Dan Zitofsky’s Path to Wealth in Real Estate

Mike Hambright (00:00.89)
Hey everybody, welcome to the show. I’m here with my buddy, Dan Zatowski. And today we’re gonna be talking about how to become the bank. Dan’s had just really an amazing life and amazing impact on a lot of people. And we’re gonna be talking about generating passive income, more cashflow in your life that allows you to live a life of abundance and doing all the things that you wanna do. I think most real estate investors want that, but sometimes they end up backing themselves into a corner where they’re just thinking very transactionally and you know.

never getting to the level that they could if they think a little bit differently. So hopefully today you may think a little bit differently after this show. Dan, what’s up, buddy?

Dan Zitofsky (00:36.62)
Mike, I appreciate you having me on, We know each other for a long time and I truly respect everything you’re doing. And I get asked a lot to be on podcasts, but you know, when somebody that you actually respect and admire, it’s, look forward to those.

Mike Hambright (00:42.586)
Thank you, man.

Mike Hambright (00:49.198)
Yeah, I appreciate it. And we were talking ahead of time here and you’ve got some amazing experiences and some amazing things I know that we’re going to share today. So it might be hard to do this with somebody that has as much experience as you, but maybe you could just take a minute or two and just share kind of your background of like how you found your way into real estate investing.

Dan Zitofsky (01:09.55)
Well, it’s found my way. I was almost not even 19. I can’t believe I said that 35 years ago we did this. I always knew in my head I wanted to be a real, I want to be an entrepreneur. I thought I want to be rich. I want to be happy. me, happiness equaled being rich, equal being happy. Because I grew up, I wasn’t a rags to riches story, but I didn’t grow up in the best, best life. Mulder took off when I was 14, followed not around much.

We weren’t we weren’t poor, but we weren’t well off and I never really had money to do things I was kind of embarrassed and I always felt like man I’m gonna grow up and I’m gonna be rich. I’m gonna be happy. So real estate was in my head I remember I watched my grandfather He owned a couple small multifamily houses and I always remember him going and picking up rent and I was like this is pretty cool you just go to somebody’s house and pick up rent and That’s about all I know. He was he was European. He didn’t really mentor me on that. He’s very

He was my hero, but he didn’t teach me. Nobody taught me real estate. So at 18, not even 19, I was able to buy my first condo. Fast forward, I went to the Navy. I was making more money in rental income than I was in military salary.

Mike Hambright (02:14.67)
Yeah.

Dan Zitofsky (02:15.598)
And then on the 21 years old I couldn’t go out drinking with these guys So I would like lend out my money at the time I became a private lender in the Navy too because you know I couldn’t go out drinking so I Had all this money and I started lending it out at the time so I realized this is pretty cool I like being the bank to came out and they’re even during the police department. I became a cop in New York I started fixing flipping houses. I got very transactional right I was flipping 40 50 houses a year every single year making no less than 50 to 80 thousand dollars net per property so very

transactional, doing multiple seven figures a year to the point where I almost lost my wife and my kids because I was never around. And I was doing things like I was once again I was making multiple seven figures a year while I was on a cop salary making 30 to 40 thousand a year and I was doing things stupidly. I was buying the cars, the boats, the watches that I still have, right, the collection.

Mike Hambright (03:01.36)
Ha

Dan Zitofsky (03:07.79)
Because I was trying to show off right I was trying to feed my ego because I wanted to show people how I made it I’m rich and but I was not happy and Fast-forward I had to make a quick change and this story could take hours. We just telling you in fact I wrote it it’s in my book my whole story about my book about that, but The whole change was I had to get passive income and I always tell people I said $600 a month is not as sexy as 50 to 80 thousand dollars

But when you do it hundreds and hundreds of times, it gets pretty sexy. So I was a landlord, I started buying more rentals, buying more rentals. And that’s not really truly passive, that’s an active passive. And that started picking up and I started increasing my passive income.

Mike Hambright (03:47.792)
for

Dan Zitofsky (03:53.12)
Above my transactionals from with the rental properties and multi families and stuff like that at the time But that was not multis was not passive for me, right? I was I was I was very busy I felt like I was getting crushed on and time I wasn’t seeing what I thought I would see what everyone told you would see back then and I was doing multis before 2010 So I decided at that point. What do I really want?

