SUMMARY KEYWORDS

multifamily, investors, business, learned, deals, investing, day, life, ivan, vian, people, anthem, mentorship, call, goal, listen, dream, man, oklahoma city, talk

SPEAKERS

Billy Keels

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Billy Keels  00:18

All right Ivan, sorry about that. Here we go boom boom All right, there we go. There we go. There we go. Cool. Well, today has been a fun fun, fun fun afternoon. So you're in Oklahoma City, right? I'm not gonna say I'm sorry. How are things in Oklahoma City this morning?

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00:48

Go you better man. Gonna be better I'm enjoying it.

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Billy Keels  00:52

I think you you're the most positive man on earth. I like that. Yeah. Gotta be right. Absolutely, absolutely. Sorry man. I'm kind of I've got this like head fog going on thing which is a little bit strange. And we I know Not we. I planned these meetings today. These conversations today and I just got off a flight from from the United States. I'm back in Barcelona. I just arrived this morning. And I realized, and I realized it with my dad on Father's Day and I'm like, Oh, hang on. He's on Tuesday. Oh, guess who forgot to do it. But no, we're good. We're good. We're good. Cool. I figure it's better to have these conversations and be able to connect. I don't like when things happen at the last minute if I can avoid them. And so this is just it's about being here and being present and meeting very cool people. So Ivan, you got a lot of stuff. A lot of positive things that you have been doing my team, of course, sent over a bunch of stuff. I don't know if you can see that there. They did a lot of research on you and you make it pretty easy. I like to take a couple notes and then just have a conversation with you, man. It's just a normal conversation, stuff like that. I don't know if you've ever heard of us by any chance before my team reached out to you? Probably not. But I thought I would ask.

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02:20

I have not. No, I'm not. I'm excited to get to know you more actually. It sounds like you have a good thing going on. In Barcelona.

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Billy Keels  02:28

Yeah, man. You know, I came actually came to Europe. When I was here. Back in 2001. I went to I went to Paris, France on a one year sabbatical. It has been 21 years. I left Paris and moved to a town called monopoly which is down in the south. It's about an hour from nice on the Riviera ended up meeting this really cool cute Spanish woman. She is from Barcelona. Surprise, surprise. Well, I'm now living in Barcelona. But when she came back here, I actually moved to Italy. Because they I was working for an IT company in the hardware side of things. And they sent me to Italy to start up a sales team. So I was living in an island and started called Sardinia, which was fantastic. Living on the south side of the island. She and I stayed in touch. I went back to France. She didn't want to move back to France. And I was like well, Barcelona is pretty cool city. So I moved here and I've been living here since July of 2005. Wow. Yeah.

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03:26

After the call. I'm going to ask a little favor because I'm taking my family to Barcelona, then Madrid and then Papa Nona. July 4. Like two weeks from now. Oh, like

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Billy Keels  03:37

no way. Oh, cool. Yeah, okay. Okay.

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03:41

It's been on like my dream board and it's about to go down dude and you're there.

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Billy Keels  03:49

I love that that's on your dream board and your man is awesome. That is awesome. Yeah, I'd be happy to happy to chat happy to tell us. Yeah, let's let's definitely do that. Let's definitely do that. Um, couple things. So it's it's iven Vian. Is that the last name is that iron Vita, okay. I've invited so here's the thing. Can you tell I've been living in Europe for 21 years? Because I have friends that are here. They're calling their names are Yvonne. And it's written except it's an A instead of an E, which you'll hear when you get here. Okay. iven Vian

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04:26

okay, you can say that I'm balanced that by inviting everybody says what

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Billy Keels  04:36

I've been buying okay okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna try to not mess it up. I've invited so that's awesome. So other thing did you happen to see the video that the team sent to you by any chance? Ah,

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04:53

yep the five questions 90 minute video five question then your your avatar dude, I'm talking to you.

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Billy Keels  04:59

Javier. You got it. You got it. Yeah, this has been his attention to detail like to the nth degree. I like that. I like that. Love it. Okay. No, that's perfect. That's perfect. Is there anything that you absolutely want us to talk talk about Ivan.

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05:19

Man, I don't know. I kind of like the free flow, see where it goes. You know, and, um, but I think I don't know if you saw the military 20 year military guy. Yep. I'm focused on asset man operational side of things. I can talk a lot about operations. And a lot of my talk is about how my military experience directly crossed over into my multifamily experience but to your audience, you know, I want to add value to your audience. And you know, that I can bore them details of operations, but at the end of the day, it's about how can multifamily investing, passive investing, help them achieve their dreams or if they want to live? Right?

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Billy Keels  05:56

Correct. And you know, a lot of that what I found is that the the specificity that you can provide people because sometimes people you know this they don't want to ask questions that they don't feel make they feel uncomfortable. So, if when we have an expert that can sorry about that, just turn to the air conditioning unit and yours going a little bit nuts. We have an expert that we can actually hear from that we would normally not ask questions. So if you start to go what you may perceive as a bit deeper I'll let you go if it gets too deep. I'll stop you don't worry. Yeah, okay. You keep going. I have an idea as to where where people want to hear and listen and I appreciate your your mindset and being able to add value to the to the audience. For whatever reason, I am calling like I said, I've got a fog here going on. So if you see me every once in a while just like cough or I'll maybe go on mute or something like that. I think it's just from the from being on the plane, man. But it's it's all good. Anything you absolutely want us to talk about anything you absolutely don't want us to talk about.

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06:57

Nothing really comes to mind.

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Billy Keels  06:58

Okay, I don't know any of your deep dark secrets anyway. I've been so it's okay.

