From Pain to Purpose-Driven Profit with Faith-Based Visionary Lee Arnold

00:00:00
Lee Arnold joins us today. And this is, this is a great, great episode. Lee is a, he's with Secured Investment Corp. He's the CEO or actually the chief visionary officer of Secured Investment Corp. And they have a lot going on.

00:00:16
They've got several, several businesses connected to the main business. And he actually, in the episode, clarifies who is the CEO. He says it's not actually him, so you have to pay attention for that one. He's a real estate investor, developer, trainer, international speaker, and bestselling author. And he spent years perfecting the real estate investing and private money lending process.

00:00:43
I've gotten to know Lee over the last few months and we're actually working more closely together. We'll probably have some, some bigger announcements as time rolls on. But this episode is not about that. It's about how the mistakes that Lee made leading up to the 2008 real estate crash and how essentially he lost everything and he was brought to his knees and how he restructured and reprioritized his approach to real estate investing and building a business. He does not pull any punches.

00:01:21
He does not shy away from talking about how he's brought God and his faith in Jesus into the forefront of his investing and business building approaches and how they serve. They're all about service. And so I guess one of the things I loved about this episode was the fact that he's very proud capitalism of very pro profit. But they that's not counter to nonprofit and supporting nonprofits and supporting people in need. Secured Investment Corp.

00:01:58
Is directly tied and directly support supports some really awesome nonprofits. And you have to hear more about that in the episode. Lee brings a lot of energy. He's very well spoken. There's a lot for the entrepreneur in this episode.

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There's a lot for the person wondering, how do I incorporate my faith? How do I do good by doing well? And what, what mistakes can I avoid? That someone who is a hard charging investor, who was running a little tight and pushing the envelope, how can I avoid a crash like Lee had, but still build an empire that can create a massive positive impact? You're definitely not going to want to miss this episode.

00:02:46
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00:03:08
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00:03:40
Welcome everybody to another episode of the from adversity to From Adversity to Abundance Podcast podcast. I'm your host Jamie Bateman and I'm thrilled today to have with us Lee Arnold. Lee is the CEO of secured Investment Corp, among many other things. Lee, how are you doing today? I'm doing fantastic, Jamie.

00:03:58
Thank you for having me here. Absolutely. This is going to be a fun, fun chat. I'm excited to see where it goes. For the listener who may be unfamiliar with you.

00:04:07
Lee, who are you and what do you have going on today? Well, my name is Lee Arnold. I'm the CEO of a company called Secured Investment Corp, which under that has some subsidiary brands including Cogo Capital, the Lee owned system, real estate investing, Lake City Servicing. We're a full service real estate investor construction company, real estate agency. So we've got a lot going on, but everything related to and involving real estate.

00:04:33
Love it. As I've gotten to be more familiar with what you have going on, I'm very impressed and it's quite a lot, that's for sure. So we'll get back to that more and we'll drill in a little bit more on what you have going on and how you all are serving. And I want to get to some of the ways you're going your to nonprofit and some of the ways you all are contributing to society, I think in a really positive way. But before we get there, I know it hasn't always been rainbows and butterflies and unicorns.

00:05:04
And so I know the 2008 crash, the real estate crash and crisis impacted you and your businesses. Do you mind starting there with your backstory and let us know kind of how things unfolded from that point for you? Sure. Yeah. I started investing back in 1995.

00:05:23
I saw an infomercial on tv and that's how I got into all this. So flipped my first house right out of high school and just started doing more and more of that. 2004, five, six and seven, I got heavily involved in real estate development. I was developing very large multi, multi million dollar properties. And so when 2008 came, it was painful.

00:05:50
We lost a lot of money, a lot of developments went belly up. Real estate portfolio got wiped out. Just I was running very fast and very thin because I saw this huge payout at the end of the horizon. But as we know, Bear Stearns went down in eight. Then Lehman brothers or August of eight Lehman brothers goes down in September.

00:06:14
And then the whole thing just fell out in one day. I went from 68 employees to four employees. So 64 employees got laid off in a day. And I realized in that moment that I had failed as a CEO because I was not being a good steward of the company's finances, the company's opportunities, and I was running too risky. And so the thing that I learned through the crash is I need to be a better steward of the company's assets and resources and mainly the personnel.

