Okay. Welcome back to The Daily Mastermind. George Wright III, your host with your clarity, focus, and discipline when it comes to mindset, business, and lifestyle. And I'm here with Rod Khleif. I'm really excited to have you on the show today, Rod. Thanks, brother. I had no idea how much you've accomplished on your background. It kind of blew me away, bud, because I'm an ex-Tony Robbins guy, and I guess you've done all sorts of things in that environment. So I'm really impressed and excited to see if I can add some value. Well, listen, I know you will because you've got a top podcast and I'm going to give everybody an intro for you. But one of the reasons I want everybody to know I brought you on, this is super important because you're a great example of not only mindset, but success and business and wealth and all of the above. And you've helped hundreds of thousands of not just students, investors, but also with your charity. So guys, if you don't know Rod, he rebuilt after losing $50 million in the 2008 financial crisis. And he went on to kind of take his mindset, frame it the next level, and become the founder of Lifetime Cashflow Academy. He's over a quarter million students, multifamily units, best-selling author, host of a podcast. He's got a foundation. I'm just really excited about your overall background. So if you would do me a favor, Rod, give everybody, you know, we don't need the whole backstory, but you had a massive, massive event happen in your life. I mean, who can even relate with losing $50 million and coming back? So take us to that and help us understand the mindset that you had to overcome to get what you're doing now. Yeah, thanks. I appreciate that. Yeah. So I'll give you a little backstory. I'm a Dutch immigrant. Okay. Think wooden shoes and windmills. You know, immigrated this country when I was six years old with my brother, Albert, my mother's Vantcha. And we ended up in Denver, Colorado, and we didn't have much. In fact, my mom babysat kids so we'd have enough money to eat. We shopped at an expired food store. Believe it or not, they had that back then. Drank powdered milk with our cereal in the morning because it was cheaper than real milk. And trust me, sounds better than it is. And I wore hand-me-down clothes from the Goodwill all the way through junior high school until when I was 14. I lied about my age, said I was 15 because you had to be 15 to work at Burger King. And I was tall. And luckily, I was able to pull it off and flip burgers to be able to buy my own clothes. I'm sure you've got listeners that had it harder than I did. You've got entrepreneurs that listen to you. And we all bust our asses as entrepreneurs. And I knew I wanted more. And like I said, luckily, my mom had an incredible work ethic. So with her babysitting money, she invested in the stock market successfully. She also invested in real estate. Well, her first real estate acquisition was a house right across the street from us. She bought for $30,000 when I was about 14. When I was 17, she told me she'd made $20,000 in her sleep. It got up in value 20 grand. Now, keep in mind, this is when 20 grand was a lot of money. This is 1977. seven. And I'm like, what? You made 20 grand. You didn't do anything. Screw college. I'm getting into real estate. So I got into real estate. Well, my first year real estate, I made about eight grand. My second year, maybe 10 grand. But my third year, I made over a hundred thousand dollars, which back in 1980 was some pretty decent change. So what happened between year two and year three to cause me to 10X my income? Well, what happened was I met a guy that taught me about the importance of mindset and psychology, which I know you preach about. And I talk about on my podcast ad nauseum because it's 80 to 90% of your success in anything is your mindset and psychology. And so fast forward to today, I've owned over 2000 houses that I've rented long-term. I've owned thousands of apartment units. I still own about a thousand. I'm buying senior housing. I'm closing on my eighth one, four more tomorrow, literally tomorrow. That'll be eight that I'll have and one under contract. I'm very excited about that asset class as well. And in 2006, my net worth went up $17 million while I slept. And you might say, wow. And I said, wow. And I got a head so big, I could barely fit it through a freaking door. And when that happened, God of the universe will give you a nice little smack down. Well, that was 2008. Reality check. