0:03 Alright guys is another wonderful episode bout to come up on my first deal story. I'm your host, Asha se actually co hosts Leon Thompson, you guys are actually going to be in for a treat today I've got Steve Kavanaugh, man, he is a killer when it comes to how to live life on vacation. He's gonna go more into that here later. But man, he is a friend and a coach. And he's here to share us how he got his first deal. So let me not hold him back. Let him introduce himself. And he's gonna tell you more about what he's doing and how he got to where he is now. 0:38 What's up Leon, first of all, man, awesome to be on your show. Great to be a part of what you and Brittany are doing. I you know, I love you guys so much. And I love how much you've grown. And man, you guys just been awesome to watch really from afar. So I'm grateful to be here. Thank you for having me. My name is Steve Cabanel. I am a full time real estate investor. I've been investing in real estate for 18 years now. I am from Maryland. And I continue to own and operate a flipping business and property management business in Southern Maryland except just south of DC. But I live in West Palm Beach, Florida. And I've only been back to Maryland once since December 2019. So I operate that business remotely, which I know probably many of your listeners are, you know, the like, wow, that's really cool. How can you how can I do that. And so hopefully we can get into maybe a little bit of that here today. But I have a lot of experience in a lot of different aspects of real estate investment, all the way from single family home flipping single family rentals, a hard money lender, I've coached, coached a lot of people on doing their first handful of deals, I coach now obviously people like yourselves who are much more accomplished and actually have their business up and running through ascend with my co founder and partner Alex Pardo, who you know very well, I also am in the self storage industry. I currently own six cell storage facilities in seven different states under contract on another one. Fingers crossed on that one. And yeah, I'm just just love real estate, love everything about it. I also invest in other things, we can get into some of that if you want to. But the bottom line is that I have been around real estate for most of my adult life. And I'm here to tell you about my first deal. 2:20 Yes, yes. And one thing I want to say Steven add to that. One thing that I've always loved about Steve is that he is so diverse, not just in real estate, but in other things. And so whenever I have either a life question or business question that maybe I'm not sure where to go or need more information about either if it's not Steve that knows that he knows someone that knows it. And so that's one thing I love about how the fact that we are so interconnected in this ascent mastermind, and he's going to tell you more about it. But it, it has changed bringing ours life dramatically. It's changed our family. It's changed our businesses. It's changed a lot of things about where we are today to be able to go through that coaching program. Yeah. Awesome, man. Well, let's get to it. Let's tell me about how you got your first wholesale deal. Now, I've heard a little bit about it. But I know that the people here listening to this podcast are gonna want to know, like, how in the world did you make that much money on a wholesale deal? So tell us about it? 3:25 Sure. So I'll give you I'll give you the punchline and then I'll give you the backstory. The punchline is, is my first wholesale deal. I wholesale to lots to a local builder, and I made 1013 6350 That's $101,000. Just almost 132 really are 102 Almost. So let me tell you, Leon, oh, yeah, it's crazy. Crazy, right? Crazy stuff. So let me tell you how this all happened. So I'm gonna back way, way, way up to the year 1999. I graduated State College in Maryland. And I had a degree in Communication Arts and a minor in jazz guitar performance. So basically what that meant was I was able to get out of college by the skin of my teeth, get a diploma, only to find out that I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do. And I really wasn't qualified to do a whole heck of a lot coming out of school with that degree. So I can tell you that I had a lot of fun in college meant a lot of friends went to a lot of parties and played a lot of guitar. So anyway, so what I ended up doing is I got lucky, I knew somebody who knew somebody who gave me a job without an interview without any of that stuff. And I got a job in the IT field which had absolutely nothing to do with my degree. My degree in communications was human communication, which I've found has served me very well in coaching and real estate throughout the years. But anyway, I got this job and I believe I was making $36,000 a year starting out and to me at the time when that was offered to me that was the most money I'd ever heard of in my life up to that point. So I jumped at it, no negotiating, again, no interview, they put me behind a computer and I became an Oracle database engineer in training. So I learned Oracle databases, I learned how to write custom software. And I was this was my nine to five. But it really wasn't a nine to five Leon, it was more like a nine to six or seven or whatever, I happen to work for a government contractor, which there are a lot of in the Greater Washington, DC