Paul Del Pozo
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Show NotesPaul Del Pozo is an ex competitive bodybuilder turned real estate investor and entrepreneur. The last 2 years for him have been about personal and business evolution. He has learned to use his unique ability, his gym mindset, to drive and push forward through business failures to success. Listen in to hear about his journey flipping houses.
When Paul got his first deal from knocking on doors, he realized that real estate investing was a great opportunity for him. He made his own luck by starting with knocking on preforeclosures and hunting them down. When he landed his first wholesale deal, Paul started going after the next steps to call himself a real estate investor.
“I always had this idea of a rich guy buying buildings,” Paul says, “so it was difficult to picture myself as that guy.”
This seems to be a struggle that a lot of investors have when they’re first starting out. When is it ok to call yourself a real estate investor? When do you start introducing yourself as one in networking events, or to potential clients? After Paul’s first deal, he had the confidence to go to local REIA meetings and call himself an investor.
Paul got into real estate investing out of a need to make money. Originally doing wholesaling deals, Paul has continued down that path with the types of properties he has in his inventory. Now that he’s more stable in real estate investing, he is hungry to learn more and build his business.
“Staying excited is what drives you. If you’re not excited then what are you doing?” Paul tells us, “No matter what I’m doing in the business, I find it all exciting.”
Staying excited is great, but staying focused is better. Knowing where to go and what’s important for building your business is key to making your real estate investing business a success. Everything you do when running your business is about being intentional with what you want to work toward.
It’s just like in the book “Essentialism”. If you haven’t heard Danny’s response to that book, definitely check out that podcast episodes further down in the link section.
In the beginning, Paul wasn’t focused. He was busy trying everything technique he had heard about and making himself anxious because he wasn’t getting enough done. Paul’s expectations weren’t set properly in the beginning. He was expecting to make lots of money right off the bat. The reality set in that, just like any job, real estate investing takes hard work and dedication.
Instead of leaving the business when things were hard in the beginning, Paul doubled down and make it work. He took time and slowed down so that he could focus on the important tasks that needed to be done. The more time he took, and the more focused he kept himself, the better Paul’s business started doing.
Recommended Books
Episode 93: [Book Recommendation] "Essentialism"
Essentialism by Greg McKeown
linksCome and join us in the FlippingJunkie Group on Facebook!
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Episode TranscriptionDanny Johnson: This is Flipping Junkie podcast episode 98. [music] Welcome to the Flipping Junkie podcast. The podcast for flip pilots everywhere. Flip pilots are the house flippers that work more on our business instead of in our business by keeping a 30,000-flip view. You’re now part of a small group of house flippers that considers themselves flip pilots that strive to build the life of financial freedom and time freedom so that we can spend more time doing what we love with who we love. In this podcast, I give you a glimpse of the daily life of a flip pilot so let’s gets started.
Hi. Welcome back, everybody. It’s good to be back on the podcast. I haven’t done one for a little bit, but I’m back. We’ll be doing this every week. Today, I’ve got a good friend, Paul Del Pozo. He’s an ex-competitive bodybuilder turned real estate investor and entrepreneur. Over the last two years for Paul, it’s been really about personal and business evolution. He has learned to use his unique ability, his gym mindset to drive and push forward through business failures to success. Listen and hear about his journey flipping houses in 2018 and finding balance while doing goals and achieving success as a house flipper.
All right. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Flipping Junkie podcast. I’ve got a good friend, Paul Del Pozo, on the show today looking forward to starting out.
Paul Del Pozo: Hello, Danny.
Danny Johnson: Hey, Paul; 2018, my good friend.
Paul Del Pozo: Yeah. Hell of a year.
Danny Johnson: Yeah. It’s going to be a hell of a year. And we’ve chatting a little bit about what we’re doing and how we’re doing it, setting these goals. And I want to talk with you Paul today with everybody out there listening sort of how you got started in this business and then how you’re getting through the ups and downs that we all face in the business and setting your goals and focusing on those goals and achieving those throughout the year.
Paul Del Pozo: Sure, sure. Well, thanks for having me on, man. It’s really awesome to be on here. I’ll tell you your podcast has been very important to me over the last two years since I got into this business. So it’s actually an honor to be on here, to be able to share what I’ve been doing to put this out to there to folks to help them. Maybe they’re on a similar path and they can relate. I can help them with that a little bit. So thanks, man.
Well, I got into real estate about two years ago. It was one of those things where I had been kind of looking for my next step. I’ll kind of go back a little bit. I’ve been running a business for about two years. To be honest with you, I didn’t really have that much business experience. I didn’t really have solid foundations, but I had that dream and got it going. In that business experience, I started to learn things, learn that I didn’t know a lot of things I thought I knew.
Long story short on that, that business failed and I got to a point where I was looking for that next move, next step, and lo and behold, how the Internet is. You put it out there and things start coming back to you. Somehow some real estate stuff started popping up in my feed. So I’ve always been interested in real estate. I’ve watched your shows of course, but you always see these things and you know there’s more to it than what you see on TV.
So I started to kind of sniff around and see what some of these ads, some of these people are presenting other things. So I signed up for a webinar, and I had a drive across the states so I had a couple of hours to kill. I listened to this webinar about wholesaling and what it was and how people were getting properties with no money down and that whole story.