00:06:50
I heard an adage years ago that as a CEO, it's my job to take care of my employees. It's my employees job to take care of my customers. And if they do that well, then the customers will take care of the business. And so I was a little out of alignment with what I was doing. I was just driving too hard.

00:07:06
And while there's, that's our role, right, as CEO's to drive the organization forward, but we can't get so far out ahead of our teams that they can't possibly keep up. So that's what I learned from that. And so since then, we've been implementing rules and rails that will kind of keep the train moving forward at the right pace that we don't burn everybody out. Absolutely. It makes a lot of sense.

00:07:34
And I appreciate you being vulnerable about that. It's not always fun to talk about, quote unquote, failures. Right. You know, but this is, this is the point of the show, is to, because there will be adversity for the listener to come. Right.

00:07:48
And so we want to let people know that someone who is successful now, it wasn't always a straight line up into the right to success. The path can be rocky, and that's the reality of it. And so I appreciate you sharing that. I feel like everyone should know what the 2008 crash looked like. But I think as I'm almost assuming that, and as we get away from it, it may be, you know, that's probably a poor assumption.

00:08:16
Just for a little bit, do you mind drilling down on sort of what, what the business looked like and what. I know you said you were running too thin and maybe driving too hard, but mechanically speaking, and then we can fast forward. But what did it, what were the mistakes that were made? Maybe not just by you personally, but how did, because I know you weren't the only person that really went through some pain at this time. What mechanically went wrong at that time?

00:08:44
Well, for those that don't recall 2000. So we had the September 11, 2001, the World Trade center issue. And in an effort to get the economy chugging again, they dropped interest rates to zero, where they stayed for a long period of time, all the way through 2008 and nine. And so money was cheap. You didn't, there wasn't a lot of requirements to get it.

00:09:07
And so we were buying a lot of property, single family, multifamily. I was developing $20 million ski in, ski out houses on the backside of Deer Valley in Park City, Utah. Just had a lot of things going on in a lot of places. And it was all being done through highly leveraged property. So my real estate portfolio, for example, I had a lot of rentals that I had over leveraged to create liquidity.

00:09:32
And then I was lending it out as a private money lender, creating notes. And when the market shifts and all of this crashes, the thing that people are going to pay on last are the real estate investments that are non performing. The land that we had funded for new developments that were partially constructed, all of these things stopped paying and we lost sight of what the government is always going to focus on in times of calamity, and that is affordable housing. So I started in affordable housing, very quickly ventured out of it because, you know, affordable housing, single family, one bedroom, two bath, or three bedroom, two baths. You know, you get to a point where that just seems boring.

00:10:17
And I want to get bigger. Right? I want the portfolio I can brag about because I've got a thousand rental properties. And we lost sight of the fundamentals. And that was the fatal flaw.

00:10:29
We got away from what is safe, what is easy, what is consistent to chase bigger and bigger things. And not that there's anything wrong with chasing bigger things, but not at the risk of losing, you know, your first love. The thing that we all, as investors, usually cut our teeth on was that first fix and flip, you know, the two bed or 100 square foot house. Yeah, makes sense. And so all of these things now, the foundational investments were at risk because we were leveraging them to go after the bigger and the better and the more ego driven type of investments, even though the numbers didn't work.

00:11:08
Fun to talk about the big things. So what we learned from that coming out of it, the government drops interest rates to zero. They pump a bunch of money into Fannie and Freddie. Fannie and Freddie now come out with all these loan products that will help to bail out the US economy. And the loan product that they were coming out was first and second time homebuyers on what we now use, which is called our five point buy box.

00:11:36
And this is properties that are under 2800 sqft, under five bedrooms, three baths, under four units or less. A residential single family under half of an acre of ground. And the retail sales price doesn't exceed the FHA capacity. If we would have stayed in that lane, 2004, five, six, seven and eight, we would have been cleaning up in 2000, 910 and eleven because the markets just tanked. All of those types of properties were going into foreclosure and we could have been buying them all up, but instead we were dealing with massive default, massive foreclosure litigation, short sales.

00:12:15
It was a house of cards and it took a minute to double that thing. Well, no, it's. And again, like I said, you weren't the only one in a similar position we had. We just re released an episode with Fuquan Bilal. He's done a lot of node investing and he lost $2 million personally in that crash.

