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Show Summary
In this engaging interview, Alaina McBride shares her journey from veterinary science to real estate development, emphasizing the importance of long-term vision, resilience, and relationship building in business. She discusses her innovative project in Wyoming, focusing on sustainable farming, community building, and health-conscious homes, offering valuable insights for investors and entrepreneurs alike.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Alaina McBride (00:00)
Another thing that happened, and I can tell you almost the moments that I had this shift in my mind, and it was a shift where I finally, suddenly had enough confidence to realize I can handle absolutely anything that life is going to throw at me.And it was a big transition because it was a moment, it just kind of like moved over to the side of feeling confident in your skill set because you’ve navigated so many hard things on your own that you realize, you know what, if God’s gonna give me this one, I’ll be able to handle this one too.
Quentin (02:05)
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I am your host, Q Edmonds. You know what I’m going say? I’m excited to be here today. Have another fantastic guest, and I cannot wait till you get to listen to her journey. She has done a lot. She has navigated this real estate space in different kind of areas, from different positions to different vantage points. So I can’t wait for you to get a chance again to just hear about her story.And you know, that’s what motivates me because each of us can be doing the exact same thing in this real estate space. And we’re still going to do it slightly different. stories are our stories. And so I love when we get a chance to just be diverse and just hear different people’s point of view and vantage points from this thing called real estate. And so I’m so excited for you all to get to know Miss Alaina McBride. Miss Alaina , how you doing today,
Alaina McBride (02:59)
Very good, it’s so fun to be with you.Quentin (03:02)
Absolutely, same here, same there. Could have been anywhere in the world, but you’re here with us. So I take that as an honor and a privilege. And so I want to dive in. I would love for you to tell the people, what are your main focus these days? What are you involved in? Also, if you don’t mind, give us a little bit of an origin story of kind of how you got to the point where you are. We love the hero’s journey. And then if you can tell them where you geographically in the world, because people seem to want to know that as well. So.What you’re doing, your origin story and where you are. Ms. Alaina, you have the floor.
Alaina McBride (03:34)
You got it. I am sitting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, which is about 10 minutes from these mountains, the Grand Teton National Park right here. I am obsessed with mountains, lakes and rivers, and I ride my horses in the back country. And so that’s why I’m in a mountain town. am my background is I actually dropped out of veterinary school, the graduate program, and because they doubled the tuition when I was.when I started grad school and I figured out that the financials weren’t there, the payback wasn’t there for the amount that you pay to get educated. And then the return on investment in terms of starting salaries for large animal and food animal, which was my specialty. So I had my background in agriculture, 4-H and FFA and a degree in animal science and business. And then I decided to author business plans for a while. I was
working for the Small Business Administration for 10 years as a finance consultant and authored several business plans for other people’s companies where we got them funded. And that was a lot of fun and great experience.
And then I got my real estate license first in undergrad when I was in school and became a mortgage loan officer and then moved into property management. So I’ve been in property management for quite some time. I’ve had my own company across two states.
where I became very technical in property maintenance and construction management. I would use those skills to improve the properties in a way that they would perform for their owners better in terms of rental revenue. And then I moved into syndications and so started creating syndications with private investors and banks as well. And now my next project, which is my current project, which is a passion project, which is also fits in with my
One of my values is ⁓ long term, which is effectively every decision that you make in life needs to be for the longest term possible. So this is an evergreen project, which means an evergreen fund that I’m raising to build a. Agrihood or farmstead community in Wyoming where people will be able to ⁓ live on their parcels of land surrounding an existing raw dairy farm. That farm is currently in business now and we produce beef.
pork, milk, cheese, ⁓ jam, tallow-based cosmetics, you name it, it’s all happening. And so ⁓ what we’re gonna be doing is putting together a farm-to-table restaurant and also a learning and teaching facility so that people could come and learn the homestead skills. We’re building all of that in public. And then the last piece of it that makes it extremely unique, and I have not found anyone doing this yet, is building homes that are designed for human health.
And specifically, I’ll give you examples, things like materials that cannot mold, because we’re running into that a lot all over the country. ⁓ Having infrared lighting available at nighttime, because that really helps with your circadian rhythm and health, and we already know that. And at the moment, you can’t even buy these light bulbs in North America. So ⁓ some of these things are really important.
