Master the 5 Fs for Holistic Success: Your Guide to a Fulfilling Life

Stephen S. (00:03.278)
Welcome to the show where we interview the nation’s leading real estate entrepreneurs. It’s your host Stephen Schmidt If you’re joining us for a second third or hundredth time welcome back And if you’re joining us for your first time either way you’re in for a special treat I’ve got Bud Evans in the studio today and we’re gonna be talking about how Buds helping vets and first responders to gain their freedom through real estate he’s got

a highly decorated military background and a career in real estate been investing for over six years. He also, I found out in our pre-show conversation, was a mayor at one point as well. So we’re going to be hopping right into talking about faith, family, fitness, finance and fun and how that relates to real estate. Just remember at Investor Fuel, we help real estate investors, service providers and real estate entrepreneurs, 2 to 5X their businesses to allow them to build the businesses they’ve always wanted to allow them to live the lives they’ve always dreamed of.

That being said, bud, welcome to the show.

Bud Evans (00:59.86)
It’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you very much for having me.

Stephen S. (01:02.378)
super grateful for the time that we get to spend today and being able to just hop right in before we kind of get into some of these topics we discussed before the show. Tell us just a little bit of a little bit of background on you, how you got where you’re at today and what that journey’s been like.

Bud Evans (01:19.618)
Yeah, I’ve had a pretty cool run. So 1987, I went into the active duty Air Force, got out in 90 after Graham Rudman made some budget cuts, was told sign up for four more years or go into the guard. I took the guard option. By 1993, I was a police officer at the ripe old age of 23 years old. So 21 and 22, I tried and failed miserably at opening a restaurant.

So from 2023 up until 2005 for 12 and a half years, I was a police officer at Radner Township, Pennsylvania. 2001, the towers fell. I had been deployed a few times. So by 2004, I started looking for in 2005, I was accepted back into what they call the AGR program, the Active Guard and Reserve program at Horsham Air Guard Station, where I basically did the next umpteen years serving the country.

Started out as an enlisted troop, did that for about 15 years, and then, I’m sorry, 19 years, then jumped over to the commission side, did that for about 16 and a half years, finished as a major, was about to pin on E8 when somebody offered me lieutenant. I still think I was a better senior NCO than I ever was an officer. Anyway, so 2014 I moved from Limerick, Pennsylvania over to South Jersey because all my medical stuff, I was doing that at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst here in Jersey.

I love to help and do things to make the area that I move into better than it was when I got there. So I ran for local office. I cleared it first. I cleared it with the government, make sure I was good to go. And they said, hey, good luck. So I did. I ran for local office and I got elected. Next thing I know, I’m the mayor of Cinnamon’s in Township, which is great, great town here, just across the bridge from Philadelphia for anybody who’s not familiar with the area. And a year and a half into it,

I get a phone call on a Friday night at 10 p.m. That said, hey, remember how we told you you could be the mayor? I was like, yeah. I said, you can’t. I was like, okay, so what do have to do? Like wait until the end of my, nope, now, resign. So, Saturday morning I woke up and I sent an email at 5 a.m. Hey, I have to resign from my position. So then had 40 to 50 hours of my life back. Here I was, know, August, I figured I’m gonna jump into real estate. I had no idea what I was doing.

Bud Evans (03:37.558)
Tried to do it, failed miserably. September I signed up for a mentorship program called Fortune Builders, which was expensive as heck, but worth every penny that I paid for it, by the way. That was the end of September. October, I went through my immersion course. November, I found my first flip. January of 2019 is when my feet really started hitting the ground. January of 2019, I had my first flip. My coach told me, okay, now you got your first flip, don’t stop looking. By the end of that month, I had two more rental properties under construction, under rehab.

Next thing I know, two years later, I got 30 flips, 21 rental properties, and 10 wholesales under my belt. Now here we are, six years later, I’ve got over 100 flips, I’ve got over 50 doors. Now I still only did 13 wholesales, but that is what it is. Yeah, and that’s how we got to where we are today. Two things though, one thing, I got called about three years into it by a friend of mine who introduced me to Tarek El Moussa.

