142. Steve Valentine - Do The Inner Work and Build Your Wealth

In this insightful episode, Colette Brown welcomes Steve Valentine, renowned for his visionary approach to real estate. He's not just an agent; he's a strategist, a consultant, a guide. His expertise lies in developing personalized real estate strategies that align with the unique goals of each client.

Steve shares his journey from  childhood and initial aversion to his family's real estate business to becoming a licensed agent and eventually a successful real estate mogul. After a stint in automotive work and a devastating theft, Steve pivoted to real estate. The passing of his father, a dedicated but financially struggling real estate agent, taught Steve invaluable lessons about setting boundaries and valuing his expertise. 

Steve also opens up about his struggles with alcohol, his path to sobriety, and how he found healing and purpose through rehab and mentorship. He discusses his philosophy of investing in oneself, the importance of mentors, and his goal to impact 7,000 real estate agents over seven years. 

Steve's story is a testament to resilience, mindset, and the power of surrounding oneself with supportive people.

2:05 Meet Steve Valentine - Growing Up and Initial Career Moves

03:51 A Shift to Real Estate: Lessons from a Father's Legacy

07:42 Embracing Sobriety: A Journey of Personal Transformation

15:19 The Power of Mentorship in Sobriety and Life

20:24 Building Wealth and Creating a Legacy

26:57 The 7, 7, 7 Goal: Impacting the Real Estate Industry

29:32 Sobriety Journey - Reflections and Advice for a Fulfilling Life

Learn more about Steve and The Valentine Group at:

Website: valentinegroupaz.com

Instagram: @stevedvalentine

Book: Limitless Real Estate Strategies: Build Your Wealth and Join the Real Estate Revolution 

Podcast: The Real Estate Revolution

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Also on today's episode Colette invites in Tyler Pencek of the Real Life School Podcast sharing financial well being tips.

Podcast: Real Life School
Instagram: @tylerpencek
Website: reallifeschool.com 

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Connect with Colette:

Instagram: @wellnessbycolette

Website: love-colette.com

Thank you for listening to the Limitless Healing podcast with Colette Brown! It would mean the world if you would take one minute to follow, leave a 5 star review and share with those you love!

In Health,
Colette

Transcript

[00:00:00]  : Our next guest desire is to help you succeed in more ways than one wellness, happiness, wealth, integrity, and purpose driven are just a few words that convey his mission. He has built a real estate portfolio worth over 50 million only after hitting rock bottom in multiple areas of his life.

[00:00:21]  : He's a walking testament to embodying mindset. Focus, love, and believes in surrounding yourself with good people, mentors, friends, in order to accomplish great things in life. He's now sober. He's a published author and just a beautiful human and is my great honor to welcome Steve Valentine. Welcome, Steve.

[00:00:45]  : Thank you. Glad it's great to be here. It's so good to be here. And there's a lot we have to talk about in such a little time. So let's dive in. One of the first things I love to know about people so we can get to know you a little bit better is where did you grow up? Where was it? What did that look like?

[00:01:03]  : And what was the favorite childhood memory or memory that is? brought you maybe on the trajectory to where you're at today. I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, I was born in Bloomington, Illinois, and my parents moved out here when I was two, and I've lived in the same square 10 miles my whole life.

[00:01:17]  : Wow. And, uh, yeah. Wow. Um, we actually live, um, Five miles from where I graduated high school. And so it's just been my backyard and never had any desire to go anywhere else. Favorite childhood memory is, still the cars and trucks that I built during high school. Those were my fun memories. Cause everything seemed to be attached to, to those.

[00:01:37]  : Interesting. That probably kept you out of trouble in high school too. Oh, more trouble than you know. Right. So then, okay, so you have this great childhood and you become an adult. And where does that take you? adulthood. So when I graduated high school, um, I really wanted nothing to do with the family real estate business.

[00:01:56]  : My parents were very affluential in the real estate space. [00:02:00] And, uh, you know, we talk about the cars and trucks. It's really hard to do anything right when your parents phone number is on every sign in the neighborhood that you grew up in. So you're constantly being tattletaled on, um, by the general public.

