From Hustle to Harmony: Jason McDougall’s Path to a Balanced Real Estate Life

Mike Hambright (00:02.264)
Hey everybody, welcome back to the show. Today I’m here with my buddy Jason McDougall. We operate the same market and have known each other for a long time, good friends. And we’re going to talk about kind of evolution today. Jason’s decided to build more of a lifestyle business and a lot of folks that are in real estate get to a point to where they either just keep working hard forever or they kind of realize like, I want, I got in this business for a reason to have, to live the life that I want to live, like, and do the things that I want to do. And that’s what we’re to talk about today.

So Jason, great to see you, buddy. Thanks for having me on, man. I appreciate it. Yeah, good to see you. Just down the road, although you moved out a ways. I’m in the sticks, bro. I’m in the sticks. Decatur. What made you decide to move out to the, I mean, we just bought a place to of get away as well. So I mean, everybody has different reasons. is that why you wanted to just kind of get away from the hustle and bustle? Yeah, man. So we were in DFW proper forever. And then COVID hit.

And we got to spend more time alone, away from friends and family. We like, we need some space, man. All these people around us. We don’t want to be trapped in our house if this happens again. So we decided to sell our house in Colleyville and move out to the country. And it’s been great, man. I have no regrets from doing that. That’s great. With our house out at the ranch, like, Lindsay is an introvert. So I knew she would be excited to be out away from people because she’d rather.

talk to birds and insects than people anyway. And I was like, I think I’m going to be itching to talk to somebody after a few days. But the truth is, we’re super connected. We have Starlink out there. We’re really in the middle of nowhere, but our internet connection is better out there than it is here. And honestly, it’s really grown on me. I love being out there. And I can always pick up a phone or be connected. I have in my office out there. I haven’t shot any podcasts out there, but I’m about to.

And so we have the ability to do everything we need out there. We have everything we need out there. It’s a comfortable place. yeah, so it’s, don’t know if we’re, we’re probably a little further out. We’re like 90 minutes outside of town. So we’re probably a little bit further than you probably. it feels like we’re a million miles away, but we’re really not that far. It’s nice, man. I think that for me, I read this term called population fatigue. And it’s like when you go in traffic and everybody’s like, ah, throwing the bird out the window and just like angry. It’s because we’re around so many people all the time.

Mike Hambright (02:12.59)
You just get kind of tired of people sometimes. So when you get away from that, man, it’s just more calming, less anxiety. And this is really relaxing and nice. Yeah. And I do things out there that I don’t do here. I was thinking about this before. In my adult life, I’ve never owned a lawnmower. I just lived in an apartment. Our first house that we lived in was a townhome, and the HOA did the lawn. And then this house we’ve lived in, we’ve been here for 15 years. We’ve always just hired somebody because it was honestly it’s

kind of cheap, really relative to the cost of my time. But out there, I’ll mow for days at a time. I’m looking at a tractor. But it’s different. I’ve got Bluetooth. It’s air conditioned in there. You got air conditioning in your mower? yeah, dude. Nice. You crack open a cold one in there and just sit in wind? I don’t, but I could. Absolutely. Yeah, so I could do whatever I want. I’m in the middle of nowhere. Of course, it’s heavy equipment. You want to be careful.

Yeah, I’ve got a skid steer now. Just got a tractor. So it’s it’s it’s as comfortable as any I mean, you know, there’s like hundred thousand dollar vehicles. So they better be nice But yeah, they’ve got cup holders and Bluetooth and air-conditioned heating like do whatever you want You just living your best life out there. guess so doesn’t need to be mode does it? Yeah Yeah, I find like what else needs it is funny when you when everything you know, when you have a hammer everything’s a nail They say so I’ve got like this massive like tree mulcher on the front and we have 90 acres of timber

And it’s really for mulching like just junk, like big weeds and brush and stuff like that. But when you’ve got that thing, I’m always on the hunt for some what else needs to be mowed down. It’s just the big boys with big toys. I love that, When is your diesel truck coming? I mentioned that on your Facebook post. Yeah. How are you going to all this stuff? You need a big diesel truck. I know. Yeah. I might have to do a little switch. Yeah.

