Mindset for Success

Mike:Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Today I’m here with my buddy Jimmy Ogle up in Oklahoma City. And at a time in the market where everybody thinks that it’s difficult right now to run this business, Jimmy is crushing it. And he’s been in the business for a long time, and he’s actually having some renewed success right now that he contributes a lot to a positive mindset. What you believe will happen will actually happen. So that’s what we’re going to talk about today.
Professional real estate investors know that it’s not really about the real estate. In fact, real estate is just a vehicle to freedom. A group of over 100 of the nation’s leading real estate investors from across the country meet several times a year at the Investor Fuel Real Estate Mastermind to share ideas on how to strengthen each other’s businesses, but also to come together as friends, and build more fulfilling lives for all of those around us.
On today’s show, we’re going to continue our conversation of fueling our businesses and fueling our lives. I’m glad you’re here. Hey, Jimmy, welcome to the show.
Jimmy:Hey, thanks for having me, Mike.
Mike:Yeah, good to have you on. I say good to see you, but it’s only been like less than a week. I think I saw you five days ago. So it is good to see you, by the way. But it’s not like we haven’t seen each other for a while, so.
Jimmy:No, I understand though.
Mike:Yeah. That’s a little inside. For those of you that are here, Jimmy’s a member of Investor Fuel Mastermind and we did a little excursion where we went to throw axes last week, which actually was a lot of fun. I don’t know if you . . . had you ever done that before?
Jimmy:I haven’t and it’s probably not something I would choose to go do, but I had a lot of fun once we were [inaudible 00:01:49].
Mike:Yeah. I didn’t really know what to expect. But it’s actually probably a pretty good way to relieve stress. On a bad day, you’re like, “I need to go chop something.” And true to Texas form, it’s ax throwing and BYOB alcohol. So alcohol and throwing axes shouldn’t go hand in hand, but they did.
Jimmy:Yeah, especially at 10:00 in the morning.
Mike:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, hey, you’re in the Investor Fuel Mastermind. We’ve seen you and you and I have known each other for a number of years. And you’ve been an investor the whole time and at a time where a lot of people are struggling right now or people are questioning, does this even work anymore? Like, all these things. There’s always success stories and it’s like, “Well, what’s that person doing?” And you’re one of those right now. You’ve been doing a lot of volume, and your businesses have been doing well. And we attribute that a lot to mindset, right? I mean, if you have a negative mindset at all, then you’re not going to see that type of success. So maybe before we get started there, talk a little about your backstory like your background, how you got into real estate investing, and how you find your way originally.
Jimmy:Yeah. So I have wanted to dive into real estate since I was probably, I don’t know, early 20s, like 21 or 22, somewhere in that range. But just never had the mindset, I guess, that I could say that I had the capability to do it. So I was going to get my real estate license. I actually went to the school and passed the test and everything. But when I was young and dumb, I had a DUI, so I got denied for the background check. But then I ended up, was a contractor with FedEx Ground for like 10 years. Built a great business there. And then I was able to sell that business, and take that money, and jump right into real estate, and just had a better mindset because I had cash in the bank at that point. So it was easier to take the risk when you had money sitting in the bank. So I finally took the risk . . .
Mike:Well, you had the entrepreneurial background too, right? I mean, this is what I believe about real estate investing. I mean, you clearly have to have a specific skill set to talk to sellers and things like that. But at the end of the day, our real estate investing businesses are fundamental small business, right? I mean, you have to generate leads and find customers. You have some operations components to the business. And ours is maybe a little unique in that you have to find funding and some things are a little bit different. But I think being a real estate investor makes you a strong, small business entrepreneur if you have some level of success.
Jimmy:Yeah, for sure. It does.
Mike:And then I guess there’s another business. I don’t know much about your other business, but you probably saw, “Hey, I could do one deal and make what I make in a month, like somewhere else.” Or something like that where you saw the opportunity, right?
Jimmy:Yeah. Oh, yeah. For sure. I had saw some other friends that had gotten into real estate and just didn’t really believe it at all until you were actually doing it. I mean, when you’re not in real estate, when you haven’t had that pain, it’s like, “Why would someone ever sell a house at that price?” But until you’re in that situation, you probably still never really know that feeling.
So, yeah, I never really believed it would work until we were actually doing it. And we jumped in, and we’re talking about mindset, and I can look back across my life and just every time things were going well, I can just look at . . . I felt like it was tied to my mindset. Because when we came into real estate investing, I just sold a stressful business and we did well off of selling it. And the first couple of years that we jumped in real estate were just amazing.
