Billy Keels  00:00

Today's conversation is sponsored by first generation Capital Partners. If you're an accredited investor, and you want to know about how we're helping other accredited investors keep more of their income, go to first gen cpe.com, forward slash going long.

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00:12

There is this mantra out there that you should invest in your backyard, or a place that you have lived or know very, very well. And to some degree, that makes a lot of sense, right? I mean, you want to understand the market and the forces and the neighbourhoods and all of those benefits that come along, but they're not insurmountable challenges. Everybody you speak to will say multifamily is a team sport. It's a team sport. And you know, use your team.

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00:36

You're listening to the going long podcast with Billy keels, the number one podcast for long distance real asset investing.

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Billy Keels  00:46

Welcome to the goal on podcast, we're back once again to continue to help to educate you so you feel much more comfortable, as well as confident investing beyond your backyard. And guess who I am. Yep, I'm your host, Billy keels, and I am really, really looking forward to you checking out today's conversation, because it's another one of these really, really awesome ones. So, and also just very quickly, because we're gonna get right into the conversation. I've been seeing a lot of people continue to take snapshots and screenshots and sharing across social media, LinkedIn, and Instagram, if you're one of those people, thank you so very much. And if you've been thinking about doing it, go ahead. That's what everybody else is doing nowadays. So take screenshot, share the love, it helps to bring people to the to the to the going long podcast, and helps to grow our global podcast family. So thank you for that. And also, you know, we really, really appreciate the honest written reviews as well as ratings. You haven't done that yet. Go ahead and do that helps us to continue to bring awesome guests to you that also give you more of what you need. Then lastly, I know everybody wants to check out all the previous episodes, go to first gen cpe.com forward slash podcasts, and you can find every single one from there. So I know also to let's jump into today's conversation, because we want to get there quickly. If you are thinking about how you can add not only land but also multifamily investing and doing that through syndication or understanding about how to do it actively. Today's guest is really going to be able to give you insight came from the corporate world, decided to really find his life's purpose and live his best life. Now he and his wife are doing that today, you're gonna get amazing insights from how you can build lifestyle, through investing in hard assets doing that from any place in the world, or that you like, in today's conversation with Mike Deaton is going to give you more of what you need. And we're gonna get to that just after this. Are you a busy high paid professional, someone that in the previous two years is earned $200,000 and is expected to earn $200,000 this year. Or maybe if you file jointly, previously, you've earned $300,000 In previous two years, and you're also expected to do that this year. Or maybe if not, either individually or jointly, you have a million dollars in net worth, not including your primary residence. If you meet any of these criteria, then you're someone that the IRS considers to be an accredited investor, that probably means you're someone like an enterprise software sales executive, you may be an executive in a major corporation, you may be a doctor, you may be a lawyer, maybe a high paid consultant, you may be work for a major sports franchise, the thing I know you have in common is that you continue to do the hard work like you're doing 100% of the work. And you're only bringing home 50% of the reward because you continue to get crushed by your income taxes. If you're tired of this situation, and you're looking for a new solution, then go to first gen cp.com forward slash going along. When you get there, that's going to help you to start the journey so that you can begin to take back control of your taxes take control of your time. And then also that means you're going to be able to spend more of the time that you want with the people that you love the most. And that is the way that you're going to get the personal freedom that you're looking for. So if you're looking to take back control, go ahead and go to first ncp.com forward slash going along and see how we can help you today. So you know what, if you've ever wanted to know how investing in multifamily can help you to find your life's purpose, and do that in a long distance fashion, then guess what, today is the conversation that you're going to want to listen to until the very last word you know why? I'm really excited about today's conversation because today's guest not only started his early professional career in the telco sector, you know, I spent a lot of time in it and telco and it have a lot to do with one another want to hear about that. He also spent time in logistics as well as supply chain areas. He's also a professional coach, I believe that tried and if not, he can correct me. And then he is also the co founder as well as president of Deaton Equity Partners. It gives me great pleasure to welcome to today's conversation. Mr. Mike Deaton. Mike, welcome the show. Thank you, Billy. Happy to be here, man. Hey, man, I'm really, really happy to be here. And hopefully you'll keep me keep me honest on the stuff I was talking about if I messed up anything right now. Okay, cool. Cool. So listen, my kids, one of the things, we love to be able to get to know more about you and we're gonna like to ask a lot of questions. And you I read, we already talked about this, you're gonna get five questions, you're gonna get two in the beginning, you're gonna get three in the end, and you're gonna get more than five questions because you're gonna get a lot in the middle. You just don't know what those questions are yet. So let's start with number one and Help to go on long family understandable. Where is it that you live in the US?

