Leaving Your Corporate America Job To Live Your Dreams

PTP 11 | Leaving Corporate America

PTP 11 | Leaving Corporate America

 

We can only take so much from the 9-to-5 grind of corporate life. Humans as we are, we long to live a life fulfilling our dreams and self-actualize. But how do you move out of that daily working cycle into a happier and healthier life? In this episode, learn from Dan Zitofsky and co-host Logan Hassinger on what it takes to reach your goals and live your dreams. Hear from Logan as he reached his goal of leaving his corporate America job and breaking free of the Golden Handcuffs for something so much better. This is an episode you won’t want to miss.

Listen to the podcast here:

Leaving Your Corporate America Job To Live Your Dreams

A lot of things have happened, and we’ve taken a few weeks off hiatus. We’ll talk about a reason why there’s some good stuff that has happened in Logan’s life here. I’m blessed that you have given us your time to read. We love that we could put some stuff out there to help you out on your journey to creating that passive prosperous lifestyle. If you like what you read, share this out with at least five friends. We’re not doing anything, not running ads, not making any money on this. It’s just so we can bring value to you. To do that, you’ve got to share it out there. If you like us, give us that five-star review, leave comments. If you don’t like us, let us know what it is that you don’t like about us. We’ll be glad to look at it and we’ll move on.

We’re going to talk about being intentional with dealing with asset managers, dealing with sellers and how to build a business because that’s what I see a lot in the industry. I see a lot of people that are floundering out there. They don’t know how to build that business where asset managers come to you. Let’s first talk about some good stuff that’s happened in your life, where you’re at and then we’ll get into it.

The day finally came to where I got to fire myself at work. That was a good day. I’d have done it in 2020 but mentally, I wasn’t ready. Talking with you and multiple people that I’ve looked up to from mentors and other friends that are working full-time in their businesses, it got to a point where it’s either now or never. Things happen. I put the notice on the 12th and that was it. Now I’ve got Cobra insurance, which is through the roof and for now, we are hitting the ground running with 3 or 4 different things to diversify the income stream and keep things going. We always talk about what the universe does or God’s plan. For me, that Monday was the Texas Snowpocalypse and I threw that week to the wind, got a few things down but kids wanted to go sledding. They haven’t seen snow since they were born. I got a 7 and 5-year-old and they’re ready to go do that. We did that every day. It felt like a vacation more than being not working.

Do you think, in general, your boss says, “Screw you, Logan, you don’t want to work?”

He challenged me. That was an interesting week to hit the ground running with everything going with what we have. Right after that, I had friends texted me like, “I think you need to talk to this person.” I shared on Facebook that it had been a big buildup for me to get to this point and business leads coming in from left and right. I’m overwhelmed with the fact that people cared, that they were looking to help me out anyway that they thought they could.

People are looking to help you out there. Did you have the opposite spectrum of some friends, family, maybe even coworkers think you were absolutely nuts for what you were doing?

I had a couple. I’d been with the company for almost four years at that point. I made my rounds that week with key people that I wanted to share that I was heading out. They already knew that I was leaving but I want to give them more background to what it was because it’s always hearsay until you hear it from the horse’s mouth. I was sharing with a couple of people and some of them were looked at me with, “Good luck.” They weren’t sure how to respond. In retrospect, I’m looking at these people like, “Why am I crazy? I think you’re crazy.” They only know one. They’re tied to that corporate world.

For me to say, “I’m going to go out and do my own thing,” is like, “You’re crazy.” Friends and family have all been very supportive. My close group all know that I’ve been working hard to get to this point. I haven’t had any negative feedback yet. I posted that infographic about happiness and money. One of my good friends out in California, Jason Graves, was like, “At a certain point, some people do start to resent you.” I was like, “Hopefully, I don’t get to that point but it’s natural.”

Other than your close friends that you grew up with but you’ll find when you do this some people will think you’re braggadocious, pompous and you’ll stop to find your network. If you haven’t already seen it, you’ll still have to find your network of acquaintances. I’m careful about calling people friends. Your acquaintances stopped changing because they don’t understand you. You feel like when you hang out with them, I have to be really careful with saying this but you’re lowering what you’re expecting yourself.

