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Show Summary
In this episode of the Investor Fuel podcast, host Michelle Kesil interviews Ben Lyons, a seasoned real estate investor and co-founder of Link Capital. Ben shares his journey from starting in the real estate industry at 18 to building a successful private equity fund. He emphasizes the importance of education, mentorship, and understanding the real estate market for new investors. Ben also discusses his books, ‘Be the Bank’ and ‘From Worry to Wealth’, which provide insights into private lending and wealth creation. He outlines a process for achieving financial success and highlights the significance of experiential learning. The conversation concludes with Ben sharing his current business ventures and encouraging listeners to invest in their education and personal growth.
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Investor Fuel Show Transcript:
Ben Lyons (00:00)
Yeah, I teach process and if you think of the acronym TAIL, it’s time. So the first thing I teach is that broke people typically spend time very poorly. And so the first thing is what is somebody doing with their time? And typically time has to do with short and long term approaches to time. You know, we all have 24 hours, so our short term use of time is critical.Long-term use of time has to do with investing strategies, but the next acronym so tail doesn’t have to be in the exact order, but a is assets You know broke people typically don’t know how to acquire assets because they don’t have the knowledge or the capital I I teach that you don’t need the capital if you have the knowledge
Michelle Kesil (02:17)
everybody, welcome to the Investor Fuel podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Kesil. Today I’m joined by someone that I’m looking forward to chatting with, Ben Lyons, who’s been making serious moves in the real estate space. He’s co-founder of a private equity fund called Link Capital. He’s an author of multiple books and owns a variety of other businesses. So…We have a lot to dive into. Excited to have you here, Ben.
Ben Lyons (02:46)
Michelle, I’m excited to be here. Anytime I get to talk about real estate and real estate debt, it’s a great day.Michelle Kesil (02:53)
Amazing. So yeah, for those who are not familiar with you and your world yet, can you give the short version of what your main focus is?Ben Lyons (03:00)
Yeah, absolutely. But before I do that, I find that people love to hear my quick story about me. So I’m going to be 60 in two months. So happy birthday. You don’t have to get me anything. ⁓ I was fortunate enough to be ⁓ asked to come into this industry, the real estate and lending industry, at age 18. Summer, I graduated high school. I knocked on a neighbor’s door to get a real estate book.Michelle Kesil (03:06)
Absolutely. Go for it.you
Ben Lyons (03:27)
thinking I was going to go into the fitness world, I knocked on her door to get a real estate book and she was having breakfast with another neighbor who was a private lender, wealthy real estate owner, and his father was retiring and they asked if I would come work for them for free. That was August 21st, 1983 at the age 18. So I said, yup, I’ll come work for you for free. And I went home, I said, hey mom, dad, got great news. I got a job.They said, what does it pay? And I said, nothing. So they said, get out. So at age 18, I moved out of my house with a non-paying job, worked at nights and weekends. And August 21, 1987, four years to the day, I started my first banking lending platform. And here I am, $9 billion later.
Michelle Kesil (04:12)
Amazing. I love that story. I’m sure there’s a few other milestones in between from going from A to Z.Ben Lyons (04:19)
yes, yeah.Do we have seven hours?
Michelle Kesil (04:21)
No, we have 20 minutes, but. Yeah, amazing. So where are you at now? Like, what is your focus these days in this current time?Ben Lyons (04:22)
⁓ Okay, next time.Yeah, so I started a private equity fund in 2013. I had an exit of December of 2012. My previous company was bought by a bank. So I formed a company called Link Capital with a gentleman named Alex Lynk. So Lynk is Lynk and Lynk, L-Y-N-K. And we started that early 2013. And we’re a senior secure debt provider, which means we lend money to builders and real estate investors.
That’s all we do. First mortgage is to builders and real estate investors. Investors don’t want to flip housing, build housing, renovate housing, bridge loans and rental loans. So in 13 years now, ⁓ not 13, 12 years now, we’ve put out about 1.3 billion to these investors and it’s been a great opportunity. So I love providing capital to real estate investors and builders.
It’s gone well along the way, certainly have acquired more real estate, still a real estate investor, so there’s always opportunity at some point in real estate.