And my mentor sat me down and we talked about this and it was basically I want to do what I want to do when I want to do it with whom I want to do it and what’s going to create that and when I did private lending I’m like that’s that’s great. I don’t have to worry about much right you have to do overview you have to still do you do deals with but I have to worry about much and I said the cool thing about private lending is you’re making that mailbox money, but you paid back every six months to a year then you’re out

I started then all my private lenders and I was used to work avatar dentists because I have mostly dentists for whatever I started working with dentists because of family and then it’s they started referring me out to their friends and they became my private lenders and Then I was paying the back and they still the same day and how do we how do we do what you’re doing? We’re dentists, but how do we do we’re doing?

Mike Hambright (04:55.93)
Hmm.

Dan Zitofsky (05:02.284)
We can’t leave our seat. We can’t leave our observatory cleaning people’s teeth. We can’t go find properties. Can’t fix them. So what I say, I’ll get you properties. So now I’m buying these rentals. I’m fixing them up. I’m getting rented out. I’m selling it to them. Well, I’m turning around and I’m like, they’re buying them, let’s say for a 50 to a hundred thousand dollars cash at a time. Now I’m just as transactional as it was with picks and flips, but with rentals. I said, this is not, this is turning out to be the same crap. I’m very busy.

Mike Hambright (05:29.539)
Right.

Dan Zitofsky (05:31.31)
I’m selling left and right, but I’m out of a deal. So then I sat down and I really sat with them and I said, listen, what’s your goals? Just like me, what is your vision? What do you want? And they said, well, we want to build a portfolio so we can retire in let’s say 10 years and sell our practice and have a portfolio for our family. And I said, great. Well, how much you work with? They say 100,000. I’d say excellent. Well, I’m selling you these properties for $100,000. But instead of buying one, how about you put 30 % down and I sell you three.

And they said, you could do that? I said, sure, I’ll do that for you. And I started holding the note. And people were like, well, why wouldn’t you? They can go to a bank. And I said, well, here’s the thing. I don’t let them go to a bank. You can either buy my property’s cash or sell the financing. And people were like, hey, how can you sell that? Well, because I could, because no bank is going to tell me my property is worth $100,000 when I bought it for $30,000.

just a month ago and I fixed it up, right? We know there’s seasoning requirements and I’m not the only buyer, I don’t need to deal with things. So when I sell a finance into them, I took 30 % down, I created, now instead of $100,000 in net worth, $300,000 in net worth. So I helped their families and I started doing that. Now I started creating not only selling three properties, but I created three cell phone notes for myself. So, and that started taking off.

And I loved becoming the bank because what happened is once I created that note, that brand new sell a finance note, I now had five exit strategies. At any given time I could take money, I could sell my note, I could write it first and second, sell the second, keep the first, vice versa. I could do a partial, I could borrow against my note, and I can get leverage from a bank. So it fit every avatar of what I wanted. And when you looked at my vision, it said do what I want, what I want, with whom I want.

Well, it wasn’t rental property because I don’t care about tenants, toilets, trash, inspections, tax increases, insurance companies. It doesn’t matter to me. I’m getting paid. When your toilet bowl breaks, you don’t call Chase Mortgage and say, Chase Mortgage, I’m not paying you because my toilet bowl broke.

Dan Zitofsky (07:33.614)
I don’t have to deal with any of that. Now, there’s a negative of just being a bank. You want to have rentals too because the tax benefits. And eventually if somebody pays me off, I’m out of a deal. So I created that. Once again, we talked about work backwards. So what was my vision? My vision was I want to do what I want to do, what I want to do, with whom I want to do it. I want to get paid whether I turn on my laptop or not, whether I answer a contract that’s called or not. I want to build legacy wealth for my family.

I want to build a portfolio that I could sell or I could borrow against. I have all of that right now where people that are fixing and flipping and wholesaling and they can’t do that. They’re subject to what the interest rates say. They’re subject to what Fannie and Freddie say. They’re subject to the insurance companies say. They’re subject to the tax increases going on right now. They’re subject to rent control. They’re subject to subject to subject to subject to inspections and this and that. I’m not subject to anything. Right. I don’t even collect payments. They go to my servicing company and servicing company ACH is me.

And if I don’t get paid, because every email goes to my accountant and my attorney. If I don’t get paid on time, that demand letter goes out. When I get paid, my bookkeeper goes in, documents that I got paid, I know nothing. I tell people I’m the laziest investor you’ll ever meet. I’m front loaded and I’m done. And this is not like some theory that I talk about on stage. When I get up there,

Mike Hambright (08:47.554)
Yeah.

