00;00;00;00 - 00;00;20;14
Unknown
If you're in your first two years as being an entrepreneur, I really, really want you to listen to this. I have six my net worth in the past five years from five years ago. There are people that are still waiting to do their first deal. Who? I talked to her waiting for that home run. And I've made no progress.
00;00;20;16 - 00;00;43;02
Unknown
They made zero progress because they were waiting for the perfect situation to come where they could swing at it, and I swung at every base hit possible, and it made all the difference. I probably hit like 3 or 4 home runs in my whole career. Private. Hundreds of base hits.
00;00;43;04 - 00;01;05;27
Unknown
All right. Welcome back to the seven Figure Flipping Podcast. I'm so pumped. I have not just an amazing human with all kinds of bonafides and credentials and awesome stuff and real estate and as a leader, but also my friend, good friend, James Le Scar. James, welcome to the show, man. I'm so glad to be on Adam. We've had a lot of these sessions and I'm looking forward to this one too.
00;01;06;00 - 00;01;25;09
Unknown
Yeah. This is, this is obviously special to me because you're, you're in my inner circle. My my very few, like, very, very close friends. But what's special about you? Obviously. Well, maybe not obvious to other people, but obvious to me is that you come from the military. Not just anything, but, you know, you went to buds, you became a Navy Seal.
00;01;25;09 - 00;01;51;04
Unknown
You did that for over a decade in that industry before fully transitioning to entrepreneurship. Can you just tell us a little bit about that part of your journey? Yeah, yeah. First thing I would say is it's inseparable. The kind of person that I was towards the tail end of high school, and then into college. Very driven, very focused, very disciplined kind of person.
00;01;51;06 - 00;02;14;17
Unknown
It was a pretty good fit for me entering the special operations field and the things that I learned, the the work ethic, the leadership of teams, the empowerment, the the trusting. And just really operating as an organization at a high level is inseparable from the things that we've been blessed to accomplish in entrepreneurship the past five years.
00;02;14;20 - 00;02;40;07
Unknown
So I don't think I would have the business I have now if I hadn't done the things I did specifically in my military career. Can you dive a little bit into so you specifically talked about, you know, I, I already had like a very disciplined approach. Why do you think that was like what? Why were you disciplined prior to even going into the military?
00;02;40;07 - 00;03;04;01
Unknown
Was it your family? Was it your dad like, How did you develop such a disciplined life at such an early age? I so both my parents are engineers, hyper logical household, not a lot of emotions getting thrown around. And I think I just started to draw a a, sorry. I'm not saying what's the word I'm looking for here.
00;03;04;03 - 00;03;29;16
Unknown
I started to draw a connection between the input. If you put in a quality input, if you study and you get yourself ready for a test, you'll probably do better in school than if you don't do that thing. If you show up at the swimming pool ready for training, if you show up early and you deer stretches and you warm up right and you put a concerted effort into practice, you'll probably go and do better in your swim.
00;03;29;18 - 00;03;47;17
Unknown
And so, you know, I started to like, put these things together. And it was at the same time, socially, I was watching a lot of people kind of get into the party scene or in high school, you know, maybe they kind of go off the path a little bit. They get into drugs or whatever. And I was like, I don't see how that input leads to a quality output.
00;03;47;17 - 00;04;08;21
Unknown
So I'm just going to do what I can control to give it a quality input. I think I just, I just had the, the fortunate opportunity to learn that at a younger age than I think some people realize. Yeah. So, very, very clear to me. Engineer mind like input equals output. Like the better I can do on my input, the better the output.
00;04;08;21 - 00;04;30;01
Unknown
I get. Which is obviously worked for you in school. Like in high school. You you might say, good grades to better go to the Naval Academy. Okay. Talk to me about, like, did you know early on, and this is all super important to where your mindset is and why you are the way you are. Did you know early on you wanted to be a Navy Seal when you went to the Naval Academy?
00;04;30;03 - 00;04;47;25
Unknown
No, I didn't. I thought I might want to fly. So the Naval Academy, like the bootcamp portion is called sleeve Summer. I think it's like nine weeks or ten weeks or something. And, you know, you start that kind of. You kind of like it, you know, it's kind of like it's kind of terrible, but like in a fun way.
00;04;47;27 - 00;05;03;27
Unknown
And it's something about shared hardship and organization. Like it's kind of dark into a suit, but and, you know, you coming from the Marine Corps, you can definitely understand, you know, what's crazy is I kind of miss it now. Like, you don't have that anymore where you like, you just do just terrible things. But it's fun because you do it together.