And I was one of the coaches, one of the first coaches that was hired by him to help him stand up his coaching program. Tark is an HGTV personality who did flip or flop and the flipping El Musas and flipping 101. So that was a great experience. And then now I’m working with a guy who is specifically military oriented, military to millionaire. His name is David Perret. Great dude. Love the guy. Love the program. I’m a member myself and have been for about four years.

Now I started my own coaching program and here we are.

Stephen S. (05:10.412)
What made you decide when you were going through that transition, what made you decide to really take real estate seriously and jump feet first all in and that?

Bud Evans (05:22.114)
That’s a great question. And to put it in perspective, I had saved my entire life. As a cop, I had about $120,000 after saving like $8,000 a year for the entire time that I was in there. It was absolutely ridiculous. But we went through the whole 2008 correction and all that stuff. And then in the military, the Thrift Savings Program, I wound up with about $400,000 in that. And I was like, you know, I saved all this time and I got about a half a million dollars in the bank overall.

I’m like, my net worth is like a negative $100,000. know, I’m like, how did this happen? And when I started looking into real estate, in fact, it was a committee person that joined up and became a member of the committee was Al Sigrist. And I was like, Al, what do you do for a living? And he’s like, nothing. like, what? He goes, well, I have four properties that I own. I was like, well, that’s not enough to retire. He goes, well, it is when one of them’s a mixed use.

four apartment and one commercial storefront, which is a barber shop. And then the other one is a quad. And I was like, okay. So I was like, all right. So now you’ve got, he went from, I’ve got four properties to, he’s got 12 doors and they’re all paid off. You know what I mean? So he’s making $12,000 a month roughly after he pays everything off. So I was like, I need to do that. Cause I realized my thrift savings plan and my pension was not going to be enough to survive on.

Stephen S. (06:50.85)
I think that’s most people, you know, they do all the right things and that’s exactly what it sounds like your story is. You’re doing the right stuff, you’re saving, you’re being disciplined, all of that stuff and then you wake up and you’re still like, I don’t really actually have as much as I thought I did and no cash flow from it, I’m assuming, right?

Bud Evans (07:07.988)
Right. that’s, that’s kind of the funny part. It’s not that, you know, it’s not that I was unhappy with what I had. It’s that a couple of things happened. And one of them was Ron Peluso, God rest his soul. Ron retired and was living the dream. And then he retired. moved down to Florida. He had his guard pension. He has police pension. And then within three years, Ron had a massive stroke and died. So here I am sitting there going, well, all right.

It’s not about what I have, it’s about how long I’m gonna hang around and be able to share my time. It was more about time and financial freedom than it was anything else. I wanted to spend more time with my wife. My son’s 33, so, and I probably see him once a week now, he lives down the street. I get to go to Flyers games with him and Eagles games, and we could catch a baseball game once in a while, or we’ll just go over there and we’ll play video games or just watch a movie, which is a blast. But it all came down to…

I want to sit around with the people that I love and do the things that I love. And I’d rather drive a used Volkswagen and live in a townhouse than live in a mansion and drive a Bugatti and, you know, be unhappy as hell. So here I am, you know, living the way I want to live as opposed to retire, realize it’s not enough. So find another job and then the golden years and work until you die. You know, that, that was not the plan. So at 51, I was able to retire and never go back to work again.

Stephen S. (08:35.054)
Because ultimately that’s what I think a lot of us do this for is the actual time freedom. It’s not even time. Time freedom is so cliche. It’s really the freedom of choice to do it, which again comes down to time, but it’s the freedom to actually live life on your own terms. Now within that, you you talked about like the eight crash, for example, and I know you weren’t like you weren’t feet first in it at that point, but why do you think so many people fail at real estate?

Do you think it’s a lack of discipline sticking to a plan or what are some of the pitfalls, mistakes that you think are avoidable that a lot of people tend to find themselves in? Which is then when the negative Nancy’s come out and say, well, you shouldn’t do real estate because that’s a horrible thing. You’re going to have so much debt. then, you know, like, what are some of those things that are avoidable problems and how do people avoid those problems getting started?

Bud Evans (09:25.538)
If you told me that, hey buddy, you’d be worth over 10 million net worth and you’d have $5 million in debt and you’d laugh about it, if you’d have told me that when I was retiring, I’d have been like, get out of here, dude, that’s not the way to live. Well, first off, it’s not debt, it’s leverage. That’s number one. I’m leveraging the value of my properties and having my tenants pay down my mortgage. And we’re snowballing, so we actually take the majority of our rents and we pay our debt down. So our net worth is on a huge uphill climb. But why do people fail?