I know where you’re headed with it.

PTP 11 | Leaving Corporate America

Leaving Corporate America: Working in corporate America, you get into a wheel that just never stops spinning until you most likely crash.

 

You know more about these high-level things because you don’t want to feel like to me, when people like, “I have to go to work. I can’t go to this. What are you doing?” I’m like, “I’m going to the beach for the summer.” I feel like I’m not happy for certain people.

Me and my buddy planned a trip to Alabama for the week of June 6, 2020. We were in Broken Bow for most of the week. I’ve got my laptop. I’ve got Wi-Fi. The majority of my job I can do on the road, on the phone. From the outside looking in, people see that, “He’s always over here. He’s always doing this.” I’m trying to do my best not to portray this idea that, “I’m rich. I’m wealthy. I don’t even need jobs. I don’t need this.” I’m working my tail off behind the scenes. I get to hang out in a cabin while I’m doing it, but that doesn’t change what I have to work for here. I’ve told multiple people, “I’m working harder and more hours than I ever have trying to get things rolling to get to a steady-state,” because I want to be done with my day by 1:00, pick my daughter up at 2:30, do spelling words, reading with her when she gets home, do dinner and we got soccer practice. Those are the things that I want to be involved in. I got The Intention Journal from BiggerPockets to help keep me focused.

We talked about doing our shows and when we’re going to schedule them again. You said, “What time you want to do?” I said, “I don’t do anything before 11:00 because of the way I do it.” Now is one day against that because I do have some stuff. I have planned all throughout one of those days. Generally, my plan is I wake up whenever I want now. I don’t believe in the grind anymore. I did but you have to do that in the beginning.

You have to grow. For me, because I got to the point where I don’t have to do it, if I wake up whenever I want, it means 7:30 to 8:30 in the morning. I don’t set the alarm clock. I go downstairs, hang out with my wife, have a cup of coffee with her. I chill out while she’s watching TV. I’ll see my daughter off to school. I dick around a little bit in the house. At 9:30 or 10:00, I’ll go to the gym. I’ll spend 1 and 1.5-hour there. I want to be ready for the day. I don’t want to have anything set before the alarm clock. The one thing I failed in life is taking care of my health. Ever since I got out of the police department and came out here, I wasn’t working out. I wasn’t eating.

Mental and physical health is underrated when it comes to business and wanting to get something going. It can take a side burner.

Especially where you’re at, you left, you are grinding. A lot of people start grinding and get up at 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning, trying to go to the gym or work. They’ll work throughout the day, cut a couple of times here and there, and have to spend time with the family and then work until 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning, and they’re grinding. The problem is when you do that, you screw up your body. You have to be in this harmonious state throughout where you are taking care of your business because we all forget about everything else. We take care of our business, forget about our family. Take care of business, forget about our physical health. We take care of our business, forget about our mental health. What’s the sense at that point? You left your job because you want to have the time to do what, when and with whom I want.

Now, the business controls you.

You left one job for another job, with a lot more responsibility with your own job.

You get into a wheel that never stops spinning until you most likely crash. Either externally or internally something’s going to tell you, “You can’t do this anymore.”

No matter how successful you are with money, if you're not there for your family, then it’s for nothing. Click To Tweet

That’s the problem that we all face. That’s why putting out the show is important if people read it because they’re getting golden nuggets from someone like me, who basically I left any job. The last job I had was in 2012, Corporate America. Even before that, I was making a decent amount of money. I had to pull that string of leaving Corporate America. I did it a couple of times and kept going back because I was chasing the money. It was all about the opportunity. When I left, the only you’ll find is when you first get into this business like you did many years ago, you hung around with very powerful people.

