Paul Rogers is originally from St. Louis, Missouri and moved to Sacramento, California in May of 2006. He was a fireman in St. Louis for 17 years and retired 5 years ago. He now invests in real estate, owns his own fitness business and also mentors both real estate agents and investors who want to take it to the next level.
Find out more about Paul Rogers at:
www.rogersrealestateteam.com
Stefan Aarnio: Ladies and gentlemen welcome to the show Respect The Grind with Stefan Aarnio. This is a show where we interview people who’ve achieved mastery and freedom through discipline. We interview entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, authors, real estate investors, anybody who’s achieved mastery and examine what it took to get there.
Today on the show I have a friend of mine, Paul Rogers. He’s a well known real estate investor, real estate developer. He is also a real estate broker and he is famous actually because he was on the Oprah Winfrey show with Robert Kiyosaki way back in the day. That’s how he connected with me. He said hey, I see your picture with Robert Kiyosaki. Check out this clip. And sure enough there Paul Rogers is on TV making TV history with Oprah. Robert Kiyosaki, the original rich dad right there.
Paul, welcome to the show Respect The Grind. Thanks so much for joining me.
Paul Rogers: Appreciate being here. This is going to be a good session for everybody.
Stefan Aarnio: Yeah, yeah, I think so. So Paul, for the people who don’t know you at home it’s interesting because I’m just this young guy in Canada here, thirty-one years old and I’m buying ads every day. I guess you saw one of my ads on Facebook with me sitting next to Robert Kiyosaki and you messaged me and said hey, I’m one of the OG’s. I’m the original gangster over here. I was on the Oprah Winfrey show with Robert. What year was that in?
Paul Rogers: It was right around 2000.
Stefan Aarnio: Wow. So 2000. I was going to say it looks like 90’s.
Paul Rogers: Yeah. Right when the Rich Dad Poor Dad book had come out and was hitting really well.
Stefan Aarnio: Right. So I think the book came out in ’97 so 2000 you’re on the Oprah Winfrey show with Robert Kiyosaki and it’s almost like an infomercial moment. You know they’re like wow, it works. This really works. Tell me a little bit about the experience and how you met Robert and let’s hear about Paul Rogers a little bit.
Paul Rogers: Yeah. My background, 54 years old. I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri. I actually live in Sacramento, California now. I was an EMT in St. Louis for 17 years. My uncle was a pharmacist and when I was growing up he always had real estate investments. So once I got the fireman’s job I had a lot of time off so I started buying and flipping houses. Buying and holding rental properties. Probably for the first seven or eight years I was just doing it on my own. I didn’t really know that there was educational programs out there or personal growth classes. I came across a website one time and there was a big event going on in Dallas, Texas, probably about 1999. I didn’t want to spend the money for the fuel or the hotel or the $2,000 ticket for the event, but I did it. That’s something I would pass on to everybody is: always be learning. Always be learning. Associating with people that are where you’re at and where you want to go.
So I went down to Dallas and Robert Kiyosaki was the keynote speaker. Probably about 500 people in the audience. He said, “How many people have read the book Rich Dad Poor Dad?”, and he actually held this up just like this. About 495 people raised their hand. I was sitting there going like this, like, “What is this a cult? What’s going on here?”. He took the stage and the stuff he was talking about was stuff that I was already doing in my life. There was stuff that he was talking about that I wanted to do and stuff I’d never heard of. I really took to his message like a lot of your listeners did too, got to meet him afterwards, got to play the cash flow board game that he has, which was a $200 game back then. I ran to the back of the room, bought that, bought the Rich Dad Poor Dad book, hadn’t read a book in years, but I read that book that weekend at the event. So I got to play the Cash Flow game in the lobby of the hotel with him and Kim.
Then a couple months later I went to another event, saw Kim at that event. I had started playing Cash Flow with my house every Friday night and started to learn about opportunities through the game. And I started seeing more opportunities in real life. I heard Kim saying, “Hey, Robert’s coming to St. Louis.” I said, “That was an opportunity.” I said, “Hey, I live in St. Louis. I could pick him up. He could stay at my house.” She said, “Well, I appreciate that, but the PR company takes care of all that.” I said, “No problem.” Couple days before Robert got to town I got a call from Kim. She said, “Robert’s coming in around midnight. Could you pick him up at the airport. Take him to the hotel?” I said, “No problem. That’s a huge opportunity.” So I got to spend a couple days with him in St. Louis and that’s where we really bonded at.
Somehow the Oprah show was interviewing people that had read Rich Dad Poor Dad and how the book had changed their lives. They got ahold of me. They ended up flying myself and my two kids up to Chicago, and we filmed up there, and it was just a very, very cool experience. Oprah is a great lady. What you see on TV is really what she is in real life. It was a great experience.
