From Russia to Real Estate Mogul: How Simon Lerner Built a $9M Portfolio by 24

In this episode of Inside The Deal Room, Gabe Bowling sits down with Simon Lerner, a 24-year-old entrepreneur and real estate investor who has built a $9.5 million portfolio and runs multiple successful businesses. Simon shares his incredible journey from his childhood in Russia, his move to America at 13, and how he transitioned from a challenging start to becoming a thriving real estate developer and short-term rental expert in Tampa.

Learn how Simon leveraged strategic networking, self-education, and innovative thinking to create scalable systems in real estate and beyond. He also dives into his nonprofit initiative, Tampa Entrepreneurs, which fosters collaboration and builds meaningful connections among local business leaders. Whether you're just starting or looking to optimize your strategies, this episode is packed with actionable insights for every stage of your entrepreneurial journey.

Website: thedealroom.io

Circle Community: thedealroomcommunity.com

Schedule a call: Schedule Here

Simon Lerner’s Instagram: @mrsimonlerner

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Hey, what is going on?

(00:06):
Welcome back to another episode of Inside the Deal Room.
I'm your host, Gabe Boleyn.
And in today's episode, I have an awesome local Tampa
entrepreneur, real estate investor, Simon Lerner,
today on the show.
Welcome, Simon.
Thank you.
Thanks for having me all last minute.
I know we've been overdue to sit down, but we're only here.
So back story, we actually don't know each other really well.

(00:27):
That's what we're going to take the time to today
in front of everybody.
It's like a live date for the first time.
Who are you?
What do you do?
But in front of everybody, he's a super successful
entrepreneur.
In my eyes, he's local in Tampa.
He's really well connected with everybody locally.
I don't know anybody locally.
I have the deal room community where we have people
across the country.
We threw an event one time, and then Simon came out

(00:49):
to kind of support it, just say, hey, I'm local.
You're local.
We should probably get together at some point
and create a relationship.
And that was a seed planted.
We did our next event.
We continued.
You had your event.
OK, cool.
And now we're here.
And I think that's just the power of networking, social media
kind of coming together.
You're doing a lot.
We're doing a lot.

(01:09):
So why not get together?
So you're out.
Just trying to open as many doors as possible for you
and for myself, because you never know what door you walk
into and what opportunity is going to present out of it.
And not only what door, it's like, what door does that lead to?
Because doors lead to it.
And what door does that lead to?
Another day.
And next thing you know, you own over 100 doors.

(01:29):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Very cool.
So why don't we start with, who is Simon Lerner today?
What have you done to kind of get people excited?
Because you're not here by accident.
You're very young.
And then we'll peel it back to actually how you got there.
Sure, man.
So real estate is actually not the only thing I do.
I run a variety of businesses.
On the real estate aspect, I own $9.5 million

(01:52):
worth of real estate right now.
A lot of it is residential, just tapping into multifamily now.
But my foundation in real estate has been real estate development,
short term rentals, and essentially in the residential field.
And on top of that, I run the biggest entrepreneur community
here in Tampa called Tambon Shmirs.
We host three quarterly events for business owners on Shmirs.

(02:14):
And it's actually a 5.1c6 nonprofit organization.
So really, not a for profit business.
That's more of a positioning leverage play, which we can dive into a little bit
from there.
I also run a short term rental business, as I said.
So obviously, that goes on top of the real estate.
Not only do I own real estate, but it's also now
a hospitality and marketing business.
So we do seven figures a year plus in revenue

(02:35):
from that stream of income.
I run a digital coaching consulting company for those looking
to start in short term rental space called SDR Navigator,
essentially helping people start, scale, and automate
a short term rental business similar to what you guys do
with the deal room.
And then other personal investments and things
of that nature, partnerships, and whatnot, where I'm mostly not

(02:56):
the operator.
Either fund the businesses or come in as an LP in some way, shape, or form.
Very cool.
Sounds like you're doing a lot.
And for everybody that's curious, how old are you?
24.
Yeah.
Just let that sink in.
I thought I was doing a little bit at a young age,
and then you get around the right people.
Sometimes they're super big.

(03:17):
They think you're a super small fish,
and you think you're doing a lot, and it kind of humbles you.
And then sometimes you think you're doing a lot,
and then you get around people that are 24
and doing a whole lot more than you.
So thank you.
Why don't we?
Because it sounds like a lot.
You're doing a lot.
You're doing well.
You're making a lot of money.
You're doing investing, and you're growing a lot.
I'm sure the future is going to look very bright for you.

(03:39):
Where in the world does all this start?
Do you just, you're born right out of the womb, entrepreneur,
doing deals.
They're like, walk us through your story.
Cool, man.
So for those of you guys who are not familiar with who
it is that I am and my name is Simon, I'm 24,
as Gabe has mentioned.
A little bit of a different background
than probably a lot of people that were in the show,
because I'm not originally born in America,

(04:00):
was actually born and raised in New York.
So funny.
Eldrake was just on the show.
It was such a really good podcast,
because he's from South Africa.
Coming from poverty.
And then he gets to America, and it's the land of opportunity.
So I can't wait to hear about this.
So born and raised in Russia.
So parents split up when I was two.

(04:21):
And then I lived in Russia until I was 13 with my mom.
My dad was still present in my life when I was growing up.
And then at 13, me and my mom, we moved to America
to pursue higher education in college,
because for her growing up in the Soviet Union,
education meant freedom.
And education meant opportunity.
However, nowadays, obviously, education is so commoditized

(04:44):
that it's more so like knowing where
to get the correct education opposed to just having
education, because back then, the only place
where you could get good education was college,
university.
Obviously, we can dive into why that has changed
over a period of time.
But in Russia, we were actually pretty well off,
because my dad, he ran a billboard advertising business

(05:06):
back in Moscow.
And then he was supporting us, lived in a decent house,
went to private school in Russia.
I had, I would say, upper middle class lifestyle over there.
Had somebody drive me to school and pick me up from school,
had somebody cook food for us, fold my clothes,

(05:26):
all that kind of stuff.
And mind you, we had a couple that lived with us
and did all those things.
But in Russia, they were getting paid $800 a month
for a couple.
So the American dollar and money just went so much farther
there.
And then at 13, when I moved to America,
overnight was like a drastic transformation,
where now I'm 13.
Moved to New York, because we had a couple of friends there.

(05:48):
And overnight, you go from going to private school,
somebody driving to school, somebody cooking you meals,
folding your clothes to now you are taking public
transportation, you're living in a two bedroom place.
And life has just went from upper middle class to like,
barely lower middle class.
You have that destiny of like, oh, shit.
But I'm super grateful for that, because I would say what

(06:10):
separates me from a lot of people
is that I never had that limiting belief of like,
that lifestyle or like, life at those levels isn't possible.
I kind of saw it growing up in some way, shape, or form.
So when I got to America, obviously it was different.
But I was, I never had that.
But you had a target.
You were like, you were exposed to it.
So we moved once 13, didn't speak much English,

(06:32):
didn't have any friends.
So a lot of time outside of middle school, high school,
was spent on like, personal development books,
hustles, not really like socializing.
And didn't really have many, I would say like friends.
So I was like 18, senior year of high school,
just like didn't fit in.
Would come to a football game, bring a soccer ball with me
and everyone's like, this is kid doing here.