Couple of different reasons number one they have no idea what they’re doing and they’re jumping in with both feet and When you don’t know how to swim and you jump into the deep end sometimes you drown You know What I do is when I teach my students they can count on one thing. I’m brutally honest I will tell you this is how I screwed that up So don’t do that and this is the system that came about because I did that, you know So that’s that’s that’s one aspect of it. You know, the other thing I and I

Bud Evans (10:26.818)
I’ve lost friends and family over this whole process, over my development. So you have a lot of people that get involved in this and they hear the naysayers and they pause or they stumble because of the naysayers. And by the time they realize that, you know, they were right in the first place, it’s already too late. And now you’re, you know, six months past your deadline and your finances, your finance charges are through the roof. And now you’re, you know,

Maybe your contractor was horrible or whatever it might be. When you do something like this, can’t, pardon the term, but you can’t half-ass it. You’ve gotta be all in or don’t get in at all. And there are way too many people who kick the tires and think that just because, hey, I’m talking to Bud or hey, I’m talking to Tarek, I’m gonna make a million dollars. That’s not how this works. I can give you all the systems in the world, but unless you hustle and grind, it’s not gonna work.

It’s not gonna work at all. It’s not a magic pill.

Stephen S. (11:25.73)
Right. The other one big piece I took out of that is you don’t want a half asset. You want a full asset, right? I love it. So now how does how does this correlate to your overall mission? Because with with your five F’s, your faith, your family, your fitness, your finance and fund, because I think you hear this a lot and it’s almost even understressed in the success realm, let’s call it, of personal development.

Bud Evans (11:31.71)
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Stephen S. (11:55.49)
being one of the most important things you can do to actually push the needle forward in your finances and really in every area of your life. So how do people go about navigating that and how does that relate to your overall mission in achieving those things?

Bud Evans (12:10.934)
Yeah, at the risk of, you know, sounding like I’m, I don’t know, promoting myself, I’m not. First, find a mentor, find someone who’s been there and done that. know, Tony Robbins said, hey, if you find somebody who’s really successful and do what they do, the odds are you’ll be successful too. Obviously I’m paraphrasing. But find that, do that. Second is read everything you can get your hands on. The next thing is if I do the things that I wish I would have done, you know, in order to be where I am.

Now, if I would done this when I was in my 20s and I would have house hacked and I would have used the benefits that I was eligible to use as a military person or borrowed against my deferred compensation plan, my 457B plan and bought my first rental property back in the day, at 48, I would not have been going, hey, man, I just managed a $16 million budget. I have no idea how money really.

Stephen S. (13:01.592)
Hmm.

Bud Evans (13:02.486)
you know, how I can maneuver things in LLCs and trusts and why you do this and why you use a self-directed IRA versus this or, you know, that’s the kind of stuff that people need to be able to navigate through. And that’s the purpose of the mentor to make sure that they’re aware of that. Now I’m not a legal or obviously I’m not a CPA. did take accounting and I do have a finance degree, but it is what it is, right? I’m not certified in anything. So please, by all means, you know, check with a…

hate saying this, but check with a professional. Check with a licensed professional, but when it comes down to it, make sure they know what they’re talking about. Because if you go into a financial planner, and I said this to my son, my son said, hey, dad, I’m going to use this financial planner. I said, me a favor, son. He said, what? I said, what does that financial planner drive? And he goes and asked in Martin. I said, and what does clients drive? And he’s like a Honda Pilot. And I went, think about that for a second.

Stephen S. (13:33.336)
Shag with a licensed professional.

Stephen S. (13:40.045)
Right.

Bud Evans (13:59.924)
If the financial professional was driving a Honda Pilot and his clients were driving the Aston Martin, I’d be like, by all means son, invest with that man.

Stephen S. (14:07.79)
Out of curiosity, because I think there’s a really great point that you make there, but for maybe even myself, because sometimes I’m a little bit slow on the uptick, why would you rather invest your money with somebody that the people that are investing with them are driving the nicer cars versus them? Just for our listeners sake.