Baltimore area. And what I found out, though, is that I was very, very quickly realized that I didn't like the one hour in commute, the one hour on the way home commute. And I work those compressed work schedules so that I can get every other Friday off. And when you work for somebody else, you know, you that's a big deal to have every other Friday off, that's a really big deal you can forward to every other week to be able to have that day off. How crazy is that? You know, how I wonder how many of your listeners can relate to when you're working for somebody else, that you would only have that time available on the weekends or whatever, and, and you start to hang out with people who are like, Yep, I've only got another 15 years here, and then I can retire, or I'm only gonna, you know, I can't wait until you know, this weekend. And then people were just living for the weekend. And they're living for these points in the future when maybe their health isn't there. Maybe their wealth isn't there. Maybe their family isn't there. And you know, and I just I saw all that. And I was so fortunate to see all that at a very young age. And I said, Man, this is not my life. This is not what I want to be doing. And I thought one day when I was just driving, I had my hands clenched on that steering wheel driving into work, I said, then I am slowly dying behind the wheel of this car, slowly dying behind the wheel of this car driving to make somebody else rich. And you know, and so anyway, it was around that time I want to say now fast forward around 2002 I read the book, Rich Dad's Cashflow Quadrant. And that is the sequel to Rich Dad Poor Dad written by Robert Kiyosaki. But the Cashflow Quadrant actually read first. And I'm glad that I've read it first, because there's a lot more that how and a lot less of the line. It's a lot of the same material and rich dad poor dad, but he went into the Cashflow Quadrant. And I realized at that moment, Leon that if I wanted to be free in a capitalist society, I had to buy my freedom. And the only way that I was going to be able to buy my freedom was going to be to get involved in some sort of business. And I didn't know what that was at the time. So I tried a lot of different things. I sold stuff on eBay. You know, I did things like my background right there. Yeah, you know, I tried everything. But the one thing that kept coming back was real estate investing. So let's, let's talk about the deal. So during those four years, I've worked for four years from the end of 99, into right to 2004. I worked for somebody else for four years for that same company for four years doing the database engineering stuff. And so in my spare time, and then downtime on work, I started researching all these money making opportunities. And I had a friend in the office who knew a woman across the street. Her name is Irene. And Irene became an unofficial early mentor for me. She was a mortgage broker, and also a real estate agent. But little did I know at the time until I started meeting with her, and she started imparting all this wisdom on me and a couple of my friends that will go meet with her for lunch. She was she was a shark. He was just an absolute shark. Wow, she was she was one of the good old boys in the county. She was the only probably woman in this county that that ran with the big dogs ran with the big boy, you don't hear that much often. No, but I mean, she, she had a pair. 8:53 She had, she knew what was up and she had made a lot of money in her own deals in real estate. I mean, just to give you an example, she would get the legal section of the newspaper, and she would look up the names of the people defaulting on the mortgage, you know, when when they wanted to go to the courthouse sale, and she would know these people from the community, she would know them from the churches, small town. So she picked up the phone and she call them and say, Hey, what's going on here? And they say, oh, you know, I got I lost a job or I got you know, whatever. She's like, well, let me like make you a loan so you can catch back up. And so she would just loan shark on the you know, these folks and help them back up so that they could make their payments, pay their bank again, and then they could just make her payments. And so she was just that kind of person. She was that aggressive where she would just help anybody. And so that, you know, back to my story she was helping us in here was it was me and two of my friends. And we would go over to her office, which is right across the street from where we work for lunch, and we would just sit down with her for 15 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever she would give us. And here's this old lady and these young guys and she called us, her young entrepreneurs. Okay, and so she said hurted just importing all this wisdom on us and saying, hey, you know, you guys should consider this and you should consider that. So one of the things that she had us do now fast forward a number of months now, one of the guys that was meeting with us, he had some personal issues. So he said, Hey, guys, I'm out. I can't be involved in this business. But another friend of mine, the two of us continue to pursue this. And so she sat us down. Now this is back before all the public records were on the internet. Now, you can just pull up, you know, your local assessor's, and you can find all