Money Can’t Buy Happiness, but It Can Buy Freedom: Financial Strategies With Mitch Stephen

Episode 99: Money Can’t Buy Happiness, but It Can Buy Freedom: Financial Strategies with Mitch Stephen

The Profit First REI Podcast

July 28, 2022

David Richter

Summary:

Mitch Stephen is a self-made investor, educator, and award-winning author of the book MY LIFE & 1,000 HOUSES. He likes to support his students in finding financial freedom through real estate. In this interview, discover how he has changed communities, inspired lives and helped over 1,000 families stop renting and start owning houses.

Key Takeaways:

[1:30] What led him to financial freedom and the writing of his best-selling book?

[7:30] His journey from his first real estate deal to doing a thousand houses

[16:33]  Mitch’s formula to establish an OFV (Owner Finance Value)

[23:22] What early lessons did he learn about money and what does he think about money today?

[28:04] Financial freedom happens when your wants and needs are exceeded by your cash flow.

Quotes:

[14:47] “Every business that you start will take everything you have for two years.”

[24:25] “Just the knowledge that you have a lot of money can get you into predicaments.”

Links:

1000 Houses Website-https://1000houses.com/ 

Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz-https://www.amazon.com/Psycho-Cybernetics-Updated-Expanded-Maxwell-Maltz/dp/0399176136 

Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill-https://www.amazon.com/Think-Grow-Rich-Landmark-Bestseller/dp/1585424331 

The Richest Man in Babylon by George Samuel Clason-https://www.amazon.com/Richest-Man-Babylon-George-Clason/dp/1505339111 

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 

Transcipt:

Mitch Stephen:

It’s a win or win bigger really. Right. The worst thing that happens is if I pay you on time, best thing that would happen to you is if you got my houses. But if you’re thinking about getting my houses, don’t hold your breath because no one has ever gotten one in my career, cuz I don’t miss. I never miss. There you go. I’ve never missed so far. Knock on wood.

Speaker 2:

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 with your host David Richter, we have special guest Mitch Steven, if you have not heard of him, you’ve probably live, are living under a rock. Cause I feel like I see his books everywhere. I see him everywhere. So he wrote my life in a thousand houses, which is an incredible title. I mean it explains it right there. You can already know he is an expert just from that title. It came out in 2008, but he’s written several other books from there too. And he’s written in a series there, my life in a thousand houses failing forward to financial freedom, which is an autobiographical story about how Mitch as a young entrepreneur morphed into a professional real estate investor with over a thousand houses transactions to his credit, then he wrote his second book. My life in a thousand houses, 200, there it is 200 ways to find bargain properties.

Then that book was written to answer the most popular question. How do you consistently find so many great deals? And then he’s also written a third one, my life in a thousand houses, the art of owner financing, which that one’s art of private lending. That’s his newest one. There it is the art of owner financing and he just released his newest one. The art of private lending here in September of 2021. So Mitch man, this is amazing. You’ve written books, you’ve done this stuff. So like tell us about that path to financial freedom. What was your greatest challenges? Like just tell us about the, my life in a thousand houses, writing the books and just your journey so far. Well, where do you start? First? We start out with, you know, I graduated high school around 18 years old and I had a high school degree.

Mitch Stephen:

I didn’t go to college. I had a glass ceiling and I was 34, but figure I, before I figured out how to find my butt with both hands. I mean I not to stop for lack of trying though I had tried everything. I tried everything. A matter of fact, I have a stack of business cards about this tall and you know, people say, well, how’d you find real estate? And I like to tell ’em it was the last thing left. If you know, I was gonna shoot myself if this didn’t work, cuz there were anything else to try. So I stumbled into it. Read some books by Robert Allen. You know, I was really getting kind of disgruntled with my financial status and I, I started reading and trying to catch up, you know, it wasn’t, it was 19, it was in the 1990s, early nineties, late eighties.

