How to Choose A Coach, Top Takeaways from $50k Mastermind, Systems in REI Businesses

Mike DeHaan: [0:00] I mean, you can honestly bullshit your way to 6 figures, a couple $100,000 a year, even like, honestly, million dollars a year. Right? Like, had Mhmm. We did a million dollar a year the past couple years in our top line revenue and didn't have any of this stuff. Right? Yeah. But that's also why it felt like it was insanely hectic at all times. What's going on, guys? Welcome to this episode of the collecting keys podcast. Today, it is Wednesday. It is the Mike and Dan show where I, Mike DeHaan, and my cohost here, Dan Austin, talk about real estate investing, business, and everything in between.

Dan Austin: [0:42] Okay. And

Mike DeHaan: [0:43] we have just been high on I don't know. I don't even say, like, church camp syndrome because there's, like, religious people that listen to this,

Dan Austin: [0:50] and that might be offensive. But we kept back from a business mastermind. We're buzzing. We're we're buzzing. Is that offensive to say?

Mike DeHaan: [0:58] No. I don't think so. Don't know. Are there people that are alcoholics that listen to this, and that triggers them? I have no idea. Maybe.

Dan Austin: [1:03] I would say we're buzzing. I'm triggered.

Mike DeHaan: [1:04] I'm opening up a white claw right now. Oh. Good idea. Crack. We are we are back from a business mastermind that we went to down in Scottsdale last week with our business coach. And it's the first mastermind that we've been to that is, like, not real estate.

Dan Austin: [1:19] You know? Real estate specific?

Mike DeHaan: [1:21] Yeah. Like, real estate specific. We've been involved. I don't think

Dan Austin: [1:24] real estate came up once.

Mike DeHaan: [1:25] Yeah. I mean, not outside unless it was like our core business, or we had some friends that are also working with their business coach. Like, if we were talking about it. Yeah. But, I mean, we're pretty involved nationally in, like, the real estate investment space, involved a lot of groups, go to a lot of conferences. And it was cool to go to a small meetup like this that was literally focused on business and systems and scaling and that sort of stuff. And it this gives you like a whole different perspective. Right? You realize well, guess I realized very quickly how poor most people operate their real estate businesses when we're talking about the systems, and I'm like, I'm pretty sure almost no one that we know does any of this.

Dan Austin: [2:03] Definitely not in the off market space, and then anything above that, even like guys that are running syndications and stuff like that, you realize how actually a lot of businesses in real estate that are even loosely associated. I would say good property management businesses have to have systems, but the bad ones, now I know why they're bad, because they systems. Have

Mike DeHaan: [2:22] Yeah. They don't know how

Dan Austin: [2:23] to run a business at all, to be honest.

Mike DeHaan: [2:25] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and and the thing is that it's easy to discount is when you start a business, you start making money. I mean, you can honestly kind of bullshit your way to 6 figures, a couple $100,000 a year, even like a $100,000,000 a year. Right? Like, we had we did a million dollar a year the past couple years in our top line revenue and didn't have any of this stuff. Right? But that's also why it felt like it was insanely hectic at all times.

Dan Austin: [2:52] Mhmm.

Mike DeHaan: [2:53] Right? And all of a sudden we come back. I mean, we've been working with Steve Rozenberg who was from what episode was he? I'm gonna look it up here. He was on the show a couple weeks ago. Yeah. Episode 95. You wanna go check him out.

Dan Austin: [3:07] Definitely should.

Mike DeHaan: [3:08] Yeah. You definitely should. Awesome episode. It's actually our second most listened to episode, so he's had an impact on a lot of people. But we saw we're in the beginning of the year, started building these systems, and the crazy thing is our revenue is looking similar to past years, but it doesn't feel like the the house is burning down literally all the time like it has in the past.

Dan Austin: [3:25] Yeah. It's it's grown at a good steady rate, and it's, like, just comfortable, consistent. We don't have to worry about what's in the bank account because we just have this, like, system that's churning and putting money in the bank account, and paying our employees, and we're growing, and finding new markets, and all that, and it just happens.

Mike DeHaan: [3:42] Exactly.

Dan Austin: [3:42] Not without a lot of hard work, but it's not going crazy. Like, if you ever meet a person that's running a wholesale business, and maybe flipping some houses too, and that person might be you, they're usually always crazy, Like, running oh, I've gotta run over here. Oh, I've gotta do this. I've gotta go to Home Depot. I have to drop this off at the project, and it's just like this constant churn of just shit. That's not fun.

Mike DeHaan: [4:05] Yeah. I mean, and it's kind of the nature of the style of real estate that we do, right, with off market, where most people start it by themselves. Mhmm. They're doing all the marketing. They're doing all the sales, doing all that sort of stuff. And then when you start to bring on staff, when it's all been in your head, everyone's always does it rather quickly, which makes sense. We did the same thing. And so nothing's actually written out. The entire business is in their brain. Right? And then as you grow, you try to do more stuff, it just turns into a big ball of spaghetti that you can never untangle. But the thing that's been cool, I've been working through it. And then the stuff they're working on is just basic standard operating procedures. You know, having some form of like sales training, knowing how to do the handoff between acquisitions and disposition, or your transaction coordination team, stuff like that. And even if it's like two people, it's still important to have these things and build these habits.

