Grow Your REI Business, Build a Better Life!

Welcome to Strategic Real Estate Coach Radio, hosted by Josh Cantwell and Kyle Garifo. Strategic Real Estate Coaches, where the nation's leading real estate investors, brokers and agents turn to transform the way the real estate business is being done in neighborhoods across the nation. If you desire to make more money, do more deals, grow your passive income and build the lifestyle you've always wanted, you need Strategic Real Estate Coach.

This powerhouse team is led by Josh Cantwell, a seasoned investor with nearly a decade of experience, over 700 transactions and over $5.5 million in fundraising generated for himself and his partners. Now, sit back, listen, learn and accelerate your business with Strategic Real Estate Coach Radio.

Josh Cantwell:   So, hey everybody. Welcome back. This is Josh Cantwell, CEO at Strategic Real Estate Coach and Freeland Ventures. Welcome back to another edition of the Strategic Real Estate Coach podcast. I hope you've been enjoying all of the interviews and all the content that we've been putting out and I'm really excited for to share some ideas with my good buddy Kyle Garifo. Kyle is our head coach at Strategic Real Estate Coach. He is actually a former student, followed us and our brand and me for years, came to one of our events. Kyle and I, I mentored Kyle for a while and primarily focused with him on raising money. Kyle already had experience in doing deals and short sales and foreclosures. So, we really focused in on raising capital and a couple years ago, you know, Kyle had over and over and over been to our events was coaching a lot of people and working with them and Kyle was given the official title as our head coach.

Josh Cantwell:   And so, Kyle helps us develop our curriculum for our Masters Elite and Maverick Mastermind students. You know, it's a very high level, very advanced curriculum to take people from, in some cases, new to intermediate investors in some case from intermediate to advanced and in some cases already advanced investors that we're coaching to really build their portfolio so they can have a full life of abundance and free time and financial freedom. So, Kyle is really kind of baked into the fabric of our company now and does an amazing job with coaching our people. So, Kyle, welcome aboard and glad to see you today, man. What's going on? How you doing man?

Kyle Garifo:         Thanks man. Just enjoying the November, weather here as we start getting colder about 15 degrees cooler than we should be. So, this is getting ridiculous but I keep wondering why we live here in the Midwest, but we do, right so whatever.

Josh Cantwell:   Grow the winter bush, huh.

Kyle Garifo:         Grow the winter, you know, winter out for to keep me warm. Right.

Josh Cantwell:   Nice. Nice, Nice. So, Kyle, you are very active and very successful investor. Kyle's flipped like 300 properties. He's done commercial developments. He's built new construction flats and like downtown Chicago. Done assisted living facilities and like a residential assisted living centers, apartment building, done it all raised millions and millions and millions of dollars of private capital. And normally I would do a podcast with you and talk about your journey, from you know, kind of as a new investor and what was going through your mind and where you're at today. And then where would you be wanting to take your business. But instead of that, why don't we focus more on our student's journey. And you know, when somebody signs up for coaching and they're kind of getting going, what is your mindset as a mentor and as a coach, what's your mindset with, you know, taking on a new student and kind of getting them off on the right foot. What do you want that first or second coaching experience to be like for you and for that new student that you're working with?

Kyle Garifo:         Yeah. Well, what I love about our coaching program is that we don't have a manual, right? You know that we've always said that we don't have a manual. We don't read through a script call after call after call. There's no call one, call two, call three. That's not how it works for us. So, all of our coaches, we sort of take that litmus test in the beginning that says, where are you at? Where are you at? Because all of our students are not at the same pace. They don't start off at the same pace. We've got guys who have done deals, we've guys who have done up 100 of deals before, but still don't have a business, right? I have a student two years ago, there were wildly successful, probably meant a couple of hundred 100 grand a year, but had no idea why they made a couple of hundred grand a year, right?

Kyle Garifo:         We're not good at their business. Could have made more money and that's why they ultimately joined coaching was because of that reason was to develop the system. So, to answer your question, it's to take inventory, take stock. Where are you at in your business? Are you brand new? Which is cool with us, right? That's absolutely fine, but we want to know that. Are you brand new? I've never done a deal. I don't have an agent. I don't know what the MLS even is all I know that this is what I want to do. Or are you intermediate, you know, are you trying to figure yourself out? You've done a couple deals. I did a couple deals five years ago. Now I'm trying to figure it out or are you advanced, but trying to transition from hobby to business. You know, that's what I always say is, is when you make your hobby a business, then you're truly in business and a lot of our students, that's what they're trying to get to that point is to be successful. They are successful, but they want to make it truly a business. So that's really the first step in evaluating where they at.

