The Home Haven: Unlocking the Secrets to Transforming Your Living Space

Alright, well, we're waiting for our next guest right now. I don't even know who our next guest is.

Well, Christian will send somebody. Okay, good.

Yeah.

Good, good.

Dude, so did we talk a couple weeks ago about— I don't know if it was like on air or off air— about figuring out how to go live on Twitter?

We talked about it off air.

Off air?

Yes.

Okay. So we did talk about it.

We did.

Okay. Did you— did you see the debacle this last week?

No.

So, you know, DeSantis, he did yesterday, right? I don't know if it was yesterday or the day before. He declared his presidency live on Twitter.

Live. Yep, I did see that.

And it was a disaster.

It was awful. It did not go well.

So, one, They crashed the servers.

Yeah.

Which couldn't handle that many. So like it got to like, I think it was like 190,000 people were watching and then it crashed the servers. And like, so there was like somebody that commented.

It's not that many.

It's not that many. No. I mean, not for a presidential announcement. No. And somebody, somebody chimed in in the comments is like, they were like, hey, YouTube had a PlayStation announcement on today that had like 790,000. Oh, huck huck. Wow. So, but not only that, man. So I listened to it.

Okay.

In the post, you know, because they recorded it.

Of course.

And it was a 7-minute speech that I turned off at 2 and a half minutes.

That bad?

It just wasn't—

Wasn't interesting. Wasn't compelling.

I mean, there's nothing— what was one, it was nothing I hadn't heard before.

Sure.

Nothing that got me excited.

Right.

It was standard DeSantis stuff. And I was just like, meh.

It's very interesting. It's interesting.

And I like him.

Yeah, it's going to be—

I like him, but it was like, oh yeah.

I mean, he's, he's definitely made a name for himself. He's been smart in the, the last year and a half, 2 years. Yeah. With, with the way he's gone after some big corporate stuff. His media stuff sucks. Yeah.

Like he did like a book launch before he even announced his candidacy. And I don't even think it hit the bestseller list.

That's never good.

But like, he's still super popular.

He's super popular, and, um, he's, he's the best alternative to the other guy.

Yeah.

And, and, you know, we'll see. I mean, a lot of people like the other guy, a lot of people don't.

Yeah.

So it's gonna be interesting.

Well, and there— I mean, like, we haven't— okay, so we— there's still players to hit the field.

Always are.

But the, the thing that's like boggling my mind is is the DNC announced the other day that they're not going to have a primary.

Oh.

Yeah.

That's interesting.

They're just gonna run him uncontested.

Really?

I mean, like, I get it, but like, really, really bad optics.

Well, yeah, for a lot of reasons.

Yeah.

And, oh, I did not know that.

Yeah, it's pretty nuts. Because there's— I mean, like, one, like, it doesn't seem like there's any other good candidates on the Democrat side, right? So they could just be trying to avoid putting the rest of the horrible team out there for everyone to see.

That's definitely possible.

But like, you know, maybe it's— maybe it's like, well, we want him to be able to save up as much energy as possible for the debates. Like, he's— he's got 3 in him and we're not going to waste it on these jokers.

That's funny.

That's funny.

It's hard to know.

It's hard to know.

Yeah. Yeah.

So who knows? Cool. You coming to sit down?

Hey, nice to meet you, gentlemen. I love this setup.

Awesome.

Well, welcome. Hi.

Yeah, come on in.

Put the headphones on. That'll help you hear yourself. Get that microphone up near your— you can move that thing around however you need to get in front of your mouth. Uh, so awesome. Well, thank you. Awesome.

Yeah, good to have you. We haven't met before, so what's your name? What you do?

My name is Rosalyn Amaka, and I am the founder of Belonle. I have a media marketing company, and we also do distribution. Oh, very cool. All right.

Now, are Are you not associated with the young man we were just talking to, were you?

Which young man?

Viva Houston.

Viva Houston?

No.

No? Okay, because he said his dad does some marketing stuff and we didn't— so anyway, have you met him?

No, I haven't met him. I know a lot of people do marketing I met here.

When we say, when we say a young man, he's 13.

What?

Yeah, 13 years old.

I don't know where he went.

I love it.

He's been doing it for 3 years.

Yeah, I believe it. Yeah, I seriously believe it. Yeah, because whenever it comes down to all these Young people, I know whenever I was a kid, my dad would have issues and I would help him fix his computer. But as a kid, your brain, the way it's programmed— and I worked at Apple for almost 8 years, like, literally. I mean, I used to FaceTime my friends and like Steve Jobs will walk by. Like, that's how far.

Wow.

And so these kids now with all of this artificial intelligence, I feel old now.

Oh yeah, me too. I am old now.

Well, that's true.

No, you're young. You're young.

Do you feel old? Do I feel old?

You feel old?

No, but like my dad is 71 and he told me the other day, he's like, look, my brain still thinks I'm 24. My body just doesn't let me do the things I want to do.

Yeah, no, I understand that.

Yeah, no, so, so, so you do marketing? You do media?

Yeah, I can tell you, just, I can give you a summary.

Give us our elevator pitch.

Yeah, and I want to make sure I'm saying it, Bolanle?

Bolanle.

I'm not going to do that.

It's all right, I'm Nigerian.

I'm going to try, I'm going to try.

I'm Nigerian.

Bolanle.

Yes, Bolanle.

Bolanle. Okay, I'm glad that you went first. Yeah, I can do it right.

It means finds wealth at home, so Long story short, as y'all know, I worked at Apple, and so whenever I'm meeting all these different people from all over, oh, you're that smart techie kid, I need you to help me. So websites, SEO, that's what we do. However, that interaction doesn't just stop with someone you never talk to, like overseas somewhere. Well, most people do, and they get it for like a really cheap price. For us, it's all about relationships because you are who you say you are, or Google— you are who Google says you are when it comes down to your personal brand.

Absolutely.

Y'all know that very well. And so when it comes down to just that, I started having people come to me for video production and pictures. And it's like, because I'm a social butterfly and I'm the connector, if you tell me an issue, I'm gonna find someone that will help solve it, or I'm the connector.

Right.

And so for me, everything with this business, it's like, okay, how can I find value? Who can I connect you with? And y'all can make a lot of money. And for us as a media company, we're putting The meaning of Belonley, it means finds wealth at home. And what I love about what I do is that I've been very blessed to have a very interesting network of professional athletes, hedge funds, other— so many different people from different industries, and we're able to come together. And so when I even think about this event, why I'm so excited is because one of my buddies, Staph Financial, Tony Hills, as an example.

Okay.

Super Bowl champ. His whole— you know the TV show Ballers on HBO?

No.

What? Stop playing games.

Are you serious?

No.

Well, I—

no, look, we were just talking earlier, like, 2 very uncool guys. We were talking earlier about we don't have time to watch TV. I'm busy.

I can see that. Um, I know when I'm thinking about my friends, like this particular guy, we have a partnership and I also do marketing for his company.

Wait, is Ballers a— is it a, um, Financial— Is it a reality show or is it like a scripted show?

It's a scripted show.

Okay.

But like when you think about the concept and like groups of people and like in a certain tax bracket and they're trying to find ways to leverage and be able to like get— hold off and like wait for that right deal to come.

Right.

And so instead of putting your money and then you're, you're putting into the bank account and you know you're not making any money just sitting in the bank account.

Right.

How about we strategize and leverage this, put it into a tool so that way when that opportunity comes, you're ready and that money is yours tax-free. So things like that. And then being able to leverage, get more real estate. I love learning so much from my friends. And so that's the part about what I like to do and that's how the craziness kind of started. Wow.

So, I mean, to run with your analogy, where in your experience right now is the cheapest real estate in the digital space? So like cheapest and then the most effective.

What do you mean by that when you say cheapest, realist?

Like, so like we were, we were just talking about, uh, how DeSantis had the major flop on Twitter. It was, it was either yesterday or the day before or something. Did you hear about this?

No. So I've been like glued, like filming stuff. I haven't seen anything.

So, so DeSantis declared his presidential run.

Oh, officially?

Yeah, live on Twitter.

I like how he did it on Twitter.

Well, see, that's the thing. It flopped because the servers crashed. You know, Elon's trying to push Twitter to be like this whole new platform where everything happens on Twitter. And so he wanted to do like— Elon was on the call with DeSantis to declare the presidency, to like unveil this new live thing, and it didn't go well. So it crashed at like 190,000 people. And so like hardly anybody heard it.