Dan Zitofsky (08:55.532)
and I do my small events, I open my laptop and I actually go live and show people for real what I do. Because I always say trust and verify everybody you listen to. Just don’t even believe what I’m telling you. Verify me. Look me up. Public records show what I have. You could do that. So I went through this pendulum of what I’ve done. And now I do it so, I got to say we do it so well that I’ve got all this cash come in.

Especially when the rates came down, all the cash came in, we started, we talked about this, I started buying all this land out in Roatown.

which is an island inside of Honduras where I’m neighbors with Michael Douglas, know, Roger Clemens, Massey, a soccer player. Margaritaville is opening up this year. The Kimpton hotels, Hilton, Marriott, all the cruise ships, the biggest cruise ship of the world. What I kind of sees is there all the airlines are going there now. So all the streets and infrastructure I was able to get in there because all the cash that I was bringing in that I was able to get in. Now I’m building up in Roatan like five star condos and I’m able to sell those.

cash for self-financing. It just keeps snowballing, right? But what I, what, and I know we’ll probably talk about this.

Mike Hambright (10:00.036)
That’s amazing.

Dan Zitofsky (10:06.57)
I stay laser, I learned a long time ago, right? And it’s the hardest thing for an entrepreneur, Mike. And I’m sure you deal with it yourself and everyone in your group probably deals with it because you got high level entrepreneurs. I’ve been at your event. You got some of the highest level people that I know in this industry are at your event, which is so cool. But they deal with this too. We all deal with this. It’s the entrepreneur’s curse. And if get my wife, if Dawn was on here, I tell her don’t take me on vacation and try to get me no cell phone service, a Wi-Fi, because I go nuts.

Mike Hambright (10:13.996)
yeah.

Mike Hambright (10:35.79)
Hahaha

Dan Zitofsky (10:36.464)
All are chasing something right? We can’t focus but for me the best word I learned to say was no if it doesn’t fit my vision That’s a show. I gotta give that to Sean, right? It doesn’t fit my vision I say no right because I don’t chase money anymore and it sounds Maybe it sounds obtuse to say something like that people like well you because you’ve got you’re doing well I understand but if I if I could turn back time and I stopped chasing money I would have got it. I would have done well so much faster

That’s, you know, there’s a lot of like, you know, you probably get it too. you

Mike Hambright (11:08.208)
There’s a lot of paths to get there, but you could do it the hard way or the easy way. The easy way is to have a roadmap. The hard way is lick your thumb and see which way the wind’s blowing and see if you can figure out which direction the sun’s

Dan Zitofsky (11:23.766)
I tell you, 35 years ago when I started this, there was three events. I always talk about this. There was Colton, and I went to them. There was Colton Sheets, Russ Whitney, and a Robert Allen, and I bought their tapes and books, right? They didn’t have, they did not have Invested Fuel. Like, I wish, I wish, at 18, 19 years old, I would have done, and I would have signed up, back then, no money, I would have signed up, and I would have done detailing cars.

and I would have paid it off, I would have signed up. I would have done anything in my power to get into an event, and I’m not saying this because you’re here, because we’re on a call because of this, to get in an event like you put on, to have the power that you have on that stage, to be able to close proximity, right? I always tell people, you’re almost paying just for proximity.

Like to be prox, to be that close to somebody who’s doing what you want to do. And I’m not, I’m not saying me, you might not have any interest in being in the bank and passive income and cellul financing. You might want to find the best wholesale or the best fix and flip or the best market or the best man, whatever it is. And they’re at that event. And now it’s so easy to get that right. You know, technology, but as

Good and bad, right? Good and bad, Mike. It’s so easy that everybody thinks they’re an expert, right? And it’s up to you, right? Because there’s no authority right now. Today, I think there will be, with the government coming in, they’re gonna stop all this, everybody’s an expert and guru. But you have to do your own due diligence. And it also is very easy to do due diligence, not only on deals, but on people. Do the basic due diligence before you listen to anybody. And that’s why I love what you do, because you don’t just put anybody in your group. You can’t just get in your group, right?

for everybody because you protect I’m not even if you protect me if I’m in the group right so you’re not gonna let me get taken advantage of by somebody else so I think today it’s as easy it is to be in this business as it is today because of the technology and the information it’s also tough because if you don’t know to do your due diligence but with all these events going on there’s a ton of events going on

Mike Hambright (13:18.93)
for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dan Zitofsky (13:36.172)
I’ll tell you what, there’s a handful of great ones. And you could probably focus on four to five, you being obviously one of them for sure. There’s a couple, there’s probably four or five that if I was starting out, if somebody came to me and said, what event? And I would say, what is your event? First thing I’m gonna say is what’s your vision? What are you looking to do? I need to know what you’re looking to do. Because if you’re not looking to do certain things, why am gonna tell you to do this event? But those are the events. But if you really do, carve out and you do your due diligence.

