Legacy Education For Kids with Tim Bratz

Josh Wilson
 Good day, fellow dealmakers. Welcome to the deal scout. Hey, this is a guy I interviewed a couple years ago, so we're bringing it back on our newest show to talk about the newest things that he's done and really awesome. I want to talk about the little legacy library, ladies and gentlemen, Tim, welcome to the show. Let's welcome them. Yeah. Tim, tell us about, since our last conversation, about who you are and what's new in your world. 

 Tim Bratz
 Yeah, man. Well, dude, it's great to be back. First of all, always have a good conversation with you. I appreciate all the value you continue to put out man over the years. It's an honor to be here again. Yeah. I mean, yeah. From, from, I wanna have my, I guess more background of how I got started in real estate, but I was going through college oh three to oh seven when the market was going crazy last go around was very money motivated as a young kid and decided to get involved in real estate. I'm from Cleveland originally moved out to New York, got my real estate license, started brokering retail leases and office leases brokered one deal that I saw how much the landlord is going, making over residually over the next 10, 12 years. I was like, I need to be owning real estate. 

 Tim Bratz
 I ended up moving down to Charleston, South Carolina, which is where I am now and started buying up residential real estate, single family houses in 2009, flipping houses, wholesaling houses. I started building a small portfolio, got into my first apartment building in 2012. I just love the scale of that. Right. It really spoke to my sense of efficiency, of how, just kind of how I operate on a day-to-day basis in regular life and in business. Leaned heavy on multifamily and I've done everything that I've done. I've done office, I've done retail, I've done mixed use type stuff. We've done short-term rentals development, own one of the largest management companies in Cleveland sold it. Now we do some in-house management for a bunch of our own properties and self storage facilities. I mean, you name it. I've done pretty much all asset classes in a, in real estate, but today, I'm just, I I've gone through a lot of refinement, 2018. 

 Tim Bratz
 I was big and growth mode, right? 2018, 2019. Last time I was on here, we're a bit big and growth mode. We were growing, I think in 2018, I bought about a thousand doors in 2019, about 2000 doors, 2020, about another thousand doors. 2021, we really started like refining our portfolio. We got up to about almost 5,000 doors. Then, we made such a heavy push. There was a lot of like excess fat in our portfolio. We needed to kind of trim that. We got re we sold a bunch of the small properties, any management intensive properties that we had, some of like the C class type stuff that we had. We've been trimming that over the course of the past 12 months or so. Probably we're going to do that for another couple of months. And then, yeah. So, so our portfolio is down around 4,000 right now, maybe 3,900, I think. 

 Tim Bratz
 I'm going to sell probably another 1500 doors over the course of next couple of months. We'll drop down, but then we're going to be back in acquisition mode. Right. I think, I think a lot of business, like a lot of people think is just like, go, go, go. I think the good businesses grow, refine, take a step back in order to make bigger leaps forward kind of a thing. We're, we're constantly, aware of our portfolio and reflecting on it and figuring out what do we like, what do we not like, where are we making money? Where do we not making money? And we're not afraid to pivot. We're not afraid to change our objectives and our business model in order to match the market match our longterm goals. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. It comes to pivot, change, trimming fat, reevaluating portfolio, what are some of the things that typically inspired that kind of thinking that kind of strategy, because a lot of people in multifamily, it's just like buy, buy, buy, more doors AUM, in how many doors we have under, like, what is, what's your thing? You've been in the game for a while. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. 

 Tim Bratz
 And that's the thing, man. I've been around the block, right? A lot of other people are newer. Like I've taken over 6,000 doors, full cycle, buy it, raise capital on it, finance it, stabilize the whole thing, property management, project management, asset management, refinance sale, or whatever it ends up being. And so I've been around the block. Right. I, and I realized it's a buzzword and it's cool. And it's sexy to find deals. It's a, it's cool and sexy to raise capital. That's what everyone's talking about on social media. And that's what gets all the accolades. It doesn't get the accolades is operations, right. But really operations. Once you close the deal, that's when the work begins. You, you haven't done anything yet. Like now the real work begins, especially if you're doing value, add type properties, right. If you're buying something, stabilize the, I get it. 

 Tim Bratz
 If you're doing value, add deals, right. That's typically the kind of deals that you need to do right now in order to create some equity in your portfolio, in that project, because nobody wants to overpay or nobody wants to compete with institutional money. Like that's when the work begins and yeah, again, it's not sexy. It's not fun. It's what we've come to is the reason that we've sold some of our properties. Here's a couple of the parameters. Did we talk about this property is a big pain in the ass, more than three times, right? It's been like a major pain in the ass. There's always, ebbs and flows and highs and lows for every property. If it's like consistently a pain, then let's just launch it. Life's too short. We don't need to own this thing. Market's too good. Sell it. If we have a joint venture partner, that's a headache and a, they're not doing their job. 

 Tim Bratz
 They're not, they're not carrying their weight. We will sell the property, or buy them out somehow. We've done that, done a lot of projects over the course of the past 12 months, if it's C class, right? If it's management intensive, if no matter how good you are at operations, you still have break-ins you still have tenants tearing up units. You still have all these headaches and all these issues and all these liabilities and all these lawsuits and stuff that pop up like life's too short. We don't need that. Right. It was a good stepping stone to get us to where we wanted to be. If the property doesn't have scale, meaning if it can't have onsite property management, we typically don't want to hold that longterm then. Those are some of the metrics and parameters that we look at of whether or not we're gonna hold something or sell something, realistically for, in my mind, if I'm not holding it for the next 10 years, like I kind of feel, I, I don't think we're going to go through like a big boom or bust or anything like that. 