You walked into a room and felt like an idiot. Now you leave and now you’re that powerful person because you’re a success story. You increased your side hustle to make more than your main hustle. It’s giving you the lifestyle everyone else dreams of. Now you find that you went from the least knowledgeable person to the most knowledgeable person. Now you got to up your game. You’ve got to start hanging out with people way more powerful than you because you don’t want to be that most powerful person unless you have an ego, which I know you don’t have an ego. If you have an ego you want to be working where you work, you can sit back and relax.

Things change. That’s why it’s important to hang around people always more powerful than you. I don’t say powerful like money is powerful but I use that as a term. I don’t say success because it is about money but I call it, I could be the dumbest person in the room because I like to constantly challenge myself. Not that I have to grind more but I do it from my mind. My mindset is like, “That guy or that girl is doing this or that. That’s powerful.” I don’t have a jealous bone in my body, but I enamor people that got to a level or by smart decisions or by solving problems that I was never able to get to.

That’s important because I’m perfectly happy where I’m at. You’re never completely 100% satisfied but I’m happy where I got to and I don’t have to do what everybody else does. That’s that used to be me. That’s not me anymore. Because somebody got a private plane, I don’t need to have that private plane. I know what I want. My get-go is spending time at the beach or on my boat with my family and friends or traveling. I know 100% what I want in life. I have it. I want to keep continuing to do it. I enjoy the business, helping people, mentoring people, doing deals. Certain types of deals, deals that are going to drive me insane and stress me out to no end.

I don’t want to work with people. We got deep into this but I’m glad we did this because there should be a challenge shown by itself is if you were leaving your job and starting somewhere else because many people want to do that. It’s important how do you do it? What was your mindset? What was your plan? How do you accomplish it? How’d you stick to it? Did you do it in the timeframe that you planned on doing it? There are many people who have this dream and throw it out there. I remember vividly years ago when I met you and you told me, “I want to quit my 9:00 to 5:00,” when you were starting out. Most people say that but most people don’t have what it takes to do it. I shouldn’t say they don’t have it. They have it but they’re not willing to do it.

There are going to be some sacrifices along the way. I’ve made some bad choices when it came to sacrifices. Now I feel like I’m trying to go back and mend some of those strictly from the family perspective. When I talked about it, I was like, “Do you think I’m more present?” She was like, “Absolutely.” I was like, “I need to know.”

No matter how successful you all with money, if you’re not there for your family. I do this with students I have. It gets a little more bit in life but I always say, “The hardest thing I ever did in my life was to write my own eulogy.” Write your eulogy as your family and friends would say about you. What would they say? When I did it back in the day before I made the switch, I started crying when I wrote it. I tried to make my wife write it. She wouldn’t even write it. That’s how hard it is. She’s always been present.

I wrote it and I couldn’t come up with much of anything. It ultimately came down to a phenomenal provider. Tell us a little bit about your journey from when you started. We’re going to stay on this topic for the show because this is important and all the topic window, we’ll do a separate show on because I don’t want to skim over this. This is one of the more important things that entrepreneurs out that are already getting started. You can see it. I did this a long time ago. Now I’ve already many years out of Corporate America. I’ve been investing for 30 years. You’re out of it.

Ten days and investing for seven.

PTP 11 | Leaving Corporate America

Leaving Corporate America: You got to start hanging out with people way more powerful than you because you don’t want to be that most powerful person in the room.

 

When did you realize Corporate America wasn’t for you? This wasn’t going to be a side hustle anymore.

I never had a side hustle through my first three years of corporate. Most people know my story by now. I was going into Dallas and riding a train, taking an hour in and an hour back, picked up a book, Rich Dad Poor Dad, opened my eyes to there’s other stuff out there. I was like, “This wasn’t taught.” I jumped into real estate in 2013. In 2014, I did a side hustle that’ll hopefully replace my corporate income, but I don’t know when. At that time, I was in two years and trying to leverage to the hills and do everything I could to own rental property. I thought I was going to get to $50,000 to $100,000 and get to this point of income is more than enough to do what we want to do. I quickly learned that’s not the most scalable.