And they get into it. I know this is not a push for your event, but I have to say, but I have to say I wouldn’t be on this podcast if it wasn’t. And I have no problem saying no to podcast requests. Now I have no problem saying no to stage events. Now it’s I’ve done a ton of them, right? could do, I could do one every week if I want it’s, know how it is. Everybody asks you to get on there because they want to tag your name off of it. But that’s why I’m very careful on who I align with. And I’m just, I’m just honored to be aligned with you on this. Yeah. So.

Mike Hambright (14:07.642)
You’re doing a good job. You’re doing a good job, man. I appreciate it. Yeah, no, I appreciate that.

Mike Hambright (14:31.342)
I appreciate that, Dan. So once you have clarity in your vision, you know where you wanna go, and you you kinda start with the end in mind, right? Like, where is it that I wanna be, and how do I back into that? I mean, part of this too is not doing the things that you’re not good at. As entrepreneurs, we’re often, we think we have to do everything. We have to be a jack of all trades, because we’re lean and mean, we’re trying to save money, but you really have to kinda find out, what are you good at? What’s your genius zone, right? Like, where…

What is it that you’re good at and find a way to get rid of everything else, right?

Dan Zitofsky (15:02.008)
Exactly and that’s not easy man. It’s a I talk about all the time. I still have trouble with it. I know what I’m good

I know what I’m not good at, right? So I know I’m a visionary. I know I’m phenomenal at creating deals, right? I’m phenomenal at turning a non-deal into a deal and like taking play it on and going like this, right? Making that deal really the best. I take a deal and I look at every deal. I’m like, how do we make the most money and the most passive income out of this deal and protect ourselves and our private lenders? Because my goal is to get that private lender their money back and their return back as fast as possible so they can go into

to the next deal and then we stay in the deal. My worst attribute is, you know, obviously admin. I can’t stand admin work. I can’t stand the marketing work, right? My problem is every time I try to hire an admin person, I’m fixing their stuff. You know, and I’ve gone through the whole VA thing and it’s just, terrible at, I guess I’m terrible at coaching them on how to do admin work. I’m thinking if I’m hiring a VA company to bring on a VA.

They should be training their VA’s, not me. That’s why I’m hiring them. And I’ve had that problem too. I’m, you know, I have an, I could put my ego on the table and say, listen, I have the same problem you have. And that’s why being, you know, around people that are great at that. So finding out what your genius zone is and finding out what you’re not good at. And so I would be a great CEO. That’s, that’s my mentality. I’d be a terrible COO because I’m not a great implementer, right? When they start talking about data, right? And they start talking about like all the marketing, right? When they do marketing and they’re like, all right,

We have data every month we gotta market to and we do this and we do this and we do this and it makes my head hurt, the minutia. Just give me the details and I’m gonna say yes or no. That’s how I am. And I’m a details, you come up with the details, you give them to me and I’ll make the decision. And that’s kind of 100%. So when you know you’re.

Mike Hambright (16:55.469)
You can’t get to where you want. You can’t fulfill your vision without having good people around you,

Dan Zitofsky (17:00.142)
Exactly. And it’s always they say the who not the what. Find the who for your what. Find the who and find that person. And OK, here’s one. I give you one statement. Years ago, this might have been 20 years ago. Maybe more than 20 years now already. I’m thinking back. It’s probably over 20 years. I remember the first hire was an assistant. And I remember I told my mentor back then.

Mike Hambright (17:05.187)
Yep, yep, yep.