Mike:Because you were on a high and . . .
Jimmy:Yeah. And then, you go through life and you have ups and downs. And just looking at those times when there was downs, just comparing it to the thoughts that you’re probably having in your head that time, so.
Mike:Yeah. You could track back to the stress in your life, or your family, or other things are going on. It could definitely derail you in every area of your life, right?
Jimmy:Yeah, yeah.
Mike:Yeah. Attitude is down, all those things.
Jimmy:Yeah, for sure. Actually, this just popped in my head, but before we picked up and moved to California, I think it was about a year before that, my mom had passed away, and I never really felt like it impacted me much. But I think, part of that had to play. Because that last year or so in Oklahoma City, you just get to get to believe in the, it’s hard to get a deal and stuff like that. So, when you believe that it is going to be hard, but then once we were in California and we’re on a high of living in a new place, and deals were falling in our laps, and we’re having a great time again, so.
Mike:Yeah. So you lived in Oklahoma City, you moved to Southern California for a while. How long were you out there? For like two years?
Jimmy:Just shy of two years. Yeah.
Mike:Okay. And then you came back and you came back not even quite a year ago, right? It was . . .
Jimmy:Yeah. It was April this year we moved to Oklahoma City.
Mike:Yeah. I guess so like seven or eight months. Yeah. So that’s interesting. So you left effectively, like almost two and a half, three years ago. And you thought your market was difficult then. By probably most measures and what most people would believe, it’s more difficult now having much bigger success than you ever had even before you left. Right?
Jimmy:Yeah. It’s much more competitive now, but we don’t dwell on that. We don’t let it bother us. And honestly, I feel like lately, we don’t end up in houses at the same time as other people as much anymore either. And maybe it’s just because I don’t let it . . . I try not to dwell on it and think too much about it.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah. So I guess part of it is you came back . . . you went to California and you’re out there California dreaming. Like it’s beautiful out there. Right. But you missed probably Oklahoma taxes, and cost of living, and stuff like that. So the key for you is, how do you . . . once you’re back for a while and you get settled . . . because now it’s renewed focus, you’re like a born-again virgin. And you’re just like, you’re back and we’re on a high here, like, you have to find a way to keep that going. Right. You can’t let it get too comfortable. Right.
Jimmy:Yeah, which part of it is, I think surrounding yourself with the right people, which goes to put . . . we’re in the mastermind and plan on staying. And then just locally trying to surround yourself with the right people. And we just try to travel quite a bit. We actually homeschool our kids currently. And then, that’s why we’re trying to . . . we’ve got a big goal with trying to put away a lot of rental properties. Just that way we can keep that freedom and that excitement up.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah. Would you say that . . . Part of the challenge is, I think some people have . . . not that you don’t have other paths. I mean, you could go do other things. We all could, but I think that there’s some people that they give up on themselves. They’re just like, “Ah, I’m going to go back to doing the old thing I used to do,” or something that is more predictable, but probably less rewarding ultimately, or whatever. I mean, you have to believe in yourself. Right?
Jimmy:Yeah. Yeah. And it’s funny that you talk . . .
Mike:And your spouse has to believe in you too, by the way, right? I mean, that’s a big part of it.
Jimmy:Yeah. We’ve all come to find out. So, when we were moving back to Oklahoma City, she actually . . . because before we moved to California, there was a little bit of a struggle. And so, moving back here, it’s like, “Yeah, we’re going to go back and we’re going to buy houses again in Oklahoma City.” So she had doubts. She didn’t tell, luckily. She had doubts, like, “Is it going to work again?” But like I said, she didn’t tell me because she probably knew that would crush me what I’m trying to do.
But as far as talking about going back to things that you’ve done prior that you can do, we actually . . . Because earlier this year . . . because the last couple of months in California were a little rough, just our mindset was set on Oklahoma. So we probably weren’t buying the houses that we should. But I actually looked at buying a business back into FedEx again. We’d sold all our rental properties earlier this year, so we had the cash to do it. But then met with one of my friends that still does it. And just hearing the stories, I mean, it was all the same drama that I left for and probably even worse. And so, luckily, I made the decision not to do that and just to push with real estate because it’s been a great year.
Mike:So what do you think has . . . I mean, you’ve talked about having a positive mindset obviously. What are you doing different from . . . Just to give some context, I mean, the last couple of months you’ve been doing some decent volume, so what’s your typical volume look like the last few months here?
