Building Your Mental Toolbox: The Key to Success With Glenn & Amber Schworm

Episode 100: Building Your Mental Toolbox: The Key to Success with Glenn & Amber Schworm

The Profit First REI Podcast

August 1, 2022

David Richter

Summary:

We invited power couple Amber and Glenn Schworm to the show, and today we’re about to unpack some great insights from them! These two are always on the hunt to help everyday people create long-term wealth in real estate.

This talk is a little bit of everything. We discuss their financial journey, some parenting advice around money, how they strengthened their relationship as a couple while still being top-notch business partners, and a whole lot more.

Key Takeaways:

[1:40] How did they get started in real estate?

[8:50] How did they end up branching out into coaching?

[20:55] What are some early lessons they’ve learned about money and how does it compare to their thoughts about money today?

[27:55] What lessons about money do they want to pass on to their children?

[34:26] It’s important to be open about your fears and learn how to overcome them

Quotes:

[10:21] “I didn’t just want to hype up people without a plan, because finances are a big part of your goals.”

[13:16] “I want to champion the average person that wants to make a difference.”

[35:15] “Courage is not when you’re not scared. Courage is when you push through fear.”

Links:

Glenn and Amber’s Website-https://glennandamber.com/ 

Glenn and Amber on Instagram-https://www.instagram.com/glenn_and_amber_schworm/?hl=en 

Tired of living deal to deal? 

If you are a real estate investor or business owner who is tired of living deal to deal, and want to double your profits, head over here to book your no-obligation discovery call with me. Either myself or someone from my team will hop on a short call with you to get clear on your business goals, remove any obstacles holding you back, and map out a game plan to help you finally start keeping more of the money you work so hard to make. – David 

Transcript:

Amber Schworm:

There’s people that win the lottery that don’t know what to do with it. So they end up losing it in a short amount of time. Yeah. It’s the same thing in business. If you don’t have your head, right. And if you don’t know how to run your business and how to do things the right way, you’re gonna lose it. And, and that’s really, really important.

Intro:

Welcome to the Profit First REI podcast, where real estate investors, master financial management, eradicate entrepreneurial poverty, and learn to be profitable from day one. Now for your host, David Richter,

David Richter:

Hey everyone. Welcome back to the Profit First REI podcast. I have two amazing people here, Glenn and Amber Schworm and guess what they are here. And they have a whole lot, I believe in both of them, I’ve been on their podcast. We’ve, we’re in a part of some of the same masterminds and you get to know people, you get to know them and their reputation in the community and just how they serve. And these are servants. These are people that want to serve that want to serve you. So I’m really excited about having them on they own investor pro, which I’m gonna have them talk about, but they’re also real estate investors just like you. And I’m really excited to have both of them. So thanks for being on guys.

Amber Schworm:

Awesome. Intro. Thanks, David.

Glenn Schworm:

Yeah. Thanks for having us. These people, you, these people introduction sound amazing. I can’t wait to hear about right.

David Richter:

<Laugh> oh man. So let’s go, let’s dive right into it. So what got you started in real estate and the follow-up question’s gonna be, how’s it working with each other in the businesses? Cuz obviously as a husband, like do,

Glenn Schworm:

Ooh, how much time do we have for that today?

Amber Schworm:

Like put the boxing gloves on

Glenn Schworm:

Yeah. How we get started in real estate. I desperation really. It’s funny when yeah, the, the real push, the real, the real dive in point was desperation. Like we were 80,000 thousand credit card debt and we had to, we were both going through divorces from our spouses and I had two young kids and I had multiple mortgage payments going on because of the divorce and just desperation. We had to find a way to make large chunks of cash legally, you know, without being a crack dealer. Right. So I had to figure out

David Richter:

Long or white. Yeah.

Glenn Schworm:

Yeah.

Amber Schworm:

Yeah. And I, I think one of the biggest obstacles for people these days too, is also thinking I can’t get started with any money. We were sleeping on an air mattress. <Laugh> like

Glenn Schworm:

Didn’t have a, a hole in the air mattress. Yeah. So

Amber Schworm:

We had bought a couch off of Craigslist for a hundred bucks. That was, I mean, we, we had nothing is my boy.

Glenn Schworm:

Go, go back prior to that. Even before I met Amber, I have always been fascinated with real estate since I was a young boy. And you know, I remember being a teenager and there was a guy in our town who owned 50 houses. And I thought that was amazing. He came from, he came over from Italy. He couldn’t barely speak in English as restaurants. I see him, he’s working a hundred dollars a week, but how always knew he owned a lot of real estate. And that always fascinated me as a young man. Yeah. And so I had started out my journey by buying some rental properties in the ghetto. I didn’t know that that was probably not the most ideal spot. Some people listen, no offense to your listeners. If they love the, some people love ghetto properties. I have a good friend of my, he loves ghetto properties.

Glenn Schworm:

God bless you. I hate them. But, but he, he has ’em and I bought those didn’t do well. I actually lost them both the foreclosure back when I was in my twenties, 30 this 30 years ago. And I, you know, I would learn the hard way that you gotta be good with money. Right. You gotta be good with the money the money’s coming in. Cuz I didn’t know when you got the rent off those, you had to pay a mortgage. I was 21 years old thinking, Hey I’ve got cash baby. Cause cause those people always pay cash. Right. Don’t I’m like, oh yeah. So you know, fast forward 15 years or so. And Amber and I got together and you know, I got myself back on my feet and Amber and I got together and I had good credit, but again had but massive debt from divorce and all that kind of stuff. And Amber and I, we kind of had that perfect marriage if you will. Well, not a perfect marriage. God knows. That’s not <laugh> we had, we had a perfect partnership. So wait,

Amber Schworm:

Our strengths and weaknesses complimented each other.