Dan Zitofsky (17:25.654)
He says, you need an assistant. said, and this is what I said to him. said, when I have the money, I’m definitely gonna hire an assistant. sticks to me to this day. He says, until you hire assistant, you’ll never have the money to hire an assistant. Think about that. Until you hire assistant, you will never get that money to hire an assistant. So you gotta figure that out. And being around the group, like what you have, you could probably ask other people, who are you using to be your assistant? Who are you using to do your…

Marketing who you do is an edit your videos and you’re get the right people because those are the right people but don’t say Who’s investor for who’s the chief who’s who’s invested friendly pricing? You want right and don’t and don’t meal people out either That’s all you’ll amount don’t make one person try to do everything on your team. It’s not gonna work Right find out what their genius owners and let them stick in that genius own

Mike Hambright (18:05.858)
All right. Yeah.

Mike Hambright (18:16.058)
No, for sure.

Yeah, everybody has, across my companies, have about 70, probably about 70 virtual assistants and a bunch of even executive, like virtual executive staff members, like developer, software developers and stuff like that. But I think, just for an entry level administrative VA, a lot of people think that they’re like Superman, like, well, they can do everything. It’s like, no, they have a skillset. mean, even if you hired somebody in your office that you’d have to pay way more for, if they’re real.

They can’t do everything either. you know, so, you know, it’s really important to back to you having a clear vision of what you want. You have to, even if you’re not good at it, you got to find a way to provide a scope of work of what they need to do and what they need to be good at, right? Cause they have a skillset too. And by the way, they should have a clear vision on what they want to get out of their life as well. Yeah.

Dan Zitofsky (19:04.845)
Exactly, 100%. And if you get that, right, and you figure out, you gotta figure out what your time is worth and what your best use is, right? So if somebody can take that off your plate, and especially like what I do, right, a turnkey, buying properties up or buying non-performing notes up, getting them fully performing, right, getting them rent, you know, rehabbed, get them rented out, getting them managed and getting them sold off.

I could do it all, but if I do it all, I can’t go out and do the higher level stuff that we need to do. The higher level stuff is to raise money, find deals, create deals and do the bigger picture. Right. So you need to find the property managers in those markets. need to. Yeah. You have to spend your time making sure that they’re good. Your contractors, your realtors, your acquisition people, right? Your marketing people. However you’re getting your deals, you have to put those people in place and pay them. You know, they need to get paid.

You can’t mule them out. So you can’t make your marketing person go out and do your when you’re done marketing go out to the house and go check on the project make sure that is doing their job and that’s really what they’re good. That’s really what I see. I see it in all businesses and I do consult with

Mike Hambright (20:06.672)
All right.

Mike Hambright (20:13.166)
It’s the case for scaling, right? Because you try to be lean and mean when you don’t have enough to keep a marketing person busy. You’re like, well, I also need you to do this or that. If you can’t keep your sales team busy, you’re like, hey, can you go try to generate some leads too? But that’s not their skill set. And inevitably, they’re going to disappoint you. so it’s really the case for scaling is like scale up to be able to support full-time people, maybe even multiple full-time people. Because if you have one, you have none. If they leave, then you’re going to get pulled right back in.

Dan Zitofsky (20:42.144)
Exactly, exactly. agree. And that’s in any business. Any business we do is the same way, Mike, and for you. It’s, you know, like said, I get to consult with a lot of companies, even outside the real estate world now. And I find the same problem is they got people multitasking and they’re not sitting in their genius zone. If they don’t sit in their genius zone, you know, shame on you because they’re going to upset you, but it’s your fault that you put them in that place to upset you. Find out what your genius zone is.

Mike Hambright (20:49.135)
for

Mike Hambright (21:08.078)
Yeah. So Dan, let’s talk about the abundant mindset, because it’s easy when you’re starting a business. If you’re a real estate investor, you know, we’ve got a lot of pros listening to this, but we’ve got some people that are newer and newer. And sometimes when you don’t have a lot or you’re not, you know, close to your vision yet, it’s hard to be generous when you don’t have a lot to be generous with. But let’s just talk about, you know, some of your lessons learned and the importance of that abundant mindset towards your current and future success.

Dan Zitofsky (21:36.984)
Well, see you said when you don’t have enough, right? I believe at any point in your life, you could be abundant. You don’t have to compare yourself to Mike or Dan. I’m already done. People are like, one day I’m going to do what you do. I’m like, Dan Zatowski’s done. Do what you do. You’re OK. You got greatness, like Les Brown will say, there’s greatness within. And I believe that in each person. You all have abundance. And it doesn’t even have to be financial. It could be time, right? It could be.

