Robert Leonard (04:07):

What did you do for the property management company? What was your job?

Michael Stohler (04:10):

I was a property manager. What does that entail for the listeners that are into multifamily? It’s a multifamily property manager. That means I am in charge of that property. I have a couple salespeople. I have a maintenance guy. I handle all of the requests from the tenants. I look over the leases. I handle the evictions. It’s every process. It’s basically being a landlord for 50 units or 80 units or 100 units.

Michael Stohler (04:38):

And that got me all the knowledge I needed. Now I knew, “Okay. Here’s what a lease actually looks like. Here’s what the eviction process actually looks like.” Handling customer complaints. And then, you have regional managers, you have all these up the chain that you can ask questions to. And I had managed, gotten up and I was managing 600, 650 unit apartment complex.

Robert Leonard (05:03):

Did being a property manager show you things that scared you and wanted to keep you out of going back into real estate? Or did it more excite you?

Michael Stohler (05:11):

Yeah, well, that’s a good question. There was a lot of scary situations and just dealing with people. But what I learned is because they were such a large property management, they didn’t just property manage. They actually owned the complexes. They owned around 8,000 units. Okay.

Michael Stohler (05:27):

This was a property management and also owners. But what it taught me though is, of all the scary situations that could ever happen and tenants suing you or things happen. They always had great paperwork. And they all always said in the teaching, when I was learning, my area director said, “Look, stuff’s going to happen. But as long as you’re backed up with your paperwork and your knowledge and how you handle the things, things are not going to happen.” Even though there were some scary things, I was like, that’s what it taught me. As long as the i’s are dotted, the t’s are crossed, you’ll be okay.

Robert Leonard (06:04):

Did you become a property manager after you were already a pilot? Or did being a pilot come later?

Michael Stohler (06:10):

Being a pilot came later. Being a pilot was just a dream of mine. I learned all the stuff that I needed to do as far as the property management group. But then, I was taking my lunch breaks and learning how to fly again.

Michael Stohler (06:22):

I had originally gone to school to be a pilot, but then I couldn’t afford it. That came later and I just, I had enough money. I wanted to fulfill my dream, became an airline pilot. And then once I was a pilot, that’s when I got back into it. Now I had money to actually buy things again.

Robert Leonard (06:38):

The reason I asked that was because going from being a pilot to a property manager, a lot of people would consider that as probably a step down.

Michael Stohler (06:44):

Sure.

Robert Leonard (06:45):

And so, I think there’s a lot of people who have jobs right now that they may not love. But going to do something just to get experience so that they could actually do something they love, is a step back for them. And they don’t want to take that step back. So I was curious to see what that timeline looked like for you.

Michael Stohler (07:01):

Yeah. What happened was, I was flying and I flew for a commercial airline. And I was in Houston. And during this time period, I had actually worked my way up and I was doing both. I was working full time as a pilot and I had some apartments. I had worked my way up to a 28 unit apartment complex while was still flying. And I had a property management group to do that.

Michael Stohler (07:21):

When I was flying into Houston, I hit a very bad, it’s called a wind shear. I’m not going to get into details, but I got injured. I actually tore my forearm trying to stay control of the airplane as I was landing it in Houston. And so, I was on disability. I was on a leave absence. And that’s when I was able to finally, when I wasn’t working, looking at what this property management group was doing for my property.

Michael Stohler (07:46):

And I was using my past experience working for another property management group. And I was like, “You know what? These guys are just nickling and diming me to death. No wonder I’m not making any money.” I was doing that and I fired them. And I said, “You know what? I’m going to be on disability for six months or so. I’m just going to manage it myself and see what I can do. See if I can recall all that experience that I learned years before.”

Michael Stohler (08:11):

And it started making money. And it was making money so well that I was able to continue. The thing is, is I never was able to get back to the flying. The arm was just too far damaged. My career was over at that time, at that point. I could have kept going and tried to do it, rehab and all that sort of stuff. But I just knew it’s like, I get that juices going again with the real estate. And I was like, “Oh, you know what? I can do this. I can go back to work and have this property group, nickel and diming me to death. Or I can just do it full-time.”

