Gratitude

Mike: [00:00:00] Hey everybody. Welcome back to the show. I’m really excited, uh, to have my buddy Raphael Cortez on. He’s been on the show a while back. It’s been over a year. We were just talking about it, it seemed like two months, but it’s been over a year and we’ve been spending a bunch of time together lately, over the past.

Mike: This is like three weeks in a row that we’re hanging out. Uh, of course the last couple weeks have been in person. I was out in Phoenix, and you were here at Investor Fuel in Dallas. Raphael’s just an amazing guy. And honestly, for as much as I talk about scale and trying to help people scale, like he’s, he’s a scale master at systems and processes.

Mike: And in fact, today we’re gonna be talking about mindset stuff because he’s a coach that helps people scale as well. And we were talking about what we’re gonna talk about and. And just had some great discussions on just the mental side of this business. And I think, um, if you’ve been in the business for a while, and even if you’ve been scaled up, it’s what a weird time to just live in America.

Mike: What a weird time to be running a business. And so all of our mindsets are a little bit screwed up of, you know, what’s, what’s up and what’s down, right? So that’s what we’re gonna talk about. Today, welcome to Real Estate Investing Secrets. [00:01:00] We’re all looking for freedom and the opportunity to live better, more fulfilling lives.

Mike: But most of us, were trained our entire lives to work for someone else to chase their dreams. How can we use real estate investing as a vehicle to achieve financial freedom? My life is dedicated to answering your real estate investing questions and helping you build an investing business that allows you to change your life.

Mike: And the world around you, and to enable you to turn your dreams of financial freedom into a reality. My name is Mike Hambright from Flip nerd.com, and your questions get answered here on the Real Estate Investing Secrets show.

Mike: Raphael. What’s up buddy?

Rafael: What’s going on man? Thanks for having me back. It’s an honor, dude.

Mike: Yeah. Always, always good to hang out with you. We’ve been hanging out a ton. Uh, as you know, uh, you guys can see Raphael’s office there. He’s got the sweetest office I’ve ever, I’ve ever been, been in. And I was out there a couple weeks ago and I was like jealous of, uh, this office. So you’ll pivot on the camera.

Mike: There’s the office. Yeah. He is got like, It’s like a museum. He’s got [00:02:00] motorcycles set up in there and punching bags and just like, it’s a total like man cave, right? Yeah.

Rafael: You know, the stuff that I can’t get away with at home, I guess they come in and do it at the office.

Mike: That’s right. Yeah. You gotta, yeah.

Mike: You got a place there. So, uh, hey, tell us real fast, tell us about a little bit about your background for those that, that don’t know you yet.

Rafael: Um, thank you again. My name’s Rafael Cortes. I’m based out of Phoenix, um, um, Arizona. So I, this is my main market. I do a lot of wholesale. I to fix and flip. I’ve been a real estate since 2009.

Rafael: Um, I own a brokerage here in town as well, so we do traditional stuff. So everything when it comes to, to real estate investments. I mean, we tried it all, you know, from the residential, the commercial, the wholesale investments, creative financing and all of that stuff in between, right. Um, by career. I, uh, I’m a, I’m an organizational psychologist, so my thing is, is, uh, you know, it’s people and systems, right.

Rafael: Uh, which plays right into the, the topic that we’re gonna be covering today. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I mean, basically what I do is I put people, uh, and, and systems together and make ’em work, you know, in, in a symbiotic way [00:03:00] for. For the sake of business and operations. I mean, that’s mainly, you know, one of my biggest, uh, spaces

Mike: where, where Yeah.

Mike: Yeah. And we were talking Right, right, right. Before we, uh, kind of hit record here, we were talking about just this idea of self sabotage and, and I know that I’ve done it. There’s areas in my life that I do something and I, and I look back on it and I’m like, why did I do that? Like, why did, why did I make that as hard?

Mike: As I did, and it didn’t need to be. And I think there’s a lot of us that do some element of this, and it’s like, it’s deep in your soul as to why that’s happening. Right. It doesn’t make sense. It’s not like you’re consciously thinking about it, but it’s like you’re aiming at something and you just let stuff get in the way that shouldn’t.

Mike: Right. And so, uh, have you, you, you’ve coached a lot of people too. Ha, have you seen some of that where people just Oh, sabotage their own results? Right. It could be that you don’t think they’re worthy. Or it could be, they don’t even know why they’re doing it. Right. So what are your thoughts on that?

