Martin Perdomo: From Extreme Poverty To 130 Units
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE ON:
Known as "The Elite Strategist", Martin Perdomo is host of the Latinos In Real Estate Investing Podcast, the top hub for Real Estate Investors and entrepreneurs within the Latino community. Martin talks about his journey growing up in the Dominican Republic with no running water in his house, moving to New York City and getting kicked out of the house by his mother at the age of 16, to buying his first investment property in 2007 as the market crashed, to now owning 130 units. Martin attributes much of his success from the importance of mindset and how you approach your business, and taking massive action to build momentum. He also shares how he had the biggest personal growth while losing 50k running a restaurant. This is an episode filled with inspiring nuggets of wisdom that you can use and apply in your own personal journey!
In this episode hosted by Mike Swenson, we discussed:
- How Martin's background of not being formally educated didn't hold him back, because he's highly educated from reading books and learning about life
- How Martin decided that he was going to own a lot of real estate while in a painful situation and bought his first property at the age of 20
- How Martin got started in real estate knowing nothing about it and decided to get a mentor to help him get further down the road faster
- How real estate is forgiving over the long term
- The biggest growth he found was upon losing $50,000 in their restaurant business
- The importance of being grateful for the little things you get
- Transforming your mind and understanding that rich people are good people
- Watching your habits and getting in the habit of taking action
- Choosing people you want to work with
Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro To Martin's Career
1:21 - The Extreme Poverty and Environment That Martin Went From
5:18 - Martin's First Property Investment
8:32 - You Need A Mentor
11:20 - The Restaurant Business That Didn't Work Out But Turned Into The Biggest Growth
15:15 - The Secret To Attract Opportunities
17:52 - The Three Forces Of Creation
20:25 - How Martin Thinks Of The Rich People
30:51 - The Parable Of The Plant, The Teacher, and The Student
36:25 - How You Do Anything Is How You Do Everything
39:48 - How To Find Martin
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https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3zNREUYfx1cp1C9RWudzQA
https://linktr.ee/Elitestrategist
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Read the full transcript here:
Mike Swenson
Welcome to The REL Freedom Podcast where we inspire you to pursue your passion to gain time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate. I'm your host, Mike Swenson. Let's get some REL freedom together.
Mike Swenson
All right, welcome, everybody to The REL Freedom Show where we talk about building time and financial freedom through different opportunities in real estate today, at least at the beginning, we're going to talk a lot about mindset. There's so many things that happened between your ears that are so important, and a lot of your success really is your mindset, how you approach things, obviously, everybody wants to know the strategy of how do you finance properties? How do you get doors, but a lot of it points back to mindset. And so today, we've got Martin Perdomo, Martin is known as the elite strategist. He's the host of the Latinos and real estate investing podcast, you also run the elite Pennsylvania investors club, you mix in a few different strategies. And we'll kind of talk through how that's evolved over time. Currently, you're sitting at about 130 doors. And so we're just so excited to have you on the show, Martin, and welcome.
Martin Perdomo
Thank you, Mike. Thank you for having me. Really, really appreciate you,
Mike Swenson
Martin. Why don't we just start it off, just share a little bit about your background, and kind of how you got to be where you're at today.
Martin Perdomo
Perfect. Well, thank you. Thank you for that. And I'll make it I'll make it short, right. So I'm coming up on my 45th birthday this June. We're in June, and we're recording this and I'll be 45 years old. But I was originally on the force. I'm the first excuse me, I am the first born generation American in my career and my family. So my mother came pregnant to the United States here with me in 1978. And she had me here she sent me back home to Dominican Republic. But I think that's an important part of my story. Because when I when I went back home to Dominican Republic, we were extremely poor, and I want your listeners to get a picture of this. When you think of poverty, I want to talk I'm talking real poverty, real not the stuff that we see here in America. In Dominican Republic and most people know Dominican Republic for the resort and the beauty of there's that right I was just in put that down enough to run ago with my wife and and we did that side of the world resorts and having money and doing things side. But I'm talking about the other side of Dominican Republic. And when I went when I when I lived in Dr. We were so before that we had no running water in our house, like I know running water for in the sink or in the toilet we had to every morning I remember as a child as a toddler, waking up with my grandmother, going by the half a block to a block to pick up to get water we carry gallons of water to bring back home so we can cook brush our teeth and take a shower with and flush the toilet with for that day. And that's poverty when it would rain. Our roof was 10. And the sun the Caribbean sun when it beams on that roof, it makes these pinholes. So when it rains it rains in the house. So we would remember my sister, my older sister and I would put buckets around the house and we would put those buckets will fill we would throw them up on the backyard. That's how important I wanted to give illustration. And I say that and they start there because