Mitch Stephen:

So I, you know, there wasn’t all this podcast in YouTube and books on tape and all this stuff. It wasn’t like that. And so I just had to go to the paperback books and start reading and I discovered a guy named Robert Allen who had the audacity to suggest that I could get rich in real estate with no money. And I thought, well, that’s really good because if being broke is a requirement, I can buy this whole town. <Laugh> like tomorrow I was so broke and just started opening up my mind reading books like psycho cybernetics, you know how this brain of ours works think and grow rich, accidental, read didn’t even know what it was, had no idea handed to me, but my mother who bought it for a dollar at a, you know, a garage sale and she didn’t have any idea <laugh> it was just a book.

Mitch Stephen:

And I started reading it there. I, I, I, I kind of came to the conclusion that I was kind of down on myself because I didn’t have a college degree and all my friends had college degrees and they were making the 50, $60,000 at a time, which was a lot of money back then to me and to them. And you know, then I learned in that book that some of the wealthiest men in the world didn’t even finish school at all or didn’t even go, you know what I mean? Like mm-hmm <affirmative> they came right out of the fields and started their own businesses and, and became some of the wealthiest men in the world. And that gave me great hope. Richest man and Babylon augment Dino know. So just, just, just a lot of self-help books that all had their own impact on me, you know?

Mitch Stephen:

And I, they were coming kind of one after another and they were kind of all fitting together. They were all different, but they were fitting together and I was starting to sort out why things weren’t working for me. I made some changes and you know, didn’t change overnight, but I started applying things I read and started to, to come around, you know, mm-hmm <affirmative> so then I, I bought a, I bought my first nothing down deal on accident, pretty much sorta. And used it with credit negotiated from the Strat, from, from the place that I was, which was broke. So I had to stretch, I had to put together a plan that wouldn’t work with any money. I bought a fourplex, told him, I, I couldn’t give him any money down because I had to put all this money into the rehab and the fourplex.

Mitch Stephen:

And I, and I couldn’t make payments for a year because I was having to put all this money into this fourplex. I was having to really spend a ton of money on this. And then when it came time and he said, yes, which I almost fell outta my chair. I asked for what I could do. And he, he said, yes. And then I went and got credit cards at the time, you could get 0%, you know, you still can 0% introductory offer credit cards. And I would get 10, 15,000 cash advances off these cards. And I would, I finished the rehab for like 30,000. Hmm. And then I didn’t have, I finished the rehab in like 30, 40 days. And then I rented it all out for about $5,000 a month, total. And then I didn’t have any payments for another 11, you know, 10 or 11 months.

Mitch Stephen:

So yeah. I just collected the money and sent it to the credit card within a year. I paid off all my remodeling debt and I had this house and I could start making the payment now. And yeah. And that was my first nothing down deal. And the cool thing about, you know, you can read these concepts all you want to yep. There’s a difference in reading them and then owning them in your heart. Hmm. Yes. And when that one deal got consummated and done, I now own the concept. Yeah. I owned it. I believed in it. You know, it wasn’t like, yeah, I read it, but that’s never happens to me or I read it and some people can do it, but I can’t do it once I did that one, the whole floodgates opened and it was like, damn, I can buy the whole town.

David Richter:

<Laugh> that’s awesome. Yeah. I love that. Going from the mindset and reading and then owning that in your heart, cuz those are some great book, you know, I’ve read a lot of those books that you mentioned and it is it’s, it’s going from actually reading it to owning it in your heart, to doing, you know, to taking those actions. So I love that. So then tell about, tell us a little bit about your journey. Okay. From that first deal, then you’re doing a thousand houses. Like how long did it take you to get there? What did you know, like what are the different, did you do different exit strategies besides, you know, owner finance fix and flip, you know, like what all did you do?

Mitch Stephen:

I was buying and renting and then, then, you know, I would, someone would come and make me an offer on the place that I couldn’t resist and I would sell it. So it was kind of like a fix and flip or yep. Fix and load and flip. But I really went straight into, I didn’t wholesale. I went straight into because I, once I saw that on the credit cards, you know, in 1996 in San Antonio, Texas, the Skyline’s right here behind me in 1996 houses in the lesser part of town, which was you know, Southwest east, you could buy ’em for $8,000. Oh wow. $10,000. $15,000. Yeah. $18,000 all day long, a 25 to $35,000 house was an expensive house in a lesser neighborhood, you know, like really nice. And so I caught onto the idea that you could you know, and Robert Allen had opened my mind to get out of the box, quit thinking like everybody else.

