0:00 Wonderful. What's up everybody should girl Brittany Thompson creator of get my first deal. Look, I am so excited to bring you all another episode of The my first deal story. I know it is hard as I don't know what to do your first real estate deal. And so for that reason that singular reason, I am compiling some of the country's best known top investors and some new people right to come on here and to tell you all about their first deal story. Now, the reason why that is because you got more excuses than you need to have. And the truth is, everybody has fought a battle to get their first deal. So I'm super excited to have our next guest on look, the purpose is to impact inspire and influence aspiring investors entrepreneurs in their journey of real estate investing. This is meant to remove the limiting beliefs of why you can't or shouldn't invest in real estate. Now with all these stories from all investors from all over the world, about how they found got in close their first deal. This podcast creates a community showing you no matter how you who you are, where you're from what you've done, you can find getting close your first real estate deal. Welcome to the show. Eric Brewer, I am super excited. He is the president of integrity. First homebuyers has been crazy deals, got crazy relationships, but he's gonna break it down how he even got into this business. So welcome, 1:30 Eric. Thanks for having me. I got to ramp up my energy here a little bit. But yeah, I'm excited to be here. Thanks for having me. And I always love telling a good story. And I think after 17 years of being in this business, the story continues to get better and better. 1:48 Yes, that's a long time in this business. That's a very long time. That means it must be worth it. 1:56 Like it. I don't know what else to base it on. But it feels good. 2:02 Awesome. All right. Well, let's start here. We know, you know, you're the president of this great, successful company. But who is Eric, like, what's up? You married single kids? No kids, like Where were you when you first started, when you got your first deal? Tell us about it. 2:17 So I'm very married, and very much a father of five children. I have the 18 year old son who's a quarterback and a point guard. And he's a super good kid and a great big brother to his four sisters. So I have five total kids, four daughters, that range from the age of seven to 18 months, seven years old, the youngest is 18 months, and have a wonderful wife named Sonya that, you know, is just a blessing to not only have those children with but she does a great job raising them. But yeah, so that's what I meant. Today, we have an organization here that does a couple of different variations of real estate deals from Wholesale to turnkey, to multifamily to buying and hold. So we do a little bit of everything. I'm happy I do that, because with the market changing over the last three years, a few of those opportunities are those doors were opened during COVID. And then a few of those are starting to slowly close. And our ability to be able to do some different things I think is has really helped us stay consistent even as the market starts to pivot a little bit here recently, but so I did my first deal way back in 2006. Why Wow. Yeah. Which was that was an interesting market back in 2006, when I was going through it, because I didn't, I didn't know anything to compare it to. Right. It's like folks that start in real estate in 2020 2021. Wouldn't know what 2015 was like, right? So all they knew was multiple offers 15 people on the same house escalation clauses. I couldn't spell escalation clause until 2019, that I didn't even know what that meant. I wrote a lot of them when I was trying to buy property, but I never had any of them come in on my houses. But wow, a little bit. You know, somebody said that I think is really awesome that you encourage people to do is regardless of your background, regardless of your experience, that that getting into real estate, and actually doing it is only as difficult as you you convince yourself that it's going to be and in that moment I thought about my story. And there was no real circumstances that indicated at the age of 20 that I was going to end up in real estate. I wasn't even on my radar. I wasn't surrounded by people that invested in real estate and frankly, I didn't think I was smart enough or or good enough to be in real estate. So what happened for me and I'll share with If you'd like a little bit of moment, my path and hopefully, this will connect with somebody that might think that their path doesn't allow them to make this choice. I was a kind of a knucklehead. In high school. My parents split up around my junior year. And it gave me way too much freedom at the age of 16. And I made bad decisions with that freedom. I was more interested in, in running around and having fun and spending time with friends. And I was about being the best student that I could be. And so when I got out of high school, eventually, I didn't have a whole lot of options I was not interested in in college, because I was so relieved to finally be done with the demands of school. The last thing I wanted to do is to get back in the school I remember hearing myself say, I wish I could go back and, and backhand myself but I said, I just finished 12 years of school I'm not signing up for for more. So I just kind of messed around for six months. And it was you know, summer, after your your your senior year is always fun. There's beach trips, there's, there's ever schedule you want. Yeah, everybody either got a job, or went off to college. And I didn't have any friends anymore. So I was sitting around and I was like, well, dang, it's November, and there's nothing to do. And my friends are off to college. So I took a couple of jobs. One was in construction. I did that for about two months and realized I wasn't cut out for construction. They start too early, and they work too hard. So that didn't work out. And I called my dad for advice because I was I was at a you know, I was spinning wheels. And my dad and his father were career military people. And he said, quite frankly, he's like, son, you have no discipline, you have no direction, you have no house, you have no car. And I think the military might be a good option for you. If anything, it's going to give you some discipline, they're gonna feed you, you'll have clothing. 