Things don’t always go as planned. Most people don’t quit because something failed. They quit because it got quiet. The kind of quiet where you’re showing up, doing the work, and nothing’s happening yet. No payoff or applause, no confirmation that you’re on the right path.

That’s usually the moment people start asking the wrong questions. Is this working? Should I be doing something else? Maybe this just isn’t for me. And what’s interesting is this moment almost always shows up right before momentum does.

That silence before the effort starts compounding and results start to emerge instead of feeling like resistance. But instead of staying, most people retreat to what feels safer, to the job that pays the bills but caps the future, right? The routine that feels responsible but quietly limits what’s possible. We talk a lot about risk. Like it’s reckless, but we don’t talk enough about the cost of playing it safe.

Because safe doesn’t mean free. It just means the bill comes due later. Missed versions of yourself you never get to meet because you left the room too early. That’s the space I keep coming back to in these conversations. The in-between moment where quitting feels logical, staying feels uncomfortable, and the outcome is still undecided.

That’s where real decision happens. I’m Dena Glasgow, and this is Invest in You, where we invest in more than money. We invest in mindset, ownership, and long-term thinking. Real conversations about real decisions, because financial freedom doesn’t start with numbers, it starts with perspective. They say it takes a village to raise a child, so why go solo with your finances?

And today’s conversation sits right in that space. My guest today understands what it means to stay when it’s uncomfortable, to choose calculated risk over quiet regret, and to build something by doing the unglamorous work most people avoid. I’m joined today by Brandon Hallabaugh, and we’re going to talk about what actually happens when starting and Succeeding, because why so many people exit right before things click, and how to think about- to think differently about risk, discipline, and staying powerful. Let’s get into it. How you doing today, Brandon?

Hey, Gina, thanks for having me. I’m doing exceptional, and I’m super excited to be on your podcast. Thank you so much. I appreciate you spending some time with me, and I would like to just start off with giving you the floor to tell people a little bit about you and your journey and what you do, and just a little brief synopsis if you would. Yeah, so I’ll start with kind of where we’re at right now.

I’m in, I’m in Southwest Colorado, a little ski town called Durango, and we, we mostly play in real estate in the Colorado and New Mexico markets. Our realtor on our team is dual licensed, and so, we can access both those markets. But ultimately, we kind of started out our real estate business flipping and wholesaling houses, just single-family homes. And that very quickly accelerated to buying apartment buildings, syndicating capital with investors, bringing in more people into our team, and making these super valuable connections. To grow our, our business and grow our influence and, and, you know, grow the, the people that we can connect with and add value to.

And that’s always our focus is kind of, you know, how can we add value to those around us with what we’re doing? And I think, you know, that, that mindset really tees you up to expand the opportunities there. You know, abundance starts to come in when you start to say, well, how can I serve other people instead of just, you know, I make more money, how do I sell more real estate? And so our real estate side of things, which is called B&C Real Estate Solutions, has really grown quickly since we started full-time in 2022. Um, so quickly that this last summer we had so many people who wanted to know how we were doing what we were doing or get involved in some way or invest, um, that we started a real estate education course and mastermind where we help people mostly new investors, but we have investors of all capacities and all, you know, all asset classes.

But we help people figure out what their next steps are to scale up, and that’s called Cashflow Academy 101. And it’s like, how do we start from the basics and fill in the gaps in education, give them the lingo, give them, you know, the real estate jargon, and how can we build from there? And so aside from that, yeah, we, you know, we we’re serial entrepreneurs. We buy businesses and sell them and sometimes buy and hold them or flip businesses. And so it’s, it’s been fun.

I’ve- my thing is, and I was so- I love the name of your, of your podcast, Invest in You, because there’s no return on investment that you’re going to get anywhere else besides investing in yourself and your own education. So that’s kind of where we’re at now. Awesome. Thank you so much. And yeah, that’s exactly why I, I wanted the, the name, you know, some people have a hard time with it just being all, uh, you know, I-N-N-V-E-S-T-N-U.

People are like, what is that? You know, but I wanted it to be a play on real estate, uh, you know, a play on investing in yourself, because that’s really where it starts, just trying to get yourself out of your own head and, uh, you know, cutting through the noise to, to find your way to, uh, your version of success. So you absolutely hit the nail on the head. Now, my story that I brought into the mix was really kind of talking about your path a little bit. I’d love for you to chat for a moment about- I know that you didn’t always start in real estate, right?

So if you could just tell the trajectory of how you even made it to today. Yeah, there’s a bunch of things in your story that you started with that really resonated with me and sort of pinged off of my memory and my story. But ultimately, you know, I would say my story probably starts when I was a kid. And, you know, I’m one of 4 kids. I had a carpenter for a dad and a homeschool mom who homeschooled us full-time, didn’t work.