Josh Cantwell:   Yeah. What kind of. So, you know, really kind of looking at the gap between, okay, where you at? Yup. And then where do you want to go? Sure. And our job as coaches is to give them the tools, the resource, the advice, the knowledge. You know, and really even the mental belief that they can get from where they are now to where they want to go. So that's your perspective and that's your goal. During that first or second meeting from the students' perspective, what are the kinds of things that you're hearing them? Like what are the, what are the recurring themes that they're saying to you and saying like, Oh, here's where I'm at and I know I can't get there. I signed up for coaching for these reasons. What's coming out of their mouth? What's their big concern?

Kyle Garifo:         Yeah, I think they're obviously excited to get going. That's why they sign up for coaching. So, they're, they're kind of on that high, particularly after we do a live event, you know, we all come back jacked up from those events ready to go, ready to conquer the world, right. And then Monday hits you and you're like, holy crap, what am I doing? What? So, we kind of want to take a step back and just and channel that excitement a little bit. Some of them have done other coaching programs in the past, which is fine. I mean, I think that we have, you know, the, the best coaching program that's out there.

Kyle Garifo:         I kind of want to figure out what have people learned, where are they at in terms of, you know, their knowledge. If you're going to come at me and say I already know what I'm doing, I'm pretty good. I just need, you know, I needed the, the AI software is really why I signed up for coaching and I have no interest in coaching with you at all. So, you have to be open minded, you have to be willing to just absorb, take notes, take criticism. I think for me personally why my students are successful is because I just don't really put up with a whole lot of bs. I kind of learned that from you that look, we do a call every two weeks, right? We've got an hour every two weeks. If you don't come to the game doing what you need to do, that's on you. That's not on me, right.

Kyle Garifo:         I live my life, I run my business, I have my family. You have yours. If you don't do what you need to do, that's going to be on you. So, it's kind of setting that mentality, kind of the ground rules as well too. I always set ground rules with my students from, from when I start, what are their expectations of me first of all. What do they want from me, right? I had a guy, I had a student who said, you know, we haven't found a deal yet and we had been in coaching, whatever, three months, and he says, we haven't done a deal yet. I'm like, we, I'm like, I have deals. You haven't done what you needed to do to find yourself a deal. You know, how many MLS offers have you made? Oh, I've made one in the last three weeks.

Kyle Garifo:         That's not going to get it done. Right? I look at other students who have made hundreds of offers to get that one deal. We know that that may happen. That's just the nature of the business. So just kind of set in their mind frame right from the very start to say, where are you at? You have to be willing to be coachable as we always say. You have to be willing to absorb information wherever you are in the business. You still have to be willing to learn as I am, as you are, to grow your business and expand. So, you know, that's a lot to do with the mindset in the beginning.

Josh Cantwell:   Yeah. Yeah. Let's just talk about that a little bit more. I mean, some people come to us with baggage, meaning being relationship baggage. He breaking up in a marriage or over there, they've had somebody pass away. We've dealt with that, we've dealt with people who've moved to a brand new location, and that's kind of, they've already kind of mentally convinced themselves, well, I'm in a brand new market, I don't know the market might accessible here, and they've already sort of mind screw themselves if you will, I can't do this, and we've got an unwind that negative self-belief and you obviously, well I know, but it's not obvious. But Kyle used to be actually a therapist sit down and talk with people about these kinds of things about real estate but about other parts of their life. And so, some of that negative self-belief we've got to deal with, right? And constantly encouraging people and keeping them motivated. So just talk to that for a minute because I think we all to some degree have some mental baggage.

Kyle Garifo:         We all have some mental baggage. And one of the questions that I have is your support system. You know, this is usually on call number one is what is your support system? They say, what does that mean? Okay. Are you married? Yeah, I always want to know kids, spouse, what do you got? You know who lives at home with you, how old your kids are they in college? What are you paying for? What are you, what are your expenses? Are you in debt? I want to know all that stuff. You know, what are your triggers? Because that all ties into your mentality, your mindset. If your spouse isn't supportive, I need to know that, that's a problem. Okay? That's going to be a problem. If you signed up and paid for coaching and your spouses like that's the worst idea I could have ever seen you do.

Kyle Garifo:         That's okay. It doesn't mean you're guaranteed failure. It just means that I need to take a different approach knowing that you've got somebody at bed at night who's not on your side and is supportive and that doesn't happen very often, but it does happen. Of course, it does happen, so we want to know, you know, where are you coming from? If you think you're going to fail, you will fail. Of course, you will. If you don't think you’re going to be successful, happy, then there's no point to even do our calls anymore. Don't be in coach and get a refund back if you don't think that you're going to be successful because you're going to have people that tell you what a dumb decision, how much money did you spend on coaching? You know, I can do this all on my own then do it. Have at it.

