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Show Summary
In this conversation, John McCool shares his inspiring journey from growing up in poverty to achieving success in real estate. He discusses the challenges he faced, including learning to read as an adult and overcoming PTSD from his military service. John emphasizes the importance of mentorship, networking, and maintaining a disciplined mindset. He also highlights the significance of balancing family life with business aspirations and expresses his desire to share his story through public speaking.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
John Mccool (00:00)
last winter, we overextended ourselves on a deal. So we were rehabbing a deal, we were going to sell it. It didn’t sell. Then we threw a mentor. found out like we could rent it and like DCSR loan out of it and pull some money back out. But right in the middle of that, we ⁓ had a deal fall in our lap that we couldn’t say no to. And I didn’t have enough experience to realize like it was going to be more than it was, but it ended up being a hoarder house on like a half acre. And then it needed septic.Quentin Edmonds (01:59)
Hello everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds. I’m excited to be here today. I have another fantastic guest. I like, listen, I’m excited about his story. I’m excited about where he came from. ⁓ And I don’t want to tip my hat too much, because I’m sure we’re going to get into it, but I definitely believe we’re going to leave here inspired when we listen to his story.has an excellent name. So I just want to introduce you all to Mr. John Mccool. Mr. John, how you doing today,
John Mccool (02:34)
You go, Quentin. Thank you for having me.Quentin Edmonds (02:36)
Absolutely, man, absolutely. So listen, Mr. John, I want to dive in. I want you to tell the people what your main focus is these days. I also want you to, if you don’t mind, give us a little bit of an origin story of kind of how you got into real estate. And then also tell us what part of the world you’re in, what market you’re operating in. And so, Mr. John, sir, you have the floor,John Mccool (02:59)
Thanks. I live just outside of Philadelphia in Levittown area of Pennsylvania. I didn’t grow up here though. I grew up in Philadelphia in Kensington. was surrounded by poverty and chaos my whole life. I got out there when I was about 20. ⁓ Found out at 24 when I tried my first hand at college, I couldn’t read. I was barely reading on a fourth grade level. So I joined the military and took four years off, just focused on reading and then using that college money to pay for, ⁓ or the GI bill to pay for college. And then while in the military I got hurt at aI got PTSD and a TBI from being in Iraq. Came home while was rehabbing that. just had a lot of time to sit and think and wanted to break those generational cycles I grew up with. Real estate seemed to be the easiest way out and that’s what I started focusing on. So it wasn’t out of any desire to be a realtor. was out of necessity to break that generational cycle for my kids so I never had to go through it.
Quentin Edmonds (03:56)
I love it. love it. So tell me about what you’re doing now. Like what is your main focus in real estate? What are you at now? What are you doing?John Mccool (04:05)
Well, ⁓ my wife and I are partners. have a small portfolio of multifamily properties. We mostly try to focus on duplex, triplex, fourplex. The more doors, the better. In the future, we’d like to get into bigger deals, maybe building too. We’re not opposed to that. We know some builders. But ⁓ day to day right now, I just keep myself busy. I go out on acquisitions for flippers and wholesalers. So they provide me the hot leads. I go get them under contract for commission.Meantime, we we run our properties and we property manage for a few friends.
Quentin Edmonds (04:37)
Absolutely. So definitely, I gotta say, and I haven’t found a better way to say it. Now, I know people say it as a cliche, but I just want to sincerely thank you for your service. Really appreciate what you, I wasn’t brave enough to go into the military. So that’s when I say thank you. That’s a way for me to be vulnerable and say, when I say thank you for your service, I really mean that because you did something that I was not willing to do. So thank you so much.I love how you walked us through.
kind of why you went into the military, know, taking four years off to read, to learn how to read. And I always say, not always, but I’ve found myself saying lately that destiny has no wasted moments. Meaning like, no matter what we go through in life, ⁓ things happen that we have to get over, we have to overcome, but they help refine who we are today. So it’s like, it’s not wasted. It just made us who we are today. And so I would love to know.
if there are, if you can put in a language, some of the skills that you have developed over the years that makes you the businessman you are today, but also makes you the man you are today.
