return. I know you and a lot of your listeners are attorneys, so I gotta hold the line here. And...
 
So the fund is structured to pay, to aim to pay a monthly return of 8%. It's not a, there's no growth in that fund. It's literally a cashflow play and diversification play. You're putting your capital in. We buy assets across the country. We've bought notes in probably 25 states at this point. And so the investment is diversified across geographic areas, across borrower types.
 
And we buy for a certain yield, we take a small management fee, and then we ideally pay the preferred return that we're aiming for to our investors.
 
(Seth Bradley) (29:56.686)
Yeah, nice. 506c, you're able to talk about it. It's a credit investors only. Just want to that out there. yeah, I mean, so just going back to the basics a little bit and we'll get back into the fun. Like, how do you, how do you even find these things? mean, yeah, that's, 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 things that truthfully a passive investor who doesn't have time to develop the network to go find these assets, they're just not going to have success. They might here and there, but it takes time. It's a word of mouth industry, just like real estate itself is. so we've built out a network of sellers and that could be
 
quite honestly, I've never had luck buying directly from banks. It's really either a larger 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. 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, you know, where
 
they just, there's an opportunity to buy from them as well. And so there are other, you know, I guess we buy from hedge funds, note investors, other note funds. There are also note brokers as well out there. 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 paper stack and other exchanges as well.
 
And you can find assets there. But at the end of the day, have our 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 due diligence on the assets that they're selling. And so it's taken some work and it's a work in progress always. But it is the million dollar question is where do find these assets?
 
(Seth Bradley) (32:12.598)
Yeah. So that's the hard part, right? Finding these assets is the hard part. Have you ever had to foreclose on any of these notes and actually acquire the property? And I guess a follow-up question is, do you ever look at a non-performing note like, hey, I actually want to own that property?
 
So, great questions. Yeah, great questions. To be clear, we're not trying to kick people, you know, grandma out on onto the street or anything like that. You know, that's not our goal typically. Well, that's never our goal. But we're never trying to kick someone out of their home. But the reality is, some people honestly need a little bit of a kick in the pants. And oftentimes, that's not really the best them staying in the house is not often
 
the best scenario for them. know that might sound harsh, but at end of the day, if someone can't afford to live somewhere, sometimes these people are living in squalor and they really need a change of environment. To answer your question about do we target the property? Yes, sometimes we do. In fact, we just closed on to, they're called heckum loans or reverse mortgages, where the borrowers are deceased. The property is underwater, meaning, you know,
 
the loan amount is higher, than the property value. And it should be a quick exit through the property. So HUD will sell off these big pools 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 heirs or foreclosure and exit the property that way.
 
If your listener wants to go to my website, I've got a really good 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 I had no intention of exiting through the property or holding, holding the property as a rental property, but running the numbers, it just was too good to, to let go. so long story, but we, we
 
(Jamie Bateman) (34:22.51)
ended up doing a deed in lieu 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 portfolio.
 
Yeah, that makes sense. It makes sense. There's always multiple ways to look at an investment, right? But it does sound, you know, it's not something 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. as everybody knows, there's active investments, there's passive investments. If you're 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 get those returns. So if you want to go the passive side, if you're still full-time in your career, you're a full-time doctor or lawyer or whatever you are, 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 wear this specifically for your for this
 
There it is. There it is.
 
(Jamie Bateman) (35:29.272)
Passive income. You're absolutely right. You know, these gurus, some of the some of the note investing gurus out there will try to sell, you know, notes as passive. We have another blog post that talks about just the it's a spectrum, there's active and passive on either end. But at end of the day, if you're going to note 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
 
You're dealing with foreclosures, bankruptcies, deed and loo, tracking delinquent property taxes. Do I have to physically go anywhere? No, but it is not passive. But that's why we offer the passive investment for 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 are certain gurus out there that, know, whatever it is that they are pitching, they tend to always pitch it as passive, even though it is an active business, that's money. Whether that's a mortgage note or I mean, people will 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.
 
Mm-mm.
 
(Seth Bradley) (36:48.396)
You've still got to monitor all those things. 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 it is on a spectrum. Some things are more passive than others, but when you're investing in, you know, as a passive investor into some sort of a fund or syndication, that's really leaning really far into the passive side.
 
Absolutely, 100%. And I'm, as you are, Seth, I'm, I assume you are, I know you're an active investor, but 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 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. Yeah. And a lot of, you know, lot of the listeners are high income earning professionals. So they've already dedicated, put a lot of time and effort into being able to earn this much money from their W2. And 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 and like, let's grind for a few years. Let's not spend every single dollar that we make on all the new stuff 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 no fund where you're like, man, I kind of like this business. 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 you want to get into that as a business, as an entrepreneur. But a great way to kind of dip your toe in the water is to become a passive investor. That's the way that I did it in the,
 
(Seth Bradley) (38:53.186)
multifamily syndications. 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 really comes down to what your goals are and what your situation is, for sure. I'll say I was too passive initially when I went into notes, because personally, just don't... You were probably a little better student, Seth. Not that I was a bad student, I invest... Unless I'm actively investing, 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.
 
you're putting capital with them, but you're not going to once you're getting your checks and your disbursements, 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 maybe you already have that spark and then you invest passively. Then you're like, OK, well, now I'm invested. Like, let me learn about this. And you have to have to actively go out there and educate yourself and network and talk to people that are in the business.
 
Definitely, 100%.
 
(Seth Bradley) (40:01.71)
Alright man, before we jump into the Freedom Four, you have one last golden nugget for our listeners.
 
Oh, I would say within when it comes to investing, you know, take the long term view. Don't chase immediate returns. 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 a 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 form. What's the best thing you do to keep your mind and body healthy?
 
Yeah, I mean, one thing that I instituted this year, actually, is breathwork. And it's, you know, it's so it takes 10 minutes. 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. And it's like, it is phenomenal. So breathwork,
 
I mean, I do other things for sure. But that's certainly this year, it's been a game changer for me. I just feel like it resets my central nervous system. It just gets me focused. And I know there are other physiological benefits that you can ask Dr. Andrew Huberman or somebody else about.
 
(Seth Bradley) (41:26.153)
Cool. I'll have to look into that. actually have it. mean, obviously everybody talks about it's a hot topic. Yeah. I haven't gotten into it. I haven't gotten into that plus like the cold plunges and that sort of thing. Yeah. But I really want to want to
 
So 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 neurovirus. 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 doing this. And somebody on my team actually sent me a, I guess we'll call it an implement or a tool that
 
I use for the breath work. It's blue. There's a Bluetooth connection to your phone and it's pretty cool. So it's structured and back to that discipline, right? But yeah, so it's, there was a reason I started doing it and it's, it's so accessible in five to 10 minutes a day. You can start doing it. So I recommend. Cool.
 
Thanks for sharing that man. With all your success, what is one limiting belief that you've crushed along the way and how did you get past it?
 
I think just, you know, being afraid to, you know, that you have to be perfect, right? So 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, because it had to be perfect. And it's like, I think as I've progressed into more of the entrepreneurial lifestyle and
 
(Jamie Bateman) (43:02.35)
is just it's not a it's not an option anymore. So yeah, I think just taking action has kind of overcome that limiting belief of chasing perfection.
 
Yeah, I can agree with you there. Done not perfect. Yes. My background as an attorney, mean, we're paid to be perfect. We can't make mistakes, especially in contracts and the way that we write things. But when you make that transition over to being an entrepreneur, there's too much to do to be perfect. You just got to get it done. Good enough.
 
Absolutely. Good enough. You have to be willing to accept that for sure.
 
What's one actionable step our listeners can do right now to start creating more freedom?
 
I'll use the military here, which is where I learned kind of reverse backwards planning, reverse planning. literally just, and I'm not going to tell you I'm perfect at this, but, you know, think about what, create a vivid vision for your life in the next three to five years, pick it, 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
 
(Jamie Bateman) (44:20.876)
you can be that will that will increase the urgency, 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 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, House Passive Income made your life better.
 
Yeah, I mean, I think in multiple ways, but a big one that stands out is giving me, I guess we'll call it margin to take some more risks on the entrepreneurial side. And because I do have alternative sources of income, passive income, 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 go perfectly, or doesn't go well, it's not profitable, that's okay. I still have that cushion for me and my family. 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. Jamie, this has been incredible, dude. You've got so much great content to share in your brain, man. You got to get out there. know you've got an awesome podcast that I was on, Adversity to Abundance. Everybody should check that out. Other than that, Jamie, where else can people find out more about you? Yeah.
 
(Jamie Bateman) (45:54.924)
Just two things I'll mention very quickly. Literally got my book delivered today, like an hour before I hopped on here. It's 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. then labradorlending.com, L A 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.
 
(Seth Bradley) (46:26.978)
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
Jamie Bateman’s Links:
https://x.com/batemanjames
https://www.facebook.com/batemanjames
https://www.threads.com/@batemanjames11?xmt=AQF0nwaIL6JD_GK94lbTvHphHOmWwlUyt3TkeHLav-vXU_E
https://www.instagram.com/batemanjames11/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamie-bateman-5359a811/
https://labradorlending.com/about/
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/from-adversity-to-abundance/id1618672867
https://open.spotify.com/show/7JjGWsKVzzEI8UwXP9GONZ
https://www.youtube.com/@FromAdversity2AbundancePodcast

FBF 01 | Flash Back Friday | The Unconventional Investor: Why Following the Crowd is Costing You Millions with M.C. Laubscher

In this episode of the Passive Income Attorney Podcast, host Seth Bradley welcomes back MC Lobster, a cashflow investor and entrepreneur. Seth Bradley and MC Lobster discuss the importance of diversification in income streams, exploring various investment vehicles beyond traditional methods. MC Lobster shares insights from his journey from South Africa to the U.S., emphasizing the opportunities available for those willing to take action.
The conversation highlights innovative cashflow niches, including agriculture, energy, life settlements, and music royalties, as well as strategies for achieving financial freedom. MC Lobster emphasizes the mindset necessary for successful investing and the importance of accountability in both personal and financial growth, while Seth Bradley adds context and guidance for listeners seeking to expand their passive income portfolios.
Links to watch and subscribe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II3UR8G3eWU
Bullet Point Highlights:
Mikkel Thorpe helps people relocate overseas and navigate tax issues.
The expat lifestyle offers freedom and adventure beyond traditional living.
Second residencies provide legal rights to live and work in another country.
Tax benefits for U.S. citizens living abroad include the foreign earned income exclusion.
Investing in real estate can provide both residency benefits and financial returns.
Personal responsibility is crucial for achieving financial independence.
Mikkel emphasizes the importance of emotional support during relocation.
Countries like Panama offer favorable tax situations for expats.
Understanding the legal obligations of living abroad is essential for compliance.
Exploring different cultures can lead to personal growth and new opportunities.
Transcript:
Seth Bradley (00:10.572)
What's going on y'all. Welcome back to a new episode of the Passive Income Attorney Podcast. Of course, your favorite place for learning about the world of alternative passive investing so that you can have more freedom, flexibility, and fun. Now, if you're ready to kick that billable out of the curb, start by going to attorneybydesign.com and download the Freedom Blueprint, which will also get you access to partner with us on one of our next passive real estate deals, which we'd love to have you on board for.
 
to help you on your journey to financial freedom. All right, today, let's talk about diversification in a particular way though. Let's talk about the different ways that you can make money. There are so many different ways. Unfortunately, for most of us, we have it in our heads that there's only one way. For my attorneys out there, well,
 
We just do our attorney thing and that's how we get paid. We have one stream of income, one active stream. Maybe we save for retirement through a 401k or we buy some stocks and bonds or play around on Robinhood or something like that. But we don't think about all the other ways that we can make money. If you've listened to my show before, I've had so many attorneys on here that have leveraged their knowledge, their background, their experience, their education as an attorney.
 
to catapult them in other aspects of life, in other avenues of business so that they can create multiple streams of income, whether that's through starting a side business, a side hustle, which eventually might become their full-time hustle or investing in real estate, both passively and or actively. There are so many different ways to make money, but there's more ways than just the things that we've talked about so far. There are so many different ways and there's no magic pill.
 
Right now we talk about syndications a lot on this show, but it's not a magic pill. I'm not preaching to you and telling you if you don't invest in a syndication or invest in syndications, then you're not going to become wealthy or that investing in real estate is the only way to become wealthy. It's not, it's a tried and proven way to become wealthy. And it's my favorite way and a lot of my guests favorite way, but it's not the only way.
 
Seth Bradley (02:30.814)
And our guest today, MC Lobster, who is no stranger to this show. He's been on here before. He's actually our first repeat guest. but I love chatting with him. He's such a great guy. So knowledgeable. he is a true expert at this idea of diversification across so many different types of income that you can create for yourself. And he's on here on the show today, especially to talk about his new book, the 21 best cashflow niches, where we'll
 
jump into what some of those are. Some of these things you've probably never even heard about. We'll talk about life insurance contracts. We'll talk about agriculture, energy, of course, real estate and all of those things. But inside you, you'll get some new ideas about things that you never even thought you could invest in. MC Lobster is a cashflow investor and a serial entrepreneur. He's the creator and host of the top rated business and investing podcast, the cashflow Ninja.
 
which has been downloaded over 3 million times in over 180 countries. He's also the president and CEO of Producers Wealth, a virtual wealth creation firm that assists investors and business owners to set up and implement infinite banking. All right, without further ado, the one, the only MC Lobster, let's go. This is the Passive Income Attorney Podcast.
 
where you'll discover the secrets and strategies of the ultra wealthy on how they build streams of passive income to give them the freedom we all want. Attorney Seth Bradley will help you end the cycle of trading your time for money so you can make money while you sleep. Start living the good life on your own terms. Now, here's your host, Seth Bradley. MC Lobster, what's going on, brother? Welcome to the show.
 
Great to be back. Great to connect. Looking forward to our conversation.
 
Seth Bradley (04:25.71)
Absolutely, man. You are my first repeat guest. So you have that honor. Awesome, man. Well, for our listeners that haven't heard you on the first episode, maybe just give a quick rundown of a little bit about your background and who you are and, you know, where you come from and all that kind of stuff,
 
Definitely honored.
 
M.C Laubscher (04:46.542)
Yeah, originally from South Africa, came to the US in 2001 and just blown away with the opportunity in this in this country. I mean, there's literally no place with the upward mobility like the US. You can literally start here with absolutely nothing, which is what I did. Basically a backpack, a suitcase, five hundred bucks, sense of humor, sense of adventure. And I'm an entrepreneur investor. I've started several companies.
 
failed at a lot of them, they had a lot of success in some of them. I've been an investor since 2001 in real estate. And I have a couple of companies, people know me for the Cash Loan Ninja, which is a podcast that I started six years ago, which has turned into a full blown financial education company. We have podcasts, tools, resources, programs, and now books. And then also,
 
know, I have a company called Producers Wealth. We help folks all across the United States. In 49 states, set up infinite banking, a cashflow management strategy utilizing an insurance product. And then I also have a company where we do a lot of syndications in the resort and multifamily space called Producers Capital Partners. But I love cashflow. I love talking about cashflow, creating it.
 
positioning it efficiently and managing it and then multiplying it. So everything cashflow gets me excited.
 
Is that all you got going on, man?
 
M.C Laubscher (06:20.8)
You know, throw throw throw a family that's very active and love to do stuff in there. I've got a beautiful wife and two young kids to all one for an off and three boy and a girl. So you can just imagine the energy there. So a full time job almost by itself, right?
 
That's
 
All right. Yeah. So many hours in the day, man. I don't know how you do it. I know how you do it. I love what you said about upward mobility, man. And I think we take that for granted in the US. So how is that different in other countries for us? don't even think about that sort of thing.
 
Yeah, so I grew up in South Africa and then I was fortunate enough, I traveled to a number of African countries and then I also traveled to a number of European countries, Latin American countries and Asian countries. And I don't think people realize, like if you're born in the United States, you literally won a lottery ticket. I it's I don't know how else to say it. When I got here, I looked at this and I'm like, wait a second. So there's not really like you could, mean,
 
You just bring your game, you start where you're at and the sky's the limit where, you know, it's very tough in certain countries. Let's just use Africa as an example, you know, in South Africa, the lack of infrastructure, supportive infrastructure for somebody starting there and maybe folks from other countries can relate like in Brazil is probably the same, a of Latin American countries that don't have the same infrastructure that's in the States. So let's just say you are,
 
M.C Laubscher (07:53.614)
you're born on the lowest economic rung. That happens to folks, right? If you're born in the United States, well, you still have access to stuff. You could go to a library, jump on a computer, learn skills, there's public schools. When you're born in a shanty town in South Africa or in a favela in Brazil, you don't have the same access. And also when you come here, literally,
 
I mean, you look at all the rags to reach the stories and, funnily enough, a lot of it is immigrants. You see it, a lot of immigrants rise to the top because most of them, whether they're from Africa, the Middle East, Eastern European countries, Latin America, that's kind of what they experienced too. And I've had conversations with them too where they're like, man, you could do anything you want to here. There's nothing holding you back.
 
and the sky is limit. It's not even the limit. You could go to space if you want like Elon. no, it's an incredible place. It still is. We live in an incredible time in the US is an incredible country, where, you know, it's all what you make of it, and all how you approach it, right?
 
Yeah, for sure. mean, it's kind of like, the access to information, the access to technology, the access to education. I know that's kind of a, you know, we fight about that all the time, but we have access to those things up to a certain point for free. Whereas other places do not have that access to information, technology, education. And that in itself gives you power. Knowledge is power. It's not just a saying.
 
