Brant Phillips
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Show NotesBrant is a full-time real estate investor, business owner, entrepreneur, author & speaker. He has been featured on Fox News, hosts local seminars and is even being considered to star in one of those “Flipping Houses” TV shows.
Brant is a proverbial ‘rags to riches’ story, while living in an apartment and having no money, was able to purchase his first investment property on a credit card! He went on to by 10 properties that same year with no money down and within only a few years later, has rehabbed hundreds of homes and now owns a portfolio of rental properties worth millions and routinely flips houses for fast cash.
Brant is a former police officer who prides himself on integrity and serving others. He is a husband and father of three and enjoys helping and teaching people to experience the freedom and success he has achieved through successfully investing in real estate.
“I want to see you succeed and I don’t want to let you down, I hope you take action today and see incredible results soon!”
In this episode Brant shares with us what he calls the 4 Pillars of Power: Mindset, Skill set, Environment and Accountability
His main takeaway here is that it’s of the utmost importance to be clear about what you want and who you want to be before anything else.
You’ve got to work on all aspects of your life to be a true success. His 4 Pillars of Success are Business, Faith, Family and Fitness. Work on all of these things.
Don’t just focus on business. You will grow much faster in each area when working on the others.
He has a “power hour” each day where his kids know that he has to turn off the computer and turn off the cell phone and focus and be present for them. They hold him accountable.
His wife and kids also send him a score card email each month that rate him on different aspects of his life. This is an incredibly good idea that we should all incorporate.
Here’s Brant’s process to determine what you want and how to find out who you are
1. Be ok with where you’re at – Eliminate self-abuse – That was the past, let it go
2. Go to a quiet place and really consider where you want to be within the 4 pillars of success
3. Start Living Your Passion Right Now by commitment to work on each area DAILY
He also like to create names for targets of goals so that they become more fun and easy to keep in his mind. He has Operation Adoption which is his goal to adopt by the end of the year (he already has 4 kids of his own).
Make a plan for yourself, otherwise you’ll end up a part of someone else’s plan. – Jim Rohn
Recommended Books
7 Strategies for Wealth & Happiness: Power Ideas from America's Foremost Business Philosopher
linksClick Here to Download the 4 Pillars of Power
Click here to download the Rehab Estimator PDF
BrantPhillips.com/beach-breakthrough
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Episode TranscriptionWelcome to the Flipping Junkie Podcast. My name is Danny Johnson former software developer turned house flipper, flipping hundreds of houses. Each week we bring you interviews, strategies, stories and motivation to help you get started flipping houses and on your way to becoming your own boss and achieving financial freedom. Thanks for spending time with me today. Now let’s get to it.
Danny Johnson: Hey welcome back to the Flipping Junkie Podcast. We’ve got our first episode of the series for the flipping houses series for the podcast. We’re starting from the beginning. We’ll talking about mindset, goal setting, getting started with little money and getting started with almost no money and what to do to start out and build the right mindset of foundation for this business, so that you can become a success at it. Today we’re going to be talking about mindset and the four pillars of power. I’ve got Brant Phillips on the show today. It’s going to be a great show and if you’ve got ideas for the series – be sure to subscribe on iTunes so that you know of each new episode they come up because it’s going to go in order and flow really well now and we’re going to have very specific episodes targeted to a specific topic within that series, so I’m really looking forward to it. Be sure to go to facebook.com/flippingjunkie. You can leave comments and ask questions. If you want to find out more about a certain topic that’s going to be coming up or get more in detail on something, you can check in there and do that. We’ve also got Instagram at Instagram.com/flippingjunkie where my wife Melissa is posting pictures of rehabs and stuff like that, so be sure to check that out.
Today, we’ve got Brant Phillips on the show. Brant’s a full time real estate investor, business owner, entrepreneur, author and speaker. He’s been featured on FoxNews. He hosts local seminars and is even being considered to star in one of those flipping houses TV shows Brent’s a proverbial rags-to-riches story. While living in an apartment and having no money, he was able to purchase his first investment property on a credit card and he went onto buy 10 properties that same year with no money down and with only a few years, he’s rehabbed hundreds of homes and he owns a portfolio of rental properties worth millions and routinely flips houses for fast cash. Brent’s a really great guy honesty and you’ll be fascinated. He was also a former police officer who prides himself on integrity in serving others. He’s a husband, father of three, and enjoys helping and teaching people to experience the freedom and success he has achieved through successfully investing in real estate. I’m really glad that Brent’s on the show with me today. I’ve talked to him here and there for a little bit and really I am looking forward to find out more about him and what he’s doing because he’s doing some different things, some stuff that I haven’t really seen anybody else out there doing with regard to coaching and things like that, and I really like what he’s set up. All right, so how are you doing Brent?
Brant Phillips: I’m doing great man. Thank you for having me on the show.
Danny Johnson: Hey, thanks for being on and taking the time to do it. Let’s start with finding out a little bit – I’m curious about how you got started. What got you interested and fired up in flipping houses, walk us through your story.
