Transforming Lives: 8 Proven Techniques for Real Estate Success

John Harcar (00:00.603)
All right, hey guys, welcome back to our show. Once again, I’m your host, John Harcar, and I’m here today with Luke Mickelson. Mickelson or Mickelson? Hope I said it the right way. Mickelson like the golfer. All right. And today what we’re going to talk about, this is a unique topic, guys. It’s not necessarily based on real estate, but it’s about child bedlessness. it’s something that’s a problem that is going on in our society today. And Luke here is trying to combat that.

Luke Mickelson (00:09.002)
Mickelson like the golfer brother.

John Harcar (00:27.109)
But remember guys, at Investor Fuel, we help realtors, I mean, I’m sorry, real estate agents, service providers. I mean, kind of all real estate entrepreneurs really. Two to five exit business by providing tools and resources to build the business they wanna build and kind of have that life they wanna live. So Luke, welcome to our show, man.

Luke Mickelson (00:44.078)
Thank you, sir. It’s great beer,

John Harcar (00:45.903)
Yeah, it was awesome. I found out that you’re in Idaho. You’re in southern Idaho. I’m in, I guess you to say central Idaho. But I’m super excited to talk about this topic. It’s not something I’ve really heard a lot about. thinking about it, I can just imagine the scope of the problem. But before we get into all that, just kind of tell us a little bit about you, your background, and what got you here.

Luke Mickelson (01:09.528)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, thanks for having me on. I know this is not your audience’s normal discussion, but I promise at the end that they’re going to understand how the real estate agents, real estate market, those people that work in the really help and have helped in the past, hope to help in future what we do. So yes, I’m from Twin Falls, Idaho, actually from a little small town called Kimberly, about 4,000 people. in a small town, you get to know everybody. So growing up, it was great, right? As a farm kid, got to work on the farm.

and play all the sports. You know, if you know how to throw a ball somewhat accurately in these small schools. Yeah, you kind of had to play sports.

John Harcar (01:49.221)
Right.

Luke Mickelson (01:49.774)
Which is great. I loved it, you know and and really I attribute some of that along with the big teachings for my mom that that I enjoyed serving people working with people being on teams The value of and and the joy that comes when you bring a bunch of people together for a common cause I didn’t know back then really that’s kind of I feel was preparing for me for what I do now my true passion Which is build beds for kids and so I’m really grateful for that, know, and I was raised by a single mom So that plays a big part

in how Sleeping With Emily Peace started for me, which really 13 years ago in 2012, I served in my church as what was called a Young Men’s President. In the South, a lot of people would call that like a youth pastor, although I don’t consider myself a youth pastor. I’m more of a coach, bro. But I really enjoyed working with the kids. Yeah.

John Harcar (02:36.795)
Yeah, hey whenever you want to call yourself it’s all good as long as you’re doing what you’re meant to do

Luke Mickelson (02:47.704)
But I really enjoyed working with the kids and doing activities with them. And so they put me as a young men’s president, which basically was responsible for the spiritual growth as well as the activity arm of the church, right? And at the time that activity was Boy Scouts. So was kind of like the leader over the leader of the Boy Scouts.

which some of the challenges with being a Boy Scout leader, every Boy Scout leader out here knows what I’m talking about, is trying to find a fun activity that doesn’t involve a screen or even a sport, which is difficult, and one that can teach them something. Well, when I was sitting in our auxiliary meetings with the other leadership of the church, we talked about families that we’re helping. Well,

John Harcar (03:19.588)
Mm-hmm.

Luke Mickelson (03:30.094)
One particular family, they talked about how they were helping them with their rent and food and transportation and the kids didn’t have any beds and they didn’t have any toys. And I said, wait a minute, did you just say those kids didn’t have any beds? And I don’t know, it just really hit me. I’d never heard that before. And it hit me so much, I started thinking about my own kids. And I’ve slept on the floor before, but if I had my kids sleeping on the floor day in and day out, would be rough, right?

