Uncovering the Secrets to Financial Freedom with Calvin Chin

Uncovering the Secrets to Financial Freedom with Calvin Chin – YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx6lcWPUCFM

Transcript:
(00:00) one of my coaches kind of challenged me a lot in that it’s more just like well let’s understand right what the purpose of that fear is like what where’s the truth behind that fear well fear it’s really just a defense mechanism that we’ve all had since we were you know caveman cave woman right and yeah when they’re dinosaurs trying to eat us of course our fear will kick in and say yo let him go get eaten by that dinosaur right but nowadays there’s no dinosaur trying to eat us obviously but we do
(00:22) have fear of is um Financial ruin or if I do invest that money and I lose my money and I can’t you know buy that house when I want it or I uh you know can’t you know have I don’t have food for my my family’s head or whatever it is right and so that really drives us but then I always you know challenge myself to you know and I I’m a human being right like I fall in that trap all the time like to this day right I’ve done right good amount of deals in my in my lifetime and to this day I still like
(00:50) I’m so like oh what I do is then I mess up so bad that I lose everything right and so really I I try to just unpack that and just like really understand the truth behind that like is that actually accurate or am I just making up the story in my mind to feel to make myself feel more comfortable not doing it because I know I’m comfortable not doing it right so many times you’re uncomfortable you know that you’re challenging yourself to expand and grow your your mindset so and I’ll give you
(01:16) an example that right it’s mostly just you know I’m a big numbers geek so a lot of it is just like oh I’m not gonna go broke if I do this well you know have I really stress test this deal have I really committed to myself to to make sure that I look out for any anything that may go wrong in this deal right and uh and and then plan for that and yeah if that case I do I might go bankrupt then not probably the deal right but if I do that in most nine out of 10 times you do that you know analysis you know
(01:43) you’re gonna be fine at the end of the day [Music] hello everyone and welcome to the flow over fear podcast where it is our mission to help you to rise above fear and realize your ultimate potential in leadership and life I’m your host Adam Hill and it is my goal to share with you the human side of high performance my guests share their experience with fear anxiety struggle Challenge and most importantly despite all of it how they Rose above it to achieve incredible results so if you’re ready to rise up
(02:19) let’s get started hey everyone welcome to flowover fear I am so glad you’re here thanks for joining us I have a great guest today somebody who’s who I’ve known for a couple of years now uh through a particular Mastermind we’ve been in and his name is Calvin chin he is a full-time real estate investor who has invested his way from his nine to five job to Financial Freedom in just five years and he’s built a personal portfolio of over 150 units valued at over 25 million dollars and he’s done so
(02:52) through single-family homes flipping airbnbs the Burr method which we’ll talk about the multi-family homes and Commercial projects and today through his and his wife’s company Zen Coast University he helps people create their own wealth through real estate allowing them to get their time and their energy back so that they can give that knowledge back to their communities a rising tide lifts All Ships and Calvin chin my guest today is the embodiment of a rising tide thank you sir for joining us today I’m glad to have you here man
(03:25) yeah Adam man it’s been awesome to to see you grow man and I’m excited to to share with whatever knowledge I can to your listener fan well yeah I I mean you have an amazing story and one of the one of the things I love about your story is that it’s I mean that it’s just consistent work that that’s gotten you to where you are I mean there’s that that you know from outside of period from outside appearances a lot of times when you know somebody says yeah in five years I made it to Financial Freedom it
(03:51) seems like it’s kind of like this overnight success but just you know in in talking with you and learning more about you it’s it’s like no you started with you know you started and you made Progressive steps like you know started with single families moved into multi-family moved into this and then you know and then over time with consistent effort you you got to where you’re at can you speak on like what yeah can you speak on that a little bit on how you uh is that resonate with how you how you got to where you’re at oh a
(04:21) thousand percent man I think uh everyone always wants a like really quick easy solution to happen overnight right and I always have to say we’re an overnight success over many many many years right yeah you know I think the consistency part is is everyone provided I actually wouldn’t even argue that it’s more consistently failing yeah over and over and over again until we got it right in you know I I like to think of myself as something that’s like super vanilla in terms of my investment strategy of like
(04:45) you know I think a lot of people you know have like you know on podcasts who go over like some crazy strategy that they do but really for us you know we just started to buy assets with any kind of extra Capital we had and just kept on doing that and making mistakes and learning from the mistakes and and then you know and doing better and better deals from there so um I think the moral story was yeah consistently you know failing forward but consistently just doing it right and I think that’s one of the key aspects of
(05:10) just being able to do it consistently failing forward I love that so it’s it’s it’s not that you have to just like hit home runs all the time it’s just learning from whatever your experiences are and continuing on regardless I love that yeah yeah yes it’s pretty much that because I law students are just like oh yeah I’m my first two to be a home run I’m like no like you just want your first deal to do a deal right yeah and like learn from it because you know if you get a home run awesome right but you
(05:37) know most likely look you just kind of get in the game and learn how to do it and then you can start you know hitting with someone’s more and more consistently as you start to you know learn what to look up or whatnot so yeah so what what uh what got you into the game of this I mean I mean you started in 95 kind of if you can give us some of your backstory on where you came from how you grew up yeah 100 man so I came from a background where you know it was always taught to me that success in in life right would be like getting a good