Dan Austin: [4:56] Or just you. It could just be you. Still need to have those mental handoffs by from system to system.

Mike DeHaan: [5:01] Yeah. And and just getting a structure about how to organize all of it, what it should look like, how to measure it. And lo and behold, we have a business that feels way less hectic. It's doing business in a bunch of different markets, and I don't feel super busy. I don't even leave my house for six days out the week most of the time. You know? So I feel like it like, not definitely not for work. If I do, it's hope because it's voluntary, not because I need to run around doing a bunch of stuff.

Dan Austin: [5:24] Right. Yeah. It's definitely a lot it's definitely a lot smoother. And on top of that, what you're saying, when we were doing our business beforehand, we were still learning our business. We were learning how to flip properties, how to wholesale properties, how to stabilize properties. So totally out there for the listeners, we can empathize with that. But there is a better way once you start building those systems, even while you're learning and just kinda feel like you're on the treadmill, you still need to learn how to monetize your business.

Mike DeHaan: [5:50] Mhmm.

Dan Austin: [5:51] But as soon as you can, just put in even the smallest systems, and that'll give you some of your time freedom back.

Mike DeHaan: [5:56] Absolutely. And also too, just on the note of working with Steve, this is actually a really good question that somebody asked me yesterday, where they're asking how we choose different, like, coaching programs or masterminds and things to be a part of, and, like, what sort of stuff we look for since there's so many of them out there. And I thought about that for a little bit, and I'm like so my response was, if, you know, if you wanna be a serious entrepreneur, I highly recommend that you find a group that supports your broader circle as like an entrepreneur. Right? People that are in different industries, people that are doing all sorts of stuff. Right? You know, sort of similar maybe mindset, but gives you some diversity. Right? So, like, that's for us for us, that's go blend ins. And then I said to him, you should also find a group to join that is specific to what exactly you're trying to do, and has people that are very specific to your industry, or what is it exactly you're trying to scale, and all that sort of stuff, and join that too. Ensure it'll have a cost to it associated, but then you also have a network that is very, very relevant to your business. And for us right now, that's working with Steve. Right? Like, we could join another real estate group as like, why? Like, honestly, at this point, we join most real estate groups.

Mike DeHaan: [7:09] This is this is honestly why we built our own real estate group with the instant investor program is we would join other real estate groups, and we would kind of be the most advanced people most of the time. But instead, joining a business specific coach who has his own group that is, like, very much on business systems and scaling, that is now our, like, our focus. It's no longer just real estate. It is business and the intricacies around that. And so that's sort of where we're spending our time.

Dan Austin: [7:34] Yeah. I would add just a couple notes too. One of them is this should be a cultural fit for where you're at as well. Definitely. If you're looking at, say, a group coaching program or a mastermind that's led by a certain person, Like, would say Steve is a one on one coach, but he has this broader group of people that he coaches that he brings together as kind of like your collective mastermind. It's a small intimate setting. Steve is very much so in alignment with what we need for our business, and he draws a really diverse group, which is one of the diverse groups that you you know, I always talk about that, like, just so broad of different people from different backgrounds and walks of life. That fits us really well, but if you're looking at somewhere where the person that's leading is just like a hustler Uh-huh. That's probably the kind of people they're going to bring in, and you're gonna see a lot of hustle entrepreneurs, hustle mindset going in there. If that's not where you're at in life, that might not be the group that you wanna be a part of. You might be below that or above that as far as what you want to do in business, and so think about that and try to, if it is a group, see if you can attend or be part of a group session or a group meeting or something, so you can just kinda see who's around and see the engagement. Because that's the other thing, is like, if the person leading it is the only one talking and there's just not a lot engagement from the group, it's not always gonna be a best fit unless you're looking for a technical skill that that person's gonna teach you.

Mike DeHaan: [8:53] Yeah. Yeah. I mean and even then, with a lot of those people that become, like, professional educators and professional influencers do is they might have the skill, but then they have, like, the coaches that they've taught how to do it that, like, were realistically other students from the past. And it just might not be the experience you're looking for. That's like a super common situation that you're seeing right now with these different groups. But Right. Either way, though, I think if you find, you know, someone to be your, like, a broad network and then your specific network, I that's how I suggest people look at different masterminds and make sure the culture fit as well. So, like, for Steve with us, he's very much action oriented, systems oriented. That's what we want. Some people are really into, like, the mindset of business, know, coaching that revolves around that. There's a ton of people that do that. There's a ton.

Dan Austin: [9:37] That one's a little stickier or trickier because, you know, a lot a lot of voodoo stuff out there that you can find and people that sell you whatever, but they're actually not very good at it.

