Succeed More By Investing In Yourself – Brian Covey

Brian Covey  00:00

Start small, invest in yourself and make sure you just put yourself in the game doing something, if it’s $500, if it’s $50,000, whatever that is for you, that’s the recipe. Nobody got rich on one investment here. That’s not how it works. They didn’t invest all of their net worth over here and pull out money and go crazy. Put a little in and invest in yourself along the way. Welcome to

 

Greg Lyons  00:18

the passive income brothers podcast. Here, we

 

Tim Lyons  00:21

take the fear out of real estate investing using real life stories of everyday successful investors. Let’s go. Welcome to another episode of the passive income brothers podcast. My name is Tim Lyons and today I’m joined by none other than my brother, Greg, how you doing today, buddy?

 

Greg Lyons  00:34

Tim, I am ready. Our guests today, I think is going to fire our tails up. So I am ready. I got my notes ready. And this is just going to be a great podcast doing great.

 

Tim Lyons  00:45

I’m so happy to hear that. I mean, you guys should have seen Greg couple years ago, he wasn’t ready. He just wasn’t ready. He wasn’t ready for personal growth development. He wasn’t ready for a lot of things. But he’s more

 

Greg Lyons  00:55

than once. More than once I got the hashtag not ready into my messages. And you couldn’t have been more right about it.

 

Tim Lyons  01:04

There’s a picture that I store, it’s in my favorites in my iPhone. And if anybody has a Keurig coffee machine, next time you go to the screen where you go to put the pot in, right? It says Not ready on it. And the probably at least once a week I’m sending Greg the picture of the Keurig. But they’re not ready. So anyway, we are the passive income brothers podcast. So we do go back and forth like this sometimes, but I am super psyched to have Brian Covey on our show today. Because when I met Brian, it’s not often that I hear somebody speak. And I immediately think to myself, as soon as this guy’s done talking, I need to go tackle him in the back of the room and introduce myself. And when you have that resignation, when somebody speaks in, you feel like they’re speaking directly to you. That’s what I had. We were at a mastermind event in Nashville in September. And turbine will tell you he was okay. But I did tackle him in the back of the room and immediately introduce myself. So without further ado, I want to introduce you guys to Brian Convey How are you doing today, Brian?

 

Brian Covey  02:04

Thanks for having me, man. It’s like the duo here Dynamic Duo. And I felt the same that was a cool event. And those the opportunities we get sometimes to actually meet people that are on the same journey. So thank you for the kind words and that’s what speak at these events is you can impact one person in the room. Awesome.

 

Tim Lyons  02:19

It was worth it. Yeah, 100%. And I mean, that day was incredible for a lot of reasons. But just being able to have a so that was part of one of our masterminds of Greg and I are a part of, and I think this is gonna be a big topic today with you is getting in the right rooms getting surrounded by the folks who are rowing in the same direction that you want to row. It’s no secret that Greg and I did not invent real estate. We didn’t invent commercial real estate, we didn’t invent syndication. We didn’t do any of that. But we got in the right rooms, we what we call ripoff and duplicate repeatable processes. Building relationships are folks that want to make a difference. So with that in mind, Brian, could you kind of give the listeners a little flavor of what your background was? What were you doing? At what point did real estate maybe jump into your picture? And what you have to know?

 

Brian Covey  03:07

Oh, man, so I’ll give you the condensed version of former pro soccer player turned had to get a job like the real job outside of sports. And I turned to finance because that’s what I studied it Fogelman College of Business University of Memphis, I played the one soccer there, I saw these people that were doing like business jobs, right, like financial planning their work in the bank, they’re doing mortgages, selling real estate, like looks cool. They dress Nice job, nice cars seem to have a good life. I’m going to try that. Well. Little did I know I would have a great mentor and boss to start me off. I got to learn income credit assets. And I fell in love with the sales process and some of the marketing and just learning the brass tacks of literally making probably 100 cold calls a day, right? So furniture financing, you’ll see 0% no payments for all the years, I was the guy behind the scenes approving credit. So I learned that moved into auto moved into mortgages, and 22 years later, still doing it. And I continue to learn. And I love this part of the game. Because as I’ve evolved, I’ve gotten into better rooms, I’ve gotten around people that have taught me things and it’s just expanded on that base that I learned 20 years ago, income assets and credit, right, if you understand those things, you can do a lot of things. And so now we’ve diversified out into multifamily. We’ve got a few of our own kind of luxury rentals down in Orlando. And we do some other investments as well. And I just continue to build on what I learn. I try to put myself in a position to win because I asked the right questions, I surround myself with great people. And today I would say I’m just a byproduct of a lot of cool people. It took time to teach me something about what they were an expert in. And I’m not the expert in all of those things. But I am someone that will take that information, and then go take action. That’s usually where most people fall off the wagon is they get great information. They no need to do something and they don’t do it. And so I’ve just realized over the last five years, then what’s the worst that could happen? Right? Like, what’s the worst thing can happen if I go take action on that? And so that’s been my motto and I’m just putting myself in the game. And so that’s what I teach now to people that are willing to listen, and they want to have a better life. Put yourself in the game. Brian,