7:12 You won't have a car. But if you do good enough work and you save enough your money, you can buy one. So I did, I joined the US Army. And I went to Fort Knox. And I remember sitting in my bunk at four o'clock in the morning, that day wondering why I was there and what the heck I was thinking. I was getting yelled at and screamed at and drill sergeants dumped my whole thing out the window my socks and my T shirts and a uniform a screaming at me calling my mother names but no and you know, so. But it really as a as a, you know, one of the proudest moments of my life was graduating basic training. And I remember my parents coming to watch me and marching in step with 200 of my brothers. And it taught me the value of team. It taught me the value of discipline, it taught me the value of hard work and taught me that I could do things I didn't think I could do. And I never thought I could run 10 miles, carrying a 50 pound rucksack and a weapon I never thought that I could fire a gun 300 yards away and hit something in the middle. And I came out and I went to my permanent duty station, I spent my time at Fort Hood, Texas. And when my time was up, I came back home. And turns out there was no civilian application of the training that I got in the military. I was trained to work on the communication devices in Chinook helicopters. Wow, back I was you know, I'd saved a little bit of money. But I couldn't come back and work on helicopters in East York, Pennsylvania, right? They don't make those around here. Right. So I came back and I started looking for something to do. And I was reading the newspaper, and because people still read the newspaper back in 2000, whatever, no, this would have been like geez 9098 1998. And I saw an ad in the newspaper that said lot, Porter. And the regular words for that means you park cars at a at an auto dealer. Ah, and it happened to be a Mercedes and a Toyota dealer and I was like, well, dang, I can drive around these cars all day and I think it was like seven bucks an hour or something like that, which back then was like, pretty good money and I didn't have to do manual labor. So I went I set up an interview, I went to the interview and the only non military clothes or denim that I had was the suit that I wore to my senior prom years there. earlier. So I were, I wore that bad boy to interview for a $7 an hour job. Wow. And I remember I'm sitting in the waiting room, and it's a busy car dealership and I was at the service department. Have you ever been there, right? It's always busy. There's, there's people moving around. And I'm sitting there and this guy comes out. He's, you know, he's a suit and tie comes out. And he's looking around and be like, double takes and looks back at me. He goes, Eric, I stood up at attention like I was taught in the military. But yes, sir. He goes, You're a double breasted pinstripe suit to this interview? I said, Yes, sir. That's all I had, sir. He goes, You're hired. Wow, that was the end of the interview. And so we went back and did paperwork. He described the job to me, I'm like, yeah, man, that sounds great. And so I started like, a week later, or something like that, and I'm doing my job. And part of the Mercedes dealership was that they would pick up and deliver customers cars. So I would drive an hour away, pick up this $100,000 Mercedes and drive it back. So I'm, I'm like, Man, this is. 11:09 This is good work. And so but it didn't pay a lot of money. And at that point, you know, I come home, and I was fortunate enough to be able to stay with some friends for a little bit, but didn't want to overstay my welcome, like, I need to get another job, I need to work two jobs to make money because I want to pay rent. And back then I knew that was gonna be five 600 bucks a month. So I was explaining that to my manager. And he said, Well, you leave here at four or five o'clock each day said, we're hiring. In the detailed department, they wash cars for sales up until 10 o'clock at night, and I said, I'll do it. So I would leave at four or five o'clock, for my first job at the dealership. And then I would go over in Washington detail cars. So I would show up around 7am. And I would leave around 10pm. So I was working, you know, 14 hour days, but I was making good money. So it was able to get an apartment, I ended up buying myself a vehicle. And then after like six months of doing that the owner of the dealership, I still remember his name. It was Albert deal. And I worked at deal Motor Company. And he must have taken notice, because one day the service director calls me over and he goes, hey, we'd like to promote you to a service manager. And I was like, wow. And he goes, you know, Mr. Dill, came to us and said, Who's this guy that's here