John Mccool (06:33)
But it’s funny you bring that up because when I joined the army, like the world was at peace, but I was supposed to leave on the morning of 9 11. So was waiting for the recruiter that morning to come pick me up. I know where to go. I was like couch surfing for, for weeks. Cause I’d washed out of college and, that’s what, that’s what’s going on. So once those airports opened back up, like the recruiter, when I called him, like, can I leave today? He’s like, Hey, understand if you don’t want to go in. like, man, I have nowhere to go. Like I’m homeless at this point, couch surfing, just waiting to exit. Yeah. So the world, the world.went to war the morning I was supposed to leave. then, you know, just going into that with that mindset is like, and I didn’t, I didn’t join for like God and country. a lot of guys I was like, yeah, let’s go. And I’m kind of like, I just want to read and get the GI bill. Like what’s, what’s the easiest way to do that and not get hurt? Job I picked had a $30,000 sign on bonus for me. grew up poor $30,000, might as well have been 30 million. So I picked that job. I no idea what it was. I was like, yeah, I want that job.
It turned out to be like a very dangerous job. You have to go out and adjust artillery and stuff on the enemy directly. So, I mean, I’m here. I have some great stories. And at the same time, through all that, discipline and the responsibility that was put on me, just from day one, like, am I still going to go in or am going to go this other route and get a job and, you know, not take my chances. But I took my chances, learned everything I could, read nonstop, came out.
you know, GI bill in hand, college paid for, I ended up being a master’s in education. I don’t even use it. I don’t use it today. I’m in real estate, but I’m all the way through with that. And then, you know, that discipline and responsibility, it set the framework to be able to complete school, to be able to read every day and not just like play video games, which video games are pretty awesome these days. Not like were younger, they’re pretty good.
Quentin Edmonds (08:05)
Mmm.Aw man, it’s changed a lot. It’s changed a lot since Mike Tyson punched out for sure.
John Mccool (08:32)
I have a headset you can put on. It’s like running through a small city. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. Sitting down talking to AI, it’s just like, it’s magic to me where my kid uses it to do his math. He’s used to it. He’s like, Yeah. Yeah. So if I could sum it up, it be the discipline and responsibility is like the key. It would be the thread that weaves everything I do together. So I approach everything from a structured mindset that I learned in the military.Quentin Edmonds (08:36)
Thank you!Man, bro, thank you for sharing. I always say thank you for your gift and your vulnerability. I think you have shared some things from a vulnerable place today, and I appreciate that. And I kind of want to pick a little bit more because obviously you’re a man that know how to overcome adversities. When it comes to business specific, have you had to overcome any adversity within this real estate business?
John Mccool (09:26)
In real estate, always.last winter, we overextended ourselves on a deal. So we were rehabbing a deal, we were going to sell it. It didn’t sell. Then we threw a mentor. found out like we could rent it and like DCSR loan out of it and pull some money back out. But right in the middle of that, we ⁓ had a deal fall in our lap that we couldn’t say no to. And I didn’t have enough experience to realize like it was going to be more than it was, but it ended up being a hoarder house on like a half acre. And then it needed septic.
And then, you know, so all these, all these things started happening and we got it on a hard money loan at like 12%. So we ended up carrying it for like eight months before we could get tenants in there.