Kyle Garifo:         Many, many, many, you know, real estate entrepreneurs have been successful with no coaching at all. They absolutely have. But why not take the path where somebody is laying it out for you versus you trying to discover something and make mistakes and all that. That's the path that I would rather take, which is one obviously that I have obviously did. And that's what we're trying to teach our students, is just getting the right mindset. Who is your support system? You're right I've done many a therapy session on these calls for coaching calls, right? I have solved marital problems. I've got, I've got dads and sons on calls. I've got moms and daughters on calls. I've got people like, hey, why don't you bring them on our call next time. Business partners. If people have business partners, a lot of times it's like a marriage, right?

Kyle Garifo:         They always don't get along. So, if you have a business partner, why is your business partner not on these calls with us and when they're not, that creates a big problem. And I'm dealing with that right now with a student where I've got one business partner who's always on the other business partner who is not always on. You know, I go to do a boots on the ground and also, I'm getting two different stories here. And I'm like, Huh, alright, I don't hear a lot about this on the calls, but now that I have you guys in person, you know, it's a very different dynamic than what you guys are certainly telling me. So that's important for us to find out about our students as well.

Josh Cantwell:   So, Kyle mentioned boots on the ground and just in case you're not aware of what that is, we actually, as part of our, part of our coaching program, you know with different levels of coaching when we're talking about now is called Masters Elite. We only offer it twice a year at our live events. Otherwise we don't, we don't ever allow people to enroll in it, but it's part of that package. Our coaches actually fly out for two, three days. Into that students’ market and work with that student side by side basically from 8:00 in the morning until about eight at night. They go to breakfast, lunch and dinner together and they go out in the field and they look at properties they make offers, they talk to private lenders. I've watched Kyle and DK and our other coaches on video actually pitching private lenders with their students or writing offers.

Josh Cantwell:   So, it's actually a really cool experience for the coach and for the student. And I know a lot of other, you know, people have really said, like, this is my favorite part of coaching is when my coach came out. So, Kyle you've had a number of those, you know, I know it's fun sometimes, you know, you kind of uncover crazy things that you probably wouldn't uncover on the phone. Talk to us a second about the boots on the ground experience and how it really helps people kind of get off on the right foot and really set their momentum, their trajectory at a much faster rate.

Kyle Garifo:         Yeah. Yeah. So, I was just talking to a student today. I'm going out to Vegas actually just before the event. I'll be flying to Vegas, flying back and then heading back up for the event in Vegas. So, the biggest concern that students have before boots on the ground is, am I going to have enough to do with him? You know, what am I going to do with this guy for three days? Right. And I tell all my students, I don't have an agenda when I come out to do boots on the ground, alright. I don't, I know what I think I need you to do and see, but I want them to set the agenda and their job before I come out there and is to send me the agenda of what are we going to do. It doesn't have to be laid out hour by hour, but are we going to talk about private money?

Kyle Garifo:         Are we going to go see properties, are we going to go see your projects that you have done? Are we going to go to like BNI group? So, business development groups. I've done those before. So, I, I really give them the initiative to say, this is your time, right? You have me for three days or you have Chris or whoever for three days, what are you going to do? And they're always a little bit nervous that there's, that they're not going to be able to fill that time. And man, every single time I'm getting on the plane to go home, they're still texting me information or calling me or what about this? What about that? What about that? I'm like, dude, I got to make a flight. Right, right. You know, it's like I got to make a flight, you know, like, I love to stay and talk even more, but, so that's really, I mean, it's just truly an immersion experience and everything you've said we've done made.

Kyle Garifo:         I mean we've made so many offers, gone to auctions, talk to private lenders. You know, I listened to people pitch private lenders and screw it up, you know, screw it up completely and only wants I had to step in and say you might not want to say that because that might not be legal to say something like that, but that did happen. But it's a great experience with them then to, you know, to have us for three days and to go and see, you know, I wouldn't buy this house or I would buy this house or I would buy this house, but I would do this to it or I would never offer this for this house. Things like that. Talking to wholesalers, what to say to wholesalers Talking to sellers. And just getting a chance to get to know them even closer, personally spending more time with them because it is long days for us, it's long days for them, you know, a lot of times they're like, oh, do you go out to dinner with me? Like how does that work?

Kyle Garifo:         And I'm like, dude, I'm there. I have nobody but myself, so either I'm going to dinner with you or without you, I'm still going to dinner. So, might as well take advantage of it. Let's go to dinner and do something like that. So, but it's a great experience. It's fun. I've done a handful of already again this year. Like I said, I'm going to Vegas here on November 26. I think I go now. So, but it's, it's just a phenomenal. And every student I've ever done, every student I've ever done it just, it just gives them a laser focus on what they need to do because it's really specifically about their business and growth and expansion of their business. And if it's a hobby, making it a business. You know, there are guys that still have full time jobs, even when I go out and do boots on the ground now, they have to take three days off for me.

