Listen to Rod Khleif share how to achieve unthinkable goals by expanding your growth mindset. Rod's podcast, Lifetime Cash Flow through Real Estate has over 10 million downloads. His coaching students have purchased over 40,000 units. Rod is a huge believer in mindset and the ability to achieve great things if you have a burning desire to make it happen!

Table of Contents:

• Where To Listen To The Podcast
• The Man With Growth Mindset
• Own Your Power
• Learn More About Growth Mindset in the Virtual Bootcamp
• Fueling Your Growth Mindset
• Vision for the Future
• The Art of Giving Back & Growth Mindset
• How to Reach Rod Khleif
• Join This Multifamily Conference In 2021

The Man With Growth Mindset

Darin: Rod Khleif lives in Sarasota, Florida with his wife, Tiffany. His podcast Lifetime Cashflow Through Real Estate has over 10 million downloads. Rod's coaching students have purchased over 40,000 units. He's made money. He’s lost money. He's made money again. The biggest trait I see from Rod is that he is a huge believer of growth mindset, and the ability to achieve great things if you have a burning desire to make it happen.

Rod: You know, what's fun, we met in Jamaica at a mastermind and here we are a few months later having an interview. This is a lot of fun. I know I've had you on my show as well, so this is how things come full circle. I love it.

Darin: Absolutely. Rod just mentioned the way I know him is, we met at a mastermind in Jamaica. A mutual friend of ours, David Toupin put that together. He was on the show, episode 12 and it was a huge honor for me to meet Rod because when I got involved three years ago, I didn't know anything about how to do this. I listened to a lot of Rod's podcast episodes, and it helped to learn from him and also the guests that he brought on the show. Now three years later, here I am getting to meet him at a mastermind and he was kind enough to invite me on his show.

Now he's going to share a lot of his wisdom with us today. Rod, I usually ask, how many units and how many properties you own, but I know that you also have a very strong education program.

Who Is Rod Khleif?

Darin: So you can answer that personally, or you can answer that in terms of how many units your students have done or, however you want to handle that.

Rod: Sure. We've bought 2,300 units less than two years once we close on the asset we've got under contract in Dallas, our third asset. When I tell my story, I'll dig into some of the stuff I've done as well. I've only been teaching for a little over three years and they're approaching 40,000 doors owned, so I'm proud of that. But yes, there's the answer.

Darin: That's crazy. Well, three years, it seems like you've been at the top of the multifamily podcasting world for a lot longer than that. But maybe three years ago is when you started the coaching program and the conferences.

Rod: That's when I started coaching. The podcast has been around for about four and a half years. I was mentioning to you before we started, I just hit 10 million downloads, which just blows my mind.

Darin: That is crazy. Before we jump into a lot of other specific questions, why don't we just hear your story? Can you share your story with us?

Rod: I'm going to go back ways because it'll lend credence to what I'd love to have an opportunity to talk about today. I immigrated to this country when I was six years old with my brother Albert, my mother Svantia. I was one in the Netherlands, in Holland, windmills, wooden shoes. We ended up in Denver, Colorado where I lived for 30 years. And we struggled when we got started or when we moved there. I remember wearing clothes from the Goodwill and the Salvation Army through junior high school till when I was 14.

The Power of Growth Mindset

Rod: I lied about my age at Burger King so I could get a job because I was tall. And then I had enough money to buy my clothes. I remember we ate expired food, because that's all we could afford, and drank powdered milk. I'm sure some people are listening to us Darin that have had it harder than I did, but I knew I wanted more. Luckily my mom had an incredible work ethic. She would babysit kids so that we'd have enough money to eat. So she was a bit of an entrepreneur. With her babysitting money, she bought the house across the street from us when I was about 14 for $30,000.

When I was 17, she told me she'd made $20,000 in her sleep and I'm like, "What? You made 20,000 and you didn't do anything? Screw college. I'm getting into real estate mom." I got my real estate broker's license. And I became a broker right when I turned 18. Back then you could do that with education. Now they got smart and you have to have some experience. But I was a broker, not just an agent. And I was going to be rich selling other people's houses. In my first year, I made about $8,000.

My second year, maybe 10,000. But my third year I made over 100,000, which back in 1981 was decent money. What happened between year two and three that caused me to 10X my income? Well, what happened was I was dating a girl and I worked with her father, and he taught me about the power of growth mindset and psychology, and how truly 80 to 90% of your success in anything is just that, your mindset and your psychology.

Seminars in Life

Rod: Only 10 to 20% is the mechanical information that we talk about on our interviews, on our podcasts, Darin.

It's the do and it's to keep doing. And it's to get back up when you get your butt kicked. It's pushing through limiting beliefs or pushing through fear, or getting uncomfortable to take action towards your dreams.

Fast forward to today, I've owned over 2,000 houses that I rented long-term, numerous apartment complexes. In 2006, my net worth went up to $17 million while I slept.

But there's a punch line. I thought I was a freaking real estate God. If you do the math on that, it's $8,173 an hour, which of course I did and anybody that stands still long enough knew about it. I could barely fit my head through a door because I thought I knew everything about real estate. Well, when that happens, God or the universe will give you a little bit of a lesson or seminar. Well, that was 2008 for me. I don't call them failures, no, I call them seminars, but I lost $50 million in 2008.

That was my true net worth conservatively. One of the things that I enjoy talking about, if you'll humor me, if you want to go that direction is, the mindset it took to have 50 million to lose in the first place. But then as importantly, or maybe, more importantly, the mindset it took to get back to the success that I have today. Because I know there are a lot of people hurting right now. The news says everything's great, but a lot of businesses have gone out of business. If you're listening or watching Darin, I know that you're a leader, and right now more than ever, the world needs leaders.

Own Your Power

Rod: It's so easy to get wrapped up. Don't get me started in politics, but you watch the news and the news is not there to inform us. It's there to startle or scare us. It's so important, because you're a leader, to pay attention to what you're bringing in. Stand guard at the door to your mind and bring in the good stuff. In my podcast, I do a clip every week called to own your power.

It's a motivational clip. It doesn't matter if you're like a multifamily or not. You'll get a ton of value from that if you would enjoy motivational content. It's only five, six minutes. People tell me they enjoy those, but regardless of whether you listen to me or not, bring in the good stuff. Go on YouTube, watch motivational videos. Focus on what you want, not what you don't want, and the negative stuff, because as you all know what you focus on gets bigger. There you go.

Darin: That's huge. You lost the money and then how'd you get it back? First of all, before you jump into coming back, explain to the listeners how you lost the money because to my understanding, it was based on loans.

Rod: Sure, good question. Let me start with why. I had 800 houses along the Gulf Coast of Florida here, two hours north of me and two hours south of me and everywhere in between. And I had some apartment complexes. Well, let me give you some reasons because it's all about cash flow, and that's why my podcast is called Lifetime CashFlow because it's all about cash flow. Value is out the door as far as I'm concerned.