Yeah. I mean, that, that’s, that was the big one. But like last Christmas I’m calling up friends and builders and other people. And I’m like, Hey man, like guys who are way ahead of me, they have like a hundred rentals, they have huge portfolio there. make millions on deals. And I’m like texting and calling them like, Hey, this is where I’m at. Like I,
I’m not going to have Christmas this year for my kids. You know what mean? Like we’re going to have breakfast, I’m not going to my overextended. Like, is this normal? Am I messing up? they’re, you know, they’re all, all very humble. They just said, Hey man, no, you’re on track. I was there before. is how it’s most likely going to play out. What’s the property going to make you when it’s done? Like what’s the exit strategy? And they were able to just like, bring me down a little bit and my eye on the prize. Like the mortgage is like,
1400, we’re making five grand now that everything’s rental a month off that property. So it’s like, but at the time when you’re overextended and you’re credit cards and, you know, rain delay septic for another couple of weeks. Yeah. And what a lesson. But I did learn that those guys were like, do you need money? Ask me. And it’s like, wait, what do mean if I need money? Ask you mean like, I didn’t know that was an option to just call somebody and say, Hey man, I need
Like it was, cost us like 23,000 a month to run everything in our life. So it’s like, I didn’t know I could just call somebody and can I have $60,000? Like, like, but that was an option from two different guys. Like you need money. You call me. if you need something, it’s like, wow, I didn’t know that was, it was people like that, let alone, uh, you know, that easy just ask. So that would be my biggest thing would be like, don’t be shy to just reach out and tell people where you’re at and what you need. Somebody might be able to, it might be nothing to somebody.
Quentin Edmonds (12:06)
Yeah.John Mccool (12:17)
they can just say, hey man, this is what we’ll do and I’ll leverage these properties and I’ll get it back if you don’t give it to me.Quentin Edmonds (12:23)
I love it, The more you talk, the more I am relieved. Getting more and encouraged just by your story. I know people are listening and what you’re saying, I’m sure, is impacting a lot of people because I’m loving your unique advantage, man. I’m loving your lens of how you’re looking at things, the things you’ve overcome. Things that, like you said, you didn’t even know it was accessible to be able to ask somebody, like, hey.know 60 you know 60,000 or whatever and we’ll get more into about relationships later on but because I think that’s so important but I do want to ask you this what is your next real goal like what are you looking to solve a scale next what’s next for you
John Mccool (13:07)
Me and my wife keep talking about that because she is my business partner. ⁓ After coming off last winter, we’re just kind of relaxing right now. ⁓ We’ve looked in the building. We’ve got some vacant land that we bought. We’re looking maybe in the building and flipping that. ⁓ We’re also just kind of like sitting back here watching the market. We have some cash flow. We have some cash like piled in reserve, enough to purchase different properties if they come up. So we’re just kind of like sitting it out. I don’t want to overextend like last winter.But at the same time, we’ve built a system where we’re not forced to get up at nine in the morning and go somewhere. We have an opportunity to sit back and just kind of balance ourselves. And in the background of that and what’s framing that is that we just had a three month old.
Quentin Edmonds (13:44)
Yeah.⁓ yeah, yeah.
John Mccool (13:55)
So it’s our youngest of eight. So we’re in a point right now where we’re like, hey, let’s pump the brakes a little bit. Let’s enjoy our mornings and reconnect a little bit with each other. And in the background, the real estate’s running, I’m still running out doing acquisitions and property management, but.Quentin Edmonds (14:12)
Got you. Got you. I love it, man. I love it. All right. So I want to go to relationships again, because as you just said, you got people who you was able to call, didn’t know that was a thing. But obviously it shows me that you have built really good relationships. And so I just want to hear from you. How important is relationships? What is your strategy on building relationships? Like talk to me about relationships, Mr. John.John Mccool (14:44)
When I started my, when I doing t-shirts, it’s how cash flowed to real estate. Man, I’m like, I’m coming off combat injuries. know what mean? I had a divorce going on in the background and I’d have to go out to these networking things and talk to people and tell them what I do. And I felt like an imposter. I found out that like, you know, people would buy from me. I was just telling them what I did. They’d buy from me. be great. And that, you know, first three months, four months,I stopped doing that and it all dried up. And then I had no money again. had to go, so I had to go out there and become like,
just tell everybody what I do and then see who resonates with and then talk to them. And so I just use that same networking with people. If I meet somebody who’s a builder, I’ll go right up and talk to them, introduce myself and see if we resonate with each other. Hey, what do you do? You built, that’s great. ⁓ you’re retired NFL, that’s great, but what do you do with your money? that’s something, growing up poor, people don’t talk about money. I didn’t know anything about it. So I was definitely dumb and uninformed when it came to that.
