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Show Summary
In this episode of the Real Estate Pros podcast, host Micah Johnson welcomes Cam, a successful real estate investor who has been making significant strides in the industry since 2019. Cam shares his journey from being a pastor in Denver to becoming a real estate entrepreneur in St. Louis. He discusses the challenges he faced, including a pivotal moment when a hospital bill for his daughter prompted him to seek financial stability through real estate. Cam explains how he built his business, Revel City, which encompasses home buying, property management, and a rental portfolio worth $20 million. He emphasizes the importance of taking action, making sacrifices, and staying committed to long-term goals, even when faced with uncertainty.
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Camron Cathcart (00:00)
⁓ And then fast forward another year, ⁓ Brandon bought a new house, was like, hey, I’m selling my house. And so I ended up buying his house, the one that since twenty twenty one, I had been visualizing myself having coffee on.Micah Johnson (00:13)
Thank you.Camron Cathcart (00:17)
every single morning, four years and I didn’t know Brandon didn’t know like there. And I literally bought that house and I had coffee on the lanai overlooking the ocean this morning. This thing that I visualized for five years came to fruition.Micah Johnson (00:21)
Yeah.Hey everyone, welcome to the Real Estate Pros podcast. I’m your host, Micah Johnson. And today I’m joined by Cam, who’s been making some serious moves in real estate investing since 2019. Cam, welcome in, man. Glad to have you.
Camron Cathcart (02:15)
Dude, I’m pumped to be here. Thanks so much for having me.Micah Johnson (02:18)
Absolutely, absolutely. I’m excited for our listeners today, what they’re going to take away really from your journey through real estate about how you actually pull off the life you’re trying to while building a business that works for you. So let’s dive in on that. For people who may not know you yet, what’s your main focus right now and what markets do you operate in?Camron Cathcart (02:37)
Yeah, we we operate in St. Louis, so that’s the only place that we we invest in. ⁓ And our company is kind of made up of of three different companies, I would say. ⁓ The parent company is is called Revel City. ⁓ And ⁓ we have Revel City home buyers. We have Revel City properties and then we have a property management company called Thrive. And really, our property management company just manages our our rentals. We don’t we don’t have other people that are in that.Micah Johnson (03:04)
Gotcha.Camron Cathcart (03:07)
⁓ But within our ⁓ home buying company, it’s a it’s a flipping company for the most part. ⁓ We find off market opportunities, whether that’s via direct direct to seller marketing or whether that’s via what I call like connectors. So wholesalers, real estate agents, property management companies, senior living facilities. We’ve got a list of 40 different ways that we find leads from connectors, but we’re finding off market properties. And then we are either ⁓flipping those properties or we are keeping them as a rental property and it goes into our rental portfolio. And so right now, mean, 2025 was a a just a slower year for us. We did 69 flips, but historically we’ve done over 100 a year. And I mean, we haven’t been doing it for super long, but for the last five years, we’ve been kind of in that hundred range.
Micah Johnson (03:49)
Yes.Camron Cathcart (04:03)
And then we own ⁓ a portfolio of about $20 million worth of single family rentals my wife and I own and we’ve gotten there through the Burma.Micah Johnson (04:12)
Okay, okay. And y’all are you how do you pick those rentals? Are you running it through the funnel of your business finding those best deals that it’s already finding out there?Camron Cathcart (04:20)
Yep, exactly. So like our our home buying company, we have four ⁓ home buying specialists that their entire job is to find, find deals for us. And so if they bring in a a ⁓ deal, we’re either going to flip that or we’re going to keep it as a rental property. ⁓ And on the rental side of things, ⁓ our portfolios like class a class B rentals ⁓ typically are our price point.is usually like the ARV on those is around 250 to 300 thousand dollars. And we’ll pick them up like we closed on one today that we’re buying at one fifty five. I think we’ll probably put 70 into it. It should be worth two ninety when we’re done and we’ll keep that one as a rental. Yeah. Mm
Micah Johnson (05:12)
Nice. Okay.Well, let’s take a step back. What you said you got into real estate in 2019. What led you to the real estate life?