Glenn Schworm:

Yeah, yeah. Amber, I was really good at finding deals and putting the deal together. I love the, the art of the kill, you know? Like I love that. Yes. Like I love just finding the deal, locking it down, getting everybody on the same page. Amber was great at taking something ugly and making it look pretty. Right. I always tell people, tell me like, like her I’m I’m her lifelong mission. Right. So try and make you look pretty, but good luck, right? Yeah. Yeah. If you’re watching this, you’ll see. Just kidding. Clint <laugh> thanks a lot, David <laugh> so but no argument there, but so, you know, when we got together it was like, well, listen, let’s, you know, I wanted to build a rental portfolio cuz I, I believe in residual income to this day I do. If I have one regret, I didn’t start that part of my journey sooner. But Amber’s strength. She wanted to flip and I’m like, ah, I don’t know. And we kind of battle with that and then we,

Amber Schworm:

But, but even at that time, like we understood the importance for education. Like we, we know, we knew we didn’t know enough to do that. Well. Yeah. So we actually went to this local local seminar, local seminar and the, the guy we were sitting in the front row and it was like date night, we were gonna go out afterwards and I was all dressed up. And so the guy points at me and he goes to be successful. You’ll have to go in houses that she’ll never go in

Glenn Schworm:

Points at Amber and oh,

Amber Schworm:

And I didn’t say anything. I was like,

Glenn Schworm:

All right,

Amber Schworm:

All

Glenn Schworm:

You, we hadn’t, we hadn’t hooked the house yet. So we did, we hadn’t done one. We’ve done like what 700 now we haven’t, we hadn’t done one yet. So,

Amber Schworm:

Well I just didn’t like being underestimated. So, but you know, rather than let, like let that piss me off, I just used it as fuel. And you know, the rest is,

Glenn Schworm:

Was, it was funny though. I remember, I remember looking up at the guy going, you

Amber Schworm:

Don’t know who you’re talking

Glenn Schworm:

About. No idea, but we bit our tongues. It was like, well you, you say you’ve done a bunch and we haven’t done anything yet. So I’ll let you be sassy for a minute. We went on to dwarf anything he’d ever done in the area. So it’s just kind of funny how that all plays out, but it is fun, but

Amber Schworm:

That led us to go to another seminar. And, and that was really, really what was eye-opening to us. And, and that’s when we really started flipping houses and getting into that and we flipped our first one. We made what, 17,000

Glenn Schworm:

On it. Yep. And that was back at oh seven. So during the

Amber Schworm:

Al crisis. Yeah. Right as the housing crisis.

Glenn Schworm:

Yeah. Let people say, well it was the financial crisis, so no, it wasn’t the financial crisis. It was a housing financial crisis. Yeah. And it wasn’t, it wasn’t just financial.

Amber Schworm:

Yeah. It was real estate specific.

Glenn Schworm:

Yeah. We were, we were right in the thick of, and everybody, everybody in the, everybody who loved us and cared about us said, gosh, you shouldn’t be in real estate.

Amber Schworm:

They thought be crazy.

Glenn Schworm:

Don’t be real. Estate’s the worst thing you can do. Don’t do that. Now. I’ve always had this philosophy that, you know, if you follow the masses yep. You know, you, it’s a silent M in most of that group, right? Yes. So I, I tend to, I tend to be very careful when the mass are going. One way I tend to, if you think of a crowd of people running one direction, they’re all steering one direction. No one sees what’s behind them. I tend to put my head outta the crowd and look at different direction and go what’s over there. What’s the

Amber Schworm:

Opportunity

Glenn Schworm:

That,

Amber Schworm:

Yeah. Never let a good crisis go to waste. Say,

Glenn Schworm:

Say, yeah. So, so that was that’s, that’s kinda how we got started now. We’ve got, you know, we, we’ve got only about, well, I say only rights perspective about 50 rentals that we have. Cause we’re, we, that’s the one thing I wish we’d started sooner. We’re on a mission to get up to a hundred thousand a month and passive income, passive income. Cause that’s my, that’s always in my passion since I was 18. And now we’re on a good track for that. We have we’re we’re building that out. So anyway, there you go

Amber Schworm:

Far with one.

David Richter:

Yeah, I, yeah. Start with one and I love what you said about going to the seminar and then with that challenge too, because I’m sure there’s a lot of people that go to a lot of seminars and don’t get anything out of it or, or have a negative experience like that. But that was your fuel. Like you said, that was a fuel that got you there. So I’m like that seminar was totally worth it because you still reference that story today. It’s a great story. It’s part of your journey. Absolutely. You know, I, I absolutely love that and not downplaying going and learning from the people that are doing it. Even if they’re a couple steps ahead of you and like now you’ve dwarfed them. Like you can coach that you can coach confidently because of most people that you coach will definitely be on the journey and want to get to where you want to be. So I love that, love that, even a story like that can turn into something positive here. And I think that’s just because of the type of people you are like, let me use that. Like you said, let me not look at this as a negative, but as fuel for my, you know, from my success. I absolutely love that mindset.

Amber Schworm:

<Laugh> I think going through those struggles though, like in the beginning have helped, they they’ve made us better coaches too, because mold, we can relate. People, relate to people and understand what they’re going

Glenn Schworm:

Through. Yeah. It molds you into who you are first.