I'm actually surprised that out of 190,000 people that the server crashed, you think they would have more That's— yeah, that doesn't make any sense.

Yeah, and so like, I'm— and Kevin and I were talking the other day because, you know, we put the show out to a lot of different places, and I was like, you know, it might be kind of cool to be one of the first ones on Twitter to be doing the show. Maybe we should figure this out. Well, then I watch him do it, and I'm like, maybe I don't want to.

Yeah, what's the point? What's the point?

You know what I mean? So that's why I'm asking the question, like, where's the most bang for my buck digitally out there right now? Because if you're making content, I mean, like, you got to know that, like, making content on, you know, like Facebook has less return than it does on YouTube. But on YouTube, you got to have so many followers in order for it to get payoff.

Are you talking about the best, like, return as far as with you trying to grow your business and brand?

Yeah, absolutely.

Oh, it's easy. Hello.

What's hello?

Say hello.

Okay.

So literally so many people with all this technology that we have on our phones, All these phones with this pandemic and just with this digital age of so many people, they say that they're connected, right? But they can't even look at someone in their face and make eye contact. Like, that's a lost art for some strange reason.

Sure.

Yeah.

So a lot of people, they miss so many opportunities by literally walking past someone. And many people— the biggest mistake I see is that sometimes we, in our minds, we know it's like, okay, you know, in your head, this person they look like they're successful, blah blah blah. You know, some people fake it till they make it. Yeah, a lot of people block their blessings because whenever you work really hard and you prepare for an opportunity, and finally when that moment is presented to you, it may not be in that exact package that you were expecting. And so there's a, there's a lot more that I can say, but the best part is face-to-face human interaction. And events

like this is powerful.

Oh, for sure.

Because I don't care how much money you pay on Facebook and Instagram. There is nothing more powerful than human connection.

Mm-hmm.

And so I tell that to contractors that I talk to nationwide every day, because I— there's another space in the real estate industry. And I can tell you now, because I look at the numbers every day across the country, the contractors and the people that I speak to that communicate with their customers, they don't just hand them off and it's like, let somebody else deal with it. The people that take the time from the beginning to the end They're the most successful. I see the numbers every day, every day.

Yeah, no, it's— no, I'm glad you said that because it's absolutely true. People have forgotten that the personal connection is one of the most powerful ones. All of my biggest contracts that I've ever done in our business have been because of personal connections. They've never been a lead that came through digitally.

And it's free.

Like, even though I have this digital marketing agency, the fun— websites and SEO, that's like the basic stuff. Like, who cares? Like, that's great, but like, seriously, the networking—

It's the relationship.

take it for granted.

Because at the end of the day, like, it's one thing, it's one thing for you to be able to build a website for someone.

Yeah.

It's another thing for them, while you're building a website for them, for them to say, hey, I'm having— I'm working through this, and you able to help them with that? Yeah, that is really what keeps them connected to you as a marketer.

That's how my business has literally— like, it's crazy because I didn't think about making all this stuff a business. I just wanted to help people.

Sure.

But the thing is, like, for us, we're full service because a lot of people, they get their website done and then you can't even reach the person that built it, for crying out loud.

Right.

And so for us, it's like whenever we work with our clients, because we deal with so many different industries and I'm all over the place, it's kind of like, hey, I have this right customer for you or this client, and next thing, this could be a $20 million deal.

Right.

So you never know. Those deals come my way all the time and I'm able to help people with those introductions.

Right.

And so that's why relationships are so powerful. And like I said before, just because this person does not come in a package that you expect, that may be one of your biggest blessings.

Yeah.

All right.

So one of the, one of the things that we always talk about is like the people that you surround yourself with. Like, you know, you are the sum total of the 5 people that you spend the most time with.

Exactly.

I heard somebody explain something. It was just this afternoon. I'm gonna see if I can remember it right about how you know whether or not you're hanging out with people that are— and I hate to use the word better, but like people, whether or not you know you're hanging out with people who are better than you or more successful, whatever it is, whether or not you know you're hanging out with those kind of people or people that are worse than you.

Yeah.

And what it is, is if you're hanging out with people that are worse than you, you begin— your self-talk will be all of your virtues that are good and all of their virtues that are bad. Because it's easier for you to elevate yourself above them. But if you're hanging out with people who are better and more successful than you, you begin to describe their virtues as good and yours in comparison is bad. And so that's when you know that you're hanging out with maybe the right kind of people that are going to actually help elevate you and take you to it to another level and, you know, encourage you, inspire you, challenge you.

You know, that was so beautiful. said, because I can honestly say from my experience, it's crazy because I don't— I really don't care what a lot of people do. I want to know who you're— who you are as a person, right? I want to know how you treat people. Even whenever I talk to all these athletes, all that they know— I don't want to talk about sports. I don't care.

Yeah.

About how are you when you're outside of here. Like, I pay attention to that. And what's crazy is the most successful people that I have met billionaires, all of that.

Yeah.

I never know who they are, but you can just tell when you first interact with somebody and you're talking, those conversations, are they negative all the time? And if something goes bad in their life or a situation, it's okay to have a bad day. It's not okay every day. With that being said, I always pay attention to small things that other people may not. It's like, are you looking for joy maybe in the darkness? As crazy as that sounds.

Yeah.

But like, by the time I ended up, you know, I conversated with people for like hours. We're having a great time because it's like we're talking about visions and dreams. We're not talking about other people or problems. Okay, if we do have a problem, how are we gonna fix it?

Yeah.

That's important. So it's okay where things aren't perfect, but if you have the mindset of adapting when things go wrong, that is what makes a big difference. And by the time I get done talking with these people, or we spend time, We exchange numbers, we'll meet again later, and then people come up to me, they're like, Rose, do you know who you were just with? No, I just know they were a really cool person, and then I find out later. So for me, it's just like how you treat people matters. And yeah, how you treat people matters.

Yeah, yeah, it really does.

You'll get a good vibe off of me unless I'm hanging out with Kevin.

That's true.

I treat him terribly.

Yeah, that's true. I treat him terribly too.

I totally believe it.

It's mutual, it's mutual. We make fun of each other.

Yeah, it's only good fun.

That's a good relationship. I like, I like being stupid sometimes.

Well, yeah, I mean, you gotta have fun, right?

Yes, you always have to have fun. Life is too short. I do not wait for the weekend for anything. I hope y'all don't either.

No, no, no, I sure don't.

I'm working on the weekend.

Yes, yes, it is what it is.

That is a fact.

That's when I get to do my other job.

That's right.

Yeah, I'm actually really curious too. It's kind of like You know, did you always want to like do this in regards of like being on camera and interviewing people? I love this.

I mean, not really. I mean, like the genesis of it, I started in recording. Oh, recording what? Music. Yeah. So I— are you from Houston?

Yeah.

Okay.

Do you know what Sugar Hill is? So I worked at Sugar Hill.

Okay.

So, but it was way back in the day. I mean, that's back when like Destiny's Child was recording there.

They're still awesome.

So it was—

yeah, they're still awesome.

So I got, I got to work with some really cool people while I was there, and then from there I ran the recording studio at Texas A&M for a couple years.

Nice.

And then I got into ministry, doing music on that end, and then God told me that I shouldn't be doing that anymore and brought me back into my family business. But all along I've always had the gear and stuff because it's more of a hop. One of the things I realized about the recording business is that no one was happy and everyone was poor.

That is true. That is very, very true.

And I was like, I don't like either one of those things. Um, so, so I— so that's why I walked away from it. And, and then, and then, you know, ironically ended up in ministry and then back in the family business. About 10 years after that. And then so Kevin moved to town.

2017.

2017. Quickly became friends and, you know, the podcast thing was kind of blowing up and I was like, and my wife had told me, she's like, look, you've got all this junk around the house that you need to get rid of it or use it.

Use it.

And so I was like, hey Kev, like we should, we should probably start a podcast. And so I had had this idea, like one of the things that I did well for my business all along was I was really good at the marketing. I was really good at the personal interaction, and there was a lot of people who are really, really talented and skilled at what they do, whether they be a plumber, electrician, you know, all these things. And maybe they have like, they're not so good on the person-to-person relationship, or they're not so good at the marketing or whatever. And I'm like, but they're really, they're a really good electrician, or they're a really good air conditioning guy, or they're really—

Yeah.