Mitch Stephen:

And from that first experience with the credit cards in the rehab, I went and I went and applied for 75 credit cards in two weeks and I picked up like 45 credit cards that all back then back then, it’s not that way today. But back then, if you had good credit, they just looked at your credit score. If you were good, they sent you the full card with all the cash, advanced limits, everything. There was you, you like, like a millionaire, didn’t get a better card than you. You know what I mean? Right. And, and so I had 45 credit cards with about $300,000 worth of cash advance available limits on ’em. You know what I mean? Yeah. So I bought my first hundred houses on credit cards. Wow. And you know, I had about $250,000 worth of credit card debt at one point, but I had $500,000 worth of free and clear houses, you know?

Mitch Stephen:

Yeah. Cause I had fixed them up and they were all worth, you know, so that’s how I got started. I was, I was selling my houses with owner financing and then selling the note to solve the credit card problem. But then, you know, I thought if I could solve this money problem, if I could get 10 or 15 year money, I could hold these notes. You know, as long as the money was ratable, you know, I could wrap the mortgage. I could borrow money from a private lender, like 50,000 in the first position to buy the house. And then I could sell the house for a hundred thousand, with 10,000 down and carry the note 90,000 for 30 years, no balloon at 10%. And I could just collect this guy’s payment and make my payment for 15 years. And then the next 15 years I’d just collect the payment cuz I wouldn’t have a payment anymore.

Mitch Stephen:

Yeah. And I set out on that path and that was 2,500 houses ago. Wow. I bought a house about, I, I didn’t know this till I did the math. I, I wasn’t counting, but I had an event happen and someone wanted to Sue me over something. And I knew I had it in writing. I know this guy was an idiot just going after thinking I was gonna scare me. And I knew, but no one could go to the file to the storage place to get the file, to pull out the piece of paper that I knew that I had. So I said, I’m gonna go get it myself. I can’t stand it. You know, I’m I gotta get my hands on this piece of paper cuz this guy’s like threatening me and it ain’t right. And, and, and he’s wrong. And so I went and got it.

Mitch Stephen:

When I opened up the, the door to my, to my unit, I was like, holy cow. My first thought was, I’m never gonna find this one piece of paper in all these boxes. But luckily they were all labeled by the year, by the month by the date, man, I went right to it and got it. But then I was so in, I was so overwhelmed with how many totes of files there were from the stealing to the floor everywhere. I said, someone go down there and count every single file. Take the day, count every single file. I want to know how many houses is there. I, then I just did the math. I knew how long I’d been in business. Like I started in March of 1996 and I knew how long I’d been in business. I did the math turns out. I’ve bought a house every four to five days for over two decades.

Mitch Stephen:

Wow. Huh? That’s incredible. Yeah. But all of it, you know, it was before this time of blogs and podcasts. I mean, you guys should be able to do it much faster. You young people out there, you have your, you have all these resources at your fingertips. Now granted tit for tat though mine was a little easier. I could find houses easy. I getting the classified and find a deal by, by 12 o’clock noon. I could have a perfectly good deal. No matter what day anytime I wanted, I could today. It’s not like that little more competition, but you guys got access to education like nobody’s business. Yeah. And that’s no kidding. Which and technology like nobody’s business. Yeah. We were doing shit on stone tablets. <Laugh> it in? Chiseling it in. Yeah. Oh man. That’s great. So speaking of that, because that was awesome. And if you’re listening right now, there is no excuse.

