Real estate veteran Matt Andrews shares how he built multiple 7-figure companies by embracing collaboration over competition. Andrews discusses his journey from the 2008 foreclosure crisis through building successful partnerships with former competitors, emphasizing that toxic comparison and competitive mindsets limit entrepreneurial growth and opportunities.
Turn competitors into collaborators by dropping ego and seeking win-win partnerships - your biggest competitor can become your best business partner
Stop measuring your worth against others' perceived success - you're comparing yourself to an illusion that doesn't reflect their real struggles
Create objective decision-making criteria to filter opportunities instead of copying what successful peers are doing
1:55:06Josh Stech, founder of LendingHome and Sundae, shares how he built a billion-dollar real estate lending company in just five years, scaling to 14% market share. He discusses the venture capital playbook, hiring at scale, maintaining culture with 500+ employees, and his transition to solving the property sourcing problem for investors through Sundae's marketplace model.
1:50:17Steve Trang interviews Damon Lyons of Sellers Advantage, who shares his journey from losing everything in the 2008 financial crisis to building a $30 million assignment fee business. Lyons discusses his evolution from loan officer to foreclosure auction specialist with Posted Properties, then to direct-to-consumer house buying, revealing the systems and massive marketing spend that enabled his California operation to dominate the market.
Get a free AI-powered review of your sales calls. See exactly where you're losing deals and how to fix it.
Get notified when new episodes drop, plus a free AI call review.
Ask for help early and often - successful people are typically willing to share knowledge and mentor others
Focus on bringing value to relationships first rather than competing for the same resources or attention
”“Many times, the person you're competing against or the person you feel like you're competing against or feel like you need to compete against, if If you look at it a different way, you realize, man, there's there's a lot we could do together.”
”“What you're measuring yourself against is an illusion. Right? Because you're you're measuring yourself against your perception of that person, and that is almost always not actually correct.”
”“For someone to gain doesn't mean that you have lost. On one deal, yes, that could happen. Right? In one market where you're really going after it and someone else is going after their yes. There could be a winner and a loser there. Most of the time, that's not it's not a zero sum game.”
”“I truly believe that if you look for that, you will see opportunities other people don't see.”
Family Mastermind
Matt Andrews is an experienced real estate investor and entrepreneur who has been in the business for over 20 years. He started his real estate investing journey in 1999 after leaving a successful sales career at a Fortune 500 automotive company, initially focusing on house flipping before expanding into multiple ventures. He is the founder of Family Mastermind and has built multiple 7-figure companies through his philosophy of collaboration over competition.
24975 words
Matt Andrews: We did in Ukraine is tiny in comparison to the big picture there. What we did in Haiti is certainly tiny compared to the nationwide crisis they have going on there that doesn't look like it'll end anytime soon. There are people that have needs that we as entrepreneurs are specifically gifted in being able to help them in ways that, again, government, politicians will never be able to. And so at the end of the day, I feel like the the leadership gap in our world, it's not gonna be filled by a a TV screen split down the middle with this guy saying this and this guy saying that. But I believe in the entrepreneur's ability to really help other people because we're the problem solvers.
We're the ones who create solutions. The same things that we do in business every day is what's needed in in those kinds of crises in the world. And so I feel like we've done something that literally connected with other people, and I feel like that's being a good steward of the entrepreneurial gifts and skills that we've been given.
Steve Trang: Hey, everybody. Thank you for joining us for today's episode of disruptors. Today, we have Matt Andrews with Family Mastermind. This is a long time coming, and Matt flew in from Gainesville, Florida to talk about how he built multiple 7 figure companies through collaboration versus competition. Now, guys, I'm gonna administrate a 100 millionaires.
Information on this show alone is enough to help you become a millionaire in the next five to seven years. If you'll take consistent action, you'll become one. And, guys, if you get value out of today's show, please hit that subscribe button so that way we can help more people become millionaires. Ready?
Matt: Let's do it, man.
Steve: Alright. So I was looking at this. This is long. Really long. You're really old.
Right? So
Matt: I do. I as I was doing the pre interview with your people, and I was saying, yeah. I've been I've done this, and we did this 25 ago. I'm like, man. I feel old, and I'm saying that to a 25 year old too.
Right?
Steve: You've been doing it as long as
Matt: I started a business in diapers. So Yeah. Crazy. But, yeah, I I am old. Thank you.
Alright.
Steve: You're welcome. You're welcome. I'm old right there with you. So let's talk about what was your life like before you got into real estate.
Matt: Yeah. So before real estate, I got a degree in psychology in the, from Western Kentucky University. I thought I was gonna be a child psychologist, a family counselor. And so I went into, you know, got out of college thinking that was gonna be my path. Mhmm.
Found out that in order to to really make any money in that field, you're not really working with the people anymore. You're managing teams of people that are working with the people. You're you're disconnected from the people I wanted to help. Right?
Steve: Right.
Matt: So I went into to, sales for Fortune 500 company, and then somewhere in there got disenchanted with the nine to five. Not a not a unfamiliar story to you. Right? You've heard that many times in this room on this podcast. Right?
Found real estate investing, and, the rest was is kinda So
Steve: you got into sales, and, I mean, do you sit there for a long time, or are you like, no. Once you figure real estate, you were hooked?
Matt: I was there for about a year and a half, and it was a it was a packed year and a half. Right? But got in, it was I was actually a a sales rep for a, a major automotive company. I sold fleets of vehicles. Right?
So I sold, like, a hundred, two hundred, 400 vehicles at a time to large companies, box trucks, vans, tracking systems, you know, so
Steve: pay pretty well.
Matt: Fleet services. Yeah. We we made I did great. Had a lot of great sales. Had a lot of success early on.
Right? Because I I love selling, and I I got into it. I was 22,
Steve: I think.
Matt: You know? And so I was having fun. Company car expense account. I was being flown to the headquarters, you know, and kinda groomed for upper management one day. So, salesman of the year one year.
Right? And then and, again, not an unfamiliar story to you. The rug got pulled out from under me. Matt, you've done fantastic. Salesman of the year.
We think you're gonna be with this company for a long time. Also, your division, that you've helped build, we're shutting that down. And, effectively, tomorrow, you're starting again at zero. Thanks for everything you've done for the company. And I said and I said, thanks.
That I think it was, like, literally within a week of that. I said, okay. Cool. And I started in on that new opportunity with them.
Steve: Starting at zero, meaning, like
Matt: Starting at zero, my pipeline was gone. So I built a built a pipeline for a year. All those relationships. All those relationships. So it was already making me money.
Right? But I had built a pipeline that was gonna keep paying. Now that pipeline was gone. Like, my company was no longer in the business for that size company or those those sectors anymore. You gotta start over, Matt, and you gotta start over over here.
You're still selling.
Steve: Mhmm.
Matt: You're still selling what you were selling. New people. But everything you sold is gone. All the residual is gone. Right?
So it'd be like being on a great TV show, writing a great song, but it's like, we're not gonna pay you residuals anymore. Right? So rug got pulled out from under me. I said, okay. You know, I I I was looking at other options, and I bought a Carlton Sheets course from a late night infomercial.
Mhmm. And that was it, man. 13 CDs CDs, which is kinda crazy to think about. So talk about old. Yeah.
I I learned on CDs and bought a course from him and his people for $2,000 that got me a mentor Mhmm. That I talked to once a week. And, and then did my first house flip, while I was still in that job. By my second house flip, I jumped out of that job, went full time into real estate, probably prematurely. What year was this?
1999.
Steve: 1999. Yeah. You buy Carlton sheets Yeah. CD pack, whatever you call it.
Matt: That's that's all there. There wasn't much out there then. Right? Dean Graziosi might have been might have
Steve: been making
Matt: some noise then, but Carlton Sheets was, like, kind of the old the old school guy that was out there. Yeah. That was the one where if you looked up anything, like, he would be top of the rankings. Right? So so, yeah, bought that, got me into it.
Man, I I I really thought I wanna buy and hold. I wanna hold rentals. That was the only clear thought I had was I wanna I want to do something that will continue to make me money that brings me residual income that somebody can't take away.
Steve: Right. Right?
Matt: So that division can't be shut down if I own this property. Right?
Steve: Probably was pretty sensitive spot at the moment.
Matt: Totally sensitive. Yeah. I didn't I didn't wanna put myself in that situation again.
Steve: Yeah. Okay. So you buy a house, works out well?
Matt: Well, the first one didn't work out that well. The first one, it was in Brandon, Florida. Funny enough, the the property was called New Hope. It was on New Hope Road, which was cool because it was like a new business. It was a new hope for me.
Right? So Yeah.
Steve: That was that was nice
Matt: for you. Fortuitous. Exactly. So, bought that house, bought it okay, and then proceeded to take what should have been a $30,000 profit. And through the sheer force of my own just will and profundity, I was able to minimize that.
I was able to shrink that profit. I was able to minimize it from 30 down to $2,000 when I finally got down with it. Right? I made every mistake there was. Mhmm.
Hired the wrong people, tried to do a lot of the work myself, which you don't know this about me maybe, but I'm not handy. My wife won't even let me, like, hang pictures on the wall. I believe it. Yeah. Yeah.
It's not me. Right? So, so I tried to fix stuff. I I tried to fix a water heater. The water heater exploded.
I just put in, you know, $4,000 of carpet, and it was a big house. It flooded everything. You know? I it just I was kinda just a moron and all of this stuff. Thought thought I could do it, but the real reason I failed and I I guess I didn't fail if you consider turning any kind of profit, but the reason that profit shrunk like it did was because I was afraid to ask for help.
Yeah. I I didn't know the answers. And I had one or two people around me, a realtor here, you know, somebody at their local RIA there or whatever, that I'd take a piece of advice from here and there, but I didn't seek out people that really knew. I didn't ask the questions. And I, I guess part of it was naivete, and then part of it was just ego.
Steve: Mhmm.
Matt: You know? So I didn't ask those questions. So instead of making 30, I made two, but I thought, okay. You know what? I'm gonna try this again.
I think I could do better. Mhmm. And then by that second one, I turned a profit. My belief really went up. I thought, you know what?
I could do this over and over again if I just did this a few times a year. Yeah. I've got more than I'm even making at my sales position, which was decent. You know? And that was it.
That that sold me on it, and I jumped. I went to Europe for three weeks, kinda cleared my head, came back, and really started a business. And that was, you know, 1999, 2000. And so I'd say 2000 is really when I got into business.
Steve: What was that like? You know, like, now you're full time.
Matt: Yeah.
Steve: There's you know, the expression is, like, burn the boats.
Matt: Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly what I did. I had to find deals. Mhmm.
Right? So, I just started talking to everybody I knew. I start I went to every RIA, went to every meeting, but really got tied in with some realtors that would just bring me stuff, bring me pocket listings all the time, and then started the bandit sign thing. So I'll buy your house today. 309 That was my phone number.
That's still I probably shouldn't say that's still my phone number right now. Right? 309 started with that phone number back then in Tampa, and 309 was everywhere. Right? Like, I put I mean, everywhere that I wanted to buy.
So Tampa, Florida, Saint Petersburg, Clearwater, those areas were the areas that I really bought in. And so realtor's bringing me pocket listings, really starting a network there for for deals that weren't on the MLS Mhmm. And then bandit signs and people if you've done that kind of advertising, you know, you get called for all kinds of things and get all kinds of calls.
Steve: The bandit sizing. Yeah. Never did the Oh, you never did
Matt: the band that signed it, but you but you do a lot of marketing. You get crazy calls.
Steve: Right? We see we've seen a lot of bandit signs.
Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Well, we were right there to 1999, 2000, granted signs were a big mode, but they hadn't quite been outlawed yet. Mhmm. Right?
It was civil disobedience. Right? So Yeah. It was technically you weren't supposed to do it. Right?
But there was a, there was an allowance where they kinda you know, unless you went overboard, the city would would deal with it. Right? And then eventually, they put the the squash on that when I got, like, a $500 fine on, you know, 40 different signs that I had out. I was like, oh, that's a that's a big fine. And so Yeah.
So we stopped we stopped doing that. But at the time, it was a great, a great source of deals, and then just got more, you know, more and more sophisticated with how we acquired. And and now today, obviously, we don't have anything like we have today. But back then, it was courthouse, and it was realtors and pocket listings. And then coming into 02/1978, it all turned into foreclosure real estate.
Steve: So all along along that journey from 2000 until 2007, were there any, things looking back, like major pivots, big lessons?
