Jason Miller is an entertainment executive who transitioned into real estate investing. Originally from upstate New York, Jason ventured into the corporate world after graduating from Syracuse University and eventually carved a niche in the entertainment industry, working with top artists and producing large-scale events globally. His entrepreneurial spirit led him to explore real estate, where he has successfully expanded his portfolio across multiple states.
This episode has a unique feel as Jason shares his dual experiences in the corporate world and entrepreneurship. We explore his career at Creative Artists Agency (CAA) and Live Nation, where he worked with celebrities like Beyoncé and Maroon 5. Jason recounts his shift to real estate investing, discussing the challenges and rewards of managing properties and balancing his professional pursuits.
Listeners interested in both entertainment and real estate will find this episode particularly enlightening. Jason offers practical advice on navigating corporate environments, leveraging networking for career growth, and strategically investing in real estate. His story underscores the importance of resilience, adaptability, and continuous learning for achieving success in diverse fields.
References:
- [Creative Artists Agency
- Live Nation
- Syracuse University
- Los Angeles Real Estate Market
- Milwaukee Real Estate Market
Three Potential Listener Questions:
1. How can I transition from a corporate job to real estate investing?
2. What are the best strategies for managing real estate properties remotely?
3. How do you balance a demanding corporate career with entrepreneurship?
https://www.visioninmotion.co
Jason Miller is an entertainment executive who transitioned into real estate investing. Originally from upstate New York, Jason ventured into the corporate world after graduating from Syracuse University and eventually carved a niche in the entertainment industry, working with top artists and producing large-scale events globally. His entrepreneurial spirit led him to explore real estate, where he has successfully expanded his portfolio across multiple states.
This episode has a unique feel as Jason shares his dual experiences in the corporate world and entrepreneurship. We explore his career at Creative Artists Agency (CAA) and Live Nation, where he worked with celebrities like Beyoncé and Maroon 5. Jason recounts his shift to real estate investing, discussing the challenges and rewards of managing properties and balancing his professional pursuits.
Listeners interested in both entertainment and real estate will find this episode particularly enlightening. Jason offers practical advice on navigating corporate environments, leveraging networking for career growth, and strategically investing in real estate. His story underscores the importance of resilience, adaptability, and continuous learning for achieving success in diverse fields.
References:
- [Creative Artists Agency
- Live Nation
- Syracuse University
- Los Angeles Real Estate Market
- Milwaukee Real Estate Market
Three Potential Listener Questions:
1. How can I transition from a corporate job to real estate investing?
2. What are the best strategies for managing real estate properties remotely?
3. How do you balance a demanding corporate career with entrepreneurship?
https://www.visioninmotion.co
I can buy a duplex in Milwaukee for$100,000. That same duplex in Southern California would cost you a million dollars. Welcome to Motion Matters, where we shine a light on the entrepreneurial journey, sharing real stories of triumph and challenge. Guided by Jamie Tilka, we connect, inspire, and educate. This is Motion Matters. Hello, and welcome to Motion Matters. This is the entrepreneurial podcast where we talk about the trials and tribulations of entrepreneurship. Today, I've got a lifelong friend with me, Jason Miller. And I wanted to have him on today because I think he has a very unique journey. He went into the corporate world after college, and then he eventually went off on his own, not once, but twice. And so I told him that I thought that this was super relative and that there's a lot of struggles that he had to go through in order to get there and wanted to have him on the show. So Jason, thanks for being on the show, man. Thanks for having me. Awesome. So I kick this off typically the same way to get everything running. If you could just take a second, give a little bit about your background, kind of how you came into entrepreneurship. I'm originally from upstate New York, as you of course know. I went to school at Syracuse University. And when I left there, I always had an intention to get into the entertainment business. Wasn't exactly sure why or how, but after spending a year sending letters to all the big entertainment companies and being rejected by everyone as a senior in college, I made the decision to just hop in my car and drive to the West Coast because I figured I'd rather be broke in California with great weather than in New York with terrible weather. So I did that. And I didn't know anyone on the West Coast. I didn't know anyone West of the Mississippi, but I got out to LA. I ultimately found my way to becoming an assistant to an agent at a company called CAA, Creative Artist Agency. For those who don't know CAA, it's one of the preeminent two or three biggest agencies in the world as it relates to representing musicians, actors, writers, directors, et cetera. And I became an agent at CAA, which was a crazy journey in and of itself. But ultimately I spent 11 years in the agency business and represented everyone from Beyonce to Jimmy Fallon to Maroon 5 and countless others and was doing business for them all over the world, which was great. And then after 11 years, I left and