 Tim Bratz
 Like we did back, 10, 12 years ago. I do think, interest rates are gonna rise. Cap rates are gonna rise, which means value's going to come down, which means appraisals and refinances and all that kind of stuff. Sales like the numbers aren't going to change much from a value proposition. Maybe if inflation really kicks in hard and heavy, which we're seeing rents are going to continue to rise. So that might still increase values. The reality is, man, if you bought something in 2006, or you could have sold something in 2006 and instead you decided to hold onto it, and then you sold it for the exact same price in 2016, 10 years later, you're like, why did he, why should've sold it in 2006, taking the cash off the table and then gone into new buying opportunities. That's kind of where my head is on some things right now. 

 Tim Bratz
 If I don't see myself holding it for 10 years, I'm not, now's the time to sell, like, just get rid of it. Institutional buyers are coming in and overpaying for properties or paying top dollar for properties. I know how to find deals, ? It doesn't really phase me to sell something. Cause I know that I can go and buy more. Off-market direct to seller type of opportunities. 

 Josh Wilson
 Super cool. We talk about in our team, we talk about the Pete attacks, the pain in the ass tax, right. That's why, you know, like. 

 Tim Bratz
 Real things, man. 

 Josh Wilson
 It's just not worth it. Like I we've worked with some clients that we've had to separate from because it's a lot of work. It's not just the dollar it's the emotional, it's the time commitment. So other resources. What are some things that you start to see in a potential partner? Cause you've done a lot of JVs and syndications and such. What are some things that you look for a good partner and what are some red flags when you see that, 

 Tim Bratz
 The, the red flags are typically people who just want to post it on social media, right. Be, and get the accolades on social media. If they're not willing to commit a hundred percent of their time and effort to this one deal for minimum six months, preferably 12 months, we're really not interested in joint venturing anymore. Because what we found is we funded all these deals. I sponsored loans. My team was supposed to be pretty much hands off from there other than hop on a call once a week, just kind of help navigate mentor through the project. All of a sudden, almost every deal, not all, not every one of them, but I don't know. I it's more than half, I'd say 60% of the deals we've had to take back in house, or my team just ends up taking over the project, and or with the buy that person out or whatever, just because they found the deal, took it down, posted it on social media and that's the, the adrenaline rush, right? 

 Tim Bratz
 Like that's what gives them the rise. That's like, what gets them excited? They go and start looking for more deals because they realize operations is paying the ass. Man. It's a lot of work operating real estate and it's, it's not easy. You got, you're dealing with contractors, with property managers, deal with tenants, you're dealing with the city, you're dealing with all these supplier issues, everything, and it's not a fun part of the business. They go back to what gives them the adrenaline rush, which is finding deals. They just find so many deals that all of a sudden they can't spend any time on the original commitment. And, and so that's an issue, right? Like you can't have that. Early on, I wasn't very good at setting a proper expectations either. It ha ended up coming back in our lap. We didn't make any more money there. 

 Tim Bratz
 Right. We actually had to dilute some equity because we had a hundred new other people or give them some equity or raise more capital and dilute our own equity and no, to do that. And so it just, it wasn't. Yeah. It, it just, it, wasn't fun. What do I look for in a partner is his attitude, right? Like attitude. I can train somebody on how to operate real estate, but you can't train attitude, just like the commitment to do. I will work my ass off. Thank you for giving me the opportunity, like having that gratitude for being part of the project. If there's a sense of arrogance at all, that's probably not a good fit. I partnered with a couple of people like that are arrogant and I'm too good to do this too good to do that. That's not, that's not what we're looking for. 

 Tim Bratz
 Not, not an operating partner. Yeah, I think, really attitude, work ethic and, and a sense of gratitude for being part of the project and wanting to show what they're capable of, like having some big goals, having some big aspirations on what they want to accomplish and knowing that this is going to be a great stepping stone for them to get into more deals, better deals, and really start building their wealth, I think is that's more what I'm looking for. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. Now I'm guilty of this, right. The arrogance or the pride ego, like I'm a, I'm a prideful dude and I've built some cool stuff, but I've also lost it all. I've been bankrupt. I've been on food stamps. I've went from venture capital to working on the back of a moving truck to put diapers on the baby's butt, which humbles, which humbles you. If you allow it to, how do you stay? What are some things you've learned on how to stay humble because you've been in the media, you've had some of the cool shows and you've done the sexy part of the job of raising capital and being on the top of the game. How do you, how do you balance that in your own life? 

 Tim Bratz
 Yeah, good question. I did. I'm just like, I probably how I was raised, it's just, I was humbled very much. In 2012, I built a portfolio about 10 doors, which wasn't huge, but as 25 year old, 26 year old kid, I was financially free. I had enough residual income coming in that covered all the business, operating expenses, all the debt service, my personal living expenses and put an extra thousand bucks a month in my pocket, which, I, but I was financially free, ? I think I got to figure it out. So then I bought a Mercedes. I joined the private clubs. I, took expensive, fancy vacations to Europe and all around the country and started just blowing money on stupid stuff. And, and I went totally broke. I had 80 bucks in my bank account, $25,000 in credit card debt. It was paying for gas with the coins out of the cup holder, in my car, borrowing money from my parents in order to pay my minimum payment on my credit cards, because I couldn't even cover that. 