[00:02:14]  : And I didn't want anything to do with it. So I ended up going into the automotive field and I loved automotive and I did that for about two and a half years. I bounced from place to place. And, uh, the last place that I worked was a fleet company and somebody broke in, stole all my tools. It was, I got an insurance check for about two years worth of income that, uh, I finally called my dad.

[00:02:36]  : I'm like, all right, well, I don't want to roll around on the concrete anymore. Can I try the real estate thing? And that's what led me into at 20 years old, getting a real estate license. And, uh, hanging up the, uh, grease monkey side, still enjoy that a little bit, not to the extent I did when I was younger.

[00:02:51]  : And real estate has just been a blur for the last, actually it'll be 25 years in July that I've been selling and guiding people through real estate. Wow. And you have an interesting story too, because it's not all that cut and dry. So you're, you said your dad was in real estate and what did you find at the end of his career a big, it was just a heartbreak for you.

[00:03:15]  : Yeah. The heart, the heartbreak. Number one, my dad passed at 63 years old with sudden terminal cancer. There were some lessons that I learned when he passed was. One, he was in the business for 40 years and he died pretty much broke other than a life insurance policy and he spent his whole life serving other people for pennies on the dollar of what his actual value was.

[00:03:38]  : And so the lessons I learned from that were I, I need to take my real estate license and use it for the opportunity that It's actually there for which is to guide people and also see opportunities to create wealth, both short term and long term in the business, which my dad was not doing. And the other big thing, which I think is really important for a lot of people, no matter what business in is [00:04:00] finding boundaries with clientele and being confident enough in yourself and your value and your self worth.

[00:04:07]  : To say no to people that don't respect you, don't respect your knowledge or the industry that you're in, and be okay with that. Hmm. That's such a different lesson in life. It comes from this. The thing that I tell my clients is I will work with you, but I will not work for you. And there's, there's an experience level that I bring to the table that allows me to go through that with them.

[00:04:32]  : And, and, and here's where I learned that from my dad sold a lot of homes to a very wealthy man, uh, during the downturn market. And this man drug my dad around like a chihuahua because my dad needed him. And the guy made a lot of promises for my dad's retirement and all the work that he did making this guy well over 200 million dollars in a short period of time because of my dad's knowledge.

[00:04:53]  : this good Christian investor gave my mom and I two middle fingers after my dad passed. And, uh, he never honored his word. He never did anything. And so today that is just my thing is like, there are certain people I just, I won't work with if we're, if our values don't align and it's, uh, It takes a while to get into that space, and the reason for it is that we end up spending a lot of negative energy, or a lot of positive energy with negative people, rather than trying to hone in on the positive people that we enjoy working with, no matter what space you're in.

[00:05:26]  : Right, right. And in life and in friendships. Right. There can be very draining. to be able to know that no is a complete sentence and yes, that and, and boundaries like those are two things that I've worked on in my life too. So we have that in common. take us to. When you, I mean, you're sober now.

[00:05:44]  : And so I would like to spend a little time on you painting that picture of how that developed and where it took you to the crossroads at which you said enough's enough. Yeah, it's, I mean, the, the [00:06:00] last two or three years have kind of been a rollercoaster between marital problems and drinking problems.

[00:06:06]  : And it wasn't so much the drinking. I was a very functional person, when it came down to it. So I, I wasn't burning things to the ground. I didn't get DUIs. I didn't do any of that. It was really at night. Um, I learned in rehab in October of 2023. That the seven years prior to entering rehab, I was trying to take on too many things to try to be everything to everybody.

[00:06:32]  : And my nature is I try to be the hero. And so by nature, taking on everybody's problems and trying to solve them to the tune of me losing money, solving problems, people helping people. And it was kind of a path that my dad went down as well. And it's created a lot of anxiety at night of, Not keeping up with what I said I was going to do, all the things I wanted to do, some of it definitely had to do with, you know, how do I expand these different programs?