00:12:34
So walk us through the next, say, ten years, Lee, how did you rebuild? What was the low point for you? But then how did you start taking steps to rebuild, maybe from even a personal and family standpoint? Well, I grew up in a christian home. My dad was the youth pastor growing up as a kid, and so I was very close with the Lord.

00:12:54
I had a great relationship with him. But when I started making money from 20, from 1995 to 2008, I was making a lot of money. And my relationship with the Lord had become very distant. When I lost literally everything in 2008 and nine felt like that was God shaking me and saying, do you see what happens when you make it all about money? And so when we were rebuilding in 2009, the first thing we did is we installed God as the CEO.

00:13:24
So I'm actually the chief visionary officer of the organization God's the CEO. And we said, okay, we're going to build this company now. We're going to use our business as a ministry. And so everything we do on the for profit side is going to be used to feed the nonprofit side. So we formed a 501 nonprofit called he's the Solution Ministries.

00:13:43
And we started incorporating God and faith into every aspect of our business. God first, family second, career third. And now we were sharing. We were shipping bibles and giving bibles to our tenants and sharing the gospel and doing Sunday sermons for all of our clients and customers, just inviting them to come and join us. We're not a church.

00:14:03
So all of this is done virtually and online. But by making that change and make God the priority in the business, he ten x it very quickly because we made him, and that the focus of the organization. Now, we are still a for profit business, but, you know, no margin, no mission. So if the business isn't profitable, there's not revenue to finance the mission of the business, and that is preaching and sharing the gospel. So that was the main thing that we changed in 2009, going into what's brought us to present day, making that the main thing.

00:14:41
God first, family second, career third. So just having balance in those things is really important. I was just at a mastermind. I mentioned to you before we hit record, and one of the presenters, Guy, I would say, is a friend now that he's all about impact investing. And the whole presentation he gave was strictly about impact investing and how his entire, he does large multifamily deals, and his every dollar that he raises really is meant to go to nonprofits and to positively impact the world.

00:15:17
And I was talking to him, and he said, you know, I didn't have any intention of doing this, but God spoke to me and said, no, go all in. So I was curious, Lee, was there any, from a personal standpoint, was there any hesitation or reservation from your perspective as far as either losing out on customers, if you're going this bold route? Not sort of. It's bold, right, and losing customers, or sort of just, I don't know, just taking any kind of negative feedback from people. Was there any kind of hesitation on your part to make that decision and go forward in that path?

00:15:58
Well, hesitation and tremendous fear, right? Because we are bombarded daily by the media and even at the state level, saying, separation of church and state, right? Separation of God and prophet. And so there's that hesitancy to be bold for fear of losing customers who are not going to resonate with that message. But what I've learned through this is that it's not so much losing customers as much as it is attracting the ones that you really want to do business with of a similar belief, who have a similar appreciation of faith in the workplace and being bold for Jesus and what we do.

00:16:40
And not only did we not lose customers, but we gained and attracted ten times more customers who believe similarly. But it's very rare in business to be bold in that way. And so what we thought would be something that would be detrimental to the business actually put us in a very different spotlight, because, hey, here's a company that's being bold for Jesus when everybody else is saying, no, no, you got to keep that stuff separated. We don't. And we don't make any apologies for that.

00:17:12
And we won't. And, you know, if people are offended by that, don't do business with us, that's fine. Other people are like, hey, that's cool, man. I buy into that. I believe that way, and I want to be involved company that's not hiding their light under a bushel, so to speak.

00:17:29
Sure. Well, it sounds like in a lot of ways, you were brought to your knees by circumstances, I mean, by, by God, and you became vulnerable and listened, right. And then, uh, and then started taking bold action. Let's talk about a lot of that, that action. You, you mentioned a few of the lessons you learned, and primary one was putting God first and combining, uh, business and faith.

00:17:54
Um, how did you, you know, technically start applying those lessons? What businesses did you build over the next 1015 years? Uh, you know, it's the, the core fundamentals of the business have not change dramatically. We're still doing the same things, right. We're still doing real estate investment education.