 

Greg Lyons  04:58

that was a good Very modest oversimplification of the things that you’ve accomplished in your career, not only from a business perspective, but from a family perspective. But I think it really all goes back to, I think the drive you’ve had, since being a young person and kind of excelling in soccer, finding that I really want to be great at something. And I think that drive is what has driven you into your business career. Can you talk about kind of coming up in the soccer world and how that’s kind of helped you, from your athletic to your business pursuits.

 

Brian Covey  05:34

Um, so I could take you a couple of different routes. But I’ve been telling the story to people because most people don’t realize like fitness is a big part of like, my anchor today. And with got three kids 714 and 15. My wife and I were married 20 years. And I give you some perspective. So life is busy here, right? Like they’re all in sports, they’re all school, they’re all doing things. And fitness has been an anchor. But it wasn’t always if I go back to when I was 12. I was severely overweight is a young kid, right? And I was the kid that would wear multiple shirts to the pool to do want to take my shirt off, and was like, Oh, you were not fit. Like, yeah, there’s been a couple of times in my life that I was way out of shape. And what I’ve realized through that, and I tell you that story, because I had to overcome an obstacle, and something was holding me back in a lot of areas of my life. And so I’ve looked back at that. And for all of us, we have somewhere that we overcame something, we’re here, if you’re listening to this, you’ve overcome something to be here and to be listening to this. And whether it was bankruptcy, we’ve got friends out there, you’ve had a bad divorce, you’ve had a bad relationship, or whatever it is that’s happened in your life, you’ve overcome something. Well, that should be the fuel for why you move forward. And that was the fuel for me is once I lost the weight, and I got into shape, what I realized is I got picked up for the 17 national pool for soccer. And I realized, wow, if you’re in shape your mindsets, right, all these things come together, you get opportunities, the previous version of Brian that was out of shape. And I was a good player, right? I mean, it wasn’t necessarily anything wrong. But I don’t want to be average. And I realized through that process, waking up at 5am, every day, starting to change my entire diet, and waking up at 5am. And going running by yourself, in the cold months, especially to lose weight is not fun when you’re not going out to the parties, and you’re not going and doing things with your friends when you want to. I wasn’t playing all the games, there were sacrifices, but the payoff was there. And so I’ll tell you that story. Because even later in life, now there are things that I need to choose, I’m going to do this versus that right, a lot of us even to start making money, or you don’t know where to invest, and you just take the easy route. And it’s like, I’m just gonna go buy things well, what if you strategically started to invest and to learn and invested in yourself, and you started to raise your capacity and who you are as a person. That’s where the magic happens. And that’s what I learned as an athlete that today applies. The best athletes have coaches, they have mentors, there are people in their life, and they work hard. And today, it’s no different in business, as a father as a husband, if you do those things, that is your recipe. And so I share all that with you just kind of give you full picture of look, we’ve all been through stuff. It’s how you look at your story and say, Okay, what am I going to do with it, you’re either going to honor your past, and my parents sacrificed a lot for me to be here and get the opportunities I had. Or you need to heal your past or you have more of a messed up past. And you’re like, Man, I didn’t have this. I didn’t have that. Great. How are you going to heal that by becoming a great person today and changing your family tree going forward? Either way, you’ve got to put yourself in the game and put yourself in a chance to win and score goals.

 

Tim Lyons  08:18

I mean, I’m ready to do push ups in the Ioway. I mean, who wants to join me? Right? I mean, come on. There’s so many this, that last little segment has so much in it, right? I mean, I once heard you say in a podcast, who else is going to invest with you if you haven’t invested in yourself? And I heard that and I rewound it, and I listened to it maybe three or four times. And I can distinctly remember listening to a bigger pockets episode where Brandon Turner is it’s early on in my journey, right a couple of years ago, said something about spending $100,000 a year on coaching and mentors, and I nearly drove off the road because I’m like, why would you do that? Why would you spend 100 grand on coaches and mentors, because that could be a downpayment on four different homes, or that could be in a real estate syndication, or you can do so many other things. But I wanted to grant and that was my scarcity mindset talking because I hadn’t yet become the person I am today. I’ve now been through several iterations of coaching and mentorships. Right, and have launched a successful podcast and a successful business and have a family right and I’m a different person, right. And it was because of investing in myself and investing with Gregg investing together right and becoming something more than what we were just a few years ago. So I absolutely love that. And for us. Sports has been a tremendous guidance in our lives, too. I mean, Greg was a former college basketball player at the University of Virginia. His wife was an all American college basketball player at University of Virginia and our dad played scholarship basketball college for St. John’s University back in the late 60s. So growing up sports was always around our home, right and it taught us fitness taught us dedication, it taught us mindset. It taught us getting up early, keeping your commitments, putting teams first putting teams in place. And looking back now, it all make sense, right? Some of the most successful folks that Greg and I have in our circle, or from sports, so one way or the other, right. And I just love that. So another thing you glossed over, I know you tried to do your best succinct intro, but you are a highly successful mortgage broker, team builder leader in the mortgage industry, and you had an incredible run up to 2008. And obviously, the GFC kind of happened. So you want to take us through that a little bit as like something that you overcame. And then the goodness that kind of came out of that?