David Richter:

Right now you can find someone, you could find the deals, you can find the connections for what you need, which Mitch has some of those. So you started other businesses to support your real estate investing business…

Mitch Stephen:

Not to support it. Not to not to support it. I as I’m going down the, the track doing my real estate, there were add on businesses or, or tangent businesses that would fit in. Good with what I did. Like for example, if you’re, if your business is making trees into boards, right? Yep. You’re gonna be, you’re gonna be standing next to a tall, tall pile of saw dust pretty soon. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> what do you do with the saw dust? Well, you can pay to haul it off or you can figure out how to make a product out of it. Like if you mix it up with poison and put it in a bag, you know, it could go around people’s houses and be a, be a, like a barrier for insects or, or you could glue it together and make it into boards or you could compress it and make it into pencils.

Mitch Stephen:

I don’t know. But you know what I mean? So that’s what happened. Was there were these things coming outta my exhaust pipe that were half the battle for a business. Yeah. So I would find someone who was an expert in that business, get them to leave their company yeah. And start their own. And I would provide this one valuable half and they would be the person in the chair every day in operations and sales and making it work. And I was just providing the, the, whatever, the residual that was coming outta my tailpipe. Awesome. And that would be a business. Yeah. The trick was not to try to me be the business owner. I go find a guy that was a professional guy. Make a professional at making saw dust into boards. Yes. So I didn’t have to learn it or the curve or anything.

Mitch Stephen:

I just say let’s be partners. I’ll bring the saw dust. Hmm. You know? Yeah. That’s awesome. That’s so, so great. Because so many people think they need to own all these businesses and run all these businesses and then they run themselves right into the ground because they don’t have those people that can help every, every business that you start will take everything you have for two years. Oh yeah. You’ll have to neglect your other businesses and go to, to, you know, to get it off just to get it down the runway and get enough air under its wings to go up. So what good does it do to start another business? If you’re gonna have to leave the business, that’s making all your money, right. So how you floor that is go own half of the business or 60% of the business or 40% of the business and, and give it to this other guy that already knows this business and can teach you how this saw dust is gonna be put into this board.

David Richter:

Yep. No, I love that. It’s always about that mutual value that you can bring. And once, you know, you have that value and you’re looking for that, someone, it becomes a lot easier to be able to say here, this is what we have. Let’s do this together. You and then yeah. You teach me, I’ll be able to provide you what you need. I, I absolutely love that you do part a I’ll do part B will split. Yeah. You know, now once he says yes to shakes hands, say, good, I gotta get over here and start cutting trees. Cuz I gotta start making saw dusts. I can’t leave the tree place. You know what I mean? Cause then there won’t be any saw dust. Yeah. I love it. So let’s, let’s shift gears just a little bit here. So you’ve written these books, which are amazing books.

And then you came out with a new one, this just this year, another one, a fourth book, the art of private lending. So a lot of these other ones had to deal with lead gen or finding properties, failing forward to financial freedom. So why one about the art of private lending. Okay. So here’s a typical scenario in my business. Yeah. I figure out what the rents are in the neighborhood and then I use this rent formula to establish ANV. I think I coined that the O V there’s the ARV and the Mayo, the MOA and all mm-hmm <affirmative> but you know what I mean? I mean Mao, whatever Mayo. Yeah. I think, I think I coined I’m not, I’m pretty sure I coined it. O V the owner financed value it’s based on the rent in the theory is if you can take a renter paying 1200 a month and give him a house payment, a mortgage at 1200 a month, he’d rather live in your house.

Mitch Stephen:

Yeah. The separator being a down payment. Right? Yep. So, so I’d find out that this house is worth a hundred thousand dollars. So I go into negotiate now and let’s say I pick it up for 50 and that’s the repairs, the closing costs to say I’m all in at 50, don’t worry about the numbers so much as the theory here. So I’m in at 50 all in and I borrow the whole 50, a hundred percent from a private lender at eight, 8% for 15 years. And I give ’em a first lean on my house. So they’re loaning me 50,000 on a hundred thousand dollars house. That’s a pretty good loan, I would think. Yeah. For them, you know, they’re pretty protected, very protected. Yeah. So I got my payment. It’s like three 50. Then I go sell the house for a hundred thousand, with 10,000 down.