Matt: Yeah. The biggest lesson I learned through all that time was that first one that I said that I never asked for help in the first two or three deals. After I think maybe, like, my third or fourth deal, I started asking for help. I started seeing people that were successful, and there was, one one individual in particular, a friend of my family's that I'd seen. He was a basketball coach.
He had he had been successful as a basketball coach then quit and became a full time house flipper. And I thought, why would you quit being a basketball coach? The greatest job in the world. And so he was kind of the one that, you know, that I first kind of took note of the and and thought, man, maybe real estate investing is the thing. So I found him and said, you know, how are you doing what you're doing?
You know, how how can I help you? How can I give something to you? How can I work for you for free? How can I do whatever I need to do so that you'll kinda let me in on the inside? Right?
And, and kinda just kept hitting him and hitting him and hitting till finally, I think I just bothered him bothered him enough that he said, hey. Bring a pizza over from this pizzeria with these toppings over here to my office at this day, and I said, done. And I I arrived there with two of those pizzas. Right? And so, so that was really the biggest lesson I learned was, you know, start asking for help, drop the ego.
You know? And and I did the first two or three houses and even the first, you know, the second and third, I made better money on, but I could have done way better, even on those first few. And that was at a time where I really could have used that money. That would have provided a lot more breathing room. Right?
So the biggest lesson I learned was, you know, collaborate, ask for help, drop the ego. That was probably the biggest lesson. And then in 02/1978, when the market dropped out and the foreclosure crisis hit, it was a whole other, you know, set of lessons and collaboration and really digging into that.
Steve: So you you originally started to buy and hold.
Matt: Right.
Steve: But you appear to quickly pivot away from that.
Matt: Well, I I I didn't know what I didn't know. Right? I mean, I I didn't know that yeah. I didn't know you can't just get endless loans for buy and hold. Right?
Even though in 2000, you almost could with, like, Bank of America and stuff like that. So I did I did a couple that I held, but then realized, man, I gotta generate real revenue here. Right? Like, these are good rentals, and they're good cap rates. And and, you know, these are good rentals to hold on to.
But this is like a this is a secondary thing. This is the buy and hold. This is the next phase. Right? And I'm trying to make it the first phase.
So that's when I started rehabbing a lot more. That's when I started doing, you know, a lot of, you know, we we didn't call them wholesale deals. We just called it quick turn real estate or we called it we called it doing deals fast. You know? Like, it wasn't called wholesaling, but I think it was Ron McGrath, you know, our mutual friend that called it quick turn real estate.
Yeah. And so that's what we knew. You just buy it buy it and sell it again real quick without doing anything to it. You know? And so that kinda started, prior to, you know, the foreclosure crisis, but then when the crisis hit, suddenly the opportunity for wholesaling was just off the charts.
Steve: So a lot of people developed a lot of scar tissue. Yeah. It was 07/2008. Right? I think, Don Costa, he was here.
Yeah. He got caught with, like, 20 something properties. Yep. And there are a lot of people that got caught. Did you get
Matt: caught at that? I didn't. I didn't I didn't have a ton. So I I wanted to buy and hold a lot. Mhmm.
Right? But I hadn't at that point. I only had Gosh.
Steve: Well, because there were, like, a lot of people that had, like, flips that were going on. Right? Yeah. And then the the winds changed, like, overnight.
Matt: Yep. I was I was very fortunate. There was one that I lost money on that where I lost, it was, like, 80 k. Mhmm. And and that was big.
That was the biggest I ever lost. I've you know, as I got bigger and did a lot more deals, there were others that I lost more money on. Right? But that was that was a a big hit. I'll never forget it.
Bahia Del Sol was the name of the complex. I thought I had something beautiful, this perfect, waterfront condo, not perfect. Yeah. But that was the one I got caught with. But fortunately, I had sold some stuff.
Like, it it was almost like, I don't know. It was like God was smiling at me because I sold a few duplexes for really good money right before the market turned. And I mean, like, two or three months before the realtor's phone stopped ringing. Right? And then it just December November, December 2007, everything changed.
And suddenly, mortgage companies started going out of business, and suddenly, you know, the realtor's phones stopped ringing. Like, they all started freaking out. Mhmm. Right? And so the opportunity really for wholesaling and partnership and the real buy and hold opportunity came Yeah.
You know, starting then. And so, so I was fortunate to have sold some things. I didn't get hurt real bad. I got hurt on one property, but had other ones that I sold that I did really well on. Mhmm.
And then suddenly overnight, the buying power of that money I had sitting in the bank was quadruple what it was. And then we started just putting offers on everything under a 100 k in all three counties that we worked in, and, and the game was just totally different then. You know? Like, suddenly, the the REO brokers that I used to try to get in with, that I had such a hard time getting my foot in the door, they were suddenly calling me You were their friend. Calling me mister Andrews, you know, and stuff like that, you know, when I couldn't even get their time before now, all of a sudden, they're very interested.
So I had a little bit of capital, you know, deployed it, judiciously, but but but, quickly and and, I think, you know, pretty intelligently, but then started turning on the opportunity in that market, there in Tampa, Florida to investors overseas that just thought they'd never seen anything like it before. So the the people right around me couldn't do deals. They'd all lost their shirts. Right? Like, all my competitors went away overnight.
Most of them way bigger than I was. Right? I was, I mean, small I've always been a small fry, but I was really a small fry then. Right? The transaction started after that, and it started because I didn't get scorched.
And it started because right when that happened was when I started understanding, for lack of a better term, the Internet and, social media and, Google rankings and that type of thing. Totally different game back then than it is now. Back then, you could rank very quickly with a few strategies, YouTube and Facebook. And so at the same time that more properties at better prices with better rental cap rates than I'd ever seen in my entire career to that point. Nine years in the business, never seen anything like this.
At the same time that I was coming into that opportunity, I was figuring out how to talk to people in Australia for free that made them want to just call me and buy all the properties they could. Right? And so, I mean, I I can go into that more, but you can't do this anymore. But YouTube optimized videos and Facebook optimized pages. I had 400 Facebook pages at one point.
Steve: We
Matt: had, you know, just hundreds of YouTube videos. Everyone titled and tagged with exactly what somebody somewhere else would be searching for if they were looking for exactly what I had, you know, wholesale properties, foreclosure real estate. And and we were the number one foreclosure market in America. Right? So the media was doing Tampa.
The media was doing our job. Right? You guys Phoenix was right there too. Right?
Steve: It was it was it was competitive, but
Matt: we were
Steve: not we were not number one.
Matt: Neck and neck. But Tampa was, I mean, was the nexus. And and it's also because we, you know, we revolutionized mortgage fraud in Tampa. Right? That's where, like like, American Greed was filmed almost exclusively in Tampa for a whole year just around mortgage fraud and stuff.
So so so many of the things that contributed to the crisis happened there. Right? Right. So amazing time, you know, overnight because people are reading in their local papers. And so so they're reading in local local papers.
Foreclosure crisis, America is on sale. Florida is the nexus of the crisis. Tampa is the number one investment market. Well, some guy in Sydney, Australia goes online to search his Tampa real estate investment. In 02/2010, I was the entire front page for every search term you could think of.
Name name a 100 long tail and short tail keyword. I mean, anything. Right? Tampa wholesale real estate, Tampa land landlord specials, Tampa handyman specials, Tampa this day Tampa and anything you could think of. Distressed real estate, and then duplicate that with St.
Pete and duplicate that with, with Clearwater. Right? And I was literally the front page of every return for every single search term you could think of. So no one even went to page two.
Steve: Was that your first foray into digital marketing?
Matt: Yeah. And it was Ryan Dice is the one I was in War Room. This is the importance of being in in in the right spheres of influence. War Room, which was an Internet marketing mastermind. Yeah.
Ryan Dice, Perry Belcher, Roland Frasier, all guys that I still know and just have a high amount of respect for, especially on the on the marketing side and just the leadership on that side. And Ryan Deiss looked at what I was doing and said, okay. You're selling a local product. Right?
Steve: Mhmm.
Matt: He's like, all you need to do to rank on Google is to think about the best keywords, and then you put Tampa in front of it.
Steve: Mhmm.
Matt: That's all you do. And then keyword optimize every YouTube video and every Facebook page, and you'll own Google right now. Right? And they had just done that with, like, a plant nursery that they bought or something like that. And it was the number one ranking in whatever market they were in for this plant nursery that they just acquired, that Perry had just acquired.
Right? So I'm like, well, that'll work.
Steve: Mhmm.
Matt: And that one tip brought in literally hundreds of leads that turn into millions of dollars in business. All the
Steve: buyers you ever needed. What's that? It was all the buyers you ever needed.
Matt: All the buyers I ever needed for free. Right? Free marketing. So the the kind of placement that we got on Google yeah. I mean, you pay millions and and probably wait years to to get that kind of placement.
I would keyword optimize a video of me. I was just walking in and out of houses all day long. Right? We're putting a 100 offers a week. You know?
So I'm walking in and out of these properties. I'm videoing everything with my Sony flip cam, right, or whatever it was. Right? They don't make those anymore. My flip cam, jumping in windows, jumping you know, just and just recording the the broken glass and the poo on the ground and whatever else, right, that that people love.
And then I would just upload those and put, you know, tamper real estate, Tampa trust real estate, whatever it was. Sometimes I would rank within two weeks on the first page or two of Google. Right? So once I figured out that formula, you know, a few well placed videos, a few purchases on Fiverr, you know, to to push some traffic, not traffic, but push other links to it, which was called a link wheel at the time. None of this stuff works now.
Steve: Oh, no. These are these are all black hat tactics. Yeah.
Matt: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Back then, it was, like, exploratory. Right?
And so but now yeah. And and it doesn't work. Right? Because they they see it immediately. But back then, it was it was just like putting yourself on the best yellow pages in the world.
Right? So So, yeah, took advantage of that opportunity.
Steve: So good, decent cash position Yeah. So that you were still around while everyone else got crushed. So Yeah. That was fortuitous.
Matt: And then And, also, what I wasn't too big. Right? I mean, not like a lot of my friends that got burnt in Tampa because they did 10 times more transactions than I did. I'm not saying you shouldn't do more. Right.
I'm saying that was that was the reason I didn't get burnt. Good timing, sold a few things, but also I didn't get over my skis.
Steve: Well, you need to get exposed.
Matt: Right.
Steve: Right? So then and then you'll learn marketing.
Matt: Yeah.
Steve: So did you learn marketing to do this, or you were just, like, learning marketing and it it worked out
Matt: in favor? No. I was learning marketing to to do this. I wanted to sell more real estate. Yeah.
And so I thought, you know, I felt like I understood the realtor mentality. Right? And I felt like there's another level out there, like, there is of everything in business. Right? There's there's a there's another way to sell real estate.
There's another way to do transactions, and there's another way to market yourself and position yourself. There's a way to skip to the front of this line. Right? I knew there was, and it was through authority marketing. And who are the best authority marketers?
Well, at the time, we're talking about 2009. You know? I mean, it's there was only it was trafficking reversion
Steve: Mhmm.
Matt: Which was in Austin at the time, you know, which is that's no more now. Trafficking reversion is actually just they just canned it. Right? But back then, that was the only place you could go. No Russell Brunson's out there.
No Instagram. You know what I mean? Not really. Right? Like, no no marketing help out there.
So I went to learn marketing from those guys to sell more houses.
Steve: Yeah. I
Matt: didn't sell more real estate.
Steve: I didn't even learn about Ryan Dyson since, like, 2015. Yeah. Once I got involved in that, I was like, wow. There's a whole another world. Next time.
And Perry Belcher and Frank Kern, Dan Kennedy, like, you know, what what I realized that real quick with Dan Kennedy and Frank Kern was, like, if I'm gonna consume any of their stuff online
Matt: Yeah.
Steve: Is to put my wallet in the other room. Yeah. Because, man, the way they write, you just wanna buy
Matt: You do. You wanna buy right now. Yeah. Exactly. Especially the way your mind works too.
Right? Like, you're like, oh, dude. I've gotta I've gotta have that thing that Perry's talking about. Yeah.
Steve: Makes sense.
Matt: Can see how it's more even if I don't want that thing, I wanna see how it's marketed. Right? And
Steve: that's Exactly.
Matt: That's kinda how your mind works, and that's the way mine is too. So I I wanted to study these guys' processes. I wanted to learn, you know, the techniques that would work for real estate right now, but I wanted to learn the way these guys thought. Mhmm. And what I found was if you take this very old business of real estate, but you apply these very next gen cutting edge marketing techniques Mhmm.
Which at the time was just simple SEO hacking for me. That made the biggest difference. But that kind of mentality and that kind of direct response and that kind of, focus on copywriting
Steve: Mhmm.
