Buddy Rushing (00:02:27):
So, I ended up joining the Marine Corps, got commissioned in the Marine Corps, and then got stationed all around the world. I did four deployments and, recently, got out of the Marine Corps, actually five months ago. And it was life-changing. It was an amazing opportunity to not only serve my country but also to see what else was out there because when you grew up in Scott County, Tennessee especially below the poverty line, your world is small, extremely small. And so, is your thinking often.

Buddy Rushing (00:02:55):
And then, whenever you step out into it and you see what there is out there and what type of people there are out there, it dramatically opens what you believe you can do in life. And then as luck or fate would have it on one of my deployments, I read a little purple poorly written book called Rich Dad Poor Dad. I remember thinking after I read it. I said two things. Number one, it’s a terrible writer. It’s a terrible writing.

Buddy Rushing (00:03:22):
And second, the most profound concepts that I’ve ever read in a book, and it was unbelievable because it convinced me that the station I was born into in life didn’t have to be what my journey was. And so, that sparked an interest in real estate. And then my wife and I spent 10 years doing all kinds of different types of real estate from wholesaling. We wholesaled our first couple, and then did trustee lending, self-directed our IRA, did some flips, bought a bunch of rental properties and so on, and educated ourselves.

Buddy Rushing (00:03:52):
And then, that went on for about 10 years. Everyone looks at the last three years of our business and says, “Wow, what an amazing growth,” because it’s been like 300 purchases, and there’s now 400 people in our network and hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth blah, blah, blah. And they’re like, “Wow, that happened so fast.” No, it didn’t. It was 10 straight years running the numbers from Helmand Province, Afghanistan, and then sending them to my wife who was doing negotiations back home and taking down properties while I was deployed. It was sleeping in closets after painting for an entire full day because a tenant was moving in the next day, and we didn’t have any contractors that could handle it. It was going to real estate investors associations four times a week after going to work all day. It was 10 years of education and action and preparing. And then everything came together on a February morning about three and a half years ago. And then, it exploded from there.

Robert Leonard (00:04:49):
Yeah. Everybody tends to think success is overnight, right? Everybody sees the social media glitz and glamour. And everybody seems to think it’s an overnight success. But really, most stories have a five, 10-year period where they put in that work. I mean it’s the same with Amazon, Jeff Bezos. It’s often talked about, Elon Musk, et cetera. A lot of people see Tesla as a massive success that it is. But a lot of people don’t know that Elon Musk started PayPal. And before that, he did a lot of other things, right? So, he did a lot of things that led up to his overnight success of Tesla.

Buddy Rushing (00:05:21):
Absolutely. It’s kind of interesting. I don’t know if this is where you want to go with this. But I had a conversation the other day with somebody who actually said something that was profound to me, and he said, “If I had a choice, I wouldn’t want to be a meteoric success because I don’t feel like that quick success trajectory would allow me to develop into the kind of person that can sustain that level of success.” And I was like, “Man, are you right because look at the dramatic rise and fall of most meteoric successes.” And there’s actually a book called The Big Leap, and it talks about the upper limit problem that we run into. And that is when we achieve great amounts of success in a small amount of time, oftentimes, we are not emotionally or psychologically developed enough to be able to handle that kind of success. And so, we self-sabotage, and we see it over and over and over again. That’s why most lottery winners a year after they won the lottery are worse off than before they won the letter. And athletes who get great signing bonuses and so on.

Buddy Rushing (00:06:18):
Meteoric rise, while it’s exciting and good for TV, oftentimes, is not what you see whenever you see people who sustain levels of success or a lifetime. Like Tony Robbins says, “It’s not about what you achieve. It’s about the person you become that achieves that thing,” because that can never be taken away even if your wealth is taken away or your business or whatever it is. The person you become during that journey is far more powerful than the elements of success like money [inaudible 00:06:45] like cars and things like that.

Robert Leonard (00:06:48):
I can’t even pick one specific person to mention because there are just so many. But there are so many successful people that say something similar. It’s the journey, not the destination, right? As cliché as that sounds, it really is. It’s everything that you learn along the way to where you’re going that really matters. And it’s not so much where you end up, and I think you’re right.

Robert Leonard (00:07:06):
And I think that is such a profound thing because people want to make that one trade. Right now, we’re seeing it in the cryptocurrency space. People want to buy into, let’s just say, Dogecoin or whatever the situation is. People want to buy that become millionaires, multi-millionaires overnight. But what they don’t realize is everything else that comes along with that that they’re not prepared for.

Buddy Rushing (00:07:25):
That’s right. You can understand that because that’s not sexy. Talking like that doesn’t sell books. It’s not what you make movies about because, to most people, boring. It’s like talking about tax strategy. Tax strategy if you were just to ask the average person is so boring and confusing and scary. But if you ask any of your multi-millionaire friends, they will all tell you that it’s just a critical and exciting part of building and maintaining wealth. But ask the masses, and it’s like, “Ask me 15 years ago,” and I would have been like, “Are you kidding me? Taxes, boring.” Same thing with the journey of personal development, seems boring until you realize the ultimate power that it gives you which is limitless. It’s truly limitless.

Robert Leonard (00:08:06):
It’s funny that you mention that because I actually sort of had that realization recently with taxes. I actually have three tax books sitting right here on my desk two from BiggerPockets one from the Rich Dad Poor Dad series, the Rich Advisor Series, Tax-Free Wealth. So, I totally understand where you’re coming from.

Robert Leonard (00:08:24):
You mentioned that you’ve done a bunch of things in real estate, and we’ll get into all types of those different things. But I want to start with one of the most interesting. And that is that I noticed you and your wife rent out an RV that you named Dream Chaser. What’s the story behind that? Is that potentially a good way to get rental income for people who might not be able to afford a full property yet?

Buddy Rushing (00:08:46):
An incredible way, and I have no idea who’s going to hear this podcast. But I have fully developed an abundance mindset. And so, I don’t mind telling you this. And the reason I say that and caveat with that is, this is a relatively new business model idea. Everyone that I talk to has no idea what I’m talking about. And so, ultimately, by me telling you this, I’m going to create lots of competition. But that’s okay because I believe in abundance. It’s an awesome way to create income.

Buddy Rushing (00:09:15):
Let me just give you an example, and I’ll tell you the story. My wife and I have never been in an RV, didn’t even know what it stood for a year ago. And because of the pandemic and the fact that we couldn’t go to hotels, and we couldn’t do any of that stuff, our friends all started taking RV trips. And so, we were like, “Well, if they’re doing it, and they seem to be having fun, why don’t we try it?” And so, we rented an RV that we didn’t know anything about them. So, we’re like, “Well, it’s an RV, right? It’s essentially going camping. So, let’s just get the old cheap one and roll it.”

Buddy Rushing (00:09:45):
So, we decided to go up to the desert, and we’re driving this 1986 Winnebago, and it has no AC, and it’s wobbling all over the road, and there’s no car seats for the kids. And so, my wife had to drive behind us with the kids which we didn’t plan on doing. And then, it broke down in the middle of the desert. A heatwave hit simultaneously at Lake Havasu. And so, it was 120 degrees at Lake Havasu, and we had no AC, and it was the most miserable experience we’d ever had. So, we left it, and it broke down. So, we called the guy and said, “Hey, come get your RV. We’re going to drive home.”