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05:05

Yeah, so I have the great fortune of living in the rocky mountains of Colorado. So it was a vision board item that my wife and I, you know, put up there about four or five years ago, we left the corporate worlds moved to Colorado. We're trying to figure out where exactly we wanted to put roots down, and then we're coming up on a year. But last year in November, we were able to buy a house here in the mountains. We live specifically, in Colorado. I don't know most people might be familiar with Pikes Peak, which is just right outside of Colorado Springs. We live about 20 minutes west up in the mountains, our front porch, we see Pikes Peak right at the right at the front porch. And it's weird about 10,000 feet elevation, and just in the middle of pine trees and aspirins. And it's it's our our little Shangri La up here that we we rarely we hate to leave. So it's great.

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Billy Keels  06:08

So it doesn't sound like you'd like nice views or clean a clean way right at all right? Well, congratulations for making these vision board dream board. items become a reality. That's something that is amazing. We can learn a lot from that I'm sure you're gonna dive more into that help us because we're gonna I want people to get to know you so much. But like help us understand like, what is the most positive? This is question number two, most positive thing that's happened to you in the last 24 hours.

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06:34

Yeah, well, yesterday was Memorial Day, it was Labour Day here in the US. So holiday, and my wife and I got to spend it all day together. Outdoors. And just, you know, for us, that's one of our highest values is just time and time together. And so to be able to do that, we unplugged from work, really didn't didn't check in emails or anything like that. So, man, just a recharging in that way right to be able to do that kind of stuff.

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Billy Keels  07:02

The great part is it sounds like your life is pretty much like that all the time anyway, almost like you don't even need to have any kind of vacation. It's

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07:10

not too secret. But yes, we have designed our life to be as much like that as we can

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Billy Keels  07:15

love it, love it, love it. And also appreciating that fantastic. So this is my here's the thing I like to go along family knows this about me, I tend to set a really, really high bar, excellence kind of thing. Sometimes it takes me to the realm of not even being able to do things that are realistic, realistic, like trying to tell your entire backstory in like two and a half seconds. Like I knew it was impossible, but I still gotta try it right? This is because that's part of what people are coming back and listen for. So forgive me for trying to do something so absurd. That's still your entire backstory in two and a half seconds. But if you could help me that would be really, really helpful. If you could actually tell your backstory in your own words, and you can use a lot more than two and a half seconds. So we get a chance to know you. And the one thing I would ask Mike is along the way, if you can help us also with some of the different decisions that you had to make along the way to get to where you are now and then we'll see where you and I take the conversation from there.

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08:08

Okay, cool. Yeah. So I mean, I'll go way back. I was born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas. And pretty standard, middle class upbringing, my my mom was a teacher, dad was a entrepreneur. He was in homebuilding most of my childhood. Early days, we flipped houses before flipping was really cool. Like, we would buy a home, fix it up or we, they would buy a home fix it up. I was just along for the ride. But I kind of got grooved into this. I think at least what I perceive the normal American way of life being like, I went to school, my parents pushed me to get good grades. There was pretty much no other option beyond high school than to go to university. I had in mind that I wanted to do some type of a vocation of sorts. Medicine came to mind I went to school to be a doctor. And about three years into university, I decided it really wasn't resonating with me. It just was going to be a long term educational pursuit and I was ready to get out in the workforce. And so graduated university with a biology degree didn't really have a whole lot of options of what I thought I could do with that. But I found my way into manufacturing and high tech started with Motorola when Motorola was kind of king of the world of was pagers back then but you know, I worked in a in a factory and it was a big playground. The the management there was pretty cool and letting us do really whatever we wanted to do. We had a tonne of support. Motorola was really Good company in terms of teaching, leadership skills, as well as manufacturing skills, you know, Six Sigma TQM quality practices, a lot of those. So I got a really great foundation. I switched gears to Nokia, when Nokia mobile phones was king of the mobile phone space and very similar company culture, very people centric, leadership focused, I got a lot of development was pretty much had the latitude to do whatever I wanted to in terms of job, you know, I could, I could take a bunch of different jobs because the growth was just tremendous at that time. When I was at Nokia, I had the opportunity to take an expat contract. In Romania, we were starting a factory there. So personal life conditions really opened that up for me, I was in a, in a previous marriage that was falling apart, largely because of just too much work, not enough life balance. But I was going through a divorce at the time and had this opportunity opened. And it was probably something I would not have normally taken, having a wife and two kids being US based and feeling that I was somehow kind of rooted in place. But but you know, the took a took an opportunity that life presented to me at the moment and said yes. And so I went over. And it was an amazing experience. I mean, it was just a totally new culture and environment. It was also a high growth, opportunity, and that we were starting a factory and hiring 1000s of people and doing something really transformative for the community that that we were building this factory in and another personal opportunity came, I met my now wife, there, she's Romanian. And literally, I think the first weekend that I arrived in Romania, we met she also worked for Nokia at the time, and we just, you know, fell in love immediately. And or at least we fell in interest immediately. And you know, it kind of it obviously transpired into that, but I was there for three years, formed some amazing friendships. And then we came back in 2010, to the US and to 1000s. And so as part of that transition, Microsoft purchased the handset division of Nokia, and I became a Microsoft employee. And I had a totally different shift in company culture. It was just, you know, I was travelling two or three weeks out of the year, it was very much, you know, what have you done for me lately kind of a company culture