From the Oprah show I started speaking around the country on my day off from the firehouse at wealth building events. Met a young lady at one of those events, fell in love. She lives in Sacramento, California so we dated back and forth from St. Louis to Sacramento for about a year. She didn’t want to move to St. Louis. I didn’t want to move to California. She won out. I sold off 32 rental properties about ten years ago, banked a couple million dollars, moved out here. I do real estate sales 50% of my time. I do real estate investing/development 50% of my time. We’ve built seven subdivisions in St. Louis. We’ve built condos down in Cabo, Mexico. Right now we’re into assisted living memory care. So anybody that is looking to get into something, assisted living memory care great market to be in. The population in the United States and Canada is just getting older and older. There’s not enough housing for all these elderly people. So that’s basically my background.
Stefan Aarnio: Wow. That’s quite the story Paul. It’s interesting. I train and coach a lot of people and police, fire, military, paramedics, they always do well in real estate. You’re a fireman. Why’s it that firemen, police, fire, military, army, why do those guys do well in real estate?
Paul Rogers: I think probably the discipline and the organizations that we’ve come through. They’re all paramilitary kind of organizations so there’s structure. If you’re going to be a sharp real estate agent, you’re going to be a sharp real estate investor, you better have a business plan, and you better have your day laid out. In either one of those it’s work. I think a lot of people see the infomercials and they think, “Oh, I can do this.” You can do it, but it’s work. You gotta have a system in place and be ready to get your butt kicked. The first one, two, three, four deals you’re going to do, that’s your learning curve right there. I tell people give yourself three years. 36 months whether you want to be a top real estate agent or a top real estate investor. Give yourself that much time to get the learning curve done, and then you’ll be fine long term.
Stefan Aarnio: Right. Yeah. I say with training it’s usually 12-18 months to even see lasting change. So 36 months is even better. Now let me ask you this Paul. We connected over the internet. I get crazy people messaging me every day and you’re in my inbox. I’m like, “Is this guy crazy or not? I don’t know.” I’m sure you’ve had crazy people message you too. So I get a message from Paul Rogers. You say, “I’m on Oprah Winfrey’s show with Robert Kiyosaki. I go, “Bullshit.” I opened the clip, I opened the link, and sure enough a guy named Paul Rogers is on this video clip.
Now let me ask you this, Robert Kiyosaki, he’s a number one personal finance officer in the world. I’ve met him several times. He changed my life Rich Dad Poor Dad changed my life. I’m a Rich Dad, International Hall of Fame student. The only give out one in Canada a year, so very rare award. How is it that you ended up, out of all the people Robert Kiyosaki knows or all the students, or all the lives he changes, how did you end up being the chosen guide for the show? Because I liked watching you on the show, and you’ve done a lot of things. I think you were doing some MLM at the time, some real estate, all sorts of opportunities. Why did Robert choose you?
Paul Rogers: Well, it wasn’t really Robert, it was actually Oprah who got to select out of … I think they had like 4,000 people they’d interviewed, and it was actually Oprah who, from my understanding, it why I was picked for the show. Robert didn’t even know I was there. It was kind of funny. We got there, and my kids were probably about 11 and 8 at the time, and we’re at the hotel, and I called the front desk. I said, “Can you connect me with Robert Kiyosaki’s room?” And they said, “Sure.” Robert picks up and I go, “Hey, it’s Paul Rogers.” He goes, “What’s up?” I go, “I’m down in my room. We’re getting ready to head down to the pool if you want go down to the pool.” He goes, “You’re the one?” I go, “What do you mean?” He goes, “You’re the one that they selected to be on the show?” I go, “Yeah.” So he didn’t even know either. So somebody from the Oprah staff is the one that actually picked myself.
Stefan Aarnio: Wow, that’s crazy. So let me ask you this Paul. I mean you’re doing well at a lot of things, real estate, development, I love the senior care that you’re going into. I think that’s a massive trend right now. A lot of guys that were doing apartments years ago are now doing self-storage and senior care because of the new wild west for where the money’s at. Let me ask you this. You were on the Oprah Show for a little bit and had, let’s say, 15 seconds of fame or 15 minutes of fame. How did that change your career, your real estate brand, how you do business? What was life like before that, and what’s life like after?
Paul Rogers: Well, it’s kind of interesting. I think before I had met Robert and read the Rich Dad Poor Dad books and watched … They didn’t really have podcasts and things back then. I thought that was doing pretty well, but it was really reading the Rich Dad Poor Dad that opened my mind up and then reading all of his other books, the whole book series of Cash Flow Quadrant businesses of the 21st century. It really opened me up to networking and meeting like-minded people, and I wasn’t doing that before the Oprah show. And so since the show, I mean, I’ve spoke probably at 500 events, and if I was going to give anybody any advice in the audience today, it’s really about mindset. The book Think and Grow Rich, really is my number two book. I always tell people read Rich Dad Poor Dad and then read Think and Grow Rich because it’s all right here. This is where it all starts. We you talk about that on the show. Anybody watching wants to see that Oprah clip if you go out to Paul and Laurie Rogers Oprah, you can see the clip P A U L and A N D Laurie L A U R I E Rogers, R O G E R S Oprah, You’ll see the clip, but it all starts with the mindset.
Stefan Aarnio: Right, and that mindset’s incredible. So after you did that, did you have all sorts of people calling you? Did your brand explode? Did you make a bunch of money from that or was it just 15 minutes of fame, and that’s it?
