From Military to Mortgage: 5 Lessons for Success in Real Estate

Dylan Silver (00:00.952)
Hey, everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast by Investor Fuel, the nation’s premier real estate mastermind. I’m your host, Dylan Silver. And today on the podcast, have Timothy Trifiletti. Timothy was in the United States Air Force and he is currently in the lending and mortgage industry. He’s also a fitness nut and we’ll delve into that. Timothy, welcome to the show.

Timothy G Trifiletti (00:29.109)
Hey, thanks for having me on. I’m excited about this.

Dylan Silver (00:32.993)
Absolutely. Before we hopped on here, we were getting into your background and how you made your entry into the real estate space. Tell us a little bit about that.

Timothy G Trifiletti (00:42.999)
So basically I was in the United States Air Force Reserves, which for those of you that don’t know that, that means one week and a month.

you go to your base and you play soldier essentially, right? You’re just getting some light reps in and two weeks out of the year, two weeks in the summer, you go off and you play soldier as well. 9-11 happens and now all of a sudden I go from being part-time one week in Amont to where I’m full-time. I went from St. Louis, got activated and sent to beautiful Duluth, Minnesota, which if you’ve never been there before, it’s about as north as you’re gonna be able to find in the continental.

U.S. and but I’m a big outdoorsman. absolutely loved it. You could literally go kayaking on Lake Superior and then drive maybe an hour and a half and then go snowboarding, you know, all in the same day. So for me, I was a big fan and I was actually devastated when they called me up and said, hey, you got to come back, you know, to St. Louis. So I end up coming back to St. Louis. I’m working in the communications industry doing sales and I end up buying my first house.

So I’m a veteran, I go through USAA to get my loan.

And I end up holding this idiot’s hand the entire process to get the loan done. It’s almost like I was the loan officer, you know, kind of like driving. Finally get the loan closed. I’m talking to a buddy of mine that I had no idea was actually in the industry and kind of going through what I went through. And I’m like, you know, if this guy made a hundred dollars on the transaction, he made a hundred dollars too much. And, you know, my buddy asked me, goes, how much was your house that you bought? And I said, 250. He goes,

Timothy G Trifiletti (02:26.09)
He probably made about eight grand on you. And I go, you gotta be kidding me. And he goes, yeah. And go, and he and my friend does that. And I asked him, I go, not trying to be intrusive, but how much do you make? And he told me, and I hope he doesn’t watch this, but I’m like, this idiot.

If this idiot can make six figures doing this, I should be able to light it on fire. So I got into the mortgage industry, probably around 2005, if I had to guess 2004, 2005. Had a great run for about two years. you know, it’s like we said, what you and I were talking about for every dollar. I just thought it was going to keep going up, you know, every year I’m to make more money. I wasn’t taking market conditions into consideration because I’m just seeing the money that I’m making. And for every dollar that I’ve

Dylan Silver (02:53.249)
Mm.

Timothy G Trifiletti (03:12.098)
made, I probably spent about two and a half dollars. wait happens. And I just lost everything and just decided, you know what? Here’s my learning lesson. I’m a big fan of having things fail and just sitting down and being in the middle of it and kind of get in perspective. Of, know, what I did wrong, what I could do better. And I just said, you know what? Everybody’s getting out of the industry. I’m going to stick it. Somebody’s got to do mortgages. Right. So all my competitors are getting out of the industry. I stayed in it and,

Dylan Silver (03:15.191)
Yep.

Dylan Silver (03:37.376)
Yeah.

Timothy G Trifiletti (03:42.048)
here we are, you know, 20 years later, so.

Dylan Silver (03:44.982)
When you buying your own house and you had the experience, which sounded like less than great, dealing with the person that you were dealing with, but you said, I’m going to do this now. Was it an easy, a natural bridge for you? Did you feel like, I know people who are doing it. Let me just get right in. Or was it a little bit more of a process than just diving right in?

Timothy G Trifiletti (04:11.286)
Well, eh.

A little bit of both to be honest with you. So I looked at what are the benefits of it, right? I love talking to people and I like talking to new people. So every day you’re talking to somebody else, different parts of the country. I’m a huge sports fan. So you tell me you used to live in New Jersey. Oh, you must have been a big Nets fan, know, that they’re in Brooklyn now. know, first thing we talked about today, you’re in Dallas and I brought up, you know, the Luka trade. So you got to talk to people really in kind of like all walks of life for the most part, you

Dylan Silver (04:29.28)
Yeah. Yeah.