Rafael: Every, every single day, man, I see it every single day.

Rafael: And not just from students, right? I ha you know, [00:04:00] thankfully, thank God I have a lot of students throughout the country. But, but I mean, we have, we have default modes of behavior psychologically, right? There’s stuff that we just go back to whenever we get stressed. If you’re, for example, you’re doing wholesaling and you’re cold calling and then you get rejected, you know, 10 times and you feel demoralized, you’re gonna build stress, right?

Rafael: And, and, um, we go back to our default actions and a lot of that stuff is, is, you know, tends to be negative. Why? Because we beat ourselves up as we’re growing up for the stuff that we couldn’t accomplish. Right? And we didn’t get first place on that race. I mean, we feel bad as we were little if we sucked at baseball, right?

Rafael: It was just wasn’t in our lane. And I’m using personal examples here, so, So we, we feel, we start feeling like, like we’re not, you know, we’re not enough, right? Um, but what happens is that we start to get programmed to respond that way to new challenges. Um, and, and as we, you know, go through life, even if we’re really good at something, uh, we’re, we’re gonna forget, you know, we’re gonna lose the awareness of it and go back to default thinking, default modes.[00:05:00]

Rafael: And, uh, and a lot of times that’s what happens, right? You see people just, you know, staying in flow and then start to become fearful, uh, of losing it all. Or losing the, uh, you know, the, um, The, the groove or, or they get to a point where they start to hit this glass ceiling and, um, start doing things. Uh, in terms of self-sabotage, that may not necessarily always look like self-sabotage, right?

Rafael: It’s not, it doesn’t always look bad. So it’s not, you know, always depressing or anything. But, um, you know that you’re gonna take a vacation in the middle of, uh, a time that you shouldn’t be taking a vacation, right? So because of, of where you were at in, in a process, in, in a deal transaction or whatever.

Rafael: But we’ll start doing that kind of stuff. Um, Almost in pursuit of that instant gratification when we know it’s not the best course of action at that time. And it’s happened to me a bunch of times in the past. Yeah. And, and what happens is that we circle back, like we come back to that, you know, point of, of beginning, um, where we feel comfortable.

Rafael: Like at the end of the day, we want to go back to that space that we know if we feel, you know, quote unquote comfortable. We’re very familiar with building [00:06:00] from the ground up whenever we get to a point of success that scares us. That’s gonna demand a higher, a better version of us. Um, you know, we start, I don’t know, add a zero to your deals, right?

Rafael: Like, that’s gonna make you nervous. Yeah. Um, it, it’s, it’s, it’s incredible how far we will go to, uh, just reset that and come back to that comfort zone.

Mike: And you know what, what I think exacerbates all that is that a lot of people that are watching us or seeing on social media or whatever, they’re, I don’t mean this in a negative way, they’re just operating.

Mike: If you’re a high performer, like most people are further back than you are. And so you almost like feel like, so like you said, nobody’s gonna say anything. Because most people already think you’re way ahead of them, so they’re not even, so you won’t feel bad if you are not successful because many aren’t at that level, right?

Mike: Yeah. So it kind of holds you back or you pull yourself back to, uh, to a lower level than what you could achieve. You know? And it would be different if you were, for example, you, you were just at investor fuel, [00:07:00] right? So if you’re in a network of people that are high achievers, like you might hit this, uh, ceiling, which is just in your head probably right?

Mike: But if you were around a different group of people that were operating at a way higher level, you’d be able to blow past that. No problem. There’s just this, like you said, a glass ceiling, and it’s really a fake glass ceiling. It’s not even real. You just hit this thing and you just get stuck because that is a.

Mike: You know, the network you have right now, or the people you’ve surrounded yourself with, or the, the mindset of this is, I, I’m ahead of everybody else. Why do I need to keep pushing further? But if you got around another circle that would help you push to another level, you would be at the starting line still maybe,

Rafael: right?

Rafael: Yeah, no, absolutely. And you know, what happens to, I mean, we’d be,

Mike: we’d be, I didn’t say that very succinctly, but I think, uh, yeah,

Rafael: no, no, I get, I get the, uh, I get the, the point. Um, and what happens too is that, I mean, we be, as, as you know, time goes on, we become creatures of habit. And, uh, and we want to, we wanna be familiar with, with our surroundings.