 

Brian Covey  10:44

Well, you do the math quickly, and you go backwards. For my math friends out there, you realize we had our first two kids in 2007 and 2008. amazing time to be in the mortgage business, no matter how good you are, you got punched in the face numerous times. And we happen to be in Florida at that time, I had gone down there to help with several condominium developments, new home. And so we’re lending on all that right. And so during the origination you can imagine when it stopped, it literally stopped and came to a halt. And new family, I had not built up any wealth really at that point outside of like 401k stuff didn’t have savings really strategically set up the way I want. And two new kids, you’re realizing what do I do, like all the expenses and all that stuff, end up taking a role with the company after we had downsized and corporate? And I took a role that required me to travel to a completely different markets like well, we can’t sell our house because the markets crashing this way. So I’m gonna travel where do you guys need me and I say for everybody is like things are always going to work out like you think that your ability to adapt into adjust is going to be the difference between you falling on your face and having to start over from ground zero, or I created a software landing I try is what the market crashed it I lose a lot of money. I lost all that stuff. It was real. But I went out and said, You know what, what can I do? And I remember calling several leaders within the organization, hey, I can do this. I can do this. I can do this. Where can I play? Where can you put me in? Basically like I think about soccer. Like you’re the coach, you’re like, hey, where do you have a gap? Where can I help you? Here’s what I bring. And so I got myself a role that basically just kind of helped us navigate through and not completely crash and burn. And a lot of people I saw just the markets bad. They checked out, they quit. And I’m like, just not how I’m wired. And I think about looking back on that now is how hard that was how awesome my wife is because she was an ICU nurse. She said, Hey, if you’re gonna have to travel and do all that I need to be home with the two newborns, right. And so we just made things work. We went through some of the Dave Ramsey stuff envelope system like we were learning, like, how do we create this budget that’s going to work for us. And so it wasn’t easy. But I tell everyone this is like most people you see today you don’t know the struggles they’ve been through. Right? You don’t know how hard it’s been. So when you’re hard you’re thinking about today, like this is really hard. That’s there. Kobe Bryan always says, that’s actually the dream. That’s you going through the process, the early mornings, waking up and working out, you’re not having enough money, and you have to bet on yourself. You investing in yourself when you don’t have enough money and you put it on a credit card you going out and basically calling anybody and everybody to create an opportunity to create wealth and income. And maybe it’s to make 100 bucks this week, like that might be where you are. And I remember having to do balance transfers and like all this stuff, pull up money, my 401k just to survive. And I share that with everybody because it’s like you see people today and you’re like, Oh man, there’s talking about these investing and all this. I’m like, Dude, that wasn’t that long ago. Like I remember like it was yesterday. So what happened when 2018 happened? The mortgage market started to slow down again. Well, guess what I was prepared for it not as prepared as I look back now is that would be four years later. But there were lessons I had learned that I carried over. And so 2018 It was like, Okay, what do I do? I’ve always been a believer bet on yourself. And in 2018 was a big year for me because I started to believe, you know what, if I invest more in myself, I’m gonna get more out of myself, right? Like I’m a product, you invest in your business, you’ll get more out of it. That’s where I really started to ramp up my investing instead. Okay, I’m not just going to play around with it, put a few 1000 Here a few 1000 there into coaching, I got very strategic, and I share this formula with a lot of people is when you look back, and you were to measure it. I did that exercise in the last couple of years. When I look back, it was 10%. And in some seasons 15 20% of my gross income, what I made that month or in that quarter that I put back into myself through personal branding, mentoring, coaching, going to networking events, making sure I had one on one time, people I wanted to learn from I paid for proximity and information, because on the other side of me investing 10 $20,000 I’m like, I just went made 510 times that because one idea, one piece of information. They saved me the time and helped me get there. Can’t beat it.