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12:55

to, to progress within Microsoft, they're based in the Northwest in Washington State. And so, you know, really any, any type of growth in the company was going to come by moving to headquarters there. And this was pre COVID. But just in 2016, for a few different reasons, found myself out of work, got on the layoff list. And at that same time, my wife also, her company, closed up their operations in the Dallas, Fort Worth area, and we're consolidating to their headquarters in Arkansas. And so we both found ourselves out of work. And, you know, the immediate visceral response was crap, I gotta get, you know, my resume in front of people, I got to start interviewing, get the money flowing back in. And it was really gut wrenching time, you know, one just interviewing for different jobs is a process in and of itself, but, you know, my fears were, what kind of company culture am I going to step into? Am I going to have to relocate? Am I going to get myself into another job where I'm just travelling and grinding it out and working and, you know, my personality is I'm an all in type of person. And so when I'm working for someone, I'm all in working for them and kind of giving everything I can. And then we can get into a little bit more but but we took that moment to both kind of step back and reflect and think, you know, what is it that we really want out of life? We had means at our disposal, we had money in the bank, got a buyout in terms of a layoff, you know, severance package. And so we had, we had a little bit of a runway in front of us and we had the the flexibility to be able to think about something different also have I have two daughters from our previous marriage, they were entering college years, already had some money set aside for that, thankfully, and so we empty nested in a way and so we also had that. So again, another instance where life presented an opportunity. And we took a moment to reflect and to step into a path that we wanted to take more consciously rather than just, you know, stepping back on to a W two, grind. And real estate was that pursuit for us. We had been listening to podcasts about different people's journeys, and what are they doing and I had heard two different people that were doing Landon investing, they were buying and selling vacant land, it's really just a buy low sell high model. And as part of that, you can build up a cash flow stream by owner financing. And so I had before I got laid off, bought a toolkit of sorts to teach you how to do it, and just hadn't looked at it, because I've been so busy working. And so we just decided, we said, let's give this thing a go, we'll give ourselves you know, six or 12 months, some some seed money to get started, and we jumped in. And, you know, we we built that into a successful business over about three years, we're able to, you know, get back to black and, you know, not only be able to pay our living expenses, but but then have extra money. And once we started making a decent income from that, while the tax bill came, and so there really aren't much tax advantages in in a flipping model. And so we decided to get into commercial real estate to diversify our income stream as well as get some tax benefits and keep more money in our pocket. And so that led us into multifamily, which is what equity partners does today. It's we we focus on multifamily, we're not exclusive to multifamily, but that's what we're focused on now. And just understanding the business model to a certain depth and then you know, if the market conditions change, and there are other commercial real estate, industries or niches that we want to get into, we'll we'll kind of look at that, but multifamily for now is kind of where we are. So we, we balance the two we still do land, it's near and dear to our hearts. We still do multifamily and the to marry perfectly together really in terms of you know, land is a little more

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17:35

I would say some smaller scale investments, you know, it's hard to deploy hundreds of 1000s of dollars in land unless you have a really big machine that's working. Multifamily affords us that opportunity to leverage you know, larger chunks of, of investments, but also get the tax breaks. And so it's really been great for us. It brought us here to Colorado. We work from home, we work together just a lot of things going going forward. And yeah, I mean, we I do a lot of coaching, as you mentioned, as well, it's not to, you know, coachings it's actually a passion of mine, it's something I just love being able to help people, whether it's in their personal lives or in real estate. I don't do a whole lot of it, because it's a it's a large time commit to be able to do it and do it. Well. It's kind of back in the trading time for money type thing, unless you're doing it a large scale or, you know, there's ways around it, but I really liked the one on one aspect of kind of digging and helping people but yeah, I mean, that's, that's a to z nutshell from kind of where it came from where I am now. And it's been great.

