From Cockpit to Closing: The Powerful Journey of a Relentless Visionary with Steve Rozenberg

[0:00] Welcome to the REI Agent, a holistic approach to life through real estate. I’m Matias, an agent and investor. And I’m Erica, a licensed therapist. Join us as we interview guests that also strive to live bold and fulfilled lives through business and real estate investing. Tune in every week for interviews with real estate agents and investors. Ready to level up? Let’s do it.

[0:24] Welcome back to the REI Agent. Today, we have a great treat. We have Steve Rosenberg on the show. Steve, I saw speak for the first time two years ago at a conference. And then again, with Erica at the conference, we were just in Austin. And he’s a motivating guy, for sure. This is a great podcast, for sure. I wanted to talk a little bit about this. He gets into it a little bit. And I just wanted to kind of reflect on it a little bit. We talk about this near the end. But tragically, two years ago, he lost his son in a motorcycle accident. He was 19. And he spoke about that at the conference, I guess it was two years ago. So it was pretty fresh at the time. And he spoke about it. He’s really taking this as trying to make the best out of it and making it into something where he can help other people.

[1:22] So he started this organization that helps people through trade school because his son was a welder. And he mentions in the show a little bit. And he talked a lot about and shared a lot of pictures about how his son really lived an amazing life in his 19 years. Got to travel to a ton of different countries. Bought his first rental property at age 14. And it just gave me chills every time I heard the story. It’s just really tough to think about. It’s really hard. You can’t really fathom what that feels like unless you go through it. To have something like that happen. And just thinking about how important it is to live a life that has purpose, has intention so that it’s not just happening to you.

[2:14] And I think a lot of realtors, a lot of people get swept up in the numbers and trying to sell the most houses they possibly can. Build the biggest team, blah, blah, blah. And lose sight of what’s really important. And one of the biggest whys for me, for us right now, is I had the dream of taking our kids to live in a different country for a year and realizing that that’s really difficult to do as an agent. I was running a business, or as Steve would say, I was working a job because I can’t really leave it. And so that’s a really big why about me building a sales team and building up this platform as well. And just hearing his story, thinking about that just really adds fuel to that why because that’s going to be such a bonding moment, such an incredible life-changing moment that it’s not going to be easy, and traveling with kids isn’t easy.

[3:19] There was a lot of stressful moments when we took our kids to Switzerland last year. But having the ability to look back if, God forbid, something happened to one of our kids, that we gave them an incredible life full of experience. And definitely not we gave them everything they wanted because if we gave them everything that they wanted, they would probably just stay in their rooms and play with their tablets all day. And instead, we try to give them experiences and just have it sometimes. I’m a big technology person, so we got to let them have some of that too. But yeah, just a really great reminder of why we do this, why we think ahead of the life we want to live and engineer it to be a dream life.

[4:07] And yes, we have to work through it. But if we can build businesses, if we can systemize, if we can scale, if we can delegate, we can potentially live a life where we are focused on the things that bring us the most joy, most energy, and a big chunk of that is most likely going to be our family. So yeah, great reminder, great, great episode. So without further ado, here’s Steve.

[4:38] Yeah, I’ve heard you speak now twice. This last time I brought my wife along, and she’s super bummed, Erica, that she can’t be on the show because you’re a powerful speaker, have a lot of experience that’s perfect for this. But first and foremost, you are a pilot, right? Yeah, I fly a Boeing 777. We’ll just say one of the biggest airlines in the world. I’ve been doing it for 28 years. So I am a normal guy that has a normal career. Well, I don’t say normal, but I have a career. And I have learned that you can actually do this by building a business as a side hustle to make millions and millions of dollars. I am proof evident that that works. Yeah, so what got you into real estate investing?

[5:30] That’s a great question. I actually never, ever thought I would be this guy, right? This guy who’s on stages speaking in front of thousands of people. Building businesses. As a little kid, I just wanted to do one thing in life, and that was be an airline pilot. That’s all I wanted to do. I grew up in Southern California, and my parents told me if you want something, you got to go get it. No one’s going to give you anything in life. You go get it and take it. And so I did. I studied as hard as I could. I took flying lessons. I had a flight instructor. And at 25 years old, I became the second youngest person hired by at the time it was called Continental Airlines. And I was kind of off to the races.

[6:13] And everybody told me, Steve, you have the best life in the world. Like you are set when you work for an airline. Nothing, nothing can go wrong. And of course, those are the famous last words because something did go wrong and that something was 9-11. 9-11 obviously affected thousands of people, myself included, because two days after 9-11, I was pulled into an office and basically had my ID ripped from me and all of my stuff and said, you are no longer working here. You are now furloughed. Good luck to you. And as they escorted me out the building, I realized that everything I had worked for within 48 hours was gone. I had nothing to do with what I did. I was not involved in the 9-11. I didn’t have anything to do with it.

[6:59] But I was the repercussions of it. And many people today, realtors today, have nothing to do with the interest rates, the lawsuits, all the stuff. But you are affected by it. And that was me. So I had to figure out what I was going to do now that I was freshly unemployed, at least for the time being. And so I went to this building with books in it. It’s called the library, a library card. And I started just checking out books and I started reading a book a week and everything on being wealthy. How do you make money? Because it’s like I had to learn a new language. I had no idea what to do. And everything, somewhere, someway was tied towards real estate. Wealthy people are tied to real estate.

[7:43] That’s just a fact. And I thought, well, I don’t know anything about real estate, but I can figure this out. I started going down the path of doing creative financing at the time. I started doing option contracts, double escrow closes, other things. Back in 2002, I didn’t think there was a name for it back then. There’s no social media or any of that stuff. And I got really, really good, really good at it. I made enough money that I bought my first apartment complex with the amount of money I made, all from learning how to be a master communicator and negotiator. I realized that I can make more money from the neck up talking than I can using my hands because I don’t even own a hammer or a ladder.