Kyle Garifo:         But it just motivates them even more. And I always leave with a date in mind for them to quit their full-time job because that's what everybody. Well I shouldn't say that. That's what 99 percent of the people want to do is quit their full-time job. We have a couple of students that as we know in our Mastermind, who probably won't ever quit their full-time job just for whatever it is for whatever they're doing, but 99 percent of people want to quit their jobs. So, I don't leave there until we have a date. Like, hey, whether it's six months, three months, a year from now, we're going to have that date set. And, and the boots on the ground is only going to help that so.

Josh Cantwell:   Fantastic. Another question Kyle, just kind of, you know, kind of, you know, spit balling here back and forth. One of the questions that keeps jumping out in my mind is, you know, there's a recurring theme of our coaching students that are really doing well, you know, Graves of the world, that Eduardo Lopez's of the world, the Teddy Slack's of the world, the you know, Jeff Henderson. The guys that are, that have jumped in with two feet. Some of them are doing lots and lots of wholesaling, some of them tons of rehabbing, some of them become private lenders, some of them are borrowing money from Freeland, but a lot of them have some of the same exact characteristics for success. So, my question for you is what's maybe the two or three recurring themes that you're seeing in our most successful people?

Kyle Garifo:         Super Question. I guess the first thing that comes to mind is just take massive action. I know it's so cliché, but it's so true, right? Take massive action. Well, what does that mean exactly? For me it's kind of like, you know, analysis paralysis. There's so many students that just will not get off the couch, will not fire the gun until it's perfectly aimed. And the conditions are right and wind conditions. You can't do that, right? It's fire first, and then aim later. That's, that's of how what we want you to do, screw up, make mistakes. The worst thing you can do, the biggest fear people have, I think, our students, is that an offer gets accepted, right? Not that it gets denied, but an offer gets accepted. That's the biggest fear that a lot of our students have, right? But that's okay. When you're working with us for coaching, great. That's, that's what we want to have happen. And we'll talk you through something.

Kyle Garifo:         And I have talked students out of many a deal to say you don't want to do this deal despite the fact that it got accepted. Cool, but let's not do this deal. I've had some students who went around me and did the deal anyway, and then we kind of know how that ends, you know, but it is what it is. So. But take massive action. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. That's, I think those are definitely two huge characteristics. That all those guys and the women that you mentioned as well to, have all done over the years that they just, they're not afraid to challenge themselves. They're there, they're willing to be uncomfortable, right? Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. That's kind of what we always say as well, to just put yourself out there.

Kyle Garifo:         If you're, if you're happy with complacency, then maybe this isn't for you. You know, we've got guys like Mike Neil right, in Texas who does like what, two deals a year and he just made that deal that was like 135 grand or whatever it is on the one deal that he does, you know, and he has no desire to work any harder than that, right. The guy who's just a phenomenal dude, him and Ronnie live on the ranch in Texas. He makes, he does a couple of deals a year. He's making a couple hundred grand a year just from minimal work. You know, he's got his grandkids, he's got all that and that's his business. That's what he wants to do. But what the guy does is that when he does do it, he takes action and he does it the right way and he does according to what he's learned. And the guy makes a boatload of cash, you know? So those are characteristics, certainly, yeah.

Josh Cantwell:   Yeah, for sure. I think the other one too, that kind of I guess starts with me, starts top down. Coaches believe in it. You know, you learned it early, Kyle, but we've all believed that funding equals freedom. You can get a lot of properties. You can be transactional, you can make a great income wholesaling. And we got lots of students at wholesale a ton of properties make over $100,000 a year that do really, really, really well. Most of us got into real estate for passive income. Most of us got into real estate for real wealth building generational pass it down to your kids type of investing. A lot of people start out wholesaling because they, they just don't have a lot of cash or don't have good credit and they, they need to kind of make something out of nothing, which is great. Other of our students actually have resources. And they did do a bunch of big profit rehab deals or apartment deals or rental deals, but then they might have like a little bit of a slow period where they're waiting for rehab to sell or waiting for their next flip to close and get a big check and then they wholesale in the interim. But recurring theme is within our whole organization is funding equals freedom and it's really about having lots of different sources of private money. And I definitely think our most successful students, they take that to heart. They take that coaching as if it's very legitimate and they pursue it kind of on blind faith. Like, Hey, my coach Josh, Kyle, Chris, Darren, DK, whoever says I got to raise money and then we give them the tools to raise capital. That to me is very, very important. So just want to comment on that.