And I was like, we should build a platform where we can showcase these people and actually let people see their expertise and sort of draw out of them you know, their story, their business, and what it is that they provide for homeowners, and then just put it on display for everyone to see. So that, like, so there's like this catalog.

Yeah. Of, of—

and so like, we've been doing it for almost 5 years.

Almost 5 years.

Um, what?

Okay, we're gonna talk after this. After this. I'm just saying, no, this is really good because just when I just think about what we do, we bring visibility to people pushing the world forward. So, right, with that being said, distribution.

Yeah.

And so I think that's really cool. You're helping people, you're helping people develop a skill set. And so when I even think about our network with so many people trying to get in that line of space, I know I'm thinking of one group right now. They have about a million people within that platform.

Oh gosh, they're—

the leaders are going to be in my house. We're filming some stuff like this coming up week. Okay. But like, yeah, I'm thinking of so many people now that would be interested in like learning these skill sets.

Oh yeah, I mean like That's the thing is the barrier to entry is not— it's not a high. I mean, like, especially now. I mean, like, we have tech that pretty much does everything for you. Most people are just afraid to touch it.

That's the part. They're there. Many people must block their own blessings up here.

Yeah.

Oh, sure.

And the sad thing is it's kind of like they listen to too many people and they don't trust, like, their instinct and what's called on their heart. That's the best way I can say it. And so ignore the noise. Even with what I was doing, you know, people, they're just like, they didn't understand it. They didn't understand it in regards for like, like the why, I guess you could say. Yeah.

Yeah.

So you really want to help people for sure.

Well, and so, so the name of the podcast is The Homeowner Show.

Yes.

And the whole point— so, so take all of that and realize that that's not our audience.

Yeah.

Our audience is the homeowner. And the idea is that So many homeowners, they, they, they own their home, but you, when you're a homeowner, you're constantly working on your home.

Yeah, it's a learning journey. It is.

You just had a project like a week ago.

That's right, you're fixing things. You're— something breaks, you got to fix it. You got to get it, you know, your air conditioner has a problem and it's hot, so you got to call that guy. You know, a leak, so you got to call that guy.

Yeah.

And at the end of the day, I don't know how to do any of those things. That's why I'm calling the guy.

Yeah.

And I don't know how to do them. But I do know that there are homeowners all over the world that are getting screwed by the contractors because they come in, they're like, hey, you got a leak here, but it's caused by this, this, this, this, this, this, and this. And all of a sudden now you got a $9,000 bill that really you probably only needed a $35 flange to fix something, right? And so our idea is get the plumber on the show, let him tell you what he does.

The honest one.

The honest one. Get them to tell you what he does and why he does it. And oh, by the way, we ask this question all the time. What should a homeowner look for when they're looking for a plumber?

Like a checklist.

Yeah, what should they look for?

Because, because like we, we love having people in studio, kind of like we're having a conversation right now. That's our favorite.

This is the best. I prefer this.

We'll do remote interviews, rare, but—

I don't like it. I do it, I don't like it right now.

Yeah, so there are a few exceptions to that for us. Yeah, but people, people listen to the show in, in all 50 states, 12 different countries.

Beautiful.

Wait, what countries?

Oh, like, we were popping in— where was it the other day? I think it was India. So, which is an emerging country right now. So, India was— India's been big for us. Switzerland's been big for us. England's obviously big because they speak English. Australia has been big for us. We've never really hit that big anywhere in Asia, but I think they have a lot of like regulations to where stuff can't get through. Yeah, I think that's probably the biggest reason, but like, I mean, it's weird. It'll pop, and like, I think some of it is we have a lot of listeners that like travel around the country, and so like they'll go there and listen, and then I

think the algorithm kind of like starts showing it to other people while they're there.

I'll probably get you some listeners from Nigeria and Ghana and South Africa just because I know when we share I will definitely support.

Oh, nice.

But yeah, so that means that at the end of the day, we don't want homeowners to get screwed.

Yeah.

And, and so our whole platform is the idea of, you know, for a homeowner, what, what can you do to ensure that you're getting the best person to come and do your stuff? And what do you— how do you have— how do you learn that? Well, nobody really teaches you, so we're going to help teach you how to do that. We do product reviews too, so we'll That's—

we like that.

We like technology, and so we'll, we'll buy something, or yeah, we've got a couple of vendors that'll send us stuff and we'll review them and, and put it out on the podcast, that kind of stuff. Isn't that the fun part?

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah, it's a, it's a lot of the fun part.

So I have a question. What's the— I would say one, but what are the top 3 things that you have been sent?

That we've been sent from vendors? Well, so one of our— one of the vendors that that has just been huge for us has been Lutron. So which is, they do smart, smart switches for your home, like for lighting and that kind of thing. So we've gotten some pretty cool stuff that they've sent to us.

I'm gonna need their info.

Yeah, well, we had that and then we had the, the grill, um, the Rescue Grill Rescue. Grill Rescue. Yeah, which is super cool brush for like your grill. Okay. Um, it's like, you know, like a lot of People use like the wire brush.

Yes.

So like that stuff flakes off and gets in your food.

Yeah.

You know, and so like this guy invented this brush that cleans your grill just as well, but with no brushes.

He's a fireman.

Yeah, he's a fireman. And it helps reduce fires that start from your grill. It's super cool, like brush. And then we had a guy that sent us like he had like a CNC machine and it's up on the wall in the studio, but it's like it's our logo that he cut out of wood.

Uh, that's cool.

And, and so we hang it up on the— wait, that's hung up on the wall behind us.

We thought we were gonna— we thought we were gonna have a pretty cool end with a, uh, with the new battery-powered, um, hand tool company.

EGO?

Yeah, EGO.

Yeah.

And that didn't actually pan out, but like, we, we thought we were— like, he was getting ready to send us a chainsaw and we didn't get it. But, um, yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, like, we also don't press for it a whole lot. Yeah, we don't go after it because That takes work.

Plus, like, you don't want to— for us, we don't want to get locked into a product necessarily so that we can't speak honestly about other products.

Oh yeah, that would, that would suck.

Um, yeah, exactly.

And you want to, you want to make sure you're genuine because it's like, no, I want to make sure if this is bad, y'all don't get this, right? Or like, how about I'm gonna give this back to you?

How about I don't say anything because I don't want to mess you up, right?

Well, and that's what we've told everybody is like, look, if you send us a product, we're gonna be honest about it.

Yeah, yeah, I respect that. I would want that honesty as a homeowner.

Sure.

And so I'm always looking at reviews for stuff and I'm like, okay, this is worth it, this is not. But that helps.

Well, check this out. Tonight's episode is actually brought to you by—

that's right, an appliance repair company called Lone Star Appliance Repair.

She just teed it up for us right there.

Yeah. And, uh, and, and that's, that's one of the things that they're that they're built on is like not screwing the homeowner. Yeah, because it's like so many, so many brands are out there going, well, if you just buy another one, right? And so we're doing a couple of things. We're putting stuff in the landfill that really shouldn't be there probably, and we're wasting money. And so you get a repair company out there that actually knows what they're doing, they come out there, they repair your product, and you get to keep it.

Can give you an honest response as to whether or not you need to get another one or this one can be fixed. And most of the time it can be fixed.

Most of the time.

And I just thought about something random because I talked to, like, I talked to homeowners a lot when they're dealing with contractors, and I'm thinking about it now, like something that I'm— what I'm learning every day. Have y'all thought about being able to have like a life insurance policy and use that just for like a roof or a repair? So that way whenever it's time for that moment, you're not stuck because like—

You mean like borrowing against your life insurance policy?

No. Getting a policy just— getting a policy just for repairs.

Ah.

So that way, whenever it's time— and I'm saying this because I talk to people all over America that now, because they didn't prepare, they're now paying for roof replacements and things like that at 10%, 35% interest on stuff. When if you had a policy when that time was there, take the money out, put it on there, you're done.

I may sound stupid. I didn't know that there was such a thing.

I didn't either.

Is there such a thing?

I'm learning a lot.

Where do you get such a thing?

Learning about life insurance, and I'm actually studying to get my license now. I'm not done yet, but it's like there's so much information that they don't teach in school. It's almost upsetting.

It's intentional. Yeah, he was sneaking over your shoulder right there.

See you, Randolph.

No, like, I'm learning a lot. I can't wait until I officially get my license, but it's crazy how people are able to leverage life insurance in a way where people think about death. And I'm telling you, these people that make money, they are taking it, they're leveraging it by getting loans, using it as collateral.

