Systemizing Success With Jake Harris

 00:02
Josh
Good day fellow deal-makers on this episode of the deal scout. We're going to have a conversation with Mr. Jake who's I believe on the west coast and we're going to be talking about real estate and private equity and all sorts of cool stuff. And that really awesome photo. He has this really awesome picture in the background. It's amazing, Jake, welcome to the show. 

 00:20
Jake
Thank you, Josh. It's awesome to be on the show. 

 00:23
Josh
Yeah, man. All right. Jake, why don't you give us an idea of who you are and what kind of deal maker are you? 

 00:30
Jake
Yeah, so, I mean, I get asked that question a lot. Who am I? And, I play a lot of different roles where a lot of different hats in these different capacities. And, and now today I am a, a father, a husband, but more, that a significant to the podcast is I am a founder and managing partner of a private equity real estate company that primarily invest in commercial real estate. In a past life, we flipped a lot of houses. We did a 1200 flips in 23 states and aggregated some single family rental portfolios sold those off to Blackstone or invitation homes, colony capital Tricon, and several of the other big groups. Now 20 years into being a professional investor, I've learned a few things, made lots of mistakes. I'm able to kind of aluminate the path more for people that are looking to get started in that, in the commercial real estate world. 

 01:38
Josh
Awesome man. All right. Aggregating portfolios pulling together these property management companies, selling them to the big names like Blackstone and or is it BlackRock? BlackRock? I always get those confused. 

 01:52
Jake
So interesting story. Blackstone funded BlackRock, actually. So Steve Schwarzman started BlackRock as well. He started Blackstone, black rock was a, an affiliate, and then they broke off because they couldn't, C appropriately, but essentially they are birthed from the same vision. BlackRock is not who we dealt with. We dealt with Blackstone, which was invitation homes. Blackstone is the largest private equity group in the world. Black rock is manages trillions of dollars, primarily on institutional sovereign wealth funds that are trading stocks. Now when you have that much money, you kind of do everything. 

 02:34
Josh
You make the rules, you buy the whatever you want. Right. Jake, how did you get into a fix and flips and then get into the point where you've guys have done 1200 that's a lot, 

 02:48
Jake
You know? Yeah. I mean, it's, it sounds like a lot. It did. It is a lot of work it's and really where I like to start is there is a point. I read a book, rich dad, poor dad getting out of the army. I set a goal of being a millionaire before 30. I was going to do that through real estate, but really where I see, and especially with getting to that 1200 plus houses in 23 states was there was a moment in my life where I was sitting on a street corner down in Tucson, down the street from the university of Arizona. I was working on this Adobe house as a contractor. I was just absolutely broken as an individual, physically tired, emotionally tired, wrecked guts, broken heart. And I was crying, sobbing and praying. Dear Lord, can I be worth nothing? That would be awesome. 

 03:55
Jake
Can I have zero, like nothing? The reason I like talk about that is because I had to set this goal of becoming a millionaire and I'd achieved that I became a millionaire before 30 years old. The, this moment in my life of was on the downside of that I'm sitting there. I now have properties that are worth less than I owe on them. So I have a negative net worth. The subprime meltdown was happening. It was devolving as far as from the valuations, I was coming to closing table and buying down or out of the mortgages. It started at 25,000, then 50 and then 75 and then a hundred. As I'm trying to unwind this portfolio and selling these assets is I ran out of money before I ran out of properties. I'm doing work on this house in Tucson. The story actually gets kind of worse. 

 05:01
Jake
At least for me, in my being worth negative net worth, we're wishing to be worth nothing. Well, what it was is I was doing work for the boyfriend of my ex the girl I thought I was going to marry. We'd broken up during this time period part of it. And, and most significantly, because I was kind of in a miserable kind of place, my brothers told me I was an a*****e. Just, I was so myopically focused on achieving this goal of becoming a millionaire before 30, that I kind of really pushed away all other aspects and to the demise of a relationship, the girl, I thought I was going to marry, we broke up. She felt bad for me seeing this spiral that I had, she should adjusted to boyfriend that she was dating, that I could go do the work. Cause I, I knew construction and I could fix up the house. 

 06:04
Jake
I was so desperate for money, and this is relatively fresh breakup. It was that emotional, like just crushing of seeing them walk up to the house and walk through and point out and do this and do that. He doesn't know our previous relationship. I'm there just getting like raw ness of a heartbreak on top of the combined worst financial thing that I can possibly imagine. I've lost friends, families, money, or at least I'm trying to keep that from at bay, I'm watched everything that I've worked and built up for over the last decade, be eviscerated and turned into nothing. I'm doing this work because I have no other options and putting myself in this emotional place crying to be worth nothing. What that did is, and it was one of the best things that ever happened to me. The reason was, is that as I had to bounce around on the bottom and rock bottom, I was able to assist dramatically, start building a foundation for what was going to be those 1200 houses, what was going to be flipping and doing real estate nationwide. 

 07:17
Jake
I had to figure out like, what are the things that I do really well? What are the things I'm not good at? I use this as goals are great for one-time success systems are for those that want repeatable and predictable success. I had a goal of being a millionaire before 30 and I achieved it. And then I kind of just stopped. I didn't evolve to what is that skill set? What are the systems that I need to put in place to maintain that millionaire status? What do I need to evolve to? That 2.0 or 3.0 version of myself. And I just didn't have those. I was too young. I was not around the right people. I needed to go through some of those trial and error lessons to build and start systematically building back, the things that have now taken me in the last 10, 12 years to a new levels. 