But as I’ve learned, I met these people and I say, Hey, what do you do with your money? Like, Oh, I invest, I invest in real estate or I do these stocks or Bitcoin. So I found it very easy, more natural to just go talk to them because it’s all that’s on my mind. It’s like, don’t be poor again. Don’t be homeless again. like, know, whatever, if it takes a five minute conversation with this guy and he gives me like a little gold nugget about business and life I can take with me forever. I’m going to go have the conversation. And, and that’s one thing I don’t ask for anything. I just want to know, like, what do do with your life? Like,
Yeah. What with your money and what you with your time? I think that resonates with people. I think people ask people for things that they shouldn’t sometimes, or maybe they didn’t build a relationship first and then they ask for something. I just want to know their story too. I just want to know what they do with their time and money. then from that, I can piece together if I’m on the right track. Yeah. And if not, I always exchange numbers with them if I can.
People are usually surprised when I can just pick up my phone and text or call the owner of that building company on his personal phone. Or I can text, hey, we got a minute, can we talk about this? And the person calls me back. a couple of last winter when I called those people, I got texted five people. Two called me back within a few minutes. And these are people that have drivers and handlers. have people that the phone
You know, so, so to know that people that are that busy on that level will take the time and reach down and be like, man, bro, you’re on the right track, man. Like stick it out. I’ve been there. I was there. This is what happened. This is how it worked out.
I think not asking for unnecessary things.
Quentin Edmonds (18:05)
Yeah. How does it make you feel when people, when they tell you that like you’re on the right track? Like what does that do for your confidence? What does that do for you? ⁓ just, you know, and you’re like, you know, I’m just trying to get in your brain because, know, I’m a type, you know, you, I, feed off of that. You telling me I’m doing something good. It almost puts me at ease. So what does it do for you when you got these people who you’re looking up to say, Hey man, you want to write track? What does it do for you?John Mccool (18:35)
Hey, you know, it’s like when somebody tells you like when you’re having a bad day, somebody goes, Hey, son’s gonna come up tomorrow. It’s like, yeah, I know the sun’s gonna come up tomorrow. But now that you said that, I’m feeling a little more optimistic that tomorrow’s a new day. I’m gonna try. So when, like when you’re in your when you’re stuck in your own head, and what you’re telling your wife, like, hey, man, we might not be buying anything for the kids. Like, we’re there. Like, we’re, we’re actually just we’re paying everything on credit card right now. Like, yeah.like 11 % interest on some summer 19. And then you reach out to somebody like, man, this is where I’m at. I going down the wrong track? And they’re like, no, man, you’re on the right track. It’s part of cutting your teeth. When I coach my athletes, I tell them the same way. Like if you’re not doing your cardio and repeatedly hitting your moves, then you’re on the wrong track. Like those are the two things you should be doing. If they come to me and they’re man, coach, I’m still losing. And I’m like, have you been doing your cardio? Oh yeah, 20 minutes a day, jumping rope. Already on the right track. Like keep doing that, it’s going to pay off.
Quentin Edmonds (19:34)
Mm.John Mccool (19:35)
Maybe that’s a long-winded answer.Quentin Edmonds (19:37)
No,not along with the answer at all. No, man, no. I I’m telling you, I’m enjoying this conversation with you. Like, you’re encouraging me. I mean, you’re having my mind shift around some things that I’m looking at. And I’m being 100 % honest. I’m not just trying to blow smoke. I’m like really appreciating your perspective, how you walk us through the journey to where you are now, how you have people encouraging you, how you’ve built up these relationships, how you coach your kids, all of these things I’m taking internally.
Okay. You like no matter what I’m facing today is going to get better, you know? And so, ⁓ yeah, go ahead. No, please.