That’s when from an equity standpoint, I sold the properties and jumped into the notes space. I was looking for something more scalable. I knew that to get where I want to be, the corporate jobs are going to have to remain, but I’ve got to have something that I can grow that I don’t have to be hands-on every day, every week. I found notes and realized, “This is the next step to leaving the corporate role.” I sit now because of notes, rental properties, flipping houses, but a note is what got me from a mental hurdle. I went from nothing.

I cleaned out the garage. I had our first application for our first home. I was $60,000 or $70,000 in debt. I had no assets while we were using my wife’s saved money from everything to use it as a down payment. I went from negative to where I am now, which is a lot more positive. I’ve been on this journey of net worth-focused and passive income-focused to say, “It’s accelerating. It’s not a slow curve. It’s like taking steps up. I don’t want to leave corporate to either stall out or maybe even go down because I need some of that net worth to live.”

What I finally grasped was I’ve had multiple people telling me, “You may have to take a step back to jump onto some type of springboard figuratively and fly up.” That’s where I finally said, “Net worth is important to me but it’s not going to be the driving.” Aligning with the vision side of it is, “My number goes down and so?” That was my hurdle and all those small details of logging my expenses. I’ve got a budget on my phone and track it all with an app that I use but making sure that I had everything in line, insurance because my wife is diabetic, I’ve got three girls.

Insurance is in play for me. I’m not single. I can say, “I’m good. I’ll pay for things when they come.” I got that squared away. That was a big issue for my wife as she’s not accustomed to not having corporate insurance. We got Cobra Insurance for now, which I keep the same benefits that I enjoyed in my company. I’ve already shopped around with an insurance broker with a couple of ones you gave me and a couple of others. They’re giving me ideas and ways to structure the plan. There’s a lot of underneath things that have been happening in order to get me comfortable with finally saying, “I’m ready to go.”

I texted my boss the day I gave my notice because I was working from home that day. He had known that it was coming. We talked about it in lofty ideas. When I finally texted, he’s like, “I don’t believe you.” I said, “I’ll send an email.” I send an email. He responded back, “Sorry. I don’t believe it. You’ve been talking like this for a year.” I said, “I’ll email the president. I don’t care who the president of the company. We’ll make it happen.” He was like, “Let’s talk about this. What are you doing?”

For three years for you, since I’ve been telling you, it’s been six years for my family that I’ve been telling them. It’s been a year for my boss that I’ve been telling him. I was in my car, leaving the gym, the day before I put my notice in. It all hit me. The path that I’ve been on, the sacrifices that I’ve made, the successes that I’ve had, everything. I sat there for about 5 to 10 minutes and stared at the steering wheel. I looked outside, cried and like, “It’s finally here.”

When we take care of our business, we forget about our family, physical health, and mental health. Click To Tweet

When you left the gym, were you planning on putting your notice in?

Yes, that Friday. That Thursday night, I don’t get too overwhelmed with stuff but that one was an odd feeling. It was a good feeling. Everything hit me at once and I was in a tear. It’s time to work, though.

I remember when I left the police department, it was like that as well. After 9/11, I had my mortgage brokerage business. I know it was the best thing. This is back in 2002. I wasn’t planning on leaving that quick but after 9/11, I was done. I said, “I’m out of here. I can’t do this anymore.” I wanted to leave. They weren’t letting people leave. It opened up and I could have left. Something happened. It was a day I was at work and I don’t remember what happened. It was like, “What in the world am I doing here?” I think they switched my tour, mandated overtime for me. I had my mortgage company at the time. I was very successful in the mortgage business.

They switched my tour. I had to have my assistant reschedule my meetings and some people were upset. I’m like, “I make more money, one mortgage and I make it a week as a police officer.” We were at work. I remember I told the lieutenant that day, “I’m going to take a half-day vacation. I’m going to head home.” I got changed. When I was leaving, I walked out the precinct and I said, “I have a feeling I’m not coming back on our ties. I think I’m done.” I got in my car, called my wife, I didn’t wait until I got home.