Buddy Rushing (00:10:22):
So, it was a terrible experience. Never do RVs again. Interestingly, my first real estate investment which we don’t have time to go over right now is the most horrible and still is the worst real estate investment I’ve ever made and should have made me run away from real estate. But I think because I’m a marine and we’re used to just getting kicked and fighting back, it didn’t disillusion me. Instead, I was like, “You know what? Let’s do it again. Let’s do it the right way.”

Buddy Rushing (00:10:49):
And so, we rented the top of the line RV from RVshare. It’s kind of like Airbnb but for RVs. So, we rented a brand new at the time 2020 C-class motorhome, and we drove it around. And we’re like, number one, we had a fantastic time. We took it out like four days, and we’re like, “This was awesome and so worth the money.” But I paid this guy two grand for four days, and I was happy to do it. There is no way that he’s paying that for this rig. I knew nothing about what RVs cost.

Buddy Rushing (00:11:18):
But I knew my intuition. I knew the opportunity, the delta between what he probably was paying, and what I definitely was paying him. And so, I asked him. When I got back, I said, “Hey, would you pay for this, dah, dah, dah.” And I could instantly tell that there is a huge margin, a huge difference. So, I looked around.

Buddy Rushing (00:11:38):
And I said, “Okay. Let’s buy a brand new RV.” And I just happen, you’re going to get a kick out of this, read those textbooks brother, because I knew in the back of my head from something I’d read in a book years ago that a business vehicle over 6000 pounds can be bonus depreciated in year one against your active income if it’s used as a business [inaudible 00:11:56]. Let me say that again. Over 6000 pounds you can depreciate all of it, including a $100,000 RV.” So, if you have $100,000 of business income, and you buy an RV, that’s with the same business and use it as a business vehicle, you can offset that hundred grand.

Buddy Rushing (00:12:11):
And if you’re in a 35% tax bracket, that’s $35,000. Well, guess how much you have to put down on an RV? 20 grand, 25. So, you’re using tax money for the down payments and 100,000 RV is like 600 bucks a month. But if you go on outdoorsy.com, and you look up Dream Chaser, you’ll see it’s listed at $245 night, and it’s flying off the shelf. Everybody wants to rent it. We’ve got tons of five-star reviews. In fact, Outdoorsy is telling us we need to increase the rates because people love it, and they love the price for it.

Buddy Rushing (00:12:42):
So, now, there’s lots of hidden costs. Outdoorsy takes a fee, and there’s maintenance costs. So, it’s not just pure profit. But it’s a big margin. Now, it’s a headache. I literally just barely made it back in time for this podcast because I had to drive down to La Mesa and go pick it up to bring it back because we’re building it out and need to build a team so we can manage multiple ones. So, it’s a business like anything else that you have to put together and put work into. But, yeah, it’s very, very profitable. Very profitable, and we get our own brand new RV to use any time we want. And not only are we not paying for it. It’s paying us to use it.

Robert Leonard (00:13:16):
Do you have to live in a big city for that to be viable?

Buddy Rushing (00:13:19):
So, we’re just now building out the business model. So, I haven’t actually done the analysis on other cities yet. But my contention would be no. I think that as long as you’re in an area where the campsites are calling people. So, what I would do if I were to do an analysis of another area… I mean first step I would do is I’d look on RVshare and Outdoorsy and find camps. That’s what you do in any market. You look and you find it. Whether it’s real estate or whatever, I find the camps. I find what RVs are there. What are they going for?

Buddy Rushing (00:13:49):
I do a map of the camp sites around and find which RVs are admitted to every campsite. Some of them are too big. Some of them are different hookups. Look, if there’s an area with a high concentration of KOAs and campsites and the places you can take an RV, then there’s probably going to be a high demand for RVs there and especially if you have a place there or maybe you buy an empty lot or something, and you stage your RVs there, you could absolutely run a business, in my opinion, almost anywhere.

Robert Leonard (00:14:18):
This whole strategy is super fascinating to me because I come at it from a little bit different vantage point than you do. Somebody who had never been in an RV, I practically grew up in an RV. So, I didn’t really. But I raced motocross, National Motocross, across the country. I can’t even count how many weekends my dad and I spent in an RV traveling across the US racing motocross. So, I know RVs well. My parents own, not an RV but a tow-along trailer in a campground. I mean I live in rural New Hampshire. So, we have campgrounds everywhere.

Robert Leonard (00:14:51):
My whole family’s all into camping. They do it almost every single weekend. So, I know this. This is a business that I think I would have a huge competitive advantage in. And so, just to hear you talking about it is super fascinating to me.

Buddy Rushing (00:15:04):
As soon as we get off the call, jump on RVshare and Outdoorsy, just rvshare.com, outdoorsy.com, and run the camps. And I’m telling you, if you want to talk about it, I’m happy to give you everything that I’ve learned, my fifth business. As in, I’m running five businesses and four other ones right now. And so, I can only dedicate so much time to it. It’s for me going to be a business model that offsets tax and creates a residual income stream once I build the team. But it’s only one of five businesses that I’m running. And it’s only the most recent one.

Buddy Rushing (00:15:37):
Someone who has their only business or maybe has a primary business or someone who had expertise that they grew up building could build a fleet. There’s nothing stopping you from building a fleet. And I’m telling you with the right rig, you could net, net, net after all expenses to $2000 plus a month.

Robert Leonard (00:15:54):
I love how you mentioned the abundance mindset at the very beginning because this podcast is relatively popular. I’m not trying to pump myself up or anything. But it gets a lot of downloads, and I invest long distance. And I talk about the city where I invest. And a lot of times, people ask me, “Why would you ever tell where you’re investing? Isn’t that going to increase your competition?” And I’m like, “Listen. It’s an abundance mindset. There are 120,000 people in that city. I’m not going to be able to buy every property.”

Robert Leonard (00:16:20):
And really, the truth of the matter is 100% of people hear that. 10% might actually consider it. 1% might actually take action. So, I’m really just not super worried. And if you want to be successful, you have to have an abundance mindset.

Buddy Rushing (00:16:34):
I love that, and I got to be honest with you, man. I learned it from people like Peter Diamandis and Elon Musk who open-source the patents for Tesla for the love of God because the mission of Tesla is not to make cars. Most people don’t know that. The mission for Tesla is to move the human race toward an energy sustainable future. And the only way he can do that is with health. And that’s why he released the patent to everybody. That’s crazy, right?

Buddy Rushing (00:16:59):
And so, you see examples like that, and I say, “Okay. How can I apply that in my life and in my business?” And the purpose of White Feather is to help military people create financial freedom through real estate investing. And people ask me like, “Why are you so liberal in saying what you’re doing, how you’re doing it, and all of that stuff?” Just [the] same exact thing they said to you, “Won’t there be competition?”

Buddy Rushing (00:17:21):
And I’m like, “I guess you could look at it as competition.” But I look at it as we need to band together. There needs to be other White Feathers. There needs to be other people running these things that are focused on helping military people, create financial freedom, because there are millions and millions and millions of active duty [soldiers] and veterans that need this, that want it, and don’t know where to get it.