John Harcar (03:51.579)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (03:56.773)
Yeah, as a father you’re just like, eeeh, you know?

Luke Mickelson (04:00.02)
yeah, and we see that every day, right? So it’s, I just knew A, I had to do something and B, what a great opportunity for us to get Xbox controllers out of these boys’ hands and let’s put a drill and a sander, let’s teach these kids something. Now I was, I’ll be honest with you, was a little worried that this was gonna be one of those, come on boys, and then I end up having to do it all. Every scout leader knows what I’m talking about.

John Harcar (04:23.227)
Yeah, you’re the one doing all the work.

Luke Mickelson (04:27.724)
But really, honestly, John, it was amazing to see these kids light up, right? And I know it was because they know and they knew that this was going to go to a child.

And so they came over a couple of nights that week and we built this bunk bed and it was super fun. We had a great time. I didn’t get to go on the delivery because I was in my garage. So I had to clean up all the sawdust and junk like that. But the next day at church they came and their parents went, all the other leaders. They talked about how amazing this experience was and how these kids just lit up. And I’ll be honest, I was a little jealous, man. I did all the work and didn’t get all the reward.

John Harcar (04:51.483)
Yeah, I hope.

John Harcar (05:05.697)
No.

Luke Mickelson (05:07.18)
But my reward at the time really was just these boys, right? I wanted them to feel the joy of service and enjoy what they had. the true story is Christmas time, and every parent that’s got kids knows this scenario where you’re sitting on the couch and a new Xbox comes on for advertisement. I mean, I could read my kids’ minds of, I know what I want for Christmas.

John Harcar (05:30.011)
Mm-hmm. Salivating.

Luke Mickelson (05:33.637)
yeah, you know it. You know, they’re looking up at me, Dad, what do you think?

For me personally, I was going through this kind of midlife crisis. I don’t know what that means other than I just, wasn’t unhappy with my life. I wasn’t unhappy in my job. I was going through a little bit of a faith crisis. Who am I? And I just couldn’t fill this hole that was in my heart. I’d do service, I’d coach kids, and those were all really great things. And on paper, you’d think, man, there was nothing for me to complain about. And there really wasn’t. There was just something.

built that bed, that first bunk bed with the Boy Scouts. I felt just this overwhelming joy of service, working with the boys, and then to solve a problem. What I didn’t know is how big this problem really was. But, so I’m sitting on the couch, going through this turmoil in my brain, just super excited that we just delivered this bed, but also feeling this whole comeback in my heart. And then my kids look up and they want a new Xbox.

John Harcar (06:20.527)
awesome.

Luke Mickelson (06:38.128)
was a perfect storm, John. It just hit me just right. And I just was like, you know what? No, we’re gonna go out in the garage right now. I got up, started walking to the garage, and everybody’s like, where you going, Dad? And I’m like, you know what? We got leftover wood. I’m gonna build another bunk bed, and you’re gonna help me. Because I wanted those guys, these kids of mine, to see and enjoy the same thing the Boy Scouts did, the joy of service. And of course, to…

John Harcar (07:01.849)
Right.

Luke Mickelson (07:04.558)
to remember what they had, right? You know, you’ve got a bed to sleep in for crying out loud. Yeah, we don’t need another Xbox. so so we did it. And the same thing happened. Just had a wonderful experience with my kids. And, know, they were only 10 and six at the time. got this couple of pictures of me drilling with my little daughter and her tutu. It was it was super fun. You know, and then but then here I am with this with this bunk bed. I have no idea what to do with it, right?

John Harcar (07:07.823)
Be grateful, yeah, for sure.

John Harcar (07:18.617)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (07:23.419)
That’s cool.

John Harcar (07:30.075)
That’s what’s gonna I was gonna. Oops, I was gonna ask like. Did you have like another family planned out? I mean, how did you find where that next bed was going?