 08:17
Josh
Dude, I appreciate you sharing that. That was a, that's tough for guys sometimes to go like, Hey, I was dealing with emotional stuff. I was crying. I was asking God to let me just get back to zero. Cause I'm right now, I'm negative. Right? I've been there. Like, that's tough for a guy to talk about that. So man, I applaud you for that. I also stand and salute you for, the time you spent in the military. Thank you for all, for you. For all our frontline workers, military police, fire, love you guys, what you do in the army, by the. 

 08:48
Jake
Way, aerosol the infantry. 

 08:50
Josh
Okay. What's that? 

 08:52
Jake
We would, well, technically they said you go repel out of helicopters, but really we did walked around a lot and carried a lot of heavy stuff and pretended I mean, my unit did deploy just as I was getting out. They went, I had some people that were killed over in Iraq, deployed to Kuwait. Did some things like that, but infantry stuff, you shot at the enemy, you walked around, did stuff. We prepared for that for a lot of years, I was actually in between conflicts. I was getting out just as the, kind of desert and next iteration, the Iraq freedom war was kicking off. I don't know. I think there's some of that where you feel like, well, I didn't really go to war, so did I actually do anything? I also lost some people that were, under me, trained with me, friends, other things like that. 

 09:49
Jake
It's like, that was just not my path, ? Obviously as a, a father and a husband and some things like that, it, you don't have to go experience some of those things to take some value from them. 

 10:05
Josh
Yeah. I appreciate you signing up. I appreciate you diving into it and I value what you did, man. When you, when you were sitting on the curb construction, tool belt on crying, a senior girlfriend drive up with, or ex-girlfriend drive up with new dude, right? Emotionally a wreck. How in the world did you start pulling out of that? Because I believe behind every deal maker behind every good deal maker, man, there's a painful story that at one point you got a fork in the road and you had to make a decision. How did you get out of that funk, man, 

 10:39
Jake
It's a journey. It is not an instantaneous thing. It took me many years and really it's still a journey that I'm on today. For me leverage, and I say leverage in not the sense that you're typically thinking the leverage of mortgages or financial, but leveraging other people's knowledge, other people's path, and again, I told you this earlier, this is like, I just wasn't around other people that were doing the things that I was doing. It started first for me was another book. It was Tim Ferriss's four hour workweek had just come out and it was painting bookstores. I would, and I didn't even have the money to really go buy the book on the thing. So I would walk to the bookstore. I would read it in the cafe. This is back when there's bookstores, you didn't order stuff online. You just actually had a physical bookstore. 

 11:39
Jake
I walk there to read and it was Barnes and noble or borders. Aren't remember which one and you'd read through and I'd set it back on the thing. The next day, and I read through in the course of, a week or two weeks or whatever it was Tim Ferriss, four hour workweek. For those that are not familiar with it, you absolutely need to read it, but it's not about working four hours in a work week. It's about how do you tend to X? How do you leverage everything in your life? That started the foundational component of what is it that I do well, what did I do? Well when I acquired these properties before, where did I miss out? And, fail, obviously there was a, a very global systemic issue with the economic structure, but there were signs of it. I mean, I was, I met Robert Kiyosaki. 

 12:31
Jake
I had spent some time in Arizona cause this is when I was down in Phoenix at his studio. He was saying, be wary young man taking 105% loans is not always smart, or going super high leverage, and negative cash flow. Don't have those. I was like, man, I am so smart. You don't know what you're talking about. I have, I'm clever. I figured out I'm buying stuff at a discount under market value. The market would even have to go down more than 20% before I ever lost money. Well, went down, I think like 80%. So he was right. I was wrong. Using leverage of other people's wisdom and I really believe that books are by far in the way, one of the best hacks in which you can do to leverage people's knowledge because a book is 10 or 20 years worth of someone's experiences condense down into a three or four hour window of time podcast or a great video and YouTube, Instagram, instantaneous kind of little quick hits. 

 13:40
Jake
If you want to really go deep, go read books and leverage other people's knowledge and wealth, and then what you can do. For me, that was exactly the stick by stick the building of the foundation of the next iteration of who I was going to be. I was really bankrupt in every aspect of my life. I was 75, 80 pounds overweight. I was, like I said, my brother said, Jake, you're an a*****e. I was not doing their taking vacations. I was not doing stuff. So, because I was so myopically focused on this about, and least importantly money. I looked at it and finally that paradigm of money being removed and being have negative net worth, it was like money is maybe one fifth of what your life has made up as 20% money is the fuel in which Kaz helps the engine go and in society and as a whole, but how are you with your friends and family? 

 14:48
Jake
How are you with your own self? How are you with your health? There's so many people that I know successful and wealthy people that now have a health issue, have a divorce, have a relationship, would almost give any amount of money. Hey, Josh, you're going to die in a week or give me all your money. Like super easy decision done. Here you go. I'll start over at zero, no problem. It was like, why am I ignoring all these other aspects of my life? And that's where I started building. Again, this is a journey and a process and systemizing of how do I hack myself, 

 15:35
Josh
Systemizing your own success. All right. So love this. You mentioned books and now I agree with you. I, Tim, if you're listening, I totally forgot about your book, man. That was, that was one of the best books about life hacking, right? Because I think everybody's read rich dad, poor dad, right? The quadrants and such like that. Like so good entrepreneurial like mindset, like blown, right? Like, Hey, own your business, work on the business. Not in the, like just super smart stuff. I forgot all about Tim's book, the four hour workweek. It wasn't now some of my friends read it because they just want it to be complete, bombs and live on the beach and only work four hours. Like, what I gained from it is like, how do I maximize my output? If I'm working 60 hours a week or 50 hours a week, man, I'm putting in X output. 