Michael Stohler (08:45):

And within a year or so, I was able to flip that into a 50 unit. And then it was just off to the races. I was like going, “You know what? I love flying, but if I keep doing this, I’ll just buy my own airplane and fly it.” Because people may think that it’s a step back, but people, listen, real estate it’s up to how much you want to make. And you can do it on your own time, your own schedule. To me, it’s definitely an upgrade.

Robert Leonard (09:14):

What were those first eight units that you purchased and how did you get into them? Did you just use money that you had saved up from a job you were working? Or what did that look like?

Michael Stohler (09:23):

No. No, here’s another thing that people that are starting out or even people that don’t even realize that you can do this. In my small town, there’s a college. And I went to that college and talked to their real estate guy. Those real estate guys, they handled just the property, the campus, the real estate aspect.

Michael Stohler (09:45):

What I didn’t realize, I just happened to stumble upon this guy, is that colleges, universities, hospitals, all these different corporations, they get willed, real estate. People that are alumni will put in their will, real estate, rental properties, all this sort of things. They don’t want to become a landlord. That’s not their business.

Michael Stohler (10:06):

I was actually able to do seller financing. Because what colleges are really good at is taking money on a monthly schedule they’re experts at that. They’re like, “Mike, here’s eight homes.” And it was a fourplex and four single family homes that I got seller financing through a college.

Robert Leonard (10:26):

That’s really interesting. I have done probably 100 plus episodes just on real estate and 250 episodes total of this podcast. And I have never heard of that strategy. Is it something that’s still happening today or was that just back when you were getting started?

Michael Stohler (10:41):

No, you go to any and every university in the United States and people will to their alma maters, everything. Cars, real estate, homes, multifamily. They get willed all that stuff because that’s their love. That’s the charity that they want to give to. Reach out now to these universities and colleges, because they do not want to be a landlord.

Robert Leonard (11:06):

When it comes to, there are some bank-owned properties. I know a lot of times, what the bank will do is they will work with a select handful of real estate agents to handle selling those properties. Is that how colleges do it? And if not, how do they sell those properties?

Michael Stohler (11:22):

Well, they sell them to people like me, that have just asked to buy them. They’re not real estate agents. They’ll hold onto them but they have a relationship with these investors now. Because they don’t want to go to banks because that’s commissions, those are fees. They don’t even want use a real estate agent.

Michael Stohler (11:38):

They would rather, they have five or six guys that they know that will buy the houses, sell or financing or cash because then they get some interest. And well, it’s like the wholesalers that have their list of people that they know will buy the houses. It’s more like that. They know they have these five or six or dozen, whatever, amount of investors that they know will buy these houses and that’s who they use.

Robert Leonard (12:04):

I think that this idea is going to be really, really popular with people listening to the show. I mean, I’m interested in it myself. I’m going to look into it. Who do we contact the colleges? I mean, you can’t just call up a dean and probably not going to be the admissions’ office. Right. So who are you calling at the colleges to get in contact about something like this?

Michael Stohler (12:22):

Yeah. There’s going to be someone that’s in charge of that property, especially if it’s a multi-campus. There’s going to be a real estate guy that may be his only position, but he’ll be in charge of paying the property tax. There’s going to be someone that, for me, he was actually the real estate guy. He was in charge of that property, paying all the taxes. And when they expanded, buying the different houses to put dorms. There’s that guy that does that real estate. And it’s going to be a different name. You just have to find. He’s not going to be a dean. He’s going to be a corporate guy within the university.

Robert Leonard (13:03):

I was going to say, I wonder if it’s someone in the finance department, like a controller or something like that. Just because your property taxes are probably going to go through that office and things like that.

Michael Stohler (13:12):

Yeah. In order for a university or a college to expand, they’re going to have to buy up land around the college or they’re going to have to buy land. They’re going to have somebody, maybe a finance guy, that’s going to look into that stuff. They’re not going to hire a real estate agent. They’re going to have someone within their department that’s going to do that.

