Financial Freedom Fast
Finding Your Passion w/ Eric Upchurch
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Download my FREE E-Book on Scaling Through Partnerships NOW
CLICK HERE
Apply for mentorship with Matt and the FAST FI Coaching Community:
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Follow Matt online:
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Here's the success formula If you learn all you can which you can do with podcasts like this, it's books, whatever If you network your ass off, if you add value to others and you take deliberate action, if you do those four things every day to be 1%, better success will hunt you down, it absolutely will find you, it will seek you out and you won't have a choice. So bring those four things.
Speaker 2:All right, it's almost like the same the harder I work, the luckier I get.
Speaker 3:Welcome to the Financial Freedom Fast Podcast, the show that teaches you how to buy back your time and live life on your terms. Learn how to confidently leave your nine to five from guests who've done it themselves. Whether you wanna lay on a beach, travel the world or focus on your passions, this show will give you the tools to do what you want when you want. Now here's your host, matt Emobile.
Speaker 2:What is up? Financial Freedom Fast Fam Today is such a killer of an episode with my man, eric Uptchurch. He has started from the military and then he started buying real estate and he took things step by step by step and ultimately got into some huge assets some 400 unit, 200 unit assets just by meticulously investing. And, guys, he doesn't do anything crazy. He says in the podcast he's a normal guy or girl. He is a guy, but he's a normal person. If you're a girl, he's a normal person, just like you, and everybody can do these things. We just need to put ourselves in the position for them to happen. He also got me hyped up to go do a half Ironman because he said he did a half Ironman with no training, just by working out daily and doing his regular workout routine. So I'm gonna go sign up for a half Ironman because I wanna do it, so I'm gonna. Yeah, I'm excited to do it.
Speaker 2:Anyway, peeps, guys, I want you to download my PDF guide. If you have not already, click the link in my show notes. Download that PDF guide so you can find out how to scale with partnerships, find partners and bring them in and do some deals. So do that and, without further ado, let's jump into the pod, eric Upturge. Welcome to the Financial Freedom Fest podcast, brother, what is going on, dude?
Speaker 1:How you doing, man, it was really good to catch up with you here.
Speaker 2:Dude, really excited to dig in today Some really impressive stuff that I heard out of you just off the bat on our conversation. Like two minutes ago, man, you told me you ran a half Ironman with no specific training for that half Ironman and it all digs deep in your why. So for our listeners today we are going to dig deep into why finding passion, finding purpose, finding the reason that you're going out and doing all these different things that you're doing, before we dive deep into that, let's find out who you are, eric. So who are you? What do you do and what have you done?
Speaker 1:I am, first off, just a regular guy. I like to start. I like to say that because some of the things we're going to talk about, people may be like oh wow, you've done this or you've done that, and I have to say no different than you listening, whoever you are, it's just, I've taken small baby steps. I say 1% daily. If you do 1% daily, success will hunt you down. So I've committed to that over the last five years and really have been able to achieve some things just because of that. Like really just baby steps. I'm just a kid from Iowa, joined the military after college, chose to be enlisted versus becoming an officer, enjoyed my time in service. I served in special operations in the army my whole career and started investing in real estate and building a company. And that's me. You got a wife and kids a wife of 18 years and two boys that are 11 and 14.
Speaker 2:And did you start investing in real estate when you were in, actually in the military?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and this is actually how our company Active Duty Passive Income, started. Like most military members, I became an accidental landlord so I bought a house in 2006, 100% leverage with the VA loan. Somebody's laughing right now because that's the worst time you could possibly be 100% leveraged on a house. But I lived in it and so it was fine. And I lived in it for four years getting paid by Uncle Sam, got through the recession without any issues because I was in the army and about when I got out, moved back to San Francisco Bay Area where my wife is from and this was in Georgia where I was.
Speaker 1:I was worried about the house $150,000 kind of three bedroom, two bath, 1200 square foot house, very bread and butter type of house and used the VA loan zero out of pocket. And when I moved back to the Bay Area we were like if we sold this we'd lose money right now. So can we rent it out? And military members across the US are in that situation every day. We're like I can't sell it right now, so can I rent it?