Michelle Kesil (06:21)
Yeah, absolutely. So a lot of the listeners are maybe earlier on in their real estate investing journey. What are some tips or common things that you find that people that are just starting out should be aware of?Ben Lyons (06:41)
Well, they first have to decide the geography and the asset type that they’re most comfortable with. Commercial real estate is very different than residential real estate, and there’s all kinds of different classes of commercial. Somebody may want to go into self-storage. Somebody may want to go into office. Somebody may want to go into single-family housing. So they really have to determine what suits their own personality. Then they should become an expert in that area. They should talk to andand get educated, take courses. What I did, I think, is a path that I would advise everybody. So when I got into business, first thing I realized is I didn’t know anything. So I went to the community college and I took a real estate appraising course. I took an underwriting course. I became an appraiser. I became a realtor. I became a title company agent. So I learned the entire ecosystem of real estate. One of my criticisms of the industry in general is that real estate
people don’t always become an expert in real estate finance. Real estate finance people don’t become an expert in real estate. That always bothered me that if you’re going to be an expert in this large asset, whether you’re on either side of that, you should become an expert on both sides. you know, really just it’s about education. Lean into the area that you want to focus on. There’s sales, there’s leasing, there’s buying, there’s flipping, there’s building. You know, pick
Pick your lane, become an expert, find your mentors, and execute. And also get my books, Michelle. Get my books, my two books here.
Michelle Kesil (08:05)
Yeah, absolutely. I would love to hear more about your books. What are they about?Ben Lyons (08:11)
Well, I wrote a book. So I’ve been lending money since I was 18. I went to work for a really wealthy guy who was lending money, and I always found lending money to be fascinating. Imagine lending money to somebody on a piece of real estate. Every day while you’re sleeping, you’re making money. Isn’t that great? You’re sleeping and making money, so money makes money. So I learned early about the power of private capital. I started a bank when I was 30, so I’ve been on both institutional and the private side.I recognize that there’s a stock market, there’s a real estate market, but when I started talking to individuals about investing their own money as mortgages, everybody looked at me like I was nuts. So I wrote a book called Be the Bank in 2015, and it teaches individuals how to lend their own money if they want to become a private lender. It teaches an investor how to invest in a fund.
to evaluate a fund if they want to learn how to invest in a fund. But really it’s just a roadmap to educate people on how to do private lending. And then about three years ago I wrote a book called From Worry to Wealth. I’ve always been very curious how wealth gets created. I was curious at a very young age. My parents were very poor growing up. I wouldn’t say I was poor, but my parents were poor.
⁓ They didn’t have the ability to teach me how to not be poor. All they knew was how broke people thought. So when you grow up being part of a broke society and then you go to work for somebody that’s wealthy, you clearly realize there’s a different approach to life. And so Worry to Wealth is about teaching somebody how to improve their financial self. I think our educational system
Even our colleges don’t do a great job teaching people the foundations of how not to be broke and not for the sake of buying stuff. I’m not talking about buying Ferraris and luxuries. I’m talking about how do we go from worry to wealth. And so I’ve written courses, books, and I’ve started a community called the Wealth Creators Institute.
⁓ which anybody that watches this podcast can contact us and we’ll get them access to the information.
Michelle Kesil (10:47)
Amazing. Those are such powerful resources for people. So what would you say maybe someone is worrying about? They’re in financial state right now, but they want to attain wealth and they don’t want to just sit around and wait for it to happen. Like they’re ready to be proactive. What are some steps that someone can do to get started?Ben Lyons (11:08)
Yeah, I teach process and if you think of the acronym TAIL, it’s time. So the first thing I teach is that broke people typically spend time very poorly. And so the first thing is what is somebody doing with their time? And typically time has to do with short and long term approaches to time. You know, we all have 24 hours, so our short term use of time is critical.Long-term use of time has to do with investing strategies, but the next acronym so tail doesn’t have to be in the exact order, but a is assets You know broke people typically don’t know how to acquire assets because they don’t have the knowledge or the capital I I teach that you don’t need the capital if you have the knowledge
you need the time to get the knowledge so it all plays on itself So the first thing is are you investing your time to get the knowledge?
Once you have the knowledge, Trust Me Capital will follow you because people with money love people with knowledge and time to help them manage that money and grow that money. the second attribute is the acquisition of assets. The third is income. Do you have the ability to scale your income? Are you trading your time for money? Or are you in a position where you can leverage processes to scale your income?