Rafael: We want to be familiar with, you know, with the stuff that, that, you know, that surround us on a regular [00:08:00] basis, right? And we’ll fight for that, but we’ll also fight to be, right. So if you’re wiring, if you’re psyche is, is telling you that you have a, a, i, I don’t know, call it a financial thermostat, right? I’m gonna be able to hit this number and that number is just a big number for me.

Rafael: And it feels scary. It feels like you’re out there. That may be 50 K for some people, a hundred K for some people, a million for other people. Right, right. But we have this financial thermostat. I mean, to, to paint an example on, on how we kind of reset psychologically when we get around that area. Right.

Rafael: We’ll, we’ll start to roll out self-sabotage because subconsciously, Um, success can also create fear, right? We, again, it’s gonna demand a higher version of yourself. It’s gonna demand more commitment, it’s gonna demand you putting yourself in a, in a, in a space where maybe you don’t control everything.

Rafael: Maybe you don’t know all the ins and outs and you’re not as comfortable, right? Um, I remember it took me, my first company, took me eight years to build that thing up, and, and I mean, I got to a point where I was like, you know, fishing, water, right? Swimming in that particular business, transportation, [00:09:00] and I was doing, Really, really well.

Rafael: And as soon as I jumped into real estate, like I started being all kinds of, of, uh, of, uh, you know, risk averse and, and, you know, doubt started creeping in. And my, my, just, my character and my behavior just absolutely changed from that confident, you know, self and entrepreneur, you know, person that I was in that industry to this other one that was like, what the hell am I doing?

Rafael: What is going on? Right. Right. Um, but that’s because, you know, that landscape is just, we don’t know it yet. And as if, if we make the intentional, if we become intentional about moving forward, and, and I think, I think, Mike, what happens to you is a lot of times we don’t have a clear vision. We don’t have a, a clear path of where we, uh, we want to go.

Rafael: Uh, And that creates a lot of noise, right? It creates a lot of noise. And anything that comes along our, you know, uh, our path is gonna be a good option because we don’t have anything set in, in, um, in, in, you know, as a destination, right? And it doesn’t mean that it’s gonna be the exact, you know, same path that you imagined, you’re gonna walk that path.

Rafael: Maybe you’re gonna have to pivot [00:10:00] that a couple of times and whatnot. But you’re, you’re gonna have a, a, I call it a lighthouse. Right. You have, you’re gonna have this beacon that you, that you want to get to. Right. And we have that and we have a clear, uh, perspective on what that looks like. Everything that we do from here to there Right.

Rafael: Uh, becomes, starts to, to get in alignment. Yeah. And, and I think that’s one of the biggest things because we’ll get, we’ll get, um, one of the biggest things that I see in, in self-sabotage for example, is, is shiny object central. Like, oh yeah, I’m doing this strategy, but I saw that on social media, so I’m gonna move out and, and then everything that’s working right now, I’m gonna set it aside.

Rafael: I’m gonna go that because that looks, you know, sexy. Yeah. Um, and, and what happens? I mean, you’re moving your entire thing because you don’t have a stronghold on that final, you know, uh, or ultimate vision that you wanna, you know, you wanna accomplish. Right.

Mike: Yeah. And I think the other thing that happens is there’s this saying, I’ve actually, I don’t know where I heard this from, uh, but I’ve, I’ve used it a lot lately that you can hustle your way to seven figures, but not to eight.

Mike: Yeah. And I think what happens is once [00:11:00] you, like, this is gonna sound like ego driven, right? But I think like I could show anybody how to. This, and this is a big deal for people that are in a W2 job. I could show anybody how to create a business that’s a million dollars a year. Like getting to 10 is way harder, right?

Mike: Oh yeah. So what I think happens is people get up to that level where they have a, a nice, like seven figure business and they get a little bit bored and they, and they like the, um, the adrenaline. From being able to hustle your way to create something else, because that appears to be easier to do than to go from, let’s just say, get a two or $3 million year business to 10, right?

Mike: Be because they don’t have the skill, like they got the skillset to go start over and create another two or $3 million business, but they don’t have the skillset and they’re, they’re not willing to put in the effort or whatever it is the, the investment or whatever to take that three to 10, which honestly would be easier.