Yeah, do it. let’s talk about, so obviously, when did you start here in real estate? Because we were kind of coming up around the same time. But when did you really start? So I kind of got my feet wet, like in 2009, 10, 11. OK. Just by doing some bandit signs. Got caught doing bandit signs by the police and kind of quit real estate until 2015. So 2015 is when I really actually took action and went after OK. OK. Yeah. So I started in 2008. But I know we crossed paths kind of early on at Yeah. Is the story, were you the one that like?

Mike Hambright (04:32.726)
You had your wife putting out bandit signs, or she was in the getaway car or something? She was in getaway car. She was in the getaway car. It was midnight in Hurst. And we were hammering. I was hammering. She would pop the trunk open. I would jump out, grab the sign, hammer it in the ground. And then a cop rolls up and flips his lights on at midnight. And he had the backseat full of bandit signs. I was like, dude. I got caught by the wrong He was the bandit sign police. He literally was, man. He was like, you’re going to jail. And I was like, my god, I’m going to jail for bandit signs.

I didn’t know you couldn’t go to jail for that, but. Did you actually go to jail for No. You put me under arrest and put me in cuffs and stuff. I was like, I’m not doing real estate anymore. I am done. This scared the crap out of me. That’s funny. Yeah, I’ve always said, so I’ve never done bandit signs. And whatever it takes to get going, you got to do what you got to do. 100%. But I’ve always kind of said, yeah, something you have to do that has the word bandit in it and you do it under the cover of darkness is probably not a sustainable business practice. Yeah. I was broke, man. I had no option. I was like, I’m to get it done one way or another.

Did you buy any houses from it, though? I did not buy any houses. This was our second time putting the Bandit signs out. Oh, yeah. caught it early, yeah. So I had all these Bandit signs for years I couldn’t put I know a guy that you might know this guy, too. He was in Investor Fuel. They got a huge six-figure fine for doing RVMs. Oh. And he was mad, mad, mad. And we were all like, holy shit. I can’t believe it. And then he’s like, but I made $600,000 doing it. then he was like, it was an expensive marketing channel.

More expensive than he thought. So anyway. you have done a lot of deals here. You’ve done a lot of wholesaling, fix and flipping. You’ve got a rental portfolio. And then at some point, decided, you always have to decide, what do you want to be when you grow up? And it’s constantly evolving as a real estate investor, probably all entrepreneurs. I kind of give this joke all the time that I’m surrounded by people that wake up in the morning and they’re going to like 10x their business today.

And by noon, they’re thinking about shutting it down. Sounds pretty accurate. But at some point along the line, you change your mind. You start to realize what’s important, especially probably going through COVID and going through a couple market cycles. you’re constantly evolving as an entrepreneur, as a human, as a parent, and all those things. It’s like, well, what’s important to me? Something I used to think was important is not.

Mike Hambright (06:49.262)
Sometimes people have bigger goals and they’re stretching further. Sometimes people just pull back or they kind of modify their life. And what’s your, tell us a little bit, I know a little bit about your story, but why you tell us like how that evolution happened and kind of what’s your line of thought is today, I guess. Yeah, so I started like as a solopreneur and doing everything myself. And then I was like, well, the next logical step is to not do it all myself and to hire people to help do it for me. Right. So I hired a team. had an office. I had an admin. I had a cold collar. I had an acquisitions guy. And that was all.

I didn’t really enjoy managing people, being accountable to be in an office from eight to five. I was like, wait a I just quit my job, so I wouldn’t have to do this, and now I’m doing it again. So when COVID kicked off, I shut all that down, because everybody was like, no more work. Everybody was not sure what was going to happen next, but we shut it all down. And I spent a lot of time with my family. And when I did that, I was like, man, I love the way this feels. Like, I love not having to be at the office at 8 AM, and running the team, and motivating everybody to make the deals happen.

I was like, this is really nice. But how do I maintain this going forward without me having to do all this work for 70 hours a week like I was doing previously when I a solopreneur? So I just took a look at what was my business doing prior to COVID, and what could I do after COVID to still make money and grow my business, but maybe not without a huge team and doing the same thing and having all the time I wanted for my family. Yeah. It’s easy when you have a big team to.