Losing $50 Million but Still Having a Growth Mindset

Rod: Florida has no state income tax, so property taxes are higher, which impacts cash flow. I had properties in wind and flood zones, so the insurance is higher, which impacts cash flow. But what killed me was the logistics. Let's say that I sent a maintenance guy to one of my apartment complexes. Everything is the same. The HVAC is the same. The appliance is the same. Plumbing is the same. Electrical is the same. Door locks, everything's the same. You could stockpile parts and I could send a maintenance guy and he's in and out in an hour.

If I had to send someone to one of my houses that's an hour or an hour and a half away, that's two, three, four hours round trip. Then they've got to go to the house, see what's wrong because every house is different. Then they've got to find a Home Depot or a Lowe's that could be 30 minutes away. I don't know about you Darin, but anytime I fix something at home, invariably I go to Home Depot or Lowe's more than once. It's the same thing with a maintenance guy. What took an hour at one of my complexes, took all day at one of my 800 houses, and these houses were C class.

As you know, when you've got a C class asset, you're going to have a lot more maintenance. Because it's just the caliber of resident that you have. That killed me. Then really the coup de Gras was I didn't study income and job demographics when I was buying houses. I was just buying houses. So I was having fun, no big deal.

The Perfect Storm That Started the Growth Mindset

Rod: Well, most of my residents were either in retail, which got killed in '08 or they were contractors, jobbers, electricians, plumbers, drywallers, painters, roofers, all of which fell off a cliff in 2008. It was just like the perfect storm. Listen to this, Darin, I was at a 30% loan to value in 2006 and '07. I only owed 30 cents on the dollar and I still crashed and burned. No, there was a ton of cash flow.

Darin: 30 LTV?

Rod: 30 LTV. You want to hear something else that's crazy? In '09, the portfolio went upside down. It dropped more than 70%. I thought 80 million baby boomers getting old, getting cold, Florida would be recession-proof. Well, we were at ground zero for what happened, but that's what happened. Back to how I recovered. How I recovered.

Darin: Can I ask you one other question on that? I may be off on this, but I thought I had heard in the story that your properties were cross-collateralized, so when one deal went under, then it pulled others down with it.

Rod: I think you heard me say this. My apartments did just fine in the crash. Yes, they pulled back, but they would have easily survived. But yes, I cross-collateralized them with packages of 30, 40, 50, 60 houses and so the whole thing imploded. Yes, if I hadn't cross-collateralized them to save 50 basis points or a half a percent interest, or something along those lines, I'd still have those.

Darin: You would not cross collateralize again going forward?

Rod: Not if you can avoid it, absolutely not.

Darin: For the listener's benefit, can you just explain what cross-collateralization is?

What Is Cross-Collateralized?

Rod: Yes, sure. I'd go to a bank and they'd say, "Well, I see you've got this." at that time, 7% interest was a fantastic rate. "I see, let's say you've got this 8% interest or seven and a half percent interest on this apartment complex. You've got houses here at seven, eight, 9% interest. Why don't we roll them all into a loan at six and a half or six? I'm like, "Oh, yes." But they put them all together. Now, cross-collateralized actually could mean different things. These were in loan packages together, so when the whole package went down, I lost the apartments with it.

I couldn't pull it out. That's probably a misnomer in that regard. Cross-collateralized is if you've got an asset and the bank's not happy with just that asset for collateral, they will have you include other assets to make them feel more comfortable to give you that loan. That's probably the true definition of cross-collateralization. But in my case, there were packages of houses with apartments and the houses pulled the apartments down.

Darin: Got you. Well, thank you for that. All right, go on with, how do you come back from that?

Rod: How do you come back? Well, how did you have it in the first place? How you have it is, you know what you want and you know why you want it. I used to do sold-out live events around the country. So I was scheduled in May of last year to have 800 people in Orlando and we all know what happened in February and March of last year. I was freaking out and I'm like, "What are we going to do? We've got all these people that have paid to come to Orlando."

Recovering From Damages With Growth Mindset

Rod: Luckily we got out of the hotel contract, but I had to pivot and I had to innovate. Maybe if you're listening, you're in the same place. And maybe you need to innovate or pivot right now. I'm going to tell you when things get tough is when you show your metal, and you see what you're made of. Sometimes that requires you to look in the mirror and maybe reinvent yourself and so I did. If you go to multifamilyvirtualbootcamp.com, Multifamily Virtual Boot Camp, you'll see me on my phone doing the video for my live stream boot camp. We had 900 people show up there and I've had now thousands of people attend my live stream boot camps.

I've got one coming up on February 20th. But the reason I bring all that up is the first thing I do there is, we spend an hour on getting clear on what your goals are because. I call it goal setting on steroids, because if you don't know what you want, how are you ever going to get it? By the way, let me mention, I do have that two-day boot camp coming up on February 20th and 21st, and your listeners, I'll give them a code. It's Rodfriend. Use the code Rodfriend, you come for $97 and I don't sell anything there.

It's 16 to 18 hours of literally every aspect of this business from building a team to picking your market and what to look for in a market, to finding deals, to evaluating deals, to due diligence, to financing, to syndication, to property managers, you name it. We go through everything for 16, 18 hours and nothing's being sold. So it's kind of a duh.

Learn More About Growth Mindset in the Virtual Bootcamp

Rod: If you want to come, if you're listening on iTunes, text the word multifamily to 72345. But just remember to use the code, one-word Rodfriend, and you can get in for 97 bucks and truly it's a no-brainer. I've had thousands of people now watch the live stream. I just came off one today, but it's just a short version. Well, I was going to say, I've never had a complaint, but that's a lie. I get complaints that the breaks are too short, but they're harder on me. I do these 15-minute breaks because I want to pack in as much as I can, but they're harder on me than the people listening, trust me. But people got to complain about something, but that's it.

Darin: That code, does it matter if it's capped, not caps or anything?

Rod: No, does not matter. Upper, the lower case doesn't matter on the Rodfriend. The website again is multifamilyvirtualbootcamp.com. But if you text multifamily to 72345, you'll get the info.

Darin: That's 100 bucks for the two days? Look, I'm telling you listeners that is such a good deal. Take him up on that one.

Rod: Anyway, I love it, which is why I do it. I've got what I call a warrior mentorship coaching program. We get a lot of interest because people are like, "If he gives that away for free, can you imagine what his programs like?" My students, as I say, have been doing it for three and a half years. They're approaching 40,000 units owned. I get a lot of people interested in that as well, but it's free, the two full days and it's packed. I'll just show you something. I've got the manual for it right here.