every morning when I get here. And every night when I leave. He's still here. What's does he sleep? Does he work? I mean, he's the hardest working guy in the dealership. They said, well, that's Eric. So, you know, they gave me this assistant service manager job, which means when people come in, they go, Hey, I need an oil change. We look at the mileage, the condition of the car. And then we're responsible for making preventative maintenance suggestions based on things that we see. So I did that. I know anything about cars, I liked them. I drove him, I own them. But I still to this day, I'm 47 I don't think I've ever changed my own oil. Because I don't know how. Wow. And it takes a lot for me to put air in a tire. And so I would always ask the technicians will you say he needs this? Why does he need it? What what happens if he doesn't do it? What's the benefit if he does do it, and then I would take that information. And when I called people, I would treat them as if they didn't know anything about a car. Turns out it was a great approach because the amount of service that I would sell to a customer of mine was four to five times more than the other people doing my same job. So I got big bonuses. My customers were very happy. And I started to gain some recognition from the dealership. And eventually the sales manager came in and started recruiting me to go to Sales and I was really nervous about that because I was like, I can't do sales. Like I had this perception of what sales is I had this limiting belief of what was required of a salesperson and didn't see myself as someone that could be a salesperson. And then one day I just was like bump it I'm gonna do it. And I texted I don't think we were texting back then I probably called him I don't think we were texting in 1999. And it was it was like if you wanted to use see you had to hit the one button three times before, but it might have been that I said I'm in and I started on June 17 1999. And at that time, if you got to 20 sales as a salesperson in a month you were the you were normally this top dog. And so I started on June 17. And I just talked to everybody. If someone was near the lot, I would go help them. And I liked it. I was a little nervous, but I was doing good. And I had no idea how many cars I sold until the end of the month, they pulled me up to the sales desk and told me I was salesman of the month. And I started, I started on June 17. And I sold 21 cars. 15:33 Oh my God, that's insane. I 15:36 thought if you'd asked me I said, I don't know, I think I got like eight or nine because it didn't matter. I was just this talk. And that's it. And, and then every month, I think every month from there until I got promoted to management I was salesman of the month salesman of the year, set a couple records on units. I sold 3536 37 cars a couple times, and eventually got into sales management and then spent eight years in the car business. And when I left, I was the General Sales Manager, we were selling as a company about 500 cars new and used. There was 200 people that worked at the dealership. So it was a remarkable sort of path that I had that I learned the service side of the business, I learned the sales side of the business, I was able to be introduced to marketing and how to manage people how to recruit people, how to hire people, how to fire people, how to recruit people. And I ended up making the decision to leave around my last year was when my son was being born. And it's not quite like this maybe as bad today. But I can tell you back in the late 90s, early 2000s. If you were a manager in the car business, you worked 7580 hours a week. And I just knew I was like, hey, I can be a really good sales manager. Or I can be a really good dad. And I made the decision. I wanted to be a really good dad. And I knew that that meant that I had to give up my career. So I did I left the car dealership, which is the only thing at that point. I knew I was bad at fixing helicopters. I didn't like it. So I tried to get out of it every chance I could. So I wasn't good at my job that I did in the military. I was really good at car sales, but effectively decided that wasn't the path for me anymore. So I was what am I going to do? So again, I reached out to my dad, and you know, two times at least in my life, I remember him telling me he's like, just figure out what you like doing. He's like, it might feel like it's car sales, he said, but there's something about that that makes you feel good. What is it? Huh? That's good. And I said, I said I think it's sales. And he goes, but what really is sales? Said I think it's helping people who goes out agree, because so wanted to just find something else in sales that's not selling cars, maybe it provides a little bit more freedom with your schedule. And so I started looking around said what different things could I sell that would provide some freedom that would provide the opportunity to earn a, you know, high income, and I landed at real estate. And so I thought about real estate and I was like all right. I said, you know, one of the things I think that made us really successful in the auto business was our understanding of finance. So, I mean, there was literally people that will come to our dealership and say I have a trade in my credits. Not the best. I've been to five dealerships Can you help me? And because we we had expanded banking relationships, and we understood the difference between a short term loan and long term loan, downpayment, interest rates, leases back in the late 90s. Nobody even knew what a lease was. Now they're super popular. We were able to help more people with less than ideal credit circumstances or less than ideal equity circumstances. So I said I'm going to get into real estate but I'm going to start at finance. So I went and got certified and applied at a bunch of different mortgage places and chose one and I was basically a cold caller for a refi facility. And back then now you got to remember now we're at 2005 2006 This is when rates and all that stuff started to get really crazy bank programs were I remember selling reverse, try and wrap your head around this reverse amortization loans. 