And, you know, I remember my dad saying when I was growing up, he’d say, you know, things like, you know, you don’t work for the man, be in business for yourself. You know, you got to own real estate, you got to have your own business. And he would say all these things, but he never did it. And I just thought, you know, I remember seeing my parents struggle with money and struggle with finances and thinking, well, whatever they’re saying is, is, is, couldn’t be right because, you know, they’re not practicing what they’re preaching and realizing that, you know, uh, I think that my dad had big ambitions and, and big dreams, but never, he would get analysis paralysis, right? He would never execute.

He would never go start the business, even though he had a lot of, uh, skill and talent in construction. Um, and so growing up, you know, I, uh, I knew I wanted to go to college and knew we didn’t have the money to do that. So I joined the military. I joined the Navy right out of high school and went off into the Navy. And so bounced around different stations around the United States until I landed in Jacksonville, Florida.

And right before getting stationed in Jacksonville, Florida, I got on this deployment and I read this real estate book called Quick Flips and Fast Cash. And it was all about wholesaling real estate. So if you’re not familiar with wholesaling, it’s, you know, you put a house under contract or a piece of real estate under contract and you sell that contract for a fee. You assign it to an end buyer or investor. And I thought, man, this guy was saying he’s just making tons of money hand over fist with none of his own capital investment.

I just thought, this sounds like voodoo to me. You know, there’s no way. Uh, so I, I became obsessed. I started reading tons of books. Um, I was in the Middle East in a tent with a bunch of- with 9 other, you know, sailors, and I was trying to study at night.

Um, but ultimately, when I got back from deployment, I told my wife, I said, I, I want to wholesale houses. I want to, um, you know, I want to make money in real estate using none of our own money. Well, at that time, you know, I had kind of followed the path of my parents, which was accumulate a lot of debt from a young age, don’t make great decisions with money. You know, we were a family who really didn’t talk a lot about money. It wasn’t that it was taboo.

It’s just that we knew that there wasn’t any money. You know, I never asked my dad or my mom for money to go to the fair. I knew I had to earn it. And if I wanted to go to the fair, I’d have to go, you know, turn in some soda cans to the aluminum company or something like that. So ultimately, I came back and I told my wife, I’m going to be a real estate entrepreneur and I’m gonna sell houses.

And she goes, you’re crazy, man. We can’t even afford diapers. You know, we don’t have money for that. And I told her, I said, well, give me $200 in 2 months and I’m gonna, I’m gonna do a real estate transaction. I’m gonna wholesale a house.

And she said, I’ll give you $100 in 1 month. And if you can’t do it, you gotta forget this nonsense and continue focusing on your military career. Just promote in your job, in your W-2 so that you can, to make more money to pay our bills and keep continuing the rat race, right? So I got a bunch of signs. I wrote on them like a second grader, you know, I buy houses for cash and I stuck them all over Jacksonville and the phone rang off the hook and I closed my first deal.

This was September of, I think, 2010. Yeah, September 2010, closed my first deal in 29 days. And I made a wholesale fee of $600. And I, and I, and I did a lot of work for that $600. And people say, well, $600, Brandon, that’s, that’s ridiculous.

That’s chump change. To me, that $600 to this day is the greatest $600 that I’ve made. And the reason is, is because I proved to myself, I removed self-doubt. I got over the analysis paralysis. I stopped just talking about it and I did it and I, I gained the confidence.

And I realized that I had done something that was repeatable. And so that was September that we closed that deal, end of September. October, I closed $34,000 in real estate transactions the very next month. Nice. And so that was my big break open.

And I realized that staying active duty in the military wasn’t in my path, right, in my life. And I wanted to do real estate. But in your story, you talked about leaving the room too soon.. And I think a lot of us, uh, you know, and, and I’m, I’m a confident person. I have a lot of trust in myself and, and my gut, but, you know, we all struggle with self-doubt and mindset stuff, which is extremely important.

You wanna be an entrepreneur or in real estate or in any of these competitive markets, you’ve gotta, you, you have to have confidence in yourself. And at that time in my life, I, for whatever reason, I wasn’t quite there. You know, I had a wife and two young daughters at that time. My contract in the Navy was ending. Um, and so there was this pressure to produce and perform and to pay the bills.

And so we relocated to Denver, Colorado, and we had, um, we had bought a couple of rental properties with some of the money I made from wholesaling in Jacksonville. And so those kind of helped us make the transition to Denver. And this was the end of 2012, beginning of 2013, we moved to Colorado and they had just legalized marijuana. And we had used some money from one of our sales to buy ATMs that we put in these dispensaries around Denver, Colorado. And, you know, marijuana was a cash business.

So that was my, that was my, you know, second business. It was B&C ATM Solutions, right? Which is put ATMs everywhere. Yeah. But, you know, throughout this path that led me to doing real estate full-time and doing what I consider, You know, what I, my purpose, what I truly love now, uh, I struggled to make that leap.