00;05;03;27 - 00;05;31;05
Unknown
It's it's really I struggle to make sense of it. But, I remember starting my freshman year and what really kind of clued me into it was there were some seniors on the varsity swim team. I swam during my time in college. There were some seniors. And I mean, these were the kind of leaders that you really, really looked up to really good communicators, led by example, you know, establish a standard and expected people to uphold to it.
00;05;31;05 - 00;05;47;10
Unknown
And when you didn't, they gave you consequences. But in a way where there are disappointed and you didn't want to disappoint them, not in a way that was like overbearing. And so I realized that all those leaders who I really looked up to, they were aspiring to go into the Seal teams. And I was like, so what's up with that?
00;05;47;10 - 00;06;17;11
Unknown
And it just got me more and more inquisitive into it. And I will say initially it was definitely the challenge and the overcoming of the challenge and wondering like, ooh, maybe I could be the type of person that does that. But then the more I learned about it and especially between my junior and senior year, where you actually get to go TDY, if you're not in the military, you basically get like temporarily assigned for maybe, 2 to 6 weeks or so with an actual Seal organization, and you get to see what they do.
00;06;17;11 - 00;06;40;06
Unknown
You get immersed in kind of the culture and what they're what they're doing in their training and in their normal life, their normal work life. And so once I got to do that, my perspective changed even more towards like, dude, it's not just operating at a high level. It's not just, being around other people who do have elite expectations of themselves, but it's the leadership.
00;06;40;14 - 00;07;03;11
Unknown
It's the leadership's not just overcoming a challenge, but it's a leadership of that high drive, high capacity, get it done kind of person. And to me, that was like, I was whole. I was like, this is all I want to do and just spoke to your soul because, I mean, it sounds like that's, you know, your dad and your mom, obviously smart, driven people to, you know, in their own right.
00;07;03;14 - 00;07;22;13
Unknown
And so you kind of saw that modeled for you and in the engineering space at least. Okay. So then you start to see you get to go do your little tour with those guys a couple weeks. You're like, yo, they're elite. They hold high standards. I see the way they treat each other. I see the way they hold themselves accountable.
00;07;22;13 - 00;07;42;09
Unknown
That's where I want to be. But like, a lot of people want to be a Navy Seal. That's that's, you know, what's the, what's the amount of people who want to be a Navy Seal and go try it versus how many actually make it there? Do you know, generally speaking, also, I think you've got people who want it, and it's a lot of people maybe.
00;07;42;11 - 00;08;06;08
Unknown
And then you've got people who actually will try to do it. That's even less people. And then you got people who make it to even less people than that is the people that make it to like the initial phase of training. And then you've got the people who complete training, and so you get people along that whole spectrum of the people who begin training, the ones who who complete the Seal training process.
00;08;06;10 - 00;08;32;26
Unknown
It's it's like 20 to 30%. I think something like that. And it's it's not easy because it's, some compilation of mental and physical challenge. Yeah. Intentionally designed to put you through a rigorous, hard thing that, you know, the majority of people will never be able to accomplish. But I gotta imagine you being a swimmer helped you because there's a lot of water.
00;08;33;03 - 00;08;57;15
Unknown
Yeah, for the water. Mars. It was like, man, I remember doing two mile time swims in training. I was like, this is this is a break. Like, this is if we just check this box and that's what we do. This is not this is not terribly challenging right now. Okay. So you you where most people probably suffered was like felt good to you because you were like so good in the water.
00;08;57;17 - 00;09;15;11
Unknown
And, and for those who might be listening to this or like this is kind of crazy, like Navy Seals go through, some initial training. It's called buds, right? Is this correct? I think that's correct. Buds and not a emotion seal training. Yeah, yeah. And they go through it's like a very physical, very mental. How long, how long is it.
00;09;15;11 - 00;09;33;20
Unknown
Roughly eight months. Couple months. Three minus four months. It's like, it's a little over six months, I think. I think it's 30 weeks for the whole buds evolution. Yeah. For I think buds is 30 weeks. I might be wrong on that, but yeah buds is about six months. A little more than six months. But that's, that's if you don't get injured.
00;09;33;23 - 00;09;55;08
Unknown
Most people don't finish with the class they started in. They either get an injury, like a medical role or a performance role. So you've got like different opportunities to succeed in something. And if you don't hit some of those opportunities, you get rolled back for performance as well. Some examples might be like a time swim time run also, of course.
00;09;55;10 - 00;10;15;08
Unknown
There's another one. We're in second phase. We're doing like, you're doing a lot of scuba certification before you go, operate the Drager, which is like a closed circuit underwater breathing system. And in second phase, you get a lot of people who fail to pass pool comp, and so they get a redo, but they just get recycled back to the next class.