Goal Setting

Rod: There is no fluff in here. It's hundreds of pages. Anyway, the reason I brought all that up was not just a put-a-plug-in for the boot camp, but to tell you: the first thing we do is goal setting. Because you asked me how I got back from losing everything. It was re-associating with what I wanted and why I wanted it. What I'd like to do is, if you're not interested in suffering through two days of me, let me give you a high-level overview of that goal-setting session. It'll just take me a few minutes if that's okay with you, Darin.

Darin: We're here to learn. We want to take nuggets from the guy who's figured it out, so bring it on.

Rod: I don't know about all that, but let's try. All right. What you want to do is, you want to pick an hour when you have a lot of energy. You make sure you're well hydrated. Don't do it right after a meal and just sit down and write down everything you could ever possibly want in life. This is not New Year's resolutions, where you do two or three things you forget about by February. This is everything you want in life. All the big stuff, the little stuff, the cars, boats, jet-skis planes, motorcycles, jewelry, clothing, whatever it is, everything.

Write it down. I'm talking about everything you'll ever want in your lifetime, okay? How much money do you want in the bank in three years? And how much money do you want in the bank in 10 years, your security bucket? How much cash flow do you want from your assets in three years, 10 years? Where do you want to go? What countries do you want to go to?

Write Down Your Goals

Rod: You can look on the floor behind me and see my vision. There's my travel vision board right there on the floor next to my recliner. You can see some of the hundreds of thank you cards I've got from students that have sent me over the last three years on the wall there.

I'm so proud of those. But anyway, so where do you want to go? Write down the things that you want to do in this lifetime. Do you want to climb all the mountains over 14,000 feet or write a book? I use the example, do you want to jump out of a perfectly good airplane? Which I did about eight months ago and I'll never do it again. But whatever it is you want to do, write it down. Now, also write down what you want to learn in this lifetime. If you want to learn a skill set, if it's multifamily, kind of probably because you're listening here, for God's sakes, come see me.

But whatever it is, write that down. You want to learn a foreign language, write that down. Not just the stuff, write down, this is everything you're going to do, be, or have, so write down what you want. Write down what you're going to learn and lastly, write down who you're going to help. We will do more for others than we'll ever do for ourselves. Again, these goals are the fuel to get you to take action and move and so write down. I bought my parents a house here on a canal in Florida, bought them a car, took them on cruises. Who do you want to do something for? Write that down.

Activating Your Growth Mindset

Rod: Once, and if you're analytical, which I know a lot of you may be because of Darin's analytical, please don't stop and analyze it.

Keep writing. Don't let the pen leave the paper. You can always scratch it out later. Keep that momentum, breathe, and just really use that energy to write down everything you could think of. And importantly, take the lid off your brain. Don't limit yourself because there's nothing you can't do.

Look at Elon Musk for God's sakes, $3 billion startups. There's nothing you can't do. You just have to decide and do it. If you want a private Island, a jet, a yacht, write it down. Because what that does, just writing down the goal, triggers something in your brain called your reticular activating system. That's a subconscious filter, you're not even conscious of it that points you in the direction that your brain thinks you're interested in. I think the best example is when you first buy a car, you don't notice them.

As soon as you buy them, you see them everywhere. That's your reticular activating system. The same thing works with your goals. When you write them and you re-associate with them regularly, it's going to point you in the direction of things that you need to accomplish them and it truly works. Some of you are probably going on, "Come on, get on with the real estate stuff." Well, big mistake, because this is more important than the real estate stuff. Trust me on this.

Darin: Let me jump in there because listeners, you could hear he has a ton of passion, right? He has a ton of passion for what he's talking about.

Passion to Educate People

Darin: When I met him in Jamaica, he spoke to the group. It was only 25 or 30 of us there, but he spoke to the group several times. Yes, he's talking about conferences and other things that he can provide value to you guys and there is a fee for that, but you will have a huge return from it. But when I met him, he just had it in him that he just wanted to help others. That's where his passion comes from. His passion is coming from, he wants to see you the listener take action and do this because it works, so listen up.

Rod: Thank you for that. I got to tell you, I work on Sundays and my beautiful bride who you met puts up with me because she knows how much I love this. I love it. And please know this is not ego. I get love every single day. And I get DMs. I sometimes get dozens. And I get emails. I get gifts. And I get handwritten thank you cards like the ones on here, literally every single day. What's not to love, right? That's another thing on that note if you don't love real estate, you either learn to love it and you can learn to love it by the way, by associating pleasure with it.

You can maybe equate it to hunting for buried treasure or however you learn to love it. But if you can't learn to love it for God's sake, go do something else. Life is too short because when you love it, it's effortless. All right. Let's see, where was I? We talked about writing your goals down, taking the lid off your brain.

Beating the Impossible With Growth Mindset

Rod: Once you can't think of another thing, it's not real until it's measurable. Put a time limit on each goal. So put how many years it's going to take you to achieve it. Just put a one, a three, a five, a 10, or even a 20 and don't overthink this, please.

Just guess and throw a number down one, three, five, 10, 20. Now, recognizing that as human beings, it's our natural tendency to overestimate what we can do in a year. But we always underestimate, massively underestimate what we can do in five, 10, 20 years. I'll give you an example of this. Again, let me pre-frame this to say I'm not bragging, but I just want to inspire you. When I lived in Denver, I knew I wanted to live on the beach. I would visualize palm trees and sand and surf and blue water.

There's no beach in Denver obviously, but I would visualize it. Ultimately I built a 10,000 square foot, $8 million mansion here in Sarasota, on a narrow Island where I owned the beach on one side. I had my boathouses on the backside. This place, this mansion was magnificent, which was unthinkable when I was 18. The point is to take the lid off your brain. If you can imagine it, then ultimately you've got to believe it and you'll have it, period. I don't care what it is, you can have it. Once you've got your numbers by your goals, just a few more quick steps, a couple more quick steps.

The first thing you gotta do is pick your number one goal. If there's an equally exciting couple, just pick one, but this would be one of those goals when you get it, you're like, "This is amazing."

Altruistic Goals

Rod: You know you've arrived when you get this goal. Put that on a separate sheet of paper, then pick your top three one-year goals and put those on a separate sheet of paper and leave some room in between them. I'm going to tell you, at this point, you are ahead of 99.9% of the people on the planet, that again, do a New Year's resolution, which they never pulled the trigger on.

I was just hearing from my team that they got gym memberships this last couple of weeks. We're filming this in January, which is inevitable and then they never show up. Of course, I gave him a hard time and told them to watch my goal setting, but anyway, I derailed my brain.