Paul Rogers: I’d say over the long haul I’ve made a lot of money from it because of the exposure that I had, and just like what you’re doing nowadays that you caught me on Facebook with your ad, I mean, I think, entrepreneurs and real estate investors and real estate agents, I think you have it a lot easier now if you know how to market online, which you’re a master of. I’m [crosstalk 00:10:59]-
Stefan Aarnio: Thank you.
Paul Rogers: … me on there. And so with the Oprah clip, that’s why I’m part of the conversation we’ll be having with you, is how do we take that and take it to the next level with social media? I’ve never done that yet. I’m old school in-the-streets kind of guy. But I think with everybody that’s looking to get into real estate, sales, investing, get a coach, get a mentor, that’s number one, get a game plan, and just take it one day at a time, and don’t give yourself just 30 days and 90 days. Give yourself eighteen months, like you said, 36 months, like I said, but you got yourself a mentor. Robert was my mentor behind the scenes all those years. You got to get yourself a coach-
Stefan Aarnio: Wow.
Paul Rogers: … that’s going to hold you accountable too.
Stefan Aarnio: So Paul, let’s talk about, you were a fireman for a long time. I always say I have a student of mine, he’s a paramedic, and I always called him an ambulance driver. He would say first responder but he’s a fireman. So you’re a fire man for a long time. Tell me about how you got started in real estate, your first property, and what life was like before that, and life was like after getting into property.
Paul Rogers: Yeah. I want to add that point in time. I was married, had one young son at that point in time and had a lot of time off from the firehouse. At least in the states we work a 24 hour shift, so I had a lot of time off. My uncle had always had real estate so the first house I bought was the VA foreclosure down here in the United States. Somebody has served in our military, they’re a veteran, they get a zero-down loan, they get into the house, they didn’t make the payments so the government takes that house back. So I could go back in the day and buy a $70,000 house in St Louis, Missouri for about $500 out of my pocket, 6% fixed rate loan for 30 years. So I bought one of those, and then I bought a second one, and then I bought a two family, and then I bought a four family, and it was after I bought those four properties I said to the agent. He was an older guy. I go, how do you get paid on this? He said, “There’s a 6% real estate commission is what this guy was getting. I said, “Well, how do I sign up for that?”
So then I get my real estate license, got my broker’s license immediately back there, started buying them through my own name and then people were watching what I was doing, a lot of the fireman too. So I started teaching people how to do the VA foreclosures. And that system ran pretty good for about four years, and that’s one of the things I’d like to talk to people to is cycles. There’s cycles that are always going on. You always have to be aware of the cycle and try to be ahead of that curve a little bit. Don’t get caught in the old days.
Stefan Aarnio: Tell me a little bit more about cycles. One thing I love about you, Paul, is you’re from the United States, and United States, I think, is the land of milk and honey when it comes to real estate. You guys have so many creative interesting things like VA loans. That’s amazing. You guys have all sorts of assignable mortgages. You guys back in the day had short sales. You have all these interesting things. I’m up in Canada. We have five super banks in Canada. United States has 4,000 banks. We’ve got five super banks. The super banks are insured by the government. It’s amazing. So if you take a 5% down payment in Canada, you’re going to pay 4% to the government to ensure that the banks aren’t going to lose. It’s amazing. It’s the most crony capitalism thing ever.
Now what I love is you’re from America. You got so much opportunity, I think, in America. There’s over 300 million [crosstalk 00:14:52]-
Paul Rogers: Oh yeah.
Stefan Aarnio: 100 million homes. I always say, man, if you’re not rich in America, screw you. You suck. That is the best country to get rich in. With real estate and when you get into real estate, what was it that made you go big in that? Because there’s so much opportunity, so many niches. What made you decide to go big or what was that point where you started getting bigger?
Paul Rogers: I’m a big fan of real estate investors having their real estate license. I know a lot of the gurus talk about that, “It’s a conflict of interest. Don’t do it.”, but I’ve always had that real estate license. I’ve made good money using that. I think most people that want to get into real estate investing out of 100 people I would talk to about real estate investing, there’d probably be five to 10 of those people that got their game on where they can be successful investors. There’s probably 20 or 30 those people that would be decent part-time real estate agents or full-time real estate agent. So I’ve always been a big fan of getting the real estate license. Everybody has a family member, a friend, somebody that’s buying or selling a house. Now while you’re doing that you’re getting some skills on sales because you got to have sales skills. When you’re doing real estate sales or investor. Your getting the book knowledge, you’re getting the paper knowledge, you’re getting the legal knowledge of that too., and then to picking an area that you’re wanting to go into real estate investment wise, and let’s just say it’s fine, I fix and sell.
I’ve always been a big fix sell, if you’re starting put with that money in the bank. Buy, fix, sell put that money in the bank. Buy, fix, sell, put that money in the bank. Once you have $100,000 in the bank from buying and flipping, then the door opens up. If you see something that would be a great rental property, by all means keep it, but to go out there, and if you’re living paycheck to paycheck, are you doing a little bit better than then buy five houses of rentals, and this guy is not paying the rent on time, and the water heater goes out there, and the AC. I think too many people get overwhelmed with that philosophy. Just my opinion.