Mike: Um, But in their mind, they just think, well, because it’s a different, it’s a different approach. It’s like [00:12:00] management of resources versus hustle. They can go hustle and do something else, and they know how to do that, but they don’t have the skillset yet to be a manager and a good steward of taking on investment, whatever it takes you to get from three to 10, but that would probably ultimately give you the freedom that you want, right?

Mike: Because if you’re going from three to 10 million, like if you’re hustling your way to low seven figure businesses, And not to say that that doesn’t provide a good lifestyle. You don’t have the resources to have a robust team. Right? And this is industry specific. But if you, if you, you know, if you have a two or 3 million real estate business, you’re probably still doing a lot of stuff.

Mike: Like you don’t have a huge bench of, uh, a team. But if you went from three to 10, You would have a coo, you would have a bunch of resources to pay for things. Right.

Rafael: I think it’s really tough to go from three to 10 without having that stuff in place. Yeah. You

Mike: can’t. Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. So you just fall back on, well, I could go start like doing Yeah, something else.

Mike: Flipping cars, right? And you could hustle your way to, uh, a couple million dollar business again, [00:13:00] but it’s not gonna give you that freedom that you probably

Rafael: want. And I, I think also what happens too is that that fear of failure becomes a lot more, you know, a lot more real. Right? Because I mean, and, and I, I love bootstrap scenarios.

Rafael: People who just, you know, they say, okay, I want, I, I wanna improve my life. I want to get better. I mean, that’s, that’s really my passion is coaching bootstraps and, you know, bootstrap entrepreneurs, uh, because I’m one of those, right. But it’s, it’s, uh, I feel like. At the beginning, you’re hungry. You are, you’re okay.

Rafael: Well, I got, you know, this is, this is there, there’s nowhere else to go but up, right? Right. I’m gonna climb this, climb this mountain. We’re doing everything it takes, uh, to get, you know, to this point, the fear, uh, of. Of, uh, failure is not really, you know, it’s not that predominant. Why? Because we’re building stuff and then you get to a point where you have, you know, stuff you achieved, uh, you know, a few things and yeah.

Rafael: Now maybe you have a network, you have a decent business, you have employees and all that stuff, and then the fear becomes a lot more real. Yeah. Um, and I think that’s where, where, where people just kind of pull back. [00:14:00] A lot of that doubt starts to creep in. Yeah. Back, back into your, your psyche. Uh, there’s a lot of doubt when we begin.

Rafael: Right. And a lot of stuff that holds us back from taking action. Um, but at the end of the day, like, I think it’s, it’s all a cycle. If we don’t, if we’re not aware of how we react to our own, uh, psychological triggers, right? That’s one. And then, um, we don’t know how to navigate through them. Like we’re gonna get stuck every single time.

Rafael: Um, that fear and that uncertainty, um, that maybe sense of un unworthiness comes in. Like, who am I to be making 10 mil, 10 mil a year? Right. Right. To be, you know, part of this group of elite people. You know, that that’s, that’s a long process. Yeah, it just

Mike: made me think of this analogy and, uh, as a guy, and it’s, you know, we, of course we have women that listen to, but everybody, I’ll appreciate this, we all have those friends that will never get married because they just, they date somebody and it gets to a certain level and they just wanna start over.

Mike: Like, and the truth is, is things get a little tough. [00:15:00] Things get a little more serious, you know, now you gotta step up and they somehow sabotage it and they just like start over with dating somebody else again. And, you know, they’re like, 40, 50 years old and probably have never been married and probably never will, because it’s just easy for them to go hustle their way to.

Mike: Uh, a new relationship cuz there’s no real responsibilities, you know, and they just sabotage themselves. Right. It’s like that in business too, I think. Yeah. People And I just thought of this analogy and I hopefully, uh, uh, one, the one really good friend of mine, uh, that uh, fits exactly what I just said, isn’t listening to this cuz he’ll be like, you’re talking about me.

Mike: But it’s like, things get hard things, it, it’s hard to stay married, right? It’s hard and it’s hard to commit to. A higher level of business because there are more stakes. There’s more, more to lose. There’s more people that you’re responsible for. But I think if when people are starting off, that’s where everybody says they want to get to.