Robert Leonard (13:32):

Two of the biggest excuses or reasons that a new investor doesn’t getting started in real estate is that they don’t have enough money, or they’re nervous because they don’t have enough experience, or something along those lines. And you mentioned that you failed with those eight properties. It didn’t turn out great.

Robert Leonard (13:49):

I want to talk a little bit about what you learned from those failures. I know you talked about how you got into property management. But from a failure perspective and how to handle failure and what it might mean to somebody who’s listening to the show that really wants to get involved in real estate. They’re just scared about what could happen with failure and how to deal with it. Tell us a bit of how you went through that.

Michael Stohler (14:06):

It was hard. We put a lot of money, down payments. And then because of maintenance issues and all of this sort of stuff, we were just racking up lot of debt. And it was very humbling, very scary. And it took us a while to get over it. But here’s the thing is, if you’re listening to this podcast, you know that real estate is it. Or you’re curious about it. But you know that this is where the millionaires are made. It’s in the real estate realm.

Michael Stohler (14:35):

Being a pilot, I would still be stuck making X amount of dollars. I would not have a portfolio of around $20 million or more without real estate. Okay. Get over the fact that there is going to be failures. And making that first purchase is the big jump. Everyone has fears. You can have analysis by paralysis. Right.

Michael Stohler (14:57):

I’ve talked to people that I go to these seminars with. I speak at seminars and I see the same person five years. “Hey, have you done your first?” “No, just one more seminar. Just one more book and I’ll be ready to jump in.” And I look at them and I’m going, “You’ve just missed five years worth of buying power.” The fears that we have inside of our head are true within our realm of thinking. Okay. They’re true.

Michael Stohler (15:24):

But those fears are not real. Okay. It’s stuff that we make up. Inside of your head, this anxiety is real for you, but it’s not the truth because everyone around you is doing it and they’re succeeding. Right. You have to kind of get out of your own way. And that’s what I learned. I just had this deep down thing. I was like, real estate is it. Everyone I know that’s driving around these nice cars, or doing this, or whatever, it’s real estate. That’s what you have to do.

Michael Stohler (15:56):

And I always tell people, it’s like, “Look, you can spend a lot of money and fail.” And that means, I know people spend hundreds of thousands dollars in seminars and haven’t done squat. So you can spend a lot of money and not do anything. Or you can spend the same amount of money and succeed. Okay. Or at least try. I would rather spend money gaining knowledge and doing and succeeding, than not doing anything at all.

Robert Leonard (16:25):

I want to talk a bit about what you’re doing today. I actually have a friend, who is a fellow real estate investor who mostly does short term rentals through Airbnb. But he is starting to buy small hotels and motels. I always thought that those types of assets weren’t really possible for somebody, a smaller investor, or somebody without a lot of experience. How can someone get into hotel investing with very little or no experience? Do you think any real estate experience is needed before you get into something like this?

Michael Stohler (16:53):

That’s a good question. Let me hit on two of the points. You don’t need experience as long as you have someone with you that has experience. Okay. And that is in every asset class. Thinking outside of the box, I wanted to get into hotels just because, in the multifamily world, the cap rates are going down and down and down and down.

Michael Stohler (17:15):

And I sold an apartment complex that I had for 10 months and I made $860,000 off of it. And I had a choice. I could buy something at a fourcap or I could do something else. Well, how do you do something else? And this is an other thing, just like the university and the college thing. This is another thing you can do, everyone, to get into an asset class you don’t know anything about.

Michael Stohler (17:42):

What I did is I went to a friend of mine. He wasn’t even really a friend. He was just an acquaintance. He had 15 years of hotel experience. And this is another important thing is getting into every networking group, anything you can. Soak it up, soak it up and meet people. And then, these things open up. I asked the guy, I was like, “Look, I’ve got a deal for you. I want you to find me a hotel because I don’t know anything about hotels. Find it for me. I want you to run it for me because I don’t know anything about it, but you’re going to teach me everything you know. And I’ll give you a property management fee. But because you’re helping me out and being my mentor, I am actually going to give you a piece of the action, the ownership on the back end.” And that’s how I got into the hotel space.