00;10;15;10 - 00;10;33;03
Unknown
Here's what's crazy. And I want to I want to go into leadership. I just want to help people understand, like so few people can become a Navy Seal. Well, so few people, to your point, are even willing. They might think they want to do it, but they're even willing to try. And other people who try to even fewer people make it, make it through.
00;10;33;03 - 00;10;53;11
Unknown
And here's the crazy part. We're literally just talking about the initial training. Like, I think people lose sight of that. They go Navy Seal floods that guys all sound like, must be a badass, like the amount of training you do and then for the rest of your career is like absolutely insane. Like, you guys are always, always training if you're not actually doing something.
00;10;53;11 - 00;11;12;15
Unknown
And I think people don't realize how many, repetitions and how much you really, genuinely do become an expert at a thing that you're doing. Yeah, it's a gantlet. I mean, I would say when I was in the, in the act of seal platoons like you are gone from home 70, 80% of the time. That was my that was my experience on the East Coast.
00;11;12;17 - 00;11;34;18
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It was you're you're it's quite the sacrifice. Okay. Sacrifice. That's a word that I, I, I like, there's the two SS sacrifice and suffer two things, near and dear to my heart. James. Here's what people. Well, here's what we haven't talked about. You came down to Tampa still active duty. You you literally went from, like.
00;11;34;21 - 00;11;54;00
Unknown
And I bought some, you were already a good investor. You're already savvy with cash, like you were smart. You were doing a couple things. You were stock market, very good trading style. Like you were all solid. And then you kind of like, saw real estate and not just like, saw it, but like, went all in over the past five years.
00;11;54;00 - 00;12;13;27
Unknown
And I've been like able to see a lot of this. And, I mean, how much real estate have you done in the past five years and what kind of real estate are you doing? Like, what kind of results have you been able to achieve in real estate? And I want to talk about why and how leadership and suffering and all the things you've been through in your past have influence how you do things today.
00;12;13;29 - 00;12;35;19
Unknown
Yeah, dude, I'm happy to go into all that stuff. It's obviously a journey I'm very passionate about. What have I done in real estate? You know, I don't like I'm not a big, notches on the belt kind of guy. I'm like, oh, I bought my 178 deal or whatever it is. I don't even know the number. It's it's transaction volume in the triple digits.
00;12;35;22 - 00;12;52;22
Unknown
You know, here's why I'm not the biggest fan of metrics is because, like, no one metric usually tells the whole tale. If I say, hey, I have a really big net worth, like, okay, did you inherit it? Okay, I've done a ton of transactions. Okay. What do they make money. All right. You gotta you did a ton of revenue.
00;12;52;23 - 00;13;11;18
Unknown
Okay. What was your what was your margin? How how was your net from that revenue. So like, no one metric ever tells the full tale. But yeah, we've done triple digits of transaction volume. We're entitling we're doing in our land development business. We're doing over 50 units in Tampa a year to date. Some of those all entitle and sell off early.
00;13;11;18 - 00;13;31;25
Unknown
We've already done that a few times this year. Others are active projects we've got going on right now. We do end up building some of them. We've got two single family homes that are almost permit ready right now. So in terms of development we've done is multi eight figure at this point I believe is over 10 million worth of worth of volume in that business.
00;13;32;02 - 00;13;53;22
Unknown
That's what I'm focused for. That's what I'm most focused on right now in real estate investing. But I've, I've bought and sold, several millions of dollars of rentals and, ten, like, as a partner. You got to say that, right? As a partner, I've been involved in a couple, tens of millions of dollars of apartment investing to.
00;13;53;24 - 00;14;17;02
Unknown
And again as a partner. Right. That wasn't all me. So. Yeah. Yeah. You know, numbers. Numbers don't really. Numbers can tell all kinds of stories, but you're legit. I know you're legit because I talk every day, and, you run a profitable business, and you built a meaningful company here in Tampa doing land development, new builds, new construction ground, a myriad of things.
00;14;17;02 - 00;14;37;24
Unknown
You become an expertise at a very unique niche, which I think is powerful. But, we can we can do a whole nother podcast on your skill set in real estate. I love to talk to you about, what was it that transitioned? So, like, when I first met you, you know, JPL woodworks, and, you were a great investor.
00;14;38;01 - 00;15;04;25
Unknown
You were already an investor. You already knew how to like, take money, give something at a lesser value, and, you know, make it make more money, like you already know how to do that from, the stock market, from work, from all these things. So what transition? What did you learn from your time in the military from a leadership perspective that helped you as you start to got as you got into entrepreneurship in the beginning?