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07:08

Your is your audience man the Europeans

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Billy Keels  07:10

No, no, no, no, sorry. Great, great. Great question. So we have about 50% of what we understand is listening from outside of the United States. What I can tell you is 100% of the audience is interested in investing in the United States. So yeah, I mean, like, for instance, the majority of people that will reach out to me are based in the United States. Even though I live in Europe. Everybody knows I live in Europe and the audience numbers are 50% outside of the United States. What we see is the people that our most active for lack of a better term, our our US based school, okay? I'm really, Ivan Biden, Biden. iven Biden, iven Biden, I just have to say what, I'm gonna walk away for a second. All right, Mr. iven Vian Let's rock and roll because if not, I'm gonna do this all right. iven Vian. All right, here we go. Just gonna change this really quickly. A retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Correct. Yeah. Okay. I think I did do it enough. iven Vian that I won't screw it up. I can't guarantee that it's all good. If I do this correctly, it's all good. I don't, I don't get offended by myself anymore. When I was younger, I used to think I was perfect and then I and then I grew up, right? Life is like man, such as like, no idea. We rock and roll. So Andy is the guy who's listening to us and watching us, Andy. Today is June the 21st. This is our 5pm Central European recording time. We have our guest today is Mr. iven Vian, and let's just hope that I actually pronounced it correctly when we do the intro. But so far, so good. It was that 58 times that I repeated it when I walked around the room. I think that's it. I think we're ready to go. We're gonna rock and roll. And here we go you know what, if you want to know how attention to detail, and operating with military precision can be the catalyst to your long distance investing success? Then guess what? Today's a conversation you're gonna want to listen to until the very last word. You know why? Because today's guest is not only a retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel. He also has his Bachelor of Science in Engineering Mechanics and an MBA in international finance. That is music to my ears. By the way. He also has a very strong focus on business plan execution. And he is the founder of Anthem capital. It gives me great pleasure to welcome to today's conversation, Mr. iven Vian. iven Welcome to show man.

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10:39

Thank you for having me, Billy. I'm very excited to be here today. Appreciate the opportunity to get to share to your listening audience.

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Billy Keels  10:45

You know, it's gonna be fantastic. I can already tell you love your energy, love your focus, love your attention to detail and I am absolutely sure that the going long family is going to get massive value out of today's conversation. No pressure, no pressure, by the way, but you know what, we're gonna have a we're gonna have a great conversation. No, we're gonna learn a lot and also, you got some pretty awesome things you got going on man, which is which is phenomenal. So I've been you know that everybody here gets five questions. You're gonna get two in the beginning. You're gonna get three in the end in the middle. actually gonna get more questions. I just don't know what those questions are so far, man. It's gonna depend on really on you to be quite honest. So but here's the thing I do would I would love for us to get started and really question number one is to help us understand where is it that you are living in the United States?

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11:36

Great question. I can answer that one. I live in Oklahoma. City, Oklahoma. I've been here for nine years. Air Force brought me here got dug in build some roots and haven't left since so Oklahoma City. All right, love

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Billy Keels  11:50

that. Absolutely love that lot going on in Oklahoma City. We all know that. And if not, I'm sure you're gonna tell us even more. Now. The other thing? Question number two really has to do with starting out with some positivity man. And I would really love for you to share with this. I've been what's the most positive thing that's happened to you in the last 24 hours?

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12:08

Or the thing that has happened to me the last 24 hours, man, I am part of a mastermind group that talks about just this and one of the aha moments I had, which were really working on the inner world and learning to manage your thought life correctly. You know, we're really about we're really about, you know, trying to avoid the negative thoughts so we can maintain this inner positive vibe going on. But why is it when we have positive things happen all sudden, our excitement level jumps up, right? Why does that also have an impact on us? The AHA moment is this doesn't matter what is happening positively or negatively. I'm always in a position to control how I feel on the inside. That's deep already like that. Right? But that like really opened me up a little bit. I was like, it's not just the negative but it's also the positive I should not let it affect me. I'm always can manage that, based upon my thoughts and how I think through things

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Billy Keels  13:12

great and so as a philosophy there dude, don't take don't get too high on the highs and too low on the lows.

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13:17

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I would put it like that. Okay.

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Billy Keels  13:22

Perfect, perfect, perfect. So I'm trying to actively listen to every once in a while, because that's what my wife and kids told me. So no, so listen. So here's the thing, also to Ivan and I know we're just meeting one another, but I tend to be pretty transparent. And I have to be all you can relate to this too, because you've got a really high standard. So I hold myself to a really high standard, and sometimes it makes me do things that are like impossible. Like, sort of impossible, like trying to give your introduction and your entire backstory in like two and a half seconds. Yeah, I tried to do that right. And that's almost impossible. You've done way too much. You've impacted way too many lives. So what I was hoping to do is ask you very first thing is kind of a favor. I know you don't normally ask for favors right away, but I am going to ask you to tell your own backstory, in your own words kind of helped me because I couldn't do it in two and a half seconds. And then also too, if you would mind if you'd be open to also telling us about some of the major decisions that you've made along the way. And then you will see where you and I take the conversation from there.

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14:22

All right, and what two minutes

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Billy Keels  14:24

you can take whatever time you want. If it gets too long, I'll stop you don't worry. You go ahead and talk to talk to us about who you are. Give us your backstory in your own words, man.

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14:32

Absolutely. Well, so as you mentioned, retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel I just retired from Air Force last October of 21.