Timothy G Trifiletti (04:42.35)
across the nation.

I love problem solving. Nothing makes me happier than when I get a client referred to me and they tell me I’ve been told no by like three different companies. Okay, because they probably just kind of scratch the surface and they maybe see a low credit score, a high DTI, whatever. Whereas I like to dig down and really kind of like dissect it and come up with a solution. So I’ve always been a big fan of kind of like problem solving and things of that nature. As far as learning the business,

I had a really rough go and I don’t, well I’m not gonna blame my management by any means but back then it was more of a you get the deal done and we’ll kind of take care of it on the back end, right? So I’m thinking, all right, I get the application, pull the credit, all that fun stuff, pass it on to them. It’s my first closing. I am so geek, man. I’m wearing the oversized suit, you know.

Dylan Silver (05:15.916)
Mmm.

Dylan Silver (05:29.42)
friend.

Timothy G Trifiletti (05:41.165)
and all that and my supervisor comes up and he goes, where is the title work? And I go, I don’t even know what the hell you’re asking me right now. What do mean that’s?

Dylan Silver (05:49.91)
Yeah, what is that?

Timothy G Trifiletti (05:51.105)
He goes, you didn’t order a title? Well, you never told me I had to order a title. I don’t even know what that means right now, you know? And so it was a very kind of like wake up call of, if I’m gonna get this done right and keep my clients happy, I really need to be versed in all aspects. Even if it’s something I’m not doing, I need to learn what that is and then follow up to make sure it was done. So I would say, and I like to consider myself, I always tell people this,

I’m not good at a lot of things, right? I don’t think most people are good at a lot of things. But what I’m good at, my job, I think I’m great at. And the reason I think I got there is I, those first three years, I made every possible mistake you could make on a loan.

Dylan Silver (06:37.072)
Timothy G Trifiletti (06:38.314)
Big time, big time, but I learned from it, you know, so now I’ve got protocols set up in place to where I know this is not going to happen again because I’m going to triple check because this happened to me on the Miller file 15 years ago. yeah, I’m a big fan of learning from my mistakes and you know, knock on wood, I like to think I’ve done a pretty good job at it because I’ve made plenty of them.

Dylan Silver (06:53.349)
Was that an actual file?

Dylan Silver (07:02.879)
You know, one of the things for our listeners who are newcomers and the avatar of our listeners, someone who’s doing 50 plus deals per year, but we, of course, this is on going to be on multiple services. So newcomers might be listening and people are worried about making mistakes. And I’m actually a wholesaler by trade, but I’m going to be a licensed realtor here in April, God willing. And I think there’s a lot of people who are so concerned about

making a mistake, they have analysis paralysis, especially about getting into real estate. And here from Tim, it’s totally, he didn’t have that. He was like, we’re gonna fail forward. And you know, if there’s something that’s gonna go wrong, I’m just not gonna do that again.

Timothy G Trifiletti (07:51.149)
Correct, yeah. And with me, I think it helps because I deal with a lot of newer real estate agents, right? And I see a lot of that on their end. They’re constantly wanting to check up and their biggest fear is that they are gonna fail at something or something’s going to go wrong. And it’s like, you can almost assure that if you have somebody that does 100 transactions on the mortgage side, if you do 100 transactions per year, chances are you’re gonna hit some bumps 65, 70 % of

those, okay? It’s being able to catch those mistakes or potential issues upfront. The earlier you can identify it, you know, the earlier you can fix it, you you find a solution. What I try to tell agents all the time, you getting stressed out, you know, if something comes up on, on title, whatever the case may be, they freak out all the time.

Dylan Silver (08:35.464)
Yeah.

Timothy G Trifiletti (08:46.568)
If your client senses that it’s making you nervous and it’s making you become unhinged, it’s going to make…

Dylan Silver (08:52.521)
You’re done.

Timothy G Trifiletti (08:53.228)
It’s gonna make them become unhinged right so with me I always sell my agents look if it’s a code red I’m going to let you know if it’s just like maybe a little bump in the road or something like that You don’t need to know about it if I know that we can get it fixed right so I do before I call anybody If I call a realtor if I call a client I just had an appraisal come in short the other day right so Delivery is everything in my opinion look unfortunately the appraisal came in

Dylan Silver (09:18.27)
Yeah.