the information on any house in any person. And, you know, that's something that you want, you know, but back then, you had to actually pull out the I don't know if you've ever seen the on the big tax maps and the tax rolls of Yes, like, the books and so she had those in our office, she sat us down with a magnifying glass with a handle on it, you know, round thing with the handle on it like Sherlock Holmes, and was like, Hey, guys, look at this map, and then go find all the land owners in this subdivision south of town. And I said, Well, what's the significance with this subdivision south of town? And she said, Well, all the builders are buying lots in there right now. And they're putting half million dollar homes up. Now. Keep in mind, this was back 2004 ish. Now, do you have five? So this is when everything was like going gangbusters back then. Yeah. When we were experiencing that real big bubble in the market back then. And builders just you know, banks were throwing money's money at builders and builders couldn't buy enough lots, they were just buying it all they could. The key to this. And this is where her being just kind of a the one of the good old boys really paid off is that there had been a building moratorium with regard to this particular subdivision because there was some legal issues with the way that it was subdivided back in the day. Well, that they that all went went through the court system, and they were able to get worked out. But not a lot of people knew that this moratorium had been lifted. So a lot of the landowners in that subdivision and a lot and a lot of the people outside the subdivision didn't actually know that that was something that was able to happen. So what's that spell for us? That spells an opportunity opportunities. So she sat us down with these tax rolls, get this, we hand wrote the addresses out of those books. And we put them onto a piece of paper. And then we took that piece of paper then hand wrote letters while we printed out letters and sign them. Okay hand wrote the envelope. And then we actually did that mailing. And that was just one mailing. Believe it or not, so I just shattered a whole lot of people's disbelief out there. Because we only did a handful of mailings. We only did the mailing one time and we did everything by hand, except for print out the letters we printed on the letters, but then we stuffed the envelopes hands on. 12:44 And this method still works today to 12:47 this day, you know, the the naivete on my part was that I didn't realize it number one that doing a subsequent mailing or multiple subsequent mailings might have yielded more results. Or if I didn't get anything the first time I need to cast the line back out again. But by the grace of God, you know, I got this phone call from this guy. And this is this is a number of this is number of months fast forward. So he says to me, Hey, Steve, I've got you know, I got your letter. And I don't even know if you're still interested. But I've gotten a lot down here and in this subdivision and if you're interested, then I think I'm I would like to sell and I said, Okay, tell me what you got. Now, as I've got them on the phone, I pull up the MLS or I pull up the board a realtor.com. And I started searching really quick this subdivision to see what lots are going for. And I quickly saw that they were going for around 105 I want to find a piece. And so he said, Yeah, he said, Actually, I've got two of these things. I say, Okay, well, what do you want for him? And he said, I'm thinking 30 to five apiece. And Leon at that point, I just I was just like, oh, like, I try not to drop the phone. I tried to play ball, but man, I was like a duck on the surface of the water like underneath. Like, I'm just like, whoa, I'm moving. I'm like, wow, okay, just trying to play cool. I said, Okay, all right. All right. I said, Look, let me do a little bit of research. Let me get this number and I'll call you back. And so he says, Okay, no problem. So I immediately call Irene I said, Hey, I read it. Stiva you know, remember when you had us do that mailing for that subdivision? She says, Yeah, and I say I got a guy who wants to sell and he not only has one he's got too old. She was like, What is What does he want for my son? He wants 32 Five repeats. She goes, You better bio. Get him. So I immediately went into like this fear kind of panic kind of mode. And I was like, Whoa, but I don't have any money. I've got like $3,000 in a checking account. That's all I have. How am I gonna buy $65,000 worth of real estate she and she just cut me off. She said stop. She said Can you get him to my office Saturday morning at 9am? I said, Yes, I believe I can do that. She said, Good. Let's all meet there then. So I showed up at her office 9am That Saturday he this old man showed up with his with his old wife very well to do well dressed gentleman drive a nice car, you know, this is this is not the little lady that we were buying this from, you know, saying this is a sophisticated well, well to do guy. And he shows up really nice, really nice older couple, very nice. And we went into her office, I Reed's office, and Irene had a contract prepared already to be able to sell it to me. So we sat down with them, signed a contract and said, Okay, thank you very much. Now, crucial point, what we did is we contracted on this thing, contingent upon passing PARCC test. And