Darin: Sorry, let me add one thing to what you're saying. That there are some listeners, there's a lot of listeners that a lot of things that he mentioned on the list are things that you're thinking about. But then there are other listeners, there are other people that I've interviewed, there are other people that I've talked to have said like, "Hey, Darin, man, I just don't need that much. I don't need the huge house. And I don't need a fancy car. " My answer to there is like, "Look, you don't have to keep all that for you. But if you provide more and more value and you make more money, make your goal, how much you're going to donate to charity or how many meals are you going to provide for starving children."

Whatever is important to you, you can take that same process that Rod's talking about.

Rod:  I'm really glad you said that, because again, these goals don't have to be material. They can be altruistic.

Fueling Your Growth Mindset

Rod: They can be educational. And they can be something for someone else. Those can be bigger drivers than the stupid stuff. I'll give you some examples of the stupid stuff in a minute. That house was a little bit stupid. I loved it, don't get me wrong. I lost it in all the craziness, but anyway. Once you've got those four goals on a separate sheet of paper, again, you're far along, but there's another hugely important step.

You need to write down under each one of those goals, why it is an absolute freaking must for you to achieve it. As you're writing your description, use emotionally charged words, like amazing and incredible and beautiful. So I can show my kids what incredible success looks like. And I can show my husband or wife what a life of success feels like. And that I can retire my husband or wife so that we can live the life of our dreams, have the freedom to do whatever we want, whenever we want, wherever we want, bring whoever we want.

Whatever is going to juice you, write it down. Again, words are powerful, use them. Use those emotional words. Put a paragraph under each one, why it has to happen. But then take it one little step further, put some pain in there if you don't achieve the goal. Make it very painful so that I don't feel like a failure so that I don't live a life of regret, so I don't fail my kids, so I don't fail my wife. Make it painful. Here's why, as human beings, we'll do more to avoid pain than gain pleasure. This is the fuel guys.

Regrets of Dying

Rod: This is what's going to get you out of bed early. Keep you up late, work on a Saturday, do whatever you have to do as this side hustle to make this happen for yourself. I'll tell you, I'll give you a great example of this. There was a nurse in Australia who is a hospice nurse. She helped patients at the end of their lives. And she asked him a question, Darin. The question was, do you have any regrets? She wrote a book about, it's called The Five Regrets of Dying. Her name is Bronnie Ware. Do you know what the number one regret was?

Darin: What was it?

Rod: Not living the life I could have lived. Live in someone else's life. Not doing what I know I'm capable of. Guys, screw that, okay? We do not want that to happen. This is what keeps that from happening. And this is how I got myself out from underneath a rock when I lost 50 million bucks. If you know somebody who lost more than that, please have them call me so I feel better about my situation. But the point is, this is the fuel that, and honestly I wouldn't give it up for anything, because I would have never met my wife, and I'd give it all up again for her. But the point is, the why is the fuel.

Darin: She would love to hear that.

Rod: Oh, she knows it, my God. If you ask her what Rod's purpose in life is, I do this publicly sometimes at my live events. I'll pull her up on stage, what's Rod's purpose in life? “To make me happy.”

Visualize Your Goals

Rod: Because it’s true. The next thing that you must do is, you've got to manifest this into your life. You need to get pictures of the things that you want. Again, they don't have to be the cars and the big stuff. It can be to help children. I've got a vision board back there to build schools in third world countries for children, self-sustaining schools. Whatever it is, it doesn't have to be material. But let me give you some examples of this, how powerful it is. You got to go on Google, you got to find pictures that resonate with you and download them and go to Walgreens and CVS and have them blown up.

Rod: You can see pictures on the walls here of the things that interest me now, but let me give you some examples of how powerful this is. Jim Carey, if you Google Jim Carrey check, when he was flat, broke, wrote himself a check for $10 million. That's how much money he made. He'd go up by the Hollywood sign, he'd look at it and visualize cashing it, and that's how much money you made for Dumb and Dumber. I'll give you a more recent example. Demi Lovato, 10 years ago said she was going to sing in the Super Bowl.

Go watch the last Super Bowl last year. I'll give you some personal examples. When I was 18, I was going to be rich selling other people's houses. I bought a four-door car, bone, ugly Ford Granada. Bench seat in the front, just a real piece of, you know what. Well, I worked with that guy who was telling you about that taught me about mindset and psychology, and he had two Corvettes and he let me drive one.

From Ford Granada to Corvette

Rod: I will tell you if there's something you want, go experience it. If there's a car you want, go drive it. If there's a house, like a caliber house you want, go to the open house.

Back in February, when it was a different world for Valentine's Day before COVID, I went to Miami. I took my bride. We went to the Mandarin Oriental and just lived large, went to the Miami Yacht Show. That's when it was going on and I BS'ed my way onto these big yachts because that's one of my vision board things. I want to either own or rent a yacht and go around the horn of Italy and Spain, Croatia, Greece. And I just can't wait to do something like that. I BS'ed my way on these yachts and I visualized owning them, sitting in the captain's chair, walked around as I owned it because it freaking works guys.

Anyway, go experience it. He let me drive the Corvette. I got a picture out of a magazine because I thought it was so amazing driving this car. So I got a picture out of a magazine of a Corvette because they hadn't even thought of the internet yet. I put it on the visor of that bone, ugly Granada, so every time I sat in that car, that Corvette was staring me in the face. Within a year or two, I had a Corvette. Now I want to give you a couple more examples. These are materialistic. Please know this is not me bragging because this stuff does not interest me anymore, but I'm hoping to inspire you.

Growth Mindset That Bought Sports Cars

Rod: This is back when the TV show Magnum PI. I was out there and the actor's name was Tom Selleck. I think he was a detective in Hawaii and the first time I'd ever seen an exotic car. He drove this Ferrari 308 and I thought, "Oh my God, that thing is amazing." Got a picture of that car, the actual car put it on the visor of my Corvette. Within a year or two – a Maserati looked just like it. The last example, I'm the guy that always wanted a Lamborghini. I would visualize them. I had posters in my room growing up.

It was Lamborghini Countach back then but was fascinating as my son collected models of exotic cars. I have the model over in my other building here, my compound. He had 30 or 40 exotic models and he had a model of the same color and style Lamborghini that I ended up getting, which I ultimately wrecked. In fact, let me show you something. For those of you watching, loads of you listening on iTunes, you can't see this, but I'm holding up my planner. I have a big desk planner.

In the back of this thing, I've got pictures that have been in here for 20 years. The first pictures are pictures of my kids when they were young. They're my gratitude pictures because everything starts from a place of gratitude. Then I've got the pictures of the things that I wanted. What's crazy is this top picture Darin, is exactly like the house that I built before I built it. 10-foot high glass like that, travertine floors. Of course, I lost that. Now I live in a compound.