So planted a seed. That drive really got me thinking, “What is this? Let’s start looking.” So I started looking into real estate, wholesaling, what’s out there. You get on YouTube and you start looking at as many resources, and you just start looking at everything almost obsessively. And you start kind of smelling out what are good positive resources putting information that you can really grab onto and use and apply. And you start finding some podcasts. Like I said, I found yours which is very beneficial in finding pieces and applying them to growing my new fledgling business here. You start making those inroads, but also there very quickly, I found my first deal very quickly. So that kind of also gave me a lot of gasoline in the beginning. It allowed me to kind of know that this business was real. It’s not just something that you see on these ads or online. I had beginner’s luck, right? I went out and started door knocking, pulled a list of pre-foreclosures. I went out there.
Danny Johnson: So you made your own luck by doing that.
Paul Del Pozo: I’m sorry?
Danny Johnson: You said you made your own luck by doing that, going out and door knocking, doing the stuff that—
Paul Del Pozo: Yeah. There was one of these things where I didn’t really know how to get deals but I knew if I went out and like try to get it myself like physically grab it and bring it in. I can maybe do it, so I did. I pulled the list and went out. I started knocking on doors. I was terrified. I still am. Today, I go out there knocking doors. I start thinking of all these crazy things that might happen.
But the craziest thing that happened was this guy opened the door and he said, “Yeah, he needs to sell.” “Wow. Okay. Great.” So we started talking. I got this property on the contract and got that deal done. It was the first wholesale deal, and it became real. So that was my entry into the business. I started going after the next steps and found myself now trying to call myself a real estate investor which was tough because real estate investor—I always had this idea of this rich guy buying buildings, this weird idea of what a real estate investor was. It definitely wasn’t me. It wasn’t this guy.
So I had a hard time going into events and places at first and networking and really starting to tell people, “Hey, I’m an investor, a real estate investor.” So that was like one obstacle, I think, that I negate. I really started to feel comfortable in what I was trying to do.
Danny Johnson: Yeah, I think that’s pretty common. I would figure at least 90% of people struggle with that, right? Even going around telling people that’s what you do that you buy houses. I think some people struggle with that and end up being the undercover real estate investor, right? It’s just one of those weird things that it’s weird to call yourself that. It’s interesting that you brought that up, that that was a big thing keeping it from being easy for you.
Paul Del Pozo: People say fake it until you make it, but I didn’t even know what I was faking so it was weird. But I guess like anything I’ve done, you go in and you make the best of it and you assess the situations. I would go to REIA events. We call it REIA down here in Broward County. I started meeting people and I guess just getting more comfortable being in that environment. It’s a new environment. I think whether it’s real estate or if it’s anything, at the end of the day, it was just a new environment, new arena for me. And I wasn’t yet familiar with it. And I think that for me that’s with a lot of situations in life. I’ll initially get into them and it’s like they’re a little bit nervous, intimidated. You’re not sure, but you start meeting and talking and just being, I guess, honest and open about why you’re there and what you’re doing and you start meeting the right people. And that’s kind of what happened there in the beginning for me with real estate and going out there to network and let people know what I was doing.
Danny Johnson: So as a wholesaler, you got into this wanting to be the wholesaler, not wanting to buy the house, fix it up, and sell it. Is that still what you’re doing? Or what did you—
Paul Del Pozo: Well, I got into this like initially because I needed to make money. I’ll be a rehabber. I’ll be wholesaler. I’ll be whatever. I can make money on it, right? That’s the idea at first. But I guess you take the initial route of least resistance. So in that case in the first deal, that was a wholesale deal. So that’s just kind of half that I’ve been going down. And then I think there’s just some market conditions also that keep me in that ring now at this point. But yeah, I didn’t really have an idea. I was just trying to take it all in and figure out what all this is and then just try to figure out, “All right. Now that I know kind of what it is, let’s pick a direction.”
Danny Johnson: So you still find yourself as excited about learning things in this business as you did a couple of years ago when you first got in to it?
Paul Del Pozo: Yeah. I’m excited every day now. I get excited about stuff. I try to stay excited about stuff because staying excited is really kind of what drives you. Once you’re not excited, then what are you doing, right? Then you’ll just going to find it boring. You’re going to lose interest whether it’s a job or a business or project or hobby or whatever. But I find in a regular new things that I’m doing in the business as far as like technology or like strategies or even networking. I find that all exciting. I meet new people all the time now in the real estate space because I’m talking about it a lot more so that’s exciting, too.
Danny Johnson: I think whenever we last talked at Justin’s event—and I see it back behind you too on the 2018 on the big posted paperback there is “Focus,” right? Because you’re excited about a bunch of different stuff but that also becomes a problem whenever it’s not focused. It’s like finding out about all these different strategies and all these kinds of thing. And then next thing you know your mind is scrambled with not knowing which way to go and it’s the whole diagram from that book, Essentialism. Have you read that book?
Paul Del Pozo: I have not. It’s on my list. I’m just trying to—
Danny Johnson: Awesome book.
Paul Del Pozo: It’s definitely on my list. I hear that it’s an awesome book.