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I lost 50 million in 2008. I call them seminars now because it's only a failure. If you don't get back up, you don't get the lesson. That was an expensive freaking seminar. Don't get me wrong. But what I'm known for talking about is the success principles that I utilized to have 50 million to use in the first place, then maybe as important, maybe more important, what it took to recover from that. So happy to drill down on that a little bit, if you like. Yeah. You know what, Rod, what's interesting to me is I know you talk about it. You probably had so many people ask you this story because you've had, you know, thousands of podcasts and things like this, but, but, and so sometimes it just rolls off your tongue, but I don't think people can really relate to, just take me back to what you must have been going through because your head was so huge. You had all this money in that. You mean the pain? You want to hear about the pain? Yeah, I mean, you were in a place that a lot of people were at that are at now, you know? It freaking sucked, George, okay? Because I thought I was set for life. I really did. And, you know, because I had 800 houses. I had several apartment complexes. And by the way, I was only at a 30% loan to value. I only owed 30 cents on the dollar. I get hate all the time when I talk about this. Well, you were over leveraged. No, I was at a 30% loan to value. That's how bad it was. Yeah. The key here is, and there's so much opportunity right now, George. My God, to buy businesses, there's 10,000 people a day turning 65 that own businesses. To buy real estate, multifamily is in a meltdown right now. There's a lot of operators in trouble. I mean, you can buy deals for less than they cost to build. I'm buying the senior housing for less than cost to build. There's tons of apartment complexes out there being sold for less than they cost to build. But it's very easy to get sucked into the fear of where we are right now. and um i can well and you probably i was gonna ask you because you you probably you had mindset all the way up until that big loss and so that foundation probably helped you as well but also like you had to what triggered you to get out of it you know okay so here's the thing that i want to tell people that's why i went off on a sidetrack here it's it's you can never allow your vehicle i.e real estate or buying a business or stocks or crypto never allow your vehicle to be your identity. And I've never done that. I call them seminars, right? When they fail. I've built 30 businesses so far in my career. Several were tens of millions of dollars. Two right now are. However, most were spectacular flaming seminars, okay? I love that word. That's great. Seminars. Learning, basically. Yeah. We fail our way to success. But the key is to not allow it to be your identity. If it your identity people kill themselves when they connect their business their vehicle to their identity That the critical piece here Allow it to be your vehicle So I had vehicles that have failed It was a big vehicle that failed in 2008 But you know what If it not your identity it okay That failed You not a failure That the key People kill themselves. Like I said, that crypto guy shot himself in the head in his Lambo about a year ago and people jump off buildings. They did in 08. They did in the Great Depression because it's their identity. So I just want to flag that for the entrepreneurs that are listening. Never identify with the vehicle. That's a huge lesson. And what do you do on a daily or what do you do to make sure you do disconnect it? Because so many entrepreneurs are grinding and hustling so much that that's all they do. So even if they're not conscious or not conscious of it, it is their identity. It's a conscious decision to step back from it. Obviously, you work on the business instead of always in the business. And there's a lot of little things you do to disconnect so that, again, there's no greater force in the human psyche than the need to remain consistent with how we identify ourselves. You know, I've got I am statements on my wall here. I am success. I'm the best in the world at what I do. I'm a business genius because anything you put the words I am in front of is an identity statement. So in fact, in my virtual boot camps, I do an identity exercise. Everybody does their own identity and they, because you know, the, as you say it, so shall it be. So, you know, what you aspire to be, you need to identify with. And so. Rod, I got to just make a point there because guys, if you're listening to this, what he just said to you is two things. Number one, he works as much on his identity as he does his business or his seminars he's going through, right? But also at your level, even you've got, I am statements written up. I mean, you, you would think by now you'd have enough validation internally, externally, but you still continue to do that. That's important, right? Right in front of me. I am happy now. I am powerful. I am courage. I am blessed. I'm determination. I'm grit. You know, again, those, and I tell you, Mike, I have these in my exercise room in one of my other buildings here at my compound. And my kids, you know, they used to help me in my live events because I used to yell this stuff out running down the street. Yeah, I am. And because, you know, it's an affirmation. It gets into your psyche when you when you yell it out loud repeatedly. And that was a question my kids got most often. Did he really do that shit? They're like, oh, yeah, we had to hear it. Now I've got my own exercise room. So nobody has to suffer through it anymore. Yeah. Did you when you when you so you get past this 50 million dollar loss, but did you redefine the way you viewed wealth or what you were focused on? Did it shift how you were focused? Yeah, I redefined my