Speaker 1:And then you didn't buy it initially as an investment property, so you're probably over leveraged or it's not gonna cash flow great, or maybe it's negative cash flow. But if you buy right and think about these things ahead of time, if you think, hey, I'm gonna be PCS-ing or moving to my next duty station in two years, I need to buy a house to live in, that will cash flow in two years, you can do it the right way, and so that's why we do what we do now, and it's there's a start to that way. I was like can we do it better? And then I started living flipping in the Bay Area and making money. I caught the market at the right time and I was like just live in a house for two years, sell it. Live in a house for two years, sell it. Live in a house for two years, sell it. And that was my kind of startup capital to do other things.
Speaker 2:And specifically why the number two years, just so our living is enough.
Speaker 1:If you live in a house for two years, you don't have to pay capital gains tax. If you live in it for one year, you pay short-term capital gains tax. You live in it for less than a year, it's long-term capital gains tax. I might have that flipped around, but you get the point, and so we would either be okay paying the tax, knowing that we were gonna make enough money on the sale to pay the tax. That's fine and we're okay with it or, which we did at once, or we would wait two years and then owe no taxes on the capital gains.
Speaker 2:That's right, man, and it is such a powerful method, especially if you're going to go into a property and fix the property up, raise the value of it. If you're going to live there yourself and you're already at, let's say, a year and a half and you're thinking about selling, you might wanna consider staying there for two years and get that full. You do not have to pay capital gains taxes on that when you sell and you could take that full profit and you could go buy another property. Whatever you wanna do with that money, it's a very smart strategy to use to buy other properties, especially when you're using them like live in flips as the strategy that you're using. So what you mentioned is you're teaching veterans how to buy properties the right way. Like a lot of veterans become, or active duty persons become, accidental landlords, what is the right way? What is the best way to look at these as cash flowing, as buying assets? How would you recommend that they do that?
Speaker 1:It has to do with intention and forethought. That's what buying right really means. If you just look at your situation, like when I got back to the Bay Area, I was out of debt because I was listening to old Dave Ramsey when I was in the Army and so I was completely out of debt. But I didn't have a hundred grand saved put down on a $500,000 house in the San Francisco Bay Area which was like the cheapest house you could find. Back then I didn't have that, so thankfully I had the VA loan. So I was like what can I do? I can buy that house and it's in the Bay Area, so likely it will go up, and so some of it is. You just take a stab at something that you can do. And then I was like I heard this ad for on the radio for tax lien seminar. So I was like I'll just go get the free 90 day or free 90 minute session, which is obviously an upsell to the boot camp, the next meet or whatever. But I got that education and I went and I tried it. I was like I'll put a thousand bucks into tax liens and see if I like it. I hate it, by the way, but I learned and I grew from it. And then I went to a flipping seminar and I was like, oh yeah, let me sign up and get educated. And from that, regardless of the education at the flipping seminar, I couldn't flip a house in San Jose, california, in 2014. It's just, I wasn't capable at that time but I'm gonna hate to say that in a limiting belief type of way. But literally people were paying 100% more than the property's value to own property in that market at that time. But what I learned from going to a conference is the people around me in that room were where I made money, and so it was the people surrounding myself, and I still do this today. Network is your network. You hear that old cliche all the time, but it is so true.
Speaker 1:I sat next to a guy who was wearing a sport coat and I think I was wearing like a hoodie or whatever. But I was like I went and sat next to this guy at a round table who looked like he was well put together. He was in his 50s. That guy ended up being a high-end custom home builder. We hit it off. He took me to lunch. He was like you look like a young guy who's like out to do good things or whatever. He ended up renovating my house, my second live-in flip. He charged no general contractor fees, so all I had to do was like make runs to Home Depot and pay his labor.
Speaker 1:I made 250K on that house in nine months, which is one of those instances that I'll mention here in a second about taxes. Made 250 in nine months on that house because I networked with that guy at a conference and then on the nine month thing, we ended up selling it in nine months because we realized it wasn't the place we wanted to live. And also my employer was like why are you way out there on the coast when you need to be in the Bay? So here's how. Another way you can not pay taxes if you move less than a year is if your employer tells you it's a hardship and you need to move. If they require you to move, they can write you a letter, you can move and then you won't owe those taxes. Also.
Speaker 2:Huh, wow, I did not know about that. That's across the entire nation, every single state. Yep, wow. And does the employer like end up having to pay those taxes back to the state?