It’s, guess, not just the team side, but to let the business get away from you, where you’re doing the daily activities that you think you’re supposed to do, but you kind of lose why you’re doing it or what it’s for. Yeah. Right. Everybody gets this for freedom, right? Time freedom or financial freedom. And then you’re like, wait, I have less time. I’m still working nights now to work on projects. And then I have more money, but I have no time to spend it with my family. Yep. And sometimes you just.

your lifestyle expands based on what you actually need. So you might think if I get to this number, that would be awesome. And then you get there, and you’re like, no, I really need 10x this. But you don’t. But you start to think of your life just fills up with more stuff. Funny how that happens. But yeah, it does. New toys become shiny. You’re like, well, now I can afford that. And then you’re like, well, what is it going to take to get that?

Mike Hambright (09:11.436)
Yeah, but then it forces you to like, well, you got to work harder. You got to work harder. can’t, could never get to a point of comfort because you keep making yourself uncomfortable. Yeah. Like in the journey to get the things that you think you want, it creates an uncomfortable side effect, which is you got to support that now. 100%. Keep grinding. Yeah. Yeah. I was not interested in doing that, man. I didn’t want to keep Well, the question is, where does it end? Like there’s levels to it, right? Yeah. you could say, OK, like.

Maybe I’m dreaming bigger than what I used to, but I don’t need to go crazy. Right. Yeah. So nowadays, it’s more like, what’s the best use of my time to get the maximum return? And what things can I do to get the maximum return? It’s not doing a wholesale deal that makes me $10 or $15 grand anymore. That used to make me happy. I’m like, oh, $15 grand on a wholesale deal. But now I’m like, I don’t even want to do that, man. It’s not worth my time. Yeah. Yep.

So how has your business evolved? I know you have a rental portfolio, and I know you’re starting to do property management and things like that. So what does it look like from here on out for you? Yeah, so after COVID, I continued to grow my rental portfolio. We moved to the sticks. And then I started investing in Wichita Falls, picked up a bunch of rentals there really easily because there’s no competition. up there. Cheap, man. There’s like two markets that I know of in Texas that are like in.

DFW and Houston can kind of, certainly Austin could, certainly over the past like 10 years, could do no wrong. Like they’re just up, up, up. And there’s a couple markets in Texas that are just like going sideways. Very flat. Wichita Falls is one of those, which makes it maybe a good rental market, a good owner finance market. But yeah, so is that where most of your rentals are up there? I got about half there and half in DFW. OK. There’s no appreciation up there. I know, yeah. Zero. There’s a great cash flow, but there’s no appreciation. Yeah, it’s weird. It is weird. Why is that? mean.

There’s no employers there, man. There’s no new jobs coming into that marketplace. That’s interesting. They’ve got high hopes of bringing some new talent in there. They’re trying. They’re trying. Isn’t there a military base up there? There’s a military base that’s very scaled down from what it was 10 or 15 years ago. So it kind of got decimated when that happened. Yeah. And there’s talks of maybe it’s just a NATO training base at this point. So whatever happens with NATO would affect that base. Who knows what happens. But it’s kind of a sketchy place to put all your eggs in. Right.

Mike Hambright (11:27.758)
We’re in the egg dilemma right now. It’s a good transition. There you go. That’s they need to start. They need to start some egg farming. That’s right. 100%. Yeah. There’s a boom going on. There is, And then you said you’re managing your own units. And you’re like, I might as well do this for other people. Yeah. So we’re managing our properties. And I’m like, well, I’ve got a VA that does a lot of this. But there’s not everything a VA can do. So it’s still me doing some stuff. And how do I get out of that seat? Because I don’t love that.