Okay.

And so that way, if you're trying to get— there's so many different ways to strategize.

Yeah.

And so like, let's say if you need money, you take this loan, it's as collateral, you transfer that to the bank, and then so there's ways.

Yeah.

So do you— are you familiar with, uh, Patrick Bet-David?

Yes.

Yeah, because he, you know, that's, that's how he made all his money.

Oh, I didn't even think about that. No, I didn't know how he made it.

I just—

Life insurance.

It's a smart strategy. I, I had a buddy, he was basically telling me his strategy for all of his, this nice $300,000 cars and life insurance.

Yeah.

And so it's— there are strategies, but when it comes down to just that, people think they need a lot of money. They really don't. They really don't. You can still like make sure whoever you have Like, in your area, in your state, not every agent is the same. Not every life insurance policy is the same. I do not— well, I'm not gonna say what I recommend or don't, but whole life is amazing. I'ma just say that.

Yeah.

Because when it comes down to infinite banking, if people have not heard of that, they need to greatly look up infinite banking. I do know, like, on my podcast, the NFL player Tony Hills, with his company, he talks about that. That's his whole brand, and they're doing so many videos. showing everyday people, like, you don't need to make $100, $200, $300, whatever your tax bracket is, you still can do something for your family. And some of these tools, like, there are these products that will pay you tax-free, like, for 5 years if something happens to you. Or it's just so much stuff that people don't know.

Yeah, no, my, my wife is heavy into life insurance, mostly because she's just like, I don't want to work when you die. Yeah, I, I think I think there's like 4 different policies on me at this point. Yeah. And like, you know, all of— I think only one of them is a term policy. The rest of them are whole policies. So I think the one of them I've had since I was 15.

Whole is great.

Yeah.

Term really doesn't statistically pay.

No.

Because then it's— see, that's the part why I didn't want to keep going. If somebody's listening, oh, I have term, but whole life is great. And then—

Term is what it is. It's a term policy. Like, you should only have it for a short amount of time and then should be investing in whole policies.

And whenever you think about just wealth strategies, things that I'm learning right now, it's just, um, people just tell everybody to look up infinite banking.

Okay.

Infinite banking, tax-free, you're protected. Like, there's, there's just a lot. And then if you ever needed your money, some of these companies— I won't even say because I want people to look for themselves— some of these companies, if you're, let's say, needing money, and instead of pulling out money, let's say, out of your 401k, and then the market dips, and then you're down 7 or 8 grand, Other policies, because you're accumulating all this interest, you know, some of these policies, minimum 5% all the way up to 12% returns. Even in the recession— not the recession, the pandemic— when everyone was losing money, same thing. Certain people would say— yeah, I know, certain people with certain policies, while everybody else was losing money, these people, they were getting 11% of their money tax-free. Dang.

All right, so I don't want to skip over it because you mentioned earlier you have a podcast.

Yeah, I just started one.

How long ago?

Literally, goodness gracious, I would say 6 months ago. Okay, I do so much filming because I also started another show, and because I'm helping other people produce stuff. But like, everything with my podcast, pretty much if you were doing something to teach and inspire and then also help people to show— actually tell them and show them strategies on how to make money, then like, please come on the show so we can like learn and grow together. Yeah, so like one of my buddies He actually— I'm so proud of him. He's only 40 years old. He's done over 9 figures worth of transactions. And when he's coming to my house, he's coming in a couple of weeks and we're going to film. He's going to show people

how they can make $100,000 in 100 hours. He has a proven system. There's so much knowledge out there. We just have to ask.

Yeah. What's the name of your show?

The Rosalynn Amaka Show. I kept it easy.

There you go. Awesome.

Because at first, I wasn't expecting anything to be visual. My brother was the one that pushed me because he's like, you meet all these people. Who am I gonna— I don't know what I'm gonna talk about. So I figured, you know, like, hmm, what are things that I care about? I want to grow. I want to make my life better so I can help take care of my mom. And because, like, she's older, and, um, I'm just thinking about my family. So as much information that I'm learning from my friends that are killing it, and it's helped me in my journey, it's like, man, other people need to hear this too.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's life-changing information. And then also, um, I'll even give you an example of inspiration. One of my buddies He was a military— he's a military veteran. And, um, it was crazy because when he was at my house, when you see him, he looks like the Hulk. He looks like the Hulk. And he said he was a quadriplegic. And we were like, I'm sorry, what? Everybody in my house just looked at him saying, what? And then he actually shared his story and he talked about standard procedure. He got vaccinated about 8 times. Well, it was like 8 different shots, standard procedure.

Yeah.

However, he had a bad reaction and he couldn't walk for a couple of years. And when it comes down to mindset, what we were talking about, I thought it was fascinating because people in less situations that were like worse than his, they died.

Yeah.

But when it came down to mindset and repetition of being able to move your hands and feel— something that I thought was powerful of what he said, um, whenever it came down to his therapy, it took years for him to be able to walk and move and regain that strength, but it came down to like repetition. Even though, like, he was trying to make his fingers touch and it wasn't— it was frustrating. It wasn't working. Keep doing it. Repetition, repetition. And like, literally your mind. And so he was frustrated. Don't stop. Try. And like that, he started getting motion back. His story, it was just beautiful. And so I like stuff like that.

So it took him 2 years to get mobility back.

That's crazy. Those are the type of stories that I think are fun.

Yeah.

And so, yeah, it's not all about the money. And if it is, if you are going to get the money, how do we bless people with it? Because that's what we do at Belonging Media. So like all of our clients, all these strategic partnerships that we have, everyone makes money together and we all come. It's like, what's this vision that we have? And so, you know, it's, it's great.

Awesome.

Well, so we, we have some other guests to get to, but we love, we love getting to chat with you. Um, definitely come and find us afterwards. Love to get a picture. Yeah. Um, and, and visit some more. So if people want to get a hold of you, how do they do it?

bolanlemedia.com. And just because I am very hands-on with my business, I would— for y'all's podcast, Roselyn, R-O-S-E-L-Y-N, at bolanlemedia.com. Bolanle is spelled B-O-L-A-N, as in Nancy, L-E, media.com.

Awesome.

So it's just the beginning, so I'm excited.

Awesome.

All right, thank you so much for sitting down.

Nice to meet you.

Yeah, you too. Have a good night.

Good night.

You're awesome.

We'll visit some more.

This is amazing. Oh, man.

I'd like to say that was the first time that's been said about me, but—

Not—

well, today. Not even true then.

Not once has it been true.

No, not at all.

Good convo.

Yeah, absolutely. I think we've— I think we've got another guest coming, so we'll—

Let's see who we got.

Wait on that.

Oh yeah, we got the— looks like we have a dentist that's gonna be able to jump in.

Okay, great. That's fantastic.

Yeah. All right.

So, all right, are you coming?

Come on.

Hello.

How's it going?

Very good.

Good.

Awesome. There's some headphones right there and that'll help you hear and Just pull that mic right up to your, to your face.

So we get the fun job of discovering who you are and what you do. That's right.

Tell us about you.

Well, my name's Amber.

Okay.

And our business is Axis Surveillance Group. So what we do is we have video surveillance cameras that we place around construction sites.

Oh.

And we monitor these cameras from dusk until dawn.

Is this like the little high-tech rig I saw over here?

Exactly.

Okay, yeah, I saw some blinking lights over there.

All right, before we get too much further, Pull that mic a little bit closer. There you go. That is better. Yeah, no, that's great. So y'all do, uh, like around construction sites and you monitor them?

Yes.

Okay.

And so, uh, we do residential or commercial, uh, really whatever the client needs.

Yeah. Okay.

Are these the rigs that I see sometimes? They're like on wheels that— No, no, like— Okay, so not those?

No, ours are stationary. They're In the ground. They are buried and on 10-foot poles.

Oh, okay.

So nobody's gonna mess with these cameras unless they have a ladder.

Okay.

All right.

And, um, as well as the cameras, we do provide off-duty police coordination. So if someone needs a police officer or security guard on site, we do provide that service as well.

Okay. So, and like, the reason you guys are there, I assume, is to prevent theft of materials Correct. And, you know, vandalism, right? Is that—

I mean—

Yes, I mean, that's exactly what we do.

Okay.

I mean, even if, um, so our cameras, they are triggered by motion, right? And this has to be some kind of a heat signature, so that's only going to trigger from a person or a vehicle or an animal walking around.