Quentin (07:08)
I’m.Wow. Thank you. mean, I was trying to write down everything you said on your whole resume. I just had to stop. I just put the pin down. I was like, okay. You know, so I appreciate it. mean, you talked about being obsessed with the mountains, your horses in the back country. I mean, come on. You talked about them doubling your tuition. So, you you decided to pivot.
Science and business. I mean, I’m just writing stuff down, all the business plans. ⁓ But I’m going tell you what stuck with me, how you said you’re building something for the long term. You’re in this thing for the long term, what you’re doing. And I have a saying, Ms. Alaina , that I say every podcast, destiny has no wasted moments. As we journey through life, destiny doesn’t waste anything.
It’s built in your fabric. Destiny puts things into you that you can pull out in the long term, that you can pull out no matter what business you get in, no matter what situation you get in. So I would love to know, what is these moments in your life as you have pivoted, as you have built different things? What has destiny, what has these moments taught you about yourself? Has it taught you resilience? Has it taught you discipline?
humility, like what is these moments taught you about shoot missing lane?
Alaina McBride (08:58)
It’s such a beautiful question. I would say, so I’m a first generation American, which means my parents were immigrants, which means we came from nothing. There was nothing. We didn’t have anything to start. And so I had an unusual amount of motivation from that. However, the challenges that I had growing up and in my career so far have created one thing in common that’s athat has definitely helped me a great deal and that’s to have a very, very high degree of resilience, like you mentioned, and effectively like an optimistic but also realistic approach to problems.
Another thing that happened, and I can tell you almost the moments that I had this shift in my mind, and it was a shift where I finally, suddenly had enough confidence to realize I can handle absolutely anything that life is going to throw at me.
And it was a big transition because it was a moment, it just kind of like moved over to the side of feeling confident in your skill set because you’ve navigated so many hard things on your own that you realize, you know what, if God’s gonna give me this one, I’ll be able to handle this one too.
And like you said, destiny, I mean, that’s the interesting part. And there have been many times in my life where I have questioned, why is this so hard?
Why am I going through this? Why is this happening? You know, when you feel like the best laid plans, you can, I’m a huge planner, right? I love to plan and I’m really good at it. And then there will be these things that just show up and you have to plan for those. And so, yeah, I would say that that’s a big factor ⁓ and not falling into the apathy or the fear that is a predominant mindset in a lot of our country right now.
People are giving up before they’ve even tried anything, right? They’re just, they feel like, try, why try? I can’t even align with that at all. I can’t even get on board with that. So, and then the fear, yes, if you live in fear every day, then you’re gonna have a very hard time starting to feel abundance. And I do little things for myself to help my body get out of those fear aspects.
in just the daily life and so there’s a lot of ways you can apply that but yes those are the things that I think are very key.
Quentin (11:56)
you said so much that just completely resonates with me. One of the things is confidence. I wish I could bottle up just a nice term to describe what confidence does to a person. ⁓ I mean, mean, and I believe, I can’t get real scientific, but I know that your ⁓ fear and your, it’s not confidence, but,You’re feeling your motivation are kind of triggered by kind of like the same feeling. Like both of them is like this dopamine hit that you get, that you can pull from. And most of the time there’s a scientific research and I believe it’s in the 90 % percentile that 90 % of the things that you fear actually never come true.
Alaina McBride (12:44)
Yes, yes, and there’s a lot of activities you can kind of participate in to trick yourself about that. But yes, I think that the mind spends a lot of time, if you let it run rampant, it will spend a lot of time on the worst case scenario and mulling over that sort of thing. And I do have a meditation practice that I started in 2010. So I meditate each day for 20 minutes. And it’s just the transcendental style. But I have noticed that it has helped meQuentin (13:02)
Yes.Alaina McBride (13:14)
manage my thoughts because there’s a period of time every day where I’ll have like that no mind state no thought process and the body has full relaxation that really helps. ⁓ But I’m quite the thinker like you are it sounds like and so yes you’ve got to get a hold of those thoughts and recognize that your thoughts are not you.Quentin (13:34)
Absolutely, absolutely. There’s a scientist, her name is Dr. Caroline Leaf. She has a book called Switch On Your Brain. And she talks about how the brain is plastic. It’s malleable. It can be changed. And so sheabout how you can do brain surgery on yourself. Sounds crazy, but she, this is a scientist. Y’all can go look up a book. You can check her out. She talks about how you can rewire your brain and it’s through intentional thought. And so.