David Richter:

Yeah, it does. It really does. It’s those hard times where you can, where you can really make the difference in someone else’s life. And now there’s gonna be people sleeping on those mattresses with holes ands in common years and I need to make a lot of cash and I’m not Walter White, so I gotta be able to make it legally and ethically. So yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Love that. So then talk about what you’ve got 50 rentals, but you’ve also got investor pro and some other things too. So you you’ve branched into coaching and other things like that. Correct. And helping other people, that’s kind of where you’ve ended up right now.

Glenn Schworm:

Yeah, we, so, so here’s kind of the journey, right? So we still have a company called signature home buyers that flips about a hundred houses a year. Yeah. And that’s great. Although it’s linear income, right. We linear meaning that we do it once and we get paid and we have to go do it again and keep getting paid for, but it, but,

Amber Schworm:

But that company, they, that company flips it whole sales and it also helps us find our, our venture portfolio.

Glenn Schworm:

Yeah. I was getting to that, but go ahead and just jump right in. No problem. So anyway, so

Amber Schworm:

You’re you getting,

Glenn Schworm:

I was taking too long apparent I wasn’t doing a good job in front. Your audience. That’s never happened before.

David Richter:

Oh man. This is also gonna be the Glen and Amber. Just get it all out there episode as well too. Let’s let’s just get it all out there.

Glenn Schworm:

Just a normal day hanging around. This is kinda how it goes. No,

David Richter:

I love

Glenn Schworm:

It. We’re we’re very real. Whether camera’s on or not. This is the normal conversation for

David Richter:

Us. Yes. I love that be

Glenn Schworm:

Real year. So that companys a hundred dollars a year, but here’s, here’s the journey. Right? I always, I, I kind of stumbled into public speaking in my thirties or early thirties and I’m 52, almost 53 now. And I I stumbled onto it, but I, I love public speaking and motivating people. I look back to my original goals. I wrote 30 years ago and I said, I wanna be a motivational speaker. But what I learned was I didn’t wanna just keep people all hyped up and not have a plan to go up. Cause like, cuz finances is a big part of your goals. Almost everybody’s goals have finances wrapped around ’em even if it don’t even if it doesn’t have finance wrapped around it. For instance, if you say I wanna be a better dad, well sometimes if you have a little more money, it takes the pressure off of not having money and you can focus more on being a better dad when you’re not thinking about the fact that I can’t make the mortgage payment this month.

Glenn Schworm:

So although mine doesn’t bring you happiness, it can bring tremendous stress and it can deter you from the things you can be great at, cuz you’re so focused on it. So it’s a, it’s a very tough dichotomy there to kind of figure out right. But I figured out that most things in life require money. And so I wanted to have people have a way to not just be excited and inspired being around me and around us and learning. I wanted to give them a track to run on, to say, yes, you’re inspired, but here is the next step. Boom, do this. Amber and I were on about our third house. We were flipping, we were doing the work ourselves mm-hmm <affirmative> and I understand to her and we were battling the whole way. Blood, sweat, tears probably killed each other through the whole thing. Right.

Glenn Schworm:

And I remember, so I remember saying to you, we sold that house in the crisis when everybody said that no one’s making money. We had, we had a bidding war in 2008. Now, if you know that timeframe, that didn’t happen. And especially it didn’t happen where we were in upstate New York didn’t happen. Now it was only a $2,000 bit anymore. It’s not like today when it’s 200,000, but right. It was a 2000 bit anymore. Yeah. And I said to Amber, we, we made like 38 grand and I said, God, we could, we could do this. Like we could, we could really do this. And I said to Amber, I go and we could teach this, this, this is the one like my eyes done. I said, this is, this is the vehicle I’ve been looking for. I said, but before we do it, let’s prove the model.

Glenn Schworm:

Mm-Hmm <affirmative> let’s prove we can do it before we teach it. Cuz there’s so many idiots out there saying they can do it and they’ve done nothing. One deal, two deals or no deals. Or they read a book or they read, went to a seminar and now they’re gonna teach people. And I said, this could be it. Well, we didn’t open our coaching business until 400 deals later. Wow. We proved the model. Yeah. And here’s the funny part I gotta post this morning that came in on my Facebook. You know, you get those reminders. It was five years ago next week that we had our very first home flipping workshop. Wow. And so, yeah, it was five years ago next week and we started fight and now we’ve, we’ve spoken to tens of thousands of people. We’ve helped. Hundreds of people change their lives and we put on this workshop and then when COVID hit, it went virtual.

Glenn Schworm:

And so now we are doing these virtual workshops about 10 a year. And we are getting more and more quality, more and more recognition for what we’re doing. We’ve got like 600, five star reviews. We, we just, now we’re able to fulfill my dream of helping people, you know, helping. I just totally, when I walk this morning, I said, you know, I wanna champion, like there’s a lot of people that target a lot of different kinds of people. I don’t wanna target the average person. Cause I’m an average person. Like I, I wanna champion the average people that wanna make a difference. Not people that have wealth that want more wealth or if you have an Ivy league education and you’re just, you’re smarter than anybody. God bless you. Good for you. I wanna take the average person that’s grinding. Like I’ve always said to grind and say, listen, you can do it. Cause I did it. That’s what I always wanted to do. I scanning and I walk, I said that, I said, I wanna champion the average man or woman, no offense, but maybe more women than men actually our students.