And, you know, I think, uh, maybe I just wasn’t ready and that’s okay too. You know, everybody has their path and I think it’s important to, to listen to your own intuition and, and, uh, not go, well, I read this book and this guy said I need to quit my W-2 and jump right into whatever. You know, that sounds, that’s to me, that sounds like it could be reckless, right? Um, but ultimately, you know, I, uh, I ended up becoming a cop for 8 years in Colorado. And I, uh, for the first 4 years I was on patrol and then the last 4 years I was an investigator and I did fatal crash investigation.

So not a, not a glamorous job to most people, but, uh, you know, I, I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed the mathematics that it took to, to do it and do a good investigation. But I remember it was, uh, it was July 4th, 2022 and I get called out. So Independence Day, 2022, I get called out as a double fatal. Mother-daughter, uh, died in a, in a, in a rollover, a Jeep rollover that was a tour vehicle.

And so I had like an hour and a half drive and I, so I called my little brother and at this time my little brother had been flipping houses for about 3 years and doing very well. And I called him and I, and he, I said, hey, what are you doing, man? He said, what the hell do you think I’m doing? I’m barbecuing, man. I’m drinking beers with my loved ones.

You know, we’re having a great time. It’s Independence Day. What are you doing? And I said, well, you should feel pretty safe because I’m out here fighting crime. You know, I’m going to investigate this crash, right?

And, uh, sort of being silly, you know, tongue in cheek about it. And then he just, he gets kind of quiet and he goes, why are you doing that, man? And I said, well, what do you mean? This is what I’ve chosen. This is what’s secure.

This is what’s safe. This is what pays the bills. And he goes, no, I don’t mean why are you doing it, you know, as your career. I mean, like you could be doing you so much more because you could be doing real estate like you were in Florida. You could be pushing yourself to learn more and do more.

You could be flipping houses. Um, and I just thought, well, yeah, you know, I don’t, I don’t know. You know, I think I’m doing it because of my own insecurities. You know, you don’t trust yourself, or maybe you don’t feel like you’re ready, or you don’t, or you feel like you lack the education. And so ultimately, I think what a lot of people get is that analysis paralysis, right?

Well, if I quit my job, then this is going to happen. And then what if this doesn’t work out? What if we start to play the what-if game, right? And, uh, and we, you know, scare ourselves out of whatever we were trying to do. Now, again, I don’t think it’s- I don’t advocate for just delaying quitting your job.

I don’t, you know, I don’t think that’s a good idea until you’re ready. But at that point, I knew I was ready. And so I went, I went home, uh, after that evening. I talked to my wife and I said, I think I want to quit law enforcement. I want to do real estate full-time.

And she said, let’s do it. I’ve been waiting around. And I was like, wow, I did not expect that. You know, I expect, no, why? You know, that’s so scary, you know?

And so September 2022 is when we launched BNC Real Estate Solutions full-time. And from there, it’s just, it’s been a wild ride. It’s been amazing, you know, extremely blessed and so thankful that there’s people like you like-minded people who can, you know, who I can connect with and who can put me to my greater potential. And I in turn try to help other people, you know, by doing Cashflow Academy and educating folks on how to find their niche in real estate. That’s fantastic.

And that’s exactly what I, you know, I wanted you to dive into is you’ve lived like so many lives already. You know, in this lifetime. Um, and a lot of people don’t. I mean, you hit the nail on the head. It really- we become complacent, you know what I mean?

If the paychecks are coming in and we feel comfortable, we know things are, you know, just cruising right along, we just become- and complacent might not even be the right word, but we become stagnant. Like, the It’s just repeat. You just become on repeat and autopilot and really don’t expand ourselves, put ourselves in positions to really expand our own mindset and what is possible in this lifetime. And so the, the, you even getting the backing of your spouse, I mean, that’s pretty awesome. I mean, you already showed her you could turn the $100 into $600, so she knew that the, uh, the theory was tested and proven, you know.

Um, so it’s great that she was like, I was just waiting for you to, you know, say the word and, and go for it. Um, because people do need to find it in their own time, and these discussions are really just to start opening up their eyes, you know what I mean? To just keep looking, keep- what is, what is your passion? How do you want to make it happen, you know? Learn from people that are doing it and just be open to possibilities.

And you’d be surprised what, what can happen, you know. I think as far as mindset goes, I’m sure you do quite a bit of this with your education too. I have not been to one mastermind, one seminar, one anything that starts anyplace else other than mindset. I mean, it’s almost, it’s almost annoying to a point. You’re like, get to the content, get to the real stuff.

But mindset is always first because so many people stand in their own ways. So it’s great for people to just continuously hear that there are other people out there who have had, you know, multiple versions of themselves and just keep thriving, thriving in really catapulting themselves into, into new worlds. So it’s great. Thank you very much for that. You know, how do you personally know the difference between persistence and stubbornness?

You know, what does it take for, for you to say, you know, am I just being stubborn? I got to, I got to let this one go. I got to shake it off versus I’m going to stay persistent and make sure that $100 turns into $600. Yeah. You know, I think, I think there’s a combination of the both.