[00:07:00]  : And I was just being pulled in 1000 directions. And at night, I would drink so that I could sleep and tone my mind down. And, uh, You know, with, with some marital problems and, and some things that happened in September, it led me to just making the decision that, you know what, I can't be the person I want to be for everybody and for myself, and I need to go figure out what is happening.

[00:07:23]  : And a year prior to that, I had gone 18 months and, and quit drinking because my wife and I had those conversations and it was, I needed to, right? And I never looked internally to what was going on or any of that stuff. And so I went to this amazing facility called Soberman's Estates in Cave Creek.

[00:07:40]  : And I disconnected for 30 days from the world. I left my laptop, my phone, everything in my business to my staff and my wife. And I just immersed myself in my inside and said, okay. After 45 years of running this hard, it sounds bad, but I needed a break from life to really go [00:08:00] figure out who, who I learned to be and who I needed to unlearn to be the better person going forward.

[00:08:06]  : And it was a phenomenal 30 days, uh, for me. And it's been a phenomenal, um, six months. Well, it's been, it'll be seven months tomorrow, to be honest with you. that the changes that have been made and the things that I realized in my life that. I absolutely love and it's, it's just been a great journey.

[00:08:25]  : Yeah. and I also want to just touch on part of that, which is the first facility that you went to didn't resonate with you. And I think that's such an important factor because if you're somebody that's struggling and you hate. AA, for example, or you've gone to a facility that just doesn't resonate with you.

[00:08:45]  : And you kind of give up and say, they're all like that. what do you say about that? so the story is, is I showed up at a place that was referred to me and online, it was much different when he showed up in person and it felt like a very expensive halfway house. And I was in there for, I don't know, Three hours.

[00:09:01]  : And when the therapist came in and stared at the ceiling during the entire time in a group session, like, I got to get out of here. And, uh, basically the place that I went to to get healed, was a court ordered rehab facility for 20 year old kids. And so when you go in there as a, As a married man that's struggling in life and in business and trying to figure it out, you're not going to get very far with 20 year old kids that are just waiting to get out the door to get, get high or drunk again.

[00:09:29]  : And so I just told the director, like, Hey, this isn't going to work. And I'm going to go ahead and leave. And he's like, well, and I wanted to use the phone. They wouldn't let me use the phone. So there I was in Fountain Hills, walking down the street with my suitcase. And my flip flops with no phone, remember, I don't have anything.

[00:09:45]  : And I found a T Mobile store. I bought a phone. I downloaded an Uber app and text my wife and said, This isn't going to work, but I'll find somewhere, but I'm not wasting 30 days and 30 grand on this facility. Yeah. And, uh, so it's [00:10:00] funny now, it probably wasn't funny back then, but this recovery center was above a bar.

[00:10:04]  : And I literally knocked back two more cocktails while I was on the phone with the next sobriety house, waiting for my Uber to get home so that I'd go to the place the next day. Wow. That's a story. I love that. And what would you, what, what do you think the, the ultimate catalyst was? Because there's always a point, a turning point when somebody truly is committed to being sober and what is it that takes, what's the difference between somebody that really wants it, but they don't, and somebody that really wants it and they do.

[00:10:38]  : Hmm. Oh, it's such a good question because I'm still so connected to the house that I was at and the guys and the things and it's a question that I'm still trying to determine with some of the people going back to it and not being committed to it. I think the biggest thing for people to realize is that when you decide to get sober, You are truly trying to move away from something, and you're trying to move towards something at the same time.

[00:11:06]  : The moving away from is kind of your past self, and what that looked like, and some of the damage that you've caused. And you're moving towards a better part of life. And you know, there's, there's one guy that always says this and it resonates every time when I'm out and about would alcohol have made this experience any better.

[00:11:24]  : And the reality is no, unless you're with really annoying people, you don't want to be with. And then in that sense, you don't have enough boundaries in your life to say no to people you don't want to hang out with. Um, and the difference is, I think some people definitely get to the rock bottom. And some people have the mindset of I don't want it to get to rock bottom.