Jimmy:I’d say we’re leveling out at an average about 10 a month now. When I was first back and it was just myself, I was doing about five or six deals a month. And then, we’ve added acquisitions managers, and people in the office, and stuff. And I mean, we’ve hit as high as 17 in a month since we’ve been back. But I feel like we’re averaging right around 10.
Mike:Yeah. And before you left, what was a typical month for you deal-wise? The most in Oklahoma City, yeah.
Jimmy:The most I’d ever bought in a month was six. And our first month back in Oklahoma City, we bought six and tied that. But typically, I was doing, you know, three to five a month before.
Mike:Yeah. Okay. So what changed? I mean, we talked about mindset a little bit. I don’t want to beat a dead horse with that. Obviously, that’s part of it, but like just team structure-wise or betting bigger on yourself or like, what are some of the things that drove that growth?
Jimmy:Well, we left the franchise that we’re a part of and then we joined Investor Fuel. And so just jumped in and my first meeting at Fuel, I just purposely sought out people who were good at like, “Okay, you’re great at texting. I want to talk to you. You’re great at this, that.” Whatever it is. So, I mean, we’ve literally went in and just copied those people. I mean, a lot of people say, “Just get one base level going or whatever.” Well, overachiever, I came in. For a couple of months, we just did direct mail, but then we quickly were adding on everything and we literally did a little bit of everything, Facebook, marketing, PPC, everything. But we leveraged people that I felt were really good at those. And so we’ve come in and done pretty well on.
Mike:Yeah. It takes . . . I mean, that’s the beauty, I guess, of a mastermind is, there’s a high level one, at least. Some people that have like a good pedigree in there. So you find people that are . . . if you need an expert in almost anything, they’re there. You just have to find them. And in our group, they’re givers too. They’re willing to pretty much not hold back and share whatever they know. So it’s the value of surrounding yourself with the right people.
I think sometimes when you try to network with people just in your market, like, there’s value in REIA clubs and meetups and all that stuff, but people tend to be a little more closed off. And I don’t know . . . certainly, some of that is, there’s a lot of people in those groups that aren’t doing anything yet. So they’re just new. When even people that do know something and they’re like a little more scarcity mindset. Like, “I’m not going to share that with you.” And it’s just because you’re just not as committed to that organization, I guess maybe.
Jimmy:Yeah. For sure. Yeah. And there’s still hesitancy. When you get around people in your market, you are reluctant to share because even if you don’t . . . I try not to have that mindset. I try to have an abundant mindset. But just when you’re around people that are in your market, you just naturally hold back. It’s not even like you’re purposely doing it. You don’t want the next guy to go and just copy I guess, but . . .
Mike:Yeah. Yeah. But you realize sometimes, at least I do like in this . . . for the market where I’m at Dallas, I mean, I don’t know how many people would identify with, if we said, who here is a real estate investor and they raise their hand. No joke, I feel like there’d be like 10,000 people that raised their hand. I mean, there’s almost 8 million people here. It’s a big market. They’re not all doing deals. They’re not all doing high-volume deals. But there’s a lot of . . . I think there’s a reason why there’s always a very distinct list of people that are hitting it out of the park. They usually have a positive mindset. They usually are investing in themselves. They usually find ways to do deals with and through other people. Instead of like, “I’m going to pretend like you don’t exist and I just want to crush you.” They’re like, “Well, maybe we can find some ways to work together.” Just a little more open-minded to finding ways to do things on a positive side. Right?
Jimmy:Mm-hmm.
Mike:You have to be so. And it’s also good too. If you find ways to befriend those people, then you just get more insights to what’s working and what’s not. And for the most part, I’d say people are willing to share. Here’s what I think. I think a lot of the high performers in this industry truly are givers, like, they want to share. Now they don’t share with everybody because there’s a lot of takers out there too. I think for the most part, like, we get secluded off and we just don’t . . . we want to give, but it’s selective and it’s just around people that are in a giving culture. They feel like they want to give because they got an exchange. I don’t know if it’s chicken or egg, but yeah.
Jimmy:Yeah, for sure.
Mike:Yeah. So what do you feel like people that are out there . . . because you have a network, people are all across the country, and everybody thinks their markets the most competitive in the country no matter where you’re at. But what guidance could you give people right now that are in a market that feel like it’s more competitive than ever before, and they’ve convinced themselves that I have to get by with less, or I need to go add on a new market or something like that to just assume that they have, that the good days are over because you’ve proven that they’re not? What advice would you give them?