Mike DeHaan: [9:46] The people eat that shit up though, dude. Like, in my mind, that's like the equivalent and then we're gonna start talking trash, of course. In my mind, that's the equivalent of like, the business professor at like a university that's never owned a business before. Like, they're gonna talk they're gonna be like a CEO mindset coach, but they've never actually been a CEO. So I'm like,

Dan Austin: [10:03] Yeah, there's a lot of leader coaches out there and people like that that have never actually led or, you know, done anything, and so then you're paying them to teach you how

Mike DeHaan: [10:10] to do it? Yeah. Doesn't make any sense.

Dan Austin: [10:13] So But in that realm, there's a lot of those you have to weed through, where you find in the coaching of actual business, scaling businesses, or actually a specific topic, whether it's like, I wanna learn how to do off market, so I'm gonna join an off market group. That's a little easier to weed through the trash, because there's just not as many people, and it's usually quite obvious, at least from our perspective, those folks are that suck.

Mike DeHaan: [10:35] Yeah. Usually. But sometimes it's hard if you don't know what exactly to watch out for. This is true. So I mean, you always gotta do your due diligence on on just like people in general, especially if they're people of influence. I mean, like, for example, when you start to make money, okay, and everyone that's listening to this show has listened to any of our material in the past. If you kind of follow along, you do the stuff that we talk about, you know, maybe you join the instant investor program and join a different group and you start to take action, you will eventually become wealthy. Like, can guarantee you that. It is literally consistency over It is not challenging. When you start to have wealth, you start to make money. You will get approached by people that want your money. Right? They want to provide you wealth management. They wanna get sell you insurance. They wanna do that sort of stuff. Like, there's tons and tons of marketing and all these things that people do to make themselves sound legitimate with that. And it ties into the coaches as well because they do the same sort of thing. But it is so important that if people whenever anybody reached out to you and asked for any sort of large sum of money or a large financial relationship, that you do your due diligence on those people. K? And the reason I'm going to this is I had someone recently who's a pretty decent personality that he has a he's on a podcast that is very well listened to by a lot of people.

Mike DeHaan: [11:55] I've been on this show before. I'm not going to, like, put the actual podcast on blast because I like the host. I just don't like the co host of the situation. But he is a wealth adviser, like a wealth planner. And I started talking to them from listening to their show, trying to share with you with my money. And first off, when the first thing someone says is like, oh, I'm a fiduciary, this is why you should listen to me, I'm gonna start to say that's like a red flag. That's like the same as like when you meet a contractor and they say like, I'm an honest guy. I always wanna just do right by people. I tell the truth all the time. I tell the truth all the time.

Dan Austin: [12:31] Or, no, it's kinda like if you were on a podcast and you said, I'm the only ethical wholesaler out there. It's kinda similar to that. That should be a red flag to anybody.

Mike DeHaan: [12:39] Yeah, it is. It should be a red flag for sure. But when somebody comes on, they say like, I'm a fiduciary. This is why you should listen to me. And then they proceed to try and sell you something, and then they proceed to follow it up with hard sales tactics about getting you to close. That person's no longer fiduciary. Right? They're literally trying to get you to do things to, you know, take your money. So but literally, there was this this guy, went through this whole process with him. I was down to start working with him. And then my grandma died, like, in the middle of the whole process of getting it set up. And so I was like, hey. Look. I just need to put this on hold. You need to figure it out. And, like, literally, while I'm going through this process of my grandma's fear and all those sort of things, he's, like, hitting me up, you know, trying to see what's going on. We're ready to move forward. I'm like, okay. I got red flags now. I So started talking to my wider circle just about the stuff that me and him had discussed for wealth planning, and ultimately decided that I was not ready to make that commitment. He was hitting me up like weird hours, doing all these sort of things. I was kind of ignoring him. Finally, he texted me yesterday, and we had this exchange, and he pretty much just tells me that I suck, and he's like that I'm stupid for talking to other people to get other opinions. And basically, the thing the text ended up with, this is just showing how immature you are. Good luck.

Mike DeHaan: [13:57] You know, you're gonna need it. And I was like, wow. What a dick bag. And this is someone that literally is trying to establish a lifelong relationship, right, on a very large financial scale and isn't willing to, I don't know, acknowledge that I had, like, a family death that had some other stuff that I was working on, and that, of course, I'm gonna ask other people's opinions? I'm like, come on. You know? It doesn't make any sense.

Dan Austin: [14:22] Yeah. You're doing your proper due diligence Yeah. Which is what everybody should do. It's kinda interesting because we're loosely in the same circles. So you think if he's gonna be a a jerk, he would not be a jerk to somebody in the same circles. I know. But apparently, he is. So you think about that. What else is he doing out there that is for his own satisfaction that doesn't help anybody or anything?