Mitch Stephen:

And I carry the 90,000 for 30 years at 10%, no balloon just straight 30. Cuz my people can’t do balloons. They wouldn’t be dealing with me if they were ever gonna be able to get a loan. Right. They’re flawed when I met ’em and they’re gonna be flawed five and six and eight years from now, just because you put a balloon in there, then I’m gonna fix ’em they’re still, and then you’re gonna go to court and you’re gonna, or you’re gonna have to take the house away from him. It was a crummy deal. So I just said 30 year fixed, make your payments till it’s all done. So here I am, I owe three 50, I’m collecting eight 50 that’s $500 spread. And I got paid 10 grand to create that spread because the down payment’s mine because I don’t have any money in the house.

Mitch Stephen:

So when they gimme 10 grand down my money and so I needed, the problem is, is I need 10 and 15 year money underneath from my private lender. So I had to go out and educate people that why this was a good loan. Why loan in 60,000 on a hundred thousand dollars house? Or how, why loan in 50,000 on a hundred? Why that’s a good deal? How are you protected? So I wrote the book really to help raise private money. What happened was one of those residual businesses. I raised so much private money that I couldn’t find enough deals to spend it. Hmm. And my personal theory is just because you have access to a lot of money doesn’t mean that you go out and start making bullshit crappy deals, right? Yeah. So I stayed with the underwriting that had kept me successful all these years.

Mitch Stephen:

And even though I had excess funds that I was trying to spend, but I couldn’t find it. You know, if I only found 93 houses that year, I only found 93. Yeah. If I found 110, I found 110, but I never forced my, my, my underwriting guidelines. They were always the same. Yeah. So in order to keep the people from leaving me that I couldn’t spend their money, I had to form a hard money loan business. So I went and partners with a guy who was 15 years CPA managing partners of Cooper’s library in Austin. And he left his job because they were killing him a hundred hours a week. Hm mm-hmm <affirmative> and he’d had enough. And he came over here and we started this hard money loan business. And so I would get my people’s money out in six month increments or a year increments, short term.

Mitch Stephen:

So that as it, as they paid me off, if I needed the money, I could get it out. But it spread out the time that I needed to use this money. And these are the guidelines that I used. This is how I stayed since 2005, doing hard money loans to my, basically my competitors because they found a deal before I did. Yeah. Unfortunately, but they didn’t, you know, so, so if I can’t find the house that they found, I’ll loan them the money and I’ll make money off of ’em from loaning them the money. And so I got all my excess funds out and I kept my private lenders money busy, whether I could spend it or I loaned it out. And, and the reason I was loaning it against the product that I wish I had bought for the amount that was loaning. So if they ever didn’t pay my private lender, didn’t have to worry whether the loan was going good or bad because I would go take the house, cuz I know what to do with houses at that price.

Mitch Stephen:

Right. And it was a perfect business. So I’m teaching people how to loan money and make 14, 15, 16, 18%. But if you’re gonna make that kind of return, you’re gonna have to roll up your sleeves and go to work. You’re gonna have to find these people. You’re gonna have to do the appraisals. You’re gonna have to, you know, make all these big decisions. Or this is where the loan, your money to Mitch Steven comes in, or you can keep playing golf. And if you just wanna make a very good eight or nine or 10% and be passive, you can loan your money than me or someone like David and, and not have to go to work. You can still Enjoy enjoy your retirement. And so some people read this book and go loan their money themselves and make extraordinary rates of return. And other people go, I’m done working.

Mitch Stephen:

This man knows what he’s talking about. Let’s just give it to him. Hmm. And so that’s why I wrote the book was to help my private lenders, get their arms around why they should stop letting those yayhoos over in, in wall street gamble with their money. Right. And give them a different choice. Besides 1% CDs in the, at the bank, you know, I’m the perfect middle ground with a great piece of collateral. You either get, you either get, or you get, you either get paid back your 50 grand or you get, get a hundred thousand dollars house. Yeah. It’s a, win-win, it’s a win or win bigger really. Right. The worst thing that happens is if I pay you on time, best thing that would happens to you is if you got my houses. But if you’re thinking about getting my houses, don’t hold your breath because no one has ever gotten one in my career. Cuz I don’t miss. I never miss <laugh>.