Danny Johnson: It talks about focus and energy, right? We all have a certain amount of energy. And I put this graphic—it’s in the book—in our yearly planning meeting because I wanted that to be sort of the 2018 for the software company the word because we always have kind of a word. For the year, it’s “intentional.” And so, it’s making sure that we have a plan that we’re going to stick to. And everything that we’re doing is intentional to fit that plan. Because in the past, we would get excited about different things and run off and get derailed and we’d be off on tangents and then look up and say, “Oh crap. What have we been doing for six months? We’ve been focusing on this thing over here, but we completely forget about this other thing we wanted to do.” And that gets into all of this, but the graphic that these guy has a circle and it’s got little arrows going off of it.
I think I did a recent podcast episode about this where I showed this in the video, but it’s got little arrows going off of it all around. And then he’s got another one, a circle and then one arrow going real far up. And it’s like when you stay focused, you get all that accomplished, right? You get all that distance and progress and it’s the same thing for real estate investors like focusing in all different areas of the business too, focusing on what strategy you’re focused on, not trying to pick up lease options or rentals and owner finance and wholesales and whole tales and bird dogs and all those kind of stuff.
And then, it’s also like a part of the marketing, right? Guys that do really well in this business nail it and then scale it, to use Justin Lang’s term, and you focus on some key things that you become the expert at and you go in nervously and figure it out, but you spend time to figure it out and you have success and stay focused on those.
Paul Del Pozo: Staying focused on some things is important. And also, having a real understanding of what it takes and the time it takes. I think when it started I was excited, but I didn’t really know ever the scale of that for resources or the scale of resources to move as fast as you want. And when you start realizing those things, then you can kind of really re-set your expectations based on your available time, resources, energy, or whatever may be to know how long it’s going to take you to get to where you want to go. That made a big difference for me because in the beginning I was trying to race. “Let’s get this, that.” Boom, boom, boom. Trying to do everything, and I wasn’t focused. I was focused enough knowing I was going out in a certain way, but I was trying too many of these things that I was learning. And I was getting anxious that I wasn’t getting things done because I needed it now. Let’s be honest. I needed money. My family needed income. I’ve had a lot of life changes. We recently got married. So there’s a lot of things there that were going on.
So my expectations for this path of real estate investing for myself were not set properly in the beginning, but you start to change and you start to see that, I guess, the longer you stay in and the more you dig in. Because I think probably what happens a lot with people, I mean, you can maybe talk to a lot of folks. Once that struggle starts kicking in, they bounce. They leave. They can’t make it. But I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to look at those things, the struggles. The reality is when you realize some things sometimes, they’re enough to scare you and leave. That’s it, right? So these things that I’ve realized and I’ve reinforced my want to dig in and get to digging for.
Danny Johnson: It’s huge. I think people do struggle with—and we did for the longest time, probably longer than I would want to admit. That feeling that I’m not doing this fast enough. I’m not doing as many deals as I want to do fast enough. I hear about all the success from other people. The perception is that they did it fast. They did overnight or even within one year just because you hear of a couple of stories of people having that sort of success. And then, it just becomes this thing where you feel like that’s a normal thing when it’s not a normal thing. It takes time. And in this business with this high dollar stuff, you can get burned very quickly. And so doing it as fast as most people want to do, it’s probably not the smartest thing to do anyway because you start to do thinner deals because you’re trying to get certain number of houses done or deals done. And you’re going to get burned because the market is going to turn at some point.
Paul Del Pozo: Or you’re trying to keep up with what you see out there because of the Internet, right? It’s a society thing, right? We see a lot of things. We see things that are presented to us that might not necessarily be what they are or they actually really are but we start measuring up to what we see, and that what kind of messes up a little bit, too. So you have to kind of really just stay focused in your lane and not really measure yourself with the other things that you see out there as well.
Danny Johnson: It’s interesting because I was talking to somebody just a couple of months ago about children that are highly competitive because my son, he just turned six years old. And in soccer, he is insanely competitive so much so that he even competes with the people in his own team and gets angry when they do better than he does. He’s really good but he’s so super- and hyper-competitive. And so, I was talking to somebody about that and they said, “Yeah. The best thing to do with situations like that is always reinforce that they’re competing with themselves.” It’s always like how much can they get themselves better in trying to focus. This is exactly what you’re saying. It’s focusing and staying in your lane and not really worrying so much about what’s going on. Setting your own goals that are somewhat realistic at least.
The part that I think that even now, I think, we struggle with is the gratitude part of it or seeing how far we’ve come and how much we’ve accomplished and saying, “Man, we’re kicking butt.” But it’s always like we want more and more and more. Living in the future instead of looking at what accomplishments no matter how small. Even if you’re just getting started in this business, getting 20 banner signs put out or making those phone calls is something that you should reward yourself for and say, “Man, I’m really doing great. I’m making progress.”
Paul Del Pozo: And also embracing the losses, too. I’ll tell you. I’ve taken it to the teeth a couple times this year with the deals or projects or whatever I had going on. Each one of those times makes you see what you did, what you did wrong and you embrace it and you’re applying to grow because it’s important whether it’s losing a deal or making a bad call or whatever may be.
I’ve always had my old mindset of what I used to do. I used to be a competitive bodybuilder. And the need for the repetition and the consistency of things whether it’s diet or workout regimen, those are things that I keep kind of pulling back to and to try to apply in this business. And it’s really kind of helped me kind of frame up where I need to be and structure my goals. As silly as that, as silly as just working out or relating that to—
Danny Johnson: I don’t think it’s silly at all.