Buddy Rushing (00:17:42):
And without all of us doing it together, we won’t make a huge systemic change. It’ll just be Buddy in his little corner of Carlsbad that’s swinging away as best I can. So, I agree, man. And I think if we all approach it with that mindset, I just gave you everything that I’ve learned about RVs. And I hope you do amazing things with it because then you will be more successful. You’ll be able to impact other people better. And ultimately, our community in our country will benefit as a result.

Robert Leonard (00:18:11):
If I do end up acting on the RV idea, I will certainly follow up with you. Unlike you, I have many different business ventures going, my hand in many different pots. So, I don’t know if it’s something that I’ll actually be able to pursue. But as an entrepreneur, I fall victim to the shiny object syndrome. But it is something I’m interested in. So, I definitely will take it into consideration. And actually, that leads into one of my other questions perfectly.

Robert Leonard (00:18:33):
A common piece of advice given by real estate gurus is that new investors should really be hyper-focused on one strategy. Just get really good at one thing. Given everything that we’ve talked about, given that you’ve done quite a variety of things in real estate, how do you view specialization versus diversification for a new investor?

Buddy Rushing (00:18:51):
Great, great question. And the advice that I would give is actually don’t follow the path that I followed because the path that I followed was diversified. The only thing that was unique about [it] or that I guess focused [on] it was that it was in real estate. But I mean my first three deals were wholesales. My next deal was the flip. Then, the next deal was a trustee investment where I essentially lent money to a trustee as private capital.

Buddy Rushing (00:19:17):
The next one was a burst strategy. The next one was self-directing my IRA into a 5-plex which required sort of commercial considerations because it’s larger than a 4-plex. And the next five or six were all rental property acquisitions with bank financing.

Buddy Rushing (00:19:32):
So, for me, I did not specialize at all. But what I did unknowingly, specialized in, was educating people because throughout the course of those 10 years where we did maybe over 10 years, I mean maybe 25 deals, not a ton, maybe 20 deals. It really wasn’t a lot. But it was a lot of varied types of deals, and I would educate myself on something. And then, I’d put it into practice and learn how to do it and do it successfully. Then, I’d see another opportunity and so on. But the one thing I was doing consistently is I was talking about it with my fellow marine friends and with other people that were asking.

Buddy Rushing (00:20:08):
And there was always a lot of interest. And I would even speak at Real Estate Investors Associations. So, got all the presentations. I put together presentations. I’d speak. My wife and I would speak together. People always seem to get a lot out of it, and they seem to enjoy it. And so, I would keep doing it.

Buddy Rushing (00:20:23):
And so, I created unknowingly this large group of people who had followed our journey and who believed that we were trustworthy and honorable and were eager to be a part of something that we were in. Then, when we finally created a relationship with, this is where it started, a big turnkey provider in the Midwest, and we were like, “You know what? We built a lot of equity in these properties. Time to sell them out of California, 1031 exchange them into a whole bunch of rentals in the Midwest.”

Buddy Rushing (00:20:51):
And so, we started doing that. And in doing that, we were like, “Wow, this is great.” This was 2017. This is working really well, and this guy, I asked him. I said, “So, how many of these properties do you have?” And he said, “Well, I have like 35 more that are coming down the pipeline.” And I was like, Man, everybody has been asking me for 10 years to be involved in what we’re doing. But I’ve never had any excess inventory.

Buddy Rushing (00:21:11):
And now, here we have this really good inventory that this guy has. And I have this group of people. What if I put the two together? And that was the start of it. And so, then three years later, we as a group have purchased almost 300 properties. And now, we’re shifting into syndications and larger multi-families and short-term rentals and various things and RVs and things like that.

Buddy Rushing (00:21:33):
But my point of that is my strategy was to learn a bunch of different things. But the thing that I really specialized in was education. I educated people. I willingly gave value where I could. So, my advice to new investors is not necessarily to do that because you’re going to have a low success rate doing that.

Buddy Rushing (00:21:54):
I had a few things that fell into place that contributed to success. I would absolutely say, “Read the books. Go to the Real Estate Investors Associations. Go to BiggerPockets. Learn about at least three different acquisition strategies. It could be wholesaling.” Well, and wholesaling is not even necessarily an acquisition strategy. It’s an exit strategy. But there is an acquisition that goes along with wholesale.

Buddy Rushing (00:22:17):
So, maybe it’s buying foreclosures. Maybe, it’s door knocking. Maybe, it’s negotiating with absentee owners. My first acquisition strategy which worked really well was military town, finding the VA loans where the homeowner no longer lived there. So, that is an absentee owner which means they’re typically…they’re an absentee landlord, and most of them aren’t that way by choice. A lot of them had to move away or they moved away and just kept the house.

Buddy Rushing (00:22:44):
So, there’s typically a lot of deferred maintenance and equity built up in it and, oftentimes, don’t want to get rid of it. That was my hypothesis. And so, I sent mailers, sent letters and postcards and such to the owners of these houses that lived out of state and said, “Hey, we’re a military couple. We’d love to buy the house, dah, dah, dah.” And that had a huge response rate.

Buddy Rushing (00:23:04):
To us, it was a 20% response rate to our mailers which is about 10 times the industry average because it was hyper-niche. That worked for us. Would that work for everybody? No. But the point is I focused on one acquisition strategy first and drove that one.

Buddy Rushing (00:23:17):
So, what I would recommend for people, entertain at least three acquisition strategies. Focus on the one you like the best that resonates the most with you and drill into that one. Drill into that one for a good solid six months at least before you turn away and try to do anything else.

Buddy Rushing (00:23:31):
So, I was on a call last night with a mastermind, and they said, “What is the secret to success in your spare time?” Because I remember I was full active duty for 12 years of this development, 11 years, 12 years because I just got out a few months ago. And I said, “You want to ignore all of the stuff that’s not IPA-related.” And that’s income-producing activities.

Buddy Rushing (00:23:52):
So, do you really need a website? Probably not at the beginning. Do you need a business card? Almost certainly not at the beginning. Do you need a logo? Definitely not at the beginning. Do you need shirts and hats? Do you need to answer emails from people that are not driving your business forward? No. Anything that you’re doing. Netflix. Is Netflix income-producing? No. So, make a list of all of the things that you’re doing that are not income-producing. And then the one or two things that are income producing, focus on those. If you really want to focus, focus on IPAs until you start getting an income stream.

Buddy Rushing (00:24:31):
And then once you’ve got a decent amount of money and multiple income streams, then you can dabble. Why do you think I’m dabbling in RVs? I have a solar company that I built last two years ago out here in Southern California. Why? Because Southern California is insane as far as what they’re charging on energy rates. And solar is way cheaper now. And so, it immediately became successful. But I wouldn’t have been able to focus on that if I didn’t have these successful companies that we’ve already built because I didn’t know if it would succeed or not. It’s a new world. I knew nothing about solar.

Robert Leonard (00:24:59):
I love this talk about IPAs because when I first started with my first side hustles, I was a W-2 employee. I was just working on my own… I wouldn’t even say I was an entrepreneur or building businesses. I was really just working on these little ideas that I had as side hustles. I was doing literally everything that you just mentioned people shouldn’t be doing at the beginning. I was creating websites. I was creating logos. I created t-shirts, business cards. I had all this stuff printed. And I was wearing it. I thought it was awesome, and I thought I was making great progress, and then nothing happened.