Matt: And storytelling and words, no one else was saying that then. Right? And I thought, I can tell stories. And if I can tell a story that sticks with people and that helps build an influence and an authority in real estate Mhmm. They'll remember that forever.
Right? So my positioning became all stories, and it it became casting stories to to my buyers that wanted to buy, you know, 50 properties and and casting a vision for them of how it works and what it could provide for them in terms of freedom and cash flow and all that stuff. So storytelling, I learned that from those guys, and that became a big piece of my marketing for sure. And every and every video was a story. Right.
Every house was a story. Every HUD was a story if you wanted it to be. Right? Because there was always a story about how you negotiated it or how you, you know, cut your arm on the glass when you were going into it or whatever it was, the dog that chased you out of it or whatever the thing was. There's always a story around it, and people want the information.
But if you if you, can house it in a story, they'll remember it. Absolutely. Understand it right away if you tell them just the raw data, but they'll remember it a year later if you can tell it in a story. Right? And so I I really use that to my advantage and just try to make storytelling a part of the marketing.
And the story that I was creating and the story that I was living and the business that I was building, you know, YouTube and and writing, you know, books at the time and stuff was just a way to kinda let people in on that a little bit and a way to position authority that felt very different than realtors. Mhmm. It felt really different than other real estate investors and what they were doing at the time. Yeah. Right now now and I'm not saying I'm a pioneer on this stuff.
I was learning from watching Ron LeGrand and watching Kim Dunlap and guys like that that had gone before and done it really well. But it was when marketing and real estate came together Right. That things really started popping for us.
Steve: And if you look right now, I mean, I don't think realtors necessarily really do a good job telling stories. And I think
Matt: Yeah.
Steve: Real estate investors do a little bit better.
Matt: Mhmm.
Steve: But it seems like really, for better or for worse, the best storytellers sell education Yeah. On real estate. Yeah. Right? And maybe just because, like, we're better at marketing, that's kinda where you evolve to.
Matt: Yep.
Steve: So you do and I remember also, like, at that time, I was still wearing my realtor hat.
Matt: Yeah.
Steve: And I had clients from Australia. And it was two things. Right? A, America was on sale. Yep.
But also the So
Matt: you're talking 02/2010. Yeah. Yeah. Foreclosure market.
Steve: Yeah. So America was on sale, but also the American dollar was on sale. Yeah. Right? Like, the currency exchange was crazy.
Like, this was driving it too. Right. That was the first time, like, in Canada where, like, Canadian dollar was showing in the American dollar. Yep. Right?
So, like, they were all coming down here in droves
Matt: to So they were buying in Florida like crazy.
Steve: Yeah.
Matt: We sold yeah. I mean, South America was big. Canada was big. Australia was big. And then it was just a mixed bag of, Western European
Steve: Mhmm.
Matt: Countries and stuff and, a lot of Germans. Yeah. A lot of South Americans. And then just a lot of, just interesting, you know, just kind of one off entrepreneurs in different parts of the world. And I'm like, wait.
You do what? I mean, we sold the guys that had the craziest businesses and stuff, you know, and and just, because these were guys that you know, some of these guys some of these buyers were people that were independently wealthy, and they kinda spent their whole life just kinda looking for early opportunities. Mhmm.
Steve: Right?
Matt: And so there was a batch of buyers that came in during that time that I'm like, who were you guys? Like, they they were Vagabonds before all the Vagabonds that we know now. Right? Like, there were guys there was one guy that he was just, you know, and this is 2008, and he just he was called, like, the naked investor or something like that. And he just sat at his desk with no clothes on and would give you his pics or whatever.
Super early. Right? And and did millions of dollars in business because he was right. You know? His picks were awesome, and people were way into it.
So and he wanted to put $6,000,000 into real estate.
Steve: Mhmm.
Matt: And he looked up the top market in the in the world, and it was Tampa, Florida. And he looked up the top guy in Tampa. And, well, there's only one dude that's even on Google. And so so many interesting people came into our world at that time, many that I still keep in touch with to this day. Some that I don't even I don't even do business with them anymore.
I just they're friends now because they're such unique individuals. And so
Steve: Let's talk about that.
Matt: That that opened up possibilities for me and kinda just, you know, let me know, man, you can entrepreneurship is choose your own adventure.
Steve: You know?
Matt: You can do whatever you wanna do here. There's no I mean, there's legal limits, and there's there's limits in certain ways, but but there's no limit to the creativity. There's no limit to how efficient you can work. There's no limit to the amount of partnerships you can create if you're creating win wins. Like, there's no there's no rug being pulled out from under you unless you're pulling it out.
Right? So yeah.
Steve: So let's talk about just real quick. So Tampa. So I can't remember who was on the show, but we kinda made the joke, like, how Phoenix is the guru capital Yeah.
Matt: Of the world. Tampa was the the original.
Steve: And, well, the he was like, well, it's Phoenix today.
Matt: Yeah.
Steve: Well, that's Tampa.
Matt: It's true. Yeah.
Steve: And I'm wondering right now, was it Tampa because you guys were the number one foreclosure market in the country, or is there something else?
Matt: I well, I think that grew it and grew the opportunity, but there was something before that. Like, a lot of the creative real estate gurus were in Florida before that. You know, the I'm forgetting the names. Some of these guys have passed away, and some of them were still around. Yeah.
I'll misquote them. Jack Shea, I think, is one of them. But a
Steve: lot 12?
Matt: What's Someone else? Yeah. I think Jack yeah. Yeah.
Steve: He was a big creative guy.
Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Big creative guy. A lot of those guys were Florida guys. Right?
So a lot of them just like Florida real estate anyway. Mhmm. A lot of them had retired to Florida and were still doing Mhmm. Multimillion dollar deals and stuff, but there just seemed to be, for whatever reason, a hotbed for that for many years. And so I think a lot of the RIA circuit, had been strong for many, many years there.
Then the foreclosure crisis happened, then the Internet came in Mhmm. Right at the same time. Like, Internet was there before that, but marketing on the Internet. 2008, 2009, that's when you start to see the old gurus either dry up and go away, or those old gurus make the shift and be online. Right?
So that's where you saw Ron LeGrand shift to online Mhmm. Successfully and still selling, you know, millions in in real estate and education today. Right? He made that shift. A lot of the guys that were his peers in the business didn't make that shift.
You know, Cam Dunlap made cutting edge technology his whole calling card. Right? He'd done coaching for years, but then really created technology and lead gen around that. He made that leap. A lot of those guys didn't make that leap.
So 02/1989 was a big separator because the game changed from a real estate market standpoint, but the game changed, I would say, even more from a marketing standpoint. And suddenly, speaking on a Friday afternoon and doing your three hour workshop at the Rio on Saturday, though still a mode, It was, oh, wait. There's this other mode here too Mhmm. And it's called the Internet, and it's much much less limited than this old model. Right?
So you still see guys doing that model to some extent. But if you don't have a real presence online, you don't have anything. Right? A lot of guys just got off or or dried up
Steve: Yeah.
Matt: During that time. The guys that made the shift kind of informed the real estate market going forward, and a lot of those guys like Ron and like, Robert Allen and like Cam Dunlap, like those guys are responsible for a lot of the great things we had today because they made that leap, and then we're kinda pushing the boundaries.
Steve: So Yeah. Yeah. I hope you guys don't mind us going down this memory lane. But, like Yeah. Yeah.
You know, we have, you know, Matt here. We had, who else was here? We had Trevor Mach. Right? Like and we we kinda went through, like,
Matt: this whole journey. Like Trevor's one of the young OGs. Yeah.
Steve: Yeah. It's like you don't know, like, how we got here. So, like, you know, anytime you have an opportunity, someone, you know, well versed, with all with a depth of experiences.
Matt: Well, Trevor's a great example of somebody who made that leap because he was in, you know, private money education. Mhmm. Him and Patrick Riddle made those products years and years ago, and then Trevor saw lead gen as the future and then created an entire technology around it, which was brilliant.
Steve: Right.
Matt: But then Trevor's real innovation was he created a community around that technology and around that data, around that lead gen. He created a thriving community around it, and that was his innovation.
Steve: Well, it's also like, we had the the marketing. Like, he he figured out marketing
Matt: Oh, yeah. As well.
Steve: Like, he was obsessed with I had no idea until he came on. He's talking about, like, how much he studied, direct response marketing Yeah. And and copywriting Totally. And so on.
Matt: Yeah. So Yeah. And those guys really got that. Like, the older like, the gurus that made that leap that were around for a little bit before that, they made that leap. They really understood copywriting and how that relates to direct response and messaging and the right words, even email titles and email copy, like, a big focus on that.
Mhmm. And I think if you're good at email copy, titling, and succinctly putting a message that brings someone to action, you know, in a marketing email, if you can do that, that's one of the hardest types of communication, I think, to get right. You know? Short form copy that gets somebody to do something.
Steve: Especially today.
Matt: Especially today. And if you can if you can master that, then you're a master of communication.
Steve: You
Matt: can take that a lot of different modes. I think speaking on stage is way easier than crafting emails that get people to do something.
Steve: Oh. Right?
Matt: You know, with energy on stage and with clarity and with people in the room and you're you're there actually with them like we're in this room together, you can bring someone to action. They can feel it. With an email. It's words that have to evoke the emotion, and that's like magic. I mean, copywriting is magic in that way.
You know? And so those guys got that.
Steve: Is this around the same time you connected with Jason Medley?
Matt: So Jason Medley, founder of Collective Genius, I think when I started in Collective Genius. I I probably met him around that time, around 02/1989. He was in he was in lending at the time. Right? That was his main Transaction funding.
Yeah. Transaction funding. That was his main thing. And he was really great at creating joint ventures and empowering gurus, educators, publishers by coming along and being the kind of the financing partner for them for their students. Right?
Right. So watching him do collaborative partnerships, that was, you know, watching him. I learned that from him. And then, obviously, when he started CG, I don't think I was a part of it the first year or two, but pretty early on in the in the world of CG, I joined. And then, yeah, since then, it's you know, we've done all kinds of things together, and he's a great friend.
Yeah.
Steve: Yeah. Great, great guy.
Matt: Yeah.
Steve: And then you also started working with Lee.
Matt: Lee Carney.
Steve: Yeah.
Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Lee Carney. Yeah. In fact, Lee and I were doing things even before the foreclosure crisis.
I was, I I and this is no joke. Like, I was ahead of Lee. Right? And then Lee came into that market. And around that foreclosure crisis time, that
Steve: Mhmm.
Matt: 08/09/2010, it was like I looked behind me and there was Lee, and then I blinked, and Lee was doing Lee had a year where he did, like, 800 deals in one year or something crazy like that. Right? And I've done you know, I've probably probably did at least a 100 deals with Lee just co wholesaling. And so if I had buyers, during that time when I was marketing to to all those overseas investors, I had guys that would buy ten, twenty, sometimes 30 single family homes at a time. Had one do about 60 single family homes, one swipe.
But the money of the title company said, get them to me as fast as you can. Right? So in times like that, I might have had, like, 30 or 40 on my books. I'd go to Lee Carney and say, hey. I need 20 I need 20 single family homes.
Mhmm. I know you got them because the ones I didn't get is because you bid a a dollar more than me and you got them. You know? So so that began a collaborative partnership with him that lasted this day that went to education and has gone to lots of other things that we've worked on. And, we do some funding together and stuff.
But, yeah, collaborative partnerships with Jason Medley, collaborative partnerships with Lee Carney early on, investing in those relationships and those relationships growing through the through the decades now. That's it for me. Right? That's it's not about a a secret marketing knowledge or about some kind of insight in the real estate market. I mean, I I pay attention to that stuff, but relationships like that and connecting, figuring out, and really understanding what their motivation is so that you can help them achieve that while they can help you achieve it.
Mhmm. Finding that win win, whether it was contractors or realtors or collaborative partners like Jason and Lee or partners like you, that's what you have to understand to make business work. You know? What what does Steve want? What is Steve trying to achieve?
What is he trying to do with disruptors? What what have I got built that could help with that? How do I front and lead with that?
Steve: Mhmm. You
Matt: know? So that we've got something that we can work on and and, you know, a mutual respect. So that's what I've always looked at is collaborative partnerships with people that have strengths where I've got weaknesses, sure, but also, people that are heading the direction that I'm heading, people that I have longevity in business, people that I think I'm investing in you because I think ten years from now, you're still gonna be around. You're still gonna be doing good business. Yeah.
And choosing those right people, is key. And so, yeah, back then, Dolmar, you could throw him back, you know, in that, you know, Dolmar Cross was just coming up in the Tampa market. It's not not the, you know, the TV star that we know today. Right?