Brant Phillips: Yeah, sure. So I was like – a lot of people out there, maybe some your listeners – I was in law enforcement for about seven years before I went to the corporate world and that’s where seeing some of your listeners are at and I was kind of stuck in this corporate world or felt stuck and I really, to put it lightly, disliked what I was doing for a living and just made up my mind. I told my wife end of 2006 I’m not going to do this anymore and she said, “Well, what are you going to do?” And I said, “I don’t know.” So I began to do a little research. Like a lot of people, I was drawn real estate, and read Rich Dad and Poor Dad and I said I’m going to become a real estate investor is what I told her. We lived in an apartment by the way. We had no money. It’s not that we were – ___ [0:04:30] we had, but we were in a place like were somewhat newlyweds. We paid off our bills, paid off student loans and we had our first child at that time, and we just didn’t have any money. And she was like, “That’s great. I’ll support you but how are you going do that because we don’t have any money?” And so I was like, “I don’t know. I haven’t figured that part out yet.” I’m like ___ [0:04:50] figure out.
And so long story short, 2007 I utilized – we did have good credit. You could actually buy houses with good credit at that time and I bought 10 houses in 2007 while I was working my full time job and did the same thing in 2008 about 10 more, began using private money partnerships actually in 2008-2009 I continued buying properties, I got to about 25 properties in April or May of 2009. I quit my job. I went full time in real estate investing and really just being an entrepreneur. I began flipping houses, renting houses and began doing some construction services for other investors basically just running our crews and doing a remodel with my company, which is now known as Invest Home Pro, doing some coaching and just being an entrepreneur and really just creating freedom. That’s what I really wanted and people are like, “Why did you get into real estate?” I enjoy houses, flipping, renting and building houses. I enjoy all that, but for me it was like freedom. That was my main focus and just to be able to leave my job, control my destiny, and control my income, things like that. I didn’t map that out as good as I could have the first year years. Sometimes I’m in a predicament where I still work a lot and partly because I just love what I do, but partly it’s just like it’s kind of a trap like be clear on what you want. My first goal was freedom, so I have to quit my job. I just I worked more than I should have in the beginning, but that’s what I wanted. I want to be free from the corporate chain if you will.
Danny Johnson: Yeah, I hear you. That’s what it takes, right? It takes the hard work. If buy into the whole real estate investing as a get rich quick scheme that doesn’t take a whole lot of effort, you’re mistaken.
Brant Phillips: Oh, definitely. It’s a labor of love.
Danny Johnson: Yeah and the way you talk about getting started and just knowing I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I’m going to do it. One way or the other, I’m going to figure it out and I’m going to do it.
Brant Phillips: For me it was a mindset thing and I tell people we’re living in the old apartment, I went to my first boot camp, went to training event and signed up for some very inexpensive coaching, but I got some mentorship and got a little education. In January of 2007, when I first started my first event, I bought my first house that same month. I went to the store and I bought a poster board. It was a really cheesy thing man, but I bought this poster board and I got a sharpie, I drew 10 squares and hung it on the wall. I call it my office. It was like, it had a little desk in the area of our living room in our apartment. My wife was like, “You’re not putting this poster board up on the wall.” ___ [0:08:28] white poster board. She was like, “You’re not putting that up on the wall.” And I’m like, “I love you baby. This poster board is going up on the wall.” Because every time I buy a house, I’m going to fill in a square and I’m buying 10 houses this year. I tell you what man, that poster board drove me because I had deals fall out, I had deals that had title issues. It’s like a daily reminder to grind and I bought my 10th house the last week of December that year.
Danny Johnson: Awesome.
Brant Phillips: And really, that poster board helped teach me some lessons about mindset, goal setting and just all that kind of stuff.
Danny Johnson: So is that still there? Obviously you moved, but did you move and hang it up again? I would keep it at least somewhere.
Brant Phillips: I have it. I saw it not long ago. Well, about a year or so ago. I should’ve framed the thing but no it’s not hanging up anymore.
Danny Johnson: So getting into a mindset, that’s what we want to focus on today and you sent me a graphic that I’ll have available on the show notes page at flippingjunkie.com/17. Our people will be able to download that graphic for the Four Pillars of Power which you have labeled as mindset, skill set, environment and accountability. Do you want to start with maybe how you came up with the four pillars and then walk us through each one of them.