asset class, okay? Because I had 800 houses, the houses that pulled me down. It's the reason I doubled down on multifamily because my multifamily would have survived if I hadn't cross-collateralized my apartment complexes with packages of houses. My multifamily pulled back about 11%. That's why I started my podcast about 10 years ago, and I'm blessed to say it's now the largest real estate podcast really in the world for commercial real estate. But I used to tell people, for God's sakes, if you're going to buy and hold real estate, do multifamily. Don't do single family. Ask me how I know. I say that a lot, by the way, at my bootcamps because I'm like, don't do that. Ask me how I know. So now one of my students got me a shirt that says, hashtag, ask me how I know. And that's great. You know, it still really is, though, multifamily real estate is one of your main investment strategies of choice. Oh, sure. Oh, sure. Oh, sure. As I was telling you before we started recording, I'm bragging now, and I was bragging before we started recording because I'm so proud of it. About three weeks ago, we discovered that we're counting how many units my students own. We're at 305,000. We know it's probably closer to 350,000, but we have verified 305,000 units, which is more than everybody else that teaches this combined by a lot. Very proud of that. It's a testament to people actually applying it too because I think one of the toughest things for real estate investors, And I wanted to ask you this because you always talk about psychology is more important than strategy. And I've heard you say that a lot. Or your technique. But what separates the successful from the unsuccessful real estate investor being that you have so many successful real estate investors you've worked with? Well, it's the education, candidly. I mean, it's applying the education. Out of those units that we have, we've only lost one deal that I know of, which is really amazing in this economy. Because a lot of deals are in trouble because they got adjustable rate debt. The rate's gone up. Inflation has caused expense ratios to go through the roof. I used to pay my maintenance supervisors $28 an hour. Now they're $40. So there's a lot of deals that are in trouble. My SEC attorney that does our syndications when we buy a property said he got six apartment complex foreclosures in one day. Okay, that's what's happening out there right now. So there's incredible opportunity. Yeah, so you just said a lot of that's happening, but it is opportunity. Oh my God, with crisis comes opportunity. Warren Buffett's famous quote, be fearful when others are greedy. A lot of greed these last few years, but the flip side of that is be greedy when others are fearful. The fear is now, now is the time to buy because the fear is there. And so many people that listen know they need more out of life. They're not able to spend time with their kids. They're not able to have that freedom that they want and deserve, or they're not leaving a legacy for their kids. And if that's you, for God's sakes, pick a vehicle. If it's real estate, get your ass to my, Next boot camp, it's a whopping 17 bucks and I don't sell anything there. So do that or figure out what your vehicle is going to be and learn it right now. Like I said, buying businesses. I wish there was two of me. One would be buying businesses. 10,000 people a day are turning 65 for the next 20 years. A lot of them own businesses. They need to sell, right? Incredible opportunities right now. People that haven't implemented AI, haven't implemented social media. It's an incredible opportunity right now. Yeah, I'm curious why you name it. So you've got Lifetime Cashflow Academy, and I'm curious why it's not Lifetime Real Estate Academy or something like that. Tell me a little bit about what that means. Well, basically, I teach people how to buy commercial real estate. But honestly, on my podcast, I've been having people that buy businesses on there, people that do franchising on there, because there's so many vehicles you can use. And you should figure out what juices you, what you would enjoy doing, because life's about being happy. And if you love what you do, work is play. Can you tell I love what I do? I mean, I freaking love it. Because when you love what you do, you're passionate about it. And passion is required to influence people. Right. And and you're more creative and you're more innovative. So, you know, I tell people, if you're going to get in this business, play to your strengths. Don't worry about your weaknesses. You hire a line or partner for your weaknesses. Success is inevitable when you do that. And so, you know, that's that's some of the keys. And again the reason my students are so freaking successful is I spend so much time on mindset You come listen to my podcast I do a clip every day I sorry every week rather I sorry I just did one today So I was thinking day I do one every week on mindset It's a five-minute clip. Give me five minutes a week. I will juice you. I promise. Of course, we have the real estate pieces too. And then we're talking about other asset classes. I did just multifamily forever. Now I do senior housing, of