Michael Stohler (18:31):

And it was successful enough that I was going, “Okay. Hey, now I can go out and buy.” And another way that you can do it, once you have experience, is then you do syndications and funds and things like that. And with the syndications, you’re not using your own money, or very little of it. So that’s how you can get into it.

Michael Stohler (18:49):

But you don’t want to just jump in. The hotels are a business. It’s not real estate as far as multifamily, single family homes. It’s a small business that happens to sit on real estate. The only real estate part is the land. Everything else is the franchise. For me, Radissons and Choice Hotels. It’s a franchise, it’s a business. I have 20 employees per spot. I have general managers, I have marketing people, sales people. It’s very different. It’s a very different asset class.

Robert Leonard (19:22):

When you say that you’re investing in hotels, are you just buying the underlying real estate and then leasing it out to a major hotel chain that is operating it such as Marriott, et cetera? Or are you actually creating an entire business around this, owning the real estate and owning the hospitality operations?

Michael Stohler (19:41):

We do both. Well, I don’t lease it back. When I say I do both, what we do not buy is buy the land and then lease it back to Marriott. That’s not really how it works. You actually own that franchise. Okay. What I do do is I’ll have one LLC that owns the land and I’ll have an LLC that runs the hotel. It is like another company that is running the hotel.

Michael Stohler (20:03):

And then that LLC that’s running the hotel, leases the land to the other one. And that allows me to save on taxes and things like that because there is a rent charge and you get to deduct that rent charge. That’s what I do. But all the hotels that we own, we actually own the franchise. We have to apply to Marriott. We have to apply to Radisson for this franchise, just as buying a Subway or McDonald’s or anything, something like that. It’s a franchise.

Robert Leonard (20:33):

You are operating the hotels, not just owning the real estate?

Michael Stohler (20:37):

Correct. Yes. I have an operating group. I have the management, I have the general managers. We are doing 100% of everything.

Robert Leonard (20:45):

Outside of just COVID, how have hotels performed during other times of economic uncertainty, say the Great Recession or times like that?

Michael Stohler (20:55):

During the Great Recession hotels actually did pretty well because the Great Recession, it wasn’t like this pandemic. Great Recession hit only certain segments. Okay. Businesses still traveled, people still traveled. It was just a certain amount of markets that really hit. They did really well. They do better, and these are why I concentrate in certain areas. And it’s the same with COVID.

Michael Stohler (21:20):

I will only buy in states that are friendly to small businesses. Okay. And I’ve learned during COVID it’s like, wow, okay. We never shut down any of our hotels because they were considered essential business for truckers and nurses and doctors to stay. And then there were some states that, bam, within a month of COVID everything just shut down, just restaurants, hotels, nothing. And I’m like, “Okay. Thank God I don’t have a hotel in those states.”

Michael Stohler (21:50):

You have to have hotels in that type of a state. And then it always helps that during COVID or during these pandemics, when people were out and able to travel, they went to states that were considered vacation states. During the winter, no one was traveling to the northeast but a lot of people were traveling to Florida, Arizona. Not California, because it was shut down. But in Nevada, Utah.

Michael Stohler (22:18):

If you buy in certain areas and you make sure… And that’s another criteria, I didn’t really look at the governance of the states, but that’s going to be another one of my criteria, to make sure that the state will allow us to stay open.

Robert Leonard (22:31):

How does Airbnb and VRBO play into your strategy of hotels? Do you see those as competitors and a potential downfall to the hotel industry? Or are you utilizing them to enhance your business?

Michael Stohler (22:44):

That’s probably the question I get past a lot is the correlation between Airbnbs and hotels. I don’t see it as a big competition. Here’s the reason. If you are a corporate traveler and let’s say you have five people traveling to Arizona for a conference, or you have 10 people. You’re not going to stick men and women in a four bedroom, five bedroom house in a corporate. That’s just not a good idea as far as anything when you’re a corporate person. You’re going to put them in, in a hotel. So we don’t have to worry about that.