Brant Phillips: Yeah. I’ve been to so many programs and coaching programs and mastermind and all types of things and I’ve seen and experienced what works and what doesn’t work. A lot of times what I’ve seen play out for people and I have a lot of conversations with people who are just getting started or wanting to get started or on that sense and with Invest Home Pro providing construction services for investors like, we work first hand with a lot of investors and you know I see where the investors that come in that do a deal and they do multiple deals and they and they create a sustainable business and those who come who are on the fence and they may be do one or two and it doesn’t sustain. And so again, I kind of researched why is it that some people create success and why don’t they. And as a coach and a mentor as well, the other thing that caused me, I guess you could say to begin with this research was, back in the day several years ago, I was doing some of the big hotel dog and pony real estate gurus shows and kind of behind the curtains just talking to a real estate guru and this conversation came up about the success rate of students like people who come to these events. And he threw out a number of 5% and it bothered me. It bothered me because once you go to the event, I was the real estate guy and I was going to be responsible for coaching people and by percentage it’s not acceptable and they’re just talking percentage of people who come to the doors. It bothered me and I stopped doing big events. I don’t really want to be affiliated with that. Another thing that happened around that time was I went to boot camp my very first year and then a few years later, I put on an event and I did a group flip. We picked three people from the audience and we did a flute with them and one of the ladies who was in the group flip was in the very first event that I went to my first year investing. This is three years later and she is coming to my events and had never done a deal until she did one with me at that time. And so, I sat with her a little bit and I’m like, “I’ve seen you around for like three years and you haven’t done anything, never taken action.” So those couple of things triggered in me like, “All right. What is it really that creates success?” And saw most programs will help you with mindset a little bit. It’s generally in the form of motivation. There’ll be some and energy there and they’ll try to pump you up. You can build your mind set and that’s great and that is necessary. It’s our job as entrepreneurs to continually sharpen our mindset and that’s great and most programs have that. The second thing that most programs have are they teach you the tools and the skill set. This is this information, general education and that’s great we need that too, but that’s what most programs provide and that’s when you can literally Google. You can Google, search anything you want about real estate investing. You can listen to your podcast, they can read my book and get the skill sets and that’s all fine and dandy. But if you only stick to skill sets and mindsets, you’re not going to have a great success rate. You may create some success, but in my opinion it’s not sustainable and you’re not going to create great massive success. Start looking at what I’m doing and some of people that I’m involved with and masterminds groups and things like that and I found there’s really a couple of other pieces that are absolutely critical in what, I would say, 1% but like 8:20 rule like 20% of people possibly even less are applying these things and that’s why they’re getting 80% of the result. And the other pieces are the environment that they are in and also accountability. What I’m talking about environment? Sometimes it’s physical environments that help you change things and I’ve been in several masterminds like in Dallas and I live in Houston right now. In California, I think I was in California six times last year for a mastermind, so physically leaving my house and being at a different place like – my masterminds are called Breakthrough at the Beach and we’re literally like it’s on the beach. Down at the beach, the ocean just something changes in that environment, but also just in your day to day life like who’s in your circle. What type of environment or people are you with? Are you surrounding yourself and that uses analogies that I can always think of is like whenever it you have children, you want to make sure that – you hope that your children – or you want to steer them towards making good choices with the friends that they pick. What clicks are they running with at school because the environment that our children pick is going to influence their behavior and their results in their life somehow some way. So it’s the same thing in business. It’s like, who is in your environment? Who is in your corner?
And the other critical piece that is kind of intertwined with your environment is accountability and to me like this is probably the most critical piece and this is where I have seen where if you have this, your chance of success – I wouldn’t even say chance, your odds for success are so much more greatly increased versus those who don’t. And what I’m talking about? I’m talking about – you and I both know that real estate is not that terribly difficult. It’s like a bunch of little steps little things you have to do on a day-to-day basis including you and your team to do so many things and just doing it over and over and over and over and over again, getting better at them and improving them make to make them more efficient. But it basically boils down to doing some work every day and the problem is a lot of people know what to do, they just don’t do it and a lot of times it just boils down to accountability. They don’t have anyone holding them accountable kind of pushing them and kicking their ass a little bit, if you don’t mind saying that, whenever they try to give up on themselves or whenever they are taking it easy. It’s like, “No, get up man. Get back up.” I know what you want. Your goals are right here. I know what your goals are, like “Dude get up.” Stop taking it easy on yourself. I get it. You took little bumps, took a little bruises, but get back up man and keep going and just like pushing each other.
Danny Johnson: Right. And also to force them to not spend their wheels on the small things, majoring in the minors, when they should be focused on the bigger things if they get them towards their goals and accountability is big with that too. So somebody telling you, hey, why are you designing your business card for three days, when you should be out there putting bandit signs out you know or whatever else.
Brant Phillips: Yeah. What’s going to lead to dollars? That’s a pretty sweet logo you’ve created there but you’ve been working on that thing for two months man. When are you going to do deal?
Danny Johnson: Yeah, I’ve been there.
Brant Phillips: I got a student and I started working with two months ago and he just closed on his first deal two days ago and he has been taking action. I’ve been there with him. Every single week we meet, take action steps like, “All right. What are we doing this week?” “This, this, this and this…” I’m like, “Okay. Are you going to commit to that?” “Yup.” “So when you show up next week you’re going to have it done?” “Yup” “Promise?” “Yup.” “Okay. Go do it” And each week he comes back, “I did this, this, and this, and this…” “All right. What did you learn? What’s going to be your agenda for next week to keep moving the ball forward?” And he had done that and that to me is just the most critical piece.