Yeah, think think about the time that we live in. Who is it? Who is in Star Trek? Was it like Buck Rogers or Captain Kirk? Was Captain Kirk the guy? So, I mean, I still remember and we had very little TV. I grew up inside everywhere. We had like two TV channels, but one of them had like Star Trek episodes on. And I still remember like he would press a button and talk to someone on the telly on like a like a television screen.
 
M.C Laubscher (10:01.082)
and I always saw, man, that's, that's, it's so cool. They're not even the same galaxy at that stage, but they're talking to one another. I like they're in the same room. We have access to that. And for most part, it's free. We have like access to star Trek technology in the time that we live in for base, for, most, for the most part, it's free. So you have a smartphone and.
 
you have some service or an internet connection, you're good to go. yeah, and again, the technology, which, you know, it's the frenemy. It's your friend and it's the enemy. It's a frenemy. But for the most part, if you approach it right and utilize it right, now a lot of the opportunities, when I came here in about 2001,
 
It was just around the internet kind of boom. So most people didn't really know what was happening there yet, but now everybody's in it. and all over the world. So a lot of the opportunity that only existed in the U.S. then too, are now available in other areas for folks to start online businesses and that kind of stuff globally. You know, to bring it back with Africa, I see on my last visit, and it's been a while ago, but I just remember seeing folks walking around with smartphones and that's all they transected bank.
 
They do everything on their smartphones. They have SIM cards and they buy like airtime. And I'm like, man, what you could do with a smartphone these days. It's quite incredible. So it's starting to open up in other places. yeah, you know, it's quite, we live in remarkable times and sometimes I don't think we appreciate it because we're so used to it. It's like, man, why is my internet taking so long to get on? I'm like, does anybody remember dial-up?
 
You know, it's like. Yeah, it will dial up, man. It's like, yeah, if we click on a link on our phone or click on a link on our computer and it takes more than like, you know, a snap, we're just like, what is going on? This is ridiculous. I can't get anything done. like, well, what did you get done when you didn't have that?
 
M.C Laubscher (12:09.986)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. As like I said, before I came to the States, I remember we had dial up and I would add to download emails. So you would start at dial up and you would basically hit start for your emails to download and you would go and grab a cup of coffee and do whatever you have to do. And like 20, 30 minutes later, your emails would have been downloaded. That's so now it's, it's like this and everything moves quicker, right? So you can, you can disrupt slow, archaic,
 
markets in any asset class really, really quickly with technology and boy, there's some dinosaurs, especially in the markets that we were operating, real estate being one of them. And I'm in insurance too, mean, both very, very big dinosaurs that's ready for disruption.
 
Yeah. Yeah. So let's talk about some of those things that you invest in. know you're pretty famous for infinite banking and also in commercial real estate. mean, what are some of the things that, are some of the best vehicles to invest in that you're seeing today and how has that maybe changed recently? I, and I asked that because there's a lot of people out there, you know, they'll listen to one podcast, right? And it'll just be like, you have to do this. If you don't do this one thing, if you don't take this one magic pill,
 
You're never going to be able to retire, achieve financial freedom, but we all know that that's not true. Hopefully we all know that, but what are, what are some of the investment vehicles that you love and why?
 
Yeah, I love what you just said. It's the maximalist approach, right? It's because I made my money in single family real estate that that's the only way to do it or multifamily or so. And that's why my show is to just get as many different ideas in business and real estate and commodities, paper assets. We covered crypto and blockchain since 2016, as I thought was was pretty exciting then. Now it's like out of control. But
 
M.C Laubscher (14:07.562)
Actually, this ties into one of the reasons why I wrote my latest book, because most people would say, MC, you've interviewed like the best minds of business and investing and all these different opinions on your show, which was very funny in the beginning because we're so used to echo chambers. You know, I didn't want an echo chamber. So I would have someone on, for example, that hates Bitcoin. And then was someone on that loves it. And that's the only thing. And people are like, I don't understand. I'm like, yeah, you have to you're both sides of the argument.
 
and then to make a decision. But yeah, I wrote the 21 base cashflow niches, the book where I share, you know, the top 21 that's been shared on my show and I threw in five bonus ones there, but you know, as a marketer, 26 doesn't set as well as 21, right? It's funny how psychology works. Seven's good, 10, 20, 21. And then you gotta go to 50, I guess, or 100 off to that, right?
 
But anyway, 21 is what I used for the name of the book. Yeah, I mean, there's incredible niches that I don't think people think about. When you invest too, you know, this is just what I've done and I just share what I do. I eat my own cooking without throwing up. But what I initially did when I built the cashflow portfolio is I was very clear on what I was trying to accomplish with each investment. So what do I mean by that? So some investments you're going to buy,
 
that's going to be tax favorable, right? A little bit of light on the cash flow maybe, good on appreciation or a little bit light there, but really good on taxes. Then there's certain investments that's very strong on cash flow, okay on the taxes and good on appreciation. And then there's some that's purely on appreciation, okay on taxes and okay on cash flow, but it's really driven by the appreciation. And then there's some that
 
that's really good on all three. Knocks out a ton of taxes, great cash flow and appreciation like real estate is one of those assets that does that. So you have to be very clear when you build out a portfolio and I would advise just this is what I'm doing in the time that we're living in today that you have diversified income streams within a cashflow portfolio because we're living, mean, again, during times of great change
 
M.C Laubscher (16:29.25)
There's going to be disruption. There's going to be chaos. You don't want to be in one. You don't want to put all of your eggs just in one basket. And that's you know, that's the horse that's going to win you the Kentucky Derby. You got to have a stable of horses and have many access to many different income streams. So what are some of the what are some of the coolest ones that I've seen? There are some some, know, if you're looking for taxes, there's some great plays and energy, great plays.
 
Disclaimer, not a tax accountant or CPA, but when you invest oil and gas, different energy projects, there's a very, very, very good tax incentives from a strong cash flow and so forth. So that's a great tax strategy, by the way, to offset active income, not just only passive income. If you do it properly and you're investing in it. And by the way, in case anybody hasn't checked energy prices.
 
It's just skyrocket. Try and put gas in wherever you are right now. So energy prices has a great appreciation with inflation, great cash flow and great taxes. the tax play is really good with that one. Then, of course, mean, different types of real estate. But one thing that I would share that was very interesting when I was writing this book is kind of reflecting on the years of and I've done this six years and all the people that I've interviewed. But one thing was very interesting.
 
So agricultural, the market is big. There's many different things in agriculture. And that's where a lot of folks obviously invest farmland, livestock, produce, that kind of stuff. What I found just fascinating was the portfolio allocations of some of the wealthiest people on this planet in timber, more specifically tea.
 
And I'm like, wait a second, because I've some friends that work in family offices, too. So when I came across this, I reached out to them and I'm like, I see like, is there a lot of like the some of the families that are working with you invested in this asset class? And they're like, yeah, it's in all of our portfolios. And I'm like, that is fascinating. So teak, which is in the timber category is is there. And then I started looking into this. And it's like institutional companies are buying this hedge funds.
 
M.C Laubscher (18:58.594)
family offices, like Ted Turner is one of the largest investors. And I looked into this and I'm like, why? And then of course, you reach the conclusion that what happens in agriculture, trees grow, they grew five years ago, they're gonna grow five years from now, they're gonna grow 20 to 25 years from now, they're just gonna do what they do if they're in the right climate, in the right country.
 
And so forth, so it provides stability to a portfolio. So it's a long term play. It's not a get rich quick scheme. Anybody that's in agriculture that has ever invested in that space knows that this is not a Bitcoin where you buy something and the next day it doubles. It's I mean, it's literally you have to hand it over to God. It's nature. It's going to take time to grow before you harvest. And when you harvest, obviously.
 
you're going to generate some cash flow from it. But I thought that was fascinating that how they build their portfolio there, they have to have things in there that stabilize it. Obviously, it's very big on real estate. There's a lot of energy plays on there. There's a lot of that in there. Another great asset class that can stabilize the portfolio, which I'm personally an investor in too, is life settlements.
 
And a lot of folks that say, is what is life settlement? So you can actually sell life insurance contracts just like you would sell real estate notes. So why would somebody sell a life insurance contract? Well, there are some folks that, like most Americans, have all their wealth in their homes and in a 401k. And that's it. No diversification. what happened in 2008, 2009? Well.
 
They were in retirement already and maybe lost the majority of the equity of the value of their house. They got clobbered in their stock portfolio and their retirement accounts. And now they're out of money basically. So what do you do? And now because of the stress, there's an illness too. So you can sell and you realize, I have a life insurance policy that I could sell to an investor. And then obviously the investor can, and this is being underwritten of course, an agent and so forth.
 
M.C Laubscher (21:21.804)
But they have a life insurance policy that they can sell and live out the remainder of their life comfortably. So there's a win-win on both sides of it. I'll give an example. Let's just say you have a million dollar death benefit and a life insurance policy, and you have like $50,000 in cash value. And you're in a very bad situation like these folks are that I just told you. Well, you could go.
 
to a live settlement company at that stage, if you qualify, not all of them of course qualify, it has to be under underwritten to make sense for an investor to buy that. But let's just say you could get four to five times the amount that you have some, even if you're getting $200,000, $250,000 in cash, the investor would then pay for that. And then now they own the life insurance policy. So eventually when
 
when the seller then passes away, then obviously the proceeds gets paid out to the investor. So they got money to live out the remainder of their life comfortably. The other folks then obviously got a return on the investment that they made. And there's pools of this, there's funds, it's a security. So there's a lot of undesirable, just disclaimer and I was warned about all this stuff is there's undesirable.
 
characters in every industry. And as you can imagine, there's probably a lot in that space. Just be aware that if it's in a fund, which is the best way to do it, because you can diversify over a large number of policies and utilize the law of large numbers like insurance companies, it is a security. So there are security laws that apply to all those things. it's essentially for accredited investors that have access to this.
 
Institutions, they just buy tons of policies on their own. Life insurance companies buy policies from other. They buy policies from other insurers to have on their books as a hedge. Folks like Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, shocker, he's a big investor in that kind of stuff, too. But yeah, it's a very interesting asset class. And again, with the teak, what does it provide?
 
M.C Laubscher (23:37.87)
Well, it provides stability because you're essentially buying your equity upfront. So the only factor is time, which will impact your return, obviously, right? So you could get a very nice return on that, which you kind of know when you buy it, sort of the equity that you have in that policy. And then with Teak, I mean, it stabilizes a portfolio. So between the two of those great plays, settlements, not as much cash flow heavy, but great upside potential appreciation.
 
So that was the main driver of that, but it stabilizes portfolios. So there's some interesting stuff that I've seen, but those are, you know, I figured I wanted to share some of the stuff that can stabilize a portfolio too, especially during times of craziness where it's not just speculative kind of place.
 
Yeah, that's fascinating, man. There's so many different things that you've invested in and that there are just to invest in in general and people just don't know about it, right? They get stuck in that, that 401k stocks and bonds bubble. And they think that that's just the only way to invest. And that's why sometimes I'll say, just get into a passive real estate deal, right? Not just because that's the only way to invest, but once you do it once you kind of surround yourself with those types of people that are looking at alternative investments. And then you start your mind just kind of opens up to
 
all these different things in agriculture, in energy, in, you know, all of those things that you just mentioned that are out there to invest in. And you just start seeing all these opportunities just around you. And then you can kind of start diversifying away from that.
 
Yeah, you know what another one is, and I cover this in the book too, which would be interesting for your folks at the time that we live in. You know, we had the whole Joe Rogan thing, the Joe Rogan experience controversy, and we had these folks that wanted to pull their music off Spotify. So some folks, if they actually read the story, might have grasped how that side of the business works. But essentially, you can invest in music royalties. And that's another niche on the book, which someone shared on my show.
 
M.C Laubscher (25:39.118)
a couple of years ago, which I found was fascinating. Now, a musician can sell a portion or all of the royalties on their music to an investor. And that's essentially what happened to a lot of those folks that wanted to leave Spotify. They don't even own their royalties or all of it, maybe a small portion or a part of it, but corporations do. They own their music royalties.
 
So every single time a song gets played somewhere or is used in a movie or something, royalties are paid on that and the investor collects cashflow. Now, do we listen to music when markets crash? Yeah. Do we listen to music when markets boom? Yeah. We always listen to music, you know, whether it's good or bad times. So it's another, it's another interesting aspect of, of that. Now, why would a musician sell their royalties?
 
And this is fascinating because that side of the business and my brother, my brother is a musician too. So I learned a little bit of that, that side of it and had an insight of that, but why would they sell a portion or all of it? So maybe they need to fund the next album and they don't have a record label backing that. And maybe they just want to do it themselves or, you know, for them to raise money for the next project would be, would be one example of that. So, and of course, if there's
 
partial ownership of royalties. It's actually the best way to do that because otherwise the musician doesn't have incentives to keep promoting those songs. Right. So you almost want to go like 50 50 with someone to make sure like they've got skin in the game to still promote their albums and the songs and play them at concerts and all that kind of stuff. Otherwise, they're not really going to care because they don't own the rights or the royalties to that music anymore.
 
So it's fascinating. There's a whole exchange, as you can invest like an investor, but there's so many ways to do it. There's so many ways. see to your point, I see people argue all the time. This one's better, this one's better, this one. I'm like, you can make, it's incredible to see the ways that people can make money and become successful. There's so many ways to do it.
 
Seth Bradley (27:53.698)
Yeah. Are there any, I know you went through quite a few there and I want to give the entire book away, but are there, is there another like really surprising one that kind of stands out in that book where somebody's going to read and they're like, what? That's crazy.
 
Yeah, I throw in there a different angle on crypto. So I share a strategy in there. I share a crypto strategy and then I share an angle of how to look at it as an investor because most people think cryptocurrency and blockchain and they go, oh, I just buy Bitcoin and it goes up 20 fold and now I'm a millionaire or a doggy coin and I'll be fine.
 
But there's actually that's very speculative, obviously, and you're a speculator. What the folks, the absolute cash flow ninjas have done is they have approached this as investors in the space. So they have followed what I call the California gold rush strategy. So they looked at this and said, wow, all right, there's gold found in California and San Francisco in that area.
 
Instead of going to mine or dig or pan for gold, I'm going to be the person selling the shovels, the picks, the equipment. I'm going to be the person selling the clothes like Levi Strauss. I'm going to be the person there that has provides housing, hotels, bars, restaurants, entertainment, brothels, whatever floats your boat. And I'm going to be the person that offers financial services like Wells Fargo.
 
You take a different strategic approach of investing. So you actually go in as an investor and say, like in the crypto and blockchain space, I'll give you some examples. The folks that have absolutely made a fortune in this space. Yeah, they had some Bitcoin. Yeah, they were early investors in Bitcoin and Ethereum. But guess what? They were early investors in exchanges. You know, I actually was in the Bauschman group of one of the first investors in Coinbase, which is now
 
M.C Laubscher (29:59.714)
They went public. I think he did pretty well. The same with Kraken. He's also one of the earliest investors in Kraken. So he's on exchange. So the same with music. Do you think a lot of people trade crypto when the markets are going up? Absolutely. A lot of people are chasing the pump. Do you think there's a lot of activity on an exchange when crypto wets the bed and corrects? Absolutely. There's a panic selling going on.
 
Markets go up, down and sideways. They make money regardless. So that's one way of doing it. But think of other things, right? You know, in the cannabis space, everything was like, if you're a lawyer, I mean, you would never run out of work. If you are a tax accountant, you would never run out of work in that space. The same with crypto. So there's so many legal things happening there. And think about estate plans.
 
You have coins. How are you planning on transferring that to your children or your grandchildren? How does that work? Nobody's figured that out. There's companies that have been started in that space to address that problem. And you could be an investor in that company. How about taxes? You think they're coming off the taxes in crypto? You think if you're investing in a very, very good tax firm globally or locally and so forth that specializes in crypto, you're going to lose money?
 
going to be busier than ever. So it's a different kind of angle that you're coming in as an investor in the space, less sexy. I prefer it that way, cash flow, taxes, you're a business owner, that kind of stuff. But it's not the Elon Musk doggy coin kind of style that you're investing in the space. It's a little bit more strategic.
 
Right. Yeah, I love that, man. And you can use that, you know, that strategy across different industries. Like you said, you know, you're, selling, you're selling the picks and the, and the pans for the gold rushers. You're, selling the tools rather than actually going and trying to find the gold. And those are the people that actually got rich during the gold rush, right? People that sold the tool. So just think about, you know, any hot industry that way, like, what can I do? That's kind of that ancillary angle rather than the direct angle. And that could be the
 
Seth Bradley (32:18.03)
the better investment.
 
Yeah, it's almost like I interviewed Jim Rogers a couple of times on my show and he's very comical, legendary investor. And he always said to me, know, when I asked him about how, how we like some of the big hits that he had and some of his best investments, he said, MC, it's quite simple. All I do is I sit and I just wait until people, the money is just lying on the floor. And then I go and pick up the money. That's all I do.
 
So and then I asked him about, all right, what is that? What is how does that relate to it? And it's like when you see something that's a no brainer that everybody else is seeing. I mean, like, for example, the legal side and the taxes and crypto kind of a no brainer. Not a lot of people are thinking about it. It was the same way in cannabis, too, where everybody wanted to invest in a farm or a farmer or dispensary or a distribution and all this stuff.
 
and deal with all the headaches of the federal government and the local government, you could have been the lawyer starting a legal firm dealing with those headaches for them. You would never run out of work and you could probably charge much, much more. And it's the same thing with the tax thing. So that, in my opinion, was it's just that money lying on the floor waiting to be picked up as an investor.
 