if I come from that to get to where I am today, and I'm an uneducated, I'm an uneducated guy never went to college Never had I don't have a college degree. Although I am educated. I've read over 500 books. I am formally not educated right in a formal college college format. When I came here, I then lived in a place called Washington Heights in New York City, Dominican concentrated Dominican land and went to school there. There was more there was more drugs in New York City and four block radius. I'm gonna cop once. Just to give your listeners an illustration. I met a police officer one time during 1997 when when when Giuliani was a mayor when 911 happened Giuliani was mayor. And he told me they had blocked off the streets just so you guys could get an idea of Harlem you think of Harlem people see movies Harlem, New York City, right? I'm right up the street from Harlem. Harlem is on the 25th place live in 100 and 61st 260 years, and 160 Dirt The streets were blocked. You couldn't cross the street without showing the police officer and ideally with 24 hour police officer in industry, you can drive through there, because they were more drugs than those three blocks in the whole state of New York. That's how rough it was. That's how much drugs are. So I grew up in this and I grew up in this environment. And I got out of that I got out of that environment. My my wife, we moved out to Queens, and I've always I 16 my mother kicked me out of the house. And I realised at the age of 16 that, Mike that an adult needs two things, shelter and food. And I made an unconscious decision while I was sleeping in trains and rooftops in New York City that I was going to own a lot of real estate that was unconscious and we're going to talk about the unconscious mind in a little bit and mindset. This was An unconscious decision from pain. I'm going to own a lot of real estate but I don't ever have to go through this pain again of not having a place to live. So as I evolved, I bought my first property my first my first home, my wife and I, my then girlfriend or fiance, we were 20 and 21 years old, we bought our first property at 20. In 2007, I bought my first investment. I was I owned the mortgage company, I was running a mortgage company, we were killing it, I was the guy giving the money for the not giving but lending and providing the services to get to get people subprime loans into those no at no income, no asset loans. I was that guy with a 500 credit score. I was that guy doing those loans at 20, loans, all kinds of crazy creative stuff. And I bought my first property for 275,000. Not too far from here, Mike, a duplex, but I had no idea what I was doing. I did it because everyone else was doing it. And I was the guy giving the money. And it was easy. And I had FOMO fear of missing out that if I didn't buy my first property. I wasn't going to get a property. Right because I was seeing the market go up and up and up and up and up and up. And I didn't know anything about running the numbers. I knew nothing about our business. I knew I knew nothing about vacancy maintenance repairs. I was Mr. Landlord. And that sucked. For me. It was a horrible job. I was renting it. I was showing it I was turning it I was painting it. My kids remember my kids are older now they remember when we had to turn them, they would go and help me clean and help me paint and it was a family thing. And I got burned out that property burned down. But I bought it for 275. Two years later in 2009. property was worth $179,000 $100,000 underwater brother, and 2009. And recently, I bought a quad not too far from here. And the appraiser comes into my office and I'm like, Hey, Jeff, what are you bringing in? This one I'm buying, right? What's the ARV on that property that quad you're buying? And he says, I don't know when he handed me this envelope. And I found a comp there two doors down from that first property I bought for 275. And oh seven 2009. It was 179,000. And it was the DiCicco denticle Property two doors down sold for 385. Lesson, right? Don't wait to buy real estate buy real estate and wait. Real estate is very forgiving over the long term. And I held on to that property. As painful as it was in 2009 2010 2011. When I was underwater, had I held on to that property. I didn't know this then. Okay. Mike, I didn't know this that I would have had my tenants paying paying down the mortgage, I would have been cash flowing, I would have had tax I would have right now I would have had it down 14 years later would have been halfway through the mortgage. Right? That would have been halfway through when that mortgage. And I would have had $110,000 in equity holders out there. So there's a big lesson. And that was the hype of the market. I remember during that time, right after thinking to myself, Man in 11. I remember in 2011 thinking to myself, Man, no one wanted to buy real estate at that time. I mean, no one real estate was the ugly word because it was just so much foreclosures. It was it was just it was just ugly. It was ugly. And I remember thinking at that time, and when will real estate ever come back and look at well, here we are. And I'm seeing a lot of similarities. I saw a lot of similarities in 2020 and 2021. Mike, where people were paying 50 $60,000 over asking because of fear of missing out, they thought that they were going to miss out if they didn't buy now or whatever the reason may be, and I share all of this to say today now not today. You know, I learned through that process, I realised that I needed a mentor, I needed a coach, right. And I needed something to model I needed a success, a successful framework to model in order to do this thing successfully. Because I was meeting a lot of guys that had full time jobs and had 3040 50 doors. And I'm like, wait a minute, I'm the entrepreneur and I'm struggling. What is it that they know that? I don't know. So I decided to get a mentor, I got a mentor, get a coach and I started learning this thing. I started learning about the numbers