00:18:15
We're still providing funding for our client base through access to private capital. We're still running private equity funds to provide those funds for those investments. We're still servicing the loans that we are originating. So not a lot of the core business has changed from that standpoint. We've not added any new verticals that didn't exist pre crash.

00:18:37
So the business as a whole is still, for the most part, still what it's always been, real estate focused. But where profits were the main driver, now the main driver is purpose and intentionality in serving. So it's a service led mentality where my desire for anybody that comes in our organization is to serve them in a way they'll be meaningful and impactful for them, their business, their family, their desired outcomes. And so we want to lead with a heart of service in how can I best provide value to my client? And my client is going to be one of three things.

00:19:19
It's going to be somebody who wants to add real estate investment as a stream of income to their business, to their family, so that they're not so beholden or dependent upon job, where the only income I've got is every other Friday, I get paycheck from punching clock people who want to add an income stream to their business just to create stability and options and opportunities for themselves and their family. The second person that's coming to me is an existing real estate investor who's done a few deals, but now wants to add systems and strategy and software to scale that side of the business. So I want to get bigger. I flipped a couple of houses, I made 50 to 100 grand, but I'd like to scale it and potentially make real estate my full time endeavor. So that's client number two.

00:20:12
Client number three is the person who's done pretty well for themselves financially. They had a good job, ran a good business. Perhaps they're still running that business, or they've exited that business, but, you know, they're sitting on hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars in capital to the degree that now they need outlets for that capital to be more passive. So now they can invest in our private equity funds, they can buy the notes that we are originating, and we'll continue to service those notes and send those monthly payments either to them or to their self directed IRA. About 60% of the people who buy notes from us are doing it through a self directed IRA or some other tax advantaged vehicle through which they're making those investments.

00:20:54
So it's either the new investor who wants to learn, it's the existing investor who wants to scale, or it's the existing investor who's looking for passive. So all of these things, we're trying to provide the right vehicle to the right client at the time they're seeking it. But ultimately, we refer to this as the circle of wealth, in that you can come to me broke, penniless, bad credit, no income, no job, and we'll teach you how to invest in real estate with none of your own cash. And that's the utilization of private money or. So now you come to us, we teach you how to be successful as an investor.

00:21:32
Now we help you become accredited. So now you can invest in accredited investor only opportunities like private equity funds. And now you can live a passive life so that you can focus on ministry if you choose to. And it doesn't have to be a religious thing, right. For those who you don't have to believe in God to be useful in the marketplace.

00:21:55
There's a lot of nonprofit charities and organizations that are not religious in nature but are still doing good things. But that's our message. How do we take profit and become purposeful and intentional in serving and just being a blessing to other people? Yeah, absolutely. I love it.

00:22:15
That's one of the realizations I had a few years ago as I kind of built out my note investing mortgage note investing. I guess services really does boil down to active and passive investors. And so we create a little mentorship for those who want to learn on the active side. But then we have funds as well on the passive side. And so really, now you have a one stop shop.

00:22:42
It seems to really be able to serve almost everyone. Is that fair to say? Yeah, that's fair to say, because that's exactly how we built. It was so that no matter where you are, there's a place we can plug you into. But the thing that we also want to really encourage people to do, you know, it's not uncommon for people to say, well, when I retire, I'm gonna.

00:23:08
Right, I'm gonna go on that mission trip. Once I retired, I'm gonna go do this and serve at the church. Once I retired. You know what I asked a pastor years ago? I said, so, pastor, what's your plans after retirement?

00:23:20
He goes, Lee, show me this chapter, verse, and scripture reference in the Bible that speaks to retirement. Right. Because, you know, retire from serving and blessing other people. That's a full time endeavor. But the mistake we make is we think that it starts when something else ends.

00:23:38
And my message is, it should be incorporated and woven into everything that you're doing now. I mean, you can be tactful and intentional now, even though you're working a job and you've got a family and you got small children, you can be doing all of these things now. You just got a schedule for them and make a. Make time for them. Yeah, I couldn't agree more.

00:23:58
And retirement, I just don't. It's a fairly new concept, actually, and I'm not sure that it's the. The best way to go for most people. Um, and like you said, even if you retire from a career, that's fine, but that you're still retiring to something, you should be continuing to add value and serving, um, in. In some capacity.