[8:22] So I was not cut out to be manual labor. And so I started investing in real estate. And that’s how, to answer your question, that’s how I got started in it. Yeah. Okay. Wow. Did you, when did you see your pilot again? You’re flying actively now. What, at what point did you get back into that? Did you focus on real estate solely for a while and then get back into the flying or how did that go? Yeah. So the way it works in the airline industry, because it’s heavily unionized is when you get furloughed, you’re basically out of a job for a couple of years until they call you back. So when the airlines thin out, they basically put you out the pasture. The tide goes out and when the tide comes back in, then you get your job back, essentially.

[9:06] Got it. And no pay at that point? No pay. Yeah, there’s no pay. Yeah. You’re really figuring it out with real estate. Yeah. So it was a necessity. Now I started buying, you know, I was doing these flips and everything and it was a lot of work. It was a lot of work, a lot of negotiating, a lot of communicating. And I thought, why am I making all this money for these investors? I’m negotiating these deals, selling them to investors, making the spread in between. I’m like, they’re getting, they’re winning the deal. I’m not. I’m making short money. They’re making long-term money. So I ended up starting to buy real estate. And I ended up buying about 40 houses, me and a business partner. And like everybody, we made a lot of mistakes because owning real estate is much different than selling real estate.

[9:58] You could be the smartest guy to close on it, but now you’ve got to get that money out of it day after day, week after week, month after month. So in order to make some money and to stabilize our portfolio, we started a property management company. That was to basically start earning money. And during that time, I ended up getting my job back a couple of years later. And we started this property management company, had no idea how to build a business, how to run a business. We actually went to a business coach and said, hey, look, this is what we’ve done. This is what we have. Is there a business here? And he says, well, come back a couple of days and I’ll give you guys an answer. So a couple of days later, me and my business partner go back and I’m like, dude, whatever this guy says, write it down because this is the golden word.

[10:43] He’s going to have a word. That is the magic word that we’re going to make millions of dollars. So we’re sitting there with this guy and he says, well, guys, I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news. I wasn’t expecting that. First of all, I said, okay, well, give us the good news. He says, the good news is you guys definitely have a business model. You’ve got opportunity. You’ve got scalability and there is a market. And yes, you guys can in fact build a multi, multi-million dollar company. So after we high five each other, like, yes, he says, now do you want the bad news? And I’m like, sure. He said, the bad news is you two are not the smartest guys on earth. And you will be bankrupt in six months because you guys have no clue what you’re doing.

[11:27] And you have no idea how to run a business. So we’re sitting there thinking, okay, it’s not what I was hoping to hear, but it’s what we have. He said, but I can help you and I can show you guys how to build a business. Any kind of business I can show you. Couldn’t afford to hire him, had no money, but we couldn’t afford not to hire him because we kind of knew if we walked out of that door, we were going to be out of business because we kind of knew we were in trouble. We just didn’t know how to fix it. Probably like many people on this show.

[12:01] So we hired the guy. We got resourceful, pulled out our credit cards and played credit card roulette and just started seeing what would hit. And we put the money on. We stayed with this coach for seven years. He coached us seven years. We built the fastest growing property management company in the state of Texas. We were best marketing in North America for marketing and sales. We had over a thousand properties in Houston, Dallas and Fort Worth, all organic. I was in charge of marketing and sales. My business partner was in charge of operations. 60% of our business was outsourced to remote team members or virtual assistants in Mexico. We got so good at understanding right person, right seat with this profile that we actually went to Mexico and we started our own company down there just to feed our company for virtual assistants.

[12:54] I started speaking all over the United States because everybody wants to know how does an airline pilot build a business that runs without them and it’s just continually growing. I toured Australia three times as a paid speaker. We built a realty company inside of our business because what do real estate investors need? They need to find properties that they could buy. So it just was a perfect fit for us to dovetail that. We ended up selling it in 2019 to a venture capital firm that was funded over $200 million. They came in and did an acquisition and acquired us. So we exited that company and became a vice president for them. They had 10,000 properties nationwide and then I started coaching people.

[13:38] Everybody wants to know how does an airline pilot show you how to build a business that runs without you? Realtors, real estate investors, property managers, business owners. I just took the same principles that I learned from my business coach and other coaches. I’ve had a lot of coaches over the last 20 years and so that’s what I do now. That’s how I help people. That’s a crazy track record because you were, again, like you had said, you got your job as a pilot back in the midst of that. You’re building this insane property management business and a VA business while you are still having, was it full-time? Most people would be very happy with their airplane or their pilot’s gig. The thing is though, what happened is the reason I kept doing it is I’ll never forget, and this is so clear in my mind, after 9-Eleven, like the day or two days after before I got my furlough notice, they had us go pick up aircraft.

[14:43] These aircraft were parked like in a jigsaw puzzle because whatever airport you were over, you had to land immediately during 9-Eleven. They started sending crews out to go reposition all these planes. I remember I was walking in Denver airport or some big airport. If you’ve ever been in an airport, I had never been in an airport that’s empty. I’m talking like no one there. It’s a very eerie feeling because it’s a huge cavernous type ceilings. You’re just walking, you hear the echoes, and it’s very quiet. Man, I’ll never forget, it gives me chills just thinking like, wow. I remember looking out at the planes and they were all jigsaw parked because they just had to put them wherever they could.

[15:26] Mm-hmm. And I remember thinking to myself, my life will never be the same again as a result of this. And I thought, and you know what? After I got furloughed, and that’s what happened, I got very excited feeling. After I got furloughed, I was upset at myself for allowing myself to be lazy. And I allowed myself to be put in this position. And I thought, I will never ever let someone else or something dictate my life again. And so that was the catalyst why people were like, why don’t you keep lying? I’m like, it’s a job. It’s a great job. I love flying. I still do it today because I love doing it. But I never will let someone or something with a swipe of a pen dictate my life or my future. And that was a lesson to me that, man, it is still prevalent today.

[16:13] That’s such a huge one. And I know a lot of people have moments like that when they get into real estate as well. So sales or investing where they kind of have this line in the sand where they’re like, I need to fend for myself. And I think it’s a bigger journey than just a career shift. Because in the process, you have to learn the ability to just rely on yourself.