Robert Leonard (00:25:27):
And the business didn’t turn into anything. I tried to actually develop the product or service or whatever I was offering at the time, and it failed. And all that time and money I spent on stuff that didn’t matter was a waste, and I could have just gone to the market first with the product and service and tested that with what actually mattered and saved all of that time and money. And I think that’s a big, big, big mistake that a lot of people make.

Buddy Rushing (00:25:50):
It’s a huge deal, and it’s important to understand why. The reason that we do it is because there [is] psychological safety in feeling productive with no chance of failing, right? It is impossible to fail at building a logo. It’s impossible to fail at designing t-shirts or creating business cards or a website.

Buddy Rushing (00:26:09):
Now, you can go through iterations and make them better. But it’s impossible to fail and no one will judge you based off of it. But you feel productive because you’re doing this. But the actuality is that if you want to create income, then, you have to put a product or a service out there that people will reject. They inevitably will reject it, and then a few will buy it. And then, a few more will buy it, and lots will reject it. And a few more will buy it, and lots will reject it.

Buddy Rushing (00:26:35):
That rejection, you have to understand, is a critical part of the process. I don’t know if you can see this thing on the wall behind me. But it says, it’s an Elon Musk quote that says, “Failure is absolutely an option here. If things are not failing, then you’re not innovating enough.” And that quote is really about innovation and iterative improvement.

Buddy Rushing (00:26:53):
But what I take from it as well is be okay with failure. I have a saying that I adopted. I think I stole it from somebody. But I forget who. I either win or I learn. That’s it. There are two outcomes to any endeavor. I win or I learn. And I’m telling you I constantly learn. Sometimes, it sucks. I’ve learned a lot in the past six months. I’m not kidding. There have been tons of projects that have not gone well in the last six months.

Buddy Rushing (00:27:22):
But if I allow myself to really just sit and stew in the failure and don’t allow it to become a shaping or a learning opportunity, then, I inevitably will emotionally drown myself. But if I’m afraid to take any chance at all, that’s worse. And that’s what happens. That’s what people do, is they’re not ready to admit to themselves that they are afraid of taking that chance. I did this too, by the way. So, feel better about yourself because I did the exact same thing when I was starting out. I built all of the different stuff that I didn’t need to build, and it took me forever to do any deals.

Buddy Rushing (00:27:53):
If you really want to have success, you have to identify the IPAs, the income-producing activities that are going to be scary. If they’re not scary, I promise you, they’re not real IPAs. If they’re not outside of your comfort zone as an entrepreneur, guarantee, they’re not the right things to do. What you need to do is identify the things that scare you and you know are good for you. And do exactly those things and don’t allow yourself to do anything that is not in that wheelhouse. I promise you, you will have success if you do that.

Robert Leonard (00:28:23):
I want to talk a bit more about White Feather Investments. Why did you choose to start this organization and specifically focus on military individuals?

Buddy Rushing (00:28:31):
The original part of it, it was just me and my wife buying rental properties, and it really wasn’t going to be much more than just us creating additional income streams for ourselves so that we could break the cycle of poverty in my family. That is something I was dead set [on], I wanted to change the cycle of poverty in my family because I saw all of the devastation that came from it. So, that’s what it was about. It was purely selfish at first. And there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong with having a selfish goal or selfish dream.

Buddy Rushing (00:28:57):
But once I tripped upon this idea that what I’ve been doing all along was educating people and providing value to people because I really enjoyed teaching, I was a company commander, and I started seeing my marines come through after deployments, combat deployments, and they would transition out. And then, we’d stay connected, Facebook-friendly, or whatever, and we’d stay connected, and I started seeing their lives after they got out.

Buddy Rushing (00:29:22):
And these are kids I mean that were absolute heroes on the battlefield. I have one guy in particular. I’m not going to say his name. But he was an absolute stud with a rifle in his hand. Unbelievable bravery, and could always count on do anything that I needed him to do. And some of the stuff that quite frankly if I were really honest with myself, I might have been too scared to do that he just did. And then, he got out, and he became a plumber, and he gained a lot of weight. He started drinking a ton and would message me about how horrible his life was and how much he resented the guy who was his boss who was 23 years old and had never done anything.

Buddy Rushing (00:30:01):
And he sent me a meme that was supposed to be a joke. But I knew how serious it was. And it shows a marine leaning over a wall firing a saw, and it says, “PTSD is just realizing you’ll never be this awesome again.” And we laughed about it because that’s what you do to hide the pain. But the reality is that when people get out of the military, oftentimes, they’ve never experienced anything in adult life that is structureless. They’ve experienced only community and structure and set income and a crystallized vision and a group of people around you who believe what you believe and seriousness of purpose that you’re serving something greater than yourself.

Buddy Rushing (00:30:39):
And then, you get out, and you lose 100% of that overnight. You lose your income. You lose the camaraderie. You lose the authority and the sense of honor that comes along with the uniform that you’re no longer allowed to wear. You lose the sense of community and people who understand how your mind works, and you lose that seriousness of purpose and mission, all at once. Imagine that, a young kid, 25, 26 years old who has experienced amazingly hard things instantly being on his own or her own.

Buddy Rushing (00:31:08):
So, what happens? Most often is they try their best to escape that feeling with what they’ve always known which is alcohol and pills from the VA, and that’s why there are 22 suicides a day and veteran homelessness is four times what it should be or what it is.

Buddy Rushing (00:31:22):
Anyway, I don’t need to tell you. Everybody knows that there are lots of difficulties in the veteran community. But one of the problems is that when you get out, and you don’t have the financial security to do what you want to do, then you do what you have to do. And oftentimes, that’s not as rewarding as it was when you were in uniform. It’s almost never as rewarding as it was when you were in uniform. But you don’t have the money to do anything else. You don’t have the money to create the life of your dreams because you’ve never learned anything about money. And it was always just direct deposit into your account.

Buddy Rushing (00:31:52):
And so, what we’ve done is we basically are working with people in their spare time do what we did. Buy real estate, learn different ways to create residual income streams so that whenever they transition, they have not only a sense of purpose, but also an extra income stream, and just as importantly, I’ve found a community of people who have experienced what they’ve experienced and are like-minded and who have a sense of service and of honor. And it’s been amazing, dude.

Buddy Rushing (00:32:21):
Honestly, Robert, the velocity of trust within the White Feather community is savage. I was on a call earlier today with three other guys, and we’re taking down a $1.5 million dollar, 16 unit apartment complex in Louisville, Kentucky, and we’re going to buy it and break it into four quads and do great things with it. I’ve known one of them for six months, and I’ve known one of them for about a year and a half. And the other I just met a couple of months ago.

Buddy Rushing (00:32:44):
None of them knew each other. We all got on a call yesterday, talked very briefly about…and we have very close shared backgrounds, and I run a real estate investing accelerator that they had all been through. And within an hour, we were ready to make an offer. We’ve made an offer, and we’re going to move forward with it, and I know that I can trust them to do what they say they’re going to do. That’s how fast you can move when you have such a tight community, and that’s not an unremarkable story inside the White Feather community.