00:24:19
Um, well, and. And let me just mention this, Jamie. You know, it really boils down to the reason we build and start and create businesses in the first place. You know, oftentimes we do it because we want to get ourselves out of a financial jam or we hate our job, and so we want to do something that we don't hate doing. Well, if you can be intentional about the business that you are in or the business that you want to go into and build it in a way that it's enjoyable, it's exciting.

00:24:48
You love going to work. I don't remember who gets credit for this quote, but the quote is, if you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life. Then what exactly is it I'm retiring from? I don't get up and put on a suit every morning because I have to go to work. I put on a suit on, because I love what I do.

00:25:08
Coming to work is exciting, and I can't honestly think of anything I'd rather spend my time doing. So that makes it fun. So now I don't go to work. I go to hobby and get to play all day. Yeah, that's fantastic.

00:25:21
But I will say you talked a lot about serving others and serving your clients. And so I do think where some people get tripped up, especially younger people, um, is, oh, follow your passion. Well, that's fine. You should do something. This is my opinion.

00:25:38
You should do something that you love, for sure. But it's not just all about you. Right. So it's not what, you know, you still have to consider, okay, how do I add value to the marketplace? How do I add value to others?

00:25:51
And then I think when you start making money and you're serving others, it gets more fun, as opposed to, oh, I'm just going to follow my passion. Well, then you end up potentially turning a hobby into a pain point, because you're not making money. You're not actually serving others. You're just doing whatever serves you. So I think that's just my two cent, because people kind of disagree on should you follow your passion or not.

00:26:15
I think the way you're approaching it, you're combining your passion with making money. You're not saying profit is bad, right? But you're listening to your clients and adding value to them, adding dollars to your business, and then you're also then letting that those funds purposefully adding funds or capital to these nonprofits. So, yeah, that's a. There's a lot.

00:26:37
There's a lot there. And I love the mindset. Well, and the thing that I would just encourage all of your listeners to be. To be mindful about is, again, no margin, no mission. So if our passion truly is some type of missionary work or serving other people, we got to understand that there has to be a profit component to finance, feed that endeavor.

00:26:59
So take your passion, figure out how to monetize passion in a way that produces profit so that we have money to invest in those passion projects or those ministry components, but there has to be income. Now, I don't think anybody's listening to your show, Jamie, because they are driven to go start a nonprofit, per se. And even if you're going, there is no such thing as a nonprofit that doesn't produce revenue. Right. Because nonprofits have expenses.

00:27:33
So you either build a business that will finance the expenses of the nonprofit, or you can go all in on a nonprofit and understand, you got to find guys like me and you that are running for profit organizations that are willing to finance your nonprofit endeavors. But there's no such thing as a nonprofit. They still have to produce income to cover expenses. So at some point, you have to learn how to steward a for profit business. And if you can do that in something that you are passionate about, that's great.

00:28:12
That's the goal. That's a big win. I love it. Yeah, unfortunately, some, you know, I think profit and capitalism, because of a few bad apples, that they get a bad name, but so we, we need more of us who are doing good out there. So I love it.

00:28:29
I've got some rapid fire questions. Are you ready? Sure. What's one thing that people misunderstand about you, Lee?

00:28:39
Oh, that is a rapid fire question. That one trips people up sometimes. I'll be honest, you know, I think. That where people misjudge me is I have been accused of being a charlatan. I have been accused of using my faith to fLeece the flock, if you will.

00:29:01
And people think that everything I'm talking about here, about faith and purpose and intentionality in mission is all being said or done to get people in so I can take their money. You know what? I don't really need money. I don't need to make more money. I could shut the whole thing down and just go flip houses and service loans and write paper, and I'd be fine.

00:29:29
I mean, my organization could be substantially smaller. And quite honestly, I'd probably make more money because I wouldn't have all these people I gotta pay. But what I've learned is by running a larger and larger and larger organization and scaling the for profit side of the business, I have a greater capacity to attract and interact and engage and potentially persuade and influence more people. You know, let's go back to 1995, right? I'm just flipping houses.