Paul Del Pozo: It’s the same parallel for me. And I think to others out there, it’s stay focused on what you want even when you don’t see change. It’s funny. Just recently, I made a post on social media. It was 19-year-old me and the 13 year later progression of me becoming a competitive bodybuilder and that change. And it’s like 13 years when I started that, 13 years for me to think that I was going to be in 30s. I’m like, “No way. It’ll be going to be forever. What am I going to do with this goal, this thing that takes forever?” But I stuck to it. I did it, and I had success after a while.
So looking back on that, that’s the reason I posted that because I was thinking on looking back on that. It felt like forever. It felt like I was never going to get to the goal, the idea, or the picture in my mind of what I wanted, but I got there, right? And I was tripping at it, tripping at it little by little. So same with this in this business. Each year, I’m tripping at it, tripping at it. Building my network. Connecting with people. Learning from lost deals. Learning from one deal. The repetition of that. It’s the same parallel for me as it is and was.
Danny Johnson: I love that you bring that up because what I’m thinking about whenever you mention that with the workout and the structure and the order and the repetition is that you have the plan and the process laid out. It is a matter of consistently as you have on the back, behind you there, “consistency equals results” of executing that, right? And then finding as you do it, tweaking the process where you find that maybe it needs to be tweaked. But you’re always following that plan. And my words for my personal goals this year is “organized” and “in control.” It’s kind of weird. You think that would be something that you always focus on, but I realized that I had sort of gotten away from that over the last couple of years.
Paul Del Pozo: We slip. We’re human. We have things that we’re strong and we’re good at, and we slip off sometimes but those things are still there. Those are still qualities and traits that we have. We got to just check ourselves and bring that back forward and apply them. I had times when I slipped whether it’s business, personal, or gym. We all slip, but you got to put yourself back in check and go forward. It’s one of these things where you want to always be going forward but you don’t always go forward. You’ll have backward moments. As long as that forward trajectory constantly forward and upward, you’re winning in my opinion.
Danny Johnson: Nice. I like that. So, how do you do that right? Is it with setting goals? How do you know which way is forward? Which way is sideways? Which way is backwards?
Paul Del Pozo: It takes a lot of assessment of yourself and your situation. And the right environment too. Where are you in life for that particular goal? Whether it’s real estate investing or sport, fitness; whatever it is. Sometimes we have chaos going on and that’s going to keep you from going after your goals. But if you can be in a period of time where it lands itself to that particular goal, you got to just think about that end picture and start visualizing it. The thought of making it something appear or happen, by thinking of it, really does exist. You think about it and you believe it and if you keep thinking that’s where you want to be, it’s going to happen. Surrounding yourself with lightminded, positive people, I think it’s important too because there are a lot of people out there that might have same ideas and goals but they’re not generally positive so you want to stay with those positive people and then just staying at it, really having passion for it. And those are the things, consistency, passion; those things that just drive you. If you don’t have that for something then you’re not going to win. You’re not going to achieve what.
Danny Johnson: I know that’s awesome. Always thinking about it because you are what you always think about. I love that you mention not the negative people, not the people that you go and you meet them at a conference and somebody’s talking on stage and they are knocking what the person is talking about. It’s like what purpose does that serve? Or the whole jealousy thing that where you see somebody’s success and you got to bring them down instead of saying “Hey, they did it. I can do it, too. Let me figure out how they did it so I can do it or I can do it faster than them because they’re sharing with me how they did that and the mistakes that they made and all that.” But have you already set your 2018 goals? Did you have everything laid out?
Paul Del Pozo: Yeah, I do. I’m relocating to the other side of the country but will continue to invest here in South Florida. So pretty much it’s been setting up structure for that to happen. I have a number of goals. And here’s another thing. We throw this in there. As far as like numbers and goals, everybody talks about that like, “I want to do 200 deals or 300 million dollars or whatever it may be.” Sometimes in the beginning, those numbers throw you off because they’re so un-relatable. The goals in my mind are somewhat more relatable, and I also don’t just put them out there. I don’t like to like talk about that number because it doesn’t mean anything. Because a $5000 or a $10,000 deal might be a lot more because of the experience of what happens. Do you know what I’m saying, what I’m trying to convey there?
Danny Johnson: I know. It makes complete sense. It’s about staying in your lane and not competing with other people. It’s your goal for yourself and what you’re trying to accomplish. I did want to mention really quick—I think it’s episode 18. For people listening, we have a great podcast episode of flippingjunkie.com/18, episode 18. That was Five Steps to Setting And Actually Achieving Goals. Great podcast episode that you can go back to and look at how Marcus Maloney and I talked about setting goals. It’s very relevant for beginning 2018 if you haven’t written out your goals. But what is your process for tackling the goal setting process? What is your process for doing that? Do you just sit down and have a cup of tea or something?
Paul Del Pozo: I’ll tell you. I’ve gotten comfortable with taking time to think, and that might sound nuts. What do you mean, think? But I used to feel like I was wasting time. I used to feel like any period of time where I would just sit back and just analyze and think was wasting time. If I wasn’t physically coming doing, lifting, doing something—those types of activities for me were wasting time, but I’ve gotten comfortable with that. And now, I’ll take moments weekly, monthly, even daily to just kind of assess what’s going on and what do we need to do.