[16:37] You could start a new business in a very different sector and make it successful. Hearing you talk that there’s no doubt in my mind you could do that. And I think that’s one of the things that you may not think you’re going after when you make this kind of shift. But it is something that I, at least in the back of my head, keep as a point of pride or as a point of security that if everything goes to crap, if there’s a huge lawsuit around NAR and everything changes, first of all, we’ll probably be fine. But second of all, if I have to go out and start something completely different, I know I’ve proven it to myself that I can do this. One of the things, and I can just tell you my personal journey, and I may have talked about it at the REI Summit that I was just at, I had to change my identity of who I was.

[17:28] And that was not easy because my identity was that I was a pilot. That’s all I knew. I was happy as a pilot. I didn’t want to change. And change happened to me. And I thought, OK, these events were exterior events that are changing my internal belief pattern. And I didn’t realize this at the time. But I remember thinking to myself when I was standing outside the building after being furloughed is I remember thinking to myself, well, maybe I could start a business. Maybe I could buy real estate. Maybe I could open a gym. And I thought, I’m not that guy. I don’t identify. I identify as a pilot. And I was happy as a pilot. And the problem was that identity, I wasn’t that person anymore. Those beliefs did not align with where I needed to go.

[18:18] So I kind of had to make a choice of killing off the past identity because it was like that identity wasn’t serving me. I wasn’t a pilot at that time in my life. I was someone that had to become an entrepreneur or to figure things out. And it’s very tough because fear starts creeping into your ear telling you, you can’t do it. You’re going to fail. What if this goes wrong? What if? What if? And at some point, you have to drown out that fear. And you’ve got to say, I’m doing it anyways. And one of the things I’ll tell you, and maybe some of the listeners have this, the thing that upset me the most, I will tell you, is I would see other people out there having the life that I wanted to have. And I thought to myself, why do they get that life and I don’t?

[19:06] Like, why are they? Why do they get to have all the toys, have the days off, have the vacation? Why can’t I work just as hard? And what I realized is it has nothing to do with hard work. That has nothing to do with what we deserve. They have a different alignment and congruency of who they are. And so they think differently. It’s not that they’re working harder. They don’t work 10 times harder to have 10 times more money than me. They had a different alignment of what they were doing. When they woke up in the morning, they knew what their day was going to be. When I woke up, I had no idea what I was going to do. And so I had to learn how to have that resolve. How to wake up and say, I am that guy, even when I didn’t believe it.

[19:46] Even when I thought it was a lie, I still woke up saying, I am that guy. And I can do this because I deserve the life that they have. And, you know, again, I’m sure you see agents that are just killing it and other ones that are struggling. And it’s called the perception of value, right? Let’s just say, let’s say you’re great at sales and I’m horrible at sales. And we both try to sell the same house. So why is it that you can sell more than I can? And it’s the same product we’re selling. It’s because of the perception of value of the person. When you walk into the room, you go, that person knows what they’re doing. They’re not messing around. They have a different perception of themselves. And it’s all it’s all between our ears.

[20:29] That’s what is so interesting to me is like, it’s all a matter of how you think. It has nothing to do with the actions that you take. Well, the way you think, take the actions. I think that’s a lot of times why people have imposter syndrome. And the reason people have imposter syndrome is they’re not aligned and they’re not congruent with what they’re thinking and what their actions are. And so if you want to become a $10 million agent or $50 million agent or whatever, you have to become that person first, mentally, before you can ever physically make the change. And so I tell people, like, it’s not like people say, like, when I make all this money, then I’ll start taking time to read books.

[21:08] When I get in the pool and I’m drowning, then I’ll learn how to swim. It’s like, it doesn’t work that way. You have to do it first. And then you start becoming that person so that you’re taking those actions. So that was kind of a tangent. I’ll stop there, but get my thoughts. I love it. I love it. I mean, I think that’s something that people starting out to even if they are, you know, either if they’re starting out or if they’re, you know, an experienced agent. It’s great words to hear because you can always level up. And I mean, I look at you, you’re ripped. I mean, I feel like you’ve have you always been a gym guy? I mean, has that been a huge part of like, you know, I see somebody who’s in physically shape and I think, you know, discipline.

[21:49] And I hear pilot, I think probably discipline, right? I would imagine it takes a lot of discipline to get there. And I mean, so is that something that’s been a huge part of, you know, your success throughout the years? Yeah, I think so. And listen, I’m not, I’m not this superhero. I don’t sit there and tell everyone they need to be amazing and scream in their face. I’m not that guy. Like I do what I do. I have my own set of standards and I think we have to live by standards. And I think it’s not, you know, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t slight anyone for not having my standards. We’re all different. That’s what makes this crazy world so beautiful and so amazing is that we can all be different people.

[22:26] I’m not better than anybody. I just, I have my standards when I fly. So, you know, I fly internationally. I bring my own food with me. Those are my standards. I don’t push it on other people saying, Hey, you guys should eat this. When I’m hanging out, I’ll be drinking whiskey and smoking cigars and having a good time. But I have standards. And so I think that if somebody wants to change, you know, if you want to change the output of your life, you’ve got to change your input. If you want the results to change, you’ve got to change the actions that you take. So if someone says like, man, I need to get in shape. It’s like, okay, well, you can either talk about it or you can make a decision and do it right.

[23:06] And it’s same thing with being successful. People always tell me all their problems, right? And I coach people. So obviously people like to, I’m like a therapist where they’re telling me all their problems. And I’m like, look, it takes a second to make a decision that you’re going to fix it until you decide we’re just talking. It doesn’t matter what I think. If you want me to say it’s okay for you to fail. Well, you’re talking to the wrong guy because I don’t think it’s okay. You have to want it more than me telling you. And so those are just my standards. And I, you know, listen, I, some people probably, you know, I coach hundreds and hundreds of entrepreneurs. Am I right for everyone? No, but I’m not.