took my first stab at entrepreneurship and launched a entertainment marketing agency slash consulting business. And so I had a number of consulting clients around the globe who really all had different wants and needs. I worked with some nonprofits. I worked with some people that were looking to produce large-scale events, be it music festivals, fashion events, political summits, whatever the case may be. I did a little bit of all of that. Again, all over the world, all five continents, went to some crazy, crazy places. And after about five or six years of that, I decided I would go back to school and get my MBA. So I got a MBA at UCLA. It also involved studying in Asia. So I spent a lot of time in both India and in China as well as part of that. And towards the end of that program, I got a call from a colleague saying, hey, come help us launch this new division at Live Nation. Live Nation is the umbrella company of Ticketmaster and is the largest producer of live entertainment in the world. So I went over to Live Nation, spent eight years there. Again, producing large-scale music events of all kinds and genres, worked with all of the biggest artists in the world. And then COVID. And as you can imagine, as I was producing most of my content in Asia, and clearly that is where COVID started, I would argue that COVID probably had a greater impact on me and my industry than virtually anyone in any industry because Asia was the first place to shut down in the world. It was also the last place to open back up. And when I say shut down in live entertainment, I mean shut down. I don't mean wear a mask or stand far apart or, no, shut down. For three years, no one from the West was, no artists from the West were touring Asia. So it was a pretty dramatic moment in my life and career for sure. And during that time, I partnered with a company called Eventum, which is a German-based company who is the largest, second largest producer of live entertainment and ticketing around the world. They're ticketing the upcoming Olympic Games in Paris. We'll also be ticketing the upcoming Olympic Games here in Los Angeles in 2028, and was with them for three years until very recently. And that was a, technically, I guess you could say that was entrepreneurial as well, as that was really a joint venture deal with them. Yeah, no, 100%. In fact, I think it's super interesting because we talked about a little bit before we came on to the show, but yeah, I think those are mutually independent. And so I kind of want to go back to the first one and just get a little bit of your perspective about that. So as we kind of discussed before coming on the air, I think it's crazy, man, because you were at a multiple six figure, you were at a well-paying job and then you made that decision to leave. So can you talk a little bit about what that struggle was like? Because it's very easy for you to push the easy button and stay in the corporate. I've got the job, I'm making good money. I may or may not advance. That's a huge step. And that's one of the things I think people struggle with. Can you talk a little bit about that? I think most people would say that entrepreneurs are born that way. I'm not entirely sure I subscribe to that. I think lots of entrepreneurs become entrepreneurs out of necessity to some degree. My journey is probably somewhere in the middle. I obviously started, I went to college, did the four-year degree thing, and then got a corporate job. But what you learn and realize quickly is that no matter what industry you're in and what company you work at, if you're not your own boss, you're not controlling your future. You're not controlling how much you get paid. You're not controlling when you're gonna get promoted. You may not be controlling how long you have a job, where that job is going to be located. All of that is in the hands of someone else or other people. And those other people don't always have the same motivations that you do. And so, I think for me, I was incredibly happy at my time at CAA. It was, in the entertainment industry, it was like playing for the New York Yankees. Like they were, it was a big deal. I got all the best seats at restaurants, that kind of thing. It opened doors. But I also knew that that time and those connections and network were gonna be forever. They can't take away from me what I've accomplished and what I've done. And so that would be on my resume. And just having worked there as long as I did was gonna continue to open doors. So I felt like I was gonna have some control over my future. It was a unique opportunity to leave at that time because I didn't, I wasn't married, didn't have kids, had a ton of flexibility. And so I could take some chances at that point in my life that maybe I would have been less inclined to take at other times. So if I'm picking up on what you're laying down, is that the fear of losing the monetary stability didn't exceed your desire to potentially control your own destiny, right? Yes. Yeah, that's fair. No, that's great because again, I think a lot of people get to that proverbial cliff and they're not willing to take the step off. It's very difficult. So I wanted to hear from your own perspective. So I appreciate that. Man, you talked about one thing about not being able to be the decision maker, just to make a comment about that specifically, you and I obviously have remained in communication for the vast majority of our existence since we grew up in the same town. I took the military path, you took the corporate world path. But I remember looking at one of my commanders one day and I told him, I said, you know what just hit me? I was like, I'm not the commander. So ultimately I will never make a decision. I'm an advisor and that's it. And I'm actually okay with