Steve: Right.
Matt: And he was just coming up. You know? He was just starting to wholesale and stuff. You know? And so me and and Lee and and, Dolmar and some other people that you would know started doing a lot of deals together during that day, and we wouldn't have grown near as fast.
And, honestly, we wouldn't we wouldn't have near as much fun either, and I wouldn't have had a sense of running mates or camaraderie if I didn't have someone likely in that market to say, did you just see this change, or do you see what they're doing at the courthouse? Am I am I are my eyes deceive me, or did that just happen? No. That just happened. And we lost 30 deals because okay.
Cool. Like, just to have somebody to talk with like that. There were no masterminds. Right? Nothing like that.
The closest thing we had to masterminds then was me and Lee would invite five or six other of the top investors to Tampa and say, hey. We're buying lunch. Come to lunch. Mhmm. You know, we would do a lunch every couple months or something like that.
And that was really just to kinda say, you know, what what are we doing? What are you doing? What are we doing? We're trying to figure this out. You're trying to figure this out.
That kind of concept, though, fast forward a few years, that that's a mastermind.
Steve: Right.
Matt: Right? And and that was a mastermind for its day.
Steve: Let's talk about collaboration over competition. Yeah. I mean, it's something I said a lot. Mhmm. I think, you know, we talk about finding your tribe, finding your community.
Pace is saying squad up.
Matt: Mhmm. Right?
Steve: So this collaboration is not a newer concept, but, like, first question is, like, how has it specifically, like, some of the biggest what are some of the biggest wins you've had because of collaboration? Today's podcast is brought to you by motivatedleads.com. With them, you can get $300 worth of quality local leads sent exclusively to your inbox by just mentioning my name. I've used them, and they're one of the best producers of solid seller leads on a local level. And they fully guarantee the leads that they send you.
To get your $300 free credit, just head over to motivatedleads.com, hit the claim your area button, and let them know that I sent you.
Matt: Yeah. So well, Lee Carney would be a great example of that. Right? Lee Carney was technically my biggest competitor in the Tampa market. Yeah.
Lee Carney also became my all time best collaborator
Steve: Mhmm.
Matt: To this day in the Tampa market. That's it right there. That's the lesson right there. Many times, the person you're competing against or the person you feel like you're competing against or feel like you need to compete against, if If you look at it a different way, you realize, man, there's there's a lot we could do together. Sometimes, do you have a straight up competitor?
Yes. If someone trying to eat your lunch sometimes, of course. Right? That that that's how A lot of people trying to eat your lunch. A lot of people trying to eat your lunch.
What I'm saying is is there are also great collaborative partners and also people that are trying to eat your lunch, they can also be turned too. You know, I'm not saying you need to take your time to do that, but that but that's happened for me. People that I people that I maybe didn't have a good relationship with, And then, you know, we were able to come together on a deal or something happened there, and and perceptions just changed.
Steve: Yeah.
Matt: I I even had people that, you know, came to me years later and and, like, apologize. I'm so sorry. I was such a jerk and trying to compete with you in this and that. And now that there's some of the best collaborative partners. Right?
When I was in the that Tampa market first when Lee came in for a second there, I was like, like like, he's really starting to make some ways. He's starting to steal deals from me. Right? Or I'm starting to lose out on deals because of him. And I and the truth was is I was losing out on deals because of him.
He was losing out on deals because of me. But my perception changed of, okay. There is certainly, especially in this market, enough deals to go around. Yeah. And there's a lot more we could do if we are not competing against each other.
We could probably each do double the deals we're doing if we do it collaboratively. So every time a new batch of properties came out, me and Lee communicated about it. What are you doing on this one? What are you doing on that one? What are you gonna pay for that?
I'm gonna pay for really? That and that membership? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because of that.
Oh, I didn't see that. You know? Like, we talked about all these deals. And so my best you know, my greatest competitor became my best collaborator there. That doesn't always happen.
Right? But I truly believe that if you look for that, you will see opportunities other people don't see. And so collaboration over competition, yeah, you hear everybody say it. It's lip service. Right?
Sometimes. Right? But you and and someone like a a pace of more who you just said, master collaborators. Right? I mean, you guys have figured out you've had technical competitors time and time and time again on this exact podcast.
Right? Like, I've watched your podcast for years. Right? I'm like, oh, that's somebody who's technically vying for some of the same people or wanting to work with the same students or wanted to you know, is building a community that properties. That it we're we're buying property, buying and selling properties.
Right? And he's sitting there with them across the table. Yeah. Now some of those are your competitors, and maybe you haven't found the right way to work with them or it's just not the right fit. You can't work with everybody.
Right? But I guarantee having those people sit in this seat right here sharing ideas, have some of them turned into collaborative partners? 100%. Right? And so that's the that's one of the purposes of this of this podcast.
Right?
Steve: So for someone that's listening then who hasn't, you know, has has understood this Yeah. But hasn't been able to make it work for them. Yeah. How would you counsel someone to become better at collaborating?
Matt: Yeah. So I think the first thing you have to realize is that, you know, whatever competition's going on, it's in your head. Right? And and, hopefully, you understand you can control what you're thinking. Right?
You can control what you're thinking. So so collaboration over competition, yes. But a lot of this has to do with comparing yourself to other people. Right? Really, that's what competition is a lot of times.
Right? Sometimes you're inspired and you wanna compete and you wanna have running mates, and that's healthy. Right? Many times you're looking at somebody else and you're comparing yourself to them. Yeah.
And it's a competitive comparison. Look at what Steve Tranks built with disruptors. I'm never gonna have a podcast that has that many people or, well, of course, Steve has that podcast. It's because of blah blah blah blah blah. Or they make some reason.
They justify why you're succeeding and they're not or whatever it is. Right? That's toxic comparison. Right? And what I find is on the lowest levels of entrepreneurship to the absolute highest levels, maybe even worse at the highest levels, there are people comparing themselves and evaluating and coming to, you know, an understanding of their own self worth based on what other people are doing.
They're measuring their worth based on someone else's success or their perception of someone else's success. Mhmm. Right? So competitive comparison, comparing yourself to people and feeling like you don't measure up instead of being inspired by people, that's that's just a toxic spiral. Right?
And so I think a lot of it has to do with, you know, how do you how do you embrace collaboration over competition? Well, realize, for starters, that somebody winning doesn't mean that you're losing. For someone to gain doesn't mean that you have lost. On one deal, yes, that could happen. Right?
In one market where you're really going after it and someone else is going after their yes. There could be a winner and a loser there. Most of the time, that's not it's not a zero sum game. Most of the time. Right?
Most of the time, there's another way to look at it there. And most of the time, you're clouded by emotion when you're comparing yourself to somebody else. And here's the biggest piece that I that I found because I can compare myself to in anything I do in my life, I can go find somebody who does it better than me. Mhmm. And I can say, well, I'm not good enough because look at them.
Right? Look what they've built. Look how many deals they've done. Look how many doors they have. Look how many look at look at that revenue.
Look at their wife. Look at their kids. What whatever it is. Right? I can compare myself to so many people and be like, I don't measure up.
Right? What you're measuring yourself against is an illusion. Right? Because you're you're measuring yourself against your perception of that person, and that is almost always not actually correct.
Steve: Yeah.
Matt: You have no idea what's going on in that person's life. Right? Like, I see you and I see your family and I see your podcast and your businesses, Steven. And I have a perception of that. And you and I are friends, so I have a little bit more of an insight there.
Right? But I still don't know everything that you're dealing with. I don't know what you're what you're going through. I don't know the challenge you just dealt with in that meeting that you had before this. I I I don't know that.
I don't know what you and your wife are uniquely struggling with or what unique challenges your kids are having. Mhmm. I could just be comparing myself to you, and you've got it all together, man. Perfect life, perfect family, perfect businesses. Everything's great.
Right? Is that is that true? Is that the truth about your is that what you're perfect?
Steve: Yeah. I wish you were.
Matt: So that's a lie. Right? So so I think that's the biggest piece is dropping that. Step one, drop the competition, in terms of comparison. Stop competitively comparing.
Stop evaluate evaluating your self worth based on what somebody else is doing, the business they've built, the transactions they're doing. Instead, turn that around and be inspired by that. Right? Find collaborative running mates instead of competitive comparisons. Mhmm.
Right? So instead of thinking Steve's got this great podcast. He's done all these deals. I'm never gonna be that good. Think, wow.
Steve's got this amazing podcast. Right. I'd love to be on that sometime. I wonder what value I could bring to Steve that would have me, you know, on his podcast and that would create a value exchange. Right?
I'm inspired by that versus competing with it.
Steve: I think you should.
Matt: Competing, I wouldn't even be on the show. I'd be like, I'll never have a podcast that good. I hate Steve Trang. Forget it. You know?
I think
Steve: you should have this conversation with RJ because he's always feeling bad comparing his podcast to mine. Right? So you should probably have this conversation with him. Like, don't compare. Yeah.
But beyond that
Matt: I was talking with RJ before this, and he he prepped me for this podcast. And he he's got a message for you, and I I refuse to deliver it as as, as requested by him.
Steve: Oh, but that's the FCC rules.
Matt: You know? I can't I can't say something.
Steve: Yeah. Yeah. The seven words. Right?
Matt: RJ's the man. I love it, dude.
Steve: But that's a classic, I think, example, though. Right? Like, we're vying for the same students. Yeah. We both have a podcast.
Yeah. But we still talk all the time. The people sometimes on social media think we hate each other.
Matt: Yeah. That's fun. Yeah. Right? Well, that's fun because you guys are you guys are having fun, and people that know you know that you like each other.
Right? I mean, you're on stage at at our mastermind together, and you've had podcasts that you've run together.
Steve: Exactly.
Matt: You know, I I've even, you know, I've even stoked the fire of your debates online because I have fun with it. Right? It's even fun, you know, it's fun to do it. So you guys are telling a story there. Mhmm.
Right? And you guys both have these great personalities. Now you could definitely that could have definitely gone the other way. A 100%. Strong personality, strong personality.
Yeah. You know, invest investing companies, successful, you know, same here. Big education company, big great content creator, great content creator. I mean, you guys, like you said, you're vying for the same people.
Steve: Right. Same as my boss.
Matt: You're looking for the same attention, the same bandwidth. Right? But what have you guys done instead? You were inspired by what each other are doing. You're you're different even though you have a lot of similarities.
You're very different. You've learned from each other. You counterbalance each other in some great ways. You you guys on stage or on a podcast together. Mhmm.
It's a different thing than you guys alone. It's different than you bring.
Steve: Collaborate on Instagram. Like, there's an actual button. Right? Like, collaborate.
Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
Steve: With another person. So, alright. So I think you're on point as far as, like, you know, just recognize they're not competition someone that you work with. Yeah. You know, one of the areas I struggle is is is, getting someone's mindset right.
Because, like
Matt: Yeah.
Steve: What you're saying makes total sense, and, obviously, I'm drinking the Kool Aid. Right? Like, I mean, I learned some time ago that the most successful people are open and sharing and are more willing to collaborate. I learned that lesson, you know, along the journey because I was initially, like, competition over collaboration in the beginning.
Matt: Yeah.
Steve: So I learned this. But, you know What changed you, though? Having lunch with successful people. Right? Like, you know, I read John Maxwell's book, The Leaders Ask Great Questions.
So I would actually take those seven questions.
Matt: Yeah.
Steve: And, hey, Matt. Can I take you to lunch? I like to pick your brain. I'll know those guys. Right?
And then the most successful people would say yes. Right. Right? And then I would ask questions, and they would answer it. Nothing held back, completely unrestrained.
And, like, after two or three of those, like it's like you ask, you don't know what's gonna happen. Right? And most said no. Most said no. Mhmm.
But the few that said yes, these were, like, top dogs in Phoenix. Yeah. And that was when I was like, wait a minute. The most successful people. And then I joined a coaching program because at this point, I was above coaching.
I was two.
Matt: Wait. So the ones that said yes ended up being some of the most successful ones. Okay. Yeah. So you were getting an indicator of what made them
Steve: successful. There's a trend here. Right?
Matt: Yeah. Exactly.
Steve: And then you join a mastermind, and you see, like, oh, the most successful it was a mastermind. It was a coaching program. It was kinda like a mastermind. It was a coaching program. Mhmm.
The most successful in the coaching program gave you their playbook. Mhmm. They did not, like, well, hang on now. That's something that you you didn't pay me for this. Yeah.
It was an open book. You just hang up by the bar, talk up you compare notes, and they just spoke openly and freely, and there's like, you could tell the guard was way, way down.