Buddy Rushing (00:33:10):
So, that’s the purpose of it. The purpose of it is to help people have that sense of community and access to a network and access to deals and education and so on to ultimately help the people who have fought and defended the American dream have a decent shot at living the American dream themselves.

Robert Leonard (00:33:25):
Right now, I know one of the things you do with White Feather is you basically turn investors onto other turnkey providers. You connect them with one another. Do you see White Feather potentially becoming the turnkey provider in the future rather than using a third-party provider?

Buddy Rushing (00:33:43):
Yeah. Absolutely. So, we’ve got really good partnerships with the few turnkey providers that we’re doing other stuff with. But absolutely. The endgame is taking people who’ve gone through the accelerator, and we’ve already done it. We’ve already done it. We had a couple go through the accelerator. They quit their jobs on the West Coast. They moved out to Florida and have created a very powerful, very prolific short-term rental business where they find and acquire short-term rentals on the beach there, and manage them, and so on.

Buddy Rushing (00:34:12):
And we’re buying as many things as we can. I’ve invested personally in five of their deals. And so, that’s an example of one where I mean they’re some of our favorites to work with, and we’ve got other people who are part of the community that are providing… And that’s the ultimate instinct. Absolutely, Robert. The ultimate instinct is to have little operations in every MSA around the United States from Memphis to Little Rock to Birmingham, Alabama to St. Louis, Missouri, Jacksonville, here in Southern California where it’s White Feather people finding deals, White Feather people buying them together, and then managing them together. And all of that income and wealth come into their community.

Buddy Rushing (00:34:57):
And I remember the mission of White Feather, the mission that we created together, is to help create financially free military individuals. And we’ve since expanded that to what we call Our Nation’s Heroes which includes police and firefighters and first responders. But it’s primarily military, and we’re not done until you’re financially free.

Buddy Rushing (00:35:15):
So, if your financial freedom number is $10,000 a month of residual until you’re there, we’re not finished And it’s interesting, and this. I’m sure that 10,000 when you start getting close is going to start moving out. The goal post moves out. So, it is a lifelong journey, and it is what I believe I will spend the next phase of my life doing.

Robert Leonard (00:35:38):
You have eight different cities listed on your site as your investment locations. How’d you decide on those eight cities? What exactly are you looking for?

Buddy Rushing (00:35:47):
Yeah. So, I’m going to condense a massive question into a very small answer. So, I start with the macro-analysis. I shift into the microanalysis, and then I drive into the cash flow analysis. So, macro-analysis, you can look at a lot of different things. But we look for demographic trends. And what I mean by that is who’s moving in there and how many are moving in there? Is it high-income individuals that are moving there? Are they people moving there for jobs that are growing?

Buddy Rushing (00:36:15):
Are people moving away from the city? What is the overall legal structure of the city? Are they more in favor of developments? Are they more in favor of landlords? Are they more in favor of business? Are businesses going there in a stampede like they are in Austin or are they fleeing like they are in various parts of the West Coast? When you look at the city itself, you have to look at, “I ultimately want to find the path of progress.”

Buddy Rushing (00:36:40):
I love buying in the path of progress. And what that means is there are certain growth patterns to each city. And as a city grows out, typically, they grow out from the epicenter. They will shoot off into these little pockets of outgrowth, and that’s driven by a lot of different things, redevelopment, ideas, opportunity zones, economic development. If an Amazon fulfillment center is going to be put 10 miles away in this direction, there’s a pretty decent chance people are going to be buying along that corridor.

Buddy Rushing (00:37:06):
You don’t use one aspect. You use a bunch of aspects, and you layer them together to try to form a hypothesis of what areas are going to be the best to invest in. Then, once you identify a few of those, then, you do the microanalysis, and that is analyzing the rent-to-price ratios analyzing where the local facilities are, the police and firefighters, and so on. What are the schools like? What is the vacancy rate in a given area? And I use about a little more than a dozen metrics, and I teach on all the stuff. This is all part of the real estate investment seller.

Buddy Rushing (00:37:35):
We spend a month on analysis, two weeks on macro-analysis, two weeks on micro-analysis. That’s how important it is. And then, once you get down into it, you start selecting neighborhoods. And then, you start looking at the streets and seeing how in a lot of areas, you’re going to see like, for instance, if you look at the top 10 cities to invest in for rental real estate, you’re going to see a very close correlation to the top 10 highest crime rates. Interesting, right? You’d never think that.

Buddy Rushing (00:37:59):
But where is the crime? Is it located in the city center where you’re not buying anyway? Usually. Is it located in certain neighborhoods where I recommend not buying? Yes. But in the areas surrounding that, are the property crimes and the violent crimes and everything like that lower than the national average? And yet, the rent-to-price ratios are higher because there are good jobs in the area. I don’t know. This is all part of the analysis. But once you’ve dialed that in, then you can start looking from the zip codes into neighborhoods and into street to street.

Buddy Rushing (00:38:28):
Then, you start finding properties. You do analysis on a property. You run the cash flow analysis. What is the acquisition price? What are my expenses? Rent minus PITI, property management, and vacancy. When you look at that, and you’re like, “Wow. This would cash flow at a 10% mark.” Well, let me validate all these assumptions. So, you talk to the property manager and say, “What is the vacancy rate for this particular property for what you see? And so on and so on.

Buddy Rushing (00:38:49):
There are lots that go into it. But I do an in-depth analysis of each city.

Buddy Rushing (00:38:53):
And if you overlay those on, Memphis, Little Rock. St. Louis, Columbus, so on, you will see that time and time again hit on major measures. Florida almost the entire state is a great state to invest in. But you can get burned in Florida too especially if you invest in an area where you don’t take into account all of the added expenses that come along with the fact that it gets smacked with a hurricane every couple of years.

Robert Leonard (00:39:21):
I know you mentioned earlier that you left the military about five months ago. But up until then, you had been in active duty in the military. You were running White Feather investing in real estate doing all these other businesses that you’ve mentioned, and you also have your own family, and you’re doing that all at the same time. What are some of your time management strategies and tips that you use to help you manage all of these different things?

Buddy Rushing (00:39:42):
Yeah. So, there are three things that I’ll get on. I cannot stress IPAs enough. If you only have two hours in a day because when you’re working in the Marine Corps, if you’re like a company commander or working on the MEPS staff or whatever, you can’t just be like, “Hold on, General. I have to run this cash flow analysis.” You can’t do any of that stuff. And so, sometimes, you use your lunch breaks. But oftentimes, those are the times you work out, and you have to squeeze that workout in they fit. Otherwise, you get kicked out.

Buddy Rushing (00:40:09):
So, it’s eight-hour days and six-hour nights. But then whenever you start having a family, you can’t just neglect your family nor would you want to because that defeats the purpose of creating a life that you want to live. And so, you have to figure it out. It’s like, “Okay. Well, how much sleep do I actually need?” And with my downtime, and I don’t care how busy you are, everyone has time that they could be dedicating toward building their dreams. And if you say that you don’t, then I would recommend that you look hard at your allocation of 86,400 seconds every day. Everyone has the same amount, and yet there are people that are doing so much more than you or me or whoever’s listening to this call and yet we’re not. Why? So, take a look, and I say 86,400 seconds because if you break it down by hours, you’re missing the points. You can do a lot in 10 minutes.