how to run the numbers. Oh, okay. That's how you do that. Oh, that's why you don't get productive. You have a property management company. Oh, that's how that's done. Oh, that's so I started running. I started educating myself. And today I've scaled to the point where I have 130 doors like you mentioned, I you know, that's what I have now, but I've traded a lot of stuff sold a bunch of things here in and out of a bunch of different things. And but that's my holdings, right? And my strategies have changed through through the times and 2020 I was flipping a lot 2023 I'm holding a lot right I'm buying and holding is just different market different strategy. I do have a flipper I'm working on right now. It's got 100,000 on the upside it's an it's an it's ARV is two times so it's an affordable, it's right in that affordable range. I'm going to sell that no matter where interest rates go. So I share I share this not to impress you brother or to impress your audience but to impress upon you that if a if a immigrant like myself first born American English is my second language. Firstborn American can come I'm here from poverty, literally from nothing, nothing, right? And do what I've done. So can anyone I'm not, I'm not. I like to think I'm not any, any thing special. I just work hard. And I think, and I've listened to smarter people like yourself. But I found coaches, I found mentors, I surrounded myself with smart people. And I read a lot.
Mike Swenson
But I think that plays right into the mindset topic that we're going to talk about, because so many people that I talked to, the first thing they say is, I don't have the money, or I don't know what I'm doing, right. And so to hear your story, hopefully, puts that seed of thought in somebody's head to say, you know, what, if Martin can do it, I can, too. If mark and Martin can go from no running water and raining in his house, you know, as a kid, to be able to pull this off? Well, then what excuse do I have? And sometimes we need a little a dose of truth there, right? We need that truth of it might take some sacrifice, it might take some work here, it's going to take some education, but at the same time, am I in a spot where I can go find the answers to that, and I think that's what holds people up to where they say, Yeah, I can't do it, I don't have the money, I'll go find some other way to do it. And then 10 years go by, and they're no closer to whatever their goal is, right? So you've got to start with, I believe that I can do this
Martin Perdomo
100% You mentioned something really, really important. You said 10 years will go by and will be same spot, right? And that starts with that's about your habits. It's about your mindset and the habits and the things that you do. Here's what I realised I started telling you, you know, for I'm gonna be 45 this year, and I have learned in life that I made a decision when I was about 3533 years old, that I was in this business serious, right that this this was it that I was going to do this. I bought a restaurant because I was looking for alternative investments. I wanted to create wealth right and I thought restaurant and my wife and I always romanticise on owning a restaurant, but we bought this restaurant, and it did not it did not work out. It was a terrible restaurant owner. We lost about $50,000 in that deal. But man did I grow during that time brother, I got to tell you my biggest growth as a business person happened in that restaurant at eight 910 o'clock at night when I was there closing that place mopping the floor by myself listening to audiobooks. Right, I was there listening to audiobooks place was dead, I was mopping the floors cleaning the place leaving the place ready for the next day. And man did I grow during that time. And it was during that time that I realised that if I don't, if I don't make a different decision, if I don't start making different choices today, that in 10 years, 10 years will pass and I will be in the same situation. And I did not love that. And I did not love that field. Right? One thing I hated about the restaurant business because I can't I didn't know what I didn't know, I was an operator, not an owner, there's a difference there being a business owner and a business operator, two totally different things. I was an operator, not an owner, and there's nothing wrong being an operator. It's just Is that what you really want for me, it's not what I want it. I like my freedom. I like to be able to pick up my shoes, my wife and I just bought bikes, we just bought electric bikes. And we decided that this summer, we're going to take a biking and we're going to travel across all our neighbouring states, and we're just gonna hit trails, and just every weekend we're gonna go, I can do that as a restaurant owner. But I can't first of all, I can't do that if I'm broke. So real estate is what allows me to be able to do that pick up on Saturday morning, pick a trail, Hey, babe, we're going to drive two hours and we're going to go there, and we're going to stay overnight there, we're going to just hit these trails there, right, and we're going to just just just explore parks, on our bikes. And but the biggest thing I learned there was for me was if I keep doing the same things, I'm going to keep getting the same results. And the message, the biggest message I got during that time was time guys take note of this time is going to pass anyways, no matter what. Whether you whether you decide to watch Netflix tonight, or read a book, time is gonna pass no matter what the difference is going to be the choice that you make Netflix or watch a YouTube video, listen to a podcast, read a book, make a phone call, call a motivated seller, put up a bandit sign, whatever the choice that you make, is going to have an impact over the next year over the next three years. The small choices you make so so there's something really big in there. When we talk about mindset, and we talk about habits, right? What are the choices that you're making every day that