[23:46] I’m not here to be your friend. I’m here to make you successful, which to me means I’m being your friend. Like I’m I have a vested interest to make sure you are successful because that’s just how I am. I don’t say like, Hey, now you got to start getting up at 3 45 in the morning. Like I do. That’s what you have to do. If you that’s you, you’ve got to do what you want to do. And I’ve just, I’ve become this person over time and it takes just as much energy to be, to have high standards as it does to have low standards. It’s like, I tell people, like, it’s the same amount of energy. Like, I don’t, I don’t go like, fuck, I got 25 hours today. Like, God, what am I going to do with that extra hours?

[24:25] I have the same hours that everyone else. I just choose to use them differently than other people. It’s the same amount. It’s just a different set of standards and different set of rules. I think, I think that when you have those standards and that you are living to and you’re proving it to yourself, right? Like, you know, if that’s eating clean, if that’s going to the gym, if that’s, you know, showing up and doing your tasks for work, et cetera, that helps you with that, that confidence, that value that you have in yourself. And I think that’s probably one of the most important things that you can do is, is if you want to have self-confidence, if you want to get past that imposter syndrome, you just have to keep showing up and doing the things that you, you know, you’ve said you’re going to do.

[25:05] It’s so huge. Yeah. And I look, I think at the end of the day, you have to be comfortable with who you are. You know, look, I walk into a room and I’m not trying to be pompous. I really don’t care what people think about me. No, I’m not, I’m not like a prick. I’m not like, oh, look at me, but I am who I am, you know? And I’m not, I’m not, I’m a very open person. I listen to criticism. I listen to people say like, I’ve been to, I’ve been to, it’s funny. I’ve been to events where people have known me and seen me kind of like where you guys saw me. And I’ve literally gone to events and it’s happened several times where once I start talking to people and, you know, we’re having a conversation, they go, and I’ve had this probably like five times, which is kind of weird, but they go, you know, Steve, like I have to apologize to you.

[25:48] I’m like, for what? I didn’t like you before. I’m like, oh, okay. I’m like, did we meet? No, we never met. I just judged you based on your appearance and how you are. And I just assumed you were not a nice person. They go, but talking to you, like you’re, you’re actually an intelligent guy. And you actually, you seem to care. And I’m like, but did I ever say anything to you? And these are people that were around me, like, like, like more so around me. And it happened several times. And I was like, they’re like, that’s a, that’s a deficiency on my part, Steve. Like they’re like, I realized like that was my trigger mechanism to make myself feel better, to make you seem like a loser kind of, or, or you’re, you’re a prick or you’re not a nice guy.

[26:26] I’m like, wow. Like I just never, I was never self-aware as much about that. You know, I was like, well, should I change what I do? And they’re like, it’s not you at all. They’re like, it’s me. So I thought, I always thought that was interesting. No. And, you know, I think that’s probably one of the, one of the things that I’ve felt like has been a reason for my success or how should I say this? I think that that can be a really a hindrance to success is if you are feeling threatened by people that are successful, that have things put together and you, and you put out this like standoffishness or whatever. If I’m going to be like, not want to talk to you, not to get to know you. And I want to push you in a box because I’m intimidated by you or whatever.

[27:05] That’s just hurting me. It doesn’t bother you at all. Right. I mean, and you could teach me a lot. You know, anybody that’s further along in the, in the path, you know, I can learn from and they can give me opportunities and all this kind of stuff. So it’s, it’s really a bad practice. And if you feel like you have that in yourself, you should really try to think through that and work it out. Because I think it’s a, I know I feel that with some people that they feel, I feel like they feel threatened by me or whatever. And they will, you know, be kind of a jerk, respond to me negatively and stuff. You know what I mean? For no reason. I just don’t understand why, but then I guess later on I think about it and realize, but it’s just a bad habit that just really holds you back.

[27:47] And it’s really intimidation. Here’s what I’ve learned. And listen, I’ve learned this from coaching, you know, thousands of people over the years and making people go from meek and unsure to very successful and understanding that money’s just a tool. And, you know, they’ll go through these iterations during their successful journey of they’re kind of like shedding skin. They’re becoming a new person because the person that makes a hundred thousand is a different person that makes five million. Right. Because you just, you have, you think differently. You have to think about leverage and team and understanding. And, you know, at first people will encourage you though, yeah, you should go, you should do this.

[28:23] And then they’ll kind of like, Hey man, you’re working too hard. Like you need to slow down. Like you need to enjoy life. Like why do you work so hard? And then it’ll go to the arm around the shoulder of like, Hey, you know, we’re really worried about you. Like this is, this is bad. Then it’ll go to criticism. Then it’ll go to hating you. And then it’ll go to admiration. And what I’ve learned is, and I, and I, I just said this to one of my clients the other day. I said, listen, I said, not everybody wants to see you be successful. They want to see your success, but not better than theirs. Right. So don’t listen and listen, you may be related to some of the, everyone is related to somebody. These people could be related to you.

[29:06] So don’t assume, you know, we always want to share our wins. We want to share what we’re doing, especially, you know, if you’re, you’re an agent, you’re doing good, you’re, you’re succeeding. Not everybody is happy to see you succeed. And that’s, that’s a tough, the tough pill to swallow when, when you have to actually go like, wow, I thought this person would be happy. And they’re not even happy for me. And it’s, it’s, it’s a challenge, man. Yeah. And it’s, it’s really good to find your circles. Like, I mean, you don’t want to like cut people out completely necessarily, but it’s good to find circles of people that, that can celebrate with you and have that, even if they do feel a little bit of that jealousy or whatever, they are at least mature enough to be able to, to celebrate with you publicly or like outwardly, if that makes sense.

[29:49] Talk to me a little bit more about the, the VAs and the systemizing. I want to hear more about how maybe agents could, or just great ways of, of leveraging and outsourcing. Cause I think, you know, I think agents get so stuck in trying to do everything themselves and it’s easy to get burnt out on the things that you just don’t enjoy doing. And there’s going to be people like emails. That’s, that’s me. Right. I can’t stand emails build up. I just, they drive me crazy, especially when I, you know, I feel like I’m, I’m just driving from showing to, you know, listing appointment to whatever back to back to back to back. And all these things are building up in my inbox. It just drives me crazy. So talk to me a little bit about systems and, and you know, how virtual assistance could help.