00;15;04;27 - 00;15;33;18
Unknown
Yeah, that's a really good question. Let me try to be as succinct as possible, because it's kind of it's kind of like, more comprehensive, thorough answer. Most people can be successful on their own. Most people can find a way to be successful on your own if you actually want to grow, though, if you want to run a business, if you want to accomplish more than just you can accomplish by yourself, then you have to do it with a team.
00;15;33;20 - 00;15;52;12
Unknown
And whether those are 1099 people, or whether those W-2 employees, or whether it was just like just a contractor that, you know, at the end of the day, it's other people and other people. If you find the right people and you you keep the right people close and you surround yourself with them, especially people who may be a few steps ahead of you.
00;15;52;15 - 00;16;13;21
Unknown
And you do that well while keeping your team on the right track. And make sure you're clearly communicating the vision, delegating, and empowering properly. Like a lot of things that I learned in the military, sometimes not the right way, by the way, I make mistakes too. If you do all those things the right way, then you will grow.
00;16;13;23 - 00;16;30;06
Unknown
That's what. That's what I kind of equated it to. So you're never your business is never going to surpass your level of leadership. And then also in think in real estate, you can add kind of a technical aspect to it. Also, you don't always have to be the top technical expert, but you want to make sure you know them.
00;16;30;09 - 00;16;55;02
Unknown
Yeah, that's and I think it gets overlooked in the industry quite a bit. It's like you do need to know some stuff, like you can't do real estate and not know anything like that's that's a fallacy. You talked about specifically building teams. Can you, can you talk about the evolution of your team, maybe like from where you went from, primarily like a rental guy, and then you decided like, oh my gosh, I can do all this other crazy stuff.
00;16;55;02 - 00;17;22;07
Unknown
Talk to me about that evolution and maybe even your personal growth as a leader. What did you have to let go so that you can get up to the next level? Like give me some examples. Adam, you're gonna laugh at this because this lesson was from you. You're. I stopped mowing your own yards, man. I was I had rentals, and I would charge the tenants, like, an extra hundred bucks or whatever it was back then, to to take care of the landscaping instead of paying a landscaper, I would go and personally do it, and then I would make that extra money.
00;17;22;10 - 00;17;45;00
Unknown
And I started doing the math at the encouragement of Adam. And I realized, like, okay, I can be working for $20 an hour doing yard mowing for my own rentals, and that's fine. You can make some money doing it. Or if I focus on deal making, that's a 500 $700 an hour task. Like focus on that. And are you are you good at and are you good at it and do you enjoy it?
00;17;45;02 - 00;18;05;29
Unknown
And so, that's why I really realized through that process. Now, in terms of the evolution of the team, first it was just me. I realize, it's pretty tough for me to find a property manager that kind of like, meets my expectations. And so I was self-managing. I brought on a, a part time admin. She was with me for probably six months, and it was just it surpassed what she was able to do.
00;18;06;01 - 00;18;22;14
Unknown
She was just like a friend. I didn't I didn't know her very well. I didn't really screen anything. She was like, hey, I'm looking for extra work. I was like, you're hired. Like, you can breathe and you're looking for extra work. You're in. And so obviously that had a shelf life to it because we weren't a good long term culture of that great person.
00;18;22;14 - 00;18;46;23
Unknown
We just she just, I don't think had a passion to really contribute to to the growth and, and learn real estate. And so, after that, I'll tell you what, I went through a really, really hard time hiring. I went through probably like four people in seven months. And none were really good fit and learned a lot of things and ended up hiring, hiring a friend like, the wife of a friend.
00;18;46;23 - 00;19;05;05
Unknown
She did really well, but had to step down for some health reasons. She was awesome. And then that's when I found my current ops manager, basically my CEO now. And, she's been great. That was, that was two and a half years ago, so she's been awesome. Once we really got things going with her. Then I brought on a full time marketing manager.
00;19;05;05 - 00;19;27;14
Unknown
So both the CEO and the CMO are Americans. And then we have two VA's, one for each department, and then we've got some further growth ahead. But, I'm I'm kind of saying quiet about that for right now. Yeah. You have a really interesting approach, which I, I, I actually think is, is smart is you have a top down hiring approach.
00;19;27;14 - 00;19;51;20
Unknown
You're trying to bring on the right leaders into your business who are player coaches. You know, they're willing to get their hands dirty, which I think, makes them super powerful. I'm really interested to hear, like, what you may have. I'm sure you felt that along the way. I'm sure you felt like, like even some level of fear.
