71. How Private Lending, AI, & Midterm Rentals Create Freedom With Jennie Berger and Tristan Lora

Episode Transcript
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Jason Wagner (00:00):
Welcome back to another episode of the Real Life
Investing Podcast with Jasonand Rachel Wagner.
I cannot believe.
Finally we are here tonightwith Jenny Berger and Tristan
Laura they are joining us and,jenny, we've been trying to get
you on the show for I don't know.
We've talked about it a lot andwe're just like boy, jenny is
the type of person that youwould want to go like deep dive,

(00:21):
joe Rogan style, three hours,just because she's got like so
much wisdom and like so much toshare.
She's been through a lot andthen and then you're like well,
I can bring Tristan too, so thiscould go on for like six six
hours but we won't do that butwe won't do that.

Jennie Berger (00:41):
Yeah.

I know you totally could slumber party, yeah, but
you guys't do that We'll justspend the night.

Yeah, I know you totally could On a slumber party
.

Yeah, but you guys are so cool because you're so
authentic and you're just sotransparent.
You're really fun to be around.
Interesting thing like anytimethat I kind of like walk into a
room with Jenny, she's alwayslike she's glowing.
And then one thing I rememberabout you too is that you give
like the most not to step onanyone's toes here, but you give

(01:07):
like the most memorable hugs.

Rachel Wagner (01:12):
Oh yeah, they're very intentional?

Has anyone ever told you that?
Because, like, when you know,when you go, oh hey, great to
see you again.
You know you give a friendlyhug, Jenny, doesn't let go.

Yeah, they're very intentional.
There's like a greeting andthen, there's a hug and then
there's like a pause, goodbye.
It's very intentional and verymemorable.

Oh, that's so sweet.

Thank you.
So part of me I know we said wewanted to start with real
estate first, but part of mewanted to just kind of
compliment you on that, becauseI know you do that very
intentionally.

Well, you make people feel very special and
very seen when you do that.

Tristan Lora (01:50):
Oh, my gosh For Jenny.
She's very present so a lot ofpeople are.
You know on to the next already.
And Jenny's right there justgiving us a hug and letting us
know that she's there.

Yeah, that's a great way to say it.

Thank you, that's very kind of you all to say.
I'm really touched and yeah,they are intentional.
I do love hugs and I lovepeople.
It's kind of funny because alot of things in my life I'm not
present for, like, I've justdiscovered recently that when
we're playing pickleball I'musually taking the shot and then

(02:26):
on to the next shot before Icomplete that shot, which leads
me to make a lot of mistakes,and so I told Tristan actually
yesterday.
I've learned that I do that ina lot of areas of my life.
I'm doing something and tryingto do the next part of that
something while I'm still doingthe last piece of that, and it

(02:46):
continues and I knock intothings or I drop things or I
mess up the shot.
And so it's funny that you saythat about the hugs and being
present, because I would like tobelieve that I'm like that in
all areas of my life, but I'mnot.
But thank you.

Yeah Well, we're always trying to think about the
next step and like, well,what's, what's the next thing
coming down the pipeline?
And um, yeah, no, you do areally good job of just it.
Again, the thing that I reallyadmire about you is just like
the human touch of things, andyou've always just kind of had
that Um one of the again, one ofthe reasons why we wanted to
have you come on is just becauseyou kind of bring that extra

(03:24):
flair and that extra specialnesswhen you walk into a room,
which is really great and it'sreally unique.
And I think a lot of us arelike you know, how do we be more
present in our lives?
And sometimes it kind of likecomes down to just the little
simple things you know, andyou're good at that, which is
just, you know whether it'smaybe a longer handshake, right,
or whether it's, like you know,just very intentional with I'm.

(03:46):
I'm here, I'm listening to youand you know I'm going to hug
you just for an extra halfsecond so that you kind of feel
like I know you're pulling away,but I'm going to hold you just
a little bit tighter for asecond.
It's just like it's memorableand it's cool.

Thank you.
Yeah, so kind of you, thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah, so kind of you, thank you.

Anyways.
Anyways, Jenny, you've gonethrough an interesting like real
estate cycle here.
You know how we met you were onthe development side and you
were building beautiful condosand you were coming off of flips

(04:22):
and doing some reallyimpressive, amazing design work
and then you've kind of liketransitioned into this new world
of lending and like being aprivate lender and you're not a
bank, like you don't walk aroundin a suit.
What, what is that?

(04:42):
Or tell me, tell me what thisprivate lending world is, how
you came across it and how's itgoing.

So it's going well.
It's slow, but I'm a believerin growing things slowly.
I've tried to do things quicklyin the past and it ends up
backfiring in some way.
Yes, I was doing development,design, construction and that
was fun and I loved it and Istill.

(05:14):
I mean, I'll always have thatcreative design bug inside me
and I think, just as passionprojects, I'll always want to do
some sort of design work.
But the last project that Iworked on, which was Sheffield
the three unit in Lakeview itwas really really, really
difficult in so many ways and itbroke my former partnership

(05:37):
apart, my business partnership,and I learned a lot of lessons
from it.
But going through it it wasreally really hard and I mean I
just didn't want to do itanymore.
I needed a break.
I needed to just get away fromthat for a little bit.
It was a lot of skin in thegame and I didn't want to have

(05:59):
my skin in that game.
But I knew I wanted to dosomething still in real estate
and I had done a private loan afew years back the wrong way.
I didn't do any of the titlework and I didn't have an
attorney drop loan documents.
It was just oh, here, you needthis for this duplex.
Sure, here, take this money andjust make monthly payments and

(06:20):
then you can pay me back.
When you say you're going topay me back and it's all good.
Luckily I got paid back mostly,but after that I realized
actually that was kind of cool,even though I did it wrong.
It still was cool when it allcame to getting paid back, that
final lump sum and I just wantedto look more into what private

(06:42):
lending was about.
Being an actual private lender.

You did it right, you got paid back.
Mostly, doing it wrong would beyou lost it all yeah.

Okay, thanks.
Thanks for the support.

The other side look like right now for somebody
to come to you and be like hey,um, I'm looking for a hundred
thousand dollars to help fund arenovation on a property.
Is that, is that the type ofclient, um, that you're looking
at?
Um, somebody that is a flipperor doing something to real

(07:19):
estate?
Um, or could it also be hey, um, going through a divorce over
here.
I'm trying to buy out my wife.
Is there any possibility that Icould get some money to help
buy out the home?

I wouldn't be surprised if I got that request,
because since I've started thiswhole private lending journey
and putting out all these reelson Instagram, I have gotten so
many requests for lending thathave nothing to do with real
estate, or sort of like maybeworking capital for the real
estate investors so that theycan do more deals over here, but
they just need a workingcapital loan which is still

(07:54):
related to real estate.
But yeah, I've gotten non-realestate related requests too.
I'm like I'm not that kind oflender All of the lending we do
is backed by real estate kind oflender All of the lending we do
is backed by real estate.
But yes, that's exactly rightup.
Our alley, or my alley, is fixand flip loans, like term loans,
six to nine months forrenovation projects, or BRRRS,

(08:15):
where they're buying, renovatingand renting and then
refinancing and doing it overagain, so short term.
And also transactional fundingfor double closes, which is
something that I really wantedto get more into, but just
haven't had a deal close on thatfront yet.

That's like a wholesale.

Well, you work a lot of times with wholesalers
who can't assign a contract.
They have to actually close onthe purchase and then turn
around and sell it.
So in that sense, yes, but it'sactually buying the property
and then just reselling it.

Yes, yeah, yeah.

So it's quicker money, smaller fee, I would say
less risk, because everything isjust kind of staying at the
title company you have.
The end buyer's funds should,in theory, be there before you
release your funds for thatfirst half.
So that was why I really wantedto get into private lending was
to do transactional funding Wasto do more double closes Okay.

Exactly, but you're finding that you're doing
more of just people that aredoing renovation projects or
like regular investors Peoplelike me.

Yeah, before I went into new construction, just
like people that are looking tobuy an investment property,
renovate it and sell it yeah.
Or refinance and keep it as arental and then they'll pay me
back, get into a longer termloan, yeah, yeah.

So then do you put ?
You put a lien on the house.

Yeah, yeah, we're in first lien position.
We have all of the securitydocuments in place, the same way
that a bank would.
If you were a bank lender, abank person, and someone was
coming to you for a mortgage fortheir primary residence, you
would have to sign a slew ofdocuments that make sure that
the bank is protected, andthat's exactly the way we're
protected.
We have all those samedocuments recorded and in place

(10:02):
and on file.

And then what happens if they don't make the
payment?

It's a great question and I hope to never
really know the answer to that.

That's where I come in.
It's the ongoing joke Tristanhas the answers.

We'll take the Harley to that meeting.
Have you met Tristan?

He's the comedian and the muscle.
Well, you've got to thatmeeting.
Have you met Tristan?
He's the comedian and themuscle.

Well, you got to have that.
Yeah, you know, this isn't,this is hard money, you know.

Yeah, if a borrower were to default, the
worst case scenario is we wouldhave to foreclose and take over
the property.
Yeah, take over the propertyand then figure out you know
where it is in its process If itwould make sense to just try to
finish up the rehab myself,with my own crews, and then sell
it or just put it on the marketor market it to some other

(10:53):
investors and say, hey, you know, this is what happened.
Come in and take this projectover.
It has about this much left,but we hope to never get there.
You know, and one of the thingswe do is always try to make
sure that the amount of money wehave invested at any given time
is less than the value of theproperty.
So we're always funding thedraws in milestones according to

(11:15):
the scope of work and onlylending up to a certain
percentage of the after repairvalue.

Oh okay, Not the as-is value, but the.

Yeah, some people do the as-is value and I could
be totally wrong on this, but ifI did the as-is value I
probably wouldn't fund a singleloan, especially here in our
market.
Maybe some markets you havethat availability, but I just I
haven't found that here yet.
Yeah, so unless you know, youcould find that probably on more

(11:44):
suburban homes.
You know where the values arereally high and like cosmetic
repairs, you know you can eachget in there.
The house is $500,000 and allyou need is $30,000.
And so the as-is value isactually 500 and you're getting
it for 450 and that's still adeal.
And so, yeah, you couldprobably do a loan based on the
as-is value there very well, butwe're not in that price

(12:08):
category yet and that's not ourniche at this time.

Yeah, so do you do it based off of a total ARV or
do you do it based off of loanto cost?

I do loan to cost as long as it doesn't exceed
it's usually around 75% of thevalue, the after repair value.
So we, my borrowers, are I knowthem or they've been like,
referred to me by really, reallystrong network connections and
I've gone through a thorough,thorough vetting of them.
Granted, anything can happen,you know people change, but I do

(13:02):
the best vetting that I can toreally dig in and make sure that
they have what's needed just incase something does go wrong.

So do you have an appraisal network now, or like
when you need someone to govalue what's the ARV, because
the appraiser can give you thatnumber.

Yeah, I mean I'm a licensed agent so I kind of
trust my values sometimes morethan the appraiser.

Yes, you are.
Yes, Well, that's yeah.

In this market right in Chicago and vicinity.
If it's outside of the state,because we're doing a loan in
Texas right now in Houston, Iwill either have an appraisal
done or I'll get a BPO or justsomething from someone local,
maybe a local lending colleaguewho knows the market really well
there.
Maybe they'll do a drive-by andthey'll run some comps for me

(13:51):
too.
So if it's this market, I feelpretty good about my own value
estimations.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, while making sure that the place is real as
well, having those videowalkthroughs or going to see
them in person.
When we were looking at theHouston one, it was who's our
friend in Houston that can go bythis address to make sure this
is real?

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Do you have to be licensed in order to lend in
another state, or is there anytype of state requirement for
that to be a lender?

It's a good question.
For investment properties manystates you do not have to be a
lender.
It's a good question Forinvestment properties many
states you do not have to belicensed.
I think there are some whereyou need to be if you're going
to do kind of like a brokeringof a loan.
So if I weren't lending my owncapital and I was just maybe
facilitating bringing anothercapital partner, if you will, to

(14:45):
the table and they wanted tofund the loan and I was acting
as like broker, facilitator,transaction coordinator and
collecting a fee at closing,there might be some states where
I can't do that.
I just don't know.
I don't know from state tostate.
So I typically will just checkwith an attorney before agreeing
to lend in any state to makesure that I don't need a license

(15:06):
.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, so cool, so cool.
Do you anticipate, like I don'tknow how you like?
Is it just your capital thatyou're just lending out, or is
it a group of people, or youhave other investors that you're
like hey, you know, you've gotsome extra money.
Yeah, yeah, is that?

is that how it all works?
All of the above?
It started with my own capital.
I did.
I did my own loan first, andthen once I and then that was
that first one I told you aboutThen I did the second one, by
myself, with you know, the rightdocuments and the right process
.
It worked.
It was great and I said okay.
Then I talked to my dad.
I said, dad, this is what I'mdoing.
Do you want to do this?
He said it sounds amazing,let's do it.

(15:51):
So he put some capital into thenext loan.
That worked really well and Iwas like, oh my God, I got to
grow.
This thing Like this is moredeals, more money, you know.
And so then I brought onanother capital partner who is
also in real estate and just hasyou know kind of money sitting
on the sidelines and wanted todeploy it somehow.
So he's now a capital partnerand then I have a line of credit

(16:13):
that I'll also use sometimesand I'm trying to get more
capital partners, so I want tobe able to fund more loans and
not necessarily just use all myown money.
So, yeah, it's a blend.

So cool, yeah, so cool.
Is there a certain amount ofloans that you would want to
have like active at one time,like right now, or is there?
You know what I mean, as I'mthinking about, like boy, if I
were to be doing like 10projects right now, that just
seems like a lot.
You know what I mean, but I'mnot, you know, but you're in
such a different position.
It's just like, yeah, we've gotmoney out on 10 different

(16:47):
projects.
I'm not running around doingthat stuff.
I'm not hiring the contract,I'm just, you know, making sure
that they're paying me everymonth.

Right, right Is there.

Is there a certain amount where you're just like
you know this is too much, orlike there's too many things, or
is it?
No, there's really not a cap tohow many loans you could have.

I think was two or three loans, maybe two loans
at the same time which istotally fine.
The bulk of the work is in theunderwriting.
It's in vetting the borrower ifit's a new one or if it's an

(17:36):
existing borrower likere-vetting and making sure that
nothing substantial has changedchecking bank statements, things
like that but underwriting thedeal and just getting to the
closing table.
Once that's done and you're inservicing, then it's really a
piece of cake.
So I don't know, I don't know.
Yes, there will be a cap whereI'm going to be like I can't, I
can't do this.