that. But I'm now at a point in my life where I want more. And so in order to be able to do that, I have to leave. Otherwise I never get to decide anything. I'm just an advisor. And so hearing that from you, it's interesting. It's just two separate worlds. You and I have talked about this military versus the corporate world, but yet so many similarities. Yeah, so that was your first instance. It's your second one. As I like to use, we have a military terminology, we talk about forcing function. So as you named COVID, the pandemic, that forced you to. So at that point, again, it kind of, if I recall the story that we talked about, you were kind of forced into that, like, hey, I've got to create something. And so therefore you put this together and then potentially ultimately ended up collaborating with them, right? Yeah, I think I recognized that I had built a great corporate resume over the last 25 years or so. But if I wanted to accelerate the path in a variety of different ways, then I didn't want to sit around waiting for the phone to ring. Like, yes, I have a resume. Yes, my skills are wanted by certain employers. But rather than sit around and wait for that, I would force the issue a bit more and try and create something that I could work on, that I could build, that I could frankly get some credit for whether it succeeded or not, and do it that way. So I found a partner in the entertainment business that had the resources that were required to launch something like that. I think that's being resourceful, right? Again, another attribute of entrepreneurship and the ability to be able to succeed ultimately. So that's why before we came on, I said, you pulled it off not once, but twice, separated by time, but still within the same industry. I think that's super impressive. Kind of going back to your first iteration, I know that you already kind of alluded to it earlier. There were several times where you were traveling all over. I know you did a lot of shows over in Africa and stuff. One of my questions is, during that first iteration, because that was your first trial of truly running all facets of what your business and your company was, is, can you talk about one time in which you had a significant thing you had to deal with and how you kind of dealt with that? Why did you not just give up right then? And how did you navigate that? Can you think of something? Producing large-scale events in Western Africa using some of the biggest entertainers in the world. That combination brings with it insane challenges. I've done countless events in the United States as well at a very large scale. And I can promise you they were all easier than trying to navigate through producing big events overseas. I would say the same is true, again, with no disrespect to my peers that do the same thing as I've done here in North America. When you get into other parts of the world, other continents where you're dealing with currency issues, safety issues, government issues, language issues, religious issues, all of these things make it really difficult to achieve the goal. I'm sure a lot of these conversations sound similar in your military background. So whether it was Africa or China or elsewhere, there was always, every day, there was some crazy challenge. XYZ artists that you all have heard of wants one type of grand piano. Well, guess what? That grand piano doesn't exist on the continent of Africa. So how are we gonna get it there, right? Like stuff like that, it's every day. So it's tough to point to one, but we were literally building large venues from scratch. I mean, yes, new venues are built, but you don't book the event before the venue's built. You know what I mean? I mean, this is the kind of challenges that came with working in emerging markets around the world. Yeah, no, that's exactly what I'm talking about. And I know you probably have dozens and dozens of stories, but again, it goes to the whole point of like you're faced with a challenge. Are you able to adapt and be resourceful and find the solution? I mean, it would have been very easy for you to say, you know what, that's simply not gonna work. We can't do that. We can't get the piano. So no, we're just gonna, but no is not an option. As I like to say to people frequently, I was like, don't tell me how we can't. Let's only talk about how we can. That's what I need to figure out right now. Yeah, and ultimately that was the conversation at the time I had with my local African client. By the way, it wasn't just the piano. There was all sorts of production that was required to put on a show at the level he wanted to put on and it just wasn't available locally. And so when he asked me, well, what do we do? My answer was you rent a really big plane and you fly it here. And so what did we do? We rented the largest jet liner in the world, which is Russian. It's called an Antonov. You can Google it. It's a gigantic aircraft that you can put a lot of stuff in and we flew it in. Was that cheap? No, it was not cheap, but that's, there are solutions to every problem. Yeah, and I know that we've talked also about, I mean, I know you had issues with security, right? I mean, meaning that there was clients of yours that were like, well, I don't know if I feel comfortable because of whatever the circumstances were at the moment. You've had that happen to you before as well. Yeah, we've had not only local security issues, whether it's on the artist's behalf, whether it's on the fan's behalf, but it doesn't stop. There's also, on the other hand, we've had clients that don't wanna go particular countries because of political or religious issues, cultural issues. All of that is problematic when you're in the business of trying to produce large-scale events. It's not for lack