Okay, yeah.

So as soon as we get that notification, we have our monitors, they'll check that, and if it pops up there's somebody walking around You know, they're going to call the client like, hey, you know, there's someone walking around your site. Are they supposed to be there?

Right.

And if that client says no, we're going to dispatch police immediately.

Yeah.

And so, you know, we try to mitigate as much theft as possible.

Yeah.

And it does pay off. I mean, we have caught several people in the process of stealing material.

Are you catching them because your cameras are discreet or they don't care or—

Honestly, some people are very brazen enough just do it right in front of the cameras.

Okay.

I guess they maybe think that they're not monitored even though we have signs up. Yeah. But yeah.

Because like, I know like on home security systems now, like if you jump on Nextdoor, people will talk about people doing stuff to their front porch all the time, even though they got like a Ring doorbell.

Oh yeah.

You know, but like what they've done, what it was like, and most of the time it's kids, but like they've just kind of figured out if I wear a gaiter and I take the license plate off my car and I'm probably gonna get away with it. I mean, you know, because you can't identify him at that point. I mean, have you, have you guys experienced that on—

I mean, honestly, we haven't had anybody wearing a mask, ironically.

Oh, really?

So far, no. I mean, we get the best description that we can for the police officers, and, you know, it's in their hands after that. So, I mean, we'll get vehicle description, the person that's committing the offense.

Okay.

Hopefully they'll get there quick enough to stop them.

And so are these temporary systems?

Yes, I mean, they're only in the ground. They're easily removed. They're not bolted. They're not cemented. They're just buried very securely in the ground, and it's no long-term contracts, just month to month.

Okay.

So we're very flexible. If you just need it for one month, okay, we can deploy our cameras. They'll be there for you.

And are they, are they hardwired? How are they, how are they getting power?

Our systems are self-contained. They're all solar-powered and our cameras run off of cellular towers. So we can put out in remote areas as long as they have decent cell phone signal. We can get antennas that should pick it up.

Oh wow.

So we don't need any power source required. It's all self-contained.

So batteries, solar panels, broadcaster, everything's just up at the top?

Right, everything's in this box, in our box that's It sits on top of the pole. These boxes are secure. It's locked. No one can get in it.

Okay.

No one should be messing with these cameras. And like I said, it's 10 foot off the ground.

Yeah, good luck.

And so it's just, it's just a camera up there. There's no, like, y'all can't speak to speak through them, can you?

Actually, we can. Okay, cameras, um, we can speak through them. They do have a siren on them as well. Um, it does record playback as well, so even though we're not monitoring during the day, if it does get triggered for some kind of motion, it'll record at least usually a 30-second clip. We can set it longer.

Yeah.

And so if something does happen during the day, we should have video evidence of that happening.

So if we, if we have like, say I'm building a home, it would be a good idea to have this on site?

Oh, absolutely.

You know, just to— I mean, a lot of people don't realize, like, you're— even though like you have a contractor there, they may not be liable from materials stolen. Like, you maybe have to pay more if those, if those walk off. And so, like, that's, you know, I mean, I would imagine y'all's service would be a lot cheaper, right, than, you know, exactly stolen material.

Yeah, right. So our cameras do start at $395 a month, okay, for our single tower. Um, and yeah, if you take that into consideration, that's not that much money per day. And if you're talking about $2,000 worth of material, that's just gone. That's out.

$2,000 worth of material is like a box of screws. I mean, it's like, that's not even— it's like one 2x4, right?

2 pieces of wood.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

So I mean, yeah, you would be out that much money.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And so, well, yeah, because we, uh, we, we interviewed— we had a really cool interview with a, with a guy, um, I don't know, it's probably a year and a half ago now, uh, David Sellinger. Yeah. And so they, they do AI-assisted home security. Yeah, exactly. But they have people that are monitored that they, you know, if someone comes on the property, they can tell them, hey, who are you?

Right.

And it's a live person actually talking to them. Hey, how—

who are you?

Why are you here? And if you don't leave, we're gonna call the cops, you know, that kind of thing. And so having the ability to speak through the camera, like, it's amazing. what, you know, people know if it's a robot, right? Exactly. You know, it's like, and he said that he's even had people like, like, well, you're not real. And he's like, well, if I'm not real, how do I know you're wearing a blue shirt right now and then you're wearing this hat that has this logo on it and you drove up in this car? Like, how do I know? They're like, oh yeah, well, that's not very good.

Exactly right, it does. I mean, that makes a big difference and we can't say like, hey, you know, who are you? And some people do like, hey, I'm the sheetrock guy or something, right? I mean, that does happen, but our monitors are very good at watching that, anything that's triggered. And if, you know, there was someone walking around, our monitors are gonna call the client and they're gonna be like, hey, you know, there's a guy walking around the back of the house, are they supposed to be there? Yeah. As soon as they're like no, then we're gonna dispatch police. So I mean, our monitors are on it.

Yes, for pretty, it's pretty easy to get to know. Like, are you the sheetrock guy? Like, I'm the sheetrock guy. Okay, well, like, why are you fidgeting and starting to run?

Right, exactly.

It's like, I'm not the sheetrock guy. I mean, I mean, I'm the— I don't know, I don't know, leave me alone.

I was told to say sheetrock.

Sheetrock, sheetrock. Why are you— you're so nervous right now.

Exactly.

All right, so what's— I got to know, what's the, what's the weirdest thing you've ever seen come across the camera?

Um, we had a guy, I'm not sure if he was on drugs or drunk or something, but just assume drugs. Yeah, going around and just stealing trash from one of the construction sites, like literal trash. And we were like, okay, I mean, he's cleaning, right?

I think you have an orange peel, sir. That is an orange peel. And the reason I said orange peel is because we just got the building a house for my mother-in-law, and I have never in my life picked up more orange peels—

Oh my gosh.

—than the construction workers that left orange peels on there. Oh my goodness. I mean, literally a day I would pick up 20 orange peels every day, and I'm like, well, they never get sick, I guess.

Just leave them there, man. You'll get like a citrusy aroma. Well, I have dogs that will eat anything. Are orange peels bad for dogs?

I can't imagine they're good if you eat 20 of them. Right. Yeah. So anyway, but that's hilarious.

Yeah. Maybe you'll get an orange tree.

Probably not. Not that lucky. Not that lucky. All right. So he's picking up trash.

Yeah. Just— that's nuts. Taking the trash. That's nuts. Okay.

What did you do?

Well, I think they had called the client because they were like, hey, there's this guy walking around, and they were just like, nobody's supposed to be there. But they watched him for a while. He didn't try to break into the buildings. He was just taking the trash.

It's like, could you bag that up and put it on the sidewalk, please, when you're done?

Got a roll of Glad bags right over there.

The next night you leave them there just in case. You never know, he might be back.

Okay, so that's actually an interesting point. So you— I assume you have a So you have a portal then that your clients who are renting from you can actually jump on and see what's going on?

Yes.

So if you guys have a question, you can go, hey, this is going on, take a look. Is this the sheetrock guy?

Yeah.

Yes, we do use the app, um, and so our clients do have access to their cameras while they're renting them, and so they can watch them whenever they feel like it. But we are watching them, you know, every night.

So, you know, cast it up on the TV and just sit there and watch the site all night long.

Exactly. Why not?

Well, I think it's a really good service. It's not like there's anything else good on.

No, there's definitely not. I love the service because, you know, again, we didn't have an issue at our house just because where the house was being built, I mean, the deer were the only thing interested in it. But I just can imagine, I mean, a lot of people, they don't realize that that sites like that, people are curious too. Oh yeah. And they just want to— I mean, I would, I would imagine like the neighbor down the road, you're getting a new house built, after hours they're going to go around with a flashlight and start looking around. And maybe harmless, but it's like, here's the problem, the homeowner, even if they've not finished building that home, is liable, right, for, for people that are

on their property. Absolutely. And so it's like, no, get out of here, knucklehead.

And you know, sometimes it only takes just bumping the siren, siren at some people and they'll head out. I mean, we had that happen the other night. It looked like some just neighborhood boys walking around, you know, in the construction, and we just hit the siren a couple times and they turned around and left. Yeah, so I mean, sometimes that's all it takes. But yeah, you know, our monitors are watching always.