Amber Schworm:

Yeah. We, yeah. With the, our big concern when we went virtual with our workshop was that we’d lose like that personal connection. Yeah. It’s been amazing. Yeah. Like, like we’re still able and we’re able to meet people, meet people on a much more national level instead of just like city by city. So we can talk to more people, but we have got so many success stories and like, like Glen was saying, we do focus on, you know, just helping that. Neither, neither Glen. Or I went to college. I mean, we had a few classes, but neither of us have college degrees. Glen doesn’t, even to this day, know how to read a tape measure. You know, like

Glenn Schworm:

I was a solid, I was a solid C minus student, but

Amber Schworm:

There

Glenn Schworm:

You had a good

Amber Schworm:

Might look at us now, you know, this year we moved to our dream home in Florida. We live on the coast and we get to walk on the beach every day. I mean like, like I look out my back window and see dolphins jumping. I mean, it’s, it’s amazing. And sometimes I think people like, look at that journey or they look at your success now and they think, oh my gosh, you know, they, they just had it so easy and we didn’t have a idea. Like I said, we were sleeping on the air mattress, the house, he was talking about that third house that we did where we, where we said, you know what? We could teach this. I actually, we didn’t have enough money to finish the renovation. And I had $10,000 of equity in my car. I sold my car. I’ve had my own car since I was 16 years old. I sold my car. We were down to one car with two kids. That was, we weren’t even getting along very well at the time. Not it was, it was like,

Glenn Schworm:

So we’re packed together all day. One

Amber Schworm:

Car freedom.

Glenn Schworm:

Wow.

Amber Schworm:

And I mean, so, so, you know, when you, when you look at, you know, like that journey, like people think it’s just, you know, point A to point B, it’s a straight line to success. I mean, there are so many bumps along the way and hills, along the way, it’s like, it’s like a roller coaster. And I love being able to identify with people and helping them navigate through those journeys. But I, but I also think that it’s really important that people know that there are sacrifices that have to be made. My sacrifice in that case was that I had to sell my baby. I had to sell my car.

Glenn Schworm:

It wasn’t just a car though. It was Your freedom.

Amber Schworm:

It was my freedom. Yeah.

Glenn Schworm:

So that, that’s what she’s never let me live down for 15 years, David. Yeah. So anyway, so <laugh>

Amber Schworm:

Really

Glenn Schworm:

With three or four years will get, I promise.

Amber Schworm:

But I think it’s important for people to know that, you know, maybe it’s not selling a car, maybe it’s, you know, some time that they have to give up to, to work toward making their dreams come true. It takes effort. It takes action. But when you, when you have that track to run on, which is what we provide as coaches at the home flipping workshop, it just, Glen has an expression that I love and it’s folding time. You know, you can, you can like dramatically shorten your learning curve and reach your goals a lot more quickly when you have that track to run on.

Glenn Schworm:

Yeah. I, well that it’s, it’s I’m thinking bad. We, one of the things that we are so real about as I, I prepare people at the workshops for, you know, people say what, what’s the real secrets. The real secret is dealing with the mental stress. Yeah. That’s the real secret. Cuz the money, people think it’s the money. It’s not the money it’s getting the money. And then when you have the money, there’s pressure cuz of that there’s pressure. Cause you have to, and then you round of money and you have to figure that part out. And then, you know, that’s one aspect and the house falls apart and then this falls apart and you find asbestos in the wall, you find a dead body in the backyard who knows what you’re gonna find those crazy things. Exactly. So I go over the mental side of stuff a lot.

Glenn Schworm:

I say, I’m preparing your mental toolbox right now. Cause I want you to have a toolbox of tools to build your business. But the real secret is taking care of yourself mentally. So when we started our coaching business investor pro, which puts on the home flipping workshop, you know that our tagline is a real estate of mind. I love that. And I know that if you don’t have your mind, right, you’ll never get your wallet, right. You just never will. You never will. I don’t care how much you do or even the process you put in place or that kind of stuff. You’ll find a way to sabotage and ruin it. If you don’t have your head straight. And I love what Amber just said because it’s, I preach this through the whole workshop. And every time I talk to anybody or any time I’m a guest, I always say, look at it.

Glenn Schworm:

What we do is hard work, but it’s worth it. And, and I can’t stress it. How people say, oh yeah, I’m ready to work. No, are you really ready to work? Cause there’s some days I just did a post on Facebook about a week ago. I literally put out there and said, look, I’ve had a tough couple weeks. I said, I came out to the ocean at 10 o’clock. We sat on the couch for night and I got so pissed off cuz things weren’t going right in one of my businesses. She, she sat down and I, and I got and said, I’m leaving. She goes, where are you going? Going? I go, I’m I’m out. And I walked over to the ocean and I sat there for five hours. I walked, I walked 10,000 steps in the beach alone. I saw some other weird guy out there at like two in the morning.

Glenn Schworm:

And he walked by me and I’m like, yeah, we’re both weird, whatever <laugh>. And so, but, but I was there at, you know, for five hours to get my head straight and I had a rough, I was having argument. I was praying, I was yelling at God. I was yelling at myself. I yell and I was just thinking through, but I came back with some clarity and, and then, and then things started changed from that day forward. And I’m thinking that’s the work that people don’t see behind the scenes. People think, oh, he’s got together all the time. Bullshit. I do. I’m I’m confused and scared everybody else. I’m just trying to figure out how to get there. So I think we’re very transparent about that. I think some people like to follow us just to see this and these guys are real, they’ve got success, but I, I try and share and I’ve done 30 years, 30 plus years now of self-improvement and studying and learning from other people.

Glenn Schworm:

And the only people I really get anything out of are the one that share the real story. So I feel like a frigging human, right? So I feel like I’m on the same path that people just share all their success stories. Well, I did my first deal and I got a private jet out of it. Shut the hell up. I don’t care about your, I don’t, you know, it went perfectly fine. My dad gave me some money and it was great. Shut up. That was just not my journey. And I think we, I think that we appealed to the average person, cuz most people are starting from where we started, which is nothing. Yeah.