Yeah, perfect man. Nailed it. one last gold nugget before we jump into the freedom for
 
M.C Laubscher (33:48.362)
Absolutely. Yeah, so I would say the big thing is you have to be very, very specific, obviously, why you're doing what you're doing, what you have and why you have it and what it's doing for you from a strategy. And then that's how you build your cashflow portfolio. But don't forget about the other stuff in your economy. There's a way to make your money as efficiently as possible. There's a way to position it.
 
And then there's a way to invest in this portfolio. And then there's a way to protect all of us with proper asset protection, with proper estate planning and with proper tax strategy. So most folks don't even think about the estate planning, the asset protection and the tax strategy. You're going to wish you have in five years. This will be a sound bite that that you can keep. You're going to wish you have thought about these things and not just on the shiny stuff.
 
I know because I've made all of those mistakes. I became a much better business owner investor when I started to put it all together and just didn't chase shiny stuff or had tunnel vision.
 
Yeah. Awesome, man. All right. Let's jump into the freedom for we're to mix it up a little bit because you've already been on the show once.
 
It's time for the Freedom Four.
 
Seth Bradley (35:09.422)
So what does your morning routine look like?
 
You know, it varies since I have two very young kids, but there's one, but there's two things that are consistent. So I make sure that I go for a walk 45 minutes to an hour. And I do spend an hour thinking. It's a habit that I've developed over time and that I learned from Keith Cunningham. So he just calls it thinking time. We don't think because it's the hardest thing to do as Andrew Ford would always say,
 
So I make sure that I block everything off. No computers, no smartphones, nothing, just me and a pad. And I write down, I have certain frameworks I use to analyze things and help me think through things, looking at the dangers that are out there, the opportunities and how I can capitalize on a lot of the stuff. that's, I mean, that's definitely, that's in my morning. The other stuff, it varies because they got two young ones, but those two things are consistent. So.
 
clear my mind with a walk, get some exercise in, and then thinking for an hour.
 
Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes we, have these ideal morning routines put together, but it, know, especially when you have kids and you have all these different variables, that's not always possible, but you know, there are a couple of things that you definitely need to carve out and just make sure you do every single day. All right. With all your success, what is one limiting belief that you've crushed along the way and how did you get past it?
 
M.C Laubscher (36:40.63)
I do it every day and limiting beliefs in the sense of, people talk about the mindset of abundance, you know, and having an abundant mindset, you know, and I intentionally move every single day when I get up, there are some certain elements of scarcity and I transform that into abundance and I do it intentionally. It's actually part of thinking time. You know, I've listened to all the gurus, I get all that.
 
But I don't wake up in the morning and go, yeah, this is going to be great. Every every person wakes up. This is just how we were built. If we weren't built this way, we wouldn't have survived. So we get up and we scan our environment and we start kind of not in a fearful fear isn't the right word, but it's kind of like fight or flight situation. Like I said, if you're not built that if you weren't built that way, you wouldn't be alive right now. We wouldn't be as a specie.
 
because otherwise we would have probably the saber-toothed tiger would have probably gotten us. So we were built that way. So I do it intentionally to transform from whatever elements it is of scarcity into abundance. And by doing that and doing that every single day intentionally, it changes your whole day. then you don't have any bad days. So I don't get up drumming my chest saying everything is perfect and rosy and rainbows and unicorns.
 
I understand that there are certain things that I've got to work out kinks and I have frameworks to do that. And I just make sure that I do it every single day. So overcoming limiting beliefs, we all have some of them. think like the, mean, the biggest one, there are some things like, the biggest one that I've ever came lightly and this is probably over the last three years is,
 
You know, Dan Sullivan, which is one of my coaches, a strategic coach said, you need to work less and make more money. And I'm like, I don't know how to do I know what's what's the catch here? Yeah. So that was a limiting belief. then I'm like, wait a second, does he have a superpower that I don't have? But then I started to realize that you could structure your day and then have proper systems and processes in place. And that I work four days a week now when I started as an entrepreneur, it was
 
M.C Laubscher (39:05.866)
seven days a week, 10 to 12 hours. Now I work four days a week and it's probably seven to eight hours at most because I have those systems and processes in place. it was, mean, yeah, talk about a limiting belief right there. It was something that I to work out and figure out.
 
Yeah. Yeah. And it's counterintuitive, right? It's like, wait, work less and make more. That's not how it works. That's not how I was taught growing up. That's not how it works.
 
It's everything, everything against what you were have been taught in school, right? So it's almost like you have to break down core foundational beliefs and a mindset. You have to double down on that. It's like when Labeque Saki said he makes more money every year and pays less in taxes. When you first hear that and you read the book, you're like, well, how does that, how does that work? So again, beliefs that have to change and then your mindset and then you
 
learn the game of money and you're like, yeah, that is that's what they do. This is what the castle and then just do they make more money every year, they pay less in taxes, actually get money back from the government, legally, and they work less and then and they make more money.
 
Yeah, exactly. I had Tom Willwright on the show last month and he said the same thing. That was the his big quote was, you know, the wealthier you get, the less taxes you pay. It's like what? Yeah, but it's 100 percent true, 100 percent true. What do you believe separates successful people like yourself who have taken action and taken control of their life and their own economy from those who get stuck in the nine to five, never take action and maybe never get started with cash flow?
 
M.C Laubscher (40:50.57)
I own all of my outcomes. And I think that's the biggest difference between a lot of folks and people that achieve certain levels of success. I don't blame anyone. Everything that happens is because of me. So even if there is something nefarious done to you, I shouldn't have put myself in that position and I should have seen it coming. So it's my responsibility, not anybody else's.
 
So I take responsibility for everything that I've done in my past, my present, my future. I own everything. So I was stuck for a while in a deep dark place. We're talking now like 10, 12 years ago and I wasn't going anywhere at that stage. And that was the one switch that I made and I've never looked back since, you know? So I own everything. The good, the bad and the ugly.
 
Yeah, I love that more than you know, man. Accountability is my number one principle in everything in business and life. Even again, if you if you know inside that maybe it was somebody else's fault, it still doesn't matter. You say, well, what could I have done to change it and to make it better? What could I have done differently? Take accountability for it. Don't blame other people.
 
Yeah, there's a person that I follow that I was very honored to meet in person, Tim Grover. And he's the guy behind Michael Jordan. mean, he's Michael Jordan's coach, Kobe's coach, know, Dwayne Wade. And he was actually, it's funny that I just saw that he actually worked with the Rams over the past month too, during that. And he's just, I mean, quite incredible because he literally gets you into
 
This is how a champion thinks. This is what's going in their mind. This is how they're wired. And those folks, mean, it's just so interesting to see. Even if folks don't win, listen to what Tom Brady said, by the way, in his playoff loss before he retired. Where they're like, you you didn't get the ball back and you didn't have another shot. basically you thought you were going into overtime, but then that final play that the Rams got you and he's like,
 
M.C Laubscher (43:12.386)
I shouldn't we shouldn't have been in that situation. I shouldn't have put my team in that situation in the first place. So that's all they think. That's all those folks think. And I know it's sports, but there's so much between sports, obviously, and and business and investing. So you look at the mind of a champion in any industry in any part of part of life. And that's all those folks think, whether it's a whether it's sports, it's a business, a marriage, investments, you know, they own it.
 
That on the outcomes.
 
Yeah, for sure. I'm listening to Winning right now, his book on Audible. it's great so far. All right. Last but not least, what does financial freedom mean to you?
 
You know, freedom is is a is it's it's we're living during interesting times. It's funny how freedom is is being spun. You know, I'm one of those folks that. Nobody grants you freedom, no one. You just you just take it, you're born free and you take it. You know, you can't you can't negotiate it, you can't vote for it, you can't beg for it, you can't plead for it, you just take it.
 
And you do that by taking action. So financial freedom and the same thing is no one no one's going to give it to you. And you're just going to have to go out and take it. And in the sense is what freedom means to me is having freedom of time, how I spend my time, what I do, having freedom of money. I do things and I spend my time how money no longer becomes a reason why and why I'm not doing something.
 
M.C Laubscher (44:55.126)
relationships, having freedom of relationships. doing cool things with people that I like to do things with and hanging out with people that I want to hang out with. So I don't have to hang out with someone just to hang out with someone. That's what freedom means. then obviously purpose, know, purpose is, yeah, the freedom to pursue what you want to pursue, the stuff that you want to work on, the stuff that you're passionate about.
 
So you don't do things just to do things and you have to get there by the way, you know, if you if you see all the things that I've had to do to get to the part where I just do stuff that I want to do. It's been a long road. It didn't start with that, but that should be the goal in the end. So we all have to do things that we don't like to do and some way or shape or form. But essentially, when you get to financial freedom, you can just focus on the things that you want to do that you're passionate about, whatever they are. If it's
 
doing cool things with cool people and cool places. If it's spending time supporting your charities and your church and so forth and being actively involved with that. There's folks that I know that are very wealthy that, mean, they just, and a lot of them, by the way, right now, they're just buying ranches and farms and just living off the land in the middle of nowhere, you know, in different states.
 
Yeah, I mean, and that's that's it. That's it. That's what they that's what they want to do right now. Get away from all the craziness. They kind of see that things are going to get wilder and crazier in the in coming months and the next couple of years. And they're like, I don't want to participate in this. I'm just going to buy a piece of land in the middle of nowhere and come back when this so when the dust settles. So, yeah, that's that's that's what that's what it means to me. It's it's something that I talk about a lot, too, that I'm pretty passionate about.
 
Because we are in a fight for it now too. You know, all over the world in many, many, many different ways. So my own little way, I try to, you know, help as many people as I can to get the financial park right. Because if you are financially independent and free, you know, you're not going to be forced into a corner or have your back to the wall and be forced to make decisions that are against your principles, your values, and what you believe in. You're going to tell
 
M.C Laubscher (47:18.466)
people to go pound sand. So I want as many people to be in that position as possible.
 
man, that was an awesome answer, dude. Let's wrap it up, man. It's been awesome having you on the show. Where can our listeners find out more about you? Where can they get that new book? 21 Best Cash Flow Niches. Tell us all about it.
 
So cashflowninja.com is everything Cashflow Ninja and the book is called the 21 Best Cashflow Ninjas, Creating Wealth and the Best Alternative Cashflow Investments. It's available on Amazon or cashflowninja.com. And when your listeners purchase a copy of the book, just screenshot a proof of your purchase to my team at info at cashflowninja.com and I'll throw in some bonus goodies. I'll give you a digital version of the book if you wanna read it on Kindle.
 
A audio version of the book, if you just want to listen to it, driving in your car, working out or hanging out. I've actually curated a library of interviews specifically where people talk about these niches. You'll get access to that and more bonus goodies. So it's available on Amazon dot com, but also at cash learning dot com, you'll be able to buy the book. The twenty one best cash flow and it just creating wealth in the best alternative cash flow investments.
 
Awesome brother. Well, congratulations on the book launch and it's been awesome having you on the show again. I MC let's catch up soon.
 
M.C Laubscher (48:37.962)
Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.
 
All right kiddos, MC Lobster, the cash flow ninja, drop in bombs. As always, he always comes up with all these new ideas, all these new ways to create cash flow and income outside of the box. We're not just talking about real estate. We're not just talking about stocks, bonds and mutual funds. We're talking about agriculture, life insurance contracts, all these different ways that you can create income for yourself. There's more than one way.
 
to create income that does not involve just lawyering, just doctoring, just engineering, just doing your, just creating your active daily, trading your time for money income. So at the end of the day, look, this is the major key. The major key is to get started. Again, I always say start out with a real estate syndication on the passive side because...
 
that will open your eyes to opportunities. That's what it did for me. When I started investing in commercial real estate to begin with, it was through a passive investment. And then I invested more and then I invested more. And then my network expanded and to people like MC who exposed my mind to ideas about other types of ways to get started in multiple streams of income. Then I bought into franchises, then I bought into crypto, then I bought into all these different things. But until you get started,
 
and you get this cashflow train moving, you're gonna be stuck. You're gonna be stuck at your day job with one stream of income, putting yourself and your family's financial future at risk. So I encourage you to just get started. So if you're ready to take action and partner with us on one of our next passive real estate deals, go to passiveincomeattorney.com, join our Esquire passive investor club and get started today. All right, kids, until next time, enjoy the journey.
 
M.C Laubscher (50:34.616)
Thank you for listening to the Passive Income Attorney Podcast with Seth Bradley. Do you want more ideas on how to generate multiple streams of passive income? Then jump over to passiveincomeattorney.com for show notes and resources. Then apply for the private Facebook community by searching for the Passive Income Attorney on Facebook. And we'll see you on the next episode.
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
M.C Laubscher’s Link:https://cashflowninja.com/https://www.amazon.com/Best-Cashflow-NichesTM-Alternative-Investments/dp/1737883414

TME 13 | Reg D 506(b) 506(c): Which One Will Make You More Money?

In this episode, securities attorney and real estate investor Seth Bradley discusses the key differences between Regulation D’s 506(b) and 506(c) exemptions and their implications for capital raising in real estate. Seth Bradley emphasizes the importance of understanding these distinctions to maximize fundraising opportunities while remaining compliant with SEC regulations.
Seth Bradley explains that both exemptions allow for raising funds without registering as public securities, but they come with different rules regarding investor eligibility and solicitation. The 506(b) exemption relies on pre-existing relationships and allows for non-accredited investors, but does not permit advertising or solicitation. In contrast, 506(c) offers full advertising capabilities but limits participation to accredited investors only. Seth Bradley concludes by stressing that selecting the incorrect exemption can lead to potential legal issues and missed financial opportunities, encouraging viewers to carefully analyze their business model before choosing an exemption.
Links to Watch and Subscribe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnGLVOCBfqE&list=PLSfheWyV7beFqERLX4ebBUJ4SmzmF6z8e&index=1
Bullet Point Highlights:
Regulation D Overview: Both 506(b) and 506© are part of the SEC’s Regulation D, allowing capital raising without public registration.
506(b) Details: This exemption permits up to 35 non-accredited investors, but prohibits advertising and requires pre-existing relationships.
Advertising Freedom with 506©: Enables widespread advertising and solicitation, but limits participants to accredited investors only.
Investor Credibility: Verification of accredited investor status is mandatory in 506© to ensure compliance with SEC regulations.
Financial Implications: Understanding each exemption is crucial for maximizing fundraising and minimizing legal risks.
Legal Compliance: Choosing the wrong exemption can result in SEC violations and significantly limit fundraising capabilities.
Strategic Decision-Making: Investors should align their exemption choice with their business model to ensure optimal capital raising.
Transcript:
(Seth Bradley)
regggd 506b versus 506 C. Which one makes you more money? You're about to raise capital for your next real estate deal and someone tells you just file under regggd 506b or 506. But hold up, is that actually the best way to maximize your raise or are you leaving money on the table? Today, I'm breaking down the real difference between 506b and 506 C. And more importantly, which one will put the most money in your pocket as a capital raiser, while I'm keeping you, of course, out of trouble with the SEC. Real quick, if you don't
 
know me, I'm Seth Bradley, securities attorney, real estate investor, capital raiser. I'm here to show you how to scale your business while staying compliant and out of the SEC's purview. Let's get it. All right. First, the basics of regggd. what you need to know. All right, let's keep this simple. Both 506b and 506 C fall under what's called regulation D, which is an SEC exemption that allows you to raise money for private investors without registering it as a public security. This is why syndicators, fund managers, capital
 
raisers, we all love it. It's faster, it's cheaper, and doesn't require SEC approval before you start raising capital. But here's where most people get confused. These two exemptions are not the same, and picking the wrong one can limit your ability to raise capital or even get you into legal trouble. So, let's figure this thing out together. Next, let's go through 506b first. It's the old school relationshipbased method. So, 506b, it's the old school country club method of raising capital. It allows you to bring in up to 35
 
nonacredited investors. That's significant. But here's the catch. You cannot advertise. you cannot solicit. So that means no Facebook ads, Instagram posts, no blasting your deal to strangers, no talking at a networking event about your deal. The SEC says you must have a pre-existing substantive relationship with your investors before they invest. So what does that mean? Well, if you just met a person at a networking event last week and now you're pitching him your deal, you could already be violating securities laws.
 