(06:54):
It's funny.
You know, do you still speak Russian today?
Yeah, Russian at home.
Can you say something cool?
What would you like me to say?
How do you say I want to buy apartment deals and make money?
I want to buy apartment and make money.
Let's clip that.
That is awesome.
That is super cool.
Very cool.

(07:14):
I apologize.
I just like to have fun.
No worries.
So anyway, that was the story of me coming to America.
But then obviously that didn't go far because I ended up dropping out of college.
Really?
Yeah.
Essentially, went through middle school, went through high school, through high school,
and I'm already pursuing slightly entrepreneurial side hustles,

(07:38):
traveling snow, I'm selling things on eBay.
Because to me, at a very young age, not by choice, but by circumstance, I had to become
the man because it was just me, my mom.
I saw my mom struggling and I wanted to help.
I was just about to go into it.
What?
There's got to be something that happens.
Information.
Exposure.
I would just say it's just deep down knowing that you are responsible, you don't have

(08:01):
a father figure around, you have to become the man in the household.
And from a very young early age, I would say like 14, 15, I wanted to be the rock, like
the rock foundation.
Yeah.
Not the point of going down.
I thought I was like, the rock, interesting.
The rock solid foundation for my loved ones and people around me to be able to fall back
on for, whether it's financial support or support, just be there for them.

(08:27):
So that's I guess the role I played for people around me.
And at 18, graduated high school in New York, went off to college to pursue engineering.
Really?
First was a mechanical engineering degree.
Was mostly for my mom because it was like either go be a lawyer, doctor, high paying
job engineer, something that could contribute value and get a high paying job out of school.

(08:51):
Was doing like a three year, two year program at Columbia University.
It was like a very supposedly good degree and all that kind of stuff.
Perseverance, diving thing stuff.
Yeah.
It was like three years at a more of a private university and then after if you do well, you
then get like initially accepted into Columbia.
So it wasn't like straight into an I.
Got it.
Essentially after six years of that, I really like hated it every day of my existence doing

(09:14):
that.
So then I switched to business.
I was like, I want to be a businessman.
And a little backstory, you know, it's like 2018.
This is one like the first like pop of crypto is happening in stocks and all that stuff.
But like, I'm obviously already entrepreneurial.
So as I'm driving to school, I'm listening to business podcast.
I'm investing like self education.
I'm like trying things on my own.

(09:35):
Nothing is really sticking your working just yet, but I'm still pursuing things.
I'm like trading stocks on my own.
Like very interesting.
You know, trying to figure things out and like seeing what path to I want to go down
and just trying a bunch of different things.
So when I transitioned from engineering to business, the second semester of freshman
year, I started taking a lot of business classes, economics, things like that.

(09:56):
And one day after class, I go to my economics teacher and I'm like, Hey, really enjoyed
our lectures today.
You were talking about Dow Jones and S&P 500 and just how you can compound money.
I'm actually like trying to trade on my own right now.
I have these stocks.
I'm like owning Tesla and that's mind you like 120 dollar stock, pre pre stock.

(10:17):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
A thousand percent ago.
And I'm like, what should I do with my portfolio?
Should I buy more of this?
Should I like sell it?
Like give me some wisdom here.
I'm really passionate.
He's like, Simon, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but I actually can't give you any advice
on what you should do with your portfolio because I personally don't invest in stocks.
My wife doesn't let me.
She thinks it's gambling.
Oh my goodness.
Wait a second.

(10:39):
So I'm here accumulating $50,000 a year in debt to learn investing from somebody who
personally doesn't invest.
He's not a practitioner.
Why am I here?
And that's when I threw in the towel.
I was like, I need to drop out and then like, yeah, get out of here.
I was like, I can't like look myself in a mirror and say that I'm learning from somebody

(10:59):
who doesn't know their shit.
Yeah.
Makes a lot of sense.
And to me, the analogy was like the apple doesn't fall far away from a tree.
So if I'm learning or growing in a tree that's rotting or is a small tree, I'm never going
to be a big apple on a small tree.
So that's when I kind of call it quits.
And I was like, let me drop out.

(11:19):
Parents were obviously furious about that.
I was like, I could only imagine.
Yeah.
I was like, mom, this is a reversible decision.
If things like let me take a year to do this, if it doesn't work out, I can always go back
to school.
And that's kind of like what's sold her on that.
And then I was like, all right, so something was wrong here with the way I'm learning.

(11:40):
Let me go out there and now seek education from mentors and people who actually have
results that I'm trying to get and who are practitioners.
And that's when I also like 2018, 2019 when all the online entrepreneurs started popping
off crack hard own.
Yeah.
I mean, I was here at the time of the year in my garage, all that kind of stuff.

(12:00):
And that's when I found out about the first business conference I went to, which was Tech
Score, Count Three.
Really?
Yeah.
2019.
We went there.
That was funny.
So I spent the little money I had to fly from New York, went to Miami to go to Tech
Score, Count Three, and then went through that event.
And I was like, this is so much better than college.
I'm learning from billionaires and millionaires that are coming on stages.

(12:23):
But I'm like, you know what?
This is still flawed because this is a big pile of shit because everybody that goes on
stage gives you a bunch of one size, like fits all motivational fluff and pride.
5,000%.
Yeah.
It's a price to sell you on a course or a product or an offer.
And I'm like, this feels sleazy and scammy.
And I just paid five grand to be here.
And you're asking me for another five to ten grand to just show me what's behind the scenes.

(12:47):
And I'm sure if I pay five to ten more, they're going to ask me a little bit more.
And the thing is, there's 30,000 people in that room.
So I can't go up to Grand and say, hey, let's sit down one on one.
And I'm going to show you what I'm working on.
And you can get me practical advice, like for me specifically.
And the advice I give on stage, it has to be very broad in general because they have
30,000 people.
So 65-year-old Nancy in a 24-year-old Gabe or 20-year-old Gabe at that point sitting in

(13:11):
the same room.
You can't give them the same advice, right?
Because there are different points of life.
So that's where I was like, OK, so college is not it.
These events are better because people are actually practitioners, but it's still not
the same thing.
And one more thing on the events, I was meeting people networking, trying to find other black
women, people my age.

(13:32):
And all I ended up with next morning when I reflected on it is a big stack of business
cards.
Nobody remembered you.
And I pick up a business card.
I'm like, who is Alan?
Yeah.
I have a business card.
I have no clue who this person is.
So I was like, also this thing is flawed of like, everyone's coming up to you.
It's so transactional.
It's like, hey, do this.
Here's my business card.
Hit me up if you ever need it.

(13:52):
It is literally a funnel.
But exactly.
But then I was like, what's the whole purpose of this?
Now I have 20 business cards.
I have no clue who you are.
I didn't build a relationship, which actually is like one of the things and reasons why
we started 10 Bunch of Merits.
We'll dive into it in a second.
And I was like, there must be a better way than the college and these events.
I can't find a better way.

(14:12):
I'm sure all the people feel the same way.
Let me start my own thing.
And then I started a company called Necton, which I was like, let me host my own event.
Let me invite my own speakers and let me create an education environment where this is how
I think I should be learning and how I think other people should be learning and gathering
this information.
So then I created a conference style like networking event, Necton, networking conference.