 16:25
Josh
Right. Great book. Great recommendation. You mentioned leveraging other people's wisdom and you mentioned books as building a systemized foundation for success, right? That might be the title of today's episode. What other things cause you started creating a system for your own success and your own foundation. What other things for dealmaker do you need to have in place? 

 16:50
Jake
I did write a book about this and during COVID, and as to the clarity that I have now. It came out last year, catching knives, a guide to investing in distress, commercial real estate. I thought there was a distress, I thought real estate values when a light crash. That was, I'm really good at buying distressed assets, like going to foreclosure, doing all the title, research, doing all these things. Like I'm really good at that. I have a lot of systems related and I was like, yes, this is my time in the sun. It's going to happen. There's a pandemic. Real estate values tripled, and then I was like, wait a minute. The fundamentals in that book or about putting together systems, leveraging teams, and I use that word leverage again, because it's a very critical component is I have been a professional real estate investor now for 20 years ups downs left. 

 17:53
Jake
Right. And I went back to school, I got a master's degree international real estate and finance. I have a broker's license in California. I've done thousands and thousands of transaction, hundreds of millions, of dollars of real estate and 20 years of experience. I was like, it just reveals to me how little I actually know and how vast the knowledge is and in the commercial real estate world. I look at this is I started putting together things like due diligence checklist, a due diligence checklist on a property. Why, and people ask me like Jake, you've been doing this for 20 years. You done all of the things. It goes to the same reason that a pilot or a surgeon uses a checklist because the downside risk is you're playing crashes and you kill hundreds of people or the, something goes terribly wrong and somebody dies on the operating table. 

 18:49
Jake
I'm not saying that you're going to die. If you have a bad commercial deal, you may feel like it, you may, jeopardize. Obviously I have that emotional, like a reminder of what it was like when deals were going bad. It is as stressful as anything even as death. I go, that's why I use a checklist and then I assemble a team. I have real estate attorneys that are really good at reviewing leases and reviewing contracts and doing those other things that give me highlights. Same thing as a broker in that most local market, eh, an inspector that's inspecting the mechanicals of a particular building. The lab works that are doing environmental studies, pulling up. What is critical to things like that and is oftentimes people think when you get into commercial real estate, it's just about finding a good deal. Or here's the cashflows is it's a buyer beware environment. 

 19:50
Jake
It is a doggy dog. It's, a shark tank of activity. What I mean by that is there's a lot of disclosures in the residential world. Did you know about this? Did you know about that? Did you check on lead paint is there as Bestos is there's other things. Sometimes people think, wow, look, this property sold for $5 million. Now I can buy it for a million dollars. That's a good deal. Theoretically, that could be a good deal. What if there's a dry cleaner there? What if they were using chemicals that are now contaminated the soil? What if the neighboring property was using something and you have, shallow groundwater, they have now contaminated and now it's, your site has been contaminated previously. It was five, $9. Nobody checked on that. Somebody is willing to give you this property for a very seller, finance, creative carry, something like that. 

 20:52
Jake
You do testing on that. Here's the big thing about environmental is whoever owns that property is responsible for it. Even if the previous person did it, you're responsible. That might be a multimillion dollar cleanup and take you 10 years. Now you go, wow, I got a really great deal. I got a free piece of land. Isn't this a great deal. It used to be 5 million. Now I got it for free or for 1 million or whatever the cost it is, but you'd be like, oh, by the way, you didn't bother checking that there's $20 million of environmental cleanup and you can't sell it until that is done. You have to put monitoring Wells and what? This is going to take your 10 years to clean up that, to get the right, add to nation of the soil conditions with that contamination before it's even something that can be, sold. 

 21:49
Jake
He'd be like, is that a good deal? I, I don't know. I mean, is, can you hold it for 10 years? The land worth a hundred million dollars once you clean that up? Maybe. I don't know. That's where some of the things is like these checklists at least reveal, and you can understand the risks that are associated with each one of these elements and then take a calculated risk as far as moving forward. 

 22:14
Josh
Yeah. Having checklists are so important. Valuable systems processes are something that I have a weakness in, right? I'm a visionary, right? If you look at EOS, if you look attraction, if you look at E-Myth revisited on the guy, far side of the coin, creative visionary guy, get me sitting down and start documenting processes, systems checklists, I'm passing out, jumping out of a window. Like it's really tough. So you mentioned teams. If I have that general weakness, I know that put me on a sales call, put me on a podcast, put me on a show, throw me up on stage, give me a knife and I'll figure it out. Right. What, how do you outsource or how do you guard up your weaknesses? Like I have, 

 23:03
Jake
I'm very similar to you as far as very strong, visionary, very strong. Once I've kind of assembled the deal and it started and it's going, I kind of, it's not my jam anymore. Like you guys go handle it, the integrators that go handle that, like do those put together as, so these are the same things that I'm trying to hack myself. Exactly. As you just identified, it's figure out where your strengths are, where the things that you're very good and then systematically build out the places that you need. If you're a contractor, you probably don't necessarily need a contractor on your team. Again, what and where you need is very, unique to who you are, where are your unique streaks? I have some friends, they love organizing doing those spreadsheets, doing, calling like they need help with the vision. They need help with, someone leading and, and going those next steps. 

 24:07
Jake
It's like, okay, how can you map out what it is that you want? I, and I think figuring out your own uniqueness, the goals in which you want to achieve, allow you to start creating the systems. You can see even within those systems of what is lacking to get you to where you want to go. You look at that is sometimes that might be an integrator. Sometimes that may be a contractor or an attorney or whoever else, and then, and not, and these don't always cost money. Those are some of the other things. People may want equity in the deal. People may want the job. As far as the contractor will come out and look at a job and give you an evaluation of here's, what's wrong. Here's, what's not wrong. Here's how I would do it the way. If I only had a million dollars, this is what I would do to the property. 