 

Greg Lyons  14:36

No doubt. As we run into more and more people, we interview more people on our podcast. People stories are just so personal. You never know what’s right under the surface. And that’s just the way people are built and but doing podcasts like this, we learned so much about people that we’re able to apply to ourselves and that’s something that Tim and I really enjoyed the podcast, the great financial crisis. So you had your kids and whatever you said, oh six, and oh, wait, I had mine and oh seven and oh nine. And I, of course, was in the condo development business in Boise, Idaho. So it’s not exactly three strikes. But I wasn’t getting ahead anytime soon. But a lot of people, like you say, can take their ball and go home, my wife and I did something else, we relocated to Charlottesville, Virginia, and started all over again. And that has worked out really well for us in the ensuing 12 years. And it’s do you take your ball and go home? Or do you we took our ball and started a new and to go from, we didn’t really have much after the great financial crisis, to now the decade plus of building and building wealth is something that people can’t wrap their brain around a lot of the times. So if you could, how do you go from having a job, meaning you did the cold calling your found your way into mortgages, and you started excelling, right? And a lot of people that are listening to this have found themselves in a job now that says, I’m starting to excel, I’m starting to make a couple of dollars, how do I go from having a job excelling in that job to the wealth creation part of the puzzle? Like how do people turn that corner? So

 

Brian Covey  16:16

great question. And what I’ll share there is, you hear the old myth, and we’ll just debunk it right now, as you hear, like, all the multimillionaires and billionaires have seven streams of income, right? If you look it up, that’s pretty common shared. But the reality is, if you really dig into that, at my let’s dug into that recently, one of my mentors and you’ll hear them talk about, they got phenomenal at one thing, like so much so that they were the known person, they were generating over seven, eight figures at times of income revenue and their business model, and they got so great at that, that then they had an opportunity to then go and invest, and I want to buy, start where you are, be real about the fact that are you investing in yourself. That’s the number one place because I will tell you, if I were to take that out of the equation, one, I don’t have the relationships to invest in all the opportunities and deals that we’ve done. Number two, I’m not thinking big enough, right? I’m in that scarcity mindset, Tim you were talking about earlier, I’m not thinking, wow, if I go put this money over here, I’m worried now, you don’t want to do that. And I’ll also tell you don’t try to fast track. If you think about going up an elevator if you’re on the first floor. Yeah, you want to get up to the penthouse. Like that’s where everybody wants to be the glorious views. It’s wonderful up there. But the reality is that elevators are gonna go through each floor for a reason. And you’ve got to think about the lessons you’re gonna learn through each. So start small. I’m a huge Warren Buffett fan, if I don’t understand the investment, if it doesn’t make sense to me, I’m not doing it. Right. And I talked about this as I was like, oh, man, you should have gotten to Bitcoin, you should have done this or that. Look, guys, I’ll be the first one to tell you didn’t understand. It didn’t take time to understand it completely enough, where I was comfortable. And I had other alternatives. So start small, invest in yourself, and make sure you just put yourself in the game doing something, if it’s $500, if it’s $50,000, whatever that is for you. There are people out there that will help you today. What’s beautiful social media and some of the things now is you can actually connect up with honest, hardworking people, they’ll be like, hey, you know what, we’ll bring you in on this deal. But you’ve got to have the relationship there, some of these investments, right, you have to be accredited, kind of set that to the side, for some of you that are a little further down the road start where you are, there are deals out there right now that I know people can get it for $500. Right, you’re not going to get a huge return. Don’t expect that you’re going to make, but it puts you in a position in a mindset of now I’m investing in something in addition to myself, in addition to my business, and I’m not just putting it over into something in the market, or I’m not just putting it into a CD or something like that, like, that’s where I would say, start and then have a roadmap for it. Where don’t want to be I had a five year cut. This is where I think about things like where does Brian need to be in five years? What am I going to own? What are the investments going to look like, what’s my net worth gonna look like, and I do a lot of visualization, I started to visualize my family and where I would be and what I would be doing. For me, that just gives me a real picture, I can kind of taste it and smell it and see it and understand it. But if you can’t do that, you’re never going to have that house on the beach that you dream of you never had a house in the mountains or whatever it is that you dream of. So you’ve got to visualize it. And then you start taking steps towards that right every day. And that was for me, that’s been part of my journey. Just little steps along the way. And every once in a while. You’d be like, You know what, I got this bonus, or I got this return over here or I’m gonna go a little more aggressive. I’m gonna go in on this one a little bit heavier. That’s the recipe nobody got rich on one investment here. Right? Like that’s, that’s not how it works. They didn’t invest all of their net worth over here and pull out money and go crazy. Oh, they’re just strategic, but a little in and invest in yourself along the way.