David Richter:

There you go. I’ve never missed so far. Knock on wood, knock on wood. There you go. Yeah. And that’s, if you’re listening to this as real estate investor, you always have to be thinking what’s in it for them. What’s in it for that private lender. And I loved what he said there. If you wanna keep playing golf and being passive and not have to go out there, that’s, you know, that’s what this can do for them. So absolutely love that need to pick up that book. So that’s the art of private lending. It’s my life and a thousand houses, the art of private lending there. And then also I just have a couple last questions here. So since this Profit First REI podcast, let me just ask a general question about money in general. Yeah. I’m really interested. You can ask me as many as you want. So what early lessons did you learn about money and how does that compare to what you think about money today?

Mitch Stephen:

The biggest lesson I ever learned is that money, money doesn’t it’s cliche money doesn’t make you happy. It solves a lot of problems. And if you don’t have any money, then you need to get some. But at some point it, it outruns its usefulness. I don’t want a bigger house. I don’t want a bigger car. I don’t need a jet. You know, if you gave me another million dollars right now, it ain’t gonna change anything I’m doing. Yeah. Nothing. so actually having a lot of money can start to cause more problems than than you would ever expect. People expecting you to pay people, expecting you to give ’em a loan people, you know, holding you responsible for things that, that ain’t your problem, you know? Like, so you have to be very careful when you make a lot of money that that’s where you don’t wanna go bragging about your money because when it can money can get you into predicaments or just the knowledge that you have a lot of money can get you in predicaments.

Mitch Stephen:

People will come ask you for things that they really have no right to ask you for it and really put you on a spot. You know? No, that’s great. I didn’t have a lot of that, but I’ve seen it. Yeah. And I had a little bit of it, but not, I didn’t have a lot of that, but I saw it ruin a lot of people and ruin a lot of families. 

David Richter: Well then another question, just real quick, what lessons about money? Do you wanna pass on to the next generation of real estate investors coming up? Well, I, the biggest thing I see right now, the biggest problem and, and it’s glaring and I’m sure you’ll agree with me. These guys are going out here and they’re wholesaling fixing and flipping and buying notes and selling notes, you know, but they’re selling everything. It’s about cash flow, brothers and sisters.

Mitch Stephen:

<Laugh>, you know, what you got is a job and maybe you’re making really good money and it, you need to take the money that you’re making and buy into a forever plan. Like I do boat and mini storages or storage is any kind of storage, semi truck storage parking household storage boats, where they back in on dry land, into my little storage unit, close the doors and go home covered parking, open parking it’s about cash flow. You know, I took all the money I made whenever I had extra money. I bought a mom and pop storage facility or I added onto the one I had where I bought a new one. Finally, in my later years I just finished building a 2.8 million right out of the ground brand new storage place. Okay. Because the goal was to flip and wholesale and do my note thing.

Mitch Stephen:

Note, the notes are temporary. You could have a thousand notes in, in fi in, in eight years, you won’t have a thousand notes. They’ll have paid you off. So you have to buy into something that you decide when it ends a forever strategy, a forever cash strategy. So, you know, today I have a 1300 people that owe me a hundred bucks a month and I don’t owe any payments. Hmm. Yeah. You know, 130,000 a month. I mean that doesn’t make me the richest guy on the planet and there somebody across the street can wipe their backside with my financial. But how many of you out there would like to have $130,000 monthly cash flow? Of course you’re gonna have to pay some insurance and some property taxes and a broken light bulb and fix the electronic gate and have the large, the yards mode and some maintenance and stuff, but still it’s a great life.