Bud Evans (14:08.93)
but that’s not how it is.

Bud Evans (14:30.306)
So here’s the thing, when you’re talking to financial professionals, they are getting a point for every trade they make, and I’m just throwing around some basic numbers here, so some are different, maybe it’s 1.25, maybe it’s a percent, maybe it’s a half a percent, it doesn’t matter. For every trade they make, or every deposit that you make into your bank account, every time they invest, they get a percentage of that. Whether you win or lose, they’re getting a percentage of your money. If you lose, they don’t take a hit, you do. And if they win, good.

I mean, the spoils come to you, but they’ve already made their money. And that’s the majority of them work. There’s a fee for you to do business. It doesn’t matter how much you make.

Stephen S. (15:11.8)
Yeah, so ultimately you wanna find the guy whose clients drive Ferraris and he drives a Beamer, right? That way you know he still doesn’t suck too, right?

Bud Evans (15:17.41)
Exactly, exactly. Exactly, right? Look, if he’s driving a fancy car and then he sets up his clients to drive the fancy car, like I’ve got a buddy of mine who, you know, he’s got a pretty substantial net worth and he doesn’t want to drive a fancy car and is, you know what, but the guy who’s hooking them up and he’s got them invested in dividends that pay him and there’s not a lot of transactions going on within his account in his portfolio.

To me that’s that’s substantial because he’s got assets that are paying him and he he doesn’t work He fish I’m not kidding you the dude fishes like probably six to seven hours a day. God bless him He’s out on the lake, you know, or he flies down to Florida or whatever it might be But his his professional is like hey, I’m gonna make this so that you’re making that fifteen to twenty thousand dollars a month in net cash flow just from your dividend stocks

and the rest of it we’re gonna put in for long term and we’re gonna make sure that your kids and your kids’ kids are taken care of. That’s my guy. That’s my guy. Not the guy who’s like, hey man, we’re gonna set you up for retirement when you’re 65. Okay, but what happens when I’m 55? What happens when I’m 50? What about if something happens to my wife and we’re 52? Where’s that?

Stephen S. (16:33.486)
100 % yeah, you want somebody that’s going to actually look at the entire scope not just your Roth but also your self-directed your IUL your all of the different financial aspects that are actually going to set your family up for generational wealth, right?

Bud Evans (16:46.402)
Yeah, man. You just said a magic word to me, When we start talking about cash value life insurance policies, I teach my students are like, oh, man, I want to get a cash value life insurance policy. I’m like, why? They’re like, well, because that’s what rich people do. I’m like, are you rich yet? No. I’m like, well, let’s talk about velocity banking. Let’s talk about rental properties. Let’s talk about dividend stocks. Let’s talk about index funds. I’m not allowed to tell you to buy index funds and dividend stocks, but that’s what I have.

Stephen S. (17:15.074)
Yeah, it’s about if you’re gonna get involved in eating some pudding, just make sure the flavor’s good, right? For lack of a better analogy. man. So when you got started, what, because you mentioned education, read everything you can. What would you say were the most influential books, like maybe just top two for you, that stood out the most when you were first getting started? And what…

Bud Evans (17:21.312)
Yeah, right. Exactly.

Stephen S. (17:42.872)
What have you transitioned to reading now?

Bud Evans (17:45.984)
Yeah, great. First and foremost, everybody loves the Purple Bible, right? Robert Kiyosaki’s rich dad, poor dad, you know, that, I mean, right? But it is what it is. I mean, I woke up literally, woke up figuratively and literally at the same time, you know, mentally and went, wow, is that the thing? Like buy assets so that your assets pay your bills? Why have I never heard that before? Well, because I grew up in a middle-class trades house.

Stephen S. (17:53.506)
I’ve never heard it called that before. That’s a great term. The Purple Bible.

Bud Evans (18:16.108)
You where your troubles were drowned by alcohol. You know, was like, hey, we’re gonna go out on Friday nights and make sure that we’re drunk until Sunday so that on Monday we’re capable of going back to work so that we can rinse, cycle, repeat for 65 years and then hopefully we don’t die before we buy the condo in Wildwood, New Jersey. You know, that’s it, man. That’s the Irish middle-class tradesman background.

Stephen S. (18:32.046)
That’s right.