Mike DeHaan: [14:43] Yeah. It's it's ridiculous. I mean, literally, most of the same circles because the people that he pitches to for his business are also in GoBundance. Like, I know everyone that he goes after on a regular basis. I know. It's like, what is she doing, bro? I don't get it. So anyway, my point being coaches, business coaches, all she's saying, anyone that asks for any sort of significant some money, and this comes with us too. Yeah. If you apply to be in the Instant Investor Program, you're gonna on a call with me, absolutely do your due diligence on me, I will, but the thing is, I'm not a scumbag, so there's a red flag, I just said that, right? That's spat on my own face. Well, I'll say this,

Dan Austin: [15:17] what you're not gonna do is, you're not gonna give somebody, you're not gonna call somebody out for not joining your program. Okay if it's not a right fit, and if it's not a right fit for right now. And honestly, when we bring clients on, we're likely to tell them they're not a right fit before we take their money, if they're truly not a right fit, because that's the last thing you and I do. We're not trying to just monetize the shit out

Mike DeHaan: [15:37] of people

Dan Austin: [15:38] for our for our short term benefit, which some people are willing to do that.

Mike DeHaan: [15:42] Yeah. Exactly. Right? And that's a huge difference, and it's just that long term mindset and establishing those actual relationships because that's where success comes from. And also to, like, when you're meeting with people, I mean, getting testimonials is such an easy thing to do. And if people, like, aren't willing to give you testimonials or they don't have someone in their group that is happy to tell you about their experience

Dan Austin: [16:08] Mhmm.

Mike DeHaan: [16:09] I mean, because that's the other thing is some people are like, oh, you know, it's like private. We we don't give out information sort of, which I've literally heard from coaches before. That's a major red flag. That's trash. The funny thing is, is like even in our group, yeah, there's people that are more than happy to give another person time just because they're so stoked on having worked with us. And we've done the same thing for other people too. That's why we talk about GoBundance and other coaches and stuff we've had on here, because they provided enough value that we're happy to share them.

Dan Austin: [16:35] Yeah. So let's get back on this mastermind that we were buzzing from now that we went on that tirade, like, talk about some of the cool shit that we learned. I had a blast. I don't know about you, but it was a good time. I don't know if I should ask you the number one thing, but what is one thing maybe that you would take away that you think is super applicable?

Mike DeHaan: [16:52] I mean, I have

Dan Austin: [16:54] a bunch. Have pages of notes, so it's a hard question.

Mike DeHaan: [16:56] I literally have pages of notes as well. I mean, well, so one of the primary things that I took away from it was how easy it is to get caught up and think that your business is, like, super unique and challenging. But a lot of the stuff you need to do is fundamentally the same. Mhmm. So, like, at at this, everyone there kinda had different businesses. Steve's business that he scaled and sold was a property management business. We had people that spoke that were from different kinds of businesses. And it made me realize how much of a skill, like, business itself is.

Dan Austin: [17:27] Mhmm.

Mike DeHaan: [17:28] Like, once you get into the nuts and bolts of it, and that's also why I think that you can have these people that, like, learn how to run one business, and then they can build and scale other ones that seem, like, completely different. You know, it'll be like, oh, I didn't know that freaking Rob Dyrdek was more than like a skateboarder. It's like, well, he learned how to do business. And once he made his 9 figures on one, it's very easy to go and do it to another because the process is exactly the same. Absolutely. It's like pattern recognition.

Dan Austin: [17:57] Mhmm. Once you figure out that process and that system, it's just recognizing the patterns in your next venture, your next business, and saying, Okay, here's the problems I need to solve. And once you solve those problems, that's your unique skill set. The product is the product, whatever that is. But once you figure out how to scale that business model, you can go out and you can kinda do that really anywhere.

Mike DeHaan: [18:16] You can. Yeah. And that's what you see with a lot of the big business influencers out there, right, like Cody Sanchez talking about the small businesses and everything applied to that. Like, I really do believe that she can buy any business and make it successful because she knows the fundamentals about how to run a business. I think I don't necessarily think that when she coaches this for everybody because you have these people that are like, well, I'm a w two employee making $50,000 a year. I'm gonna buy a, you know, paper binding company on seller financing and pretend like I know how to be a fucking CEO. But

Dan Austin: [18:47] No. But I will say that here here is the plug for folks that are in real estate and doing what we're doing. I think you're better off going I think you start out at a higher level if you were to go into Cody Sanchez's program because you're essentially taking, and often we have to get creative with our deals, creative with our financing. We have to reposition our property. What you're doing in these small businesses. Right? And I think the thing with small businesses is rarely do small businesses fail because they're not profitable. They fail for a couple reasons, but the point I'm making here, they fail because the owner wants too much of the profit. Absolutely. Right? And so, if you had a business, for example, that was producing $1,000 So let's think of a rental property as a business. Producing $1,000 a month in cash flow, that's probably not enough for you to live off of. Yeah. But you can set that rental property up such that it can run somewhat passively, and what Cody is pitching is you have to be able to set up these businesses. Unless you know that industry like clockwork, you have to be able to set up that business into a place where it can run with an operator in place, and who cares if you only make a thousand dollars because it's passive.

Dan Austin: [19:54] That's the idea anyways, and that's why I think real estate investors have a leg up against the random w two employee who you're saying is like, just gonna go buy a business, a boring business because Cody Sanchez says to do it.

Mike DeHaan: [20:06] Yeah. I mean, I think that that's that makes perfect sense. Right? And I think that happens in real estate because most people start it as, like, kinda like a side hustle, and then when they jump into it, they've always treated it as a side hustle, so then they bring that mentality into when they start doing it full time. Sure.