The SEC has cracked down on this and if they think you're using 506b as an excuse to backdoor advertise, they will come knocking. That said, 506b has its place. If you have a strong investor network, you don't need to publicly advertise. This exemption gives you more flexibility with investor qualifications because you can bring in nonacredited investors, not just accredited investors. All right. Next, 506 C. The modern kind of a more scalable approach. the exemption that lets you go big. With 506C, you can advertise freely. You can
 
talk freely. You can post your deals on social media. You can run paid ads. You can do webinars. You can shout it from the rooftops if you want. You're no longer limited to people that you already know. You can talk to strangers about it. But here's the trade-off. As noted before, every investor must be accredited. No exceptions. That means each investor needs to prove that they have either $1 million in net worth excluding their primary home or an income of 200k per year if you're married 300k combined. And you as a
 
syndicator must verify this. Self-certification is not enough. Typically, you'll have investors submit CPA letters or a letter from their attorney, broker statements, or a third party verification company such as Parallel Markets. This means fewer investors can participate, but the ones that can have deeper pockets. And if you structure your deal right, you can raise money way faster, scale way bigger, and you're going to have less headaches because these people are going to have more money. So, they're not giving you
 
their last $50,000. All right, so we've talked about highlevel 506b, 506 C, but which one makes you more money? That's the question. Which one actually makes you more money? So, well, it depends on your business model. If you already have a strong investor network and you don't need to solicit, you don't need to advertise, 506b might be the best bet because you can take both accredited and nonacredited or what we call sophisticated investors. This is great if you have repeat investors who trust
 
you or you already have that built-in network that you already know. But if you want to scale, attract institutional money and market openly, then 506c is the clear winner and it's really the only option. you get bigger checks, fewer investor headaches, and the ability to automate and market your fund. The biggest syndicators I know, they're all using 506 C because they want the ability to raise capital at scale. The old school guys who like keeping it private, they stick with 506b. You have to decide what fits best
 
for your model. Okay, let's structure your deal the right way. Bottom line, choosing the wrong exemption could cost you millions. If you mess this up, you can get stuck with fewer investors, slower raises, or if you don't follow the rules, even SEC violations. We definitely don't want that. So, at Raise Law, we structure bulletproof syndications that protect your business, maximize your ability to raise capital, and keep you legally compliant. So, before you launch your next fund, let's make sure you're using the right
 
exemption for your goals. Hit the link below, schedule a call, and let's build your deal the right way.
Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnGLVOCBfqE&list=PLSfheWyV7beFqERLX4ebBUJ4SmzmF6z8e&index=1
https://www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq/posts/pfbid034EjyZdtL1fXCXpdBHrq7DuGf2PR8FTQYaCSzfmLgSmr8Y1883CjTJmuY7i6bPkbel
https://www.instagram.com/p/DJCneQFTQ2B/
https://x.com/sethbradleyesq/status/1917287147872354315
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/sethbradleyesq_capitalraising-realestatesyndication-506bvs506c-activity-7323052563652579328-ER8I?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 09 | Life's Best Moments Are Earned Not Given with Celina Eklund

In this episode, Seth Bradley shares his unique journey from being adopted and raised in a blue-collar family in West Virginia to navigating medical school, business school, and law school before discovering his true calling in entrepreneurship and real estate investing. Seth Bradley explains how a mindset shift, exposure to high-level deals as a big law attorney, and a relentless work ethic enabled him to launch multiple businesses and achieve true freedom.
The episode delves into Seth Bradley’s beliefs around grit, personal development, hiring values-based teams, and designing a life focused on ownership instead of traditional employment. Listeners gain insight into the principles and strategies that have shaped Seth Bradley’s path to success and financial independence.
Links to Watch and Subscribe:https://youtu.be/2Gcx4Ix8-zo
Bullet Point Highlights:
Adopted from Korea, raised in West Virginia by a coal miner and teacher.
Went from med school to law school before finding alignment in entrepreneurship.
Realized in big law he wanted to be the dealmaker, not just the attorney.
Now runs 7+ businesses including RaiseLaw, gyms, and startups.
Works 12-hour days by choice — building freedom, not trading time for money.
Core values: Accountability, Resilience, Transparency, Intelligence, Consistency, Awareness (ARTICA).
Married to Allison — also from WV, they now run gyms together in SoCal.
Major mindset shift came from Rich Dad Poor Dad in 2013.
Believes most avoid hard things because they’ve never seen the reward on the other side.
Emphasizes hiring based on culture and values over just skills.
Stays grounded through personal development and emotional regulation.
Focused on building legacy, not just income — ownership > employment.
Transcript:
Seth Bradley (00:00.462)
Welcome back to Revenue from Retention, the show where we dive into the stories behind success, the mindset, the pivots, and the purpose-driven decisions that create powerful transformations. Today's guest has a story that is inspiring, as it is also uncommon. Seth Bradley was born in West Virginia and adopted at birth and has been defying the odds ever since. He walked the path from medical school to law school only to realize that neither were truly aligned with his purpose.
 
After years of grinding, Seth made a bold leap into real estate entrepreneurship and never look back. Today, he's a thriving investor and a sought out after mentor, also soon to be father and the host of Passive Income Attorney Podcasts, where he teaches other high achievers how to break free from the golden handcuffs and build true freedom through passive income. This episode, we're going to dive into reinvention, identity and finding courage to live life on your own terms. So welcome to the show, Seth. So good to have you.
 
Oh, so good to be here, Selena. Thank you so much for having me on. Really appreciate it.
 
I love people with, I don't know if I've ever interviewed anybody that has like medical and law background per se. So it's neat to be able to like have, I love people that have so many, so much on their resume and it's like so colorful because you have so many experiences. So glad to have you here, but I ask everybody the same question before we dive into the podcast and I'm going to ask you the same. Why do feel like people should listen to your story? There's millions of podcasts out there. Why do you feel like people should listen to you?
 
Sure. You know, I believe that my story resonates with a lot of people. I like to frame it and I like to call it the blue-collar mindset. know, trading time for money, right? We've all heard that. We've all kind of been through that at some point in our lives, at least most of us. You know, getting caught up in comfort and lacking, you know, just lacking that knowledge of what's possible and like what's out there. And that's kind of how I grew up. Just a small twig, I was actually born in Korea.
 
Celina Eklund (01:56.652)
And then I got adopted in West Virginia. So I was there for about three months and maybe I made my way over to West Virginia via plane when I was three months old. But growing up in West Virginia, great place, beautiful place, not a lot of diversity, but also growing up with my parents who are incredible people, I love them so much and they were instrumental in making me who that I am today.
 
But that being said, they're just, you know, I was never exposed to entrepreneurship and real estate and just the, you know, these bigger concepts, right? Of like private equity and owning companies and raising capital. Like none of those things were ever even in my atmosphere ever until I got really to really until I got to business school and law school. So, you know, that blue collar mindset or, you know, just get the best job that you can possibly get and getting caught up in just
 
living that life and getting comfortable with it and not knowing what's possible that's out there, I think it's a relatable story.
 
That's cool. did, how did you, what was the thing that got you into education, into school first? Because like my family, my dad is like, no, we're all 25 plus years retired in the military. You're gonna join the military. And then my mom is like, you're gonna go to school. And I didn't really wanna go to school, but then somebody, there was one person, it was the one person that changed my life forever that told me about sales and entrepreneurship. Like I'll never forget that light bulb moment of like, oh, interesting. So like, did you have that?
 
Like that person that had the conversation with you or a professor that talked to you that brought you into like, you know, like going to school. What did that look like?
 
Celina Eklund (03:34.766)
Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, having that blue collar mindset, my dad's a retired coal miner, my mom's a retired school teacher. And they had that mindset like you need to go to college, get an education. And that's just the best thing that you can do for yourself. I'm still kind of of that generation, right? But and school was always really easy for me. I'll say that. So it was really easy for me. So and I never had like a passion for anything in particular. So I just kind of looked at like, what's the best
 
job that I can get. And to me when I was younger, that was becoming a doctor. So that's why I went kind of that med school route first before realizing that wasn't for me. And then that's when I went to this school and then law school and all that. And my parents were encouraging of all these things and they're actually very understanding of when I kept changing between the schools because I was still on at least, you know, that educational path, still higher education and striving towards. Yeah, curious. Yeah, striving towards something.
 
So I was always just kind of put in that again that kind of narrow mindset where that's the only path I knew I didn't know about entrepreneurship or didn't think it was like a possibility for me and for my life.
 
That's cool. I am. Do you have any other brothers or sisters? Are you the only one?
 
I do, have an older sister.
 
Seth Bradley (04:53.27)
And what's the age gap difference between you two?
 
About seven years. Okay. She's not adopted, so she's biological.
 
on the issue living california with where you guys are at
 
No, she's in Charleston, South Carolina. That's cool. Do you go up?
 
Celina Eklund (05:14.328)
Have not.
 
I don't, you know, I've talked to other adoptees in the past and that's always one of the core things. They all want to go and figure out where they're from and they feel like they're kind of missing something. I think that my parents did such a great job and loved me so much and I felt that throughout the process that I just never felt the need to kind of go outside of that. They were always just my parents and that's it. I didn't feel the need to find anything else.
 
Yeah, to like hunt back. My boyfriend, he doesn't know his dad. I think his dad left when he was like three or four years old, really young age. And so I've asked him this before too, like, do you think your dad will ever find you? And he's like, you know, if he finds me, great, but like, I'm not out there like actively searching into that. So, that's cool. It's neat to hear from, I don't know too many people that have been adopted like so young, so early. So it's good that you have that. And then also you have really good
 
your parents are like a form of mentorship and, you know, have been very supportive. So that's cool that you're able to carry it on. yeah, so let's talk a little bit about like entrepreneurship. And when we were, before we got on this podcast, we talked a lot about like, you know, leadership and the importance of like building people. So did you, when you met your wife, did I know that she is a big part in like business with you too? Like, did you find her through business or how did that whole thing happen?
 
Yeah, it's really interesting because she's also from West Virginia, but we didn't meet until we were actually in San Diego. So I moved to LA first in 2009 and then made my way down to San Diego for law school. And then she came out later and we met through a mutual friend who's also from West Virginia. So like West Virginia was the, you know, the commonality between us. So pretty awesome that we met each other, you 2000 miles away in San Diego.
 
Seth Bradley (07:10.722)
Wow, that's neat. so like, how did you guys both realize, we like business and we want to like do this together?
 
Yeah, I mean it took a while, right? So I ended up graduating from law school and we moved back across the country together back to West Virginia because at the time that was the best big law firm job that I could get. It was back home because I had some pull there. So she followed me back to West Virginia begrudgingly. She didn't want to do that, but she did. So God bless her. And then we ended up going to North Carolina for a little bit and then trying to find a way back out to California.
 
But at the same time, I was actually working for Big Law Firms at the time. again, entrepreneurship wasn't really on the table at that point in time. It was still, hey, let's just keep slaving away here, grinding, trying to work a way up to partner at the Big Law Firms. And she had actually went back to school for her second degree in interior design and started.
 
You guys are smart. Both of you are just geniuses. Holy cow.
 
Well, I don't know about that. Honestly, like nowadays, if somebody asked me, should they be going to college? I would have to have a deeper conversation with that person, right? Like it depends on what they're going to get into.
 
Seth Bradley (08:19.97)
Yeah, you're it's just crazy because times have changed so much like back then like you needed a degree to do anything and now it's more of like people are looking for like experience.
 
Yep, 100%.
 
Like if I, you know, if I'm looking to, you know, if I own a restaurant and I'm looking to hire like a bartender, like I don't care if you went to school for four years to get a science degree. I'm like, how many cocktails have you made? Do you know how to make a spicy margarita and a regular margarita? Like, do you know what ingredients are in it? You know, so it's kind of like, it's, it's insane to see like how things have changed over, over time.
 
Totally, It used to be like a minimum, right? Like you had to get a four-year degree no matter what you're doing. It doesn't matter. Like get a degree in communications or general studies or whatever, but you have to get a degree to kind of get to that next level or to get a good job. But it's just not like that anymore unless there's like a very specific skill set that you have to have a degree for. I don't believe in that system and that's coming from a guy who went to school for 11 years, which is insane to say out loud.
 
But if you're not going to school to be a doctor, to be a lawyer, to be a dentist, to be an engineer, things like that where you have to have a degree for it, it probably doesn't make sense.
 
Seth Bradley (09:38.274)
Yeah, I, it's funny that you said, you said just a little bit ago, you said that you're just kind of grinding and grinding, grinding, keep on going. And you know that there's a light at the end of the tunnel, but you don't see like the light yet and what, what that looks like. And, it's, it's funny how like when your intentions are in the right place and your heart is in the right place and you want to, you know, give back to other people and you're a good human being, like those things naturally, you know, come like they unfold.
 
for one another and that's neat that you guys have that vision of just like, put in the hard work right now. That way we can have the fruits for our kids later. And I think that that's where like a lot of people get caught up or give up is like, the result isn't tomorrow. And I'm sure that you see that with investing too. Like I can't just pick up my phone and be like, okay, here's a million dollars in my bank account. Like there's strategy that's involved, right? Like there's thought and processes and it.
 
Like you have to build certain things and go certain avenues. So with you guys like getting into investing now, what are some of like the bigger projects that you guys are working on or what it is that you focus on?
 
Yeah, I was gonna say before I get into that, mean, it does come down to relationships and networking and things like that where you just, you have to get out there and meet the right people and get exposed to the right people. I think that that's really key. I mean, I know for me, working in those big law firms, I was actually doing what I do now on the business side. I was representing clients to do what I do now on the business side. So they were buying large real estate projects. They were raising capital.
 
to buy huge apartment buildings and to buy companies and things like that. But it was funny because when you're in the weeds, you don't really think about you on that side of the table. You're always just like kind of in it and you're like, all right, well, my job is this small part, which is being the attorney on the job. But then later, like you have to take a step back and say, wait a minute, like I know all these things and I would actually be really good at this. Why wouldn't I want to be on the business side? And that's kind of the light bulb moment for me was just seeing
 
Celina Eklund (11:38.766)
take a step back and say, maybe I don't want to just be a vendor. Maybe I actually want to be that person that's buying businesses, that's operating large apartment complexes, that's doing, that's raising capital, doing those things. And I think it's funny, especially for attorneys, because that's just one example of a person that's in the weeds there every single day, but perhaps they don't necessarily own any real estate, even though they're a real estate attorney, or they've never raised capital before, even though they're a securities attorney.
 
Things like that. Another common example is like real estate agents, right? There's so many real estate agents out there. many. You know, they're supposed to be professionals. It's like, well, if you ask them, like, how much real estate do you own? You know, maybe they own their own house, but they don't own any rental properties. Most of them, I should say, don't own many rental properties. They're not actually in that business, which is wild because they would probably be really good at it if they could kind of take a step back and say,
 
Yeah, maybe I should get into this bit, the business side, not just the vendor side.
 
Yeah, it's so true. Find somebody that has been where it is that you want to go. It's kind of like, it's kind of like if you want to get like, like body modifications, right? So like Botox or like, you know, you want to get what's what's in for hair right now, hair extensions, right? Like you're not going to go to a hair salon and the freaking chick doesn't
 
have hair extensions in right or like the lady that you're go get Botox from like she doesn't even have Botox and you can clearly tell like she's not taking good care of her skin it's like okay wait what like I want to make sure like whoever I'm working with like they have that that track record.
 
Celina Eklund (13:17.662)
You gotta be careful with that talking about education, right? So it's it's awesome that there's all this alternative education out there with coaching and mentoring and YouTube University and Master, I like to call these folks mastermind scholars sometimes it's like, know, make sure that you are buying from the right people people that are doing what they said that they are doing and teaching what they what you want to learn, right? Like they're not just they're not just educators. They've actually done what you want to do.
 
It's really important and they're continuing to do that. Like they were successful at it and they were good enough that, you know, hey, I want to teach other people, but at the same time, that's my core business. My core business is what I'm teaching, not the education side because there's just a lot of people out there that you can waste a lot of money with. So that's kind of the downside to that.
 
That's true. like what is your, also talked about like the reason why we love entrepreneurship so much is because it gives you the ability to have freedom. You can go take a trip to Disney world with your family for three days, or you can, you know, fly wherever it is that you want to go because you're not working in the business. You're working on the business and you have other people that are helping run it too. So what is like that? I have a lot of people that are going to be listening to this that are
 
you know, wanting to get maybe out of their nine to five, or if they work a corporate job and they kind of like want to transition. like, what is your day to day look like for you? Like what does an average Monday through Friday look like for you? And like, what does that schedule, you know, represent you? How does it look like?
 
Yeah, I might be scaring some of your listeners away by telling them this, but my day is long. I have seven businesses that I run, at least seven, some people might say more than that. So I get up around six o'clock and I start working almost immediately. I used to have kind of this long, drawn out morning routine, but I'm kind of the Alex Hormozi cult now where it's like, how quickly can you get dialed in? And for me, I just grab a cup of coffee, I sit down, I put some headphones on and I get going.
 
Celina Eklund (15:17.31)
So I can get in that zone pretty quickly. But I'm working long hours. I mean, if I'm in the office and not traveling and not speaking at conferences and doing those sorts of things, I'm working six to at least six o'clock, like 12 hours straight. I might take 30 minutes off for a quick lunch, that sort of thing. And then I'll go get my workout. And it's six thirty across the street at one of my gyms. So it's long. It's very long. But alluding to what you said to earlier, if something did come up,
 
or if I did want to go on a vacation or take 30 days off, things like that that you might not have the flexibility or freedom to do with a W-2, you can. So I am choosing to work 12 hour days because I'm putting that time in for myself because I can see the vision for myself, my family, and my businesses. And it's different. It's different when you're putting that time in for the things that you believe in and the things that are important for you.
 
as opposed to working at W2 where all you're doing is counting the seconds as they're ticking down so you can clock out. And you're working for somebody else's dream. It's totally different. 12 hours working for myself versus nine hours working for somebody else is totally different. Totally different.
 
Do you, this is a side note, do you play the guitar? There's a guitar, I know people can't see this, they're only gonna hear it, but do you play music?
 
I used to. don't have as much time anymore, but I grew up playing guitar all the way through college and that sort of thing, but not so much anymore. But I do want to get back into it one day.
 
Seth Bradley (16:54.146)
Do you think that music has helped fuel your creativity and keep your brain fresh?
 
I think it always does. I think it always does. think that that's a completely different side of your brain that you can stimulate and I should probably get back into it because of that. I think it just kind of unlocks things for you.
 
Yeah, it's a, I'm reading this book right now. Well, it's like probably my third time reading it. He's one of my favorite authors, Seth Godin. He wrote the book, Lynchpin. He has a couple of different books. Have you heard of him before? for sure.
 