Camron Cathcart (06:08)
Yeah. So this is going to be a long story, but I think it’s I think it could be beneficial to anybody that’s listening to this. And so, yeah, so I will I’ll back all the way up to 20 to 20, 17. It was 20, 17. So I was a pastor before I got into real estate and I loved I loved the job that I had. was.Micah Johnson (06:15)
I’m home.Camron Cathcart (06:35)
worked at a phenomenal church, phenomenal people, phenomenal community. I was in Denver, Colorado, and absolutely loved what I did, but I just I didn’t make very much money. But that was OK because I loved what I did. And my wife got pregnant with our first in 2017. We have five kids now, but she got pregnant with our first in 2017 and we were we went on our baby moon to Hawaii, actually. And so we.max out credit cards because again, we didn’t have money. And we spent our baby moon in Hawaii. And I remember on the very last night we were sitting at dinner and we were actually in Kauai and ⁓ we were overlooking the ocean and my wife and I were just talking about she was pregnant and we’re talking about how cool it would be to raise a family in Hawaii someday because we just we fell in love with the place. And we we pulled up Zillow on our phones and we looked at the price of houses.
Micah Johnson (07:27)
Hmm.Camron Cathcart (07:33)
And also we just we laughed because we’re like it just didn’t it didn’t even it didn’t seem realistic at that time. I was making I was making forty two thousand dollars a year and I was like the starting point for a house was two million bucks. I was like there’s just no. Yeah. And so we kind of laughed and that was that. And so then we got back to Denver, had our first daughter name was Riley. Her name is Riley.Micah Johnson (07:39)
Yeah.Right.
Exactly.
Camron Cathcart (08:02)
And she’s amazing. But about nine months in to her life, we might have been eight months. I don’t remember the exact dates, but we gave her peanut butter for the first time. So this would have been the fall of 2018. And yeah, she’s allergic to peanut butter. We didn’t know that. And she went into anaphylactic shock and she like swelled up to twice her size, stopped breathing. And so we rushed her to an emergency room.And she ended up being fine. They got her EpiPens, hooked her up to some IVs. She stayed the night. She ended up being completely fine. ⁓ But the reason I’m telling this story is because a couple of weeks later, we got hit with a hospital bill for $15,000. ⁓ We took her somewhere out of network. ⁓ And at the time, we’re just trying to save our baby. I’m not on my insurance card looking up what’s in network, what’s out of network. And so we took her to an out of network. ⁓ It was like,
Micah Johnson (08:51)
Right. Right.Camron Cathcart (09:00)
It was one of those like 24 hour urgent cares and not technically ⁓ a hospital. And so it was out of network. Got hit with the fifteen thousand dollar hospital bill. ⁓ And I remember ⁓ that night I’m sitting there with the bill in my in my hand. ⁓ My wife and Riley are sleeping and I’m just I’m devastated because I’m thinking like this is not the life that I want to live. This is not the life that I want for.My wife, this is not the life that I want for my one kid at the time and my future kids where ⁓ we’re struggling to pay the bills. I’m going through, ⁓ in Colorado it was either King Supers or Safeway and I’m checking my bank account to see if I have money. I was driving a car that my wires.
were popping out of the tires because I couldn’t replace, couldn’t afford new tires. And I just remember feeling so inadequate as a father and a provider and a husband.
And that was late 2018. And that was actually that night. I remember it so specifically. That was the night. I didn’t choose real estate, but that was the night that I was like, I’m going to figure something out to make more money. ⁓ And so, ⁓
the next day, man, I got on Google and I just started typing in how to make more money. ⁓ And ⁓ there was ⁓ a podcast that I came across and there was a guy on the podcast talking about real estate. And he made the comment that, you know, almost every self-made millionaire, some crazy percentage does it through real estate. And I was like, I want to be a millionaire. And so ⁓ so then got into Google and I Googled.
Micah Johnson (11:20)
andCamron Cathcart (11:26)
just real estate podcasts and then bigger pockets popped up. And so this was 20 late 2018 early 2019. So I started listening to the bigger pockets podcast. And crazy enough, there was a guy on that podcast. His name is Brandon Turner. I’m sure you have heard of him. Probably Micah. Yeah. Yeah. SoMicah Johnson (11:49)
Thanks.Camron Cathcart (11:52)
And he was talking about how he was living in Hawaii and he had done it using real estate and building real estate. And I was like, this is awesome. And so I started listening to every podcast ⁓ that they put out. ⁓ And then ⁓ in twenty nineteen, the summer of twenty nineteen, ⁓ my wife and I sat down and we were like, hey, we we were going to we’re going to get into real estate ⁓ that we’re going to do it. And so we actually we packed up our bags. ⁓And we moved from Denver to St. Louis and we moved into my wife’s parents house. And ⁓ we were going to give real estate investing a try. And one of the things I think is really important for anybody that’s listening to this ⁓ is ⁓ we loved our life in Denver. I think that’s like that that’s really important for people to realize. Like we we were broke. We were completely broke. But we had the most phenomenal friends. I loved my job.