of desire or want. The reality is there are fans for every artist all over the world. Now, getting that artist to that part of the world is a whole other conversation. Yeah, this seems probably a little bit simplistic and it's on the front side, but what's your perspective on the importance of having a team to help you support that? Because I know what I've learned past five years is that I thought I could do everything, but I tell people, man, I don't care how fast you are, I don't care how strong you are, man, unless you have a team of people, at some point you outrun your headlights, right? There's just not enough time in a day, not enough resources in a single person. You know, in both of my corporate roles, whether it was at CAA or at Live Nation, I was brought in and then I had to find my way to work together with teams that were already in place. In some cases, I was building those teams as well, and in many cases, those teams were remote, which adds a whole nother level of complexity. Again, if English is their second language, time zones, all sorts of stuff. But certainly when I was an entrepreneur, very much without a team, I was going to do nothing because I was literally starting as a single guy. I was a consultant, and in many cases, I was brought in to produce an event. Well, I can't produce an event by myself. I needed an entire team of people who are far more educated about certain things than I am to make sure that they're putting the cord in the right hole so that sound comes out at the end, right? That's not what I do for a living. So finding the right team, paying them well to get the best people, finding a way to pay them well, finding a way to convince your partner to pay them well if they want an event to be executed or the project to be executed at the level they want it operated at, you know, all of that is part of the journey. All of that is part of the business development work. You know, I think business development or sales, whatever you want to call it, it doesn't matter who you are or where you are. It's always going to be part of what you do. And certainly as an entrepreneur, it was at the forefront. Just that last sentence, the last two sentences that you said, I mean, there was at least, I couldn't keep up with it, but four or five specific examples that you kind of cited in the importance of being able to be resilient, right? And I just say that because I feel like that kills a lot of people. My analogy that I always use is most people won't step up the cliff, but if they do and they're down there swimming in the water, something bumps their leg and they run back to shore. They're like, hell with this. I'm going back to the 95. I'm going to work at Taco Bell, Walmart, whatever. In your case, it was a little bit better than that. So good for you. Hey, I wanted to ask you something too. And we kind of, we didn't address it. So I just want to ask it, right? And so what was one of the sacrifices that you had to make in order to take that leap of faith into there? I mean, we talked about the monetary side, but is there any other things that you kind of felt like you potentially sacrificed? It could have even been a short-term sacrifice for a long-term game. Yeah. I mean, when I jumped to the West Coast with no job opportunity, I didn't have much to sacrifice, or at least that's the way I looked at it. I can promise you, I'm not sure my parents looked at it the same way. They were like, he's crazy. Why would he do that? Why would he move to the farthest point from here in North America with no job and no connections? But it's what I wanted. And I felt like, well, what do I have to lose? If it doesn't work out, I'll just come back. And so I guess I didn't really sacrifice much of anything in that first leap. It was really the leaps after that. And I always, I think for me, I always felt like I want to have some control over my future. I want to control my destiny to some degree. And no matter what I do, I'm constantly stacking the deck that is my career achievements. So now I haven't just been a corporate guy. I haven't just worked for a public company. I've also worked for private companies. I've been self-employed. I've done it all. I've worked, I've done consulting gigs. I've done, you know, all the gambit of how you can be employed, I've done. And so I never looked at any one move as sacrificing necessarily. Perhaps it was sacrificing my sanity in the short term because I was worried about how it was all gonna play out. But I also felt like if I could make these incremental moves that would get me closer to the finish line and build the kind of career and the kind of lifestyle that I wanted to have long-term, then it was worth that short-term uncertainty. No, that's good. I appreciate that. That's good perspective and answers the question. It actually kind of segues into another question. So for you, and this is kind of gonna be the last question about the music industry, because I also know that you've dabbled in real estate. And so I wanna leave time to talk about that as well. But my last question is with regards to that, you know, your two entrepreneurial endeavors within the music industry, like for you specifically with what your goals and aspirations are, like how would you define success in your industry? Like what does that mean to you? I'm not sure I would put a financial number on success necessarily. You know, the music industry, particularly the live music industry is a small network of people. There's a relatively small number of people that control a vast and large number of entertainers who perform all over the world for billions of people. But those decision makers are few. And so I think I often say that, you know, my proudest achievement, if you will, is