(06:02) job with a good W-2 at the end of the day great benefits corner office a great title all that stuff right in you know that’s what I you know just tried for when I was you know younger is I thought that was like the American dream was what success would be in success with evil happiness and so you know went into uh Tech uh which right now isn’t always boom but it was always booming back in the day and and so you worked at 10 for like eight years but you really like when I got into Tech I thought that I
(06:27) made when I started like you know when I started to climb the corporate ladder and really make some good money and really get the title I thought that I made it and what I didn’t realize was that you know even though I made it didn’t equate to happiness right I didn’t equate to like me being fulfilled at all I mean you know I would argue that anyone not to you know not to bash on Tech but I was selling database at the time and I don’t think anyone’s passionate about database so right um and so I really figured out fastly
(06:54) like this is not what I wanted to do for the rest of my life there was something else that I knew I wanted to do I didn’t know what it was at the time but I knew I wasn’t sending my time you know going to corporate meetings you know putting in TPS reports and qbrs and all that stuff it was more about um you know where can I spend my time that gets me Juiced up and fired up and throws my cup and you know uh I did what every same person does uh when I get home I would Google how do I quit my job and you know real estate was one of the
(07:21) consistent things that came up a lot and at the time I was living in in San Francisco in the city and uh you know paying a bunch a lot of money for rent right and I was like all right this guy would you know I’m paying every month he’s probably making some sort of money right on this and so you know let me me try to look into this more and that’s what I did I you know started reading the books to podcasts all that stuff but I think as part of that too I mean as anyone probably knows that they’re going
(07:44) through it right in the beginning it feels like a fire hose of data and information and you’re like I don’t know what to do you know all these Concepts sound great but I don’t know what to actually tactically do and that’s kind of where I got stuck at least but uh you know eventually it was able to find my path and just take action and and do it and um like I said fail forward from there yeah wow that’s uh so um yeah and real estate I mean just two simple words has a lot there’s a lot of
(08:11) depth to it yeah so you you run down that that uh Rabbit Hole of trying to find more information on it yeah it’s like a fire hose uh one thing that like maybe off on a little tangent here but this kind of piqued my interest because you said you were doing TPS reports and the other thing I heard that in office space that’s what so are those really a thing no I mean I was thinking somewhere man but but uh no it was you know we just have like pink sort of quarterly business reviews and stuff like that oh yeah yeah things that I get
(08:42) like might you know I get goosebumps even just like hearing myself even talking about that again so sure right no no I hear you yeah it’s like any yeah once you get into that that that zone it becomes it just become it absorbs your life with all these reports all these meetings everything but um but yeah so that that decision I mean probably obviously one you don’t take lightly I mean one that has you know a lot of fear uh in it you know and what was the trigger that I mean you went home you you Googled you know
(09:11) things like how do I quit my job and you started asking these questions um what a lot of people might just take that that dissatisfaction and stay there because it’s the Comfort they know versus the discomfort that they don’t know what was it that differentiated you that made you want to really take the leap was it just that painful or was there something that you were going toward yeah you know actually it’s funny I’m gonna say something that’s super controversial here but it wasn’t even
(09:41) that painful for me right like I did enjoy some of the parts of it like I had an awesome team um I love talking with people in general so I I actually like the the core aspects of it I just I knew that you know if I like listened to what I wanted my Tombstone to read and who I was as a person like I thought that’s not who I like really wanted to leave a legacy behind on and so I would say it was actually just around being around other people that you know I looked up to as mentors in general and seeing what they
(10:09) were doing with their lives and none of them had a nine to five right and all of them were you know making an impact on the world in some capacity right I was like Tim Road for example right so um really it got to a point where I always knew that I I didn’t want to stay in here in forever and it take and I’ll I’ll be full of transparent it took me a long time because like you said Adam and like it’s tough like it’s easy to say in concert I’m gonna quit my job tomorrow but like did I actually go do it it
(10:34) probably when we when I started doing that I would you know take all my you know I was selling Tech right so I would take all my commissions I would just buy real estate with that and try to pass some income from that and eventually I hit a point where that passive income you know covered up my my expenses and my my salary at the time my base salary and I could have quit that right that’s why I always told myself I hit that I’ll quit right I did right right so right it took me longer because I was like well I
(10:57) had the safety net you know I could continue to do what I’m doing right and then you have all this fear like what if I don’t make it on the other side I’m like an idiot and actually the biggest thing I had was I had self-doubt around what my I would look perceived to look like to my peers to my family that was a big one right and you know on the surface you like why would you quit your job that you’re making good money and you have a good title you have security right and I was like well I don’t love what I’m doing
(11:25) right and so you know even even though I I could I just couldn’t do it because I didn’t know you know what I want to do who I wanted to be as a person and so it took me probably like two or three years later uh down the road and actually was when my uh they were trying to promote me into a leadership Direction where they’re like hey you’re gonna take over your team here and this is the path you’re gonna take and I knew that was my fork in the road like either I am pot committed to this and like I’m gonna do
(11:52) this or this is the the chance I take where I’m actually gonna Veer off and and change my life and I I veered off and changed my life and it was not an easy task it you know I woke up sweating a lot a lot of fear in the first six months so we year for sure but you know what I’ve learned is that all that uncomfortable uncomfortableness makes you a lot stronger and it makes me who you know who you are today essentially so sure how did that how did that fear show up in that first six months or so of quit like so you left your job you