Timothy G Trifiletti (09:23.182)
short. However, it’s a rural area. This appraiser, we kind of looked him up. He doesn’t have the best reviews, blah, blah, blah. We’ll get another appraiser out there. Everybody’s happy. That’s actually getting done. I just got a text on my phone right there. So I think the library has a lot to do with it. But when people are scared, so I think the reason people are scared or they’re very conscientious about

Dylan Silver (09:36.458)
Mmm.

Timothy G Trifiletti (09:47.115)
making a mistake is how they’re going to be perceived by their audience, know, so their client, the lender and all that. And that’s just something you cannot control, but how you handle it is something that you can control. So I’m a really optimistic guy. And I really think that, you know, every issue does have a solution. It’s just finding that solution, knowing how to get there. And again, it all circles back to I’ve made every damn mistake you can possibly make.

Dylan Silver (09:52.425)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (10:01.331)
Yeah.

Timothy G Trifiletti (10:17.038)
pops up, I’ve got a reference that I can go back to and go, oh yeah, I’ve had this happen several times. I know how we can go back and fix it.

Dylan Silver (10:25.833)
And one of the things that you said before the podcast started, which I say a lot is, uh, we’re, problem solvers. We’re problem solvers in the real estate space. You might not think you’re a problem solver. You might think, especially if you’re, you’re, going to be a realtor or a loan originator, you might think, Oh, you know, I have to know the rules and I have to be able to market. But what you’re really doing is, is taking away this, this potential stress from someone else.

and navigating these sometimes hairy issues with a lot of tact and a lot of courage and a lot of conviction. And sometimes, especially if you’re new, you might have to rely heavily on your mentors and your broker or the people around you. But hopefully over time, you can kind of offload that from them. But just the other day,

We had a podcast guest show up like three hours early at a time that was booked someone else’s for an in-person podcast. And we just decided, Hey, you know, let’s not freak out. We’re, we’re problem solvers. Let’s get this done. And he was an investor himself. And so he was like, yeah, let’s do it. Let’s figure it out. So we were able to squeeze them in, but that’s, that’s honestly the strength of being a operator in real estate. If you want to be a high level operator in real estate, you’re a problem solver.

Timothy G Trifiletti (11:45.655)
Yeah.

100 % you know and I and not to go too far off track but again we were talking about my son you know a little bit earlier and like with me growing up I’m almost 50 okay so I’m coming and I’m not one of these guys my generation had it so much harder than your generation or whatnot but I will say this for the most part I think parents were a lot less hands-on back then and and you know if you had beef at school with somebody or whatever the case may be it was kind of like you know my parents were like figure it out

You know as opposed to going we’re gonna we’re gonna do it for you So the biggest mistake that I can think of that I have made as a parent I like to think I’m a really good parent was I let my son

figure a lot of the stuff out on his own, but a lot of times I got him to the two feasible conclusions. You can either go left or you can, you know, go right. Whereas when I was a kid, I didn’t even get that far. was, you know, here’s what the issue is. You just got to figure out what your options are, things of that nature. you know, with me, it’s kind of, I feel like I’ve kind of been doing it my entire life. Again, I was in the military and in the military there was no

Dylan Silver (12:49.64)
Thank

Timothy G Trifiletti (12:55.88)
somebody coming up and asking me, can you do this? Is there any way you can get it back, you know, by X day? It was literally, here’s your task. I want this done, no questions asked within 48 hours. How I got it done, completely up to me. I can outsource to one person, I can outsource to 20, but at the end of the day, if that wasn’t completed in 48 hours, it was my ass, essentially. So that kind of get the whole sense of urgency and whatever the issue is, I’m the one that’s got to figure this out.

Dylan Silver (13:00.647)
You

Dylan Silver (13:25.965)
I think people actually would be surprised to hear that there is a lot of overlap in the real estate space and in military. I think the because you would think like, you know, physical fitness, discipline, dedication, right? These are good traits to have whatever you’re doing. But in terms of like being a marketer, you know, not necessarily. the skill that I see is.

Timothy G Trifiletti (13:33.29)
yeah.

Dylan Silver (13:50.15)
You have to be a really good advocate and communicator. Like you have to get this done. You don’t necessarily know how to do it. And you’re like, well, my back’s against the wall sink or swim. Let me figure this out. And that same skill is so critical in real estate. It’s like, well, we have this huge problem. This is not going to close. It’s not going to fund, you know, we have to get heirs to sign off on this. What do we do? Well,

Timothy G Trifiletti (13:55.82)
Right.