are going to compound over time, there's a great book, the compound effect by Darren Hardy that talks he shares this that are going to compound over time. I'm going to give you a massive result is a little things you do every day that give you massive results over time. It's not one big thing guys. It's really it's really not one big thing There's not one big thing that I do. You know, it's a series of a lot of little things that compound over time. That gives me the big results. One being I was in my little brother's wedding, and I was having a conversation this weekend, my brother just got married. And I was in a conversation with someone and I can remember someone said to me, when How do you do this? How do you attract these things? And I'm like, I had gotten a text, someone sent me a deal. One of my one of the wholesalers sent me a deal. And I was like, Oh, I got this deal. And someone asked me, How do you do it? How, like, how do you find these opportunities? I'm like, listen, there's something magical about gratitude. There's something magical about gratitude. The secret is, I'm going to say that my secret is in my gratitude to God for all the blessings that I had, because I remember, Mike, I remember being in a train, right? And thinking to myself, praying, literally praying to God, God, please send someone, please send someone to me that can show me and show me how to do this thing that I'm doing here, how to buy real estate, right? How to do this, I don't want anyone to give me anything, just want them to show me so that I can go and work and be willing to work out please, please show me. And God has put multiple of those people's in my way, right multiples multiple of those peoples in my life. People like yourself with podcasts, you know, for me growing up and have all this technology had to be real people. Right? It's recently so I have now become that guy that I used to pray for, to show up in my life. But my real secret is gratitude is in the gratitude that I have for God, for all of and that's what I believe in whatever you believe in. I believe in God, it's you know, whatever people believe in. It's I have a grateful heart for the little things. And it's having an attitude of gratitude, if you're grateful for the little things that you get. And I'll show you here, this is my this is my journal. This is a journal I use every day, it's an elite journal. And every day I start with attitude of gratitude. What am I grateful for today, after I meditate? For three things, every day that I do is meditate gratitude journal, my top three goals, I write it down every day. And then what are the top three things I could do to get closer to my goal, that's, that's a habit, that's a discipline that I do every day is those little things, Mike, that I do every day that compounds over time. And when you when you have an attitude of gratitude, you're activating your reticular, your Eros reticular, activating system in your brain, and you start to find more things to be grateful for. Some more to come into your life that you can be grateful for. Yeah, you're grateful for the little things, then you'd be surprised of all of the big things and all of the grid, if you put the work of course, even the work, you'd be surprised about things that will show up in your life that you will create, and all the opportunities that your data will will present for you for you to take advantage and go when you know there's there's an I want to share these three things with you with your audience, if you don't mind. It's I call it the three the three forces of creation. And the first thing is Tony Robbins says that clarity is power. I don't know if you've heard that before where your focus goes, your energy flows and results show. And the first thing you know, we have these things nowadays. Our phones might that in distract us, right? It's constantly ringing, it's constantly, constantly, constantly ringing. And the first thing that that I believe that three forces of creation is just focus. Number one is focus. Choose the one thing, there's so many people on the internet, with actually even different podcasts like yours in mind that you're getting different strategies, even in real estate. You could be land flipping, you could do flipping houses, you can be wholesaling. You can be a redevelopment you there's storage units multifamily, there's so many things, choose one thing you want to be good at, and focus on that. Right focus on that one thing, the power of absolute focus, power. There's power and absolute focus and commitment, just focus on that one thing, get really, really good at that thing, and make the decision that that's what you want to do and what you want to be good at. Number one, the number the first thing is you got to focus because clarity is power. Number two, Mike is then you have to take massive action. Effective execution and action is the cure, right? I live by a model. And my model is this. I put when I listen to a podcast like yours, I listen to your podcasts or listen to a guy like myself or like you on my podcast. And okay, this is what I learned this thing that that Mike said resonates with me, I immediately go to my journal and I write it down. Right, I write it down. And then the next thing I do is I gonna implement it immediately as fast as I can. So I live by the rule of input output. So I put it in my brain if I like it in a resume and it resonates, and I go on and I go on night and going to take action on it. You got to be able to take action, just listening to this podcast, just just reading books, just going to workshops, just go Want to Meetups is not enough. There's a point where you have to take action. Right? You have to take the next step. Massive Action is a cure, cures everything. Massive Action cures everything. And then lastly, I've I kind of started with it, which is grace, right? You got to have an attitude of gratitude. You got to have a grateful heart. Now, I was walking with my wife, we were on a trail the other day.