 

Tim Lyons  19:34

Ryan it makes a ton of sense to me, right? Because this is the language that I speak now. But it wasn’t always that way. I mean, was little was three four years ago. I’m still scarcity mindset. I still feel like paycheck to paycheck. Even though I’m putting money in my savings. I’m maxing out my 457 at the firehouse because I’m trying to like squirrel away this little existence right two vacations a year with the kids bills are paid and that’s it and What I’ve come to know that you just explained so eloquently is that it’s a process and it’s not an event. And I think the book is called The Millionaire Fastlane by MJ DeMarco that I’ve referenced it a couple of times on the show, he talks about people are looking for the event, right? The Bitcoin billionaire, the goal in on GameStop. And this guy made 2 million, and now he quit his job or whatever it might be. And that simply isn’t the case. And it’s not the case in America. I mean, 80% of households in America don’t have a savings account. They can’t afford a 400 or $500 event, whether it’s a new washer dryer combo, or something of that nature, like and you think about that’s incredible, right? So what is the process and as you were talking, I just heard, I think it was the real estate guys or the real estate guys from the real estate guys radio show, or maybe even Keith Weinhold with a podcast that I listened to called get rich education. He was talking about there’s a four step process when getting into the game. And he really said it doesn’t start with the property right? Everyone says I want to invest in real estate, let me go scour the MLS. Let me go to LoopNet. Let me go here. Let me go, there. He goes. That’s actually the fourth piece of the puzzle. The first piece is yourself, your goals, your outcome, your visualization, your roadmap, like you were just talking about understanding what it is that real estate might do to you or for you, right? And number two, was the asset or the vehicle? Is it single family rentals? Is it multifamily? Is it self storage? Is it whatever? Right? So understand yourself understanding the asset. And third was understanding the team, right? Because I don’t know about you. But what I came to know very early on was that real estate investing is a team sport. Right? And I come from old school, the IMA mentality, right? I’m gonna do this, and I’m gonna do that, and I’m gonna do everything. I’m gonna mow the lawn. And we’ll do everything right. And that’s simply not the case. If you’re looking for a lifestyle, of being home with your family, creating time, right, buying back your time, and then fourth was the opportunity, right? Only then are you able to start evaluating opportunity? So I hope that makes sense, everybody. If it didn’t, I highly recommend like, just listen to what Brian said. Take some notes, rewind this, because I think that’s really powerful stuff. I think Greg’s give me the evil eye to shut up now and ask you a question. So since you’re the guest, but anyway, so Brian, so talk to us today about leadership, coaching, mentorship, we’ve obviously now we know that’s played a huge part in your life. And it has for us as well. So for the folks out there that have maybe are still a little skittish little scarcity mindset about coaching mentorship, maybe you can lean in and just let us know like, what does that look like for you? And how has that served you?

 

Brian Covey  22:34

For me it started sports, right? I go back to my dad was one of my early coaches and basketball and soccer. And then I was fortunate those you’re watching the World Cup, Pele, obviously you could figure out who that was cow wrote Jr. was in Memphis and in our church. And so if you look at Carl’s Jr, play to Pele. And so one of our early coaches, then as I got older, one of our coaches from Poland, who’s on the Polish national team would train me and doing all the extra work. And I look back on all that I’m like, okay, so I was better. And the athletes did the extra and had a coach, we’re better than the athletes that didn’t, okay, let’s just make it really simple for all of us. So the reality is, if you’re gonna compete in today’s market, and you want to be the best, you have to have a coach, let’s just agree that people that are coached are better than people that are not coached. Like I have that belief, but also believe that to be so true, that I can compare up if you take 10 People show me the ones that are coached, show me another 10 People that are not coached, the people that are coached are going to be winning at a higher level in their faith, their family, their fitness, right, all these things with finances like they’re going to have, on average, they’re going to have better results. I’m just gonna play the odds, like, I’m going to have a coach, I’m going to have mentors in my life. And people that are there that just take the sports analogies and what’s worked for me. And guess what it’s worked in business. And as I’ve gone through, I’ve gotten very strategic along the way. I’ve had coaches like in my world, recruiting and building teams is huge. So I actually hired a coach that does recruiting team building processes all this about five years ago, and I was one of his first clients. And we built out some things. And it was everything from like, you will come in to meet our team, what does the day look like when they’re going to come meet with us? Who are they going to meet with? Who are they going to talk with? How do we make them feel like they are part of a family, we built out all these processes. So if you’re not doing that in your business, I would encourage you to do that. That could also look like you’re listening this go and Brian May not have no investments. Today, I got a few $100 in my name I’m trying to get in the game. Well guess what would it be nice to have somebody that’s already done some of the things that you’ve done to say, Hey, Tim, Greg, do this. Don’t do that. Right. One of the best things that we’ve been sharing lately for people, a lot of folks have been waiting to buy, why not go out there. And you could buy an FHA loan, you can get a four Plex, right. You can live in one or not the other three, like basic stuff that people could walk you through today. That’s what a coach and mentor will walk you through the steps and help you avoid the pitfalls. So I would just tell you guys in my life when I’ve been coached, and I’ve had somebody there, I’m winning the seasons that I’ve let my foot off the gas and I kind of coast like I’m just gonna do it all myself. I can look back and go, I didn’t have the results that I would have had I had a coach and so on. encourage you find someone out there so many free resources now that you can go online and have somebody help you. But the next step for you, if you’re doing that you need to start to invest in yourself. There’s an accountability that comes with it. And so invest in yourself. I’d be glad to connect with those people or however that works. But if you ask, what I found is people are out there willing to help. You just got to ask, when