(14:34):
That makes sense.
I started that and I had a couple of people speak there that were very, very successful
entrepreneurs.
So I met at 10X growth conference as attendees.
For example, Fernando, one of our MCs for the event, he hosted like 300 plus conferences
before he was a grand cement connected with him.

(14:55):
He opened doors to like three or four more speakers.
I'm like, can you kind of give this guy and this guy?
And that's how I got my first interest to networking and meeting people.
So essentially we had this event.
I was like, let me bring the people that have all the skills that I think are valuable for
me to learn real estate marketing, e-commerce, dropshipping, and the whole gist of separating

(15:15):
this event is number one, nobody was allowed to sell anything.
You can't go on stage and like offer your product core service.
You're not allowed to mention it.
And the speaker to attendee ratio was very small.
It was like maybe 80 attendees and like eight to us speakers.
So it was one to five, one to six ratio.
It's very intimate.
And then it was also very application based and practical post motivation based.

(15:40):
And what we had is, you know, we had breakout rooms and panels like you guys had in your
events.
And for example, if somebody's teaching e-commerce, they can literally get a round table of eight
or nine people who want to learn about that subject.
They go upside their laptop and the guy walks around and he's literally like, click this
button and adjust this ad set and you know, bump your ad spend by this much and you will

(16:02):
see an instant result.
So it's like very practical hands on.
That's what people need.
That was what really separated us.
And I'm like, this is the environment that I want to learn it.
So I did that.
That was 2018, 2019, going to 2020.
The conference was in New York, LA, Miami, and my dream like 18, 19.
This is insane.

(16:23):
At this point, you're like, I'm all the way into this entrepreneurship thing.
This is how I'm going to create the life.
But I also had like this ticking time bomb of like, if I don't have anything to show
for it and you're going to come back to school, you know, it was really fun for me as well.
I don't think obviously at certain times business can be tough, but I think it should be like,

(16:45):
it's supposed to be fun.
If it's not fun, you're not doing the right thing.
So did that and then COVID hit.
COVID created the most millionaires, entrepreneurs by force because of the impact.
If people knew, like how to leverage it correctly.
Yeah, most people didn't.

(17:05):
So COVID hit and I was like, I had a conference plan for Miami already, 100 people like, I
was like, I'm committed and everything had to refund everybody.
I'm like, where do we pivot?
What do we do?
So I was like, let's do Discord.
Let's do Zoom.
Let's call this community online.
Let's take this whole thing online.
And I started, I think, called Netcom Mastermind, which was the exact same thing, but now we
increased the frequency from doing events like every two, three months to now, let's

(17:27):
do this weekly and have a speaker come in digitally to give a presentation.
We had Dan Flaserman come on.
We had people that run and have sold billion dollar companies, CEOs from Fortune 500 companies,
whatnot influencers, the whole nine yards.
And every week we'd have a different topic for discussion.
We'd have chats for different subtopics of entrepreneurship, stocks, real estate marketing,

(17:52):
all these different chats.
And I was pretty much the pioneer at all.
So that's really cool.
And we charged a monthly subscription for that.
And then we had the highest point, a couple of hundred members for that, over 500 or less
than a thousand members paying monthly recurring to just be a part of that during COVID.
And then beginning of COVID, moved down to Tampa because I was like, nothing left for

(18:15):
me in New York.
It's cold.
I need a vaccine passport to go to Chipotle and to the gym.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I get to be six feet away from everybody.
Yeah.
You know, have that stuff.
Why Tampa?
Most people went to Miami.
I was in, yes, in Miami.
I was in Miami.
I had an ex-girlfriend of mine who was going to go to University of Tampa and then I moved
down to Tampa.
And then she said in New York and then the first day I moved down here, I didn't know

(18:38):
a single person.
I was staying on a guy's couch and I met on Instagram while my furniture was shipping
down and then we broke up the first day I got here.
And I was like, okay, I'll be getting a first start.
Yeah, yeah.
And then also like Tampa, I think when I was starting NetCon before my second event, I
actually got invited to speak at a different event here in Tampa.
And that was my first introduction, maybe six months before moving to Tampa.

(19:00):
And then I had a couple of friends here that when I moved here, we're no longer here.
But I was like, ah, you know, here we are.
So Miami also seemed just like too many distractions, too flashy.
And for me, at this point in life, people were like, why do you still stay in Tampa?
And I'm like, if I want to have fun and I want to do stuff, I drive for three hours,
then I can go back to Sanity and like, it's it's

(19:23):
Lambo to the right, homeless shelter to the left in Miami.
That's it.
Yeah.
But but also in terms of networking, it's really hard to network in Miami in my eyes
because number one, people are so stuck up.
But number two is there is ebbs and flows of people that come and go.
For example, like I just went recently, I go to the gym, I find this guy, we start up
a conversation.
I'm like, Hey, let's grab lunch or let's grab another workout.

(19:44):
And he's like, I'm actually from Canada.
I'm visiting here for like a week and a half.
I'm not going to be here.
I'm like, I just spent 40 minutes talking to someone who I'm probably never going to
see again, because he's like from a different place in life.
But in Tampa, like 90 percent here are like local and there was a higher chance of me
doing and building something with those people.
Additionally, it's also like in Miami, unless you're Drake, little baby or messy, if you

(20:06):
go to like a restaurant, like nobody cares, you know, you walk in, you're like, I own
100 doors.
You're like, this guy owns a thousand, this guy owns 10,000.
Like you're not that you can sit at the kids table.
But here I feel like if you just stick to one thing for three, four, five years and
get really good at it, any room you walk into, people know what you're doing.
Like with Tampa entrepreneurs, any room I walk into now, people are like, Oh, Simon

(20:27):
on Sam entrepreneurs.
I know like a lot of people I walk into people like who does multi-family here, people bring
up my friend Sam Silverman, people bring up your name and stuff like that.
And I'm like, Hey, we've only been running this for a year and a half.
Like if you were just good at one thing, this is imagine that was really like high
growth environment where you can really get to the top, I guess, you know, very easily

(20:48):
and and then from there, it's like, if you want now want to be a small fish or a big
sea, you can go to Miami.
Yeah, then you can move.
Yeah, very cool.
Very interesting.
All right.
So 2020 hits.
You do a lot at what point.
So yeah, what's first?
Is it the real estate development?
Is it Ecom?
Is it like so first it's so I moved down here and then I drew at that point, I had no clue

(21:13):
anything about real estate.
Yeah.
Doing very well with my online businesses and 2020 tax season comes.
It's my CPA and he's like, Yo, 350,000 dollars.
Really?
I'm like, come again.
He's like, Yeah, I'm like, so how do I not do this next year?
Yeah.
He's like, well, you have three options.
Either move to Dubai, you move to Puerto Rico, or you learn about real estate and just stay
here.
Yeah.

(21:33):
And I was like, I'm not going to get bullied into moving somewhere where I don't want to
live.
I literally just moved here two months ago.
Yeah.
Let me figure out this real estate thing.
I was like, you know, asking him about real estate tax strategies, learning about the Augusta
rule.
I was like, okay, cool.
Let me buy my primary home.
So I bought a primary house, you know, four bedroom, new construction home 2020, like 800
grand for it.
We're 1.8 right now.