(12:21) started full-time in real estate yeah 100 man it’s a lot of self-doubt okay was this the right decision um you know am I good enough right so you know a lot of people don’t talk about this uh you know when you listen to real estate podcasts or you know YouTube video and stuff but because it didn’t sell but really you know the mindset aspect was key for me in the first you know uh year I would say and it wasn’t even just like the mindset that year but it was actually the foundational stuff that I was doing you
(12:48) know the years prior to even quoting of like changing that mindset around being around people that were you know thinking uh in a different way than I was at the time and and I think that actually helped me prepare myself for that year because if I win cold turkey and I didn’t like really have that proper mindset of like hey why is this happening for me versus why it’s happening to me right and I understanding that uh you know it’s all about the beliefs that you can do it right in in in believing that your your
(13:13) self-worth is is worthy and and detaching us also to the money aspect I think that’s a really big part of that we all struggle with especially with the nine to five because really the nine to five is you know we give you a paycheck to to forget your dreams and work for us right sure and um detaching from the golden you know handcuffs in a way it’s tough right but if you can detach from that like external uh you know I call it like external not pressure but external like validity if you call it right yeah then that helped
(13:42) a lot too of that that transition year so is that is that part of your process of developing that mindset was to disconnect from those golden handcuffs as you say or just disconnect from the paycheck yeah yeah so I’ll share this too and one of the big lessons I learned was um you know I was in I was in sales right so it was very achievement focused right so she’s been focused being that you know all I cared about was the next deal right I cared about you know what’s you know what I was going to make that year
(14:09) if I was going to make it to presence club or where I start to rank my company right and uh that was early on in my career versus you know really what you know my coach and I work with a lot is is more just Purpose Driven right like how do I bring perpet driven meaning that you know it shouldn’t be about the money right it should be about you know making an impact on other people or you know for us for me personally it’s like if I could help uh you know a thousand people change their lives to get you
(14:33) know passive income used in real estate as a vehicle right and they can go you know change one other person’s life in their Community then you know now we’re starting to make an impact that really makes me feel you know like an amazing human being and some of that if I were on my desk I can can say you know what I live a fulfilling life right and that to me is different than oh I wish I could be a bajillionaire right like that sure okay whatever but this is like wow that’s really cool so yeah no that’s
(14:57) that’s that’s a that’s an interest interesting point I mean because it becomes more about the why than why you’re doing that why you’re disconnecting from those golden handcuffs and why you’re pursuing this new real estate thing is there’s there’s a there’s a purpose behind it rather than I just want to get Financial Freedom or I want I want this and and that’s that’s powerful because I could see that there’s a lot of fear around the money aspect too I mean just just
(15:20) the idea of investing that first whatever it may be in a property like you know you could have say a hundred thousand dollars in cash or whatever whatever it is and say I can invest this in a property or I can see that it’s in my account and see that it’s there and I I could see people have that fear I’ve had that fear I mean was that something that you wrestled with at the beginning and did that purpose really drive you to do that yeah I think we all have that same Fair admin you know one of my
(15:48) coaches kind of challenged me a lot in that it’s more just like let’s understand right what the purpose of that fear is like what where is the truth behind that field well fear it’s really just a defense mechanism that we’ve all had since we were you know caveman gay woman right in yeah when there were dinosaurs trying to eat us of course our fear would kick in and say yo let him go get eaten by that dinosaur right but nowadays there’s no dinosaur trying to eat us obviously but we do have fear of is um Financial ruin or if
(16:12) I do invest that money and I lose my money and I can’t you know buy that house when I want it or I uh you know can’t you know have I don’t have food for my my family’s head or whatever it is right and so that really drives us but then I always you know challenge myself to you know I’m a human being right like I fall in that trap all the time like to this day right I’ve done right good amount of deals in my in my lifetime and to this day I feel like I’m so like oh well if I do this and I mess
(16:39) up so bad that I lose everything right and so really I I try to just unpack that and just like really understand the truth behind that like is that actually accurate or am I just making up the story in my mind to feel to make myself feel more comfortable not doing it because I know I’m comfortable not doing it right and anytime you’re uncomfortable you know that you’re challenging yourself to expand and grow your your mindset so and I’ll give you an example of that right it’s mostly just you know I’m a big numbers geek so
(17:06) a lot of it is just like oh I’m not gonna go broke if I do this well you know have I really stress test this deal I have I really committed to myself to to make sure that I look out for any anything that may go wrong in the steel right and uh and and then to answer that and yeah in that case I do I might go bankrupt remember then that probably the deal right but if I do that in most nine out of 10 times you do that you know analysis you know you’re gonna be fine at the end of the day right yeah yeah that’s no that that’s great advice
(17:36) because I you know I think a lot of a lot of people do struggle with that letting go of of of what those fears are and and elevating those fears in our head and the fear tends to get in the way of that analysis and I guess the um uh the the well yeah just the numbers that that work and we just Elevate what could go wrong um and um you know you’d mentioned you kind of you know you failed upward and so you obviously made some mistakes and all that kind of stuff um what what were some of your what were some of the mistakes that that helped