 

Greg Lyons  25:20

you’re talking about coaching, I have written down right here, accountability, I have whole person development. It’s not just one thing or after its finances, its family, its fitness, it’s kind of all that. And it’s kind of a step by step process, whether you’re meeting daily or weekly. You can’t let the other person down. If you’re truly motivated, to get better or to get your finances in order. Right? You’ve started or starting your own coaching business. What is your motivation for doing such a thing like this? Because that’s not an everyday thing. You don’t see, I’m going to be a coach on indeed or LinkedIn. There’s no job description for what is your motivation into kind of getting into the coaching field. That’s

 

Brian Covey  26:02

a great because, well, it was birthed as a teenager, I was captain of our soccer team, my last two years of high school, captain of the D one University of Memphis, my last two years of college. And I had this like leadership, I say, like seed planted from great leaders in my life, I went and got my B coaching license, I thought I would actually go that route. And coach helped out at a college back in Memphis coaching, I’ve coached my kids growing up. It’s a very, it’s a very natural transition. But really, what prompted me most recently was I had people that were not on my team at our mortgage company, right? Because that’s my job every day is that’s what I do is we coach we motivate we help them with their business plans, all the accountability, all those things there to win. Well, I had people at other mortgage companies saying, Hey, Brian, we’re willing not only to pay you, we want you to come out here and teach us and to coach us like, why. So what I share those people start to ask what you become good at, and what you start to put out there, people start to ask you. And so if you’re thinking about coaching, for me, I’m still working through what that looks like. Because it’s one of those where I’m like, well, people are asking for it. They’re willing to compensate me for like, how does that fit into what I’m already doing. And so that was where it was birthed as a kid. And then throughout that, I don’t think it’s that much different coaching in business, and in sports. And I love seeing people win. Like, that’s genuinely for me. I share this with our team, one of our core beliefs was leaders created the leaders, the creator, the leaders, there’s this generational impact. And so coaching does that it to me, it’s the vehicle. And I’ve had so many coaches plant things in me. And I’m like, this byproduct is horrible. I could name off 10 plus people that have invested their time, energy resources in me. I’m like, wouldn’t that be selfish, if I didn’t give that back out, like have this very diverse background, that now I’m starting to find out, and this could actually serve a lot of people, if I can make a difference? I believe that’s what we’re here on earth to do.

 

Tim Lyons  27:43

I love that. I’ve also heard you say something that I’ve heard some other coaches of mine say you don’t have to do anything, right. You don’t have to be a coach. You don’t have to wake up every morning and do whatever, but you get to you have the opportunity to. And I love that mindset of that’s why I take almost every call that comes across LinkedIn or emails. Hey, Tim, I heard you on a podcast, we hop on a call no problem. Let’s do it. Right? Isn’t that the highest and best use of my time? Maybe not sometimes. But you know what, I love connecting with people. I love hearing people’s stories. And if I can inspire just one person to take that action, like I just a few short years ago, man, that means a lot to me. So I love that, Brian, let’s get tactical for a second. I’ve heard your story about losing it all kind of coming back being on top. And now you’re ready to start investing, right? And it’s hard to pull the trigger on that first investment property or that first opportunity. So I think that’s really where I think 90% of investors get stuck is that first one, right? Getting in the pool? So can you walk us through maybe that first one or two and why it was a thing that you were getting stuck? And then what the difference was once you actually took that action? Great

 