Stephen S. (18:37.678)
Hopefully our liver keeps up long enough to retire.

Bud Evans (18:40.29)
Right? Yeah, man. So that’s the first one. That’s how money really works. That’ll give you a real good idea. It’s not a blueprint. It’s just an idea. And then the thing that kind of another thing that changed my mindset was Ferris’s The Four Hour Workweek, right? Tim Ferris wrote that book and a lot of the stuff in it is kind of it’s dated. So like, but I use VAs, you know, and I will tell, I will tell, no kidding. I own a property management company, several portfolios we got.

And then not only my consulting company, but I also have a hair salon and my wife runs the hair salon, which is a joke. I don’t get to that in a second because that was something that hit me in the back of the head. But the four hour work week, I will tell my VA, hey, I want to answer this guy.

Stephen S. (19:26.942)
You just, he said hit you in the back of the head and it’s a hair salon. I’m like, is it shaved back there? Like that’s what popped into my mind.

Bud Evans (19:31.97)
Yeah, it is. Yeah, right. Yeah. Matter of fact, I’m due. If I can pinch it, it’s too long, right? Yeah, you can take the man out of the military, but you can’t take the military out of the man. Right. But I told my assistant the other day for the property management company, I’m like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I had word vomit. And she goes, OK, I will tell him. And I said, don’t tell him the way I tell him. him the way you tell him. Because.

Stephen S. (19:36.556)
A high end tie, right?

Bud Evans (19:58.754)
She has a better disposition than I do, where I am very short and direct because that’s my background, where she will say, hello, sir, hello, name, I hope you’re having a great day. I just wanted to bring this to your attention and this is what’s going on and this is how we’re looking to handle it. What would you think would be the blah, blah, blah, blah, blah? And it’s very polite and very lax fire.

Stephen S. (20:22.99)
Sure, sure. Whereas you’re like, we need this done now. Send.

Bud Evans (20:26.618)
Yeah, it’s one line. Hey, dude. I told you to do this. You didn’t do it Let’s do it. If you don’t we’re done, you know, that’s probably not the best thing to say to a client, you know Social bit. Hey, sir I just wanted to remind you that we have this outstanding bill and this is this and in order to rectify this we need to do this and you know, and it’s a paragraph long and it’s To the point, but it’s polite

Stephen S. (20:36.494)
Sure, yeah.

Stephen S. (20:49.294)
Right. So when did you, within your real estate investing career now, when did that transition hit to where you really started focusing on helping other veterans, first responders to get started with doing the same things that you’re into?

Bud Evans (21:06.156)
started at work.

I got so into it so fast that I had a moment, it was an epiphany, where I was sitting outside between our SCIF, which is a sensitive compartmented information facility, which is where all the TS stuff happened, that stuff, and then the building where my office was, and I’m sitting in this courtyard in the sun, and I must have had a thousand yard stare because a guy, Ben, walks up to me, he was a captain.

And he’s like, hey bud, what’s wrong? And I went, what? And he went, what’s wrong? I said, Ben, I made more money yesterday in one day than I will make all year as a major.

And he went, okay. And that’s when I made the decision to leave. When I got the call from Tarek, I started to want to teach others how I did what I did. And I found that I gravitated towards it. It resonated with me. Watching people become successful was not as exciting as me becoming successful. It was more exciting helping someone else become successful. And then…

looking at the civilian who maybe worked as a CEO or a CFO, or maybe they have two college degrees and a master’s they’re doing this high level stuff versus the airman or the E4 or the Marine who is struggling to make ends meet, they’re paying rent for an apartment that is crushing them and they’re not eating at the dining facility, they’re doing their own shopping, they’re eating ramen.

Bud Evans (22:56.162)
I want that person to be able to understand that, man, you you can use your VA loan and buy that triplex over there and then use the income from those two apartments that you’re not living in as your income showing that you can afford that property. And then, by the way, you can rent those two units out and have someone, you know, have two people live in it. They’re paying your mortgage. And by the way, when you PCS out of here,

Now you can rent out or even after a year, you can rent cycle repeat. I had one of my students do this. He bought a quad, moved into one of the units, fixed up the other three units, had people move in. One year later, he went out and he bought an FHA. They got an FHA loan for another quad, moved in, fixed it up. His net worth went from negative to $800,000. Just like that, just by using the BIRD strategy on two different four units. And it worked. And to me, that was…

Stephen S. (23:49.102)
Hmm.