That's a threshold she's trying to find currently.
Yeah, exactly, you kind of findthat.

And I don't want to.
I don't want to ever get to thepoint where I'm so busy that I
just can't breathe or I feellike I'm underwater or I'm just
always working.
I'm trying to get away fromthat and get into this, to not
be living that kind of life, sothat's why I'm trying to do it
slowly and methodically.

I think one of the most interesting things about
the Capitol that Jenny uses ishow she's using her own capital
and where she's getting it from.
Do you want to talk about thata little bit, about your
retirement?

Oh, like self-directed.

Oh, okay.
Yeah, that's like one of thebest, so you're doing like a
self-directed IRA on some ofthis stuff.

So you're doing like a self-directed IRA on some
of this stuff.
I have a self-directed Roth IRAthat I invested in a
syndication deal back five yearsago and you can use your
self-directed retirementaccounts to lend on real estate.
So if it's not self-directedyet and you just, let's say, you
have a solo 401k or an IRA or aRoth IRA, you can make it

(19:04):
self-directed essentially andthen you can lend on real estate
through that account, which isreally nice for a lot of people.
That's one way that I that.

I lend.

You know or have access to certain capital is
through that account.

Yeah, was it hard to set that up?

No, no, it's just a little paperwork.

Who do you use?

I work with CamoPlan.
They're a third-partyadministrator in Ambler,
pennsylvania.
They were recommended to me afew years ago.
I just looked through a coupleof different ones and chose them
because their fees I thoughtwere reasonable.
They do charge fees and you dohave to fill out paperwork and
set that stuff up.
But once you get that set upand you have the account and
then you know where the money'scoming from whether it's like

(19:46):
Fidelity Vanguard or whereveryour housing, your home of your
IRA is or your Roth then youjust it's a direct transfer.

It's pretty simple , yeah, and sometimes there may
or may not be a taxable eventthat occurs, like when you take
it from your other retirementaccounts and put it into IRA.
Did you have that kind of?
Did you have to go through anyof that when you set yours up to
begin with?

Only if you get a check.
If they send you a check, thenyou have a certain window of
time.
It might be 60 days.

Yeah.

But I don't, I just do a direct transfer.
So it goes from institution toinstitution.

I never touch the money and all interest earned
just goes right back into thataccount.
Yeah, sweet, yeah.
So, yeah, you really didn'thave any taxable event, so there
wasn't any issue with.
Yeah, that's so cool, that's socool.
Yeah, I did.
I bought a apartment buildingusing self-directed IRA funds
and it was great because we gota low appraisal and they're like
, yeah, we'll still give you theloan, but you got to come up
with more money and I was like,where am I going to get this?
And I was like, well, wait asecond.
I heard about the self-directedIRA thing and then I set it up
and then I was like, boom, thereit is, wow, funded.

See, that's cool.
Now I know that there arethere's something called
disqualified persons, and Idon't know I'm not a CPA, I'm
not a tax advisor, so I don'tknow the ins and outs of this
but I know that there arecertain people that you cannot
lend to if you're using yourself-directed retirement account
, depending on who that personis Like if it's a relative, for

(21:18):
instance if there's interest,there's all these things.
The reason I say that isbecause you did alone to
yourself.

Well.
So legally we were able to doit and I'd have to go back and
actually figure out how we fitit.
It was literally a puzzle,because it has to be managed by
a third party, which is anotherentity, so it's actually managed
by Greystone it's owned by.
Because of the ownershippercentage between me and the

(21:52):
other partner, well, the IRA isits own entity.
Me personally, I'm anindividual, the partner is an
individual, and then, because ofthe ownership makeup, the
percentages, it worked.
That's amazing, I'm like well, Idon't have any other source
here, so I have to make thiswork.
So I got on the phone with anattorney and he checked it all

(22:15):
and he's like, yeah, it shouldbe fine.
That's awesome and so but yeah,yeah, that is one of those
things.
So, yeah, there are lots ofrules to it.
Did you talk to like an IRA, aself-directed IRA consultant or
anything, because there's kindof a space for that too.
No, just through the accountthat you had, they were able to

(22:35):
give you enough guidance.
The third party administratoryeah, cool.

I mean, I learned a little bit about it in one of
our real estate investormeetups.
Yeah, I think before.
I don't know if it was before,no, it was after.
I had already done it.
But yeah, no, I don't.
That's about the extent to whatI know.
I know just enough to knowenough Beyond.
That is like extra.

You know it's possible.

Beyond, that is AI.
If I need more information, Ijust ask Tristan or I ask AI.

That's a good.
So Tristan first.

Tristan's always first, and then I'm like, why
did I just bother him with thattext?
I could have asked ChatGPT whatdo you do when the microwave
won't turn on?
Reset the breaker?
I'm like, never mind, I got theanswer.
I feel so bad.

It's such a stupid question.
I was going to ask you which AIyou use ChatGPT or Grok but you
said ChatGPT and Gemini andGemini.
Yeah, Okay, I started with.

Gemini, just because I have a Google Pixel
phone.
So I got the advanced versionfor free, free, and that was
where I started.
And he then Tristan, told mehe's using both.
So I thought well, I use aplethora you use more than that
now okay yeah, I'm on about five, five, five.

I don't even know .

Five there's Claude as well.
Claude.
All the ones that we're talkingabout are language learning
models.
There's other versions thatwrite software and code and
different things that I'm tryingto teach myself in my spare
time.

In your eighth life, in your spare time right.

Exactly.
My father's an internetarchitect.
He's been in the code writingfor years A lot that you see
with Amazon today when you clicka button and a lot happens.
And my dad's in control of whatall happens when you click a
button, what you see, how yousee it, and he writes a lot of
that code.

(24:34):
So it's always interested me inthat and I have a brain that
works differently than mostpeople in the creative world, in
the festival production world,and I want to create different
things that just don't exist.
So this AI is four years ofcollege or six years of college
for me.
I have my own PhD team by myside teaching me what to do to

(24:59):
make what I need better.

So what's an example of some of the code that
maybe you're trying to learn sothat you can implement?

I do not like spreadsheets, I'm just.
I'm not a pivot table kind ofguy, but my whole life, sadly,
is about budgets andorganization and if I can
dictate what needs to go whereand have it just presented in a
way that other people can readit, that's what I want.
So, for example, I can design awhole event or a festival or a

(25:32):
tournament or something in myhead.
I need to be able to put thaton paper and AI really allots
for that to happen in differentways, not only just in pivot
tables and spreadsheets andbudgets, but pitch decks and
high-end renderings andwalkthroughs and problem solving
and finding potential gaps infencing and stuff like that.

(25:56):
So I use AI in a wholedifferent realm, not just the
language learning model, whichis where I started two years ago
with.
It was my chosen mother wantedto go to Ireland.
She was like I have no ideawhat to do.
I have this flight booked andall I know is I want to see this
castle.
And I was like look at ChatGPT,here's your itinerary.

(26:17):
And she's like I'll do everysingle thing on it.
And she went to Ireland and shedid every single thing and it
was relevant and worked and Iwas like this is the greatest
thing.
And I was camping with a friendthat sells centrifuges to
hospitals.
He's a PhD, goes around, he'sone of the smartest guys I know
and I said what's your biggestcompetition?

(26:37):
And he told me and I typed itin chat GPT.
And I was like what are thedifferences between these two?
Lean heavy on this and sell methis product over this product
and it gave me sales pitchesLike I went to college for nine
years to learn all of that, andI said I went to college no
years and learned it in 20seconds.

Yeah, and that was two years ago.

Yeah, that's literally the thing.
You've all of a sudden justkind of given an argument of
like is college still relevantwhen we've got, like these
amazing tools that are just atour fingertips?

and you can literally learn anything if
you're curious enough and Ithink correct, you know I think
college and high school andschool in general, especially
here in the states, isn't alwaysabout the education that you
get.
It's about the person, ofperson, abilities like
interacting with things andlearning how to problem solve in
different ways that you can'twhen you're not in those

(27:29):
institutions.
When you're not in the schools,you can always tell someone
that never has interacted withother people versus someone like
me that's lived in a differentcity every year of their life or
a different house.
You're always meeting newpeople and doing different
things.
Life or a different house,you're always meeting new people
and doing different things.
But I think anybody can getsomething out of college, so I
don't want to discourage thattoo much, but as far as

(27:51):
education goes, they're going tohave to learn how to use this
to train and teach further,because AI is only as good as
its inputter or its dictator.
So what I'm dictating and how Idictate my AI and my language
learning models is a lotdifferent than the way Jenny

(28:11):
does.
She's learning a lot from me,but I'm very clear and very
direct and tell it how long towork on something or how fast or
how detailed.
Pretend that you're my PhDstudent and this is the research
project you need to do, andshow me all of your, your
resource or your sources forthis, and may put it in a

(28:31):
spreadsheet form for me.
Make a pie chart out of that.
I'm very direct with how Itreat my AIs, and certain ones
work different than others.

yeah, yeah, you're all my dudes.

You need to be detailed, my homies.

He's going to have a robot soon.

We were just messing around last night
Because X came out with thewhole imagine.
Now you can put in any type ofprompt.
And so actually me and Scarlett, my six-year-old daughter.
I was like Scarlett, you'revery creative, tell me exactly
what you want to see on apicture.
And she's like I want to see anelephant in a house chasing a

(29:13):
cat with you, mommy Layla andWes watching us, and then it
just made it in like seconds andit was just like so much fun,
and so we just kind of went downthis whole rabbit hole of like.
As you gave it more prompts, itcomes back with better and
better stuff.

Yeah, and these are, you know, the freer
versions.
When you start to pay for thelarger one, like Higgs field AI,
you're getting real likenessesof us doing podcasts.
Likenesses of us doing podcasts, or, yeah, we're not gonna know
from where we were a year agoto today.

(29:51):
With the likeness of us, like,what's gonna be tomorrow?
We have no clue what we'regonna be watching, how we're
gonna be watching it and what'sreal and what's not, because
right now it's questionable,like the bunny rabbits bouncing
on the trampoline.
I don't know if you've seenthat yet.

No.

I was like this is real.
And then I saw it again andagain and I was like, wait a
second, that's not real.
There was bunnies on a bigtrampoline outside, in night
vision, like on the ring camera,and one accidentally bounced,
and then another one bounced,and then like eight of them were
bouncing and it was like thecutest video ever.

(30:27):
And you're like, oh, that justmade my day.
And then your day gets ruinedbecause it's a because it's not
real.

Yeah, that's the scary part.
Is that there you were?
Just messing with us too, likeanimating some of our pictures I
was yeah, yes, and I was likewhoa, that's not real that's
that video you put on your.

Instagram.
Yeah, why did you?

put that on your Instagram.
I was like it's not real.

That was a great video, but it's fun stuff In my
industry, which is events andlive entertainment and sports.
To be on the cutting edge iswhat I think in my world of AI.
And then for Jenny in privatelending in her world and

(31:14):
research of what's possible,what's not California and I want
$175,000 for this loan but Ihave fire damage or this.
Jenny can now do all of theresearch and get it checked with

(31:36):
sources and then go to a lawyerand say here's $500 to check my
research, make sure this islegit in California, because I'm
going to lend $ hundred seventyfive K to somebody as a private
lender and get it done that way, rather than the older way,
which is get lawyers to spendhours and hours and charge us
five, six thousand dollars to dothe research themselves or have

(31:59):
their interns do research andthe probability of mistakes are
a lot greater that way, ratherthan you know today, even going
to a doctor.
Rarely do you go to a doctorand say I don't know what's
wrong with me.
It's, I've done so muchresearch.
I have plantar fasciitis.

I mean that's true.

That's someone who advocates for their own
health.
Most people still go to doctorsand say help me.
This is what's going on.
What is what's happening?

I mean, I walked into the ER and said I have a
hernia, I need it fixed, andthey were like, yeah, you got a
hernia, just like that.

And I did that twice and they didn't want to do
, like you know, 50 more testson top of that to make sure that
you don't have anything goingon at the head.

So I have a little bit of a hard time,
though, with some of thatbecause we just went through
like a phase we just had a baby,and so I was doing a ton of
research on a lot of stuff,right, and I always get tripped
on like who is dictating whatthe truth is on what AI is
spitting back out to you?
Because I feel like you can getdifferent answers depending upon
which AI you use and how youask the question and we had many

(33:10):
times where, like my initialquestion, I'd get one answer,
but then I'd challenge it.
I'm like, well, wait a minute,and then it would spit out
something different.

Very good questions Because for a minute
you know, in the AI sphere wewere all talking.
Ai is going to be the new factchecker and whoever's
controlling AI is going tocontrol the facts.
Same with Alexa If you askAlexa what the weather is you
believe her or Google?
you know and you don't reallyknow.
Now, with the new models thatare coming out, you can see and

(33:41):
watch them work.
So chat GBT agent, you canwatch it work and find where
it's getting its informationfrom.
So it's not like oh, this isfrom Wikipedia or Reddit.
This is actually from HarvardLaw or this is from whatever
source, and you can watch themwork and they'll state where
they found the information, soyou can make your best call

(34:05):
based off of it.
But it's a very good questionbecause very easily with Gemini,
gemini could just spitsomething out and it could be
very wrong and you can sayyou're wrong and he'll say oh,
you're right, I was wrong.

Yeah, I did that on the Southwest Rapid Rewards
card questions.
Trying to find out how to dohow many bonus points we would
get how to maximize thelikelihood of getting the
companion pass.
And it just gave us mostlyright information, except wrong
information about the companionpass, and Tristan said that's
not right, that's not true.
But Gemini is saying it's this.

(34:40):
He goes.
Well, you tell it that it'swrong and tell it this is what's
right.

So I did, and Gemini came back and said oh,
you're absolutely right so doyou know then, like, if somebody
else asks that question, doesit know to like, correct itself
for the next person you ask?

we're not quite there yet with it, but it's
coming to where ai is going tostart.
That's kind of scary thing isai is going to start relying on
ai to find its answers.
Oh yeah, and talking to otherai and going back and forth.
And ex machina is an amazingmovie if y'all haven't watched
it about ai and it's a 24 a24movie.