Brian Covey  28:54

question, mine, I know it was baggage from Oh, 708 of having a couple of investment properties. And when the market tanked, it’s like, Man, I’m stuck here with this. And it’s all this negative self talk of like, this is what’s going to happen to you again, like you start to believe that stuff if you let yourself do it. And so for me getting back in it was on one side, it’s like I knew it was the next step. I knew we had saved and done all the right things and all that. But there’s this party view, right? It’s like on one shoulder, you’re like, oh, man, why are you going to do this, like don’t do this, again, it’s too risky. And all that stuff that’s there. On the other side, you’re like, the only way to grow is to go take some risk and to go strategically invest and to go do the things you know you need to do, because I knew I wasn’t getting from point A to point B where I saw myself without making some changes. And so that was the hardest thing for me is like, just get over your past get over what you’ve done. You’ve learned from it. So what were the lessons that you learned? Great. So I start looking I start getting strategic about how I’m going to move forward. And for us, I really do a lot of education. It took me probably six months to evaluate the first deal. And I would tell you probably too long right first one is like just you kind of paralysis by analysis stuff. Thank goodness the deal didn’t go away, but it was One of those, I was like, Okay, we’re gonna do it. And I didn’t put much into it. But I was like, I’m gonna go into this. And two of those are rental properties. I’ll just tell you what they are down in Orlando outside of Disney family loves it. I love Orlando, great market, they are full time rentals. And we love that because sometimes the family gets to go enjoy. They’re also set up. What I realized in this was, I didn’t want to manage them. I didn’t want to be part of the process. Because I’m building a team. I’ve got a family, my time spent other places. So it’s very strategic about these were legacy plays. These were not quick cashflow tech properties, where I’m like, I knew what I wanted, which was 30 years from now. 20 years from now, these are handed off to my kids, they’re fully paid for my house is paid on right. I just kind of knew what I wanted in that. And as we diversified out into multifamily first time I’ve gotten into that and years, I made sure I understood the property understood what I was going to have tax benefit wise understood. And I asked a lot of questions that when I was able to move faster, but you know why? Because I knew the people involved in the deal. I knew the questions to ask, and also had kind of overcome my fear of, okay, I’m in the game. Now, what does this look like? And I always ask myself, like, what’s the worst thing that happens in that deal? Like, let’s be real, like, what’s the worst thing that happened, if you can’t part with that money, or you’re not looking at that going, you know, what this may not make is what I think it’s going to make the money, you shouldn’t be there, because you need to be ready in these types of investments I tell myself is there is a higher payoff. And there is tax benefits, if you know what you’re doing, right. And that’s why I say to get the education, we talked to their CPA, we talked with the guys that were putting the deal together. And we all actually hopped on a quick call. And I asked the questions. And I learned through that process. Well, since then, right, we got a couple other multifamily deals another deal up in Maryland that were part of, and so you just learn and grow. And from each of those, what I would tell you is start small, ask a lot of questions. So you can make sure the next deal, you know, the questions to ask him what to look for. And now I’m in a position where there’s more deal flow than I have capital to invest in it. So now my job is okay, let me go out there and make sure I’m earning enough and saving enough and doing all those things to be ready for the next deal. or introduce these people to friends of mine. Right. So then I can become kind of an aggregator of helping other people win. Wow,

 

Greg Lyons  32:07

that sounds like you could actually work for cityside capital. Hi, Tim 100%. We talk to people all the time about learning, right? When they first get in contact with us. They’re not ready to pull the trigger. They’re not ready to put money into a deal. But it’s sometimes it’s seen two, three and four deals, digesting what those look like asking questions about those, even though they have no intention of investing, but they’re learning the process. And that could be the two to six month thing. But also they’re learning what do they want to be doing with their money? You made some legacy investments with your first investments, which are great, then you probably jumped into some multifamily syndications, which is more velocity of money, how can I grow my money? But how can I do that with someone I know like and trust, that’s kind of where we are a little bit more with the Velocity of Money type thing, but you learned where you wanted to be with your investing. And that is so important. I also tell him I love this question. He asked himself, what’s the worst that can happen? Right? Am I not going to make as much am I going to lose money? A lot of the things we invest in are not stocks. So are they going to go to zero? Maybe, maybe not. But they’re real assets that people are gonna live in for the most part. So it’s your motivation for getting into these investments and really learning before you do it. But So Brian, I thought You thought that was great. Tim, I got long winded on you. So I am going to make a segue into our last three questions that we ask every guest there was no segue there. But do you see how I got there?

 

Tim Lyons  33:39

Sure. Saw that buddy. It was a nice little like a bounce pass. It was like a bounce pass. So

 

Greg Lyons  33:44

yeah, but I don’t pass, I usually just shoot. So anyway. Brian, last three questions here. The first one is, what do you say to people when they say investing in real estate is too risky?

 

Brian Covey  33:58

I would tell them to actually take a step back from that. And it might feel risky. And when we make decisions based on feelings, we just don’t get the outcome that we want. And so learning is the pathway to actually make an informed decision that you’re only going to feel good about it. Actually, the data and the numbers will back it up. Dude, I

 

Tim Lyons  34:15

love that. Nice and succinct. That’s amazing. It was almost like you were ready for that number.