Luke Mickelson (07:35.982)
Totally clueless. Had no idea. I had just heard about this one family because I happened to be in a meeting. so someone recommended, well, why don’t you throw it on Facebook, one of those buy sell trade groups, and say, I said, say free bed. And I was like, I’m not much of a Facebook guy. I know if you put anything free out there, I’m going to get every Tom, Dick, and Harry. yeah. what happened next was pretty interesting. So we put it on there. Yeah, I got some of that.

John Harcar (07:44.154)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (07:57.285)
BOMBARDED

Luke Mickelson (08:05.528)
But what I didn’t expect was how many people, friends, old friends, I mean talking to 20 year old friends calling me up, messaging me saying, this is awesome, how can I help? And that was really surprising to me. I don’t know why, I just didn’t expect that. But then one of my friends reached out and said.

Hey Luke, I have the perfect family and this is my Haley story. So this was my first delivery. So Haley and her mom were homeless. Haley, six years old, John, never slept in a bed, ever. I mean, think about that. Never slept in a bed, six years old. She’s been sleeping in the back seat of her mom’s car. And then of course couch diving friends and family here and there, right?

John Harcar (08:32.315)
Mmm.

Luke Mickelson (08:49.112)
Well, they finally got a house. And so I was so jacked to bring this little Haley her first bed. And when we showed up, we walked to this house. just got there. They’d only been there for a couple of weeks. Well, there was nothing in the house. There was a hot plate sitting on a milk carton and it had a can of soup on it. And that was the only furniture in the house. That was it.

And you know, I’d never seen, I’d seen homelessness, transitioning homelessness, poverty, that kind of stuff. But I’d never, John, I’d never seen it through the eyes of a six year old. And that, that kind of, I mean, that was a step back, a big step back. Well, this little Haley pulls us into her room. And it was really funny. Mike Rowe, he’s the one that really kind of got us launched nationwide. And I was on his podcast last year. And he says, you know, I was thinking about

what you guys do. And he said, you know, we call people’s in these kids their bedroom, but if they don’t have a bed in it, then it’s just a room, right? It’s just, it’s like the living room or the kitchen, just a room. And that really sunk to me. And I thought back on Haley’s, my experience with Haley, I walked into her room and that’s all it was. It was a room that had holes in the carpet and tears in the wallpaper and, you know, secondhand toys in the closet. There was no, there was no furniture other than.

John Harcar (09:51.536)
Mm-hmm.

Luke Mickelson (10:10.218)
And I shouldn’t laugh, it keeps me from crying. In the corner was a nest of clothes, just her school clothes, and that was the bed she slept on.

And it just blew me away. I was speechless. And I could just see the weeks and weeks that this gal, this little girl, had been sleeping on her clothes. And so needless to say, we were super excited to bring this bed. And as we started, we started putting this bed together. And we see this all the time. These little kids, there’s so a lot of apprehension, right?

John Harcar (10:35.547)
That’s so cool.

Luke Mickelson (10:43.02)
because strangers in their room building something they don’t know what it is until they realize it’s a bed. And that apprehension quickly turns into appreciation and then excitement. And this gal, this little six-year-old started hugging us, hugging the bed, kissing the bed. I’d never seen that before. It was so cool. We were so honored. And if that wasn’t enough to, I mean, tear your heart open, right? I look up and here’s mom, single mom.

John Harcar (11:02.363)
That’s it.

Luke Mickelson (11:12.546)
And I was raised by a single mom. So, man, I was crying right with six years of tears just pouring down her face, right? You could just see it. And you know, John, right, Dan, I learned this is far more than just a bed. It’s far more than just a good night’s sleep. This is helping families, confidence, worries that these parents and these children just suffer for lack of confidence in themselves. And I mean, it’s just more than a good night’s

And after we left that house, we were in Burley, so we were about 30 minutes away. me and my buddy didn’t say anything to each other the whole ride. mean, it was.

John Harcar (11:42.895)
Yeah.

John Harcar (11:53.403)
I can imagine just what was going through each of your minds.