I said, “I’m done. I’m leaving.” She was like, “What’s the matter?” I said, “No. I’m done.” I hit my car. It was so clear. From the time I was walking out of the precinct until the time I got to my car, I was unsure. I was clear by the time I hit my car, I walked in my car. I felt the weight off my shoulders because I was like, “I’ll never have to do this again.” I knew I didn’t have to put the gun belt on again. I knew I didn’t have to be out there again. I knew I didn’t have to be shot. I knew I didn’t have to deal with people that hit us. It went from a miserable life. I was making enough money. It was the golden handcuffs, the benefits, the pension.

That’s what can draw you in.

I was on that promotion path to moving up the ranks quick there. I said to my wife, “I’m done. I’m going to go to 1 Police Plaza and I’m retiring.” She’s like, “Come home. I don’t know what is going on.” I always talked about it. I was like, “I’m not going to stay twenty years. I’m going to do this. I’m going to do that. I’m making enough money so I can leave.” It’s like that. That’s why I was asking you what led up. You had more of a plan. I knew at one point I was going to leave but it was a theory until that one day. I did six years. I said to myself, “If I would have done it in ten years, I would have had to do twenty because now I’ve got to get the full path.”

You’ve put too much time into not walking away.

I didn’t want to commit myself because once you do that, now you committed yourself. I don’t want to commit myself more because then I would like, “Now I’m stupid to give up that full pension.” For only ten years, I got a full pension for the rest of my life. I have to say. I said, “The sooner I could leave, the less I’m leaving on the table.” That’s what happens. That’s why I was asking you if you knew you had more of a plan. I didn’t have it. It hit me like that.

I don’t want to say miserable but for two years, I wasn’t happy. I still had to work two weeks after I put my notice in. That Monday I came in, my boss says I strolled in, shoulders down, hanging out, talking, drinking coffee. I’m still working but he was like, “It’s not fair. I’m going to watch you do this for two weeks.” I had a plan. That plan had changed. When I first put the plan together, I thought it was two years and it turned out to be six from 2013 to 2014. About 6 or 7 years is how long it took me. Looking back at it, it felt like it flew by but he’s going through it.

PTP 11 | Leaving Corporate America

Leaving Corporate America: There’s right or wrong in corporate America. You have to live somebody else’s plan.

 

You always stayed focused, which was good. You have a plan and got laughs. That’s always going to happen, but you stayed laser-focused. You know what you wanted. You had a lot of setbacks.

I changed jobs a couple of times with setbacks. It’s natural. I felt lost through the seven years. At some points, I felt like I was ahead of the game. Now I sit where my schedule is and get it done.

That’s my hashtag, #LifestyleByDesign. It doesn’t have to be what your neighbor next door does. You have a lifestyle by design that works for you. Part of your lifestyle that you’re not going to waver from that is, “I want to eat dinner with my family. I want to take my daughter to soccer practice. I want to drive my kids to school or to the bus stop or be with them.” Whatever it might be, there’s no right or wrong but it’s your plan. In Corporate America, there’s right or wrong. You have to live somebody else’s plan in any job you have. There’s nothing wrong with it but if that’s not your plan, why aren’t you making a plan? I work in reverse. “What do I want to do? I want to leave my job.”

It doesn’t have to real estate-focused. Your plan doesn’t have to be centered around real estate. I hope that you and I do a good job of talking about business in general whether you want to go put together a flower shop or a bakery or whatever it is, have a plan.

The plan is important and I work it backward because a lot of people tell me like, “Why are you doing this book?” “Because I hate my job. I want to leave it.” “What do you need to leave your job? How much money you need?” This is the biggest thing, in your journey ask people this because then they’ll say, “I want to leave my job too.” “How much money do you need to leave the job?” I can guarantee you this. They’re never going to have an exact number because they don’t have money. “I need at least $10,000 a month.” I live a pretty nice lifestyle, and I can get away with my lifestyle $3,000 to $4,000 a month. I could live a good lifestyle at $34,000 a month. I live a pretty elaborate lifestyle now. I do what I want, anytime I want. I don’t say this to impress you. It’s the press upon you. I don’t look at prices when I go to dinner.