I’ve written books and every day I get a notice from Amazon that somebody just paid me another 20 bucks. But how many times did I write the book, Michelle? How many times? One time. So the idea of income strategies is the second because you want to be able to scale your income and that’s a whole long discussion. And then the L is leverage. The utilization of leverage in
Michelle Kesil (12:33)
Just once.Ben Lyons (12:48)
Growing your income and acquiring assets is critical. Most of us need to leverage other people because of the limited amount of time we have, the limited amount of capital we have, and the limited amount of knowledge we have. And really the understanding of using of leverage is paramount. So it’s tail, time, assets, income, leverage.Michelle Kesil (13:52)
Yeah, that is really powerful and I love that you just have this process that people can start to follow and yeah, you’re not like telling someone they can’t do it if they don’t have the money, you’re giving them the steps to get there.Ben Lyons (14:05)
Yeah, I believe, I mean I started with zero. ⁓ And I believe that anybody at any age, at any time, if they’re willing to do the work, and it’s about energy, focus, and consistency. That’s it.Michelle Kesil (14:08)
Right.Yeah, absolutely. So how are like some of your students going through that process? Are they, you know, managing like their money in different ways? Are they becoming wealthy in different ways? What are some of those things that are happening after this process?
Ben Lyons (14:41)
Yeah, so I don’t really have a formal educational platform ⁓ really matured yet. Think of it like a hobby. Like I wrote books, I paid for the writing of the books, I’ve given away most of the books, about 4,000 copies out of my own pocket. I don’t really have ⁓ yet the platform that is formal. It’s about to be launched. Wealthcreatorsinstitute.com, that website is probably live right now.Michelle Kesil (14:45)
Right?Ben Lyons (15:06)
And it went live just, you know, a couple of days ago. So I’ve been on the board of four schools, love teaching, and you know, I have a lot of students that I’ve come across. the way I like the reason education is critical is this. You ever hear the term experiential learning? And it means that somebody really should experience the process to learn the best.Michelle Kesil (15:09)
niceMm-hmm.
Ben Lyons (15:32)
So my approach to teaching somebody is that if I have you read my book, Be the Bank, about private lending, the only real way it works is if you go apply that information and that I’m part of your life almost like an employer, employee, or mentor, mentee would work because you can’t just read a book, understand a concept.⁓ and master it. You really have to go apply it. You have to make mistakes. You have to be guided and mentored. And my educational platform, the Wealth Carers Institute, is going to be more of a mentorship. And part of the reason is that if I teach you how to lend money or I teach you how to buy real estate and you go out there and apply it, you may need our capital, my capital or Link Capital’s money.
you may need our resources to help you execute. over the years, I’ve had about 3,000 employees. So if I hire you, Michelle, I typically have to pay you. So I have to not only pay you, but I have to teach you. So I’m giving you the education, but I’m then paying you. It seems to be backwards. If you, did you go to school? Did you go to school? Did you pay the school to go there? Typically? Right.
Michelle Kesil (16:37)
Yep.Yeah.
Ben Lyons (16:41)
So normally you pay for the information. If I hire people to come work for me and they don’t know anything, I have to pay them to come work for me. So it’s kind of backwards. So the reason I’ve decided to develop a school and an institute is that I want people to make the investment of time and money to learn from me. here’s why. I’ve given away thousands of books. If I give you my book,The odds of you reading my book, studying my book, and then coming back to me and say, Ben, I read your book. I’m ready to go apply it. The odds of you doing that, I have found, is about two out of 100. But if I make you buy the book, what are the chances you’re going to read the book?
Michelle Kesil (17:18)
Yeah, a lot higher. I’ve heard that like psychology study that if you put your skin in the game with that money, then you’re way more likely to do it. I mean, if you sign up for something for free, could just sit in your inbox or on your shelf because it’s not a value.Ben Lyons (17:24)
Yeah.That’s exactly right. And so I like to preach to the people that want to listen. I like to teach the people that want to learn. up to this point for the last 15 years, I’ve given away my time, which is very important, very valuable to people who waste it and don’t value it. going forward, it’ll be a more organized platform.
But the goal is to find people that want to leverage real estate, want to leverage finance, want to understand how to get out of worry, move towards wealth. I own about a dozen businesses of various, all real estate and financial services related. Most of them with partners, we’re always looking for talent, we’re always looking for people.
But the best way to bring those people in are the ones that invest in themselves for the education and then say, hey Ben, I want to be part of that ecosystem like I did. I worked for free for the first year.
My kids say I’m nuts. They say, hey, dad, nobody’s going to come work for free.