19:50 Interesting. Yeah, it sounds complicated. 19:53 I was in our house and have a $600 payment because the principal would increase Over the life of the loan, because you were making no principal payments, right? And because they had said, Hey, appreciations outpacing principal accumulation, we're gonna come up with this crazy product that a lot of people can't resist. And sure enough, they were right. But I mean, I think we all know what happened a couple years later, right? But turns out, I was good at it. And I didn't have to work 14 hour days, and I did make a lot of money doing that. And then the owner, who was the general manager, eventually owner of the dealership called me one day, and he said, Hey, I heard you got into real estate. I heard a radio commercial about, I don't know, if you use the word flipping houses, it's probably something else. And he said, it's a lot like what we've always done in the car business, its marketing, its sales, its recon. It's all this stuff. And I want to do it, he said, and I'd like to talk to you about maybe doing it with me, I said, okay, because this guy took me from, you know, he was he was really my mentor in business and sales and really life from the age of, you know, young 20s, to eventually up to a person of importance at a big, you know, national franchise car dealer, a bunch of people bunch of money, bunch of influence, a bunch of impact. So I just, I just, I remember going if he's doing it, I'm doing it. Yeah, absolutely. And we decided we were going to buy and sell homes, and we had a relationship, he had bought a couple of rentals, and he had a real estate agent that helped them with that. And he's like, Hey, man, here's how you do the deal. You buy it, you put the work into it, then you project what you can sell it for. And then you got to pay some commission and stuff like that. We want to make $15,000 a house. And he's like, here's how you find these deals, you know, there's a couple of websites and he'll send you the new MLS listings. And we came up with a plan and I started running around looking at houses and doing math. And I came across one of us 601 Courtland. Hmm. York, Pa 1743, I think gets the address at six something court at 631 601. And we walk through the house, and we brought the contractor because I hadn't done any construction. So it's me, the contractor, and the real estate agent, we do the numbers. And I'm like, this is a deal. The numbers made sense. contractor says it's $12,000 Asking price is this, we can get x for it. Let's buy it. So we've made the offer got accepted. Right around settlement just before just after I'm like, hey, I need to meet the contractor back there. Make sure we're on schedule and figure out how long it's going to take and all that stuff. And there was a bit of a language barrier. Oh, no. And the real estate agent spoke Spanish. I do not a contractor does. So we get to the house. And I'm doing my best impersonation of how you say 12 in Spanish. And he goes effectively, yep. When with but Who's Buying the materials? As we you're buying the materials? No moss? No labor only one? No. Yeah. So that $12,000 renovation ended up being 30. Oh, no. Yeah, yeah. So we got the house done, though, it looked really nice. And we looked at the numbers and said, maybe we can get an extra 10 for it. And if we don't list it with a real estate agent, we sell it ourselves, we'll save 6000. If we sell it for 90 instead of 80. And we sell it and save, you know $7,000 in commissions, we can make a little bit of money. And that's what we did. I ran newspaper ads, I hosted open houses, I had signs out in front of there, I'd get a bunch of leads just like I did in the carpets, I get a bunch of leads, I'd qualify them, send them off to a mortgage lender. If they got approved that show them the house and ask them to buy it and I got somebody to buy it. And they bought it for close to what we wanted for it and we didn't lose money. We certainly didn't hit a homerun we might have made 24:29 seven to $10,000. But I learned a valuable lesson right I now had a better understanding of how to bid a renovation I now manage one renovation I knew about change orders I found out about quality. I understood what a punch list was and when it should be done and how to manage a schedule. And then we went on bought another one and made half of the mistakes that I did on the first one and then did it again and then did it again and did it again. And again. So that was, I don't know, maybe May or June of that year. And we might have done a handful of deals. And then the next full year we did 70 deals. Wow. And that almost every single deal was a fix and flip like I don't even know if anybody wholesaled back in 2005 or six, why it certainly wasn't accepted. The way that it is today, like I remember, real estate agents just, I mean, refused to deal with wholesalers like it was there was a ton of negative language around it. They saw them as, as you