 25:03
Jake
They want the job. So that doesn't necessarily cost you money. So I'll give you an interesting story. I know maybe getting tight on time, but every limitation is a self-limitation. And I'll tell you this. The hairs, the, this example of this story that hit me over the head, like a two by four and a two by four is a big piece of wood. For those that don't know that like a baseball bat, I was down in Miami and said, I went back to school and I got a degree international, real estate down in Miami. I met this young kid and I say, young kid, he's probably late twenties, 28. He was just finishing up this super cool project. I have an aspiration to build a sky rise, a high rise, big building, doing the things. I've been telling, well, when I get this level and I do this many deals and I have this level of success, then I'll get the permission to go build a high rise. 

 26:06
Jake
I just saw this young kid and he'd just finished this building. He made $30 million profit off of it, 32 story condo project. I was like, tell me more like, how'd you do this? Like, is your dad, in the industry, did you work for a big institutional company? Like how does someone that's 28 years old go do this project. You have a lot of money. Like, I was like, well, maybe that's to me that was like, oh, maybe he's just got a lot of money and you can go. He's like, no, I just came to this country three years ago from Venezuela. I had nothing. I've never done anything in real estate. I've never worked for a company that's done real estate or finance. I came to this country because it was an opportunity there was land that was listed on LoopNet, or maybe it was just a sign. 

 27:03
Jake
I just saw it listed. And they said, it's $10 million. I say, great, let's put it in contract. There was an architect and a contractor down the street that it would bore building another kind of thing that I was like, I would like to do that. I went and talked to them and I said, Hey, I want to build one of those over here on this lot. Could you do that? They said, yeah, we can do that. This is what it would cost for the plans. This is what it would cost to build it. And he was like, oh, that's amazing. The broker they are talking to the agents were like, were, we're selling those condos and we have a lot of demand and we're sold out. We can do the sales for yours as well. He was like, great, that sounds fantastic. He got a sales team put together that we started working on the sales. 

 27:45
Jake
He had the contractor that said it was going to be $70 million to build out this, build the architects that it was going to be this. Collectively, he just kind of walked around the streets in Miami and went to events and said, Hey, I'm doing this project and I'm gonna need some investors and, to get through the next steps. Some people say, oh, I'll put the million dollars up to be part of that to get your plans finished and get the permits approved. By that time they'd sold 50 or 75% of the condos already. Of course the bank was like, we don't actually care what your finances are. It's based on all the people that are going to buy this. In that time period, he'd sold out the condos started construction, build out a 35 story building with no money, no experience, nothing other than just coming and doing it and having action. 

 28:36
Jake
That hit me and I was just like, what the hell? Like. Simply taking action and not having limiting beliefs. To me that was like, oh my gosh, that guy does literally came to this country with nothing and said, Hey, here's an opportunity. This is the land of opportunity. You just got to go work for it and do it. He didn't do a market research on what the land was worth. He didn't do comps on what, things were going to sell for it's 70 million. I'm selling it for 120, he just simply did that. He happened to be in a very fortuitous time of the economic recovery process. That was all up. Really in the last 10 years, everything in the economy has been up into the right. He had in creating these levels of success just by simply doing it. 

 29:33
Josh
Have you ever been humbled like immediately humbled? Like, yeah, here I am, man. I I've gone to school. I've spent so much time work and struggle that I've made money, lost money. Been in venture capital, private equity, lost money had been bankrupt, been on food stamps, like I'm like, well, and I look at a success and I go, man, that guy probably had money. His parents were probably successful. Then you hear a story like that. I just go humbled like this kid, right. 28 years old is awesome. He took action. 

 30:04
Jake
Someone is doing what you dream of doing with less, just because they simply are doing it. 

 30:14
Josh
Dude. So convicting so humbling. Like I find myself making excuses and giving myself self limiting beliefs. That's why I love this show. That's why I love doing podcast shows so I can learn and grow from other people's screw ups and other stories. That's, I love sharing these stories so that collectively we can learn and grow in wisdom together. Jake, when you saw this 28 year old guy and you're like, you're waiting for your own permission to be successful. Right. I'll be successful when I build a Skyrise here's a 28 year old guy just, just flew into the states, not too long ago. Boom. He did it 32 million bucks in his pocket. How did you take it? And what did you do after that? 

 30:58
Jake
It really rocked me as far as where I questioned of everything of how many of my own beliefs were my nature, my nurture, my growing up my, what was I confirming in my own beliefs that were holding me back. It was, and it wasn't instantaneous as far as like, okay, I'm building a skyscraper tomorrow because that's not how I work. As far as what was unique and, and special for him is I am, and I take calculated risk as I am someone that is, moving, in a pragmatic way. To me, just going in and say, I'm buying anything on the market and let's go do this. Maybe that could have been successful, but that would have been outside of who I was. I looked at that was, I then began to question everything about some of these bias that I had these belief systems. It opened up the aperture to like, what else is possible in my life. 

 32:07
Jake
Really it came to the next principle to me. This is part of that journey is everything in life in the physical world is a construct of imagination where you are sitting right now. I don't know if it's house and office a building, whatever it is, where you're sitting, someone imagined it. They thought of it. The physical world is a manifestation of people's imagination. Someone sat down in my building, it's old, it was built in 1920s, used to be the bank of Italy before it became the bank of America. There was someone that stood there and said, what, on that corner, it'd be awesome to put a building. I think it should be about this tall and about this wide. It should be this and made out of concrete and doing these other things. He got, I'm assuming it's a heat. Maybe it was a sheet, but got a architect and a builder. 