(21:54):
Wow.
House hacked it, live for free, had two roommates who are also like entrepreneurial, had a master
bedroom and office.
Yeah.
They had two other ones.
I'm like, okay, so I'm living for free.
I'm owning this asset.
Yeah.
And it appreciated 300 grand while I was like living in it.
Somebody's paying down my mortgage and I also got to, you know, depreciated and also, you

(22:15):
know, rented to my business for 14 days under the Augusta rule and saved 20 grand.
Like this is pretty dope.
You know, sounds like a good deal.
Yeah.
And then I was like, okay, what's next?
I need more tax write-offs.
Right.
That's something that gets me so far.
So then I was like, studying all different aspects of real estate.
Obviously, you can make money.
It gives only in one way, so you can be an agent and a flipper, a developer.

(22:38):
That's a good thing and a bad thing for most people because it keeps them stuck most of
the time.
If you spread your focus to anything and you try to do everything, then you get nowhere.
But essentially, I was looking at all these things and for me, the biggest thing was I
want to maintain control of my time freedom to focus on my other businesses because I
don't want this to feel like a second job or something where I need to allocate, you
know, 40 hours a week to it and be successful into it.

(23:00):
So I was like, which one of these approaches would work well for me?
And I started making pros and cons lists of wholesaling, flipping, developing, doing
Airbnb, doing Section 8, doing long-term rentals and all that kind of stuff.
And then based on the pros and cons lists that I made, I was like, probably let's try
the development thing because I have enough capital to fund the projects.

(23:26):
I don't have to be a general contractor.
I can pretty good at team building and networking with the communities that I've built.
I don't have to be there on site if I have a project manager and a general contractor.
I get a new product that everybody wants to sell.
Best in the market.
Exactly.
I don't have to deal with unknowns behind the wall, like what's behind the drywall

(23:48):
from the guy that I'm buying it from.
Electrical, plumbing, all the BF.
Exactly, the MEP.
I essentially get to work with a hire and tend to find up renting it.
I don't have to risk getting shot trying to collect Section 8 rent.
So all these things that I had it up, it was like, oh, these things are cool, but I know
nothing about development whatsoever.
I have no clue what to do.

(24:10):
So it was like, let me do what I always did and just FTFO, figure it the fuck out.
So I was like, I have this money aside.
Let me work for my realtor.
Let me find a good project.
And I literally bought a piece of land for 400 grand cash.
Was a double lot tear down in Tampa that I bought for 400 grand cash.
I knew nothing about development.

(24:30):
I'm like, well, now that I own this, I have to figure it out.
I have no way other than this, because now I like.
Did you at least go to YouTube?
Yeah, I mean, I was like, YouTube being a basic understanding, but I've never done
it.
So it's like, FTFO.
It's fugaizing until you actually start doing it.
You're signing the papers and then you're like, oh, I'm doing this.

(24:53):
So did that.
And then for me, I always operate out of the nuisance of clarity comes from progress.
You don't have to.
And that's what I think stops a lot of entrepreneurs and people is the analysis paralysis that
they have.
They overanalyze everything.
They think they need to know one to 100 every single step that they're going to take.
For me, it's like, I only need to know one to five.

(25:14):
And then once I get to five, it's like everything that you've compounded from one to five and
all the things that you've learned here, all the people that you've met here.
Now that's going to give you clarity to go from five to 10.
And so on and so forth.
I think a lot of people don't start because they're like, I don't know how I'm going to
go from zero to 100.
It's like you saying right now, I don't know how I'm going to be a billionaire.
So I'm not going to start whatsoever and just try.

(25:35):
But you've first begun.
We'll get to 100.
Yeah, it was one hundred.
I was just having a conversation with somebody about how they make decisions and at what
point, how much information do they have to have about this decision they have to make
before they make it?
And the most successful people that I've studied and know and meet and talk with is like, they're
at 60 to 70% of the information that they need and then they make the decision.

(25:59):
And if they have that extra last 30%, it's too late.
And if they had it, it wouldn't have been worth it anyways because you get to, you actually
take the action and then you find out that you didn't know everything and you have to
pick it anyways.
For you, what do you think?
Is it 50, 60, 70, 80%?
I know it's not 100% for like a deal.
Let's say it's a development deal in Tampa.

(26:20):
You know the location, you know the deal or the area and you know how to pull these things
off.
How much do you need to confident?
I would say also it's just like, for me it's risk versus reward.
If I'm wrong, like what is my risk?
And for me, it's like on that deal, for example, I'm buying it for 400 grand.
It's 2020, 2021.
Interest rates are low, markets are all time highs.

(26:43):
I'm like, if I'm wrong and I don't want to do this and for some reason I can't figure
it out, I'll just put it back in market and I'll either break even because things are
going up or take a 20K haircut just after like commissioners and fees because I can sell it
for what I bought it for.
So for me, it's like the downside is relatively very small on this and there's like clear
exit strategy and reversible.
So as Jeff Bezos says, like there's reversible and irreversible decisions.

(27:07):
If it's reversible, don't like think about it too much, just execute.
It's irreversible then that's something you need to like really, really take a lot of
time about.
So I also like weigh decisions based on like how easy is it to undo a reverse.
Yeah.
But what I've learned through, I guess, time of being in real estate investing in successful
and unsuccessful projects is you need to focus a lot more attention on the buy because when

(27:31):
it's about like 90% of your offer needs to go on the buy, not the sell.
Because it's very easy to buy anything.
It's very hard.
What happened for you to be that con or have that level of conviction behind that statement?
Did you lose money on a deal?
What mistakes did you make?
Right now I have a condit that I bought for my mom for like a million dollars cash, right?

(27:53):
I wanted her to live in.
Now I built her home.
So she moved out of it.
I'm sure I saw the condit and it's like been listed for 850 now.
And because the Hways have that Miami collapse like double.
The insurances went up and nobody wants condos anymore.
And now it's like been on market for a year and it hasn't sold.

(28:14):
So I'm like, I have 900 grand of equity in something.
I'm down 100 grand and I can't sell it because I didn't focus enough attention on the buy.
So it's just solidified for me.
It's very easy.
If you have a million dollars right now, you can go buy and close on 100 different projects.
But it's like if you need that money back out, it might be very difficult to get out,

(28:37):
especially if you demand the right thing.
So you need to be very intentional.
All your money happens on the buy.
And I know you preach that too is like if you buy the right deal at the right price at
the right time with the right terms, like that's where you make your money.
Not under rehab, not an exit.
Those are like all subject to change.
But the majority of like your money is made the moment you like make a decision to buy.

(29:00):
And the price can't change.
Once you buy it and you sign the closing statement and you paid one million dollars
and you go to a refinance or sell it, it's we got to pay this loan off and there's no
change in that.
Very cool.
So where does the short term, because you have the short term rental stuff, where does
that come into the mix?
So that's when I completed the first development round, built three single family homes right

(29:22):
next to each other on the trip a lot that we bought.
That mind you took like a year and a half to figure out.
So from land not knowing anything to now completed three homes and then refinancing them.
I was just about to ask how did what ended up happening?
So bought the land for like 450 grand, put three new construction homes on each lot for

(29:48):
I think my construction costs on all three was about 1.2 million.
So about 400 K per home.
And then if you divide the, you know, the lot cost was about 150 per lot.
So per home I was in for 550 each.
And then they appraise for about 875 each.
Well, you know, so I walked into 300 K of equity in each property.