I think, you know, if you’re going to be good in any business, I think it does take a little stubbornness. Um, you could be, you gotta be careful there though, because you know, your stubbornness can become reckless where, you know, you’re like, oh man, I’m looking at this deal. Maybe you’re underwriting a deal or you’re doing the numbers on a deal and you’re like, oh, I’m just, you know, I’m in love with this deal and I know I can make this work. And you’re, you know, you’re tweaking the numbers different ways. And then, you know, uh, when you, when you, when you realize you’re just kind of trying to force something, it’s not persistent.

You know, persistence is doing your numbers well every time and following the best practices and knowing that you’re underwriting conservatively. You know, we’ve seen the market, you know, and obviously, you know, primarily in real estate, but we have, you know, other things like car wash, we have a trucking company, cycling studio. And so we’re pretty, yeah, we sort of have our hands in many different pots, but I’m always looking at the market. You know, when you see the market do crazy things, And so if you’re stubborn, I think the thing that I have noticed is the first thing that’s going to kick you in the ass and get you out of your stubbornness is volatility in the market. You’re like, okay, okay, I’m going to get back to my tried and true analysis of these deals or whatever I’m doing and sort of get off of my high horse and stop thinking that I know everything.

Perfect. Perfect. When you were talking earlier, you had said that B&C, you, you have somebody, or do you have your agent license, or does somebody in the office have the, the- you said someone’s dual agent in the office for you. So for B&C Real Estate Solutions, my wife is my business partner, and she is our realtor for our team. And so we have like a sales side, you know, I focus more on- and we really try to find what people’s, uh, true strengths are You know, my strengths, I enjoy the art of the deal.

I enjoy negotiation. I enjoy the creative, you know, constructing these deals in a creative way to make them work for buyer and seller or whoever’s involved, you know, or if you have investors coming in, how can we make this profitable for everybody? And so that’s sort of where I thrive. You know, and my wife, you know, she’s incredibly talented realtor. She could broker the most complex deals and make them, make them work for everybody as well.

And so I think it’s, you know, anytime you’re building a team, which is just so vitally important if you’re gonna, you know, if you’re gonna grow something, you start building out your team and you start finding who is best in what position. There’s nothing wrong with saying, oh, we had John in sales and acquisitions, but he’s not that, you know, he’s in his wrong spot. Let’s move him over here where he can really thrive. And, you know, I always, I always say, uh, this sort of this clich I started saying years ago, real estate isn’t about properties and profits, it’s about people. Once you make that shift in your, in your, your ethos, I think it really, you remove some of that friction from the business and things start to flow a little better.

The big, the business becomes more abundant. You start connecting with the right people. And, uh, you know, I think if you can show people that you’re, there to add value to them, that’s, you know, it’s just, it’s crazy how much that opens up the possibilities. 100%. It’s, you know, when you talk sales, it’s really about finding that common ground with that person that you’re working with.

And, you know, the, there’s another clich out there that people don’t care what you know until they know that you care. You know, and, um, and it’s clich , but it’s really true. I mean, the, the money will follow, you know. It’s really first about the relationships that you surround yourselves with and, and for people to know that you have their best at heart, you know what I mean? Like, you care about them first and foremost before yourself.

And, and, uh, finding a a ground to stand on for both of you, that it’s going to benefit everybody in, as in the transaction. Those are the best transactions that are out there, and that’s what helps roll things into others. I mean, I imagine that you don’t, um, acquire these various businesses that are all in their own little niche without developing those relationships and hearing about these deal opportunities that are out there. You know, you, uh, started with the people first. You know?

Yeah. You know, and once, once we sort of shifted, it’s funny, we named, I’m the B, Brandon and BNC. I’m the, I’m the B and my wife, Chessie is the C. And we started, you know, years ago, we’re like, well, picking our business name, BNC Real Estate Solutions. And what we were able to really focus on and what I found is that the business name got defined later on down the road. We just picked it because it was a catchy name and it seemed to fit.

But years down the road, as we’re, as we’re buying houses, whether we’re going to flip them or wholesale them or keep them as rentals, we’re able to help people out of really bad situations in their lives. You know, life’s dynamic, life’s complex. People get into rough spots when it comes to real estate. It’s the most expensive thing we buy in our lifetimes, typically. And, you know, we’re able to get people out of their rough spot, whether it’s a divorce or death in the family or whatever it is.

And provide that solution there for them. And so, you know, we had this time where like, oh man, we’re really able to provide these solutions. It’s so cool, you know. And, uh, for me, that was, that was a really, you know, huge step and a huge, like, growing moment for me too, personally. Um, but, you know, you, you had the, you had mentioned, you know, talking about, you know, money and stuff like that.

Well, I grew up not talking about money, you know, and money wasn’t, uh, something that we really even even focused on. And so when I first started real estate and I started in business, I, I thought, you know, I was money-minded, right? Okay, I just need to make enough. I could only do this. And I always play the, uh, when-then game, I call it.