 33:01
Jake
Somebody else in collectively got them to buy into that vision of their imagination. They were able to just create through a vision and imagine, and create their physical environment. And that's what I mean by systemizing. You are the architect of your own life, including not just your head, but then the physical aspect and manifestation of what you want into this world. To me, that was just like, wow, look at this. I can go do anything, everything, the roads that are put in the buildings that have been built out there, what you're going to do, your life, your relationships, your marriage, like all of these things, you have so much more control to really manifest your own reality. And so on. That was like to me, that unlocking of the pole moment of questioning my own limitations was in, it was a V elevating my mindset to another plane. 

 34:04
Josh
All right. You and I go back in time, the, the Jake is sitting on the corner crying. He's got his tool belt on. He's listened to, to some, what, what timeframe was this? 2007, probably right. 

 34:18
Jake
Seven, 2008, right around there. 

 34:20
Josh
Yeah. All right. Down in the dumps, your senior girlfriend ex-girlfriend pulled up with, I don't mean to bring her up so much. I don't know why I'm bringing her up so much, but anyways, we're painting the picture here. Right? You and I get to go have a chat with that, Jake on the corner and we go, Hey bro, here's a, here's a bottle of water. Let's chat for a second. You just share what you just shared now to that younger Jake would that younger Jake listen, would he call you crazy? What would he say? How would he respond? 

 34:51
Jake
I don't know if I could have heard it at that time. Yeah. I don't know if I would have been able to be receptive of that message. Here's one of the other things I was actually just talking to my wife about this morning is everyone that I've ever met successful, especially even the more successful battle, a certain element of imposter syndrome. If people only knew like they would, oh my gosh, at any moment, it's going to be revealed. A couple of weeks ago, something was shared to me. I was actually at a, I joined another mastermind group in collectively working on my own personal brand, writing, launching a podcast, doing some other things. I have people, I started teaching people due diligence in courses on how to invest into commercial real estate and taking these calculated risks. It's like I keep looking over my shoulder, like, I don't know, like, why are these people asking me this? 

 35:52
Jake
Hey, can I, can you coach me Jake? I'm like, I mean, I guess, I don't know. Here is the thing that I was told that really unlocked something for me. Was there certain people that can only hear a message from you? You are on a certain frequency level. Think of it as a radio station. You think of it or whatever. Like they can only hear you. I'm regurgitating information that Tony Robin said, or Tim Ferriss says, or somebody James clear said in atomic habits, like, I feel like, man, I, this is not my original idea. I'm just regurgitating, whatever this person said. That was a lot of it had to do with me feeling like an imposter was, is like, these are not original ideas and because I'm not original, or I'm just regurgitating this information. That's why as soon as they go read, whatever Tony Robbins books or these other things, they're gonna be like, ha Jake's a fraud. 

 36:58
Jake
It was like, he didn't actually come up with this process. It was like, you can play the same radio station, the same song on different parts of the country, but you're tuned into different frequencies. To me, it actually translated to something else. Some people can't hear Tony Robbins, they're not going to pay for his event. They don't like tall people. They don't like the celebrities. They had some negative that no a childhood bully was named Tony. They're like, whatever it is, like they can not hear the message from Tony Robbins. I'm regurgitating some of those things that I've assembled together from different pieces of collective wisdom, they can hear it from me because they can relate to me or they know me or whatever. What it is like, I am just a vessel for this information that is passing through me. If I am not sharing these out into the world, I'm actually bottling in the light and the energy that is flowing through me. 

 38:05
Jake
I'm bottling that in, I am actually doing a disservice to everyone that's around me that can hear my voice. To me, it is like not about what is the message? Are you an imposter? No, you're just a vessel. You're conduit for God, the universe for higher powers of putting a message through you out into the world and don't hold your light back. The light that's shining through you to others because they need to hear it. And they can only hear it. To add to it even more clarifying that the moment was as a parent, I can see this real time because I can tell my kids. I can tell my kids. I can tell my kids, these things don't do this. Don't do that. Do that. Literally, anyone else comes in and says, Hey, go pick up that, do those things instantaneously. They hear them. 

 38:51
Jake
They cut through when they go do that. I was like, oh wow, that's true. There's almost 8 billion people on this planet and there's going to be some people that resonate and hear what I say. Some people are not going to be able to hear what Josh says or Tony Robbins or Tim verus or anybody else, but they can hear what you can say or they can hear what I can say and that's it. Okay. 

 39:18
Josh
Hey, I forgot to hit record. Could we might not? I'm just kidding. Let's do that. 

 39:24
Speaker 3
Okay. Pharaoh, you were like on fire, man. This is so good. 

 39:27
Josh
Cool watching you guys. So, our audience, it might be listening into just the audio portion of this. We're going to put this on the YouTube channels. We're starting to post our videos on YouTube. You need to watch this guy, why he's talking about this? Like he is on fire. Like you believe this stuff. What I love about this is if we had that conversation with your younger self, you're like, nah, I don't know if he would hear that. Me too. Right? I've had all the wise people. I, God's blessing on my life. I know a lot of people, super successful people know people and they gave me advice that I'm looking back and going, man, I just didn't hear it. They were telling it not frequency, not hitting for me. Ego, massive ego, blocking frequency, blocking energy, blocking it out. That destroyed. I mean, oh my gosh, it feels like a couple of decades worth of productivity. 