(35:18):
That's just wonderful.
Well done about like whathappens with ai and as they
progress and take over it's likeit's basically results in the
Terminator is what I understand,but at the end of the day, you
can't just solely rely on it.
You have to know the prompts toput in and you also have to

(35:39):
know and and how it's shaped.
Coming back to some degree,it's very good proofreading.
It's very good with making aletter sound angry but
professional, or making a speechfunny.
You know, I did my best friends.
I married them two weeks agonow and I wrote everything I

(36:02):
knew about James and everythingI knew about Kaylee and I said I
want this to be about 12minutes.
I'm the minister for it.
I want it to be funny, but Ialso want it to be, you know,
traditional, and this and thisand this, and I was very, very
specific and it came out verywell.

It's awesome.
Very, very well.
That's a great use.
Yeah, you're giving me ideas onhow to use AA very well with
the prompts.
That's a great use.
Yeah, you're giving me ideas onhow to use AI.

I'm like super basic, just asking how do I find
this?
Yeah, and it's not a Google.
A lot of people think of it asan additional Google it's hard
to think about.
It's your assistant and this isyour assistant that has access
to stuff that you don't at alltimes, and this will eventually
replace all assistants and allcoordinators, especially now for
me, with spreadsheets and stuffI can say chat.

(36:53):
These are all my receipts.
I need you to separate themfrom fuel, heavy equipment,
ground protection, repairs,supplies, et cetera.
Put it all in a spreadsheet forme.
Email this person wheneveryou're done and tell me how much
I'm getting reimbursed andit'll do it all.

That's so many hours of work of somebody to do
that?

And yeah, just completely, you can upload
photos now and it can scan thephotos and upload all of it and
it'll prioritize what you wantit to prioritize.
It'll put it in alphabeticalorder.
I mean, that's a nightmarethinking about when you put
everything in something andyou're like I just want this
alphabetized.
When you do that in Excel, it'slike what do you want
alphabetized?
This column, this row, thisdiagonal?

(37:41):
I'm like, oh my God, I'm done,can't do that Now.
My agent can do it all for me.

That's awesome.
So you talk about some of thespaces that you're in, so
festivals, and you were big inNASCAR right In Chicago.

That's my current 9-5 is NASCAR, and I've produced
the Chicago Street Race forthree years.

No, I like that stuff.
I'm okay with like spirit stuff, yeah.

Yeah.
Spiritual talk and yeah, jasonhas a doppelganger in this house
, so yeah, sorry.

So basically, what just happened?
Um one of our cameras literallyjust fell over, um which face
plant?
Never has never happened before.
Um, perhaps the cord is beingpulled on too far.
Um, maybe you know, there'salways a reason, right, if you
put it in chat gpt, it'll tellyou why it fell just just text

(38:41):
it a picture and ask yeah this.
Why?
Why did this fall yeah?
Here's a video yep, or there issome other spiritual thing
that's happening in this house,because we've seen a, we've seen
a couple things that havehappened where uh, we've had,
yeah, so we've had, we've hadpeople stay with us and you want
to tell the story because so,anyways, people have stayed with
us.

I wasn't expecting to go down this road,
but we can.

People have stayed with us.
I wasn't expecting to go downthis road, but we can.
People have stayed with us andthey're like.
Jason, I woke up in the middleof the night and I saw that you
had your head, you know, pokingthrough the door.
Yeah, here I'll tell the story.
Yeah, you tell it.

Yeah, so we have family staying with us and I was
down here.
It was early, it was like 6 amand a family member comes down
and she's like gosh, you guyswere up a lot last night.
And I was like really Like whowas up?
And she's like, yeah, likesomething about Jason.
Jason came in and had the lighton and he poked his head in and

(39:35):
then closed the door and youknow, I thought you guys were
having a rough night with thekids and I was like we had a
great night with the kids.
I got a full night's sleep.
I'm down here drinking coffee.
I was like I don't rememberthat happening.
It's really weird.
So then Jason comes down like anhour later and I was like were
you up with the kids last night?
Like I didn't hear that Iseverything okay.
And he's like no, and theperson's like yeah, you were.

(39:56):
I saw you, the light, thestairs, and we're all looking at
her like I don't think thathappened.
Um, so that was one.
And then another person has hadum, they were staying down here
and saw him walk through thekitchen into the office and then

(40:16):
, um, they were talking to theother family member.
I was like has jason gone tobed yet, or is he still working?
And they're like jason he's notdown here, what are you talking
about?
And I'm like, yeah, he justwalked by.

Separate groups of people at separate times.

Separate times, yes, different person I've both
seen, jason, both seen.
And then I actually had ithappen.
You did, yes, you remember this.
I was upstairs and we hadfamily here again and I was in
the bathroom at our master andyou like, walked by into the
closet and so I started talkingto you and you know, just blah,

(40:50):
blah, blah, talking, talking,talking.
And I come out.
I'm like why aren't youanswering me?
And I look down the hallwaythey're in the closet.
I'm like Jason, oh my Jason,where are you?
And he was downstairs the wholetime, that's so cool, Okay, I
don't know.

So you think all right, so you think these are
real things.
Huh.

And you've never slept, walked in your life.

No, no, I was always yeah.
No, I was fast asleep and myexperience was during the day,
like it was yeah like it was notat night, Like was I home?
Yeah, I must have been.

Yeah, you were home.
Yeah, Wow.

The next time you have friends over, you should
wear a bell.
See what happens.
You know, if you get out of bed, it's like you got a bell on
and everyone knows you're coming.

Yeah, jingle, jingle, yeah, and then we know
yeah.

I don't think I'm that sneaky, though you know.

No.

I'm certainly not getting out of bed and like
poking my head in the guest roommaking sure that they're
sleeping Okay.

Yeah, how weird is that.
Go open things out.
I know that I'm watching yousleep.
Yeah, what a creepy thing.

Peekaboo.

Yeah.

You guys good in here Just making sure you need
anything.
Uh, yeah, I don't know.

I grew up in San.

Antonio and we had ghost tracks.
So if anyone's familiar withSan Antonio, a lot happened
there in the Mexican-AmericanWar in Texas and all that.
But there's train tracks thatif you put your car on the
tracks and you put baby powderon the trunk, the car will push
itself up the hill when you putit in neutral and then, when the

(42:29):
car stops, you can go up to thetrunk and see all the little
kid fingerprints of the babyghosts that push you to safety
yeah, yeah, I've heard aboutthis place yeah yeah the ghost
tracks cool, that's.
We could go next time we'rethere.

But I'm not leaving the car on the track,
just for the record.
I'm not that big of a risktaker.
My appetite for risk is likehere, Like if this is the top
and this is the bottom.
I'm like right here.

Right in the middle.

now I'm like the walk into a casino with $250 and
when I spend it, I'm done.

Yeah, that's my risk Good self-control.

That's really good .

Self-control, yeah, all right, we were talking
about NASCAR, but so.

Yeah, nascar, I've worked for NASCAR.
I produced the race as anindependent contractor in 2023
and helped design it.
And after that they were likeyou're coming on board full time
and I said you can't pay meenough to move up to Chicago
because I'm from the South, andI moved six days later.

Yes, we can.

And I really needed a change from what I was
doing.
And I lived the gig life formany years, since 2001,.
I was in.
You know, I've never lived inthe same house for more than
three years.
That was only once.
I've lived in a new house orapartment every year for 40
years now, since I was born.

Wow, whoa yeah.

So I'm a pro mover .
I have no qualms about movingWhoa.
So when Jenny and I decidedwhen we were going to cohabitate
, I was like I'll just move inwith you, it's easy for me, yeah
, yeah.

It was between me moving in with him, him moving
in with me, or us moving intosome other place together.
And ultimately, I mean weweighed the pros and cons and I
made spreadsheet, you know yeah,I didn't have to make the
spreadsheet we didn't have aiback then, yeah, but it was just
for me.
I I don't like moving, so soyeah, so I can't, I'll move so.

I came up and really I've always loved Chicago
and every time I was come, Iwas.
I've been doing events heresince 2004.
Every summer I would be here.
I'm like don't fall for it,it's fake.
Don't fall for the weather,it's fake.
I've always loved.

Chicago.

So true, and I just always lean on this.
May 11th I was here, it wassnowing and I was like it's May
it's snowing.
It's all fake.
I know it's fake and here I amTwo years later.
I'm still living here, but Ilove what I do because NASCAR

(45:22):
has been a company 77 years,since 1948.
And I grew up.
My godfather was a NASCAR fan.
I was born in Florida and it'svery odd being Hispanic and
liking NASCAR, but because of mygodfather I really fell in love
with it at a young age.
And it's all about the driversat NASCAR.

(45:44):
It's not really about the cars.
The cars are the cars that youdrive, your daily drivers.
That's the idea behind it, eventhough that they all have fancy
engines now and that, goinginto what I do for NASCAR, I
can't really be held captive toa nine to five corporate job

(46:04):
Like the.
My brain would go crazy.
But here in Chicago we'reracing outside of a track for
the first time the.
It was year 75.
It was our first year here andthe street race.
So the chaos that ensues withdoing a race in downtown Chicago
or downtown anywhere was thechaos that I needed and that I

(46:28):
thrive on.

Wow, did you do the first?

year.
I did, you did.
Okay, whose idea was this?
Do you know?

A guy who I've worked with a long time were the
brainchild of it.
My current boss designed a racein Chicago for COVID, for
iRacing, and everyone loved it.
All the drivers loved it.
It was like racing through thecity.
I was like can this actuallyhappen?
And we did.

(46:57):
I didn't think it was going tohappen.

So how much planning did you know in advance
for that first race was?

it how much time may of 22 was the inception.
I came on board october of 22and we raced fourth of july
weekend.
Wow whoa 23 less than a year,yeah whoa, which is normal yeah
um before and producing events Imean first year events are
always tough.

(47:26):
You plan for a lot longer.
Yeah, this isn't just an event,this is a race.
This is a NASCAR race, withcompetition, scoring and timing
and track walls and fence.
That's first in NASCAR.
So what we were trying to dowas a race first in downtown,
but then add the city to it, adda festival on top of it, and

(47:49):
that's what we did and what wecreated, and it's just gotten
better and better after thethree years.
In the beginning, the toughthing in Chicago is no one cares
.
No one cares until it gets inyour way.
It's like they don't care aboutthe cars that are driving, they
don't care about the bikes thatare in there, as long as it's
not in their way, no one caresin the city.
So no one knew that we werebuilding a race downtown and

(48:13):
it's like wait a second, there'sa NASCAR race downtown.
Some were like this is cool.
Some were like get out of mycity.

Yeah.

But when you there's no denying the second
you hear a car go by and you'reon Columbus or Lakeshore Drive
or on Michigan and watching astock car go 140 miles an hour.

Yeah, so that was my question.
Like speedway, so I grew upwatching NASCAR.
I have not really paid anyattention in my adult life, I'll
be perfectly honest with you,but I'm pretty familiar with it.
So they're actually going atthat speed in the city, on the
city streets, and are you layingany different track down, or
are they going that speed on?
The crappy Chicago streets.

I mean.

I hit potholes going 40 and I'm really ticked
off.

We make sure that there aren't any real potholes
that can damage the tires of thecars real potholes that can
damage the tires of the cars,and we weld all of the 96
manhole covers that are down sothat they don't get sucked up
because of the up force from the, the cars, but we, the the
beauty, is racing on the streetswe're right.
Our competitors I won't saytheir name pave everything.

(49:20):
They have very particular rulesand regulations.
Like we, we didn't want to comein and disrupt the city.
We want to impact the city theleast, do something really
awesome to showcase the city andrace on it, and the drivers
love it like I love it.
Everybody loves it.
It looks great on tv.
Chicago looks amazing on it.
It's really, really fun to seeand there's really nothing like

(49:43):
being at columbus, at buckinghamfountain, and just like looking
at the skyline and the searstower and having a nascar go by
you.

It's a great, yeah , you would.
Just.

You'd never imagine that, yeah, when they
first announced that I was likewhoa, this is crazy and for me,
reimagining something that I'veseen for 15 years with
Lollapalooza and how we set upLollapalooza or how they set it
up and like the entrance isbeing different and the tents
being different and everythingjust being in different spots,
and getting out of my head ofrestrooms go here.

(50:16):
It's like wait a second, I'mnot building Lolla, I'm building
something else.
I can put restrooms wherever Iwant.
I can put my chicken tent overhere, I can put my check-in tent
over here.
I can do this and reallyre-imagining what the park is
was really fun.

Was the city receptive to having NASCAR come
here?
Did they need a littleconvincing?

NASCAR really put a lot of effort into helping the
city and doing a lot ofcommunity outreach far more than
I've ever done with any othercompany I've been with in any
given city anywhere around theworld.
So it's been really incredibleto see that and kind of sharing
what we do with Jenny.
She's like why don't youadvertise that?
And it's like that's not whatwe're here for.

(50:58):
This is just part of it.
At the end of the day, we wanta superior racing product for
everyone to see and we want toshowcase the city that we're in
and help our community.

Are there other cities that are doing NASCAR
races?

We just announced San Diego oh cool.

No longer in Chicago anymore.

Right, we're skipping one year.

We're skipping one year, so it's only been in
Chicago so far.

Yeah correct.

Wow, that's cool.
San Diego would be really cool,though, too.

And I lived there for eight years too.

Better weather Probably better streets too
right On the naval base yeah.

All very cool.
The streets are the fun part,because if you take a turn with
the same compound of asphalt at80 miles an hour that you know
from one city to the next, likethat's not fun.
Like if you're coming into acorner that's balbo and columbus
and you know there's a lot ofbumps there and you got to take

(51:55):
a certain line because ofcertain something, that's fun,
that makes a better racing, youknow, for the viewers, for me
did you send them down lowerwhacker at all?
no, they never would have comeback I think our original idea
was, that was to send them tolower randolph to get a little

(52:19):
bit of that idea.
I think I heard some rumblingsthat that wasn't the original
plans but the racing productitself of trying to see that
didn't work out yeah yeah yeah,yeah, they certainly wouldn't
have come back.

Everybody gets lost in lower whack, oh my gosh.

Can you imagine the echo?

too.
It'd be crazy.

Oh yeah, yeah, insanely that was some of the
funnest things that I learnedcoming into.
This was before we started.
You have the Art Instituteright there.
You have Columbia College rightthere.
We didn't know the effect of 40cars at 110 decibels rumbling
down Michigan what it would havefor a Van Gogh that's 200 yards

(53:03):
away on the wall.
So we went to different tracksand put little seismographs into
the ground in differentdistances and really measured
what these cars would do and howfar and kind of testing what
would happen.
There's a lot of statues therethat are already crumbling, it's
like.
Are we going to make thesecrumble more?