Luke Mickelson (11:56.718)
Well, yeah. And you know, and I’ll tell you what, John, I’m one of these guys that, know, it’s a Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, college football buff. I love hunting and fishing. I’m from Idaho. Can you not? Right. And it was like in an instant, none of that really mattered to me anymore. You know, because I kept thinking.

John Harcar (12:05.615)
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Luke Mickelson (12:15.082)
on the way home as tears are running down my face. I just kept thinking for the couple of hours, two or three nights a week to build and solve, build a bed and solve that problem, that’s well, well worth my time. And so when I finally got home, I remember looked at my friend and I said, you know what? No kid is gonna sleep on the floor in my town if I have anything to do with it.

And what I didn’t know was that resolution, that motto is now our mission statement was much bigger than I realized. And child bedlessness now, come to find out there was no statistics anywhere, none about how many children don’t have beds. The only statistic, even today, the only statistic is kind of things that SHPs.

John Harcar (12:45.091)
You

Luke Mickelson (12:59.47)
Come up with which we’re not we’re not statisticians, but we know it’s greater than 3 % of the total population You know, so the Magic Valley down here, you know, we’re climbing to a hundred thousand people There’s three thousand kids that are on the floor and we’ve been doing this since 2012 we’re getting close to I think about two thousand kids that we’ve helped but but we’re we’re just scratching the surface of how many children out there are sleeping on the floor on couches with mom and dad or brothers and sisters just they just don’t have a better their

John Harcar (13:00.431)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (13:11.151)
Mm-hmm.

John Harcar (13:22.412)
yeah.

Luke Mickelson (13:29.494)
own and it’s a hard thing to experience. tell everybody, look, you can hear me or anybody talk about child bedlessness. You can even see videos, but until you’re in the room with the child and you see these conditions that they’re sleeping in, you spend half your life sleeping, really, know? And just to think about sleeping on your own clothes or the concrete or pallets. Yeah, it’s rough.

John Harcar (13:48.89)
Yeah.

John Harcar (13:56.443)
unfathomable for us, unfathomable for us in most of society. we, but we shut our eyes to a lot of that stuff. Now before you, there was nothing right? There was no statistics. Were there any other charities or any other things focused on this at all?

Luke Mickelson (14:12.686)
It’s a great question. So about 2013, we only billed one time a year in Christmas time. Well, after that Christmas bill was done, because now it was going to be a charity, because we couldn’t finance it ourselves, number one. And we had a lot of companies that wanted to help, but we had to be a charity for them to donate. So we’re like, OK. And it got me thinking.

Well, I don’t know how to run a charity. Maybe I’ll talk to someone that builds beds as a charity as well. So I went hunting for a charity. It took me a while. I mean, we’re talking, it took a while to finally find only one charity in the whole country in North Carolina that was building beds. And I was a little jealous. They started a year earlier. They had a,

John Harcar (14:53.551)
Luke Mickelson (14:55.822)
They had a cool name. That’s what I was jealous about. Their name was Beds for Kids. And I’m like, oh man, that’d be such a good name. So I thought, you know what, I got a better name. I’m gonna call it Beds for Babes. Not a good name, John. My wife said, you’re looking at me, says, you’re not. So we formed this and this started around Christmas time. So what better lyric?

John Harcar (14:58.181)
Yeah, okay.

John Harcar (15:01.807)
Yeah.

John Harcar (15:11.117)
I’ll let you say that. And what was the name of your company again?

Luke Mickelson (15:25.356)
than what silent night offers as sleep and heavenly peace. And so.

John Harcar (15:29.593)
That’s awesome.

Luke Mickelson (15:30.574)
Yeah, and that’s what we felt. wanted these kids, when you deliver a bed to these kids, we want them to sleep in heavenly peace. Because when we deliver beds, it’s not just the frame. You know, we build just twin size beds. You know, the same bed is built in Hawaii as it’s built in Canada, Bermuda, or Idaho. And so we build twin size beds that can be single or bunk bed. And we furnish the whole thing, mattress, sheets, pillows, pillowcases. We don’t leave the house when we deliver bed until that child can sleep in it.