Amber Schworm:

And I think to feedback on that too, as far as what probably a lot of your listeners are here for, with the, with the Profit First is that if you don’t have your head, right, you can know all the mechanics in the world about, you know, your type of business. But if you don’t have your head, right, you can make all the money in the world, you’ll lose and

Glenn Schworm:

Lose it. You’ll lose it all. Which

Amber Schworm:

Is, you know, maybe you maybe fight, you know, think you don’t deserve it for some reason underneath, or you just don’t know what to do with it. So you give it away like, like there’s people that win the lottery that don’t know what to do with it. So they end up losing it in a short amount of time. Yeah. It’s the same thing in business. If you don’t have your head rights and if you don’t know how to run your business and how to do things the right way, you’re gonna lose it. And, and that’s really, really important.

David Richter:

I love what you said there about not feeling like they don’t deserve it. Cause I moved from employee to business owner and even with Profit First and learning this concept and all this as the business grew, I felt bad. I felt bad making more money cuz I’m like, well we need to give more. We need to hire this other person. It’s like, well, no you’re running a business. You should be benefiting because you need to take that pressure on what you said. The real estate of mind. I love that. Cuz it’s that state of mind I was coming from a scarcity mentality of, you know, there’s not enough here, you know, and I can’t do this and that was even for myself. So it’s just, we see that over and over again. Exactly what both of you said, people feel like they don’t deserve it or they don’t have their mind in the right place. And they’re not able to grow personally, you know, that personal growth or their business because they’re coming from that mentality. So yeah, absolutely love that. I’ve got couple questions here around prop first for just money in general. Let me shoot this. Let me get at least one out there. What what are some early lessons you’ve learned about money, but and how does that compare to what you think about money today?

Glenn Schworm:

What are some early lessons we learned about money and how does it compare to what we know today? Mm-Hmm <affirmative>

David Richter:

And what you believe today?

Glenn Schworm:

So let me ask you a question. Lessons or lessons that I applied, cuz they’re different.

David Richter:

<Laugh> either once, cuz we’ve had people who said, I heard, learned horrible lessons, you know, or none at the beginning. And then now it’s this, that or the other thing, you know, and that’s what I we’re passing on.

Glenn Schworm:

We have some, we probably have both had different answers similar, but different. I’d like to share one that I’ve never shared before baby, but I’ll tell you this, my grandmother growing up used to always say to me every time you make a little bit, just pull little bit aside, just pull up aside, just put a nickel aside, you know? Cause in her mind, you know, that was, she, she, my grandma would be over a hundred. She was alive. But you know, she grew, grew up to the depression. She was born in 19 1900, I think. Right. I think that was the year she was born and oh, should be 120 should be, she’d be old. So whatever. But she used to always say that to, to me as like just pull up aside, just pull up aside. I never really took that advice.

Glenn Schworm:

Hmm. And ironically, until we applied Profit First a year and a half, two years ago, we, we weren’t doing that either. And ironically, the book that you’ve written is exactly what my grandmother said. Now your book is fancier and has lots of ways and charts and grass and which is awesome. Yeah. But the concept is still the same. Here’s someone that came to the depression and said just put a little bit aside and you know, your book really helps people understand the why behind it. Not just, oh my grandma says, okay. But when you understand the why behind it, yeah. It gives you the motivation to do it. Right? Yeah. So that’s that I would say now I didn’t do that. Again, lost those houses of foreclosure. I went through bankruptcy early in my, my early twenties three times. It’s funny is your dad always told Dakota that too?

Glenn Schworm:

Our son. Yeah. He always used, always said. And yeah, my dad was an, my dad was an incredible saver and he made nothing. Yeah. My dad was a butcher growing up and my dad passed four years ago. My dad was a butcher and he always had tons of cash on was like, how do you, you cash on like you don’t do, I didn’t make any money, but he never spent any, he just knew how to put aside. Right. And so he did that. So I had great people giving me great lessons around ’em I didn’t always use them until recently. Yeah. And by now using those lessons here, it took me, it took me to age 50 to start learning that lesson. So if your listeners are younger and listening to it, oh my God. Listen to an old guy here, start it. Now don’t start it when you’re 50, cuz you have less time to make it really effective.

Glenn Schworm:

But, but if you are 60 listener, this started now. I mean, you should always start it. But I think that I grew up in a very, in a very scarcity mentality house. My mom, God bless her. My mom’s still with us and my mom’s awesome. And she’s a pit bull, but my mom has some horrible feelings around money. Like just always my mom could have a million dollars, 2 million, $10 million in the bank if she still thinks she’s broke. Yeah. And, and people say, oh that’s crazy. It’s not crazy. It’s I’ve had the same problems. I, you know, seven figures in my bank account and be like, oh God, I’m what if I lose it? The scarcity mentality is very tough to take outta your head when you grew up with it. Yeah. So I battle with that scarcity mentality on a regular basis. And so it’s not about the amount of money in the bank. It’s about how you view it. Yeah. That’s

Amber Schworm:

So good. Yeah. That goes along with like making, I, I was thinking too, it’s almost like the fear of money or, or losing it. Like I hear a lot of people say, you know, I don’t wanna own rental property because you know what, if the tenant doesn’t pay the rent, then I, then it, then it’s on me. So if you, if you take the emotional side out of that, and I think that’s one thing that I used to do really bad is, is make more emotional decisions and I’ve gotten much better at making business decisions. But if you approach real estate and, and make those calculated business decisions where you’re really looking at statistics and, and actual numbers, it’s, it’s not really a risk. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s a very calculated risk, I guess I should, I should say mm-hmm <affirmative> so I think just kind of like getting out of your own head and, and trying to work around those self limiting beliefs where you make those emotional decisions and just make, make those calculated ones that, and also, I think as your business grows, you’re able to your tolerance threshold increases with the, the amount of the money that you’re dealing with and handling.

