Brett Tanner says you can learn more from what he didn't do to succeed than from what he did. From age 19 to 30 he didn't party, didn't take a sick day for a ten year stretch, and waited three years to have kids while he and his wife saved. He has since put over $1,000,000 into his own education and still keeps two or three coaches on retainer.
Brett TannerHost, founder of Be WealthyAt ASU, his first English teacher called Brett's paper completely illiterate and sent him to the writing center. He rewrote his papers about 19 times just to get a 72%, and ended up walking at graduation six credits short of his degree. He still hasn't gone back to finish it.
Jump to 4:00Before dating apps existed, Brett asked pointed questions on early dates to see if a partner's vision of the future matched his. He asked whether she wanted a career or wanted to stay home with kids, and when his now-wife said she wanted to stay home, he knew their goals lined up. Finding her early kept him out of the dating scene for years.
Jump to 8:52From 19 to 30, Brett worked 60 to 80 hours a week and barely drank. For a ten year stretch, and still today, he says he has never missed a single day at the office for being sick, even through fevers and bad colds. He says the gap between the best performers and everyone else is showing up on the days you don't feel like it.
Jump to 12:16Brett and his wife set a financial bar they believed would take three years to hit before starting a family. She was making over six figures by 2003 and her income covered their bills, while 100% of his income went into buying assets. They waited so money wouldn't be a source of stress once kids arrived.
Jump to 15:45Brett has put more than $1,000,000 into books, training, masterminds and private coaches, and he still keeps two or three full-time coaches working with him. He says a coach's job is to spot the blind spots you can't see yourself. He compares that to friends who have seen every episode of Yellowstone and haven't read a book.
Jump to 19:09Brett hired his first employee, Sabrina, as a part-time assistant in the mid-2000s, paying her around $12 an hour for 20 hours a week. Today she runs his companies as CEO. He argues that putting $100,000 into the right employee can return $500,000 or more in profit, even though a bad hire can cost just as much.
Jump to 27:11Brett says momentum drives his business, and it comes from doing the work every day. When he goes home he asks himself one question: did I put in the work today to win? He can't control the outcome on any single day, but he can control the effort. He has watched agents hit a record month, ease off the gas, and see their income fall right back down.
Jump to 29:13Momentum is the key to business. And it's so weird because how you get it, you don't really know. But if you do a lot of hard work and you get a little luck every now and then, you earn an ounce of momentum.Brett Tanner · at 0:00
Tap any chapter and the video starts right there.
“I ask myself every single day to this day when I go home, did I put in the work today to win?”
Brett Tanner at 22:45This episode is about the choices and trade-offs behind Brett's success, the same priorities the mountains exercise asks you to map out.
Brett Tanner says he didn't party in college, didn't play the field while dating, didn't take sick days, and never stopped investing in his own education. He frames his path as a list of things he refused to do, and he spent the time he saved working and building skills.
Brett says for a ten year stretch, and still today, he has never missed a single day at the office for being sick, even with fevers and bad colds. He's not against rest, but he says he's never had an earache so bad he couldn't pick up the phone and make a call.
Brett treated his early dates like interviews, asking direct questions about what kind of life a partner wanted, like whether she pictured herself working or staying home with kids. When his now-wife's answers lined up with his own vision, he stopped dating around and committed.
Brett Tanner says he has spent over $1,000,000 on books, training, masterminds and private coaches, and he still keeps two or three full-time coaches working with him today. He says a coach's value is spotting blind spots you can't see on your own.
Brett Tanner thinks so. He says investing $100,000 in the right employee can generate $500,000 or more in profit for a business, though a bad hire can cost just as much. His own first hire, Sabrina, started as a part-time assistant making about $12 an hour and is now the CEO of his companies.
0:00Momentum is the key to business. And it's so weird because how you get it, you don't really know. But if you do a lot of hard work and you get a little luck every now and then, you earn an ounce of momentum. If you don't do anything and sit on your couch and you get flabby and lazy and you're just not doing quite well, I'm going to judge you for being lazy.
0:15And then if you're going to the gym and you're getting jacked and you're reading books, you're working on your skills and you put in the time you're grinding. They're going to say, Look at this person. All they care about is how they look. So everyone's going to judge you no matter what. Most people are always focused on the outcome, and I only look at the effort and I ask myself every single day to this day when I go home, did I put in the work today to win?
0:35Welcome back. To be wealthy with Brett Tanner. I am excited to be here with you today. I am beyond excited about today's episode, which is all about a question I get all the time. But before we jump in, I want to talk about our last episode. We went through five investments that you probably haven't heard of, and we went through different ways to think about them because investing, it's all about what you know.