(30:09):
I went to the bank and I refied.
I pulled all my money out of it.
So essentially tax free on the properties, quote unquote, with like no equity in there.
My mortgage payments right now, I still own these deals are about 4900 bucks on each one
of the properties with about a 550 K note on each one of them.

(30:33):
And I was like, okay, now that I'm before that, my idea was like, should I sell these
properties or should I rent them?
And I was like, if I sell them, I'm kind of in the same place where I was because I don't
have an asset I can write off, depreciate or get any tax benefits off of.
I'm in the same position needing to trade time to go find the next deal, which I don't
have a lot of time.

(30:54):
I don't have an asset that's going to appreciate over time.
Can't like depreciate it, can't pay down the loans.
Like, it doesn't make sense to spend all this time to just make the 25, 30% returns and
then sell it and pay the tax and pay short term capital gains on top of that as well.
So I was like, this is dumb.
Let me keep it.

(31:14):
So I refinanced it.
And then I put the properties up for rent.
So I put her up for a long term rent and the properties rented for $5,100 a month each.
My mortgage was 4900 bucks a month.
And I did that for two months.
And I was like, well, I'm paying down my mortgage a little bit, but this isn't going really

(31:36):
far because I'm making 100 bucks a month.
I'm already after, you know, actually losing because I was, I'm like, I don't have time
to manage it.
I was paying 110%.
So I was actually, you know, losing 400 bucks a month.
I was like, yeah, this ain't, you know, the best idea.
So I was like, do I sell them now or do I try something else?
And I'm like, I do have the know how, the hustle, the grind.

(31:57):
Let me try the short term rental route and pivot from long term rental to short term
rentals.
And now just for reference, that same property that was renting for $5,100 a month, I was
doing about 19, 20 K a month in the short term rental.
I'd say your cash flow went up just a smidge.
Yeah, just a smidge.
I mean, now I'm able to, you know, to pay a short term rental property manager 15, 20%

(32:18):
and still, you know, cash flow, eight to 10 grand a month from property.
So my whole thing was like long term rentals is for old boomers who don't want to lift
a finger, like don't have the know how to do anything.
Just want to sit in a couch.
I'm like, I'm not at the point of being in a mall, D.
He was just sitting in a cocktail.
I have the grind, the hustle, like to figure out, I'm obviously protected with my time,
but I can put some effort into turning this into something else.

(32:41):
So that's when the pivot happened from long term rentals to short term rentals for me,
because I was like, I want to keep the assets.
I don't want to sell them, but I also don't want to long term rent them.
So let's try the short term rent.
And that's what I landed on.
That was like really good.
So then I was like, how do I stand out in the space?
And like I started reverse engineering, like what makes a great short term rental?
How do I get more ADR, which is the average daily rate?

(33:04):
How do I increase the occupancy and all those things?
Really diving into the nitty-gritty signs, breaking down every single thing.
So I realized that one of my very obvious discoveries was the more people you can sleep,
the more people you can charge, because people can now split the cost of renting it.
Hey, let's go on a trip.
Let's do it.

(33:24):
I was like, I'm gonna host 20 people and charge a thousand bucks a night.
It's 50 bucks a person, not that much.
So I was like, how do I increase sleeping capacity?
Well, I need to have more bedrooms.
So then I was like, in those four bedroom homes that I built, I turned them into six
bedrooms.
I just added two by fours, put a bunch of drywall, now enclosed, six second living room, and
I'll have six bedrooms and added bunk beds, like full over full bunk beds instead of queen

(33:47):
beds.
And I was like, now I can sleep 16 people.
My ADR went out 20%.
I was like, oh, this is like a science, and then I started tweaking the SEO and the titles
in the description and pictures and all that kind of stuff.
And I was like, I'm really like seeing my inputs controlled that.
But it's like me tweaking some inputs.
And I was very fascinated by the science of like, tweak this input and this happens to

(34:09):
the output.
Yep.
So I got pretty good at that.
And I was like, you know, what is my edge in this whole thing?
And now kind of my edges, I have a unique product because I was like, let me go find
more of these short term rentals.
And I went on the market here locally and I was like, let me find like a six or seven
eight bedroom home under 1.5 million because that's the price point that it would make

(34:30):
sense to look for to rent.
And I couldn't find anything because and then I started thinking I'm like a normal family
doesn't need eight bedrooms.
Right.
Yeah.
The normal single family homes are three to four bedrooms.
Unless you have 40 kids, you don't need eight bedrooms.
So I was like, huh, so nobody out of my competition also that's buying like on a public market
has any eight bedroom homes or 10 bedroom homes or expansions here in Tampa, at least

(34:54):
at the price point that they need to be afford to make sense, which is like under 1.5, 6
million, anything over that you just can't justify, you know, the average daily rate
to, you know, really cash flow well.
Yeah.
So I was like, that product doesn't exist, but I have the development skills.
And since I'm developing, I can customize the plan.
It's so crazy to see how everything is like shaping together.
It started as a tax problem.

(35:15):
You're like, yeah, interesting.
It's just starting real estate.
And then you do it and you're like, interesting.
This works.
I got all my money back tax free, but it's like cash flow.
Interesting.
We should do the Airbnb.
And then you're like, interesting.
Now I have the development and it's just so it's super cool to see that come together.
I guess problems and solutions like problems create more problems.

(35:35):
Yeah.
So, and then as long as you're inquisitive enough to solve these problems, you know,
that's where success lies on the other hand of that.
So then I was like, let me try to do this thing where I build a custom product.
And since I'm building it from the ground up, I can customize it to be exactly what
I want.
Knowing all the information, all the variables that yield the best ADR, I can customize this

(35:59):
probably to be exactly that.
And nobody else is going to have that because even if somebody buys a $1.3 million house,
they're going to have to spend a year and another 500 grand to make it that.
I can just make it brand new from scratch, just that everybody else wants.
At your cost too.
Exactly.
And now that's what I'm doing.
That's kind of my edge is like build two short term rents.
So now we build using the proprietary formula of what we have that really moves the needle

(36:24):
to output the highest yield and we short term rent those properties.
Now we've optimized, you know, how do you manage it more effectively?
How do you not spend time with automations and systems and whatnot?
And actually after this podcast, I'm meeting a student of ours in Seminole who is about
a $1.4 million.
Really?
Yeah, to do the same thing.
And we're also giving him like optimize the sleeping capacity and whatnot.
And he actually bought it for the same thing.
That's the biggest problem.

(36:45):
Really?
Right.
The guy out of everything, I'm just not how much money you can make with like different
stuff.
Man sells trading cards.
Makes about $2.5 million a year doing that.
That's insane.
Like Michael Jordan trading cards.
Trading cards.
And whatnot.
So has a personal brand, has a business around that, has a coaching program.

(37:05):
You know, they're doing like six, seven million in revenue a year, making like 2.5 million
off of that.
Big tax problem needed to do cost tags on those properties.
Yeah.
And the other thing is like, you know, now that you're, you know, in that you can cost
tax the...
Yeah, I was just about to go to the Airbnb tax exemption.
They're different than the real estate professional status.