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Billy Keels  18:50

Yeah, and you know, there's so there's a number of different things to be able to take a look back, like from where you were to where you are now, lots of different real life, things that that that happened, and things that one of like, one of the things I loved that you were saying, as you told the story, and whether that was, you know, having an entrepreneurial father and a mom who was teacher or, you know, to the point where you had at the end of a relationship. And I think a lot of people that are in large corporate roles can understand that because there are lots and lots of days of travel and sometimes they're overnights and sometimes there's just You're up early in the morning you're waking everybody up and then you're late back home at night and all these kinds of things but the way that you have reflected on that and I hope that everyone here in the going on family heard because you talked about the end of the marriage and being life presented you with an opportunity. You also talked about when some people say I got laid off and I'm going right into the into the next thing and I gotta get my my resume my CV or whatever. And you said the same thing like presented you with an opportunity. And I think it's a lot so much has to do with minds. It talks about another thing, right? When we initially started even the podcast, we talked a lot about multifamily investing in real estate investing. And now we talk about so many different things. Because once you start getting when you get started, you may see that land was the thing, and then you understand more multifamily. And maybe you get into a space where it's energy, you're from Texas, and that's a different thing. And you may be into other types of assets that can also help you get to your destination, your investing destination, whatever that may be. But what we're seeing is a pattern of actually taking action. But what I'd love for you to talk maybe and expand on a little bit more is that whole concept of life presented you with an opportunity, which really ties to me into the mindset, and how you have been able to cultivate that type of a mindset and how that's actually helping you derive results for yourself and also for others.

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20:53

Yeah, and it is something that I have reflected a lot on, and I tried to help and I think coaching and I've always been, say always as a, as a older teen, I got interested in personal development and wasn't really a concept of mindset back then. But it was, you know, the power of your mind and the language you speak and the in the words you speak. But yeah, I have, I can't say, you know, from a young young age, but I do know, once I started working, I've always had a longer view or a bigger picture mentality, I like to see the big picture and where things are going, it helps me understand the why it really helps me perform at a better level. So I can, you know, there are many instances in my work career, where I could see where things were heading and was able to position myself. Typically, it was a little more defensively, like I could see that, in manufacturing, offshoring was a movement and that the costs of doing things in the US were were prohibitive to long term success. And so I would look for opportunities to, you know, keep my job, and whether that whether that involves taking more of a global role or, or something that was not contingent on you know, being in a in a, in a setting. And so, I think a lot of times that I'm also my personality is such that I like to know, a breadth of things, rather than be a specialist in one thing I really enjoy, you know, just learning in general, but but about a broad range of things. And so, that does help me see a bigger picture. But yeah, to your point, you know, a lot of I think the life is staying flexible, and adapting to what comes out of situations, right, you can, you can certainly choose to kind of go down in a hole and be a victim and or just seize the moment and take what life presents I mean, I've always been a person that has almost 100% accountability, like I'm on the extreme of life is totally within my control, and I can adapt to almost anything and so that has helped me take what you know, can be seen as obstacles or challenges in transfer those into opportunities. The flip side of that, however, is I have always been someone my first child. And I think as a result of that, I have this you know, need for success driven into me, like you've got to get good grades, you've got to perform in sport, you've got to perform in your job. failure was a very real and present threat for me. And later in life, I have really taken that concept and tried to flip it to where more embracing of, of failure I don't even like the word failure so much in that it's, you know, it's really just about growth and experience and feedback, what is life giving you and how do you adapt to that, and that's been a journey of mine that I've had to overcome a little bit and that helps me feed into some of these things where, you know, I do see divorce as a big failure in, in in being able to keep a relationship healthy and nurture and things like that. But I have I have taken that into my current relationship and I'm a much better husband and I hope I'm a much better father to my daughters and I try to really just take those those learnings and apply them forward. And you know, it's the same whether it's in entrepreneurship or in the corporate world or in personal life, there's a lesson to be learned always. And so it's just, you know, looking for what that is for you and applying that forward.