[30:33] Yeah. Um, you know, listen, I’m, I’m a big believer in right person, right seat. And I think we all have a skill that we are good at. It’s normally one skill that we’re good at everything else. We’re probably mediocre to we suck. It’s probably somewhere in between there. Um, and there’s things that we can do, but not things that we’re naturally good at doing. We could do all of them, but if you think about the definition of a business is a, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s all about leverage. You’re leveraging people, leveraging money, leveraging time, leveraging knowledge, leveraging experience, five things, five leverage points in a business. If you are the person that has to do everything, you have a job.

[31:13] You don’t own a business and the amount of work that you put in, it’s probably not what you wanted or what you thought. Or when you became an agent, it probably was not the mindset of where you thought this would be. The only way that you can get out of the day to day mundane tasks is to have leverage, which is automation, which is, you know, technology systemization, having systems or outsourcing to an employee. That employee could be physical or remote as meaning a virtual assistant. Typically, if you look in the disc profile, a, a, a agent, a salesperson will say, um, is a certain specific disc profile. They’re normally an I in a D dominant. I minor D meaning they’re social, they’re chatty, but they close.

[32:00] That’s the, that’s the quintessential, um, profile of a salesperson. Yeah. So they’re, they’re colorful. They’re bubbly. They’re chatty. They’re, they’re gregarious. They’re open. That is a salesperson. What a salesperson is horrible at is documentation, dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s paperwork following up. They, they’re just, they’re just not good at it. And so the question is, is do you take a skill that you’re amazing at, which is selling, and then start doing something that you’re not good at, which is documentation. So you’re basically, you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re, that’s the weakest link basically is the, the part that you’re bad at, or what we did when we had our realty company is you take a salesperson and you take their counterpart, which is a C disc profile.

[32:49] Whatever she’s good at documentation, paperwork, organization, making sure everything is done correctly. Salesperson closes. Virtual assistant for us was the paperwork. So we said, so-and-so, your job is to babysit this person. You make sure their contracts are filled out. You make sure documentation CRM, everything is done. So the question is, is what is that worth? Well, depends, but is that worth $40 an hour? Probably not. Is it worth eight bucks an hour? Maybe depending on how good of a salesperson you are, you can outsource that. So to me, understanding the value of the, of a remote team member, and we had 1000 properties, we were a full realty. It came down to the decision. We got so good at understanding it, taking a role and slicing it up.

[33:42] And we, we ran our company the way that airlines run. So we basically ran. And this is what I coach people on is to show realtors and show people how to run what they do the same way an airline runs on systems, processes, structure. If you were to take that role and start picking it apart, if it doesn’t need a license and it does not need a physical handshake, it can be outsourced. The only standing limitation is you. You’re the one. Everyone says, Oh, Steve, I’m special. I’ve got, I’ve got realtor-itis. I’ve got, I’ve got snowflake-ism. I’ve got whatever. It’s like, you’re not special. If you’re special, you have a job and we’re not doing this to have a job. We’re doing this to build something that can run without us.

[34:30] You should, as a realtor, do what you do best. Close deals, all the other stuff. It can be outsourced. And trust me, I have done it hundreds and hundreds of times with agents. It’s just them understanding, getting their process out of their head, documenting it, hiring a virtual assistant, trust, but verify. You give them a little task, little tasks. You get them going and they, because think about it. If that’s all you did for eight hours a day was to call back leads, fill out proper paperwork, pull comps, do all these things. And they’re sitting in front of a computer and you’re busy closing deals. You’re playing to your strength and they’re playing to theirs. And that is how you can build something that’s phenomenal.

[35:15] And I’ve seen it done. I’ve done it in Australia. I’ve done it in other countries. When someone tells me they can’t do it, what they’re saying is they just don’t know how to do it. Yeah. See that you don’t know how many times. I feel like I need a clone of myself to be like, I think the email communication, the expectations from the different title companies, the lenders, other agents, the clients, everybody’s kind of like expecting me to be in front of my computer for eight hours a day. That’s just not what happens. Well, and I’ll give you an example. So when we had our realty company and we’re closing deals and we had just this rock star salesperson, I mean, they were just killing it and horrible, horrible at paperwork.

[35:59] I mean, just, just like, just throw the contract on the table, half signatures, half not off to go get more deals. I mean, just a, just a hunter hunting deals. My business partner, who is the integrator in the company was like, she’s driving me crazy, man. I’m like, do you want to close deals or do you want the paperwork done correctly? And he’s like, yes, I want both. I’m like, that wasn’t the question. It’s an either or what do you want? So we came to the compromise. I’m like, let me, let me pair someone up with her. Let’s play to strengths. I’m like, we could make her great at paperwork. She’s going to be sitting for three days filling out a CRM because that’s not her skill set. Right. Or do you want her making money?

[36:36] And so that’s how we came to the compromise of really running this, you know, play to your strengths and for people out there, you guys are great salespeople. Be the best salesperson you could be, because what you don’t understand is there’s opportunity cost that million dollars sale could be walking right past you because you’re busy trying to fill out a contract. You’re busy trying to upload something. You’re talking to the title company, outsource all that we used to run over a thousand maintenance tickets a month in Mexico, dealing with vendors, dealing with owners, getting money transferred. So whenever someone says, yeah, but I’m like, you’re talking to the wrong guy. I’m telling you, it can be done.

[37:16] Yeah. Okay. So, so tell me a little bit about VA’s in Mexico specifically. I know that it’s very popular for people to go to the Philippines, for example, to get a VA. So, so what made you choose Mexico? Well, we did what you said. We had gone to, you know, India, Pakistan, Philippines, you name it. And you know, the, there’s several challenges with that. Number one, backside of the clock, right? And as an airline pilot that flies all over the world, there’s a lot of tests that show we do not operate well. We’re not nocturnal animals. We have to operate during daytime. So when people say, oh, it’s great. They work when I’m up, you’re not getting, you’re probably getting 60% of a human brain during their nocturnal time frame.