Speaker 1:They're just saying nope. They're just saying, hey, you know what? This is not the right place for our employee. We thought maybe it would be okay, but you're too far away. We need you to move 70 miles away to this area because you're gonna be closer to our clients. And then you just have that piece of paper, you give it to your CPA and voila, you don't owe capital gains.
Speaker 2:I love that, and so what I wanna do here is continue on your real estate investing career, just to tell people where you've grown to and what you've built up there. Then I wanna dive into ADP. I am what you're doing there. So what was the progression of your real estate investing career like after that $250,000 gain that you got from that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we did. The first one was 190K in the South Bay. Then we did one on the coast for 250 gain. And then we did another one in the East Bay. That was like I think it was 130 or something gain. So good startup capital.
Speaker 1:And each of those three were different. They were different strategies. The first one was buying old. It was a beautiful duet, attached, didn't need any renovation, it was gorgeous in a good neighborhood. So it just I didn't have to put a single diamond to it and then we held it for two years. The second one we completely renovated top to bottom and sold it short term. So a different angle.
Speaker 1:But again, if you're listening to this and you're going like, oh, what can I do, you gotta look, you gotta put your head on a swivel and go. What are my options here? In this case, a realtor came to us and said, hey, you just made this home two blocks from the beach into someone's dream home. Did you realize the value? You just, and we were just like doing it because we wanted it to look nice, it needed to be updated, and then we took advantage of that. And then the third one, in the East Bay, was right next to a very good school district. In the school district we did some value add to it and we held it for just over one year. But then I got my real estate license and listed it myself, and so I saved probably 70 grand on commissions that I would have had to pay to somebody else.
Speaker 2:So what did it look like after that? Was it just flipping after that?
Speaker 1:At that point I had the bug. I reached out to a buddy of mine in Kansas City who I grew up with. I've known him for 30 years and he's hey, I'm flipping in Kansas City. So I did 10 flips with him with some of that capital. And I also had a buddy who I saw on social media who was like flying around in private jets and I was the same major as him in college and my wife was on his gymnastics team in college also. He was on the men's gymnastics team.
Speaker 1:So I was like dude, what do you do? And he's oh, we syndicate multifamily apartments. And he started walking me through what that looks like and I was like, okay, tell me a scenario. He goes dude, if you would have put 100 grand into this deal we just sold, we owned it for five years, I would have paid you back 290,000. Branded now, knowing what I know about syndication, having done many, is that was a home run and you don't ever expect that. But still I was like, okay, let me write a check and just see what happened. So I invested as a limited partner in a 439 unit mobile home park portfolio. That did. Okay, it was a base hit, not tremendous, but that's also what got me going. Okay, what else can I learn?
Speaker 1:So then I went to a conference. I'm a conference guy, conference junkie. I always want to learn and be around people. So, markey on my partner at ADPI, the founder with me, he said I have a free ticket to a bootcamp down in LA multifamily bootcamp. Never heard of this guy or whatever. I was like I'll go. He couldn't get leave from the Marine Corps.
Speaker 1:I went down there and what I realized right there was that all these people and this is actually full circle with my first statement today with you is I realized that everyone on that panel up on stage were just regular people. And I realized that all of these apartments that I drive by every day somebody like me owns. And I realized that nobody's gonna teach you this in high school, nobody's gonna teach you this in college. And so everyone drives around or goes through life thinking like, oh only if I worked on Wall Street I could have a reed and I could buy big apartments and be rich, and blah, blah, blah. It's like this fleeting thing that everyone thinks, oh, that's for them, not me. And I was realizing very quickly that it's horseshit. It's like you just have to want it, you just have to. First of all you have to have a spark. Somebody's gotta introduce it to you and then you just have to feed it that 1% daily and then you can be the next everyday millionaire. It's really for anyone.
Speaker 2:So I think that's one of the things that, like Rich Dad, poor Dad, does for a lot of people is it just gets that introduction to them and lets them know that, hey, this is a possibility and there are just regular people that own these buildings that people live in and you can own them too. Whether you're doing small multifamily, single families, larger syndications on big 400 unit properties, there are other people that do it. So did that that, I assume, got you into building out your own syndications.
Speaker 1:Yep, absolutely. I started networking with people and supporting other people's deals until I could do my own deals, started doing our own and now, all right, we've syndicated somewhere in the realm of 4,800 units between multifamily storage, mobile home parks and now student housing as well.