So the next logical thing would be to start a property management business to manage for others to allow us to hire somebody to do all these things for us. right. So as a service, you’re subsidizing your cost ultimately. Yeah, 100%. A lot of people that I know that run, there’s quite a few people that are in Investor Fuel that run property management companies or have sold them off and things like that. The typical rule of thumb I’ve heard is like, you don’t really make a lot of money until you get above 150 or…

units or so. And then you can afford your overhead, and you can afford to scale up and stuff like that. But I think things just get easier with scale in that business as well, because it’s very much an operational business. Right. Yeah. Yeah, you’re not looking for a new lead generation sources, or you probably are, but it’s not to the same degree. You’re not going through hundreds of leads to find a deal, stuff like that. So it’s a little bit different, I think. Yeah. I think for you as an investor, if you’re managing rentals for other people,

You’ll be able, I mean, you have that investor mindset. So you’ll be able, if they’re, you know, I would encourage you, it’s just a thought here, is like try to help them hit their goals, which is probably growth, you know? Because a lot of people that start with a couple, they don’t really, they may not really know what they’re doing. And it’s like, well, you you might not want that hustle, but you you might help them hit their goals of like, I really want eight or 10 or 20 or 30 or whatever. And it’s like, well, it benefits you to help them grow their business because you’re going to be managing them on the back end. Add their portfolio.

buy some rentals in Wichita Falls and you go. Manage them for ya. Yeah, yeah. So we were talking a lot about what it’s all for and what are some of the, I guess, what’s been your evolution of thought is you just want back to the lifestyle part, you just want to live the life, control your time more, be able to spend more time with family, all those things. Yeah, all those things. really, I’m 42 and I think when you hit 40 you’re like. Young, super young. Yeah, thank you. When you hit 40, when I hit 40 I’m like.

Mike Hambright (13:43.02)
Man, I’m not thinking about dying or anything like that, but your time is limited. I’m like, how do I want to spend this time? And I keep on thinking about when I’m on my deathbed, do I regret doing the deals I never did, or do I regret not spending time with my kids and my wife? And ultimately, it’s that. How do I want to be remembered? So what do I do to continue to grow my business, but also spend more time with my family, not less, as I get older? Because it’s fleeting. They’re growing up. Yeah, I talk about that a lot.

like just living with no regrets. When my mom passed away a couple years ago, I could sense that she had lot of regrets, just like things that she always wanted to do and never did. I was like, then I had regrets. I’m like, why didn’t I help her do those things? I mean, it’s probably natural for a kid to feel like I have some guilt there of like I had means to let her do more things and I just didn’t do it or whatever. But for sure, I think the important thing is to try to live your life with minimal regrets over things you should have done, right? Yeah.

100%. I used to have a boss that told me when he died, he was going to have no regrets. I’m like, man, what an amazing thing to be able to say, that when you die, you have zero regrets. He helped his kids start a multimillion dollar company. And he really probably lived with no regrets. I’m like, that’s what I want. Yeah. So you told me a little bit ahead of time, too, that your goal is, you said one of your goals is to build this property management company to let your kids take it over.

Yes. Yeah. I want to, so my oldest is eight. They’re like, is this a slave labor thing? that what is? 100%. Yeah, man. Think about the money I would save. Eight and five, both boys. And they both want to be in real estate. I mean, that could change, because they both wanted to be archaeologists or whatever a few years back. Whatever movie they just saw. Yeah, exactly. I want to be Captain America now. I’m like, all right, bro. But that’s my goal, man. I want to grow their property management business. So when they are 18, just step into what I’ve built for you. Just walk right in.

if the water’s warm and step into this. Because I just want to keep them close to me and in business with me. Yeah. It’s a natural thing. I was telling you about my son. He’s not going to go into real estate or any of the things that we do. But he might come back. And if he doesn’t, that’s fine too. And we’re not kind of planning on that. I think about it like we talked a little bit about with, well, I was giving you examples from my son, is like there’s things that.

Mike Hambright (16:01.634)
they have to go do to figure out what they want. I was the same way. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. When I was in college, I changed my major probably 10 times. had no idea. And I think even getting out of college, I started in corporate America, and I pivoted, I went into something I didn’t even need any that education for, ultimately. so I think everybody’s a little bit different, but I think some kids just have to find their way, what they want to do. And then some of them, we never really included our son in the business.

that much. He used to drive around with me and check on rehabs and stuff like that. I’ve thought about involving him more in the planning. He doesn’t even really know what all of our, we have so much going on. I just realized last night, I actually said that at dinner, he was like, there’s a whole bunch of stuff that you think you know about what we do, but you don’t even know. And he’s 17 years old. He was one when we started our business. So he should know all that. But he’s just at an age where he’s probably a little more self-consumed.