Matt: Yeah. Yeah. That's it. Right? And and people that aren't afraid to share, that's also an amazing sign of confidence Mhmm.
And an amazing awareness of that that they know who they are, that they're confident in what they're doing, that they're not afraid to share something
Steve: Mhmm.
Matt: With you because Right? And I think you would find that among those people you met with. Right? And among the highest achievers I know, they're the high, high, high achievers. There's not a scarcity mindset there.
Right? Yeah. There's a a willingness, at least, with our type of entrepreneur and the kind of people we hang out with in our ecosphere. There's an understanding that if I'm able to share something that helps you, that's gonna come back and help me. Right?
And I think the most successful people find that. And there are traits. There are traits of the most successful people. Are they a 100%? No.
They're not a 100%. But a lot of them are pretty good traits. You know? I mean, like, one of those traits is, you know, you know, long term marriage. You know?
Now not everybody's got a long term marriage. Not everybody that's successful does.
Steve: Mhmm.
Matt: But if you had your choice, would you like to have a long term successful marriage or not? Yeah. I think you'd choose long term successful marriage. Right? And then also when you look at the richest men, the richest families, many of them are ones that have had long term relationships.
Now maybe some of those were marriages of convenience and wealth, but many of those were long term committed relationships. That's a trait of of high net worth. Right? So we have indicators like that of the things that make sense and stuff. But we still our EQ and our ego will still get in the way of that, and we could sit down and have conversations like you did with those folks, but they can't get out of their way to do that.
You had to drop your ego to go to those people. You couldn't go to them and say, I think I'm just as good as you. Will you have lunch with me? Like, it doesn't work that way. Right?
You have to say, look. I really respect what you've done.
Steve: Mhmm.
Matt: And and you've done this and this and this, and I've kinda done my homework here, and and I'm paying respect to you. Yeah. I'd also love to figure out a way to bring value to you. Can we do lunch sometime? Yeah.
That's a whole different thing. You can't have that conversation if you are caught in the throes of competitive comparison.
Steve: Well, let's just do it. In my circle, I was one of the top guys in my circle. Yeah. But then you look at, like alright. Let's look at the whole market.
Yeah. Not even close. Not even a blip. Right? It's kinda like, when I was in high school, you're you do you play GoldenEye?
Matt: Yes. Yes. I love GoldenEye. In high school,
Steve: like, I was the man Yeah. In GoldenEye.
Matt: Right? I I liked proximity mines. I was big on proximity mines. Proximity mines.
Steve: Yeah. Right? So I Plant them
Matt: and let somebody blow themselves up. For sure. Right?
Steve: And I was really good. Yeah. Then I went to ASU. And, like, these kids that play golden eye all day in the dorms Oh, yeah. Like, you show your head you were dead.
Right? It was over. It's like, man. Okay. Like, I don't complete in this league.
So, like, had to drop my ego where I was like, yeah. Like, I might be doing well amongst my friends. These guys over here. Right. They're on a whole different level.
Matt: And when you see that, you have a choice. Right? And the choice is they're better than me. I don't like them. I'm gonna throw rocks at their car.
Yeah. Or I like that. I'm inspired by some things that they've done. Mhmm. I wanna bring value to them.
I wanna learn from them. Right? And there's two ways you go. You know? And you I have a lot of friends, and you do too, that are successful lone wolves.
You can get a long way Mhmm. As a lone wolf. Right? But you won't get you won't be ultimately fulfilled as a lone wolf. You can drive a lot of revenue, make a lot of money.
You can pat yourself on the back a lot. You can get a lot of other people to say nice things about you Mhmm. Lone wolf in it. Right? But, ultimately, doing that alone, to me, that's one of the points of entrepreneurship is that you get to work with the people you choose to work with.
Right? That's freedom. Right? And so for me, I mean, that that'd be my definition of freedom is being able to work on projects that you love, that have impact, that are fulfilling to you with people that you respect, that have integrity, that align with your values and your principles. Right?
Like, that's freedom to work on to work on the projects you like with the people that you like. Right? But you but, again, you can't do it if you're comparing yourself to them feeling like you don't measure up. Right? Because you are telecasting that all the time.
Here's a good example, and we all know someone like this, that whenever somebody if there's somebody that's like, hey. We just did this or we just had this accolade or someone pat someone else on the back for an accolade, then somebody else has to stand up and say, oh, fantastic job on 3.2 we did 3,250,000.00 this year and blah blah blah. Like, they've got a one up everybody. Anytime you see someone that has to one up somebody, you know that they're caught in competitive comparison. They're in a they're in a trap in their head, right, versus standing up and saying, dude, that is awesome.
I love that. We've got some cool stuff going over here too. I wanna I wanna connect with you about how we could both blow this up more.
Steve: Well, anytime I hear that in back in the back of my
Matt: mind, I'm screaming. Upsmanship, man.
Steve: In my back of my mind, I'm just hearing them scream insecurity.
Matt: That's what it is. Right. Yeah. That's exactly what it's it's telecasting it. It's wearing it on your sleeve.
Right? And so holding stuff close to your chest, not sharing with people, being upset about, you know, other people's success. That's the quickest way to telecast how you feel about yourself. Yeah. And, who's the guy?
He's got a big podcast. Oh, man. What's his name? He used to be on the the man show back in the day with Jimmy. There's
Steve: Adam Corolla.
Matt: Adam Corolla. Yeah. So Adam Corolla was talking about, you know, the difference between, you know, how people talked when he was a kid and now. And he was like, you know, when I was a kid, we'd see mister Jones driving down Main Street in his big Cadillac. And my grandpa would say, Adam, see that?
That's mister Jones. Mister Jones built businesses. Mister Jones employed a bunch of people. Mister Jones built this, did this, created this opportunity, and now mister Jones drives that big old Cadillac down the road, and and that's success. He's a success.
You know? Today, we say, that's mister Jones. Mister Jones owns a lot of stuff. You should he's like, he's got that really nice car because he, you know, put his thumb, got a bunch of people under his thumb.
Steve: Taking advantage of
Matt: You know, took advantage of people, did all this stuff. You should pick up a rock and throw it at mister Jones' car. Right? And that's like that's
Steve: I'm not saying it's
Matt: all like that, but there's a lot of rocks being thrown at a lot of cars right now. And whether it's, you know, with words or whether it's with one else upsmanship or whatever it is, that's just like you picked up a a rock and threw it at Steve's nice car because I was mad that Steve drives a nice car or whatever it is. That is just telecasting it. And here's the biggest thing. If you're just a selfish money driven, you know, money driven money grubber, right, and all you care about is money, This is still the right way to do it because you're cutting yourself off from opportunities to make money.
Right? So so even if you're not buying anything else I'm saying about collaboration and you're just motivated by money, realize that collaboration, dropping the competition, dropping the ego, that is actually the way to succeed more, to create more, to have more.
Steve: Yeah.
Matt: And and if you'll buy into that just from the standpoint of more revenue, you will eventually kinda come around to understand the collaboration's roots up.
Steve: Right? Like the change of heart?
Matt: Exactly. Hopefully, without everything he had to go through. But
Steve: yeah. So you said something interesting, though. That the highest the most success well, a lot of a lot of very on out on the outside looking in very successful Yeah. Are still dealing with this. Yeah.
So that's surprising to me because I kinda thought that once you get to a certain point, kinda drop it. Yeah. So you're still seeing people that are on the outside looking in, crushing it. Yep. But they're still playing the comparison game.
Matt: Yeah. Yeah. They are. And I think if you don't have the right people around you and if you don't consciously choose to, be inspired and choose the right running mates around you and be inspired by people that are accomplishing other things or better or bigger things than you, whatever that is, then you're just inviting yourself to be frustrated, you know, like, to to basically feel like you're alone, right, to be on entrepreneurial island. I think that's what it is.
And at the highest levels, I mean, we talked a little bit about, like, Michael Jordan. I mean, an example would be, like, Mariah Carey. Right? One of the biggest artists of her generation. Right?
But she also made one of the worst movies of all time. And maybe you don't remember. I just remember this because I was looking up examples of exactly what we're talking about, high level people that you wouldn't think compare themselves to anybody and mistakes they made because they compared themselves to people. Mariah Carey looked at Whitney Houston and The Bodyguard and saw this success, and she thought, okay. I'm every bit the singer that she is, technically, maybe even more.
It's debatable. Right? But I wanna be as big as she is, and so I'm gonna make the movie of all movies. And it was the biggest turkey of all time. It's now famous.
Glitter is now famous for being one of the worst movies. It's right it's up there with, like, showgirls, I think. Right? It's it's it's this terrible, terrible movie. She was comparing herself to Whitney, and she did something that she shouldn't have done that didn't fit her model, that didn't play to her strengths, and she failed because of that.
Right? So that's just like one example.
Steve: Sounds like You could
Matt: look at the Russians and the Americans and the space race the same way. There was a lot of competitive comparison versus trying to get to the goal Mhmm. Especially with the Russians. Right? You could look at, Custer, general Custer.
Mhmm. The old example. Right? Like, why did he, why did he find his end at the Battle of Little Bighorn? Right?
It was actually because he made strategic errors, that he would have never made before. And the reason he made those strategic errors is because he was coming to the end of his career. He was thinking about his legacy, and he was looking at things that other generals had done. And he made decisions. Yes.
He made decisions that he thought would lead to big leaps, big wins. Right? And they were strategic errors, and he died. Right? Because he was comparing himself to other people.
So, you know, on our level and what we're talking about here, compare yourself to other people, develop your own sense of self worth based on that. Your business will probably fail or you'll feel alone. And then if you're a customer, you know, you can straight up die.
Steve: As you're talking about this, I'm thinking like Or if
Matt: you're Mariah Carey, you make glitter. It'd be almost as bad. I haven't
Steve: seen that movie yet. So Don't. I'll see that one.
Matt: Yeah. I saw five minutes of it. Don't see it.
Steve: Yeah. But I'm thinking, like, what you're talking about, you know, staying in your lane, so to speak, is, like, you know, rappers and athletes. Right? Athletes wanna be rappers, rappers wanna be athletes. And, like, right now, you see, like, kinda, like, athletes wanna be influencers.
Right? Influencers wanna be athletes. And, I mean, I could speak on myself, you know. I don't know if I've talked about this a lot or at least, you know, on on on a podcast. But, like, you know, Ryan Pineda is a great friend.
Matt: Yeah.
Steve: Right? And I see everything he's doing. Right? And I go I go and make these, you know, decisions that in hindsight were not the best decisions.
Matt: And you did it because of what you saw him doing?
Steve: Well, I saw, like, okay. Well, this is the path to success. Right? So, like, you know, blockchain is the next big thing. NFTs.
Right?
Matt: So, hey.
Steve: You know, he's buying these NFTs. Alright. I'll buy these NFTs. Yeah.
Matt: Right? Build the RJ Bates likes to remind you about your I know. He has your cartoon character that you bought. Yeah.
Steve: And then, you know, building a getting a big media team to create more content. So I built a bigger media team. Yeah. Create more content. Right?
And so, I don't regret it. But in hindsight, it was not the best decision, and I was copying I was comparing to someone else. Like, here's what they're doing. Here's what's working for them. I'm gonna go ahead and do that versus, like, just do you're doing what you're good at.
Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And I've done that at different times in in my, you know, different careers in in real estate investing and in real estate education, and product creation.
It's real easy to lapse into this. Right? Because everyone's putting out content. Mhmm. Right?
So so the kind of world that we live in now with content marketing, it lends itself to toxic comparison. Right? Because we we're online all day or on Instagram all day saying, hey. Look at the cool thing I'm doing.
Steve: Right.
Matt: Right? So you could just if you wanna feel bad about yourself, just scroll and be like, well, he's better than me. He's better than me. He's better than me. I mean, that you could feel bad about yourself really, really quickly.
Right? And the speed at which we can do that to ourselves is faster because of technology now, I think.
Steve: Well, there's that. But I think the one that makes it just a little bit worse are actually masterminds. Yeah. Right? And I love masterminds.
Matt: Oh, yes.
Steve: I'm in multiple masterminds. They're great. They've helped me with my business a lot. Yeah. But if you're not prepared, you go in there and say, okay.
So Matt's doing family. I'm trying to think. Scott is doing, self storage.
Matt: Mhmm.
Steve: Right? Another Scott's got a call center. Right? And then this guy's got Novations Yeah. Of course.
Yeah. Right? And then this guy has multifamily. Tim Brotz has 7,000 doors.
Matt: Right. Try comparing yourself to that.