Stefan Aarnio: Praise the Lord, praise the Lord. What you just said, I think, is the gospel. So it’s amazing. I’m up in Canada, you’re in the US. I say the same thing: flip at the beginning, flip and wholesale, flip and wholesale, get 100 grand cash, and when you go a hundred grand cash, you now have the license, I’d say to do buy and hold. What happens in Canada up here all the time is what I’m sure happened in the United States pre-crash, pre-2008.
Up in Canada right now what people are doing is they get into real estate investing, they buy a whole bunch of rental properties, they don’t know anything about flipping, anything about wholesaling. Don’t have a real estate license, nothing. They have no income, and they got a couple of million dollars of mortgages, and then they’re stuck. The bank cuts them off. They have five mortgages or something. So much debt and no income. And I’ve been in that trap myself, and it’s horrible because it makes you stuck, your overleveraged. You have no income. So let me ask you this: As a real estate investor, how important is it to have income as well as equity and cashflow?
Paul Rogers: I think, from my standpoint, if you’re a new investor getting into the game, keep that full time job, don’t plan on quitting that job, and if you’re planning on quitting, I’m okay with that. Put that on the vision board, put that in your daily affirmations, but don’t be walking around your work saying, “I’m quitting. I’m quitting, I’m quitting.”[inaudible 00:18:13]
I think it’s critical to have that income coming in, especially if you’re married, and your spouse maybe is not as supportive of you going into real estate investing because you don’t want to go head to head right there. So keep that job until you’ve proven yourself either in buy and hold field or the buy and flip field, and give yourself, like I said, 36 months. If you’re not hitting it in 36 months, then you need to switch the game plan up a little bit.
Stefan Aarnio: I love it. Well, Paul, you know what I got to say, I’ve interviewed a lot of successful people, really smart people. This is real, real boots on the ground practical advice you’re giving, and I love what you’re saying. Don’t quit your job. I quit my job three times twice. I had to go back, didn’t have the skills, and I never had a real estate license. I bought the course three times, never actually gone through with it. I live in Manitoba up in Canada. I don’t know if you know about Manitoba. We are so backwards, so communist, and the realtors in Manitoba cannot have another source of income. They can’t have another job.
Paul Rogers: Oh Wow. Okay. I did not know that.
Stefan Aarnio: They have to be full time. There’s 2,400 realtors in Winnipeg. We have 800,000 people or so, and you can’t have another job. And then the other thing is they can’t wholesale and they can’t flip properties. A broker can do it, but to be a broker you have to go through two years of being a realtor. So for myself, I’ve never become that because I’m a flipper wholesaler making money everyday, and I’m not going to shut that down for two years so the government can be in my pants. I would say, “Hey, can I just buy a broker license right now?” Of course, you know they have that to keep the guys out there. Now let me ask you this, we’re talking about cycles a second ago. Real estate usually follows about a seven year cycle, and I love America because America really does follow the seven year cycle. It goes up, it goes down. Your banks are all competing for loans. There’s all sorts of things happens, Capitalism at its finest. Can you explain to people a little bit with the seven year cycle of real estate, the ups and the downs because especially up here in Canada we don’t really experience it as much. Canada just seems to go up, up, up. We have the super banks, but tell us about the seven year cycle, the natural cycle of real estate, because I’m sure you’re an expert at it.
Paul Rogers: Well it’s interesting too. I think in chapter five of Rich Dad Poor Dad Kiyosaki talks about the rich invent money, and when I moved from St. Louis, Missouri to Sacramento, California 10 years ago, it was a bank foreclosure market, and that went for several years and then it went to a short sale market. And about 2011 12 things started to pop. So right now we’re on a good run. We’re past that seven year mark already.
Like Robert Talks about you can make money, the up market, you can make money in a down market. And I’m jacked. I’m excited because when this downmarket hits again, I going to be jumping in and buy a lot of properties because I’ve seen the cycle here in the United States. I’ve watched it for 30 years now, but now actually being here on the West Coast, like you said, there is so much opportunity out here in the United States, actually in the world, but in the United States, there’s so much opportunity if you are disciplined, and another book The Power of Focus. If you stay focused on what your dreams are, you’ve got it written out, and you’re taking baby steps each and everyday to it. I see too many people that don’t have the vision written out, don’t have the game plan written out, doesn’t have somebody holding them accountable, and they’re just all over the place. Woo, woo, woo.
Stefan Aarnio: Right, exactly. It’s a huge thing. Everybody I want to have a vision plan. I try to get everybody on a journal. I do daily journaling. This is my journal, the high performance journal. Get everybody on a black book to keep track of-
Paul Rogers: [crosstalk 00:21:44] my journal.
Stefan Aarnio: Oh Damn. Yeah, man. [crosstalk 00:21:47]-
Paul Rogers: It’s funny that you say that. I got to do this. Hang on one second. You didn’t know where we’re going to do this. Here’s 10 years. I got 10 years of my journals and when I started this, I didn’t even really realize that I was doing it, but I pride myself. I actually got 12 years of journals now, and it just kept me on the straight and narrow basically. It’s the game plan.