Do we have to?

reinforce anything Interesting things you don't
really think about.
Yeah, windows, exactly.

For sure, yeah, so now you guys moved in together,
but, jenny, do you stillmidterm rental your apartment?

I'm the midterm rental I know he's my midterm
renter.
I subsidized it.

No, the last midterm renter we had was
November 2024, and hetechnically moved in December
2024.

But I made it through three midterm rentals.
Yeah, yeah, oh, really.

We were dating while I still had midterm
renters and kind of splittingtime between my apartment and
his apartment, and so all of thepeople that were living with me
, you know, knew him andeverybody got along.
I mean, we're all like family,so yeah, but that is no longer.

That was one of the coolest things that you did,
because you would mtr your ownrental apartment and you lived
in a beautiful place with abeautiful view for pretty cheap.
When you do it from thatperspective, right yeah, yeah,
it was amazing.

I uh, I was sitting on the couch one night I
think it was june of 2022, andI was thinking about what I was
spending, because the thing is,I didn't really want to live
there alone.
I had gone through a breakupthe prior December, thinking
that I didn't know I was goingthrough a breakup.

(54:59):
We were supposed to leave thebuilding together and go move in
together to another apartment,and so I didn't renew the lease
in the older apartment, whichwas in the same building.
And then I found out, oh no,we're not actually moving in
together somewhere else, I haveto stay here.
So I needed to find anotherapartment in the building, and
the one I found was theidentical apartment nine floors

(55:21):
up, and my friends were rentingthat apartment and looking for a
subleaser because they found ahouse to buy.
And I said, well, this is justeasy.
It's the same apartment, butnine floors higher.
I know the layout.
My stuff will just go from hereto there.
It's more than I want to spend,but I'll do it for now.
So I did that December, january,february, march, april, may,

(55:43):
and then, around May, june waswhen I just had this epiphany
like, okay, I love it here.
I want to stay here.
I'm comfortable here.
It's my first time reallyliving alone.
I don't want too many changes,but it's really expensive.
And then I thought you know, Idon't have to live here alone, I
can have somebody live here.
But I didn't want a long-termrenter, I didn't want a

(56:03):
traditional roommate, because Ididn't want to share the
apartment fully with someone.
I wanted them to just be myguest.
So I still made the rules and Istill controlled things pretty
much, and that's why I decidedto do the furnished rental
instead of just renting out theroom and the bathroom and
splitting everything down themiddle and them having equal

(56:26):
control.
Yeah, and then furnished theroom, rented it out.

It works out way better that way anyways, because
then you'll have like a blackcouch and a white this and a
glass this.

Could be.

You never know whose is what, and the furnace
rental actually brings quite abit more money than if you were
to give them the leeway to bringtheir own stuff.

As you know, you've got long-term rentals and
midterm furnished, so you know.

Yeah, so can you kind of walk through like the
numbers on that.
So like, what did you pay forrent and what uh?
Like, what would somebody payyou for?
Uh, you know their stay.

So I was paying about $3,500 a month for a two
bed, two bath and plus a utilitypackage with the building and
electric.
So I would make anywhere fromlike $2,000 to $2,500 a month
from my midterm renters for thebedroom and bathroom.

Wow, Depending on the season.

Depending on how they booked, you know if it was
Airbnb or Furnish Finder.

Yeah, how long was your longest renter?

I think it was Manny.
I think he stayed six or sevenmonths.
He was supposed to be there forthree months, and then he
extended another three months.
Yeah, yeah, six months, six orseven.

Was it ever odd, like as you think about, like oh
, how do I screen this guy?
Or like how do I know thatwe're going to be a good fit?
Or, like you said, that was amale right, she's the ultimate
underwriter.

Oh right, call in a video chat with every
prospective guest, no matter howthey were booking, because
typically with Airbnb, you knowthey just book it through the
site and then you take thereservation and you know they
just go or come.
But I wanted to meet them andmake sure that they were going
to be the right fit and viceversa.
So we did video chats and Imean everybody seemed, you know,

(58:21):
fine, you know, you go, youspend 20, 30 minutes on a video
call with people and you knowwhat to ask them and you listen
to how they answer and the waythat they look at you or don't
look at you.
And I mean there were plenty ofpeople that I didn't work out,
you know, like maybe they didn'twant to stay, or I just knew
they weren't the right fit.

(58:46):
And then you know, maybe a weekwent by, maybe they found
another place anyway, and I'mlike great.

I didn't want them anyway.
I'm the opposite.
I would just be like I'llfigure it out.
Yeah, oh, no.

As a woman, you can't do that.

Yeah, it's, it is a little different.

And be like I'll figure this out.

Yeah, it's definitely a man thing Safety is
the most important thing, andso that's first and foremost,
and then after that it's like apersonality match.
But yeah, the only kind of iffyperson I had there not safety
wise but just like personalitywise was my second guest who
came for a month and we werejust completely different.
You know, we didn't have asingle thing in common and we

(59:32):
had maybe one or twoconversations the whole time and
, um, he was nice, you know, andhe paid the rent and all that.
But I couldn't have seen thatlasting longer than a month,
whereas some people I had a.
You know, I just wanted to stayforever.

Yeah so what was the most interesting was your
diet versus their diets.

Oh yes, we weren't going to get into this.
That's a big thing.
Yeah, that's totally a bigthing.
We weren't going to get intothis.

So how did you manage coming home to that smell
?

There was one person that stayed with me in
two and a half years that cookedtheir own food.

Jason Wagner (01:00:03):
Everybody else didn't.

Jennie Berger (01:00:04):
Well, the last guest we had for a month, she
cooked all the time.
Everybody else just basicallygot takeout or delivery.

Every night.

Wow, well, they're in Chicago.

Pretty much, I mean, I guess yeah.

A lot of them were travel medical
professionals and so they'reworking long hours.
A lot of times they get fed onsite like actually at the
hospital or the universitydepending on what they're doing.

Rachel Wagner (01:00:28):
Yeah, yeah, so was that person on a carnivore
diet?

I mean she was an omnivore but she didn't cook a
lot of that type of food Like.
Whenever we were there, it wasusually, I don't know, pasta,
maybe fish once in a while.

Tristan Lora (01:00:44):
Broccoli.

Vegetables.
She was from Belgium too, so,like you know, she's not eating
the crap that we're eating hereas Americans.
She had a pretty kind of clean,whole food-based diet.

Okay.

Maybe some chicken.

whatever I was thinking, maybe the way you said
that that it was going to besomebody making like all beef or
something in your kitchen.

You have a half a cow just tear you off a chunk
it's funny.
It's it's funny because I feellike I drew that to me, you know
, like I put out in the universewhat I wanted to do and who I
wanted to be there, and what Ididn't want, and I was willing
to make some concessions right,because I realized everybody's

(01:01:29):
different.
But, yeah, one person in thetwo and a half years made their
own meals.

Wow yeah, manny had ramen every once in a while.

But from a container.

Yeah.

He mostly got takeout.

Yeah.

I taught him to cook hard-boiled eggs.

Oh.

I think he did it once or twice yeah.

So what is your diet?

My diet is mainly whole food, plant-based, so
little to no added oils, mostlyplant foods.
I do eat honey.
I'll eat eggs occasionally, butmostly vegan.

And as close to the whole food source as
possible.
How many eggs have?

you had this year .
I don't know Not a lot,probably 10, 12.

One.

No, I had more at my dad's house.
Yeah, when I was in Florida afew months ago, I made egg salad
.
I love eggs, you know I try tobuy pasture-raised eggs.

Yeah, because eggs doesn't fit into the vegan
category, right?

Mm-mm.

Yeah, eggs yeah, so because eggs doesn't fit into
the vegan category, right, yeah, no, no, no, I see.
So, yeah, that's why she'swhole foods plant-based.

I'm staunch, vegan staunch.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, but so yeah,that's.

That's a good compatibility between you two
yes, one of those natural thingsthat we were aligned on when we
.
When we first met I I found outhe was vegan through his
instagram profile and then, Idon't know, after knowing each
other a few weeks on thepickleball court, we had a
conversation about something andI told him I was mostly
plant-based and he was like ohreally, yeah, open my eyes.

Yeah, as a larger male in a male-dominated, male
dominated pickleball court worldand being the feminist that I
am, I was always very respectfuland always had blinders on and,
just, you know, help every andany woman that's out on the
courts that may be gettingharassed or anything.

(01:03:19):
So I always had, you know, my,my blinders on, and when Jenny
was like I'm mostly plant-based,I was like, oh, hey on.
And when Jenny was like I'mmostly plant based, I was like,
oh, hey, jenny, was that likeyour?

pickup line, since you knew he was vegan,
were you like I'm gonna tell himno, no, I didn't.

I didn't really.
I didn't think anything waslike.
I liked him as a person.

I caught her off guard.
Let's just put it that way Iliked him as a person.

We knew each other on pickleball, we played
pickleball together here andthere and I thought he was a
wonderful, wonderful human, youknow.
But I wasn't really thinkingabout anything romantic with him
until he invited me to go todinner and even at dinner I was
like this is nice, this is fun,but there's nothing romantic
here.
And then we had a second dateand I felt the same way.

(01:04:05):
I'm like there's, it was a funbike ride and we had great
conversation.
You know, I was open, but I,and then he kissed me on the
cheek.
Good night.

That's fine.

And I was like, oh, I like that, it was the kiss
on the cheek.
And then I thought, Hmm, maybeon the cheek, and then I thought
hmm, maybe so it was the third.
It was the third night, it wasthe second date right, it was
the bike night that he kissed meon the cheek, yeah, and I
thought that was really nice.

Alright, yeah play it slow, very slow.

it was the slowest I've ever gone in my
life with dating.

That's nice yeah.
That's how we did it too.
Yeah, I was also.
I didn't have any confidence,so I had to play it slow.

Yeah, jason and I , we went on walks on campus.
We were still in college and wewould like meet up at night
after we had both been out withour friends, and we would just
go on walks throughout campusand we talked for several months
before you finally worked upthe courage to ask me to formal
yeah.
And several months before youfinally worked up the courage to
ask me to formal yeah.
And then you're like oh, by theway, I'm going to europe with a

(01:05:09):
football team for like 10 days,so I probably won't be able to
talk to you.
And I'm like, all right, well,this is over.
And then he called me fromeurope and then I was like, oh,
this guy must really like me,slow play, slow play works.
Yeah, it did yeah, yeah, wedidn't start dating officially
till j, so it was several months.

I did the same thing.
I said I'm about to do thisNASCAR race and I may be a
little bit slow to respond, butit doesn't mean I'm not
interested.

You did you messaged me that on Instagram.
I was like, who is this guy?

And then she said I was the most responsive out of
anyone.

I was like who is this person that says these
things?
Because people don'tcommunicate like that.

Yeah.

Yeah, especially not, men so it was very, very
unique A man raised by manywomen and two sisters.

You're very unique.

So are you?
Thank you Con gusto.
What does that mean With?

pleasure.
Thank you Con gusto.
What does that mean?
With pleasure, with pleasure,nice, it's the same Colombian,
Medellin, everywhere.
Oh, that's awesome yeah.

Any interaction is con gusto in Colombia.

So so, Jenny, you actually grew up in Knoxville,
right?

New Jersey, oh, new Jersey.

Yeah right, new jersey.
Oh, new jersey.
Yeah, I grew up, but you have.
Okay, what's your connection?

to knoxville again .
I lived there for 10 years.
You live there for 10 years.
Yeah, okay, yeah.

And then tristan was also nashville, nashville,
okay, for eight years.
Yeah, yeah, do you still havethe midterm rentals going on in
knoxville too?
I have the one okay, oh, theone, yeah, that's right, and I
still have the one actually.
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, I bought those other two.

I still have the other ones, yeah, and I still
have the one.
Actually, I'm just getting myfirst ever insurance housing
booking.
Oh wow, oh, that's exciting.
I know, yeah, I know I didn'tcharge a premium, sadly, but
it's Kind of you did, becausethey have animals, so you get a

(01:07:06):
bill, I would charge the sameanyway, you know, but um are
they paying you up front?
I think so, but it's only amonth and a half to start with
the option to renew.

Okay.

Um, but yeah, it's just exciting cause you
know I've been reaching out tothese temporary housing
companies for so long and tryingto get these types of bookings
and nothing was a good fit, upuntil this one.
They actually contacted me onAirbnb.
I think the daughter of thefamily contacted me and she said
, oh my gosh, your property'sperfect.

(01:07:37):
It's right near us.
Our house was flooded.
We need a place to stay.
Insurance is paying.
Someone's going to reach out toyou?
I was like great.
Then she said I have five dogsand four kids.

Oh, my gosh.

Five dogs four kids.
I was only two kids.

I was exaggerating that but five dogs.
I was like wow, but now it'sreally only three dogs.
We worked the stories out.
I got clarity on who's going tobe in the house it's going to
be two adults, two fosterchildren and three dogs.
So yeah, I'm excited.
It's been going well.
It's a great property.
I have had to do someshort-term rental in there, kind

(01:08:17):
of weaved in during the longervacancies between the midterm
renters, which is not ideal.
I really don't like doingshort-term between the midterm
renters, which is not ideal.
I really don't like doingshort-term although I've had
some great guests I just don'tlike the constant turnover and
the constant just me with my.
I wouldn't say I suffer fromanxiety, but I'm a little bit of
just a naturally anxious personand I really want people to be

(01:08:41):
happy and I want to be there forpeople.
And so the more guests I haveand the more turnover and the
more cleanings and the morepotential repairs and the more
requests.
I'm like oh, did they get in?
Did they check in?
Oh, they're late, why didn'tthey use the door code?
Now, where are they?
Are they even alive?
And then I worry about all theother things that can happen
when they're there, and so it'snot ideal, but it fills the gap.

(01:09:04):
You know, I just I don't wantthe vacancy, so it's a good way
to make a little extra moneybetween the longer term tenants.

Yeah, is there like a cause?
Do you need a short termlicense in Knoxville for that?
Like how they do it?
And oh you do.

No.

You do.
Okay.
Somehow you're able to getaround that, so that's cool.

Yeah, I, somehow you're able to get around that.
So that's cool, yeah, I, Ithink I, a lot of people get
around it really, and I'm not.
Yeah, I mean, there are a lotof people that are operating
homes as short-term rentals andthey don't even own the home, so
it's not their primaryresidence, um, so I'm not trying
to make a habit out of itthat's why you only do long-term
rentals.