Kyle Garifo:         Well I think that raising, raising money is, is integral to what we do. If we don't have money, we can't do deals regardless. So, we have to. And that's. I start talking about raising money from probably not day one, but probably day two on our calls. So, you know that now we're starting talking about private money and whether you use Freeland or you, you know, you're using private money or some other hard money local too, that's great. But ultimately it does come back to private money. That's what we want to have people do it. It just, it does equal freedom when you can close a deal and tell a seller I can close in a week or I can close to a month whenever you want. And you know that that money's sitting there, that gives you a lot more freedom to do the things that you want to do in terms of making them offers people say, what if I get two offers that get accepted?

Kyle Garifo:         Great. Then you've got two deals rather than one. You know. So, all those guys I know, like Joe, like you had mentioned him, he was on my call yesterday. I was doing that, the call yesterday. I started talking about private money and Joe chimed in on the notes are on the chat box. Like he had just raised like 750 grand in the last like three weeks. Tonight, he actually has a presentation that he's putting on for like 20 potential private lenders. He's doing it at like a restaurant, you know, the whole Shebang. Kind of like what we talked before. Yeah. So, he's got that tonight. So, I'm very curious to know. But yeah, he's got 20 people. If 10 people come and invest 100 grand, I mean he's got a million bucks of private money for putting on an event that costs and I think like a grand or something like that just in food and whatnot.

Kyle Garifo:         So, it's that sort of the skills that we teach there, it's the mindset to be able to do it. Obviously, he's got to be up there and be confident to speak about private money. Right? I mean he's talking to some high net worth individuals. If he doesn't come across as knowing what he's talking about and be having the confidence to do it. No one's going invest with him. Right? Because you and I both know people invest in people. People don't invest in deals. People invest in people the deals are just sort of the vehicle that is used to invest in somebody, right. But so, I'm super excited for him because I know it's going to be a great event for him. But yeah, it's all about having the money to do these deals.

Josh Cantwell:   That's right. The thing that's interesting you just mentioned too, is people investing in, people have had some incredible guests on stage with us. Barbara Corcoran, Kevin O’Leary, Daymond John, Jack Canfield, even Jack who's most well known for being the author of the authors of The Secret and the co-author of The Chicken Soup for The Soul. He essentially, at this point, you know, he's worth a couple tens of millions and he's investing in businesses. You know, he invests his money in companies and they all said, every single one of them to a t said, we invest in people. Like the idea has got to be good, but the entrepreneur, the operator, that we are investing in has to basically be great. They have to believe in that person, believe in their vision. And so, when somebody's new to real estate and also new to raising money, what are some of the advice that you give them to kind of posture up to, to maybe, you know, help them understand that the offer that they have, you know, the interest that they can provide. Maybe the upside they can provide on a rehab or apartment deal, but they can posture up even without a lot of experience in order to start raising capital. Like Joel Grieves, you're, you're talking about he was nickeling private money when he started with us now, he's raised, you know, probably about a million bucks or more. He just got 750, he's head of a presentation. So, what took him in the last 18 months for somebody who never raised a nickel to even want to posture up and be confident?

Kyle Garifo:         Yeah, I think. Well, I think first it comes down to having confidence and the ability to raise money. Right? And I was just actually, I had student calls today and we were talking about that, that you have to fake it until you make it a little bit when you're talking about private money raising, you just do. Because if you don't have a confidence in your product that you're selling, the product that you're selling is your ability to make somebody money. That's the product that you're selling. You're not selling houses, you're not. You're selling when you're talking about private money. My product to you is that I have the ability to make you money and a nice return that you might not be able to get somewhere else with the, you know, in light of the stock market going up and down and crazy for what it is.

Kyle Garifo:         I have a lot of people now turning me and say, Hey, what other opportunities do you have? Because a double-digit fixed rate of return backed by real estate has become really attractive to a lot of people. So, having that competence in what you're selling to somebody and it's not really selling, it's giving them the opportunity. I would say, you know when I need a potential private lender. I feel it's their lucky day for meeting me, not my lucky day for meeting them. It's like, I have an amazing opportunity for you today that I guarantee you're not going to get today or tomorrow. So again, it's just being able to have the competency, even if you've never raised a dime of private money, I know for you, you started off with your, your mother in law or somebody, right?