Dan Austin: [20:23] Back to this point about scale though, and it's just chronologically in order in my notebook why I wanna bring this up, and I think it was also a zinger for me to come right out the gate because Steve always comes out the gate with just fire. But he talked about monetization, like the three parts of a business, the first being monetization, and most people know how to monetize whether you're monetizing now or not. Like, you have something you can monetize, whether that's walking dogs, whether that's running a full time off market real estate business, whatever. That's actually kind of the easier part. Right? Making a little bit of money, doing something with your time. But, the second part of that business is systematization. So, systematizing your business, and building those systems and processes so that your business can operate at a high level without you being involved in it, which gets you to the third part, which is scale. And I guess what I'm saying here is that most people probably never get to scale, because they don't get the systematization. They monetize, they make money, but they never make it at scale, because they miss the second part of the business, which is systematization.

Dan Austin: [21:24] And to to scale, that's a that means you're able to monetize without you being in the business.

Mike DeHaan: [21:30] Yeah. I mean, and it's hard to comprehend that. And I I think too, a problem is when you start doing, like, the work yourself, your income can increase a lot very, very quickly. And realistically, for you to start scaling and offering some network to employees, you are going to have to take a pay cut over the short term. And I think that most people, once they've tasted a little bit of revenue, you know, they're starting to make more money than ever made before, it's really hard for them to do that. And I I mean No. I think that's okay. Right? Like, honestly, what we kind of did is we hustled for a few years. We put some money in our bank account. So now, as we are scaling, you know, we're bringing on staff, we're bringing on employees that have, like, legitimate salaries. You know, we're not paying people $15 an hour in our business. We have people that are making, you know, $7,080,000 dollars a year. Right? Yep. That like, we have taken pay cuts in order to do that because we have a long term vision, but we're able to do that because we kind of already made a good chunk of money over the last couple years by hustling, by flipping houses, by, you know, beating the pavement ourselves, and, you know, we've earned the ability

Dan Austin: [22:34] to do that. So For sure. I mean, obviously, in hindsight, I wish we would've gotten to where we're at sooner. Absolutely. Right? You know what I mean? And hustled and and we're grinding to get to this point sooner, but it is what it is, and I think everybody has to learn at their own speed. And I feel like we're still learning faster than a lot, but slower than others, and it's just part of it's Exactly. Just part of the

Mike DeHaan: [22:56] So it's a mindset shift. It's pigs practice. You will mess things up, and just like when you're buying your first rental property, you can't expect it to be perfect. Like, you will jump into it. You will make mistakes. You will need to like redo stuff. And that just sort of comes with the territory. Like, all all of a sudden, looking back at like my time in the corporate world, why you would have things over quarterly and annual sprints, it makes sense. Right. Because you can't do stuff that much faster. It just takes a while to get things done.

Dan Austin: [23:27] Well, and if you're trying to focus on everything, and that is a challenge, and that's where some people figured out, really successful people figure out how to break things down really simply, and what you're saying is what we're finding in our business is that we have so many things to do that we need to break it down. Okay. Here's all the things on our list, but this month, we're gonna do really good at this one thing. It's gonna this is gonna be our sprint. And that's how you evolve your, you know, your client satisfaction. That's how you evolve your sales success or whatever part of your business you're working on, and you really have to focus in on that. Otherwise, you're on the hamster wheel getting only part things done the whole time. Like, you and I did that for a couple years, where we just would get half halfway done on something, and that's all we did because we were onto the next thing because we were putting out fires in between.

Mike DeHaan: [24:11] Yeah. And I think a big build off of what you just said there is it's really important to look at what you're doing and the results of what's happening and being honest about if it's actually effective or not. Because what happens with a lot of people is they spend three months, six months, a year on something, and they think that they've just keep, you know, beating it to death and it's eventually gonna come together. But sometimes that's not the case. You need to be honest with it. I mean, we actually see this a lot with our some of the people that inquire that wanna be part of our partnership program, you know, where they we, like, literally partner with them in a market. And they'll say things like, oh, well, you know, I've been I've spent the last, like, two years going and pull like, scraping all this data, driving for dollars, doing all those sort of things. It's like, I only wanna start with this system. And it's like, well, how many deals have you been Obviously, getting from not enough that you wanna do this yourself, so you're calling us. Like, let's try something new first and see how that goes. Let's try our system that we know works first, and then see how that goes, and then we can mix in the stuff that you were doing before if needed. And then more often than not, you know, our system that we've sort of, like, built and optimized over the last few years that we're very proficient in, it's proven more effective. And it's like, you know, you just kinda need to reinvent the wheel a little bit, and that's okay.

Dan Austin: [25:27] Yep. Yeah. It's taken like a little new point of view Uh-huh. Sometimes, and and people get the sunk cost bias. And maybe you had some cost associated with building that list, whether that's time cost or dollar cost. And sometimes it's just like you you and I have had to pivot sometimes that would even with properties and flips, you realize I'm not going to make money, and I just need to recapture as much of my capital back as possible and stop worrying about how much I wanna make on this because that's a sunk cost. Let's just give up that $20 and come back and pivot back to where we know we can make money again.