for those who are listening to this, who don't know what a PARCC test is, it's just where they go into the soil, you know, dig up the soil, and they dump some water down in there, and then time how long it takes to percolate. And that determines the suitability to put a septic system on the property. If it doesn't percolate, then it's too much clay in the soil, and you can't put a septic system, which means it's non buildable, by the way, which means we wouldn't have been able to make money on this transaction. So we went ahead, and we did that. My friend, my friend put up the money to do the PARCC test, which was around 1200 bucks. Okay, between the two lots. And then I went ahead and I engage with Irene about, okay, how are we going to sell these things? And so she picked up her phone book, and this is before, you know, cell phones, and she picks up her phone book, she looks up a builder friend of hers and calls and says, Hey, I've got to lock down the subdivision. Would you be interested? He said, Yeah, what are they asking? Because they're when they're asking one of the five form? He says, will they take 95 forum? And she's like, she looks at me. And she's like, Yeah, I'll take 95 form. So this is 95. B. So we're buying for 32. Five, we're selling for 95 apiece. Yeah, for so we go ahead and contract with him contingent upon passing her because we hadn't purchased yet. Correct. And so I went down to the lats on the day of the PARCC test. And I stood there, in those woods with the Health Department and the contractor dig in the ground. I got to watch the whole process, which to me at the time was exciting. Let's face it, if it was still today, I'd probably still go check it out. It's just exciting. And sure enough, they both perk. And her office was just north of where the slots were. So I drove by her office on the way and I just like, they just heard 17:35 about it. Yeah, she gave me a big smile and a big hug. And she said, Oh, great. So she sits down, breaks out the phone book dials the builders number, your last part. He said, Great, how soon can we close? Awesome. So here we are now just a few weeks out from settlement. And I'm just like, I'm just like, Please, God, don't let anything go wrong here. And so here we are, we roll into settlement day off, and we signed I it was me signing, I signed for to buy the lots, and then turn right around. And then the builder actually had already come in put his money in escrow. He had already signed his papers to buy. And the folks got up and they left I signed my papers to sell, they didn't know anything about it. And and back then we did what was called a dry closing. So next thing I know I'm given a check for 1013 6350. That was the amount that dropped out between the purchase the sale and then of course, I had to pay Irene a very nice commission. Well deserved out of the deal. But that's it, brother. That was my first wholesale deal. I want to 150 I carried a copy of that check in my wallet for a couple of years afterward. You know, I framed it. I put it in a picture in my office for years. And that was one that got me started, man. 18:55 Oh, man. So back. So I guess back in was it 2004? You said this happened? 19:00 Yeah, it was. I want to say at that point, we might have been in 2005 by then. Okay. 19:07 So I guess back then they had a way for you to remotely deposit that check so you can keep the physical copy? Well, I copied it. I had the check. Yeah, there you go. So yeah, there's so much there's so much to unpack guys with this episode, because Steve just talked about something that I guess in some of the areas that Brittany and I kind of operate in where we are starting to notice where land deals are starting to come more and more popular. Because these builders, you have a lot of commercial deals happening where now land deals are starting to come more and more popular. And so this is a great episode to listen and repeat. Like if even if you're not an expert in finding buyers, you can find someone that has a buyer and you can just again Do a JV deal, you don't always have to be the expert, you don't always have to have both ends worked out to find a deal to get your first deal. I mean, he had a wonderful, wonderful, as he says it shark to help him get his first deal. Awesome. So I don't even know, Steve, that you and I both had it background, I guess I knew you were just a really, really smart guy. And so you just knew how to do stuff. I did not know that you did programming in the Oracle databases. That's awesome. 20:29 Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, anybody can learn anything on the job training, right? Yeah. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna say I was smart enough to do it or anything like that. But, you know, I think it just goes back to what you just said, you having somebody show me how to manipulate Oracle databases allow me to learn it. If I didn't have that person looking over my shoulder, showing me what to do and telling me what to do and holding my hand as I went through the process, then I wouldn't know how to do that. The same is true of real estate. Yeah, you know, and, and Irene was my mentor. And I learned a ton, just from being around her watching her interact, watching her call the builder, seeing how she negotiated, looking at the contract that she prepared for me the contract that I buy, by the way, still, to this day, that contract that I used to buy was largely based off that first contract that she wrote up for me. Yeah, 21:26 yes. So true. If it works, and it could still work today. Why not? Why not keep using it, or at least modify it to work to today's standards, right? Yep. Man, that is awesome. So I definitely got some more follow up questions for myself. And also for for the audience that's listening. So tell me this, how long from the time you mail the letters to the day you close? How long? How long of a time expanded there? 