(18:10) you the most to to guide you toward your where you’re at oh man man if we’ll be on the spot like that yeah I got a lot of them man I got a couple of mistakes I’m sure I have but uh well then it defines one that I you know really it was really early on my investing careers party it was probably the first investment deal that we did um and uh it was actually a uh so kind of back to that you know kind of story of starting out right like you know we’re reading the books listening to podcasts and all that stuff and you know it felt
(18:42) too big it felt like too heavy you know I didn’t feel like I was smart enough like I it’s like your first day of the job you’re like what am I doing like there’s too many acronyms and reports I’m never gonna be able to do this yeah and that’s what I told myself and and it ended up seeming too heavy and you know kind of the analysis paralysis stuck in where it was like months you know at a time where I just didn’t do anything and so um I came up it was a really wise decision at the time was to you know
(19:05) let’s just be a private money lender to a flipper here in California and we’ll just give them money right and that way we’ll be investors and we’ll learn on the job that way and so that’s what we did uh you know we had my wife and I had saved about 100K and our savings account at the time and we had found a flipper in San Francisco and we’re like let’s you know give her a hundred thousand bucks for the rehab as a private money loan you know 10 return and we’ll you know we’ll we’ll be investors that way
(19:32) and so we did a handshake deal did the deal and she finished up the rehab sold it and uh you know we went to the closing table to go pick up our checking you know she it was like she was like I don’t I don’t have your money over tour development project in Reno whatever without ever asking us and so yeah that was probably you know eight years ago now to the day and um you know we haven’t seen that money since and we haven’t seen her since really wow and so that was a really kicking the teeth uh in the very first
(20:03) way and uh yeah I mean to be honest like my first initial mindset was yeah all right real estate sucks let’s just yeah we’ll just you know work our nine to five and be safe right and my wife really challenged me there and was like Hey you know we were 24 at the time so we were young and she was like hey will recover we’ll be fine right and uh we just got to make sure that we never made the same mistakes ever again and that’s what we did I’m not you know I look at that experience and I I tell
(20:30) people this and people think I’m crazy from like I would never take that experience back because it made us you know who we were today made us one way better investors we knew what like what Rift lives to look out for gave us all figures can make sure that we put everything in writing and paperwork and have the right contracts in place and a lot of stuff that you know they don’t teach them in college or high school right in sure and um and two it just made a better human beings because I I knew I never wanted that to ever happen
(20:50) to anyone else ever again because you know that way it made me feel made my wife feel oh it was dark man it was a dark art place but again like looking on the other side now of just enduring right it it made us way better people and actually we were at a conference this last week and one of these speakers she’s like I’ve got her name but she’s like a sports agent for like Doc Rivers and a bunch of NBA head coaches and PGA Tour guys and stuff like that and she said the guys the difference between the
(21:19) guys who make the PGA Tour cut and the guys who don’t right talent wise not much right but the one big difference was uh the ability to recover from failure fast man I was like whoa like that blew my mind I was like that is a really really strong um a really strong like attribute that I’ve never really thought about just to be able to recover fast uh yeah versus let it linger and let it drain into other areas of your life yeah so what are what are some of the ways that you can recover fast from from failure is it just not spending time in
(21:54) that self you know self-pity phase or is it just how do you how do you get Beyond it yeah so my wife and I have a rule uh we our rule is if it’s not going to matter in five years don’t dwell on it dwell on it for more than five minutes and so I think that is really casually small tactics but really helps a lot of just like all right is this really that big of a deal like yes it sucks and I’ll give you an example of that last year we had uh a lawsuit a tree falling over houses and another lawsuit all in one
(22:25) month right so the first time like I lost it all right all right I guess that happens when the tree happened I was like oh man like same month sucks and then the third law should have and I was like oh my God okay you want Murphy’s Law this sucks right and I was like you know this this absolutely sucks but then you know I looked behind the you know the the curtain right and was like all right well what’s really the truth behind all this right well one I have insurance for all of these right so I’ll
(22:49) put a claim out for the first loss it was a doordash guy at one of my Apartments he tripped on something and put a lawsuit out to us um our insurance was like you know what no you guys did everything right everything is at code and procedural wise like you guys are good yours are fine right nothing happened there we’re good second thing three Palmer House yes we had insurance on that so yeah we had to deductible like we had someone without a pocket but you know they cleaned it up in like two weeks super fast uh tenants stayed the whole time uh
(23:15) so everything worked out there and the third was uh one of our airbnbs uh lawsuit she tripped on one or we had two steps there and she tripped on one of them and uh you know I think she was driving home and saw one of those big Billboards that says you know Sue this person blah blah blah and yeah he ended up dropping because she was like ah shoot there’s no case right and yeah so everything worked out at the end but you know it was I you know very disappointed in the first five minutes absolutely right sure uh but you know I’ve always
(23:43) seen that things always work out right um so you just gotta like tell yourself like hey it’s it will work out and typically it does right and um you know that can help you relieve some of that initial like this sucks right um but you know that’s all part of the game too and actually the mindset there too is I was so my wife and she was like hey if you’re not getting sued you’re not doing enough yet yeah that’s true yeah I mean I’ve heard that before that yeah if you’re if you’re getting sued