Micah Johnson (12:41)
andCamron Cathcart (12:50)
⁓ I loved the church, the community. We absolutely loved our life in Denver. ⁓ And we had to take a huge sacrifice by moving into my wife’s parents basement ⁓ with a year old child at the time. And ⁓ we just had to make this sacrifice. But it was because we knew that we wanted something more with our lives. And I think a lot of people aren’t willing to make that sacrifice. And soMicah Johnson (13:12)
Yeah.Camron Cathcart (13:19)
for anybody who’s listening, you have to make a sacrifice to get to where you want to go. ⁓ And so we did that. And so we moved ⁓ to St. Louis and we did our first flip, ⁓ actually, right when we got to St. Louis, about a week after we had our second baby. And in the hospital room, I put our first flip under contract that we were gonna do. And so, ⁓ yeah, and it was awesome.Micah Johnson (13:26)
Right.I think.
Camron Cathcart (13:47)
I mean, that house sucked.I did everything wrong. And part of it was I didn’t know what I was doing. Like I was still so new to listening to podcasts. I had read, you know, at that time, Rich Dad, Poor Dad and a couple of books, but I didn’t know what I was doing. I was like, I was so antsy of like, I said I was going to do this. We committed to this. So I put a house under contract from a wholesaler ⁓ and figured out the funding via a hard money lender on it. And ⁓
And we got into the house and I think we ⁓ I had budgeted like 40 K for the rehab not knowing I’ve never rehabbed a house and have no idea. The first contractor that we had come there he was like yeah this is about one hundred and fifteen thousand dollar rehab. And so and I was I was like this is it. One and done bankrupt. And so so we.
We actually, my wife and I and our year old and literally three week old baby and dog, we ⁓ got an air mattress and we blew it up in ⁓ the living room of that house. And my wife and I, we flipped that house ⁓ together. We did all of the work. We painted, we did, you know, refinish the cabinets and we have never done construction before, but we figured it out. And I’ve actually got this really fun video of the very first night where
sitting on the air mattress and Lexi and I, we ordered tacos, I think. And I looked at Riley, she’s a year old. And I was like, yeah, this is how I’d say, this is how we’re gonna afford to move to Hawaii one day. And yeah, and my wife looks at me and is like, and I said, okay, not this house, but ⁓ we’re gonna do a lot of these. This is the first house of many. ⁓ And so I literally have that video. It’s on my Instagram somewhere of me saying that.
Micah Johnson (15:29)
⁓ wow.Camron Cathcart (16:25)
⁓ And so we get done with that house. We did not make money on it. We actually ended up breaking even if you had paid us ⁓ for ⁓ the ⁓ man hours that we put in, we would have lost a significant amount of money. But we got done with that. ⁓ And ⁓ we ⁓ we loved it. We were like, I think it was because it was us and like we were chasing our dreams. And so even though it was not a great experience financially.⁓ It was a great experience in the fact that like we committed to something and we proved to ourselves like we’re honest, like when we when we tell ourselves we’re going to do something, we’re going to do it. And and we committed to that and we took action and we did it. And so we got done with that first one. And even though financially it didn’t move the needle at all, ⁓ we are like, we can’t wait for the next one. And so we bought our second house in January of twenty twenty and that one
Micah Johnson (17:18)
Mm.Camron Cathcart (17:23)
went better than I could have ever imagined. ⁓ It was actually ⁓ that was ⁓ our first rental property. We still own to this day, but we bought it for sixty five. I think we put like thirty five into it. So we were all in for one hundred, but we got it appraised at one seventy five and the bank gave us an 80 percent LTV. So we we ⁓ we gave us like a loan for one hundred and twenty on it. So we took.the 100 and whatever, like 105 and paid back our private money lender. And so we we put $15,000 tax free in the bank and we had a rental property with a bunch of equity and it was cash flowing. And I was like, this is amazing. So it went it went better than it could have imagined. And then we just started buying literally everything that we came across. It made sense. And in 2020, we scaled and did close to 100 deals that year.