I’ve studied this book probably for 10 years. Me and my, have a group of brothers I call Accountability Brothers. He’s actually studied this book and we use this to help us be better husbands, better men, better fathers, right? Knowing that we can rewire our brain. Cause some of us have come over like, you know, abusing alcohol, abusing food, abusing sugar, like, and we try to retrain our brain and say, Hey, you don’t have to be bound by any of this. So I heard the book I’ve put
things in the practice myself. Last week I had a host, a guest on just like yourself. ⁓ she didn’t say her age, we stayed away from age. ⁓ but you know, she, she was older. She had a stroke and she was telling me she was like, Quentin, she’s like, my brain was so hard functioning. She said, when I had the stroke, she’s like, my brain went silent. And she told me that she had to literally retrain her brain.
She told me when she went in to see the doctor, she told the doctor, hey, I feel like I have a new brain. And he went here and solidified exactly what she was saying because she was able to, because the brain is plastic, she was able to tell the brain, this is how we thinking now. This is what we’re going to think about. This is the intentionality we’re to do. So I said all that to say you’re so correct. Like our words can change our world.
we can literally retrain our brain to think about whatever we want. And when you do that, you know, the body doesn’t go where the brain don’t go. So when you rechange your brain, your body starts to go towards success. It starts to go towards health. It starts to go towards whatever you tell it we’re going to go towards. That’s why it’s so important to have control of this mindset. And so I just want to double down pretty much on a lot of the things you just said. And we talk about this a lot on this podcast, like the business.
in the person that’s in the business, because you can’t take you out of the business. You are in the business you’re in. So you’ve got to be who you are in the business that you’re in. Does that make sense?
Alaina McBride (16:44)
Yeah, absolutely. Brain science is a key, key part of it. There’s an old movie called What the Bleep Do We Know? Did you ever see that?Quentin (16:51)
No, but I’m writing it down. What the bleep? No, I did not know.Alaina McBride (16:55)
SoWhat the Bleep does a really good job of describing, remember the book and movie The Secret? Okay, so The Secret was the law of attraction, right? The three steps of the law of attraction. The movie What the Bleep Do We Know, it describes the biology of emotion, which is effectively like the biology and biochemistry, what’s happening inside the body that allows your thoughts to become things and talks to you about exactly how that happens. It’s really incredible.
Quentin (17:01)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.Alaina McBride (17:25)
Soit.
Quentin (17:26)
this, I’msorry, please continue. I’m sorry, Ms. Lane, I’m sorry. Please continue, I’m sorry.
Alaina McBride (17:30)
Itbecomes a habit, habituated. And so that’s a big, a good way to get into it is by changing your thoughts and then changing your actions. Yep.
Quentin (17:40)
Yeah. So are you familiar with Atomic Habits? One of my favorite books. Yes. So you already know, changing your habit, changing your mindset, being 1 % better every day. Like, yeah. So we’re on the same page. And so let’s talk a little business. I know some people are recurring coming back. Some people maybe knew, like, I thought we was going to talk about real estate. know, yes, we absolutely are. And these are the foundations of some of the things you need, your mindset within real estate, within business, right?Alaina McBride (17:43)
Yes, yes I am.Quentin (18:09)
So I want to know with your business, mean, you talked about what you’re building farm to table, this ecosystem that you’re building this homestead. What is the next real goal? You told us a little bit, but give me a little bit more. Like what’s the next real goal? What are you looking to scale to solve next?Alaina McBride (18:27)
⁓ the reason why I’m building an agrihood is because I want to make a new model for society. And it’s actually kind of an old model, right? But I’d like to see if we can make a community that works really well, that’s very sustainable, both on the energy front and then the community front, the human front and taking care of the human beings that are involved in building and running it. Then.we can use that model and anyone can use can copy it everywhere in the world. Right. And so I’m playing with that and we’re also building an app along with that, which will help you kind of like find your people. So that’s the purpose of doing that. And then the reason why or what the goal is now is to raise a fund. Right now the fund is 60 million and that will take care of the entire development. I’m looking at several areas where I’ve got, ⁓
people who would really like to have this property existing where they want to have it running. And so we’re looking at establishing the actual, you know, acreage. So those are the two next landmarks right now, the milestones.
Quentin (19:35)
I love everything you said. I love why you building what you’re building. Now want you to do me a favor. I want you to talk to investors and tell them, entice them, like why would it be advantageous for them to invest in something that you’re building in a type of…homes you’re building, ecosystem you’re building, how would investors be enticed to invest in something like that?