(24:10) you know you’ve made it exactly monitor yeah yeah I mean yeah in a lot of cases I mean I don’t want to diminish it for a lot of people but it is it could be a first world problem yeah if it’s if it’s happening enough but um um especially the frivolous stuff yeah but um um uh but yeah yeah and you’d mentioned you know working with your wife who now wife you’re recently married congratulations on that by the way yeah and so have you always been partnered with your wife as far as working together and and always been this power
(24:50) couple kind of thing uh no I mean I mean we we definitely weren’t always working together in the beginning um you know I’ll give her a lot of credit I mean we we did meet at our work gym way back in the day and that’s how we actually met and uh I think we’ve always kind of been competitive each other we’re both in Tech sales so we were like kind of like oh yeah better better sales than you are for LeBron uh and then she really kind of got me into real estate too I mean her her family is in that real estate realm and so she
(25:22) always kind of knew that that was the path that she wanted to take so she kind of you actually cut out and became an agent first and um and we’re driving along to conferences and stuff and the more you’re around people really expanded my mind so I think first off just having a spouse like that really grateful for that because you know someone that can challenge you we’ve grown in different ways like you know we’re you know at first just you know working girlfriend but then you add that layer of a partner
(25:44) business partner too and at some points it can absolutely get you know stuck in the business realm if you’re you know when you talk to people who work with their their Sim to get another um but we try to make it so that we separated our lives as much as possible in that realm but uh yeah we weren’t always Partners together and uh you know I think just naturally over time you kind of see what your strengths and weaknesses are and I kind of look at it as like you know she’s on my board of directors right I
(26:09) go to her for advice Clarity same thing vice versa on her end so you know it’s always good to have something you can just really full trust like just you know lay it all on the table and say hey here’s what I’m dealing with you know what do you think right yeah they want the truth out of it so yeah that’s that’s that’s important Adam and um it’s it’s great that you can have this relationship with someone that can also be a business partner and I know a lot of people would struggle with that as
(26:35) far as working with a significant other um what’s what are some other what what are one or two of the primary things that help you make that work that like that have that balance or that Harmony well just know that business is different than your personal life I think that’s tough um I think in the beginning one of the Tactical things that we used to do as a kind of more of a fun thing but we were both in uh textile at the time and we’ll or actually I was a tech sales she was a real estate agent and we’d always have
(27:01) these competitions every year of like whoever need more money that year whoever lost would have to buy the other an investment property oh and so it made it fun but it also just like kind of you know still pushes into our goals as well and so it made it a fun kind of accomplish in that way and then and it’s starting to realize like what your strengths and weaknesses are right I think it’s easier to said than done and you kind of you kind of get to it via experience right in situational stuff um we find out real real fast and my
(27:29) wife just you know wants no part of excel modeling and things like that and that’s someone that’s something that I always I always love doing like I love numbers and stuff so I’d be like in the middle of night with one of my example hey yo Jenny hey check this out look at my Excel model I just updated it’s super cool it’s like does it work yep all right cool that’s all I care about you just tell me the number we’ll go from there so um yeah the largest uh you know kind of figuring out each other’s uh strengths
(27:54) and what we enjoy doing yeah no I hear you on the Excel spreadsheet stuff because I I always want that validation hey no look I did a great job on this this is awesome look multiple sheets everything it’s great yeah yeah yeah right pivot tables pivot tables yeah this is it’s gonna be deep man yeah and and I mean in addition to just being you know partners and you know and and um uh in life and in investing now you’ve started this other business which is zencoast University because it and that that really gets to the the uh the
(28:32) purpose the why that you talked about earlier right can you tell us a little bit about that what you’re doing with that and and and you know what what’s going on there yeah so I mean I think as part of like you know us even losing that hundred thousand bucks and just realizing you know that there are a lot of people out there right so we wanted to yeah to really find a couple couple things internally like for us it was more like we wanted to find like a bigger purpose right and and be able to give back and make an impact on this
(28:58) world in a better place right some people are doing a podcast like yourself in books and stuff like that like for us you know I love like you know we used to do these free webinars and in person years before covid and uh people don’t always say like hey you know like thank you for doing this but like what what’s the catch and I was like there’s no cash we’re just I’d love to just spread this and uh and so you know for us it was like all right like how can we do this in a bigger way in a way that we can
(29:24) impact more people right and so um you know I think part of it was like what’s that purpose right and for us it was like if I can help one other person and one of that one other person could go help one other person in their community and that other person that they help can help someone in their Community right now we have a compound effect of impact that we’re creating and and you know if I were on my deathbed like I know I could be very happy knowing that hey like I’ve changed this world in in the capacity that I can uh
(29:49) to as much as I can into a better place right and so um that’s kind of the ethos of why we created Zan Coast was to create a community of people right to be able to one like learn how to do real estate but be around other people that are genuinely good human beings right and we don’t let everyone in it’s not like you know hey everyone come in it’s like no like we want to screen people and make sure that you know anyone that we do bring in right it’s the right person right they are culturally aligned with
(30:13) you know who uh the people that are members already like our students um that are you know genuinely authentically human beings that want to help other people out right and I’m a big believer in the Law of Attraction where if you just go out and help one other person all right the universe will always come back around to you it’s kind of like you know instead of saying Hey I want to be a millionaire you say how can I help 10 people make a million bucks right the universe always comes back around I guarantee that same person you know is a