 Tim Bratz
 I think when you're a bad steward of capital, you find a respect for, for capital, what money can do. It's a tool, right? It's like, guns could be used for protection or for hurting people. Money can be used as a tool and it can also be detrimental to your finances if you don't respect it and treat it the right way. I've become a much better steward of capital because of that. It's funny, man, like when you don't have a Mercedes, when you don't have a fancy house, when you don't have the fancy watches, when you don't drive the fancy cars and you really want that stuff. You're like, oh man, like that's the driver and you see it on social media all the time, like Lambos and the jets and all this s**t. I can tell you, dude, like once you get there, you're like, ma this is it, right. 

 Tim Bratz
 This is what I was really like driving for. I just don't go fulfillment from that stuff anymore. My do, my dad was like, he was a cop. He's the millionaire next door. Right. He was a police officer and now he's worth a couple million bucks or something. Right. He had like, can start a side business. Dude, he just, he wore shirts with holes in it. I remember putting on this one shirt, it was like a purple shirt that a dad's report card on it. It had a hole in the armpit. He put it on and his arm would go through the hole. Like the sleeve would be flapping up in his head and I'm like, dad, what do you do? Like, he's like, w w who am I? Who do I need to impress? I think once you get to a certain level of confidence, I I'm confident enough in myself. 

 Tim Bratz
 Hopefully I don't come off as arrogant, but I'm confident enough in myself where if you don't like me, I get it. Nope, no problem. Nope, no worries. And you go enjoy your life. I'm gonna go enjoy mine. I, I try not to be a Dick. I don't, I don't talk down to people. Right. I don't, I don't do any of those kinds of things. I realized like, dude, everybody's dealing with issues. Everybody's dealing with problems wildly thankful for what I do have. And, and I have a sense of just confidence of, Hey, listen, I, I know a couple of things about business. Now. I can go make money if I want to. This, the reality is I make more of it. It's more fulfilling to me to make an impact on other people than it is to buy material stuff. I'll spend stupid amounts of money on like trips and lifestyle experiences, but just buying stuff, isn't it doesn't fulfill me. 

 Tim Bratz
 Right. I've been down that road. It was a sense of emptiness for me personally. I'll get a lot more fulfillment by just helping out, providing value on social media, jumping on podcasts, hosting events and coaching and mentoring and, doing deals like that. I think if you're, if you're ultimately comfortable in your own skin kind of a thing, then you don't try to, I don't know. I don't think you need that sense of arrogance, ? 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. I think if you allow life to humble you and go through these experiences, I think that you become a better steward of talent. You become a better steward of capital or opportunity or even relationships, like the, I, what I look for in a team member, someone who's got their ass kicked and they got back up with a better attitude, ? Like I'm like, those are the kinds of people I like. 

 Tim Bratz
 Yeah, for sure, 

 Josh Wilson
 Man. I like working at, as you're going through, you talk about impact. Man, I was just about to click by, before we hit record little legacy library, I'm looking through some of the books and the book that caught my attention. Like, I'm like cannot wait. Cause everyday my kids ask me, how do I make money? How do I make money? How do I make money? We rake the yard and we go to yard sales, we buy stuff and we sell stuff. And, and I see the richest kid in the neighborhood. Tell me about that book. What inspired that? 

 Tim Bratz
 Yeah. The whole series came from me flying back on a plane, and I'm reading the book, the magic of thinking big by David Schwartz. And I was 31 at the time. My daughter was like turning two and I'm reading this book and I'm like, let everything the, like the prologue. I'm like, damn, this good con, this are like life-changing philosophies and principles in this book. I was like, I'm getting this at 31 years old. I got to reprogram my thought philosophies. Cause I, again, I come from a blue collar town in Cleveland, Ohio, and I got to revPro, like, can you imagine, is being programmed the right way from a very early young age? I was like, how do I instill these principles? These thought philosophies into my daughter of achievement and success and all these kinds of things. I got off the plane, I started Google searching, like personal development books for kids and started Google searching, like, and there wasn't anything out there. 

 Tim Bratz
 There was a lot on like how to be nice. The golden rule treat others how you want to be treated. Berenstain bears kind of stuff like that. There wasn't really anything on achievement, philosophies, goal setting philosophies in creating influence, like these types of things that many of us didn't learn until post-college post, but yeah. Traditional school. So, I think when the universe, God plants a seed in your head on something and you ignore it, you're essentially turning your attorney or, turning away God or the universe or whatever nature, whatever you want to call it. I had the seed planted thinking, Tim, you gotta go and write these books. I sat on the idea for almost three years. I was on vacation with a couple of very close friends. Obviously my wife and my family, and were in the pool late night, having some drinks, tell him I was talking about this. 