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Billy Keels  14:43

Thank you very much for for thank you

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14:45

as well. Appreciate it. Thank you. Feels good to be on the other side, but it felt good on that sound as well. Been out long enough to grow my post military beard, so I feel good about that as well. But man, you know, I always knew what I wanted. When I was a little kid. And I had a vision. I had a goal. I didn't plan it for it. It just kind of happened. My dad the Perifoveal experienced virtual airshow I saw the Thunderbirds fly and I said that's what I want to do, you know, and let me tell you, man, like, but I wasn't given all the tools. I wasn't given all the I didn't have access to that opportunity. But I was able to have a goal, right? And so there's a lot of challenges I had to overcome throughout the way, you know, and but I just stayed steadfast on my goal. And even through all the ups and downs, I was able to get there, right I was able to achieve my dream. And that taught me something early on in life that when you have a goal, you have a vision for your life. You have a dream and you stay steadfast on that you'll get there eventually. You know, it doesn't have to take a long time it is through my learning experience. It have taken a little bit longer than I wanted but one of my goals was I want to go to Air Force Academy so bad like it was like something I just thought about every day, you know, to the point where I remember my buddy in high school, he was going to the Air Force Academy to visit because his his older brother was looking to go there and I said dude, bring me back something to nurses Air Force Academy, please. And he brought back this granite rock and I put this granite rock in my right pocket. And I just kept it there every day to make it feel make make it feel like I was actually experienced in Air Force Academy as I was actually there, you know? And like, even though I didn't get the perfect score on the SATs, I wasn't like this and that I didn't get accepted right out of high school. There's a whole story there. Eventually I got to the Air Force Academy, you know, and I got the Air Force calves like I wanted to fly airplanes so bad man. Like that was the thing. I wanted to be a pilot. And so I just worked and worked and worked and worked and I got the pilot training. I wanted to be a fighter pilot, but I didn't make I didn't I didn't make that I ended up being a b one bomber pilot, you know, but I ended up getting my goal, right? Even though there's all these challenges along the way, right? And so, here I am. I'm 35 I'm fine at 24,000 feet my b1 Bomber. He was on a training mission somewhere over somewhere over West Texas and one day I funny, like I just had this moment in the sky. I was like, Oh my God. I'm here. Like, I wanted the Air Force Academy. I wanted to be a pilot. And I'm here I'm like, now what? You know now what do I do with my life? Well, that time I was investing in single family properties. I was learning about cash flow. I was learning about passive income. I had this whole other dream that I was starting to build. But then I also learned about the power of what what it is in the power of multifamily investing and what that can do to impact your life in a tremendous way because of economy economies of scale, doing more doing bigger, right? And I was like dude, I want to be a full time multifamily investor by time I retired from the Air Force. That is my new goal. That is my purpose. That is what I want to do with my life. And I just said a plan at that point in time was like, I don't know how I'm going to get there. I don't know how it's gonna happen, but I know what I want. And I went for it and in that decision there caused me to kind of like, prioritize my life what I wanted to do, I knew I wanted to be a full time investor. I didn't want to be a four star general. You know, I didn't want to be a colonel. I want to do my I wanted to give I wanted to do my part I wanted to serve. I wanted to finish what I started 20 years and Air Force was my goal. But I wanted to find a way to to build passive income on the side while I'm serving the Air Force, even to the point where I can do that full time. Right. And so I set out a plan to do that. And once I can go into or we can just

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Billy Keels  18:48

well, we can definitely yeah, I mean, we can we can definitely jump into that. But so there's a couple of things that you that that I think is really interesting, right? So, number one, you talked about being able to have this idea that you you know you when you went with your dad that you saw these guys flying planes, and you thought, wow, you know, this is something that I want to do like that was a dream of yours. And so I know that a lot of people have these dreams in their mind, but never really write them down. So they're just kind of this nebulous, kind of things. So I'm just out of curiosity, when you said that you wanted to be a pilot Did you ever write that down? Somewhere for yourself to see it visually? Well,

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19:28

now the side story so um, you know, I'm six at this point in time I'm seven I'm a but later on in high school. I learned about goal setting and smart goals, all that kind of stuff, right? But I didn't write it down necessarily beginning but what I did do is this. The State Fair was every summer, and I knew they had recruiting booths there and at the recruiting booths, they had posters of airplanes, and I was sneaking into the stage and go get all these posters, and I'll take these posters. put pictures of airplanes on my wall, all around my room, you know, and I would see what I wanted there in front of me. And I had a picture of the Air Force Academy now I would see it there Right. Later on in high school. Yeah, you learn about goal setting, you learn about the power of what that is,

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Billy Keels  20:11

but and so it's, I guess in my mind, it's the same thing. It's a visual representation, right? Because when you're six or you're 12, you don't know about writing that down. But what you did was, you knew that that was something that you were passionate about and you wanted to see it. That's it in the thing that you learned later in life is if you can see it, you can believe it. You have to write it down. You have to create a plan. Et cetera, et cetera. So yeah, are you even early on you understood the power of being able to see what it is that you wanted to do? You eventually got into the academy you said that you wanted to be that you? You wanted to be a fighter pilot you weren't b one bomber pilot I think that is a fantastic but you said at 35 You already realized the life dream. And you wanted to create passive income. So for me, there's kind of like this mental disconnect. I'm like, hang on a second. I get that you got your life goal, but how in the world is real estate even get into the whole picture? You're right and I don't get I don't get that were how they were

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21:12

just kind of jumped it that night right? Well, man, you know like, always had the corner my mind like saw myself want to be a business guy to almost like almost didn't there was a party that almost didn't do their force thing because my mom had a little grocery store with God was a kid and she ran her own business. I kind of had that. You know that I was growing up in that environment a little bit, you know? And so, but again, I'm serving an Air Force at that point in my mind. Well, I moved from I was getting relocated from Rapid City, South Dakota to Abilene, Texas, and I show up in Abilene, Texas, and I'm staying at my mother's house. And she said, Hey, there's this lady down the street and he's going through divorce, and she really needs to sell her house fast. And I know you've been I've been talking about business for a while and I've been talking about real estate. I showed some interest and she's she said, You know, I know you've been expressing interest in real estate once you go down there and knock on our door and see what you can do. Like

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Billy Keels  22:09

alright, what I got to lose, and this is your mother in law telling you right? My

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22:12

mom telling me this? So I go down and knock on his door. And I say yes ma'am. My name is Ivan. You know, I'm trying to somehow say hey, what do you want for it? Well, long story short. I bought that house that day on paper for like $33,000 It was a really good condition and needed like four or 5000 to rehab. ended up renting it for about $900 You know and after and I got a loan from the bank at 90%. And they gave me a 90% loan to cost and I had to come about 10% out of pocket to close that deal.