Timothy G Trifiletti (14:02.806)
Right.

Dylan Silver (14:17.51)
We figured out we start talking to people and you fail forward and I personally when I was first getting into wholesale, I had this fear of like man, I’m going to get exposed that I don’t know what I’m doing. They’re going to find out that you know, this is my second deal and I’ve never encountered this before and like what am I going to do? And I realized quickly that most people like 90 % of people or more when you go to them with honesty and conviction, but

Also being somewhat transparent that like, we need to figure this out together that if they like you, they’re on board. They’re on board. They’re not like, whoa, we have a problem and you’re bringing it to our attention and now we’re done. It’s like, okay, let’s move forward through this.

Timothy G Trifiletti (14:52.524)
Right? Right.

Timothy G Trifiletti (15:00.332)
right.

Yeah, yeah, no, and I give you guys all the admiration in the world. I’ve done a couple of deals in my time, and I’m…

very conscious about what my limitations are. I’m really good on the mortgage side. For me to walk into a house and look at a kitchen, look at a bathroom, and look at the flooring and go, based on where we’re at right now, this house is worth 200, if we put another 50 into it, it’s going to be worth 335. That’s not me. That’s never been me. I do not possess that. So my first wholesale deal, one of my best friends is a real estate agent, getting Brandon.

call them up and I go, hey man, I’ve got a potential deal that I think we can flip or wholesale.

Do you want to go in on it with me? And he’s like, so what do you want me to sell it? And I go, no, I’ll split the profit with you, but I’m going to tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to be the money guy upfront. Okay. And you’re going to handle all the real estate. So you’re going to tell me what this thing’s worth, what it needs, so on and so forth. And we did that and it was great. But again, I would, I’d rather make 50 % of something and know it’s a pretty much assured deal and it’s getting done right as opposed to gambling the dice, you’re rolling the dice and yeah, exactly. You know,

Dylan Silver (16:16.761)
Nothing. Yeah.

Timothy G Trifiletti (16:19.436)
So it’s to fall back on that, being able to ask for help by the right people and identifying it upfront where, you you want to ask for the help, not necessarily when it’s code red and you need it. You want that help upfront. That way you can kind of, you know, discover things along the way as opposed to doing the fire drill.

Dylan Silver (16:35.266)
Yep.

Dylan Silver (16:41.74)
At the last minute I was just talking about this in my last guest funny enough about how you want to as as anybody but definitely in the real estate space you want to be like fanatically networking and you never know when that’s going to be helpful to you. It might not even be this year but if you build a relationship and down the line you need to like send a carrier pigeon to go call that from the depths and help you today that can be.

Timothy G Trifiletti (16:54.112)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (17:10.713)
the difference. And so the reason why I’m sitting on this podcast funny enough is because I had a deal west of Dallas in a town called Aizle. It was an assignable contract and I found an investor in that area on Investor Lift. I called him. He told me, know, your photos aren’t good. I don’t like the deal. You know, who are you? And I was like, man, this is is tough. This is tough. But ultimately,

Timothy G Trifiletti (17:11.884)
100 %

Dylan Silver (17:39.289)
just through persistence, we became friends. And now the office that I’m sitting in is on a ranch that he owns. And so the reason why I’m on this podcast is because he referred me to the person who owns the podcast. And I didn’t know any of these things would happen. All I cared about at that time, before I even really understood networking, was how do I get this deal in Azle, Texas, sold because…

Timothy G Trifiletti (17:43.83)
Right. Right.

Dylan Silver (18:06.734)
Otherwise, I’m going to be left holding the bag if my option period expires. And now I’m like every connection that I can make, every opportunity, I call it guerrilla networking, fanatical networking, networking junkie. It’s like these are going to be the value in your life.

Timothy G Trifiletti (18:22.56)
Right, right, yeah, absolutely. And that’s another thing to go back to.

I think it’s a generational thing with what I see with a lot of things. And I can really only base a lot of this stuff off what I see with my own son. Very early on when he got into what he was doing, I was trying to get him connected with people that I really thought would be able to help him out. So he originally started by trying to pitch real estate agents and do social media marketing for real estate agents. Well, in his head, he had this pre-canned advertisement or whatever you want to call it that he was going to do.