Service there’s so much you can do to be abundant, but you know if you don’t if you’re not tithing at some point I’m I I’m not talking about church or anything if you’re not tithing at some point When you’re making no money, you’re not gonna do when you make a lot of money. I promise you I’m at a lot of events. I’m around a lot of multi-million of people that don’t

They don’t tithe at all, right? And they talk about it, but they don’t do it. So I’m just gonna tell you from me, and I was the same way. I was the same way. always, you know, you go to a church, you’re at church, you give money, right? Kids baseball, Little League, they come over with raffles. You’re always saying yes.

100 300 whatever it is. There’s nothing you go to a you know one of these auctions you you maybe put $500 in auction items and you feel good about yourself and that’s cool, right every little bit helps but you know, you’re making a couple million dollars a year and and to you it’s like you’re doing it because it’s like your job and I That’s how I’m gonna tell you how I felt. I was like, oh, it’s my job. I have to do this. So I have to do it

Now I say I get to do it. And I’ll explain to you a little bit more. and I’m gonna go fast so we don’t take a lot of time with this, but I want people to understand this and understand what I’m saying. So for years, many years I was a fix and flipper. I was making a lot of money fixing flipping, right? Multiple seven figures a year fixing flipping.

Dan Zitofsky (23:24.89)
And to the point where I was working 100 plus hours a week and that’s what I wrote about in the book and I pretty much almost lost my wife and kids because I was never around. I was chasing the cars, the boats, the watch collection, all the stuff that didn’t really matter because I was going to be rich and be happy. That was my mind, rich and happy. And then I had to replace it with passive income. So I started doing the rental properties, you know, from multis and single families. I started doing rental property. And when I did those rental properties, I exceeded my income, my transactional income with my rental income.

And in all intents and purposes, I should have been a very happy man, right? I did exactly what I wanted to do. It took a couple years more to do it. I did what I wanted to do. had passive, well, active passive, but it was, I had property managers. It was pretty passive. Calls, phone calls here and now, nothing crazy. So I ran a pretty good rental business. But.

was still you know, get off stage and my wife was like what’s wrong and I’m like, you know, just don’t really feel I don’t know I’m tired that kind of thing. I just never had the like I never felt life I know felt happiness and It’s sad to say and I didn’t realize it. I’m not being a hypocrite when I’m on stage. I didn’t know And I didn’t know until I knew

And then I got to be part of the group with Frank Shankowitz, became like, he was like my grandfather figure. I think we talked about it, like my grandfather was European guy, tough guy, but like loved me to death, but like he wanted me to learn and talk, like it was great. And when the time when my parents weren’t really around much for me and not like leading me, my grandfather was there, my uncle, those were like my two mentors. And he became like my grandfather figure to me. And I would go to events and I would sit with him.

I’m an ex-cop. We would sit together, we would talk. was a tough guy. He could hit you with a word and stab you right in the heart. No joke, he would sit around with his cowboy hat, cowboy boots, his jeans. And he was the founder of Make-A-Wish Foundation, Frank Jankiewicz. So this tough guy got involved with children who were going through cancer in pride of all these dreams for people. So we’re an event group, our little mastermind. And the likes of Tonino Lamborghini are in that group. His father founded Lamborghini.

Dan Zitofsky (25:32.512)
Ron Klein, know, Ron and Ed Klein who were friendly, they created the back of the credit card stripe. found their chunky cheese. They found their pictionary with an astronaut in there. So there’s like 15, 14 to 15 people in there and they go around them. What do you want? do you want? What do you want? What do you want? They get the frank, he doesn’t want anything, nothing at all.

And they’re like, Frankie, what do you want? Be solid. I don’t want anything. Well, we got Mr. Lamborghini here. If you want a Lamborghini, we’ll come together. We’ll get you a Lamborghini. And I’m telling you to people in the group, I had imposter syndrome. Like these guys can stroke a check like it meant nothing. Like to them, it was like five cents for me. Well, I get to him and his story is he just wants his story told so his grandkids know about it one day. And they’re all like, are you in? Are you in? Are you in? Everybody’s in. Everybody’s in. All the way around to the point he gets to me. You in? Yeah, I’m in. I don’t know what I’m in means.

But everyone else was in, so I’m in. And I’m definitely in positive syndrome. Well, I’m in about $1.18 million we had to bring to the table to get this movie on. So every time you talk about it, get goosebumps. Well, I went to people. I didn’t raise money. I told everyone I’m doing. You want to get involved. I don’t know if it’s going to make money or not make money. I’m doing this. I think it’s going to make money. They’re making a movie about the Make-A-Wish Foundation founder. How could it not make money?