Josh Cantwell:   Mother-In-Law. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Kyle Garifo:         So, I mean that's kind of how it starts with anybody you know, I wasn't born with millions and millions and millions of dollars to invest and I know you weren't either, so it has to start somewhere and you have to have that confidence. You know, you always talk about the r and d and All the materials that you provide. Rip off and duplicate, take everything that we provide you and utilize it, you know, put together a nice investor presentation, a nice investor packet. Talk about being part of this huge, massive, you know, national group that is doing these deals across the United States and Masterminding and all those events. Use that as credibility as well too, because again, if you don't come off as confident, nobody is going to invest with you. Your parents won't invest with you if you don't, if you don't sound confident, right? If your parents don't mess with you, then you know, then you got some, you got some real problems.

Kyle Garifo:         But as well, just kind of my two rules of thumb that I kind of always live by are just do what you say you're going to do right and make business with you really, really simple. I think if you can follow those rules in business, do what you say you're going to do. If you say you're going to do something, do it, and just make business with you. Really, really simple. With my private lenders, business with me is really, really simple, right? My office consists of Panera or Starbucks. That's where I'll meet you or your home. You write me a check and then I bring back a check plus interest in, in a few months. Right. It isn't difficult, right? It's not challenging to do business with me, but that's why my investors really do like doing business with me because it's so simple. I'm not asking for them to come out to the property and look at it. They can if they want to. Nobody has in years. I can tell you that.

Kyle Garifo:         You know, so I think just, you know, those two rules of thumb. But again, having confidence in what you're selling and be able to sell yourself is so important because guys don't necessarily care about what they do care about how much money they're making. But that's really tertiary, I think almost anything. It's like, how are you going to protect my money? Who are you as a person? And then they want to know, okay, what am I going to make, you know, all that. But it's really is how do you protect my money and who are you as a person? If you can provide good, solid answers for those things and present well, people will invest in you.

Josh Cantwell:   Absolutely. That's fantastic Kyle. So, as we kind of like run, run, third base and head home here, you know, you've seen lots and lots, I mean dozens, hundreds of our numbers go from new to intermediate to advanced. What’s your opinion after mentoring lots of people your own journey, your own path to being very successful with real estate, watching our other coaches grow up and then now they're working on massive apartment buildings. Lot of our coaches are private lenders. Guys are doing assisted living facilities. What do you think are just a couple maybe pieces of advice for a brand-new investor? Maybe somebody who's never been on a webinar, never heard of us before. Maybe this is the very first interview that ever seen. First time ever even really talk about real estate. Like what is, what are some things for them to keep in mind for them to, you know, can I keep things in perspective about being successful? Whether it's in real estate, whether it's raising money, whether it's your family, whether it's in relationships.

Josh Cantwell:   What are some pieces of advice that you would maybe give your younger, former self you wish you heard 10 or 20 years ago that you could pass along. Maybe that you'll pass on Zach and your kids, or you'll pass along to your next student or a new investor. What are those couple of things that maybe you wish you did different advice that you kind of pay it, pay it forward?

Kyle Garifo:         No, I mean you, you, you brought up my own son who you saw. Obviously, it was in here before. His goal is to be in the NFL, right? That's literally, that's his number one goal. I'm not going to be the one to tell them that that's not going to happen because I don't know if it's going to happen. Are the odds in his favor? Of course, they're not in his favor of course that, but I'm not going to tell them that, oh son, well, you know, let's start thinking of a real job and maybe you want to be an engineer. I had never said anything. Right. I've never said anything to him about that. If that's his goal, what I focus on with him then is what do you need them to achieve that goal? How hard are you working at getting towards that goal? Are you practicing on the off season? Are you doing what you need to do? Are you watching YouTube videos of, you know, great NFL running backs, whatever it is, or are you watching? Are you playing that stupid Fortnight game? You know, what are you doing during your time that's going to better yourself every single day? That if it being an NFL player is what you want to do, then what are you doing to achieve that goal? So, for me it's no different for a new student to say, you got to get laser focused on what you want to do. You have to have goals in mind.

Kyle Garifo:         You have to have goals written down in front of you and go back and I know you do the same thing, Josh, to look at them and say, remind yourself of what are your goals. No matter what you've accomplished, there's always more to accomplish. There's always more out there that you can do and you're never satisfied if you are. I don't. I mean, I don't think anybody's ever satisfied in what they have and I don't mean materialistic things, I just mean what they've achieved in their level of success, whatever success means to them because success for me might not be the same thing for somebody else. So particular, when I'm talking to new student, what are your goals? What do you want to do? And the answer is, Oh, I just want to make a lot of money. That's not a goal. That's not a goal. That's not.

Josh Cantwell:   Here's five bucks. Get outta here.