Bud Evans (23:52.982)
That was the calling, you know what I mean? That was, hey man, what you just did for that dude and what you can do for other guys? I got this guy Edgar, who’s part of the mentorship program that I’m in now, the military and millionaire, who’s in my squad. having that conversation, he’s got one stripe, dude. He just bought a house with like five bedrooms. And he’s renting out the rooms to his guys and he’s going to be able to not only afford that house, but he’s gonna make money doing it.

You know, so he just increased his net worth. Well, he will increase his net worth. He will increase his income. And when I saw him move in and he picked up the keys, like, dude, chalk one up for the good guys. You know, that’s a win. That’s why I do it.

Stephen S. (24:39.01)
Why do you care?

Bud Evans (24:41.178)
man, I’ve lost so many friends, honestly. I’ve lost four guys down range, I lost six guys at home to suicide. back in November 22, I had a breakdown myself and overdosed on pills. now keeping in mind that I was a millionaire, right? But I wasn’t doing the things that I’m doing now to combat the

depression and the anxiety and the PTSD Being open and telling people This is what’s going to happen or this is what you’re to be able to do or this is and having those open Discussions is a complete and you and I you know you made a statement like as a man we we hold things in right And and being able to have those discussions, so I mean when it comes down to it I I want people to understand that That they can do it

Not only can, not just about real estate, not only, but have the conversations with other people, understanding that you’re not alone. You can go through this, you’ll get through it. This too shall pass.

Stephen S. (25:52.694)
Man, I got deep for a second there. Love that. No, man, deep is deep conversations, deep connection. That’s what I’m all about. And so let me ask you another maybe vulnerable question. didn’t have any intentions of us moving towards this, but when you came out of that in 2022 and we’re moving forward from that.

Bud Evans (25:55.286)
Yeah, sorry about that.

Stephen S. (26:18.606)
what changed with you? Because obviously that was a very pivotal moment for you. And so what really changed with your mindset and your actions, your habits at that point to realize, you know what, that’s not worth it. And I’ve got to be doing something bigger.

Bud Evans (26:33.602)
Yeah, that’s where I came up with the five F’s. You know, I started to annotate everything. I started to establish, started to establish goals. is the Michael Hyatt full focus planner. use this thing religiously. I mean, these are, these are my, you know, I don’t know. Yeah, it doesn’t matter. You can’t really see it. yeah, weekly previews. So I have my annual goals, my quarterly goals, my weekly previews. I do my weekly big three. And then every day I try to hit those, hit those numbers.

Stephen S. (26:53.166)
Too much glare, yeah.

Bud Evans (27:03.394)
But it’s not about that. It’s about this. Find something that gives you mental clarity and peace. So right now I got back into, I was, I got so into the money aspect of the real estate that I had forgotten what the purpose was. And this is the thing that hit me in the back of the head. My wife was a hairstylist and we had planned on her, you know, riding off into the sunset. I was going to retire. Two years later, she was going to retire and we were going to ride off into the sunset.

Her boss found out that she had cancer in July and died in August. And my wife had employees that were working in the salon. So the LLC died with Dee and then Stephanie started a new LLC and took over everything. So it closed on Saturday as sheer know-how by Dee and opened on Tuesday as sheer know-how.

and now she works more than she used to work. And the goal was to, know, hey, we’re gonna hang out more, we’re gonna do all this stuff. And now it’s just me and my dog in my office, you know. So in order to combat that income creep and the stress that comes along with trying to chase the dollar, I stopped doing that. In all honesty, I had a…

Stephen S. (28:10.622)
man.

Bud Evans (28:26.434)
for the property management company, I had a guy who come across and he’s like, hey man, I’ve got 35 doors, I wanna do this, I wanna do that. After a conversation, I found out he wanted to evict more than half of his tenants because they weren’t at market rent, even though he had all of his properties paid off. And this is where the change in mindset comes into play. Old Bud would have said, oh yeah man, we can do that, we can do, you know, I wanna get that money per door, that 8 % per door. And I went, yeah dude, I’m not your guy. Right?