I had a friend telling me not too long ago that his son actually got in trouble because they'd gone down to this area that was There was some private property, it was under construction. There were like new housing development that was going in down there. They knew they weren't supposed to be down there, and there's cameras everywhere. And the cops showed up and like wound up— they, they wound up getting a phone call at home. I was like, hey, is this, is this your son? And he was like, yeah. I'm like, you need to come get him because he's down here in this area. And like, if you don't come get him, we're gonna take him type of thing.

Oh shit.

And of course he got in quite a bit of trouble at home too. But like, I mean, a lot of that kind of stuff, like kids, they just think it's fun. Like they don't really know what they're doing. And yeah, there's a lot of— I mean, construction sites are dangerous.

They are.

There's a lot of stuff just like hanging out that you might not see. I mean, you walk into something, a board that you didn't know was there, or, you know, there's nails everywhere, right? Literally everywhere. Um, and And, you know, there's holes in the ground and like stuff that you didn't know. I mean, goodness gracious, I just— I don't know. They're not a safe place, right? They're really not. You don't need to be there. So cameras can help. Exactly. For sure.

And it does help even just having the cameras there present, you know, saying they are monitored.

It's a deterrent.

It is a deterrent. Yeah. You know, and it keeps people, curious ones, away. And hopefully the people that are brave enough to steal, maybe they'll think twice.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, awesome. Well, if, if, if there's GCs out there listening or other companies that need your services, how do they get a hold of you?

So you can give us a call at 936-553-8582, or you can go to our website, which is accesssurveillancegroup.com, and we have a little form on there that you can fill out and we'll have somebody contact you.

Cool. Are you guys on any social media or anything?

We are. We're on Facebook. Um, I believe that's all we're on right now, but just search Facebook. For Axis Surveillance Group, and we're there.

Do y'all work all over the Houston area?

We are in the greater Houston area. We are licensed for the state of Texas, so we can go further. Prefer to stay within the local area, but we do have some cameras in, um, out in San Antonio. We have some in Austin, and we do have some up in Garland.

Okay, so great.

We're kind of all over the place.

Awesome. All right, thank you so much for sitting down with us tonight.

Yeah, awesome. Have a great evening.

Yeah, have a fun time at the event.

All right.

All right. Thank you.

Oh, man. Good. Yeah.

We're very quickly bumping up against 2 hours, man.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Wow.

I am getting fearful that Adrian has forgotten about my tacos.

He was supposed to get you tacos.

He was supposed to get me tacos.

Did you give him money to get them?

No, I didn't give him money.

No, he owes you.

Because now I would be the giant fool that gave him money and got no tacos. And you're not gonna—

I mean, you're gonna have to find the lawyer person and get a lien. That's right.

I'm gonna put a lien on his house to get my tacos. To get tacos. So I don't even know if they're still making tacos out there. They better be. I know. We're gonna shut this thing down.

There's tacos. Where are you running? The Taco Man's like, is that good? Oh man. Do you know if we have anybody on the list still that we're waiting on?

I think there's a couple more, honestly. Okay. We'll see if they actually get over here. Um, but yeah.

Okay, well, there he is. Maybe he'll, uh, he'll bring some people over. Well, while we're doing that, let's, let's just take a moment and, uh, thank our sponsor. Thank our sponsor. Yeah, thank you so much to Lone Star Appliance Repair. Uh, they're located in Conroe, um, but they work all over there.

Yeah, they're all over the place, man.

Yeah, and they'll, they'll come and, and repair your appliances.

I, I, I will say this, like, Everyone that I've ever referred to them has been super happy with the service. Yeah, they, I mean, just do such a tremendous job that people actually thank me when I send them their way.

How's it going?

And so like, they've been a tremendous sponsor of the show. Thank you guys so much for sponsoring tonight. If you want to get a hold of them, how do you get a hold of them, Kev?

Yeah, just give them a call, 936-647-2364, or you can go Google them on, you know, the Googles. The Google, do the Google. Lone Star Appliance or Repair is where you will find them. So yeah, if you need anything, give them a call. Absolutely.

All right, how you doing, sir?

I'm great, how are you guys doing? What's going on?

Nothing much. I'm Craig, this is Kevin, and you are?

I'm Ron Rana.

Ron Rana.

Absolutely. I was just told come sit down, do an interview, and that's all I do is interviews.

So I'm like, yeah, let's do it, let's do it.

What's going on?

Okay, so what do you do?

So, um, obviously I just told you my name, uh, Ron Rana. I'm a real estate entrepreneur, motivational speaker, and best-selling author.

What?

I own multiple companies. We're based out of here in Houston, but my main company is Investopia Online. We are a nationally recognized, one of the top wholesaling companies in the country. So we find distressed properties for investors. I also have an education brand where we teach people how to get into real estate, how to find off-market distressed properties. So that's kind of the gist of it.

Nice.

Flip it and sell it, right?

Is your book on Amazon?

It is on Amazon. It is a number 1 bestselling book on Amazon. Oh, it's right there? It's right here. Absolutely. Yep. Can we take a look at that? Yeah, yeah. The Real Estate Investor's Dictionary hit number 1 on Amazon. It was featured in Times Square, New York City. So I had a billboard in Times Square.

Wow.

Yeah. I've got a massive social media following, a million plus across all social media. So You know, thank you guys for having me on your show. I looked up your channel, definitely inspired. It's really cool. It's being broadcast on my YouTube, TikTok. Yeah, right now you guys are being broadcast.

Awesome.

We share here on Facebook. So absolutely, dude, this is awesome. Thank you.

When did you write this?

I wrote that book probably about a year and a half ago and became a number 1 new release in the first month. We sold over 4,172 copies. Don't ask me how I know that number, but yeah, yeah. So, you know, people show me a lot of love in the real estate space. We're here really just to, you know, inspire and impact people. A little bit about my background is I come from the automobile industry, 11 years in the car business.

Okay.

So, 2 things that I walked into my back pocket coming into this industry about 5 years ago was building rapport and negotiation. That's the top hardest things that people don't get in this business, right?

Right.

Is learning how to master building rapport and negotiation. So I kind of walked in doing that, but I was doing the corporate America grind. You know, Kevin O'Leary said it the best. He said, hire someone to help build your dreams, otherwise somebody will hire you to build theirs. After 11 years of doing that, I was done, you know, building someone else's dream, and I really wanted to get out of the corporate America hustle and bustle, especially the car business. It's a grind.

Yeah.

You know, I've got—

Were you selling Bentleys?

I actually own a Bentley.

Okay.

I wasn't selling Bentleys. I bought one, and they didn't give me this hat. I had to buy one. Yeah, I've just bought my own private plane a week ago. Yeah, we're hangared at West Houston, and they didn't give me a hat either. So I'm pretty mad at Cessna right now.

What kind of plane did you get?

It's a Cessna. Yeah, yeah, and I'm getting my private pilot's license because, you know, I have a fear of heights and to overcome it, let's go buy a plane and fly it.

Yeah.

So, you know, I'm a big believer in overcoming your mind and overcoming obstacles. So one of my biggest obstacles is I truly do have a fear of heights and I said, you know what, I want to overcome that because I don't want to show my children that's something I was afraid of and I didn't go out and achieve.

Yeah.

I've got 3 boys, ages 10, 8, and 2. And just to inspire, you know, the most thing is just inspiring them. So, but yeah, at the end of the day, you know, I'm here to truly give back to the real estate community as we have been for years and years and years. Our educational brand has truly impacted many people. I've got students doing over $1 million a year wholesaling. So it's been very, very life-changing for a lot of people.

So for people that don't know, because you've said it a couple times, Wholesaling, what is wholesaling?

So wholesaling in a nutshell, I'm basically finding a distressed seller who's going through either a probate, a pre-foreclosure, a vacancy, a divorce, you know, and there's so many other situations, inherited property. What we're doing here is we're locating distressed sellers, we're getting the property under contract. So I've got, for example, a piece of paper, right? I've got my equitable interest in the contract here. I've got my rights in the contract. I now find a cash buyer who will pay me X amount for that contract. So I've got this house under contract, say in Aleph, for $150,000. I have a buyer willing to give me $160,000. How much did I just make? $10,000. And I've only done this within a few hours' span. What was the

last time you made $10,000 working a couple of hours? beautiful part about wholesaling. So all I'm doing is I'm selling the piece of paper, my rights to that end buyer. They're gonna go out, the ARV on the property is say around $300 grand, they're gonna go out, flip it, the number works for them. I'm basically the middleman. Call me the drug dealer of real estate.

Sure, yeah.