0:59And today the world's got to be a really big place. But there's so much information and connectivity that you're only one relationship, one podcast or one book away from a total breakthrough. And so when you go back and if you're if you have not listened that episode, go back and listen to it right now, because I'm going to tell you five investments I've got my favorite one in there, which spoiler alert is hard money lending, but I'm going to walk you through the different asset classes, why I love them and how I think you can participate in the assets that historically have been really reserved for the really, really wealthy and kind of been in
1:33this kind of buy in the curtain and you couldn't get access to it. And so you've got I want to give you access to it. I want to share with you what I'm doing. So go back and listen. Episode is always I'm joined by Cole, who we're still looking for a nickname for calls here. Great. Woo hoo. Cole We need a little more enthusiasm with those in the future, but something we could definitely work on the manager ones here, There's a lot to manage, but today I'm going to cover a question I get ask all the time.
2:00And so as we jump in. Cole, the question I get is a version of this How did you become successful? And the answer you hear most people say is some eloquent answer that sounds like, Well, I worked really hard and I studied some things and I did some stuff, and then now it's all kind of happening. I pick up my phone and I make, you know, millions of dollars per year.
2:19And I could tell you my journey was not that way. And yes, today, a version of doing some cool things I get to do. I get to speak on really cool stages with the biggest speakers in the world, and I get to travel to a really cool place and I get to really cool things. But I started from absolutely nothing.
2:37So I think a better way to reframe that question is now what did I do to be successful but what did I not do? You could actually learn so much more by what I didn't do than the things I did do. And so I want to go back and share with you the things I didn't do to become successful.
2:53And so I want to go back and I want you to imagine that you grew up in a town I'll just give you I'll set the stage for my scenario. I grew up in a town. I was ten miles away from a town called Dove Creek, ten miles away. It was a town, the population about 700 people. My high school graduating class is 17 people.
3:13Not the greatest education, poorest county in the state of Colorado. We actually could not go to school five days a week. Call and I think you knew that story. But when I was about in fourth grade, the school came out and said, Hey, if we actually don't go to school five days a week, we only go to school four days a week.
3:29The school doesn't have to run. The busses will have to go a little longer each day, but you won't have to go to school on Fridays. So my entire life from fifth grade on and everyone's going to Friday, which was actually kind of cool. I don't know. It's the greatest educational thing called, but was really cool for fun.
3:45And so I show up to ASU in the year of 1999. Cool. That's in the 1900s. Gets confusing for you hipsters. They're called me in hip hop pep calls born. You're born in 99. Cool. Great year, great year calls born. That's when I went to college. Perfect. That's a lot of connectivity we have there. Great year. And I show up to a campus of 40,000 people.
4:05I'm excited to be there and I show up to English 1 to 1 or whatever it's called the entry level class called the lowest level that you can actually get college credits for. And I show up there, I turn in my first paper and I'll never forget the teacher said, What is this? Is this a rough draft? Is I was like, Oh, no, this is I'm done this final.
4:21She said, You're completely illiterate. This is terrible. I wouldn't even accept this as an F. Like, whoa. I mean, well, what do I do? So you need to go to the writing center. What I did not know we're going to write is Internet was like the smart students. They went to really good high schools. They are the teachers in this writing center.
4:37And so now you hand your paper to someone who also says you're a moron, you can't write, you use bullet points and run on sentences. And I don't even think you understand what a paragraph structure is, which full disclosure call is. You know, I still don't understand paragraph structure today. So for those of you out there that are freaking out, tell you it's not needed, you can do bullet points for anything and absolutely crush it.
4:57So I spend my early college years rewriting papers about 19 times just so I can get it to the level to try to get a 72%. My motto for a little while there coal was CS four degrees. I don't like to brag, but I did walk at ASU. I was six credits short of a college degree. I never went back and I am still six credits short of that same college degree.
5:20I have the most incredible diploma holder you can possibly imagine. And so as I go through it, I mean, imagine I'm 19 years old, it's 1999 and I'm at ASU. And so here's a list of things I didn't do that made me successful. First thing, I actually didn't party in college. I partied for about six months and I will never forget I showed up at a party and the guy was 27 years old.
5:45He'd been there a while and I said, Dude, what are you doing here? You're 27. What do you do? And he was like, No, I think I'm about to get my degree. So man, when did you start? He's like, Oh, I started, you know, seven, eight years ago. I'm like, Well, are you going on your second doctorate or No, no.
6:00Oh, you're working on your first four year degree. Cool. And I realize and that moment is one of the more impactful moments in my life. I realize if I'm not careful, I could become that guy and let your slip away and I realize that he did it just by. He's out partying it out, doing his thing, and he's just on a road to nowhere.