Danny Johnson: Right. So have the goals clearly define exactly what they want and why they want those goals, what they want to achieve and why. And that’s going to be the focus of the next episode. Episode 18 of the podcast will be an episode about goal setting. So definitely come back next week for that. So Brant, once they’ve got the goals and they set up the environment, so that they’re around people that are like-minded that are also focused on success and changing their lives, changing themselves, and then helping those people to hold them accountable and force them to do the bigger things, what can some people do that maybe can’t afford a coach or a program that something you can do with your wife or your husband or family or friends or something like that that maybe you also have the positive mindset. I mean what do you think about that?
Brant Phillips: Absolutely. So the four pillars of mindset, skill set, environment and accountability, they really apply to all areas of life. It’s not just a business conversation. As you know, some may or may not, my program Breakthrough at the Beach, it’s a program that’s focused really on creating results in all areas of your life, so that you can use this lesson to create other results. For example, I allow my kids to hold me accountable in certain areas and kids are really really good at this when you empower them with that ability and so you what does that look like? I’m a little extreme on the way I do things, but that’s kind of how I am, so I’ve got something on my daily calendar. It’s called Power Hour. It’s generally between 4 and 5 or 5 and 6 and Power Hour is like you shut off your phone, get off the computer, let’s just do whatever they want to do. A lot of times we go football with two of my boys, I’ve got three boys, one is just baby. We’ll go ride bikes with my daughter or shoot basketball or jump on the trampoline or whatever it is, but they know Power Hour is theirs to do whatever they want with daddy. And they hold me accountable to getting off my cell phone, shutting things down and just go and do whatever. Set up reports like my kids get a monthly email that my wife facilitates where they can score me on certain things and I get a scorecard from my kids and my wife actually every month. There are ways that you can create accountability. You can do this with friends. You can do it with family or with other people. Google Calendar can hold you accountable. You plug in some type of daily commitment and that thing is going to pop up every day in your email, send you a little text reminder like, “All right. Do this.” [Crosstalk] “Oh, I got to do that.” And in just your environment too, people spend so much time watching TV, it’s like, all right that is like an environment and I get it. I watch some TV but it’s Shark Tank. It’s the profit. I’m not just going to sit in bed on some potato chips of the mind kind of programming. It’s like, what are you taking in and that’s your environment. And so, absolutely it applies to any other life whether in physical fitness, hiring a trainer, going to the gym versus CrossFit. There’s all kinds of stuff.
Danny Johnson: And that’s why I wanted you on the show to talk about mindset in this whole initial episode in the series because what I saw with what you’re doing, you’re not just taking a group of guys and saying, “This is how you do marketing to get motivated sellers to call you. This is how you handle the call.” That’s all necessary, but at the same time most people aren’t set up to handle running a business like, changing their life, getting other their comfort zone. And what helps with that is what you’re doing where you’re talking about spirituality, you’re talking about physical changes to where are you’re keeping yourself healthy, changes with family and life. Being a better father, husband, all that kind of stuff, and I think it all goes into play with this. You’re changing your life. You want to get in there and get freedom through real estate investing. But you’re talking about changing your life in general and I think all these things are necessary and I think that’s when people really see the biggest change and the biggest take off The biggest growth is when they work on themselves, and in order to do that, it’s not just focused on making money or working on a business. It’s working on every bit of who you are and that’s why I wanted you on the show because you’re talking about that. I love this thing with the wife and kids holding you accountable every month with a score card as a way to get their feedback if you’re working too much or keeping you in line and showing you where you need to work on yourself and your relationship with them. I think that’s powerful.