 Tim Bratz
 Like, this is something I really want to do, but I don't have enough time. My wife and one of my best female friends raised their hand, they said, Hey, we'll write the books. And you, Tim, you got the idea. You kind of give us feedback and all this other stuff. It was cool where, and somehow I got swindled out of like 70% of the company. I don't, I don't know how this happened. Like the wife take it. Yeah. Yeah. My, between my wife and her friend. Like, so anyways, no, but I, I was like, absolutely like, we just need to go out and do it and get this thing rocking and rolling. We ended up taking the, the idea of the entire library. It's called little legacy library.com is taking the most classic personal development books and taking the concepts from those books and putting them into children's stories. 

 Tim Bratz
 Think big and go to baseball camps based on think and grow rich. It's about goal setting. It's about sacrificing things that you care about for things you care even more about like long-term goals and achieving, sacrificing short-term pleasures for long-term gains, and really like obsessing over your goals. Richest kid in the neighborhood is based on the richest man in Babylon. It's taking those thought principles of like, how do you build wealth? Right? And, and it really boils down to making money, saving money and investing, multiplying your money. It talks about, how these kids in the neighborhood, there's a couple of different kids, like who are all like little hustlers and ones like trading baseball cards and the other, one's got a pet walking business and a pet bath. The other one, as a lawn care business. I like what they do with their money and how they spend it investing with the right people versus investing with the wrong people. 

 Tim Bratz
 That's, that's one of the concepts in there too. So it's, that's actually my favorite one. I don't know if it's just because of the most recent, the one that we released, but I love that one, another one, how to win friends and influence people, how to win class president is another one that we have. It's essentially taking the principles of, using people's names, treating others, showing genuine interest in other what other people are interested in. And it's like, it's creating influence. It's teaching your kid how to be likable, how to be influential at a young age and how to engage with other kids. Right. And, and make friends. I did was just powerful principles that nobody ever talks about. Power of positivity is based on the power of positive thinking, but normally makes Norman Vincent Peale. It's a lot about gratitude and really just understanding the people would trade their life for yours in a heart trailer problem for yours in a heartbeat, kind of a thing. 

 Tim Bratz
 And, and just, coming from a place of gratitude, you can achieve way more. You can be more abundantly mindseted and yeah. All powerful books really well written by the girls and with a couple of tweaks and direction for me, and found some local artists to illustrate and the illustrations are really cool. And there's a lot of cool stuff. Like the characters are all named off of like the Titans of industry. There's a Ford is the main character Morgan is, has, is fi one of his female friends based on JP Morgan, you got Andrew was based on Carnegie, Rocky based off of John D Rockefeller. It's kind of some nods of the hat to those Titans of industry back in the day. There was a couple of other things like there's action steps at the end of each book and stuff too, in order to like help kids set goals, help the kid, start managing their capital, managing their money and doing stuff like that. 

 Tim Bratz
 So it's cool, man. We're really proud of it. It's starting to get some legs and stuff too. So we're excited. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. That's super cool. Super, super awesome, man. The edge as they experienced business guide, deal-maker raised capital. You sit down, you write, you start writing these books, with the help of, some friends. Oh, by the way, when you were in the pool having cocktails, what was your drink of choice? What did you, what's your go-to? 

 Tim Bratz
 I drink, if I'm drinking to get drunk, it's a different drink than if I'm just sipping on like whiskey, right? Yeah. I usually just sip on whiskey if I'm going to have like a one drink or something, but yeah. If I'm, if I'm drinking to like get, start feeling good and I'm on vacation, it's usually like Tito's with ginger ale and a splash of grape juice. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. So that's called a Greyhound, right? 

 Tim Bratz
 What's. 

 Josh Wilson
 That? Isn't that called a Greyhound. 

 Tim Bratz
 It's, yeah, it's just got a couple different names, but my buddy called told me it's called a transfusion. So that's what we always call. 

 Josh Wilson
 It. It sounds great. What's your go-to whiskey. 

 Tim Bratz
 There's this there's probably, I like to drink local. There's a spot up here in not Charleston, South Carolina. That's like a, a ginger infused bourbon, which is really good. Otherwise, I, I usually go with angels MB. 

 Josh Wilson
 That's so tasty. I like. 

 Tim Bratz
 Angels smooth. It's good, man. That's usually my go-to if I'm at a restaurant or something, but if I'm drinking something locally or just in my kitchen, I'll do like the ginger infused bourbon and I've got a little sweetness to throw it on a rock and it's good. 

 Josh Wilson
 That's nice. Yeah. My brother and sister, or sister-in-law live in Charleston, so next time I'm up there. I'll buy you a buy your first ginger and fusion round. All right, 

 Tim Bratz
 Let's do it. Let's do it, man. Hit me up next time. You're here. That'd be. 

 Josh Wilson
 Awesome. Cool. All right. Sorry. Back to back to deals as you're writing this book and you're like, I've got all this experience now I'm, taking this information, breaking it down for kids, right? Like how do we simplify this crap? Or it's not like compound and dress and all, like IRR and all this cap rate crap. Right. And you're explaining it to a kid. Did you come across anything where you're like, holy moly, I'm learning stuff as I'm trying to like create it for kids. 