And I go, what you need to do is you need to call some, and I put them in contact with these people. You need to call some of these brokers and you need to run this by them because at the end of the day, they’re the ones that essentially run the entire office. I either the ones with, they’re going to be the one writing you the checks. So you need to find out from them, call them, pitch them.

Dylan Silver (19:02.297)
Yeah.

Timothy G Trifiletti (19:17.644)
and listen for their feedback, you know, and take, really take notes on it. Don’t be hurt by it, but really value their feedback. And and he called a couple of friends of mine that were brokers. And when I, he got off the phone, I asked how it went. He was pissed off. I’d called the broker.

I would call a broker and I would say, how did it go? And you know, a couple of them said, I could tell when I said no. And I threw out the objections. He got really defensive about it, you know, and he didn’t, he didn’t coddle it like it should have been. Right. So then I tried to kind of connect him with a couple of them and go, let them kind of like mentor you because at the end of the day, that’s very flattering. If somebody comes up to me and

And I don’t get people like I’ll get people asking me how do you do this how do do that but it’s not like they’re lining up outside my door going I want to be like you but if somebody comes up and asks me hey man how did you get this how did you do that I’m really flattered by it and I will sit down and I will tell you every trade secret or I’m not gonna hold anything back and I think that’s important and I think with mentors per your point what you were just saying if you do network

Dylan Silver (20:26.83)
Yeah.

Timothy G Trifiletti (20:34.506)
and you show the people that you actually are paying attention and that you are listening and it’s maybe not a monetary benefit that you’re talking with them, but you’re picking their brain to get knowledge.

they’re probably gonna give it to you all day, but you have to actually follow through with it. And I think a lot of people nowadays, they’re like, screw that. I’ll look it up on Google or I’ve got this figured out or, you know, I’ve got a buddy that, you know, does this and I’ll get the information from him. So, you know, kudos to you for actually following through and, you know, keeping in touch with him.

Dylan Silver (21:00.575)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (21:05.451)
Yeah, Ryan, if Ryan’s listening, he knows this story. Yeah, I he he he told me your photos are terrible. And I, you know, I’m not interested in this deal. think he made an offer, but it didn’t end up happening. But let’s pivot a little bit here. I want to talk a little bit about being a fitness and adrenaline nut or junkie.

while also being in the real estate space. Before we hopped on here, I was like, there’s one bodybuilder that I know that everybody in DFW knows of. I’m forgetting his name, but I love to see that. How’d that come about? it through your military experience? How’d that come about?

Timothy G Trifiletti (21:51.031)
I have kind of been like my entire life as far as like the adrenaline junkie, you know, keep him and again, I’m 49 years old. So, you know, this was pre Nintendo, you know, so was like an Atari was like the only thing that was going to keep you in the house. So, you know, for us as kids and I’m a super active guy, it was always baseball, basketball, football, and then you start getting into the extreme sports, right? So where I had grown up, I think I lived there from about

town called warrenton way out in middle of nowhere bmx biking free-sell biking and things like that that’s what all the kids were getting into so i got into that my mom remarries we move out to what’s called lake st louis it’s probably about 30 minutes away from warrenton i get out there i’m the only one with a bmx bike everybody else is riding skateboards so it’s like all right i guess i got to trade my bike in and get a skateboard so then i got hooked on skating and then from there it was just a

Dylan Silver (22:28.076)
Yeah.

Timothy G Trifiletti (22:50.894)
progressive, you know, kind like one-upping, skiing, wakeboarding, snowboarding, and it kept going. But really where it accelerated was, again, going back to my kid. He’s built just like I am. The problem with me doing all this stuff now, if I want to go rock climbing, if I want to go wire

Dylan Silver (23:03.928)
Yeah.

Timothy G Trifiletti (23:09.58)
or skydiving or something like that. With the exception of the whitewater rafting, I’m not gonna find any of my friends that’ll go rock climbing. I’m not gonna find, I can’t call anybody that I know other than my kid to go, hey dude, get yourself ready. We’re gonna go skydiving two hours or whatnot. He’ll go, all right, say less, I’ll be there. So for me, it’s, and same thing with him. He doesn’t have a lot of friends that kind of partake in those things. So with us, it’s kind of like we’re the only two that we,

Dylan Silver (23:17.901)
Yeah.