Amber Schworm:

Yeah. And I, I think that that’s kind of just a lesson that only really comes with time, but it’s something that kind, I

Glenn Schworm:

Think you should share. I think people like to hear you talk about, you know, you were raised in a spot where you had to go to work full time at, at,

Amber Schworm:

At 13 I worked fulltime

Glenn Schworm:

13. Yeah. That’s a different story. But her parents may go to work for the family business full time at 13 and go get homeschooled by a book in the back room. Right. So it’s not a great experience for, but you learned some valuable lessons about money and then she met me who has no fear. Yeah. So talk about, I think I’ve had to change your vision about risk

Amber Schworm:

In balance one each other out. We have, we, that’s kind of like the, the yin and yang of it. And that can be challenging when you are in business as a couple or as a partner, if

Glenn Schworm:

You up what you thought about money. Cause I, I think that, I think listeners would love to hear how you thought about money and then how you think about it now.

Amber Schworm:

Yeah. I, I used to, I used to really, you know, like, like wanna keep it close. Yeah. And, and not spend it. I was definitely more of a saver and, and not that risk taker. And so my risk tolerance has definitely been expanded by, by being with Glen. That’s been really, really huge, but you know, I, I did, I started out working when I was 13 years old. I made $3 and 85 cents, which was minimum wage at the time. I’m really dating myself here. <Laugh> but, but, but you don’t get anywhere with that mindset, you know, you, you might end up with, I don’t know,

Glenn Schworm:

You can’t save yourself to wealth.

Amber Schworm:

You

Glenn Schworm:

Can’t, you can’t save yourself to wealth. You have to invest, you you’ll never come up with inflation, especially in today’s world. My gosh. Crazy right now.

Amber Schworm:

Yeah. So, so I, I do, I think I have a healthier view of, of being able to take those risks now, which has been really, really good, but people do we’re, we’re filled with so much head trash. I mean, you know, what if, what if my lifestyle is, is better than that, that I grew up with? What if I start, you know, making more than my parents made or you know, as a woman, what if I start making more than my husband does? Like, we,

Glenn Schworm:

We I’m all for it, by the way. <Laugh>

David Richter:

Yes. Agree.

Amber Schworm:

<Laugh>. But, but our psychology, like you were saying, you know, we have that, that scarcity mentality and that’s a lot more prevalent than abundance than the abundance mentality. And I think you can work to make that shift in your, in your mind and it’s gonna happen over time. It’s not something that you can just like flip the switch on, but it’s, it’s a much a much more enjoyable place to live.

David Richter:

Yeah. So just a couple last questions here. I have a four year old daughter, so I always like asking what lessons about money? Do you wanna pass on to your children or the next generation, or even to your students, like what’s the mentality around it and some lessons.

Amber Schworm:

So I definitely think that we teach our kids to, to work further on. So, so I I’m, I’m a little bit hesitant to say work hard cuz I don’t think you always, like, I think there’s a work smart element to it too. Oh yeah. So, but, but I don’t, I don’t believe in just like handing my kids, everything they ask for. You know, I, with me, like I said, when I was 16, I bought my like every time ever since I was 13, I bought everything of my own. Like my shampoo, my food, my car, my insurance, my like my parents didn’t contribute one penny to, to that. I don’t know that I wanna go that extreme with our kids. Like we’ve with our two older ones, we said, whatever you say for your car, we’ll we’ll match it. Right. So we, you know, even my daughter, we have an eight year old daughter, she loves Roblox. So she’s always like, mom, will you buy me Roblox? We just wait, just wait, David, you’ll get there. Yeah. I’m SOS. Like we buy robots and I’m like, no, you can earn it. So, you know, I don’t just like hand her money. You know, she has to do things to earn it so that

Glenn Schworm:

We

Amber Schworm:

Would, but I also don’t wanna make her think that she has to struggle to earn money, right.

Glenn Schworm:

With our older kids, you know, I, I got, I have my older, so I started with a, a little system with my, my son who turns 22 next week. And when he was young, I had a savings system for him. And I gave a, it was back before things were on the internet all the time. That kinda stuff, he was five, six years old. We were starting, this is 15 years ago. The internet was around, but it wasn’t wasn’t so app crazy like it is now. Right. And so I had a, a folder system that we used to take out. We had five buckets, we had long term savings, short term savings, spending money, charity, something else whatever it was, education, I think, or investment yourself or something like that. Yeah. And, and we, we, you know, I give ’em an allowance of five bucks a week or whatever it was and we would divvy it up and we split up a quarterly 10% to charity and we did all that. Now we sort of got away from that, that I’m always like, I’m, you know, I’m, I’m a visionary. If you ever follow a, a PI index, I’m a, that’s my, my tested out. I’m a visionary mm-hmm <affirmative> with very high with no, no risk and very high drive, which is a crazy thing. But, but so don’t fun.