Mike DeHaan: [26:00] Yeah. I mean, that alone on flips is really, really important. Think it's a big trap that falls in Mhmm. On the people fall into. So I remember my very first flip that I lost on is one that I flipped by myself up on the South Hill here. And the first renovation I did on it was carpet paint, you know, pretty basic. The kitchen and stuff hadn't been redone. And I went and listed on the market. I was having trouble selling it, but I got a couple offers. And I was, you know, I've worn on this thing for several months. And I was like, I was only gonna make, like, $5,000. And I was like, this is horseshit that I put this much work into it. I'm only gonna make $55. So instead, I went back to my hard money lender. I got some more money for renovation. And I went I did the kitchen, I did all the bathrooms, I did all these other things, right? So it was like a brand new house. Okay? Move forward, you know, took an extra like four months, a bunch of others stuff started going wrong, started cutting into walls, you find more problems, 100 year old house. Lo and behold, we find this huge electrical problem that cost me $20,000 to fix, which I wouldn't have had to deal with before. Ultimately, I go and I sell the property, and instead of making $5, I now lose 25.

Dan Austin: [27:06] Right? I didn't realize you had to put that one on the market before and then took it off. You

Mike DeHaan: [27:11] idiot. I did, but I had that of sunk cost bias.

Dan Austin: [27:16] Right? You had this sunk cost bias. Hey. I all this money in here. That I need to make it is hard, and that's hard for anybody to realize that money And should be a you don't always know what the future looks like. You didn't know you're gonna run into electrical issues. You didn't know what the future market was gonna be. And sometimes it it goes in your benefit, but, man, to stay around this business a long time, you really can't have that, what we're calling the sunk cost bias, because that can bite you in the butt. Exactly.

Mike DeHaan: [27:43] And I think real estate, in business, and honestly, life, your relationships, you know, you just gotta

Dan Austin: [27:48] Mhmm.

Mike DeHaan: [27:48] Gotta be honest about it. Yeah. Right? Like, you look and you're like, I know I've spent four years with this person, but it's super toxic, and I don't know how to do it anymore. That doesn't mean you gotta stay with them. Right.

Dan Austin: [27:58] That's so true. Or like, you have some you have something that you think is tying you to that situation. It's like, hey, you've got one life to live. Whether that's as a real estate investor, as a spouse, as as a friend, or whatever, you have to surround yourself with places and things that you wanna be in life. Because once it's over, you don't get to pick.

Mike DeHaan: [28:13] Exactly. It was that old I think it's like a tech or like a startup saying, what they say, pivot. It's like pivot fast something faster, or what is it?

Dan Austin: [28:23] I don't know. I do know I know along the lines, I'll give you another analogy, which is Amazon, they use the two way door method when they're trying to do things. Always say, We make two way door decisions. If it's a one way door decision, they don't make them, meaning you can only go through the door once, meaning once you're in that path, you They can't get back like to do these two way decisions, meaning the door swings both ways, you go in and you test it out, you don't like that room, you go right back out, go to the next one, and you just kinda test and test, and don't get caught up in that sunk cost bias. Be willing to pivot and adapt quickly, because that's how you fail if you get stuck on some stinking idea that Exactly. Just doesn't

Mike DeHaan: [29:00] You know what always gets me too is when I meet a lot of these different entrepreneurs that are like 25 and have this problem.

Dan Austin: [29:06] Right.

Mike DeHaan: [29:06] They feel like they've wasted so much time, and I and I I get it. Like, I was 25 not that long ago, you know, seven years ago. And I used feel the same way. I was like, damn. I'm, like, getting old. Like, I gotta figure my life out. But now at 32, I'm like, bro, I got so much freaking time.

Dan Austin: [29:20] Yeah. I wish I would have failed a couple times in my twenties, Like, I think the more you fail, the better in in taking the risk. If I had one regret, which I'm not a regretful person, but if I had one regret, I would have failed more.

Mike DeHaan: [29:32] Oh, yeah. Absolutely. It's taking more risk because you have nothing to lose. Yeah. You know? Like, when you're 25, you have half a decade that you can screw around and do everything wrong and still have your entire life Like, ahead of honestly. Totally. But and that's something that people, I think, take for granted to understand because of the schooling system and, you know, the corporate culture, all that sort of stuff, I don't know. Totally.

Dan Austin: [29:53] It's anti that. It's slow and steady wins the race.

Mike DeHaan: [29:56] Which is not true. Yeah. Because that's the other thing too is with if you learn how to do basic business systems, and this is where I'm gonna keep coming back to the massive income over passive income. Love it. I did. Like, that's gonna be the new saying. I I still trying to figure out where I stole that from. Yeah. But, like, I am very, very convinced that if you dial in on a skill, you learn to systematize it, and you learn just, like, the basic fundamentals of making money, which is, like, literally just

Dan Austin: [30:22] Mhmm.