6:17He has no clue what he wants in his future, doesn't understand what he want. He isn't happy with what he has right now. And there's no connectivity. And we've talked about that in other episodes. So the one thing I didn't do, I didn't party. I actually rarely drank from the ages of 19 to 30. It's not that I'm a binge drinker now, but I'll have the occasional cocktail of girlfriends and have drinks.
6:35But I actually didn't drink at all, or hardly at all from age 19 to 30. What do they do? My entire focus was waking up as early as I could in the morning and working till as late as I could. And I know we're in a time today where working hard has been demonized like, I need work like balance and I want to.
6:52These are things I don't know a single successful person in my entire life right now that's really successful, that hasn't spent a period or seasons of their life working really, really hard. I get to hang out and be friends with some people that are just some of the most successful people are out there in their space, and I don't have a single one of them that says I'm working the four hour workweek.
7:16I've got a really flexible schedule. I can come in any day. I just haven't seen that. The people that play at the highest levels are typically putting in the most work. Hard work is not a bad thing. And I think also, why do you have to put in the hard work on something you don't love? I honestly I put in probably call even right now.
7:37I bet I'm working 60 plus hours a week and I don't actually count the hours because it doesn't feel like work to me. Like this isn't a job. Getting to do this podcast is an absolute privilege that I'm getting to do to share with other people and hopefully that it impacts them and helps them change their lives in a meaningful way.
7:53So we're not getting paid to do this call. This is a give back, but this is not something I have to do. I get to do this in. So I go back and I looked at I put in the time, what was I doing when I wasn't out drinking? Well, I got up really early and I worked really, really late.
8:07My entire process was getting ahead. All right. I did want to let you know we do have two seats available for our upcoming mastermind. That is the week of May 6th in our mastermind, a day and a half event with 150 real estate agents, investors or entrepreneurs all around one discussion. It doesn't really matter what business you have.
8:26Here's the idea. The idea is that your business is is designed to make profit. We help entrepreneurs go make more money, and then we help them do really, really cool things with the money, create passive income so that they can go live the lives they want. If you loved, learn more about those tickets and if you want to come shadow one of our events.
8:41We do have two seats. It's the week of May 6th. You can go to B wealthy Brett dot com or you can click the link in the show notes and you can get all the information there. We'd love to see it at one of our events. Second thing I did, I didn't actually love the dating scene. I know some people are like, Oh, this is before Tinder and Bumble and whatever the other things are out there.
9:00The cool hip dating apps. Cool. I met my girlfriend at the time. Why now? The old fashioned way, like two human beings exchanging in a conversation. But I also realized when I went on early dates, I'm like, How do I have a way to measure if I want to continue going on a date with this person? How do I know if I want to be with this person the future, or do I want to maybe start a relationship and start spending more time together?
9:21How would I know? And for whatever reason, I wrote down a This is what I would want in a person and as a partner and I got really clear like, What kind of partner are you looking for? Almost think of it like if I how would I know if this person I was if you treated dates like job interviews.
9:36Not to say that they're job interviews, have you had that methodology to where you're asking questions? You might get really specific about the questions you want That could lead to really interesting conversation, whether the date goes anywhere in the future or not. But it allows you to gauge, is this person someone that I'd want to go and spend another date with, another date with to the eventually get a relationship and see some in the future.
9:55So one of my questions were I wanted to figure out what kind of spouse I wanted. And I grew up in a real traditional. My parents have a real traditional marriage. You know, my dad works and my mom stayed at home with the kids with me. And I liked the way that worked. And so what I realized, I wanted my spouse, if we could afford it, I wanted someone who wanted to stay home, who wanted to really run the house, wanted to be with the kids all the time and wanted that.
10:18And so when I started dating, I'd ask, Hey, do you want to have a career? Or, you know, hypothetically, if you had kids down the road, what are you thinking? Where is this going for you? And so in asking that question, what am I doing? I'm seeing if their ideal world lines up with mine. Now, while some people are good at telling you what they want, they're really great at telling you what they don't want in.
10:37So something is a better way. Would you not want to would you not want to do this? Would you not want to work? Would you not want to stay at home? And so asking that. And so when I asked, Hillary said, Yeah, we could afford this. I would love to be at home. I want to be home with the kids.
10:49I want to do it in school. I want to donate time in the school. My wife, to this day, I would I would challenge call anyone out there that I bet in elementary school my wife has spent more time donating time in the classroom than I would be almost any other mom out there. She is there every single day.
11:06It's like I feel like we're we're on the racing team at the school and I couldn't love it more. She's doing it to get closer to our kids to be in there, and she wants to volunteer and be a part of that. And I think that's the highest level of work you could possibly do, right? We don't have her our work.