John Mccool (20:12)
No, no, no, you’re fine. was just saying the song come out. interrupted.Quentin Edmonds (20:15)
you got you know, someone come on. Come on. Come on. So let me ask you this. Is there anything that we have not talked about that you want to talk about? Is there any kind of education, motivation, inspiration that you want to tell the people why you’re here? Is there anything like that that you want to drop on us right now?John Mccool (20:37)
The main point is I just want to share that I came from humble beginnings, very poor. The area in Philadelphia, Kensington, I grew up in, was drug-ridden and violent. I was there until I was 19, I thought the whole world was like that. I thought that’s just how it was. You’re surrounded by predators and everybody’s a possible, either prey or predator. It’s a very tough mindset. When you leave that environment and you go out in the world and you start realizing people are nice,Like generally, I’ve all over the world. I’ve been to 40 countries at this point. And I found it like people are generally nice. Like, and that’s, that’s a hard mindset to shift. So once I started learning that, it’s like, well, what else is there I didn’t know. And so it was very, it’s very hard to go from like a street kid that can’t read at 24, humble yourself to the point where you can make a phone call and be like, Hey, I can’t, I can’t provide financially for my kids this winter. I’ll buy them anything they want. Am I doing the right thing? Am I messing up? So to be that vulnerable to somebody, um,
I think a lot of people can take away from that. I remember the first time I told somebody like, yeah, I couldn’t read Tiles 24. It’s just part of my story. I never thought twice about it. It’s just something I had to struggle through and overcome. And I did. I had people come and talk to me and just be like, hey man, look, I couldn’t read either. Like I still struggle with it. And then I found out my tile guy was still illiterate. So I was like, man, like people, if I share things most people normally don’t, like most people bury.
Quentin Edmonds (21:39)
Yeah.Next.
John Mccool (22:06)
They hide it behind like nice clothes and a smile and they don’t want anybody to know about it But I found if I share that like something that somebody else has felt terrible about has been struggling with like they’ll come forward and they’ll be like Hey, man, I was there too. Like what did you do? Like I can share that little bit, but no I was there too, but this is what I did and how I got here You don’t have to stay there like I got when the war started Israel one of the guys I know over there He called me one of the IDF guys and he’s like telling me how terrible it is and I’m like, hey, man You know, you can move right?Like you live in Florida on the beach, nobody’s getting bombed in Florida. You can go anywhere you want. You don’t have to stay there. So that mindset of like, no, this is who I am. This is where I’m staying. It’s like, I’d still be down in Kensington fighting over parking spots.
Quentin Edmonds (22:49)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. John, man, sir, I appreciate you, man. Like, I really appreciate you sharing. Like, this has been absolutely awesome, man. Hey, listen, if someone wanted to reach out to you, connect with you, collaborate with you, learn more about what you’re doing, how can they get in contact with you,John Mccool (22:51)
Crazy.The only thing I’ve gone right now is Facebook. That’s it right now. I’ll get the rest going Instagram or whatever. This is like the next road I’m heading down.
Quentin Edmonds (23:17)
got you got you and that’s fine.Yeah, I’m glad you said that’s the next role. We can talk about that a little bit later, but I’m glad you said that’s the next role because people need to hear your story. I’m so glad. So let me say it like this. One, thank you for your time because time is a precious commodity. You and I know that you got your family, you know, you got different things going on. So definitely thank you for your time. Two, I sincerely say thank you for your story. I thank you for the gift of your vulnerability.
you share from a place, letting us in, letting people see where you came from. Because I believe that we’re ⁓ place that you came from and talked about is going to impact a lot of different people. And as you said to yourself, there’s some people that, that the hide, you know, behind the clothes and the smile. So thank you for sharing so much. And definitely thank you for your perspective, for your mindset and bringing that mindset to this podcast. I greatly, greatly appreciate you. Thank you for coming through today. Thank you, Quentin. Absolutely.
So listen, y’all can’t tell me y’all didn’t get value from that. You cannot tell me that was not an incredible episode. So definitely, if you want to check Mr. John out on Facebook, we gonna stand on pins and needles, wait for him to tell his story because I know all of you is intrigued as I am just to even hear more about the things he’s overcome. So definitely check out Mr. John, but definitely make sure you are subscribed here because you do not wanna miss out.
on these incredible conversations that we’re going to continue to have. So again, thank you, Mr. John and everyone else. Y’all have a great day.