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Billy Keels  22:46

So you know, I didn't know. your out of pocket for less than $5,000

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22:52

I didn't know anything about real estate. I just kind of stumbled into it. I got lucky because I didn't know if I was paying too much for that house. I had no idea right. And but then I got the book. I was like, Oh my God, there's something to this real estate game like this is pretty cool. I'm already like building passive income. I got some equity built into this deal. And then I'll go on this journey of learning about what I just did, you know, and the next one though, this deal

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Billy Keels  23:20

just out of curiosity, did you know those words when you actually bought the property so like you're in for you've got this additional equity build up and you've got this cash flow going on? Did you know that vocabulary

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23:30

know about rich dad poor dad at the time I didn't know about his Cashflow Quadrant, right. And so

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Billy Keels  23:35

what I what I've been what I love about this part of your story, and I want other people to it, because a lot of times we can get into this thought where you already have this master plan. You have this big, you know you've got all the right words, you've got all the right metrics. But many times in some of you may be listening or watching for the very first time today thinking to yourself Well, you know, I've also had this kind of idea and I don't know how I came across this podcast and now I'm hearing this guy who's got you know, he's doing great things. But he also started because he wanted to get into business and he was talking to his mother in law knew that there was something happening down the street, and he had the gumption to walk down the street. Listen to what his mother in law said and start a conversation. Yeah, he didn't have a master plan. He had an idea. He wanted to get into business and probably read a couple books or heard some stuff on real estate, and just took action, action and so I think this is I think this is important even before you talk about the next story just to help everybody recognize that we're all in different places. And of course, as you start to scale and a lot of things that you are a master at today on the operational excellence side. You probably didn't know that stuff in the beginning but you don't know what you don't know you probably couldn't fly a plane the first time you got in but you went through a process and you learned and you became you mastered that skill set. So sorry, I cut you off but I thought it was important just to

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24:51

know that is the key takeaway take action, but I think even which my next story is going to get into another very valid point that I need to make is that you don't have to do this on your own. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. I don't even know like you know, mentorship existed at the time. I didn't know that there's real estate investor mentorship programs, you could be right, if I want to know and I'm going to done that. But to your point there are many that get involved in these groups and learn all information yet they still don't take action. Like the biggest way I've learned in my life when I don't know a damn thing about business is just simply doing it like doing it is the best way to learn and the best teacher out there. You know, and I can talk more about how I got into multifamily.

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Billy Keels  25:40

So yeah, you know, I do want to get into multifamily. But what I want to kind of just paint as a background is you today you're in multifamily, but if if I understand correctly, you had done over 125 Single Family transactions is that correct? Or something to that effect?

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25:55

Yeah. I had a little had a little stint of real estate investing Abilene in a kind of neutral. Had a regroup start over I moved from Abilene to Oklahoma City to start my new job and full time reservists and Air Force I said, Man, I'm gonna make it happen. I know I learned my lessons. I got educated got mentorship. I'm gonna start over in Oklahoma City. I hit the ground running about about several rental properties and I ran out of capital. My broker said Get your real estate license and sell some houses or intimate capital to finally get my real estate license. And one day said meet me at Chili's at 12 o'clock didn't tell me why I show up at Chili's in my flight suit in like he's having this business meeting with who I later learned is my going into my first client who is now my business partner today and multifamily. So we had this interaction. I call that client the next day and I said hey, man, let's go buy some houses and my broker didn't even teach me what how to log into the MLS man. He's just said go sell some houses, you know, but at that point time I already had experience investing single family and I knew how to instruct I knew how to teach because I was instructing the Air Force. I transferred everything I knew to my client. He caught on just like that. And it was off to the races in two years time that one client bought 44 houses from me. Then I have five clients total and that two years time total. I sold 99 houses as an investor realtor and all I was doing is on my lunch breaks and after work. I was going opening the door to investment properties doing a quick eval making offers until we we got we got an offer accepted and that's that right there elevated my investing career because I earned a lot of capital and I was able to get about 30 homes, reinvesting on that capital and leveraging into those deals.

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Billy Keels  27:45

So what did that teach you about? And I mean, what did that teach you about the investing side of the business while you were on the sales side of the business?

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27:58

What did teach me about the investing side of the business well yeah, because I'm putting, you know, you understand everyone Yeah, me as an investor realtor, have to understand what is my client's investment criteria what they're looking for, right?

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Billy Keels  28:11

But so sorry, one thing real quick, I haven't. And I want everybody to listen with Ivan's getting ready to say because I'm intentionally asking him a question because he is someone in as he's telling the story. He is on the buy sell side of things, but he's also recognizing something that's happening so what I want him to help you all understand is he was on the buy sell side of things, but at the same time he is becoming an investor. So I'm wanting to understand how he's doing the buy sell side of things, helping him to become an even better investor, because that's eventually going to help where he is today. So So, sorry to cut that off. I

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28:49

have to sell 99 houses I had to look at about 800 how to evaluate 800 deals.