(01:09:45):
Midterm 30 plus days Midtermyeah.

Yeah, 30 plus days .

Yeah.

Yeah, for the record.

Exactly, yeah, because I've been noticing too.
So we have.
We now have two midterm rentalsbecause the one that Brian and
I own together Brian DeSmoan weconverted our garden unit into a
midterm, it's actually goingquite well, and but we based it
off of the original one, that weturned into a midterm.

(01:10:13):
And you know, my first year Iwas like boy, you know, somebody
moved out and then I hadsomebody move in like the next
day, and that happened like fourtimes in a row.
I was like, why is thishappening?
Like so perfectly, um.
And then I finally got to apoint where, you know, I had, I
had all this momentum, and thenI had a guy who was going to be

(01:10:33):
moving out, like maybe the firstweek of January, and I was like
eh that's no problem, I'll beable to get somebody.
And then I didn't get somebodyand for like a whole nother,
like 40 days, like it was a longvacancy and um, so anyways, I'm
starting to see a little bitmore of that and so I had to
like I pulled the price down and, um, I don't know, I guess you
just kind of have to getcomfortable with some of the

(01:10:55):
vacancy stuff.
But I thought about, like whatyou said, which was maybe put in
the short term stuff, but Iguess it's just the license
requirement and knowing theloophole around that.

Yeah, if you can get a registration for Chicago,
that would be great.
Seasonality is a big thing,especially in colder climates
like Chicago, like December,january, february is definitely
harder to fill than other timesof the year and there's also
just been a general slowdown incertain demographics.
And there's also just been ageneral slowdown in certain

(01:11:26):
demographics I notice with, likethe travel medical
professionals.
They're spending less andthere's also less of them from
what.

I can tell.

I don't know what happened.
I don't know if it's that thetravel contracts have gotten
less desirable or if they're nowpaying their home staff better
so they don't have to travel toget paid more.
But something's definitelychanged, because I used to get a
lot more travel medicalprofessionals in my property in
Knoxville and now I it'sprobably 50% of what I used to

(01:11:59):
get.
So, yeah, interesting.

Yeah, no, it's yeah, actually you bring up a
good point, because when Iremember you first going after
it and kind of educatingeveryone to like you know the
type of renter that's going tobe here, a lot of them was.
You know it's a travelingmedical professional and the
funny thing is is I think I'vehad maybe one, I've had one and
I probably had 15 guests overthe course of the time and I'm

(01:12:26):
like well, none of these weretravel nurses, but I also wasn't
near a hospital, like I wasn'tthat close Right, but what I
found was one was constructionworker, one was flight
attendants.
One was, um, grandma and grandpafrom Texas visiting their
grandkids.
Yeah, um, you know, I've got a,a family that's in there right
now from another state, yeah, soit's just like you know.

(01:12:48):
Oh, and then I also had likesomeone hey, I get a chance to
just go work anywhere I want to.
I'm going to go work in Chicagofor the summer.
The digital nomad, yeah, that'swhat it is.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You get all kinds yeah.

That, that's you.
You're a digital nomad, am I?
Well, you can be if you wantedto be.
You have properties in threestates.
You don't have to be in them.

Oh yeah, because you have one in Florida.

Two properties in Jacksonville.
They're long-term rentals.
They're managed professionallyby a local management company
down there and they havelong-term guests, tenants.
So I say guests, but they'retenants.
They've lived there for threeyears in each of those homes and
they just renewed for threemore years oh, that's great
that's great, except that therents in jacksonville do not go

(01:13:39):
up much really but I'm stillbetting on jacksonville.
A lot is happening now They'vereached some new milestones and
I'm in it for the long haul.

So do you like the whole concept of having a
management company manage theseout-of-state rentals for you?

Yes and no.
There's a benefit to it becauseit's completely passive.
For me it's completelyhands-off.
I don't have to worry aboutanything except the money If
something goes wrong, and thenthey just send me the statement
at the end of the month and Ilook at the charge.
What is that for?
Why did that even happen?
But other than that, it'sreally nice to just be passive.

(01:14:20):
But I don't like paying 10% formanagement, especially when
nothing goes wrong and they'rejust standing around and they're
not even doing an annual orbiannual or a quarterly
inspection on the home.

They're not as proactive as you want.

They're not as proactive as I would like.
I think most managementcompanies are probably the same.

There's nothing against them.

But I just think that whole way of operating.
So that irks me, because I'mvery frugal and I don't like
spending money that I know Idon't have to spend.
If there's something that Ireally want and I see the value
in it, I will spend the money.
I'm not cheap, but I'm justfrugal and so, yeah, it has its

(01:15:05):
pros and cons.
I thought about doing, you know, firing the management company,
firing, for lack of a betterword and turning them into
midterm rentals, because thereare a lot of people Jacksonville
is like one of the most popularcities in the country for
corporate relocations, plus theyhave the military bases there
and I thought, you know, I couldprobably do really well with

(01:15:28):
the midterm furnished rental.
So I started looking into somelocal resources just, you know,
handymen, general contractors,people that I could go to if I
needed help with things, and Ididn't really devote enough time
to it and it didn't reallyestablish the connection that I
needed to feel comfortable withdoing the whole conversion.
So I just let them renew and sothat's that right now.

So you have, let's see, six rentals.

Yeah.

Right on.

Six.

Yeah.

Yeah, lest we forget about Sheffield.

Yeah, that's an interesting one, so like, and,
and that's like, luxury rental,um, very impressive building, so
can do you mind just like?
Yeah, I know you kind oftouched on it from the beginning
.
It was kind of a pain point foryou.
Yeah, Um, yeah, okay, um, nowthat you've turned it into a

(01:16:25):
rental, is it still the painpoint or like what?

Oh yeah, that was just the beginning.

Oh.

Yeah.
Yeah, that was the beginning.
I mean, now that all the unitshave been lived in for more than
a year, I think we'redefinitely past the hump.
You know a lot of things gowrong in new construction,
usually in that first year.
You know a lot of things gowrong in new construction
usually in that first year.

(01:16:52):
Just little minor things, but itcould be a hundred things,
because someone's living in theproperty for the first time and
the things are being used forthe first time.
So I got really lucky withgreat tenants and I'm so
thankful for that and I thinkthe building is beautiful and I
don't regret anything.
But I would do a lot of thingsdifferently and literally it was

(01:17:15):
just a couple months ago that Istarted to feel in it like I
could breathe, because I wasn'tgetting a text message from my
tenants saying you know whatabout this?
Something's wrong with this.
How about this?
Something happened?

you know it was just a couple of days ago Were
they like 911 emergency calls.

No One was last September, but no, the rest were
.
And I mean our tenants, they'regreat, they're really really
wonderful people and they trynot to make big things out of
not so big things.
But if I get a text thatsomething's not right, I'm just
worried about it and then in myyou know, in my head, it's like

(01:17:53):
it's another thing.
It's another thing, it'sanother thing, like I can't even
tell you.
I can tell you because it's allin ClickUp, it's in my task
management software, all thethings that have gone wrong in
the last two years with thisproperty.

In the past year, you've learned so much about so
many random things with housing,though, of pot fillers versus
gates and how to fix a key thatdoesn't turn well, you've done a
really great job with learningit all, thanks are there some
like high level thankful for you.

Are there some like high level things that
you've kind of like that you canpinpoint on that, like on the
pot filler thing, would yourecommend them?

no, I mean for your own home.
If you want a pot filler,that's fine, but like if you're
doing a spec property or arental property, absolutely not.

And what's going on there?

It's just one more plumbing fixture to break
you know, and it's a verymovable plumbing fixture right,
it's not like a tub that justsits there right.
It's this thing that's goinglike this constantly.
You know so like the moremoving parts you have, the more
likely things can break.

And it's a rental too.
So even if I had a pot fillerwe cook 95, 98% of our meals I
don't know if I would ever useit.
I just I don't know.
Like in my head, that's justthe possibility of water
splashing all over my cooking istoo much for me.

(01:19:24):
I'd rather just go to the sink.
Yeah, it's unnecessary.

I mean we, we built Sheffield to sell them as
condos, luxury condos you know,so I think for a luxury condo
buyer you know that was a nicelittle feature, but I still
don't think it was necessary.
It's just a it's a designdecision that.
I you know I wouldn't do again.
Yeah, you know.

Yeah, Anything else that you kind of from that
project that you were like, Idon't think I would do that
again.

Yeah, recessed baseboards oh, that was a huge
time suck from our schedule.
I mean, we got probably monthsbehind between recessed
baseboards and drywall and, likethe whole thing was like we
wanted to sell but becauseeverything got so delayed and we

(01:20:12):
had a huge construction loan, Icouldn't wait to sell anymore.
I had to make a change andthat's why I pivoted and decided
to turn them into luxuryrentals and I did a refinance
and, you know, turned it intorentals and got out of the
construction loan into adifferent type of loan that you

(01:20:32):
know is much less per month andis being, you know, covered by
the rental income.
I just I couldn't wait anylonger.
But that was one thing that Iwould say is also very custom.
You know, in your own home,fine, but not in a spec project,
completely unnecessary.

What about your doors?

What about the doors?

Your sliding doors in that European company.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, your window and door
supplier.
That was a oh my gosh, sorry.

That was a oh my gosh, Sorry.

No, that's probably the biggest headache
because we did have an actual911 almost emergency with one of
the sliding glass doors thatfell in Whoa and actually if the
tenant wasn't 6'5 and 220pounds probably would have
crushed whoever was there.

Wow, yeah, yeah.

So so those doors are really heavy they are and
they have soundproof glass sothey're super, super, super
thick and um my supplier I wouldrecommend for your windows and
doors and any of your suppliers,just to keep it as close to
home as possible.
You know like if get yourproducts granted, a lot of
things come from overseas.

(01:21:49):
We know this, but your, yourmain connection point here
should be someone like that hasa storefront with the products
and as your direct contactthrough to that other country or
the main supplier outside ofthe country, because the
replacement parts for the doorsand windows are really difficult
to um to source and they take along time to come in and to get

(01:22:14):
someone to fix them.
If your supplier goes mia, likewhich my vendor did, is another
thing.

So, yeah, huge pain point yeah, everything was
so custom, like proprietary tothis brand.
There's nothing we can sourceor supply ourselves or fabricate
with this same property withsheffield.
I'm getting a friend in austinto cnc of a bracket so that we

(01:22:43):
can put a handrail back onproperly because it's so custom
and how it was done.
We just can't buy the partthat's needed.

The length bracket just doesn't exist I
have to add like an extenderonto it, to it's oh gosh, it
sounds so ridiculous really,yeah, yeah and she'll send me a
picture.

I'm like, why did the handyman do that?
That is the worst thing theycan do.
And then I'm like, then I'lllook at it and be like, oh,
there's really nothing else hecould have done the way it was
originally installed.
Yeah, yeah, so then I go backto why was it built this way?

yeah, yeah, yeah yeah but we're working on
selling the condos yeah.

Yeah.

Getting close.

Yeah, yeah, because one of your yeah, you've
got one of them under contract,right?
Yes, yeah.

Yeah, which is a whole process.
I had no idea.
I have somewhat of a realestate part of my life.
Yeah, I have a little bit of it.
You were a former agent, formeragent and loan officer.
Wow, and the idea the Chicagoway of things is just so crazy
of how you have to get the pinsand split it up.

(01:23:54):
And you know I come from theWild West, where you can do
whatever you want with theproperty you own, but it's a lot
different here, yeah.

Oh, splitting the pins into condos, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, and setting up the HOAs and everything.
Just that property alone isjust very unique to Chicago,
being a duplex down.

So it was built to be sold as individual condo
units, not as an entire building.
Right Did you when you built,set up an HOA?
Is that an actual requirementto have?

We didn't set up the HOA because we never got any
of the units under contract forsale.
Right, so I always want to waituntil the last minute to set up
the HOA, until we actually havea unit under contract, because
otherwise it's just spendingunnecessary money, like funding
the account you know, creatingthe reserves and starting the

(01:24:46):
association cost money, so onceI turned it into rentals, I
didn't need to go through thatprocess.

But you kept your own reserves, for in my eyes
it's a mock HOA.
Like you are the HOA.

Right From the rental perspective.
I always just think it's just,it's so fascinating that you
were able to get very good Imean I thought very good rents
for these units and actually itdidn't take that long once you
did kind of convert them intorentals, right, right, yeah, so

(01:25:27):
there is a market because of thelocation for that sizable of
you know a rent that you werecollecting on that.

Yeah, yeah, we got good rents.
We rented them fairly quickly.
It was a good season I mean itwas like early spring, you know,
late winter, early spring and Ithink the sizes of the units
help, because finding a condothat lives like a home, that's
over 3,000 square feet with fourbedrooms is tough for people to

(01:25:50):
find in the rental category.
So I was one of the only placeslike that.
Even though the two-bed,two-bath rented first, it was,
you know, the other ones camequickly thereafter.
So I think having thatdistinguishing factor or those

(01:26:20):
distinguishing factors, reallyhelped to get those prices.
You know, you figured well, I'm.
I've got four bedrooms, thishad three.
I've got 3000 square feet, thishad 2100.
So it shouldn't be this price.
But there wasn't a comp.
But because they had thosefeatures, you know, people were
willing to pay the extra price.

Right, and so it's interesting, because when you
went from the sale perspective,they weren't like, they didn't
go as quick, right, andobviously you had to convert it
into rentals, but it wasn't thesame timeline, right.
It was different, wasn't it?

Like trying to sell took much longer yeah, how
long were you on the market for?
Early December that I put themup for rent because we didn't
have an offer on any of theunits, and then I rented the
first unit, like within thefirst week, I think, or week and
a half, and then after thatthey just came all the way to

(01:27:12):
January.
Well, not unit one.
Unit one we had for one yearand they moved out, moved to
West Loop.
But our unit two and unit threetenants were the same.
Yeah, they rented very quickly.

Yeah, so that's the interesting part of that
building.
There is that well, you wereselling kind of in the slow
season.

Yeah.

And then, as soon as you converted it over into
rentals, it happened to be intostarting the spring market and
starting the rental season.
Then you were able to do itreally quickly.