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Billy Keels  25:12

And as you as you'd have that introspective moment in the you're able to find and recognise the lessons to learn, and then pay those forward. I think it is one of the things that so many of us who have been in large corporate roles can relate to once again, write in rather than saying, you know, why did all this stuff happened to me? It's really like, Okay, well, why is Why am I being presented with this opportunity? How can I make the most of this, and when it's really interesting, because you start seeing also that a lot of the success that starts to happen outside of corporate life is really based on the mindset and how you perceive a situation, and then the different decisions and actions that you take, based on the context, right. And typically, when you see that larger, you've have lots of exposure and lots of experience, versus necessarily going really deep on something, it also can help you to put things in the proper perspective. I'll also share something the entire growing long family knows this, but I am a recovering perfectionist. So a lot of the things that you were talking about before when it's like, Hey, I got a good grade in school, and everybody patted me on the back. And that was great. And I got that whole thing my whole life. But then in real life, yes, you create the right framework. But when things don't go well, it's not that they were a failure, this was just the next step on in terms of getting to whatever the destination is. So I when you said that I could really relate, I was like, Oh, my gosh, I could do that myself, and probably half the half of my family was thinking the exact same thing. Trusting that you enjoyed today's conversation. And you know, if you're tired of getting crushed by taxes, and you're looking for greater freedom, to be able to choose what you want to do when you want to do it, make sure that you go to first ncp.com forward slash going long, and see how we can help you today. Let's get back to the conversation. This is one of the things that you know, I've lived in Europe for over 10 years, or over over two decades now, which is pretty. Wow, amazing. Yeah, I didn't even like I came over here wasn't even a three year I was supposed to be on a one year sabbatical, Mike. And I've been in for 21 years a little bit over that. But but one of the things that happened is for over a decade, like I was living in Europe, and that was investing exclusively in the United States. And I kept hearing people say why you can't do that, or the most of the books that I read were like you got to live in your you got to live, reinvest, and be a landlord and all this kind of stuff. And so that was the genesis right of this show. It's transformed like it's in it's in the phase of transforming. But I always come back to the central question, right is, I know that I was doing something that was considered to be very contrarian. And it provided me with results that after, you know, a number of years in my corporate job, I don't ever plan on going back to corporate because I was taking action. And I was acting in a contrarian, quote unquote, way. I'm always curious, because I know you have a very similar philosophy in terms of like, What in the world gave you the audacity to say, Hang on a second, I want to look at this long distance investing thing, I don't actually need to live in the same place as the assets that I own. Because it scares so many people like what, like, how did you find like, like, how did you even get to that point?

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28:16

Yeah, it was, it was, you know, not entirely conscious in that way, it was just really through stepping into real estate. And in the land investing side of things, you literally don't need to have ever set foot on the property, you can just, you know, there's so many tools available nowadays as well in terms of Google Earth, and imaging, and there's even, you know, you can, you can contract people to do things, if you need them to do it, whether like in the land business, there are people that will go out and take photos of properties or put their boots on the ground to coin a phrase, the same as there is in multifamily, right, you have teams of people that are professionals that will go do due diligence, and I highly encourage it, if you're investing in a million plus dollar asset that you have a professional go do it. I mean, I, you know, I could probably find some things in due diligence, but I'm not going to do the depth of the job that somebody else is going to do. Same as like a legal and all this other stuff. And so there's so many resources. But yeah, when we started our, our venture into multifamily, we started educating. And so we read a lot of books, we were attending workshops, and there is this mantra out there that you should invest in your backyard, or a place that you have lived or know very, very well. And to some degree, that makes a lot of sense, right? I mean, you want to understand the market and the forces and the economy and the neighbourhoods and all of those benefits that come along, but they're not insurmountable challenges. Like I said, there's multifamily everybody you know, everybody you speak to will say multifamily is a team sport. It's a team sport and you know, use your team and so on. I have partners, where I have invested in, a lot of our investments are in Texas just because I like it. It's a from there, I understand it. But also, it's a great growth state, there's a lot of people moving to Texas, there's a lot of companies moving to Texas, there's a lot of market forces that are just, you know, green lights for rental properties. But at the same time, I partner with people that are local to the market. Now part of that is just because I know people that live in Texas, and that's where my network is, but it's also the ability of people to go and visit a property if I'm not able to, I still go once a month to Texas. Now part of that my family lives in Texas, my mom and dad are there, my daughters are there. So, you know, it's it's I intentionally have tried to leverage things. So I take a business trip, and hey, I get to visit mom and dad. And but yes, I mean, especially in the world of investing, I mean, you invest in Apple, well, I don't live in apple so that I visit their management meetings every so often, right? I trust in the managers that run the company that are gonna do it. So it's, you know, when you're looking at a single family home, it's a little harder, I think, but even that is, you know, it's doable. You want to do it. So,