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Billy Keels  28:56

800 everybody. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely.

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29:00

Definition. The power of repetition is how you learn. And we got so good at it. I invented this phrase called the predictive model I was able to predict when the asset managers who were holding on to these distressed properties like a bank, it has an asset manager and on a quarterly basis by how much they're going to drop that price on a percentage basis, you know, eight to 10% if they held it for like 60 to 90 days I got so good. I could predict exactly what that price shot was going to be and when to strike and make my offer and get the offer accepted. Like through repetition through immersion, immersing yourself into the environment of what you want and what you desire. You will learn and you will grow and you'll get what you want. But it's that commitment you have to make to get the result that you want and I made a commitment to do that. And so here I am serving five people and had this rule I would make sure they're all full. They all got 10 Before I got one, you know because I was essentially kind of competing against him. I didn't want to have any conflict of interest but I was serving my client first before I got mine is right is the key. takeaway there. And but I got really good in understanding my market at the ground level, right. I became a student of the business and that easily. I was taking my learning experiences serving my clients, and I easily leverage that into my own investment experience. So I was able to find good deals, and I was able able to understand how much it would actually cost to rehab a deal that is critical that rehab component, understanding that right. And that was how I was able to actually buy the single family investment properties and make sure I would buy them and earn money. What I say five different ways equity capture, principle pay down cash flow, tax shelter, and capital gains. I was able to get get why I made a return on my investment five different ways on single family properties multifamily six different ways force appreciation is a sixth one, but it's just through the power of repetition through the power of immersion through the power of being committed. I was able to get really really really good at my business.

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Billy Keels  31:15

Okay, fantastic. And so this one of the things I've been this this helps us right because as there are many high paid busy professionals that are thinking okay, yeah, Billy, but he's telling us about all of his experience and how he's doing this, but I'm really busy. I'm not going to be doing any of that. So this is the reason that it's important to listen to Ivan story is when you are working with someone who is a local location expert. He's just told you the different repetitions that he has done so even though you don't plan on doing what Ivan did, he's just giving you insight to some of the questions that you should be asking someone when you are looking to place your capital with them. In a particular maybe if you're looking at a syndication things like that, because he's talking to you about the level of experience that he's had. He's talking to you about where he came from, which was the the single family residence space 800 Is what he just mentioned as as an as an estimation number of deals seen right? That's repetition. That seeing he had his own predictive model that helped him understand when was the best strike price, et cetera, et cetera. But then, Ivan, what I'd like you to do is say, okay, yeah, that's where you built your expertise. But then you've also from there, you've taken it somewhere else. You've taken it to a new part. You've gone from the single family residence into more of the commercial residential space. So talk to us about what that transition was like and kind of how you're using a lot of the skill set from the military to really drive as much value as you as you can today with anthem capital.

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32:45

Okay, absolutely. Great question. So I learned a few lessons single family, one that you have, it's important to have a mentor or be tied to the hip of someone who has gone there before you right? And so I was part of a mentorship program that taught me what I needed to know the basics and invest in single family and that mentorship program I learned about the multifamily model. I said, Whoa, that is where I actually need to be not the single family model but through my own limiting beliefs at the time, which I believe I later learned that were completely false. I didn't go right into multifamily went to single family. I wish I would have done multifamily, but that's neither here nor there. Okay. And so, here I am in 2016 We're still underwriting single family deals. I'm like man, they're not penciling out they're not penciling out. And my my best client who's not my business partner, Trisha sitar. He and I remember it was like it was a cold dark day on the back was some, you know, distressed house in Oklahoma City. Like what do you want to do? And I said, Man, I know about this multifamily mentorship program and Dallas coming up. You want to come join me? Let's go check it out. We went to Dallas in March of 2016 sat through the two day event and right down the spot. I knew that's where it was my time I needed to join this program. So we joined that program in March 2016. Again, the same principles that I was putting in my single family investing I was using the same principles of mindset into my multifamily investing. committed to being committed, become a student, learning the business inside and out, you know, learning the business from ground up. We jumped right into this business. I ended up starting to sell off all my single family nine months into multifamily investing. We got our first multifamily deal to under 14 units total. Three properties we bought at the same time, man I don't That was crazy, stupid or just good man. But we learned a

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Billy Keels  34:42

lot it was what it was, was what it was

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34:45

50 unit 65 and 99 and Oklahoma City area and that's where we cut our teeth and learned and learn and learn and I've never stopped learning I become a student of this business. I've immersed myself into this business to build what we have today. Nine months after that we bought 111 unit nine months after that a turner tenure kept buying buying buying. To date anthem capital's acquired roughly $200 million of real estate value we've raised around $70 million in equity, around 2300 doors that we have purchased. We've been in the business for six years we have now exited nine deals are in the process of selling for more properties this year. We'll have 13 deals full cycle by the end of this year, projected basis, assuming those deals closed. And so I've learned a lot in my time and I was doing most of my multifamily investing while I was in the Air Force Reserves serving full time as a reservist, right? And so with anthem capital, there's two founders Tareekh and me Tareekh he manages the transactional side of things buying the asset and selling the asset. I handle everything in between. I'm the operations person that makes sure we execute the business plan to ensure

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Billy Keels  35:59

so I just saw just on that when you talk about executing the business plan that for some people, maybe it's the first time they're not sure what that may seem that break that down. What does that mean? So nobody gets left behind in this do that. Yeah, what is what I'm gonna share