Documenting Your Goals

Rod: I've got six buildings, a giant main house, a two-bedroom guest house on the water, a media building with a theater room, and a wet bar. Above that, I'm building a video studio. It's cool. I'm excited about it. We've got six buildings here and what's crazy, and because God's got a sense of humor, you can see my old house across the bay. It's right out of my backyard which is hilarious. But look at these bottom pictures Darin, you can see the white walls in those pictures. This green screen, oh, you can't see it. Never mind. I usually have a green screen behind me and you can see it's the same wall in my pictures.

But anyway, but then I've got pictures of these funny things. I've got a few hundred thousand dollars worth of watches. Lamborghini before I ever got it, the Rolls Royce, the Bentley, all this stuff I thought was important at one time. I got it because I had pictures. That's the last thing I want to say, get pictures of what you want, get them around you, screensaver or on the wall, whatever. I've got a sign on the ceiling, above our bed with a goal that I have. Drives my wife crazy, because it works. So, there you go.

Darin: Listeners, what he's saying is so true. I know some of you because I've had a lot of you reach out to me on Instagram. We've had sidebar discussions either through DMs or through phone calls or whatnot. Some of you are looking for your first duplex or fourplex or eight-plex, and some of you have a hundred units and are looking to go to 500 or a thousand. I have some syndicators on that have two, three, 4,000 syndicated units.

You Can Achieve Your Goals With Growth Mindset

Darin: Some of you, I could hear in your voice when I talk to you that you don't fully believe that you can get there. What Rod is talking about right here is the beginning step to get there. You have to believe it. And you have to document it. You have to look at it. It has to be burned inside you. All of you are capable of achieving those goals. With that Rod, I'm passing it back to you.

Rod: Yes. What you said is the belief is very, very important. If you haven't seen the movie or read the book, The Secret about the Law of Attraction, it works. It left off one piece, which is you have to take action. You just can't sit in a room and wish for it. But you have to declare it and God or the universe, or whatever you believe will conspire to help you make it happen. It's just the way it works. And it's crazy. Let me say one other thing before we move on, so I don't forget Darin because it relates to goals.

I was talking about that house that I built on the beach and this house was magnificent. It had a giant waterfall from the second-floor balcony into the pool. You had to walk through the waterfall to get into the pool, and the pools and magazines I had tens of thousands of dollars with the trees that bent out over the pool. The pool changes colors at night, has fiber optic lighting and the house, I had a wine cellar, elevator, giant spiral staircase up through the middle. I'll land the plane with us, on the second floor I had aquariums built, custom-built around the spiral staircase, and then also in my office.

Vision for the Future

Rod: They cost me almost $200,000. That gives you an idea of the house. Anyway, I worked for this thing for 20 years. Two months after I moved in, I'm floating in the pool at night. My family's inside sleeping, I'm looking up at this Testament to my ego, which is really what it was. I built this house to prove to the world I was good enough. To prove to the world I mattered. I'm looking up at this thing and I got depressed and I don't mean just a little bummed, I'm like, "Holy cow, I am bummed out." Darin, this is important.

Darin: At this point the listeners, the violins are not playing for you right now.

Rod: I get it and that's okay. It's okay. But the point is, I hope you guys get the lesson in this message and that is, I look back on it and several things are going on that are important. The first thing is, don't achieve a big goal without having other goals lined up behind it, because you need a vision for the future. Like the good book says, "Without a vision, the people perish." You got to know, I didn't know what I was going to do next. That was number one. Number two is, happiness doesn't come from goals.

The goals are really important, but you hear them saying the happiest days of a boat owner are the day he buys it and the day he sells it." It's that way with goals. You need them. And you really must have them. That's how you achieve things. Those of you that don't want the cars, the houses, the boats, the planes, figure out what you do want.

Burning Desire and Growth Mindset

Rod: Because like Napoleon Hill says In Think and Grow Rich, "You got to have a burning desire." That's the only thing that's going to get you to push through fear, push through any limiting beliefs that you have like I had, which was, I wasn't good enough till I built this testament to my ego. But also maybe you're comfortable.

A lot of people I'm sure listening to you, Darin are comfortable and a comfort zone is a warm place and nothing grows there. That magnificent life that you want is right on the other side of comfort, so you got to push yourself.

Now, I've got the sign on my wall that says, "Focus, grind now, play later," because that's the truth. If you're willing to live like most people won't for two or three years, you can live like most people can't for the rest of your life. How many doors have you bought in how many years Darin?

Darin: I'm over 4,000 between limited, general partner, or KP.

Rod: In how long?

Darin: In three years.

Rod: Okay, boom. There you go. You're a poster child for that comment Darin.

Darin: It's crazy. I talked to my wife yesterday, I'm like, "Three years ago, we bought a new construction duplex." Then I partnered with Raj Gupta who you know on a $6 million deal. Then last year I partnered on a $15 million deal. Then yesterday we just closed with a group of other general partners on a close to $30 million A-class deal in Houston. I'm a small piece of that deal, but three years ago I never would have thought that that was all possible.

Rod: That's a good point.

Pushing Through the Fear

Darin: You go after one goal and then you keep on raising the bar or keep on setting another goal afterward and it's achievable.

Rod: It's taking that first step. That first step is the scariest. Dr. Martin Luther King said, "You take that first step in faith, and the next step will be revealed." Lao-tzu thousands of years ago said, "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." In our business it's the law of the first deal, it's the scariest. It takes the longest. It's the hardest. I see my students all the time. Once it's done, they're like, "Holy cow, is that all there was?" The next thing, I know they have six deals.

But the key is you've got to push through that fear, and these goals and knowing why you want those goals is the fuel to get you to push through that, push through comfort.

Darin: Yes, that's huge. I had a friend who just texted me yesterday as we met last week. She was asking me questions about goals. I shared a picture of my vision board that I had taken and I had it on my phone and she said, "What does that look like?" I showed it to her. She texted me just yesterday, she said, "Darin, do you think that vision board works?" I said, "Absolutely. Every day I go to my office, I look over at each one of those goals. I also have an audio file that I've saved with music underneath, and I also listen to that."

I'm looking at my vision board every day and I'm driving myself. It's not somebody else telling me, "You need to get there."

Giving Back Is the Best Source of Happiness

Darin: I'm like, "I want that. And I want that. I want to reach that goal." Then when you do, not only is it amazing, the growth on the journey when you get there.

Rod: Several things were happening. As I said, it's not about the goal. It's about who you become on your path to the goal.

Happiness comes from progress and growth. It's so important that you acknowledge anything that you do every week. Because you're going to have delays and setbacks, but if you're acknowledging your progress, no matter how small you'll stay happy.

But the other thing that was happening was, I'd been focused on me, Rod, Rod, Rod, show the world I'm good enough, show the world I matter. That year I bought some books to try to get my energy and my mojo back, because I'm like, "What the hell?" I got Dale Carnegie and Zig Ziglar and Tom Hopkins and Tony Robbins." I started reading Tony's book. I'm like, "Man, I like what I'm seeing here." I went and saw him live and I found out that he fed families for the holidays and I'm like, "What a concept? Do something for someone else." I'm embarrassed to say I had to be 40 to get that memo because I've been so focused on proving to the world I was good enough.