Mike DeHaan: [30:22] Have a service, provided to people, monetize it. Like and that can be anything. I am absolutely convinced that ninety five percent of people can replace their w twos within one year, easily. You're absolutely probably right. You know? Because like the average person making up like low 6 figures even, absolutely can replace that in one year. Mhmm.

Dan Austin: [30:40] No questions asked. Totally. Absolutely.

Mike DeHaan: [30:43] The exceptions will be like the corporate people that are making like $500 a year, stuff like that. Like, that will take a little bit longer. But, hopefully, when you're gotten to that position, you're at least saving some money so that you can accelerate your escape in some other ways. Sure. This reminds me of

Dan Austin: [30:59] a quote that we heard at this mastermind, which is from Nick Santenetasso.

Mike DeHaan: [31:04] Something like that how say that? So, yeah. So if you guys don't know who Nick is, he's a very well known speaker. He tours with Tony Robbins, and he's famous because he was born with a, I guess, like a deformity, like some like, is that is that like a PC thing to say? Like, either way, was born with with no legs and only one arm, and basically on his one arm that he has, he doesn't have a hand. He basically has, like, one finger. But he's like, you know, his organs and stuff all work. He's super sharp. He's not, like, mentally disabled at all.

Dan Austin: [31:32] Still crushes. Yeah. Yeah. There's one in ten people when he was born into the world, one in ten people like him, and I think he's the only one that survived or only a couple are known to survive. Anyhow, he said this quote, and I'm quoting it. Time is money is BS. The person the people that say that probably don't have enough time or money, or, you know, have less time or money than And then he followed up by saying, poor people use their time to make money. Rich people use their money to buy back their time.

Mike DeHaan: [32:03] Yeah. I wrote that down

Dan Austin: [32:04] word for it. I just thought it was funny, and at the timing of what you're talking about, which is that traditional mindset of converting time by showing up to a job or a company, honestly, that you own, that you're trading your time for money. That's dumb. So if you're listening to this, my point is stop saying time is money, because it shouldn't be. Time is not money. Money should equal time. The more money you have, the more time you have. So if you think that you have to put in time to make money, you're going down the wrong path. That's the wrong mindset to have.

Mike DeHaan: [32:36] It is. And I mean, I think you'd need to do that a little bit to start, right?

Dan Austin: [32:39] You do, but don't think of it that way. Mhmm. I think you just gotta get out the mindset of trading time for money. You have to put in effort because there's some people that could do what you and I are doing that could probably do it for less effort. Does that mean they need to put the same amount of effort for the same amount of dollars? Probably not.

Mike DeHaan: [32:55] And I think that that's the key difference is you're trading effort for money. Right? Yeah. And it it's funny. This is actually something that I've been going over with my wife recently. She left her w two last August, and she's going through this phase of, like, starting her art business and all sort of stuff, but she still well, she was telling me the other day, she's like, I still get in this mental rut where I'm like, I need to be at a computer for eight hours a day. And I'm like, why? Like, you know, just have your metrics or, like, your goals for what you're gonna do with your art that you're gonna sell, which I mean, she's she's legitimately selling her art online to, like, random people that aren't friends and family. So it's working.

Dan Austin: [33:29] Yep.

Mike DeHaan: [33:30] And so, like, just get your targets, what you need to hit, do that, and then who cares for the rest of it? Like, you would have hit the effort mark, your money's gonna start coming in, you know that, and let that run. And when you're an entrepreneur, right, sometimes that effort is fourteen hour days. Right? Sometimes it's two hour days. Right? Just varies a lot, but it is a important mindset shift to have. But it's very hard when you've been in like a W two corporate structure for a long time.

Dan Austin: [33:58] Yeah. Having that freedom is the luxury,

Mike DeHaan: [34:00] I guess. It is. Mhmm.

Dan Austin: [34:01] Is what you're talking about. Which sometimes is not fun having to work fourteen hour days if that's what you have to do. Yeah. That's the effort you gotta put in.

Mike DeHaan: [34:08] But I mean, that's the trade off though, right? And the goal is to be able to do that, have a system and a plan for how you're gonna get out of it. And also knowing what your time worth, and at what point it makes sense to hire people.

Dan Austin: [34:19] Right. And right when you said that, I was thinking the last part of this statement from Nick was always be willing to cut a check to go faster. He started this whole conversation with success, rewards, speed. So always be willing to cut a check to go faster. You and I, I feel like, in a lot of, not all things, but we've done that, we've been willing, that's why we hired a business coach. We knew we could get to where we wanted to go, we wanted to go much faster. Yeah. Success does reward speed. And so, when you're talking about the time versus money, all that sort of stuff, time is so much more important than anything in this world, and so, if you can pay to get there, why not? And I think there was another, some other conversation around, in school, copying the person next to you is called cheating, but in business, I don't remember what that analogy was, but that's called like mirroring. Yeah, copying. Call it mirroring, and then you just do what somebody else does and scale it. That's okay.

