Welcome to The Accelerated Investor Podcast with Josh Cantwell, if you love entrepreneurship and investing in real estate then you are in the right place. Josh is the CEO of Freeland Ventures Real Estate Private Equity and has personally invested in well over 500 properties all across the country. He’s also made hundreds of private lender loans and owns over 1,000 units of apartments. Josh is an expert at raising private money for deals and he prides himself on never having had a boss in his entire adult life. Josh and his team also mentor investors and entrepreneurs from all over the world. He doesn’t dream about doing deals, he actually does them and so do his listeners and students. Now sit back, listen, learn, and accelerate your business, your life, and your investing with The Accelerated Investor Podcast.

So, hey, guys, welcome back. Hey, it’s Josh. Welcome back to the Accelerated Investor podcast. I am so excited to be with you. And I just want to say thanks to all of you who have joined our private Facebook group who have shared this anywhere on social media, who’ve left us a rating in a review in YouTube or an iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts, just want to say thanks. It means so much to me, and especially today, because today I am here with you very humbly to tell you a little bit more about the six rules of success that I’ve learned in my last 14 years of running Strategic Real Estate Coach. We founded Strategic Real Estate Coach in February of 2007. In the last 14 years, we have mentored thousands of real estate investors, both active and passive. We’ve mentored thousands of investors and residential real estate and commercial. We’ve mentored thousands of people. 

And my favorite, favorite thing to talk about is raising capital. I love to talk about raising money because as you guys know, funding equals freedom. And we’ve sold over 40 million dollars, 40 some million dollars in mentoring and coaching and products and books and courses and live events. It’s been an amazing journey for us to come in and help so many people along these last 14 years. And I’ve learned six things that I think after 14 years of running this business and investing that I want to give back, that I want to tell you about, that I hope you can incorporate into your journey that help you along, that help you create some more focus, some more clarity, some more expected and see about what you should be getting out of your own, investing in your own life. And here are some of the things, six specific rules of success that I think have allowed me to have success. I’ve definitely had ups. I’ve had downs. I’ve had good years. I’ve had terrible years. We’ve had years. We’ve made well into the seven figures. I had years where I got screwed over by family members. 

So we’ve experienced all the good, the bad and the ugly. And in that fourteen-year journey, I’ve learned six things that I want to pass along to you today. So write these down. Number one is to have absolute clarity of the end result that you are going after. The first rule of success is to have absolute clarity of the end result. What I mean by that is to begin your journey with the end in mind. What exactly are you pursuing? Have a vision for where you’re going. Envision it in your mind when you lay in bed at night, when you are driving in the car, envision yourself in this future place of where you want to go and eventually it will become reality. 

You’ve probably heard the saying before we become what we think about, OK, or if you envision it and think about it all day, it will eventually come to pass. Well, years ago I started doing an exercise with my coaching students. We called absolute clarity of the end result. We called it the ACER Exercise, ACER, and I still live by that every single day. So much so that even this year we’re looking, even though we already own about three thousand units of apartments, we’re looking to add another nine hundred and fifty units of apartments because that represents one point two million dollars of net free cash flow. After all expenses and after all, debt service, it means we’re going to add another hundred thousand dollars a month of spendable net free cash flow. 

So that is my ACER exercise for this year. Right. So that’s having an end in mind, having a vision. And so to have success, you have to know and envision where you’re going. You have to have something that you’re chasing, whether it’s a vision board, whether it’s something you just write down, whether it’s just two words or five words or some sentence, some paragraph, some vision board, something that you’re pursuing, you got to know where you’re going and where you’re fighting to get. So lesson number one, over the last 14 years, that’s helped me succeed and our students succeed is envisioning and having absolute clarity of the end result. The thing that we’re pursuing and going after. 

Number two, the second rule of success is to force your own appreciation. What do I mean by that force your own appreciation, we talk about force appreciation in apartments, force appreciation and real estate force the value of a building to go up. Well, what are you doing to force your own appreciation to make sure that you were worth more that you’re more valuable, that people are looking to partner with you, joint venture with you, do deals with you, that people are seeking your advice that you are becoming more of an authority and more valuable.So over the last 14 years, I’ve forced my own appreciation. I was constantly leveling up, but I was also digging in the books, digging into podcasts, you know, digging into audio books and then executing my plan, which I talked about in step number one. And part of forcing my value was the execution. 

OK, but how are you leveling yourself up through your thoughts, through your mind, through your goals, through your vision? How big is your vision for your own appreciation by constantly leveling up and growing? I’ll tell you a story. When I first got started in real estate, like a lot of people, I started wholesaling. I started wholesaling. I did that from two thousand and really five to about two thousand and ten were wholesaling short sales. I got sick in 2011 when I came back for my surgery, I had this epiphany that I was going to focus on controlling the capital. Funding equaled freedom, and then I pivoted into rehabs and private money and I started controlling a lot more deals, doing bigger deals, making bigger profits by controlling the private capital. And I created multiple streams of income by controlling the money that I leveled up again in the private lending, I built a private equity fund. We were managing about 40 million dollars, also brokering loans. We started to create some scale through doing a rehabs of our own and owning rentals of our own, but also adding in private lending and owning notes, owning mortgages and getting passive income. 