Martin Perdomo
And she says to me, and a lot of people have this mindset. I'm guilty of that. And my family is guilty of, of that of this mindset. I have been guilty. I'm no longer guilty of it. But my family growing up, this is the stuff I used to hear. We were walking down this trail, and it's this beautiful, beautiful place. It's called skytop, here in the Poconos. And it's this trail my wife in Tirana Lake it's a beautiful lake, and there's this beautiful resort that sits in and there's these all these big beautiful houses on this on this lake, and it's open to the public. You can you can do the trail. So we're doing the trail. And around these trails, you have these big beautiful mansions that back up to this lake. So, yeah, I have a lot of wealthy friends. So for me, it's like, these are just people I know, I know this, I know the people that live in this house, right? Guys, my friends, we walk into this trail, and I see we see these chairs, and by the docket of the of the of the lake. And there's these chairs, and there's boats, and I tell my wife, I'm like, you know, 100 Why don't we sit here for a minute. And let's just let's just chill for a moment, right? Let's just Let's just enjoy the fuel. Let's take the stimulus chairs, it was obvious that those chairs were owned by those people that lived in that mansion. Right? And my wife, I don't know why she said this. She was like, you know, no, I don't want to sit in those chairs. You know, those people own those chairs and they can get mad and I'm like, Hey, you should know better. I say rich people are good people. For for the most part, rich people are good people. Rich people are graceful, rich people are giving without rich people. Rich people are the ones that fund hospitals and for not for profit charities are the ones that fun, rich people, for the most part are good people. If we sit on those chairs, do you think that those people are going to come out and tell us what are you doing on my chair? Don't sit on my chair, let me ask a question. And I said, if we had if this was our house, and people said that on our chairs, what would we do? We would probably come out and engage them and talk to them and say hey, you want some water? He wants a juice you really want to that's what we would do? What makes you think that they're gonna do they're any different than us. They're just like us. Right? Rich people are good people. And, and when you when you first start with when you when you start to really transform your mindset and understand that rich people are good people, and you start thinking that way around wealthy people because they are by the way, I really believe that I used to hear growing up and I reject this for you and your audience. Rich people are bad. They have us here. They exploit us the poor. They have us living here they live in Park Avenue. And rich people abuse us and exploit us not it don't know they don't. Rich people are grateful, rich people are good. If you ask a rich a successful person, how they do what they do, they'll tell you gracefully, if you show them that you really want to and that you don't want to take advantage of them. If you really genuinely you say hey, how do you do what you do? How did you get there? How can I do that? Can you teach me? You know, successful people want to help? Successful people like to help people? That's my belief model of the world and my belief, it's what I found. And so you know, this is all a mindset mind. This is all a mindset around money, and how because think about it, if you grow up, okay, it becomes self sabotage. If you grow up thinking and the language and the words that you use have powers thinking and saying, rich people are poor. And now all of a sudden, you open up a business, right? And you start making some real money, you start making some good money, you start making half a million dollars, and you start moving up into that one percenter, right? That one percenter mark, right? And you start making some real money. And what happens is unconsciously because you believe fundamentally that rich people are bad, you don't want to be back. You don't fundamentally want to be bad. So you start to do things unconsciously to self sabotage yourself to go back to poverty is a thermostat you're set. Right? So we have to watch how we use our words and the things that we say, and and how in our belief system, right, we have to work on our belief system. And I think these three things that I shared focus, massive action and grace, right, having those three things is the foundation to start to start going in that direction. And I know I went long winded on this Mike, I'm sorry about that, brother.
Mike Swenson
No, you're good. You went exactly where I was gonna go with it as you kind of started talking because what I was gonna say talk about the subconscious mind what you believe about people that are quote, unquote, Rich is going to affect and impact you to whether or not that's going to be something that You pursue. And I'll say a similar thing that some of the more wealthy people that we know, are some of the most kind hearted people, you know, the ones that are the first ones to come up to us at school functions, you know, whatever that might be willing to give up their time willing to help others. And so it starts with those seeds of rich people can are helpful, they're giving of their time, they want to see what's best for you, that will impact how you pursue because I would say, pretty commonly, a lot of people would want more money. But if you think and also to wealth isn't just in money, you know, wealth is, and that's why we talk about time freedom to in addition to financial freedom, but at the same time, if you don't have good beliefs around what's wealthy in your mind, around money, time, whatever that might be, then yeah, you're, you're gonna block yourself, you're gonna be in, you're standing in your own way to getting where you want to go, because you have these preconceived notions. I saw, I heard something else the other day talking about somebody who was raised in a family that had a scarcity mindset and around how you know how expensive things were how stuff costs money. And when this person received a gift, you know, say for a birthday, or something like that, they had a hard time accepting that gift and feeling good about that gift, because all they could think about was the sacrifice that went into making that buying that gift for them. So let's just say I got a new shirt. Well, I'm thinking about the sacrifice that my parents had to make for me to have this new shirt, and it doesn't allow me to appreciate the nice shirt that I have. And so that's how the mindset really can make a big difference in your life.