When I get $1 million, then I can achieve this in my life. When I accomplish this, then I can, you know, and that’s a ridiculous way to live your life. Uh, what you do is you’re always looking ahead and you’re not focusing on the present. And you’re not focusing on how you can be of value in that moment. You know, there’s a saying that goes, uh, some people live 90 years and some people live 1 year 90 times, you know?

And I found myself in that, in that repetitive cycle, you know, especially prior to, um, really stepping away from my W-2. But I just thought, you know, okay, if I just work again this year and I do well this year, and then I can promote a little and maybe then I’ll have this, you know? And after doing all the math, it was like, well, I, I might retire as a cop after 30 years with maybe $1 million if the market is okay and gentle with me, you know? Yeah. And so that was a big part in the, in the leap in that transition, but it definitely took a mindset shift.

I love it.

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Did you- I mean, obviously you’ve done the, the wholesaling, you, um, you started to talk about syndication and we’re going to get there as well. In between, and now obviously you guys have the real estate company. What besides the syndication stuff and owning these few businesses, what type of avenues do you take with real estate? Do you do any flips anymore? Do you wholesale anymore, or do you concentrate just on those bigger projects?

So we still have- we kind of focus on the- we still flip. We have a section that flips. Now we have, you know, general contractors who flip the houses. Um, we, we, we’re doing- we’re breaking into a few developments right now, but only because we bought some prime, uh, like golf course lots that would make good spec homes. So we have that going on.

But really the big things are flip properties, wholesaling properties that we don’t want to flip, or maybe that don’t have the margin to flip, and then acquiring rentals. And, and right now we’re focused on 50-unit-plus buildings just because you can put a management team in there and it sort of operates itself like a business, as opposed to if you’re buying one single house at a time, it’s, you know, a little more trouble, a little more, you know, work. But ultimately, that’s sort of the flow of everything, you know, is to just continue acquiring more multifamily rentals. And every multifamily rental we focus on now is something that we can do a value add on. So we’ll look at it.

It either needs to have low rents that we can raise up closer to market rents, or it needs to have deferred maintenance that we can improve on, Or if there’s a, you know, a vacant lot, we can put a little park in it or something that we can, you know, continue to improve these properties. And so that’s sort of the real estate flow right now. Perfect. Thank you for bringing it up because it- I’m really in all the episodes thus far haven’t really gotten to the syndication spot. So I’m excited to talk to you about it and hear more about Cash Flow 101 and everything.

So if you would be so kind, explain for the listeners, what is a syndication? Yeah, absolutely. You know, a syndication is, is just a way to tackle some type of an asset or investment that you may not have all the funding for right away. So you go out, you find the- let’s say we find a 50-unit apartment tomorrow. I run the numbers.

It looks like it’s, it looks like it’s a good deal. But we need $1 million down to get in on this. You know, I’m a big fan of using other people’s money, OPM. I don’t use a lot of our own money. So I go out and I talk to investors.

Hey, here’s the deal. I always tell them, and you know, this sounds cocky and I don’t want to sound cocky. I want it to sound confident and matter of fact. I say, you’re the first investor I’m bringing this deal to you. You should feel lucky.

And the reason is, is not because I’m some real estate badass. It’s because I know that I have put systems in place that are successful. I also know that I can add value to that person. That’s a relationship that I value. I value their trust.

I’m going to take care of them. And so I tell them about the deal. And so syndication is really just bringing in the capital that you need to take down a big deal. And that doesn’t always mean you’re buying it cash. Maybe you’re just fundraising enough for the down payment.

But, uh, you know, that’s- it’s a great way to get more people in on a profitable deal and make it better for everybody. And the first time that you went out to do a raise, how was that conversation for you? I mean, that’s definitely for investors who are, you know, well-versed in the single-family space and might have those smaller multi-families, but haven’t taken a leap into the bigger commercial properties, um, primarily because of that, that fear of the discussion of raising capital and, uh, holding on to other people’s money. How did that first conversation go for you? You know, I, uh, it’s kind of funny.

My, my wife and I really wanted to start expanding our real estate business, and to that point, uh, I had I had used my retirement that I liquidated from being a police officer, and we were flipping houses with our own money, which is very stressful because you’re always robbing Peter to pay Paul and then you’re holding your breath for it to sell. Right. But we had a friend, we’ll call him Fred, who had a lot of money, a very wealthy individual that we had created a really good relationship with. And I just woke up one morning and I just told my wife, I said, I’m gonna go ask Fred to be our investor. And she goes, what?

I said, yeah, you know, I thought about it, I’m gonna go ask him to be our investor. She goes, really? I said, yep, I’m gonna go do it. And so I went to him, I said, here’s the plan, have a plan in place, here’s the- here’s what I propose that we do as far as our partnership. And our first, you know, was less of a syndication, more of a joint venture type.

But I said, I think, like, you have money I need money. Real estate’s expensive, but we know how to make money by selling real estate. And, uh, he, he said, let me get back to you this afternoon. Now think about it. He called me that afternoon.