Michael Stohler (23:13):

If you are a mom and dad and a couple kids, you’re probably going to stay in a hotel also. So the only segments, I think that Airbnb takes away from our business, maybe the group of guys or ladies that are traveling for an event, bridal shower. They’re friends, where you have four or five guys getting together with a golf trip. You have ladies doing a bachelorette party and they go travel. Then it would make sense to go, “Let’s get a four or five bedroom house and party.”

Michael Stohler (23:43):

But you have three or four kids and parents and you’re going to a vacation type thing, that’s where Airbnb hits us. But then, it doesn’t really hit our type of hotels. It would hit more of the resort style hotels. The big pools and tennis, golf courses and all that sort of stuff. But when you stick with a limited service, the people that stay at our hotels, the blue collar, the truckers, the people just going from Texas to LA and they’re just spending the night in Phoenix, they’re not going to be staying at an Airbnb.

Robert Leonard (24:13):

Are your hotels those limited service hotels?

Michael Stohler (24:17):

Yeah. Yeah. What we do is limited service. If I did full service, just maybe a one bar, one little restaurant, one or two conference rooms. But I like the limited service. If you look at what kept the United States going during COVID, it’s the truck drivers. Right. The utility service people, those type of things. And they’re traveling. The traveling doctors.

Michael Stohler (24:39):

The truck drivers are not going to be staying at these fancy hotels. They’re going to be staying at the Quality Inns and Comfort Inns, the Hampton Inns. Just the cheaper, no frills because all they want is good bed, big breakfast, Wi-Fi. Those are the ones that are more recession proof or the blue collar. Same thing with multifamily. Right. It’s you get that blue collar, single family house or the multifamily house. And those are just good people to rent to.

Robert Leonard (25:05):

How do you find hotels to buy? Are you leveraging sites like LoopNet or is there a different way with hotels?

Michael Stohler (25:11):

LoopNet’s like the MLS. If it’s on there, then nobody wants it. The business is too hot to ever have to go on LoopNet. It’s not to say that you can’t find deals. I have bought hotels off of LoopNet just because I’ve thought that I could turn them around. But that’s not where you find the deals. Right. You go through off market.

Michael Stohler (25:32):

I get emails through the big commercial firms, real estate firms that’ll have off market. And I get these, “Hey, we’re going to market 10 days, 15 days. See if you want to buy.” That’s where you get the opportunities. And that’s like in any asset class. Right. It’s the off market stuff.

Robert Leonard (25:52):

What are you looking for in your potential investments? What is your buying criteria?

Michael Stohler (25:58):

Great question. Because if you had asked me that in 2019, it would have been completely different than now because of COVID. I do believe that whether we call it COVID or something, there’s going to be a 2.0 or 3.0, there’s going to be things happening in the future as far as pandemics. I just pray to God that that doesn’t happen. But we now have to assume that five years from now, or whenever, something else is going to come.

Michael Stohler (26:20):

It has changed my criteria. I am going to stick with the extended stays or the limited service. Maybe these light, full service, which is like what I said. Maybe one restaurant, just a couple conference rooms. I’m not going to do the 1,000 square foot conference rooms, three restaurants, a bar, lobby bar because those all shut down. Then, I’m going to look at, during COVID, what areas really did very well within the hotel space? And those were just outside of major metro areas.

Michael Stohler (26:53):

When something happens, no one wants to be in a city of 5 million people when there’s a pandemic happening. They’re going to be staying on the outskirts of major metros. Our criteria is going to be looking at just small towns, half hour outside of major cities that are along a highway, so truck drivers and traveling families can find it very easily. And how close is it to the hospitals? How close is it to these different things?

Michael Stohler (27:19):

And what that is called in the hotel business are drivers. Drivers are, what drives people to your hotel? In the past, you would say, “Well, I only need maybe one driver. It’s in a ski resort or it’s near a university and I’m just going to buy it.” Well, what happens when the kids aren’t in school during a pandemic and everyone’s at home? No one’s staying at your place. So you need, I want three reasons why someone is going to go to that hotel and that’s changed my mindset. That’s what we’re looking at.