Speaker 2:And what, typically, is your role in that syndication?
Speaker 1:So I can raise some capital, but I'm a KP principal, so loan guarantor on a lot of the deals. Now, you'll start out that way. Unless you already have a network, a lot of the guys that you and I know probably would be able to just jump right into the network liquidity part of that which is very valuable and an easy way into these deals. And then one of the things that I love to do on the asset management side is go out to the property and interject myself into the community. So I'll go and I'll meet with the mayor. I'll just say, hey, I've got a gift for you. I want to meet with you on Tuesday at 3.30 pm. Can I come to the courthouse to talk to you? I want to talk to you and the economic developers and see what value we can bring to the community. That's not something a lot of people do. Most people are focused on their assets. I'm focused on the community and bringing value to my asset, but also us bringing value to the community. And so if you work it that way and when I the first time I did that, the economic developer was like hey, by the way, I've got this other deal in a town next door, can I send it your way because it needs to be renovated in and we need to get some people in it. And I'm like, okay, so I'm bringing enough value to them that they're like here's the resource we were looking for. But nobody's doing that and nobody wants to go and talk like hold, call the mayor's office and try and get in. But we will, I'll do it every time and and then and then you know everybody, from the fire chief to the local police department. I want them to know who I am. I'll give them my card and be like if you ever have any problems, reach out. Sure, we have property management to handle all that stuff, but I want them to know that we're there for good intentions. We're a group of military real estate investors. Here we go, and then man.
Speaker 1:So another thing I did and I love to do this is Hospitals and schools. You can go talk to hospital administration and tell them what you're doing and say, if you have traveling nurses, we'd love to have them live in safe, affordable places to live. Maybe they'll do a long-term lease for you. Schools went up to the principal and the dean had to sit down in their office and said hey, if you got any 18 year old knuckleheads who are thinking about joining the military, I would love to. Just if you can, send them my way and I'll give them advice.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you what. I'll tell them what it's like to be in the military during time of war, deploying whatever you want. Tell them what their options are, things to questions to ask, things to explore. And oh, by the way, if you were any of your faculty, your staff want to live across the street in our apartment complex. We've got a great place to live, so it's always that that let me do for you, and then guess what you'll probably end up doing for me if I do. If you put other people in Mind first as you go into a meeting, or you just throw yourself out there, great things can happen from it, but not a lot of people are putting in that effort and looking to serve other people.
Speaker 2:Man, I love the. I don't even want to call it a tactic there, but I love the want to give back to the community and actually bring value to the community. Rather than Just taking the asset and taking the cash flow and taking the value from that asset, you're also giving back to the community and as you give back and support the community, it's gonna raise the value of the external community as well, which will raise the value of your building as you're building that out as well. So I love that. It seems like a big part of your success has been built off of Building the right Relationships, key relationships. Can you talk a little bit about Connecting with the right people and putting yourself in the right position to talk to the right people?
Speaker 1:Yep. A lot of times it comes down to one time courage. And I learned this five years ago at that first conference. I don't know what it was, but I just said you know what? We're building this company and I need a leg up, I need to figure out a way to get some influence. So I went up to the guy who was presenting the multifamily guru and I went up to him and I was like, hey, we're writing this book. It's called military house hacking. And I was like we're writing this book and I would love it, since he has the number one multi-family podcast in the world. I was like, if you could write, if you could write the forward to our book. It's about teaching military members how to buy four unit one to four units using the VA loan and all this other stuff. And he was like Some, after this, I'm headed to, I'm headed to Italy with my wife. But yeah, I'll do it. So he wrote the forward to our book on a train through Italy and when we published it, anytime someone searches his name, they come across our book Also and so it hit number one bestseller in nine different categories the day it launched on Amazon, and so it's like it's little things like that. And I'm now in our company.
Speaker 1:We kind of laugh because I'm that guy who's like relentlessly going out and just I don't care who it is, like I'll email the White House and just be like, hey, maybe there's a leg up. Like good example, cold called the National Association of Realtors, nar, and I was like, hey, you have a military relocation professional designation that any realtor can get. The education isn't great and we revamp it for you. And so now, anytime someone takes that designation, any realtor in the US that takes that designation. Course it is a credit to active duty, passive income, because we made that call, wow, so it's service, it is serving back. Because we're like this isn't right, let's make it better. And how can we do that? You have to have that one time, that bold action. So, even for introverts, it's hard for you to do that, but I have to tell you, if you do, it can completely change your life.