 Tim Bratz
 It, so being a coach in real estate, you have to take these, these complex principles and boil it down to essentially a third grade level anyways. Right. And, and I think that's, that really shows true brilliance. Don't impress me by using words and saying you went to an Ivy league school and speaking above everybody else and show me how smart you are that way. Show me how smart you are by taking those concepts and simplifying it in a way that everybody can understand it. Like that to me is true brilliance. That's something that I've always worked really hard on is like, and I did. I'm a simple kid from Cleveland, Ohio, right? Like again, blue collar town, Cleveland Midwest. If it's too complex, dude, it's over my head anyways. Right. It's too mystical for me to understand anyways. I've been able to take a lot of those complex concepts and boil it down. 

 Tim Bratz
 Ox, relaxed, sorry, dogs barking. Hang on. 

 Josh Wilson
 Hey dog. I just wanted to be on the show, man. 

 Tim Bratz
 Yeah, I, it's, you create the content to teach people, but you learn just as much when you create the content. Like, dude, my operations got dialed in when I created commercial empire, which is my coaching platform on the apartment side. Like I had to not look like a dumb ass in front of all these people that I was coaching. I needed to make sure that like everything checked out, that I had resources for them on how to grade a neighborhood and how to grade a property and how to like quantify certain things and how to, create a calculator type of thing and how to underwrite these things and how to operate and what those standard operating procedures look like and who the vendors are, who the suppliers are and all this different stuff. It refines you as a business owner, as an individual and refines your business and tightens things up in, in every capacity. 

 Tim Bratz
 These kids' books did a lot of that too. Right? It's like, what really matters? Like what if you boil everything down in the world of personal wealth building, what matters and what matters is making money, keeping money and multiplying your money. That's the concept and the richest kid in the neighborhood. That's what we really hone in on. 

 Josh Wilson
 Sounds cool, dude. Awesome job. If, if I bought a few books or something like that, would you guys sign it for me? My kids. Yep, 

 Tim Bratz
 Absolutely. Man. All right. 

 Josh Wilson
 So. 

 Tim Bratz
 Yeah, send it over. My wife does all the fulfillment side of things. Okay. So we'll make that happen. 

 Josh Wilson
 All right. Look out for Josh Wilson and we'll send you guys some money and let me set, make my kids rich, make my kids smart. One of the things that we instituted is, I ran out of questions after doing this a couple thousand times is we bought cards with questions on it. Right. So tell me when to stop. I'm going to ask you one of these questions Right here. Here we go. Here we go. The question is, oh, this is fun. If you could be born in another era in history, which would you choose and why any would the same knowledge you have today? 

 Tim Bratz
 Oh man. Like if I travel in time, I'd love to see dinosaurs. Do I think that would be wild and awesome. I don't want to live during that time though. Like I don't think I could make it, 

 Josh Wilson
 Just see him. 

 Tim Bratz
 And, and I need to be in a cage when I travel there. If I do, I love, the ideas and principles and stuff of like ancient Greece and ancient Rome, like that stuff really resonates with me. It would either be that, or it would be like right at the, the term like late 18 hundreds, like from an industrial business perspective, like there was so much wild amounts of wealth and things you could do in business. It was the wild west and just understanding business principles and how Carnegie built his business and how Rockefeller built Hill's business and how Vanderbilt built his business and how JP Morgan would come in and raise capital. Like, it just, there's, it was limitless opportunity. Not saying it's not today, but there's obviously regulation on all this stuff, right? Like there's, anti-trust laws, you can't have a monopoly, you could totally have a monopoly back then. 

 Tim Bratz
 In fact, that's what the game was. The game was to go and create monopolies and build it as big as you can, there's labor laws today where there weren't labor laws back then, and it was horrible working conditions, but people didn't have anything to compare it to. They didn't really know that it was hard. Like, so I think from a business perspective, it would be very interesting to go back to then and understand, I mean, it was, it was capitalism to the max of what you could do during the industrial revolution. I think that would be really fascinating from a business perspective. From like a thought principle philosophy, stoic type of perspective. Ancient Greece would be pretty bad. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. Go back in time and hang out with like Aristotle or Plato or something like that. Like what question would you ask those guys? So let's just philosophy side. You go back in time and you could like sit there and chat, round table it up with those dudes, right? Like the, some of the greatest thinkers in, what kind of questions do you think you would ask them? 

 Tim Bratz
 Oh man. Cause it's not really about business, right? It's more about life. It's more about meaning it's about purpose. It's about, yeah. I, I don't even know. I'd have to see where the conversations went, and, and, just the psychology is very, very fascinating to me and understanding why people do the things that they do, how they act in certain ways, it'd be, a lot of questions around that kind of a thing, how to motivate people, how to de-motivate people, how to, yeah. I, I think it would, it would fall into that side of things, the whole philosophical, why are we here? What are we doing? What, what drives individuals where their mindsets and certain things, how can we always go negative when we could easily just choose to be positive? Like stuff like that, I think would, how do you exercise that mental muscle is what I'd really ask a lot of questions around. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. You've had, you've had some wins, you've had some losses, you've had some resets, some pivots you've had that time where driving around in a Mercedes, but you had to use the coins out of the ashtray to pay for gas. And, and when you write this book on for the kids on a little legacy library, when books on positivity and such, how do you, after going through maybe a bad day, let's say a bad deal or a pain in the ass client or whatever, how do you convert, before you head home, hanging out with the kids and the wife and the friends and the pool, how do you change your mind from maybe a negative or, stressed to game on and happy and positive? How do you do that? Yeah. 