And they’re in school all the time. So how do you expose them to your work life? With the couple hours you have in the evening, it’s kind of hard to do that and to show them everything. So I get that. But that’s a cool thing to shoot for. I why not? At the end of the day, you’ve worked hard to build some freedom. And if they can benefit from that, then they’re still going to have to work. It’s not like you’re just going to give it to them. mean, it’s still job. It’s a business.

But I think it’s a great thing to shoot for. That’s my legacy, man. I want to be able to build a business that provides for my family. And that means my boys, too. If they decide to join me, great. If you don’t want to join me, that’s fine, too, if you have other passions and desires. But my goal is, if you want to join me, I have a seat waiting for you when you’re ready. Yeah. The great thing about a property management business is it’s a sellable asset, too. So if they don’t want to buy it, you’ll always be able to sell that. There’s always been this question of like,

Can you sell a wholesaling business? It’s like, not really. I know a few people that have done it, but it doesn’t really make a lot of sense. And so I’ve always kind of said, hey, the way you build wealth as a wholesaler is you accumulate rentals. Or you use your cash to invest in something else that makes money passively. Because the wholesaling business itself is not usually you’re the key man, woman, or whatever, whoever. And the brands aren’t that important, unless you’re like a national wholesaler or something maybe.

Mike Hambright (18:20.33)
And the systems, you’re probably using off-the-shelf systems. And so it’s like anybody could just go, whatever they would pay for years, they could probably go start it for a fraction themselves. 100%. Yeah, so it doesn’t really make sense. So it’s really pushing it into other things, like other companies, like starting a property management company or building up rentals that are always sellable. Yeah, holding assets, like transitioning that cash to Ashes. I think a lot of wholesalers don’t do that. Right. They just are stuck in that. I’m like, you’re going be doing this forever, unless you find a way to transition that cash or do something different. Right.

Yeah, it’s a hamster wheel. It is a hamster wheel. Yeah, man. what’s next for you? What’s going on? Let’s talk about the market a little bit. What do you think is going on in the market? Market’s slow. It’s real slow. We’ve sold a couple of flips in Wichita Falls that were, we listed them during Thanksgiving, so not a great time to list them, but they were on the market for abnormally long, even for that period. So it just slowed down. So it makes me make sure that when I’m buying something, it has multiple exit strategies.

Can I rent this if I can’t sell it? I don’t think it’s that bad where everything’s just sitting and not selling. It’s just totally stalled. But it’s definitely slowed down. I don’t see that improving significantly in the future, not within the next 12 months. I don’t see the 10-year treasury yield going down enough to affect that. One of the things that’s benefited Dallas, the DFW side, is that there’s such an influx of population here. It’s kind of propped everything up. So probably things are moving faster here than.

Which I’m guessing. I’m sure. Yeah. But yeah, if you have a, that’s first time home buyer type houses, right? whatever the median is in Dallas, I don’t even know. Maybe like 380 or ish or something. right. I remember when it was 180. that’s how long I’ve been Don’t make yourself. But yeah. But yeah, the move up houses are tougher right now. Yeah. But the first time home buyer stuff is still, it’s still pretty affordable housing here compared to most parts of the market. Yeah.

I’ve got most places in the country, guess. Friends that are selling like million dollar plus house. And they’re like, man, those are moving fast. Like, a million, a million and half, those have no problem selling. Yeah. It’s interesting. It’s usually people with much higher discretionary income. It’s a second house or something like that. They have the money just to float it. But the rich got richer. That’s right. They did, man. The rich got richer. Right. But the $600,000 houses, I’ve heard a lot of troubles with those moving. know, there’s just a slower market, that middle class market. Yep. Yep. So what do you think is going to, I mean,

Mike Hambright (20:43.756)
What do you think is going to happen over the next five? If you’re banking on property management, like you’re banking on, the reality is one in three houses in America are rentals. There’s always going to be tenants. Probably the homeownership is generally going down at this point, I would assume. And so what’s your vision for the property management business? Yeah, I think in the short term, it’s going to continue to grow. But then I also think about like,

Affordability is a thing. And holding rental properties is not as profitable as it used to be. So what does that mean long term for property investors, for landlords? I think that starts to decline. think the bigger players, like the corporate players, are scooping up a lot of properties they always have, or they have been for the past five or seven years, whatever. So I think individual ownership by like mama pops, I think that declines. I don’t see them, you know, there’s no more $200,000 houses that you can rent for $2,500. It’s hard to make those numbers work.