11:21Her work is way more valuable than mine. There's different energy required, and hers was much more rewarding than mine. I get to be in the classroom with our kids, so instead of having time where I'm out dating and try to find people and partying, I quickly found someone I didn't have to party in. The irony is my wife was wilder in college and I was not.
11:40And then today I'm a little wilder and she's not. It's because it kind of we've kind of cool. We've got like this we've crossed at some point and what I but I didn't have to go out dating so I found someone I wanted to be with. I didn't have the partying thing. So what I had was all of this time that I could either spend with her or spend building my skills and building my companies.
12:00So from that, the period of time from 19 to 30, I was on the grind. It was seven days a week, it was all the time. And I went at it with every possible force I had in my being. Third thing I didn't do, I didn't travel, I didn't get sick and I didn't take time off. It doesn't mean I want to be really clear here.
12:20This isn't I'm not blasting, getting sick. I'm just saying I see people I see people in our companies today or in other people's companies where they're their average miss time per year is three or four weeks between vacation and sick. Time and time off and other stuff. And obligations are personal problems. And I'm not saying that that's all not valid.
12:40All I'm saying is for a ten year period, and even to this day, I've never missed a single day at my office for being sick. That doesn't mean that I wasn't sick or I had a few days out there. Girl, I didn't feel great. I had some days where I had a fever, I had some days rest, coughing.
12:56And I'm not saying be an Iron Man and not just be the toughest person in the world. I'm just saying the difference between the greatest players out there and the ones that aren't great, sometimes they had to do stuff when they didn't feel amazing. I heard a quote once. The difference between the people that the person that gets the gold medal in the Olympics and the person that get the bronze is they trained even when they were hurt or sick.
13:16Now I get it. Someone's going be out there and say you shouldn't hurt when you're training, when you're you're hurt and you should do it when you're sick. And I don't take it that way, just ask, were there some days that maybe emotionally you didn't want to go to work and you justified that decision with logic and decide to stay home?
13:32I can knock off today and that'll be okay. For most of us, right today, we're not shoveling coal in trains. We're picking up or we're putting our AirPods in and we're either zooming or we're calling. And so I don't care how bad the earache is cold. I've never had an earache that was so bad that I couldn't pick up the phone and call someone.
13:53Right. So if you eliminate the excuses from your life and say, look, I'm going to I'm going to I'm not going to be traveling all the time, my twenties, I'm not saying don't travel all the time. I'm just saying I didn't do it. I probably didn't go more than like a three day weekend, maybe a guy's trip, or I'd take to go skiing for the weekend and we would be back in it, right?
14:09We did not travel and there was a period of time we were doing this and she looked at me and said, Are we winning? Everyone we know is living better than us. I said, Yeah, because they're buying cars and crap and we're buying houses. We're taking every single dollar we have and we're buying assets, cash flow, producing assets and baby, I said, ten years from now they won't understand how we did it.
14:3320 years from now, they won't even understand the lives that we have. And now that I'm more than 20 years into it, I can tell you it's really confusing for a lot of my old friends. I think it's really confusing, but I did it by busting my ass and I want to get clear. It's not a bad thing.
14:47Like hard work shouldn't be judged. Now, if you're sacrificing everything for the work, meaning you're you're never seeing your spouse because you're working all the time. You don't have relationships, your kids, you have no long term relationships. All you care about that. No, that's terrible, of course. But also the person that never got out of bed and never did anything that's also bad.
15:06I also want to tell your friends are going to judge, Your family's going to judge you. Everyone you know is going to judge you. I want you to think about this. If you don't do anything and sit on your couch and you get flabby and lazy and you're just not do anything clever, I'm going to judge you for being lazy.
15:19And then if you're going to the gym and you're getting jacked and you're reading books, you're working on your skills, you're putting the time, you're grinding, they're going to say, Look at this person. All they care about is how they look. So everyone's going to judge you no matter what. Why don't you figure out what you want and go at it with every single thing you've got?
15:33And so for me, I decided the one thing that I could control was the amount of effort I put in and the intensity at which I put that in. And I spent my entire time working on time and intensity. The next thing I did, I, I immediately didn't have kids When I got married, we wanted to have kids.
15:50We financially couldn't afford to have kids and my wife would have needed to work. But we decided to wait. We set a financial bar that if we hit that bar, we believed it based on the math that we had, it would take us three years. So after we got married, if we waited three years and we were living, you know, very, very inexpensively, again, we're not traveling all the time.
16:07We're working. We're both working 60, 80 hours a week. I work seven days a week. And we were putting money away because we wanted to get to a financial position to where we had kids. We wouldn't have stress, right? We did not want to have that. So we waited for that. And every action that we took was around the goal of getting to where when we had kids, my wife got to stay home and that was going to be our thing.