Quite often, John, it’ll be five o’clock in the afternoon. Think about it, these kids have never had a bed before. And they’re in bed sleeping at five in the afternoon. If that doesn’t tell you something about the need and the importance of what these beds do for these kids, I don’t know what does, you know?

John Harcar (16:18.395)
So you started in the small town of Kimberly. I know right where you are. Where are you now? What is your, what’s your business look like? And tell me, you know, we talked a little bit before we got on here about, you know, the impact that maybe some realtors, some brokers maybe that you’ve worked with had an impact in your cause, you know, share a little bit about that where you’re now and kind of how that helped.

Luke Mickelson (16:37.198)
You bet.

Absolutely. So what’s really important to understand is how we build these beds. we’ve now blown up with chapters all across the country. We’re in four countries. We’re in almost every single state. We’ve trained over 400 chapters presidents. Since 2012, we’ve built nearly 300,000 beds. And because of our growth now, we’re building almost 90,000 beds a year. Number one, that’s how big the need is.

But how we build these beds, these chapter presidents like Boise, Twin Falls, these chapter presidents, they go and raise money and it costs about $300 for every bed. Again, that’s everything, mattress, delivery, the whole nine yards.

But the way we build them is we bring the volunteers in from the community and we actually take raw lumber and we have our own tools and whatnot. We organize these, what we call trains, it’s kind of an assembly line and we teach people how to build these beds. Some people have never touched a drill in their life and we teach them how to build these beds. And what I found, John, is not only is child bedlessness may not be a real word, it’s a real problem, but…

There was another thing I found which I did not expect, which is the news, social media, everything talks about how this world is just so divided and there’s so many hard things and people mad and it just makes this world sound so terrible. That’s not my perspective. I see, gosh, I couldn’t get that out. We deal with people, there are millions and millions of people that want to give back. They just don’t know how.

Luke Mickelson (18:22.188)
And that’s what we’ve been able to find. The happiest volunteer for us is the sweatiest and the dustiest. And that’s because when people want to give back, they want to feel like they did something. So we actually organize these build days with companies that want to do team building exercises. They want to give back to the community. They just don’t know how. And we can take 10 or 200 people at one time and put them to work for four hours and build 50 beds. No, no.

John Harcar (18:52.027)
That is so awesome.

Luke Mickelson (18:52.112)
It’s so much fun and where the Realtor groups come in and this is I hope every one of you that are listening right now understand and can think about this. We get a lot of help from Realtors. They’re some of the best groups because A, you guys raise money like nobody’s business. It’s awesome. So we’re super grateful for that. But then your hard workers, know, a lot of times a Realtor group

comes together with all their team, all the other realtors, and it’s a team building exercise. They raise money and then they come and spend three, four hours building a bed for the kids in the communities that they serve. And so, you know, I encourage every single realtor that’s listening or a part of the real estate group or organization, you know, find your local chapter, talk to them how you can, as a realtor group, come together, raise money, and then most importantly, help build beds with these kids.

I’ve served and as many I’ve heard from thousands and thousands of volunteers We’ve had 500,000 volunteer hours just in the last three four hours three four years But each one of these volunteers I’ve heard many stories where they’ve you know, they’ve served other areas soup kitchens or you know, whatever it is, right? but

John Harcar (20:01.647)
Mm-hmm.

Luke Mickelson (20:05.176)
time and time again, people have said that building beds with Sleep and Empty Peace was the funnest activity, because we really have this down to a science. People show up, never touched a drill before, and they’re screwing in screws, they’re sanding wood, we stain the beds with this special stain, and they have such fun doing it, they want to do it every year. And so,

John Harcar (20:31.621)
That’s so.

Luke Mickelson (20:32.554)
So if your agency’s out there, your real estate groups are looking for an activity, help us raise $300 a bed. You can do a 20 bed build for $6,000 donation and bring your whole real estate group and build beds for your kids in your community.