Brant Phillips: Yeah. I appreciate that. Several years ago I caught myself going down that path where I didn’t want to go because I’ve seen so many before me go and guys who were successful and they create success, and a lot of these guys are real estate investors, entrepreneurs, real estate kind of entrepreneurs, and just other guys in life in my family with that scene. And they go up and they create success, but it’s generally one pillar of success and that was business. They become this one dimensional guy at the same time they’re creating financial success, they’re really struggling the other three areas which means faith family and fitness just health and condition. They’ll end up making money but sacrificing or even losing all through a divorce, through health conditions or just spiritually detached with who they even are, or what’s going on in the world and man I was going down that path. Marriage was kind of on the rocks and I had become like just this workaholic dude. I’m still a workaholic, but I was a workaholic without investing and incorporating those other areas. Very long story short, man I was like, I’m not going to do this. I’m not going down that path. How about fix this, but even more so, not just how do I fix it like how do I create ideal business and how do I create an ideal situations and other areas become once again spiritually disconnected, from an incredible husband and father, get back and take control of my health and fitness like this drinking thing I’ve got to deal with that and I need to take care of my body. And since then, I’ve done Iron Man, I have fought MMA cage fights, doing SteelFit right now and I’m 40 with three knee surgeries, two ankle surgeries, all kinds of bumps and bruises, but it’s this system and approach we take that just cause us to kind of sell for this. So the funny thing that happened, it’s not really funny. It’s a science if you will but whenever you come really really connected with who you are in your core, in your heart, what are you really on this big ball of mud like, what are you here for? What is your purpose? I get like we feel like “Well, I’m in real estate.” I’m like, “Yeah, okay.” So I don’t know if you recall, do real estate any be what you do to make money and that’s cool, but like there’s something bigger, so I just began to get really clear on what I wanted, where I was, what I really wanted. What I wanted to be in terms of my spirituality and my faith. What did I want my family life to look like? What kind of husband at the end of the day like when they lay me on the ground what’s my legacy going to be with my wife and my children and other people in my community and family and friends and loved ones. How was I want to going to treat my body, how long is this body going to last me? Am I going to burn it out by the time I’m 50 or 60 or am I going to be one of those dudes like I met these guy and he’s like 85 years old he works out every day and the dude had more energy than me. You know, what the hell. I want to be like that dude and I couldn’t. At that time, I was freaking drinking every night, that kind of stuff, and I want to make money. I enjoy doing real estate and making money – so long story short just to put it altogether, that’s become my passion of kind of leading the way, like walking the walk, not just talking the talk ad helping men to rise up and find their voice and their calling and their passion and just step up not just make money, which is part of it, but just have these four areas of life—
Danny Johnson: How do you recommend that people sit down and – is there a process to determining what they’re meant for and what their point of being here is, I mean, do you have a sort of process that you follow or have people follow?
Brant Phillips: Great question. We do and that’s what we cover at Breakthrough at the Beach. One of the things we cover is helping men to get really clear. The thing is some people – it’s different for everybody because people are coming from all different places. And so if you take of the four pillars of your faith whatever means to you – your faith, your family, your fitness, your finances, when you take each pillar what I found is generally people are coming in and they’re pretty good usually in one area or maybe even two areas like they’re usually doing pretty good but they’re usually struggling in at least one or two areas and sometimes like they’re like really bad in one particular area. Wherever you’re at, it’s like just be okay with where you’re at because that’s part of this process. I’m a big believer in eliminating self-abuse like stop beating yourself up for things that went bad in the past and things you didn’t do, things you could’ve done better, blah, blah, blah – all that kind of stuff is done. It’s done. Where you at right now? You’re freaking bankrupt, you got money, wife left you – all that stuff, cool, that’s where you’re at. The only time we’re going to look back is so that can learn from what you did and plant for the future. And really, it’s like the analogy “If you’re in a hole, stop digging.” It’s literally that. So wherever you come to this point your life, it’s like, all right “How do I get clear? How do I find my passion? I haven’t discovered passion.” My belief is you just start living it right here and right now whatever that is. And so, it requires –the main requirement is just being committed to investing in that area daily. For me, we call it F4 and it’s a commitment, it’s a code to “I’m going invest into all four areas of my life every single day.” Sometimes this is five minutes, it’s like I’m going, I’m going to read this book and maybe journal about it. Cool. That took you five minutes or ten minutes, but you invested. I’m going to shoot my wife a text or my kids this voice note or I’m going to write a little post-it stick-it note “I love you” and stick it on the mirror, boom, done. You invested. You begin to just invest, stop digging the hole deeper and you begin to invest in whatever it is. You get clearer with where you’re at right now. So like, “Hey, this is what I want in my business.” “This is what I want in my health.” And you begin working towards that every day and so the funny thing is, as you begin, you begin to invest daily, which what you’re really doing is you ultimately begin creating power, confidence. You begin to build up deposits into that bank. And so what I found is you begin to just take a step of faith, a leap of faith. It’s just a step. Just take a step every day and you begin to get more clear, you begin to become more certain. And to me, certainty and clarity is power. As you begin to invest, you begin to take action rather than digging that hole deeper. Your horizon and things you begin to see begin to expand and get bigger and that’s where it all starts. You’re probably not going to have this big grand vision of slamming down millions of dollars in real estate if you’re bankrupt and you’re broke and living in a one bedroom apartment and can’t hardly afford ramen noodles, That’s okay, but you start with where you’re at and the first goal is just to get out that apartment and have a steak dinner once a week or whatever, and you start with that and you grow and you build upon it and that’s totally cool, but that’s where it all starts. It’s just being open honest and real and raw with where you’re at and just beginning to dream a little bit like, this is what I really want here and then committing to do the work that’s requires every single day. But what I found is this is the thing that happens, just by making that commitment and these men that I’m leading, as they truly begin to commit and a step up, it doesn’t happen overnight, 60 or 90 days later things start to come together to when they’re really connected on purpose. They’re investing in their loved ones and relationships or taking care of health and fitness and getting into working out even just a little bit healthier, doing things like that. “Dude, you show up in the business world so much more powerful.” And I say powerful like very clear on what you want, which means that you filter out things like, “No dude. I’m not even wasting my time with that” because there are so many opportunities. ___ [0:34:15] I see people like they are jack of all trades master of none and they’re like “Oh, a squirrell” and they’re chasing all this stuff all over the place but they’re not building anything. But when you take that time connecting those areas, you’re like, you make more money because you’re more certain and more clear coming into the business world. I’m seeing this happen over and over again and that’s what I live and I lead and what I believe.