(30:38) millionaire too so that’s kind of the whole philosophy of us is like hey like we can just help and share and actually one of the funny things is I get this question all the time where they’re like for like what why do you share everything I’m like and that’s very scarcely mindset to me and I would say like why why it’s so like different wavelengths to me of like well why wouldn’t I share there’s enough you know fish out there for everyone right me helping someone else out doesn’t mean
(31:02) that I get less right if you think that way then you know that’s something to look in the mirror about but um for us at least the culture is let’s just go help everyone and that’ll always come back around I totally agree with you on that uh because I I mean I see a lot of people and I try to judge people’s or not judge but I try to look at people’s happiness and you know there’s there’s a lot of uh a lot of people that that you know are very wealthy with my that don’t seem to have a lot of Joy they don’t and
(31:30) they don’t maybe don’t necessarily give back but but it’s really the people that I see that that are that are giving and a being of service and have this higher calling and that in that way that that seem to be expressing a lot more joy um and and in that I mean that you’re the one of those people that I see like every time I see you know you connect with you it’s just this light up of of of joy and and and service that that you’re providing for people I think it’s it’s just wonderful yeah so yeah and
(31:59) it’s like Waltz like you said I mean it’s like true wealth right true wealth isn’t just being raised right it’s true it’s like every aspect of life and uh I mean if you’re not living in a fun way like even doing real estate deals for example you’re not doing with people that you like doing them with yeah what’s it fun in that like why I even do it then at that point was it just you know do nothing just broke your job or something like that at that point like go do stuff that you like doing stuff
(32:21) with and you know people people in relationships are everything man in life that that’s really what I feel like I I’ll take the migration the relationships I make the you know the Adam Hills of the worlds were you know just you know I love talking with people like you right and like you know you’re we have the same you know ethics and and morals and values right where you know we’re trying to serve and give back to people and I think that’s who I want to spend time with right and right um the more and more I realize that
(32:48) um so well that’s a I I think that’s so important because the way you’re the way you’re doing it with regard to you know not just helping people to build their own wealth through um you know through this community through through real estate education but educating people to serve you’re giving you’re giving people a why you’re giving people a purpose I mean every a lot of other programs that you see out there for Real Estate is like hey here’s how you get rich in real estate here’s
(33:12) how you do the Burr method here’s how you do this method and it’s like okay well great but if if you’re if your goal is just to eventually just sit on a beach and just you know chill out there all day long I mean at some point you’re not going to have that compelling motivation to really persist it’s not going to be there that’s why people fail that’s why people stop and they don’t well that they don’t continue after they fail so um so that’s a powerful distinction between what it seems like you’re doing
(33:42) and what what you know I’ve seen another masterminds yeah and this probably doesn’t sell as much but like do wheels are with just the why aspect of it because I mean real estate money stocks crypto anything right they’re just Vehicles right to be able to do what you want to do right live where you want to live right it’s like you know I doubt that I mean hopefully your goal isn’t just hey I want to make a million bucks but it’s hey I want to make a million bucks because I want to be able to dial back
(34:10) my hours as a nurse from 60 to 20 or 10 right that way I could spend the additional 30 hours a week starting a non-profit that you know teaches kids how to uh you know financial literacy at a younger age and to me that’s like way more powerful and that’s like you said that’s what I continue to drive you to do stuff because you know anything you do in life anything that’s worth anything it it’s a lot right it’s a lot of mental screening a lot of roller coasters that’s something that you won’t
(34:35) see in the books in the podcast right it’s a lot of ups and downs right so the UPS are easy to deal with the Downs right to be able to recover from that failure fast right only happens if you’re mentally prepared and knowing that hey there’s a bigger why behind this versus like it’s kind of like Elon right I mean and obviously well the controversy with Elon Musk but uh his his vision is I want to make uh you know the bill I’m gonna be the richest person in the world where I’m gonna make
(34:58) billion dollar companies now he’s like I want to get human beings on Mars yeah what like that’s that’s a mission right and and you know the money has come to him sure but that wasn’t why he made SpaceX I think he did it because you know he really you know believes in uh you know pushing the the human race forward right so definitely yeah he took I mean that you know regardless of what you think about him he took a ton of risk on each of those things all for that purpose of getting to that you know
(35:23) and and and improving Transportation all those kinds of things there’s a lot there’s a lot a lot there uh yeah but yeah purpose drives are you know purpose you know drives drives what we can do and as you said it best it’s like you know on your deathbed what do you want to look back on and really appreciate yeah so and you talk about mindset a lot what are what are some of the mindset practices that you do or some of the daily routines to get your mindset right so I mean just daily routine wise I
(35:50) think evening and morning routine like just kicks off your day in a way better way right just give momentum and I’ll be the first to me I still fall into traps sometimes where you know I’m not traveling right on my phone’s right next to me I try to nowadays I I put my phone in a different room right yeah I don’t wake up and scroll but I’ve done that right on you know I’m traveling around I feel my phone and start scrolling right because that’s what that that’s what the phone is nowadays right it’s an