Timothy G Trifiletti (23:39.577)
know that no matter what you bring up we’ll go do it and I just like trying to up myself you know I the way I look yeah you get you get one turn on this rock and that’s it and I want to get everything in so that’s why I’m gonna keep you know I’m gonna keep going until until the wife or the yeah or the doctors say hey you can’t you can’t do it anymore even then I’ll probably still do it but.

Dylan Silver (23:46.85)
That’s awesome.

Dylan Silver (23:58.133)
will fall off.

Dylan Silver (24:04.46)
I was bouldering indoors. was a jujitsu guy, not a bodybuilder, but I did go to the gym. I was a jujitsu guy, and I was bouldering indoors at this gym in San Antonio. And I saw people jumping off of the top out of the mat. And I was like, well, that’s really cool. Like, let me try that a bunch of times. And I thought I was good. I was not good. I jumped off and I felt fine. And then I did it like three more times.

I definitely stress fractured my leg from that, like, or just broke my leg. And I’m, over the next couple of months, I’m like, probably should not have done that. And that was my worst sports injury. Like to this day, I’m walking out of that, I’m like, But I’m also somebody who, I try to go do these things and I’m like, it’s tough. It’s like, I gotta go, you know, make a whole other friend group for that. So.

Timothy G Trifiletti (24:37.546)
Right on.

Dylan Silver (25:00.394)
If I want to go train jiu-jitsu, it’s tough to find people who are ready to, you know, get choked out on short notice. I can relate to that struggle.

Timothy G Trifiletti (25:09.644)
It is tough and that’s one really…

Timothy G Trifiletti (25:16.735)
years ago.

And my son and I have long boards of skateboards that you go downhilling. You kind of cruise and, do things like that. And there’s really not a lot, again, with the exception of him, there’s really nobody I know that I could just call to go do that. So we’re riding up a ski lift with this guy and I don’t know how it gets brought up. And he goes, he’s like, bro, he’s like, and keep in mind, this kid’s probably 23, 24. I’m 45 at the time. And he’s just like, dude, he’s like, here, look, this Facebook group up.

Dylan Silver (25:44.32)
Yeah.

Timothy G Trifiletti (25:47.805)
show if we’re gonna go do cruises, if we’re gonna go do runs and it’s like, were these all like your boys? And it’s like, no, just random people looking for other people to go do it, you know, share similar interests or whatnot. So yeah, that’s one really nice thing about the internet is if you’re looking for a group for Jiu Jitsu, Muay Thai, skydiving, whatever, you can pretty much just type anything in on Facebook and it’s gonna pull something up local.

Dylan Silver (26:13.546)
this last couple weeks, which has been your sport of choice.

Timothy G Trifiletti (26:18.988)
Last couple of weeks, well, I just started my own company in November of last year. So the sport of my choice has been setting up my mortgage company for the most part. I try to get to the gym every day. That doesn’t always work out. We got volleyball coming up, but we’re just now getting into the really nice weather in St. Louis. So my son and I have been talking about doing a triathlon. I want to do a triathlon, you know, by the time I’m 50.

Dylan Silver (26:47.425)
Mmm.

Timothy G Trifiletti (26:48.952)
So we’re going to start training on that. But I think the next thing we’ll probably end up doing, we’ll probably go skydiving in about three weeks if I had to guess. just…

Dylan Silver (26:57.835)
Triathlon is that like a 25 mile bike, half marathon and then a swim, right?

Timothy G Trifiletti (27:04.458)
That is 100 % what it is, yes. And there’s different layers. There’s one called an Olympic, which is what we’re gonna do. And I wanna say that’s three quarters of a swim. You would think I would know these numbers. I think it’s three quarters of a swim, a 15 mile run, and a 30 mile bike ride or something like that.

Dylan Silver (27:23.198)
Yeah, wow, good luck with that. That’s an awesome goal to have. I think for a lot of folks, and I do want to touch on this before we close here, is when you’re making money in real estate, I said this before the podcast, when you’re making money in real estate, the temptation can be, especially if you’ve got large assignment fees and this is new to you and you’re…

Timothy G Trifiletti (27:26.005)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (27:48.897)
in a W2 job making 50, 60, $70,000 a year and now you could get that in one or two deals even. Or you hit a home run, you could be half of one deal. The temptation is to go buy the AMG. The temptation is to go spend it. Tim, you may have done a little bit of that when you first started into the business. And I think

Timothy G Trifiletti (27:55.478)
Right.