I’m always working on goals. I don’t think it’s just because it’s New Year or it was the end of the year. I have big picture goals. But for these little tasks and these little maybe goals that I’m chasing regularly whether it’s call amounts or talking to people, increase the volume of that or things like that.
Danny Johnson: Do you have a process to make sure that you’re following those goals and breaking them up into like quarterly and then monthly and weekly sort of things to achieve those goals?
Paul Del Pozo: Yeah. Lists have been big for me. I’m writing things as you can see over here. I’m writing things everywhere. I have notes that I keep. I have lists that I make for myself. To stay more organized has been really important for myself in getting those goals. Putting them down, written so I can look at them. I have things here on the wall that you can’t see behind the camera that I look at regularly. And one simple one that says, “You got this, Paul.” Just reassuring myself that I got this. I got this. Because there’s days, man, I don’t feel it where I have to remind myself.
So making those things front and center in your life are important. Same thing with fitness or any of those things, just writing them down and tracking some things. That’s important. And accountability, too: talking to people and talking to you, Danny. I’ve had conversations with you about things I want to do and just putting that out there so you can stay accountable because a lot of us have great ideas. Maybe we don’t pursue them because they seem very bold, but we should put them out there. If we have good people in our team and our corner, this should challenge us to go after these bigger goals and take that next step.
Danny Johnson: So having an accountability partner, somebody that knows what you’re trying to do and then getting help to stay on track for that. That’s big. I think Melissa has always been really good for me about that because we share our goals with each other and stay on track. I don’t know.
Honestly, I’ve really kind of struggled the last couple of years of sticking to my goals. I haven’t really looked like I kind of know where I’m going and I have those goals written out beginning of the year, but then I quickly get overwhelmed. And I think this last year it was like I put way too many things on there and it kind of derailed me and then got me demotivated. And so, I was just kind of like, “Well, let me get done what I can get done.” I look back at this year going, “Man, what a mistake. Let’s tweak the process, this goal process.” And even after having done podcast episodes like that other one—like we get too busy and I’m like you. I want to have action. I want to have progress and taking the time to stop and analyze things and plan things. It seems wrong sometimes because we’re not like push, push, push; getting progress; getting things marked off our to-do list. And creating a bigger to-do list seems like, “What’s going to happen if I sit and think about it?” But really what I’m doing this year is getting stuff off of my list and really figuring out what’s the most important thing. This is all the stuff I want to do. Now, let me get rid of most of it and figure out what the bigger thing is and then really focus on those.
One thing already that I’ve done that I meant to do last year and I guess I didn’t and I don’t remember was I’ve gotten the whole year stuffed down and then I said, “Okay. What are these stuff? What am I going to do this first quarter to get towards those things?” And I immediately set that apart. Then I said, “Okay. January. What am I going to do in January?”
So now, I have this stuff. I don’t need to worry about the rest of the year yet. I’m focused on January. And then every Sunday, my week planner gets pulled out and I work towards those things for January until I know what I need to do. And if I feel like I’m going to get overwhelmed or start doing more, I think it’s going to be where I go back and adjust and look at the end of the month and say, “Did I get this stuff done?” If I didn’t, I need to get rid of some of this other stuff so I don’t get derailed.
Paul Del Pozo: Exactly. You have to always assess, right? You have to always kind of see where you’re at because you don’t want to clutter up your path in getting forward because you have all these things that we get overwhelmed. You might be like me where when there’s so much to do, you’re like, “Oh my God. What’s going on?” And I find it best to just kind of avoid that and try to find ways to best avoid putting yourself in a situation where you’re not at your best. So that’s just kind of learning yourself, I think, and just that involved mainly of learning who you are and what triggers you and how you react to it, even psychologically how you react to it. So if you know these things, you’re aware of these things, you can just kind of avoid those situations or try to.
Danny Johnson: Now, that’s big. And getting to know yourself. To me, what that means now that you said that it is sort of what brings me energy, what gives me energy versus drains energy from me. And there’s so many things that we’re doing and it’s like sometimes you got to stop and say, “Why am I doing all this?” At the point where you get overwhelmed and you’re just like trying to like get through the day because you got so much to do is time to stop and say, “Why am I doing all this for? Maybe I’ve gotten a little bit away from my intentions or what I’m trying to do.” And being honest with yourself. And a lot of that, I think, does come from seeing what other people are doing and trying to get to that level yourself and then wondering if—
Paul Del Pozo: Trying to keep up, right? Let’s do it on one hand because it encourages you, but you don’t want to get discouraged when you either get there and it’s not what it really was or when you can’t get there as fast you think you could or you should’ve.
Danny Johnson: Absolutely. How many people are on your team? Is it still you and Mark? Or do you guys have other people in your team?
Paul Del Pozo: We have some VAs that do some stuff. Mainly right now as of today, it’s just us. But like I said, with me heading out west, having somebody on the ground is important and that’s what I’m working on right now. I’ve really kind of just worked on the process here. Now, I’ve got the process fairly worked out and now teaching that and getting somebody on board is kind of where I’m at. But yeah, trying to keep it lean.