course, because I teach it. I do student housing. I do self-storage. I do industrial flex space, mobile home parks. all the different asset classes. Interesting. Do you do residential assisted living, stuff like that? Oh, yeah, yeah. No, no, not houses. No, that, I'm very familiar with it. Gene Garino, who teaches that, died and was a good friend. Yeah, same. His daughter's doing it now. Yeah. So I'm curious in that, because probably one of the common messages you have, and what's interesting is, we'll get to the finance as well, but the mindset is such a key piece. What are you saying to your investors right now when there's so much economic uncertainty? What Give me some specific things you kind of tell them other than just pumping them up. Yeah, just be careful. If you want to invest passively, on my link tree at RodsLinks.com is a book about the questions you should ask before you invest with a general partner in a syndication or a joint venture. And they're important questions. So, again, that's RodsLinks or if you're driving, text LINKS to 72345. I'll throw that in the show notes, guys, if you're listening. There's some great resources there, too. besides the books. I've got a book section that, I mean, these books are best in class books and they're free. Okay. So the price is right. And my goal setting workshop is there. You know, that's the first thing I did when I lost everything was reassociate with my goals. And if you haven't done your goals recently and you're listening, get over there and do it. Spend an hour with me. Have your spouse do it. Have your kids, if they're over 10 years old, do it. You know, people spend more time planning a freaking birthday party than they do designing their lives. Doing your goals is designing your life and it's free. I'm not going to try to sell you anything. It's there at Rod's links too. But Rod, I love goal setting. In fact, when I'm hosting the Franklin Planner Podcast, they've got about 300,000 buyers every year. It's such a big thing because if you want to create a life, you got to create a life. Can you give me some golden nuggets on goal setting? Dude, dude. Brother, we got to have you over there. Brother, right there, man. I'm a dinosaur. It's intentional. In the back of this thing, by the way, I'll show you something. In the back of this thing, I've got some of my goals. Now, the first pictures are pictures of my kids because it starts with gratitude, right? Everything starts with gratitude. Then I've got pictures of the things that I wanted. This picture looks just like the house I built on the beach, which is hilarious because I lost it in a divorce and it's right across the bay from where I live now. God's got a sense of humor. I get to look at it every day. The bottom picture looks like just where I live now. You know? You got dream building, goal setting. I've got a watch collection that'll blow your mind. You know, the Lamborghini, the Rolls Royce, the Bentley, all this stupid shit that I thought was important that I bought at one time. But it's because I have pictures of my goals around me, right? Well, you know, it's also the things you ended up with because you were associating that manifested in your life. So it's so great. I love that. That's so funny. We're so calm because, you know, I call it my book of power because at the end of the day, sometimes I just need to suck my mind into something that just pushes me forward. So, yeah. So let me just ask you this. If somebody, look, everybody's heard about goal setting. if somebody needs to just like take some action where do they start when it comes to goal setting other than like this is what i want when i want it how do i like give me some nuggets that you would tell your students when you're doing well of course do the goals first you know like napoleon hill talks about in his book think and grow rich by the way i've given away over 10 000 physical copies of that book physical the book itself but um and it's a book you should read two or three times a year as you as you well know george but yes but anyway you know starts with that because you got to create that burning desire, that hunger to push through fear, to push through limiting beliefs you may have, maybe to get uncomfortable. You know, that comfort zone is a nice warm place and we all know nothing freaking grows there. Right. So, but, but the goals are the start. That's what, that's what the, then you have to make a decision. And, and I don't mean dip your toe in the water. I don't mean one foot in one foot out. I mean, it is done. You make a decision and like, like a great analogy for a good decision is you, you attack the island, you burn your ships because you're taking their damn ships home, right? That's the decision. Then you got to take that first step. And that's the scariest part, especially people that are analytical. And I know who you are and I love you. And you also know how you have to check off every single box before you make a move. You can't do that. You're not going to see the whole path. Like Dr. Martin Luther King says, you take that first step in faith, the next step will be revealed. And Lao