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Billy Keels  31:16

yeah. And so this is one of the things that you talk about. And I'm firm believer, right? I mean, this is part of it. And I just want to highlight that you are also recognising one of the things maybe said in different words, but I was believed that if you know what, what benefit what what issue you're attempting to solve, or what destination you're trying to get to from an investing perspective, it's really about making sure that you're clear on that, first and foremost, then you want to go to the locations that are going to give you the highest probability of being able to achieve that benefit. And then in the same way that you believe I also believe that it is like, you have to have a rockstar team, especially when you're not going to live in the location that's going to provide you the benefit, if you don't know and I always say you knowing it, meaning you or your team, and you and or your team. Even better, the team has to be there. And then afterwards, the assets take care of themselves, whether it's land, whether it's you know, multifamily property, whether it's energy equipment, doesn't matter, as long as the personal you know, what's there, you're in the right location, you've got a rockstar team, the opportunities fill themselves. So yeah, so it's so it's great to hear you say that as well. Listen, before we get into the going on final three, there's one thing that I want to also talk to you about because you just hit on it, but talk to us about the power of being able to partner and power of being able to network with others. And how that's helped you.

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32:37

Yeah, I mean, so, you know, I'll start back in, in the corporate world. You know, there's just, you have to have a team, right. And there's, there's formal teams put in place, generally in corporations, and they they form divisions or regions, and all the way down to performance teams. But, you know, in real estate, in particular, we took a conscious decision. So when we decided we were going to go into land, we said, okay, let's find a group, let's find a mentor, let's find a coach, let's pay for things masterminds. Let's, this was our full time. You know, it was intended to be our full time venture. And so it was worth investing, and accelerating our path and leveraging the lessons and the teachings of people that have gone down the path before us. We did the same thing. When we stepped into commercial real estate. We said, this is unfamiliar territory. So let's find a group, a mentor, a coach, and let's, you know, join those and interact with as many people as we can to just absorb their knowledge, their lessons, as well as team with an partner with people that understand disciplines. We don't like, you know, I understand operations. I understand business management, but I don't know the world of legal I don't know, commercial, mortgage brokering, I don't know, so many aspects of property management. I mean, okay, I'm an operations guy, but I've never really done it in a, in a mass rental space. So, you know, all of those things are just essential. They're doable. I'm a big DIY guy, I believe that I can do it. But do I want to take the time and investment to do it and to stumble and fumble along the way, or, you know, something as important as this, especially when I'm bringing other investors into a deal. It needs to start out and fire on all cylinders or as many cylinders as possible, you know, with with key partnerships in place and so I think it's just, you know, it's really an essential aspect of really almost anything, if you think about it, but especially in the world of investing and business.

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Billy Keels  35:03

And this is one of the things once again, I mean, you, you did a wonderful job there being able to tie in corporate experience, right, because a lot of times you win in teams. And it's very infrequent that someone starts in a corporation and makes it to the top without being able to effectively navigate and lead teams of people. And so that's also one of the, you know, general management mindset, being able to understand enough about the things to continue to learn and move forward. But also making sure that you have the right specialists, the right attorney, the right commercial real estate broker, et cetera, et cetera, to be able to detect what's happening, and then be able to drive and move things forward. So appreciate you spending a couple a couple of minutes there on the the power of partnerships and networking. And you know what, we got to get into the going long, final three, Mike. And the thing is, because you're our special guests, I never asked anybody that going long, final three unless you tell me that you're ready. So my question is, are you ready? 100% I knew you were gonna be 100%. Ready? So here we go. So we started with you. Over in the beautiful state of Colorado, I'd like to bring it back to a place where you used to live over here in Europe, onto this side of the pond, because even though I'm from Columbus, Ohio, like this is my adopted home side of the pond now. And so I would love for you to tell us, what is your favourite European city that you've either visited or still on your bucket list to visit?

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36:25

There's so many.

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Billy Keels  36:27

Only one, Mike, only one. Yeah.