Steve: You wanna do all these things. Yeah. You wanna do all these things, and you kinda get sucked in. And and it's great. And and the and the and the greatest challenge here is that they're good people Yeah.
Running good businesses.
Matt: Mhmm.
Steve: And so you think, oh, I can just go ahead and add that without necessarily, taking to account and assessing your actual skill set
Matt: Yeah.
Steve: Or, like, your resources, including time and money and energy.
Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Deciding what to go into.
Steve: Hey, disruptors. I just wanna share that myself as well as about half of the people on the show for disruptors are members of the Collective Genius real estate mastermind also known as CG. Now I've been a member of the Collective Genius for well over four years now along with about 700 other top tier real estate investors that flipped a combined over 50,000 homes per year. And I've personally made a ton of money and developed some deep personal lifelong friendships there. If you wanna look behind the scenes of what it's like to be an esteemed member of this organization and how it's helped me scale, please check out cgmastermind.com.
Matt: Yeah. Deciding what to go into based on objective criteria and your strengths and what you're really bringing to the table versus what Ryan Pineda or some other Mhmm. Super achievers doing. Right? Yeah.
That's you have to really you have to have the right people around you to remind you that stuff too. Right? Right. But having a criteria for that, like a decision making criteria Mhmm. On figuring things out.
Because then you can be inspired by people, but then filter it through your criteria of is this the right thing for me? And a lot of it is, you know, deciding what project to go into, what partnerships to go into, what deals to go into. I mean, a real estate real estate's a thousand businesses in one. What niched what micro niche do you wanna focus in on? Five of them, one of them, a 100 of them?
You wanna do stuff in one state, or you wanna be like RJ Bates or Paul Ozell and do it in 50 states? I mean, are you crazy like that? Like so you have to make all these decisions. And what's a good decision for RJ because of his setup, his skill set, his family setup, where he lives? I mean, there's so many other things that have nothing to do with you on a comparison that he's gotta decide that for himself.
Right? So having an objective criteria, you know, just having a, you know, a list of, hey. Before I go into any project, no matter how inspired I am or no matter if I'm feeling pressure to compete or whatever, filter it through these, right, and having an objective criteria. And I think a lot of it has to do with does does it align with your principles? Does it align with, you know, your integrity?
Does it align with your your long term goals? Right? And then I think it goes into what's my skill set? What do I bring uniquely to it? Is this easy for me to do versus hard?
Do I have five other businesses built that if I do this project, all five of those businesses are served by this? That makes it really, really attractive. Right? Do I have leverage built already? All those things you have as filters.
And if you don't have those or at least don't have a critical number of those things that you know are right for you, then you say no to it. And you still be inspired by Ryan. You maybe just don't build the same studio because, okay, that was that was great. And I could do that, and I love that, and I could see the benefit of that. But that only aligns really, you know, with four out of my eight things that I have to have that are must haves.
You know? And so I think sticking to your guns on that stuff. You know? Having having templates, having the criteria, those are great questions to ask to those guys that you have lunch with. You know?
Like, how do you decide what to say yes and what to say no to? I love asking that question to people because you get all kinds of criteria. What you'll always find, no matter the differences of the answers, is they have an answer for that. Mhmm. Because anybody that's successful has said no a lot and said yes, less Mhmm.
And and has hopefully said yes to the right things
Steve: Mhmm.
Matt: And and said no to the right things. And that's that's hard as an entrepreneur, especially if you know you could do it.
Steve: Yeah. Well, that's the worst part.
Matt: The Yeah. Like, I could crush that. Should you crush that?
Steve: The I can't remember who I was talking to, but they were saying, like, I was I was I was relating to sharing with them, like, hey. Like, one of my greatest weaknesses is I have shiny object syndrome.
Matt: And they're
Steve: like, Steve, that's not your problem. Really? Because everyone assumes this thing. That's my problem. That I have shiny object syndrome.
Matt: What syndrome?
Steve: Shiny object syndrome.
Matt: Oh, yeah.
Steve: I was like, that's my and they're like, no. You don't have that like, that's not your problem. I was like, really? Because I seem to get distracted quite a bit. They're like, no.
Your problem is that you can get distracted and execute. Yeah. Right? The problem is
Matt: you can have an idea make it happen. Yeah.
Steve: And go do it. Right. That is your problem. Like, for other people, they'll look at it as, like, I can do that, but do I want to? Like, whatever.
Mhmm. Like, you can see it. You can see how it can be done. Yeah. And you can get that ball rolling past the 50 yard line before you realize, maybe I shouldn't do this.
Yeah.
Matt: Yeah. You know, one of the biggest things I ask myself, I mean, obviously, is it aligned with my goals? Does it take, take, you know, take advantage of other things I've built? But it's it's looking at you know, obviously, you're looking at your time balance and everything too and could you do it. But, you know, out of all the things that I can do and all the skills that I do have, does this fit into, like, one of the top one or two things that I could do?
Like, the magic that I know I could bring all day long. Could I do this? Yes. I could go crush this if I want to, but that same amount of time put somewhere else, maybe in something I'm already doing and just doing more of it. Like, what is the real, product that comes out of that?
Right? What is the real result that comes out of that? And if if nothing else, you seem like, you can access that logical side of your brain. And it's like, look. Just logically, this makes a lot more sense.
You know? But but the other big criteria is, for me, is it duplicatable? Right? Because you can go do something and crush it. I can go do something and crush it.
Do you wanna keep doing that forever? Well, if you don't, then somebody else is gonna have to do it. Right? But if it's such a unique thing that you bring to the table that it can't be duplicated, then I'm gonna say don't do it.
Steve: Right.
Matt: Right? If if you're going to start in something, but you can never hire a CFO to take take that over and run that company, or you're acquiring a business, but you're acquiring a business that only you can run. Right? I mean, you and I talk business acquisition a good bit. I know you're always looking at opportunities not just to grow businesses, but to strategically acquire businesses and bring them into the the fold.
Right? I mean, you've looked at lots of opportunities. We've talked about a lot of that kind of stuff. I think that decision should be around how quickly can you get somebody else in there to do it. Right?
If I look at something, I'm looking at it because, okay. If I'm gonna do this and I have to do it for more than six months before somebody else can do it, that's a hard disqualifier for me. And and I'd like it to be a lot shorter than that too if I could depending on the business and what it is. But if you're buying something or starting something that you just then have to do, even though you can, does that really make sense if you have to keep doing it?
Steve: One of the
Matt: have somebody else take it over? It doesn't it just doesn't make sense for me. Right?
Steve: One of the lessons I learned way much later in the game. Right? It's just because you could, doesn't mean you should.
Matt: Exactly. No. It's a 100%, man. And that's that is the plight of the entrepreneur, whether you call it shiny object syndrome. Sometimes competitive comparison is the same thing.
Yeah. Look what look what this guy's doing, and that's the shiny object. Right? So it's competitive comparison, shiny object syndrome. It's like one big one big disorder.
Right?
Steve: It is.
Matt: But that's that is the issue with, successful entrepreneurs and people that have amazing talents and skills, some that they have innately, some that they've grown and spent spent thousands of dollars on, hundreds of thousands of dollars on to develop.
Steve: Spent houses on.
Matt: Right. Spent houses on. Exactly. Right? To to develop those skills and get, like, your sales skills.
You had some innate ability there, but you have invested in yourself to take that to a way higher level and are teaching other people how to do that same thing in sales. Right? So, so that's that's it. You know, I think you you have to factor all that in, and you have to really make decisions with that filter, make decisions without the the, emotional murkiness of competition and, you know, that just that that's all emotional murkiness and make it based on here's my criteria, here's who it helps, here's what what it leverages. And then at the end of the day, I mean, it's gotta be fun too.
Yeah. And it doesn't have to be fun every day. And it doesn't have to you know, it has to be outsourced. Well, all those other things we said, but at the end of the day, we can go make money lots of ways. Entrepreneurs like us have issues and problems because we can do so much.
We end up spreading too thin and doing it. Right? What we should be chasing because the revenue is gonna come if we're fulfilled, if we're engaged, if we're having fun working on projects we love, with people we love, we can do that over and over again all day long. Right? So not spinning out on that, you know, not spinning out on opportunity and making sure you stay plugged into, a sphere of influence, whether that is, you know, your family or or or a church or a mastermind or community, other people around you that are sounding boards that act as a board of advisors, people that will see things that you don't see with your blind spots, people that will say, are you doing that because Ryan Pineda is doing that?
Are you doing that because that's in line with these eight things that you needed to be aligned with?
Steve: So speaking on that People
Matt: that people that will hold you accountable to that stuff. You know? And that's And that's where sphere of influence is. And that's where that's where I think a great church can come in and and help people. That's where I think a great mastermind can come in and help people is if it can be that sounding board and that accountability creator.
But, again, that requires ego dropping again too.
Steve: Well, when I was at family mastermind a couple months ago, Jesus Toledo and Flavable Sands Yeah. Cornered me.
Matt: Yeah.
Steve: They hold me accountable. And they they were right. But because we were there hanging out that they had the ability, again, put me in a corner and, like, beat some sense of me.
Matt: Physically put you in a corner. Yeah. Yeah. Physically. Yeah.
Steve: So what is your criteria? Because you you know, you're a big fan of joint ventures Yeah. Doing deals together. What is your criteria for doing deals together?
Matt: Yeah. So, I mean, number one would be some of the things we said. You know, does it align with my principles? Right? I I don't wanna do a deal or own a business or be, you know, connected to somebody that I don't feel like is on the same, path with me.
You know? And so, and you've gotta decide that for yourself. But there are certain principles that if we can't do business together in this way, that their hard stops. Right? And so, and that's, you know, obviously being legal and ethical and all those other things, but really taking care of your people and the thrust being growing and helping and really creating community and helping your people, not just making money and realizing that one comes from the other, but the honest, you know, the honest pursuit of that first one brings the second.
Right? So that's one thing is that you're aligned, from a goal standpoint, that you're aligned from a principal standpoint. That's that's the biggest thing that the deal is aligned with or that your partner is aligned with. The other thing is skill set. You know?
Like, whatever you're bringing to the table, whatever they're bringing to the table. I mean, ideally, you're really good at something, and you're partnering with somebody strategically because they bring something to the table that either you don't have, you don't want to have to bring to the table, you wanna partner with them, but it's a win win. Right? And that requires you understanding their motivation. So, so I think, you know, partnership criteria would be really understanding the the the long term motivation of your partner Yeah.
And what they want and how this project, even if it's not the end all be all for them, how this project contributes to the main thing that they want in life. Right? Right. Because if you can figure that out and you kinda know what they want and you know from day one, hey. This partnership is not gonna push to that end.
Right? Or you you don't have the time to put into that. It allows you to objectively look at that. Right? So so looking at that piece too.
Let's see. What are the other ones? Obviously, I said this before, other businesses that you own. This is a big one for you and and for me. Right?
You know, like, this podcast that you have can tie in with so many other things. Some businesses that you might start or acquire might be because of how you can tie it in with this podcast or how you could promote with this podcast. And you own multiple businesses that you've got an ecosphere of companies. I have the same thing, and so I'm always looking at, hey. You know, if I did this project or if I bought this company or if I went into this partnership, can I can I bring special juice to that?
Because I've got two other projects that just you know, I've already got a list built for this company that is this whole company's list now. You know? Like so I look at a lot of opportunities like that of what else have you built that you can strategically leverage? Right? And I think the smartest operators in real estate get that.
They think, man, you know what? This is worth x amount of dollars, but because I own this thing over here, this is actually worth 10 times more to me. Right. You know? And that allows you to to correctly sometimes pay more than somebody else who doesn't have those assets.
Right? And so the more I hang out with my m and a guys like Dave Folk and some of those guys that have done so many, company and business acquisitions, the more I start to think about it in terms of ecosphere. Right? So that's a big one for me right now. And then, obviously, is it fulfilling?
Is it fun? Does it energize me? Or do when I think about it, is it something that that pulls energy away from me? Right? If I'm excited about it when I wake up in the morning, that's I'm doing the right thing.
Right? So if all those other things are set and it's fun and it's engaging and allows me to to come, you know, talk with Steve Trang on his podcast or to do a deal with you or something like that, those are all things I look at. And I think those are the those are really the biggest qualms.
Steve: The the the one that jumped out at me here is, you know, like, what is the vision and how does this business play into that vision? Yeah. Because the reason the biggest reasons why businesses break up well, one is, like, we start off like, hey. Look. You do this.
I do this. We do the same thing. Let's do it together. Like, that's not a good thing. Right?