Mitch Stephen:

Yeah. And I don’t have to do any of this if I don’t want to. Which makes it all the more fun, cuz this is all just extra credit…/So what I’m saying is you need, what I see is the investors out there start looking at your strategy. Where’s the one that’s gonna work you into passivity or which where’s the one that’s gonna set you free. Yeah. The flipping houses and wholesale and houses is not a, a free thing. Unless you learn how to systematize it, where you operate, where you operate it from over here, mm-hmm <affirmative>, you know, from 10,000 feet looking down on it all those business can be, all those businesses can be transitioned and set up. Yeah. So that you run them. Not even like the CFO or the CEO, you run them like the owner, the CEO still has a job.

Mitch Stephen:

Yeah. You wanna be an owner who has a CEO that reports to you and tells you what’s going on every week or months or whatever, while you’re in Belize. <Laugh> right. Or whatever. That’s the whole goal of money for me, it took me a while to figure out what I wanted money for. I read the definition one time. It said financial freedom happens when you’re wants and needs are exceeded by your cash flow. Well, actually it’s said by your passive income, I don’t believe in anything’s really passive. So I changed it to cash flow. Yeah. Financial freedom happens when your wants and your needs are exceeded by your cash flow. That’s what I needed money for. Boom. I got it now. So since I, since my mid thirties, when I finally got that concept, everything I ever did was, was to create my cash flow.

Mitch Stephen:

The big deposit in the, in the bank account will solve itself. If I create enough money coming in every month on a regular basis, whether I get out of bed or not. Hmm. And that’s what money is really for is to buy your freedom.

David Richter: 

That’s awesome. I love that. I love, love that. Love the mentality, love that we need to make sure that we are passing that on and too, as well, just knowing that you need that cash flow in order to get to where you want to be. You have to have that in your business and in your life. And I love what you said. You wanna be the owner with CEOs under you. You don’t wanna be the CEO. You don’t wanna have that name badge. You wanna be that owner that has the CEOs and the CFOs and most people on your team. So that’s what you’re working towards in a business. 

Mitch Stephen:

And, and the other thing is I learned about money is like, it’s not enough. When you turn, when you get in your fifties and your sixties, there has to be a bigger or a higher reason to stay working and it’s to help other people now, or to change lives for people or to educate young investors, how to stay outta trouble and get cash flow. I need that emotional reward more, more now than I need money. I have money. I solved the money problem. Now I need to be relative. I need to be relative. And I need to make a difference. I need to feel like I make a difference. Yeah. And that’s why I’m still coaching. A lot of people say, you’re so rich, why are you coaching? I need, I, I’m not done living.

Mitch Stephen:

And I can’t just sit around and play golf 24 hours a day. I don’t even play golf, but say hunting or whatever you, if, if you take your hobbies and do ’em all day long, they become, you hate ’em right. You know, sounds like a job. I gotta go do something that’s rewarding. And you know, Dale Ramsey, they do the primal screen when people get debt free. Yeah. Dale Ramsey would hate me. I bought my first a hundred houses on credit cards. He would absolutely hate me, but he has a place and he’s speaking to a certain person and I get it. And it’s great. We ring the bell around here at my office. When someone calls me and says, Mitch, I’ve been with you for six months. I’ve been studying all your stuff. And today I acquired enough the, the final piece of enough cash flow to tell my boss that I no longer need his services.

Mitch Stephen:

We ring the bell. When people fire their boss around here, that’s what turns me on. I don’t know why Dave Ramsey gets turned on. When people get debt free. I get turned on when people have enough cash flow that they don’t have to have a job. And you know why that’s important because the day you don’t have to have a job is the day that you just freed up about 2,600 hours to become who you are supposed to be and be how you’re supposed to be and become the expert or live whatever life it is that you are meant to live. Yeah. And that 2,600 hours that you were given to someone else and that’s being wealthy can be at a very, I mean, being financially free can happen at a very, very, very modest level. I only needed $3,500 a month to be financially free and quit my boss and get my hands on 2,600 extra hours a year so that I could become wealthy if it was in the cards for me, if I wanted to be, I did want to be wealthy.