I went back and I started feeding families. I'm blessed to say, we've fed over 95,000 children over the last 20 years here in Sarasota and Tampa. I've done tens of thousands of backpacks filled with school supplies to local children. And I've done thousands of teddy bears to local police departments for officers to have in their vehicles if they encounter a child that needs to be comforted.

Science of Achievement Versus the Art of Fulfillment

Rod:  See I was successful, but I was unfulfilled. Tony Robbins calls it the science of achievement versus the art of fulfillment.

It's sad because I will tell you, I have people on my show that are freaking mega-millionaires, even billionaires, and I can tell if they're like I was back then before this epiphany.

Many of us believe we have to achieve to be happy. I'm going to tell you that you're going to get much further, faster, happily achieving. How do you do that? By giving back. If you're listening to Darin, you're like, "Yes, I'll give back when I have some money." Big mistake. Do it now, because you'll have the money faster. Now you don't do it for that reason, but trust me on that.

It's the way God of the universe works. You get it back 10 fold, 100 fold, whatever it is, so give now. Find something that you're passionate about. It doesn't matter what it is. You have to be passionate about it. Maybe it's your family or your legacy. Or maybe it's children. Maybe it's the elderly. Or maybe it's the environment. Maybe it's animals, whatever it is, find it and figure out a way to give to that now and you will be happily achieving, and you'll be well on your way. Trust me. Ask me how I know.

I've got these t-shirts at my boot camps that I sell that say 'Pound, ask me how I know.' Because first of all, it's mostly around mistakes because I've made every mistake you can possibly make.

Darin: Let me jump in on the giving back piece. As Rod said, "Don't wait." You don't have to be a happy giver to start with.

The Art of Giving Back & Growth Mindset

Darin: You could end up giving and then you start to become happy because you gave. For myself, I remember my wife and I were struggling at one point, and we started going to church. The church sometimes can talk about money and giving back. One day I was convicted about starting to tithe and I was reluctant. I didn't want to. So I started tithing. If you don't know what that means, give 10% of your income.

I started doing that and all of a sudden, one, I felt great about doing that. Then secondly, the law of the universe or whatever, all of a sudden, I just had more and more come back to me. I'm not saying to do it so that you get more, but it just seems to happen that way. If you give away, you end up getting back.

Rod: That's the way it works. Yes, I started a foundation and I cover all the operating expenses. Every dime goes through stuff, the food, the backpacks, the teddy bears, and it's been my greatest gift in life. That and my students and teaching students. Life's about, as human beings, we have a basic human need to contribute. It's a need, it's not a desire. We need to contribute. In fact, in this universe, frankly, anything that doesn't contribute gets eliminated. You need to bring that in. It's an underused need, but you need to bring it in.

Darin:  Let me ask you this. When we were in Jamaica, it came to my attention that in your background, that you and another gentleman that was there that you're friends with, both of you worked at some point for Tony Robbins.

Tony Robbins’ Impact

Rod: Yes. I signed a non-disclosure so I can't really get into that, but I follow Tony. I followed Tony around the planet for 20 years. I'm just going to tell you that if you have an opportunity to see him live, just do it because who knows how long he'll do it. Again, I followed him for 20 years, three, four events a year.

Darin: I just wanted to hear how that impacted you and how that helped you.

Rod: Every area of my life: business, health, relationships. Opened me up to emotion. I was emotionless. It's a little embarrassing, but I cry in movies more than my wife does. There's a thing called emotional intelligence. When you have it, you're able to communicate better. You're able to inspire others better and it built that. Again, if you have an opportunity to see him just do it. Trust me, you'll thank me. Most of my students go. I was on his platinum partnership in '08 when everything was crashing.

I talk about the importance of peer groups. Back then it was like 130 or 40 grand. Now it's like half a million. It's extremely expensive, his mastermind now. But the point is you want to be around people that think what you think is hard is easy. I started a mastermind called the Multifamily Boardroom, and I did it here in my compound. So I had 16 people, many of which you know Darin and it was about a billion in assets represented. Now it has grown to 14 billion in assets represented by the members. Three of the four guys I interviewed on my 500th episode that had 200,000 doors between them are in there.

Surround Yourself With Like-Minded People

Rod: Guys, that again, I want to be around guys that think what I think is hard is easy, so I'm doing it. It's self-serving, a little selfish, but it's turned into something amazing. Guys, it's so important that you pay attention to who you hang around with because it's so easy to default to friends or people you work with, but they may out of fear or jealousy or fear of losing you or inadequacy hold you back. It could be family as well.

I tell you, love your family, choose your peers because who you hang out with is who you become. Not just financially, your health, your happiness, everything. So be very selective. It is one of the most important decisions you can make. Sometimes you will lose people. They will fall away and it's sad, but it's critical for you to achieve what you want.

Darin: Yes, and it doesn't stop. One of the things I admired when I heard you speak at the mastermind in Jamaica, you ended up talking about how you're trying to learn from other people ahead of you. One of the things that you said was, "Look, I've talked to a lot of billionaires and very successful people, and one of the common things I see in them is that they meditate."

Rod: That talks about focus. Let me drill down on that. Let me explain how I build that up.

Darin: One second, then you explain that it hit me because I was like, I've read it. I've heard about it, but I didn't want to do it. It was uncomfortable. I don't understand it, but it was just the last person I had to hear and it convicted me.

Focus Is the Key to Growth Mindset

Darin: I said, "When I leave there, I'm going to start to try to figure how to meditate." I'm 30 days in now and there are certain days that I feel it's hokey, and then there are other days that I'm like, "Wow, this is really going somewhere."

Rod: Let me do the framework for that conversation because guys, focus is power. It's so easy to dilute your focus. Right now, more than ever, you have to direct your focus. It's so critical because again, what you focus on gets bigger, positive, or negative. I get students that or people, not really students because they know better. But I get people to call me and say, "I'm trying to get out of student loan debt." I'm like, "Wrong statement. Figure out how to make the money, so the student loan debt is irrelevant."

They asked Mother Teresa, for example, I love this example if she was anti-war and she said, "No, I'm pro-peace." It's so critical that you direct your focus right now, especially with everything going on. I get excited cause I got 10 million downloads in my podcast. One of the podcasts I listened to, one of the very few is Tim Ferriss. Now, Tim Ferriss, I think he gets that a week. But what he does is he deconstructs the best in the best at what they do. The best actors, it's Jamie Foxx, Arnold, Ed Norton, you name it to be on his show, billionaires, Ray Dalio, world leaders, CEOs, athletes, best in the world.