I’ve had other instances and other businesses where you’re trying to bring onto me pieces to me, people and then you’re paying a lot of money or whatever may be. And that gets overwhelming, too. So just try to keep that at bay also.
Danny Johnson: It’s big. Something that we’re dealing with over this last year, too. It’s with the software company. We’ve grown pretty big. I think like 15 people on now on this side of the software. And as we grow this last year, I think we tripled how many people we had. And what I’m realizing is that we’ve had people from early on that are now doing things that they didn’t know that they would be doing and have these roles. And it’s kind of unclear about who’s supposed to do what for a lot of things. And so a big thing after our yearly meeting that we did just a couple of weeks ago over at my house was have the whole team come over there and we just sat for the whole day and talk through everything like what do we do well last year, what are we doing this year, what are our goals and how are we going to get there with input from everybody. Everybody is a part of it.
Now, this is funny because this is something that Melissa has been hounding me on for probably at least six months or probably more. I’m like, “Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah, I know. I know I need to do that.” And after that meeting, it’s like, “Wow. She’s right.” I need to sit down and spell out exactly what everybody’s role and responsibilities are because we sort of know what we’re doing. And what was interesting as I was doing that, as I was sitting down and saying, “Okay. This role.” Like here is a work chart and some people are in multiple places right now. But eventually, that’s going to be in its own position and all the responsibilities for those different things. I realized that some people are in some of these roles that they shouldn’t be in. And you don’t see it until you map out what those things are.
And so, I encourage people that are growing a team even though it’s only so many people right now. Think about what all those positions are and have the role and responsibilities for each of those positions even though you might have one person, three, or four in those spots. But know that eventually that’s probably going to need to be somebody else where they’ll just focus on that one thing.
Paul Del Pozo: Absolutely. Good advice, man.
Danny Johnson: So it’s helped a lot and it helped provide a lot of clarity. I was kind of thinking, “Well, whatever, he kind of knows what they need to do.” It was really more of just sitting down and running at that document. It didn’t seem appealing to me as why I hadn’t done it.
Paul Del Pozo: But it’s like there’s things that we don’t do and we wonder why haven’t we, but you just got to check yourself.
Danny Johnson: Now, what’s this Flex and Flip? What is this? Because I’m actually titling this episode Flex and Flip, so we should probably discuss what that is.
Paul Del Pozo: Sure. I think Flex and Flip originally was just my way to tie in what I was doing in my life to myself and of course because of social media and you start tagging and hashtagging. I started doing that, but it started to kind of evolve. And flexing obviously—you think flex, you start thinking muscles and people flexing but it’s more to me about that because I’m not just about that. I like other sports. I like other activities. We do some mountain climbing, my wife and I. So it’s really about just the sport and the pushing yourself, when you’re working yourself and you’re working the muscle yourself, right? That’s flex.
And then the flip was, well, flipping properties, flipping contracts, and also just life in general or business. That’s kind of the thoughts that are somehow are kind of swirling around about a year ago. And the years progressed and I’ve kind of embraced my past of body building and that whole world that I was in, I’m really finding that’s kind of my unique thing in my networks. That’s the people that I find myself with now. I was maybe a little bit more reserved about leaving with that about who I am in the past. But over this year, I’ve embraced it more. “Look. This is what I’ve done. This is my accomplishment.” And I use mindset of that to achieve what I want and this. So I started to just kind of become more vocal about it and present it.
So what Flex and Flip or flexandflip.com is a site where I’m going to just kind of present people that are leading their business life through fitness, what are they doing and why are they doing it and how is that impacting their life and their business life because it all has a common threat in there and I like to see who’s out there. I like to know who uses that same kind of mindset to drive them forward. I’d like to know them, and I’d like to share that with people because I think there’s other people out there that might struggle with fitnesss themselves. I’ve met them. They are some of the most successful people in real estate ever, not ever but out there. But they can’t die leaving that fitness part for whatever reason. But they have the tools already. They have the mindset. They have the drive. They’ve achieved success. Why can’t they take control of themselves physically and healthy? Why? So it’s all about really being able to feature people and how they achieve that and bringing it to people and connect and just kind of help people drive forward through that arena.
Danny Johnson: I like that idea. It’s really dialed a niche. Real estate investment and fitness. That’s super cool. I lifted weights this morning first time and probably two months. And it was brutal but it felt great to get out there. Of course, it’s like freezing here, 20 soemthing degrees.
Paul Del Pozo: How important is fitness to you, Danny? Like your every day routine. I know you and I have talked about this. Is it a routine for you? Or—?
Danny Johnson: It’s a routine, yeah. It’s cyclic for me. I’ll probably be on four to six months and then maybe like a month I fall off the wagon but then I’m back on. But I’ve been pretty consistent. It’s usually about six days a week.
Paul Del Pozo: Now, how does that help you feel with your everyday fight in life?
Danny Johnson: Big time. It’s like the way I feel whenever I get up and after I exercise because I do it first in the morning. I wake up at 5:00. I’m still doing miracle morning. It’s over two years now, I think, that I’ve been doing that; 5 o’clock, get up, and work out as part of that. I spend 45 minutes. After that, I’m charged. I’m ready to go.
In the last two months or so, I had a slight injury so wouldn’t really lift some weights. I just felt bad, man. I started eating bad. Whenever I don’t work out, I start eating horribly, too. I start drinking Cokes again. I’m eating pizza.