[37:57] That’s just, that is just fact. That’s number one. Next is the whole accent. The accent, it’s a stigma. It just is. Yeah. You hear the clicking and all of a sudden, and I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with it because there’s some amazing virtual assistants in other countries, but you get a, you get a Pakistani, you get a, you got a Filipino, you get something that has an Asian accent dialect to it. It’s a challenge. It’s because that’s, that’s the perception. Not saying they can’t do their job, but it’s a perception. And I was having this challenge. And so I was really struggling and I was like, I can’t figure this out. You know, there’d be a typhoon every month and I’m like, well, I’m a pilot.

[38:33] I don’t see any typhoons on the radar, but okay. And, you know, there’d be a funeral every three weeks. I’m like, didn’t your uncle die last month? Like there was just no accountability to understand. And that really bothered me that I couldn’t hold them accountable as much. So a buddy of mine says, Hey, Steve, like, you know, I’m having a lot of luck in Mexico. And I’m like, Mexico. I said there’s virtual assistants in Mexico. And he’s kind of like, yeah, if they work from home, they’re virtual. I was like, oh, I just thought they all had to be in Asia. Like I really had no idea. Yeah. So I, I’m like, well, why does that make sense? He goes, well, first of all, they all are on the same time zone just about as us.

[39:11] Okay. They have high speed internet. They don’t have issues with their internet or anything like that. Okay. He goes 50% of them either lived or grew up at some point in the United States. It’s like, really? So I interviewed this guy, the first guy we interviewed. I said, so we call this guy perfect, perfect English, right? I said, Oh man. I said, you know, how long you been in Mexico for? He’s like, Oh, so, so many years. I’m like, so you from there? He’s like, yeah. He’s like, I used to live in Norwalk, California. I was like, really? I was like, right. I used to live in California. I go, what’d you do there? He’s like, Oh, I was a realtor. I was like, really? Like it just, it just started blowing my mind.

[39:51] I was like, huh? So we start talking and I’m like, well, what, why are you in Mexico? And he’s like, well, he goes, it’s cheaper to live. My family’s from down here. He goes, it’s just easy. He goes, it’s easy. He goes, I come back. I got friends up there and I’ll go to LA and hang out. And I was like, what? Okay. So I said, well, what, what did you do before this job? And he goes, I was a 911 dispatcher. I go, I go, Mexico has 9-1-1 and he goes, he laughed. He goes, no, for Texas. Wait a second. I go, you’re telling me when I call 9-1-1, it doesn’t go to like this command five center of downtown Houston. He’s like, no, he goes, it comes to me. I said, well, what happens next? He goes, well, he goes, we, we, we identify the problem.

[40:37] He goes, we dispatch the appropriate first responder. He goes, we render first aid. We stand the line with them and then we do the handoff when they arrive. And I’m just like, you have got to be kidding me. So I tell my business partner, like, dude, we found the one guy in Mexico. This guy, like we’ve got it. He’s like, he’s the spotted out. Like we’ve got to get this guy. Like, what are the odds? How lucky are we that we found this guy? So we hire him and we’re like, oh my God, like what, this is amazing. And then we find Daniela and Daniela is this amazing person again. And I’m like, we found two. What are the odds of finding two amazing people? We are like, this is our time. It wasn’t that they were just all very, very good at what they did.

[41:23] And so we ended up having almost 30 virtual assistants down there. Like I said, we built a company. I started placing them for people all over the world because we understood disc profiling. We understood right person, right seat roles, responsibilities. We really got into the micro of what they could do and started like really splitting the atom of the role. And we had a marketing division for our company. We had an inbound marketing division. We had a customer service division. We had an accounting division. We had a maintenance division all down in Mexico. And so it’s so that we could play to our strengths. Our salespeople, our maintenance, everyone can do what they do best and everything else can be outsourced.

[42:06] And that is why we became such a target for acquisition and why our business was running without us, because we put in the right system. See, when you build a business and even as a realtor, and I know because I do it with realtors all the time, when you build a business, you need to build your business that is centered around systems, not around people, because people quit, they call in sick, they make mistakes, they need vacation, they get tired. If you’re depending upon that, that’s the weak link. Systems don’t make mistakes. They don’t take breaks. They work 24-7. People make them better, but you’ve got to, it’s got to be the 80-20 rule. 80% of your business needs to be systematized, 20% humanized.

[42:49] And that is where people make the mistake. Yeah, I love it. And, you know, I think that’s, you’re kind of outlying why most agents have no ability to sell their, really to sell their business that they create as they get, if they want to exit. Like there’s really usually not an exit strategy. But if you were to have something like you had, you know, it doesn’t even have to necessarily be a brokerage. I mean, it could be a book of business and a set of systems with, yeah, that could then actually be something that could be repeatable and sold. But if it’s just you out there doing everything, you’re not going to be able to market that very well. And it’s just, yeah, it’s just, it’s a job. And I tell people, if you cannot walk away from what you’re doing for three hours, three days, or three weeks, and have it keep running without you, you have a job.

[43:41] You don’t own a business. Let’s call it what it is. It can. And I’ve done it with agents and brokerages and realties. I speak for realtors. I used to do CE classes. So I know, I understand how to teach them. I get it because I own my own realty division. It’s just a mindset. It’s all businesses are the same. It’s just a matter of understanding the fundamentals of any bit. Like you said, I could go into any situation and I could probably become the top salesperson in any industry, not because I know the product, but I know the framework of how sales happens. I know the psychology of why people buy. I understand how to leverage assets and leverage people. And I could come in and I won’t be the hardest worker in there.