16:29So there's no judgment if you had kids to replace. I'm just trying to explain what did I do to get here? The next thing I didn't buy fancy cars, clothes, dinners and stuff. All my friends, again, we talked about early, they're all out doing those things. You know, the part that we decided was my wife had a really, really great job.
16:47She was making over six figures in 2003, and that's called those are two $23. I want to be clear that a lot of people don't make six figures today. She was doing in 2003. Here's what we decided to do. 100% of her compensation. We used to pay our bills, our mortgage and everything we needed to survive. 100% of my income was was used to build the business and primarily to buy assets.
17:12Imagine of 100% of the money you made was into buying assets, but you've got to have a lockstep partner that understands that, right. How many spouses out there like, Yeah, totally. I'll take care of everything and then you go run like crazy. I don't think a lot of people are into that for us. That worked perfectly. And it was the it was actually what allowed us to get to where we are today.
17:32I'm the one that gets to be on the podcast. My wife will probably be on a future one if I can ever get her in here. It's not really her her thing. She's not a public speaker and she's just scared to death of talking on camera, even though that there's no one here other than me. But I would love her to share a story because I don't think a lot I don't think a lot of partners do.
17:48They think like she did, which was, look, if I can free you up to go do this thing, you go do it. Or I could stay at home and free her up and she could go do the thing right. But getting clear on your roles and responsibilities at home might be the key to unlocking the wealth that you're looking for in figuring out to get your life together.
18:05Are you tired of just paying taxes and feel like it's an endless loop where you just pay and pay and pay? I got to be honest. That's exactly how I felt and I wanted to find a way for the rental properties I was purchasing to take more depreciation. I'd heard about it. The commercial properties do this cool thing called cost segregation, but I couldn't find anybody that would do it on a single family house.
18:24So if you're listening to this and you bought a rental property after January one, 2019, it was actually a little before that the Tax Jobs Act passed. But after January one, 2019, and you have not done a cost segregation, you should get a free report from single family costs, income they give all the listeners of be wealthy Brett 10% off go there there is a they will give you a free proposal you take that to your CPA.
18:47How what would be my refund or what would be the benefit which would come in the form of a refund back from the government to you get that report, see if it makes sense. Go to single family cost segue. Joe's team will take amazing care of you at single family costs dot com and you can use those funds to go out invest, create passive income and be wealthy.
19:08The next thing I didn't stop investing in my education at this point as we film is right now I've spent over $1,000,000 just investing into this right well over that number. And it's been that's from books, it's from training, it's from high end Mastermind. That's from private coaches. I am constantly when I have a coach, I've always had a coach.
19:26Right now I think I've got trying to think, call it a ping on how you, you know, I guess some weird things. I do you know I got points, coach That's kind of bizarre, but I at least have got two or three full time coaches that I'm employing that I want to help me get to the next level because everything I know in life is taking me to the spot I'm at right now to get to the next level.
19:43I may need a different idea, strategy or tactic that a coach can see. What does a coach do? They allow you to spot your blind spots. They're like, Hey, I've been around that corner before. You got to be careful as you get three clicks out. And so I'm still I didn't stop investing in my education. I'll go to one of my friends and I'm like, Dude, have you read this book?
20:00Or you check it out. This what's going on now? They're they're like, No, I don't have time for that now. They're fully caught up on Yellowstone. They got all the episodes of billions. You know, they're binge watching, just a ton of YouTube call, binge watching, just an endless amount of YouTube, but they're not reading any books. And then if you tell someone, hey, man, maybe reading books now and maybe not audible all the time and you'll get blasted for that, too.
20:23We make a post out there and I say, Hey, Audible's not reading, listening that same as reading. That's true statement. That's fact. Everyone would agree to that if you read a dictionary. But no, people will get pissed because they don't want to do the work of actually taking a book out if it's for, you know, if it's nonfiction and purposeful self-help reading and somethings are charts and graphs.
20:40I think it's helpful if you lay the book out, you open it up, you dog hear it, you highlight it, you write down, I want to come back to this. So this is an action item or this gave me another idea, right? If you really approach reading and learning that there was 3 to 5 ideas that you want to take out of that activity, put into an action plan, get into your calendar and start executing, it might change your entire life.
21:02So I don't want to go off on a rant, but I say education is the key. Again, I started I couldn't even read an English paper today. We're probably in the process of going to write a book, which seems impossible. Someone's totally literate, can write a book, but guess what? I can talk on a microphone and they can put that into a paragraph format and I'll figure it out from there.