Paul Del Pozo: How do you think that relates into your businesses? Is there any effect?
Danny Johnson: Energy-wise, I think there is. It’s a part of, I think, the whole organized and being in control. Whenever we feel like we’re taking it easy and we want to take easy, but then we take it too far and we find that. We stop and say, “Man, I’ve been taking a little bit too easy for a long time.”And you don’t feel good about it. It feels good when you’re making progress and you’re organized and you’re in control of things.
I think whenever I’m doing those things when I’m not working out, when I’m not eating right, I’m not in control and I’m not feeling as good as I can. And it’s like something from the Brian Buffini podcast. I love that podcast. If you haven’t heard it, check it out, Brian Buffini. But he was talking about like this whole—I think it was like it’s some conference or something in his talk, but he was talking about Netflix binge every now and then is fine. But when you start doing it all the time, that’s not good.
Paul Del Pozo: Sure.
Danny Johnson: And I’ve done that before where I’ve had a couple of week where I’m just like, “Man, get home early and start watching Netflix or something.” At first, it’s like it’s relaxing. You get away from stuff. But when you keep doing it, you start feeling bad. You’re not organized. You’re not making progress. And so, I think in life we all need to always be working towards something, pushing towards something, and have those moments of relaxation and fun spread out in there but not all the time.
Paul Del Pozo: It’s all about that balance. I have a lot more balance in my life in looking my past, especially when I was competing in body building. That takes all your focus, right? And that’s all you’re doing. Your blinder is on. You’re focusing on that. But being able to take the tools from that type of mindset and being able to apply to a more balanced lifestyle is very key because we have families. We have things that pop up. Even though it’s a routine, we can’t always every single day do the things that we plan out because things happen.
So it’s just being able to just assess, just being able to stay on great and look at yourself. Check yourself regularly and make sure how far you’ve slipped or if you’re slipping so that you can get yourself back on track. On a physical level, I think it’s important to be at your optimum self, not achieving success in real estate and neglecting your health or your nutrition or any of that because then you’ve conquered this giant mountain of success on the real estate front or business front, but you’re a mess. You might not last long. You might not be healthy enough to enjoy it. And that’s kind of where I’m thinking these days. “How do I stay balanced in my chase for success in real estate and also stay balanced in my chase and success with health and life and fitness?” So it’s really just trying to find that point where everything is balanced.
Danny Johnson: Yeah. It’s funny how that works best for you in what you want, and then that’s a huge point. Because if you put your blinders on and you focus on, like you said, real estate, something else is going to suffer and you might get that high success level that you set out to get but feel empty about it because you’re like, “Oh man. My relationships are in the dumps.”
Paul Del Pozo: That’s #1. Your family, your support system. In my world, that’s #1. The love and support from my wife and my daughter. That’s why I do everything really. So if you start neglecting that, it doesn’t work. I can tell you in the past. With any one thing I obsessed over and put all my effort, other things are always worth it. In body building—relationships are tough because the blinder is on. I’ve heard folks in business all the time. We hear about it. People’s relationships are affected because it’s not balanced. It neglected that whole fun or whatever it may be. I’m about to throw balance on that board over there to make sure to remember that throughout 2018. I’ll make sure that’s always there.
Danny Johnson: I’ve had some wild swings over the years both ways. Being super focused on building up flipping and doing all that stuff and then super focused on flying and having fun and all that kind of stuff. Well, actually really just over last year, it really hit me. I need to figure out a way to enforce the balance to be intentional and to really, like you said, assess yourself and what you’re doing and how you’re doing it. But finding a way to do that and stay on top of it, so it’s not something I think about and plan out once and then kind of fall off the rails because it’s a habbit that we get into.
And what I found that really works well for me—and obviously I try and I do this most every week. This year, that’s one of my top goals. It’s to make sure I do this every week: Whenever I go to plan each week, the first thing that I do is put the things that matter most to me in my schedule for that week. So it’s lunch with Melissa. It’s teaching with the kids after I get home. Doing things with them and fun things going fine, riding motorcycle. All that kind of stuff I put first and then I go and look at my business stuff and say, “Okay. What do I need to get done this weekend?” Then fill in the rest. Because otherwise if we’re just putting our business stuff on that plan every week and we’re doing that stuff—and like you said, things happen druing the day. If we don’t have them scheduled in there or already know about them, either we’re going to be too worn out to think about and plan that stuff or we’re never just going to do it.
And so, that’s been a huge help for me, that in addition to having a calendar in my kitchen, not the office or anywhere else. In my kitchen. And I need a new one for this year. I was using one that my daughter made for me last year. I think I’ve mentioned this on a show before, but it’s super helpful. And if you don’t do this, I advise you to do it. And it’s really all personal stuff. But what I do is I got sheets of colored-coded stickers. Little circles. They’re in different colors. And I’ll put a key on the counter for the month. And I’ll put workout. I’ll put journal. I’ll put all these things that I want to make sure that I do fun. Something with the kids. Cook dinner or whatever. I have all those things on there. And then every day, I get to reward myself with doing those things.
Now, obviously, I don’t do all of them every day but I get to see my progress and it builds motivation and it builds like this whole thing where you’re building this habit to do all these things that you’re trying to make sure that you’re always doing. And it’s right down the kitchen. Everybody can see it.