I’m doing it for, because I want to get the movie on. And we were able to get the movie on. He was able to see the movie. He got a star in Hollywood. He had a premiere opening. They gave him a premiere opening. He has a star today in Hollywood. The story got told and it’s called Wish Man, it’s the movie Wish Man and on Netflix. And he went on to pass on away, like almost two years ago. So it’s the best and worst investment, some of the best and worst investment of my life. Worst, because I didn’t make any money.

lost, but I didn’t do it to invest. didn’t, it was cool. All right. But I got to, I got to be part of that. This guy, I get goosebumps. I’m goosebumps. So if you see my face standing up, usually I start tearing and because he was such a powerful person in my life for those reasons, because I realized right there, it was the first time in my life when an investment, was actually truly, truly happy and I lost money.

Dan Zitofsky (27:44.268)
And I’m like, wow. So then from there, went to Operation On The Ground. was at Funnel Hacking Live. I got to hear about Operation On The Ground. That was right after that. And I was like, was so into Make-A-Wish Foundation. I found, like, what else do I put my money into now? Like, I want to go deep with this. Because it really felt amazing. So I got involved with Operation On The Ground at a very deep level.

Tony Robbins is part of it. got to be really deep with that. And we started donating all our funds. And we said, OK, we’re going to earmark all our money to this. We still donate little things around to that. that felt, it was like, man. So when people would come where I would do an online training class, I’d sell my online training. And they’d be like, can I get a discount? Right away, this is how I would think. I would say, so which child do you want me not to save?

That’s how my mind started thinking, right? Not that transactional. It’s like, what am I doing? And why am I doing this? So then it was that. And then it was a Be Positive, Andrew McDonough Foundation, where my daughter got involved too. She’s very shy. She’s a nursing student. She raised the most money in history for any university for that organization, watching what I did. And I was able to match her. And then now it’s a Chair of Love with Augie. Augie by a lot.

Jim and Gersol and my goal, whether I hit it or not, I’m going to do everything in my power to do it, is 10,000 wheelchairs by December 31st, 2027. So that’s what keeps me going. Because people are like, well, when are you going to be done? I’m like, well, to me, that’s selfish. Why would I be done when I have something that I do that’s great, I can teach you, I can earn income in doing so to be abundant to help those organizations? And so I’ll never be done until the last breath I take.

Mike Hambright (29:07.312)
That’s awesome.

Dan Zitofsky (29:28.49)
Right? And that’s my fear. We talked about one of my fears. One of my fears is my biggest fear is leaving this world and like, like just dialing it in, not giving everything I got because I wanted to be done. To me, that’s abundance, right? To give, keep giving when you know you can give and selfish is I’m done because I want to go hang out on the boat in the backyard over there. Right? So it’s.

Mike Hambright (29:50.638)
Yeah, that’s one of my fears is too, don’t wanna look back at some point and feel like you have regrets, right? I think that’s one of my biggest fears is being on my deathbed and having regrets that I didn’t do, something that I could have done if I had just made the effort.

Dan Zitofsky (29:57.454)
Yeah.

Dan Zitofsky (30:07.308)
That’s what I love. I love that, because I talk about this all the time and I don’t get too many people that kind of feel the same way as me. And even the family, I try to talk to them about this and they don’t get it. I’m like, hopefully one day you get it. Hopefully one day you get it because.

And you’ll never reach that point. You’ll never get everything you want. Because you can’t reach everything you want. I mean, things you can. I’m not thing-centric anymore. Right? Yeah, can we get a private plane? Sure. But that’s cool. But you can’t take that with you. But you know what? When you leave this world, I know. I know what I did.

Mike Hambright (30:25.872)
sure.

Dan Zitofsky (30:43.854)
for like Frank Shankwitz. I know what I did for, we know what we did for the kids at Chalk Sex Library. We know what we did for the University of Delaware with my daughter where she was able to donate all that money and help all those kids going through cancer right now. We know what we’re doing for people with wheelchairs, even if it’s, listen, I want 10,000 wheelchairs. What if I only do 1,000? Is that bad? No, I want 10,000. I want this crazy number.