Buddy Rushing (00:40:52):
You can do a ton in 15 or 30 seconds. I have sent off an email in 30 seconds that has absolutely resulted in a deal that made a huge amount of money. But it occurred to me that this could be a possibility. So, I sent the email, said, “Hey, man. What do you think about this?” He came back later, and that resulted in the deal. If I haven’t sent that 30-second email, that deal wouldn’t have resulted.

Buddy Rushing (00:41:11):
So, you take a look at how your day is played out, and be real with yourself. Okay. Maybe, I did not need to watch that second episode of Queen Gambit. Maybe, I did not need to sit down and veg out on the couch because I had a rough day. Well, okay, you’re going to have rough days. But if you’re truly dedicated to it, then you carve out. Maybe, it’s one hour, two hours a day. If you’re going to do that, you have to spend that time on IPAs. So, make a list of your IPAs and brutally discipline yourself to do those IPAs in the spare pockets of your time. That’s the first part.

Buddy Rushing (00:41:43):
Use technology to outsource your brain. You need to have systems in place that can manage the information in your life. Information management is a massive deal. So, Google Calendar, basically, I think it is free. I don’t know. I think you can have to upgrade the storage at some point. But it’s free basically, Google Calendar. There are things that I need to do a year from now. I mean I have it. If you look out through my Google Calendar over the next year, you’ll see things spattered here, and there, and there, and there. And people are like, “How in the world can you keep track of 20 rental properties and eight nice indications and five different businesses and all this different stuff? Plus everything you need to do as a marine, how do you handle all that stuff?”

Buddy Rushing (00:42:24):
And part of it is because I outsource my memory to the cloud. I put everything in my Google Calendar, and then it just reminds me. It tells me what to do that day. And then, I look on the weekend at the next week, and I say, “Okay. Where is the open time? And what are the IPAS I need to put in there?” And it’s an in exact science. I often find myself doing things that are not IPA-related. So, give yourself some grace if you don’t get this right quickly.

Buddy Rushing (00:42:48):
But you plan out in increments. If your week is not planned out in hour-long or half-hour-long increments, then you can’t expect to have the level of organization and discipline to build and scale a business by yourself. And the second and the last thing is, I just mentioned by yourself, you need to whenever possible add people to your team that you can trust that can help do things that you don’t have time right now to do. That’s a tough thing to do.

Robert Leonard (00:43:14):
How has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted your personal real estate investing and also everything that you’re doing with White Feather?

Buddy Rushing (00:43:20):
I predicted over a year ago what the pandemic would do to real estate. And I was right in one area and wrong in almost everything else. I was right in the fact that I said there would be turbulence in the rental markets because there would be people who lose their jobs and eventually stimulus and such would run out, and they wouldn’t be able to afford to pay, and that there would be moratoriums on eviction. So, you would be able to evict them. So, I was right on that.

Buddy Rushing (00:43:44):
But I thought the market would stagnate at best because I thought that people would stop buying properties because they wouldn’t be able to go see properties. And they would be scared of the pandemic and so on. And my god, was that wrong, right? We’ve experienced our double-digit appreciation across the United States.

Buddy Rushing (00:43:59):
So, the answer is personally my own personal portfolio, I’ve experienced more turbulence from a tenant base than in the last year than I ever have before from turnovers to the cost of the turnover going up meaning the material cost has gone up a lot. It takes longer to get lumber, and it costs more and so on. So, my underlying expenses have gone up on the properties that I’ve had problems with. But across the board, all of my properties have appreciated over 15% where I’ve got a lot of properties in Memphis and some in Chicago and some in Florida and so on.

Buddy Rushing (00:44:33):
But they’ve all appreciated like crazy which has unlocked a lot of equity, and interest rates simultaneously [inaudible 00:44:39]. So, I signed the CDs this morning for six-week finances, cash-out refinances. I selected up to 75% cash-out refinance on all these properties that it appreciated, and I was able to get 2.875% interest on 30-year fixed financing. If that number doesn’t blow you away, then you’re just not familiar with financing in real estate. That’s an insane number for 30-year fixed rental real estate for a cash-out refinance.

Buddy Rushing (00:45:06):
So, what I will tell you is that in the short term, real estate is probably going to continue being turbulent. But in the long term, in my opinion, there’s no better asset class to put your money in for a combination of growth and risk-adjusted return and a hedge against inflation because you could put it into gold. That would be super safe. But are you going to experience a huge amount of growth? Probably not. You put it in crypto which probably can and will experience a huge amount of growth. But you have no inflation hedge, and you have volatility like crazy. So, your risk-adjusted return is tiny when it’s adjusted for risk.

Buddy Rushing (00:45:41):
Real estate is the only asset class where you get a risk-adjusted return that’s huge, a hedge against inflation. It’s actually a triple hedge inflation because if you have leveraged real estate at low-interest rates as the value of the dollar goes down, so does the power of that debt. But the asset price goes up, and typically so do the rent prices. So, you have a triple hedge against inflation with real estate, and you have super low-interest rates so your amortization schedule is really powerful. And you simultaneously are getting into a hard asset class where inventory is so low right now that it’s very, very likely that especially rental real estate continue to go up because people are fleeing the cities, and they all want to have an extra bedroom to work from home. And residential real estate has experienced a massive boom in the past year. So, I see the near waters still being choppy, the future waters being smooth sailing.

Robert Leonard (00:46:30):
One of my favorite entrepreneurs commonly says that this pandemic is going to be a turning point for a lot of people. He says in the future people are going to look back on this time and be able to say that they got better. They worked towards their goals, and they really separated themselves from other people, or they’re going to be able to say that they slacked, and they felt sorry for themselves and made excuses as to why they weren’t getting closer to their goals. What have you been doing during this time that has helped you get better?

Buddy Rushing (00:46:56):
My main two things, and I don’t even know that this was necessarily where I said, “You know what? There’s a pandemic. Let me use this as an opportunity.” I don’t think that I did that. I think that I was cruising along. It was a pandemic. I said, “You know what? Let’s do our best.” And then certain difficulties and challenges forced me into a situation where I could either get frustrated and push back from the table or I could grow as a person.

Buddy Rushing (00:47:23):
And so, I don’t know that I even take credit for doing it proactively. But retroactively, I have absolutely grown in my ability to handle different types of difficulties because of the pandemic and to see through the clouds and see the opportunities that exist on the far side of something that is in the short term quite scary.

Buddy Rushing (00:47:45):
Now, we’re kind of coming out of it a bit. But we didn’t know. I mean eight months ago, nine months ago, especially a year ago, man, we had no idea what the future of the country was going to be, what the future from a pandemic perspective, a political perspective an economic perspective. There’s so much uncertainty. And in that, oftentimes, people freeze. I’ve got a buddy of mine who is hammering me right now for real estate. He’s like, “Dude, whatever you can provide, I want in,” because a year ago, he reached out to me and said, “Man, I’m going to pull my chips off the table because I want to see what the pandemic does.”