Do you want this? Do you want that? You don’t have to think twice about it.

I don’t have golf courses or planes, but that’s what I want to do. I never want to have to worry about it, I never want to have to tell my wife, “You can’t spend money. If you want to go shopping, you want to buy yourself clothes, buy.” I’m blessed that she’s not a big spender. If she wants to go buy an outfit for $100 to $200, “Go ahead and enjoy it. You deserve it.” That’s the life I want to live. If I had to break it down and hated my job. If you look at what you need, I showed this to people. $3,000 to $4,000 a month and you can look a pretty good life.

My number was $4,010, bare minimum.

If you show me that, I would know you had a plan. If you brought any $10,000 to $20,000 a month, you have no plan. You’ll never leave the job.

There are other things I could cut out. There’s the gym membership. There are other things that I can go work out in my front yard and a backyard garage. The number could come down even further but I knew what I needed.

I had this with a student I was mentoring. It was life coaching for him. I was with him for a couple of years. His biggest thing when he first started is he wants to take a vacation with his family and go camping through these different parks at the time. It was a big trip. It was going to cost them over $10,000 to do this trip. He’s going to rent an RV. You go around all these different parks and go camping with his kids. he had no money. He had next to nothing. He was struggling. I said, “When’s the last time you went on vacation?” He hasn’t gone on a vacation in years.

Mental and physical health is underrated when it comes to business and wanting to get something going. Click To Tweet

I told him, “Why don’t you do this? Why don’t you plan on a day? Go out, get a tent, go in your backyard.” He thought I was nuts. He did it three days, Friday and Saturday night. He didn’t come inside. He’d lived in a rural area. They spent from Friday to Sunday and they got up to cook outside and everything. We spoke that next week. I can’t tell you how he was like, “This is the best time we ever had.”

He spent no money other than bringing whatever he brought outside his house in his backyard and he lived in a rural area. He did that where he didn’t have to spend $10,000 to $15,000 a month and think about what you can do now so you don’t have to wait. You don’t need $10,000 to $15,000 to replace. Logan said, “I can go work out of my backyard.” My buddy in New York got hurt and he stopped his gym membership. His gym membership is $149 a month. He says, “For the last 2.5 years, all I do is pushups, sit-ups and air squats. If you look at me, nobody could tell I stopped going to the gym.” Can you stop it? Yes. Do I have to stop my gym membership? No, but if I had to. If you said you hate your job, you have a miserable life. You don’t get to see your wife and kids or friends because you have to go to work, make a sacrifice because you want that gym membership, or you want to buy that nice car for$1,000 a month. Instead of getting a car for $300 a month, what are you willing to sacrifice? What are you willing to do to get where you want to live that passive prosperous life?

It may not have been a sacrifice. You could look at it in reverse and some people have the attitude of, “I’m not going to sacrifice anything. I’m going to go out hustle.” Do that then but have a plan.

We’re not even smart guys. You said you need to make $4,010 a month. Without known crap about crap, I’m averaging anywhere from $400 to $700 a day, trading a couple of stocks and options. All I did was a little research, a little education on it. They’re always going to do it because sometimes I’m bored and I want to have some fun, and I do it. Some days I lose money. On average, I’m making between $400 to $800. Learn out of the box, learn something.

One of my good friends at work put his notice in too. He’s leaving and is doing his MBA, but he’s trading options and stocks. He’s like, “I can’t do the corporate stuff anymore. He’s like., “I may go back. I don’t know yet but I’m going to try and make this work. I don’t want our bills. I want my wife to be able to do whatever she does.” I got two dogs and he loves to play golf. He’s like, “How do I create the lifestyle that I want?” He wants to move back to Arkansas and live a nice quiet life. He doesn’t need anything extravagant.