He said, you know what, let’s do it. And so, uh, you know, uh, and, and we, we, he has lent us anywhere, you know, from $0 to $5 million. And so there’s a lot of trust there. Um, I think it starts with having confidence in yourself and knowing that you have enough education to execute well, because your, you know, relationships are the most important thing here. And I’ll protect- I’ll go, I’ll go to great lengths to protect the relationship.

In fact, I tell my investors, I say, listen, I will lose before you lose. Um, and that’s part of- that’s just part of how I operate. But ultimately, you know, um, there’s, there’s more money out there than you can imagine. And the one thing I hear a lot of in Cashflow Academy, our real estate program, is, I don’t know where to find the money. I can’t, I don’t have access to the cash.

And I say, listen, there’s more money out there than you can imagine. You just have to go ask for it. But the one thing that sets you apart, and this is to your, you know, to your podcast’s name credit, invest in you. You, if you want to set yourself apart, you have to be willing to get educated. You have to be willing to invest in yourself and takes the time, you know, that it takes to be able to guarantee people or to, you know, gather investors’ trust and use their money.

And so that was years ago. Now we have enough of a presence to where investors call me and say, hey, Brandon, I get $1 million, you know, I’d like to put to- I’d like you to put that to work for me. And so we can, we can do that. Excellent. So tell us a little bit about Cashflow Academy.

Cashflow Academy, I, you know, uh, that’s been one of my favorite projects to do. You know, I think when we talk about our life purpose, you know, I, I don’t even know if I know that I believe in a life purpose as an individual thing, but I could tell you if there is life purpose for me, this has been so gratifying to help other people and educate other people and connect them with the resources that they need and build their own confidence, right? But Ultimately, what was happening was people would call me, we’d start posting, we got active on social media, we started posting on social media what we were doing, showing beautiful flip houses, even our failures, you know, because we’re wired to learn from failure. Hey, here’s, here’s a failure that we did, or what we perceive as a failure where we lost money or where something wrong happened, right? And I started posting all this stuff and just being real transparent and raw on social media.

And people started reaching out, hey, I want to have coffee. You know, I see what you guys are doing. I love it. I want to have coffee. I want to do this.

I want to do that. So I was going to coffee with people several times a week. And what I found is I would, I would say the same thing to every, hey, you know, read this book, listen to this podcast, get on this YouTube channel, get some education, or, you know, if they already had it, go out and execute. Put it, you know, don’t get analysis paralysis. Get your feet moving and go do something.

Take action. And ultimately, I was saying the same thing over and over and over. And I think statistics show that, you know, 6 out of 100 people will take action on a very difficult thing. And that’s a, that’s, you know, that’s, that’s a really low 6% is very low. And so, you know, my, I started doing the mental math.

Okay. If I have coffee with 100 people, maybe 6 of these people are going to go out and, you know, do some knock, knock one out of the park. Right. And it’s kind of funny, my wife at the time and my mentor both kind of told me the same thing, which is you need to be recording this stuff. You’re saying the same thing to these people.

You know, there’s nothing wrong with having coffee with people, but most of these people aren’t going to take action. And what they do is they see the lifestyle, right? They, you know, a big part of the reason I wanted to be in business for myself is because I got tired of the rotating police schedule. I got tired of being on call and missing all my kids’ sports. Sports events.

You know, I got out of the Navy because of that very reason, and then I ended up in another career where I had the same problem- no time freedom. And in my personal opinion, time is the only valuable currency we have, right? Because we’re all dying. We got to be careful with what we’re doing with our time. And, uh, so, um, they’ll see, you know, people would see me, you know, enjoying time with my kids at their games or whatever, and that’s what people see, right?

And they’re that’s what they want. And so ultimately, uh, I got together with- at that time it was my mentor, and I had paid for coaching with him and knew him well. And he said, I really just think you need to start a mastermind. You need to record this. And so I spent all last summer recording a lot of incredible, uh, videos on different strategies.

And the 4 strategies we focus on primarily are rental properties, how to get started or build up your rental portfolio, wholesaling if you want to do, restart in real estate or do real estate without any of your own cash invested, flipping houses, and then the BRRRR method, which is buy, renovate, rent, refinance, and repeat. And so we kind of want to build this, this foundation for investors, this foundation of confidence, right? Okay, here, now you have the tools. Now you know how to go out and do these 4 strategies. And there’s a million ways to do real estate, and we’re only limited by our collective creativity.

But, uh, I find that if you give people those 4 strategies, they really feel empowered to go out and start executing whichever one fits their, you know, their time or their personality the best. Absolutely. Yeah, those are foundational ones for sure. And, um, like you said, there’s so many ways to get deals done. Especially with those few opportunities.