Glenn Schworm:

Thank you, honey. I’ll take you guys a couple Martha. So I care how you mention it. I’ll a couple, of course you’re <laugh> so I I don’t always follow through, but for, for a few years I did that with him. And I think I set the foundation for him cuz all of a sudden he’s gotten into all the Bitcoin and he has a whole different kind of business. He’s building online. He actually works. He actually manages our Airbnb business. We’ve got about 13 Airbnbs now. And so he works for us there, but he really has been greatest at saving his money. Now here’s the parenting thing. When we moved to Florida a few months ago, I said, Dakota, starting November, you’re gonna start paying rent. He stayed in one of our houses that we had back there. Yeah. With the one he grew up in and I said, nobody gonna be here, but you’re gonna have to pay rent. I’m not charging him full rent. Like I would for a normal house. Right. He’s my son. But I am gonna charge my chunk seven 50 a month for rent for a house. And I don’t love doing that to my son. I could afford to carry it. I don’t love doing it, but I’m doing it because he needs to understand that there’s some adulting that has to start happening the

Amber Schworm:

Next week.

Glenn Schworm:

Yeah. He needs to know. So we’re having that conversation. I’m prepping him for it. He does work for us. So I know he has a salary or he has, he earns money with commissions and salaries and whatnot. Yeah. And so it’s gonna be a bit of a struggle for him. I it’s, it’s tough for you to put your kids through struggle, but you have to do it to make him grow. Our 16 year old daughter has a credit card from a company called green light. I see they’re starting to advertise on TV now, but I’ve had that for, for a couple years. I give her automatic $10 a week goes in the account and I say, listen, you can help them. You can treat, you can tell, you can tell the card where to, where they can spend it. There’s they transfer over to her car saving and she’s now got 1200 bucks saved for a car.

Glenn Schworm:

And she knows that I match her dollar for dollar on her car. So, you know we try and instill those values in my perfect at hell. No, you know, I definitely a spender. I go to dinner and think nothing of plug it down a few hundred bucks for a regular dinner for our family. I don’t, I just don’t think about it. So I’m not great at being a Mer. I think I, I think I try and teach more the concept of listen, if you want a good life, you’re gonna have to work hard for it. Yeah. And prepare yourself for it. So you can spend later on. But in the meantime, they’ll move dinner off me as long as they can cuz they know that’ll always pay the bill. But,

Amber Schworm:

But another thing I think we do is we have open conversations in front of them because

Glenn Schworm:

You know, if point, if point,

Amber Schworm:

If you like shelter your kids from all that, my parents never talk to me about money or finances or what they were doing with investments. And it was not cuz it was almost hush hush. Like my mom, I think I remember my mom saying something like, well I don’t wanna, you know, like encourage you to do something cuz if you invest in something and lose money, like I don’t wanna feel guilty about it. You know? So, so we have those conversations at the dinner table. And if you’re having, if you’re having, having conversations about, you know, hundreds of dollars or constantly saying, I can’t afford that, you know, that’s like, that’s like the mindset you’re teaching your children. Yeah. But if you’re having conversations about, you know, millions of dollars, millions of dollars or how many properties you’re owning or what it takes to get this deal done, like that’s even at a young age, even at, you know, your daughter’s four years old, even at four years old and you’re overhearing that they’re like a sponge then all of a sudden those kind of numbers as they grow, aren’t so scary or intimidating because right.

Amber Schworm:

Yes. While there is the element of, of working hard and teaching them that good work ethic. I think a lot of times in our lives we make things way harder than they need to be. Oh

David Richter:

Yeah. <Laugh> so agree.

Amber Schworm:

So you, you don’t want to ingrain in them that they have to struggle to be successful.

David Richter:

Yeah. I love that. That was great. That, that helped me personally. Like I asked that question very selfish because I have my four year old daughter. So yes, thank you so much because there’s still things I need to work through and my mentality and still, you know, even growing the company and doing all this and being able to invest back in people, it’s just always good to hear that other people cuz I, you and you even answered a question that I sometimes aren’t am able to ask, like, did your parents talk to you about money growing up? Did you talk about that? So I love that the openness about money talking about it, being comfortable with it and making sure, cuz you also want to hear what they’re thinking too. Like how are they thinking about it right now? Is there anything we need to discuss and kind of like, you know, just putting it out there that it’s, it’s okay to talk about it. This is a safe space to talk about

Glenn Schworm:

It. You know, I, I don’t just do that with money. Although I’m very careful cause I do, you know, I’m, I’ve again, I’ve had to overcome a lot of things of how I grew up, but I think it’s also important and some people may disagree me in this. I really don’t care. I just, what I do with my kids, I I’m open about my fears, not every single one of ’em, but if I’m scared of something, a big, you know, we’re, we’re making some big transitions. We’re about to open our second market and our flipping company. I’m scared, you know, it’s new, it’s a lot of money. We’re making a big change in our investor pro we hired a brand new CMO on and we’re gonna be changing a little bit of the direction of what we’re doing now and looking for a little higher quality people to work with and stuff.