Same thing in 2021. Same thing in 2022. But I want to tell a quick story because as we were scaling and this is where the story gets really fun. And sorry, I know I’m talking a lot, Micah.
Micah Johnson (18:33)
Holdon, before you go there, hold that thought. There’s one thing I want to point out that I keep hearing over and over again, and I want listeners and viewers to really take note.
One, the pressure it takes to actually make you make a change and it will always have a sacrifice involved, that is 100 % true. And then to keep taking the actions even when you’re scared, even when you’re not sure that that ability to hold yourself accountable to yourself, and even when your wife doing it for each other, you told each other we’re gonna do this, that’s what it takes.
It’s truly what it takes, because if you’re serious, it’s not about the first one being a home run. It’s about doing this for a long time and actually pulling off the life you say that you want by learning. Like you said earlier, the vehicle that’s made more millionaires than any other industry in America, it is hands down, tilted in real estate’s direction simply because of access. The way that anybody can find their way into this game and.
find a way in it to create the life that they want as long as you keep taking that action. And so it wasn’t by accident. So one thing, man, amazing job. is that’s that part that it takes that you hear from the folks that make it is I just kept going. I just kept going and I just kept going. And
Camron Cathcart (19:55)
Yeah.Micah Johnson (19:59)
Everybody feel people think, well, you know, you just didn’t have any fear. You didn’t have any of that. And it’s like, that’s not true. And he felt it every step of the way. And you kept having to choose it over and over and over again. And it reminds me of a quote by Virginia Satir that says most people prefer the certainty of misery than the misery of uncertainty. And the folks that can embrace that second one that they OK, I don’t know what’s going to happen, but that’s OK. I’ll figure it out.Camron Cathcart (20:20)
Yeah.Micah Johnson (20:27)
If you can get to that space, it unlocks life itself. So I want to point that out in that part of the story.Camron Cathcart (20:32)
Well,and I think a part of it too, is getting really clear on your your goals and where you’re going. So like my wife and I, that is something that we have done and continue to do is like, we know where as a as a family we are headed. ⁓ And so when things happen, and life gets tough, and it gets stressful, like
there’s this North Star of like, hey, we’re doing this for our family and for this this ⁓ this outside reason. And so it makes it it makes it a lot easier to continue to move forward. ⁓ And one of the cool things that I forgot to say, but I’ve got a journal entry from January 1st, 2020, ⁓ actually. And then I wrote it. I wrote I don’t do it anymore, but I wrote it every day for probably three years. ⁓ I got. ⁓
Grant Cardone’s 10x plan. don’t know if you ever did that or saw that, but in it has you write your goals every morning and every night. ⁓ And I had three goals that year. And I think I had them actually as five year goals, but it was to live in Hawaii. It was to have a million dollar net worth and it was to be 10 % body fat. And so I didn’t hit one of them and I’ll tell you which one in a little bit, but there’s one I didn’t hit. ⁓ But ⁓
Micah Johnson (21:33)
song.You
Camron Cathcart (21:58)
So I wrote that night and day every single morning. I’d wake up and I’d write those down and every single night I’d write those down. And so we’re very clear about like where I wanted to go with with with our lives. ⁓ And we started to scale our real estate business. And I think because I was writing those things down, I’m looking for opportunity that can make those realities. So like I’m putting myself in rooms with people that will help me become a millionaire. I’m putting myself in rooms with people that could allow me to live ⁓ live in Maui. ⁓And I say that to say in 2021, I saw on Instagram, think, Brandon Turner, the guy that I was listening to on BiggerPockets, he was hosting a mastermind in in Maui. And and so my wife and I were like, let’s go to it. And so we go to this mastermind in Maui in 2021. And we loved it, learned a lot.
But there was an exercise on the first day of the mastermind that in this is this is absolutely crazy. First day we go through like a visualization exercise. There’s a guy named Rich Vecchi who took us through this where it’s basically like close your eyes and pretend you’re on like a light stream up into outer space and another light comes down and intersects with your path and you enter you go down on that you land five years in the future. And he’s like
look around like and he wanted us to be very, ⁓ create not creative, but wanted us to take in all of the details of what we saw. He’s like, you’re five years in the future. You’re standing in front of your future house in five years. And like you walk up the driveway, look around and see the house and like, ⁓ walk up to the front door and you knock on it and future you answers it in five years.