And then covid hit and we already owned apartments. We had already been investing and in apartments. But we had made the decision to go all in on apartments and actually shut down our private lending and shut down our fund. And so we forced our own appreciation about every five years. And it’s interesting, my father passed away back in November 2020. He had suffered an eight-year battle with Parkinson’s and finally went to be with the Lord. And I looked back and my mama told me that she felt like every five years she was married to a different man. I’ll never forget she said that she said that over 20 years ago, I still remember it today and I think about my own marriage every five years, it seems like my wife and I are a different couple. The beginning, it was all about building a new family and having kids. Then the next five years, the kids were getting a little bit older, a little bit more mature. 

And then I got diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And then the last five years, our kids are now pretty independent and they’re learning to grow. And my oldest daughter now is going to be a teenager here very soon. And that’ll probably be a whole new journey of having teenagers. But even in my personal life and in my business life, every five years, everything seemed to change. First five years, we were primarily doing wholesaling. Next five years it was rehabbing in private money. Then the next five years has become apartments and private lending. OK. And each time we leveled up, we forced our own appreciation by leveling up our business, but also leveling up on a personal level. OK, eating healthier, being in better shape, listening to more books, more podcasts, more audio books, joining more masterminds. You know, a much more valuable today than I ever was in the past. From a business perspective, I earn more fees when I speak. I charge more for my coaching program and we do bigger deals in our investment business. 

So that’s the second rule of success is to force your own appreciation. Number three is to invest for the long term. Today, we have our coaching program, which is called the Forever Passive Income Inner Circle Coaching Program. And we teach our investors how to raise capital and build a portfolio of primarily commercial apartments and also residential multifamily. But the only thing I regret in my investment life over the last 14 years is that I didn’t just keep every property I flipped, you know, I needed I needed some income at times. I had to sell properties, had to flip properties. I built businesses around flipping properties, wholesaling properties. 

But at the end of the day, owning real estate is about building long term wealth. I think it was Harvey Pekar who said don’t wait to buy real estate, buy real estate and wait. And you’ll become rich. So invest for the long term, always invest for the long term. So today we’re investing in commercial apartments. There are multiple streams of income, but we’re only investing for the long term. And I’m OK if we make a little bit less money up front because we’re making so much profit equity and cash flow for the long term. 

Number four, don’t listen to negativity, OK? And I’ve got Mom, if you listen to this, I’m going to totally throw you under the bus here. My own mother, we call her Bubba. And this is my mom. And obviously, she’s alone now. My father just passed away. And but I’ll never forget my mom when I bought my first duplex, which I’m actually in the process of finally selling my first duplex in 2001. I bought my first duplex, first house I ever bought. I’m actually about to sell it now. It’s been 20 years because the market is so tight, I’m going to be able to get full market value for it, sell it. I’m just going to take all the cash, throw it in an account for my daughter, for pay for her college, her wedding, to whatever, add to her account that we’re building for her for the long haul. But I’ll never forget again. Number four rule of success is don’t listen to the negativity. I remember in two thousand and one, my own mother saying, Josh, why do you want to buy a rental property? You’ve never owned a home. What makes you think that you’re going to be a successful landlord? I was twenty-four years old. I had just graduated from college about two years. Three years before that. 

I had lived with a friend of mine for a few years, just renting a room at his house. My friend Kevin, some of my college buddies, we partied our faces off and I was finally ready to buy my own place. And my mom thought I should just go buy a single-family home. And I bought a duplex. And today, that duplex, I paid one hundred fifty thousand for it. I bought it all wrong. I bought it with FHA financing. I put three percent down, but I paid full price. The property had a basement foundation issues I had to fix. There was deferred maintenance everywhere that I had to fix. 

And so but today that duplex is now nearly paid off and I’m going to sell it for way more than I bought it for. And I’m going to pay very little taxes on it and have made positive cash flow for the last almost twenty years. And the equity that’s been built up in that building is almost exclusively from the tenants paying me rent and me paying down the mortgage. And that building is pretty much going to pay for my daughter’s college education. 

But not only that, if I had listened to my own mother’s negativity, I wouldn’t own nearly three thousand units of apartments today. I wouldn’t it wouldn’t have a portfolio worth over two hundred twenty-five million dollars. I wouldn’t have sold 40 million dollars’ worth of coaching and products and mentoring in the last 14 years. I wouldn’t have impacted thousands of real estate investors and entrepreneurs if I had listened to my own mother, if I had listened to my mom when my mom said, What makes you think you’re going to be a successful landlord? What makes you think you’re going to be successful at owning a home? What makes you think that you’re going to be successful at real estate? If I had listened to my own mother. I would never have impacted thousands of people, I wouldn’t have this podcast, I wouldn’t own these apartments, you know, all these things that we’ve done so well. So number four, don’t listen to the negativity. If you have a dream, if you have a vision, if you know where you want to go, just go. 