just staying in this business for as long as I have, because it's a crazy industry. And, you know, I thought it was crazy before COVID. And then, wow, holy cow, you know, that's a black swan event, as they say, that changed everything for countless people that I know. So my ability to stay in this business, to continue to operate at a high level, to continue to maintain my network of friends and colleagues, that to me, I think, is the success. I don't necessarily look at my bank account and go, oh, well, that's why I'm successful, or the car I drive or the house I'm in. None of that points to success. I think longevity for me, doing what I wanna, working with the people I wanna work with, those things define success a bit more than the dollars. Awesome, that makes awesome sense. Yeah, let's transition. Let's talk a little bit about your real estate entrepreneurial journey. So it's funny, because ours, well, ours started off at a very similar time. Now, to some extent, yours started off well before mine, because you had already bought your own families, which, because you live in a market where the appreciation is just sometimes unbelievable, you would throw prizes at me. I'd be like, there's no fucking way, bro. And you're like, no, I'm telling you, I just sold my house for that much. So yeah, can you talk a little bit about what sparked that interest for you to take it to the next level? Like, I wanna do more than just own my own house. Like, how did that come about for you? Yeah, in the very beginning, it wasn't more than that. I mean, I think I'm old enough to still have a lot of those sort of older generation wants and desires of just owning a home and being able to do what I want to that home whenever I want and not having to ask someone's permission. So I bought a home as early as I could. I don't remember exactly how old I was. I think I was, I don't know, probably 26, 27. But as you point out, even back then, this would have been the year 2000 in Los Angeles. And even then, the house I bought was less than 900 square feet and I paid$450,000 for it. This was a small, I had apartments that were bigger than the house I bought. And again, I'm quite sure my parents thought I was crazy, but I knew I had been here long enough to understand the market. And I knew I was buying in a really attractive area and it was only going to appreciate. And sure enough, I don't know, four years later, I sold it for double, so like 850. So again, for 875 square feet. So, you know, I got 850,000 for that. I made a nice profit, pushed it, kicked the can down the road into the next property. And so over time, just owning homes in Los Angeles, I thought, holy cow, you know, early in my career, I was making more money in my home appreciation than I was in my salary. So I thought to myself, wow, this is, I always had in the back of my head, this is amazing. This is fantastic. And I'm clearly gonna keep buying houses here in Los Angeles, because this is just great. It's like this built-in retirement account. You need to live, you need somewhere to live, so why not live in something that's gonna fund your retirement, you know, 40 years later? So I always knew in the back of my head that I wanted to continue to own real estate. I don't think it was until probably almost, probably, I don't know, seven or seven, eight years ago, where I started thinking like, well, wait a minute, I started investigating, okay, if you do all of the things that wealth advisors would tell you to do, max out your 401k, max out an HSA, you know, health savings account, get an, max out an IRA, yada, yada, yada. I was doing all of those things. And then you say to them, okay, what do I do next? And they go, well, you just buy stock. And I go, well, okay, but the stock market, I don't control the stock market at all. I can't possibly know what Apple's gonna do next quarter. And frankly, my stock performance portfolio had not been great over time as it were. In 2008, when the market crashed, I nearly lost half my investment through no fault of my own. And I thought, well, I never wanna do that again. That was terrible. That was a huge step back that I don't ever want to deal with. So I started investigating how, what to invest in, and then also investigating the tax code. And how do I keep more of the money that I'm making? And ultimately when I researched, I spent a lot of time researching both of those things and they all came back to the same thing. Real estate, real estate, real estate. And so I thought, well, gosh, I've had such a fantastic run here in Southern California. Let me start investigating what else I can do in the real estate world on my own. Because again, I still had a full-time job, which I wasn't really prepared to give up. It just so happened that during that same period, you came to me with a unique opportunity that I found interesting and appealing. And certainly it was a risk, but I felt like particularly at that moment when I had a great corporate job that it was a risk worth taking. And I could, in this case, dip my toe in the water, provide some operating capital, but give it to someone on the ground to do most of the legwork. And so I think that combination is why it was appealing to me. And that, and maybe you'll want to jump back to that, I don't know, but that is what spurred beyond that, me to do more and more of this and to take the time and to lay a path towards me buying more and more real estate. And now, I've been, I've flipped before, I've done syndication deals on giant, 500 unit apartment complexes. And then I also, in addition to what I co-own with you, I also own, I don't know, probably 25 units spread across five states outside of what I own here in Southern California. So yeah, I love real estate and I love real