Marketing marketing king
 
my gosh, he's just, he's incredible. But I read different things and he talks about how to like not fit the mold, the purple cow, be the purple cow, not the black and white cow. And so like, I think like music is something that kind of helps fuel that creativity. But why, why do you feel like you love the grit so much? Like you don't have to work 12 hours every single day. You don't have to get up at six if you want to get up at, you know, 12 o'clock in the afternoon, you can, but what makes you so addicted to the grit and the hard work? Why do you like that? Cause most people
 
Seth Bradley (17:57.068)
want to run away from the stuff that's hard. They're not trying to put themselves in the tough stuff, which is rare. And I feel like that's how I found you is because I love tough stuff. Especially being a female, I love it when people tell me, you can't do that. And I'm a woman. So the odds are even smaller. like, hell yeah. Like that, like I'm all in. how do you, like, why are you so obsessed with business and wanting to grow so much?
 
Yeah, I mean, think there's a couple things. think number one, I just enjoy building. So like I enjoy being a builder and building businesses and learning about new things. I have a hard time saying no. Like I've gotten better at it and I think I'm actually pretty good at it now, but it took me a long time to get there. It probably got me to this maximum capacity before I started saying no, because I just love like diving into new businesses and learning about new things and
 
and ways to make money and build businesses and help people. But that's number one. I think that I just genuinely enjoy that. So I try to fill my day up with that. Now, sometimes you do get bogged down with some of the smaller things that you don't want to do, but try to avoid that as much as possible and still dedicate as much time to your highest and best and most fun, enjoyable use as possible. And number two, I think that a lot of folks
 
avoid the hard because they haven't been rewarded for doing it. I think that people that have been successful have seen that the hard stuff is the best stuff. Meaning like once you've gotten through that hard place and you just kept pushing and pushing and pushing and you had that breakthrough and you saw it and you were like, that's it. That's it. Like that's where I need to get. So when you see it again, when you see it get hard, you realize that's what you want. Right. That's when you realize
 
I just got to keep pushing and pushing and pushing and eventually I'll break through again. Whereas other people may have in the past ran up against something hard and said this is too hard and kind of pulled back. So they weren't, didn't get to see that, you know, that reward.
 
Seth Bradley (20:06.702)
How long have you been into the self-development space? Have you always been there? like personal, I should say personal development. Have you always been there? Is it something new or do you?
 
Yeah, I would say it actually started with maybe around 2013 when I got my first big law firm job and I realized once again that that wasn't necessarily what I wanted to do. So I started kind of looking around and learning about real estate and I read Rich Dad Poor Dad. That was kind of a game changer, which it is for a lot of people just with like mindset. So I would say that that book, even though it's not necessarily a lot of personal development there, but it is a mindset shift.
 
And that was probably the one that kind of got me going and got me to start reading more books and start thinking about things differently.
 
He lives here in Arizona. We've ran into him a couple of times. Yeah, he lives here in Scottsdale. or like going to the mall or restaurant like every now and then somebody in our company will come across him and he's a great guy. We have his book around our shelves too as well. Yeah, I wish I found self-development when I was like 18. I'm like, where was this? My brother is, there's a big age gap difference between the two of us, but he just turned 17 in January.
 
and he's been into self-development because of me since he was 15 years old. And, you know, I just want him to be so much further ahead when he's like 20, you know, and 21 and like he's making good decisions for himself. think that's so important. So I even watched like really old videos of like Tony Robbins. Love Tony Robbins. And it's neat to watch like his evolution from when he first started with the big baggy suits and he was doing, you know, one-off seminars.
 
Seth Bradley (21:52.31)
you know, way back in the day. And then now, like, I mean, he's at a point where he's starting to retire because his vocal cords are going out, kids are getting older. And it's neat to watch him grow because he, you know, if like he can do it, there's no difference between me and him. Like, I, the only difference between him and me is like, he just wanted it more than I wanted it. And he made it happen faster, you know, so.
 
You're doing that for your brother. I mean because that's again It's all about like exposure, right? Like the sooner that you're exposed to that or the sooner like you meet that person even if it's a sibling or whoever it is, right? That gives you at least that exposure. Maybe sometimes you Resist it like you might not want it at the time But at least it's kind of in your mind and then later when you're ready You know you you have that at least that idea and inclination in your mind So just being exposed to different ideas and networking with the right people
 
makes a huge difference. The earlier that it can happen, the better.
 
Yeah, I think that's when like the ego has to be put aside. Like you gotta, you gotta set the ego down. You know, you don't know it all and that's okay. And I think for men, maybe it's a little bit more difficult because guys want to act like, you know, they, they know everything. Women are like, no, what are all my resources? Like, I'm going to read all these baby books. Like I'm going to start, you know, watching YouTube videos on how to properly, you know,
 
do something for their baby like me. I've got a ton of women around me and I have like, don't have kids yet, but I'm just like, I tossed out our candles because the flame from the candles isn't good for your insides. So we got like this freaking new scent thing. We got rid of the microwave cause I'm like a little nervous of radiation for my baby. know, like I'm just like kind of like immersing myself, emerging myself like into the whole process of like becoming a mom. But that's like the cool stuff with, with resources, but that takes the ego to like put aside, you know.
 
Celina Eklund (23:38.078)
I agree. I think you're onto something there. I remember being in my 20s and I thought I knew everything and I never ask questions, which is sad to even say now. I wouldn't ask questions. I'd be like, I'll figure it out. I don't care. I'm not going to give you anything. It's crazy how not humble I was. I was really just like, I know everything and if I don't, I'll figure it out. I don't need help. And nowadays, I'm totally different mindset now.
 
I'm gonna share.
 
Seth Bradley (24:08.354)
I'm going to share my screen with you. And even though the people on the other side, they can't see this, we'll just kind of like walk through it. But I look at this chart every single day actually, and it talks about power and force. like whenever I'm in a situation or having a conversation with somebody, I'm like always trying to check what my level is. And so I'm just kind of walking through it because other people can't see this. So they're just hearing it.
 
At the bottom of this chart, it's like bright red. And then at the top, it slowly starts to go into it, like a yellow, a green, a blue, and a purple. And at the very bottom, it talks about shame, guilt. And that's how you're operating at a level 125, desire, anger, pride, 175. And then you slowly move up the chart. And as you get into the blues and the purple, you operate out of love and joy and peace and enlightenment. So you either have power or you have force that's coming out of your system.
 
And I'm just always trying to think like, how can I always operate at this violet purple? Because if I'm that way towards somebody, like they're going to have that reciprocity towards me versus like operating out of anxiety. And I think it comes to like emotional maturity. I think emotional maturity is really like a big part of this, but I wanted to share this with you because I thought that I look
 
at it every do you use that? Do you kind of look at this every day and then just kind of stop and take a moment and just kind of where you're at?
 
If I need like a reset, you know, if something bad happened or something that was unexpected or, you know, I'll give you like an example. Like my, text my dad on Saturday and I'm like, Hey, this is the venue where we're having our wedding at. You know, this is what's happening in March. And he just hasn't texted me back at all, you know? And I'm just like, I just think to myself, like you're my dad. You're also important part because you're supposed to be here at this wedding coming up and I haven't gotten a text back. immediately, I mean, I'm over here like boiling in like,
 
Seth Bradley (26:01.652)
shame and anger and I'm pissed off. And so like whenever I like lose that edge, I check myself and I'm like, okay, how do we go back over here? Maybe, you know, back to enlightenment, powerful inspiration.
 
you know, maybe he's on a trip right now and he doesn't have phone service or signal or, you know, maybe I just need to have more compassion for his situation. My stepmom got diagnosed with cancer last year. Who knows? Maybe it came back again. They're at the hospital. Like, you just kind of don't know what other people are going through on the other side. So I just like check myself on this list. And if I'm not, if I don't see the chart, I kind of take like a mental note of like, you know, hey, let's go back up to the top. It's okay. And everything's all figure audible.
 
I that. like my thing. So I just kind of wanted to like share that, but I'll text it to you after this so you can have it.
 
Sure, yeah, I appreciate that. That's awesome. That's awesome.
 
That's a, that's important to me. And I noticed another thing. I love watching people's patterns. That's what I'm, I am really, really good at is like studying people because you obviously have information and you want to take it from the people who have it to the people who need it too. So how have you learned to be like so coachable and open-minded? Like I can tell that there, you have a certain level where you can put your ego aside. And you know, I think that that's kind of like why we're on this podcast too, as well.
 
Seth Bradley (27:23.852)
you have a certain level of like open mindedness. Is your wife somebody that like grounds you with that to be that way or is that something that's always been in
 
She definitely helps, that's for sure. I would say it definitely hasn't always been in me. Like I said, I think that I was not humble enough in my 20s to be able to accept coaching and mentoring and advice. I wasn't as open as I used to be. I think it probably took a little bit of spinning around, meaning going to medical school and
 
dropping out and then going to business school and like, isn't good enough and then going to law school and I was like, okay, this is cool, but going to get in a great job and then realizing like, this isn't what I want to do either. I think it took a lot of that like kind of spinning around where it's like, hey buddy, maybe you don't know it all. Right. And then you had to have a little bit of self had to have a little bit of self reflection and say, all right, what, what am I missing here? And just be a lot more open to mentorship and coaching and
 
and people just that are, you know, that are, have the experience that you want to have and to have more life experiences and have done the things that you want to do already. And once you kind of open yourself up to that and realize like, man, this is a shortcut right here. Like this is the shortcut. You know, I think again, it comes with experience and exposure and results.
 
That's cool. So you and your wife now you guys have two gyms and you're opening up a third one soon in Southern California What's next up for you guys? What is a what's a thing that's up and coming? have the third gym You're gonna have a family soon, too So do you are you guys like building out like another team for your third location? Or what is what is like the next like six months to a year look like for you guys?
 
Celina Eklund (29:14.54)
We are, we are. So I've been kind of kicked out of the partnership for the gyms, so to speak, at least on paper, just because she wants to just, you know, it's her baby. So she wants to run with it, which is great. Even though I'm still doing the same stuff that I was doing before, I'm just not going to get paid for it. All good. No worries there, but we'll get it. I know, I know. So helping her get that launched, hopefully before the end of the year. And same thing with the family starting before the end of the year as well. So they'll
 
still loves you, don't worry.
 
Celina Eklund (29:43.97)
be going about at the same time, it looks like. And then, you know, with my other businesses just really growing my own boutique law firm and my startups as well. So a lot of, a lot of irons in the fire right now to keep going.
 
Do you guys have our culture where I'm at, like hiring is really important, the way that we bring on people. So do you guys have like a specific way of how you find your people, how to find the right people, like retaining employees? Because I mean, I feel like there's a lot of people that just kind of, you know, they're in it for like the paycheck, they're there for six months and then they're bouncing. So like, do you guys have a specific process of what you're doing for your upcoming third location?
 
Yeah, I mean, think you get better at it as you go, right? Like trial and error, figure out who, know, personality wise will work. I think you've really got to stick to who's going to fit in with your culture and your values and things like that. I mean, for instance, like we really value accountability and transparency and consistency. Awareness is another big one, right? So like making sure that the people that you hire on your team also value those same things. And if they don't.
 
it's probably not going to work out in the long run. So it's really important that culturally, that your values align. So that's the important thing. And we do certain things like we don't even hire out of the gate necessarily full time. It's, you're on a 90 day probationary period. We like to call it so that, hey, we have this exit. And especially in California, we've got to spell these things out very clearly with everyone.
 
I think you just get better at it and we've gotten a lot better at keeping employees and retention.
 
Seth Bradley (31:30.52)
Yeah, that's important. We, we always talk about having like an unrecruitable team, you know, like no matter what, if somebody came over here and tried to pay me a million dollars, like I wouldn't do it because this is my family and we've gone through the tough stuff. And if you can go through the hard stuff, like you can go through the easy stuff together. hiring, like we, whenever we go to hire too, we always meet the spouse, the kids, the whole family, because it's like the, the, person's going to be working there for 10 hours out of the day or eight hours out of the day. Like we want to ensure that the spouse knows that
 
they're at work working hard. And also like you don't want to treat it like it's they're just paying for a paycheck. Like this is a family, like we're doing life together. Like you made a commitment to work here. Like I'm going to make a commitment to making sure that we're increasing your bonuses or your salary or you you're upping the standard of the company. So that's super cool. I love that. Yeah.
 
What's a so so you guys have that that's coming up you're going to be starting a family that's so exciting What a what a good time in life for everything to be coming through together I'm I can't wait to to see your guys's baby on Instagram and and you know like Watch your baby start doing pull-ups in the gym. You know, yeah
 
Yeah. He's so cute. That's super exciting. Yeah, super excited.
 
And as we wrap up here, is there anything else that you'd like to leave off with or any other message that you'd like to put out for anybody that's listening to this too?
 
Celina Eklund (32:54.572)
Yeah, I mean, I would just say like stick with it, right? Like figure out where I'm trying to think what the best word would be. I don't like to say where your passion is, but figure out where you can where you can harness your energy and focus it somewhere and then stick it out and really push through. Like I said earlier, the hard when it gets hard, that's when you you don't stop. That's not when you pull back. That's when you push harder and you push through and there will be a breakthrough.
 
but you just gotta keep going.
 
yeah love that you are your new life is on the other side of you being uncomfortable have to go through that that uncomfortable face that's awesome well if i have somebody that's actually looking for a job or wanting to come to your heart of your team you know cuz i do have people out in southern california that are always like looking for new opportunities and also want to work with like like-minded people you know so
 
Somebody is looking for an opportunity like I'm not going to send him to Joe Schmo or have him go Google something right like I would love for them to be work directly with you. So what's the best way and point of contact that we can that anybody can get a hold of you?
 
Yeah, you can go to SethBradleyESQ.com, so like Esquire, S-SethBradleyESQ.com. That will be set up for you to kind of tell me where you, what your interest is with me and then we can kind of point you in the right direction. I do have a number of businesses, so that site is kind of set up to guide you to the right resource.
 
Seth Bradley (34:22.542)
Awesome. Well, thank you, Seth, so much for being here. And next time on our next podcast where we shatter limiting beliefs. Thanks for being here, Seth.
 
Thanks, Elena. Really appreciate it.
 
Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DJ7TLuEz93X/
 
Celina Eklund’s Links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/celina-eklund/
https://www.instagram.com/celina.eklund/
https://x.com/AiryJane1
https://www.youtube.com/@CelinaEklund/featured
https://www.facebook.com/CelinaEklundd
https://www.threads.com/@celina.eklund
 
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

TME 12 | Why High Earners Stay Broke (and How to Escape the W-2 Trap) with Rich Fettke