Micah Johnson (23:37)
.Camron Cathcart (23:53)
and like start talking to this person and how’s their relationship with their wife, their kids, their business. ⁓ And basically then just like, how’d you go in in journal that ⁓ and ⁓ and so the day before the night before we did this exercise, Brandon had this big party at his house for everybody that was at the mastermind.And it was in Maui, overlooked the ocean. was beautiful house. And so like I’ve always wanted to live in Maui. And so I ⁓ that’s what I visualize. I visualize landing in front of that house. And at that time, I mean, it’s a multi, multi-million dollar house. I still I was making good money, but like didn’t make sense. ⁓ And ⁓ but I was in that house and like like visualize that house and walking up on the, you know, past the pool onto the lanai, knocking on the door, seeing myself.
⁓ And so I started doing that every morning ⁓ after that event where I would go tell people I go and have coffee with myself five years in the future every single morning. And that to me has been the most life changing thing that I’ve ever done. I still do it because when you think of the future version of you, it’s not somebody that’s poor that has a terrible relationship with their kids. It has a terrible relationship with their spouse.
Micah Johnson (25:01)
Hmm.Camron Cathcart (25:17)
that isn’t running a ⁓ great business. You’re envisioning the best, the best parts. But what that does is that realigns my day-to-day actions to line up with who is that future version of me. And so every single morning I sit down and I talk with the five-year version of myself and how much he loves his wife. Guess what I’m gonna do that day? I’m gonna take consistent action in that direction because I know that’s like the future me.Micah Johnson (25:28)
Right.Camron Cathcart (25:46)
has a great relationship with his kids. Guess what I’m going to do that day? I’m to be present with my kids because I know that the future me has a phenomenal relationship with his kids, has a healthy business, has a healthy marriage, is in a financially stable position. So I’m making it like real lines my day to day actions to be aligned with that person in five years. And so I still do that. But I started doing that in twenty twenty one and I’d go to the same house every single morning at Brandon’s house at the time. And I didn’t know Brandon.from Adam. Like I just met him at this mastermind, didn’t know him at all. ⁓ And I would I would have coffee with myself. ⁓ And so go back to St. Louis, we continue growing our real estate business. ⁓ And we start making a good amount of money. And ⁓ towards the end of 2022, we were like, hey, we’ve got enough money, we’ve got the system set up in our business. Let’s move to Maui. ⁓ And so we moved to Maui. ⁓
Micah Johnson (26:39)
ThankCamron Cathcart (26:44)
and the end of 2022 and we rented a house here and didn’t know like Brandon that well when we moved here. But one of the cool things was, is did get to know him once we were here and he had left bigger pockets at the time. And so then he asked me after being here for about a year, he asked me to be the co-host on his new podcast. It’s called A Better Life Podcast.think it’s one of the most listened to real estate podcasts in the world that he asked me to be the co-host of. And so I’m now the co-host of that podcast that literally I was listening to him is what got me into real estate.
Micah Johnson (27:18)
That’s awesome.Camron Cathcart (27:23)
⁓ And then fast forward another year, ⁓ Brandon bought a new house, was like, hey, I’m selling my house. And so I ended up buying his house, the one that since twenty twenty one, I had been visualizing myself having coffee on.Micah Johnson (27:37)
Thank you.Camron Cathcart (27:40)
every single morning, four years and I didn’t know Brandon didn’t know like there. And I literally bought that house and I had coffee on the lanai overlooking the ocean this morning. This thing that I visualized for five years came to fruition.Micah Johnson (27:44)
Yeah.Camron Cathcart (27:56)
and so I tell I know that was a long time I’ve talked for a lot a lot of the time. But I tell that story to say, like when you know where you are going, and you setthat those goals for your life like I knew I knew I got deep down. I knew I’m going to live in Maui. I’m going to own this house. I’m going to make this much money. I’m going to have this type of relationship with my wife. I’m going to have this type of relationship with my kids. And then I revisited that every single day like you can’t not be successful. There’s there’s no way that you like you can’t not be successful. Believe me. It was not a linear linear growth to where we’re at. It was this but it was
Micah Johnson (28:35)
Yeah, never is.Camron Cathcart (28:38)
Up here, I still know where I’m going down here. I still know where I’m going. And so it was not linear. There was not ups and downs. There were not times where I felt like I was going to pull my hair out. There were not times where my wife and I got into fights about finances or growing the business or working too much. Like all of that happened. But we were aligned and where we were headed as a family, we’re aligned and where we’re heading as a business. And we consistently pursued that day in and day out, no matter how high the highs were, no matter how low the lows were, we consistently⁓ pursued that and that is what has allowed us to get where we are today. ⁓ And so, yeah, fun story again. I know I talked a lot, but fun story that I want to share.