[44:26] I guarantee I will not be the hardest worker, but I will be the most effective and the most successful because of what I’ve learned. And I tell people all the time, what we bring to our next chapter of our lives is our experiences and our skill sets. No one can take that from you. If you have that and you learn that, that’s what you should bring. That’s what makes you that person that when you walk in the room, they go, I don’t know who that person is, but they are someone because you can just sense it. You can smell it. You can see it. You can tell. Yeah, I love that. I love that. It’s definitely a goal. And I definitely think something that somebody does, people don’t think about very often, especially in this business.

[45:09] I think a lot of people feel like they’ve graduated. So if you look at the cashflow quadrant, for example, you’re employed to self-employed. And I think a lot of people in this business feel like they’ve just graduated. They made it to the ultimate goal. But in the cashflow quadrant, Kiyosaki talks about how getting over to the businesses and investing is kind of where you can separate your input from the money you earn. Like you want to move away from that as well. So I mean, everything you’re talking about is really geared towards that on the business side of that quadrant, at least. How much? And yeah, like you said, it’s very much possible as an agent as well. Before we get into the golden nugget stuff, I did want to kind of open up the…

[46:00] You have a fund that you have started. Do you want to get into the reason behind it and all that? It’s a powerful story. Yeah, yeah. It’s actually… Well, it’s not… I don’t know if I’d call it a fund. It’s a scholarship foundation. So two years ago, we lost our son in a motorcycle accident. He was 19 years old. And sadly, as things happen, he passed away from an accident. He was going to school to be a welder. And we found out that people in the trade industry, welding, HVAC, automotive, all these things, there’s really not much support for them. There’s not a lot of financial support for these kids. And you go to college. Obviously, you can get financial aid, but you don’t get that as much for these trade industries.

[46:57] So in honor of our son, we started a foundation. My son, he lived an amazing life. He owned a rental property at 14 years old. He traveled to 20 countries. He was a black belt martial arts, a drummer. He was a knife flipper. I mean, the kid really, I mean, looking back, the kid had an amazing, amazing run, amazing life. It was just compressed to 19 years. And so the scholarship foundation is called Live Like Jet. His name was Jet, J-E-T-T. So we think more people need to understand how to live, how to enjoy life. And sometimes we get so caught up being busy that we forget to share it with our loved ones. And the people that matter to us. And we always say one day. And listen, it’s heart-wrenching if you ever get a knock on the door at 1030 at night like we did, that one day never comes.

[48:01] And so we started a foundation to help high school kids that are trying to go into the trade industry but cannot afford it to help them financially. I get nothing out of this except trying to help my son’s legacy and to help these young men and women that I think are kind of ignored in the world. They’re kind of, nobody really knows about them, but we all need them. We need plumbers. We need electricians, auto mechanics. And it’s not cheap. It’s not cheap to go to like automotive school. But they can’t get a job unless they, you know, if they good places, unless they have these certifications. So we started a foundation. It’s called Live Like Jet, J-E-T-T.com. And this is how trying to give back in honor of our son to make a difference in these lives of young men and women that are in high school that may not have an opportunity.

[48:54] We’re just trying to give them an opportunity is all. So if anybody would like to donate, whether it’s $5, $50, if somebody donates $500, I will give you a personal one-on-one coaching session. I normally charge $1,500 an hour for my time. But if someone does that and they’re willing to give it up for the kids, I will match it and I will give you my time. So just something that I do because I think somebody needs to be more selfless and give back when possible. Ramon, we’ll have it in the show notes, but where could they go again for that? Yeah, so they can go to www.livelikejet.com. You can donate there and it would be a great way to help a young man or woman achieve their dreams. And we’ve been putting kids through diesel mechanics school, welding school, automotive school.

[49:52] I mean, it’s going on and on. One kid wants to be a pilot. So it’s nice to be able to have some effect of these kids to change their life. It really is. Yeah, and I think that’s something I lived in Germany for a year. And they have, and my mom’s Swiss, so all my cousins go through a very different school system than we do. And in I think middle school, you’re already kind of getting divided out into if you’re going to go to more trade school, if you’re going to go into the university. And the point I’m making there is I feel like we have this almost like marketing machine for universities, for college in our high schools. And I think maybe it’s not as bad as it was, but when I was going through high school, I feel like you just felt like you had to do this.

[50:34] And I think there needs to be the method or there needs to be the message getting out there to people that, you know, I mean, I know so many people that went to college that are now doing trades.

[50:47] Yeah. I mean, I mean, look, I, yeah, a hundred percent. And I know some very, very successful people that go into trades. Listen, during a bad economy, I don’t think you’re going to negotiate with a plumber about the price when you have a broken water main. They don’t negotiate. They don’t negotiate with electricians. You know, you, you like these kids that I’m teaching how to run businesses. Some of these kids that I’ve worked with, I’m showing them how to be entrepreneurs. They have the skillset. They don’t know how to run the business. I’m like, I’ll show you. And so I, and again, I think that, you know, just look, I think you and I would know if you just show up, you’re going to get the job.

[51:24] I mean, I don’t know how many contractors I’ve tried to show up to my place or work or whatever, and they just don’t show. And I’m like, man, if I could just get someone to freaking show, I’ll pay whatever it is. Just please return my call. You know? Yep. Yep. Yep. And, and like being able to be competent, all that kind of stuff. I mean, it’s just, it is. Yeah. There is such a need for it. And, and I think, don’t they say something about like, you know, a plumber makes more than an attorney or something? A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. They, they, they can really do it. So like, and yeah, perfect for building a business. Like, you know, you can get to yourself to the point where, you know, you have everybody else running out for you.