[00:11:44]  : I don't want to lose my family. I don't want to lose my business. I'm better than, than what this is. And it truly is a decision that you make to go not to stop drinking and not to stop doing drugs. I, I went. To go [00:12:00] figure out what was going inside, and some people try to do therapy, they try to do different things, but the immersiveness of, I mean, we had nine group therapy sessions and three private sessions a week, that's a lot of internal, you know, fight with yourself.

[00:12:16]  : And so it really, I don't know anybody that's mandated to go to those things or forced by their families or those types of things. Is it ever truly going to stick until it goes from their heart to their head that this is the change that I want to make? Because I, I shared, you know, before the, the healing process of, well, I, I did the dry drunk thing for 18 months and I didn't do any work on myself.

[00:12:41]  : So the minute things were, felt okay, I cracked a beer Thanksgiving. I'm like, yeah, I'm good. And it wasn't a week later that I was back into the vodka and the tequila. And so, you know, that gradually got worse. And every time I stopped. The drinking got worse and more. Um, I don't know if that answered the question cause I'm still trying to determine the difference in people that succeed and don't, and I'm still a baby in this, in this journey.

[00:13:05]  : Yeah. And I believe what you said to your point about the home and the support that you have around you and what. I know your stance on mentors in life, and how important they are. And I'm assuming that you also believe in mentors in sobriety. So tell us about mentors in sobriety that, that are effective.

[00:13:28]  : You know, that's, I'm going to go a little off the cuff with, uh, the mentors in sobriety. Okay. Um, the reason I say that is. I'm a little different exposure wise to the coaching side of the mindset mentality. And it is something, and I don't know, Colette, if you've had any of these conversations with people, but I feel like there's only about 1 percent of the population that actually understands what's available to them in the mentor coaching those types of spaces.

[00:13:57]  : I find it intriguing when I talk to people [00:14:00] coming out of sobriety, like They don't know who Ed Milet is or Chris Harder or any of these other people that are out impacting the world or the things that you do or Chrissy May does. Like, I just talked to a guy that came out of the house two years ago.

[00:14:14]  : He's like, what's a podcast? Wow. What are you doing to feed your soul? Yeah. Right. so the mentorship for me is what I've really realized is that we have to, well, two things. We have to have a very, very good, close circle of friends, right? Just a couple of them. Yeah. And knowing that sometimes friendships are seasonal, and when we have to let those go.

[00:14:39]  : And, you know, recently, I have a couple of different groups. Of guy friends and some girlfriends that I can go to and tell anything to. They're not going to judge me, but they're certainly not going to be happy with my failure, my mistake. And the only next thing is how do we fix this? And, and how do we solve for this, right?

[00:14:59]  : Without burning things down and least amount of damage control, the most amount of damage control we can do. So I think in the mentor space, it's the people that you're surrounding yourself with that you can be open, honest. And that goes both ways, and people can call you out on your shit. And those are the mentors that I want in my life that I can be vulnerable and honest with and go, how do I navigate this?

[00:15:22]  : And sometimes I think we look at mentors as like these perfect people that have all their stuff together. And the reality is they're just as effed up as we are and they got their own stuff going on. So we have to be careful in like putting somebody up on a pedestal and going, this is going to be my savior who I look, look up to because eventually they fall.

[00:15:41]  : Right. Or they make a mistake. And then you're like, Wait a minute, you had everything together, and I'm sure that's what some people look at me with, with my failures and go, well, you were way up here and you screwed all this up. You're right. I did. I did and I own it and I'm paying for it. and I think that, that it's important to have those people and you realize when you go through these hard [00:16:00] times who those true people are.

[00:16:02]  : Yeah. That really can hold space because when you get into hard times and you're resisting something and you need to say why you're resisting it and what you're feeling, what you're going through and have somebody say, yes, and I hear you. And let's look at the big picture. Let's take a step back. Where are we going?

[00:16:24]  : What is your why what like, let's, let's get there because that's what it takes because life is not perfect and we get it from every angle and I loved your book by the way.it's really good and it's called, real estate strategies and limitless. It's the name of the book, build your wealth and join the real estate revolution.