 Tim Bratz
 Great, great question. I think, I mean, to me, it's always gratitude. Like a lot of people compare themselves of what they don't have. I, I make comparisons of what we do have, and it's not necessarily financial type things, not necessarily material type things. It's, your health, your relationships, your friendships, your business partners who are bad asses as well. I got a lot of remarkable business partners and joint venture partners that we've done business with. I think all happiness starts with a level of gratitude and being thankful for what you do have already, and realizing like, w what are your problems? Like I got, I have two buildings that are total pain in my ass right now. I, I wouldn't say the partner checked out, but it kind of just, hasn't been paying attention to, it had a couple other balls up in the air. This one kind of these two builders kind of fell by the wayside and they're a headache and it's a $30 million headache, ? 

 Tim Bratz
 I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't believe this. It's so stressful. It's such a pain in the butt. I, why do I always, this is one of those deals. I've not, I haven't had this conversation three times. I've had it about 30 times about the same two properties, maybe more. And, and I realized like, I'm feeling bad for myself. The reality is like how many people would love to have, 500 doors that they need to turn around and restabilize get excited about, in order to make a few million dollars on this thing. I'm dude, I don't have, if, if money can solve the problem, it's not a real problem. If money can solve it's not a real problem. My business partner on little legacy library, her name's Erin, and her five-year-old daughter got diagnosed with brain cancer last summer and nothing you can do, right. 

 Tim Bratz
 There's no cure for it. She's gone through chemo, radiation. She's going through another round of radiation now. And that's a real problem. Like that's, she would beg for the problems that I have right now. You know what I mean? I think just putting things in perspective, right? Like I felt bad for the person with no shoes and tell them that the person with no feet kind of a thing. And, and like, there's always somebody who's in a, a more difficult stance than we are. I think if you come from a place of being thankful for what we do have, and coming from a place of gratitude, like, dude, that's what really levels you out. I think on a, on a humility level and from, at a happiness level, I think it's easy to get caught up. Dude, watch it on social media and seeing people drive and seeing people buy buildings and get worked up about like competitive, like, oh my gosh, how are they doing that? 

 Tim Bratz
 I need to go in and buy and build some more. Do the reality is we're all at different stages. Nobody's better than you. It's just, they're further along in their process, right? Like you're comparing your chapter one or chapter two to somebody else's chapter 10 or chapter 12. You know what I mean? It's like, you're different places in the book. You can't, you can't say that, I wish I was there. Like somebody like, dude grant, Cardone's got 4 billion broads. Like, what are you doing? I'm like, yeah, he's also f*****g 63 years old, like I'm 36 years old. If I got 4 billion, do I even want 4 billion? Right. Like people don't like grant Cardone. I like to be liked. I like, I don't know, being respected. People see him as in different lights. And so it's just, why compare yourself? Like, who gives a s**t? 

 Tim Bratz
 If you're happy with yourself, if you're happy, you're thankful for what you got. You show that gratitude, man, like the only person you should be comparing yourself to is yourself, right. Who you were a year ago, are you further along today? You need to be striving to be the person you want to be a year from now, like that's the comparison. That's where you should be looking is not at other people. It's only in the mirror of who you were yesterday a month ago, a year ago. Are you continuously progressing and becoming a better person? 

 Josh Wilson
 That's awesome, dude. Yeah. Compare yourself to you. Right? Not other people because also social media. When you get in the capital space with fund cap razors, and these people acquisitions and tackling down all this crap, there's a lot of smoke and mirrors too, right? Like, 

 Tim Bratz
 Oh s**t. I know. Most of the, like I know many of them I know many of, and they're all full of s**t, man. 

 Josh Wilson
 So, like take that with a grain of salt and then just like, look in the mirror, compare you with you. When I, when I do that just yesterday, I was like, oh dude, I got a little dad belly going on again. If I compare myself to me, I'm like, holy s**t. I got to get rid of that thing. That happened too many whiskeys. That's right. So, Tim, as you're building this out, you're teaching kids about legacy. I think that's such a cool thing. You're teaching them about wealth building and influence and you're passing on these things. Let's just say, how many kids you got now. 

 Tim Bratz
 To two. 

 Josh Wilson
 Kids? Okay. If you could pass one characteristic to your kids, right? One thing that you could really pass on to them, what would be most important for you. 

 Tim Bratz
 To know that they're the captain of their own ship, right? Like they have a hundred percent ownership over their own life and their own decisions and the decisions that they make and the rooms that they put themselves in or not put themselves in, but what the books that they read or don't read, the people they surround themselves with, or don't surround themselves with the activities they pursue or don't pursue the opportunities that they pursue or not pursue. Like those things all will add up to who they become in the future. The TV shows they watch or don't watch, all that stuff influences us. We are, it's our decision of which direction, it's up to us. Life is going to happen, right? Life is going to happen to all of us. It's not about what happens to us. It's about how we respond to what happens to us. 