estate for all the reasons that are the opposite of the entertainment business. You know, they couldn't be more different and that's exactly what I love about it. Yeah, I have a fat ass cheese smile because I'm listening to it and obviously I know your journey. Again, we've been kind of walking in parallel and some cross-passing stuff and the fact that in, let's call it roughly four years, maybe slightly more, slightly less, you're at 25 units, that's crazy. That's not, wait, that's probably not even counting the one that we co-own together, do we? Yeah, I own 10 properties. One of them with you is a dozen of those 10 and yeah, there's probably another 20 something units, yeah. That's awesome, man. Because I mean, you've obviously, you climbed the corporate ladder, you've done all the stuff that we've already discussed and it puts you in a good financial position. You also made good financial choices. I'm very open and tell people my story all the time. I said, I was incredibly fiscally irresponsible, don't do that, but that puts you in a position. So, right, that's why it was such a good match is right, I had the idea, the vision, I had the ability to do the work, you had the funds and credibility. And so we, yeah, I tell people when I tell the story about our situation, I say, yeah, I told my buddy, I said, look, it's gonna cost roughly a half a million dollars, we'll be done in 18 months. I said, four years later, $1.4 million. He's like, what the fuck happened, bro? I said, however, the good news story is it came back at $2.27 million. So although we have to keep a lot of the equity in there, we didn't lose, we didn't lose. No, no, no, and it's been, it's highly tax advantaged, which as somebody who's still in the corporate world is a major, major factor in why I investigate, why I investigated real estate in the first place and why I've stayed in it. And I just, I love, you know, the entertainment business provides a chaos in my life, I guess in a good way. You know, it's this crazy roller coaster. And then, and as if it wasn't crazy enough, then COVID comes along and throws a complete wrench in the entire industry. Real estate is the exact opposite. There's no ego, there's no emotion. I can wrap my hands around a building and now I own it and there's nothing you can do about it. It doesn't get sick. Whether a million COVID can come along and everyone's still gonna need a house to live in. So I love real estate. And it's like, I get the both sides of my brain get to work simultaneously. You know, when I'm doing my real estate stuff, it's very straightforward. It's about numbers and strategy. And when I'm working in the entertainment business, it's a bit more creative, but there's some similarities as well, but it's really great to operate in both spaces. So you don't have to take too much time, but talk a little bit about this for anybody that's listening in your area in high price places like Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami. I do remember specifically when I first talked to you about this. I mean, we had actually talked about it before I truly went into it. Cause I kind of dabbled and went off on my own and you know, failed and stuff. But talk to me one of the reasons why you went outside of your market. If I recall, it was because it was just crazy expensive for you to get involved, correct? Yeah, I mean, it's really continues to be the reason that I don't invest in California today. You know, California, what you read on the news is one thing. The actual is something entirely different. What I can say is I do love California in general. I think it's the most beautiful state in the country and it provides tremendous opportunity in all kinds of industries and certainly being an entertainment for me, it's a major factor. However, what I don't find appealing about California from a real estate investing perspective is a little thing called cashflow. And you don't get a heck of a lot of it here. The cost to buy is very high and the cost to build is very high. And ultimately at the end, your cashflow at the end tends to be pretty low. By the way, that was before interest rates went through the roof. So for me, I target what I view as cash flowing markets where I can buy properties. You know, I can buy a duplex in Milwaukee for $100,000. That same duplex in Southern California would cost you a million dollars or more. And the rent and all the expenses, my net still is profitable every month. And that's just today. And that doesn't include the appreciation and the mortgage pay down and everything else that I love about real estate. So for me, yeah, I invest, I tend to invest in markets in the Midwest, in the Sunbelt. Ideally, I like markets that are 100,000 people or more because of job opportunities, you can rent your units faster, et cetera, et cetera. And that tends to be where I invest all of my time and energy. Just for the sake of letting listeners know, I wanna share that I'll never forget when I called you and I said, bro, I found it. And you're like, what? And I go, I found the place, man, we're gonna buy this. And you're like, okay, what's the information? I go, it's 12 units. You're like, okay. And I go, it's $300,000. And you just started laughing. You go, shut the fuck up. You can't buy 12 units for three. I'm like, I'm telling you right now, it's 300,000. Because for you in Southern California and Los Angeles specifically, it doesn't even compute. I mean, that exact place would have been what? I mean, $1.52 million or something. I don't know, something ridiculous, I'm sure. Well, yeah, again, my first house was 450 and it was 900 square feet. That was 20 years ago, 20 years ago. So yeah, the idea that three, four years ago, I could buy 12 units for $300,000. Now