Martin Perdomo
100% brother and that, like you said, appreciate, right. And gratitude is just, I just having that gratitude, that attitude of gratitude. I, I gotta tell you, you know, a lot of people talk about the, the law of attraction, and all of these on all these wonderful things. And I believe the biggest secret to the law of attraction is having a gratitude, heart full of gratitude, like a heart, literally gratitude, I'm grateful for you for allowing me to be on your platform and sharing this message. Because you know, I have a purpose, my purpose in life is to empower others to be the best version of themselves. And through this message, hopefully, I'm doing that. And you, I'm grateful for you for allowing me to do that. So thank you, brother. It's just having that attitude of gratitude, having that attitude of gratitude for the good. And even the challenging things. I just bought a 12 unit apartment building. And I'm learning right, it's my first real true development. Let's condemn property and minimise learning some things along the way. And I'm grateful for that. Because I know my journey where I want to go as I ultimately want to be developing large 100 200 unit apartment buildings, right? That's ultimately where I want to be at in my career as an investor, and where we're Boy, am I grateful that I have this opportunity to learn all of those things in a smaller in a smaller, confined building, that I can just keep graduating and learning. So I'm grateful for that it although it's challenging, I'm so grateful, because I'm learning my lessons and how am I learning? And how can I get better? Oh, wow. And I now know that when there's a condemned property at that magnitude of that size, I need to get architectural drawings, I need to get them signed and stamped by an engineer and an architect to go pull permits. And I need to plan for that upfront, right. So it's just so many things I'm learning and be grateful
Mike Swenson
for those things, like you said, you know, going back to the number two piece taking massive action. So many times investors like the theory of investing and want to talk about the theory and the strategy, but they don't take the action, you know, and I think that's what I run into a lot of times with investors is, you know, some of them already have properties, and I bring them a property that fits their criteria. And they'll give me five reasons why this isn't the right one, right? We get in our own way in that sense, too. Because we want to, well, maybe there's a better option out there. And this, like you mentioned kind of starting out, there's so many different asset classes out there that you can invest in, people get that paralysis by analysis, where it's like, Well, geez, I could I could look at every single asset class out there in the entire world, like, how would I decide? People sometimes tend to think like, I have to find the one perfect property to move forward? And it's like, no, you just have to choose one that's good enough. And I don't even like saying that. Like, as somebody who helps investors, you got to choose one that's good enough to get you started, you know, and good enough to get you to the next step. Because when you get to the next step, you're going to learn all those lessons, right? And with your development, the next time you do it, you're going to be a little bit better because of the work you had to go through because you were you weren't afraid to at least take some action. And so sometimes people just get stuck in their own way in that regards where they overthink it. They don't take action. They just love talking about the theory of investing and not moving closer to their goals. Real estate agents are you tired of letting the busyness of your real estate The business get in the way of your real estate investing goals and your financial future, I'm excited to announce that we've created the real freedom investor agent tribe to help you. We've got a tonne of content educational tools to help accelerate your learning curve and get you on the right path to hit your investing goals. We also have a mastermind tribe of people just like you agents that want to grow their own portfolio and encourage you and cheer you on along the way, as well as some private one on one coaching. So go to real freedom.com Click on the store, you'll see the options there. We're so excited to be able to help you I've priced at super low, so price can't get in the way. But did want to have some skin in the game for you to help with that accountability. So go check it out real freedom.com Click on the store. We're excited to connect with you and excited for you to connect with your tribe of real estate agents investing trying to build their financial freedom. Yeah,
Martin Perdomo
it's it's it becomes a habit. You know, I heard this, I heard this, this parable I like to share with you Mike and your listeners. And there's the parable goes like this, there's this there's a student and his teacher, and they're out in the woods. And the teacher tells the student, hey, pluck out that little plant a little weed about three inches tall, pluck out that little plant, put on your back. Student picks it up, eat with ease with his two fingers book puts it in his back. Student, the teacher then looks at another about 24 inches tall, he says okay, pluck that one out and pull it out, puts it in his back. Then he looks at another one teacher looks at it, the instructor looks at another one says looks at another one's about four feet tall. And he tells him plucked out one out. So this time the student is struggling you know this one's got deep roots. And he's struggling, he's got to get a little bit you got to get some tools out. And after. After much strain, he finally pulls it out. Thank you keep walking, and