Micah Johnson (29:17)
No,I appreciate it, man, because I think it’s valuable information from a side most folks don’t see in the business. You hear a lot of strategy, you hear a lot of how to, but the reality is you are living each day of it out. There’s a reality to it where you get to look up now and say, I’ve almost flipped 500 houses, but there was a day where you had not flipped a house, where you were actually that time, that video of you talking to your daughter.
That’s real. That’s real life. Like you were really there. Now you have this five year gap to what’s truly possible. And that’s where I want folks to know it’s not about getting there fast. It’s about getting there. And that five year viewpoint on life is far enough into the future to give you time to get there, but close enough to get clarity around it, where you can see a little bit clearer what you want. See, I struggle with the 10 year version personally, because it’s, man, life changes so much decade to decade. Like you’re just.
You’re getting older. work with a coach who he’s really specific on under season, his seventies now. And he’ll talk about what he’s noticed through each decade. So I’m like, okay, a decade is a little long for me to project knowing how much change I’m to go through. But that five year gap, that’s a powerful gap that you can live with the idea of having coffee with yourself. I know what I’m doing tomorrow morning. So I love that. I’m a, I’m a very big journal or myself. I’m fixing across four years of every day in a row.
Camron Cathcart (30:35)
Dude.Micah Johnson (30:41)
but I have about eight years total I can go back to now, ⁓ I journal about life and what I’ve walked through and knowing, like reflecting now in my own life and the story that you showed how it is exactly how it works of this dedicated effort over time, what my journal shows me, because I like to read it each morning too, after I write in it. Most days of life are boring. Most of them, you’ll never remember them. That’s what my journal shows me. I never would have remembered any of this without,Camron Cathcart (31:04)
Mm-hmm.Micah Johnson (31:11)
writing it down, but it’s easier to remember the lows and it’s super easy to remember the highs, but that in the middle where the majority of your life is taking place, that’s the day in day out kind of stuff where those decisions matter. Am I going to get up and do it today? Not when it’s easy, not when it’s super hard, when it’s meh, when it’s just getting up and doing it. It’s that in between, man, that the part of flipping a house where like it’s all gets to a certain point really good. And then the next section just takes forever. Where you’re just like, what is going?Camron Cathcart (31:40)
10%
Micah Johnson (31:42)
it’s that feeling, but knowing, okay, deep down, just keep moving. Just keep moving. One of the ways I like to remember too, I grew up farming and I can get impatient, but I remember, I always remind myself, if you ever plant a seed and get upset, it’s not grown the next day, you can, you can wind them on for about 90 days and it’ll grow. So you can either enjoy the 90 days of it doing it and has zero to do with how you feel about it. Or you can.be upset for all 90 days and still get there. So what are you gonna do? You know, it’s just, okay, this is what we got to do today. Today we plant, today we pull the weeds. Eventually we get to reap that harvest at the end because of just methodical work towards a very intentional goal. So man, again, thank you so much for sharing that story.
Camron Cathcart (32:26)
up.Yeah, and there’s a couple of things that you said that I think are really, really important for people to hear. And the first thing that I would say, ⁓ just talking about journaling, ⁓ I think that’s so important for anybody that’s an entrepreneur, even if you’re not an entrepreneur and you just like because I think you see your growth, even if you don’t, you see your growth in a long period of time.
even though like you were saying, every days are boring sometimes where it’s like you might if you look at a six month window, you might not see growth or you might even see like a negative like when I’m talking about the linear type of growth. Like there’s definitely been times where our net worth has decreased quite a bit over a six month period. But if you look at it over a five year period, it’s like, my goodness, like this is amazing. Same thing where I was this just happened not that long ago. ⁓ I was looking back ⁓ it ⁓
Micah Johnson (32:58)
Right.Right.