21:51 Well, from the data? I don't I don't know is the answer. I really honestly don't know. It's just we're talking about. We're talking about what 1516 years now. And and it has been? Yeah, it's been a long time. I want to go out on a limb, I'm gonna say probably just short of a year. 22:13 Okay. So that's one thing that Brittany and I state is that when you're passionate about something, when you're looking to get your first deal, don't give up on getting your first deal? Absolutely. You got to keep sowing those seeds, you got to keep keep keep plowing that land, to make sure that your success is inevitable. You just got to keep doing the work. Failure does not mean that you should quit failure means that okay, what can I learn from this? And how can I move forward? Yeah, and that's one thing I want our audience to know is that it took Brittany and I almost a year to get our first deal too, as well, because there's so much information out there. We didn't know what to do. And so that was kind of paralysis for us and getting our first deal. And I have another follow up question. So based on what, how your first deal with how your first deal went? What do you think that you should have known or you wish you knew before you do your first deal? 23:12 Oh, man, well, I just told you about my first wholesale deal. Yeah. My first deal deal I actually bought in 2004. And that deal I bought as a rental. You know, I was like, Okay, well, the secret to making all this work is passive income. So I'm going to I need some passive income, right. What I didn't know at the time was what stuff was worth. And I again, I did a mailing campaign to this neighborhood that happened in the same neighborhood that I live in. I liked the neighborhood, I liked the houses in there, I felt like they were, I felt like the prices were right. But you know, back again, back to those before everything is kind of ramping up. And if things are ramping up, you don't really know what anything's worth. I mean, you know, it's and, you know, you kind of had this that feeling of frothiness That was really there in the market at that time. So it's a little bit scary, not knowing what you're paying for stuff. But I learned a lot that first deal man, I came, I said the first number to that seller, and they were a very astute seller. And they went ahead and they took my number, which meant much. So you know, now I always try to get the seller to get the first number, I don't mind get making an offer, but I know how to do it. Now. I know how to do that. And I need to do it that in a way that is much less than what they were thinking so that we kind of meet a little bit, you know, in the middle or whatever. And what else man, oh, I did that deal just to make 300 bucks a month in cash flow these days. I wouldn't do anything for 300 bucks a month in cash flow. So I definitely learned that you're not going to build long term wealth $300 at a time. And, and you know, maybe you can do that at scale. If you're buying 100 To 300 units at a time or something like that, but you're certainly not going to do it just buying one house here and one house there, unless that's your plan, unless that's what you want to do, and you want to take the time and just do that. But for me, that wasn't going to get me it wasn't going to replace my income, it wasn't going to get me any closer to being financially free or really becoming a full time investor. So I would say those things. And again, having a mentor having somebody, you know, a coach, somebody to look over your shoulder, I would have been able to have that conversation. Like if me myself today could have a conversation with myself back then I would say, What are you trying to do? And my young self would say, Well, I'm I'm trying to become financially free, I'm trying to replace my job income. And me today, we coach that person and say, Well, do you really think that buying one $300 rental is going to get you any closer? You know? And I would say, well, probably I need to be looking at different deals. And I would say you're probably right, correct? Correct. Correct. 