In this episode of Raise the Bar Radio, Seth Bradley welcomes Rich Fettke, co-founder of Real Wealth, to share his incredible journey from a life-threatening cancer scare to building a real estate empire. Rich Fettke explains how his wife’s pivot to real estate investing during his health crisis led to the creation of Real Wealth, which has since helped over 70,000 members acquire more than $1.2 billion in assets.
Together, Seth Bradley and Rich Fettke dive deep into the mindset shift required to escape the grind, the importance of clarity and vision, and why hard assets like real estate are key to sustainable wealth, freedom, and major tax advantages, especially for high-income professionals such as attorneys and doctors.
Rich Fettke also breaks down the difference between passive and active investing, explaining how Real Wealth offers vetted markets and property teams for investors seeking a more hands-off experience. Seth Bradley and Rich Fettke discuss insights from Rich’s book, The Wise Investor, designed to inspire readers to take control of their financial futures through compelling storytelling. Wrapping up, Seth Bradley and Rich Fettke emphasize the power of passive income in creating freedom, reducing stress, and ultimately living life on your own terms without sacrificing health, family, or personal passions.
Links to Watch and Subscribe:
https://youtu.be/rF_4-7G7vYw
Bullet Point Highlights:
Rich Fettke shares his powerful origin story and the creation of Real Wealth.
Real Wealth has helped 70,000+ members acquire $1.2B+ in assets.
Importance of clarity, vision, and avoiding reactive life decisions.
Hard assets like real estate provide stability, tax advantages, and true passive income.
Real Wealth offers turnkey, vetted investing options through preferred property teams.
Passive income helps professionals reduce tax burdens and escape active income traps.
Rich's book The Wise Investor inspires readers to take action through relatable storytelling.
Transcript:
Seth Bradley (00:02.094)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.
So.
Rich, what's going on brother? Welcome to the show.
Rich Fettke Thank you, good to be here.
Seth Bradley (00:47.054) Absolutely, man. Thanks for coming on. Really appreciate it. Let's just dive right in. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your background and feel free to take it back as far as you'd like.
Rich Fettke Okay, well... (continues storytelling about business origins and melanoma diagnosis)
Seth Bradley Yeah, that's an incredible story, man. I just think about those inflection points and obviously that was a major inflection point in your life. How do you think other people could shift into investing or making a change without having something catastrophic happen?
Rich Fettke Thank goodness I don't want that to happen to anyone... (continues explanation about clarity and creating vision)
Seth Bradley Yeah, I love that. I mean, it's almost like just slowing down for a second and thinking about your life.
Rich Fettke And that is it. Yeah. Investment properties, whatever that looks like... (continues explanation about real estate, passive income, etc.)
Seth Bradley Yeah, yeah. So is that the first step? I'd really like you to walk us through what you would do with a potential client or person who comes to you and says, "I'm a highly paid W-2..."
Rich Fettke It's vital. Yeah. Starting with the why like we talked about... (continues explanation about active vs passive income and tax advantages)
Seth Bradley Yeah, for sure. And that retirement gets farther and farther away.
Rich Fettke 100% and getting hard assets... (continues explanation about why hard assets like real estate matter)
Seth Bradley Yeah, yeah, for sure. For sure. Now, I'm sure you've seen a lot of people you've helped. What are the changes you've seen in their lives after they start investing?
Rich Fettke You know, that was the whole intention of that book I just wrote... (continues explanation about The Wise Investor and people creating real wealth)
Seth Bradley Absolutely. I talk to folks, especially attorneys, who are unhappy with where they’re at...
Rich Fettke So much. At Real Wealth we call them Henrys — high earners, not rich yet... (continues explanation about tax savings and financial freedom)
Seth Bradley Yeah, that's right. Taxes are the thing...
Rich Fettke Mm-hmm. Ain’t that?
Seth Bradley Yeah. So tell us a little bit more about this book. Is it out? Can we buy it now?
Rich Fettke Yeah, it’s been out for almost a year now... (continues explanation about The Wise Investor, story format, and why he wrote it as a parable)
Seth Bradley Yeah, same here. Same here. Sounds like the hero of that story, I think a lot of people can relate to that.
Rich Fettke Yeah, and that's how I wrote it... (continues explanation about hero's journey format and story impact)
Seth Bradley (27:11.202) Yeah, yeah. I love that. I mean, Rich Dad Poor Dad — story form impacts millions.
Rich Fettke Number one finance book of all time. Pretty amazing.
Seth Bradley Yeah. I'd love to dive into passive vs active real estate investing. I know you do both. What do you think about that and what do you advise folks?
Rich Fettke Yeah, great question. I love that you said it's a sliding scale... (continues explanation about passive LP investing, single family properties, active oversight)
Seth Bradley That's right. Yeah. It's that first action that changes everything...
Rich Fettke Yeah, it's like buying your first house... (continues explanation about mindset shift and leverage)
Seth Bradley Yeah. And going back to what you said about active vs passive... it's about finding the right team members, right? Broker, coach, property manager...
Rich Fettke Yeah, yeah. Don’t try to do it yourself... (continues explanation about importance of team and referrals)
Seth Bradley Absolutely. Alright Rich, before we jump into the Freedom Four, do you have one last gold nugget for our listeners?
Rich Fettke One last gold nugget... (explains importance of working with tax attorney and CPA)
Seth Bradley Love that. Alright, let’s jump into the Freedom Four. What's the best thing you do to keep your mind and body healthy?
Rich Fettke Oh, working out, exercise every morning... (cold plunge and workout routine)
Seth Bradley Perfect. What's one limiting belief you've crushed along the way?
Rich Fettke Mostly crushed... (story about overcoming "I'm stupid" belief and weight training for discipline)
Seth Bradley Yeah, I love that. What's one actionable step listeners can do right now to start creating more freedom?
Rich Fettke I would say get clear on that vision... (setting life goals and clarity)
Seth Bradley And last but not least, how has passive income made your life better?
Rich Fettke Me personally, I can live life on my own terms... (adventure sports, freedom, job optional)
Seth Bradley Love that, man. Rich, this has been great. Where can our listeners find out more about you?
Rich Fettke Our company website is realwealth.com... (social media handles, Amazon book link, etc.)
Seth Bradley (38:22.082) 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
Rich Fettke’s Links:
https://x.com/FettkeRich
https://www.facebook.com/rich.fettke
https://www.threads.com/@richfettke
https://www.instagram.com/richfettke/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/fettke/
https://realwealth.com/about/rich-fettke/

RTBL 08 | When Real Estate Deals Go South: What to Do Next with Ted Patel

In this episode of Decoding Cash Flow, host Ted Patel interviews Seth Bradley, a securities attorney and real estate syndicator. Seth Bradley discusses the intricacies of raising capital for real estate investments and delves into the legal considerations involved, particularly compliance with SEC regulations. Seth Bradley shares his journey from a blue-collar background to becoming a successful attorney and real estate investor, providing a detailed account of his experiences in syndication and capital raising.
The conversation covers topics such as the importance of being an active partner in syndications, the evolution of Seth Bradley’s investment strategy from small multifamily properties to larger syndications, and the rise of fund-of-funds models. Seth Bradley emphasizes the necessity for investors to understand legal documents and outlines key strategies for successful capital raising. This episode serves as a valuable resource for both passive and active investors looking to navigate the complex world of real estate investment with guidance from Seth Bradley.
Links to listen and subscribe:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2104713/episodes/15911080-ep-153-leveraging-legal-expertise-for-investment-success-with-seth-bradley
Links to watch and subscribe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4xTU9T6CVA&t=375s
Bullet Point Highlights:
Securities Compliance: Understanding the legal framework is crucial when raising capital to avoid issues with the SEC.
Transitioning to Syndication: Seth discusses moving from small investments to syndication, emphasizing a progressive approach.
Legal Documents: The importance of reviewing legal documents and understanding what to look for to avoid pitfalls.
Network Importance: Leveraging existing networks can significantly boost initial capital raising efforts.
Fund of Funds: Exploring how the fund of funds model offers a structured way to raise capital while adhering to regulations.
Investor Communication: Maintaining regular communication with investors leads to referrals and sustained relationships.
Future Trends: Insights into potential changes in the real estate syndication market depending on political climate and economic factors.
 
Transcript:
you can certainly partner with other partners and buy a property together and raise Capital together and it's perfectly fine but as you know all you all need to be active partners and as you also know many times people put these things together not everybody's an active partner some people are just coming into the deal just to raise capital and then they don't have anything to do with the operations or the decision-making or anything like that and that's where you get yourself into trouble with the SEC and the state
 
commission are you looking to achieve massive success in your life without dealing with costly investment nightmares if yes then this is the podcast for you here we provide engineers and busy professionals all the secrets and strategies to create multiple streams of income build generational wealth and live a meaningful Life by Design here's your host Ted Patel welcome back to another episode of decoding cash fla podcast and today we have a very special guest Seth Bradley who is a Securities attorney and
 
a real estate syndicator he's a chief legal officer at tribe West and a managing partner at rise law and law Capital Partners uh Seth is also a host of passive income attorney podcast and uh today we'll like to you know get his perspective on as an attorney I would say uh on the ways different ways to raise capitals and you know what to look into or where to be careful why is why rais Capital Etc so we'll dive deep into those aspect as well as touch based upon uh the pros and cons of passive income
 
so uh Seth welcome to decoding cash flow it's a pleasure having you on the show Absolutely Ted really appreciate you having me on man looking forward to it all right great so said before we uh dive deep into your Niche uh can you give our listeners a little bit background about yourself what do you do and how did you get started in the real estate for sure man I I'll give you the expedited version but um you know I grew up in West Virginia grew up blue collar my dad was a coal miner he's a retired
 
coal miner my mom's a retired school teacher so you know I didn't come from a an entrepreneurship or a real estate background uh blue collar background and you know that kind of sent me into a path of you know full-time W2 and trying to figure out what the best job I can get because I didn't really think of you know entrepreneurship and owning assets and things like that were really an option um so I went into med school um hated it I went for about a year and a half uh dropped out on my own valtion um
 
ended up actually getting my MBA after that and then into law school where I really started to thrive I really liked law school a lot I liked you know I never wanted to litigate but I was always interested in business and transactions and real estate and those sorts of things so um getting that that legal background gave me kind of that really solid foundation to you know honestly at a young age getting myself into into doors uh where I probably didn't belong you know when you say you're an attorney you're a real estate
 
attorney or Securities attorney um you know when you're younger it's like oh really that's really cool um and you kind of you know eat your foot in the door so that's really how I got started um I worked in big law for about six six almost seven years um worked at most recently uh one of the top three law firms in the world um uh you know it it was a great experience gave me a really good background and foundation on Securities Law and kind of that that highest level of sophistication and transactions um and you know allowed me
 
to you know save a little bit of money and really kind of start going out on my own and start purchasing real estate and start investing in syndications passively and then actively um and then eventually start my own firm uh my own Boutique Securities Law Firm that's awesome I love it so you know a lot of people uh you know they they start their investment journey by maybe at at the initial level they buy a small multif family or do a Fix and Flip you know uh how how did you manage to get into syndication directly or what
 
what what was the path that you took you know what inspired you to get into syndication directly while being an attorney in sort of going through through the normal route of you know starting small and then getting into multi family syndication yeah well I'll tell you what Ted I actually took a I took the traditional route man I started you know like a lot of people do I started really small I started listening to Bigger Pockets right you listen to Bigger Pockets you started thinking oh I've got to uh own rental property so um
 
as soon as I got my first big Law Firm job I actually house hacked into a duplex lived in one half uh my wife was flexible enough with me to be able to do that so she didn't mind living in a duplex and living in one half renting the other half out and having them pay the mortgage and that was kind of the beginning and then I just started um like a lot of people uh you know doing fix and flips and doing fixing buy and holds and wholesaling a little bit here and there and then moving your way up to
 
uh you know small multif family and then as I got more sophisticated as an investor and more sophisticated as an attorney and started looking at the clients that I have because I'm working at Big law firms and you know these clients are the folks like like us now right like they're taking down you know $20 million properties hundred million funds things like that um and you just start thinking man I'm I'm not thinking big enough um I need to go bigger how do I do that um you know having that attorney background in real estate
 
Securities really helped me out um but I was still kind of you know a little bit hesitant I didn't really know that side of the business I knew the legal side I knew the closing side but I didn't know the business side um so I started investing passively first and that was after I spoke to some people and they said that's probably the best thing to do you know I had a good job so I I was able to afford it so I invested passively in some deals kind of got my feet wet that way started to understand
 
from you know the investor standpoint what that looked like to invest in a in a syndication or a fund and then at that point I realized hey I I can do this um so I actually started leveraging my Securities background um to partner with other operators um and get an equity position in the company um you know bringing in investors I'm doing the due diligence doing the uh some of the underwriting and and then also you know bringing my Securities uh Securities skills of the table which everybody needs when they're raising
 
capital okay all right that sounds great man so so you did take a traditional route as you mentioned right you yeah maybe maybe didn't uh you know stay in that U uh field for quite long time you just jump to syndication yeah pretty quick hacking yeah pretty quick yeah yeah I mean I built a small portfolio and like I said went into some smaller multifamilies maybe took about three or four years and I started investing passively and then you know by the time I started investing passively I was already looking to go to
 
the active side within you know a couple of months so are you an attorney do you still practice law I do um kind of as a you know it's not like a a full-time gig but I do have my own Boutique Law Firm raise law where you know I I you know if it's down the middle I'll take on the work um you know if it's a real estate syndication if it's a real estate fund or it's a fund of fund I put those together for people U you know I've been doing that for you know over a decade now so it's like breaking sticks at this
 
point but I've really been able to leverage my uh Securities attorney background to um some of these other positions with uh startups so startups are really exciting for me um you know they've those are home run swings right like real estate is kind of like singles like let's let's hit singles let's keep that batting average High um you know these are you know a little bit safer they're secure um when you get into the startup world it's like your chance of failure is pretty high whereas real estate your chance of failure is on the
 
low side um but with with startups it's pretty high but you know that that kind of appeases my risk appetite um to get involved with these startups and I've been able to to like I said leverage my security skills and my background as a a syndicator and a fund manager um to become Chief legal officer for trib bestest so trib bestest um traditionally was a group investing platform and uh you know I was speaking at a conference in the bvis with uh Travis Smith who is the CEO and we really just hit it off
 
and our wives hit it off and you know they were trying to Pivot from this group investing platform to um you know try to try to enter the Securities and the syndication market and I and they were looking at like a cgp model and I said look Travis this this is going to fun funds right like you know this was this was about a year and a half ago um some things were going on in background with the SEC uh doing some investigations and things like that for some well-known folks and you know the market was starting to to see hey we
 
need to we need to start paying more attention to these Securities regulations and maybe get away from the cgp model and the solution all along has always been fund of funds it's just fund of funds is expensive it's hard to put together it's you know all those different things um but what we've done to try best is be able to kind of package that into a fun fun in a box all right yeah we'll we'll speak um get more uh into that fun of fund models you know but before we dive deep into that I just wanted to che check few
 
things like you you mentioned uh startups so in addition to the real estate you also do raise capital for the startups is that so so I'm not raising capital for the startups I'm actually uh fractional clo for not only tribe vest but two other startups one called clavis which is also a real estate uh technology software platform um and then stack rck battery which is a battery manufacturing company so think um you know Tesla power wall it's similar to that it's actually a newer technology that we use a more powerful
 
technology um but it's very similar in nature where you pair that with solar so we're we're a solar manufacturing or a battery Manufacturing Company um and again these are you know these are I would call them somewhat mature startups in in that world I mean um you know we're well over a million and a half in revenue of a stack rack and um we just went live with a fully automated software with with clavis and then triest is of is is really headed towards series a right now so you know all three of them are progressing really
 
well um and looking forward to seeing how I can help help ignite that okay sounds good man all right so now moving on to this uh triest right tell me something about uh a little bit more about what do you do at Tri like you said you have a fund in the Box model yeah now uh so so any any group of investors they can come together create their own fund and they can invest in a operators fund is is that though how it works with triest yeah to a certain extent I mean I think it it helps to think about kind of
 
the history of group investing so traditionally tested what they called group investing it's more similar what you described let's say me you and three buddies put in 100,000 bucks and we've got 500,000 bucks now to get over maybe an investment minimum to invest in a syndication or a fund um and that's it so we just we leveraged each other's Capital to um you know get into a deal at maybe a a large minimum or maybe that uh you know we got a bet we got better financial terms because we put together
 
half a million instead of investing 50,000 bucks or something um the the ISS is there is is no one gets paid right like we're all just putting our money together investing together and it's really set up like a joint venture we all have equal voting rights based on how much money we put in um you know we we make decisions together we all decided to invest in that one deal and we could all decide together to invest in a different deal if we actually want to um but nobody's getting paid um because when you start getting paid now
 
you're talking about Securities laws when you start getting paid you should be licensed or find an exemption so um you know you need a broker's dealer license or be in raia under certain circumstances so that's where you start getting into that um a lot more complicated when that starts to happen and that's what tribe vest pivoted to last year is hey we still have the group investing option but a lot of times what happens is one of those people in the group is the one doing all the work right like one of the person is the one
 
that found tribe vest and is like hey I found this platform I'm gonna let's all put our money together and then you know he's the one collecting the money and badgering people to you know do the distributions and the taxes and all those sorts of things there's somebody putting in some time and effort for that and they at some point they're like hey if I do this next time like I want to get paid for it but how can I do that um you have to find the right uh Capital raising vehicle to be able to legally
 
pay yourself and we've created that with trivest and that kind of coincided with what I mentioned earlier which was kind of the industry pivot away from the cgp model um when I say CP model I mean I mean the abuse of the cgp model you can certainly partner with other partners and buy a property together and raise Capital together and it's perfectly fine but as you know all you all need to be active partners and as you also know many times people put these things together not everybody's an active
 
partner some people are just coming into the deal just to raise capital and then they don't have anything to do with the operations or the decision-making or anything like that and that's where you get yourself into trouble with the SEC and the state commissions and the solution to that is is well first of all just don't do it but the solution to it if you still want to raise capital is to create a fund of funds um but the problem with the fund of funds model is now these former cgps have all these new
 
responsibilities they have to find a Securities attorney they have to put together offering documents they have to find a CPA they have to start a business they have to get a business banking account they have to manage their investors they have to find a portal they have to do all the things that a a real active GP would normally have to do um but typically you know the the active partner is the one doing it for them now they have to do it all themselves so it's a lot more work so in short um it as you mentioned right cgps um they
 
need to be active in the syndication you know if you're Co GP and know any of the property you need to be active and I I also seen and you might have also seen uh there are certain projects where there are 10 or 15 different C GPS and only five or six takes responsibilities other are just you know raising fund for that uh particular property so this helps uh this model uh you know helps the inactive coach I would say Partners to get the fees that they need as well as raise Capital without getting into
 
Crosshair of s that's right that's right and the only reason that it's it's been going on for so long now and I'll say since like I'll say 2012 because that's when the jobs Act pass and you were starting to be able to advertise for um these syndication deals and things like that um is because real estate's been so fantastic right like it's been going up up up since the crash in 2008 um and nobody's nobody's suing anyone for the most part because their Investments are great right up until let's say that
 
little blip in 2020 from but then last year when the interest rates started going up some of these projects started to fail and that's when investors start getting angry because they're not getting you know their distributions and they start asking questions and that's when you're seeing people you know they're getting Capital calls and and they're starting to you know get sued by passive investors that's when these things start to fall apart because if if everybody's happy there's there's you know nobody's going
 
to get caught so to speak you know what I mean like nobody's going to find out that you raised Capital illegally unless somebody's upset and starting last year that's when people started getting upset and that's when you're starting to see some people um you know get exposed for raising capital in the wrong way what what are the fees that uh you can charge in this fund of fund model what kind of fees because as a cgp there are many different venues right you you can charge the finding fees operations
 
management fees uh at the end you can also take a part of the profit uh you know yeah so a lot of comes down to how you structure it right like these are these are very complicated Securities regulations that have a lot of layers on top of them because when you get into a fund of funds you're not just dealing with um what people are familiar with 506 C and 506b exemptions which are the 1930s acts you also get into the 1940s acts when you start dealing with fund of funds um and those are uh the invest the
 
investment advisor Act and the Investment Company act so there are lots of nuances to that and how you can get paid but if you're structured correctly you can get paid the same way so you can get paid an upfront fee you can get paid a um you know an ongoing annual fee percentage and you can get paid a profit split like basically all the same types of fees that you would collect as a cgp you can also collect as a fund manager but again there's a lot of nuances to that okay all right so um for for the new investors right
 
uh uh when when they start into this passive invest investment world you know uh they are you know they get a little intimidated by seeing all the different uh documents that the operator sends them uh the ppms and all the other legal documents right um and so based on your perspective like you know you're an attorney right so what what are the things that the investor needs to checking these legal documents to make sure there are no red flags or to be cautious of something what what are those things that you would like to
 
tell to our listeners for sure and it's tough right like these are not short documents I mean you know the the subscription booklet so to speak that includes let's say the subscription agreement the operating agreement and the the PPM it can be minimum 100 Pages it's probably going to be closer to 200 pages in totality and that's in intimidating I mean that's intimidating for myself who is an attorney let alone you know a passive investor that says hey I I thought I was just going to invest passively like this reading a
 