granted, neither one of us would want to have lived in any of those 12 units, but the property was, the land was beautiful and the potential was there. If anybody's listening and they're making a couple of hundred thousand dollars or so, and they're living in one of those market that's just super high and hard to get into, what would your advice be to them on how do you get in the game? If they live in one of those expensive markets? Yeah, if there's another person, they're living in the LA and they're just like, shit, I can't even get started. Like I have capital, but it's just too much. So what's your advice on them on how to get in the game? Yeah, I've done a combination of things. I've spent some time, I mean, the social media game now it goes without saying is a total game changer. And so the ability to communicate or to see other people communicate to you via social media really has made it all possible. And so through the years I've found, it's been twofold. On one side, I spent a lot of time and energy building up my business. And when I say my business, I mean a business that I own, right? Not the corporate world, not necessarily somebody who's giving me a paycheck every month, but a business that I own and pay taxes on every year, building up the history of that business and the history that that business can provide to a bank as it relates to credit. And then on the other side, building up my relationship with agents and wholesalers that don't live where I live. They live in the markets or they operate at least in the markets where I wanna operate in. And they can provide meaningful information, intel about the ground. What is that neighborhood actually like? Like I know I'm buying $100,000 property in a not so great neighbor, but how not so great, right? Is this a war zone or is this just, maybe you don't wanna be there at two in the morning. Those are two different things. So that local intel and those, whether it's wholesalers, other people in the business, investors that have the infrastructure to bring you deals, that deal flow as people like to talk about in the real estate game, building relationships with them and becoming a qualified buyer for them. Somebody that they know is going to close so that they give you priority. When if it's not a property that they own, they know that if they assign it to someone else or they provide the contact to the seller that you're gonna close on that deal, that's meaningful and that doesn't happen overnight. That takes time and you just have to build it. And by the way, same goes with banks. Banks don't, you can't just roll in, most people can't just roll into a bank and get a line of credit for a million dollars. It doesn't work that way. You really have gotta have track record and it's not dissimilar to a credit card. They like to see how you behave with that credit that they're giving you over time. And I've been, I'm always conscious of how I use my money, how quickly I can give it back to the people that lend to me and that takes a lot of time. Yeah, you shared an awesome story right before we came on too about your most recent purchase just this past week. And you were basically lining out for me how you and this other guy have done a few deals now and you've gotten to the point where you love the fact that he has a completely packaged for you and he loves the fact that he knows that if you say you're gonna do it, you're doing it and it's a done deal. And so now he leans forward to you and that's where you start getting the preferential, you know, sneak peek, if you will, the insider advantage, would you concur? Yeah, and every, you know, whether it's wholesalers or real estate agents anywhere in the country, they're all gonna operate a little differently. So I think it's sort of about finding your tribe and finding the people that want to operate the way that you wanna operate and you have the same goals in mind. So I scratch his back and he scratches mine. And that hasn't been the case with lots of wholesalers. I don't, you know, lots of wholesalers will try and sell you a property that they claim needs $2,000 in renovations and you take a look at the pictures and you're like, no one is living in that for$2,000. That is hundreds of thousands of dollars of rehab. That's not the business I'm in. I don't wanna do that. I want something someone can live in tomorrow, if not something that someone's already living in, but not every investor is like that. Some investors, if you're doing a flip, yeah, I probably do want something that no one would ever wanna live in, but that's not, I don't really have the time or energy to do that right now. So it's all a little different, but it all takes time to find your tribe to make sure that you're all kind of, you know, rowing in the same direction. Yeah, you hit on the number one thing that I constantly try to drive home to people. I kind of break it down in a four-legged stool and there's discrepancies and people talk about, but I tell them, it's like, you either have to have credibility, you have to have the ability to be boots on the ground, you have to have finances, or you better find the deal. Like if you can bring one of those four things to the table then find the other people that can do the other thing. And that's kind of essentially what happened with you and I, right? You had the credibility, you had the finances, I found the deal and I was gonna handle it on the ground. So it's like, boom, let's do this thing. So no, I appreciate that you shared that. So I'm looking at the clock and I know we're getting ready to kind of wind down here. I wanna ask a couple things as we kind of get out of here. So the first thing that I would ask is what advice would you offer to any aspiring entrepreneur? And that can be