Speaker 1:I was not comfortable Labeling myself as a connector. Well, eric, what value do you bring? I'm not the smartest guy in the room ever, but I, if I I'm comfortable now saying that I'm okay connecting people, I will listen to you and you'll have a problem. I'll listen to John and John will have a solution and I'll connect you to. I love to do that, for whatever reason. I didn't choose it. I didn't. I don't feel like I developed it Intentionally so character trait maybe, but putting those two things together gives me satisfaction and it helps two people.
Speaker 2:It's good. It also involves a good amount of skill on your end for being able to recognize what one person can bring to another person and remembering Like a lot of people barely even listen to the conversations when they're actually talking with other people. You have enough enough mental energy to actually listen to people, absorb the information, know exactly what they're doing and what they could bring to the table. And Listening to someone else, hearing their need and what their issue is, and being able to connect the two and put them together. That is an amazing skill and a valuable skill where you're not necessarily Looking for anything whatsoever out of that, but I'm sure that has made its way Back to you in drugs. So let's dive into ADPI now and what you're doing at active duty, passive Income and the effect that you're having on some of our military members.
Speaker 1:Yep, yeah. So we started ADPI in 2017 when we we realized that there is a Small group of us. It was like a small facebook group of I don't know 20 people or something at the time 50 people than 100 people. And when I contacted mark yon, he was he was a marine corps helicopter pilot at the time and he's I didn't know that there was. When I contacted him, he was like I didn't know that people like me would be interested in Real estate investing. I was like, yeah, man, I just bought a couple turnkey properties and I'm like I did some live in flips. He's like let's go, let's do this thing, let's figure it out. Well, now we have 72,000 members at the time of recording here. We're adding about 1500 members a month to our platform and we have an 83 engagement rate sustained over a five-year period.
Speaker 1:We have eyeballs watching what we're doing in the community and since then. So we're an education company and community number one. That is what we do, and about 90 of what we do is free, and then, when somebody wants to do something else, they can come into a cohort or academy that we've created in single family or multifamily. But then the biggest thing that we learn and what we owe the most of our success to Is listening. We have been polling our audience, watching our audience, listening to our audience. We have full-time staff and military spouses and military members that moderate our community, we listen. And when we hear it repeatedly over and over we need better lending, so now we have a mortgage company. We need better, infinite banking solutions, so now we have a whole life insurance company. We need a way to invest with you.
Speaker 1:Now we have ADPI Capital, which is a regulation, a fund, which is not cheap to do and it is a loss leader for us because we want to make sure that people, if you're familiar with syndications, you have to be accredited. Most of the time, if you see the ad anyway, you have to be accredited. Or you have to have $50,000 to invest in the syndication usually the minimum and military members don't typically have $200,000, make $200,000 a year for the last two years, or they're not typically millionaires, especially while they're serving, and they typically don't have $50,000 that they would want to invest. That might be all the money that they've saved and we as operators can't technically even take that as an investment if that's all the money they have saved. So that was a barrier.
Speaker 1:So we started ADPI Capital so that they can invest as little as $500 and they do not have to be accredited. So no one else is doing that for the military. And then ADPI Realty. We have hundreds of agents nationwide now that are educated by us, that know how to help military members as they PCS or ETS around the country, how to let them think about it ahead of time. How long are you going to live at this place? What's the cash flow going to look like? Or will it appreciate what kind of markets it in and educate the buyer, the military buyer? And so it's just really great to see people come into us and go you guys are the resource, like why can't you do this better? And we go out and figure out a way to do it. I like it.
Speaker 2:And that just dives back into listening, looking to what the need is and what is out there. With all these things that you're doing, it seems like you've got a passion for helping out veterans in some way. What is your why and like, why are you diving into so passionate about helping these people out? What's your overall goal and mission?