00;19;51;20 - 00;20;19;20
Unknown
Right? I know you, like, don't want to talk about the word fear because we're, like, also military people. Boy, you little scare like this may not work out. I don't really know. It's probably more uncertainty. So, like, did you have any fear or uncertainty whether it was, you know, stopping to cut the grass, hiring your first person, you know, pivoting to build the go ground up on your own and like, you did all these things along the way, did you have maybe any fear, uncertainty.
00;20;19;20 - 00;20;43;20
Unknown
And what advice would you give to somebody who is feeling stuck and maybe, maybe overwhelmed by fear or uncertainty right now? What is courage? What is courage? Courage does not mean you're not scared. Courage can not exist. The definition of courage, it cannot exist if fear is not a factor in it. If fear is not a component, courage cannot exist because fear is required.
00;20;43;22 - 00;21;13;25
Unknown
Since courage is being uncertain or being fearful, being scared and choosing to do it anyway. Now, I'm not saying avoid mitigating all risk and just and just roll the dice. So it's not what I'm saying at all. But there is definitely an aspect of this, of like of seeing that there is some uncertainty, mitigating risk in identifying the things that you can control that are within your sphere of influence, and choosing to take choosing to take a step forward anyway.
00;21;13;27 - 00;21;33;09
Unknown
And sometimes you may not need to take a step forward. That's okay too. But I think that's the most important thing to realize. Yeah. Okay, so 2020, mid 2020 I took my foot. I developed this game plan for myself and I took my foot. If the game plan was a gas pedal and I stomped it all the way down farther than the floor would go.
00;21;33;11 - 00;21;53;01
Unknown
And this was when, like the rent, what was it called during Covid? Like all the tenants got free rent kind of moratorium. It was like a moratorium on rent. Yeah, a rent moratorium. Of course, interest rates were low. But what I really asked myself, I was like, what is the absolute worst thing that that happens? I've lost money before.
00;21;53;04 - 00;22;12;18
Unknown
I've lost a little money before, and I've been okay. So I looked at my personal situation, which I recommend everybody does. Like I didn't have kids, I wasn't married, I had some extra savings, that I had kind of accrued during like, living really? Excuse me? Living really frugally in the military. And so I bought a rental.
00;22;12;21 - 00;22;30;12
Unknown
Okay, well, that went well. I bought another rental that went well, and I just kept doing it. And then I bought seven rentals in nine months. And so, all of that time, what I realized that, like, my parents were like, are you sure you want to be doing this? This seems risky, friends. You didn't really understand. They're like, this doesn't seem like the time to buy rentals.
00;22;30;14 - 00;22;49;09
Unknown
And when I really took a look into it, I was like, none of these people giving me advice are actually doing it either. So what qualifies them to tell me what I should be doing? Let me figure it out. And I did, with help. Yeah. Of, I think that's such a, savvy approach. Talk about, you mentioned risk, right?
00;22;49;09 - 00;23;09;20
Unknown
I looked at the risk compared to, you know, looked at my own personal situation. I actually like how you talk about stacking risk. Can you talk about how you evaluate? Obviously, you come from a steel background. You guys building contingencies and look for risk contents and risk mitigation all over the place. So how is that transcribed into you evaluating risk today.
00;23;09;20 - 00;23;40;06
Unknown
What's your mental checklist of your risk. Yeah. So the worst accidents that happen in the military, if you look at when a when a helicopter crashes, a lot of people on board or vehicle rolls over, you look get all these these things when you study the things leading up to those, those tragic accidents happening in almost all cases, what you can find is at some point someone's or numerous people's enthusiasm, what they what they were, they felt gung ho about.
00;23;40;06 - 00;24;01;01
Unknown
They thought they could really do it. It it surpassed their actual capability. It surpassed their actual capability. And so I take that same lesson in and realize in the military, you know, I've had friends pass away, guys I went to training with where like where that was the case, and some risks were either overlooked or not properly mitigated.
00;24;01;01 - 00;24;19;04
Unknown
So I take kind of that lesson. I try to apply it to my own deals. So I try to be pretty mindful, like where I feel really passionate about my business. I really wanted to grow. Where am I blind? Where there's some blind spots where maybe I'm so enthusiastic about the growth that I'm missing things. That's one thing.
00;24;19;07 - 00;24;37;26
Unknown
The second thing is every deal we do. I'm a believer in asymmetric bets, so the inherent principle of asymmetric bets really, really simple, is the consequence of the upside. And the likelihood of the upside to the far outweigh the downside. There usually still is a downside. It doesn't mean you won't lose money. It doesn't mean you can't lose money.