Stefan Aarnio: so let’s talk about that, Paul. I’m getting shivers right now hearing about your 10 years of journals, and we got video and we got audio on this. The audio people can’t see the journals, but you got like a foot high of journals stacked up. How important is journaling to success because you know you’re a living testament of journaling working? Tell me about how important that is.
Paul Rogers: I think it’s critical. I think saying your daily affirmations in the mirror to yourself in the morning and before you go to bed at night. That was always a weird exercise for me, but if you snaring your eyeballs, and you’re looking in that mirror and you’re saying, I want $3,000,000 in my bank account net in the next 36 months. I want my weight to be at X. I want my family to be like this. I want my spiritual life to be like this, and if you’re saying that over and over and over again, the subconscious is going to pick that up. It’s going to shoot it out to God and the universe, and things are gonna show up in your life, and if you’re writing down the good, the bad, the ugly that’s happening in your life, staying focused on more positive, more positive, and giving, giving, giving. When I was a younger man, it was all about me. Ever since I met Robert Kiyosaki it’s always been, how can I help the next guy, how can I help the next guy. And my daily prayer when I wake up in the morning is God give me the most screwed up person on this earth, and have them give me a phone call, and let me listen to their story and be a sounding board for them, and God send me somebody in my life like you, young man that can lift me up then too. So journaling I think is very important. I think saying those daily affirmations, even though you don’t believe I’m in the beginning, say them. Say them again, say them again, say them again. Say them again.
Stefan Aarnio: Man you are preaching the Gospel today, Paul. It’s so powerful what you’re saying. I’m sure there’s people that are home listening to us, and I didn’t grow up a very religious guy. We went to church, family went to church, it was United Church, so it was like the everybody church, no matter what, everybody’s in. And I went to university, and university I think teaches people to be atheists. It teaches people to be communists. So you come out of university you’re a communist atheist.
Paul Rogers: [crosstalk 00:24:18]
Stefan Aarnio: And when I started studying money I started to read Think and Grow Rich, which is kind of like it’s sort of like the Bible but secular-
Paul Rogers: It is.
Stefan Aarnio: … Bible. This is how the universe works. Secular words, they don’t call it the universe, they don’t call it God. They call it infinite intelligence. They have all these different words that the Bible would say prayer, they would say autosuggestion. So all these words are those kind of words for the same thing, and it’s interesting because I remember I was hanging out with some of my very religious friends, and they were all getting married. I was in my early twenties. I was just starting on this path, and it was interesting, I sat down with them and they were talking about God, religion, the Bible, how to live, all these things and Jesus. And I was talking the exact same thing, just using different words. And it was interesting because whenever you go down into a field enough it ends up at that center of the universe, you end up on spirituality, you end up on manifesting, you end up on … I believe this. This is something I truly believe is that reality is bent towards whatever your heart and your mind and your genitals are desiring and those three things-
Paul Rogers: [crosstalk 00:25:29]
Stefan Aarnio: … It’s like a lightning posts through your body, and if you believe it in your heart, your mind, your genitals, which is where all the desire comes from, you can bend the world to agree to your will. And I’ve seen it over and over again, in my life, other people’s life. You say, I want to red race car, sports car. And You keep focusing on that, eventually that thing, it’s going to be pulled in. It’s going to be bent and pulled in, but if you don’t have the mind, the heart, and I keep saying, your genitals lined up, if those are out of alignment, you think it but you don’t feel it or you feel it a lot of people feel it, but they don’t think it. They have an emotion, they want to be rich, but they don’t think it. Would you say that that’s true? You can bend reality to your will, maybe not change it totally, but you can influence it. Do you believe that?
Paul Rogers: 110%, no doubt about it. It’s kind of funny for the people listening to can’t see this video. You and I have not met before. We’ve had a couple of brief phone calls, and this is Think and Grow Rich working in my life and your life right now that we reached out and put the vibe out there. I want to do more real estate agents and real estate investor coaching in the States. I’ve done it one on one, but now I want to go a little bit bigger. And that’s why I’m in talks with you, with your marketing, with the coaching that you do and boom, all of a sudden your Facebook ad pops up. I reached out to you. You take the call, boom, here we are. So I mean it is all about what we think, and then what we speak to the world, and what we say in that daily affirmation, and just staying positive because as soon as you speak to your goals to the world and write them down, and the devil’s going to screw with you. Your friends and family, “Oh, you can’t do this, you can’t do that.” Ay, okay. Listen to them. Check them out the door. You get a couple of new friends like us two right here, and let’s move forward.
So yeah, it’s probably from the verb that you said that is my Bible for business, basically. That is the truth to this world far as I’m concerned.