00:30:03
I'm doing ten or 15 deals a year, which could provide a very nice living, you know, making a quarter million dollars as a solopreneur, flipping or 15 houses a year, that's a good living, and I should have just done that, right? But here's the problem. If I'm only flipping ten or 15 houses a year, I'm interacting and engaging and influencing with ten or 15 sellers, ten or 15 buyers, ten or 15 tenants, ten or 15 mortgage lenders, right? So I don't have the same reach for ministry as I have when I'm running a real estate education company nationwide. We're lending nationwide.

00:30:45
I mean, I've got a database of over a million people that I communicate with on a daily, weekly basis. We send almost 50 million emails a month out of this office. So there's a much greater capacity to influence and persuade on a much larger scale. It was Billy Graham who said, the next evangelical movement will not occur in the church, it will occur in the business. And so when I'm operating business as a ministry, the bigger the business, the bigger the ministry.

00:31:15
Sure. Got it. That's the mistake people make about me, is thinking, doing this for the money. And don't get me wrong, I do find God's taken very good care of me financially. Yeah.

00:31:26
That's what motivates me. I mean, yeah. I personally don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to have more money. Right. There's nothing wrong with that.

00:31:35
But I was going to say, if you're, if you're not, you know, if you're not taking some shots somewhere, you're probably not, you know, making a big enough impact. Right. And I'm just speaking broadly about anyone. If everybody likes you, maybe that's, maybe that's not a good thing. Right.

00:31:51
You're probably not reaching your full potential. So, um, if you could go back and give your 18 year old self some advice, what would that be? It's not about the money. Love that. Love it.

00:32:04
From, like I said, from 18 to 30, all I cared about was money, right? And it was profit and it was the big houses and the flashy cars and, you know, telling everybody about it. And, man, I was so off track in my thinking, but, you know, I'm an 18 year old punk that's making a lot of money from. And I grew up on a farm. You know, I grew up very poor.

00:32:29
We didn't have two nickels rubbed together as a kid growing up. And so I think a lot of it for me was trying to prove to the world that I'm not some punk hillbilly that grew up on a farm and drove a tractor trying to prove that I was. That I was something. Sure. And over the years, I realized it doesn't matter what people think, and I really don't care.

00:32:52
I just. I want to leave this, this world in a better place than when I found it. And I want to influence people for a positive and purposeful reason. Yeah, makes a lot of sense. And, yeah, there's definitely an element of, hey, my 18 year old self probably wouldn't have listened.

00:33:09
No, he wouldn't have. He was, he was a funk.

00:33:15
What's another piece of advice you'd give to someone who's starting out in their. Maybe it's their real estate investing career.

00:33:23
Number one, don't leave your success in the hands of others, and be very careful who you align yourself with. I've been in the real estate investment training business for over 20 years, and I have put on thousands of seminars around the country, and I've talked to thousands of people. And it's always interesting to me, especially when we were doing live events post COVID. Everything we do now is virtual on Zoom. But before that, we spent 20 years doing live events in seminars and ballrooms all over the US.

00:33:54
And it was always interesting to me when two people who had just met, neither of whom had great credit or any money at all, would partner up and they come up, hey, Lee, I just met so and so, and we have a lot of affinity and, you know, we just really hit it off and we're going to. We're going to partner together. And I'm thinking that's the worst thing you can do. You've got two people who don't have a clue what they're doing, who don't have any money or income or credit now suddenly partnering together. I mean, this is the blind leading the blind like you've never.

00:34:26
And a lot of people, a lot of people go into a situation asking, how much am I going to earn and what they should be going into. The situation is going, how much am I going to learn? Because the root word of learn is earn. But there are times that you do things for profit, and there are times that you do things for mentorship. And if you can get both of those things in the same relationship, that's a double whammy.

00:34:52
Win. So early in my career, and I learned that early in my career, and I think it was Kiyosaki who said it, rich dad, poor dad, don't go into earn, go into learn. And for the last 30 years of my career, I've always looked at, how can I learn from this person? How can I get mentorship from this person? And then how can I earn through this relationship?

00:35:16
Sure. Mentality going in is, am I going to learn from this thing? And if so, what am I going to learn? How am I going to learn it, and what will I use it for moving forward? Love it.

00:35:27
What's one challenge that you're facing in your business or any of your businesses right now? There's always a challenge. What's one of your challenges? My biggest challenge is talent.