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36:12

with an analogy because I'm a bomber pilot and the sub bomber pilots think man and and hopefully this hopefully this comes across if if I bomb it, no pun intended. Let me know I'll find another way. Okay, you'll be alright bomber pilots. This is what we do. We understand that what's our target? What are we trying to do? And then build a plan from our target backwards. So then we are able to get from point A to point Z again. What are we trying to achieve? What's our main objective? What building we're trying to take out and then we determine a plan from that building backwards where we need to drop the bomb so fly through the air to hit that building. Try to keep it very simple. Okay. In a similar fashion, in the multifamily business and apartment business, what is our intended target? What is our intended objective? My objective for my investors is to make sure we meet or exceed the projected returns that we told our investors that we're going to hit okay. In this case, it's 100% total return in five years or 10% cash on cash on an annualized cash, cash on cash basis, and then I devise a plan to make sure that we're able to hit those returns to get from point A to point Z. And so we build a business plan to do that. And the way we implement our business plan is by aligning ourselves partnering with third party property management companies. They're the ones that actually executing the business plan. They're on the on the ground level at the property every day, writing leases, collecting the money, repairing the property, etc. So I take my military experience of leading and managing people and therefore I lead and manage the property management company to make sure they implement the plan and ensure we meet or exceed or investors projected returns or we hit the target the end of the day that did that job.

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Billy Keels  38:02

It makes sense to me. What I want to make sure and let us know. So now they'll let us know they'll they'll send the comments they'll let us know in the reviews if it all makes sense. But yes, it makes sense. And I like the little analogy there as well. It ties in home it ties the home pretty tightly. You talked about it before already. But I just I'm just curious also to maybe before we get into the going long final three. Success is something that you can engineer, right. And you've talked about some of the different milestones that you have collectively been able to achieve for your investors for your company. But talk to us about how you specifically go about engineering success. Into the processes into the goals that you are the objective that you propose to investors, things like that. So the

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38:59

question is like, from a business standpoint, how we're able to achieve success for my investors

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Billy Keels  39:04

well or just how you engineer success in general for your, for me personally, right? Yeah, I guess for you, for you personally, but thinking about how is that because I know you have a lot of what the things that you're doing, how it impacts others. So how are you engineering, that success through your company through the actions that you are that you're taking?

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39:21

Yeah, there's a lot to discuss there, right. I mean, a lot of it's just all principle based at the end of the day, right? I mean, there's a saying, If you help enough people get what they want, you get what you want, right? So one thing is just an attitude of how you approach your life. And I've always approached it because of my 20 years of service I wanted to serve my country always wanted to give always wanted to be part of something bigger than myself. Right? In my world today. You know, I I take full responsibility for what my investors want to do with their investment. They have a purpose behind it, right. And that that, to me is what motivates me to do what I want to do because at the end of the day, we all want to make an impact and I don't want to, I was able to realize my dream life through the power of real estate investing. I know how powerful real estate investing is. So I therefore also care about my investors purpose of what they want to do with their investment. Right. And so that's where my focus is, is my investors, and how can I serve them best, right? And I mean, on the back end, I'm totally revamping our entire marketing system on tart like end to end back end so that I can improve the investor experience overall. I'm taking the data, I'm taking the notes of filed areas for improvement. Our main thing is focused on the investors right and so that's the attitude is like, if you're if you have an attitude of serving and giving, you're gonna get the end of the day. So that's, that's one. Another thing is you got to know what you want. You got to know what you want. It has to be with conviction and clarity of what you want. And you know, there may be a lot of people out there today that they're successful in their work life, but they're not successful and their whole life. Maybe they don't want actually all of what they have. They and they're in this rat race, if you will, like they have this lifestyle if they can't keep up with their work life, that they can't maintain this lifestyle. What they thought maybe seemingly would bring them happiness and fulfillment, but it doesn't. Right. What they really want is more freedom to really make decisions for themselves to live life on their own terms. Right? And if that's what you want, then there's a way to do that. For me. I found it through passive investing. For me, I found that through actually having my own company in business that brings me tremendous fulfillment because I get to touch a lot of people in the apartment business, not just the tenants, but everyone that it takes to buy one of these assets all the way to my investors, but again, it goes back to knowing what you want, and then committing to that. And then allow yourself I mean, there's ways to manage the teddy bears ways and manage to get through that process where you don't have to go you know, cold turkey headfirst and not knowing how you you know, there's ways to get from your nine to five job to maybe maybe a nine to two job and have three or four more hours to do something you're truly passionate about in life, man, like that thing that makes you that you're passionate about, like, do that and commit to it right. I'm compassionate about what I do. It's obvious I love what I do,

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Billy Keels  42:22

right? I don't I don't think any of us feel that. Just you'll have to check out the video version because like, I mean, it's got this amazingly fantastic smile. You can tell he loves every moment, what he's doing. So,

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42:36

something to that. And so, you know, I envisioned what I want, you know, we have here's another thing be had you ever heard this term, big, hairy, audacious goal. And this big, hairy audacious goal is a goal that you cannot do on your own. You have to find it through. It's only going to come through relationships with your other people and building something bigger than yourself. Well, I have a big hairy audacious goal, right? And it is big and it's beyond me. But I envision myself during embodied I'd be a be the person I want to become who I am. Tomorrow, I'll be that person today. I do the things that that person needs to do. And then guess what I get to have the things that that person has. They do have

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Billy Keels  43:18

we do have maybe that's That's it. That's it that's it. Listen, man, I you know, I can't I'm just like shocked how fast these conversations go, man and we've got to get to the going long final three. Ivan. thing is I've got a rule here. I've got a rural here. I've got a rule here. I've got a lot of rules here. But this one I have to abide by, at least until I make a new one is I never asked any of our special guests and today you are special guests. I don't ask you to go along final three unless you tell me. I'm going to be shocked if I get the wrong answer here. Unless you tell me that you're not ready. But the question is, Are You Ready? Ready? I knew that was gonna be the case. I mean, I didn't have any doubt in my mind knows no doubt, but I have to ask the question, because that's the rule. So here's the thing I've been, we started with you over and Oklahoma City, on the other side of the pond. I'm from Columbus, Ohio, but now this is my adopted side of the pond at least where I reside. And so I would love for you to share with us, Ivan, what is your favorite European city that you have either visited or is still on your bucket list to visit?