It’s not expensive there either. He’s living in an area. That’s not that expensive. He can produce that life. It might only be $3,000 to $4,000, $5,000 a month. It was his lifestyle to golf when he wants in and the warm weather. It’s not that hard so back it up. If you need to make $4,000 a month, that’s $1,000 a week. That’s $200 a day if you only work five days a week. I can go out and detail cars and make $200 a day. Let’s think about it, on my own schedule. If I can sell 1 or 2 cars a day, I make more than $200 a day.

You can because the detail is about $200.

You could work three hours a day and make $200 a day and make $1,000 a week. There are things you can do. You can learn Amazon. You can do things online. If you can’t make money, if you don’t have some expertise, you can sell some training that you can mentor people. There’s so much you can do now to make that money but you have to get out of your own way. That’s the problem.

The way I see that is there are a lot of people that look at detailing a car. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people that say, “I’m not going to do that. That’s beneath me.” The lifestyle is your ego. You either want the lifestyle or you don’t. If the detail of the car, we’ll get it for you. Does it sound cool to tell your friends that you detail cars? No, but does it sound cool to tell your friends that you get to do whatever you want when you want? Tell me. It’s all about perspective. Which way do you want to look at it?

It’s the same thing when we were all trying to be the Joneses. That’s what the life I was living before. I was grinding and crushing my life, being miserable, thinking I was doing great because I was driving. I drove the alarm beginning. I drive the Mercedes. I had the Infinity, the Escalade. I was driving the most beautiful cars. My boats were over the top boats that I shouldn’t have. Instead of having a basic speed boat, it’s a 24-foot Chaparral speed boat, the brand new $70,000. I was piling debt on myself because I wanted to show off to everybody and that was ego. I could care less what people think about me anymore. They see the lifestyle I have. It might work for them. It might not work for them. People see that I don’t get up and go to a corporate job every day. I’m not miserable. I got to spend my summers at the beach. I don’t try not to make money in the summers. I purposely try not to do deals in the summer because I don’t want to take away from my life. I can make more money doing it.

That doesn’t align with what you’re trying to do.

When I ask you what your vision is, and I know what mine is. If I pull out my vision and I read it, it’s, “Who is Dan Zitofsky?” I’m a husband, a father, a grandfather, uncle, a son, a coach, entrepreneur. I’m a coach in investing, a life coach and a coach in high school football. I love doing that. Nothing in there says, “I’m a millionaire. I want to chase $1 million. I want to be a roofer.”

That’s a product of what has allowed me to where I want to be. I talked to John Western, the home to visit development when it’s local broker property manager here. They’ve got a Sunday night, 18 to 21 to 22 group of kids that come in from all different backgrounds, talking to them about how to get where they want to be whether that’s going to find a job and earning some money but putting the personal finance, that was my topic and understanding of budget and putting together. At the very end of it, it was like, “How do you afford to do all this? What are you worth?”

I was like, “It doesn’t matter but it’s a number that has allowed me to put together that I get to now do these things. Here’s my net worth, and whatever you want to do with that number doesn’t impact the way people look at me from wanting to do business with me or not wanting to do this. What do they care? Can you get the job done? Can you execute the deal? Can you raise the money? Whatever the job needs, can you do that?” versus, “Does your net worth qualify you to do something?”

It’s only useful for the bank.

It’s helped me a lot in the bank stuff. That’s one of the things I forgot to mention. We’re putting together some boats in RV storage. The net worth, the personal financial statement is the only thing that cares about me. That is the bank. Outside of that, I don’t care.

Who’s going to care? Your heirs will care one day. We’re so busy building a net worth that we don’t get to enjoy it as much as our ass.

I want to be able to pass a good amount down. If it gets squandered, I’m dead. That’s what I can do. Hopefully, I can put some things in place that allow them to have options. Doors will be slamming left and right, and you’re sleeping.

Your girls are young and as they start growing up, I’m sure you’ll start teaching them. They’re going to be better off than you were. My kids are going to be better off than I was because they’re learning from me about the world, how to invest, how to protect your money, about taxes, insurances, tax advantage strategies. I love demos. I love teaching that stuff to the youth and to my kids. I’m sure you’re going into your kids and setting them up with accounts so they can take care of themselves one day.