[00:16:47]  : So it's good. This is not talking specifically about self help and it's talking more real estate strategies, beautiful stories of how to, and people that have, overcome and, you know, got into the real estate market. One of the things that you say is invest in yourself. invest in coaches, invest in mentors, masterminds.

[00:17:12]  : And there was a, a mentor that you had and she told you when you think about legacy that you want to create, what's the one word that describes you and where you want to be. And I thought that was such an important component to add to this conversation because mentorship, whether you're paying somebody or it's free, there's that accountability.

[00:17:33]  : And there are these questions that come up to make you really just stop and ponder. So I would love for you to share. With everyone. And I would like everyone just to take a minute. I'm going to read the question again and ask about it in your life. When you think about the legacy that you want to create, what's one word that describes you and where you want to be?

[00:17:52]  : So why don't you share with us what your word was? Well, it's actually, it's fascinating how that came about. There's this [00:18:00] exercise that my life coach, Kim Ryan did 2016 right after my dad passed. I was like, peace out. I don't want to do real estate anymore. I hate this business. I mean, I was, I was at the edge.

[00:18:10]  : I'm like, all right. And Kim Ryan, funny story is she was actually the selling agent on the house that we currently live in. We went into an open house, she was there, we got everything done and we ended up becoming very good friends and we're still very close today. She's one of those core people in my life.

[00:18:26]  : and always will be. We did an exercise to get me out of that slump, which was, we take all the things you're doing today. I'm making phone calls, I'm doing package, If somebody else is doing all those things, what would you be doing? And you go through that four or five times onto the bottom is. You know, my word was wealth builder, which was eight years before I owned any real estate properties.

[00:18:49]  : I owned anything, but I just watched my dad pass and I'm like, I want to be a wealth builder. That's, that's the word. And it's the paper still hanging up in my office as a reminder. And it was, the legacy was not only for me and what I, what I learned from my dad's passing was. If my dad had just done what the airlines say, which is put the oxygen mask on yourself first and then put it on your child or your client, that should be part of it.

[00:19:16]  : Not to say that I over served myself versus a client. What I am saying though is that my dad didn't take care of what his priorities were versus his clients. So he sacrificed his health, his wealth and everything else. So that this one investor could have an extra a hundred million dollars in his bank account and talk about how he screws people out of things.

[00:19:36]  : And so the things my dad sacrificed are just. I just go back to like, this has to change. The wealth building thing came and said, if my dad had gotten his stuff in line, would he have had the ability to say no to this investor? And how many more people like myself, you know, my kids, his other kids, could he have been in a position to help create a longer term [00:20:00] legacy?

[00:20:00]  : So when I started doing this, it wasn't just about me. I had to learn it. Once I learned it, I could share it. And the more I failed, the more I did things better. The more I'm like, great, I'm now protecting my clients. By knowing what I know now that I could have lost somebody money doing it before. So I experimented on myself for the last 10 years and I'm like, all right, I built the portfolio, we built the real estate business.

[00:20:24]  : And now how do I go through and follow through with that word, which is teaching other people how to do it. That's beautiful. And the way that we met was through. Chris and Lori Harder. And one thingthat stuck out when I initially heard them was when good people have things, they can do great things in the world and, and their premise is be as successful as you can, because when you are, you can give back and you can do more.

[00:20:52]  : And to your point, you can make better educated decisions. And it's all about strategy and looking at your money mindset. Where did that come from? What is your money narrative? And money is a beautiful thing.

[00:21:07]  : It's energy and it enables us to. Go around the world to give to others, to create environments for our family, for those that we love. So I love what you're doing there. And I would love for you also to talk a little bit about your sevens, philosophy, what you're trying to do to help others. Yeah, so after because this all kind of ties together after coming out of rehab and Really sitting I mean, here's here's a great piece of this to Colette Is that we talk about building wealth and legacy and for the last decade?

[00:21:42]  : We've been building assets and doing different things and it was pretty nice to be able to go to rehab and pay cash for it And know that that was there because of the position we had put ourselves in. But had we not started way back here, we wouldn't have been in that position. You can [00:22:00] take rehab, you can take your kid being sick, you can take anything that you want and put it in that same position and going.