Tzu, the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, but you got to take that step. So that's the next piece, okay? Then you need to make sure you're playing to your strengths like we talked about earlier because there's lots of different hats you can wear in my business, different pieces that you can do. My business is a team sport. You're not going to buy apartment complexes by yourself. So you play to your strengths. Get around the right people. Your peer group is critical. I was in Tony Robbins' Platinum Partnership when I lost everything. I was around people that were killing it in that group. They were thriving. And they're like, get up, you puss, 50 million schmillion. Go make something happen. That's who you want to be around. Yeah. Yeah. There's that belief transference, right? You get that belief transference from other people around you. That's it. Get in the room where people think what you think is hard is easy. OK, that's the room you want to be in. And that's the peer group you want to be in, which is why my warrior coaching program is so freaking successful. Because there's just dozens and dozens of successful teams in there. And I wish I could take credit for it, but no, it's kind of got a life of its own. It's building because a rising tide lifts all ships. So peer group is the next thing. The next thing is focus. Focus is so freaking important. I get people that call me and say, how do I get out of student loan debt? I'm like, wrong question. How do you make so much money? The debt's irrelevant is what you should be asking. You know, they asked Mother Teresa if she was anti-war. She said, no, I'm pro-peace. I mean, you see what I'm saying? You know, focus is critical. Whatever you focus on gets larger, both positive or negative. I listen to two podcasts. You know, my podcast about 30 million downloads right now, which doesn't sound like a lot, but in the podcast world, it's not bad. It is really good. And my little niche. Thank you. And I listen to two podcasts. Joe Rogan and Tim Ferriss. I try to listen to both sides of the aisle. I'm definitely on the Joe Rogan side. But on the Tim Ferriss side, he interviews the best of the best in the world. Athletes like Michael Phelps, the swimmer, NFL, NBA players, actors like Hugh Jackman Arnold people like that billionaires like Ray Dalio the heads of the biggest companies in the world like Zuckerberg and he deconstructs their success It a fascinating conversation to hear how they became successful And I heard a pattern George In fact we evaluated it 95 of them meditate What does meditation enhance Focus right? So focus is huge as well. What am I missing here? You know, it's interesting. I was reading some Neville Goddard stuff just recently. Oh, he's great. And it came back up, attention. So I always think of focus, but attention is just another way of thinking about it. And I like what you said also, by the way, I wanted to double down. If you guys didn't catch this, because you said a lot of things really quick, I'm going to deconstruct later in our show notes, is he said, get in a room where what you think is hard, they think is easy. Yeah. I really loved that one, man. I just wanted to mention it again. I started my own mastermind. I started my own mastermind here at my house. I've got a compound here on the water in Sarasota, and I had 16 people come as about 3 billion in assets. I built it to 40 to 50 billion in assets, but it was like freaking herding cats. And so I gave it up a few years ago but but it was it was for me to be in the room where what i thought was hard was easy you know uh and and so you know that's why i did it and you know that's been my that's been my mo that's why i always wanted to do events around the world with people that i couldn't even like normally get in the room with because you do an event they're going to get in the room and all of a sudden you got you know trump in a limo coming up with his people or you got you know tony robbins on his rebounder in the back or whatever and you're like man how am i even getting here so this is that's how you learn right and well it's how i rebound right there behind that the recliner. Get yourself some energy going. Yeah. Yeah. Always, man. I got four of them around here. Well, listen, Rod, I wish we had more time. We're going to have to, you know, one thing I'd love to do is get you back over onto our Franklin Planner podcast, but I would like to just ask you one last question. You are pretty passionate about educating the next generation and it's a pretty big mission for you. Look at the thank you cards on the wall behind me, man. These are students. You can't even see them all. I literally have hundreds of them. You can't. Yeah. Wow. And, And, you know, because when you love what you do, work is play. And I'm passionate about education. Yeah. You've got a foundation as well, right? Oh, let me talk about that. Tell me about that real quick. So I told you about that house I built on the beach across the bay here that my ex-wife got. Well, this place was magnificent. I own the beach on one side, boats on the back side. It was called a Gulf to Bay. It was a slice through an island, big waterfall, second