I don’t want to get too far into that. This was an amazing show. We didn’t expect it to go this way but that’s what’s fun about this show is it’s real life. It’s two guys who are on this journey who got there now before somebody who got there and somebody was trying to get that. I was with school. It’s two guys who were got there. One who is a veteran at this a while and I’m going to keep loving your journey along the way, Logan.

Everybody stayed tuned in. They’re like, “He already met his goal on the next show. I’m taking notes so we can’t forget the initial episode we are going to come and talking about this.”

That’s an important episode but we couldn’t skip all of this. I didn’t expect them to go so far. It was important because I can tell you, this is going to be the show that’s the most downloaded show because there are many people out there that have this journey. As an entrepreneur, we are starting out with many people that have this journey that want to leave their job, whatever it is they’re doing, they want their wives, husband, partner, whoever it is, stop working. You did it. They don’t believe it’s real. Even when I talk about raising private money, I always try to bring somebody new that’s doing it because I want them to see that it’s not just me. That’s been in the industry so long, many years now. The competition is 30 years. You can do it. I want to bring people on that are brand new in their first year or two years that they’re doing it.

I raised $2 million. Did it come from experience in what we’re doing? Yes. Did they come in because I know what I’m talking about? Yes. Does it come from a targeted audience that wants to work with me? Yes. There are a lot of things that made that happen. It wasn’t just because I made a post and said, “Offer in 20% of returns,” which is the worst way to raise money. It’s been a journey, and you’ve been a huge part of being able to change my perspective and mindset on how money is raised and what’s the best way to approach it. It works.

I want to get a post out there and share it. I want to validate who you are and show people that, “if Logan could do it, why can’t you?” For me, I don’t like to say, “I raised this much money,” because people look at me and they’re like, “I can’t do it because I’m newer.” If you raised $2 million, I would love you to put something out there. I’ll share it in my group with the newer people. I want them to see that you did it. You go through the stages, you did it, you do everything. You’re a roadmap guy. When someone gives you a roadmap, you follow it.

That’s how I took rentals on, jumped on BiggerPockets, found a strategy that worked for me. BiggerPockets can be a little overwhelming for most, but I found a guy I connected with. You see me doing the apartment syndication with them out in Phoenix, but that was my first mentor in real estate and gave me a roadmap and I followed it. I jumped into notes and had a roadmap from an individual that was a good roadmap, a poor character and then met you. You gave me a roadmap in capital raising and putting out a message that validates in an honest way and follows that roadmap. I’m a roadmap guy. I’m not that smart. I don’t have any crappy ideas that are the next iPhone. You give me what you’ve done and I’ll try to make it even better.

It works for you. That’s why you’ve done so well. Throwing us $2 million in a month is phenomenal. We’ll do another show on how you raise the money, then your roadmap, what you’re doing because that’s awesome. I get goosebumps knowing that I got to mentor you in how to raise private money. That’s cool. My two most successful mentees have been you and Ben Fredricks. He has his own company and trade show. He was such an introvert at the time. He still is an introvert.

He understands what you need to get a business to be where it wants to be and a lifestyle of where you want to be.

He went through the mentorship with me and raised well over $10 million. He could be close to $20 million in money raised already. He runs the Odell Barnes REO, NoteWorthy and he’s a guy who was scared to speak to anybody publicly is out there. We’ve had a lot of success stories but you two are the biggest success stories we’ve had. I keep wanting to put you and Ben on a pedestal because you guys, not for anything other than I want people to use you as role models to say, “If you can do it, why can’t I? If Logan, this not-so-smart guy from Texas, why can’t I?” This was a great show. Thanks for coming on. We’d love your reviews. If you like what you read, give us a five-star review so we can keep doing this. People can keep reading and share it out with at least five friends. This is going to help people. Logan, you’ve got anything to leave the audience with?

I’m thankful for everything I’ve got and where I’m headed through relationships and networks. That’s what I’ve got around me and the support. I look forward to many more shows in our own time.

Thanks so much for being on. I appreciate it.

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