 

Greg Lyons  34:20

It was yeah, it was actually the opposite of what I just did. No, I

 

Tim Lyons  34:25

love it. It was awesome. That was perfect. So the second one Brian is from a de facto mentor of ours. His name is Robert Kiyosaki, you may have heard before, right? The author of Rich Dad Poor Dad, the book that changed so many people’s perception about investing and debt and stuff like that. So he says something that can turn people off. Sometimes he says savers are losers and debtors are winners. And to the uninitiated, that might sound a little crass or a little bit what’s this guy talking about? But what does that mean to you?

 

Brian Covey  34:55

I look back as the reality is guys I was taught probably like many of us like you want to save save Save, save, save. And the reality is, you can never save yourself into enough wealth. And your goals won’t be achieved by just saving money, right? I don’t know, a single millionaire multimillionaire people, you actually start to study and get underneath the surface that they would tell you, Brian, I just saved my way to wealth, right? And I look at people I know very closely, similar ages to me, are further along in their age, but not further along in their wealth. And the reality is when you learn the power of debt, and you understand leverage, you take other people’s money, just like we’ve done with the two investment properties in Orlando, had, I had to buy those outright cash or waited until I had enough money fully to pay them off in cash. I’d still be waiting, guys, but now I’ve used the bank’s money. And what’s beautiful about that is not only do I have the equity and appreciation, I’ve got somebody paying my mortgage, and guess what’s that’s gonna look like in 1015 30 years, right? I have this asset. And I’ve already modeled that out, right. So I know the numbers. And so if you’re not leveraging debt for your favor, you’re really not playing the game. Think about how the banks make money. They make money off of us, or they’re loaning us and they tie it to an asset. Typically, you should do the same. Oh, absolutely.

 

Greg Lyons  36:06

That’s a great one right there. Brian, last question is from this one comes from another one of our mentors, Jim Rohn. And he said, formal education will make you a living self education will make you a fortune. What does that mean to you?

 

Brian Covey  36:21

Oh, man, we get a little deeper on this one. Well, I’m thankful for my school, right, I learned a lot of things that were basically a foundation. This goes back to me when I hear that I think about investing in myself. And the amount that I’m investing in today. There’s no course on this, you couldn’t go by the amount of coaches that paid and mentors that I paid to teach me what they know. And so I would tell you, that part to me is, if you invest in yourself, and you bring people in your life to help you, and they teach you their lessons, just multiply it out. If you take 10 People that have been part of my life, for example, and they all taught me 10 things, that’s 100 things that they’ve taught me lessons. Show me a school university course online that could have taught you 100 Things from those people, it doesn’t exist. So I will lead you down the path of when you invest in yourself, you’re going to win bigger, you’re going to play bigger, you got the right mindset, and there’s no stopping you. So invest in yourself. That’s how I’d say the second part of that, I tell you when

 

Tim Lyons  37:12

dude, I love that. Again, I mean, I’m about to take my headset off and start doing some push ups here. I’m gonna set up a camera over here on the Ioway so you guys can see me repping them out. So anyway, Brian, Greg shaking his head, he doesn’t wanna see that. This has been a phenomenal show. Man. I feel like we could talk about a ton more stuff, mindset, leadership, the whole thing, but we’ll have to have you back on for that some other time. In the meantime, though, you are a an accomplished podcaster. With a top rated podcast, you’ve got a book. So we tell people a little bit more about those two things, and then how they can reach out and find you if they want to connect. I’ll

 

Brian Covey  37:44

do it. I love it. Let me grab my prop, right. Because if somebody’s watching this, we’ll put this on there. So the book came out a couple years ago. And I will tell you actually launched off of the podcast. And so again, this is when there’s lessons in life, you want to find me, you can go find me there. But I put myself in the game. I was like nobody’s doing podcasts, nobody’s writing a book in my space. The amount of relationships that came from it were phenomenal. So check it out. It’s 11 of my, what I’d say coaches and mentors in my life, you get the Reader’s Digest in one chapter. You get to learn their lessons in there. So it’s really cool how they packaged it. But yeah, check out the podcast. It’s right now called the Brian Covey show. We’re gonna flip that going into next year, it’s gonna be something different that I’m on Instagram. You can find me on LinkedIn, I spend time there in Facebook, revamping the website right now more to come with that. But please reach out. I love DMS, I answer all of those right? So reach out to me, tell me if this has made an impact on you or any questions you have. That’s how we all learn and grow together

 

Tim Lyons  38:35

a lot. So we’ll have all that in the show notes for the listeners to kind of check out So Brian, thank you again, for the listeners out there. We look forward to serving you again next week and we’re grateful for your listenership and support until next time, see you then thank you for listening to another episode of the passive income brothers podcast. We would be grateful for your support of our podcast by giving our show a five star rating and review and subscribing to our show on your favorite podcast platform. Don’t forget to take inspired action after listening to this show, so that you can start building out your passive income streams. Finally, head on over to cityside cap.com to connect with us and find out more information about how to get started passively investing in real estate