[52:00] So it’s, it’s such an awesome thing that you’re doing. So I really applaud you for it. And, you know, it’s, it’s a heartbreaking story, but what a way to, to leave a legacy for Jet. Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah. Again, you know, we can’t, bad things happen, you know, and that’s all I could say. And, you know, you never, I mean, I, we don’t have to go into it, but you never think that you’re going to be some, a recipient of one of those bad things. And statistically someone is, and, you know, unfortunately, the only thing I could say is, is that for whatever reason, I’m able to help a lot of kids. And, and, you know, I, obviously I speak and one of my things when I speak is that I’d like to be able to talk about my son, because I get so many people that will come up and I speak all over the world. A lot of people will come up to me and they’ll say like, man, that, that really makes, makes me pause for thought. I’m like, well, then that’s, it’s, it’s not about donating to my son’s organization, but it’s making you think, am I really living my life? I’ve had people come up to me and say, man,

[52:59] I got my kid’s passports after your presentation because we’re going to go take them and travel. I’m like, well, that’s what you should do. That’s, that’s like, you know, so that for that reason, it works, I guess you could say a hundred percent. And I mean, what a motive, motivation to get, make yourself, your business more systemized to delegate more, to, to spend more time with your family. It’s powerful stuff. Steve, let’s transition into a golden nugget. If you have one that you wanted to share to either, you know, it could be newbie agents, it could be seasoned agents, could be anybody, uh, investors as well. Yeah. I think, you know, I think of start with the end in mind. And what I mean by this is if you want to be successful, really understand what the success look like. A lot of times we don’t take the time to actually identify if it, if it’s, if it’s $10 million, write it down and then write down the date. You’re going to make this $10 million or whatever that case may be. You want to sell a hundred houses, write down the date on June 1st. It’s not five or 10 years. It’s not a

[54:02] couple hundred. It’s June 1st, 2029. I have sold 100 properties. I have made $3 million as it like, kind of like if you’re hunting, you got to have a scope, the more tight you can make that scope, the better odds of it happening. And so you’ve got to start with the end in mind. Listen, when you get in your car and you use Google maps, Google maps needs two things. You got to have a start and you got to have a destination. If you don’t have a destination for Google maps, an address, it can’t help you because it doesn’t know where you’re going. When I fly a plane and I’m going to Hawaii, I have to know where I’m going for fuel, for routing, for weather, for emergencies. We don’t just get in the plane and start flying and figure it out on the way. It’s very specific. So I tell people like, if you don’t know where you’re going, you’d never get in a plane and risk your life, but you’ll risk the most valuable thing you have, which is your time. When all’s it takes is a couple of moments of sitting down in clarity, because clarity is the key to success and knowing where you’re going. I tell people all the time,

[55:08] does success even recognize you? Like, do you even know what success is? Have you identified it? Put it in a box. You’ve got to start with the end in mind and reverse engineer everything you do on that destination. Now that destination may change. It may become more money, less money, free time, whatever, but you’ve got to have a point that you’re going to. And you got to pick a point at some point in time in your life. Yeah. Otherwise life just happens to you, right? You’re just going to be going with whatever new problem shows up all the time, man. I love it. That’s a really good one. How about a favorite book or one that you think is fundamental? Everybody should read one you’re just currently enjoying. I’ve read a lot over the years.

[55:54] One of the books that always stands out to me is called the compound effect by Darren Hardy. Okay. And the compound effects talks about no big changes have to happen in your life. It’s small increments. So it’s like, if you’re driving 200 miles an hour, you’re not spinning the wheel left and right. You’re making small adjustments. What everyone’s doing in life. You’re doing it fine. You just need to course correct a little bit. The reason why a lot of people fail when they get into something is they go full on and that is not their identity. And they’re not actually that person. That’s why they get the imposter syndrome. So if you just make small course corrections, like let’s say you want to work out, don’t try to go every day of the week. Say, okay, for the first month, I’m going to go twice a week. I’m just going to go twice a week for 30, 40 minutes and that’s it.

[56:37] And then the next month say, okay, now I’m going to go three times a week. Maybe I’m going to increase three minutes on each time. And so it’s, it’s the compound effect over time that will make you successful. Like being successful, like being, being as successful as I have had the fortune of over the last 20 years. It’s not one silver bullet that I could tell someone what to do. It’s hundreds and hundreds of BBs that are going to make them successful. A little nugget here, nugget there. So don’t look for the one thing. Could I say some prolific things? Yes, I could, but it’s not one thing that’s going to make you successful. It’s hundreds and hundreds of bullets over the course of time. That’s going to make you successful.

[57:18] Yes. I mean, it’s exactly why the like new year’s resolutions don’t work, right? You’re going to try to like be a completely new person. Yeah. Exactly. It doesn’t, it doesn’t work because you’re not that person. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. That’s, that’s a great one. It reminds me a little bit about the, is it the 1% rule or something in Atomic Habits where they gave an example of the British cycling team that just looked to improve like one little thing and just did it over and over and over again and it stacked up, it compounded. Yeah. I love it. I love it. So can we, where could people find you if they wanted to follow you on Instagram or social media or wanted to reach out to you about coaching? Yeah. So I’m pretty available everywhere.

[58:02] Instagram, it’s my last name. Then my first name, it’s Rosenberg. It’s R-O-Z-E-N-B-E-R-G Steve. They can go to my website. It’s SteveRosenberg.com. R-O-Z-E-N-B-E-R-G.com. I do events here in Houston, Texas every month. I do these two day events. I educate people. I’m happy to give you some complimentary tickets if you want to give them out to people. But again, I’m all about giving back. I show people how to become a different person. I’ve had my success in life. I’m fine financially. If I can give, I think this is the next phase of my life of giving back and that’s what I do. I give back. I help. I really want to help people, but I can’t want it more than you. I don’t do the work for you. I will meet you where you’re at, but I definitely will not be the one that does it.

[58:53] But I guarantee you, if somebody asks me for help or asks me advice, people message me on social media. I always answer them. If they want to set up a call, I’ll talk to them. I just think there needs to be more giving back without needing to be in your pocket these days because that’s the one thing I always hate about these gurus out there that they’ll do it for a fee. I’m like, why don’t you just do it to do it? What’s wrong with that? I think more of that needs to happen. I love it. That’s so awesome. I really appreciate that. I appreciate you being on here. Thanks so much. It’s been an honor to talk to you, Steve. Appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Thanks for listening to the REI Agent. If you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe to catch new shows every week. Visit REIAgent.com for more content. Until next time, keep building the life you want. All content in this show is not investment advice or mental health therapy.

[59:44] It is intended for entertainment purposes only.