Well, I hit it, maybe, maybe not. But I’m not gonna say I wanna do 10. I’m gonna do a number that’s, I wanna reach for the stratosphere and if I get the moon, okay. That’s kinda how I look at it because I just wanna, that’s the legacy you leave in this world. Not a plane, not a car, not a boat, that’s not a legacy. know, can’t take it with you. But you can truly leave a legacy in this world. And when you say, I wanna do something good, I always challenge people. What does that mean?

What does that mean? You know?

Mike Hambright (31:39.802)
Yeah. Dan, thank you for sharing your story and inspiring folks listening to this right now to kind of start with the end in mind, like build a life that has a vision that you want to live and just go do it.

Dan Zitofsky (31:52.096)
Exactly. Exactly. My pleasure. I’m glad to share it. Even when I’m on stage, I always tell people, always end it with like, just take a little bit what I’m doing and take it home and do it yourself. You know, we talk about even with my VIP dinners, I do start going home and doing something like that for yourself. Right. Just just being a conduit in your local area with your local friends and your family and letting them see what you do. And maybe they’ll do the same. Maybe one person picks it up and does the same. And you could really start making some serious changes if we do that.

Mike Hambright (32:10.192)
All

Dan Zitofsky (32:22.24)
But don’t do it because you feel you have to like I I really incorporate I get to I get to do this and people like Thanks for what you didn’t know. No, I’m like selfishly I do I do it for myself. I feel selfish because if I don’t do it I feel like I won’t be happy. I feel like I’m just chasing money that I’m transactional and I won’t have a purpose So I need to have a purpose and that’s what I realized a couple years ago is I need to really have a purpose in life

Mike Hambright (32:34.606)
Yep.

Dan Zitofsky (32:48.654)
I can’t go in life without a purpose. can’t just go through life chasing traffic because money is easy to make and I hate to say that like people like You know and you probably could say the same thing right if I just need to make money That’s pretty easy to do a deal. We can make money. We give we can rally up a deal One deal a month not a hard thing to do we

Mike Hambright (33:07.76)
You gotta be passionate. For anything to stick over a long period of time, you gotta have some passion, otherwise it just becomes transactional and it’s not fun anymore, right? And so it’s like, I think you agree is money is a tool for doing things with or doing good things with, benefiting others, improving your own life, all those things, right? It’s a tool. And so if you’re not passionate about it, there’s other ways, there’s other tools out there, Yeah.

Dan Zitofsky (33:17.102)
exactly.

Dan Zitofsky (33:30.286)
Right, right. So find your vision, work backwards. That’s why I always tell people, these are my kind of steps. Figure out what your true vision is. Why you’re doing what you’re doing. Why you’re in real estate. Why you want any business you’re in. What is the goal? Why’d you start it? Right? How are you actually doing that today? Can you actually say you’re doing that today? And then work backwards. Really work backwards. Most people go forward. They start doing deals and they figure it out. Work backwards. Figure out what your true vision is. Work backwards and be cool. Say no. If it doesn’t fit, say no. No.

Mike Hambright (33:57.648)
That’s awesome. Yep, yep. So Dan, folks want to learn more about you or connect or something, where do they go?

Dan Zitofsky (34:04.654)
Then go right on social media, follow me. They can go on Instagram, Dan Zatowski. On Facebook, I have a group page, Become a Real Estate Investor with Dan Zatowski.

Or you follow me personally, know, Dan’s Tosca. I just don’t can’t accept any more friends there. You can follow me though. also you can grab a copy of the book at big, passive to prosperous. It’s on Amazon’s Amazon’s bestseller. So passive to prosperous kind of lays out my, my, my why and tells you about my business, how we do it and just stay tuned. I’m always, I’m always speaking at events around the world now internationally too. So, I know my next real estate speaking event, I think is in Arizona in, in the end of this month. And then I go right.

to Barcelona from there but I’ll be in Arizona speaking at Knowworthy so if want to see me there. I don’t speak in the summer at all I think summers off and hang out hang out with the family and the friends on the beach in the boat but other than that just catch me you’ll see me speak in a bit come up say hello to me and wish you guys the best.

Mike Hambright (35:03.248)
Sounds good. We’ll add some links down below for folks to find you on social media. Dan, thanks for joining us today and everybody. Hope you got some lessons from this about really how to start with a clear vision and how to get out of your own way and how to not be so transactional in life, I guess. Appreciate you guys. We’ll see you on the next show.

Dan Zitofsky (35:07.64)
Sounds good.

Dan Zitofsky (35:22.616)
Sounds good, thanks for having