I'm the Pablo Escobar of real estate. I am the plug. So I'm finding deeply discounted properties for investors and they don't want to go out and spend, you know, $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 in marketing. They just say, Ron, find me a deal. Because the hardest part about this business is what? Finding a deal, right? And the numbers, everybody says the numbers have to make sense.

So what are your buyers then? Why are they looking for these distressed properties? Because they want them for themselves or they're investors?

So they're investors. There's multiple exit strategies when you're investing in real estate. Number one, obviously wholesaling. Number 2 is fixing and flipping. Number 3 is buying and holding, right? Number 4 is, um, some of them use the BRRRR method, right? Um, right. And there's multiple exit strategies that our buyers use. Obviously, real estate is what? Wealth. Wealth building.

Yeah.

The name of the game is to build wealth. So there's a lot of, um, there's definitely a lot of benefit when people obviously are investing in real estate. And how do they do that is they got a first find a property. Find a property low enough to where they can go in, right? The numbers have to make sense and then they go out, flip it, rehab it, make their money, and then boom, from there. It's kind of like we all have that HGTV syndrome, right? The only thing HGTV doesn't teach us is that, you know, the $80K that they made in 30 minutes, there were expenses there.

Oh, sure.

Right? There were fees, there was closing costs, right? So—

Massive time lapse on that show.

And there's a massive time lapse on the show. So at the end of the day, you know, What we do is we are a solutions provider. We provide solutions for the seller who, if it wasn't for people like myself, they would have been through a foreclosure. A foreclosure on your credit lasts up to 7 years, right? Bankruptcies last years and years and years. So we come in as cash buyers and now we're taking them out of that particular situation.

Wow. Well, you're— yeah, so you're helping the seller.

Yes.

You're giving the buyer an opportunity.

A great deal. Yeah.

And at the end of the day, you're— I mean, this is what a lot of people don't understand about, in my opinion, about the real estate market, is that the people that are doing this, they're actually increasing home values in the neighborhood.

Oh, 100%.

Right? Yeah. It's like, it's like not only are they making a lot of money, but they're helping the other people around them. And it's just, it's one of those deals like, ah, that that was just a house flip. Well, a house flip could be really good if it's being done correctly. And I mean, you mentioned the BRRRR method, which I think is like a huge, huge thing in today's real estate market.

It's massive.

Yeah, the guy over at BiggerPockets claims he invented that.

Yeah, he probably did. He probably did.

I don't know. Do you know that guy's name? What is it? Josh?

It's Josh something. Yes.

Yeah.

Yes. Yes. I listened to a lot of their podcasts and they—

Shout out to them. They're the GOATs. Oh man, they've been doing it for a long time.

They're still killing it.

Yeah, they're still—

they're like on their 3rd or 4th host for that show.

Absolutely.

Yeah, they're doing amazing.

I think David Greene's doing it now. Is he the main host?

I don't even know. I mean, because what I started doing, I started watching like, uh, The Real Estate Rookie, which was one of their spin-offs. They have multiples. And it was just really interesting hearing some of, some of the way they, they kind of— it's a mindset. It is a mindset because a lot of people come from, uh, from a mindset of poverty, a poverty mindset.

A broken background. Right. And I don't mean—

when I say poverty, I don't mean like people are seriously poor. But what they think is, if I don't make more, if I don't like keep working in this job, then I will be poor.

Yeah.

Instead of going, well, there's ways for me to actually make money that will make me wealthy.

Yeah.

And there's— it's a different mindset.

And the statistics show us that, and it's true, Americans are one paycheck away from poverty. Yeah, that's how bad it is in America right now. So our goal as, you know, business owner, as entrepreneurs, is that we want to inspire people to break their generational curses. Many of us are walking through life being generational thieves and we don't even know it, right? We're working for someone, we're helping building someone else's dream. There's nothing wrong with that, but at the end of the day, who's helping you build your dreams?

Right?

Who's helping you build your economy? Because look at inflation now. You talked about ARV, right? Inflation is at an all-time high. And let's face it, the government's not going to come and save you. They're the same people that told us we needed a $1,200 stimulus check that'll last us a year. Yeah. You know, and they're making millions of dollars.

By the way, you're gonna have to pay taxes on that.

Absolutely. You know, shout out to my boy Sloppy Joe Biden. You know, it is Sloppy Joe. You know, it is what it is. But don't get me started on that. But At the end of the day, if you don't take action, nothing works. And going to your line about poverty, it's true. I was poor, poor. I'm raised by a single mother. I'm one of 4 children, but I retired my mother through real estate, right? That's the power of real estate. And real estate is such a great vehicle that nobody can actually put it in their pocket and steal it from you, right?

Yeah.

It'll last you. At the end of the day, it is something you can touch, feel, smell, smell it. And the saying is true, buy as much land because God's not making any more of it.

Yeah, you know, that is the famous Lex Luthor line.

Yeah, absolutely right. And, and, and that saying is true along with, you know, don't wait to buy real estate, buy real estate and wait. And we talk a lot about in our multifamily sector, I also teach my students how to source off-market multifamily deals. So we do a variety of deals. We do land, single-family, multifamily, storage unit, commercial properties. I mean, my multifamily deals are massive. One multifamily deal, we made $390,000 wholesale fee with no money, no money down. We didn't use any of our credits. We didn't use any banks with no license. That's why wholesaling is so lucrative because people obviously are getting into this with, you know, none of the above.

Yeah.

Now, at the end of the day, are there some bad apples out there? Yes, they are. And I'm all for regulations on wholesalers because there are people running rampant. There are people who are leaving sellers high and dry at closing.

Yeah.

Right? There are wholesalers who are saying, you have Sallie Mae, no pun intended, you have Sallie Mae who's getting married to Freddie Mac in Florida. She lives in California. She's moved everything. She's moving to Florida now, and the wholesaler goes, Hey, I can't close on your house on closing day. And she's 80, you know, she's almost 60, 70 years old. You know, that's not right.

She'd have to be with a name like Fannie.

Yeah, absolutely. At the end of the day, it's about doing the right thing and it's about doing the ethical thing. And that's exactly what, you know, we preach, we practice. And we're local investors in this market. My office is located on Eldridge and Briar Forest. I'm a storefront. So if any of your viewers want to come by and chat just real estate, let's talk, let's chop shop, and I would love to.

Let me ask you some questions because I know there's a lot of people that find real estate an intriguing investment thing. And like with wholesaling, you know, I think a lot of people get into real estate because they want mailbox money.

Yes.

You know what I mean? They want that passive income because they've listened to Kiyosaki and, you know, they don't, you know, they don't want to do any work.

Quadrant. Yeah.

Yeah. And so like with wholesaling, you've got to churn.

Yes.

I mean, you got to work. And so like, that's, I think, where people can look at something like what you're doing and go, okay, but that looks like— that sounds like a job.

Yeah.

And it is.

It is. It is in one way.

But I think that's an illusion that most people have thinking like the other one's not.

Exactly. Right. False security. Social Security will not be there for us. It's already being depleted. SSI, You know, retirement accounts, it's gone pretty much. Look how much money is being pumped into the Federal Reserve, right? China's deregulating us. You've got Russia deregulating the US dollar. It's getting nuts. At the end of the day, no one is going to care about your money than you. You've got to go out there and take action because your family, your children are counting on you, not the government to save them.

Yeah. And to your point, I mean, if you're not paying attention, what is it, BRIC? The alliance that these other countries have made pretty much against the US dollar. Yes, like they are— it's a cabal to take down the dollar.

Yeah, India is a part of it too.

Yeah. Yeah, what is it?

Russia, China, India. What's the B? I know what it is. It's not Budapest.

Uzbekistan. I'm just kidding.

The powerhouse of Uzbekistan. I don't remember who it is.

I don't know. Yeah.

Yeah, I don't remember. I don't remember either. But it, you know.

Yeah.

We'll figure it out.

It's important, but like, we just can't think of the name, right?

Yeah, yeah.

I know it's Brazil.

Brazil.

Brazil. It's happening. Yeah, it's happening right now.

Yeah.

Absolutely. You know, and, and, you know, the economy will tell us at the end of the day what the numbers are. You know, if you go on har.com, Houston Association of Realtors, our numbers have decreased. I mean, I love economics. The numbers don't lie, right? Year over year from 2021 to 2022, we've had a -31.4% decrease in home sales. Market is shifting. The Californians came and they bought up most of the real estate because it's cheap. Yeah.