Yes, and I sometimes think if I had just
been able to wait a littlelonger, until January or
February, people would havegotten they would have been more
used to the interest ratesbecause they were higher around
that time.
But they would have seen okay,look, interest rates aren't
going anywhere, this is what itis.
Let's pull the trigger now.
Plus, it would have been earlyspring market, but I didn't want

(01:28:05):
to take the chance.
The monthly payment on our loanwas so high and I was just
tired of paying it and nothaving any income yeah.

Yeah, yeah, no, I think you made a.
I think you made a great move,because obviously that's what it
comes down to, is that you gotto find a solution.
You know you try for a certainamount of time, but,
understanding the real estatecycle and the market, you know
January does kind of start awhole new level, coming out of
December and and so, yeah, Imean, but you just know that
going into, well, as a leasecomes up, you know what do I do

(01:28:39):
with it now.
Is it going to go back on themarket, maybe the timing of it,
and kind of figure that out.
Or if they're like, hey, we'regoing to go back on the market,
maybe the timing of it, and kindof figure that out.
Or if they're like, hey, we'regoing to move out and you know
we're buying a house thathappens all the time.

I have faith these tenants are all going to buy.

That's my hope.
Is that the tenants will theremaining tenants will buy the
units.

That's my hope.
Yeah, you bring it to them andsay hey.

It's been offered already.
Oh, okay, and at this pointthey don't want to buy.
But they still have time ontheir leases, and one renewed
because they have the right torenew.
The other one just has a reallylong-term lease.
So my hope is that by the timetheir leases are up they'll be
ready to buy.

Either that or the CTA gets their act together.
There's two things that canhappen.

What's going on with?

that act together .
There's two things that canhappen.
What's going on with that?
Yeah, well, so you have the redpurple modernization project
that's been going on in the cityfor a few years.
Um, they're modernizing thetracks on the red and purple
lines and we we have the redpurple and the brown line that
runs right behind us onsheffield.
Um, they've modernized thetracks, like starting one block
north of us and then going north, and then there's also

(01:29:47):
modernized tracks south of us,going south.
But there's this gap.
We're in that gap where thetracks are still old and loud.
Where they have modernized, itmakes a big difference in the
sound, yeah, so the hope is thatthey finish the project and
it's quieter and so that's lessof a deterrent because we are

(01:30:08):
right by the train.

I mean, honestly, I can hear anything coming to
the city.
I think it's okay in there, youknow, in Chicago, but once that
happens it'll be silent becauseof all the work that you did to
silence it and all thesoundproofing you did to silence

(01:30:30):
it, and all the soundproofingit will be.
I think you know we'll have.
We have sweat equity, we havetime equity and then we have cta
equity which is coming on.
That if we can hold out untilthat happens, it's going to be a
huge game changer and if not,someone's going to, you know,
have a really good purchase,because I think either way,
whenever the leases come up, ifthat project's not done,

(01:30:51):
someone's gonna want that areabecause I mean the, the place is
really great.
There was a period where wedidn't know what was happening
and she was like we might haveto move there and I'm like I can
make it work.
You know it's a great spot Iwould love to live there.

Oh my god, yeah which unit one, two or three
well, the penthouse one was likeit was massive, it was so big
you'd be walking up 42 stairsevery day yeah, yeah, which I
could do, that I'd be okay withthat.
You probably wouldn't.

But I mean with the kids, you know, oh yeah,
it's a lot.

Yeah, the kids would, yeah all this stuff, it's
a lot I got a guy for anelevator, so if y'all want to
buy it, you can put a lift inyeah, yeah, the penthouse was
really cool.

Honestly, I, I would I would do that one, I
would totally do that one yeahyeah, so we'll see all right.

so you did.
You started with flippingregular single family homes,
then you did new constructionand now you're in the lender
space.
So yeah, the risk went fromlike because new construction
builds is like highest risk.
I would agree.

Right.

Yeah, and then everybody always wants to get to
the lender side, because that'sactually, like I believe is,
much lower risk, because, again,everything is backed by real
estate and everything, as longas you're underwriting, you know
, and you know you're saying ohour loan to value is always
going to be less than what theproperty is worth.
Always you always kind of wantto be in that lender position.

(01:32:22):
So your risk adjustment hasclearly gone from so, I guess,
to your scale that you hadbefore.
You're right in the middle.

Yeah, yeah, I finally made my way back.
I was like this before realestate.
Then I got into real estatedevelopment and I was up here
and then I kind of brought itback.

Yeah, and not many people really know what risk is
until they do it until they doit, you know what I mean it's,
um, until you've actuallyexperienced what oh that's.
What risk was?
I always kind of think about itlike from one of our projects.
When we first started, you know, we got super lucky.
When I first did my first houseflip, I got really lucky.

(01:32:59):
Everything worked out likesunshines and rainbows and I was
like big head, this is awesome,I'm going to go into this next
project and it was just wayriskier.
But I didn't understand whatrisk was at the time because I
just came off of you knowsomething really successful and
so I didn't take the time toreally understand what I was
getting into.
I was kind of like you were ah,we'll figure it out.

Yeah, how's it a risk?
If you can make it work, I'llfix it.

Right, I can make it work right.
Yeah, yeah, I'll fix it right.
I don't think.
I don't think people know whatrisk is until they have money
invested in it.
That's my, my belief.

You can put all the time and sweat and energy
into something but risk is money.

yeah, that that's .
That, to me, is the true skinin the game, and unless you have
money invested in something youreally you know what you have
to lose pales in comparison tothe person that has money
invested in it.
My opinion, yeah.
Some people might disagree, butthat's how I feel.

Yeah, yeah, it's not until you actually have like
you've lost it before.
I feel like some people have togo through like we've actually
lost it to really understand, oh, that's what risk was.

I got five on it.

Five on what.

Whatever you want, I'm not risk averse.

He'll bet on anything with me, yeah.

I love it.
I had a moment.
I had a moment one time beforeI was um.
I was doing like, oh, I wastrying to get into real estate
and uh, I was like Rachel, Icould, I could be really good at
stock trading and so I kind oflearned it a little bit and then
I did really well.
And then one day I made likethis crazy trade and I was like,
wow, this is going well If thishappens.
And then that didn't happen.

(01:34:51):
It were actually way theopposite, and there was a moment
where I lost $40,000 in one dayand I had to tell her that and
I was like I don't know how totell you this, but I literally
had this money and then now it'sgone tell you this, but I

(01:35:11):
literally had this money andthen now it's gone.
Yeah, it's like all the moneymade on that purse flip, it was
just, it was just gone.
It was just.
I was like what?

what I was like?
Well, don't do that again.

Yeah, unfortunately she didn't, like
you know, pack her bags andleave um, but it was just one of
those learning things whereit's like, oh, that's what risk
was, like you can't be puttingcall options out there when the
market's going out and that'shigh risk.
It was high, you know there aredifferent levels of risk.

Right, that wasn't maybe necessarily a
calculated, wise risk.
That was just you being excitedabout something and feeling,
you know, like I.
This is it, you know yeah at.
You know that's a level of riskthere are different what was
the stock?

it was the well, it was nvidia because I would
trade in and out of nvidia andit was, at least at the time
again, super novice, novice, butI had identified patterns and
I'm like, oh, it's hitting thepattern again and look, it's
done it every time and I wassuccessful with it and like, all
right, it's going to go back upbecause it's bouncing off.

(01:36:16):
And then, but the whole markethad this moment of just crush,
sell, sell, sell, everythingsold.
And I wasn't expecting kind ofthat, more of a black swan type
thing.
It wasn't black swan, but itwas just like well, everything
sold off and it sold off for aweek straight and I couldn't
handle that pain at all.

And I'm sorry, that's when you're supposed to
buy, and buy, and buy more andmore, yeah, double down, yeah,
or you just buy index fundsbecause you don't have the
stomach for the volatility ofthe market.

Yeah, I didn't have the stomach for it anymore.
After I lost 40 grand I waslike, well, I literally don't
have much more to lose here.
Yeah.

I think that was the biggest thing is that was
coming out of you having justquit your job.
We were living solely just offof my salary and everything you
had just made on your firstendeavor after leaving your job
was gone.
We you had just made on yourfirst endeavor after leaving
your job was gone.
We didn't have any more savings.

Really we didn't have a lot.
It was early into marriage.
Yeah, it goes on the level ofrisk and how much you have
available to lose it all.
It's kind of like Bitcoin, youdon't put your whole life
savings into Bitcoin.

Right.

But the people that did, they did well.

They still hold it.
I'm still holding.
My life savings is not in there, but I'm still holding.

Yeah, it's awesome , I have access to it still,
unlike the guy that threw awaythe piece of paper that's in the
landfill, that he bought thelandfill to try to find all of
his Bitcoin.

Oh, that's right.

I just heard about that the other day.
He stopped the search, finally,or something.

I mean it's definitely.
If he wrote it on paper, it'sgone by now.
I have not heard about this guy.

Someone bought like 20,000 Bitcoins and he had
his code or his key on a pieceof paper and it got thrown away,
and so he bought the landfillto try to find it, mm-hmm he
crowdfunded to get the landfill,to get it.

Yeah, that's the first thing they say is don't
write these things down on paper, or something like that.

I don't know.
Crypto's funny because my dadwas super into it and I bought I
don't know $500 or $600 worth.
And I bought my I don't knowfive or $600 worth and I was
like I'll check it in five years.
I checked it in like two daysand it was like $10,000.
And I was like, oh cool.
I was like this will be fun infive years.
I checked it in three days.
I had $200.
I'm like what happened Justgoes up and down like crazy.

(01:38:50):
Yeah, every day is a newsurprise with crypto.

Yeah, that's more my speed, yeah, now.
So then, jenny, any advice onon like risk tolerance and
understand like how your risk iskind of maybe adjusted over
kind of the the things you'veseen?

any advice lend with jenny things you've seen
Any advice Lend with Jenny.
That's not my advice.

That's mine.

It's a good question, I really have to think
about this answer.
I don't know that I have ananswer at this moment become a

(01:39:45):
landlord.

It's actually pretty easy right now,
especially if you have like a 3%mortgage rate, and oftentimes I
find myself saying, well, justrent out your current place and
you can buy the next place andyou can use the rental income to
help you qualify, and types ofthings like that.
And like you know, you kind ofdip your toe into you know
renting your, you know becomingthe landlord and you're renting
the home that you lived in youknow with it.
I feel like that's a good wayfor people to get into you know,

(01:40:14):
becoming a real estate investor.
But at the same time I'm nowjust going through my first
eviction and you know it, thankGod that it's in a building
where there's five units andfour of them are still paying
but one of them's not, and oneof them hasn't been paying for
eight months.
And now we're on a timeline oflike I don't know when they're
actually going to get out.
They were supposed to be kickedout by the sheriff, you know,
and we are going through theeviction court and now, all of a

(01:40:36):
sudden, we're kind of like inthis limbo mode where I don't
know what's happening, which islike really disheartening.
But again I'm like thankingmyself that this isn't a
building that has other units.
If this was a single family homeand this person is not paying
the rent, they could literallylive there for over eight months

(01:40:57):
and freeload, and the personthat owns that house is going to
feel so much pain.
And so I kind of sometimes haveto catch myself a little bit
more where I didn't understandwhat that risk was until I went
through the process.
I've always heard of people ohman, they're going through an

(01:41:18):
eviction.
That only happens on the southside of Chicago, or, like you
know, this isn't a nicer area,but like that's not the case,
right, there is that risk thatyou are taking and, um, that I
think I've just been awakened tomore recently.
And so then it's like okay,we're coming up on a lease
renewal on, you know, our oldhouse that we used to live in

(01:41:42):
and we haven't found anybody yet.
Well, after going through this,rachel's like well, maybe we
should just sell the property,you know, just because of the
potential of that to happen.
Yeah, so anyways.

Yeah, it'd be really impactful.
Eight months on that house itwould be it would have a much
greater impact it would be.

And so I guess, as I go to think about if I'm
going to continue to buy youknow buildings or you know
apartments.
I don't necessarily know if I'mgoing to want to convert a.
You know, if it's only one unit, it's.
It's hard for me to not followthis advice because if we were
to move out of this house, Iwould certainly put it into a
rental and I would.

(01:42:19):
I would try that whole thing,but it's that's not following.
You know what I justexperienced, right.
So I think from a long story, Idon't know If I'm going to buy
an apartment building, it'sgoing to be.
There has to be more rentalunits to offset the risk.

Yeah.

Right More people.

Paying you on a monthly basis eliminates a lot
of the risk, because if one ortwo of them stop, you know, at
least you can still beself-sufficient with some but I
think you really need to look atthe eviction in a different way
as well, like, yeah, it sucksand you had to learn a lot, but
go back to that underwriting, goback to what.

(01:42:57):
Did you miss anything?
Did you what on there couldhave pointed to this so that you
can do those differentunderwriting techniques, moving
forward, so that you can helpprevent it.
It's like you're the boss atthe end of the day.
So if someone you know losttheir job and they got a new job
and they're three months in orsomething, but then you look

(01:43:18):
back and they've done this sixtimes with six gaps, like okay,
maybe I don't want this personin here, maybe I'm going to do
this, or maybe you do, maybe youwant to give them a chance
because this is a property thatyou could do that and just let
them know, like I'm taking achance on you for this.
But what can you learn fromthat eviction over reducing that

(01:43:42):
risk and for.
Jenny.
In the year and a half thatI've known her, I've I've known
her to trust herself more withher decisions and lean on
herself more and her feelingsbecause of her education and
what she's learned fromeverything going forward,
especially with not only justtenants but vendors as well as

(01:44:05):
vetted's vetting vendors andknowing like I want this vendor
because of the way that theyresponded or how quickly they
did this or how they answeredthis or how they gave me the
proposal back.
And she's really grown a bunchwith her own intuition and her
own trust in herself becauseshe's always had partners in her

(01:44:28):
endeavors and she's reallytaken on a whole load of this
business by herself, as of late.
I'm always there to support her, but it's moral support.
This is her financial support,this is her livelihood, her job,
her world, and she's reallygrown a lot in the last year
with her intuition and her trustin herself, of her underwriting

(01:44:52):
skills, and it's reallyimpressive yeah, thank you.

Yeah, trust your instincts, thank you, yeah.

No, that's awesome but you also got to make
sure that your instincts aretalking to you properly, because
a lot of like instincts andintuition that comes from places
in the body that can sometimesbe compromised depending on
whether or not you're healthymentally, physically.

(01:45:19):
This all goes to like diet andlifestyle stuff and sometimes,
sometimes, sometimes, yourintuition steers you wrong.
So I say that I would say thatwith caveat like to trust your
intuition, because yourintuition can be misleading
sometimes, depending on thestate of your health.