26:01 So you kind of already answered my follow up question is, what will you do differently? And and you already told me you would kind of, you know, you would you would definitely evaluate the deal a little bit better based on you know, cash flow, because $300 in cash flow a month is, you know, that's not going to move your needle forward as fast as you want it to. 26:21 Yeah, yeah. I mean, I will tell you this, Leon, I've learned that, to the extent that you're able to, to build a business that generates chunks of cash, hmm, that's much better to me than then generating over buying rentals that are just going to give you a few 100 bucks here and there. Now, yeah, when you get in a situation where you got to eat chunk cash generating machine, and you're able to do it year, after year, after year, after year, you're making some serious money at that point. Now your thought needs to become How do I invest some of these excess funds into cash flow generating assets. So if you're, if you want to get wealthy in real estate, you have to figure out how to generate the big chunks. First, this is my opinion, I'm sure there's somebody out there that will want to disagree with me on this. But based on based on what I've seen in my own career, my own life, you gotta generate the big chunks of cash, yes, this is going to kill you on taxes, but it's going to allow you to live it's gonna allow you to quit your job, focus more real estate, and then and then you can go ahead and diversify into those cash flow generating assets. If you try to do it the other way around, you will become wealthy, if you do it right. And the market doesn't kill you, and you don't over leverage. And so but it's gonna take you a very long time to get there. So that would that would be my advice to anybody really considering, you know, equity versus cash flow and and, you know, big chunks of cash versus a little bit of cash. 27:49 Correct? Correct. Man, there are a lot of teaching moments that I've had an experience through the San mastermind that we are part of, and this goes back to, you know, tell us a little bit more about a CNN if you don't mind, because I want our our listeners to know a little bit more about it, if you don't mind. 28:11 Sure, man. So I started coaching around 14 years ago. And when I started coaching, I started coaching people to do their first three deals. And what we do is we essentially joint venture on those first three deals together. And over those 14 years, I worked with 40 individuals under that structure, and we sold around $80 million worth of real estate. And I, at the end of those, at the end of I don't know, I want to say probably around 11 or so years, I said then I am I'm feeling a calling to go ahead and leave Maryland, you know, my family, we wanted to move down here to the beach. And it's just we live in a great area down here and scape the winters year round and just, you know, just live with the beat. So we started looking into that. And I was working at the time with a wife narrow organization. And they were they're very big on creating a vision for your life, and what would that look like and my vision was to be down here in the sunshine year round. And so we started working toward that. But at the same time, one of the things that I started to tire on was kind of talking about people in like their rehabs that they were doing like their renovations that they were doing. And I was more interested in working with next level investors, investors who already had businesses that were honorable, they didn't need my advice about what roofing color to pay for their shingles or, you know, any any of those kinds of decisions to be made problems with contractors. It was really more like, hey, you know, should I transfer some of this cash out over into cash flowing assets? And if so, what does that look like? Or, or, Hey, I need more freedom in my life because I've created a job for myself what you know, how can how can you help me do that? So really kind of going from rehabbing houses to helping people rehab their lives a little bit and It doesn't mean that somebody's life has to be broken. By the way. I mean, as you've seen in ascend, we've had, we've had all we've had the whole spectrum of folks come through our doors and sit at our masterminds. And so when we moved down here, when I moved down here to Florida, I made that change in my coaching, because I had cut my teeth as a coach for all these years, coaching people say a family. And I wanted to coach people with life stuff, too. So that's when Alex Pardo and I got together, and we discussed it. And we figured it that it would make sense for us to co coach to mastermind groups together, they're called ascend is group one and group two, there are two groups of 15 seats, each seat can bring either a spouse, or a business partner or a bonafide business partner. So we typically have around 25 to 30 people in our masterminds, and we run these three times a year, down here in southeast Florida. And, man, they're just awesome events. I mean, the people in that room become family, and the stuff that's shared in that room, I guarantee you doesn't get shared in a lot of these other masterminds or groups that are out there, that are just all about business, it's not to say we don't talk about business, it's not to say we don't have some folks in there that are just killing it. You know, we just, we just had one of our members share on one of our private monthly zoom calls just the other day about how he is doing these big portfolio deals, and, you know, making seven figures per transaction in some cases. So it's, you know, we definitely take the business side of things seriously, but we also really take our life seriously, too. So that means, you know, thinking more about what are we on earth to do here? What are we on Earth to accomplish? You know, what, what type of what type of goals do we have with family stuff, spirituality, you know, what type of impact do we want to make? Those are the questions that we help people get clarity on. And we, we work with folks, when they come into a sense to define their vision for their