I think those properties get sold off as those people start to pass away. Our rentals, we’ve got about 40 rentals in DFW and our rentals have never really cash flowed that well. I I bought them for cash flow reasons and they cash flow, but they’ve never done great, but the appreciation has been insane. And so, I mean, I’m of the mindset that they’re gonna, there’s some interesting things going on with the Trump administration now in terms of just absolute reduction, hopefully reducing the deficit.

Because if they don’t, inflation’s going to just continue to churn and churn and churn forever, which is destroying the dollar, which pushes up asset prices. And so I’m just hanging on for an inflation hedge. Yeah, that’s smart. Otherwise, we would probably start to own or finance them off and just be the bank. I mean, inflation’s never going to stop, really. Even with reduction in spending and stuff like that, inflation, their goal is to have 2 % inflation a year.

I mean, their goal is not zero. So it’s going to continue on forever and ever. So I think if you’re holding just this inflation hedge, it’s a great asset class to hold long term. It’s a sure bet, I think. Yeah. So you’re just getting started with your property management for other people as a service. So let’s talk about how do you grow that? What are your plans to grow that? And I think you have an unusual advantage that you’ve been an investor for a long time. So you really understand that mindset. And one of the other opportunities, too, I was talking about this on the real estate side with somebody the other day.

Mike Hambright (22:59.372)
is like even if your market has kind of slowed down, like the thing to do now is steal market share. I mean, just because the market, like Dallas is, let’s just say DFW is slower than it was four years ago. But there’s still a lot of activity going on. It’s like you just need to steal market share and be a better operator. It’s the same thing with property management, Even if that’s becoming a harder business, say, most property managers suck.

Yeah, they do. And that is really the key to anybody being successful. But you have the mindset of an investor. I also know you’re very frugal. Little nickname, maybe. Frugal McDougal. Yeah, baby. But how are you going to grow that? It’s not like you need to go find some pond that there’s a whole bunch of people that have been looking for property managers, and now they’re going to find me. It’s like you just need to find the ones that are unhappy with where they’re at now and say, why don’t you come over to this side? Yeah. Yeah, 100%. So I think organically, a lot of it comes from like,

SEO, I paid all of our tenants, I shouldn’t make sure I didn’t say that, but I paid all of our tenants to give us five store Google reviews. I was like, I’ll give you $10 off your rent. So I got like these 50 Google reviews, five store reviews, and we’re not even 100 % set up to manage properties yet. And we’re getting calls from property owners like, hey, I’m with this property management company and they suck, I saw your reviews, I’d love to work with you. like, I’m not ready yet. But I’ve gotten a lot of that. And the consistent answer or the consistent feedback is that the person we’re working with now is not doing a good job.

It’s not really someone that doesn’t have a property manager and they’re just looking for somebody. It’s they had one in the past, they’re working with one and they don’t love it. So I think there’s a lot of older property management companies that have been around for long time that have gotten really comfortable and have not adapted new technology or new processes to help make the experience better for owners. And I think that’s where I shine, where I can do a lot of that. So the marketing.

SEO, PPC, I’m not going to be putting out bandit signs for property management. Well, know what would work really well is direct mail, honestly. Because it’s real easy to identify absentee owners. 100%. Someone with a portfolio. So either cold column or, I mean, there’s a lot of ways you can do it. They’re easy to identify, like who are the landlords. Yeah. And I think you’re right. A lot of those property managers don’t have that skill set, where they’re like,

Mike Hambright (25:11.98)
in the trenches with marketing, where as a real estate investor, we’re always thinking about the new ways to get in touch with someone that no one else is doing. Yep. Yep. So for Jason, for anybody that’s coming up right now, any words of wisdom, like you probably are not on path. I mean, you probably have pivoted a few times over time. so any words of wisdom for people that are coming up right now that might be caught in the hustle or like.