Stefan Aarnio: Well, it’s amazing. In one of my books I wrote years ago called Money People Deal, my very first book I wrote, there was a section there about millionaires. And every millionaire, every rich person has the following three things: they have a deep religious faith, they have loving parents, and they have a supportive spouse. And those are the three pillars of wealth. Let me ask you this, Paul. You said you married a lady, and Laurie, you got Laurie in your URL on the Internet, you moved from your place of the country to her place because guess what, man, women, they usually get their way, especially when it comes to homes and living. Men don’t … we have no power with that usually. Let me ask you this: how powerful or how important is it to have that supportive spouse or be married in this kind of game versus people who are unmarried?
Paul Rogers: Yeah, that’s a great question. I don’t know that I have a solid answer for that. I’d say it’s going to be an individual by individual basis. I do believe this, anybody listening or watching, and if I had a 15 minute call with them, I always ask: where have you been in life, where are you at right now, where do you want to go? And I can give them my reality check of what’s been going on and where they’re headed, but if you are in a relationship, I think it’s important to have, we call it equally yoked, that you guys are on the same page. If you’re not, that’s okay. You can still be individualistic, and if you don’t have somebody in your life that’s still okay. A great, great question.
Stefan Aarnio: Yeah. What I’ve noticed … I had a student of mine, Dan Nash, who’s investor of the year 2016 Canadian Real Estate Wealth magazine. He’s flipping multimillion dollar luxury homes in Winnipeg right now. And you posted today on Facebook. He was posting about his relationship. He was divorced, and he just got, I guess, reengaged to a new lady, and he was talking about how powerful that primary relationship is. I commented on his post. I said, “You know what I’ve noticed.” I’ve coached hundreds of people now all across Canada, some in the United States too. And I’ve noticed this Paul, and maybe you’ve noticed this too. The highest achievers that I’ve noticed from people I’ve helped have always been married men with kids. For whatever reason, a married man with kids, beats single man with kids, beats single man with girlfriend, beats single woman, and then all the way down the food chain of types of people, married man with kids for whatever reason is the guy. They go out there and they do 30 flips or they go out and do something crazy. And why do you think that is, where the married man with kids is for some reason the most motivated person in the economy?
Paul Rogers: I’ll jump in on that and to me that’s the power of focus right there that he’s not worried about chasing the ladies around or chasing the guys if you’re a girl. He’s focused, and if you can stay late or focused three hours a day on some kind of a task in real estate investing, you’re going to be a superstar. Most people aren’t going, “Doo, doo, doo, doo.” all over the place. Focus three hours a day. Lead generate, lead generate, lead generate, leverage yourself, and you’ll have success.
Stefan Aarnio: Wow, I love that, and Bruce Lee says, the ultimate warrior is the average man with focus and that’s-
Paul Rogers: There you go. There you go.
Stefan Aarnio: … and that’s killer.
Paul Rogers: [crosstalk 00:30:46]-
Stefan Aarnio: I always thought it was the guy comes home and his wife says, “You paid how much for coaching? Do your homework.”, and then the kids say, “Dad, I’m hungry.”, or, “Dad, I want this new video game day.” [crosstalk 00:30:54] you got your why. You’ve got a strong why, the wife, she’s an accountability coach built in, the kids are the strong why. I notice everybody’s why, why they want to do this, why do they want to succeed, is usually parents or their kids.
Paul Rogers: I think it’s important too that somebody that going into this, they have a running partner. Maybe you’re not tied in legally as a corporation, but have somebody that’s doing the same thing. If you want to flip houses, find somebody else that wants to flip houses, run side by side to support each other. Back when I started out, I had like five other firemen at different districts, and we were all doing the same thing. We’d get off at the firehouse in the morning. We’d go work on properties, we’d help each other out, but I think it’s important to have somebody, either a coach, an accountability partner, somebody that you’re running kind of side by side with.
Stefan Aarnio: Yeah. Oh, that’s amazing, man. People need groups. People always succeed in groups and they don’t succeed alone. One thing I’ve found that to be really interesting about training people, we do a thing called a one day where the student flies into our market, and they spend a day with their coach or mentor, in the field and I find it so amazing because when I was getting started, I flew to Chicago to be with my coach, and on that one day I watched his flips. I walked on site, we touched it, we tasted it, we smelled it, we felt it. And I remember there was a lady in one of his flips, staging the house, and I looked at it and I said to him, I said, “Hey, do you stage all the houses? He goes, “Yeah, we stage all the houses.” I went home, opened up a staging company. I stage every house and it’s amazing because people are like, “Wow, the staging, the staging.” Well, I’ve got eight sets of furniture now, and were staging every house, but if I didn’t see the lady staging the house or if I didn’t stand in it, and if I didn’t see someone doing it, I wouldn’t believe it. How powerful, Paul ,do you think it is for people to see things in front of their face to believe it.
Paul Rogers: I’m a visual guy myself. I’m going to show you something here. I’m going to switch this around. See if I can do this real quick. There’s my board. So that’s one of the boards that we track the real estate investment deals that we’re doing. It’s kind of funny that you mentioned it because [inaudible 00:33:05] we haven’t talked out. Look what I got on my desk. [inaudible 00:33:09] funny.
Stefan Aarnio: Oh, is that a million dollar bill?
Paul Rogers: The million dollar bill.