the teacher then tells him okay, now pluck that one out and the student with his gazes up and he sees this 10 foot tree and he says there's no way I can take that one out. And the teacher tells a student, this is exactly what happens with habits in your life. The longer you create bad habits, the harder they are to, to unroot them out of your life. So the key is, you know, a lot of people have the habit of especially now with social media, a lot of people have the habit of not taking action of just theory theory theory and looking at and then the next thing and then the next thing and then they start when they do, they kind of start one thing, and then they want to go to the next thing. And watch your habits because your habits will compound and it'll be harder to get rid of them. Start start building the habit of taking action. So if there's something in this podcast that you heard today, and you want to replace an old habit, and something that you learned that you like, start doing it, whether it's the gratitude thing, whether it's the focus thing, whether it's just running a gold thing, just start doing it, like start getting in the habit of taking action every day. If it's if you want to start reading books, just start getting in the habit, start building the discipline of reading one page a day, it doesn't. If you're not a reader, get an audio book and just start getting in the habit of listening to five minutes a day. listen to a podcast 10 minutes a day. That's it. Don't let it you know, I have an app on my phone, Mike that I've meditated. I started in meditating in 2016 is called I forget the headspace. Headspace is the app, I don't promote them. I don't have anything. It's just great app for me. I love it. It's great. And since 2016, I remember when I started meditating and 2016, September of 2016, when I started meditating, and I now have I think 23 or 27,000, accumulative meditative minutes since 2016. And I'm going to tell you, I don't meditate for more than 10 minutes. Every morning, I meditate for 10 minutes. That's it. But I started with three minutes. I started just sitting down with three minutes, three minutes, three minutes, three minutes. And as I felt comfortable, you start building that you get into hypnotic rhythm and that rhythm of that habit. And then it starts you're like, wait, I can do five or I want to do more. Because I love how I feel when I do this. I like how I start my day when I do this, I love how I feel when I when I take my days and how I deal with problems and, and how I deal with challenges when they come up when I do this versus when I don't do it. So, but it's that compound effect. And the thing is about those habits and and if it's action, like you said, then then start commit to something and start really, really small. Start building the habit of taking action because how you do anything is how you do everything. We're going to repeat that how you do anything in your life, is how you do everything in your life. To give you an example, I was talking to one of my lenders. And on this 12 Actually right before I close this 12 unit for my lender on this deal, and we were going through some things because lending is tough right now like getting money is is challenging. innerspace and I made it I made a statement to him. And I was like, Hey, Matt, here's the thing, man, like, we've done so many deals, I've done so many deals with you guys, I've done over 60 deals successfully, not one single extension, every single deal successfully paid off right on time. You guys are giving me a hard time on this too, right? Give me a hard time for whatever, whatever it was. And the subject came up. And I said, I pay attention. I 45 years old now I've learned to I've lived long enough to be able to identify patterns. And I said to met, if we're at a bar, you and I are hanging out. And it's you and I and someone else. And I see someone that's this other someone else is with us. And this other someone is a married man, right? I'm a married man, I've been married 21 years, I'm not saying I'm saying and I'm not saying I'm perfect, by all means. I'm not saying that I'm just, I'm just making a point here. And this person starts to start to hit on some married woman at this place, wherever we are, we could be at a bar, we could be whatever, picnic, golfing, whatever we're doing, right? And then that same person approaches me 10 minutes later, 20 minutes a day later, two weeks later and says, Hey, I want to go into business with you. The answer is no. I want to do a deal with you. The answer is no. And my reason is because I believe in the theory is how you do anything is how you do everything. If you're unfaithful, and to your lady, and that's what you're doing to your lady, what are you gonna do to me? You do something, the same behaviour is going to translate in our business dealings. And I'm look, I'm not saying that I'm perfect, or that I'm looking for perfection. But what I have known what I have uncovered, in my years of living is exactly that. If you're, if you're good money, you know what money does, right? If you're an asshole, you learn more of what you already are, you become expendable you are you give them something, they just explains what you what you are, right. If you're a person that has no integrity in one area of your life, you're not going to have integrity in other areas of your life. Does that make sense? Right. So I was making the point of how you do anything is how you do everything. Right. So yeah, they lend me the money. But we were I was I was I was making a point that the point I was making to them, it's like, Yo, I have a history of successfully executing. Right. And me and this particular guy, our friends, he's been to my house. He's one of the VPs and executives at this