Michelle Kesil (18:23)
Yeah.Yeah, I get it. mean, of course it makes sense, but on some level it’s like, you can only work for free if you are provided for with your basic needs in other ways.
Ben Lyons (18:27)
What do you think?That’s right, but if I said to you, work for free five hours a week, what’ll happen is your knowledge will eventually create value. Your value will then create income and it’ll start to grow itself. Okay, I didn’t say work for me full time for free.
Michelle Kesil (18:51)
Mm-hmm.Yeah, that’s fair. That makes sense.
Ben Lyons (18:57)
That’s exactly right. And there is a path for everybody. But what happens is people would rather spend time being entertained on TikTok than educated. They want to spend time being entertained on social media and in front of TVs than being educated. And I’ve examined all the broke people I need to examine. And if they just invested their time to learn an hour or two every day,Michelle Kesil (19:14)
Yeah.Ben Lyons (19:22)
where they could then leverage that knowledge their life would change but it takes self-disciplineMichelle Kesil (19:27)
It does. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, where you focus is where you’ll experience the growth.Ben Lyons (19:33)
exactly right.Michelle Kesil (19:34)
So what are you focusing on right now? Is there anything that you’re focusing on solving or scaling in your business?Ben Lyons (19:41)
Yeah, we just recently launched a Cayman Islands reinsurance business. It’s a fascinating business. We just bought, I love the distress that’s going on in the real estate market right now. We just bought an $11 million mortgage, paid $5.3 million for it on a 200 unit apartment complex. So bought the debt at 50 cents on the dollar. So I’m excited about what’s going on. bought a$1.7 million mortgage that was in default. paid $1.1 million for it on a property that appraised for just about $3 million. So there’s tremendous opportunity out there right now because of the jacked up interest rates. So I’m really excited with what’s going on right now. I think affordability for the person your age sucks. I think I’m worried about that. Likely interest rates will come down because of
the pressure being put. So I don’t know what will happen with interest rates, but there’s always opportunity. The last thing I’ll say why I believe there’s always opportunity is because when I was 18, I got in the business and the guy that made this statement was very wealthy. He was 72. He had been in the business 40 years and he said, you know, Ben, the wind always blows. Sometimes it blows at your back and sometimes it blows in your face. All you got to do is move the sail.
Right? I guess that’s a boating, sailing analogy. I’m not a sailor, but I guess ⁓ if you move the sail, depending on the wind, the boat will still go. That seems pretty cool, right?
Michelle Kesil (21:01)
Yeah, yeah, that’s very true. I love that. Thank you for sharing. So before we wrap up here, if someone wants to reach out, connect, learn more from you, where can they find you?Ben Lyons (21:13)
Yeah, well if our listeners haven’t noticed, I like to talk and love to teach and love to help. They can reach out to me on LinkedIn. They can reach out to me. So it’s Ben Lyons, Lynk Capital. They could email me at ben at lynkcapital.com. They can go on Amazon and get my books and then reach out and tell me all about the books.So the book is Be the Bank and From Worry to Wealth. Here, I’m not sure if you can see that. I do give out my cell phone once a student is engaged and really wants to lean in and learn. But I find that I’m the one that’s passionate about that student growing. I want the student to be passionate first. So the student’s got to put in the work and then I’ll help.
Michelle Kesil (21:39)
Hmm?Ben Lyons (21:56)
One last thing I’ll tell you, I used to pay people to read books that used to come work for me. I would pay them up to a thousand dollars to read five books. And then I just got so frustrated because even when I was offering to pay people large sums of money to read books, they wouldn’t read the books. So I’ve somewhat been disenchanted in humanity. I think most people just don’t have within them.the belief in themselves to succeed in.
I think we live in the greatest country in the world where there’s more millionaires and billionaires and we should take advantage of it and I’m here to help them.
Michelle Kesil (22:28)
Yeah, absolutely. Appreciate that and all of your wisdom. So yeah, thank you so much for being here.Ben Lyons (22:34)
Yeah, well thanks for having me and look forward to being helpful to anyone that wants it.Michelle Kesil (22:41)
Yeah, absolutely. Hopefully people get your book and continue to learn from you.Ben Lyons (22:46)
Hopefully. Well, thanks. Thanks a lot and I will chat with you later. All right. Bye bye.Michelle Kesil (22:51)
course, yes.And for the listeners tuning into the show, if you got value from this, make sure you’ve subscribed. We’ve got more conversations with operators just like Ben who are building real businesses.