Speaker 1:My goal and mission is to end veteran homelessness this decade and we're working on that right now. We've reduced the veteran homelessness population in the US from 38,000 to 32,000 in the last four years, and so that is a trackable thing. That is something that I'm very passionate about. I do fundraisers and stuff for that that I can talk about in a minute. But what motivates me on hard days? Because I have hard days I deployed five times. I buried six of my friends, we lost 19 while I was serving in a special operations unit in the Army. And what I serve now, with the memory and pride of those who've gone before me, for they love to fight, fought to win and would rather die than quit. And I want you to remember that when you sign up for that half Ironman and you're struggling, because right after this I know that's what you need right After this interview when you go online and you sign up for that half marathon at the end of the year or in the spring, when you're at mile 38, like I was, and sucking, you say that you say my deep rooted why is because I know somebody who can't be here right now. The pain in my legs they would love to feel they would go through all that shit one more time, all over again, just to feel this pain one more time in my legs. And so, when I'm feeling that, I don't feel sorry for myself. We talked about this, but we just hiked 45 miles in 24 hours around Mount Hood to raise money for charity for veterans community project. We were all delirious, we were all in pain, we were all dehydrated, we were eating salt tabs every 30 minutes, we were malnourished and just absolutely sick of eating granola bars and whatever shit you have to eat to get around.
Speaker 1:Pack light, but you do those things because you can, and so everyone who's like wanting something to motivate them, think about somebody. And my advice is think about somebody who wants what you can do. Think about somebody whose legs don't work. Think about somebody whose arms don't work. Think about somebody who can't see or hear. Go, do something hard. And I have a buddy, Aaron Hale, who's blind and deaf after getting blown up in the Navy and he's still out there doing Badwater 135, running 135 miles from the lowest point in the US to the highest point in the US. So don't put limitations on yourself, but you got to have something that is not just a Y, but a deep rooted Y, seven layers deep, that it has to give you a kick in the ass when you're at your lowest. And if it doesn't, it's not your true Y, it's not what's going to get you to the top of the mountain.
Speaker 2:And have you always had a good grasp on what your Y was, or has it taken? Did it take you some time to find it? And if some of us out here, it's not an easy thing for a lot of us finding our passion, finding that Y. What are some ways that we can dig into our inner psyche to find that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it took me 10 years to discover my Y, I think through my service and just developing the habit of understanding what pain really looks like. And then getting out and having to reintegrate into society to where I was analyzing the civilians around me, their daily pains. Where I was, I had to realize that was their perspective and be okay with that. Because if somebody is standing in line as a combat veteran, if somebody is standing in line at Starbucks and their coffee's cold and they're complaining about it, I'm like, oh really Like you've got a cup of coffee in front of you right now. You're not sitting in the suck, be okay with it. But here's the thing, that's my fault. That is not for me to judge, it's their reality. And so I'm developing this as I go over the years.
Speaker 1:Right, I've been out for 10 years now and I'm just sitting there and going okay, I need to reintegrate. I need to develop what's going to drive me and put me back in focus, and that is my brothers. I don't have to focus on somebody who's right here in front of me. I focus on the guys who can't be here in front of me. So it's not something that needs to come right away. Let it develop over time, figure it out. And here's the thing If you are motivated as hell and you don't know where to go, surround yourself by somebody like me who is passionate about something, because chances are you're going to bump into somebody else who has something you want, something you can rally.
Speaker 1:We know I know so many guys in GoBundance and other masterminds and stuff that I'm in that don't know where to give. They don't know where to give their time. They don't know where to give their talent. They don't know where to give their treasure, their money. Find somebody who's passionate and just follow them, be part. So that's why I do all these charity hikes, because I'll gather up 10 to 15 guys and gals and we'll go do some hard physical and mental things that they never thought they were going to be able to do. But that's only because I'm like guys, this is important. We're going to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars. We're going to build homes for homeless veterans and get them off the streets. So find somebody like that. That is, we're going to go do this thing and you'll actually end up discovering more people that you're maybe even more interested in following.
Speaker 2:Dude, that is probably one of the most powerful tips I've heard on this show and I've actually never heard anyone say that before. You always have the you know what is your, why Find your, why Go get your, why Figure it out. And a lot of us are out here that are just like man. Every time you say go find your, why I go through the same mental activities in my head and I'm like there's nothing there that is strongly like really pulling me to go do that or to that wakes me up every day and gets me fired up to go do that. And I love that tip of go find someone who is passionate because their passion most likely, whether their actual passion rubs off on you or just the way that they are passionate about it, and you can learn to be passionate about something. So then, once you find what that thing is, you will be able to be fully ingrained in that passion for that thing.