Kyle Garifo:         That's not, that's not quantifiable. I can't quantify that. I can't break that down into pieces. So, if somebody says, I want to make a lot of money, okay, well let's break down. How much money do you want to make a next six months? How much money you want to make in the next year? How much money you want to make in the next five years. And then we. And then we, we kind of reverse engineer that all the way down to how many offers we have to make in a week then in order to achieve that goal. So, you know, talking to my former self many years ago, 20 years ago, I wish I would've started this business, you know, when I was 25 years old, my kids are already talking about, you know, our assisted living, you know, that I'm really big on the assisted living now.

Kyle Garifo:         My daughter who's 15 or turning 15, she's like, oh, I want to inherit that company. It's like, I'm sure you do. Believe me when this thing's up and running, I'm sure you do.

Josh Cantwell:   That's not a goal, to inherit dad's business.

Kyle Garifo:         Right. That's right now. That's what she kind of sees. It's like, and I, and I want my kids. Yeah, I want my kids. I told my kids like, look, you can do whatever you want in life. Whatever you to do, I'm going to support you, but what I ultimately want you to do is something that's going to support yourself as well too. I really don't want people working a nine to five gig working for the man. Because you're always making somebody else rich, right? That's just how it works. If you work a nine to five job, typically you're always making somebody else money. And you're trading time for dollars.

Kyle Garifo:         And what I've learned in this business is that I don't want to trade time for dollars. I have all the freedom in the world that I want to do. I go to all my kids' sporting activities, no matter when they are, because I can. So, I just commit to doing. How many people, Josh, do you have people say like, I wish I could do what you did, right? Like, Oh, you're like those guys at HGTV. Like I hear that all the fricking time. Not quite the way it is on HGTV, but my answer always is, well, why can't you do what I do? Right? I mean, I'm no different than anybody else. And that's what I'm telling my son who wants to get in the NFL? Why can't he be in the NFL? Right? I'm not, I'm not going to be the one who tells them no until he tells himself no, this isn't happening.

Kyle Garifo:         Then there is a possibility. But once he tells himself it's not happening, he stops working hard and stops doing the things that he needs to do. Then yeah, he won't ever achieve those goals. So, I, you know, for me that's, that's just really what it is. It's just, it's about belief and it's about taking action. It's kind of everything that we've said before that I wish I would've done at a much younger, you know, 20, 25 years old. Not that I didn't enjoy my time as a clinical therapist, but it was, it was very difficult work both physically and mentally and the pay sucked that, look, let's, let's be honest. I mean it just did, it just did. And I'm a lot happier where I'm at now. Not to say that this isn't still a stressful business because it is a stressful business still, but the pays a little bit better. I will say that. B

Kyle Garifo:         But the freedom that it's given me, which is ultimately why I left my job as a therapist, not necessarily because of the money, but because I was working a God like noon to nine some days, you know, and, and I was seeing my kids when they were going to bed and they were, they were much younger, but I didn't want to do that. That's ultimately why I left my job, not because of the money, because of the freedom I didn't have, you know, I had freedom in the mornings from 8:00 AM to noon, what? Nobody's around. What am I going to do? You know, what my kids are in school. So, I'm just, you know, if you have a passion and you can make money doing your passion regardless if it's real estate or not, and you can make money doing it and, and support yourself, then by all means, go ahead and do it.

Kyle Garifo:         Don't let somebody else tell you that, oh, that's dumb. Or you can't make any money or whatever it may be. If you can provide value to somebody doing something, which is why A, I love being a therapist, but even the assisted living that I'm into now, I mean, I, I know that we're providing a, you know, a huge need as well, but, you know, making money isn't a bad thing as well too. Don't let people tell you that, oh, you're helping people and you make money, you know, which is why a lot of real estate entrepreneurs, investors get a bad rap because they think that we're taking advantage of people, which is not the case by any means, you know. So that's in a nutshell kind of what I would tell my former self is or, you know, 20 years ago, things I should've been, I shouldn't be doing, so.

Josh Cantwell:   Yeah. Awesome. Awesome advice, Kyle. Thanks, so much man. So, as we wrap up, couple of things, just want to give all of our listeners some tools and resources. So, Kyle and I actually, so I started a private equity fund a couple of years ago. Kyle's actually has his own fund. He's a co-manager of a fund with us and we provide funding for real estate deals. We provide funding for rehabs, rentals, and even apartments, both debt for apartments and even equity for apartments. And so, if you need funding for your deals, you can check us out at FreelandLending.com. Go to that website. You can see some of our different loan programs. And on a deal, for example, like let's say a 50-unit apartment, you might get an 80 percent financing from a bank for purchase and rehab and you're going to need that 20 percent down.