(37:26):
Well, I do have both.
So I have real estate professional status.
I do cost tax and I also have the mark to market election tax.
Got it.
All right.
This is a lot.
I'm like, I'm in your 24.
That's insanity to me.
Let's finish up with the Tampa entrepreneurs.
And then I want to take a step back because you're very cognizant of the value of your

(37:49):
time and I want to kind of dive into the...
I have this here.
Your time is limited.
Oh, very cool.
I got a tattoo.
I'm married to my wife.
I got a tattoo right here with her initials.
I just, I don't come across too many people that one value at a time, but then two at
such a young age know the value of time and then make like, build your life around it.
So let's go into the Tampa entrepreneurs and then let's take a step back and just talk

(38:13):
about entrepreneurship for you.
So Tampa entrepreneurs, a five and one C6 nonprofit organization, our mission is to
host free local quarterly events for business owners and entrepreneurs not to just do business
with but to do life with.
Because we've, you know, what I've noticed is all these business events I go to are,
as I said, very transactional, very salesy and it all predicated on me.

(38:38):
It's a funnel.
It's a funnel.
It's really fun.
I'm going to all these other events and feeling, you know, being taken advantage of and not
building any quality relationships other than business cards.
I want to know people and have a relationship with them and know about them and what their
values are before I even do business with them.
Right.
So I was like, I want to create that community.
So I have co-founders in that actually that I met when I was hosting that content that

(39:00):
either of our attendees were speakers and like really good friends of mine.
We're sitting down one day and that's obviously after I was already in Tampa and I was missing
the in-person events because we shifted online, but then I never came back to the in-person
events after COVID ended.
And I hit a phase of like, I'd say not like depression, but more so like burnout, maybe
like end of 2022 because everything was so digital.

(39:23):
And I was missing the physical like connection with people.
And I was just like staring 12 hours at screens looking at the dashboard numbers moving.
And I was just like going insane.
I'm like, it's really hard to justify progress.
I feel like in the online business because all you do is track numbers on the dashboard.
And that's why I like real estate so much is because you have a quicker feedback loop
and you can see things transpire very quickly.

(39:43):
For me, it's like in development, I know I start a project, I pour a foundation.
Cool.
I can see it.
I can feel it.
I have walls now.
I have a roof.
I have tenants.
I have money coming.
You see the progress, payment, everything.
With online stuff, it's like, cool.
Yeah, your ad spend went up.
You got more clicks, more views, but like you can't feel a touch of smell.
Unless for you, it's probably when you packed a room with 200 people that you were in person

(40:05):
event, you're like, crap, now I see this is real.
Yeah, the impact that you see that.
But once like online, it's kind of fluff, even if it's on Zoom calls, you don't see
the magnitude of it unless like you're standing on stage in front of 200 people talking about
real estate and everyone's there cheering for you and supporting you.
Now I kind of feel it.
But yeah, it's really hard in the online business world.
So I was missing that.

(40:26):
And I mean, my co-founders, we started Tampa Entrepreneurs because we saw that issue.
So as a test, we're like, is there a product market fit for this?
Do people even want to be like part of a community?
Yeah.
Do they need for that?
Do people feel the same way?
I don't know.
Let's not invest any like money into it.
Let's do a test.
And then all of us invited like the top people, like very good curating network that we all
had from our friend group.

(40:47):
And I hosted something at one of my Airbnb properties in the backyard.
We had on a two week notice, I think 95 people showed out to like a backyard party that was
March of 2023, March 18, 2023, our first event.
Wow.
I had one of my Airbnb's and then just had a four hour networking mixer.
And the whole point of this is these events are a community focus.

(41:10):
They're not about me.
They're not about speakers.
They're not about one single individual.
It's not about Gabe.
It's not about the environment.
It's not about everybody that's in the room.
And it's not presentation focus.
It's not so much education.
It's like, let's build non-transactional relationships and then see where that goes
from there.
Because what I found valuable is also bringing people from different industries that are

(41:31):
doing different things.
Because I've noticed when I go to just a real estate event, it's all realtors.
Everybody has the same problem and nobody has a solution.
All realtors are like, I want more clients, more leads, more sales, but you are surrounding
yourself with 100 other people that have the same problem and nobody in the room has the
answer.
But now you put yourself in a room where you have a marketer, you have a content creator,

(41:53):
a videographer, and that creates value because now you connect with someone and they're
like, I can run your ads for you.
I can do your content strategy for you.
I can manage your social media.
I can do lead gen for you.
And now your problems get solved.
So I was like, I want to create that room.
I want to be very niche specific at this point.
I want to have a broad audience.
This is the top of funnel.

(42:13):
And that's why we do it so quickly is because we attract different types of people.
Events are free.
And essentially we went from hosting a 100 person event at my house.
Three months later we did American social with about 300 people in a summer of 2023.
Then we did Shellter, which is a private airplane hangar here in Tampa.
Had a 700 person, maybe a 500 person there.

(42:36):
Did the motor enclave.
Had a 750 person event there.
Did Salimar in Midtown, two floors at the hotel at about 850 people there.
Now we just finished up the Museum of Modern Art downtown Tampa with 1500 people.
How is it growing so quick?
Is it just word of mouth?
Is it organic?
We've never run an ad.

(42:57):
Never done anything.
Our tickets for last event for the general admission sold out in about two and a half
hours.
That was 1300 people GA.
And then 200 VIPs took like maybe six days to sell out.
For us it's always been I guess Hermosy equation.
Give so much or Gary V equation.

(43:18):
Give so much, ask for nothing at a certain.
The first three events, the entire event, everything was free.
People would come in, they'd meet great people.
We'd give everybody free drink ticket.
So imagine giving 500 people a free open bar tab.
Go drink, it's on me.
It's on me.
So you build so much reciprocity that people want to give back and away.

(43:40):
We did that.
We did catering food, giveaways and yeah.
So that's how we grew.
Then the third event, or the fourth event we noticed that hey, there is people who want
more.
And I'm like, we give so much away for free.
What are people going to think if we, like I want to be in a position to ask for trust

(44:03):
me with $150 and see what you're going to get then.
Because you get so much for free.
And that's what sold people on the tickets to our event.
Because they're like, I'm getting so much for free.
I can imagine what I'm getting.
They already, yeah, they already.
$150.
And now thinking about it in hindsight, like if we started the event and it was paid from
scratch and all the tickets were paid to attend, there wouldn't be sticky traction because

(44:28):
people don't have that residual trust.
They're like, I've never heard of this, then I've experienced it.
But if it's not good, why should I pay?
But now that people have gone to three or four and they see the amount of value and growth
they've happened to it, people have met a business partner.
We have two people who got married because they met at our event.
People have like, we had last night come from Dubai, from Canada, from Australia, just to
be at the freaking event.

(44:48):
So it's like insane.
That's insane.
That is really cool.
Really, really, really cool to see.
Your last event was like 1500 people.
That's insane.
And you started in March of last year?
Yeah, exactly.
So what's the future of that look like?
Because that's a really big, really big mission.
There's, again, some things that I don't like to talk too much into.

(45:12):
Yeah, I just do.
I do.
I know.
So you have a target, but I do have targets.
And the thing is, there is opportunities to pivot.
So the direction is still, as I said, clarity comes in progress.
We're figuring out a lot of the details of where to take it with this leverage we have
now.
But I'll tell you that there's many ways to go about it.