Mike: But then when you start to get to that point, like you said, sometimes you start questioning, am I worthy of this? Am I capable of this? And the truth [00:16:00] is, nobody came out of the womb. Being a c e o of a 10 million company or having that skillset, you have to learn those things. You have to get coaching, you have to join masterminds, you have to read a lot of books.

Mike: Like you have to lose a lot and fail and fail your way forward and learn from those things.

Rafael: Yeah, a hundred percent. Man, we have to get out of our own heads. Right? It’s, it’s, um, That quiet place can be a scary place sometimes. Yeah. I’m saying don’t ever be there. We have to be there to contemplate, you know, come, you know, come up with original ideas and, and, and kind of find ourselves who we truly are.

Rafael: Right. Um, but also we spend too much time in, in, in that quiet place and we’re not, uh, You know, tapping into different perspectives, reaching it out, you know, to people who are going through, uh, the journey that we’re looking to go in, into. Um, we’re missing out on big opportunities. I mean, we’re, I mean, I, I learned from you and, and, and, uh, and, uh, you know, everybody else around us on a, on a regular basis.

Rafael: It’s, it’s just, it opens up. Perspective. And once we have that seed right, it’s, it’s really hard to [00:17:00] lie to ourselves because, you know, somebody else has done it, you know, it’s possible. You have the, uh, the, uh, the, the proof of concept, although it’s not, you know, it’s not mine yet. I see it happening on a regular basis.

Rafael: Now it becomes a matter. Yeah. Cool. Am I gonna commit to this thing? Um, and am I committed or am I interested in really changing the, the, the, the lifestyle that I have? Am I committed or am I interested in becoming an entrepreneur? Uh, if I’m interested, dude, anything, uh, a new Netflix series is gonna throw me off.

Rafael: The, the, you know, the wagon, right? Yeah. Uh, anything is gonna, it is gonna, you know, create, um, distance between me and my goal. If I’m committed, though, uh, there’s gonna, it is gonna take a lot of force. To break me from that vision, right? Yeah. To throw me off the path. Um, again, sometimes we have to come in and pivot if the market is weird and we have to navigate stuff.

Rafael: Okay, cool. Go back to the drawing board, analyze the basics. See what you know, see what’s up. See if you need to pivot into something else. But don’t lose sight of that one thing that lights you up in the morning. Every morning. [00:18:00] I guarantee you have this every morning. Because I mean, achievers and, and, and, you know, the most successful people that I know, um, wake up with this fire in the gut, and it’s almost an excitement.

Rafael: We don’t wake up in the morning like, Ugh, I gotta go to work again. Ugh. Now we wake up and it’s like, shit, what amazing stuff’s gonna happen? Right? What, you know, what connections am I, am I gonna make, what opportunities are gonna come up? How am I gonna, you know, help somebody improve their life? How’s somebody else gonna improve my life?

Rafael: Right? So I think a lot of that, you know, has to be, has to be adopted. And it took a while for me to just kind of sit with that kind of stuff, right? But those are internal conversations that we have. If we don’t get out of the um, um, Of that, you know, quiet space and, and tap into, again, different groups, different perspectives, even if you have a, a best friend or just a friend or an acquaintance or something.

Rafael: I mean, make it a habit, uh, of, you know, sitting down for lunch and then catching up. Okay, where are you at? You know, how are you feeling? We have a men’s group, dude. Uh, like it’s, it’s, it’s, it used to be, you know, weird [00:19:00] to have a men’s group, right? Because guys get together and then they, they talk about, you know, how they’re feeling, what their mindset is.

Rafael: Uh, all these guys are crushing it, right? And we get together once a month. And then we just do a kinda like a touch, you know, we’re touching base, you know, how are you doing? It’s a group of about 12 of us. And I mean, it’s a big, big support thing, right? That, you know, plays right into, you know, the power of masterminds.

Rafael: It’s the power of just getting out of our own heads and, and sometimes a simple conversation is gonna, is gonna reset your, your ambition. It’s gonna reset

Mike: your Yeah, that’s great. Yeah. We talk about that in investor fuel. It’s kind of a play on words like, come to recharge your batteries, right? It’s like, yeah, they kinda can get reinvigorated and, and to see what’s possible too.

Mike: If you’re in the right circle and if you’re the biggest guy in the circle. Or, or woman, like, that’s not, that’s not ideal like you always want to be. You’d be, you’d be better off being the smallest person in that circle versus the biggest ride. I’ll give you a perfect story for this. This is, uh, really an eye-opener for me yesterday.