Danny Johnson: I know, absolutely. It’s definitely necessary and that’s why I wanted you to be on the show to help people because even successful investors that have been doing this for a while some of them could even benefit from hearing that message because they might be on that path like you were talking about. Where you were talking about where you’re just working but other areas of your life are sort of falling apart. For new people, start out this way and then for people that maybe were lacking in some of these areas, by improving yourself in these other areas, you’re going improve your life and improve everything, which is going to boost all four pillars that you were talking about. Four pillars of success being the business, family, faith, fitness. That’s really really important. Now as far as like mindset goes though, for people maybe starting out that have a negative mindset or a negative outlook or maybe limiting beliefs and things like that, what do you have to say for people that struggle with those kinds of things?
Brant Phillips: All right. Great question once again and just to jump back for a second, this training and this type mindset stuff is not just for people who are struggling getting started. More so like this is the good to great conversation. A lot of times I find guys who are doing pretty good. They’re doing pretty good like marriage is pretty good, relationship with my kids pretty good. I’m okay physically and my business is pretty good. To me, good is the enemy of great. I don’t just say that. I take that to the heart. Good is the enemy of great. And so, the problem that happens like guys are living like this good life, you’re essentially living on a plateau. Generally these guys who are coasting and I see this happen time and time again because I’ve done it myself. It’s human nature. You reach a certain level, you take your foot off the gas and you kind of coast a little bit, and the only thing man is like that drift is inevitable. You kind of lose your edge a little bit and it’s Mike Tyson a Buster Douglas man, like Tyson, he lost the edge. Do you get knocked up man because you lost the edge? So guys who are getting on a plateau, and as we know, if you keep going on a plateau, it’s going to go down not up. It’s very important to create this kind of game in your life to keep moving up and not be satisfied with it, like how can I grow, how can expand, how can I take things to the next level and so all of that is a mindset. In intertwines with goal setting. I visualize and I’ll write down when I’m taking my notes and creating what I’m going to do this year. But that’s only for a second, I back it back up and I’m like what am I going to do in the first 90 days. And I create 30-, 60-, and 90-day check points for me because what happens is like if I’m looking way too off in the distant future, it allows me to kind of take it easy. I’m like, “Oh, I didn’t really pushed forwards this goal but it’s all in January” And then February come and March, “Oh, well it’s just a quarter. I still have three quarters left.” So we get really aggressive with goal setting. We force that accountability. That’s what I do with my groups. We have weekly reports, sending your reports like how did you show up this week in all areas of life not just business and what are your plans for this week. So constant repetition and just reminders of what it is that you’re working towards to me this is what kind of drives my mindset if you will and it all starts with clarity and just being open and honest with myself. If I find myself not pushing to hit targets each week, like that’s what I’m like, “All right. I need to take a step back.” And get clarity because maybe I don’t actually want this because we actually – we go after what we typically want, and when I see people talk about, “Oh, I really want this. I really want to have this multimillion dollar business in real estate.” I’m like, “Okay, is there just a chance that what you really want to go home at night and watch three hours of TV and eat pizza and drink beer? Because that’s what you’re doing. So honestly, I feel like that you want that more than you actually want to create this real estate.”
Danny Johnson: Don’t kid yourself.
Brant Phillips: Yeah. So that’s sometimes I’m like, “All right. So I didn’t hit this. I wasn’t as aggressive as I should have been on this particular item this week.” It causing me to step back and I’m like, “Do I really want that or did I just write it out because it sounds cool?” And so that’s when I enforce mindset and accountability. Another little trick, a little thing I do, a trick in my mind because that’s what a lot of this is, it’s just like tricking our minds and changing these stories that we’ve dealt within that limit us. I’ve created names with some of the targets that I’m going to get, so for example my wife, we have four kids and my wife wants to adopt and I want to adopt as well. But right now, I was like, “All right, so I want to adopt but here’s what I want to make that happen…” in terms of like we have a part-time nanny and I want a full-time nanny. I don’t want to sacrifice on the house being picked up and all these other things with another kid. I want to be able to be present with them and give time and attention but not sacrifice like there’s dirty clothes all over the place, my wife is stressed out. I want to do this right away.
Danny Johnson: Right.