(45:33):
So let's break down vertices of how this business could work.
So for example, we could start now that we have this top of funnel of people from all
different industries that come into a 1500 person event.
We've had a lot of interest being like, I do want the speakers and I do want the coaching
and I want, you know, topic specifics from both our sponsors and our attendees.
Our sponsors are like, I'm a real estate company.

(45:54):
I'm a title company.
I'd rather be in a room of 150 people that all do real estate opposed to me having to
decipher from 1500 people who does real estate and who is a fashion show and beauty model,
whatever.
I don't want to talk to her.
So there's, you know, smaller, more intimate topic specific events we can branch out and
do like once a month at a location, maybe have it all of a paid event to have a higher

(46:19):
net worth and higher quality individuals.
Specific events, specific that want to discuss marketing, e-commerce, whatever.
Very similar to what I have experience in building my first company, Neckon, just in
person.
Yeah.
But that's linear thinking.
Yeah.
I was like, let's think horizontally.
What's the big thing that Neckon this turn into?
Well, you know, with all the pull and leverage we have, we can create like a media company.

(46:40):
Right?
There is, you know, let's look at bar stools.
Yeah.
Can we create something like that?
Right?
Like there's many adversities.
Oh, we can go the, we work a coworking space route and like, can we create maybe a coworking
space in, you know, all cities and now be the hub, like not just Tampa and expand from
there and create a partnership with a, we work like and we do the top of funnel like

(47:01):
provide the people and they service the location.
So it's like, there's, you know, many kind of, yeah, but you have the place we can establish
and you can kind of build a cater to, but that's the thing.
I always look at businesses of like leverage.
What's my leverage?
And I view like all opportunities of what levers can I pull on and what order sequentially
should I pull on them?
So for example, how I see this, that there's two permissioned types of leverage and two

(47:26):
permissionless types of leverage.
So permissioned type of leverage, somebody has to give you permission to use it.
For example, it could be capital and crew or like people.
So somebody has to give you permission to access $100 billion or $10 million to invest
into a deal.
Somebody has to give you permission to lead them if you're a building team.
But then there's also permissionless types of leverage, which is content.

(47:48):
Nobody has to give you permission to record 100 pieces of content or 10 or 50 and posted
on 10 platforms, 50 platforms reposted twice a day.
Yeah.
You know, it's all free.
Same with code, right?
You can build an app.
It works on the back end, the code does all the work for you and you don't have to get
permission from anybody to write a couple lines of code and have it work.
And if you look at all big companies that exist, they to some degree deploy all four

(48:12):
of these types of leverage.
Look at Meta or Amazon.
Meta has tens of thousands of employees.
That's your crew, right, the C. It has access to hundreds of billions of dollars to bear
stock.
They can raise money at any time, sell off stock, issue more shares.
He's never an issue for them.
Exactly.
And also it's a media company, so content, right?
That's a missionless type of leverage, but also code because when you launch an ad, you're

(48:37):
not talking to a person, you're clicking on buttons and the machine charges you money
and does things on the back end and it generates some revenue.
So those are all the four different types of levers that are deployed in business.
So when I look at my business, whether it's real estate or TE, I'm like, what lever can
I pull on?
And what order does it make sense to pull on it?
Like for us, for example, Tampa Hodge Marys or my real estate business, I'm like, should

(48:58):
I pull on the code?
I'm like, no, I'm not there yet.
Maybe I need to pull on the cap on the capital, right?
Get more money through, get more people content doing that.
And then once I have those types of leverage established, I can then go and jump into SaaS
or, you know, build those types of things because I can't build a SaaS without money
and without people and without distribution, which is your content.

(49:20):
So code for me is typically like always the last piece of leverage.
Very interesting.
Stack on top.
And the rest, it's like, what lever at what point does it make sense to pull on?
Like for us with TE, we have the people side figure out both internally, we have a team
of 15, and then, you know, externally, we have 1500 attendees.
So we have the people side figure out now, it's like, can we pull into content and media

(49:41):
distribution?
And can we pull on capital and get access to capital?
We had people comment like, hey, we want this in Orlando.
Can you like franchise this?
We can give you 500 grand to do this.
Yeah.
I'm like, yeah.
Very interesting.
So this is the last time I've been exposed to it.
What is it?
What are the four levers?
Just so people can see.
I can't remember.
So it's a four Cs.
So it's true.

(50:02):
We're like people.
Yep.
Capital.
Yep.
Content.
Yep.
Code.
Got it.
So yeah.
Very interesting.
Thank you for doing that.
All right.
Let's take a step back.
How your mind works very fast.
I can just tell you're a very smart guy and you think like very fast.

(50:24):
And it comes through in the outputs and the results that you have.
Where is this just all self?
Like you went out, you read books, studied people, mentors.
How did you develop yourself into who you are today?
Because if you compare you to most average 24 year olds, it's just not even a comparison.

(50:45):
I'd say.
Even like 30 year olds.
It's not like, it's just not a comparison.
Thank you, man.
A lot of it really stems from personal development and your habits and behaviors because you
are what you repeatedly do.
And I think for me lately I've gotten a lot more like clarity mentally.
I've been sober for eight months now.
Really?

(51:05):
Going sober until New Year's.
Just cut out drinking completely.
It's her office a 75 part challenge that I did over the summer.
And then once I completed it, I was like, I'm not going to do like keep doing the two workouts
day type of thing.
But it changed.
I was like, why not just push till New Year's with drinking?
It's not like I drank a lot.
It would be like socially maybe twice a month.

(51:27):
But still, I'm like, the cost of you drinking is not just the day you drink in the evening,
you drink, but it's the following morning where you sleep in four hours more and you
have a headache and the fog and whatever else.
That stuff for me, I'm also big on short cutting my learning curve by paying others.
And that's why I DM you.
And I'm like, hey, let's get me the TDR.

(51:47):
And just constantly investing in myself in just different avenues and trying to get ahead
by short cutting the learning curve.
What would you say?
Do you?
People's expertise.
And that's, as I said again, a form of leverage.
So there's a lot of people out there that are, and they should be skeptical for paying

(52:09):
for self education and all that stuff because you went through the terrible scammy experience
of these big conferences.
What would you say to the person that's listening right now that's inspired by all the stuff
that you've been able to do about investing into themselves and self education and buying

(52:30):
relationships and paying the money to get into the room to meet the right people?
How important has it been for you?
It's been, I think, it's moved the needle a lot for me.
For me, the biggest thing with investing in myself, and that's what I'd appreciate,
other people that, well, why should I join your program?
Or why should I work with you on a closer basis?
I'm like, number one, you're getting someone else a judgment that has been in a game for

(52:51):
a way longer than you.
The most valuable thing is someone else a judgment, I think, that came with their expertise
and all the things that they're going to tell you to do and especially not to do.
A lot of my thinking lately has pivoted of what should I be doing instead of what I should
be doing.
But the other thing, which will break down in a second, the other thing I think is that

(53:13):
when people pay, they pay attention.
And the thing is, everything that we teach, whether in TDR or SDR Navigator, like any
other gasoline programs that exist, it's free online available.
But once you put money on the table, you show commitment.
I want to work with people who are committed, who have skin in a game and not just somebody

(53:33):
who's going to have masks.
And then by paying, you're now surrounding yourself with other people who also have access
and resources in the shared mindset to invest in themselves and pay.
And you're surrounding yourself with growth minor individuals who all see the value in
it and now you can do big things with those individuals, suppose if it's somebody that's
small minded and just wants to extract value without providing any value.