Like if you’re not gonna, if you’re not gonna uphold to the standards, you’re not a quality individual, I don’t wanna deal with you. So I started pushing those kinds of people away, started hanging out with people who actually had character. And then I started doing things like I pick up my guitar again. I got my breed love in the corner. I just came back this weekend from a sailing lesson. So I wanna buy a sailboat, you know, by the end of 2026 is one of my eight goals for this year. You know, and in fairness,

I went out on the water this weekend and you know what I thought about? Sailing. That’s it, right? That’s all I had. So finding that focus, finding that mental acuity and the meditation, the meditative practice of basically just finding something that brings you peace, that’s it. So I exercise every day and then I plan my next sailing trip and I play guitar for about 30 minutes a day.

and I walk my dog.

Stephen S. (29:54.454)
And at the next function, you’re going to find me and bud over there. He’s going to be playing chicken fried with 90 % accuracy, which is what he said on his, on his bio. And I’ll be there saying a little bit chicken fried.

Bud Evans (30:00.278)
Dude, that is no kidding, that is a goal. That is a goal, that is honestly a goal. Yeah, I tune my guitar down a half a fret and then yeah, I’m in, man. I’m just starting to finger pick it again.

Stephen S. (30:11.79)
I’ll bring the Luke combs voice not not even close, but I’ll bring I’ll bring the voice you bring the guitar And we’ll make some music. man, you know, I am This is one of the longest shows I’ve actually recorded because this conversation is just so rich and I know people are gonna get a ton of value from it Let me ask you one last question if you had to go back to the beginning and take all of the lessons experiences Wins losses failures all of it and you had to start it all over

back in the beginning with all that experience, what would you do different and what would you do the same?

Bud Evans (30:46.274)
Are we talking about 18 year old bud or 23 year old bud?

Stephen S. (30:49.134)
I mean, I’ll let you take that wherever you want to go. I usually relate it to real estate, you answer that however it speaks to you.

Bud Evans (30:50.978)
Yeah.

Bud Evans (30:56.918)
Yeah, so 18 year old Bud was an idiot. I will say that I was as immature as they come. The military kind of straightened me out. I was the guy that got slapped, you know, in school because I wasn’t paying attention because that’s what school is. 23 year old Bud, after my first stint in the military, failing miserably in the restaurant business, jumping into the police department, my first real taste of entrepreneurism was a disaster. My second…

opportunity was the day that I’ll throw the name out John Berkeheiser, who was a mentor to me back in the police department days. Had a had a six unit. No, was a six unit. Yeah, six unit in Upper Derby, Pennsylvania, and offered it to me for like 40,000. And I was like, and I said, No, man, I can’t afford that. You know, if

56 year old bud goes back to 23 year old bud. I’m slapping myself pop What do you think what do you mean? You can’t afford that you’ve got the money. You’ve got the time. You’ve got the capability Just do it so I’ll go back to if I had to do it all again. I would have listened more to John and I would have done that and followed that entrepreneurial spirit because dude by the time he left the department and went back down to he was from Virginia he

left the department, I think he was in 12 years, something like that. And he left Virginia, left for Virginia with a bunch of rental properties. I wish I’d have been able to do that. But I’ll take this as second best.

Stephen S. (32:33.644)
that well it doesn’t doesn’t doesn’t sound like you’ve created a bad life for yourself

Bud Evans (32:38.924)
No, been all over the world. There’s a whole thing about myself.

Stephen S. (32:42.818)
Yeah, well, we might have to have you back for a part two at some point. This is just so good and so rich. you know, for anybody that wants to learn more about you or what you’re working on, where should they go for that?

Bud Evans (32:54.262)
Yeah, so youtube.com at enlisted to entrepreneur that’s enlisted the number two entrepreneur or just go to budevins.com. I love to talk to people so it’s not a sales pitch. If you have a question about real estate or anything, just go to budevins.com and book a strategy sessions. 30 minutes, it’s free. Ask me a question, I’ll give you an answer. If you don’t like it, cool. If you want me to help you out then we’ll talk.

Stephen S. (33:20.064)
Everyone, I hope you enjoyed today’s show. We’ll see you on the next episode. Thanks again for being here, bud.

Bud Evans (33:24.514)
Thank you.