Mike DeHaan: [35:10] Just so funny, because that's so true. So true. Right? You look at almost every business, even, like, a lot of the large, like, tech businesses and stuff that have come up, they look at the one that's getting huge, and they just go into the same thing with, like, a slight change to it. Totally. What Bumble went public not too long ago. That was literally Tinder. Right. Like, the exact same thing, but I said, well, what if the woman has to engage first?

Dan Austin: [35:32] Cool. Exactly. Just a small nuance change with everything. What about Zoom versus Skype. All these other Skype versus Microsoft Teams, all these other things that they've all adapted. Even big companies don't create, they

Mike DeHaan: [35:46] just Right?

Dan Austin: [35:48] And in fact, one of the strategies for these big tech companies, which is always in question, is what they do is they will buy these other companies that are trying to do something, and they'll roll them up into their business model, they have no competition. It's it's part of their monopoly, and then they bundle it with this package called Microsoft Teams, for example, and then they decimate their Yeah. Competition, which is somewhat unfair is what people say, I guess, is the point. But they're just copying where they're buying to go faster.

Mike DeHaan: [36:12] Exactly. And and that that goes big business, small business, real estate, and that's always a funny thing too when it comes to real estate investors. Everyone is trying to find, like, the next hot area to buy in. They're trying to get ahead of the curve, you know, path of progress, all that sort of stuff. Just look at where people are already making money and just buy in those areas and do what those people are doing. And everyone says, oh, well, it's competitive. It's like, it's competitive in those areas because it freaking works. You know? Right.

Dan Austin: [36:37] I mean, look about look at real estate, wholesaling. There's people in every single market, but it still works.

Mike DeHaan: [36:42] Mhmm. Exactly. And and that's one of the biggest things when people, you know, they inquire about the ASIN investment program or, like, how to get started, and they just ask things like that, is they say, do you think that my market's too competitive? You know, I was like, I know my my friend, Jim, he does he does deals here, and it's he does he says it's really hard. I'm like, cool. Well, just Right. Don't do exactly what he's doing. Find the stuff that's working for him, and just do that better.

Dan Austin: [37:05] Do it. Yeah. Or people get worried about like, well, I don't wanna give an employee all my trade secrets because what if they take it and run and start their own thing because they're too good or whatever? It's like, awesome. Now you have a partner in that market, and if you don't treat them like shit, then you guys could probably do deals together.

Mike DeHaan: [37:20] I mean, yeah, abundance mindset, especially when it comes to real estate too. It is hard business to get started, and the community is so small that most people will have an abundance mindset with it. And if they don't, they're not gonna be around very long.

Dan Austin: [37:31] They're not gonna last maybe, what, a couple years.

Mike DeHaan: [37:33] Yeah. So, anyways, yeah. That was a good stuff. Yeah. I enjoyed that chat with Nick though. That was that was a cool experience too. Because I mean, he usually speaks in front of like 10,000 people, and he literally came to our little Airbnb in Scottsdale and chatted with 12 of us, and then just like hung out with us afterwards for a while. Bro.

Dan Austin: [37:51] Yeah. It was probably one of the best experiences I've had. Andrew, right, like, I think he was talking about being at one of the Tony Robbins events for 25,000 people. And I'm not familiar with all the Tony Robbins events, but it was, I can't remember what it was he called it, but yeah, that's a ton of people, and then for him to just to show up. And that's also why you hire certain coaches, because he's in our coaches' teams network, right, and was able to get him to come and speak 10 people when he normally speaks to 20,000. 10,000. Right? That's not easy to do.

Mike DeHaan: [38:20] That is something else too to consider when you're looking at coaches is who's in their network. Because, I mean, honestly, paying to be in proximity with other large names that can help you scale or help you grow your business is worth an insane amount of money.

Dan Austin: [38:33] Net worth equals net worth, the old cliche, and getting just to see, for me in life, the best things that have happened to me is when I've elevated myself by putting myself in the room, so that I'm with people that are doing more, and then I'm like, oh, I wanna do that now. And then you grow up to be though with those people, and then you find another group. Right? Not that you're leaving them in the dust, you're just finding new groups to help elevate you. Absolutely. Cool.

Mike DeHaan: [38:55] Awesome. Well, anything else to touch on? We didn't touch a lot of business stuff or real estate stuff, but that's okay. You guys have heard most of that at this point anyway. So good. So cool. Awesome, guys. Well, thanks for listening today. If you enjoyed the show, you should leave us a five star review wherever you listen to your podcast, and you should also share it with your friends. It is the easiest way for this show to grow for you to prefer it to other people. Send them the link, tell them hey, these guys are doing some cool stuff in real estate and business, and you should follow along. I think get a lot from it. So do it share with everybody share it with your grandma. He's like, say they're like me grandma, you know, they're young men, You can listen to what they're doing was what I'm trying to do. Get some inspiration that way. I don't know. But we need to expand our demographic somehow. We'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. Figure it out. So anyways, guys, if you could share with people, that'd great. Besides that, you should go to collectingkeyspodcast.com/free, and you get your free five step guides are generating off market leads. And aside from that, we appreciate you all, and we'll talk to you next week.