00;24;38;02 - 00;25;02;16
Unknown
It just means it's less likely to occur that you lose money and the amount or the the impact of what you lose. Far, far sorry is far less than the upside. So every development deal that we do is, is by definition, asymmetric. Bet. Yeah, I like that. And and you, it's just like you are always going to accept risk.
00;25;02;16 - 00;25;22;00
Unknown
And I try to talk to people and others and they want they want everything to be perfect all the time. I want to be perfect. It's like nothing's going to be perfect. It's all going to be, you might hit something that feels real good, looks real nice, perfectly aligned. But the reality is, is in business, at least in my experience.
00;25;22;00 - 00;25;46;20
Unknown
And what I've seen as like, you're just trying to stack as much consistent action that is along the right directional path as you possibly can for as long as you possibly can, knowing that some things are not going to work. Some like you. Have you ever lost money, James? Yeah, yeah, I've I've lost money. I've lost money on partnership deals big time.
00;25;46;22 - 00;26;09;05
Unknown
And like you probably invested in things like. Yeah. I mean but you start out with the information you had at that time. So we don't have to go into any of those in specifics. But you know, you you lost money on a couple endeavors. Right? So it's like, what? But when you made those decisions to do that, did you feel like you had all the advantages at the time with the experience and knowledge that you had?
00;26;09;08 - 00;26;28;12
Unknown
Do I feel like I did have all the advantages? Yeah. Like you you made though. Did you feel like you made the best decision possible at that time? Like you can't you can't you can't look back 20, 20, you know, like at that time you felt like that thing that you did, that law ended up losing money was the right decision.
00;26;28;14 - 00;26;43;16
Unknown
Yeah. At the time, yeah, I agree I wouldn't have made the decision otherwise. I think when I think it's important, we all learn from those kinds of missteps. And it's great if you learn from the mistakes of others and not your own, because then you don't have to pay that price that they paid. But I think it came down to it.
00;26;43;17 - 00;27;03;03
Unknown
Well, there's a few factors, but one thing is just making bad assumptions. Hey, I know this guy and he's done a really good deal before and he wouldn't be fraudulent with funds. There may not be a good assumption. Yeah, yeah. Oh was a good assumption. So. Right. Yeah I mean that's that's almost like that's like a character.
00;27;03;05 - 00;27;30;25
Unknown
Character is hard man. Because but people to all accounts, a lot of people in your world you're like, that is a good person, but a good person in a bad situation could make poor decisions. So it's a great point. Yeah. Hard hard to do. Yeah. I think it's it's really interesting I think where people kind of, get wrapped up and get in their own way is that they want the they want conditions to be perfect in order to take action.
00;27;30;27 - 00;27;54;22
Unknown
But I look at guys like, you're no, no time in your in since high school have you had perfect conditions and you've just found a way to succeed along the way. Can you, often how can you help somebody get beyond that, get beyond perfect conditions and taking action? Okay, okay. If if you're in your first two years as being an entrepreneur, I really, really want you to listen to this.
00;27;54;25 - 00;28;21;13
Unknown
If you're in your first two years as an entrepreneur and you've learned enough to where you're confident in your ability to mitigate the risk, I want to tell you this story. I have six my net worth in the past five years from five years ago. There are people that are still waiting to do their first deal. Who I talked to her waiting for that home run and I've made no progress.
00;28;21;16 - 00;28;48;08
Unknown
They made zero progress because they were waiting for the perfect situation to come. Where they could swing at it, and I swung at every base hit possible, and it made all the difference. I probably hit like 3 or 4 home runs in my whole career. Private. Hundreds of base hits. That's really powerful, man, I think. Well, I did hit 3 or 4 home runs.
00;28;48;08 - 00;29;09;24
Unknown
Is pretty sweet to. Yeah, those are good ones. That's awesome, I love it. I'm really excited. So you're going to come out to, you're going to be at our Clearwater event, the event, the seven finger flipping mastermind event. You're going to you're actually going to be opening, keynote on mindset and leadership. So I'm really excited to see what you talk about during that.
00;29;09;24 - 00;29;33;06
Unknown
And how am I think I just you're such a savage. Like people don't understand, like the focus and willingness to suffer, just to suffer until you succeed. Like, I feel like that's the thing that most people are missing. For me personally, it's like you're not willing to do the thing that's hard. Long enough, and consistently enough, or to upgrade your own skills if you're not, if you feel like you're not smart enough, those kind of things.