I started to see a pattern and these are the best of the best because he deconstructs how they got there and he's asked really probing questions.

Successful People Meditate

Rod: But I started to see a pattern and they all meditate. I'm like, "Holy cow, there it is. These are the most successful people in the world at what they do, and they meditate." Why? Because it enhances their focus.

Focus is one of the most important components of success and we dilute our focus. I don't know about you, I'm guilty of this. I'll sit and I'll be watching a movie at home. And I'll be scrolling through my phone, which is making my brain do little micro-decisions every split second, which dilutes what? My focus.

Again, it's the pot calling the kettle on this one, but by the way, I use this app and I don't know why I should tell them to give me a free version of it, but there are lots of apps you can use. This one's called to Pzizz. I love it. It's got a place for napping, sleeping and I think it's got a meditation component as well. I don't know why it's loading, but you can set the time.

Literally, sometimes you see that recliner behind me, if I start to get weary, I can put 10 minutes on that thing and then I'll fall asleep for about a minute or two. It'll wake me back up and I'm supercharged. The other thing you can see, maybe you can see, yes, see that rebounder behind me? Yes. I'll bounce on that. It's like a mini trampoline if you don't know what a rebounder is, and that'll energize me again. I've got those in my video studio. And I've got them in my exercise room, those rebounders to wake me up.

Enhance Your Growth Mindset, Take a Break

Rod: There's a book called The Power of Full Engagement and don't get the book. I shouldn't say that. That's not nice, but the main thing about the book has to be fully engaged when you're working. If you're one of these people that work for hours on end, big mistake. You've got to take breaks. I'll get up. Then I'll walk around my compound here. I'll just tune with nature, go give my wife a big hug and kiss, whatever, just to break it up because you need to do that. Anyway, because it enhances your focus.

Darin: You talked a lot about focus, diluting your focus. Look, we all have positive thoughts that come through our head and negative thoughts. One of the things that just in these 30 days of trying this meditation thing, that I found was all of a sudden I was sitting in the other room. I wasn't meditating and I had a negative thought that passed through my head. In the past, it may have grabbed hold and maybe I spent some time on whatever that negative thought was.

Instead, I used this meditation technique and next thing, I'd forgotten what I was focused on with that negative thought. Now I was back on whatever goal I was going after, whatever positive thought I was going after. It can not only help you focus, but it can help you redirect because that can sometimes be challenging for somebody when they all of a sudden get into a fearful zone. Maybe they can't get out of it and it can help you redirect as well.

Rod: I just did a little mini-meditation when I had 1,000 people registered for this live stream that I did on, finding the money you need for your deals.

Have a Morning Routine

Rod: Right before I went on, I just sat there and closed my eyes and there's something called a release meditation. You just say the word release over and over in your mind mentally. You don't say it, just in your mind release, release, and just take a minute or two and it washes things away. Or you can just focus on your breathing. There are lots of ways you know to do versions of meditation. I had somebody teach us transcendental meditation back in the day, where you use a mantra and you focus on that mantra.

Darin: I will tell you that if you haven't done it before, I was skeptical. I'm only 30 days in. I can't say that I'm completely sold, but what I can tell you is, I was reluctant. And I was reluctant to try. I've already seen the benefits from it. Although it feels hokey, you have to just power through it like a lot of things.

Rod: Well, again, there are apps that you can use that add music. If one thing doesn't work well, try something else. You don't have to do it, they tell you for 30 minutes. I do it for five minutes and it helps me.

Let me just say something while I'm thinking about it. You see the recliner behind me and my vision boards there. The other thing that I noticed about these successful people on his podcast was, they all have a morning ritual for most of them and I do as well. Let me mention it real quick because it ties into goals and visualization. What I'll do, I'll sit in that recliner for a minute and I'll just do gratitude.

Gratitude Is a Way to Growth Mindset

Rod:  So I'll think about my amazing, beautiful wife, my kids, my coaching students, my foundation and I'll just be grateful just for a minute or two. Sometimes I'll do this laying in bed or sitting somewhere else, but usually back there on that recliner.

Darin: Then Tiffany walks by, she looks in and she's, "He's thinking about me again."

Rod: Yes. I'll circle back to that for a minute, then what I'll do after I do gratitude is, I'll do gratitude for the things that I want as if I already have them. And I'll be grateful for things that I want that I don't even have yet. Sometimes I'll get emotional thinking about things, being grateful for things that I don't even have yet. I know I'm losing some of you analytical ones, but guys I do it because it works. This is how I had 50 million to lose, and how I got back to the success that I enjoy today.

As it relates to gratitude and Tiffy, I encourage you to do a gratitude journal of magic moments at least once a week, when you do your weekly planning, if not every day. I had Hal Elrod from The Miracle Morning on my show. A beautiful human being. But in The Miracle Morning, you do the exercise, then you do some journaling, he calls it scribing. Then you do a prayer or meditation. What's the other thing I'm missing? Oh, some reading, but I did a journal, a gratitude journal about Tiffy, my beautiful bride and I found this journal. It’s about 100 pages. Every day I filled up a page about what I loved about her. There were days I didn't feel like writing in that thing because I was pissed at her or something.

Laughter Is the Best Medicine

Rod: But what happened in doing that? What happened was, do you think I showed up differently in the relationship? Focused on what I loved about her every day? Of course, I did. She saw it and it was a beautiful exercise and then I gave it to her for a birthday. It's in her closet. It's like her shrine and it's on the counter in her closet.

Darin: That's funny. I asked my small group because I read a book that was talking about laughter. If you look at a family that has a lot of laughter, then that's a sign that they're a happy family. My men's group that I meet with on Monday mornings and because of COVID, we've been doing it on Zoom. We used to meet in a house. I said, "Look, one of my goals is to create more laughter in my family. How do I go about doing that when I listen to it and when I look at it on my vision board, I think like, what am I doing? How do I get there?"

One of the guys said that he heard something interesting. It was a guy who is a big vlogger and I think his name's Carl Shay. He has a habit or a ritual. Each morning he goes into his bathroom and he actually laughs for 30 seconds. He forces himself to laugh for 30 seconds and that just puts it into him to be more joyful. It sounds crazy. But then it's a mechanism to make it work.

Rod: Doesn't sound crazy at all. I can tell you, laughter has been proven to heal disease, to build your immune system, all sorts of things, just like gratitude is.

Free Resources to Improve Your Growth Mindset

Rod: No, I hadn't heard that, but I love the idea of it. I don't think it's crazy at all.

Darin: Well, Rod, first of all, listeners, I want you to take advantage of what he mentioned before about his conference.