200-page legal document is not passive to me so you do need to be educated on kind of the things to look for and you know you should read the whole thing unfortunately I you should at least skim it over and the more you do it the more you'll get comfortable with it and the more when you see that see it the next time and the time after that you'll be able to get through it quicker and quicker because they all look you know they all have the the same basic parts but I you know I would say some things
 
to look for you know first of all make sure that everything matches so let's say the what call the offering memorandum or the pitch deck that the the marketing piece that the operator puts out you know they're going to have their projected returns their fees the proforma they're going to have some other information in there make sure that those numbers match the numbers in the PPM and the PPM is is a Disclosure document so it's a legal document but it's not it's not the final legal document the final document is going to
 
be the operating agreement so you really want to make sure that the the marketing piece or the pitch deck matches the PPM and the PPM matches what the operating agreement says and ultimately whatever the operating agreement says is what goes so if you take the time to read anything it should be the operating agreement even though that will probably be the hardest um hardest document to read because it will be completely in legal ease but that's the controlling document so if if the pitch deck says
 
something um and then the op agreement says another thing the operating agreement is what controls um so you know some big things to look out for are are voting rights you know typically as a passive investor you're not going to have a lot of voting rights but there should be some sort of a mechanism to remove the manager in very extreme circumstances so if there's you know some sort of gross negligence or fraud or misrepresentation or you know things like that then there should be a mechanism to um remove the manager and
 
that's usually done through some sort of a majority vote or super majority vote Plus you know proving that they did commit those actions um again it should be a pretty extreme case but there should be a mechanism there for that um obviously you know make sure that your Fe you know what the fees are going to be you need to know what fees you're paying you need to know um what that waterfall looks like meaning you need to know how you're going to get paid as the passive investor make sure you understand that and make sure it matches
 
your understanding and if you have questions about it make sure you ask the fund manager or ask the operator um to explain it to you in in um you know in non-legal e language so that you can understand it um and then on top of that you know another important thing that you're seeing nowadays is capital calls make sure you know what the capital call language is so if there's some sort of a a demand for Capital from the operator or from the fund manager what triggers that is it mandatory is it discretionary
 
um is it up to a vote it could be up to a vote um just make sure you know the mechanism for that and that you're comfortable with it yeah and if uh if your share gets diluted if you don't contribute to the capital call that's right that's right and it's perfectly fine to get diluted if you don't contribute I mean that's typical like if you don't contribute um you should get diluted right but what you need to look out for is if you get deluded Pro uh based on how much you didn't contribute which is fine um it's
 
typical but you'll see some uh penalty Provisions where you get diluted even more so than than prata and that's where it can be a problem um so just look out for those types of provisions and um in in these documents right the legal documents what if if you take fun of fund model if you take like separate 506b or C right what what are the extra documents in each of these sections that uh uh any any person who wants to start uh raising Capital uh needs to be aware of yeah so if you do a fund of fund you
 
you just have to think of it like it's your own syndication it's your own fund so you're going to have your own separate set of offering documents or subscription booklet whatever you want to call it so there's going to be two sets and looking at it from the passive investor standpoint if you're the passive investor that's going to be investing in the fun of fund there's going to be two of documents you're going to have to look at you're going to have to look at the fund of fund documents um which is going to have the
 
PPM the operating agreement and the subscription agreement and then you're also going to have to look at the offering documents for the um for the Target deal that the fun of fund is investing in so there's going to be two set so uh double the work um but you know there there are some benefits to that and obviously if you're investing in a fund of fund then you have a certain level of trust with that particular fund manager which is you know probably why you're investing with them anyways and sometimes you can get a
 
better deal I mean not all the time but every once in a while you can um so there you know you'll have to review two sets of offering documents but at the end of the day you know it's like I said you'll get better and better at as time goes by as a syndicator uh what what are the different uh assets that you are involved with I know multif family is there anything else that you do syndication for yeah I've done I've done a lot of different things um multif family I've done industrial I've done ret shopping
 
centers um RV parks um different funds right now um I'm actually doing a California U fund so accessory dwelling units so we're doing those in Riverside County it's a $20 million fund um and we're buying single family houses and turning it into a basically a three or four Plex um and sometimes you split the lot and you end up with six to eight units on that thing and they're incredible um it's it it's really the only thing you can get done here in California um with you know Little Resistance because everybody knows
 
California is the king of Regulation so but for some reason they think the adus are the the solution for the housing crisis out here so they let these things get permitted pretty quickly and it's an excellent opportunity it may be might be a short window but right now it's it's a fantastic uh fantastic asset right and uh so you only invest in California you're only focused or are you look at the other properties on out of state also oh I look out of state for sure this is actually the first thing
 
that I've done outside of you know a few single families and condos um in California generally I was I was one of those people that always said hey you can't really invest in California doesn't cash flow it never makees sense um I've actually came around quite a bit to that you know now that I'm I'm a more mature investor and you know you're in you're in New Jersey so you see like you know that big appreciation play as well um I just remember like bigger Pockets used to be they used to preach oh it's
 
all about cash flow right like you know all cash flow don't don't invest for appreciation but you need to invest for both I mean I think you need to invest for cash flow because you need to cover your bases I mean you don't want a negatively cash flowing asset that's for sure you don't want something that's going to cost you money but when you invest in places like New York and Coastal California and you know Beach areas things like that um City centers over the long run they're going to appreciate and they're going to
 
appreciate a lot I mean you might have you know more of a up and down um but at the end of the day it's going to be much higher whereas you know when you invest in which I do I invest in the midwest I invest in the South um those places a little bit more um you know subtle and they're going to increase in in price as well and in appreciation but it's just you know it's a lot more slow um and you might get a little bit more cash flow so you know I like to have a good mix but you know if if you're not strapped for
 
cash um and you're really trying to build long long-term wealth um that appreciation play is is really important absolutely I can't agree with you Mora because it's all about numbers right first of all yeah you don't don't have to have a negative cash as you mentioned uh the other thing is regardless of which state it is like California New Jersey New York uh of course you know there are some landlord friendly States some are not but as long as you know how to navigate those Waters you'll be fine for sure for sure and
 
then and you know obviously Force appreciation in everything I mean I don't buy anything that doesn't have some some upside from rolling up your sleeves for sure so um now you you are an ATT Securities attorney do you see in in in next few years do you see any uh any changes upcoming changes with regards to real estate indication like there are you know some more uh rules or you know coming in you know I I I don't want to get political but I I do think that politics have a a pretty big influence
 
on this um you know I I vote for policy um I don't vote for the the uh person I vote for the policy and I'm in business I'm in real estate so I like to vote for people that are going to be favorable for me so you know this recently proposed massive capital gains tax is absolutely insane to me so things like that really tough to tough to judge right but like you know if it let's say it does go towards um the Republican side let's just say that it it's known that there they want less government oversight um including the SEC um
 
because you've seen the SEC pick up in the last four years um with oversight you've seen it o you know increased um employees with the IRS things like that so that does influence things um especially with the SEC right because we're talking about syndications we're talking about funds it'll make people a little bit more uh trepid to do anything right um if if people if it's more of a free market and you know they're not too worried about the SEC you're going to see more business you're going to see
 
more funds you're going to see more syndications um you know looming is the capital gains thing that is huge that will that will be massive for the real estate market whichever way that goes now even if it even if it goes towards uh the left it's not to say that those laws are going to pass I mean that's that's going to be a really difficult thing to pass anyway ways but if it does that can that can dramatically influence it um and there are other things that are out of control as well I mean things
 
like um you know world wars like things like that you can't predict control you cannot predict those things so you really just you can't focus on politics you can't focus on things that are out of control you have to do what what you can do to to make yourself better and to better your business um but you know I I see the the Securities um the Securities industry um you know funds fun to funds raising capital for Real Estate those sorts of things I can only see it going up I mean there even even with some headwinds from
 
different things from different regulations or different things that are happening around the world um you know just there's a massive there's there there's a massive movement towards it so I think it'll continue to to go up over time okay all right so um before we get to the final round of questions I had one topic that I want to touch based upon you know you being a syndicator if you like to give a listeners a little bit uh overview on the strategies that you use to raise Capital sure sure man
 
um you know and I actually have a really good perspective working at tribe vest now because we deal with so many different uh Capital raisers and fund managers and Lead sponsors and we're getting to see who raises a lot of capital who doesn't who's able to perform who can't and you know you start to see the people that are successful and the people that are not and you know what we're trends that we're seeing are people that already have an existing Network are usually successful out of the gate right like if you're a doctor a
 
lawyer an engineer um maybe even a software engineer someone like that that already has a a wealthy Network those people are generally very successful at raising Capital because they have wealthy friends and it's easy for them to raise uh you know half a million bucks a million bucks out of the gate um that's number one but that only lasts for so long I mean number two once you kind of exhaust those resources you really need to focus on um referrals from those people that invested with you and hopefully you did a good job and you
 
keep your Communications up um which is really important too I should say that keeping those investor Communications are super important and hardly anybody does it you would you've got once they invest with you you got to fall up on regular basis that's right man provide the reports you wouldn't believe it I mean you would think that that that would be one of the easiest things but it's not because everybody has shiny object syndrome and as soon as you close a deal you're moving on to the next one
 
and you're not worried about those other investors well that's your best source of new investors are your current ones for referrals because if they give you a referral that's that's golden that's your easiest way um and then secondarily you're going to have to figure out a way to get in front of strangers and new investors so whatever that looks like if that looks like um going on other people's podcasts or starting your own podcast or speaking at events or um you know if you're a doctor start going to
 
conferences and just talking about um you know what you're investing in and what you're doing and the deals you're deals you're doing things like that you you've got to network you've got to get out there and you've got to figure out a way to get in front of of new people and and new potential investors any any specific uh um tools or you know softwares you recommend um you know me personally I I just use active campaign for my CRM um I've seen a bunch of people use different ones um go high level is great
 
as well because it's all in one so you can create your your emails your funnels CRM your courses if you have one you can manage a mastermind on there you can do it all on there um it doesn't do anything exceptional but it does everything pretty good so that's that's kind of the knock on it but yeah those are the two big ones that that I use same here I'm also good uh I'm I'm also into active campaign oh cool yep yeah yep that's a good tool yeah all right uh so uh Seth loving this conversation you know but uh I also need
 
to be mindful of your time so I would like to move on to the final round of questions uh is there anything else that you like to tell to a list us before we move to the final questions um I would just say you know I've seen this journey before I know a lot of your in your a lot of your listeners are passive investors and a lot of times when I give a keynote when I'm speaking it's a it's two passive investors so and I talk about the journey from passive investing to raising Capital um because that's kind
 
of the the natural progression it's like you invest passively for a while then your friends ask you about that deal and oh man where do you find these Investments blah blah blah and you know eventually you're like man maybe I can raise some Capital but you know doing that transition from passive investor to Capital razor um has never been easier right and especially with um you know I'm going to plug tribe here because it's a done for you product so when you have your five wealthy friends or your
 
10 wealthy friends that want to invest in a deal but you want to figure out how you can actually get paid for it legally triest does all the stuff that I was talking about doing before that's just a pain like getting your CPA getting a Securities attorney doing your offering documents starting a business we do all that for you we onboard your investors we do everything I mean it's it's a white glove service so you that didn't exist a few years ago um so it's it's easier than ever to make that transition
 
from passive investor to raising capital for somebody like you Ted that's awesome man uh you know it's always good to uh see like you know people simplifying the things less time less money less energy to put in and you get the same kind of returns and uh you know for sure yep uh let's move on to the final round of questions are you ready let's do it all right pretty easy ones okay so all right man I'll take your word for it better not stop me here so uh what are the main source of information main source of information
 
to learn and grow um you know I listen to a lot of podcasts I I do a lot of audio um if it's and especially like Audible for books and then podcast obviously for shorter content um and then if if I think it's a really good audible book then I'll actually buy the hard copy and and try to read it I won't say that I always get to it because I just don't have time but I like to listen to stuff while I'm working out and running and doing stuff like that um but mainly podcasts to just stay up up to date on
 
things and you know I've kind of actually gotten away from Real Estate specific podcast and more into like business things like um you know Alex horos and and those types of guys that talk about business generally I think it's a good flavor um to mix it up with awesome uh what is the one book that you'll recommend would had the most impact on your life or on your business yeah I mean you know it's Rich Dad Poor Dad I mean that's for sure I I'll say another one though because I would say everybody probably says that I
 
mean It Rich Dad Poor Dad definitely had the the most impact I mean it's I think it has that influence on a lot of people when they read that book they're like it's so simple but it just flips the light and it just changes the way that you look at kind of Life generally um but I would say this one it's a little flu flu but Miracle equation by Hal Hal Elrod um who did the miracle morning um this one came after that but it it's great because it's it just the the main line which is unwavering Faith plus
 
extraordinary effort equals Miracles I mean if you just kind of I use that as a mantra because it's like you know gets tough right like and you've got to be consistent and you've got to do it over and over again and when you're an entrepreneur or you're a business owner or even if you're an investor and you're trying to get out of your W2 you're 9 to5 like you don't know if it's going to have a happy ending so you have to have unwavering faith and if you do have that faith and you do keep putting in the
 
consistent effort it's going to work out in the end yeah absolutely I have read that book too it's one of my favorite also and all right so what is the one advice that you like to give to at least any business or investment advice yeah um pay for help pay for Speed um you know you can you can sit here and um figure it out yourself you can go to YouTube University you can go to chat GPT um you can listen to all the podcasts and read the books but nothing's going to accelerate your time like getting a coach or a mentor that's
 
already doing the things that you want to do um and don't be if you can't get them on board for free then pay them to do it um make sure you know what you're doing because a lot of people out there you know call themselves coaches and they're they're not they don't know what they're doing so be careful but if you find a good one don't be afraid to to pay money for that it it just blows my mind that you know people pay 40 50 $60,000 a year for a college education but then for you know a fourth of that
 
they could get direct Hands-On mentorship from somebody that's already doing exactly what they want to do and people don't want to do it it's you know they don't be afraid to pay for Speed don't be afraid to pay for help yeah just check out in detail what the coach has done for you know what exactly he's doing and what what he has done for different people yeah of course if it fits your yeah all right uh SE uh it was a pleasure talking to you and thanks a lot for all the details and information that
 
you provided to thanks Ted really appreciate it man oh before that I just missed one part how can decoding cash FL listeners get in touch with you for sure man I usually update my Links at Seth Paul bradley.com you can find all my social media links there and you can find links to tribe vest and and other things that I'm involved in if I'm raising capital for anything in particular but that's that's the best place to find all my links South paa bradley.com awesome man all right thanks a lot for
 
coming on the show my friend all right Ted appreciate it man thanks all right take it thanks for listening to decoding cash flow brought to you by Aster Capital if you found value in this episode then please share it with someone who you think could benefit from it and make sure to ask on what you've learned if you want Ted Patel to personally help you reach your goals then feel free to set up a one-on-one call with him also visit us at Aster capital.com for more free resources content of this podcast is for
 
informational purposes only as always please consult your own adviser before making any investment decisions or setting a course of action thanks again for joining us on this episode of decoding cash flow and we'll catch you in the next episode
Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4xTU9T6CVA&t=375s
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/astre-capital_astrecapital-podcast-finance-activity-7250610044331769857-4KgJ?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&rcm=ACoAAFY-6nMBbbX5J6KeuEtIMcA9tcRG4F_1ItE
https://www.instagram.com/p/DA_3q-BOWJm/
https://x.com/AstreCapital/status/1844844972295741635
https://fb.watch/zpTx6laLaU/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/astre-capital/
https://www.facebook.com/AstreCapital/
https://x.com/AstreCapital
https://www.instagram.com/astrecapital/
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

T1C 03 | The 1% Closer with Eli Facenda

In this episode, Seth Bradley interviews Eli Facenda about what sets him apart in the ultra-niche space of travel hacking for entrepreneurs. Eli Facenda explains that he and his team truly live what they teach—they are entrepreneurs themselves who have traveled extensively and understand the time and complexity challenges faced by business owners. Seth Bradley and Eli Facenda discuss how their credibility comes from personal experience, deep destination knowledge, and practicing what they preach. Eli Facenda shares one actionable tip to move closer to a dream life: block time on your calendar now for your dream trip, because unless you schedule your fun first, it won’t happen.
Links to Watch and Subscribe:
https://youtu.be/oLrxBcm_WFU
Bullet Point Highlights:
Eli separates himself by living what he teaches, he travels extensively and is a business owner, just like his clients
His team has traveled to 50–100 countries, giving them expert-level insight on global destinations
They bring real-world credibility, personalization, and strategic value to clients
Most travel "gurus" don’t walk the walk; Eli's team does
Actionable advice: Pick your dream destination, put it on the calendar, and commit
Quote inspiration: “If you don’t schedule your fun first, it won’t happen”
Entrepreneurs must prioritize life experiences, not wait for “the right time”
Transcript:
Eli, you're clearly in the top 1 % of what you do. I don't even know if there's that many people out there that do what you do at all, period. So clearly in the top 0.0001%, what is it about you that separates you from the rest of the field?
 