floor balcony into the pool. We had to walk through the waterfall to get the pools and magazines, big spiral staircase up to the middle. I'll land the plane with this on the second floor. I had aquariums built around the staircase, cost me almost 200 grand. So this gives you an idea of the house. It's worth about 12 million now. Well, I worked for that thing for 20 years. Two months after I moved in, I'm floating in the pool at night and I'm looking up at this testament to my ego, which is really what it was because I got picked on in school and I had this thing where I didn't feel like I was good enough. And it was to prove the freaking world I was good enough. I mean, if that didn't do it, forgetting. And so I'm looking up at this testament to ego and I got depressed. And this was only two months after I bought it. Okay. And so there were three messages in that. One was you should never achieve a big goal without having other goals lined up behind it. So keep that in mind. That was one piece. Second piece is it's never about the goals. You need them to create that hunger and that burning desire, but happiness comes from progress and growth. And I didn't know what I was going to do next. So that was the second piece. But the third big one was I'd been totally focused on me. Rod, Rod, Rod, show the world I mattered, blah blah blah well that's that's the year i met tony robbins and you know tony feeds families well i'm like what a concept do something for someone else i'm embarrassed to say i had to be 40 to get that memo i called my brother uh in uh denver and i was going to go visit him for thanksgiving i'm like bro let's feed five families so we bought food and toys for their kids if we knew that he called his church to find out who needed help third family changed my life george we go up to this house it's a it's a single hispanic woman with five kids her husband had left her. She comes out, she sees all the food and the toys. She starts crying. Her kids come out, two of the older ones start crying. I start crying and I'm hooked. And please know there's no ego in this. There's a real message in this. So don't tune out. In the last 26 years, I fed over 160,000 children in my area here for the holidays. For at-risk kids that wouldn't have a holiday meal, done holiday meals. I've done tens of thousands of backpacks filled with school supplies to local kids that don't have the basic supplies for school. Don't get me started on that. I've done thousands and thousands of teddy bears to local police departments for their officers to keep in their vehicles if they encounter a child that's been in a traumatic situation. The reason I bring this up is Tony Robbins calls it the science of achievement versus the art of fulfillment. Achievement's a science. You want to learn real estate, get your ass to my bootcamp, okay? Go to Rod's Links. I promise you'll be glad you did. But fulfillment's an art. You got to figure out what juices you. For me, it's kids and the elderly, but originally it was kids. And so figure out what it is. Give back right now. Don't say, oh, well, you had money. That's why you gave back. You want the money? Give back. That's how God works. Okay. So I just want to leave you with that message. I love that message. I love it. And I think it's one of those things that you find out in your life at one point or another that, you know, money isn't the success, isn't the fulfillment. In fact, I love that Jim Rohn quote, you know, success is not to be pursued. It's by attracted by the person you become and to become your best version of yourself and create your best life. You've got to have something outside you. And it's really something that you've got to incorporate into what you're doing. And the irony is it just fuels even more of the success you're going to have because that fuel and that desire is what creates more success. Even if you don't believe in God, that's just the way the universe works. I'm just telling you. And, and, uh, really is. Yeah. Well, listen, Rod, I really appreciate you being with me today. What's the easiest place for people to connect with you? Rod's links. Everything is there. My bootcamp site is there. If you want to attend my bootcamp, it's virtual. You can do it at home in your underwear. My, my podcast link is there. I know you'll appreciate that. Free book section, the goal setting workshop is there with a guide you can download. Yeah. So everything's at Rod's links or if you're driving text links to 72345. Yeah. And what I'll do is I'll put this stuff in the show notes, guys. So if you're listening to this, do me a favor, share the show. I hope that you've not only been inspired and motivated, but maybe you've learned a few things. You've gotten to your focus and a little bit of your attention into the right area. But like always, I've told you, listen, it's never too late to start living the life that you were meant to live. You've got to create it though. You've got to take your time and you've got to make it happen. So I appreciate you being with us here today. Once again, this is The Daily Mastermind. Look forward to talking with you guys more tomorrow. Have a great day.