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44:23

Yeah, absolutely, man. I know you're over there. I'm about to be invited where I've been having this dream to take my family to Spain for a longest time and like I got a book about Spain and studying all the different places you want to go about Spain. And coming up in July Vienna. I'm taking my family to Spain and so I'm gonna be there. I'm gonna see all awesome buildings, the beaches and the food. I'm a food guy, man. I love food. I can't wait to eat all those topics.

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Billy Keels  44:54

Yeah, well, you're gonna be lots and lots of the tapas will go forever and ever and ever and ever. So and that's from the north to the south and been chosen all this stuff. It's all the same. So not all the same, but it's you know, you'll say one thing in one place and another thing in another place and I believe you are going to have a phenomenal time so I know Spain but do you have a favorite like Barcelona Madrid? Seville

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45:19

Barcelona Madrid and then running the bowls is coming out.

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Billy Keels  45:23

Oh, you're gonna put on as well. That's right. So which which of those three Would you would you guess? Because you have to pick one.

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45:29

Barcelona man.

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Billy Keels  45:33

Oh my gosh. Okay, here we go. All right. So we've got another we've got another vote for Barcelona. It's really really I can't understand why Barcelona gets so many votes. It's just amazing. Now, I would appreciate that. And yeah, when we talked about that pre pre conversation will definitely pick up on that and I've got a couple of ideas for you as well. So here's the second thing. The second question of the going on final three really has a lot to do with experiences I've had with really successful people. And I've been very fortunate to come into contact with lots of successful people. I mean, I have that opportunity all the time here on the podcast. I continue to use to be someone who is very successful all the lives that you are positively impacting things you're doing. And I'd really love your perspective on this because hopefully you will agree with me that, you know, one of the things that sets really successful people apart is they do something differently. And that is typically whenever they have a plan. They put the goals out for the plan and then they start to execute against the plan and then usually every single time the very first time they do something everything goes perfectly which is what allows them to actually get much closer that was it. You got to know that listen, that was a joke that I have and that's a joke. It's an inside joke with me and go along family but I literally I think that was one of the best reactions I've ever seen. He was really suffering for me. If you could go to the video version, like he's really suffering for me, Ivan, thank you so much for that. But of course really successful people don't get things right the first time every time. Of course not. It's usually like here's the thing. I've been really successful people, like they make 20 to 50 times more mistakes than everybody else, right. That's just the reality. And so this part is not a joke. That was kind of a joke, but the reality is successful people do do one thing very differently. And every time they have or make a relevant mistake or have some relevant learning opportunity, every single time they stop. They learn from the mistake or the opportunity or growing experience or however you want to call it you know what I mean? And then from there, they do something every single time as well. They put different strategies, tactics and actions in place to minimize the probability of that exact same thing happening again. Yep. But I don't want you to think about the mistake of the learning opportunity or whatever. But I do want you to think about what is the one lesson that you know that the going long family needs to know today to minimize the probability of that exact same thing happening to them?

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48:17

Absolutely. You know, again, power of mentorship. You know, they're hearing what we're saying, you know, that you can truly have your dream life. You don't know how you're going to get there that getting their piece. There's a solution for that. You don't have to figure it out on your own. I went about doing that. And I made the mistake of one of my deals, almost Nose, nose diving in and being out for a long time and I ended up going in the hole about $80,000 in debt, had to dig myself out of out of the hole. And I learned a lot and the reason why I was able to get out of that because I got mentorship. I got an education. I got coaches in my life, you know, and so I encourage your your listeners to do that. To do that to go out and get the mentor. They don't have to make the same mistakes as everyone else because a lot of people already made them and you get to learn from other people's mistakes.

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Billy Keels  49:15

That makes complete sense. So look for mentorship, be able to do that leverage other people's experience so you can minimize the probability of that happening to you. So I appreciate that. And then lastly, iven this is just I want you to help us fill up our brains with knowledge before we head out of here today. So what is the one book that you would recommend to the going long family today?

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49:38

One book, man, there's a lot of good books as you all know, man, I've been really into like elevating my thought life and really learning to master myself at the end of the day and and that's one key success too is that, you know, I was pretty darn you know, you can always tighten up yourself right there's always room for improvement and, and tighten up your thought life. You know, and because really that's where the self image is built and that person that you build allows you to become the person you want to be right and man, let me tell you, man I come from like humble beginnings. Okay, so there's a lot of work to get me to this place where I can even have this conversation with you today. Right? But one book that's really speak to me right now it's called affirmative power by Thomas trover. There's a chapter in there Chapter Four called the hidden power. It really talks about the power of thoughts, and really how that can form really our lives that we're living today and really the lives we live today are a combination of all the thoughts that we have we've had right and that really that's powerful man that's powerful. So as we go on after a B hags after going after our dreams of what we want for our future for our lives for our families, it starts with this and that