(36:13) addiction tool where you start scrolling and you’re on there for like half an hour like oh my God you can’t even believe but so one of the things I do in my my evening routine is I try to plan out my my date of tomorrow so I’ll look at my schedule find that out I’ll plan out my I’ll get my clothes ready for tomorrow which is something that um a lot of like world leaders do or like I think Obama’s put in his book where he’s like a president United States shouldn’t plan what he eats or what he wears right
(36:36) so that’s why you know you see people wear the same things over and over and over again because yeah yeah that’s that’s you know it’s one suit like I wear a black turtleneck and jeans that’s all I wear right I’m not like that crazy but like just being able to not have to think about that kind of thing in the morning right so I can save my brain space for other stuff right that helps and then morning routine wise you know wake up uh I was going to gym my wife in the morning uh every morning but uh kind
(37:00) of hurt my foot lately so I’ve been kind of just limping down my garage gym and trying to lift some weights and then if I have time I’ll do the meditation and then then I’ll grab my phone right sure take a shower and then grab my phone and then um you know I’ll start my day and usually once you pick up that phone or you turn on your laptop it’s you’re off you’re going right and so I want to at least give myself that time to be able to um you know to have that time for me yeah yeah yeah that’s awesome
(37:28) um that’s something I hear a lot about from people who who are high Achievers that they always have a morning and an evening routine um uh and I want to kind of get back into some of your investment practices again because you you’ve primarily or you started investing in the Bay Area right one of the yeah it’s like yeah we went first property actually it was a house hack rinsed it out that it was a one bedroom plus a den that was like 150 square feet rinsed it out the den and that was my first really investment experience that
(37:57) yeah can you can you share what a house hack is just for those who might know yeah so house hack is an amazing way especially you live on really in really expensive areas right it’s uh you you buy a house whether it’s a duplex or single family house maybe it has three bedrooms four bedrooms you can even have one bedroom plus a den right and essentially you rent out part of your house right so meaning that if you have a four bedroom maybe you’re on top the three other units or rooms right if you have a duplex movie you run out with the
(38:21) other side for me I bought a condo because that’s all I could afford at the time and had a den and I put a a curtain on the den and I rented it out to someone I was doing a coding boot camp right so for me for example I’ll use real numbers I was paying two thousand dollars for my mortgage uh this guy was paying me 1200 bucks for not den and so my monthly you know expense for housing what it was it was 1500 bucks when I was renting for a room uh in the city and then it became 800 bucks I cut that in half doing a house hack wow um so that
(38:51) was that was my first four it was just a house hacking in the Bay Area sounds great yeah because I was curious yeah I I was always curious that you know lot of people’s or what I hear a lot of people’s uh hesitation towards getting into real estate is as well the Market’s too expensive and and you know here we have somebody who started out investing in one of the highest priced markets in the in the world yeah that’s it’s interesting how you’re able to pull that off any any anything that you believe is
(39:17) true right it’s too kinds of too expensive it rates are too hot and they’re too high right now I’ll put it I’ll I’ll put something out there that is gonna like just like put it in perspective like we’re in 2023 right now but in 2021 for example no one was buying I hear people say I’m not gonna buy because it’s too expensive or I’m sorry yeah it’s too expensive even though rates were low nowadays what do you hear you say you hear well it’s the prices have come down right
(39:40) significantly 20 or so and people are like oh wait to see what I can’t buy yeah well there’s always gonna be something right you can have you know you know low rates and low prices too right that that just doesn’t exist so you have to pick you know what you want to do and and you know roll with you know the the strategy that you have to roll with for whatever Market is whether it’s geographical or or overall macroeconomics Market that you have to figure out yeah so it just comes into really analyzing what your own goals are
(40:06) and uh and like you said earlier not hitting home runs but you you seem to latch on to this idea of of you know what you say failing upward but obviously you had a lot of successes in there of uh you know hitting singles hitting you know doubles moving on up from the uh uh from the house hack to the single family homes did it get easier as you did that or or was it more complex or I mean the easiest one is a house hack in my pictures you’ll live there right you can touch it you know you’re you’re really there
(40:36) um we went from that to an out of state uh Texas proper single family house in Texas right and uh yeah I made some mistakes there too right um you know but then you know do after that it was also in Texas made some different mistakes but never made the same ones right and you kind of just learned and really to me there’s some barriers right I mean hashtag is one of them uh out of state is another car barrier uh doing a creative financing deal like a bird for example you know one then you go to like multi-family an apartment company that’s
(41:03) another level of a barrier that you have to break within yourself um so yeah I think progressively there’s always barriers to break right and um yeah so even for us right now I mean we’ve done like all the single families of birds in our time and I I typically don’t like to touch those as much anymore just because um I just know my time value uh of it so it’s more now we’ll just you know try to get bigger deals because yeah same time really yeah what um and so the thing that drove you into the bigger deals like the
(41:32) commercial apartments and things like that was just so that you can maximize your time but was there any elements of of fear that came into you there to to like you know well you’re playing bigger what oh yeah um it very much reminded me of my first investment property deal right where I was like I was really scared to even jump in because all the secure comes in at the time right and so same with the commercial property same thing it was like to me idols idolized and looked up to all these people that were doing wow
(42:00) you’re so badass that’s so cool I came from I can’t even fathom to do that and then you know for me it was one of those things where I knew that that was where I wanted to go right and you know I just come to tell myself I’m gonna you know do this and do some deuce and it’s going to sound super woo-woo but like uh eventually you know I think he was in 20 2019 or 2020 or so it was in 2020 actually 25.