Robert Leonard (27:49):

I know virtual assistants have played a big role in your life and your businesses. I actually use virtual assistants quite a bit myself. Talk to us a bit about why you started using them and how you use them in your real estate business.

Michael Stohler (28:02):

Yeah. Everyone that’s new in real estate, you’re going to get to that point where, in order for me to grow, I need to hire someone to help me. You need to find your unique ability. My unique ability is analyzing properties and finding the properties and doing all these things.

Michael Stohler (28:21):

In order for me to grow, I had to find employees. Well, I was at the point where I couldn’t afford, especially now, 15, $20 an hour. Plus, what? Insurance, withholdings. It’s just, it’s very expensive hiring someone. I found virtual assistance. And what I really like, you can get some from Asia, which is very, very, very, very popular.

Michael Stohler (28:43):

What I found is I loved virtual assistants from Mexico. They’re on my time zone. I can actually text them or they’re an hour ahead of me. I can text them and actually find them. They can respond to them. I email them and they say done. It’s just, it’s quick. I don’t have to email someone and then they respond to me at two o’clock in the morning because they’re in the Philippines.

Michael Stohler (29:03):

But as I said in the past, I do a lot of speaking engagements about hotels. And someone asked me that exact question, how did I grow? How did I get employees? And I told them about the virtual assistants. And with us as entrepreneurs, I had maybe a dozen people come up to me afterwards and say, “Hey, can I get the phone number for the virtual assistant company? Can I do that? How did you find it?” I’m going, “Okay. At the end of the seminar, I’ll give you all the information.”

Michael Stohler (29:31):

I called up my VAs in Mexico and said, “Hey, you have friends that the same thing.” And they said, “Yeah.” I said, “Here’s the requirements, college educated, experience in real estate or call service or handling phone numbers.” And I actually created a company, an LLC. I went back to them, say, “Hey, yep. Here’s a gateway VA.” I own a virtual assistant company. And I have helped all those people. And it’s a fantastic thing.

Michael Stohler (29:54):

If you can give someone in Mexico a upper middle class living by only paying $7 an hour and there’s no withholdings, no social security, there’s no taxes. There’s no 1099. It’s just so much better. I was able to grow so much faster by using these type of people and they want to work. They’re just, they’re fantastic people.

Michael Stohler (30:15):

And it is your employee. You’re not paying me. You’re doing the interviews. You’re paying them. I just take a small finder fee and they’re your person. And I have had VAs now for several, several years, the same person. It’s really, really cool.

Robert Leonard (30:34):

Do you have any habits or principles that you follow in your life consistently that you think not enough people do, but should?

Michael Stohler (30:41):

Yeah. Especially now during the pandemic, a lot of us are working from home. Right. Once you get into real estate, you’re going to get to the point where you’re going to be working from home or you’re going to have your own little office. I do what’s called a default calendar. The default calendar is this, Monday, eight o’clock I do this. Monday at nine o’clock I do this.

Michael Stohler (30:57):

I don’t check my email till 10 o’clock in the morning because I’m doing these other things. And then, I prioritize my emails. And then, Tuesday, eight o’clock I do this. I don’t allow myself to get on LinkedIn for more than a half hour at a time because I can get lost answering all the questions and doing all this. And all of a sudden, wow, you look up two and a half hours later and I’ve been on social media.

Michael Stohler (31:21):

The only way that you can really, really, really succeed as an entrepreneur because you no longer have a boss. Right. You don’t have anyone looking down on you. You need that default calendar and you got to stick to it, no matter what. There are emergencies, but stick to it. It’s like, “Okay. Hey, it’s 9:30. I’m getting off Facebook, or wherever, LinkedIn. And I’m going on to now researching for my next project. And I’m going to do that for two hours. Then I’m going to take a break.”

Michael Stohler (31:47):

Do that. And then always, always, always, no matter how busy you are, schedule in fun time. That’s another thing. When you start getting into being an entrepreneur, it’s easy to work 80 hours a week. I got to do this, I got to do this. I’m paying the bills. I got to go to the hotels. I got do all this sort of stuff. And all of a sudden, life is horrible. It’s like, “Oh, wow. I’m so glad I work on my own because now I’m working twice as much and having less fun.”