 40:20
Josh
What do you think was your block? Mine was ego, massive ego. What was yours? 

 40:28
Jake
I mean, I'd say that's a significant portion of it. I love Ryan holiday's ego is the enemy. As far as some of that, unlocking of that stoicism of understanding involving. I needed to evolve on who I was sometimes that is through age. Some of that is just experiencing more it, and then also kind of the understanding is to me, I was in such a rush in such a hurry to get all of these things done. Yeah. I think there's a couple of different things that I went and unlocked in that process and this journey. I'm still unlocking, like I have not discovered everything and all the secrets to the known universe. And everything's amazing. I'd say there's a couple of elements of it. One, nothing is positive or negative. It is whatever you decide it to be. Napoleon hill wrote outwitting the devil and then actually come out until, last, maybe 20 years. 

 41:33
Jake
So, and outwitting, the devil is everything in the universe is balanced, positive and negative electrons. If something is out of balance, it chaotically, Rams into stuff and until it gets balance. You look at that, there's God and the devil they're balanced and equal elements in everything. Everything that exists in your life is both positive and negative or neither positive or negative. It is how you see in your mindset and the lens in which you see those things. You can just change your mind of how you see them. This happened for me, not to me. Yeah. This is the positive of this situation. So that has been a mental process. I'm again, not saying that I'm a hundred percent on this. It is a journey, but then how do I evolve? What is the best version of myself? What, and how would I look at this in the best version and trying to even create little elements of before I go into the house and I'm in this next role, what would the best version of myself doing this situation? 

 42:54
Jake
Maybe I got, crap deal I had to deal with at work. Maybe I had even from call to call, even from meeting to meeting. And, just like for me, that process of what would the best version of myself look like and really what I aspire to be creating that as a framework of the starting, what is the positive that I can bring in and the creates this contagious like energy. And so I feel that. I think of myself as how do I bring that higher energy to others that uplifts them and creates them and leans them to the positive side of things is that's where my super power lines. Thinking of it in a very long-term nature is I plan on living another hundred years and then eyes go off. I'm going to live another hundred years. I have the term game to be playing at this. 

 43:47
Jake
I don't necessarily have to do everything today and all at once. I can start building systems and process. Obstacle is the enemy or ego is the enemy. The obstacle is the way it is. Life is a constant uphill battle. Like there is no plateau and then it becomes easy and you're going to go up the full duration of your life. There is never going to be a time that it is easier. Not next quarter next month. Never will it be easier in your life? You will get better at certain tasks, but it's still going to be hard. You have a hundred million dollars. Life is still hard. You have a billion dollars. Life is still hard. You look at that is there is no easy aha moment. It is going to be a constant uphill battle. It is a long journey. For me, I have just put in there a hundred years with now an option to renew that was mark Victor Hansen shared that little tidbit with me. 

 44:50
Jake
I was at dinner with him and he's like, you got an ad with an option to renew. How do I lean and tilt and create the lens and the framework of mindset that everything then becomes positive. I become a positive force for all of those around me. I say that, it's like, I was not evolved enough as a person, mentally, or mindset, to be able to hear a process, any of those things. It's not until you start moving up that hierarchal, understanding of your own mind that you actually can receive those messages it's being on that wrong radio station. You're 93.2 and it's playing at 1 0.1, ? It's like, so you cannot receive that message, but there are little snippets of information that stick in that become evolving of you. You're going to be able to understand that message 10 years later when you're on that level. 

 45:42
Jake
When somebody gave you that piece of advice and you're like, oh yeah, that makes sense. Now it is added to the snowball effect of who you are as a person that is creating and evolving daily. 

 45:56
Josh
Yeah, man. So good. You know, it's cool. This is a show for deals. We haven't really talked much about deals. I find this, first of all, I believe that people do business and deals with people they know like and trust, right? You get to choose who you deal with most of the time, right? Unless you're on the receiving end and you just got to submit, and it's really not a great deal, but I believe that we get to choose. On this show, the deal scout, we're not only searching for deals. We're searching for cool people that we want to do deals with. Right. I believe in everything I do is partnerships and syndication. Right? What I love about our conversation today, for me, it's been such a, a challenge for me is to the growth mindset, the mindset to destroy my own self limiting beliefs. 

 46:46
Josh
I'll sit in an investor meeting the other day. And they said, no. They challenged my belief and they go, you are actually great at that. They challenged me and I was like, man, my own what's going on between my two ears is limiting my success. How do you break through self-limiting beliefs? Like, what is your process? What's your checklist? You like to approach things with checklist and process. 

 47:14
Jake
Yeah. I mean, part of it is creating the system that allows you to be optimized for that. So I have morning routines. I work out every single day and have for the last two and a half years, I get up, I brush my teeth, I drink 20 ounces of lemon w infused water with some Himalayan salt. I go work out for that. I create some of the spaces of those, because I know that as an opportunistic and I'm going to go play whack-a-mole when I get into the office, as I'm going to do that is so I need to prime myself and optimize even my, on my own environment. I've actually started tracking my sleep in the last, maybe six months. Wow. I read lifespan with David Sinclair and now I was at an event with him. We're kind of working through as like, if I plan on living a hundred years, how do I start putting together those systems while I actually need to be sleeping more? 

 48:10
Jake
It was to me, how L rod, ing him and doing the miracle mornings and kind of getting up and doing savers. I was like, just get less sleep and I'll get more stuff done. Well, then it was like, well now actually like 80% of all the, elements that were coming up in my blood work and other things like that were related to not having enough sleep. I have three kids. I have an eight month old right now. It was like, that is also a challenge in general, but it was like, I definitely was not adding to that, watching the screen after a certain time, getting those blue lights, not getting to sleep, not getting, and the being in working out creates all these other things. It makes physically makes my body it's stronger, but also wanting to reset and go to sleep, to recover, and then tracking those processes. 