21:19So I didn't stop investing my education. Next thing is, I became successful. I didn't stop the hours, I didn't stop working. I didn't stop putting in the effort to continue to grow. I see people as they have that first level of success and all of a sudden they get that first big check, the first big commission, the first time they get a $20,000 check.
21:39And what happens? It gets just erased. It gets vanished right out of their hands into the ether. The universe extracts it because they didn't raise their financial thermostat. They had no model for what would I do if I had $20,000 in my account? What's the purpose of those funds? How do I use it to buy my time back?
21:56How do I use it to get ahead? They're not asking that question. And so they also you see it I see someone have their record setting month in sales. What do they do? They start letting off the gas, Right? They were working 3 hours a day on the phone, setting all the appointments, doing the appointments afternoon in the afternoon.
22:11They have that record setting month and they let off the gas only to have their income right back. Go back right back where it was. I have always went home and told my wife I'm a momentum player. I need momentum. Momentum is the key to business. And it's so weird because how you get it, you don't really know.
22:28But if you do a lot of hard work and you get a little luck every now and then, you get an ounce of momentum. That first step, that first right thing to go your way. I can leverage just a small amount of momentum into a huge, huge win in business. But it starts with getting that first win. The wins come from doing the activities and so I never stop working.
22:45I never stop focusing on the outcome. The work was the work, right? If I'm going to make 50 calls a day, it is what it is. And some days I didn't win every single day, but I started measuring my days in a different way. Most people are always focused on the outcome and I only look at the effort and I ask myself every single day to this day when I go home, Did I put in the work today to win?
23:06Not did I win. Winning's irrelevant. I can't control always the outcomes on a given day. But did I actually put in the right amount of work so that I had the chance to win? Was I actually in the game? I think so many people don't even realize they're not even in the game. They're in the wrong parking lot driving to a stadium.
23:21It's not even for the same sport goal. They're totally not in the game. The next thing, a lot of money. So as I said, here is a is a 43 year old adult male a lot of my friends call have hit that seven year itch in their marriage. And there are all of the a lot of them, not all of many of them are getting divorced and moving on.
23:41And there's a variety of reasons for that. And there's look, I understand that two people might just not meant to be together. That being said, I think marriage is hard. And for me, what I didn't do is I didn't stop investing in my marriage. Every single day. I look at it like I'm trying out now. I'm married. The greatest human of our time.
23:57She's hot. She's fun, greatest mom, best wife. Yeah. Someone had to be the luckiest person on earth. And it happened to be me. But I never stop investing every day I'm trying out to be there. And if we're being really honest, it's probably easier for my wife to find someone really cool than it is me these days. Right?
24:14Who wants to do data? Dude with white hair that looks like Raiden from Mortal Kombat. But the deal, that's an old school reference. Cool is going to be from the 1900s reference there. But it didn't stop investing, right? I didn't stop going to date. Now and start making it fun. You know, my wife said something to me there day.
24:29She's like, Baby, you know that we laugh every single day. I said, Well, first of all, it's because I'm hilarious, right? Obviously that's comes out saying, But no, we're always cracking up and laughing. So find a way to invest in your partner. Find the way. There's a there's a great book on the subject called The 80/80 Marriage. I would encourage every single person to read it.
24:48The point of the book is that most people look in a marriage like it's 5050, you're going to do these things and are believe these things. And the idea in the book was what if you went to 80% of your job? So you're doing your current role, what ever you think it is, and then you're trying to outkick it.
25:01You're trying to go past the effort that's expected and deliver something more. And if you both go do that, I think you're going to find that you have more connective. There's a lot more there than you are. And when you go out and try to find the other person and I get the opportunity to coach some of the top entrepreneurs out there on a one on one basis.
25:18And it's not totally uncommon where I'm coaching a guy or girl and they say, Hey, I'm thinking I'm having trouble at home now. I'm a business coach, I'm not a marriage counselor. But they say that was a trouble at home. And I said, Well, I've got some I've got some thoughts on it. And so this came up one time and it was a guy that came to me and he said, I'm thinking about, you know, maybe go on account of what probably just may not work.
25:39And I said, Let me ask you a question. So let's assume it doesn't work. And the the dust has settled and now it's time for you to start going out there and dating someone. And you find I mean, the the dream candidate. You've got your dream girl. Walk me through that first date. This guy's like, Dude, I tell you what, I got the best spot downtown.
25:59I got the table that's going to be oversee the city lights. I got the special server. I know the dish. I know the chef. Afterwards, we're going to go over here. I'm going have some drinks. My fire. We're going to go to this spot. You know, I'm going here. The waves crashing in. And I mean, this was like the most magical date I'd ever heard.