Stefan Aarnio: Is that from Zimbabwe-
Paul Rogers: I got three.
Stefan Aarnio: … where $1,000,000 gets you nothing?
Paul Rogers: I got 3 of them. There’s 3 million dollar bills here, and so this is part of my visualization, and once again the average person’s going to say, “That’s weird. Why would you?”. I sit there. I just … “Million.” This is coming from 20 flips at $50,000. This is 10 wholesale deals at 100, so I just sit here and feel it, and smell it, and see it. This for the next 36 months and what I’ve got going on, another 3 million net in the bank is what I want. So it’s a visualization. I got to see it, and once again I’m going back to Think and Grow Rich. That book talks about it. If you haven’t read Think and Grow Rich, drop what you’re doing, go out, get that book, get it knocked out. Just get through it the first time. It might be a little bit of a tough read for you, but then hit it again, and they actually have a workbook study one and two, but implement that in your life. Implement that one in your life. Visualizing it. I got to visualize stuff myself. I’ve got to see it.
Stefan Aarnio: Wow. I love it. I think it’s tremendous. I noticed with people, people read the books, they go to the seminars, they listened to the audio tapes, but until they see it, it’s all hearsay and that’s such a powerful thing.
Stefan Aarnio: So Paul, let me ask you this. We’re talking about success a little bit. What do you think causes most people to fail when they get into real estate, real estate investing and something like this?
Paul Rogers: I think they take it just as a hobby. They don’t treat it as a business, number one, and I think that’s the biggest thing, and I think the one thing I can impart to people is get your first deal done. That’s where the learning is going to happen, and you’re probably going to get your butt kicked. If you’re doing on your own, you’re probably going to get your butt kicked, but that’s okay. Get on to the second deal, get your butt kicked again, get onto that third one. Okay, now you’re doing it. Now that fourth, that fifth. That seventh, eighth time is when you’re going to start having your success. Most people try that one deal, didn’t work the way they dreamed about it, didn’t work the way they saw it on TV, on a half hour little infomercial and then they’re out of the game and they’re back to the corporate world being miserable.
Give yourself time. Allow yourself mentally the sale because society wants to beat us up that we’re failures. That’s what Robert talks about. That’s where the learning happens, it’s in our mistakes that we’ve made. That to me is the number one thing.
Stefan Aarnio: Paul, someone’s got to write down all this man. [inaudible 00:36:17] start go in a book, dude. This is good stuff. This is good stuff. You’ve written a book yet?
Paul Rogers: I have not. I’ve been featured on several magazines. I’ve got enough material for probably a whole book series with the assisted living memory care stuff or doing just between you and I, I’m going to take a look at that and see if I can’t pen a book that would be like a Rich Dad Poor Dad book get it to Robert, see if he can tweak it up a little bit and then co-write it with me, and sign off on it because I think the senior living, there’s gonna be a big of demand out there.
Stefan Aarnio: Yeah, you can be the Rich Dad advisor on senior living. I know my-
Paul Rogers: There you go.
Stefan Aarnio: … my pal Darren Weeks who I used to work for a [crosstalk 00:36:52] capital guy, Ken McElroy is the multifamily guy. So maybe Paul Rogers could be the senior guy. That’d work.
Paul Rogers: Yeah.
Stefan Aarnio: Let me ask you this, Paul. This is a question I love to ask everybody: what was the moment in your career where you thought you were going to fail and it was all going to be over?
Paul Rogers: Good question. Oh man, wow, that’s a good question. I know this, let me go back to the people that are watching and listening. This will resonate with them. When I decided after 17 years as a fireman to put my two weeks notice in, my retirement papers in, that was a scary feeling for me then. So that I was going to fail, but what I probably should’ve done. I should’ve retired like five years before that. I kept pushing it off and because I was kind of comfortable, I had a nice paycheck coming in with the benefits, and over here doing the real estate part time, and so that part there I know most people watching are going to say, “I want to quit my job now. I want to quit my job now.” That to me, I’ve seen it too many times, is early failure, and unless you’ve got that game going, unless you know your systems, unless you’ve been doing it for a while, once again, I would not do that. But once you get it going, I guess, my word of advice here, I should have quit my job earlier at that point.
Stefan Aarnio: That’s great advice, man. That’s great advice. I always say to people if you’re going to-
Paul Rogers: And it’s a catch-22. When do you leap? You’ll know when you’ve had some success, and that’s why the other piece I add to it is do your flips until you’ve got 100 grand in the bank and then you’ve proven yourself like we’re [inaudible 00:38:28] hold one for [inaudible 00:38:29], great. But then I say get a $1,000,000 in the bank, maybe even a half a million. Once you’ve got $1,000,000 in the bank, you can go ahead and walk away from your job at that point in time. You’ve proven yourself, there’s no doubt about it. That might sound like a big number, but it can get there pretty quick in real estate investing.
Stefan Aarnio: Yeah. What do you think would be the fastest way to get half a million in the bank in real estate investing? What would be the way that you do if you had to go out and do it tomorrow?