00:35:42
The bigger the enterprise, the more important the people. And this is something that it took me a minute to learn, because as a new young entrepreneur, the hardest person you will ever hire is your first person. Because we are slow to admit that we need help, we are slow to acknowledge that there are things we don't know and can't do very well. And so we hesitate to bring in that first assistant, that first employee, that first hire, because we, for whatever reason, we attribute employment costs as a loss. Right?

00:36:21
So it's an expense. If I pay $20 an hour, that's an expense. Organization employees are one of the greatest investments you can make. Your first employee should be producing a three to 500% return for you through their efforts. So if I'm going to pay somebody $20 an hour, if I run them correctly, if I manage them appropriately, they should be producing $100 an hour.

00:36:47
Well, $100 an hour is over 200 grand a year, and I'm paying them $20 an hour. That's only 40 grand a year. So the greatest investment in business is people. But as the enterprise grows and scales, the level and nature and aptitude of the hire has to get elevated. You've got to hire better people, and better people costs more money.

00:37:11
My challenge is finding really, really good people that want to work, that love to work, that care about people, that are mission minded. That's my biggest challenge, is finding those types of people love it. What is a. We're almost out of time, but what is a book or two that you could recommend for our listeners? Number one book, you got to read the Bible.

00:37:36
Specifically, focus in on proverbs, because Solomon, the smartest man to have ever lived, wrote proverbs. And every success book you will ever read is rooted in proverbs, right? So all the proverbs and every success book starts there. Secondly, you've got to read Rich dad, poor dad, Robert Kiyosaki. Thirdly, you've got to read how to win friends and influence people.

00:38:01
Dale Carnegie. And the fourth book, I'm going to give you five. The fourth book is you've got to read the goal by Elihu Goldratt. The goal is about systems and process and procedure and how things should function and flow. And the fifth book you got to read is predictably irrational by Dan airly.

00:38:22
Now, you named one. I don't have. Haven't read that one. Predictably irrational. Oh, man, that's a good one.

00:38:28
This book will change your life, because people are, on the surface, irrational. But if you understand people, you can predict exactly how they're going to irrationally respond or react so knowing to present things and bring people to your way of thinking in a way that they want to do it is really helpful. Sure. Understanding the psychology behind things. That's fantastic.

00:39:01
I asked for one or two and you gave me five. So. And then the Bible has what, 66 books? So you gave me 71. What is one question, Lee, that I have not asked you that you wish I had anything you want to cover.

00:39:18
Did you ask me what I would do differently if I was starting over? Let's do it. What would you do differently? One, I would invest in mentorship sooner and paid mentorship, not some uncle that gave you a couple of pointers along the way. Mentorship, early, investing in training, going to seminars, going to experts, seeking them out.

00:39:44
I would have done that earlier. Hiring my first employee. I would have done that earlier. And for the person who wants to make real estate their career, getting my real estate license earlier, I spent six years as a non licensed investor. I've spent the last 25 years of my career as a licensed real estate broker.

00:40:04
And there's just so many instances where agents are going to be involved, have to be involved. Eight out of every ten deals you're going to do involves a realtor. So the fact that you're now licensed, you understand how they think, how they tick. And I'm with Keller Williams, which is a worldwide brand. So every deal that I do, I can refer and get 25% referral fee on every transaction.

00:40:28
So it's a tremendous income stream, ancillary income stream. I'm not recommending agency as the driver. It's an ancillary income, but it's easily a six and seven figure additional income stream through agency. So that's what I. Fantastic.

00:40:47
Well, as we wrap up here, Lee, this has been really good. Lee Arnold, where can our listeners find you online? You can find me at the Lee Arnoldsystem.com dot. You can find me@cogocapital.com or the easiest one is bb, four j, the letter b b boldthenumber four. Jesus.com.

00:41:05
So just bbforj.com. There you can learn more about our ministry and our national conference that's held every October. But we'd love to engage, connect and interact with you in any one of those, in any one of those components. Sounds great. Thank you so much, Lee.

00:41:20
This has been fantastic. Appreciate your time. My pleasure. Thanks for having me, Jamie. Absolutely.

00:41:25
And to listener out there, thank you for spending your most valuable resource with us. And that is your time. Thanks, everyone. Take care. Thank you for spending your most valuable resource with us your time.

00:41:38
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