I mean, they could learn so much. So that’s really great. I have a few questions, um, that we’ll kind of wrap up with, but I want people to get to know you and get to know like your mindset for the academy, um, while we’re, while we’re on the tail end of this. So what would you say if someone’s listening and they’re undecided, they’re in that middle space? Face, what’s the most practical next step?

Not maybe the ideal one, but what’s the next practical next step? Well, I, I think, you know, for me, I always encourage people to continue their education. If you think that you’re interested in real estate or business or whatever it is, consume information, consume data. Watch Dina’s podcast, listen to Dina’s podcast, watch YouTube videos. You know, if you have a commute to or from work, get on Audible and listen to valuable information.

Start filling your mind with the stuff that you want to accomplish. And you’ll slowly start to kind of break out of that, whatever is limiting you to take action and to do it. But ultimately, I tell people that you’ll never get a return on your investment like investing in yourself. I put my money where my mouth is. You know, my, When I finally decided to stop trying to do it on my own and decided to get a real estate coach, I paid that real estate coach $10,000 of money that I really didn’t have.

You know, I think I put it on a credit card or something, but I thought, you know, I’ve got to go out. If I’m not- if I don’t want to see radical- if I want to see radical results, I need to take radical measures. And that was one of them. And when I told my wife, hey, I’m going to spend $1,000 on a coach, she goes, you better get a lot of information out of that coach. And, uh, I ended up starting a business actually.

Yeah, actually that coach is now my business partner in Cashflow Academy, Eric Nelson. Um, and so, you know, I think, uh, that would be my number one is stay educated. The other thing is I say if you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room. Yeah. Yeah.

I don’t ever want to be the smartest person in the room. You know, a big reason selfishly why I started Cashflow Academy is because I know I’m surrounding myself with valuable people who have different life experiences than me and who could teach me so many things. And so surround yourself with the people that you want to be like. And I did this as well when I was 23 years old in 2010, starting in real estate in Jacksonville, Florida. I went all over Jax and I went to real estate networking groups and I would just go up to people that seemed like they were doing stuff and I said, hey, what are you doing?

How’d you get there? I want to know. You know, don’t be afraid to ask them about, are you making good money? Is it worth, is it working, right? Or are you just stressing yourself out and working your butt off and not seeing a valuable return?

And so surround yourself with those people. Don’t be the smartest person in the room. Get around the people that you want to be like. And I’d say those are my two biggest things to kind of break you into whatever that next chapter is in your, you know, in your, in your learning. The curve.

Love it. I heard you say, uh, before that you- not in this podcast but on another one- that you had, uh, read Rich Dad Poor Dad. I like the Rich Dad Poor Dad. I, um, have several of my own, uh, books that come to mind, but if somebody wanted to listen to something on Audible, what would be your go-to book for them? Uh, there’s, there’s a lot of good books out there.

Um, one of the first ones that I- that really got my attention when it came to wholesaling was called called Quick Flips and Fast Cash by Andrew Massaro. Now, this is not a New York Times bestseller, but he breaks things down in a way that make it seem simple. And I think the reason people don’t get into real estate is because they just, they inflate it in their mind. They think it’s this massively complicated thing. And there are complicated sides of it, but the truth is someone already knows how to do those things as well.

You know, if it’s title, you can have the title do it. If it’s writing contracts, you can have a realtor do it or an attorney do it. And so you don’t need to know everything. You just need to get started. But that’s a good one.

Of course, the Purple Bible, you know, Rich Dad Poor Dad is a great mindset one. There’s, I forget, the founder of Keller Williams has a book called How to Get Started in Real Estate Investing. And he did ridiculous things in real estate. But that is a great one because it actually, it sets up a path on steps you can take, some practical things you can do to start getting yourself into an advantageous position to be able to, to move when the opportunity presents itself. It’s not that there’s a lack of opportunities, it’s that we’re not ready for those opportunities, or when the opportunities present themselves, we get cold feet.

And so a little bit of preparation will prevent both of those things from happening so that when the opportunity presents itself, presents itself, you say, I know that’s a good opportunity. I’ve been doing the education. I’m going to go ahead and make that happen. Awesome. Awesome.

How about what’s one thing that folks might be surprised to hear that’s part of your, like, ritual day-to-day work? Surprised to hear? Oh man. You know, my, I try to be, I try to be pretty ritualistic. One thing I, another book that I really love is The 5 AM Club.

It talks about, you know, the value of a routine and waking up early. You don’t have to wake up at 5 AM because I understand there’s some people that are late risers and early risers. But I find that the first hour of the day that’s quiet, it’s just this time of extreme clarity for me. And it’s almost the time where I’m sharpening the sword, right? I’m getting clear, I’m clearing the fog, I’m getting prepared for whatever I need to do that day.

And every day is different. But, um, one thing that really helped me transition from a W-2 into a life of, of what I consider entrepreneurial freedom, financial freedom, is my willingness to follow a routine. And so that, that morning routine became pretty valuable for me. And, um, there’s a, there’s a book called The Compound Effect. I’m trying to remember the name of the author.