 48:59
Jake
From me, that is how at least I have systematically kind of work togethers again, hacking myself for my own success. I'm trying to optimize my life for the ideal for me. I don't know if that works for other people because in everyone, what is a good deal for me, maybe a terrible deal for you. The things that I do in my life may not actually work very well for people. So, again, this is just me discovering of myself. The discovery of myself is I can do the things that are already inclined into me. I'm really stubborn is I am persistent. And that is my Superman. My wife's like that's the whole reason that worked together is because you are very persistent. I was like, I know that I am a heat seeking missile. When I am determined on something, I will figure out how to do that. 

 49:49
Jake
It was like, when I say I work every day, that's me being stubborn to myself, me hacking myself as like I, without exception, we'll work out every single day, torn calf, muscle. I don't care. I'm David Goggins is this. I'm going to limp around and drag that leg. I will get crutches. I don't care. I don't make. That's because I'm stubborn and I'm, it makes it easier for me because that's who I am. Other people they're like, I need rest. I need relaxed. I need those other things. And so that's to them again. Many people have come to me and said, what's a good deal. What kind of invest into tell me a good deal. Should I get into net lease deals? Should I get a multifamily, industrial, whatever. And I was like, I don't know. It all really depends on you because I just said, what is a good deal for you? 

 50:38
Jake
Maybe bad deal for me. I right now am leaning heavy into hospitality. I love hospitality. I think there's a real macro shift happening in this country that is going to unlock roadside, hotels and motels. We're putting together a fund and we're going to go by hun tens of millions and hundreds of millions of dollars, roadside, motels, and hotels. And we're really excited about that. Someone else I talked to they're like everything about that freaks me out. I don't like hospitality. I don't like the interaction of in and out of people. I don't like the business aspect. They're like, I am really excited about an industrial building that I never have to talk to the tenant. To me, I'm really interested in that to them. That sounds like the worst thing. Still, they're going to have to emotionally and bring up their energy level to try to do that. 

 51:32
Jake
And it's going to be a negative. It's going to take away from them. Whereas to me, it's a positive it's filling and it gives me more energy to do those things. That's where I start talking about is figuring out yourself. You can start hacking in is what is it that you truly want to do? Optimize your life? Where do you want to go? Alison Wonderland? When they asked the mad Hatter, he asked her, which way do you want to go? And she's like, I don't know. He's like, then it doesn't matter which direction you go. I go back to that is like, you have to first define what way you want to go, where you want to go. Doesn't even pick a direction just randomly, like I'm doing retail strip centers. Cool, go do it. You don't have to do that for the rest of your life. 

 52:14
Jake
You may find out that you hate that, but at least you have some specificity of a direction in which you're going. You can start building a system related to that. 

 52:25
Josh
I, I smell another book in route, right? So kaching knives was your first book. I like how, when you're sharing, like, Hey, I wrote this and I was predicting the market and boy was I wrong, man. The market's tripled in price, quadrupled in price. You know, like the fundamentals are there. Maybe timing will improve. Like I smell another book about energy and self limiting beliefs and all this stuff. Do I, do I see that on the horizon with you? 

 52:53
Jake
So we're thinking at it. And, and actually I was talking about, I had in my head, these other clever titles related up and they're like, stop being clever. Get more clarity around that title. Yeah. I was actually, and maybe I'll actually premiere on your show, the thought process, and one of them that I'm trying to figure out and I'm kind of working on is the working title right now is buy happiness. 

 53:23
Josh
Huh? You go back before this goes live. You better go buy that domain. 

 53:27
Jake
My happiness. So, I dunno if you've heard this and it seems like a pretty common saying to me, but they said money can't buy you. Happiness said every poor person, Rich people, wealthy people. Don't usually say that. I'm not saying that you having wealth or money translates to you being happy, but there are a lot of systems that you can put in place that free up your time to allow you more space and opportunity to do the things that do make you happy. I look at that is like, maybe you love paying bills. Maybe you don't. I go walk, is there a way to buy paying those bills? There systems you can put in and invest into? How do you get, and really this and translate to me as financial freedom, because it is such a significant mechanism of your life. You don't have to be a millionaire, but I believe that you should achieve financial freedom and you can buy that. 

 54:34
Jake
That gives you the time to live your higher, better purpose. That might be in, it's not your own self-actualization, it's it is you evolving to serving others, you evolving and because there's unlimited happiness. When you are doing the thing that you are specifically, and your purpose that you are put on this world, and then you're serving other people with, through that is unlimited. And that's where that happiness comes from. You can't do that when you're so far down on the Maslow's hierarchy of needs is you're figuring out how to pay, play the light bill or the food, or doing those other things. To buy happiness, you have to achieve financial freedom and you'll have to systematically move up the need. You can get sometimes, you need to get that bestseller book or you need to achieve some trophy that gives you permission to then start serving others. 

 55:27
Jake
When you do that, then you can really unlock true happiness. 

 55:32
Josh
Super cool. Jake, for people who want to connect with you, learn with you and maybe even be mentored by you and with you, what's a good place for people to connect with you. 