Timothy G Trifiletti (28:11.274)
Yes, absolutely.

Dylan Silver (28:15.25)
especially here in the United States, we see it all around us. It’s like, how are people going to know that I’m doing well, that I’m making money? And I think one of the things that that I encourage, Tim will probably feel the same is you can really invest in your health and well-being. And that’s like the biggest flex, like truly, like when you’re 40, 50 years old, you can either go, you know, buy a new Corvette or you could be running a triathlon. Right.

Timothy G Trifiletti (28:40.608)
Right, right. Yeah, I, you know, I’ve always been, and I do not come from money whatsoever, but I’m like anybody when I was a kid, I wanted to be rich and all that. But as I got older, you know, my equity, if you will, was always doing fun things. And, you know, now what I really kind of get off on, I guess for lack of a better word, is being the age that I am, doing this stuff that like,

20 year olds do for the most part. And, you know, I get my friends asking me all the time, you know, why are you doing this? And it’s like, look, dude, just because 50 50 now is not 50 when I was a kid. So it’s like, just because you’ve got these preset rules that you got to essentially give up, you know, at 50 and just sit on the couch and barbecue. If that works for you, great. Doesn’t work for me. So that’s been my flex. And that’s kind of always been my flex. Now, when I first got

Dylan Silver (29:21.96)
Ow.

Timothy G Trifiletti (29:38.463)
into the business and I told you I was making I think my first year I probably made 250 grand I don’t know what the hell I was doing I had absolutely no idea and my dumbass thought the 250 was gonna go to 350 was gonna go to five it’s gonna go to seven and that it was never gonna slow down market just wipes everything out and I had spent very very foolishly and I lost everything so for me that was quite humbling and it kind of made me more of frugal person.

Dylan Silver (29:55.881)
Yeah.

Timothy G Trifiletti (30:08.727)
I try to tell my son all the time.

If you think you need a hot car or you need $500 shoes or you need all these nice bells and whistles for people to like you and respect you more, you’re hanging out with the wrong people. We see it in this market all the time where people want to flex any new toy they get. And when I see that, I kind of feel sorry for them, you know, because it’s like, if you feel that that’s what you need for people to respect you.

Dylan Silver (30:27.272)
Yep.

Timothy G Trifiletti (30:41.102)
and look at you the way that you want to be looked at, then you’re not really working on your character, your personality. know, do you want your legacy to be, you’re the guy that had the nice Porsche when you were 30, you know? That’s never been my thing. I’ve always wanted the Tim makes me laugh. He puts me in a good mood after I’m, you know, if I’m in a bad mood, I’ll call him. He’ll put me in a good one that he’s really good at his job, that he’s a great father. Money in all that.

my bank account balance and all these guys that are flexing online, I probably have twice the amount that they do in the bank and I’m driving a Lincoln Aviator, you know. For me, I don’t care what you think I’m driving if I’m going to be cooler or whatnot. So I think really it goes into perspective on why are you trying to advertise your success via the nice car, via the big house or something like that. That’s just never really been my thing, you know.

Dylan Silver (31:19.538)
Yeah.

Dylan Silver (31:39.336)
Yeah.

Timothy G Trifiletti (31:41.182)
But yeah, you know, I just, per the conversation that we had, I did make that mistake. I was investing in nightclubs. I was, you know, taking all these trips to Vegas and all that because I kept thinking that it was coming and 100%, you know, so, but in any event, so yeah, that’s, yeah.

Dylan Silver (31:55.312)
never gonna stop.

Dylan Silver (32:01.127)
We’re here. Well, we’re coming up on time here, Tim. How can people get a hold of you?

Timothy G Trifiletti (32:07.276)
you can call me at any time, day or night. 314-479-9550. My company at the moment is licensed in the state of Missouri and Florida and Illinois. we’re working on Colorado and Arizona right now. You can also email me at tim at clear path home mortgage.com. If you have any mortgage questions or you happen to be in the area and you want to go skydive or you want to go wakeboard or you want to go do, you know, something, something that your wife probably doesn’t want you to do, you know, cause you might get.

hurt give me a call I do it all the time

Dylan Silver (32:40.455)
Well guys, that wraps up another episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast by Investor Fuel, the nation’s premier real estate mastermind. I’m your host, Dylan Silver, and until next time, see ya.

Timothy G Trifiletti (32:51.799)
Thanks for having me, man.