Right?

There was a time where we were getting $100,000 above asking on prices because a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom house in Houston, you know, is cheap at $650 grand versus $1.7 million in California. Or $2, $3 million.

$2 million, yeah.

$2 or $3 million in California. So, you know, obviously there's a saying, don't California my Texas. Yeah, but they boosted our economy massively, right? And Houston is a bubble of its own. I believe Texas should be its own country, if you ask me. I mean, that's just how we are.

There's a lot of people that think that.

There's a massive, massive boiling pot, right? We have diversity here. We have so much culture in Houston. We have the energy corridor. We have oil and gas. We have the ship channel. You know, we have medical center here. Houston is the boiling point. Matter of fact, 2 days ago, Fox 26 Houston news channel released on their, on their media page, Houston is the number 1 city in the nation as far as thriving goes.

Yeah, it's crazy. Well, so, okay, so from, from your perspective, because this is something that we talk about on the show quite a bit, okay, because people come to us and like they're buying homes. We have real estate agents on, all these kinds of we're interested in what the market's doing. Yeah. And so he and I have had a disagreement over the last year as to what the market's going to be doing. Yeah. You know, and, and so from your perspective, do you think— I mean, and we had a, what was it, an article that said that over this year that Austin was going to see a 25% decrease in property values.

That is correct.

Um, yeah. So like, what are you seeing that's— what, what's on the horizon for like 2024?

So the market is definitely shifting. We went from a seller's market to we're now in a buyer's market. Days on market, the average days on market went from 34 days all the way up to 50+. We're at 56, 57. Don't quote me on it. I just looked at the numbers yesterday and I forgot what I ate for breakfast today. But the numbers are there. It's somewhere, it's definitely somewhere around there. 2024 will be interesting to see after the dust settles with the interest rates that are going. Obviously, I'm not an economics You know, I'm— I can't forecast it, but the writing's on the wall, like they say, right? Where is the economy going? It's going to shit. That's it. At the end of the day, you know, you got to be your own economy. You've got to save

your own bucket. Americans only have $1,000 in their savings. An average American—

That's like a good one.

I was just saying, I'm impressed whenever I hear that because a lot of people don't have that.

Yeah, I get depressed when I hear that.

Yeah, it is depressing.

It is.

No, it is.

I mean, mostly because a lot of times it's not because they don't have the means to save more.

Well, but they've got a poverty mindset.

We live above our means.

We do that. Everyone, most everybody does.

I think that's the thing is like we live in such a way, it's like I gotta, I gotta do what you do, or I gotta do what you do. I gotta have that house, or I gotta have that car, and I gotta, I gotta do all these things. And at the end of the day, it's like, and you mentioned it, Like, your family is the biggest thing, in my opinion. Like, you've got to take care of yourself and your family. And at the end of the day, like, I don't care what you drive. Most people don't.

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter. I mean, is— but if— I mean, if you can buy it, buy it. But if you can't, don't.

Don't. Yeah.

But that's really what it comes down to. And, um, for a lot of people, it's hard to hold on to money.

Yeah.

Um, it's easy to— it's easy to get rid of it, and they're in massive amount of credit card debt. Yeah. And they just don't know what to do. And so, what I find interesting about the real estate sector of things is there's no ceiling.

Yeah.

I think so many people hit their ceiling early in life and they don't know how to get out of it.

Yeah.

Real estate, there's no ceiling.

There is no cap.

There's no cap. You are the ceiling.

You are the lid. Your mind is like— your mind is the ceiling. At the end of the day, the most important real estate you will ever have is the inch between your left side and your right side of your brain, right? That's the most important part. And you have to keep growing. You have to keep feeding yourself. You have to keep— you know, Jim Rohn said it the best. You know, he said reading a book a month is like, you know, taking a shower. You have to read a book or 2 a month, right? It's like taking a shower for your brain. You know, hopefully everyone takes a shower who's viewing the show.

Or on the show.

Right? But at the end of the day, You got to keep feeding your mind, right? And that's where we're really where we're at. And I believe it's our fiduciary responsibility for people who have a social media following to go out there and impact people, to go out there and inspire people to go and take action, right? Some people just need to fire their bosses and some people just need to get out of their way.

Yeah.

You know, because you're your biggest enemy. You are your biggest enemy at the end of the day. You're going to be the difference between making $100,000 a year, making $1 million a year, Right? And the saying is true, there's a devil at every level. The guy who's making $1 million a year has different problems than the guy who's making $100 million a year. So again, right, you got to get yourself out of the way. Mindset plays a massive, massive part. Chapter 1 of my book is mindset. That's how important it is. And there's so much knowledge. It's, you know, again, it's an entire dictionary, everything from arbitration to zoning. We have to know this stuff.

The problem with wholesaling, and can I be real with you guys?

Yeah, go ahead.

The problem with wholesaling is not only just obviously, you know, as not as regulated as it should be, but it's misinformation. People go on YouTube University, they watch a 2-minute video on how to fill out a contract, all of a sudden they're locked into somebody's house, they get sued, and then say, oh, wholesaling doesn't work.

Yeah.

That's the problem— misinformation and misguidance. There are many people out there who will take $90 grand out of your pocket to teach you The lesson, yeah. The secret sauce, the secret method, right? At the end of the day, follow people who are actually doing the business. You know, don't follow the gurus. Follow people who are actually in the trenches, who are in your local market. So I'm sure you guys have viewers all across the country. Find someone who's doing it. And if you're in Houston, reach out to me. I would love to definitely sit down with your viewers and talk, you know, talk shop and how we can help them build their wealth just like we're doing for for a lot of people.

Yeah, the thing that you're talking about is actually really good advice I heard from Jim Rohn one time. It's like, look, one of the best things you can do is find somebody who's doing the thing that you want to be or doing the thing that you want to do, invite them to dinner.

Yeah, spend time with them.

Take, take, like, what, like, dinner costs what?

$60 maybe?

$60. I mean, but like, take them to dinner and just ask them questions. Yeah. How did you do what you did?

Yeah.

How did you get where you are? How did— okay, and then how did you do that thing? And because like dinner is a 2 or 3 hour conversation.

Yeah.

Utilize that time.

And the thing I want to add to that is that I get people who want to pick my brain all the time.

Sure.

I feel like I got a bunch of axes in my head because people are like, Ron, I want to take you to lunch. I want to take you to dinner. Brother, I only got 24 hours in a day.

That's right.

We all got 24 hours in a day. Either I'm going to get a job, I'm going to create— I'm going to treat this like a job and not spend time with my children, Damn, I got into this business to spend time with my kids.

Yeah.

And now you're pulling me away from that, right? I'm not opposed to sitting down with people, but bring value to the table.

Yes.

When I first got started, I was— my main question was, how can I serve you? They're like, what? Wait, normally people ask me, what, how can I, what, how can you do for me? You know, what can you do for me?

Yeah, right.

And I came with an angle of, hey, can I cold call for you? Can I go put some door hangers for you? Can I go drive you around neighborhoods and see what you look for in properties? That's the biggest lesson that I would tell somebody listening. Be a servant. Be a true servant, right? And just go out there and offer your services because somebody of my magnitude or anyone who's doing, you know, high volume and who's successful in this business, they're not going to want to give you all their secrets because why?

Right.

I have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in my education. not cheap. But when you come to me and said, hey, how can I serve you? Obviously I don't need somebody— I've had people offer to wash my car. I'm like, no, I'm good. First of all, you'll scratch it. No, no, no, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. But no, I had to pay for this hat. We're not looking, right? We're looking for people who are really hungry, who really want to take action, right? That's the difference between the 1% and the 99%. We live in such an entitled society. Give me, give me, give me, give me, right? And being, you know, leadership, again, don't

get me started on the whole democratic thing, but, you know, we live in entitlement society. People are expecting things. I'm like, why? Who are you? Why? I've had people call me and say, you owe me.

I don't owe you shit.

I don't even know you. I don't know you.

Who are you?

Oh, I've been this, I've been that, I've been grinding and this. Well, good for you. I've done that too. I came out of the mud. No one was there to help me to get out of the mud, right? Now that I'm a success, I want to help as many people as we can. And I tell people, have you done this? Have you done that? And this is before the book. Now I just tell people, hey, have you read the book? Yeah, straight up plug. It's, it's, it's a couple bucks on Amazon. Yeah, right. And go buy it and go read it because it's the no bullshit. It's going to give you all the details of how to