lung, without regard to money, and finances, and all that stuff. It's not that those things are important. In fact, they are, but we have to get really clear on what we want our lives to look like. And then we can tweak the business to make to serve those lights to make us live those lives. But most people do it the other way around. And so we're here to shine a little light on that and make sure that it gets done the right way. And and what what happens is everybody becomes family and their hate hears for one another. So it's been a great journey. We've been doing it now for I think two and a half years. And, you know, Alex is like a brother to me. And, you know, we have fun, fun time doing it. Yeah. 32:23 And that's the thing I love about this group is that we have been just influenced so much by Steve and, and Alex. But the biggest thing is that we are bringing people that are in maybe this same walk of life that we are that are going to not only just help us move on our business for our personal lives for but it's it feels like a family because I know some people they'll go to a meeting, or they go to a mastermind where it's all like you were saying sometimes all business talk, which is fine. Sometimes people are need some some some tips to advance their business. But sometimes it's talking about fit. It may be it may be using these symptoms, talk about you know how, how COVID affected you or how it affected your family. And that's what, that's one thing I love about this group. But really what I want to hit on a little bit is about what you said earlier about having a vision. Yeah. One thing I did not realize how important is to have a vision until I got part of this group was that once I started writing down my vision, then I started implementing tasks and things that I wanted daily works I needed to do to achieve my vision, then I really started to get that time freedom back, right. That's one thing a lot. A lot of what you were saying is that I didn't know that I could design my business to give me the my freedom back instead of feeling like okay, now I'm another slave to my business. Well, instead of being a slave to, you know, to working for someone else, um, now I'm a slave to my business. I didn't want that. And you guys have opened my eyes to that and what was what was one of the major things that really got you to realize the impact that I guess maybe it's maybe it's still ongoing? What kind of impact do you think that a student has made on the people so far that come through a sin? 34:20 That's I think, you know, you'd really have to ask them, rather than me but I'll tell you this, um, I give you a story like a guy like you know, like Alex jandek. For example, Alex jandek, before coming into a sin was working as an acquisitions manager for another wholesaler in Tampa, Florida. And Alex Janda comes into the first mastermind is like, Hey, guys, I think I'm gonna go ahead and leave my current employer he could strike it out on my own. I'm really nervous about it. Just kind of curious your thoughts, and we helped him stand up a business and he went out there and now is making around a half million bucks a year. Doing so he went from working for somebody else not really knowing where his next paycheck was going to come from, you know, working under someone else's leads to now generating his own leads his own income. And he's, you know, he's doing just fantastic at it. And the dude is one heck of a deal shark. He's just, and so now he's been able to reach back and help help others within the group. And, and so he's doing real well. So I mean, there's just that impact. And that's a business example. You know, of course, we've had, we've had many folks come in and talk about, you know, relationships, abusive relationships, we've had, you know, we've helped people navigate, you know, divorces, and I mean, just like messed up stuff that you don't really want to ever have to deal with. And we're helping people deal with those things. So it's been pretty gratifying, you know, for sure, as a coach, but don't ask me, man, you got to have somebody who's in the group. And I don't, you know, every now and again, we'll interview a candidate. And they will ask to speak to current members of the group to vet them and get their take on it. And I have never, I think some of the best feedback I heard was from one of our members who've talked to one of the candidates who said, I don't think I've ever heard somebody say, say, No, don't join, or, or something along those lines. So I thought that was a pretty cool endorsement. 36:20 Yeah, it's wonderful. And I guess it's my last leading question, but it kind of goes more in depth to kind of what our listeners may be dealing with today. And I know we all deal with it from time to time as business owners as men, as you know, there's women that are probably listen to this podcast. But really, what I want people to really to hear is, what are some of the major limiting beliefs that you had to overcome? Or that maybe you may still be working on Steve, that you maybe you can share on what you did to overcome them? Whoo, 36:54 man? Well, I I'm trying to think business wise for you first. I think one of the things that most beginning investors really struggled with the abundance versus scarcity mentality. And I think that a default mentality is always to be scarce. And scarcity mentality says this, there's