whether they're starting their own business or whether they wanna get into the real estate and investing, like what would be a key piece of information that you would offer them to help inspire them or to help them understand what that journey is gonna look like? You know, the real world is never easy and it's even harder when you're trying to be a quote entrepreneur and you can call that, you know, that could look like a million different things to a million different people. But the truth is no matter what it is, there's going to be a ton of hurdles and it's never going to happen as quickly as you would like. And I think for me, you know, I realized pretty quickly and certainly I threw myself into the lion's den coming to Los Angeles and Hollywood at such a young age, but no one's gonna hand it to you, no one. So you either gotta go out there and scratch and claw for every little piece or you're gonna sit back and not, and that's fine too, right? You know, my company, my personal business my LLC is called Never Settle, right? And that's how I sort of approach all of my entrepreneurial journeys. I don't want, I guess it was, well, there's a couple of quotes that, some of them you might've heard that I sort of followed, there's two in particular. So one is the famous Wayne Gretzky who said, you're gonna miss 100% of the shots you don't take. And another one is a little less known one is by the martial artist, Bruce Lee, who said, to hell with circumstances, I create opportunities. And for me, that's the way I look at it. I'm not willing to just sit back and wait for the phone to ring. You know, I'm gonna go out there and seek success. I'm gonna go out there and build a track record. I'm gonna go out there and build a resume that differentiates myself from the guy next door. And when you do that slowly over time, you're going to be given advantages or luck or whatever you wanna call it that some others don't. And it was simply because you invested that time and you took those shots that other people weren't willing to take. Yeah, they're both great. But the second one, obviously I so, so resonate with that. You, more than 99% of the people I know understood that, you know, what my childhood was like as far as not being well-to-do and growing up in poverty. And I talk about circumstances all the time and I tell people, I don't, okay, so are you gonna change it? Yes or no? Like fucking do something, bro. Like if you're gonna sit here and cry about it, then, and I'm a little bit more aggressive in my vernacular of how I describe it, but I said, you said it and then you kind of paused because maybe you were trying to be politically correct. But I say, do it or otherwise accept mediocrity, right? So that's it. Like, if you're cool, you're gonna work nine to five and you're gonna get your paycheck and come home and buy a slice of pizza on the weekend. Sweet, right? Whatever snaps your carrot, brother. Like do your thing. So I love it. Okay, so last thing that I want you to offer is, is there a particular book that has really changed your life? Like that you would recommend that people read? Well, I can tell you the number one, the only book in any genre that I've ever read more than one time is How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. I don't care who you are or what industry you're in. None of it. I think that book changed my perspective on life and business in a way that no other book ever has. So if you're only gonna get one, if you take anything away from this podcast and you're listening, go get that book. And it was written decades ago, well before I was born. And I think it, yeah, yeah. And it still resonates today. The stuff he talks about, it's stuff that you go, yeah, that makes total sense. Why did I not think of things that way? Game changer, total game changer. Yeah, I'm in the same boat. Look, man, when my kids graduated high school, I think you already know this, but I do a three bundle book pack with them. And I wrap it in a piece of twine, just like Laura Ingalls from The Little House in the Prairie, right? And that's Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People, Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki, and The One Thing by Gary Keller. And the reason why I do The One Thing is because I feel like it's an all encompassing, like what are you gonna do today that's gonna change your circumstances tomorrow and then have that, you know, I will say this, I don't know if I've ever said this because I didn't realize that that was one of your favorite books. Although I do think, I do recall you saying it before, but I tell people that I love that book, but I consider that like the 100 series, like this is your fundamental knowledge on how do you build relationships. But the secondary one that I really, really love is John Maxwell's Everybody Communicates But Few People Connect. Bro, read that, that thing is phenomenal. But anyway, look, this has been awesome. I think you bring a ton of value for people listening, particularly, I think you're one of the first people I've had on that have the extensive amount of corporate time that you have. And then you intermittently took your stab at entrepreneurship and success, I would say to some extent you were successful at it, and then that ultimately led to real estate. So, you know, thanks for coming on. Thanks for sharing all your insights. And I definitely feel like this is gonna be value added for people, and I'm hoping that there's some other people that are just listening out there and they're like, dang, man, like there is a pathway because that's ultimately what we're trying to do is inspire people. So thanks, Jason. I really appreciate you being on the show. Love it. Thanks for having me. All right, take care.