Alaina McBride (20:03)
I would say there’s two main differentiators. One is that this, it’s about how the project is being created. And so we have a team of people who have been doing exactly these things already for years. So there’s a ton of experience there. And these people, ⁓ my background, for example, is in maintaining buildings. And what I learned about maintaining buildings is that when you build buildings to be well maintained,or to be easily maintained, it’s a completely different product that you end up with. The majority of real estate development that is being built in our country at the moment is actually built from a different point of view. And that perspective is that they take a development, a project or something that they’ve built somewhere else that’s already engineered and the drawings are approved and that sort of thing. And they drop it on a piece of land in another region, another jurisdiction, right? And so they’re doing that because the,
transition to get through planning and ⁓ through city regional planning in general is very lengthy. And so they’re just reusing these buildings all over the place. So that is not a great idea because it doesn’t fit the buildings to the land. And then the sustainability aspect, when you’re producing food on site, you have, or producing electricity on site from the manure from the animals. And we’re also producing heat and fertilizer and recycled water. So
the sustainable, the actual, it’s kind of like its own mini earth, right? In that one community. And so they can all sustain very well like that. And so I like the localization. I don’t know if you are familiar with this, but during our lifetime right now, there is a very large threat to small family farms and ranches all across America. And if we don’t do something very major right now during our lifetime, then when the next generation comes up, we will have lost almost all of our small farmers and ranchers.
And we watched this happen in 2008 when we lost 800 community banks in America. And there was a mass consolidation of wealth that went up into four large industrial banks. And those are the ones that got bailed out. So what we need to do is we need to bring back food production in local areas. And then people need to be buying and eating that, consuming that food locally. That way we have food sovereignty. We have control over our food safety in our future.
So that’s a really important aspect for this particular development as well. ⁓ So that’s sustainable, the piece there, and then bringing together a group of people who have been farming and ranching for quite a long time, who have been doing it in this exact region. And so ⁓ that’s the other piece that it’s gonna be, I would be happy to be stress tested and have someone hit me with thousands of questions as to how and why I’m gonna build this in the way that we’re building it.
be able to defend all of that.
Quentin (22:59)
⁓ listen, I want to try to get this question in. I hope I can get it in because I want to hear your perspective on relationshipsAlaina McBride (00:00)
I’m a first generation American and my parents are immigrants, which means that I don’t have many people at all that are on this continent, let alone in this country. We came from absolutely nothing, which gave me ⁓ a very unusual amount of motivation, ⁓ which has really been fun actually, because I’ve been able to develop a lot of skills and therefore confidence.in my ability to handle anything life throws at me. And as far as how this new development project carries relationships forward, we’re looking at taking care of people in a very unique and sustainable and long-term way. So three of my values are freedom, independence, and long-term, longevity, however you want to look at it. And so this development is bringing that to
the people who are going to help build it and operate it. So all of the employees will be housed on site. There will be a retirement structure for those individuals. And also we’ll have a multi-generational living so that we can benefit from the youngsters who are on the property interacting with the seniors and also ⁓ transmitting that education of what’s really working in Homestead.
lifestyle and ⁓ community and relationship building. So the freedom of financial independence as well as energy independence are going to be components of this development. ⁓ food sovereignty comes from the agriculture piece. And so
And since the funds that we’re going to be using to build this project are evergreen, which means we’re never going to sell it to a private equity firm and ⁓ disappear, then all of the decisions that we’re making are for the longest term possible, which is another really sustainable way to operate and a solid way to build and maintain relationships.
So effectively, I look at the people that I’m building my community with, who I’m working with, and who are going to be living nearby are going to be the friends who feel like family. And so creating that level of relationship so that we can all feel supported even when we didn’t have the resources individually or the knowledge to do that.
So that’s the purpose of a project like this and how it relates to the importance of relationship.
Alaina McBride (00:00)
you can find me on LinkedIn. Look for Alaina McBride. It’s spelled A-L-A-I-N-A and if you can spell my first name you can probably find me just about anywhere. My website is Alainamcbride.com. A-L-A-I-N-A McBride is m-c-b-r-i-d-e.com and I’m putting together aan investor webinar, which I would love to answer everyone’s questions about our new project and see who’s interested in working with us. I am also on Instagram and Facebook and TikTok. So you can find me there on Instagram. The handle is found within and on TikTok it’s freedom West.
So those are some of my socials and would love to invite you to follow along as we build in public. Absolutely everything that we’re finding that works, we’re ready to share. So looking forward to getting to know some of you.