Mike: I, I love what I do and I, I love what I get to [00:20:00] do and I love all the freedoms that I have, but. Long story short, I went to, uh, I met my wife in grad school. We went to a, one of the, you know, top 20 or so n b a programs in the country. Great program, you know, and I think there’s a bunch of people that are kind of stuck in middle management.

Mike: And I, in the past I’ve like, you know, I have some friends, I’m like, man, I’m so much better off than where they are. I kind of stuck at, you know, middle management for some job, whatever. I, I, and, and I’ve said that a few times or I’ve thought that, and then yesterday there’s a guy that I was pretty good friends with in.

Mike: Our program, which I’m gonna date myself here, we actually have our 20 year reunion coming up, uh, uh, in September. And there’s a Facebook group for our class. And there’s a guy in there that I was pretty good friends with, I haven’t talked to in honestly, 20 years since we graduated. And I just found out for the past two years.

Mike: He’s, he’s the c e o of a 10.5 billion, uh, oil company. Wow. And I’m like, You know, and he is a couple years younger than me. I’m like, damn. Like, you know, just thinking what’s possible. Like this guy that I used to, he was in my small [00:21:00] group, so we studied together like every day for a couple years, for the most part is now a C E O of a 10 billion company.

Mike: Right? Yeah. And any of us that are listening to this can do that too. And for him, you know, and I haven’t talked to him again in 20 years, but he’s got issues that he’s dealing with, I’m sure. But it’s the, some of the same stuff. If you let the fear of success, the fear of change, Thinking you’re not worthy.

Mike: All that stuff get in the way. Like he wouldn’t be there either. Right? So any of us can achieve bigger things. And sometimes it, my point of saying all this is, it’s just a matter of believing you can do it and being around people that are doing it and just keep pushing it to the next

Rafael: level. Right? A hundred percent.

Rafael: Man. It’s the, uh, like one thing that I, that I, this is how I gauge whether or not I’m in the right room if I feel inadequate. Hmm. Yeah. But I have a feeling of inadequacy. And I’m, it’s almost, I mean, I don’t wanna say intimidation. But it’s like, oh, okay, cool. If I have to think about how can I bring value to this group, if I walk into a group and okay, I know automatically, you know what I’m gonna do, and I, [00:22:00] you know, I have a, a confidence of a thousand walking into the room, more than likely it’s not the right room.

Rafael: Right. Uh, for me. Right. It, it’s like I want to feel inadequate. Yeah. I want to feel like, okay, cool. There’s, there’re like, I have to stretch myself to really put myself in the line here. Uh, because these people are crushing it. These people are, are, you know, I’m learning from them. So I have to bring my, you know, my, my higher and best version, uh, uh, you know, forward, right?

Rafael: So, yeah. So it’s, it’s just kind of, uh, you know, a way of, of looking at things. Um, so I, everybody listening out there, I suggest you start looking at, at events, uh, real estate investor associations, at meetups, at groups. I mean, if you don’t have one in your, in your circle, in your area, I mean, put one together.

Rafael: You know, start scouting, you know, get five, you know, people that you feel are like, you know, top level players, they’re committed. Get ’em into a room. I’m telling you, magic will happen. Like that’s the first thing to get out of that funky mindset that we, you sometimes get bogged down with.

Mike: Yep. I know both of us now, coincidentally, the last two weeks, I came out, uh, and spoke at [00:23:00] you.

Mike: You had a group gathering some amazing people there. I think you had one that night, you had like 60 or 70 people in your office there. Yeah, something like that. And then you came to my Investor Fuel event, which is, you know, is a pretty large event, native event. I love that. I think both of us really believe in the power of, uh, community so much that we’re community creators, right?

Mike: And so, That’s good. That’s a good tip. So with the rest of our time here, maybe you could talk a little bit about some action items, people and, and everybody’s guilty of this. I mean, I get in my own head and here I am thinking that, you know, not that I have a lot of ego thinking of, look at all this stuff that I’ve created, but then I get it.

Mike: I just told you, a friend of mine that I haven’t talked to in a long time is running a 10 billion company. I’m like, damn, maybe I need to make bigger.

Rafael: Right. He’s and he’s looking at another dude that’s running a hundred million.