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Billy Keels  50:55

starts with the head and within the mind and what's in your heart and just drive it drive it drive it so affirmative power, we're gonna include that in the show notes. Don't worry if you're running, you're cooking or making dinner or whatever, don't worry, we're all you're gonna have to do is click a button and you'll be able to find the book. You know, the like I said, Ivan these these conversations go by super fast. Like I said before, I mean, you you know, the very beginning, you're talking about you and your dad and you're seeing these pilots and you knew what you wanted to do. And even though you didn't know about writing down your goals at the time, he got back there and found some nice pictures and you've got them on the wall and added Jerome plains. And so you already started the power of visualization, the power of understanding what it was that you wanted to do so that you knew that's where you want to do what you wanted to do, and you had to take the correct actions to get there. You got into the Air Force, you knew that you wanted to be a fighter pilot realized that wasn't gonna happen. You wanted to be a b1 pilot. That's what you you did. Once you realize that you were already in the airforce, you were flying planes. You were 35 years old, and you'd already realize your life dream you're like, Alright, so what's next guys? So you figured out what was next? You had a mother in law who really helped you recognize when you wanted to be the businessman as well. Hey, look, there's a business opportunity. It's in real estate. You knew you had some stuff you went down the street and negotiated a deal. Not only did you do that once you then at the same time, did that over 100 times. realized as on the buyer seller side of things. Not only could you do that, through repetition, over 800 deals that you'd gone through probably over 1000 knowing because you just talked about a couple of these but you saw the repetition you saw what was going to help you also do to become a better investor. You realize the things that you wanted to be able to do you can understand where the strike price was meaning what is the best optimal price for a particular time at a specific moment in time. And you know, you got a chance to not only do that but then you realize hey, listen, this single family stuff is cool, but when you had an opportunity to learn more about the multifamily then you made a decision to go there you got mentorship, you decided that you were once again going to be clear on your goals. And guess what you went after those goals. You had a plan, you had mentors, you had the support system, and you continue to add value to others around the globe. So one of the things I am absolutely sure of is there are people that hear listening going Yeah, Billy just asked him the question and so we can understand how to get in touch with them. So what is the best way for the growing long family to reach out to you Ivan to find out more about you and what you're doing at Anthem capital.

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53:21

Thank you for asking him. appreciate you asking the question. Yes, come find more information about anthem capital at our website, Anthem cp.com anthem cp.com. There you'll see a contact form. We asked you to take a quick minute fill out the contact form, and we'll be in touch with you. We'd like to get to learn more about you. And really at the end of the day, let us know what your goals are. How can we serve you how can we help you achieve your dreams? Again, come find me at Anthem cpe.com

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Billy Keels  53:52

All right, fantastic. So listen, everybody, take it out, go to anthem cpe.com and then make it really simple. One place, tell them about yourself what you want to know more about and also what are the things that are important to you. So I think iven makes it very, very simple and easy to be able to reach out to them. So listen, I just want to say thank you on behalf of the entire go along family man, really appreciate it. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for investing your time with me and with us today. And again, thank you very much.

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54:21

It's been an honor. Really, it's been truly an honor. Thank you for the opportunity. Allow me to share and thank you to your listening audience.

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Billy Keels  54:28

All right, man free appreciate that. And listen, if you give me like 15 seconds I just want to wrap things up saying goodbye to the going on family and then I'll get you out of here so listen, everybody Ivan I mean what more can I say is just shared it all here. He's giving you ideas he's giving you very concrete steps that you can take to move forward. He's got a strong operational background also listen I mean the guy was fine planes all over for for the US so it's it's pretty phenomenal background and listen, as you're taking the the items that he talked to you about today. Creating big, hairy audacious goals for yourself. You're looking at how you're going to implement more of an action plan to get your next property. Take today's episode, share it with someone else so that they can hear what he was talking about. And the two of you sit down and talk about this concept. You're gonna go from theory to really starting to get more practical application of these conversations that's gonna make you a much more informed, better, smarter investor. So while you're doing that, I'll be here waiting for you. Preparing the next conversation. So until then go out and make it a great day. And thank you very much Bob so that is done man. Dun dun dun. You know, I said I wanted to catch up with you. But I've got to jump on another call. But here's the thing. Ivan, I'm gonna send you you're gonna be over here on the Fourth of July. Yeah.

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55:50

Even in the fourth I think yeah.

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Billy Keels  55:52

Okay, well, listen, I'm gonna send you my I'm gonna send you an email. Before I leave the office here today. It's got my phone number. And are you a whatsapp person? Yeah, yeah. Okay, you can either do WhatsApp or we'll get more we'll get time even if we just we've figured out an ad hoc time. I'll share the things like I said, I've been here 15 years. I never tried to I don't ever bog anybody down. I'll just tell you things that have worked for people that have been here, friends, family, other investors that are passing through town and would be happy to share any knowledge that I have, man, if especially if it's gonna help you and your family have a better experience here.

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56:24

And that'd be cool, man. I'd love to maybe just just 30 minute 2030 minutes you can just load or something on it.

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Billy Keels  56:30

Okay, let's do that. We can vote. We can vote on a call. We'll, I'll send you the thing. You and I will chat back and forth and we'll get on a call. What you think next week would work for you? Yeah, yeah, we could find out okay, we'll find time we'll find out. Yeah, I'd be happy to do I love talking about my town and especially when people are flying over. So awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Listen, I was gonna ask you one thing. And I know we'll talk about later. But if you're open to it, if you're an iPhone user, the only thing I ever ask is if you're open to it, to leave an honest written review as well as writing an honest one that I don't ask for five star just honest written review, as well as writing especially as a guest. It's something that is always helpful. So that's my only ask. We're gonna find time because I can't wait for you and your family to come over here. This town is awesome, man. This is really really awesome. tell you just one or two things you got to look out for. But aside from that, it's really awesome. I

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57:20

can't wait man.

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Billy Keels  57:21

I haven't. Thanks, man. I appreciate it. We'll talk to you soon. Okay, take care. Bye bye.

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