 Tim Bratz
 That's our decision, right? Because the winds are gonna blow on all of us, right. It's not the sailboat does it doesn't move forward based on the winds that blow on it. It's based on the set of the sail. We get to decide the set of the sale. Those, those economic winds, the political winds, the social winds are blown on all of us, just like what determines how getting you to your destination. It's the set of the sale, not the wins. I think that philosophy, if they understand that everything else will fall into place, right? Everything else can, th now there's that awareness. There's that personal awareness, there's this social awareness. There's that level of ownership, that level of responsibility, that level of accountability to themselves and knowing that they have the strength to change, right? The strength to change the direction, if they're going in a direction that they don't want to go in, guess what? 

 Tim Bratz
 It's because of them. And they have the ability. It's not somebody else. It's not reliant on other people or having excuses or being able to blame like that stuff is out the door when you take a hundred percent ownership over your life. And, and that would be the, I think the most important philosophy that I want to make sure that I ingrained in my kids. 

 Josh Wilson
 Super awesome to personal questions. I've seen you wear that hat before. What? Tell, tell me about that hat. What is that? 

 Tim Bratz
 This is, this is my mastermind. It's called the legacy family and the, the logo is a torch kind of passing the torch along and legacy. The eternal fire, eternal flame, the flame from within an entrepreneur, like there's a couple of different things that we talked about, but yeah, these are just, made for the mastermind members. We give it to people when they join. 

 Josh Wilson
 Super cool. If I grabbed your phone and I scrolled through like your song playlist, what song would come up with? The most plays that you're like, this is my song. I always come back. 

 Tim Bratz
 Good question. That's a really good question. Recently. I've been listening to a lot of like MGK machine gun Kelly. Yeah. He's he's from Cleveland originally. I rap stuff. Yeah. His dude, his rock album was like really freaking good man. I've been listening to MGK quite a bit recently. I like I'm pro I listen to a lot of country and a lot of rock, not hard rock, but like pop rock or like folk rock or, I don't know who's coming to mind right now. W Mumford and sons is awesome. I love them. I like a lot of the punk rock stuff from when I was going through high school and college, 

 Josh Wilson
 Like Alex PX, or like later on like blink 180 2. And so. 

 Tim Bratz
 Blink 180 2 and after blink 180 2, the poppy punk rock kind of stuff. So little bit of that. Those are the main things that I listen to a lot of country though, listen to a lot of country and a lot. I mean, I'm Charleston, South Carolina, so yeah. Kinda, you kind of have to, 

 Josh Wilson
 If you live in Charleston, you have to listen to Mumford. It sounds like that's like a, go-to like everyone has that playing on their porch and they're tapping their foot drinking moonshine. 

 Tim Bratz
 Yeah. No, it's, I, I like that. It depends on the mood that I'm in, but if I'm cruising around and I'm like, I want to get pumped up. I like some machine gun Kelly or a, some rock type stuff. 

 Josh Wilson
 Or, or during this interview, like what question that you're like, Hey, Josh, you probably should have asked me about this and you completely screwed up. 

 Tim Bratz
 The question, I bet you asked some really good ones. I mean, some really thought provoking questions and really some good deep ones, man. Like, when would you go, w where would you go in time? What would you ask Aristotle and those guys. The one thought to leave the kids. I think those are really powerful questions. And, I, I tend to be philosophical in my thought processes and stuff too. What is the most important thing? Like the biggest takeaway or biggest gift that I can give to the audience or a listener. And, and I think we hit on all of it, man. I think, I think the gratitude piece is so critical. They're taking a hundred percent ownership over your life is so critical and realizing, do just your thoughts, like your thoughts dictate your emotions, which dictates your attitude, which dictates typically your actions, which then dictate your results. 

 Tim Bratz
 So, indirectly, your thoughts dictate all of your results. If you understand that philosophy, that the way you think is what dictates your entire life and your entire set of circumstances. Th that's a pretty powerful, it's a pretty powerful concept to leave on. Right. It's like, it's really important to understand. And, and again, it almost it's though, right? Like initially you're like, oh, damn, well, I need to start thinking better. Here's the cool part you can think better. Right? So, because you can, because it's up to you can think better and you can change your entire set of circumstances. So I think it's really important. A lot of people, they want the tactical technical knowledge on, w what piece of marketing do I put out and how do I find off market sellers? And how do I raise the capital? And how do you structure the deal? 

 Tim Bratz
 Like that's cool, but what transcends every business? What transcends all aspects and elements of life is like these thought principles. If you can really work hard on yourself and hard on your brain, the most important real estate you'll ever own dude, and work on is, is this, this is the ultimate value add, right? The six inches between your ears. 

 Josh Wilson
 That is good. That's going to be the title of this show, the most valuable piece of real estate or something like that. My team will probably have to like, make that sound better on my part, but like, All right. Let me just recap that your thoughts create your emotions, dictate your actions, which create the results. You can almost reverse engineer, which results do I need? What actions do I need to take? What kind of emotions do I need to create those actions? What kind of thoughts will help create those emotions? 

 Tim Bratz
 That's right. Look at both ways. It's like, it's like, you're, you're doing bicep curls this way. Bicep curls this way and bicep curls this way. All of a sudden it hits muscle and every single angle, and then you get ripped. Right. That's how you build up that muscle. 

 Josh Wilson
 Have you been working out Tim? Yeah. A muscle analogy in this, 

 Tim Bratz
 I guess. So I, I do F 45. You ever heard of that? Like mark Walberg thing. It's good. 