Camron Cathcart (33:25)
journaling from 2017 right around when we had ⁓ Riley, our daughter, and I wrote ⁓ at the time, I thought that I was writing about something else where it was like I was writing out a prayer ⁓ and I at the time was like I wanted to be a lead pastor and I was a youth pastor ⁓ and I like I want a platform and I want to to like make big decisions and I like I listed out likethese 10 different things that I wanted. And part of it might have actually probably was ego. Like I wanted this platform and the stage and people to look at me and to be in charge of things and make big decisions. And at the time I wasn’t doing that. I was a youth pastor, so I didn’t have a lot of, ⁓ I guess, leadership within the church. I remember a couple of months ago looking at that and going through the list and I had
Like God answered every single one of those prayers. He didn’t answer the way that I thought that he would is like I was going to be a lead pastor, but he gave me a platform of being the co-host of one of the biggest podcasts in the real estate sector in the world and having people reach out to me about real estate investing advice and having a team of 15 employees and another 70 or 80, 1099 guys. like, he answered every single one of those prayers, just not the way that I thought that he would.
And so ⁓ I think that’s really important because you can see like your growth if you journal. ⁓ Really, really important to remember if you’re listening to this. Like it has done so much for me personally.
Micah Johnson (35:06)
And it shows you, it shows you what, what those visions actually look like, right? You’re talking about having that vision to lead you on. And it’s, it’s hard to imagine what it’s going to be like in reality because it’s always has a little bit slider, different version than you thought it would be when you were planning it out. But you start to see, okay, wait a second, man, it all did happen. I didn’t think that’s how it was going to happen. And in my, just recently turned 40 and that’s something I’m just.in that transition through the decades. And that one was like, you can let go a lot of angst about it, where it will happen. Like there’s some deep down foundations that will, like you have your platform, you have the leadership, you had the things you wanted that just didn’t look like you ever thought they would look. And that’s the part you’re open to. That’s the little secret sauce of life right there where…
Camron Cathcart (35:45)
Yeah.Micah Johnson (36:01)
Don’t get so attached to what you think is supposed to look like that you miss what it’s really supposed to be. Pay attention to those. That’s when your instincts are so valuable to yourself. That’s still small voice you hear about in the religious world. What is it really saying deep down? What is it that you’re hearing when you’re sitting there alone with yourself? Pay attention.It’s telling you things and then you’re going to go live that life out and be open to what it looks like because the doors will be open. I think about that Garth Brooks song, one of God’s greatest gifts is unanswered prayers. And I think about that now in life. It’s so true that it’s their answered and unanswered all at the same time. And it’s always leading you to that place that you’re trying to get to. So I really appreciate that, man. Thanks for sharing that.
Camron Cathcart (36:38)
Yeah, yeah.Yeah. Well,
yeah. And another. Sorry, I know I’m taking up too much time. But but another thing like that it when for me and my wife, Lexi, of our biggest things was the values that visualization and having these goals provided because for us, it did work out pretty much exactly like we were we had wanted. ⁓ But even if it hadn’t,
Micah Johnson (36:56)
You’re good.Thank
Camron Cathcart (37:19)
It was more about the values where it’s like, hey, when I would go and have coffee with myself and I would talk about how much I love my wife, the values there like same with with my kids. I got to talk about it. like I love my kids. I’m present in their lives. They love me. So like let’s let’s peel the layers back on that. What does that mean? Well, it means that I have to be a present father. It means that I have to be a loving father. It means that I have to be a forgiving father. That means that I have to spend time. have toMicah Johnson (37:41)
Hmm.Camron Cathcart (37:49)
whatever it may be, like those values were things that I implemented in my life. Same with, hey, I wanted to have a healthy business. OK, so what does that mean? It means that I have to be a leader. It means that I have to be a visionary. It means that I have to hire a players. It means that ⁓ I have to be present for them. It means like all of the like I got a cast vision for our team. Same with my wife. Like I want to like want to be a phenomenal husband. So what do I have to do? I have to spend time. And so it all these values where I kind of.I would go revisit it every single day. But then day to day, I’m not thinking through like, I’ve got to live in this house in Maui. It’s more of what values do I have to do every single day that can lead me towards that? And so that is I’ve got to love my wife. I’ve got to be present with her. I’ve got to forgive. I’ve got to to honor her, to help around the house. So it implemented values over time that led us to where we were. But it was more about the values of that person in five years.