know, unethical. They saw him as competition. And now I think you certainly have seen, there might be some of that sentiment. But real estate agents have learned to work together with wholesalers and wholesalers have learned to work with real estate agents. And now they're able to do a bunch of business together rather than, you know, criticizing each other or trying to spend any energy on anything that isn't productive. And, you know, so we bought 90% off the MLS, MLS, fix it up, sold it on the MLS. Then we started doing some billboards started doing some TV, did a little bit of like Pre Foreclosure mailings, and started to get some direct to seller business. So that's my first deal. I'll stop there. I don't want to make, you know, get too far and not give you the opportunity to ask some questions. But that's the story of my first deal. Wow, that's, 26:33 that is so good. I mean, you tell stories. So well, so I'm sitting here captivated. I'm like, oh, and then we'll have a next. And then what do you do next? So this is this is amazing. And thank you for being transparent and vulnerable. So I just want to ask a couple of clarifying things here. You know, I know when you originally gave real estate consideration, it was because you know, someone that you respect, it kind of brought the opportunity to you did they coach you through different things, and they just say use these tools and do this, and this will work. 27:03 We were both learning at the same time. Wow. But what we did do is he actually found out about like the concept of flipping houses from a radio commercial for a place that is in it's a brick and mortar real estate investing school. It's called investors united in Baltimore, Maryland. So they run radio commercials, and then they host open houses twice a week, they get 50 to 100 people in there they go, Hey, you get people to call you, you buy their house at a discount, you assign it you make $10,000, you do that three times a month, you're a millionaire in 10 years. At the end, I say if you want any more information, go to the back of the room and sign up. And then they sign up and they send you information and they call you and it's basically like $15,000 for a 12 month or Yeah, 12 month curriculum where you meet once or twice a week at their school. And they they teach. So we went through like the first four months. And it was like how to write a contract. What does an assignment mean? What's due diligence mean? How do you pull a list? How do you find cash buyers? And that was like, oh, man, this is good stuff we're really learning. And then like, fifth month, they're like, Alright, we're gonna cover sales and negotiations. And we looked each other like, we're good. And we left, right, because I mean, we at each sold 1000s of cars, like, we didn't need a lot of help with negotiations. And we were anxious to get started. We probably should have hung around for the construction class. Yes. We got to class of our own it probably cost about the same money but but that's what that's how we learn. So we learned about what they called contract engineering. It still sticks with me today about what they taught back then they taught us subject to they taught assignments. That's where we kind of got the grassroots understanding of real estate, wholesaling, and just ran with it and then went out and just took action and messed up and looked back on and said, what did we mess up on? Let's not do that again. And just kept repeating rinse and repeat over and over and out our third or fourth year we we broke the 200 deal mark in one year, and then sort of hovered around 200 deals for a super long time. Until I really started leaning into wholesaling in 2014 2013 2013 2014 There was a gentleman that was was a friend of a friend of a friend that owned a home investors franchise in Atlanta, Georgia. And he moved back here to be with his wife and their family. And he's like, listen, like I can come back here and either start moving deal or I can try and find someone that I think's a good fit to work for. Wow. With some what do you do is like a wholesale you? What do you mean wholesale? And he goes, I buy at a discount, I sold a discount, why would you do that? I said we can rehab it and make more money. And that was a point of contention for us because he'd go, Hey, I got an offer of 100. We paid 70. And I'm like, Yeah, but if I fix it up, I can make an extra 20. But so we did a couple of them. We learned the value of not doing construction. Yep, wholesale deal was clean. I'm out. Yeah, don't have the brain damage of going through production on appraisals and not getting done a home inspection and having somebody asked me for $7,000 worth of crap, right. So we started doing I bet wholesale was probably 30% of our business 70% was was fix and flip. And then we work very well together for several years. And then he went on to pursue his real passion, which was being a money manager and investment consultant. And but now we learned wholesale right. So we got really, really good at generating leads and marketing and acquisitions and understanding how to buy at deep discounts, and then establishing what we would wholesale versus what we wanted to keep and flip or what we wanted to keep as a rental. And now we do. We might hit 400 deals this year. We did. Oh, hi three hundreds last year. It's probably like a 40%. Construction. 40% Novations, 20%. Wholesale. So yeah, that's that's what we do. Now we have 46 employees, we're in three different states and about 15 different counties. 