Jimmy:I think it’s just finding what’s working for you. I have people ask me all the time, like, what are you doing that’s working? Or what marketing do you do? And the truth is, it all works. So whatever you’re going to work or whatever you’re good at, work it. And it’s going to bring you deals. But just finding what’s working . . . Like, I am not a rehabber. I’ve found out. I have too much pride and I over-rehab and I’m not analytical enough. So I write checks and don’t keep track of them.
And so I’m not a great rehabber, and so we don’t do rehabs anymore. I mean, I’ll do like a hotel where we go in and paint, carpets, that type of stuff, but to go in and be tearing down walls and stuff, I don’t do anymore because that’s not where I’m strong. And so just find out what you’re good at, push in farther on that, and just keep going. I mean, you’re going to have good months, you’re going to have bad months, but you just got to keep going.
Mike:Yeah. Yup. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Jimmy, so you’ve been in Investor Fuel for a little under a year now, I guess, maybe nine months or so. Would you mind just sharing a little bit of a testimonial of like how it’s impacted your business and your personal life? Anything that’s impacted you and maybe why others should consider joining if they’ve thought about it.
Jimmy:I’d say it’s changed our life. I mean, from where we were at, not only relocating back to Oklahoma City, but leaving the franchise model that we were just able to get around people and leverage years that’s probably taken these people to learn it, but we were able to leverage it and just dive right in. And then I mean, it quickly became our second family. Like, we were talking earlier, you have local people that you get around, but people hold back and stuff. But it’s awesome getting around people that have a very similar business to you, and just getting around, and hanging out, and having a beer, and just the conversations that are had, I mean, it’s gold.
Mike:That’s awesome. That’s awesome. And you’re seeing it now, like, you’ve had some great success here recently and we want you to continue that, of course. But you’re in a position more now where you’re sharing with others, right? You took away from it, and I’m sure on some level you feel some obligation to help others because you got help before, right? I mean, that’s how . . . not like the circle of life necessarily, but it’s just like inside of this industry or inside of our Fuel family . . .
Jimmy:Of course. Yeah.
Mike:. . . people help each other and everybody has ups and downs. I was talking to somebody earlier that is in our group who buys a couple of hundred houses a year, and they had one major source of funding, and it got cut off like a month ago. And he was like, “Shame on me for not doing that.” And they’ll lick their wounds and they’ll figure it out. But we all have ups and downs in this business. And I think it’s just a lot easier when we have people like us that have similar scars and similar stories of how to overcome those obstacles. Right.
Jimmy:Yeah. And it’s great. I mean, you could literally pick up the phone and call anyone in the group and they’re going to spend the time with you to help you figure out your problem. I mean, everybody is . . . like, I said, it’s like a big family.
Mike:Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Well, Jimmy, if folks wanted to reach out to you or learn more about you, what you’ve got going on, where can they go to connect?
Jimmy:You find me on Instagram or Facebook. It’s TheJimmyOgle. I’m pretty active on social media, and so you can find me there?
Mike:Awesome. Well, we’ll add links down below in the show notes for everybody to find you. So thanks for sharing your story and congrats on your success here. I know this is going to continue on.
Jimmy:Thanks. Appreciate it.
Mike:Yeah. And everybody, thanks for joining us today. Hope you got some value out of this. Most importantly, you just have to believe in yourself and be around people that inspire you to keep pushing forward. Because the truth is in this business, there’s always people that are dying, distressed situations, divorce, inheritance, problem rentals, like we don’t wish any of those things on anybody, but they create opportunities for us to help people in those situations through real estate investing, and those aren’t following a market cycle.
So even though it’s a little harder in this industry right now because there’s a lot of competition, there’s still houses from all those distressed situations as many as ever and maybe more in the future with the Baby Boomer population, it’s only going to be more prevalent. So plenty of opportunity out there. You just have to learn how to compete against other people that are in your market or collaborate, I guess, maybe too.
So I appreciate you guys joining us for this episode. If you haven’t yet, if you could subscribe to us on Stitcher, Google Play, iTunes, YouTube, anywhere where we . . . we literally are syndicated like everywhere. So wherever you’re listening to us at right now or watching us, if you could subscribe, leave us a positive review, we’d appreciate it. Until then, we’ll see you on the next episode. Take care.
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