 55:43
Jake
Right now. It's catch knives.com. Catch knives is where we have our, we do a newsletter. We do, you can buy the book through there, the catching knives. There's some courses that we teach as well or getting, I've had more and more people reach out about some coaching. We're actually looking and starting to work together with a system of how we can get some mentoring or second coaching sessions related to the commercial real estate. Cause that's what I, I do best and most, but it's creating some of those systems on Instagram, Jake, that real estate is where I'm most active. The team manages a lot of my other LinkedIn and other places. We're going to continue to expand that branding. Maybe by the time this comes out, it's, buy happiness or invest in happiness or, passive wealth or something related to that title. But I agree. 

 56:38
Jake
I think there's more out there that I want to share out into the world. 

 56:41
Josh
Yeah, man. I feel it. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Two more questions. One question is I have a deck of cards with questions on it, so I don't know what this question will be. Tell me when to stop. 

 56:53
Jake
Now. 

 56:53
Josh
All right. Here's the question. When was the last time you saw someone cry or when was the last time someone saw you cry? Ooh, I read that wrong. I do this for a living and I can't read. 

 57:06
Jake
When you cry. Yeah. I want to say there's a few moments and I don't know when the time is an interesting thing for me is because there are things that I have experienced a week ago, that seems like a lifetime ago, things had happened 10, 12 years ago. That feel like it was yesterday. Part of this is, there may be, and I believe in a higher power and I believe that there's God in heaven and there's an in, a time when, or, a space where time doesn't really connect and matter. To me, I feel some of that in my own things like my wife and my kids, I feel like they've always been a part of my life and I just ha I was waiting for them. Now, even though I have an eight month old, I feel like she's always been a part of my life. 

 57:56
Jake
It was just, I hadn't, received that at that point in time, but it always felt like they were part of my life. I almost don't even remember a time that didn't exist without each individual, one of my family members. There's two things that I want to say at the last time I cried. Was it the people that I love most when they will speak down or negatively about themselves. This is more of the thing is I love them so much that it breaks my heart to see them talking about those things. Cause I love them so much and I see the positive in them. I see them talking down, it upsets me and it gets me like in my initial reaction is anger. Really what it is that's that anger is heartbreak is I am heartbroken that they think less of themselves and I love them so much. 

 58:49
Jake
And I even feel it right now. Of the motion of the twinge of that is like, cause I remember some of those moments and then being a parent is I have also started and tapping into more of a love into this world. As being a parent, if you like everything they say about it is absolutely true. It'll change your life in is hard and it's challenging. It's amazing. I also, because I've been more receptive to that, the more kids you have, the more love that exists in this kind of world is I start feeling things on a love kind of level that I've never felt before. Sometimes it's a song or someone and we've had recently someone that had their baby pass away. From one of those things, my wife is a NICU nurse. That's what she does on the four days a month that she worked, she deals with some of those things. 

 59:39
Jake
I am not very good with coping with that. It breaks my heart. It goes straws me and I can't even sometimes be in that environment. It can be a little message of sweetness around kids. It can be something around those relating, but when they happen is I tear up and I feel it. That's sometimes in church, I might feel it from a message that something is I'm feeling convicted or I need to go do something. And I start crying. I don't know when that was times work cause they kind of all blend together, but it would be one of those elements. When something that is traumatic or sad around kids, the love and the abundance that I'm sad that my kids are getting older, but I'm also happy that they're getting older is like this whole weird dichotomy of duality, of being a parent. When someone else around me is doesn't see the light that I see in loving them and they're degrading. 

 01:00:34
Jake
That causes me heartbreak. 

 01:00:37
Josh
Super cool, man. I appreciate you sharing that. Yeah. Last question. What question should, I've asked you during this interview that I completely screwed up and did not ask you? 

 01:00:52
Jake
I don't feel like there's anything that you should have asked. I think that you do a fantastic job of the way that the flow of this extracting out. I don't prepare for these calls. I'm on a handful of them, my wife, it freaks her out. Then she's like, you don't prepare. You don't think it was like, I was like, literally like, I'm just going to go say what, what I'm feeling and I've done enough of them is that I have this foundation of understanding. I can talk about these things in the book or diving into commercial real estate. I have 20 years of experience, but I mean, I don't think there, this is the path and this wish this conversation could have taken. When you have a conversation with friends, do you ever go back and be like, oh man, I wish I would have asked them that question or these things and be like, no, it's the free flowing in. 

 01:01:40
Jake
That is rare. The real juice is you're taking an evolving of that as a conversation in these podcasts, even though they can be chopped and edited and created that it is, this is what I most like and most resonate with is when it's two or three or people, whoever that are connecting on a human to human level. And, and I don't think there's any other questions you could've asked that could have necessarily changed the direction. If you did, it would have changed the direction and would have been fantastic. Anyway. 

 01:02:10
Josh
Cool, man, I appreciate you, ladies and gentlemen, fellow deal-makers as always reach out to our guests say thank you. If you want to take a look at his book catching knives, or is it catching knives or how to catch knives? 

 01:02:24
Jake
Catching knives is the title of the book. Cool. Yup. You can get that on Amazon and I don't know any other physical bookstores. I think it's all digital. Now I'm catching knives is the book. The website is catch knives. Oh, 

 01:02:37
Josh
Got it. As always reach out to our guests, find a way to do a deal with them. Take a look at if you're looking at commercial real estate and you want to take a look at due diligence. If you want to run it by our guests, reach out to them. Say thanks for being on the show. Find a way to do a deal with them, support them and follow their work. If you're working on a deal, looking for deal or want to talk about a deal here on this show, head on over to the deal. Scout.com. There's a little microphone in the bottom right hand corner. You could leave me a message there or contact button top, right? Just leave a quick message and we'll get in touch. Our producer will probably connect with you and maybe get you on the show next till then talk to you all next episode. 

 01:03:13
Josh
See you guys.