Brant Phillips: So with certain targets, you can name them there’s like, “operation adoption.” You can name your goals and your challenges and you give them a bigger purpose to kind of fuel that fire because a lot of times if you’re just chasing money like if it’s a money goal, to me that doesn’t really excite me as much. So you reward yourself of trips, gold, things like that. ___ [0:41:22] how can I get back to a better purpose. So those are some of the things that drive me and that’s why I like to connect the other areas of life with business because I’ve just – for me, pursuing money is not fulfilling. It’s not fulfilling as I thought it was going to be. When I first started, I’m like , “Oh, if I’ll just make all this money everything’s going to be great.” It really didn’t work out that way. Making money and then having another purpose behind it, that’s bad ass. That’s what it’s all about and so that’s kind of ties in the mindset stuff.
Danny Johnson: Right. If I’m hearing you right, it’s more about being clear on who you are, what you want drives a better mindset to be able to overcome obstacles and things because it’s something that you feel you want more than going home watching TV for three hours, eating pizza and drinking beer. And so that sort of takes care of itself, right? I mean, you’ll overcome a lot of those things, maybe you’ve got to work on some self-improvement stuff, get some books audio tapes of podcast. Did I just say audio tapes like cassette tapes? But you know what I’m talking about.
Brant Phillips: My dad probably got some of those.
Danny Johnson: Yeah, we’re kind of ___ [0:42:47] some of these people listening might not even know what that actually is.
Brant Phillips: Yeah. I mean you never know. I talked to guys ___ [0:42:54 ] it’s cool man. The cassette tape is on in 2016 actually. To answer your question, yes man, it sound so, it sounds so simple, but the root of it is what do you want? Really, what do you want? Be honest not what society thinks you should have or what you think society thinks that you should have or what your friends or family. What do you want? Get super clear on it because look at entrepreneurs like the 1% of entrepreneurs, guys who just went out creating massive success, you can look at politicians, social leaders, the Martin Luther Kings, Mother Teresas of the world, it wasn’t like that they were any smarter than anybody else necessarily. It was just like they were really clear on what they wanted to accomplish. I’m here for this purpose, this mission, and they ___ [0:44:01] their reaction on it. What I’ve seen play out is people aren’t clear what they want, so they allow other people, other organizations that are clear to rob them of their time. And that’s why most people fall into the job trap is because they don’t know what they want. They know they want to pay their bills and they want a paycheck and that’s as clear as they get. And so they end up in this job that they hate, that they’re miserable a lot of times and it’s just because they weren’t clear on what they really wanted and now that company in that organization was very clear on what they wanted, so they end up using that person as a widget to help them accomplish their goals. And so, it’s kind of really a battle of who can get the clearest on what they want and if you just start there and take a daily action, do the work every day, things begin to happen man. Things begin to happen.
Danny Johnson: I couldn’t agree more. It’s the whole make a plan for yourself, otherwise you’re going to end up a part of somebody else’s plan. And Jim Rohn what says, “What do you think they have planned for you?” And then the answer is “not much” because it’s their plan. That’s pretty empowering though realizing that and really it does seem simple like you said, but how many people do it and I guess it’s sort of like Brendon Burchard says, “It’s maybe common sense but not common practice.” People think that they know it but who lives it, who does it who takes – and isn’t it incredible though, how many people haven’t or doesn’t seem at least like they have maybe taken the hour to go somewhere quiet off by themselves and really start to think and look inside of themselves and say, “Look at where I’m at and where I want to be.” Maybe because it’s fear or something to acknowledge that you didn’t accomplish a lot of things that maybe you hoped you would, but like you said, that’s the past. Forget about it.
Brant Phillips: Yeah. Just taking that time – recently, I went on a 24-hour meditation retreat. No cell phones, no computers, nothing, just out in the wilderness. It’s a little bit scary man. I’m not going to lie, but a lot of insights came to me during that time. And you mentioned people can talk about it or you can be about it kind of thing and for me it’s you kind of can see – you kind of can see who’s living a life like this or at least in one area of their life, not all areas of their life, by the results that are produced. It all boils down to results. I’m a Christian and Jesus said, “Ye shall know them by their fruits.” And so for me, it’s like, “Dude, don’t tell me you’ve been doing this, this, this and that because I know that those actions produce results when you’re doing the right way maybe you’re doing them half way, maybe you’re doing them partially, maybe you’re doing them every other day, but whenever you’re doing the work and your playing all in, you’re going to produce fruit. People are either producing results or they’re not and that’s really just a blunt way to look at it. I kind of look at myself in the mirror and I’m like, “Damn dude, you bombed big time.” And I’m like, honest with myself I didn’t really play all in on that. I was halfway in, I didn’t get the results I want. That’s all on me. So do I really want that? Yeah, I do. All right. I’m going to roll up my sleeves and I’m going to produce some fruit this year. It really comes down to seeing what people are creating and producing, not just talking about it. Save the talk and just create results period.
Danny Johnson: Yeah. That’s it really. It’s easy to talk and act like you’re super excited about doing something, but if you’re not doing it, how excited are you really? Are you kidding yourself? And be honest with yourself
Brant Phillips: Exactly.