at this at this firm, has been to my house has been to my barbecues, I've managed family, our families have hung out. So we're friends. So I was able to have this conversation with him as a friend just man to man, right. And so yeah, it's just it's just about that the track record, right people, we tend to have patterns. And as we get older, my brain and your brain I think that's one of the biggest things that that meditating has done for me, right meditating has allowed me to develop my prefrontal cortex, they say it does. I've kind of seen it in my, in my, you know, in my practice, that it just has allowed me to see a lot of things that keep people don't see and I'm like, Man, this is obvious to me. Like I can plan steps ahead, I can see things 5678 10 steps ahead. I can, I can had a contractor last week that's doing some work for me. I knew he was lying to me, I'm gonna go do this. I knew he was lying to me. From Monday, Thursday came he was supposed to do it, and I knew he wasn't going to do it. And then I have him on camera that he wasn't where he said he was going to be. And this is a person that's wanting to wanting me to open up an entity with him because he wants to partner with me in construction. I'm like, Dude, you can't keep your word on something as simple as this. How can I trust you to task you with a $2 million project? Right, you know what I mean? So so it's just it's just that that that learning and understanding that comes with time and experience man, you know what I mean? Because this just comes with time and experience. Awesome well Martin, you've done
Mike Swenson
a great job sharing you know, we we didn't talk about the nuts and bolts of investing and yet at the same time we talked about all the stuff that's just as and if not more important than that which is which is the mindset how you approach things and how you treat people and building a reputation because you know, it's it's a small world out there too and so you you need to be somebody that has integrity and does things well treats people well and that's how you continue to grow your business as well so thank you so much for coming on and sharing so yeah so Martin for people that want to learn more about you and what you're doing how can I do that?
Martin Perdomo
Oh, they can they can find me best way to find me is on my target my podcasts Latinos are better estate investing podcast. That's number one. I'm on Instagram Martin, predominantly lead strategist, and I'm on YouTube. You could go check out my YouTube channel, I'm putting this 12 unit I just told you about, I'm doing blogs and then you could visually see it. So if you want to go check it out and you want to see what I'm doing, I can show my flips. I show the real side I got threatened, I got a video where one of my tenants threatened to kill me, I got that on video, you can go check that stuff out. So I got I got a bunch of content that I put out there just wanting, wanting to help people. And I like to leave people with this before we leave my friend, I want to leave him with this story. And there's a story of this to two shoe salesmen that go to this remote island to sell shoes. When they get to this island. No one on this island wearing shoes. To shoe salesman shirt, no one on this island is wearing shoes, they get each one of these guys get a feeling. The first guy goes up to his room picks up the phone calls his boss and he says boss, no one on this island is wearing shoes, put me on the first plane back home. The second guy room next door picks up the phone and says Hey, boss, I'm so excited. No one on this islands wearing shoes send me 10,000 pairs of shoes, I'm going to put shoes on everybody on this island. The moral of the story is that in life, just like these two shoes made salesman, you will find what you look for. Right? What you decide to focus on is what you will find if you if you decide to focus on the good of life, and the opportunity in life. And the opportunity in real estate because it's about to, in my opinion, I think is about to get ugly in the commercial space. And we didn't even really get to talk to really about real estate. But but it's about to get ugly in the real estate space and certain sectors of the market, I think there's going to be opportunity. So it's going to be as to how you see it and what your perspective is. Remember, where your focus goes, your energy flows, results show where you have what you focus on expands. So choose wisely what you decide to focus on who you decide to listen to, who do you serve? Who do you decide to spend time with? Thank you guys. Thank you, Mike for having me, brother.
Mike Swenson
Awesome. Thank you so much, Martin. And I think this is one of those episodes that, you know, there are certain episodes out there where, you know, I've told my team in the past, like, you can't listen to this one enough, right? Because it can, it's got these great principles that you can always go back to. And one of the things sometimes that I find with people where they have goals on, you know, reading books, or listening to listening to podcasts, like you talked about, it's about the taking action on what you listen to, it's not about, hey, I want to read 100 books this year. So I'm gonna go read 100 not implement anything. So it's that balancing content with implementation. And I think there's so much wisdom here, so much gold, that people should go back and listen to this again and again. And okay, what's the next thing I can implement? What's the next thing I can implement based on what you shared with us today? So thanks, Martin, so much for coming on. And reach out to us if you have questions or needs, but really appreciate your time. Give it to us and sharing with our listeners. Thank you. Thank you, brother. Appreciate it