That's a really good point.

There's a lot to unpack there.

That's probably another discussion of, like you
know, three hours, another day,but yeah.

Is there something that you do now to kind of help
with mental, physical,spiritual, all kinds of stuff,
to kind of stay in the healthyrealm?

Yeah, I mean, eating is a big thing, you know,
eating mostly plant foods anddon't eat any animals and, um,
we try to eat as many wholefoods as possible, any animals,
and we try to eat as many wholefoods as possible, you know,
just not processed.
lift weights four times a weekand that's a really good
antidepressant and anti-anxietyyeah um, we play a lot of
pickleball and love to walk andbike and we try to do pilates

(01:46:26):
once a week, reformer pilates.
So staying active, you stayingvery active, as much as possible
and eating well, just likeevery the decisions you make
throughout the day.
Like, I mean, I don't evenreally drink coffee anymore
because, as much as I love thetaste of coffee, I know that
caffeine and coffee is like adrug to me, you know, and I just

(01:46:48):
don't want to wake up one dayand like feel like I have a
headache or I need my coffee.
I don't want to be that person.
I've been that person, um, so,and I volunteer.
I volunteer with hospicepatients.
That's a big part of my lifetoo, which I think has
contributed to helping me comemore to terms with my own

(01:47:10):
mortality and giving me sort ofan outlet to share love with
someone, even if it's notnecessarily given back, because
sometimes the people I work withcan't express gratitude or love
or you know things like that,you know, depending on the state

(01:47:31):
that they're in, but, um, butyeah, it helps me.
So I think those are big partsof my life.
That's my life.

What's kind of the uh yeah, volunteering for
hospice patients.
What's?
What are some?
Maybe some big takeaways thatyou've had, or maybe an
experience that you reallyremember the biggest takeaway I
I am still angry when I walkthrough nursing homes.

I'm heartbroken and angry at the same time,
because I know that these peopledon't have to be there, and
they're there because, for onereason or another, they went
down a path in life that ledthem to decisions that were not
the healthiest.
And there they are.

(01:48:16):
The last stop is your nursinghome.
Like, you're most likely dyingafter you're leaving the nursing
home, and so my biggest pieceof advice is for people to stay
healthy, to be healthy, becauseyou don't want to end up in one

(01:48:37):
of these facilities.

So do you think that those decisions that those
people made, they were informeddecisions and I guess, to caveat
off of that of you know peoplebe healthy?
I think that means somethingdifferent to so many different
people and also so manydifferent sources, and so I
think it's really interestingthat you said you're angry, and
I almost want to ask you who areyou angry with?

(01:49:02):
Are you angry with those peoplewho made those decisions or do
you think it's deeper than?

that it's much deeper than that in other
countries like we are here.

They definitely are not.

Maybe some Western-inspired cultures have
some of these similar things,but not to the degree that we
have it here.

And when you say degenerative, you mean like the
Alzheimer's and the dementia.
Yeah, agreed.

Yeah.

Those stats are out there and available.

Yeah.
So I'm angry with the system.
I'm angry with, you know, foodsthat are allowed to be made and
sold.
I'm angry with the way thatpeople are told they need to
listen to the experts, you know,in the medical field or in

(01:50:03):
other fields government, buteveryone's paid Every expert
every doctor, every study,everything's paid for by
Coca-Cola or Johnson Johnson,and these are the things that we
grew.

Go to another country and you're like wait a
second, why is this different?
Why is this taste different?
Or why is this made different?
Why do I come over here?
And then it's like how can Ileave this apple out for four

(01:50:41):
weeks on my counter?
And it's fine.

Like how is that okay?

And it's organic.

I remember thinking that when we went to
europe for the first time, thefirst time we went to well
together, we first went together.
We were there for 18 days and Iremember thinking I'm gonna
come back being so much heavierbecause I ate so much food, so
much food, and like halfwaythrough the trip I'm like I'm
actually like losing a fewpounds and I feel amazing and
I'm not tired and I should be,because we're so active all day

(01:51:08):
and eating all of this bread weate so much bread over there,
Pasta pizza.
Yeah, and like I feel incredible.
Why do I feel incredible?
Because if I was eating likethis at home, I would be
miserable.

We were also drinking a lot.
Yeah, we had a lot of the wine.

We had a lot of the wine, yeah.

Didn't wake up with hangovers.
It's crazy.

It's so crazy, yeah, but it's the same thing
when you have three, fouringredients in the food that you
eat, you're going to feel a lotbetter.
When you have 87 ingredients inyour slice of bread, that's
whole wheat bread, you're likewhat is that that you can't even
pronounce?

You can't pronounce this.

Yeah, it's funny you say Europe because it goes
with everything.
It's not just the way that ourcountry is and how we love.
Money so much hurts us andwe're not going to get any
better unless we're sick.
We're not going to get anyricher unless we're sick.
So it's in everyone's bestinterest to keep us unwell.

(01:52:00):
And it goes not just with that.
I remember in 2005, it was myfirst tour in Europe and every
single car got 50 plus miles agallon and I was like that's
strange.
This is a Toyota Camry, whydoes it get 50 miles a gallon?
Ours only gets 28.
Why does this Saab get 50 milesa gallon?

(01:52:20):
I don't understand why the samecar gets different gas mileage
in the United States versusEurope, because in Europe they
don't want to use gas or fuel.
In the United States we need toburn as much as we can so that
we can deplete everything andeveryone and spend money.
And it's the same with ourhealthcare system.

(01:52:41):
It's the same idea.
It's why keep us healthy,because that's not good for
business.
A lot of things fail.
If we keep everyone sick andkeep everyone in the system and
keep everyone uneducated, theneverything's the status quo,
then we're fine.
I didn't know grocery storeslike that we have.

(01:53:04):
Jewel, osco or Whole Foodsexisted until I was 13 years old
.
Jewel Osco or Whole Foodsexisted until I was 13 years old
when I left my house.
And I left my house when I was13 and went out with some
friends and the friend's parentswere like we're going to the
grocery store.
So I thought we were going tothe liquor store because that's
where I got groceries.
Or to church getting food outof the back of the van.

(01:53:25):
That was day old bread fromwhatever grocery store.
And we went to a grocery store Iwas like wow, there's like
seven kinds of paper towels.
Like I didn't know that, like Ididn't even know what a paper
towel was because we used to usethe little cocktail napkins and
there's pastas and milks andcheeses and aisles of stuff.
And I was like this is crazy,because neighborhoods in the

(01:53:47):
poorer communities you shop atliquor stores.
And now that you see a liquorstore you're going to notice it
says liquor food, beer.
That's where you shop in thehood at those food shops.
And growing up as a vegetarian,I had American cheese, white
bread, beans, rice and powderedmilk was my options for most of

(01:54:11):
my meals and it's crazy to thinkthat that's what we have access
to and that's what we'resupposed to do, and it's just to
keep us sick and to keep uscontrolled.
So when Jenny says we eathealthy, we read labels.
We work really hard.
It's not easy to do what we do.
I'm a very proficient chef.

(01:54:33):
Jenny's very good in thekitchen.
We meal prep.
We prioritize time to do thisto keep ourselves healthy and
feeling good, and not fallinginto that because it is a
priority for us.
And not falling into thatbecause it is a priority for us,
especially being plant-basedand working out four or five
times a week and playingpickleball four or five hours at

(01:54:54):
a time.

I'm 220.

I need 200 plus grams of protein and that's not
easy to come by.
That's a lot of pumpkin seeds Igot to eat.

Is that where you get it from?

No, we make our own Haley, tofu and seitan.
We make our own seitan now.

And the seitan is really the key to it.
My mom was asking me today.
She was like people areinterested, how do you?

get 200 grams.
What is seitan?
I saw you post about it theother day.
That sandwich looked amazing,it's made from vital wheat
gluten.
So, it's the protein.

that's the base.
It's like they turn it into aflour and you mix it with a
couple of things and then youcan boil it or bake it and it is
like a meat replacer, if youwill.

It's a protein-dense food.
So we make these 10-gramprotein balls 10 grams of
protein per ball so I'll havethree as a snack for my between
breakfast, lunch, three afterlunch, and you can use it in our
eggs sandwiches, sandwicheswraps really anything yeah and

(01:56:01):
we really try to find in like wefound these great flatbreads
with like four ingredients atwhole foods that are that don't
taste like cardboard.
You know, sometimes Jenny willbring something home and I'm
like why did you give me a pieceof paper to wrap this tofu up?

He's still getting used to Ezekiel bread.
Oh, we have some of that in thefreezer, yeah that's my
favorite.

I mean, does it taste the best?
No, it's not the best tastingbread on the planet, but is it
one of the healthiest?

Yes, you get used to the taste.

It's tough being very well-traveled and then
living here, so I know what thefood tastes like elsewhere and I
know what the fruit tastes likeelsewhere, and then, coming
home, chicago is like a fruitdesert.
It's a fruit desert.

They have tons of fruit, but finding good ones is
covered in that wax?

What do you do for the fruit?
Where do you get it from?
Just do the best we can, yeah.

Whole foods or wherever you can find the best
that you can, and it's acrapshoot these days.

Yeah, watermelon is very tough to find here.

So things that are labeled organic, you are still
very wary of.

We'll buy organic because I think it's the better
option, but yeah, I don't knowWatermelon's the best.

I don't know that anything's really organic yeah
watermelon is all GMO'd now andhaving seedless organic
watermelon is kind of funny tome.
It's like it should have seedsin it.
It should have the black seedsin it and be normal.
But all we can do is the bestthat we can.
Yeah, and that's the truedefinition of veganism is doing

(01:57:33):
the best that we can for theanimals, for our environment and
for our bodies just don't getsick.

That's the key.
Anything you can do to preventyourself from going to an
assisted living facility or anursing home, and you are above
by leaps and bounds.

Even the hospital right, Just trying to stay out
of the hospital.
Yes, yes.

I mean barring anything catastrophic.
You know that, you, just youknow I do recommend that hernia
surgery here in Chicago.
Did it work out.

Very good, awesome.
What was the recovery like?

Men have.
We have three holes that arevery prone to hernias, no matter
your health, it's just what itis.
Our intestines push throughwhere our testes drop, like
that's just what it is, and thenone for our umbilical cord.
So it's very common in men.
My first hernia surgery wasawful.

(01:58:32):
Don't want to talk about it.
My second one got out ofsurgery and we went to the
farmer's market.

The next day.

The next day, whoa .

So he was walking slowly, yeah.

And I think on day two or three we did like a
three-mile walk, Like we justwalked for a couple hours.

Yeah, and then like four days later you played
a little pickleball.

Yeah, yeah, really incredible here.

And you also had somebody there with you.

Yeah, you know his first surgery he didn't have
anybody taking care of him.

That makes a big difference too.
Oh yeah.

Yeah, sure.

And I wasn't as healthy, I just wasn't.

That's right yeah .

Yeah, the recovery is always sometimes a lot
better when you go into thatsurgery when you're actually in
pretty good shape.

And in love.
Oh, yeah, yeah.

And in love.

You got a reason to come out alive.

Yeah exactly.
I'm going to wake up from thisone please.

I woke up and I said where's jenny?

yeah, that's awesome I didn't even think that
, whenever the anesthesiologistwas like pushing me back to the
or I was like I'll be asleepbefore we even get there and she
was like we need to tell yousome things before, and then I
woke up and I was done.
Yeah, I was like that was thefastest surgery.

That's awesome.
I've really enjoyed thisconversation guys.

Anything else you want to dive into?
Well yeah, but I think weprobably do need to wrap it up.
I feel like we could do a wholenother show with you guys.
I have so many more things Iwant to talk about.
I do want to get more into,like the, the veganism and the
diet and um the health stuff.

But I don't know, that's a big, big animal we love
, love talking about it, it's.
I mean it's, we could talkabout it probably on another
podcast or another chat orwhatever.

Yeah, yeah, unless what's like you're burning.
What's your burning question?

about now, but it's up to you guys, because
y'all have kids.

What's your burning question?

Well, I think my first question would be where
did it come from, like, when didit start and why?
What was, like the underlyingreason?
Because you said you grew up avegetarian, which I was
surprised to hear that too, sothat started very early for you,
but that wasn't true for you.

I don't believe, right, right, right.
Yeah, I grew up eatingeverything and when I was back
in 2015-ish, I started learningabout just the animal industry
like the farming industry,animal industry like the farming
industry.
I saw some videos thathorrified me on social media and

(02:01:13):
I was like I can't believe thatthey do this to animals and I'm
eating these animals.
So I was heartbroken Around.
The same time, I discovered theGentle Barn, which is a
nonprofit organization.
They're an animal sanctuary.
They rescue, rehabilitate,neglected and abused farm
animals and what they do is theybring in groups of kids who are

(02:01:36):
kind of maybe kind of facingsimilar situations in their
lives and have maybe a hard timetrusting people and they bring
them to the farm animals andthen they connect with the
animals and they learn to maybebuild some confidence and
communication skills and trustthrough working with the animals
.
So it's kind of like a dualfaceted organization.

(02:01:59):
But I went to the Gentle Barn.
We had one in Knoxville.
They have like public tours onSaturday where you can go and
learn all about the Gentle Barnhistory and learn about some of
their animals, go meet theanimals, pet them.
They all had names and I mean Ijust I fell in love with the
cows and the pigs there and Ilearned the story about the veal

(02:02:22):
industry being a byproduct ofthe dairy industry, like I had
always known about the vealindustry from when I was younger
just with baby cow, I'm like Idon't understand this.
I never ate veal growing upnever.
But I didn't know that thedairy industry was just as
despicable, if not more, and Ilearned that at the Gentle Barn.

So between seeing the animal cruelty videos on
farming and those undercovervideos and then visiting the
Gentle Barn, I was 13 years oldand a baseball player and I was
getting a physical for baseballand this frail, frail doctor he
was like you should really thinkabout going vegan, it'll make

(02:03:03):
you stronger and I looked at himand I was like, are you?
Vegan and he was like, yeah,and I'm like, I'm doing
everything I can to gain weightand you don't look like you can
gain weight, so I just blew itoff.
I just, I really blew it off andI was a junketarian.
My dad always called me ajunketarian for most of my life

(02:03:24):
and I realized in my 30s I waslike I just kept eating the same
junk like cheese, quesadilla,bean and cheese, tacos,
occasional salad here and there,broccoli with cheese, just
cheese on everything and a lotof eggs.
And I felt like I was 80 yearsold, like my joints hurt, my

(02:03:47):
bones hurt and I just chalked itup as I lived a rough life.
Bones hurt and I just chalkedit up as I lived a rough life.
And I went to a few doctors andthey're all like, yeah, you
know, you got to get surgery,but you're not old enough.
So when you're 55, come backand we'll do the couple of
things.
So make you feel better.
Until then, here's Oxycontin.
I'm like I'm 32.
You want?
me to take Oxycodone orOxycontin until I'm 55?
And you're like, yeah, that'swhat we do.