John Harcar (20:49.787)
And that’s not, I mean, that’s not a lot, you know, but once again, I like the whole team building aspect of it. I mean, it’s something that where you’re not only building your team, but you’re also making an impact in the community and to people’s Okay, you almost got me to tears a little bit earlier. And I love your servant’s heart and I love what you’re doing. If there are people out here and I pray that people out there will reach out, how do they get in touch with you?

Luke Mickelson (21:02.892)
Yeah, for a long time.

John Harcar (21:16.847)
How do they find their local chapter? Is it just you go online or how are they gonna find it?

Luke Mickelson (21:20.494)
Great question. Great question. when you go to our website, shpbeds.org, Sam Harry, Paul, or SleepyDumblyPieceBeds, plural, .org, your local chapter should be the one that comes up. So each chapter has its own, quote, excuse me, web page. In the top left-hand corner, it’ll tell you what web page you’re at. But GeoTrack, it should bring up

your, let’s say your Boise chapter, right? There you’re gonna see how many beds that is currently being requested. It’ll be in the hundreds usually. You can see the success of the local chapter as well as the success of Sleeping Under Peace Nationwide.

But the biggest thing is there’ll be a couple of ways that you can connect, right? So when you go to shpbeds.org, can, number one, you can donate. Let’s get that one out of the way. Of course we need money, we need, that’s how we finance it, we’re a charity, right?

But the biggest thing we ask people to do is help us, A, raise awareness. We’re so unknown and child bedlessness is so unknown. There are families right now, mean across the street. Look, John, you’re from Boise. You’re two hours from where this thing started and you didn’t know SHP even existed. That’s the problem we’re dealing with, Help us raise awareness because there’s kids across the street that…

John Harcar (22:36.859)
Yeah, 100%.

Luke Mickelson (22:41.42)
their families need to get beds for them and they just don’t know where to go. We are a resource for that. So help us raise awareness as well. If you want to volunteer, you can connect on Facebook, you can phone call the chapter president, you can message him and say, hey, look, we want to be a part of the build. There’s actually a tab on our website that says start request appeal or apply for a build, sponsor a build, something like that. And you can click on that and then fill out the information and then chapter president will contact you if you want to.

if you want to.

do a build. And then if there happens to be no chapter close by and this is something that really pulls at your heartstrings and you want to be involved, you can actually start a chapter. We’ve made this super easy for people to learn how to start a chapter. We have a whole very, very robust, successful training program that people can go through. We actually send you down to Lehigh, Utah for a weekend. We teach you everything you need to know. And of course, we have a very robust training program.

that helps people learn how to be a chapter president, right? So those are a bunch of ways that you can be involved and we really need them. The kids in your town really need help.

John Harcar (23:51.535)
Guys and anybody out there listening, hope you reach out. I hope you help. Just help the cause. mean, once again, it’s a problem I didn’t know about and what it sounds like is a massive, massive problem. Especially if you have that many chapters all around the world or around the country, there’s a big need. Luke, man, thank you so much for coming on and sharing this information. This has been awesome. Like I said, a little different talk that I’m used to having, but man, it…

It hits home.

Luke Mickelson (24:22.146)
John, appreciate it. mean, you know, any ear, it doesn’t matter what you do, you know, you can be in the law enforcement, you can be in real estate. It doesn’t really matter. We are humans helping humans, John, and these are little humans that need our help. These kids are in these situations, I promise you, not because of their choices, right? And unfortunately, sometimes not because of the parents choices, just, you know, houses burned down and, you know,

women or spouses escape rough situations. I it’s a real thing, I promise you, and it’s in your hometown, and you can do something about it. Let us know how we can connect you with chapters, how you can jump in and help these kids out.

John Harcar (25:09.261)
Awesome. All right, guys, I hope you enjoyed the show. I know I did, Luke. Thank you again so much, and we’ll see you on the next one, guys. Cheers.