Mitch Stephen:

And so I, I went after it with that 2,600 hours that I had freed up. Now I started concentrating on real wealth. Then I had the idea about cash flow and generational wealth instead of just putting a bunch in the bank and then watching it go down and then putting some more in the bank and watching it go down. Yeah. I just wanted to buy all this stuff, put it in my name and watch the, the checks come in every month forever, you know? Yeah. And, and so I have to have a higher reason and that’s why I coach awesome. I don’t take a lot of people. I’m not a Millhouse, right. One on one. Maybe I take 12 people a year and we’ll have an hour conversation before I decide to even take you. Yeah. Because if I don’t think you’re gonna get back to $25,000 that you’re paying me or I don’t think your market’s right.

Mitch Stephen:

Or I don’t think you’re ready yet or whatever, we’ll, I’ll defer you to something else. But, but you, but if I take you, it’s because a you have a game, we already know that. And B I think I can up your game at least $25,000 a year, if not 25,000 a month. Yeah. You know, so, and that makes me relative. 

David Richter:

Awesome. No, I love that. And that’s, that’s what you need. You need someone like that in your corner. And I love that you do that. And I love what you said. I haven’t stopped the living just because I don’t need the money. Doesn’t mean I don’t wanna give back and I don’t wanna live. So that, that my very last question is you provided a ton of value for the listeners here. How do they learn about your coaching? Where do they go? How do you get more information on Mitch, Steven and his books and coaching and everything.

Mitch Stephen:

Yeah. You know, if you go to 1000houses.com, 1 0, 0, 0 houses.com, you can get over there and get sick of me. There’s so much, I mean, over there, you won’t even believe it. I got 500 podcasts. I just finished my 500th podcast that I interviewed smart people. I, I just finished my hundred and 80th YouTube, 10 minute segment on everything random or important and creative, real estate investing that I know I picked 180 topics and talk talked on ’em for 10 minutes. I mean, there’s a whole education right there. Yep. Then I got the books and if you wanna learn about coaching, I got an online course. I got a weekly Q and a call. And then I got a one on one thing. I, yeah. We’ll figure out where you fit, what you can afford or what you’re ready for. And I’ll never push you beyond where I think you’re ready.

Mitch Stephen:

And I, and I’m not in it just for your money. If I take your 25 grand to be a one on one student it’s because I think I can take you to the super bowl. Yeah. I don’t need to play for no losers. I don’t need to sign up. I don’t need to do this. So I’m not, I’m not gonna get on a losing team. There’s no need for it. If you’re not ready or I don’t think I can help you at that expense, $25,000, a decent amount of money, you know, we’ll move you down to the Q and a call for $3,500 a a year, or we’ll get you in the course or whatever, you know, we’ll figure out some place you can start from yeah. Make a deal or two and make the house pay for the rest of this education. Awesome. Make the house pay.

David Richter:

I love it. So this is a guy who’s doing it. This is a guy who does bought a house every four or five days for the last two decades. So this is not just someone who just bought their first house last year, and now has a course in a, in a coaching program. So go to a thousand houses.com. That’s the actual numerical 1000 houses.com. And then we’ll make sure to put that in the show notes, Mitch, it has been incredible to have you on the podcast. I think you’ve provide a ton of value. Thank you so much for being on. And if you wanna connect with them, make sure to go to that site, man. 

Thank you, David. I appreciate it. I always like one of the reasons I do these shows is to be around smart people and go getters and movers and shakers.

Mitch Stephen:

I, I, you know, I like to interview them and I, and I like to return the favor, get on their podcast, you know, you know, do the trade so that we reach each other audiences and maybe help somebody find their niche. Yeah. You know, if real, estate’s your niche, then, you know, there’s some people to talk to about it. If it may, if you find out it’s not, not your niche, don’t give up. There’s a niche out there for everybody. Just keep going, mark this one off the list and go to the next thing. Awesome. And find yourself, you know? Yep. Find where you belong and get that damn 2,600 hours on your side. Right. Buy that back. Buy that time back. It’s all about time. 

David Richter:

Yeah. Awesome. Thanks Mitch. 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 in 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. 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/apply, or just go right to simpleCFO.com. And there’s an applied 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.