 Josh Wilson
 Guys. Cool. 

 Tim Bratz
 Yeah, he did. He's he's a sharp cat man. There's a handful of celebrities who just got it figured out, man. Like, he's got a failure. Will Smith is a rockstar. Yeah. There's, there's a couple of guys that I like that are celebrities. I really don't watch a lot of celebrities. The rock is a rock star too. Like, like the guys who understand personal development and success and achievement who are also celebrities like that stuff, 

 Josh Wilson
 You can be in any one of mark Wahlberg's or the rocks movies, which move or willsmith right. Those are the three guys. You get to go like, go back when they were filming it. You could be a CoStar with them. Which movie would you choose? 

 Tim Bratz
 Oh, man. 

 Josh Wilson
 One of those guys. 

 Tim Bratz
 Did, it was a bad-ass movie was the departed. There were some rockstars in that movie. That. 

 Josh Wilson
 Was a. 

 Tim Bratz
 Movie. Yeah. Walbergs in that one, that would have been a cool movie to be in with all the celebrities and stuff. Independence day is like a classic to me. Like that's an epic movie. 

 Josh Wilson
 Hang out with Jeff Goldbloom or gloom. 

 Tim Bratz
 Announced it. Yeah. That would have been, he's a character. W what's one with the rock you ever seen walking tall, which is like his first movie. 

 Josh Wilson
 So good. He carries the Baton, he goes into like a police station. It just like throws people through walls. 

 Tim Bratz
 They legitimately gave him like three lines to say in the entire movie because they didn't trust what his acting ability would be. He's actually like a really good actor does a really good job. And a lot of his movies. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. He's funny. I love seeing him and Kevin Hart and they, their banter together. Oh. 

 Tim Bratz
 Yeah. 

 Josh Wilson
 They're funny. 

 Tim Bratz
 Kevin Hart's and others. Another one that I filed and he's got like 300 million followers on Instagram, that. 

 Josh Wilson
 300 million, 

 Tim Bratz
 300 million dude. It's insane. 

 Josh Wilson
 That is insane. 

 Tim Bratz
 Yeah. The rock has 300 million to like, dude, they're like, I don't know it's wild me, but it's. And, and you think about it, right? It's it's money is a measure of value. Just like a clock measures time, right? A ruler measures, distance, money measures, value. The more people you can impact, right? The more value you create, the more people, you give impact to, or whether you deliver that value through comedy, like Kevin Hart does or personal development or entertainment, or through real estate education, the more people you can deliver that message to the more value you're going to create, which means the more money and everything comes full circle. And, and those guys that shows you with 300 million followers, how much of an impact those guys have made in society? Like powerful stuff. They deserve all the money that's coming their way, ? 

 Tim Bratz
 Yeah. 

 Josh Wilson
 Or, or I know you got a call coming up in a minute, you're going to go raise another billion dollars in capital and take down, all the cool things you're doing. Specifically for the books and for my kids and to get nine, four and two, what's a good place for us deal makers and people who are driving out there. We're like, actually, we got to impart legacy to our kids and teach our kids about legacy. What's where's a good place for people to find out more about that and then connect with you and maybe do a deal with you. 

 Tim Bratz
 Yeah, man. Well, I mean, let me dude legacy to me, is it passing down a state? It's not passing down real estate. It's not passing down money. It's not passing down treasure. It's passing down the mindset. Like ideally I get the chills thinking about it. Like my kids coming to me at 18 years old and saying, Hey dad, they're not saying, Hey dad, will you pay for me to go to college? If they want to go to college, that's cool. But, or dad, can I have some money to go start a business? Or dad, can I go, can I have this? Can I have that? I want them to be like, if they come to me and they're like, I don't need your money. You go and spend your money on anything. You want to donate it all, whatever you want to do, because you taught me how to go make my own. 

 Tim Bratz
 I can build it in an expedited amount of time because you've passed out true legacy, which is the mindset of how to go and do this stuff on their own. Like that to me is really the important part. So, they're gonna get a couple of houses that are pretty bad-ass, but I'm planning to give it away, like all my money. And, and so that way it creates a constraint on me to make sure that I do impart this knowledge on my kids. What I mean, to make sure that they are taken care of because they have the mindset, not because they've been given cash or anything. So yeah. Quick aside on legacy, but yeah, go to the little legacy library.com. That's where the books are. If you guys want to check out that or connect with me on Instagram or Facebook, I'm very active on those couple of platforms and yeah. 

 Tim Bratz
 And I appreciate you having me brothers. This is awesome. I'm looking forward to the next time you come to Charleston, hit me up and we'll grab a cocktail. 

 Josh Wilson
 And we'll listen to Mumford and sons. 

 Tim Bratz
 Man on the back porch. 

 Josh Wilson
 Yes. All right. Cool. Hey Tim, thanks for being on the show. Fellow dealmakers in the audience, that's always reach out to our guests. They thank you. Always find a way to connect with them, follow what they're doing and find a way to do a deal with them. Whether it's a buyer book, buy a program, join their mastermind, do a deal, right? Like that's the mission and purpose of the show is to connect deals and deal-makers, if you're working on something and you want to talk about it here on the show, head on over to the deal, scout.com. Fill out a quick form. Maybe get you on the show next until then talk to you all next episode. Peace.