Incredible book. The Compound Effect talks all about the, the big changes in life, the things that change your life from, from what it was to something that’s unrecognizable, a life of abundance and success and just absolute, uh, you know, joy is not these big huge changes. It’s the little tiny things that you choose to do every day that compound over time. You know, this, this real estate especially is, it’s this, it’s a compounding curve, right? And, uh, you start, at first it’s hard to feel the momentum, but as you continue to do those steps and, and take the steps towards your goal, you start to feel that little apex in the curve and you’re like, oh man, you start getting excited and it’s like, okay, we’re getting some momentum.

Right? And then just goes through the roof. So I like the idea of having a routine and, you know, and maybe that’s just kind of my soapbox. And I mean, I was looking actually up on my shelf because I know that I’ve either listened to that on Audible because I like Audible too, or had the book. But I think that that was one that I listened to.

I really like Profit First, if you’ve ever read that one. And And have you- are you familiar with Cody Sanchez? Yes. Yeah, I, I really like Cody Sanchez, and, um, Main Street Millionaire is her book, and that’s a really, really good one. Um, I’ve probably listened to that, and I have the book and listened to it.

It’s one of those books that I like to listen to and have it in front of me so I can highlight in it. I’m kind of a nerd like that. There you go. Love it. Um, what was the hardest thing that you had to tell somebody?

Oof, man. Um, that’s a good question. And, uh, I don’t, I’d probably have to dig, dig deep on that. Um, you know, I think there have, there have been a lot of hard conversations, but really, um, I don’t know if this falls in the, I don’t know if this answers your question or falls in the, in the category, but I can say that when I decided to quit my police job, uh, you know, of course word started getting around that I was, um, going to resign. And you know what you do as a cop is if you’re not doing cop work or investing, you sit in the office and talk about how great retirement’s going to be, right?

You do the numbers, you calculate, oh, this is how much I’ll make in retirement. Maybe I can get a new set of golf clubs or something, you know. Um, but ultimately, you know, I- one of the sergeants called me into his office and he was this old crusty kind of cantankerous guy, you know, and I think he had way too many years on the force. And he goes, I heard you were quitting, halibut. And I said, yes, sir.

I am resigning to start my own business. He, and in more colorful language than I’ll say it in this, he goes, are you, you’re a freaking idiot, aren’t you? And I just said, well, you know, yeah, sure. You know, whatever, you know. Yeah, I guess I am, you know, as everybody else seems to think I’m crazy.

Um, but my point in saying that is, you know, people are going to have their own opinion on this and on what you do with your life, even if you’re still working at your W-2, but you’re investing on the side, people are going to give you their opinion. And, um, you know, I think you said something about, you know, when, when we were, when you were first doing the introduction about cutting through the fog or, you know, the negativity or something like that. People are, are afraid of what they don’t know about. And, you know, and they want to, they want to weigh in, they want to give their two cents. But ultimately, believe in yourself.

You know, you’re gonna have people who doubt you, you’re gonna have these difficult conversations. Just believe in yourself, focus on what you can control, and continue to execute. You know, those same people who, you know, thought I was a freaking idiot or, or You know, they’re working at Walmart now in their second career, and, you know, and they call me and ask me for advice on house buying, stuff like that, you know. And so, um, just, just ignore that stuff, you know. That’s just a bunch of garbage, you know.

People are afraid of what they don’t know about, and here we are doing something that’s pretty radical and pretty out of the norm. Absolutely. Well, that is a great wrap-up lesson for sure. I hope that when people listen back, you know, they are pulling some or feeling the same way that you have felt at different transitional periods in your life. You know, a lot of people want a sign to keep going, uh, but really that sign should just be within themselves.

You know, to- we all want some confirmation that the effort’s working, and that rarely happens. But that Law of the First Deal, that that snowball effect is just keep going. It will start to compound. It will happen for you to cut through the noise. No shortcuts.

You don’t have to follow the hype. You just have to follow your own path and what you really believe in. So if you’re in that in-between space right now, you know, don’t make the mistake of staying complacent and staying in your own space. Really step out and find out what’s out there, because sometimes it’s just the part where that foundation is being set and it just takes that one step. I really appreciate you being with us today, Brandon.

It’s been great chatting with you and I’m excited to see what you do next. And for anybody who wants to get in touch with you, how can they find you? Yeah. So people are I’m happy to have people email me if they want. They can look me up on Facebook, Brandon Holaba on Facebook, or B&C Real Estate Solutions on Facebook.

If they’re interested in Cashflow Academy, they can find me on Facebook and DM me, or they can go to www.cashflowacademy101.com and they can check us out there. If they mention you, Deena, that they heard about me, on, on this podcast, I will give them a 25% discount on the course. And so I’m happy to do that for your listeners and just keep on paying it forward for the people who support you and support us as a community. Awesome. Love it.

Thank you so much, Brandon. It’s been a pleasure. And folks, this has been another episode of Invest in You. We’ll see you next time.