And that's how a lot of us start. Yeah. But, you know, you figure that out pretty quickly. Yeah. We do
Matt: it fifty fifty.
Steve: Yeah. But the next thing
Matt: partnership structure of all time, by the way. Fifty fifty. More more of fifty fifty partnerships failed than any other percentage of split in partnerships.
Steve: Oh, that makes a little sense.
Matt: Right? Because you didn't think about it. You didn't you didn't think about you're actually gonna do 80% of the work, and I'm gonna do 20. Let's just do fifty fifty. Like, someone's always gonna fall out on that.
No.
Steve: It's not gonna work. But the other thing too was, like, how do how does this business fit into their vision? Yeah. Because the once we get past the fifty fifty part, the other reason why businesses end is because we have different visions. Yeah.
Right? Like, my partnership that ended in '22, we just had different visions. Here's where I wanna go, and here's what it takes. He's like, well, we're pretty good over here. I was like, what?
Yeah. Right? Yeah. And so I think that and that's true for so many partnerships. Right?
Like and, you know, I've got a coach right now. And, you know, it's funny what he said was, like, you don't realize that when you get into a partnership, you're not partnering with that person. You're partnering with that person, his wife or her or her husband and their kids and their parents and their circle of friends. Because when you're not around, other people are in their ear thinking about how this is not a fair relationship. It's not a fair partnership and this and that.
And I have never once considered that. Like Yeah. If I do a deal with Matt Andrews, it's not just Matt. It's Matt's wife, kids, all the other bad people in Tampa. Right?
Matt: Yeah. Yeah. And But there's other people in your ear. And let me tell you what. I I have, especially early in my career, had had a couple partnerships that fell out, because of those things you're talking about.
Because of, specifically had one partner. It wasn't a long term partnership, and and fortunately, it was early on. Mhmm. And, but, you know, I I'll just go ahead and say it. He, you know, he had a really tough marriage.
And he had somebody and his wife that basically worked against him in every way all the time Mhmm. In every in every situation. Right? Well, you take on a business partner like that, that brings their own worst enemy to the table with them. Yeah.
Right? And idealistic we, many times as entrepreneurs, we're we're idealistic. We're optimistic.
Steve: Everything's gonna work out great.
Matt: And and that is one of the great things about us as entrepreneurs that we see the possibilities. Right? We also need to be critical, and we need to have vetting criteria, and we need to be realistic. Right? And so if this business partner's got all the great tools, but a completely messed up family situation or whatever, there's things you're not seeing there that have created those situations.
No judgment or anything. But is that who you want running a business with? And here's the other piece of it, and you know this, and you're talking about it from your partnership, you know, a few years ago. Starting a partnership, way easier than ending a partnership. Yeah.
Right? You know, getting married. Hey. Hey. You and I could go get married tonight in Vegas.
Right? It could be so easy. Chapel of love done, you know. Like, we get we can marry anybody tonight, whatever, you know, and it could happen. Right?
Ending that, you know, well, you can end them pretty fast in Vegas too. But but starting a relationship, starting a partnership, exciting, easy, honeymoon period. Everybody's in love. It's romantic. You know?
And then reality sets in. Right? And if you have to have a business divorce, it's it could be really terrible depending on the situation. Right? Some of those things could be, you know, tactfully handled.
Some of those things can turn into nightmares. Right? And I see a lot of people going into partnerships, honestly, for lack of a better term, willy nilly, you know, and not vetting, those other things. And so, you know, I'm not saying you have to do a a full on, you know, CIA background search on on everybody on on every facet of their life. But if you're gonna go into a big business deal with somebody that's a long term deal, if you're gonna co wholesale a deal and it's a you flip it or whatever, it's done.
What whatever. Right? In and out. Okay. You still probably don't wanna work with somebody you're not aligned with.
But if you're gonna start a business with somebody, if you're if you're legally going into something with somebody, realize that is a marriage. And you should definitely your due diligence should extend beyond business for sure. And the biggest liabilities are the emotions of people. Right.
Steve: Right?
Matt: Because you could have the most talented person, but if, like I said, they got people in their ear that are talking, you know, whatever, you know, talking the wrong thing, it's not gonna be a successful project. So that's really big, choosing partners like that. And I don't you don't have to be best friends with everybody that you're in business with, but you have to have confidence in in their life away from business. Right? And, another thing too, and this is this just popped in my head, but, people that are only about business and don't have anything else they're excited about in life, I stay away from those people.
I've never had any good situations come out of people that are all business all the time. I think it was Pablo Escobar said this is kinda funny to quote Pablo Escobar, but he said, a man who talks only of business is a failure in all parts of life. Now I'm not saying you should necessarily take Pablo Escobar's advice on lots of other things, but I actually do actually at least partially agree with that. If you're only about business and you can't ever talk about anything, do anything else, focus on anything else, There's a place for that, and there's there are drivers and there are sales positions that I think but as a business partner Yeah. That's not who I want as a business partner.
I want somebody who's well rounded, you know, who's got, who's got interests and somebody who doesn't have interest. I mean, you and I are gonna see a basketball game. Right? We love we love NBA. Right?
We could talk about that all day long. We could talk, you know, nineteen nineties NBA to now. We could talk and we do that all the time. We talk five minutes on the phone on business and forty five minutes, you know, on on NBA. We have interest.
We
Steve: have things
Matt: we're into. Be aware of and be hesitant to go into business with people who don't have any interest
Steve: Yeah.
Matt: Who aren't interested in other things
Steve: That's interesting.
Matt: That are only driven by business because, this has been an indicator for me for lots of things. Right? But also those same people tend to be the ones that burn relationships. Because
Steve: they're so cutthroat.
Matt: Maybe it's because they're so cutthroat or maybe it's
Steve: They don't have feelings?
Matt: It's sometimes it's feelings. Sometimes it's a, defense mechanism. Sometimes it's an overcompensation. Yeah. You know?
And so that it it's imbalance.
Steve: Yeah. Exactly.
Matt: And we we can be we can be selectively imbalanced because I perfect balance is an illusion. I think people say you have to be balanced in your life. Like, yes. You wanna work for balance, but I don't believe in total balance. I believe in selective imbalance at different times.
Right? But somebody who doesn't have any other parts of their life, I just
Steve: The things that, you know, are awful to hear is, like, well, it's only business. Yeah. Right? It's like, hey. Well, you know, why did you do this?
It's like, to me, he's like, well, it's only business. Like Just business.
Matt: Not personal. It's just business.
Steve: It feels pretty personal.
Matt: Yeah. Yeah. No. Being a bad person is bad all the time even in business. Yeah.
Yeah. No. People that can separate that, those are that's transactional success versus relational success. Right? And you can transaction your way till lots of money and lots of revenue.
Right? But you will die frustrated, old, alone, and maybe with a lot of money. Mhmm. Right? If you're focused on transactions instead of relationships.
Right? Now if you if you build relational equity, which is kind of the thrust of everything we're talking about. Right? Partnerships, collaborations. If you build relational equity, it's gonna bring all the transactions you want.
Right? If you focus on the transaction, that your relationship with that person is there for the life of the transaction. Right. Right? And that's not that's like own that's like doing a flip instead of owning a rental property.
Right? I mean, look at it like that. Right? It makes some good money real fast or whatever, but you're gonna have to keep flipping houses or keep wholesaling houses to keep making money, keep making money, keep making money until you buy some properties, whether it's leveraged or free and clear, whatever that you're holding, that while you're sleeping, they're making you money. That's the same thing with relationships.
You know, it's transactional versus relational. Transactional is wholesaling, flipping a house. Relational is owning a big fat portfolio of really nice properties that, you know, bring double digit cap rates year over year no matter what you do. You know? And that's that's the way I would stack relationships.
We're the ones that have the long term rental potential.
Steve: Right.
Matt: Right? Like, the the gift that keeps giving that you can keep giving to. Yeah. Yeah.
Steve: So and which leads me to the next point here is that you built something incredible that is basically an extension of you. Right? Yeah. Like, the family mastermind. You know, it's basically other people like you figuring out ways to collab Yeah.
Ways to share, ways to, like, hey. What if we did this joint venture together? Or, hey. You know? Like, what if we do some cross promotion?
It's a lot of, like, how can we do this together? Right. So talk to me about the the, the the genesis Yeah. Of the family mastermind. Obstacle I hear from newer wholesalers is finding buyers for their deals.
Because unless you've built a massive buyers list or have a huge dispo team, you might struggle to move your deals. So when we started working with InvestorLift, we've been able to reach new buyers and sell deals faster at higher prices. We can see buyers in our area, their contact information, and with the new AI capabilities, connect with the buyers most interested in our deals based on the algorithms. We can also see who's clicked on our deals, how many pictures they clicked on, and how long they spent looking at it. And finally, what actions they took after engaging with our deals.
We are now connected with thousands of buyers in our markets, and we now know exactly where we are with each deal and what next steps to take. If this sounds like something that would resolve or help your dispute process, I highly encourage you. Go to the website, put in disruptors for 10% off so you can focus on locking up deals unless I'm worried, stressed, and frustrated about finding buyers.
Matt: Yeah. So well, it's it's really what you said. Right? It's a it's we call it a mastermind. We call it the family mastermind.
We really call it the family. Right? And you're you're a member and honored to have you in the family. But
Steve: By the way, we have a lot of people on the show that are part of it.
Matt: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I know you got people stopped by later today, their family members, which is awesome. Yeah.
So, you know, it started in the spirit of collaboration. It started with people that I already did business with. Right? And so it started with the idea that, hey. I've got a lot of really cool friends that are amazing operators in real estate, investing in real estate education and publishing and real estate marketing and real estate tech.
Almost all the people we've named today as we're sitting here talking
Steve: Yeah.
Matt: Are people in that sphere of influence. Right? We were already doing affiliate deals together. We were raising capital together and doing deals. We talked about Lee Carney.
We talked about, you know, just a lot of these folks. Delmar. These are collab Delmar. We talked these are all collaborative partners. Right?
And so every time I get to lunch or even get to dinner with these guys, we literally would create opportunities for each other. Right? I mean, just even like in a two hour dinner.
Steve: Right.
Matt: I'm like, why aren't we doing this more? Right? So a mastermind is not a not a new concept, but what I wanted to do with with the family was make it not just a mastermind that has those qualities and those aspects and has that board of advisor type, feel to it, but a collaboration engine. Right? So a lot of people say, well, what what is the family?
And, well, it's a mastermind because that's kind of a short term that helps you understand. It's a shorthand. Right? But really, the family is a collaborative engine. Right?
It's a it's a collaborative group that comes together already successful, maybe starting new things here and there, but already $7.08, 9 figure operators. And they come together to to create more and to create collaboration, you know, through that JV, through that, you know, whether it's affiliate deals or capital raising or partnership deals or or whatever it is. So it started with 20 friends of mine that I already did deals with, people that I trusted because I'd done a bunch of deal like Lee, done hundreds of real estate deals, always got paid, you know, or or Patrick Riddle. Patrick Riddle owns awesomely one of the best real estate, maybe the best real estate publisher out there. Creates amazing products and resources and programs, are really geared towards helping people get started to create different income streams in real estate.
You know, I've done millions and millions in business with him in affiliate business, so I trust him. Right? He's an affiliate who paid me for years and years, and we had great reciprocals and did great promotions together. So it was a group of twenty, twenty five people that I'd done business with for years in a lot of cases. A trust is fear of influence.
And I said, look. If I just get these 25 people together a couple times a year, like, it's gonna mean millions of dollars in revenue, but more importantly, it's gonna mean a lot for our individual communities, our client bases, our podcast listeners, whatever whatever the group is that we've formed individually, it's gonna help that. So let's do it. Let's get together more often. Let's let's create a true collaborative engine here.
And so built it in the mold of, you know, like it says in Think and Grow Rich chapter 10, the power of a mastermind. I use that as kind of the template and really went back to, hey. Here's the here's the real definition of a mastermind. But now let's add in, you know, what's maybe some other real estate masterminds don't have is that we're already all $7.08, 9 figure entrepreneurs.
Steve: We're
Matt: already doing great things. We've done amazing things collaboration wise before we ever even heard of family. Right?
Steve: Yeah.
Matt: Coming into family, can we do it a little bit faster? Can we identify opportunities a little bit quicker? And can we have more fun and find our running mates a little bit more effectively and find our collaborative partners? That was the idea behind family. So so family brings together the the top operators that kind of span the space of investing, education, marketing, and tech.