Glenn Schworm:

And we’re, we’re making some changes that are making me uncomfortable. So I have no problem telling my, mostly I tell my teenagers cuz the other ones don’t quite get it. But I said, listen, dad, you know, sometimes if dad’s a little stressed, dad’s making moves in business. That frankly little scary for me. But, but I push through. So tell him about the courage. So, so my, our six year old one day we were talk, I forgot how it came up, but I, I told him what courage was. I said, courage is not when you’re not scared. His name is Cru said, Cruz buddy courage is when you push through fear, even though you’re scared, bud. And then tell

Amber Schworm:

You like three days later, he’s like, he’s like, he’s like, I have courage. I I’m scared of doing it, but I’m gonna do it anyway. Like

Glenn Schworm:

Remember he Amber that I wasn’t anywhere around, but he remember that conversation

Amber Schworm:

And they do, the kids are like sponges, you know, they’re gonna Stok up, whatever. I’m just re-listening I read it a long time ago and I, I have it on audible. I’m listening to the four agreements right now. And it, it reminded me that like we domesticate our children just like we domesticate a dog or a cat at our house. Like we we’re, we’re the ones that are feeding them with whatever beliefs they’re gonna have about life. Yeah. And you know, they’re, they’re those core beliefs and their personality is really formed between ages one and seven. So you know, the more good stuff we can help put in their brain and not, not create those self-limiting beliefs that,

Glenn Schworm:

But I’ll tell you, I will tell you this from years of experience. Now this is 20 some years of parenting. I can tell you this, they will do what you do. Yeah. They won’t do what you say,

Amber Schworm:

But I I’m telling you, I think it’s really important not to get them hung up about money on the other side of it either. Like money’s the end do answer. Yeah. So I mean, my kids have, have asked me, what are we? I remember at our house in New York, somebody was over and they said, are you rich? And I said, well, what does rich mean to you? And you know, like kids are always think rich is money. And to me, rich is not money. Rich is family and happiness and fulfillment and having

Glenn Schworm:

An awesome husband.

Amber Schworm:

Well, that definitely is part

David Richter:

Of the list. Exactly.

Glenn Schworm:

So,

Amber Schworm:

You know, to me, there’s a lot more about rich than just than just mine. Right. That’s really important for me to instill that in my kids too. Yeah,

David Richter:

No, that’s great. I love that. So we’re getting down to the end here. This has been incredible. This has been entertaining. This is Ben fun. This has Ben. You get a little bit, if you’re listening to this now you’ve got a little bit of everything here. You know, you’ve got couples therapy, you’ve got entertainment. You’ve got, you’ve got the mindset on running

Glenn Schworm:

<Laugh>

David Richter:

Yeah. Parenting. This has been an awesome, awesome episode. So thank you so much. So how can our listers provide value back to you after providing so much value here? Like where can they go to connect with you? What are you doing right now? You have coaching. There’s a lot of things that you do.

Amber Schworm:

Yeah. We love, we love helping people and that’s why we do take the time to put on the home flipping workshop. They can go to home flipping workshop.com and get registered for that. There is one coming up first weekend in December. I,

Glenn Schworm:

This may not air then, but we always have ’em going

Amber Schworm:

On. Or, you know, we do have several businesses and so we try to keep everything in one spot. So we, you, our listeners can go to Glennandamber.com and Glenn is with two “n”s. So Glennandamber.com and that’s got links to our podcast, which you are a guest on. And a lot of others. So there’s podcasts and they’ve really got some courses. We actually are just about to release our short term rental course.

Glenn Schworm:

Yes. That we’re

Amber Schworm:

Really excited about the millionaire Airbnb blueprint.

Glenn Schworm:

Yeah. That’ll be coming out. We have a new show coming out. New show coming out called the big flipping break where we actually for the past year have recorded. We interviewed several people. We chose one family and we work with them. We gave ’em all the money for a flip and we coached with the whole process and we split the profit at the end. There’s a secret twist in there that we did that. We worked with them and that show’s being edited right now. And I expect within the next month or two, that should start airing. So I’m not sure where or how, but that’s stuff we’ve been working on for about a year. So I’m excited about that show coming out to show, showcase us in action, actually supporting, actually giving all the money to somebody and then coaching ’em through it and splitting the profit. And yeah, we’re big surprised at the end. We’re,

Amber Schworm:

We’re not super polished or anything. We just kind of like to share the good of bad and ugly with people and hope that resonates with them and, and help as many people as we can

Glenn Schworm:

Come follow us. So hang out with us. We’d love to love to hang out with you. So,

David Richter:

Yeah, and that’s what this podcast is about. I want real people on here talking about their real stories. I love the stories that you told. I mean, if you can’t relate with some part of what we talked about today, I’m not sure you’re a human being. <Laugh> if we covered, we covered quite, quite the range here today, all over, like for different relatable topics. So just thank you so much for your both coming on, providing that value. It’s Glen and amber.com. Make sure to go there, connect with them. These are amazing human beings. Glen, Amber, thank you so much.

Amber Schworm:

Thank you,

Glenn Schworm:

David. Thank you, my friend.

Speaker 5:

Thank you so much for listening to today’s show. If you found this episode valuable, could you do me a quick favor? Could you give us an honest rating within iTunes and be honest, you could say whether you liked it or not. And obviously with iTunes, the more reviews and ratings we have, the better it is for other people that are searching for Profit First and a podcast. So we’d love to be ranked on there and that’s thanks to your help. So we would really appreciate that if you would like to go give us a rating. Also, if you’re looking to connect with us further, I would highly recommend checking out our Facebook group Profit First for real estate investors. And that’s literally what it’s called. So you can type in Profit First for real estate investors, and you’ll be able to find <laugh>, you’ll be able to find our Facebook group right there.

Speaker 5:

So come join active real estate investors who are supporting each other and growing their businesses and profits together. That’s what that group is all about. The link should be in the description below. And if you’re interested in working with us and implementing Profit First in your real estate business, we offer coaching and guidance. So if you wanna work with someone who’s actually Profit First certified and who works right now currently with real estate businesses, you can actually go start your application process by going to simpleCFO.com forward slash apply, or just go right to simpleCFO.com. And there’s an apply button right on there. If you wanna actually start your Profit First journey with someone who can actually walk you through those step by step and help, you know, and grow your cash flow. Thanks again for joining us for another episode of the Profit First REI podcast. See you next episode.