Just go. Which means we need a number five. Nothing beats execution number five. Nothing beats execution. You can buy the property at the wrong price. You can pay too much. You can you can put too much money into it. You can buy in the wrong area. But if you execute and you put the work into it, you do the work every single day, you will be successful. 

The number five rule of success is nothing beats execution. OK, you’ve got to put in the work. So let’s say you don’t have twenty four hours. Everybody has twenty-four hours in a day. Let’s say you sleep for seven hours a day because some people sleep for five, six, four, eight. OK, I sleep about seven hours a day. I go to sleep around eleven, eleven thirty. Get up around five, five between five thirty and six when my kids go to school. 

And so twenty four hours a day. Seven, seven hours. I’m sleeping now because of covid. Everybody’s working from home so there’s no commute. I don’t have to commute anywhere. Matter of fact I get up, I take my kids to school every day and then I go right to the gym and by about eight thirty, nine o’clock I’ve spent time with my kids, have engaged with my kids in the car. I’ve learned about their day. I’ve fed them a healthy breakfast. I’ve talked to them about their day. I’ve talked to them about their sports, supported them, make them feel like they’re important. The radio shut it off. I’ve gotten to the gym I worked out and now I’ve got the rest of the day to execute. Right. So seven hours of sleep, one hour to get ready for school, one hour in the gym. I’ve got still fifteen hours in the day to execute, to work, to get work done around the house, to spend time with my wife. 

But nothing beats execution. So I watch almost no television. And if I do watch TV, it’s normally just SportsCenter while I’m working out. OK, nothing beats putting in the work. OK, finally, number six, the number six rule of success is to give back, give back every you don’t have to wait 14 years to be successful, to give back. 

What I want to encourage you to do is this and this is something that took me a long time to learn and be very much more mature and business is that it’s much easier to give on a monthly basis. Then to give one time per year at Christmas time or at the holidays. So if you’re going to give back whether it’s through time, talent or treasure, give back every single month. So if you can give back your time, go work at a soup kitchen, go speak at a high school, go speak at a college volunteer, give some of your time. Right, give back some of your talent, right, if you’re in real estate, you’re a successful developer, wholesaler, flipper, owner of apartments, go spend time at a Habitat for Humanity, do it on a monthly basis, a few hours here and there, a few hours on a Friday afternoon. 

And treasure, it’s easier to give a little bit every month, a few hundred bucks here, a few thousand bucks there than to say, OK, I’m going to save up all this money and I’m going to make a twenty-thousand-dollar donation to this college or high school or charity of your choice. I just find it’s much easier to donate even on a weekly basis. You take cash flow from your apartments, your rentals, your flip’s, whatever business you have and say, OK, I’m going to donate a hundred bucks here. I donate five hundred bucks there. I’m going to donate 50 bucks here, 50 bucks here. One hundred bucks there. Keep track of it at the end of the year. It’s thousands or tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars, whatever that is. And it’s so much easier to give back, which is rule number six give back, but it’s so much easier to do it on a monthly basis. Give back, give back time, talent and treasure, give back. 

It doesn’t have to be all about money. Matter of fact, your time and your talent is worth a lot more than any monetary donation that you can make. So there you have it, guys, the six rules of success on the 14 year anniversary of starting my education company, StrategicRealEstateCoach.com, six rules of success that I’ve learned over the last 14 years. Number one have absolute clarity of the end result that you’re pursuing. Have a vision. Number two, force your own appreciation. Number three, invest for the long term. Number four, don’t listen to the negativity. Number five, nothing beats execution. And number six, give back. Thank you so much for the opportunity to share this, I can’t tell you how privileged and honored I am to always be coming into your ears, your business and help you along your journey of being a successful entrepreneur and real estate investor. 

If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, go back into YouTube or iTunes, where you get your podcasts and videos, leave us a rating and a review, especially on our 14-year anniversary. It would mean so much to me if you would leave us those ratings and reviews and some sort of comments. Let us know how we’ve impacted you over the last 14 years. And maybe you’ve only been a subscriber of ours for three months or six months or a couple of weeks. Let us know if we’ve had an impact on you, OK? And if it makes sense. Right. And you’re looking to have one of us, myself and my team, help you along in your journey, go visit us at Strategic Real Estate Coach or go visit us at JoshCantwellCoaching.com, apply for coaching there.

And I would love to add to add you to our students who have had massive success investing in real estate, both residential and commercial apartments, raising capital. I absolutely love it. Coaching is in my DNA. So thank you for the opportunity to share the six rules of success on our 14 year anniversary in business. We’ll see you next time. Take care.

You’ve been listening to Josh Cantwell and the Accelerated Investor Podcast. Leave a comment on our iTunes channel and let us know what you want to learn next, or who you’d like Josh to interview. While you’re there, give us some five-star rating and make sure to subscribe so you can be the first to hear newepisodes. Follow Josh Cantwell and his companies, the Strategic Real Estate Coach and Freeland Ventures on all social media platforms now and stay up todate on new training and investment opportunities to start your journey towardthe lifestyle you’ve always dreamed of. Apply for coaching at JoshCantwellCoaching.com.