I think it's our ability to actually live what we preach. This is something where, you know, there are other fantastic people that talk about credit card points, but very few of them are actually business owners, like that's who we serve, and very few of them are actually traveling in the way that they're trying to help people travel. So we've done both. I've built multiple businesses, so I understand the...
 
psychology and the relatability of how you want to think about travel and point in the various stresses in your life, the limitations on time and complexity. So yeah, so not only have we really walked the walk with actually living what we preach, but we also understand that psychology of what it's like to be a business owner, your limitations on time and complexity and all that stuff. And because we're talking about travel, people also want to know like what's actually in store for me in this destination. I've been to 50 countries now and my business partner has been to almost a hundred.
 
We have other team members who are all over 30, 40, 50 countries. So we've been to a lot of the destinations around the world that we're advising people to go to. So we know the ins and outs, best places to stay, hidden gems, top restaurants, stuff like that, that really add another layer of personalization and true experience into the service. So I think those are the things that really make us most credible in this space.
 
Dude, it's so important, right? Like there's so many, you know, there's so much content out there now. There's gurus and coaches and mentors, whatever you want to call them. Like the ones that are truly valuable and that people should pay attention to are the ones that are actually practicing what they preach, right? The ones that aren't just selling you education or aren't just selling you a product. Like they're actually, they've done what they're selling and they continue to
 
Enjoy or do.
 
100%. Yeah, if you're a living embodiment of what you do, makes it that much easier to communicate it and sell it because you just are the thing you're selling. Yeah.
 
Absolutely. What's one thing someone listening could do today to get 1 % closer to their dream life?
 
One thing that would be the easiest is to spend 30 minutes, go on Instagram, go on your favorite social media site, go on some travel blog site, look for your dream destination, then pull up your calendar and put a time on the calendar where you're committing to go. One of my favorite quotes is from Tim Ferriss, I forget the exact quote, but basically the idea is that if you don't schedule your fun first, it won't happen.
 
because your business and your life will take up as much space as you allow it to. So most people find that I'll take the trip when it's convenient. I'll take the trip when I have more time. That time is never coming until you make it a priority. So the one thing they can do to get closer to their dream life is to just make a more bold commitment to putting the time on the calendar and be like, I am going and make some sort of investment, whether you're telling someone, whether you're putting some money down, whether you're learn the point stuff, that's gonna be the biggest leverage you can make.
 
to make sure that you actually follow through on taking these trips and then you'll find how to get there on points if you need to from there.
 
100 % man, gotta put it, people, entrepreneurs, people like us, we work in all the time, you've gotta put it, put it in your schedule. You've gotta block it out.
 
Absolutely, 100%.
 
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
Eli Facenda Links:
https://www.instagram.com/elitravelguy/
https://x.com/elitravelguy
https://www.linkedin.com/in/eli-facenda/
https://www.facebook.com/eli.facenda
https://www.youtube.com/@elifacenda
https://www.threads.com/@elitravelguy
https://www.skool.com/@eli-facenda-5305?t=posts

TME 11 | How You Can Win Trump’s Tariff War

Title: How You Can Win Trump’s Tariff War 
In this episode, Seth Bradley discusses the potential economic implications of President Trump’s aggressive tariff policies and how they could present unique opportunities for wealth building in America amid global economic upheaval. Seth Bradley explains that tariffs, essentially taxes on imports, serve as economic tools that can protect domestic industries but may also create broader economic challenges if not applied thoughtfully. Seth Bradley outlines the dynamics of Trump’s tariff strategy, including a systematic and reciprocal approach to trade that has the potential to reshape relationships with various countries and impact investment opportunities.
Seth Bradley emphasizes that while the stock market is experiencing volatility and media outlets are reacting negatively, there are underlying opportunities that savvy investors should seize. He advocates for focusing on U.S. manufacturing and infrastructure, energy independence, and advancements in AI and automation as key areas for investment. The video suggests that although immediate challenges such as inflation and retaliation from trade partners are likely, the long-term outlook points to a potential reshoring of American industry, a reemergence of economic sovereignty, and ultimately, an empowered U.S. economy.
Links to Watch and Subscribe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgWxz_V0lPk&list=PLSfheWyV7beFqERLX4ebBUJ4SmzmF6z8e&index=2
Bullet Point Highlights:
Market Volatility: The stock market sees a significant downturn as tariffs take effect, presenting both challenges and opportunities.
Tariff Strategy: Trump’s tariffs are described as calculated economic warfare, designed to compel countries to negotiate trade terms.
Manufacturing Reshoring: The video advocates for investing in U.S.-based manufacturing as companies look to bring jobs back onshore.
Energy Independence: Emerging opportunities in U.S. energy production are highlighted amid tariffs hurting foreign oil imports.
AI and Automation: The potential for AI-driven solutions to replace expensive offshore labor costs is discussed as a strategic investment avenue.
Investment Strategies: Three key strategies are proposed for capitalizing on the unique economic landscape: investing in infrastructure, energy, and AI technologies.
Vision for the Future: The potential long-term benefits of Trump’s tariff policies are framed as a chance to reset trade imbalances and promote U.S. economic strength.
Transcript:
(Seth Bradley)
Trump just broke the global economy and it might be the best thing to happen to America in decades. The stock market is crashing. China, Mexico, Canada, they're retaliating. The mainstream media is melting down. But the truth, if you understand what's really going on, this might be the single greatest opportunity of the decade to build wealth. So, let's break it down. No fluff, just facts. What's up, big brains? Welcome back to Raise the Bar, where I simplify complex money, legal, and political moves so you
 
can make power plays in real time. I'm Seth Bradley, securities attorney, founder, and investor, and I quit a multiple six-f figureure big law job to pursue entrepreneurship and a life without limits. Today, I'm giving you the truth about tariffs, Trump's Liberation Day, and how to turn this global shakeup into your personal leverage point. All right, let's get it. Let's start out with the basics. So, what exactly is a tariff? At its core, a tariff is a tax on imports. That's right. It is a tax. When a foreign
 
company sells goods into the US, the government slaps on a tax, usually a percentage of the total value. So, if a car from Germany costs 50k and there's a 10% tariff, then that car now costs $55,000 to bring into the US. So, who pays the tariff? Well, it's US importers, not the foreign shippers. And yes, it trickles down to you, the consumer, right here in the US. But tariffs aren't just taxes. They're economic weapons. And right now, Trump's using them with either surgical precision or as a nuclear bomb,
 
depending on how you look at it. All right. To know where you're going to go, you have to know where you come from. Tariffs go way back in American history. It's not anything new. And in fact, before the IRS, tariffs were how we paid for the entire federal government, rather than through, let's say, income taxes, property, capital gains taxes, and all these other taxes that we all just know and love today. Tariffs haven't always resulted in good or bad for the US. It's a mixed bag. Alexander Hamilton pushed for tariffs to protect
 
US industry. Success, yes. Abraham Lincoln used them to industrialize the North during the Civil War. Success, yes. But in the 1930s, the Smooth Holly Tariff Act backfired hard, triggering a trade war that deepened the Great Depression. So, not always successful. Tariffs can protect jobs and industries, but if they're too extreme or poorly timed, they can tank the economy. So, the key is strategy. And whether or not you believe in Trump, he's playing chess here, not checkers. Something you never
 
used to associate with Trump is humble, but he has come a long way and is humble enough to at least have some of the greatest economic minds in his corner. So, they have a business-minded mentality, and that's exactly what this is. We need to stop treating the government like it's aing goodwill. It's not here to give you for free, and it's certainly not here to take what's yours. It's here to work for you, for what the people want, and decide through a democratic process what to do. Once upon a time, we literally became a
 
country because we wanted independence, self-sufficiency, and freedom. We chose to break free from overt taxation, oppression, control, regulation, and government oversight. What's happening in 2025? In case you missed it, let's get caught up right now. Trump has declared Liberation Day and followed up with the most aggressive global tariff policy in modern history. A minimum of 10% tariffs on every import into the US, up to 60% tariffs on China. That changes every single day though. Reciprocal
 
tariffs on all countries. If a country charges us 25%, we charge them 25% back. But that's not exactly true. And we'll get into more of that later. Canada and Mexico not exempt. This isn't just about China. It's about a full global reset. So the kicker is formula based. Trump's trade team built a publicly disclosed algorithm that adjusts tariff rates based on countries how countries treat the US exports. It's dynamic. is constantly changing. It updates monthly. This isn't random. It's calculated
 
economic warfare. All right, next. Now that it's in effect, what's happening? Well, you're seeing it. Wall Street is panicking. S&P 500 is down 14% in the first two weeks. Tech stocks are plummeting. Elon Musk just posted on X that supply chain realignment is overdue and this pain is necessary. Mexico is negotiating. Canada's threatening retaliation, but also showing signs of blinking. China, they're digging the toes in, but there's exports that are suffering. You just won't hear all this stuff on CNBC, but you know, many of
 
these global players are coming to the table. Tariffs are doing exactly what they're designed to do. Force negotiation, good or bad. Trump's move is forcing every country to rethink dependence on the US consumer. And not just that, it's forcing us to rethink how we depend on them. All right, let's set the record straight on a few of these common things that are floating around here. One, tariffs only hurt the other country. That's totally wrong. US businesses and consumers feel the sting, and we will. We are, at least
 
at first. Sometimes you're going to hear this is just economic nationalism. But that's also wrong. This is about strategic leverage, not about isolating us. Third, it's inflationary in the short term. This is true. But if local supply chains relocize, prices stabilize and strengthen the domestic economy and we'll be good to go. But right now, we're feeling it. Next, tariffs can bring manufacturing back. This is true. Maybe, and we're already seeing US factories reannounced, reopenings in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, places
 
like that. And we've seen trillions of dollars of investment promises rolling in already. But if this steers us into a deep recession, companies won't have the resources or confidence to build. All right. So, what's my prediction? And some of these aren't even predictions cuz they're happening right now. Are risks, short-term inflation, price increases, stock market volatility, retaliation from trade partners. These things are already happening. So, they're probably just going to escalate for the near future.
 
But the potential upsides, reshoring of manufacturing, massive supply chain independence, huge massive negotiation leverage for better and at the very least equal trade terms. Stronger US dollars, capital fleas, unstable markets abroad. Those are all massive positives, but they're not going to happen overnight. So, what's my prediction? short-term pain, long-term economic sovereignty, but we're entering a serious rebalancing period, and the US is reasserting its economic power. And while it hurts now, this could finally
 
reset the broken trade game that's been bleeding our economy dry for decades and would eventually take us down. All right, so what do we do about it? We need to capitalize. So, what are the three smartest ways to capitalize on Trump's 2025 tariffs? There are lots of unknowns and unpredictability in business. But one thing is always true. When there's panic in the streets, there is massive opportunity somewhere and there's going to be wealth transfer. For those with cool heads, fortitude, and discipline, we can win. So, what am I
 
doing? And what can you do to capitalize on all of this unpredictability? All right. Strategy number one, invest in US manufacturing and infrastructure. Tariffs equal a return to Americanmade. Full stop. Trump's reciprocal tariffs aren't just economic sanctions. They're a forced reshoring event here in the US. Global trade is breaking. Supply chains are rerouting. Countries like China, Mexico, and Canada, they're scrambling to adjust. And meanwhile, America is rebuilding. This is your moment to build
 
wealth while the rest of the market panics. So, how do we actually do this? Play number one, invest passively in the U in industrial and infrastructure projects. Tap into private equity funds, syndications, or REIT alternatives that focus on, of course, manufacturing facilities, US-based supply chain logistics, cold storage, and warehouse assets, transportation, freight infrastructure, that stuff works, too. These funds are just pouring into the reshoring initiatives, not just from the government, but from Fortune 500
 
companies rethinking their risk exposure. Play number two for my capital raisers out there. Raise capital for experienced sponsors in the same space. If you're not the operator, but you've got a network, become a capital aggregator. Use SPVS or fund of funds models like TriVest to compliantly pull investor capital into high quality US industrial and infrastructure deals. Bring your network along. Bring limited partners into deals with better terms, higher leverage, and strategic upside. Focus on experienced sponsors. Of
 
course, do your due diligence. Make sure they have a track record in industrial real estate or again critical infrastructure. All right, play number three. If you have the resources, buy directly. Also got to have the knowhow, right? Focus on manufacturing assets, warehouses near growing ports, logistics hubs, things like that. Make sure you have a boots on the ground partner if it's not you in that local market. Think markets like Columbus, Kansas City. These cities are turning into many powerhouses as global shipping patterns
 
shift inland. Bonus play, buy dirt where the roads are going. Right? So, if you're into residential and you don't know anything about industrial and you're not comfortable with it, think about residential and mixed juice land near inland ports, new highways, industrial corridors, growth zones, things like that. These plays won't necessarily cash flow day one, but they will appreciate like crazy over the next 3 to 5 years as that infrastructure is finally built out. Strategy number two, energy independence investing. If
 
manufacturing is the body, energy is the blood, where are you going to power this thing from? Trump's tariffs are slamming foreign oil and renewables equipment. And that gives domestic US producers, especially in oil and gas and renewables such as batteries, an unmatched advantage. And with the world watching this tariff war unfold, there's one thing everyone agrees on. Energy is national security right now. So what do you do? Play number one, invest passively, of course, in US energy assets, oil and gas royalties, own a
 
slice of production without the drilling risk. You have to dig deep into those documents and see what you're getting yourself into. There's a lot of different oil and gas funds that are structured in different ways and have different tax incentives versus cash flow. So, make sure you dig deep into that. Also look at battery manufacturers like Stack Rack Battery, especially US-based ones, solar developers, those leveraging domestic supply chains. Look for funds and startups focused on energy independence, not just ESG headlines.
 
Real world example, I had mentioned StackRrack battery. I co-founded StackRrack, a US-based modular battery company. And we're not just producing batteries, we're part of the national grid modernized push. Our battery systems are designed, they're assembled, and they're shipped right here in the US. We're ULcertified, scalable, and recession resistant. And tariffs just gave us a built-in mode. This is exactly what happens when policy meets opportunity. You just have to open your eyes and find those right opportunities.
 
And a bonus here, tax credit tailwinds. The US is still offering massive tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act, for now at least. Pair that with import based price increases and you've got a once in a decade profit window. And building on that, what's your capital aggregator play? If you don't want to operate, partner with fund managers or sponsors deploying capital into these sectors, be the legal, the capital raising or the strategic partner in high demand governmentbacked tariff fueled energy projects. My law firm,
 
Raise Law, can help you build any capital raising structure you can imagine. So feel free to reach out. All right, strategy number three, back or build AIdriven alternatives to offshore labor. Tariffs don't just hit goods, they hit services, too. Let me explain. Think about it. If China, Mexico, or Canada are now more expensive to work with because of reciprocal tariffs, that raises the cost of offshore labor. So, enter what's happening right now. AI, automation, US-based software. This is your moment to kill the middleman.
 
Reduce labor cost and automate what is already going to be offshored. This is your moment to kill the middleman. Reduce labor cost and automate what was once offshored in different countries. So here we go. Play number one. Build or invest in AI tools that replace outsource labor. Think about jobs like customer service, document review and data entry, uh logistics coordination, manufacturing floor labor, things like that. It's not sci-fi. The LLMs and the manufacturing robotics are ready today and the opportunity is right now. All
 
right, so step-by-step action plan. Identify high friction outsource tasks that just got more expensive. Right. Next, what's the capital aggregator play? partner with early stage AI founders or companies. Use your network expertise or capital raising jobs to make strategic investments or even try to leverage an advisory equity position or a role in a startup in these sectors. I've done it and feel free to reach out and I can tell you more about how I've done it. So, pro tip though, don't just invest in AI for the sake of it. Invest
 
in AI that displaces foreign labor. That's where the pressure is. That's where the real value will be. This is the moment most people will fear. We're in it right now and a few smart ones will capitalize. Tariffs are just the first shot in a major larger realignment. And if you're able to stay calm, not get caught up in all the political nonsense. This is a time where real wealth changes hands. Keep your mind clear, keep your eyes open, and if this breakdown helped you see the game clearer, smash that subscribe button,
 
drop a comment with your take on Trump's global economic strategy, and let me know, are you playing offense or defense? Keep your head in the game. Raise the bar, baby. Until next time, enjoy the journey. [Music]
Links from the Show and Guest Info and Links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgWxz_V0lPk&list=PLSfheWyV7beFqERLX4ebBUJ4SmzmF6z8e&index=2
https://www.facebook.com/sethbradleyesq/posts/pfbid02RZL2XfebNjV7orN7Ze4Ue8z437ZobHSQoDoCZWwLNwG1VgsshZrRMSkyeGkydwZGl
https://www.instagram.com/p/DIUN1PvTvgQ/
https://x.com/sethbradleyesq/status/1910758713683746925
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/sethbradleyesq_tariffs-trump2025-donaldtrump-activity-7316522747164086272-47ae?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