32:07 Wow, that is so impressive. And it all started with doing one deal. 32:15 It did a bad deal with that. But bad deal. You know, I think about it, I actually made money a little bit on that deal. And learned probably as much if not more than I did in you know, investment school. Yes, back then like it we were at a disadvantage. There wasn't podcasts like that pod, right? YouTube wasn't a thing. There wasn't you couldn't go anywhere to get this information folks that are thinking about getting started that are you No tuning in to watch, you are extremely, extremely blessed to have access to that information. Because I can tell you, you know, what is that almost 20 years ago, the only way to learn was to really either find a mentor and people weren't so eager to share back then. Right? Yeah, like somebody unless you knew somebody or you were related to someone in real estate, it was this very tight knit group of people that kept all those secrets to themselves. Now, it's like a, you only have to make the decision to go out, right learn, and then be willing to go take action and implement what you've learned. And it may take two or three tries, it may take 20 to 25 tries, but it's just a matter of time, if you're, if you're willing to learn a little bit and you'll go sort of swing for the fences, you're going to figure it out. That's so 33:39 good. That's the end. Thank you for speaking to that. I was actually going to ask you, I don't know if you remember, but how long did it take you between having that conversation about real estate in general to close it? Because that's different for everybody. 33:56 So it was probably, let's say we talk and then like, you know, I buttoned up and left, finished out my obligations, the mortgage company. And then we showed up in an office one day and said Alright, let's get to work. Simultaneously, we were going to the school. I would say it was probably 90 days. Wow. From when we met for lunch and I was introduced to the idea to one we got our first property under contract. Then it was another three months until the renovations were done. Another two months before someone agreed to buy it, and another 45 days before we went to settlement so all in all maybe eight months. As we were renovating that house, we were buying some other ones and getting you know a couple of deals. But I would say from the first time I was introduced to the thought of doing it to the day I got it The settlement proceeds was more than six less than 10 months, somewhere six to eight months. Wow. 35:08 I think that that's really powerful because I feel like what's, what's out there? Or there's this thinking that I can get out and I can be an investor today, and I can close next week? Well, it's entirely possible. How realistic is it? If you know absolutely nothing, never done a deal, not a guru, all those things. So I always ask that question, because time is different for everybody. And I want to really dispel this myth that it's instantaneous, like people want the microwave success when it comes to they don't want to 35:45 the old saying is it took 20 years for me to become an overnight success. I think that was maybe Floyd Mayweather may have said that, or, you know, a very prominent athletes said that because, uh, you know, a lot of people like, man, he's openly saying, I've been working at this for 20 years, nobody paid attention when I was, you know, working out in a cold dark gym, they didn't pay attention until I was in the spotlight. He goes, but I didn't just, you know, show up here, it took a lot of hard work. So, I mean, I think every, you know, it's probably, that can be quicker these days with the access, we have the data and headsets and multi dialers and texting and all that stuff, you can maybe get a deal, you know, in your first 30 days. But if you don't get one in your first six months, it doesn't mean it's not going to happen. It just hasn't happened yet. But yeah, it took me as me, it took me eight months to see the fruits of my labor. That's powerful. 36:39 And so for me, it took me nine months, but it took nine months, because I was trying different things. Like I love hearing that you were like, This is the strategy I'm going to execute, we're going to complete it and then boom, go to the next. I was like, oh, shiny thing, oh, Guru, because Because 2016, there was a whole lot more people talking about wholesaling and real estate. So it was easy. And that's something that people are going are having to kind of distinguish even now. It's like, Who do I trust? What do I do? How do I do this? So thank you for sharing that. That's part of it. I love that. Well, I mean, you've broken down so many details, and hopefully, no, the listeners can hear. First of all, I'm different from you. You're different the next person, and we all have a journey. And ultimately, because you decided to say yes. And despite your past, despite, you know, whatever your hiccups were in the past, you executed and now you're standing here as an accomplished businessman with the successful family and the military history. And it's just, it's really admirable. And I'm grateful that you decided to push because, um, I'm pretty sure there were probably some points where you were just like, You know what, I don't know, if I want to do this anymore. I wouldn't be 37:53 able to count on both hands. You. 37:57 And that's a big deal, because we all feel that way. Like what the heck is why why. Thank you, thank you for sharing that. And given your time, I'm definitely going to ask how people can reach out to you if they have more questions or just want to learn more