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36:29

So my wife and I would say, we get asked this a lot. And our go to answer is Prague. And it's just, you know, for us, it was a magical city to visit. There's it's such a dense collection of old world, I think it's the only city in Europe that didn't get impacted by the wars. You know, so a lot of the a lot of the history and culture and everything is still physically intact. But just an amazing city. It's walkable. It's very, very small and food, drink. People, all that stuff. Love it.

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Billy Keels  37:10

So we got another vote for Prague. Mike, I will tell you my story, not here, because I don't want everybody to hear. But I spent one month in Prague in January of 2006. It was a very cold time. It was also there was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. So awesome. Talking about that. We'll talk about that everybody. Yeah, everybody listen to us. It's Mike and I are gonna talk about Don't worry. Yes. And don't worry, I'm gonna get to question number two. So here's the thing, Mike, the question number two, this really has a lot to do with the good fortune that I've had in terms of being able to meet, understand and gain insight to really successful people. And I consider you to be someone who's very successful, and you've done it globally. And you continue to do that, whether it was a corporate known in your in your own life and talked about the things that you're doing. And so, hopefully, like one of the things that I've recognised with people that are very successful is they unlike most people, when they have a goal in mind, and they set a plan, then they go out and they execute that plan perfectly the first time which is what allows them to actually don't worry, Mike, it's just a joke. Mike is like super cool. Call me like perfectly. I know. And I like to have fun. I like to have fun. Everybody. Everybody knows that. Yeah. So of course, like the reality is, people don't normally get things right, the perfect perfectly the very first time even people like you and I who are perfectionist are recovering perfectionist, it's just the reality. And really the people that are usually making the biggest impact. They make like 20 to 50 times more mistakes than most people a whole lot more mistakes than most people but the react but the reality is, and hopefully you agree with this, like the first stuff was a joke, but this is this is serious. So the every single time that those people that are successful that they make a relevant mistake, every single time they stop, they learn from the mistake. And then what they do after that is pretty amazing. They go out and they put different strategies, tactics and actions in place to minimise the probability of that exact same thing happening again. So I don't want you to think about the mistake that you made or any of that kind of stuff. But what I want you to think about is the mistake that you made what was the lesson that you took away from that mistake because you know that it's going to help to positively impact someone today that's listening or watching us here in the go along podcast. What is that one lesson you want to share with this

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39:35

guy? I appreciate that appreciate the way you phrased it as well just because I'm not a person that dwells on the past, but I like to learn from it and move on. I don't I don't like to harbour regrets or anything like that. But, you know, for me one very, very relevant one that I that I really would like to impart upon your audience or anybody venturing into the world of investing in real estate is it is super critical to Know Who is leading your if it's a syndication, your syndication or your your business venture, one of our early mistakes was being so eager to join deals that we would just join deals. And so we were at the, you know, it was it was fortunate and a bit of randomness in terms of, you know, what would a deal be successful or not, because I will say, you know, once you start looking at real estate investments, you will all get the glossy marketing pitches and brochures and the promise of return on your investment. And that's all great, that's on paper. In the real world. As soon as you step into a business plan, just like they say, you know, everybody's got a plan until you get punched in the mouth, where you're gonna get punched in the mouth. And so it's really critical to know that whoever is leading your deal, has the resiliency to go through that. And they're going to meet the challenge with the character and values that you want. On your side, you don't want somebody that's going to become defensive or shrink away, or you know, where you want somebody that's going to lean in, it's going to pull a team together, that's going to overcome challenges as quickly as possible. And so today, when we join, partnerships, we do as good a job as we can a vetting who is going to be leading that deal. And ideally, I want to personally know them, I want to have a history with them. I want to know, have they been successful? And what same kind of questions, What were their mistakes? How did they overcome them? Those kinds of things. And so I have a lot of people reach out, everybody's looking for equity and investors, and we have a pool of investors, and I won't just step into a deal if I don't know that person. And so, you know, if you're asking me today to join a deal that's going to close, in the next weeks or months, I'm not going to do it. Right. And I will start a relationship and I will start to understand, you know, how are you underwriting your deal and things like that. So, you know that that's a big lesson, because we have had deals go sideways before and the team has had to come together and and replace the lead and you know, whoever was leading and say, hey, that's fine, we're going to take over and we're going to do things a little differently now. But it's it's, they're tough lessons, but they're good.