And if you get the top players together that also have the mentality of not lone wolf, but we we are open to share, we're open to collaborate, and we understand that by sharing some of the things that we figured out, that will create those connections, fire off those light bulbs, create the opportunities for each other. If you can find the top operators, and among those top operators, find the ones that are most predisposed to share and collaborate and value that. Yeah. That was what I went for with family. Right?
So so do we have every business that is a technical fit from a revenue standpoint? Almost. But the ones we don't, it's it's mostly because those are more lone wolf type operations, and that's great. You know? Like, that it's there's not one size fits all the business.
Lone wolf can work to a certain extent. It's just not my style, and it's not the style of the people that kinda subscribe to our, collaboration over competition. And that's really what the family's about.
Steve: And what was really cool was, the last time I was there, we had John Maxwell.
Matt: Yeah. Yeah.
Steve: And, man, like, I
Matt: That was an amazing I mean, you and you on stage on day two or three. I forget what it was, which was amazing. Yeah. That was amazing. And then John Maxwell, which he was even better than I thought.
He was incredible. And we're gonna be doing a lot of stuff with him too, actually. His, his team has actually joined family, and they're gonna see they're gonna be with us a lot, which is gonna be cool. So Yeah.
Steve: John was a big, big part of my journey.
Matt: Yeah.
Steve: And another part of my journey I mean, I guess I'm gonna put I put three names here. The Hulk. Right? Yeah. I mean, he was he was a keynote.
Yeah. I mean, he was instrumental in my childhood.
Matt: Well, you won the election by taking a shirt off. Come on. You know? Single handling. Single handling.
Exactly.
Steve: Single handling. Right? So we had a whole, keynote there. Right? And then, I didn't get to stick around for this one, but you have Vanilla Ice there.
Matt: That one was fun. Yeah. That was a few years ago. I'm gonna bring him again too. And I love doing stuff like that because the, you know, the best shares in family come from you and come from the top businesses in our space saying, hey.
Here's something we figured out over the last year, and it was a game changer for us. And no shocker if it's a game changer for Steve Trang and disruptors in your community and you share with people like, you know, RJ Bates and other people in your it's gonna be a game changer for them too. Right? Chris Jefferson, James Hodges. I mean, those guys are all doing amazing things.
The more those guys share and you share with them, the better it is. Right? So, I forget where I was going
Steve: with him. Some of Vanilla Ice, please.
Matt: Oh, Vanilla Ice. I'm bringing him again. Yeah. Yeah. He was fantastic.
Steve: Did he come from Clubhouse?
Matt: So yeah. Actually, Clubhouse, I met a guy on Clubhouse who was a performer, and I can't remember his name. We got to be friends, and he introduced me to Vanilla Ice on Clubhouse. And that was where I first met Vanilla Ice and then got in touch with his management. Yeah.
Steve: And it's cool. Right? Because, like, most people know him from his music. Yeah. But not everyone knows.
Like, he's actually a real estate investor.
Matt: Multimillion dollar house flipper, man. Kills it. And one and one of the most knowledgeable high end landscapers I've ever talked to.
Steve: Really?
Matt: That dude can talk palms all day long. It'd be like this kind of sega palm, and they're like, there's eight varieties of this, and they're like, he knows everything. And we're talking, like, you know, $20,000,000 houses and stuff like that. Like, he he knows that kind of landscaping. It's pretty cool.
Yeah.
Steve: Yeah. I had no idea.
Matt: He's legit. No. He's Yeah. He he does deals, man.
Steve: Yeah. And, I wanna ended up right here. So, when the Ukraine war started, you hopped on a plane. Yeah. You're an insane person.
Matt: Yeah. Yeah. It seemed even crazier after I did it actually because, it it was pretty wild, but I appreciate you asking about that. That's been that was at the very beginning of the of the Russian Ukraine war. And, a friend of mine, Chris Krohn, who you probably know, he, started a foundation, and he and I met.
We spoke on the same stage, and he was saying, hey. Here's what I wanna do in in Ukraine. I wanna you know, people like you and I raise money very quickly to take directly to women and children that are displaced. This is not a political thing. This is not a this.
This is not a not funding this army, that army. There are people here regardless of how you feel about anything going on there. There are people here that are suffering. Right? And so Chris had this idea, fantastic idea, and, and I was inspired.
You know? Now if I was competitive over, you know, if I was competitive over collaborative, I would have said, what a jerk Chris is. He thinks he could just fly over there like a big deal and save Ukraine or whatever. You know? Ah, forget that.
But instead, I was inspired, and I said, you know what? This is cool. You know, I've been able to to start and, be a founding board member of multiple charities. This was a unique project that, you know, I could bring some influence to and some ability to raise some money. And, and so we went over there, and we we raised, a million dollars in about thirty days.
Mhmm. And we filled up the the the belly of a of a giant, jumbo jet that was also donated to us from from one of our real estate investor friends. And we went over and, we directly, you know, gave food and medical supplies and aid mostly to women and children, whose husbands and fathers had died. And in some cases, these families have been separated. And so there were people on the ground that had need.
There was a there was a humanitarian crisis there regardless of anything else going on, regardless of politics and and, you know, American funding and everything, you know, some things that people agree with, disagree with. There were people there that needed help. And we as entrepreneurs had the ability to raise money in thirty days and go help people, not change the tide of what was going on there, but but we changed the situation for a few 100 people that we helped. We changed the situation big time for them. Right?
Change the game for them. Gave them food. Gave them medical supplies. Maybe even, you know, save some lives there, you know, that that may not have been saved otherwise and certainly wouldn't have eaten and wouldn't have been in any position of comfort otherwise. Right?
That's always a good idea. Right? But we were able to do it quickly, effectively, and without, a bunch of red tape. It wasn't something we were making money on. It's something we were trying to make money on.
Like, we didn't have admin. We donated our time. We donated our resources. And so we went over there, and I feel like that was something where, you know, two weeks of our lives, we were able to go there and honestly make a difference for people on the ground in a way that government and politicians never could. And that's that to me is the highest and best use of our skills and our gifts as entrepreneurs.
Right? If we can we can fill that gap of leadership, and we can bring opportunities to people, we can teach people like you do and and give them conduits to to succeed in real estate. And then if we can, you know, gain, you know, wealth through that and through helping people and then take that wealth to go help people that don't have opportunities and that that need help, whether that's in Ukraine or whether that's in in Haiti, like the village that you helped build with with the family that we built a village down there, whether it's, you know, our Jamaican wheelchair project, other projects we've worked on in India and Nepal. There are people that that have needs that we as entrepreneurs are specifically gifted in being able to help them in ways that, again, government, politicians will never be able to. And so at the end of the day, I feel like the the leadership gap in our world, is not gonna be filled by talking heads.
It's not gonna be filled by a a TV screen split down the middle with this guy saying this and this guy saying that. Obviously, there are people I support in politics and people I don't, but I believe in the entrepreneur's ability to really help other people because we're the problem solvers. We're the ones who create solutions. The same things that we do in business every day is what's needed in in those kinds of crises in the world. And so, even though it's just so small, what we did in Ukraine is tiny in comparison to the big picture there.
What we did in Haiti is certainly tiny compared to the to the nationwide crisis they have going on there that doesn't look like it'll end anytime soon. I feel like we've done something that literally connected with other people, and I feel like that's being a good steward of the entrepreneurial gifts and skills that we've been given. So whether that is a a God thing or or a spiritual belief for you or whether you just feel like, hey. You know what? I've been blessed, and I've and I've gained a lot, and this is how I give it back, and this is how I connect with other people.
Do that. Right? And I'd say even go a step further. If you're a community builder, if you're someone in real estate who has buyers or or, partners you work with, if you're an educator or you have a product or service and you've built a community or a client list around it, offer those people the opportunity to be a part of those kinds of projects with you. Right?
Not necessarily come and go to another other side of the world with you, but engage them in that. Say, hey. Look. You might be learning real estate investing from us, but do you know why I invest in real estate? Because I wanna make an impact, and here are some things we're making an impact on.
I'd like to invite you to to make an impact on that with me. Right? And so, Haiti was something that I've you know, we've done multiple children's homes in Haiti, and that was something I had a real heart for. So why wouldn't I bring that to the family? 200 plus of the tough entrepreneurs I know in real estate and say, hey, guys.
Together, we could do something here and make a difference. Some of us could actually, you know, put hand to put hand to hammer and make that happen. Some of us can give money. There's lots of ways we can contribute here, but here's how we could build 60 homes. And here here's how each of those 60 homes will house eight people.
So here are the hundreds of people that we can help with those 60 homes. And this is real, and we can do this right now. You know? Same thing with Ukraine. And so that to me, it's fun to talk about.
Certainly, it's it's marketable. But to me, it is it's inspiring. Right? And and we should inspire our people, our clients, our our students, our our whatever whatever your community is, we should inspire them and be a conduit for them to do those kind of things. So at the end of the day, if you're doing great in real estate and you're making money, make sure you're buying properties and and building a portfolio.
Right? Make sure you're really creating some wealth, and and then make sure you are finding ways conduits, whether it's charity work or in that vein or something different. Make it make an impact. Right? Because that is what will fuel you at the end of the day when money doesn't do it anymore.
Because and if there's people out there listening right now that are like, man, I'm struggling financially right now. Maybe this is not what you wanna hear, but I'm gonna say it anyway. They're gonna there will come a point if you're successful that money won't motivate you anymore. It's just not a motivator anymore. If you have what you need, your family's taken care of, you've built an abundance of of, you know, financial wealth.
Adding another zero to it is awesome, and it might give you a little endorphin hit or whatever. But at the end of the day, it's not gonna really get you up to go do those things that you need to do. Finding where you can make an impact, finding how you can take that influence, that revenue, that equity that you built, and having that make a difference in somebody else's life, whether it's one person or whether it's building a village or whether it's going over and giving, you know, stuff to, families in Ukraine that need it, that's what's gonna make you inspired. It's what it's what's gonna make you get up the next morning. Right?
So once money is not the motivator anymore, you gotta have something else. And if you don't, then it it feels empty at the end of the day, and it's like, wow. I've got a lot of money. And for some reason, I'm still not fulfilled. And I've been there in my life too where I felt like, man, I'm kinda successful.
I don't feel like I'm really happy about it. Mhmm. You know? And I'm happiest, and I'm most fulfilled when I'm connecting with other people. Right?
And I can really take that up to another level by if I'm connecting with other people, helping them in some way, and I'm bringing some of my best friends along at the same time and being a conduit for them to be able to do that too, that's the best of all worlds. Right? Because that's leadership and that's fulfillment and that's that's true impact. So whether it's, you know, just helping one person right now that you can help, no matter how it is or whether it's starting a foundation and and driving millions of dollars to help people, do something. You know?
Do something that fulfills you and inspires you because, again, when the money is not a motivator anymore and that that kinda ceases to be the the thing that gets you up in the morning, it's that stuff that'll that'll keep you going.
Steve: I think it's I mean,
Matt: it's it's leaders are ones that have a vision of purpose and fulfillment way beyond revenue and way beyond just company growth. They measure their company growth and impact. Right? Not not in, revenue in in traditional sense. Well, it's
Steve: I mean, it's it's the last step Maslow's hierarchy of needs. What
Matt: Yeah. Exactly.
Steve: Someone wants to get ahold of you. Yeah. What is the best way to get ahold of you?
Matt: Best way? Find me on Facebook, man. I I don't have a a business that I you know, the family is not kinda out there out front, so only have a website for that that company and and nothing else that I necessarily promote. But what I love is connecting with other entrepreneurs. I mean, your your audience anybody listening to disruptors is clued in.
Right? I mean, so I'd love to hear from anybody that's listening to this podcast. Nothing to sell, nothing no agenda. I just love to hear about the projects you're working on. So, mattandrews.com will take you, I think, right now straight to my Facebook page, my personal Facebook page.
Friend me, shoot me a message, let me know you heard me on the on the disruptors podcast. I'll talk to you. Right? Let me know you heard me on the disruptors podcast. Tell me what you're involved with.
Tell me I'd love to hear about your charity projects if you're involved in that stuff, but also just, you know, the things you're working on as an entrepreneur and just connect with me. You know, I just love to to be in your world and be connected with you in that way. So so Facebook would be the easiest place, and mattandrews.com should should take you right there. Alright. But do let me know that you came from disruptors because I get some crazy messages.
And if I know you're from disruptors, then we can be friends.
Steve: So Thank you so much.
Matt: Yeah, brother.
Steve: We'll talk later at this time, man.
Matt: Alright. Yeah.
Steve: Thank you guys for watching. We'll see you guys next time.
Matt: Steve Trane.
Steve: Jump on the Steve Trane. Disrupt us.