26:17I said, do not only have one question. When's the last time you did this with your wife? And I didn't hear anything. And I said, Man, why don't you try that this Saturday and see if the plates, you know, spin a little smoother for the next week or so. And, and then I had him do something. I've had him do this move where it's what are you, three weeks from now on a Saturday.
26:38Why don't you book a spot for her and her friend, have a car, pick them up, take them over there and then you take care of the kids. You take care of the whole house. You say, Honey, I want to take care of that for you again. Do that and then see if the plates spin a little sooner by the spin, the plates spin it easier.
26:54And I'm not saying it has to be some extravagant thing, but just thinking about the other person and making a cup of coffee and bring it to them right. If you go to this 8080 spot, it can absolutely change the way you're thinking about it. Next thing, I didn't stop investing in my people. If you realize that people are one of the greatest investments you could ever make, and I'm talking about the employees in your company, not just from a financial perspective.
27:17If you think about it from that way that you invest $100,000 in an employee, is it passive role that that person working in your company could generate $500,000 in profit for you? Of course it's absolutely possible. Could they generate $1,000,000 in profit for you? Yes. Could they cost you $500 or $1,000,000? Of course. But done right beyond the financial things, which I think are overwhelmingly positive.
27:39There are other benefits getting to build something really cool with great people is what it's all about. But I didn't stop. It is I went in there. I went in to start investing in my people, but I went to a great training when I was out spending that million dollars plus that I talked about earlier investing in here.
27:54All of my key people were with me at that. As we're filming this right now, we're about to go to a huge conference and all of my key people are going that conference with me. Why? So that they get better so they can enhance their lives and they can live better lives, which is what it's all about. So it's the my first ever employee.
28:12Her name's Sabrina. I'm trying to think if I should say her name or not, but I probably said it before. So my first employee is started as a part time assistant because I could only afford like $12 an hour for like 20 hours a week and this would be in 2000. I think we're in 25 ish, maybe six or seven, somewhere in that range.
28:32Today she's the CEO of our companies. And really, if we're being super honest, she's my boss because if she's out there doing all the things, I would never get to do this. I don't even know how the vast majority of things out there actually work. I do know, but she's way better at it than me. She's got a skillset and she truly is 1000 times smarter than me.
28:53But my point is I never stopped investing in her, right? I saw the potential. I knew what I could. I believed what I could build. And she went all in on that. And we've been it's been one of the best partnerships at work that I've ever seen. A point is I didn't stop investing in my people last part of this.
29:10I just didn't stop. You only fail when you quit. And I think people are very, very quick to quit. And so if you just realize that it's all hard, right? Business is actually really simple. People are hard. The minute you hire, people have to deal with other people out there. It's going to be hard. And if you can embrace that challenge and realize that happiness is not something you're not supposed to be happy 24 hours a day, you're actually going to experience happiness as you're out there in the world where it's hard.
29:36And I say that to say, Don't quit. You should never stop. And I hope this episode helped you understand what I didn't do. It wasn't meant to brag. It's not meant to be hard core. I'm not one of those. Go back and rip someone are. It's not what this is about. I was just giving you a different way to think about the things I didn't do.
29:53That worked really well for me to be successful. I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments. What are the things that you didn't do? What did you give up if you're successful that you're glad you did? I'd love to hear in the comments because the comment out there can help someone who's thinking about making that decision, who's got their friends that are probably judging them.
30:11Right? Because as you go do this, you're going to be weird. You're going to be very, very weird. I think the moment you realize you're weird, stop for a minute and embrace it because the most successful people on this planet are crazy weird. I know it doesn't seem like it, but I'm a weird person and your friends are going to judge you for that.
30:27And you got to realize it's okay because you're acting different. You're making different decisions. If all of a sudden you start reading more and you're studying more and you're having different discussions when you're out having drinks and it's not all about the game last night, but it's like, dude, what is the what's the best idea? What are you currently working on that's improving your life?
30:43Right? It's funny, when I go to dinner with folks, I'll ask a handful of questions. One of the ones I always ask is what's the best purchase you've made under $200 in the last year that's improved your life. You go around a room of ten smart people, you're going to find these $200, sometimes the $10 thing, $130 thing that they've bought, it's improved.
31:00Their life could change everything. And today, call them to tell you my less than $200 thing, which I just got for all my family by the way, Cole, you're gonna need to write this down. Some you're going to get It is a pillow. It is a pillow from eight sleep Greatest company ever. I have their mattresses in all homes.
31:17It's a mattress that heat and cools. And that's not a $200 item. But what they do have is a pillow. The eight sleep carbon pillow might be the greatest pillow ever. I think it's $150 pillow, but if you have it for 20 years, you can't advertise your happiness goal because how happy you're going to be when you have a great night's sleep.