00;29;33;12 - 00;30;04;09
Unknown
I want to go to some bonus questions real quick. What's one thing you believe about leadership that most people would disagree with? This is really good. I feel like I have multiple something I believe about leadership that most people would disagree with is some of the most elite leaders are frequently misunderstood. What do you mean by that?
00;30;04;12 - 00;30;39;04
Unknown
They can be extremely effective and respected, but perhaps not well-liked. It's great to be well-liked. Feels good. I feel like to my other people, if that feels good, does that get in the way of your effectiveness? Can it can you give? That's crazy. People can do it. But but the wrong people who like your leadership style is not a good match for those people are definitely misunderstanding you.
00;30;39;06 - 00;31;16;16
Unknown
They don't have the same vision. They don't. They don't have the same standards. They couldn't possibly understand me. I mean, I go back to the, to the idea of suffering. I, I'm a sucker for punishment as an idiom, you know, that we have set in our world. And I until recently, I heard you and I were at this event together and we heard Tim Tebow, and, he's like, hey, did you know the, root, the Greek root of the word passion is actually suffering or enduring.
00;31;16;16 - 00;31;35;03
Unknown
I was like, okay, now we're talking. You're passionate about something. If you're truly passionate about something, you're willing to suffer for. It was his point. Like, okay, how passionate are you about the thing that you're exposing? And this is where this is where I this is what I call this say do gap. And we see this all the time.
00;31;35;05 - 00;32;04;06
Unknown
You say you want this, but you're not willing to do what's necessary in order to get it right. The say do gap like it's the most prevalent thing. So it means to me you're not really that passionate about it. When people say, follow your passions, sure, follow your passions. Hopefully they make you money. But if you're passionate about the thing that is making you money, like you're going to be willing to suffer and do it for so much longer, which increases your heartbeat, increases your likelihood of winning exponentially.
00;32;04;09 - 00;32;28;05
Unknown
Like five years ago, I was dumb. I sucked, like period. Like I wasn't that good. The amount of skills I've been able to acquire in five years, just like you, like five years ago, you. Five x or six x your net worth. But not. It wasn't because of your net worth. You six your skill set you six x your leadership, your six x your mindset.
00;32;28;07 - 00;32;44;07
Unknown
There was a point in time for three and oh five years ago you were cutting in on grass. You were like, I mean, I'm a millionaire, but I would have come on grass because like I'll say money. It's like you're losing money. Boom. Mindset shift you up your mindset, you go on to the next thing hundred percent and and now you're surpassed.
00;32;44;07 - 00;33;03;15
Unknown
So I'm like, now I'm like trying to follow you. So I'm trying to golf stream with you like, oh my gosh, you're pushing me to be better. But I think you're willing to suffer for long enough to get whether it was the skill set you were improving or the mindset piece you were improving or any of the things along the way.
00;33;03;15 - 00;33;27;25
Unknown
It's always something, though, because you're willing to go through what it takes to go through it. And, I think to me, that's one of the things that I, I, I, I'm probably most proud of you as a, as a friend and something that I look up to you from that perspective is where you're just like you are willing to do whatever it takes to achieve the thing that you set your mind to, which I think is really hard for people.
00;33;27;27 - 00;34;02;20
Unknown
I appreciate. I want to ask you, I don't think, this is not a self glamorizing, this is not a self glamorizing topic that I'm about to say. But I'll tell you, I think most people were not built to be successful entrepreneurs. Totally. Because most people by definition that is average. Most people do not have the level of persistence and the the amount of consistency that's going to be required to generate the results to be successful.
00;34;02;22 - 00;34;22;07
Unknown
That it really takes total. I agree, I totally agree. It's just they do gap. I mean they see it looks good. They see the marketing, they see the B.S. on the internet and they're like, oh, I want that man. And I'm not sure if you really do want that. Let me ask you a couple more questions. What is a daily habit or routine that you refuse to skip?
00;34;22;07 - 00;34;42;23
Unknown
No matter what? Every single day. I mean, I guess I work out like I work out probably like eight times a week, but it's not every single day. Like I might take a day off Saturday or Sunday. Man, that's more of a mental thing, really, than physical. I'll tell you when I have my lowest lows, I'm.
00;34;42;23 - 00;34;59;26
Unknown
I'm usually eating wrong and, getting too into the weeds with a problem that I'm blowing out of proportion business. And I probably haven't worked out in, like, two days. My lowest lows I can ever remember in business. I'm like, oh, what did you expect? Your inputs were trash.
00;34;59;29 - 00;35;16;09
Unknown
So yeah, I would say like moving my body or working out. That's really good for me. Is that, is it the the mental aspect. So the physical increase is the mental for you. If you don't do the physical, then you let a lot of junk in, like can you can you're going to just go into that little deeper.