Josh Cantwell:   Well, Kyle and I love to get involved in apartment deals with good operators or assisted living deals with good operator and place some of our capital in those transactions. We can also provide the 80 percent debt financing to get those deals started. So, we've funded, I don't know, about 300 or so deals for our students. Kyle works with a lot of those students that we fund deals for and Kyle also has his own fund or capital that he's recruited that we put in place. So, check that out FreelandLending.com. Also, Kyle I wanted to give you an opportunity if people want to connect with you, if they're from Chicago, if they want to refer you deals or joint venture with you or maybe be a private lender to you or you know, they may be local. They're looking for some mentoring in your market. Do you have a website or an email or something? Facebook page that people can connect with you?

Kyle Garifo:         Yeah, I mean definitely I'm on Facebook. People can email me as well too. You can email me at KGarifo@srecnow.com. K G A R I F O s r e c n o w.com. You can definitely email me there if you're local and want to talk. I've talked about getting together kind of a local mastermind group as well too. I'd love to be able to do that. You know, I don't, I just, I don't know too many investors out here, which is I think a good thing for me. Its kind of keeps people out of the market it's well too. But I'd love to kind of start a local group as well to get people together, masterminding, talking. There's plenty of deals out there for everybody, but yeah, people can definitely get in touch with me. You want to chat, you want to want more information on coaching, whatever you want. So absolutely.

Josh Cantwell:   Fantastic. Yeah, look up Kyle email him, check him out on Facebook. Again, last name is Garifo Garifo. Kyle, check them out, make friends and connect there. Finally, just, you know, Kyle kind of obviously being our head coach is also one of our featured speakers at all of our live events. We've got a lot of that coming up very soon. A December seventh through the ninth in Las Vegas. You can check that out FlipandFund.com. There's still tickets available. The closer and closer we get to the event, the more expensive tickets get. So, if you're interested in coming and hearing from me and Kyle and our entire faculty and working with us face to face in, you know, our events are not seminars, they're not networking events. We treat it like a coaching event, so we get in with the crowd, we walked through the crowd, a lot of interaction putting together your financial game plan essentially for when you leave the event.

Josh Cantwell:   So, if you're just going to be in there and check out FlipandFund.com. And finally like I said Kyle's a head coach, you can get more information about coaching at JoshCantwellCoaching.com. You can check that out if you're interested in looking into our mentorship. Again, you have to qualify through an interview process. We interview all of our students, make sure that they're a fit for the program, that they're coachable, that we can work with them and we can have success with them. Somebody comes in with the wrong mindset like Kyle said, or that they think they know it all, like Kyle said, I'm sorry, but we don't want you in the program. It's just not something we want to work with. So, a couple of resources there to check out a connect with Kyle. So, Kyle, any kind of final, final parting shots or words of advice?

Kyle Garifo:         No, I mean I truly, you know, Josh, you know, I've been with, I think I said I saw you in 2008 in Dallas I think it was the first event was in 2008 or 2009 whenever it was. Right. To think that we're going on 10 years now of me being part of the organization, I think it's a credit to you that you're still quote unquote around, but a lot of people have come and gone and you know, I've had properties, there's been a lot of speakers and gurus and whatnot that have come and gone by the wayside because they couldn't adapt and I'm just kind of creating, what you've always told me and I, it kind of stuck was creating that evergreen business, right? Because this business is always changing and if we don't change with it then we're going to be out of business.

Kyle Garifo:         Right. So, I think that's one of the things that we do now at SREC is that teach that ever. Yeah, I see our company, even the coaching now sort of changing, you know, wholesaling has become kind of bigger now as well too, and we never used to teach wholesaling at all and now we certainly do a little bit more and more and more and more, you know, the market's getting tired, interest rates are going up a little bit, buyers aren't as plentiful as they used to be. Not so we can't still do, you know, fix and flip deals, but there are definitely a lot of other strategies that we're definitely teaching now, which I think is awesome.

Josh Cantwell:   Awesome. Awesome Kyle great stuff. Guys. Reach out to Kyle. Say Hello. If you have any questions, let us know. Check out those resources we mentioned and if you enjoyed the interview leave us a rating if you thought the interview was great, give us a five-star rating if you thought we were awful, give us a five-star rating and leave any kind of comments, you know, this will be available on iTunes and YouTube, Facebook. I'm sure all those different kinds of social platforms. Leave the comments and questions beneath the video and my team will be monitoring that if there's a question for Kyle, will feed it out to him and he'll get back to us. And if there's anything we can answer? We'll answer it right inside of the, the comments beneath the video. So, thanks so much for joining us today, Kyle, great job. Appreciate it. As always, and we'll see out in Vegas in a couple of weeks. I'll be there. All right guys, thanks a lot. Thanks for joining us again on the Strategic Real Estate Coach podcast and we'll talk to you soon. Take care.

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