not enough deals out there. So I better get mine before the other guy gets his in abundance mentality is the other side of that coin. And that says, there's more than enough deals out there. And there's more than enough money to be made for everyone. I would say that that is an ongoing struggle for most people that I know, it's an ongoing struggle for me. And anytime I find myself kind of in that negative kind of thinking, I say, Hold on a second. Am I thinking about this in a scarcity mindset or an abundance mindset? So that's a big one. That's a big one when it comes to business. You know, on the personal side of thing, man, I think I think most people believe that they are not enough, they are not enough the way that they are. And, you know, I think my wife recently got a really cute bracelet that says, I am enough, you know, and, and I think that we all need to look in the mirror and tell ourselves, you know, we are enough, we are enough, you know, God made us who we are. And we are enough because of it. And it doesn't mean that you know, we don't all you know, every everybody's fighting a battle, you know nothing about right. That is so true. But we are enough, we've already been equipped, and we just need to step into that greatness and, and stop, stop telling ourselves things that basically mean that we're not enough, 38:34 correct, correct. Yeah. And it's like you that kind of goes into the belief mindset that believing that they can do it that you can do whatever it is that you set your mind to. And when we're talking about real estate, we're talking about deals. There's more than enough deals out there. But like you're saying, Steve, I have struggled with that, like, I have to have this one deal. But, but thinking there, then you make mistakes. When you focus on getting that one deal when there's there's 1000s Millions of deals already out there that you can go find out and get them. So that's one reason why I want to elaborate on getting people to focus on getting my first deal is is there's ton of them out there just because one doesn't work out. Let's say you've been you've had 10 contracts, who cares? Get some help. Get around the right people, and you will get your first deal. Yeah, and people like Steve people like my wife, Brittany, we are here to help you. And whatever it is, guys, you need. Come holler at us, you know, reach out to us, Steve how can people get in touch with you want to follow with you more questions or get to know you better? 39:47 Yeah, it's our website is ascend your success.com A S C E N D, your y o u r success. succ ESS, ASCEND your success.com And if you want just to get in touch with Alex and myself, just click Apply to join, don't worry you're on and it's no commitment or anything like that. But that'll get you on a phone call with Alex. And I'm, you know, we'll kind of find out what you're up to, and see if there may be a possibility down the road of working together and not, you know, it's not a sales call, we're not there to pressure you into anything or sell you anything, it's just to find out a little bit about you and make sure you know about us and, and tell you all about it. So I'll tell you that if if your listeners do go to that link, and they do click on that, there's a neat little video that you get after you fill out that, that page, that's going to tell you a lot more about it. I want to I want to leave your listeners with a quote Leon, to your last point, the deal of the lifetime comes along once every week. The deal lifetime comes along once every week. And it's so true. I wrote that down at one point in time early in my career and posted that on a post it note in my office. So the old lifetime comes along every week, you just have to be looking forward, you just have to be doing something, you have to book the car and drive, you know, start moving forward. And just as soon as you start to do that, the universe will respond as they say. And there you're gonna start to see opportunities that you passed on before you didn't or you didn't notice. And all you have to do is just start making phone calls, just start sending emails, just start looking at property, just start making offers. Anytime that there's not any traction going on in your business. It's just because you haven't been making offers offers lead to you buying property and buying property leads to wealth, so it doesn't get much easier. It 41:43 sure does. And that is a wonderful quote. I might have to borrow that. And that reminds me it's just always being ready. Like you said, putting in a drive and just being ready for that deal to show up. You got to of course, do the work but the right one will fall literally he could fall in your lap. Yep. And man, what a wonderful, wonderful podcast wonderful conversation you and I've had. Thank you guys for being on here. And man, this is one for the books. I know I probably said that about others. But man, I have really felt like I've gotten something out of this and I know my listeners and our listeners will get something out of this. And guys, go ahead and go ahead and go to that website. Sorry. So sit us go insane. Steve success.com Your tongue twister, 42:38 calm. Thank you, Leon for the privilege and love it. It's an honor to be here, man. Thank you, 42:42 man. Thank you again. 42:44 All right, brother. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas to you.