00;35;16;09 - 00;35;34;11
Unknown
Like, is that always been that way? Do you feel that way when you're in tried? I've never really tried different, but it seems to work for me pretty well, and I think it's a chemical aspect. I think there's when you work out and you exercise your body, you do something challenging. Even I don't have to set a record every day.
00;35;34;14 - 00;35;42;15
Unknown
But like there's a chemical aspect of you feeling good about accomplishing progress.
00;35;42;17 - 00;36;02;03
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. There is it's it's there's so many components to that that mentally, physically that progress that dopamine has. But yeah, it doesn't have to be a lot. I think I think the thing that most people are challenged with when it comes to physical fitness is two things. One, just like and how it can help you a lot of ways in your life.
00;36;02;03 - 00;36;24;04
Unknown
And I watch you model this as a it's usually starting whether it's that morning just getting up and going, which you do every Saturday morning, I see you, I'm doing your thing right. Like just started like just getting up and going. And then too is just doing it consistently and I the problem is expectations. Like we, we, we visualize this working out in this fitness that we're going to do and we want it to be this thing.
00;36;24;04 - 00;36;42;24
Unknown
But really, the person who just shows up and does something every day is using the person that's going to win that race in the long run. Yeah, the consistency is so critical. Okay, last, last two things. What what's a book that has shaped your leadership philosophy? The obstacle is the way. Yeah, obstacle is the way. Okay. Rabbit.
00;36;42;24 - 00;37;03;12
Unknown
Rabbit fire. The best advice you could give your 25 year old or 20 year old self. I'll go with 20 year olds and I would say buy a house, 20 or so. In college, I couldn't really buy a house, but like, let's go in between 20 to buy a house, run out there showrooms, do it again every year.
00;37;03;14 - 00;37;26;12
Unknown
That's awesome man. Well, James, thanks. Thanks for coming on today. I don't I haven't been on this, very fun podcast yet, so I'm glad to have had you have had the opportunity to talk to you. You do so much for the community, the real estate community, just the leadership you have in Tampa. You are I tell people all the time, James is like the mayor of Tampa when it comes to Tampa real estate.
00;37;26;12 - 00;37;55;22
Unknown
He is the guy. If people wanted to reach out to you, how can they how can they find you? You know, get over there. Yeah. Real simple. Our best platforms probably Instagram. Follow us on Instagram. It's at JPL. Invest, JPL, invest at Instagram. We'll make sure we get that on, on the show notes. And also, if you're just in Tampa, you'll know he holds us incredible meetup.
00;37;55;22 - 00;38;17;17
Unknown
Is it when zoom. When's the next meetup date? Let's let's put that out there. He's November here. Let me see. Here. So here's a free real estate meetup and over 300 people come to this thing in Tampa. It's literally the most insane thing you'll ever see for a real estate meetup. And it's super elite. It's literally called the Elite Investor Meetup.
00;38;17;17 - 00;38;43;17
Unknown
And, everything about it's elite, the locations, elite down in Hyde Park, the, the field people are dressed up. It's it's incredible. Is the next Wednesday, November 12th at 7 p.m.. So if, if people want to grab a ticket for that, it's no charge. But we do get we do check for tickets at the door. So if people want to grab a ticket for that, just check the link in my bio on my Instagram account and they can find it there.
00;38;43;19 - 00;39;06;19
Unknown
Boom. Yeah, I know I figured about there. So yeah, I would encourage you if you're in the flow, if you're in Florida, it's worth making the trip and coming to November 12th, which is usually a Wednesday. It's usually on Wednesday evening. So really, really, really awesome real estate meetup. Highly recommend. James I appreciate your brother. And, I'll see you probably before this, but I'm really excited to have you at the Clearwater event.
00;39;06;20 - 00;39;24;17
Unknown
November. Yeah, I'm so excited to speak. And thanks for the honor of kicking off the event. I'm going to bring my A-game and just and pour into your community. I think what you guys are accomplishing is so impressive. Helping so many investors do this is so incredible. Like, my success hasn't been me. It's been the people that I surround myself with.
00;39;24;17 - 00;39;49;10
Unknown
And you building that with seven figure legitimately, legitimately helping people in challenging market circumstances that we're seeing right now in 2025. It's inspiring as heck, man. I love it. Oh man, I appreciate you. I'm blushing over here. Well, I appreciate you. And and for everybody, for everybody who's listening, definitely go check out James. Go check out the Elite Investor Mindset Group.
00;39;49;11 - 00;39;54;14
Unknown
Thank you guys I'll see you on the next one.
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