Rod: Thank you. Yes, just text the word MULTIFAMILY to 72345 and we'll get you hooked up. Just remember the code Rodfriend. Let me say something else. I've got the largest Facebook community in the world for multifamily. I'm blessed to say over 37,000 people. Again, it's all about peer groups. If you want to check that out, it's multifamilycommunity.com. That's where I went to live with my masterclass. As I said, we had a thousand registrants. But the other thing I want to mention is, I've got tons of free resources on my website.

My name's hard to spell, so we've got a direct link from a Real Estate with Rod to that website. There are books, there are articles, there are videos, there are all my podcasts. Everything's there, Real Estate with Rod and a lot of free resources. If you've got a question I'm very active on social media, I actually respond. Feel free to ping me or reach out.

Darin: Look Rod is a leader, a leader, a leader in the space and he just wants to help others. He's pointing you to all these free resources. Then yes, there are conferences and there are other programs you can get involved with. But if you talk to the people involved with them, they get massive ROI from up-scaling and making an investment in themselves. When I was with him in Jamaica, look, I've been doing the podcast for maybe six months. He's been doing it for four or five years.

Picking Rod's Brain

Darin: I was picking his brain. "Hey, what do I need to do? What are the top things I need to do?" One of the things he said was, "Man, you're just doing audio. You need to be on video." Not only did I leave that trip, that mastermind trip saying to myself, "All right, even though I'm reluctant to, but I'm also going to start to meditate." But secondly, I also said, "All right, I'm going to talk to my consultant who I work with to help put out the podcast. I'm going to find a way to get the video going." Last week we just put out the first couple of podcast episodes via video. Look you were definitely part of the reason why I've set that goal.

Rod: Thank you. It's not your pre-frame now. Let me say one other thing. You should have it transcribed and you should throw a blog on your website with the transcription for those that want to read it.

Darin: I do have that.

Rod: You do that. Okay, good. Well, I'm really excited. As I told you before we started recording, I threw my podcast episodes up on YouTube. I just found out they got watched 203,000 times last year. The power of social media is just unbelievable.

Like from the Facebook group to the podcast, to YouTube, it's astounding. In fact, I just talked about this in the masterclass today. It's so easy to create reach. The new thing now is the clubhouse. I'm going to start going to the clubhouse. It's all audio, which you'll love Darin.

It's an audio framework that you should look into. I don't know a thing about it yet, but I'm starting on Monday.

The Next Big Stretch

Rod: My team's going to hold my hand. The ability today to reach people, I don't love the censorship that's happening, but that's another topic we don't need to get into, I suppose. But the ability to reach people is unparalleled.

Darin: What's next for Rod, man? You've accomplished so much. You went up, you went down. Now you're back up, what's your big stretch goal?

Rod: I miss traveling with my bride so much.

Darin: All right, so you're going to travel. That's a beautiful thing. What's your next big stretch goal?

Rod: Yes, I've got some big financial goals. I want to fly privately honestly. I've done it before, but I really would like to be able to do that. I know that may rub people the wrong way environmentally or whatever, but it's just one thing and I may never do it, but I like to have things to work towards. I told you I've got a vision board back there to build schools in third world countries. But not just schools, self-sustaining schools, schools that have an agricultural component where they grow things that support the community and support the school. Maybe an IT component where they do IT work that supports the community and the school. I'm excited about that project. I haven't pulled the trigger on it yet. I'll probably buy two or 3,000 doors this year. I'm very excited.

Darin: It's so funny, how you could just say that matter of factly. There are people that are listening and they're like two or 3000 doors. I don't know if I'll ever own that.

Rod: It's that self-deprecating talk that's holding them back.

The Warriors of the Sword

Darin: You're more far ahead than a lot of syndicators are brought on. I have syndicators that have done two, three, four, 5,000. When I asked them about fear, a lot of them, it goes back to the first single family deal they did. It's that they were scared because they didn't know it. Or maybe their first syndication deal because they weren't sure they were going to raise the money.

Rod: I promise you they had fear when they did their first syndication too.

Darin: Yes, but now they're doing deals that are two, three, five, 10 times, and then they know the process. It's just a common stance to them now.

Rod: That's how it is. We talked about that. The law of the first deal. I've seen it time and time again with my students. It's crazy. As I say, they get a deal and I'm like, "Oh, congratulations, you rock." They get a sword and we have this, what we call the warrior of the sword. They get this cool sword in my mentorship program. By the way, if you're interested in talking to me about mentorship, text the word CRUSH to 72345, you can apply to join our program. It's pretty extraordinary. But yes, you just got TO take that first step. It doesn't matter with whoever, you just have to go do it. Like Nike says, "Just do it."

Darin: Yes, do it, do it, do it. Take action. How do people get in touch with you Rod? I know that you gave some a lot of resources, but how do they reach out to you if they need to, they want to get a hold of you?

Rod: I'm all over social media and I'm responsive. It doesn't matter what channel LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook.

Team Sport of Network With Growth Mindset People

Rod: I've got that big Facebook group, very responsive in there with comments. Then again, my website Real Estate with Rod. I hope you'll listen to my podcast. I'm really proud of it. If you go on your iPhone, you put in Real Estate; I usually come up with number one or two, me and Bigger Pockets. I hope you'll check that out as well but there are lots of ways to find me.

Darin: Look, definitely check him out. Check out the free resources I have yet to be to one of your conferences. I need to make it to one. I've talked to a lot of people. I know a lot of people in the industry and everybody that I've talked to has told me that they've had a great time. They've learned a ton, they've met some fantastic people. I need to make it out to one at some point.

Rod: I'm hoping to have one third or fourth quarter. I can tell you the last one I had in LA before the world changed, I walked down the hallways and there were hundreds of people. I got goosebumps. There were hundreds of people out there networking, and I'm like, "Get yourself inside listening to me," but they're out there networking because this business is a team sport and you've got to network and that's it. It was just so cool to see it.

Make It Happen

Darin: That's awesome. Well, thank you for bringing everybody together. Thank you for giving back and giving free resources. You know what? Part of the reason why I built this podcast was, I wanted to get the word out, let more people know about syndications, and wanting to attract more people to potentially invest alongside me with deals. But the other piece of it is just pure inspiration. If I can bring guests on that can help somebody just get that little nudge, whether it's buying a duplex or doing their first syndication deal, or starting their own company, just take action.

You said it earlier. And you said like, life's too short, man. Don't waste it. Get out there and make it happen. Really appreciate having your inspiring words on here today.

Rod: Thanks, buddy.

Darin: I look forward to leveraging this relationship for years to come, and I want to see what you end up doing. Listeners, I hope you enjoyed that one. Until next week, signing off.

How to Reach Rod Khleif

• Website
• Facebook Group
• LinkedIn
• Feb 20-21st Bootcamp – Text: multifamily to 72345 with code “rodfriend” to receive a registration discount

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