I don’t know, any words of wisdom to share with people that are kind of coming up now that if they could use a little wisdom from a guy like you? Yeah, I think for me, it’s been a lifestyle by design. Like, I didn’t get here unintentionally. I thought about what I wanted, and I focused on figuring out a way to make it happen. So it’s not like I’m just going to go do through the motions and make this happen. I’m like, what do I want out of life? What do I my time to look like? What do I my business to look like? And then what are the actionable steps that realistically I can do to make that happen and take in those steps?

So being intentional for 100 % is all of it. And then maybe not having shiny object syndrome, because I am a big problem with that. Yeah. I’ve done a lot of that. I’ve chased things. And I’m like, man, I shouldn’t have chased that. I just wasted a ton of time, and it wasn’t even going to matter. So being intentional and not having shiny object syndrome. I think it’s also important to think about your financial goals, because what do you need to live the lifestyle that you want? Because a lot of times people get hung up on metrics that don’t matter. There’s obviously on social media, there’s a lot of vanity metrics.

In the real estate, is too. Number of units, number of doors you own without any context to how much equity you have. Or there’s a lot of metrics that like, those metrics don’t really matter. Don’t make shit. really matters. So I hear people say, I want to make a million dollars a year. I’m like, why? Why do you want to make a million dollars a year? If you really need a million dollars to have a life still you want, OK, then great. But if it’s just some arbitrary number that you picked out of thin air because it sounds cool, then you might want to rethink that. That’s not a good goal. I’ve coached a lot of new people too. And I used to.

Say, dream big, create these big, hairy, audacious goals. And what I found is when people’s goals are too big and they’re borderline unrealistic, or they are unrealistic, I used to think that that is a catalyst to push you forward. But what I found is a lot of people, at the first hint that they’re not going to hit that, they give up. Because they set a goal too big for themselves. in their mind, they started to realize, I’m not going to hit that. So they’re like, well, I should just do nothing, which is terrible. is terrible. So I’ve kind of.

Mike Hambright (27:37.838)
Now when people ask me about, when we talk about goal setting, was like, look, your first goal should be to replace your active income. If you have a job, if you make $80,000 a year. Because I have people that make an $80,000 a year, and they’re like, I’m not going to be happy unless I make a half million next year in my first year. And I was like, I’m not saying that’s not possible. But your first goal should be offset the $80,000 so that you could quit your job and go all in. Because sometimes they set a big goal, and they’re just like,

Yeah, I’m not on track to hit that. And they’re just like, I’ll just stay at my job. They could beat up. Right. Yeah. I’m with you, man. Like having that big goal, like you said, $500,000 going from $80,000 to $500,000, like that would be amazing if you could do it. But the chances are stacked against you, right? Odger’s stacked against you making that happen. So why set yourself up for failure? It’s the same mentality of like, I’m going on a diet. And it’s like, I already broke my diet this morning. So I’m just going eat really bad for lunch and dinner, too. Yeah. You You’re just like, why dig the hole deeper? It’s not a zero sum game where it starts over tomorrow. It’s like.

you’re just hurting yourself the next day. Continually. Yeah, no doubt. I agree with that. Cool, man. Well, if folks wanted to connect with you, where do they go? Facebook. I’m all over Facebook. I’m not as active as used to be, so I’m not all over Facebook anymore. But I’m on there. If you want to reach out to they can find me on there. Yeah, awesome, awesome. Well, good to see you, buddy. Yeah, likewise, bro. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me on. Everybody, hope you got some good value from today. Sometimes you got to really analyze what your goals are and what it is you’re trying to accomplish in life.

Some of us, it ultimately all comes down to lifestyle, right? Like you want to be able to live the life that you dreamed of back when you were dreaming, right? And it doesn’t, sometimes it doesn’t need to be as big as you think it might be. And sometimes there’s other paths to get there as well. So, appreciate you guys. We’ll see you on the next show. See ya.

Cool, one thing that I don’t pay attention to when we’re doing.