Buddy Rushing (00:48:18):
And now, a year later, everything’s so much more expensive, and he feels like he missed the boat. That’s not to say that you should have invested in a bunch of stuff a year ago. That’s just talking about the mentality that he has, for the decisions that he made and how to miss the boat. So, I tell him. I’m like, “Dude, number one, forgive yourself because there are deals to be had in any market at any time. So, don’t worry about that. Don’t feel desperate because you feel like you missed the boat.”

Buddy Rushing (00:48:40):
But you do need to have a bias for action. And that bias for action has to be rooted in a vision of the future that is one that aligns with your goals. Okay. So, to take this out of the hypothetical and into the real world for a second, not only am I managing my fear of the uncertainty and frustration with the difficulties that I’ve faced with longer renovation timelines and higher prices, and so on. But I am boldly and confidently continuing to invest in various single families, multi-family, short-term rentals, and so on because I believe that the future of American real estate is incredibly bright. That’s a belief that based off of personal development that I’ve done and paying attention to people that are a lot smarter than me like you’ve referenced five or six different people that you get your information from on this call. And I do the same. I don’t make this stuff up. I steal it from other people. I take it from people who are doing great things and put a lot of work into this.

Robert Leonard (00:49:35):
Yeah. There’s nothing wrong with being a shameless cloner. One of my favorite investors of all time, his name is Mohnish Pabrai. You’ve probably never heard of him. But he’s a really big stock investor. He very commonly talks about how he is a shameless cloner, and I completely agree. Why are you going to reinvent the wheel when you can just do something that somebody else has already done, and it works, and you can just replicate it for yourself? I don’t understand why you have to create something new from scratch. If you already have a blueprint that you know works, just replicate it and do it yourself.

Buddy Rushing (00:50:00):
Yeah. That’s right. That’s why we definitely don’t have time to get into the education discussion on this call. But that’s why whenever as I raise my children in addition to reading, writing arithmetics, and so on. I absolutely am going to augment their education with real-world, applicable entrepreneurial education where plagiarism is not a bad thing. Cooperation is not a bad thing. Identifying and diverging from the masses is not a bad thing. Creating something unique and controversial is not necessarily a bad thing.

Buddy Rushing (00:50:31):
So, I think there’s the core education that we all get and have. And then, there’s this massive lack of financial education and entrepreneurial education. And that’s where the success… I mean look at all the major successes in our world today. They’re all entrepreneurs. And most of them are self-made.

Robert Leonard (00:50:48):
I think you raised a good point that I had never really thought of. I always kind of wondered why more people didn’t just follow or copy other people’s kind of blueprint that they’ve laid out for us. I mean I can’t even count. There are so many books out there that literally lay out step by step everything you need to do to get successful in various different things. And people don’t do it, and myself included. I haven’t always done this. And I’m just starting to do it over the last couple of years.

Robert Leonard (00:51:11):
So, I’m, by no means, saying that I’m perfect by any stretch of the imagination. But I think it comes back to how long throughout school, what, 16 years we’re taught that plagiarism is bad. And so, that’s ingrained in us. And I think that’s just kind of innate now that when we get into the real world, I think that’s still impacting us of somehow psychologically or subconsciously, we’re saying, “Copying somebody is bad. We’re not supposed to do that. We need to find out our own way.” And I think that probably leads to a lot of it.

Buddy Rushing (00:51:38):
Yeah. It’s very interesting, the word collaboration too. I remember it being the Naval Academy, you weren’t allowed to collaborate. Anytime you heard the word collaboration like, “Oh, my god. I could get kicked out for collaborating.” And now, it is vital to success. I could never do any of this stuff without collaborating.

Robert Leonard (00:51:54):
Yeah. I completely agree. What is something you’ve purchased recently that has had a big impact on you or just been super helpful? It doesn’t have to be expensive or any type of product specifically. It could be a software tool, a mobile app on your phone, a Peloton, anything that has just had a positive impact on your life.

Buddy Rushing (00:52:14):
Exercise is vital for entrepreneurial ingenuity. Some of the best business ideas that I’ve ever, ever had have been while I’m exercising and specifically while I’m doing cardio. And so, I will tell you maybe, it’s not just like the Peloton like that because whatever you could not bike ride or whatever. But exercising every day and letting your mind just wonder, I mean there are tons of scientific studies you can read that talk about the link between your creative side and the dopamine that’s released and the endorphins that are released from exercise.

Buddy Rushing (00:52:48):
And so, there is absolutely a neural link between those two. And so, it’s not a surprise that you get epiphanies while you run or while you bike or whatever. So, I would highly recommend that. But I got to be honest, if you ask me what is one thing that I have purchased that has given me more inspiration than anything that I’ve ever purchased, you would think it would be a book. But I’ve read so many books at this point that it’s like, “Okay. Well, I don’t really even consider those purchases because they’re basically free.”

Buddy Rushing (00:53:15):
But not surprising to you, I’m an Elon Musk fanboy, have been for years and years. And there are millions of us out there. So, get off your high horse if you think that he’s not awesome. But I always remember. I remember when I read Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad he said, “I always wanted a Porsche, and I couldn’t afford one.” And so, instead of saying, “I can’t afford it, I asked myself. I switched it, and I said, “How can I afford it?” Well, I can afford it by buying enough rental properties to use the rental income to offset the lease payment for the Porsche.” That’s what he said.

Buddy Rushing (00:53:48):
And I remember I read that long time ago, and I was like, “God, that’s kind of cool, whatever.” So, then, I one time had an opportunity to ride in a Tesla Model S, and it was like a spaceship. And I was like, “You have to be kidding me. This is amazing.” It’s not even a car. It’s an amazing piece of technological revolution. And I said, “I will have one of those some days.” Here’s the only tiny little sticking point. They’re so expensive.

Buddy Rushing (00:54:13):
Even if you lease one, a top-of-the-line one is about 15 or 1600 bucks a month for a car. And so, I said, “Man, I can’t afford that.” And then I remembered Robert Kiyosaki’s book, and I said, “All right. Let me switch it and see what happens. How can I afford it?” Well, the average rental property I’m buying right now puts off about 350 bucks a month of cash flow after all expenses. So, if I buy five of those, then I’ll have my money. I’ll have the money I need to not have to pay for it myself, but have the rental income paid for.

Buddy Rushing (00:54:43):
So, it took me three years from that time I made that decision. It took me three years that I was patient, and I did. I bought the five properties. They’re all in Memphis. Actually, those are five of the ones I’m refinancing right now. So, I still own them. And once I bought the fifth one on Knight Arnold Drive, I turned to my wife, and I said, “Babe, what do you think? What do you think?” She goes, “Absolutely, you should.” And my wife is not a spender. But she’d seen the journey. She’d seen the years and the discipline that it took and the sacrifice and everything. So, she said, “Absolutely. Go do it. Let’s go right now.”

Buddy Rushing (00:55:14):
And so, I went down and got one, and it’s a top-of-the-line Model S Ludicrous Mode. I mean there’s literally nothing else you can do to it. And those rental properties pay for it, and it’s lightning-fast. Every time I’m in it, I am inspired by what human ingenuity can do and what you can do by following a goal and by following your dreams. And I don’t think of it as like, “Oh, I can’t afford this car,” or, “Oh, look how rich I am.”