Paul Rogers: If I had to go out and do it tomorrow? I’m a land guy. I would go find the right piece of land, and I’d be building new construction on it, multiple houses. The senior living, what we’re doing, we’re doing [inaudible 00:39:05] the size of a high school football field up in Canada. We’re building five houses that are 7,000 square feet each, 12 bedrooms in there, big kitchen, big common living area. Well, I bought the ground, the 10 acres or 400,000. We’re going to flip that ground to the investment group that’s going to help me build this for a 1,600,000. That’s about a 1,200,000 profit on one deal.
Stefan Aarnio: Whew.
Paul Rogers: Yeah, and nothing wrong with buying a house, turn and sell it, buy, and turn sell, but if you can get a block and do it with four house all at the same time or you can get 20 acres and do it and now once again I would tell people, get some education. I’d get around some people that are doing it, but that to me is a good way to do it. Not a lot of stress, not a lot of pressure. Just lining things up by it.
Stefan Aarnio: Buy it by the acre, sell it by the foot.
Paul Rogers: There you go. Right on, brother. Yeah.
Stefan Aarnio: Love it. Love it. Now, Paul, if you go back in time and give yourself, let’s say, 18 year old Paul Rogers a piece of advice, what would you say to your young 18 year old self?
Paul Rogers: Oh man, I was cocky back then. I was all about me back then. I’d say serve others. We’re here on this earth to serve others. The more you can serve, the better off you’re going to be, and couple things there, I would have set my goals a lot sooner, although back then I was a young kid. So I think setting goals, having mentors, [inaudible 00:40:29] other people, be ready and embrace the mistakes you make instead of being pouty about them. Embrace those mistakes. Go make the mistakes as big as you can. I always hear this, “You should go bigger. Buy four houses instead of one.” I would just say to a younger Paul Rogers, enjoy the ride because it goes by fast, and I’ve had a great ride. I’ve had a good time.
Stefan Aarnio: Wow. I love that. Now Paul, I usually ask top three books for most people. You mentioned Rich Dad Poor Dad, number one, number two, Think and Grow Rich. What’s the number three for top three books? We can only have three on the sinking ship here.
Paul Rogers: [inaudible 00:41:09] The Power of Focus. I mean, to me that’s critical because our minds just wander. We get bombarded with so much stuff every day. Power of Focus. Some folks just do one thing at a time.
Stefan Aarnio: Who’s Power of Focus by? Who’s that book by?
Paul Rogers: Got it here. Not sure who that’s by.
Stefan Aarnio: Okay. We can Google it on Amazon or something like that. We’ll go if we can just type in Power of Focus book. Okay, great. One final question for you Paul, and this is another favorite one I asked every single person on the show. Now the millennials, the young people, generation Z, and the millennials, the two younger generations. What do young people need to succeed these days? Because you hear all these things in the news, in the media about millennials aren’t hacking it. Millennials are poor. Millennials aren’t cutting it, most educated, but they’re not earning anything. What do those people need to succeed?
Paul Rogers: You got to associate with the right people. Whatever you select to do in life, go get the top people in that field, and reach out to them, and ask if you can intern for them. Can I volunteer to do something for you? So whatever field that you’re going to go into, find the most successful people there, reach out to them. If they tell you no, it’s okay, reach out again, reach out again, reach out again, and I think one of the most important things that a millennial could do is ask what that person’s top two goals are. Anybody who a millennial meets, “What are your top two goals, and how can I help you accomplish those goals?”, and then write their information down, and keep a database of everybody you meet in life. Keep a database and always be in touch with that database. You never know who person A is going to know, and person B, and you can put those two together and get a little piece of the pie. Be the deal maker, meet people, learn their goals. Find deals, put them together, take a piece of the pie. You don’t need the credit, you don’t need money in those situations.
Stefan Aarnio: Oh, love it, Paul. You know what, man, you’re the real deal. You are a seasoned veteran. You’ve been doing it. I love it. This is a lot of real meat today for people. Not a lot of sizzle. No bull here. This is pure meat from Paul Rogers. How can somebody get in touch with Paul Rogers if they wanted to know more?
Paul Rogers: Here in the states, they can call me on my cell. I pick up my cell., I’ll take everybody’s call. 9 1 6 7 5 1 9 3 0 9. That’s 9 1 6 7 5 1 9 3 0 9, or you can email me at paulrogersrealestate@gmail.com, spelled P A U L R O G E R S realestate@Gmail.com. I’ll take your calls. I’ll take your questions. We might go head to head a few times, but it’s all out of love, my advice that I’m going to give to you.
Stefan Aarnio: I love it. Paul, thanks so much for being on the show. Respect The Grind. Hi, it’s Stefan Aarnio, and thank you so much for listening to my podcast, Respect The Grind. If you enjoyed this podcast, I want you to get a copy of my original book, Money People Deal. Money People Deal has been the key for me for raising millions and millions of dollars for real estate, and it’s helped people all over Canada and the United States raise money for their real estate deals. You can get a copy at moneypeopledeal.com/podcast for a special offer just for podcast listeners. Once again, go to moneypeopledeal.com/podcast to get your special offer. We’ll see you on the next episode of Respect The Grind.