Micah Johnson (38:31)
Thank you.Camron Cathcart (38:48)
And that’s what I live that aligned my my my day still does it aligns my day to project that. ⁓ So, yeah.Micah Johnson (38:48)
Yeah.Right.
It forces you to become the person. You got to do the things that make you be that person. One of my mentors calls it role-based living. He’s like, whatever you’re going to do, when you’re dad, be dad, full on. You can’t be multiple roles. When your husband, be husband. When your business owner, be business owner. When your friend, be friend. Son, be son. Be very intentional about that role you’re being. that’s, you now have nailed that secret sauce of how visualization really works.
Camron Cathcart (39:02)
Mm-hmm.Yeah.
Micah Johnson (39:24)
isit’s not a magic spell that you just imagine the things. It’s this person you imagine becoming and then looking at what activities do I need to do today that allow me to become that person? Because you don’t need to live in Maui to be a good husband. You don’t need to live there to be a good dad. You don’t need to live there to be a good business owner. That’s the byproduct of this other thing. And that is how it works where
Camron Cathcart (39:48)
Yes.Micah Johnson (39:51)
Yes, that’s where you get really intentional in the vision of it, that thing that you want. And when you can see a house, you kind of got lucky where you could see the house. Like you saw that you got to hang out in the thing you wanted, man. Now you’re tapping into like the real deep of like everything aligning around. Okay. If you, if that’s what you want and you’re willing to do the things to become who that person is, then this is at the end of that road. That’s what it will naturally lead to. And that’s where visualization and action merge together.is not losing that side of where you want to go while at the same time understanding what do I got to do today? Because that’s what we have in front of us. I call them activities of daily living. What are your ADLs today? What do you got to get done? Get that done. And when you’re done, you’re done. And in some days, it’s not as much as other days, and it relieves the pressure. You don’t get stuck in do, do, do, do. It lets you actually be present as a husband, be present as a father, be present as a business owner.
It releases you from the inside out. So it’s ⁓ you nailed it, man. I get hyped about this stuff, as you can tell. I just get as I like seeing people pull it off to show folks you can pull it off. And it’s not a it’s not a mystery as to how to do it. People have been doing it for a long time. It lines up with where you’re trying to go first. And money is a great reason to do a lot of things. However, for lasting power.
Camron Cathcart (40:55)
Yeah.Micah Johnson (41:15)
typically won’t lead you to the thing you want to do for a long time. That pays that emotional paycheck and the financial paycheck enough. And you came out it from the other, because it can’t just pay your emotional paycheck. You had that, right? But without that opposite side, start, especially as a man, you start to feel not useful. You start to feel inadequate. And that, you want to destroy a man’s soul. Take that away from him. Take that away from him, and you will watch a person either crumble or rise to the occasion, because that’sCamron Cathcart (41:26)
Yeah.Yeah.
Micah Johnson (41:44)
That’s like life calling you out right there. It’s a hard moment, but one of the most special ones you’ll look at when it’s like, yep, that was the day life called forth and said, hey, there’s a big plan for you if you want one. Here’s what the road’s gonna look like, but it’s out there. So again, man, thank you so much. For those that are listening, thanks for hanging with us for this long and staying in. I hope you got value out of today’s episode. Cam, if they wanna find out more about you, follow along with what you have going on. What’s the best way to find you?Camron Cathcart (41:56)
Yeah.Yeah, I would say on Instagram, I’m not on there a ton, but it’s cam.cathcart. That’s my Instagram, C-A-M period, C-A-T-H-C-A-R-T. And that’s gonna be probably the best way to get a hold
Micah Johnson (42:25)
Excellent. And say that podcast name again that you’re on, that you co-host.Camron Cathcart (42:29)
called a better life podcast, a better life. Yeah.Micah Johnson (42:31)
Better Life podcast. Excellent.All right, if you’re listening in, check the show notes. We’ll have Cam’s link there. Follow along. Check out a story of someone that’s really building the life that they set out to build, creating the family that they want, and truly not the cliche version, living the dream, man. Again, congratulations. I love it when I’m seeing people do it. So if you got value out of today’s episode, everybody, please like this episode. Share it with someone that you think would get value out of it as well.
As always, don’t forget to subscribe. We appreciate every single one of you that follows along with us. thanks for being here. We’ll see everybody on the next episode.