Michael Stohler (32:11):

Make sure you build in golf. Wednesday is golf in the morning, or work out. Build in that fun time. But that’s another thing has changed my life is sticking to that calendar.

Robert Leonard (32:26):

What has been the most influential book in your life?

Michael Stohler (32:30):

At the starters, Kiyosaki’s book because that’s what introduced me. There is another book that once you start making money, it’s easiest, like, “Wow. My goal is to make money and make a lot of money.” But then what happens? You spend the money and then you need to make more money and then you spend the money. And there’s really no one to teach you that aspect to saving. And how do the other people do it?

Michael Stohler (32:53):

There’s a book that’s called the Money Secrets of the Rich. And it’s by a guy named John Burley. And this book taught me what is the difference between having a lot of money and then having a lot of freedom? People think that, “Man, if I just made a couple million bucks, I’d be free.” Well, no, because you’ll spend 2.5 million.

Michael Stohler (33:13):

One of the phrases in that book is, “Build a life that you don’t need a vacation from.” And I actually have that on my office wall. And what does that really mean? It’s going to mean different things to different people. But the thing is, what do the rich people, why are they rich? Why are they going to remain rich? Well, is it because they don’t have any debt? Is it because they’re smarter with their debt? Is it because they pay cash? That book really changed my life on how I looked at handling money. And that is what made me from making a lot of money from real estate to actually keeping a lot of my money.

Robert Leonard (33:49):

Before we give a handoff to where people can find you, I would like to wrap up the show by turning the tables and letting the guest ask me a question. Michael, what question do you have for me?

Michael Stohler (34:01):

My question is what motivated you? I always like knowing this. What motivated you to do what you’re doing?

Robert Leonard (34:09):

I guess I would need to know which facet of what I’m doing do you mean? I mean, honestly I’m doing a lot of different things. Is it, and you may not know everything, but real estate. I’m a real estate investor. I have the podcast, I’m writing a book. I do a couple other things too. Big into fitness, things like that. I guess which specific facet of that?

Michael Stohler (34:30):

A lot of people get into real estate investing. They just do it in their selfish degree, but you’re writing a book. You have this podcast? Do you like giving back? Is this what you feel teaching? Do you like to educate?

Robert Leonard (34:43):

Yeah, I do. And I think that I didn’t realize how much I liked giving back until I started the podcast. I originally got into podcasting because I thought you could make a lot of money in podcasting. And then, as I started to actually make change, cause change and help people improve their lives. And people were actually learning from what I was saying, I realized that the dollars didn’t matter, I didn’t care about that actually at all. And it was really the impact that I was having on other people.

Robert Leonard (35:09):

And it’s interesting because you do good for other people and it comes back to you in more than you even gave. And I’m not even talking just dollars. I’m talking about in forms of motivation and things like that. Just hearing these types of things from other people and how much is helping them has in turn, helped me, helped myself. And so I think that is the biggest reason that I keep doing what I do, is to really just help other people be that resource.

Robert Leonard (35:34):

Almost every single thing I do, I’m the only one in my family that’s ever done it. I didn’t have somebody in my family that I could go and talk to. I’m the first one to go to college. First one to make any type of investment. First one to do podcasting. I mean, I don’t have somebody I can rely on. I guess one of the other things that I like to try and do is be that resource or mentor that I can, or when I can, for the people listening to the show that I didn’t have. Michael, for those in the audience that want to connect with you after the show, where is the best place to find you?

Michael Stohler (36:01):

You can always find me on LinkedIn under Michael Stohler. And that’s S-T-O-H-L-E-R. And my website is gatewaype, as in private equity, gatewaype.com.

Robert Leonard (36:14):

I will be sure to put a link to both of those resources in the show notes for anybody that’s interested in checking them out. Michael, thanks so much for joining me.

Michael Stohler (36:21):

All right. Thank you, Robert. Take care.

Robert Leonard (36:24):

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 (36:30):

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