Danny Johnson: All right. So I think this pretty much covered everything that I wanted to cover and I hope everybody if they don’t feel like they got clear on what the message was there with getting clear on who you are, what you want, what you’re doing, being honest with yourself, take the time to listen back through this episode because getting the foundation right and getting the mindset right along with skill set and then like Brant talked about environment and accountability, you should strive to set those things up in the beginning. It doesn’t have to be something where you don’t have to wait until you can join some big mastermind group or something like that. Start small with your family. Work on those things, but man, take some time to go off somewhere quiet, somewhere you don’t normally go or something, where you’re away from all distractions and really just look at where you are and where you want to be and think through that. I talked about on the blog about doing the perfect average day, which I heard from somebody somewhere but you know sitting and thinking through what would your perfect average day look like, and it’s average because it’s got to be something that you could really honestly do all the time and be happy with, not just you know go out to casinos and on a cruise or something. I mean, you wouldn’t be happy doing that all the time – maybe you would, but every single day, I don’t think so. Think through what does your perfect average day look like from when you wake up, where you are, who you are with, what you’re doing throughout the day, and then I think that’s a way of helping clarify too what you really want. And then focus on working on all the relationships and like Brant talked about making a commitment for daily work on all of it, no matter how small but taking time to do that which will then also allow you to reflect on each day and what you’ve done to see where you are and hold yourself accountable along with other people. I really like too Brant when you talked about creating names for target goals because it’s a little bit more fun than saying what the actual goal is, but to have that name for it like it’s some sort of mission that you’re on or something.
Brant Phillips: Yeah. I’ve seen guys fade out and I’m like, “Dude, what’s going on here man?” If you’re not doing the work, you’re not going to hit the target.” They’re not excited about that saying. I’m like, “Cool. I get it.” There are certain aspects of my business that I love. There are some that I don’t low but we attach a biggest purpose, a bigger why to what it is that we’re doing, then that will drive us. And so that’s one of the things I came up with last year. Let me create a mission. What is the mission? What is the purpose for this? And so my wife and I want to adopt by the end of this year and want to begin that process. I’m like, “Cool. I’m down with that.” I want to be like 100% excited, so here are things that I want to accomplish. So financially, some things we got to put together in the house with the nanny. Our kids are home schooled, a lot of chaos, four kids homeschooled and all that kind of stuff. I’m like, “Cool, here’s the thing that I want to make happen so that we can do this.” Because I wanted to do what I’m excited about, so if you can attached that bigger purpose or why, it will carry you through some of the rough stuff that comes up along the way.
Danny Johnson: Yeah, absolutely. I think we’ll go ahead and wrap up here. Basically we’re going to have the – Brant sent me over a rehab estimator because I know a lot of people struggle with that, so that’s part of the skill set. But you can get that rehab estimator PDF at flippingjunkie.com/17 which will also have the show notes from this episode where you can download the episode if you want and all that kind of stuff. I’m also going to have that four pillars of power graphic that Brent was kind enough to have created and sent over for all you guys to get a hold of. And Brant, how can people best reach you for anybody listening other that wants to maybe connect with you or get in touch with you, how can they do that?
Brant Phillips: The easiest thing to do is just go to brantphillips.com and there’s a little “contact me” area and that’s the best thing to do. If they’re interested in some of the other things we’ve talked about, they can go to breakthroughatthebeach.com and they’ll get some more information about some of these concepts and things that you and I talked about.
Danny Johnson: Yeah. People should definitely go there or check out the videos and stuff that you’ve got. They’re really well done and show a lot of the things that got me wanting to get you on the show to talk about this most important part of foundation and mindset. But on the show notes page at flippingjunkie.com/17 I’ll also have links to all those websites and things that Brant has. So if you find that you’re not spelling it right or something like that, you can always go there to find all the links to his websites. And I thought I had a lot of websites, you’ve got a lot of website man. Anyway, I’ll have all those on there and once again I really appreciate you being on the show. I think it was an awesome episode to begin the series.
Brant Phillips: Thanks man. I really appreciate you having me on and I enjoyed our time together man.
Danny Johnson: Great. We’ll definitely have to keep in touch.
Brant Phillips: Absolutely.
Danny Johnson: All right. Well, have a good one Brant.
Brant Phillips: Bye brother. Take care.
All right. I hope you enjoy that episode. We had a lot of great stuff. Next week we will have an episode from Marcus Maloney about setting goals. It’s an awesome show getting into the nitty-gritty and really the proper way to set smart goals. You definitely want to check back next week for that and we’ll be continuing with the Flipping House series. If you want to reach out and leave some comments or have any suggestions or anything like that please go to facebook.com/flippingjunjie and you can do that there. We’ll be sharing some more things also about some of the other things that we do with Flipping Junkie and then also our real estate investor websites at leadpropeller.com and then our real estate investor software system. It’s a the CRM system that we have at reimobile.com. If you didn’t know about those, just take a minute to check those out. I really would appreciate if you did, and for this house flipping series, be sure to subscribe and leave us a rating and a review on iTunes. It would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again for joining us and listening in. See you next week.