Buddy Rushing (00:55:40):
No. It’s five rental properties that I’m not paying for it. Five rental properties that are paying for it, and everyone else can do exactly the same thing if you’re willing to wait and work. And so, I’m inspired every time I get in the car. And plus, it’s just so fast. It’s so fast.

Robert Leonard (00:55:54):
When you think back on your life whether it be personally, business, investing, military, anything, what piece of advice have you received that has really had an impact on you, and you continue to use it and think of it to this day?

Buddy Rushing (00:56:07):
It plays into the IPA thing. I had a guy tell me, “Don’t step over dollars to pick up nickels.” And what he meant by that is how many people at the beginning or still fill in their own QuickBooks or do their taxes on TurboTax or save their own receipts and fill in their own spreadsheets. How many people are answering their own phone if they’re in a position where all of the things when you make that list, and I go back to the IPAs when you make that list of things that you’re doing with your day, and you drill down to the two IPAs, and in the 16 things that are non-IPAs, how many of those can be done by a virtual assistant in the Philippines for $4 an hour? How many of those can and should be done by a professional that you’re not a professional at?

Buddy Rushing (00:56:56):
You and I, we’re not accountants. We should not be doing our own books. We are not tax strategists or tax advisors. We should not be handling our own claims. I know it’s easy on TurboTax. I did it on TurboTax three or four times. But guess what? After I became an actual business owner in my mind, I went back and had those audited by a professional and got back 4800 bucks from deductions that I didn’t even know to take that I had no clue.

Buddy Rushing (00:57:20):
And so, I may have saved $900 by doing it myself. But I missed out on 4800. So, I would say that, and there’s a balance. When you’re first getting started, you have zero money. There are things you got to do yourself. You have to trade time for money and money for time first. I get that.

Buddy Rushing (00:57:40):
But you need to ruthlessly look at things you can outsource to people and outsource to automation so that it’s not put a price on what your time is worth. If your time is worth $50 an hour or $100 an hour, and it is taking you an hour to do something you could pay somebody 10 bucks for. It’s not about pride. It’s not about control because that’s what keeps a lot of people fear its control, like, I can’t let them have access to my QuickBooks because what if they screw me over or whatever? You have to responsibly do it. But you cannot be doing $5-an-hour tasks or $10-an-hour tasks.

Buddy Rushing (00:58:15):
And I don’t care if you’re a brand new entrepreneur getting started. Your time is worth more than $10 an hour. It has to be. Otherwise, you’re never going to be successful. Focus on IPAs, outsource everything else to automation or to other people.

Robert Leonard (00:58:25):
Funny enough, I actually am an accountant by trade. So, I do my own books. My MBA is in accounting, and I did work in accounting for a bit. So, yeah, I do some bookkeeping on the side hustle as well. But anyway, no. I agree. I agree. As I started to scale my podcast and some of my other businesses that I have, that was really hard for me was to let go of some of those things, and I don’t know necessarily why whether it was ego or OCD or just wanting to be perfect. I could do it better than everybody else. I don’t know what it was.

Robert Leonard (00:58:52):
But there was something that just made it really hard. And now, I’ve started to outsource a lot of things, and it’s helpful. I still have a long way to go. But it’s definitely being helpful.

Buddy Rushing (00:59:00):
Well, here’s the secret. You are better at doing it than everybody else. There’s a ton of things that I’m doing right or that I have done in business and probably that I’m still doing that I’m better at than other people. But it doesn’t mean that the value of that job, the value of that time that I spend is in concert with my true work of what I need to be doing. So, you have to be willing to let go of things that you’re better at and see people do them not as well as you and be okay with that because of the time value of money that you’re saving. And eventually, Robert, as you get big enough and as you get successful at to a certain amount of whatever that is in your head, whatever it is in your journey, you will no longer be financially incentivized to be an accountant.

Buddy Rushing (00:59:46):
Right now, now you’ve got it as a side hustle which I think is brilliant, right You’ve got a skill. It’s worth something to people. It creates an extra income-producing [inaudible 00:59:54]. Eventually, there will be a limit to how much you can charge as an accountant because I can find somebody cheaper or whatever. But there won’t be a limit to how much impact you can have with your podcast or with a book or with your real estate or whatever. And so, you’re going to look at those two things and say, “Oh, what’s the max I could charge per hour as an accountant? My time’s worth more than that.”

Buddy Rushing (01:00:11):
I’ll be interested to see when that happens to you. That would be a big ego change for you because you’re going to be like, “Oh, but I’m an accountant. I identify myself as an accountant.” If I let go of that, what am I? And if you can’t fill that void, then that’s going to be an interesting transition.

Robert Leonard (01:00:25):
Yeah. I think I’ve already kind of gone through that. So, I quit my W-2 job about four months ago, on my 26th birthday to podcast full-time and do some other things that I work on. It was a six-figure career. I went to school, got my MBA. So, I invested a lot of time and money into that career, and I did make the leap, and I really only do the bookkeeping for a couple of my friends who have their own businesses and my friend owns his own plumbing company. And so, I help him out with his book.

Robert Leonard (01:00:46):
So, I’m not really out looking for clients or doing anything like that. I just got to help out some people that I know to help them really. But that’s it. It’s definitely a hard shift. Buddy, thanks so much for joining me on the show. For those listening that are interested in learning more and might want to connect with you, where is the best place for them to go?

Buddy Rushing (01:01:03):
Yeah, I would say go to whitefeatherinvestments.com [inaudible 01:01:07] anybody. Just please go to the website first and listen to just some of the podcasts that are on there because we really go over in greater detail like the past and what we’re looking to do in the future and everything, and you can read about it, and you’ll get a lot of questions answered from there.

Buddy Rushing (01:01:27):
You can find me on Facebook, Buddy Rushing. You just send me a friend request. You can find me on Facebook. And then, if you go on the website, there is an opportunity to message, and that will route to my office manager, Greg. And if you say, “Hey, liked what I heard or dah, dah, dah, and I’d love to be a part of this thing or whatever,” then, [inaudible] will absolutely. Make sure you spend the time to talk to people. Don’t just ignore people. So, he will respond and talk to you about what the community is like and everything. And if we have a lot of residents and what we’re looking to accomplish, then, we’re always happy to add new members that have the same mission and vision as we do.

Robert Leonard (01:01:59):
I will be sure to put a link to the website and all your other resources in the show notes below for anybody that’s interested in checking those out. Buddy, thanks so much.

Buddy Rushing (01:02:07):
Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Robert Leonard (01:02:09):
All right, guys. That’s all I had for this week’s episode of Real Estate Investing. I’ll see you again next week.

Outro (01:02:15):
Thank you for listening to TIP. Make sure to subscribe to We Study Billionaires by The Investor’s Podcast Network. Every Wednesday, we teach you about Bitcoin. And every Saturday, we study billionaires and the financial markets. To access our show notes, transcripts, or courses, go to theinvestorspodcast.com. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any decision, consult a professional. This show is copyrighted by The Investor’s Podcast Network. Written permission must be granted before syndication or rebroadcasting.