(53:57):
And they'll be taking out for coffee, it's like very three bucks.
Let me pick your brain.
Oh my goodness.
Pick my brain.
Ask Alicia.
And my response to that, you can pick my brain if you can pick a payment.
I'm going to have to use that one.
That is so funny.
All right.
So think about the, I want to give back to the people that are listening now.

(54:22):
They're just starting out.
They're in college.
They're 22, 25.
They're 30 and they're just, they're lost.
They're trying to get found.
They're trying to go into the entrepreneurship.
They want a better life for themselves.
You run into a lot of these people at the events.
They're trying to change their lives.
What would you leave as like best advice?
If you could go back, would you do anything different or what do you wish you would have

(54:44):
found out sooner that you could have had a greater impact?
Yeah.
And so for, it really varies because as I said, everyone's very broad, but I think it's
the make a list of all the things that you like doing, that you hate doing, that you
sell out and that you were terrible at and then tripled down on your strengths and like
try to find other people that enjoyed the things that you suck at and hate doing and

(55:06):
that actually is their strength.
For example, like I hate accounting.
I hate like all these things.
I outsource and delegate the crap out of that.
But then I focus on things that I enjoy.
A lot of people see money signs near to things like, oh, you can make killer money doing X,
Y, Z, but they internally hate it.
I'm telling you, like, it's not worth it.
It's better off that you focus on developing and finding ways to monetize something you

(55:28):
enjoy more, opposed to going down a route where you hate it.
And if you don't know what it is, it's a season of exploration, right?
It doesn't hurt for you to try different things for a period of time to see what sticks.
And the best way for that, especially if you don't have a lot of capital, is go intern,
go learn for free, go consume content, go read books and see what resonates and then

(55:50):
go back to the forum and I'm like, am I enjoying this?
Is this good?
Is there upset potential?
You know, and traveling down on that.
In terms of like financially, if you don't have a lot of capital, I would say put yourself
in positions where you can get compensated in proportion to the value that you create
opposed to the time that you spent.

(56:10):
Because a lot of people find themselves, oh, while I'm figuring out this entrepreneurship
thing, I need to make money.
So let me go get a job that pays based on my time spent.
So I'm like, for you to do that, you're going to be spending a lot of time because you need
to make money, but you're only getting compensated by the amount of time you're spending, let's
say 15 bucks an hour.
So if you spend 30 hours, you're making 450 bucks.

(56:31):
So that means you can put less time into your entrepreneurship development.
For me, it's like, can I put 30 hours of my entrepreneurship development and figure out
a way to make 450 bucks in one hour, you know, doing something else to support myself while
I'm doing that.
So commission based, sales based jobs, referral based jobs for me, it was always like, I was
really good at networking.
And I started in my beginning phases to be able to focus on entrepreneurship, establish

(56:53):
a T-to-T relationship with people that I met at events and whatever.
I'm like, you have the service.
I know a lot of people, can I send you clients and you're just sending commission.
So I'd make maybe five to 10 grand a week just putting people in text, text group chat
introductions.
Hey, you know, Gabe meets Anthony.
He does this, he does this.
I see synergies for you guys to connect.
We'll let you guys take it from here.
And then I'd magically just wake up to like a 500 dollar commission there, 10,000 dollar

(57:15):
commission there, like whatever.
And you see with that, I create a value for both individuals and I didn't have to spend
much time on that, opposed to spending 30 hours and being kept on that.
And I guess for the audience, you know, people throw around the term, you know, providing
value to me.
That's like very vague as of like buzzwords or something.

(57:38):
How can I provide value to you?
And a lot of people come to, you know, at events probably like, Gabe, I want to provide
value to you.
Like, let's connect.
Let me pick your brain.
I don't know what you're doing, but like, you never take them up on it because number
one, I don't know what you do or what you're good at.
How can you be able to do it?
Exactly.
So I think you need to really reverse the idea of what is providing value really mean

(57:59):
for me.
It's solving a problem for somebody that they don't know how to yet solve or have the resources
solve yet.
So I always come into the mindset of, and that's where a lot of people also stop.
For example, let's say you need to build a funnel or a website.
And my mindset is I want to be valuable to Gabe.
So I can say, Gabe needs a funnel.

(58:20):
I have no clue how to build funnels or anything about funnels.
So I can be valuable to Gabe and of conversation.
Yeah.
Said I shift my mindset and I'm like, I can still be valuable to Gabe.
Who do I know that knows how to build funnels?
Let me connect them to.
And now let's say Anthony behind the camera knows how to build funnels.
I'll put you guys in a group chat and now I automatically create a value not only for

(58:41):
you, but for Anthony.
Because now I solved your problem of not knowing how to build a funnel and Anthony's
problem of looking for a client that can pay him to build funnels.
And now I automatically get reciprocity from the both individual.
You opened two doors that ended up, yeah.
That's insane.
Exactly.
So that's always been the mindset.
And I encourage people to think about value in that, I guess, perspective.

(59:04):
So that's, I guess, what I'm going to leave us at with since we're approaching the time.
Let's do one last thing, I think habits, you mentioned it, touched on it.
What are some of the best daily habits that you've instilled in your life, either keeping
the right people around you, working out?
What is it for you that keeps you sharp?
Yeah, I would say for me, I live, I guess, on the framework of being selfish in order

(59:30):
to be selfless.
Can you say that again?
I live on a framework of being selfish in order to be selfless.
So I believe that, so I guess, habitually, the first two to three hours of my day, like
nobody has access to me.
That's my time, like my sacred time to sharpen my brain, to read a book, to take care of

(59:53):
my body, my mind, my, like, essentially fill up my cup, right?
Because I can't pour from a half empty cup or an empty cup.
And then once I've had enough for myself, then I can go out into the world and spillover
and have my cup and pour into everyone's cup.
That if you don't have selfish time for yourself every single day for personal development,
for things that you need to do to grow as an individual, you can't go into the world

(01:00:17):
and serve other people.
So I would say that, like, every, that's the foundation, everything else stacks in the
top of that.
It's like, what do you do with that time?
Like, that's the other things, like it could be the gym.
It depends really like on what phase of life you're in.
It could be the gym, it could be reading, it could be listening to a book, it could be
a podcast, masterminds, it could be whatever it is.
But the first like two to three hours of the day, nobody really has access to me.

(01:00:40):
You can call me, you can't like, you know, take my time for me.
It's my selfish time.
And then after that, it's like, you know, yeah, go into the world and fire people.
Put self-refires out.
All right.
Where can people find you, Simon?
Social media, I would say Simon Learner on all platforms or like at Mr. Simon Learner
on Instagram.
You guys can DM me with any questions.
We'd love to connect with you and help you in any way shape or form.

(01:01:03):
Just don't ask to pick my brain.
And if you're local, follow the Tampa entrepreneurs, come to the next event.
Yeah.
We'd love to have you guys.
Obviously it's free to attend and would love to meet you.
We'd love to see the people there.
So had actually a couple of people from the deal room come out.
Let's go.
We're getting there.
All right.
Well, with that being said, ladies and gentlemen, hopefully you enjoyed today's episode.

(01:01:24):
Make sure you drop a like, comment, let us know whatever you want to see next time.
And with that being said, we will see you in the next one.