[00:22:05]  : this is the reason that we did what we did over time. I think that that's important for people to understand, as they're, as they're building things. the rehab journey, the day I got out, I took one of my sessions that was all over the place and it was three words and it was pause, identify and respond.

[00:22:25]  : So when I came out and there's a pause button, it's on my wrist and I put it there intentionally so that I could touch it and feel it. And I had to remind myself every day to just pause and remember all the things that created anxiety and put me in the place that I was. So when I came out, I chose to pause.

[00:22:45]  : I didn't jump straight back into work. I did some half days. I did minimal. I felt extremely lazy and it was really hard on myself, but I knew if I jumped back into things, it would just send me back into chaos and chasing squirrels. So. I started to meet with a few people, and by the way, in that pause, being in the social media space and having reputation There's a lot to, like, think about after you come out of rehab, because you feel imposter syndrome, you feel like you don't want to share anything, you're embarrassed of who you are.

[00:23:18]  : And I had to sit and realize that this is just a piece of my story, it doesn't make me who I am. Yeah. And we're going to move forward. So I paused for about six months where I did just the minimal. You know, as people called, you know, making sure that my staff was taking care of those types of things. And thank God that, you know, my wife, my staff, my kids, the support that I had from everybody was amazing.

[00:23:42]  : Because when you go through a lot of hard things, you have employees, not believing you and things like that. By the grace of God, my employees have been here for over a decade and nobody budged and everybody was all in, we got this, we'll figure it out, and it's still that way today. So, it came in a [00:24:00] standpoint of this time and moment, which was, it came in sevens, which was 7, 000 agents impacted over seven years, creating as many as 7, 000 millionaires in the space.

[00:24:12]  : Right. The whole path is how do I impact more agents in my space to be able to do the things that I've already done and help them connect the dots and do it faster, further with good targets. And I think when in the past, when I've coached people, it's, you know, it's kind of like meeting Chris. They're like, Oh my God, I wish I could do all these things.

[00:24:35]  : And you quickly realize you're not Chris. I'm not Chris Harder. I need to go do my own things and what this feels like. And you want to build what Chris has. And then you realize like, Oh, maybe I don't, I want to meet people where they're at and what they want to accomplish. And if it's owning two rental properties and.

[00:24:52]  : Living on 50, 000 a year in the woods. I want to support that and help you get there. Yeah No, nobody has to do my form of crazy And I think in today's day and age, especially in our industries and in the social side We're chasing everybody else's success And we're also like we'll go to a chris harder event or something and somebody's like i'm doing five million dollars a year and that excites you until You look at the work and you're like, maybe I don't want to do that.

[00:25:21]  : That's really for them. I think the important part in this is like, I just determined what I wanted my success to look like that 7, 7, 7 goal fills my cup. It goes back to the wealth builder. And I also know that there's a lot of work that's going to come with it and it's going to be frustrating. It's going to be hard.

[00:25:40]  : And I just have to keep the end in mind. Yeah. That's such good advice because we're hit every day with, with obstacles and things pop up. Good and bad and how do we navigate and just keep going? It's really it's Whether you're you're sober or not. It's one foot in front of the other. [00:26:00] It's pushing it a little bit further every day and Really digging in and knowing your why And understanding where you're going.

[00:26:08]  : And so I love, I love that you're doing that because you have such a big, beautiful heart. Like if you just fill it when you meet you, like you show up, you're present when you're having conversations, you're engaged. And I love that. Really just making a beautiful impact in the world and leading by example.

[00:26:28]  : And I, I really appreciate all that you're doing. Thank you. I have a question that I ask everyone that is, if this was the last message that you had to broadcast out to the world, what would it be?

[00:26:42]  : I feel like a Jerry Maguire moment. Like I said, I wasn't going to cry. okay. It's beautiful.

[00:26:47]  : Your past doesn't determine who you can be and who you want to be. And you have to let go of those things, but you also have to go back and take count and look at a couple of things, which is what did I contribute to it? What did I learn from it? And how do I respond to it and change it and make it better and know that that might be a repeating process.