Paul Del Pozo: This is the deal. Tomorrow is not guaranteed, right? Which day that we’re stressed out about our business could be our last day. We just don’t know. Life is fragile that way. So you have to remember to—you said fun. That’s important. Stop and have fun. It’s not always about that chase and knowing forward. You got to appreciate the time with the beautiful things that you have around you. Those are really, really important things.
These are the things, Danny, that people generally talk about in our real estate space. Everything that we talk about is about strategies, about logistical things of marketing or whatnot. But a lot of this stuff is a stuff that people really should talk about. It’s the mental stuff because that’s the #1 reason why we succeed or we fail. It’s all right here. It’s not because we have the wrong list or the wrong protein powder on both sides of the spectrum. It’s because of what’s going on up here.
Danny Johnson: Absolutely. And I know that you live that too because I get to see all the video and stuff why you trip and all that awesome stuff.
Paul Del Pozo: I do, man. Look. I’m not the richest man in the world. I’m far from it, but I try to live like I am the richest guy in experience and in love with my family because, like I said, tomorrow is not a guarantee and I might not make it 20 years or 30 years from now when I had envisioned all these things that were going to occur. So I’m going to do it now. That’s obviously part of the reason why you get into real estate, right? To have that freedom to be able to do those things.
But even in the chase for that, it’s still work. It’s a lot of work. It’s a ton of work to get good or to get your business to become good. So in that journey, you still have to try to have fun. You know those days that are just—everything is just tough.
Danny Johnson: Well, when you stop and think of the whole thing, I’ve been thinking a lot about it. I have everything I need and want right now. Today is a gift. And everything that I need and want I have already. Enjoy it. Not always living in the future. I think this also is on the on the Buffini podcast the other day where he’s talking about people that are depressed, are living in the past. People that are stressed out are living in the future. It’s like the only people content are the people living today.
Paul Del Pozo: I had a good conversation with a buddy of mine the other day. He mentioned people just being addicted to chaos. Most people are just addicted to the craziness. So you got to stay away from that and those people and just enjoy the beautiful things that are out there, man. That sounds kind of healthy, but it’s not. It’s really not.
Danny Johnson: It’s not. I agree and that’s the big thing for 2018. I want to make sure. I love to have you on. But remember for next year to see if we did live that and we focused on that and did achieve that and stay true to that because I think it’s super important. It’s the most important thing. If you don’t know why you’re doing something and then doing those things while you’re trying to achieve the stuff, it’s sort of like the whole—I think Jim Rohn always used to say it. People don’t give money. They’re like, “When I get a bunch of money, I’ll give money.” Charity or whatever else. It’s like if you don’t give $1000 now when you make a $100,000. When you make 10 million, what makes you think you’re going to give whatever the amount is?
Paul Del Pozo: But you know what? I’d even challenge that. I’d say in some cases people are trying to put out or give when they haven’t even accomplished. And not because they shouldn’t be giving but just because they haven’t even figured out themselves yet. So I think it’s also important to just get that found that ground under you, that foundation whatever it may be whether it’s business or anything. Really just get secure first before you’re trying out to save the world. I see that a lot. People are trying to. And we see that in real estate. People that are jump into coaching when they really shouldn’t be coaching yet. It’s one of those things.
Danny Johnson: Absolutely. It’s going to be a good solid foundation. You got to be able to do it comfortably but plan out that 2018, stick into it making sure that you include fun and you flex and flip. Be sure to check out the website, everybody listening out there. Paul is an awesome guy, and I’m sure he has got a lot of great material on there. And I’ll put it down the show notes, too. It’ll be at flippingjunkie.com/98. But it’s an easy website to remember. Just go check it out, flexandflip.com.
Paul Del Pozo: I want to say, Danny, for everybody that’s looking to just chase the goals to help them kind of get to where they want to be maybe physically in a gym or kind to get to just likeminded mindset that we’re talking about, hit me up. Nothing that I’m selling. I’m just putting out there my stuff, what I do. I’ve had some success in a different arena, but it helps me in my head and I think it’s important for a lot of folks to take care of themselves and get strong and healthy and make that a focus in their life. Wake up. Start your day strong and focused. And I think that’s going to make a big difference for you in your life and your flipping business or anything in real estate or anything else for that matter.
Danny Johnson: Awesome. Good stuff. Everybody check it out. Is that the best page for everybody to reach you, that website? Or do you have somewhere else?
Paul Del Pozo: Yeah. Well, Flex and Flip. That, flexandflip.com. You can also reach me out at pauldelpozogroup.com. That’s my real estate business website. You can reach me that way or look me up on social media. Hit me up on Facebook. I’ll put out some stuff. If I can help you encourage you in any or which way, we could bud up and go to the gym in the morning and get it done so you can kick ass that day. I would love to do that. Keep accountable. Let’s do this.
Danny Johnson: And you’re in the Flip Pilot group on Facebook?
Paul Del Pozo: Yeah. You’ll find me everywhere.
Danny Johnson: All right, everybody. All right. Well, thanks a lot, Paul. I really appreciate it. [music] It was great talking to you, and we’ll be in touch.
Paul Del Pozo: Thanks, man. Thanks for having me on.
Danny Johnson: Yup.