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Billy Keels  42:15

I appreciate you sharing that. And you know, really knowing who's leading the deal, or the opportunity, or whatever it is that you're a part of, is something that's really kid critical. And then also, if someone's running to you at the last minute, and this has got to close in the next couple of days, it's probably a pretty bad sign anyway. So I appreciate you imparting that, and, and just helping us to recognise some of the different red flags. So this is going to start to take us home. Question number three, it's also about filling our minds with knowledge might help us understand what is the one book that you would recommend to the going live family today?

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42:45

We've touched on it throughout the podcast, but a really powerful book, for me is a book called Mindset. And it's by Carol Dweck. And it's all about a growth mindset. And it's easy to think about in the world of business or investing. But it really touches so many areas of your life, from your relationships, to your parenting style, to your philosophies on other things. It's just a, it was so transformative to me and exactly the point that we talked about earlier in reframing this concept of failure. And it's not failure. It's about growth, you know, and so, man highly recommended. Great read it no matter in what discipline you're interested in, in life.

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Billy Keels  43:27

All right, fantastic. So mindset. Carol Dweck, we're gonna include that in the show notes, don't worry, everybody, just click and you'll be able to find the book. And, you know, I'm thinking about from the very beginning of our conversation, and you sharing with us, as you mentioned before, you know, having a mother as a teacher and father as an entrepreneur and being able to see that, you know, when you're in the Dallas Fort Worth area. From there, you were able to get into the to the corporate track, and you were in areas that we're in growth mode. You've also lived through, you know, real life situations, end of a marriage, and then also recognising and saying to yourself, you know, what life presented you with an opportunity. So you took that opportunity, had a chance to go overseas, make a business impact also had a real life impact, being able to recognise that come back to the States. And then at that time, you and your new wife are also recognising that, hey, listen, I started happening again, and it gave you an opportunity life presented you with another new opportunity, which was to say, Okay, well now, am I going to just get the resume already again, and go back and do the things that I've been doing? Or do I really want to find a larger purpose and really start to live out the days that I want to the days that I never have to feel like I have to take a vacation from right and so as you continue to do that, now you've recognised that it's not just about the things that you want to do, but also the other lives that you can impact. And so as you're designing and building your life as you're in your dream destination, and you're continuing to be able to have your business trips and go back to Dallas and do that in a long distance, long distance way being able to continue to maintain family relationships, continuing to network to build new business relationships. These are all positive aspects of your life Mike and things that people aren't I know, but every part of the going on family thinking ourselves, wow, this is amazing. Like yeah, Billy, but just ask him the question man like asking the question. So help us understand Mike, all this awesome stuff you've done. Help us understand how can the going along family find out more about you get in touch with you, as well as no more out what they can do with debt and equity partners.

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45:26

Yeah, for sure. We're all about helping transform people's lives now. Whether they invest directly with us, or we just help them with a little bit of wisdom. But we've put together a landing page on our website. So it's debt and equity partners.com forward slash freedom. And that's a one stop shop for everybody. We have our contact info if you want to email. My wife and I are both up there, we have a few helpful resources. If you're interested in land investing and what that's all about, we've got a little teaser on what that's about same thing with multifamily. So you can land there. And depending on what your interest level is, or your level of engagement, you can pretty much fine whatever you want there. So it's kind of something we hope just to throw out to

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Billy Keels  46:09

people. Alright, fantastic. So we'll make that once again, don't worry, everybody stop freaking out, we'll make it really easy. Didn't equity partners.com forward slash freedom. All you have to do is click a link and it'll be really, really easy. So listen, Mike, I just would like to thank you so much for deciding to invest your time with me in the entire going long family. So thank you, thank you very much. Really appreciate it.

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46:29

Yeah, thank you. All right. Awesome. So

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Billy Keels  46:31

give me just a couple seconds. I just want to wrap things up with go on family. I'll get you out of here. So listen, go on family. I mean, look, Mike, I don't think he could have shared more information, right? He's giving you the things to help you in terms of mindset help you in terms of being able to take action, even giving you a free resource that you can go to his landing page, check it out. And I know that you're going to want to share today's conversation with other people share the episode, you know, somebody needs to hear the story that Mike just shared with you the resources that he has, and also start to take this information and put it into action so that you can gain more practical knowledge. And so while you're doing that, and sharing the conversation from today, I'll be here preparing the next conversation. So until then, gotta make it a great day. And thank you very much. Trust that you enjoy today's conversation. And once again, today's conversation was sponsored by first generation Capital Partners. If you're an accredited investor want to find out more about how we're helping accredited investors to gain their personal freedom even faster. Go to firstgencp.com forward slash going long.

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