31:33They are not a sponsor of the podcast but should be. But this pillow is awesome. So when you go out with people, you're going to have different conversations, but you're going to be judged for that and so understands a part of it, embrace it and go out there and it's okay to get a little weird. And so we now go to our Facebook group our questions from be wealthy Brett dot com or in our in our Facebook group or you can submit them on our website as well we'll drop links to both of those in the show notes.
32:00The question is what price point what I learned on my first loan and I'm assuming that's a hard money loan. We talk a lot about that here. I would go look at the average investment sales price in your market. So if you look at what price or the properties being purchased at, the people are buying for investment purposes in Maricopa County or our average sales price is we're filming the sales price around $500,000.
32:23But the average investment sales price is probably more like 300,000. So my loans today are around 200 or $240,000. You might see some markets in the country where the average loan amount might be 150. And then if you went to like California, New York or bigger cities, those maybe go up from there. But I would recommend if you're in a market, I don't think your first loan should be over $500,000.
32:44I would ideally not have that number. I'd love to see something $250,000 or less, and hopefully that's in your market. If you made it this far, you're probably liking our podcast. Make sure you subscribe so you get all of our future episodes as they come out. All right. Second question is where did I go to learn about hard money lending?
33:01So our business in our curve, I was flipping homes and so and I was quick flipping homes or wholesaling homes. And so I got to see people doing hard money lending. So I kind of had access to actually seeing the process. What I wanted to learn. Today, there's a number of podcasts out there. I think it's Hard Money Mastermind.
33:16We'll put a link in to the podcast on the show notes. They've got a great free podcast. I've seen another there's a couple other ones I'll try to find too, but I would go there. There's some great books out there on it. We'll try to link to a couple of those in the show notes as well. The other option we actually did film one, we have a product called Scale to Wealth.
33:33If you got to be wealthy Brett in a form, you can get the information on that. We filmed an eight week course on how to do hard money lending, and so you could go there if you wanted a version that would be paid. But there are some free options out there as well. Last question If a bank is offering a 5.3% interest rate with a high yield savings, why would you go anywhere else?
33:52Are the risks with just going with a higher percentage bank? Really good question. Is long is the bank. I would go look at the strength of the bank and so there's all these ratings out there, but you could research your liquidity and you just got to make sure that your bank is safe. So they'll give you usually rankings from most saved, at least save to make sure your bank's there.
34:11I wouldn't want to keep over $250,000 in any account per account holder because you want to make sure you have FDIC insurance coverage. But if you've got a bank paying 5.3%, I would absolutely stay. That number seems high as we're filming it today. So it might only be on a smaller balance, meaning we'll pay you 5.3 for the first $20,000, but everything over, that's going to be 4.85.
34:31But I've my current high yield savings accounts are paying just under five for everything that I'm doing now. One option here would be to compare that to Treasury bills. So I keep a lot of my savings in Treasury bills, which currently are paying around 5.2 on a 30 day Treasury bill because they're not subject to state income tax.
34:51So if your state has state income tax, that's significant. Think New York, California, Oregon, and you're going to save 5.3% on, let's say both. You would make you would not pay any state taxes on the interest you generate. And we're on a savings account. You would. So that's a consideration. I just hold a lot of mine in Treasury bills because they don't pay the Arizona 3.9% extra success tax in addition to the regular state income tax.
35:17All right. We did have a couple winds that I loved sharing. We had one of one of our listeners transferred over and got in a high yield savings account, paying 5.25. We had someone go out and do the Treasury bills with actually laddered them where they're picking, say, a three months, six months, I'm sorry, a 30 day, 60 day and 90 days.
35:36They're trying to figure out where the highest rate is. And then if you have you take a third of your capital and you place it in the 30 day, a third of your capital in the 60 day and a third in the 90 day, and then as the 30 day expires, you're placing it the 90 day. So every 30 days you've got your money expiring and you're getting the 90 day money, the higher interest rate after you go through the first cycle in this example of the first 90 days.
35:58And so laddering is really, really smart. And we had someone do a hard money loan, which is just awesome to go see that I am the biggest fan and actually in their wrath so they're not being taxed and I bet they I be curious they it through our friends over at horizon trust you got a maxed out your retirement dot.com if you've got an old retirement account you can go there they could help you figure that out so you could do the same thing.
36:21All right. In wrapping up, I want to remind you, there's a million things that you could do to be successful. I think a better way to think about it is what are you not wanting to be successful? I hope we gave you some great ways to think about that. As always, if you would, please subscribe so you don't miss out on any of our content.
36:36We want you to get every episode as they come out in real time, and I will see you all back here next week.
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