Speaker 2:I think that's so powerful. That's an awesome tip. I really, really love that and I encourage anyone to. If you are struggling with that, just go find someone who is passionate about doing this stuff or doing something and go get on their team, see where they need help, see where you could add value to them. Man. I love that, bro. I have never heard that man. Thanks for sharing that, absolutely so. I've got two final questions for us on this podcast. Where I'm going to go here is what is one actually, you know? Before I get to my final two questions, what I want to ask is what is one change that, if you could wave a magic wand and have the entire world realize one thing, what is one big change that you would make in everybody's, whether it's their mindset, the way that they operate? If you were king of the world and you could do that, what would that be?
Speaker 1:I think, starting with an upbringing or just a beginning of my life, with some of the stuff that I'm instilling in my kids now, which is actually financial freedom slow and or you can think of it as financial freedom fast but fast meaning not eating, right. So being intentionally slow about it allows you to do a lot of things, and but that does take time, right. So, starting earlier, starting at 18, I told my kids this the other day or a couple months ago. I was like when you're 16, we can either help you buy a car, which is going to cost you 200 bucks a month and you're going to pay for it, or we can help you buy your first turnkey rental property and that'll make you 200 bucks a month and we'll take that cash flow until the down payment gets paid back. But then you'll own this thing and maybe by the time you get out of college you can sell it or refinance it or whatever. And so had I had that spark, I would have been 10 years or 20 years ahead of where I am now.
Speaker 1:Now the other part of that is I know guys who are in their 60s and 70s, just getting started, and they're like, oh, I think I'm too late. You're not too late. So I think just that kind of that spark of okay, let's get into snowballing your real estate investments and just helping people. If you serve others first, it always comes back to you. We've talked about that a length here. If you just network with intention to help others, it always serves you, and if you don't intend it to, Don't always look to be doing everything for yourself.
Speaker 2:Help other people. Look to give, not to get, and I love it. So the financial freedom fast right, the fastest, that entire thing. Financial freedom fast is all relative. You've got financial freedom which is relative to each person, which is why I do like when people start earlier in life 18, 19, 20, the amount that you need to live and survive and reach financial freedom right, your expense level is likely a lot lower than what it's going to be. If you've got.
Speaker 2:Your son is 18 and single right now, when he's maybe 32 and has a wife and kids or whatever that looks like then and maybe a nicer house, things are a lot more expensive. So financial freedom relative to each person when he's 18, it might be five grand per month. When he's 32, it might be 15 grand per month. 10 grand, that's relative. And then the fastest relative as well. Someone who's 20 years old might want to do it by 30 years old and that's fast. But someone who's 50, 50 years old and thinks that they're going to retire at 65 or 70, they could get it done by 55 years old. It's all relative and it's all based on your scenario. But love that man. Love the advice. Always look to give, not to get. Diving into our two final questions that we have here today, what is one thing that our listeners should do today to start on their path towards financial freedom?
Speaker 1:You got to surround yourself by people who know more than you. You have to strive to be the dumbest person in the room as often as possible. So get to conferences, get to local meetups, whatever category it is. If it's real estate, that's fantastic. It's probably why you're listening to the show. But you've heard a theme here today, I think, of just people, and the more people that know who you are and hear your message, the better.
Speaker 1:If you don't know what your message is, go screw it up a bunch of times first. It's fine. Go out there. You've got that strength to get out there and go figure out what value you bring to other people. This is all about people. It's not about what you know at all. I'm living, walking, breathing proof that you don't have to be the smartest guy in the room. So go out there and I'll say this If you here's the success formula If you learn all you can which you can do with podcasts like this, it's books, whatever If you network your ass off, if you add value to others and you take deliberate action, if you do those four things every day to be 1%, better success will hunt you down, it absolutely will find you, it will seek you out and you won't have a choice. So go do those four things.
Speaker 2:All right, it's almost like the same the harder I work, the luckier I get Exactly. But what? The more that I learn, the more that I try, the harder I try, the more things that I do and put myself into awkward or nervous, fearful experiences, the unknown the better my life is becoming. So put yourself out there and the message thing, man, I feel like my message has changed a thousand times and it'll change a thousand times again and again until my life is ever adapting. So things are just going to keep changing. So don't be afraid to put yourself out there, say what you want to say and talk the talk that you can talk, at least Nope. Last question I've got for you here today, eric what is one question that you wish I would have asked or a topic that you wish I would have covered, and how would you have answered that question or expanded on that topic?