(42:25) uh I was like I’m gonna do an apartment complex right that’s that’s my big goal this year and I just couldn’t tell myself that in an opportunity appeared itself uh and you know probably years before that opportunity would have just gone right over my head and I would be like yeah I’m good I’m already but this time like I heard it and I was like my subconscious was just like yeah this is it let’s roll let’s go do this right and I took that opportunity and ran with it and it wasn’t as hard right it was not
(42:47) as hard as you think it is just like any kind of you know my first investment property is a single family house same thing I thought was I put in my mind thinking that would be so hard you do it wasn’t that bad right same with apartment complex the only difference is maybe there’s an additional comma or additional zero to it but if you know what you’re doing and you feel confident when you have the people around you that you can lean on and mentors that you can lean on then there’s really nothing to
(43:06) fear that point right except for the fear itself of you know perceived perception of you know what could happen but guess what Like Anything could happen right we can all die in a meteor shower today right but sure um is that is it likely gonna happen is it you know number wise gonna happen highly doubtful right so so yeah so the so uh so getting into that apartment complex that that first one that you did so have you when you started doing that did you start borrowing other people’s more of other people’s money or did you
(43:36) uh how did you finance those and what other things did you do yeah the first one was just our own money um and uh I can’t tell you how many times I wanted to back out uh that deal in between because I just you know I just wasn’t sure right and uh I wanted to at least try our own money first right and really kind of understand and it took me like three or three deals at three or four deals in of doing our own and then saying you know what life all right I think I feel more prepared now to to do bigger ones with
(44:06) people so um so yeah it was our own money let’s uh no it’s good to know I mean it’s it’s kind of consistent with the direction you were taking which is just like Steps up you know you’re just kind of taking steps up not a not a huge risky leap but just these gradual steps up um and and uh if you had so if if you were to kind of go back in time and tell yourself uh when you’re just starting out or or even just a new investor that might be afraid to get into real estate because of one of the aforementioned I
(44:38) don’t have money I don’t have time I don’t have this I don’t have that um what would you what advice would you give that person knowing what you know now man there’s so many things um that’s why you have a that’s why you have a mastermind for it yeah well I think a couple things right is really be very strategic about who you surround yourself with right um because that those people will really kind of push you in the right or wrong direction right and so I think if I look back at you know the growth that we had uh I
(45:12) would attribute a lot to just you know being around very high level people that I I you know Tuesday look up to and and for some even have you know kind of surpassed where I feel like they could help me anymore but instilled friends with them and stuff like that but it’s like you be around those people you just get up to that level a lot faster and so but I think it’s in the Trap that a lot of people will fall into is that they’ll see a very famous you know YouTuber out there and they’ll think automatically oh this
(45:38) person said you know that’s that’s he’s a badass right uh yeah but really without checking out their values right and potential baggage that they may have as well right and so I think it’s so important as I look back at my journey and stuff and yeah I’ve made a lot of mistakes right but it’s like more just looking back at that mistake and understanding that like they may say they say somebody weren’t like tactical they’re more about people that’s definitely the hardest part about any
(46:01) business there’s also the most rewarding part right so I would always say to myself you know if I were you know here you know six years ago or so I’d say hey you know we’ll just make sure that you invest in the people around you right and yeah that also includes yourself right because you gotta invest in yourself to be able to um I guess allow yourself to be around those people right and what I mean by that I was actually starting with my positive day and uh we’re talking about hiring people right or bringing in
(46:29) partners and stuff and and you know so when I mentioned I was like hey actually like yeah all you got to do is you gotta find the right people and I was like yeah you could I think that’s right but I think taking it to the next step was actually more like who do you need to be to attract those people because the best people that I’ve been in my life have kind of shown up right and naturally have have stayed around versus me seeking people so I was like more about like how who did you need to be as a human being to track the
(46:54) people that you want to be around and I think that’s to me um you know more powerful than just go out and find people right yeah I try I love that I love that perspective on attracting people that you want to be around too so and and and that’s seems like that’s what you’re doing too with Zen Coast University it sounds like it’s a really really incredible uh Mastermind that brings in people the same values I and and if people want to discover more about that learn more about you Calvin how how can
(47:25) they find you and and and uh reach out yeah I’m 100 uh just go to zencosuniversity.com um you know you can find me there but call with us um you find me on Instagram or Facebook I’m just Calvin chin REI uh YouTube as well so we do we still do a lot of free uh match classes as well so um just follow us and and uh you know hopefully we can provide any kind of information just help you guys in your journey yeah please please do if you’re listening to this and you’ve and you’ve wanted to look at how you could and not
(47:56) just be not just in in a way that you do not just so you could quit your job if you’re happy in your job that’s that’s wonderful but if you want to get the Financial Freedom to have that additional security to have real security you know learn more from you know one of the best asset classes out there regarding real estate one of the true champions in this field who’s serving and giving back uh Calvin you’re you’re a rock star in this area dude and I’m so glad that you’re able to spend
(48:20) some time here today thanks for joining us dude yeah thanks for having me Adam appreciate it man all right we’ll talk to you soon thanks again for everybody for joining us and we’ll see you next time hey everyone Thanks for tuning in to the flow over fear podcast if you’d like to learn more about getting into flow and learn the foundations of flow I have a free video series on my website at www.adamcliffordill.
(48:45) com to help with foundations of flow feel free to go there and download it and start your journey to Rising above fear achieving greater flow in your life if you like this episode and I’m guessing you did if you stuck around for this long then please do me a favor and hit the Subscribe button and you will receive notifications when I have new interviews new Recaps and new trainings that pop up on YouTube thanks again for joining us