(02:04:07):
And I was like there's got tobe something different.
So probably 11 years ago now, Iwas like I'm going to challenge
myself to eat better, I'm goingto just eat better.
I'm going to be vegan for 60days See how this goes, because
that'll force me to eatvegetables.
Get away from cheese, figure itout.
So I did and I jumped.

(02:04:30):
I ate rice and beans almostevery day for the first like
week.
And then I found a mealdelivery service that had vegan
stuff and I got a little bitmore kind of inspiration on it.
And on day 22, I did a memorialbike ride.
I'm a big cyclist and I did 102miles on the bike in Austin,

(02:04:52):
texas and I averaged 22 miles anhour and got it under six hours
for the first time 100-mileride.
And I got back and I was likeman, my last two miles were
uphill and I was like this iscrazy, I feel good, I feel like
an 18,.
My last two miles were uphill.
I was like this is crazy, Ifeel good, I feel like an
18-year-old.

(02:05:13):
Then the next day I woke up andI was like I'm going to go do a
quick 20-mile ride a couplehours because I'll be really
sore if I don't.
I did 50 miles faster than Iever did and I felt better than
ever, better than the day before.
I was like, wow, this is crazy.
So I got home and I was likeGoogle, does veganism help you

(02:05:35):
bike better?
Does veganism help your libido?
Does veganism like?
Then I started like finding thedocumentaries and everything
and I kind of did it assbackwards than a lot of people.
Most people go vegan and thenor watch documentaries or go to
Gentle.
Barn and go vegan.
After that Mine was very likereverse it was.

(02:05:55):
I challenged myself.
That was all on day 22 and 23.
Then I was like, if I feel likethis, I'm never going to eat
cheese again.
And I had full intention ofeating cheese and eggs again,
just full intention.
And on 22 days in I was justlike I'm out.
And then over the last 10 yearsit's been a lot more into the

(02:06:20):
cruelties and the animals andthe environment.
Like I had no clue like onehamburger, 700 gallons of water
to produce.
Like I had no clue like onehamburger, 700 gallons of water
to produce like I had no clue.
And I grew up in texas, which isprone to droughts, and san
diego, which is prone todroughts, and I'm taking four
minute showers trying to savelike two gallons.

(02:06:41):
And here's, like you know,don't need a hamburger and save
700 gallons.
That's just mind-blowing to me,trying to be sustainable.
So the sustainability aspectreally kicked in as well over
the years.
So my journey into veganismfrom vegetarianism was I was a
junketarian.

(02:07:02):
That felt like crap.
Oh, and the best part of it all, I was allergic to fruit,
allergic to everything, and hadto have allergy shots every day
for years.
And all my allergies went away.
I can eat fruit.

Really.

Oh, like 100%.

Yeah, that's huge .
I would never be able to wakeup.
The health benefits are really,if you do vegan right, like
because I went, I was, it wasthe animals for me.
I was telling you.

Yeah, no, no, tristan, actually your, your
veganism story is actually veryinspiring, because you're like
this is how I felt.
I felt awful and all of asudden I feel so much better
because I made this change.
And I've never actually heardthat from somebody that has gone
vegan.
I've always feel like most ofthe time I feel it's been well.

(02:08:03):
It's more of an ideology thingand that's the reason I did it,
and then I found the benefits,but yours is kind of different
but it's important to know thatveganism doesn't mean that
you're healthy.

A lot of people associate veganism with I'm
healthy.
You can be a very unhealthyvegan and still feel awful every
day if you're eating fried fakechicken and dipping it in fake
ranch.
Eating Oreos.
Eating Oreos and Nutter ButtersPop-Tarts and stuff You're
going to feel like crap.
But eating healthier andremoving the dairy from your

(02:08:41):
life and the cheese for me,especially like my joints, never
felt better, like my elbows andall my tough life.
I thought you know I was a manbecause I lived a rough life and
I was in pain at 32 years old.
That's not real.
That was just what I ate.
And to find out that I was liedto from doctors for years and

(02:09:05):
lied to from my coaches playingbaseball trying to pressure me
to eat meat to gain weight, Ishould have listened to that
frail doctor.
I didn't know.
He wasn't really encouraging,if you will, but it's not really
.
I don't know if it really wouldhave been possible.

(02:09:25):
Honestly, jenny has reallyopened the door to me in the
idea of protein and what it is.
I've never thought about itoutside of taking protein shakes
and thinking that that's what Ineeded to weight lift, because
I've never had a problem gainingmuscle.
And now eating 200 grams ofprotein a day and feeling full

(02:09:48):
more often and really working onit and prioritizing and being
able to see my strength and myathletic ability advance further
and further at 42 years old isreally great.
I feel just as good today as Idid when I was 18 playing
baseball.
Today as I did when I was 18playing baseball, I got asked to

(02:10:12):
throw the first pitch at a gameand I was like maybe I can
throw it fast enough thatthey'll want me to join their
team.

That's awesome.
I mean, honestly, like thereare very, very few people that
you could say, hey, I'm in myforties and I feel like I'm 18
or I'm in my 20s, in the bestshape of my life, like it's
always the opposite of that,it's you know.
Oh, I just pulled a hamstringagain, like because I'm washed

(02:10:38):
up.

There's so many people in our friend network in
their 30s and 40s who talk about, you know, the oohs and the ahs
and the pain, this and that,and I'm like, and they say, oh,
I'm getting older, I'm gettingolder, I'm like it has nothing
to do with your age.

It's not normal.
It's normal here.

It's not normal to just grow older and be in
pain and break.

Just because it's common doesn't mean it's normal
, right yeah?

There's this like this resort to comfortness that
we just love here, right, it'syou gotta, you gotta be
comfortable, and sometimesthat's sitting in a chair all
day and you know, maybe go for alittle walk, but it's not much
more than that.
And you know no wonder it yourbody hurts, because you're not
really putting in a disciplineevery day and you so.
So, tristan, you work out forfour times a week four times a

(02:11:28):
week weightlifting we

do Pilates and tons of pickleball.

Yeah.

That's awesome yeah.

That's awesome.

Yeah, and we're trying to, you know, incorporate
more stretching.

And I say pickleball like we do, really
high level pickleball.
Now, in the beginning it was,you know, like a little hit here
and there and your partner was70 years old, but now it's we're
playing 24 year olds oh cool.
Wow.
You know, often it's hard tofind you're competing yeah, yeah
, I, I'd like to compete alittle bit more, but she had a

(02:11:59):
whole another life of competingin volleyball.
But like we're at a higherlevel of play to where it's a
real aerobic workout, where whenwe leave we're like, wow, we
just really went after it yeahyeah, that's awesome.

All right, let's wrap here.
Um, so, how we always do thisis just kind of like what's the
biggest takeaway from thisconversation?
So we spent over two hourstalking with these guys.
Rachel, what's your biggesttakeaway?
Yeah?

I know, because I always start it.
So, yeah, yeah, you do.
Um, that's hard, there's a lotthere's a lot here.

Yeah, it's not an easy answer.
This is not an easy, and we'rewe're going to come back to you
guys too, um your biggesttakeaway from the conversation.
But yeah, it's never's never aneasy answer.

Yeah, I mean.
I think my takeaway is actuallyhopefully a segue into another
conversation with you, but itstuck with me when you said,
when we were talking abouttrusting your gut and how you
want to make sure that your gutisn't deceiving or your instinct
isn't deceiving you because ofother things that are going on,
you want to make sure that youknow your mental state is in a

(02:13:07):
good place, physically you're ina good place, your spirit's in
a good place, all of thesethings right, and I I would love
to dive into that even deeperwith you at some point, um,
hopefully on the show too, so wecould share that.
But that was kind of mytakeaway.
It was like well, trust yourinstincts, but also your
instincts can deceive you.
So make sure you're not in aclouded state with your
instincts when you're, you'retrusting them, just like ai.

(02:13:30):
Yeah, that's a good one too.
Challenge ai.
Don't take their first answeras the end.
I'll be, I'll be like, but waita minute I know this the the
mind gut connection.

Uh, it's a book.
There's like a subtitle to ittoo.
It's pretty long but long.
But the Mind-Gut Connection,blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah, by Emron Meyer, I think.
Okay, you might enjoy that verymuch.
That's where I learned allabout what I said there.
It can tell you more about itthan I could.
Okay, yeah, very good, that'sgood.

(02:14:04):
Great book Very, very heady.
You have the head for it.

well, it struck me because not that I want to go
into like deep of a personalconversation, but it struck me
because I obviously just had ababy 11 weeks ago, right, and,
like you, go through like thishuge, like emotional roller
coaster right afterwards becauseof all the hormones, and I was
just sitting there thinking likegosh, if I would have taken
like my instinct or my thoughtsat any like pinpointed period of
that, it could have been vastlydifferent, right, and it's you,

(02:14:32):
I obviously this is my thirdbaby, so I know, like you,
ground yourself and knowingthese are just the hormones this
is not real, like it's not.

But it struck me because I'm like gosh, that's
such a true thing, um, you know,just in so many different
aspects yeah, I honestly justadmired you guys because you
guys like you guys just kind oflike go out there and do it, and
I really kind of appreciatepeople that you try new things

(02:14:59):
and like, well, you kind of gowith your, your veganism story,
like you tried that because youwanted to go feel better, like
there was.
There was something about youand Jenny where it's like you
know, you started with theflipping and then you did new
construction and now you'restarting this whole lending
business and you're just doingit and it's just so cool.

(02:15:19):
We didn't really talk aboutlike your initiative, but it's
just something that I really doappreciate about you guys is
that you have real experienceand you've learned from it and
then one.

You've learned from it and then one you've also
found a partnership between thetwo of you where you kind of
lift up each other and you justkind of go out yeah no, and it's
, it's, it's a brilliant.

I mean it's beautiful to witness from the
other side of the table here.
But I just appreciate both ofyou guys from that perspective
where you know, know what we'velearned some things over the
years and we're really smartabout it now and we try to
adjust our risk and do someother things.
And we know that these are thesteps where we need to stay out
of the hospitals.

(02:15:59):
We need to stay out of theintervention stuff and like,
let's just focus on diet, goback to kind of fundamentals and
, you know, be active, do thingswe pursue and enjoy and be
present and hug somebody alittle bit longer and uh, it's
just, it's just really cool toto be around people that are
like that.
So big takeaway from theconversation is all that.

(02:16:23):
So it was awesome you guys, whatabout you guys?
Any reflections, anyreflections over the last two
hours do you want to go?

you go first, ladies first I mean, there are
so many, I think you want me togo?
Yeah, you go I.

I love being in this life that I have.
It's been a journey and I feellike the last year I've just
scratching the surface of mypotential and where I'm going
and just now finding the tools Ineed to keep accelerating to

(02:17:09):
new levels that I have no ideawhere it is, and Jenny is my
foundation and being on thiswith her and just listening to
her just makes it even more.
Every day, every day, I fallmore and more in love and she's
everything that I've alwayswanted and never knew that I
needed, and it's been a reallygreat journey.

(02:17:32):
Wanted and never knew that Ineeded, and it's been a really
great journey and I can't waitto keep going further.

That's awesome.

I love that.
That's awesome.
I know I've done really awesomestuff, but I know that the best
stuff that I'm going to do Ihaven't done yet.

Tristan is a romantic man.
Yeah, you are I will tell youthat.
Yeah, tristan is a romantic man.

Yeah, you are, I will tell you that he's a
romantic man.

I mean I have so many takeaways.
The thing that just keepscoming back to me is, honestly,
I mean, I'm so thankful for youand I love you and you know I
could profess my love to you allday and I love you, rachel, to
you all day and I love you,rachel.
But I am so grateful that I metyou, jason, because everything
that I've been doing the lastyou know, four or five years has

(02:18:15):
been kind of like there's beenthis undercurrent of the Jason
Wagner, you know effect.
I like I think I just came upwith that.
I like that.

It's the name of the new podcast.

I feel like anybody that you know meets
Jason and gets to know him, getsto know you, feels the same way
.
You know, like, because the waythat you you've helped in so
many ways with the businessdecisions that I made, like even
if I don't come to you forevery business decision, there's

(02:18:49):
always this thought that goesthrough my head like you know
well, how would Jason underwritethis or what would he think
about this.
And then I see your posts onsocial media with those, you
know, smart little like one line, one line, one line.
Like that's just so freakinggood he needs to write a book.
But like, yeah, a lot of thethings that I've done over the
last few years, whether it's inreal estate, you know, as an

(02:19:11):
agent, buying, selling, which Ido very little of, or
underwriting deals in somecapacity, or doing rentals and
even lending, and just you know,I you're that way too.
You know, and I think that thefact that we're that like I came
to Greystone was I've said thispublicly, you know, on social

(02:19:35):
media that it was one of thebest decisions I ever made.
I don't think that people whojoin brokerages have the kind of
support that we have from you,and so I'm really grateful for
that and for you.

Thank you for that .
Thank you for that Jason Wagnereffect.
I love that.
It's a real thing.
I love that.
Well, thank you, yeah, no, andJenny, you've yeah, and, and,
which is really cool because wedo support each other in a lot
of things.
And uh, you know you're activeon social media and you know
some, I am too, but sometimesyou don't get anybody to like

(02:20:13):
you, like anything you put.
You just keep going.
But you know jenny's out therewatching it and it's good and
then she'll, she'll dropsomething out there.
That's like you should write abook and I'm like you're right,
I should.
Yeah, so I love it.
We feed off each other and it'sawesome.

I'm grateful for both of you so thank you.
Thanks for being around and I'mglad I discovered Andrew at
that party, that's right late2020, maybe a holiday party, a
multi-family club?

yeah, that was awesome you can meet some cool
people at those uh, at thosemultifamily parties, and they
become long friends.

Yeah.

So very cool.
Well, thank you very much Bothof you for coming on, appreciate
it and, um, I'm sure listenersout there they probably found
some value in the show.
So if you wouldn't,

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