Speaker 1:I would have said maybe I think you mentioned, maybe a little bit, but I would say what are your expectations for hitting goals?
Speaker 2:Good.
Speaker 1:And the way I answer that is Annie, you should always set I've got vision boards up here, things, gratitude goals and accomplishments that I look at every day and you have to set absurdly hard goals like stuff that you're like chances that happen are so slim. Set those goals you absolutely. If you speak them into existence, you will. That 1% effort you're putting in every day you'll find a conversation that got you one step closer and over a five year period you are actually within. So you're actually questioning whether this thing might really happen. And then people look at you like, holy crap, is he doing it? What the heck? But here's the thing At the end of the day, you've got to have a bigger goal behind that, because every day you move forward towards it and these things will start coming and they will start going and as you get up to a summit, it's a false summit.
Speaker 1:Some of my mentors have said the worst day of their life is when they hit their biggest target because they had no goal behind it. And so if you go out there and you accomplish great things, make sure there's something bigger and better behind that. So think of a mountain you climb up to that peak and you see another peak behind it and you're like, ah, get, that is way higher, that is way bigger. I climb the top of Everest there. Better be a bigger one behind it. So go do that, make sure you have that set. Or at least when you know you're gonna reach one goal, you're already, you're pre-planning that. Next bigger one.
Speaker 2:So the next one, and I've heard that people fall into just like you mentioned with your mentors but Andrew Kuberman actually talks about this that there's such a high dopamine spike that is involved with getting to your goal and people get so excited and caught up in it and then, after that's done, after that wears off, they don't know where to find that energy, that excitement anymore and they can actually fall into. It's almost like a postpartum depression after, after they do that man.
Speaker 1:You want me to give you. Oh, let me if we got a second. I have to give you this great correlation here. I'm glad you mentioned that Amazing example of this is why veterans are killing themselves, to be very blunt.
Speaker 1:That's why this happens. It's not the veteran's fault that they feel this way. But if you're going to combat and you're training and the military spends hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars on your training and you've got camaraderie, you've got awards and accolades and sense of mission and purpose, everything is designed for you to succeed. And then you've got dopamine, serotonin, octitose and all of those awesome hits chemical hits, just natural chemical hits that are constantly firing. And then you join the civilian world again and no one cares who you are, where you came from, what you did, no one's expecting anything from you at the office. You don't know what uniform to be in or how to look or how to act, not going to get any awards, not going to get any pass on the back, and it is like a sports car coming off the rails and hitting a guardrail and so you go through withdrawal.
Speaker 1:A veteran is going through withdrawal of all of those chemicals and it's uncontrollable unless you have a new sense of mission and purpose. So, specifically to veterans you need to get out there and find a new passion and purpose, and if you don't, you might be attracted to getting in barfights, destroying your relationships, jumping off of high rises, anything that you can do, and it's an innate reaction. It's a response to not having the things that the military gave you. So recognize that if you have disruptive behavior after you serve, that you need to go get help and you need to make sure that you find a new passion and purpose and then you'll be an amazing asset to society.
Speaker 2:Man, beautiful and strong message to leave that with. And again, if you don't know your passion or your purpose or your why, one of the next best steps that you could do is to go find somebody that does and follow along with them in their dream and these things will come off on you and rub off on you. Man, I love the mission that you're on, the things you stand for, your why, your push and like now I'm gonna have to go sign up for a half iron man. I was dude, I know I did, and now I'm gonna go do it and I'll let you know once that gets done, man. So I appreciate the motivation there. I appreciate you coming out, man From the Financial Freedom Fast Podcast. I am your host, matt Amobile. Today we had on Eric Upturch and we are starting off.
Speaker 3:Thanks Eric, thanks brother, thanks for listening to the Financial Freedom Fast Podcast, the show that teaches you to buy back your time and live life on your terms. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast wherever you're listening, and follow us online at Matt Amobile. That's Matt AMABILE. Be sure to tune in Monday, wednesday and Friday for our weekly podcast drops. Thanks for listening. Let's retire together. I'll see you guys next time.