[00:27:08]  : If you look at my sobriety journey, it was a repeated process. It took seven years to finally get it. It's not just a one and done, so it's, uh, John Maxwell wrote one of the best books, which is called Failing Forward, is that every failure is moving forward in something, and you can't, the pain is so hard when you're in the middle of it, and I promise you to have hope because there's good on the other side of it if you can just get through it, and I can tell you in my life, being from completely broke, you know, losing our house to foreclosure, wanting to commit suicide in 2008 to losing my dad and changing the business again.

[00:27:47]  : And then going through marital problems where we almost got divorced. We separated for, for many months. And then, you know, going to rehab and going, God, living through all that. I remember the pain in the time. And it's [00:28:00] so much better on the other side, but it sucks to be in the middle of it. So it's keeping that faith that things can get better.

[00:28:06]  : And I think that we just can't give up in the process. And by surrounding yourself with good people in those, those processes, you will make it through it. But if you keep the same friends that got you to that point in the first place, you're going to keep learning the hard lessons. That's such beautiful advice.

[00:28:26]  : Thanks. And in, in the hard moments, just taking a pause and I love that you have tattooed on your wrist, a pause button. And for some people also implementing, maybe it's breath work for you or, it's a walk, it's petting your, your dog, it's calling a friend, but whatever it is. And I think that's the beauty of age.

[00:28:48]  : is at the older we get, the more lessons that come, I can laugh at it in the moment and say, okay, what, why do I have to learn? What's my part in this? Where do I need to change? Because it's so easy to deflect. And especially I think if you, if you have an addiction, it's so easy, I mean, for anyone and not just with addiction, but it's easy to fall back into that pattern because of the way that we.

[00:29:17]  : experience something or the way that we were raised or, and yes, I'm not saying that any of these experiences are good. However, we don't have to let it define us today. And I think stopping to reflect is, is essential in that. you're just such a wealth of knowledge. Is there anything else that you would like to impart today with us?

[00:29:39]  : You know, since since we went down the road of sobriety, I can tell you one of the things that, you know, as we talk about identity and looking at what you contributed to certain things, I think one of the most important things that I have seen for any of you that have. Families that are struggling with somebody with an addiction,your marriage, those types of things, it [00:30:00] takes two to get there.

[00:30:01]  : And some of the guys that I have been around, the amount of pressure and blame for the life that has transpired is not all one sided. And I was very, very blessed that my wife through this, she decided to take a look inward to her and said, this is a mess. What did I contribute to it? What do I need to learn from it?

[00:30:24]  : And who needs to help me through this process away from my husband? So, or my family. So I think that is one piece for everybody to really look at is that, and again, this is not playing victim or anything. It wasn't all me, but in order to get to a harmonious state with my wife, we both had to do the work and figure out what we were contributing negatively to the relationship.

[00:30:45]  : And so I just encourage everybody to not be one sided when somebody is struggling is to really take account for yourself and see, are there things that I'm contributing? You know, are you pushing that person's button? Are you nagging on them constantly and trying to figure out, is that really helping the situation?

[00:31:03]  : Am I hurting it? That's, that's so true. And just being able to hold that space. for each other and, and listening, like you said, to others that have gone through it, whether it's a podcast or getting a mentor. So I want to encourage everyone to check you out. Steve Valentine. you're amazing. You're a beautiful light in this world.

[00:31:25]  : If you're interested in real estate, if you're interested in building your wealth, go check out his book. where, where can they find it? it's on Amazon. It's on my website, which is valentinegroupaz. com, or Instagram, SteveDValentine. And, yeah, real estate wise, it's anywhere in the country.

[00:31:41]  : I'd love to connect with the real estate community in this space. Yeah. All right. thank you so much. I appreciate your time and generosity of, of sharing your experiences, your vulnerability with us and you're just doing so many beautiful things and I'm so thankful to know you. Thank you so much for coming [00:32:00] with us today.

[00:32:00]  : And everyone else until next time, be well.