about even investing in Pennsylvania. What is one limiting belief that you had to overcome? Um, that 38:26 external circumstances controlled. My my ability willingness or that outside influences outside circumstances have have more control over than, than I do. Like the people that care about what you do that have an opinion about what you do that stand in the way somehow of you done it. None of that means anything. If you have an internal commitment and belief, other people's opinions cannot Trump our beliefs. Wow, 39:08 that is so like, 39:11 you really teach a lot of people about purpose and finding their purpose and defining their core values in their business. And one of the things we always talk about are a good example that I use is you know, Microsoft's purpose or their their you know, if you ever read four disciplines of execution, or any Jim Collins books, he talks about a B hag big, hairy, audacious goal. And then like 1990, Microsoft's big goal was to have a computer, on the desk of every person in the world. And everybody's like, You're crazy. You're nuts. I mean, remember computers in the 80s were taller than me, and they cost $7 million. Yes. So like at the time everybody had an opinion, but it was not bigger than their belief. So what you have to do is get in touch with your beliefs. And then other people's opinions, just frankly, shouldn't matter. They either align with it and they support you, or they don't align, and I blocked them out. Because I told myself multiple times, because of my outside circumstances that I, I couldn't be a salesperson, I wouldn't be good at it. I couldn't get into real estate. It was too difficult. You had to know somebody had to have money. You had to have experience. And it's just not true. Those were outside opinions. But at some point, my belief out tip the scales of other people's opinions, and that's when I really started to have success. 40:41 That is what I'm talking about. I hope that y'all heard everything he just said, that's one of the biggest things I hear. Traveling, meeting people at conferences is the fear number one, the fear of failing, right, the fear, the fear of looking bad, and what are people going to think if I lose, like this insane, but that stops so many people from going forward. So I love that you touch on that, and that you share and that you open up, because that's the stuff we need to hear over and over and over again, like every day, we need to know Hey, we gotta push, somebody's not gonna like it, but it's not about them. It's about me, it's what I'm gonna be able to do for my family. They're not paying my bills, that type of thing. So thank you for touching on that. I appreciate that. And, and as we wrap like, tell the people Eric, how can people reach you? Is there a preferred social media? How do people engage with you, 41:35 um, the best way is to just find me on social media, pretty active on Facebook. He just looked me up Eric Brewer, there's like me and some hockey player, I'm not the hockey player. If you look up Eric Brewer on Facebook, or Eric Brewer invest on Instagram. Best place to go is to Instagram I've found myself I've been on a couple of podcasts in the last year or two and I'm sneaking up on the 5000 friend cap that Facebook puts on you. So the best places to find me on Instagram if you're on there. And I talk a lot about real estate I talk a lot about being a dad, I talk a lot about being a husband, I talk a lot about deals, I talk about private money, I talk about rentals, I talk about mastermind groups, I talk about all this stuff I go through, and I just open it up and put it out there for other people to to learn from. And the universe has given that back to me and tenfold. So I'll continue to do that and push myself to be a better giver. And I love it when people engage with me on social media. So having this opportunity to speak with you and let you share my story is a very big, big, you know, blessing to me. So I appreciate that. 42:49 Oh my gosh, well, you know what, I'm grateful to you for your time because you're given something that I can't, like you can't reproduce it. So I know how valuable that is. So thank you for sharing your story. And I can't wait. You know, we right now we're in the middle of doing a free challenge helping people get their their first real estate deal. And I can't wait to send people to you that are over there in Pennsylvania, I just can't wait to over, overwhelm and overload you. And just as a side note, y'all if you're interested in investing in real estate and don't know where to start, don't know, don't know how I don't know what you're feeling overwhelmed, go to get my first deal.com and register every month, we do a free challenge free F R E because I want to equip and empower people to go out and at least attempt to do their first deal and at least know what they're getting into before they commit hundreds and 1000s of dollars if it went all possible. So if that resonates with you, like I said, Go to get my first deal.com Eric, thank you so much for giving us your time sharing your story and just being an open book. And I just pray that I pray that people can be can receive the knowledge and the wisdom and maybe they hear something in your story that they haven't heard before that encourages them to just say yes, like you've done on multiple occasions and just push forward regardless of what everything looks like. So thank you so much, Eric. I'm so grateful. Thank you. This is the conclusion of the my first deal story, podcast. Let's keep it going. Let's go you can do it.