Mike: Exactly, exactly. Yeah. There’s no doubt about it. Right. And so, But talk about for folks that are listening to this, that know that they do some self sabotage or know they get in the way of their own success, which probably everybody listening to this does at some level.

Mike: Let’s talk about some action items, some things that they can go [00:24:00] apply to, uh,

Rafael: improve. Um, I, I would, I would call, you know, call everybody out to focus on two things. One is gonna be clarity and, and the other one is gonna be deciding whether you are committed to something or you’re interested in something.

Rafael: Okay. Um, so get clear about whatever that vision looks like. I mean, you, one of the things that I do on a regular, I mean, I, I dunno, you probably saw me carrying this around at the, at the, at the Investor film Mastermind. Uh, but I carry, I, I always carry a notebook. I’m always taking notes. Yeah. I take time to journal, journal.

Rafael: For me, it’s, it’s a mind dump. So I have this mind dump exercise that I do on a daily basis. You know, what happened yesterday? I have a gratitude, you know, section in there and it’s just me taking 20, 30 minutes in the morning when I, when I woke up and I’m fresh. Um, to, you know, to give gratitude. It’s really hard to be pessimistic when you’re being grateful about stuff, right?

Rafael: Yeah. So I intentionally line up my day, uh, in the morning that way, right? So I take some, some time, you know, for me just to be in, in my [00:25:00] space and whatnot and kind of quiet my mind, um, going to gratitude, and then I start journaling, okay, what my, what my ideal day would look like. You know, stuff that is lined out, but, uh, lined up.

Rafael: But I never forget about the big picture. Okay, what do I, you know, what do I want to, what, what am I shooting for in three years, right? Um, and then I see myself in that space, and I sit within, you know, at the beginning it can be a little distracting because you’re gonna start thinking about a, you know, a billion other things other than that one vision that you’re trying to kind of shape in your head.

Rafael: But after a while, it starts to become, you know, to become more and more clear. Um, so get clear about where you want to be. I mean, what does that look like? The, you know, what does your office, your work environment, what does it look like, the people around you, who do you wanna be acquainted, you know, with, um, you know, what kind of events do you want to be attending?

Rafael: What kind of spotlight do you want, if any, right? What kind of results you want in your business? So get clear about all that kind of stuff. Then have a, a realistic conversation about where you’re at right now. Like this is a you and you conversation, [00:26:00] um, and get, uh, you know, decide whether you’re interested in creating that, that, uh, Better version of yourself cuz it’s gonna demand a whole other individual.

Rafael: Right. Uh, I won 30 years of my life thinking I was crushing it and then I hit 30 and um, I was like, oh, okay, cool. I mean, I, I, I can do, I can do more. I can actually make an impact on people, but it’s gonna demand a lot more of me. It’s gonna demand a different version. Um, and the. The catalyst for all that to happen was me getting committed to it as opposed to being interested.

Rafael: Uh, and, uh, when we’re interested, it, it’s, it’s easy to just, you know, uh, flake and waffle, right? With, with decision and actions. Um, but if you’re committed and you have a clear outcome on the vision that you want to get to, trust me, you’re gonna figure things out. Uh, you’re gonna figure out, because you’re gonna start brainstorming and you’re gonna start getting, you know, getting obsessive almost about, you know, that particular vision.

Rafael: Right? Yeah. Um, And you’re gonna, you’re, you’re gonna start thinking about who can you know, can I bring into my world? Or [00:27:00] who can I reach out to that maybe can help me get there? And now you start to create, you know, alliances and, and, and connections. And you start it, it’s incredible how the whole thing just kind of starts to unravel and manifest, right?

Rafael: We call it manifestation, but in reality, I think it’s, it’s, it’s, uh, It’s us being intentional about where we wanna get to and then recognizing the resources along the way. Like that’s, that’s a lot of what happens. I mean, in psychology it’s called the reticular activating system, right? We just pay more attention to, to the stuff that we’re interested in.

Rafael: Um, the crazy thing is that we don’t often clarify what we’re interested in. So begin with that.

Mike: Yep. And when I think when you start to vocalize it too in front of other people, your peers or people that you. Respect, then it forces you to start taking different actions. Like, like, man, I, I committed to this.

Mike: And so if you’ve ever done anything like you’ve said, like, Hey, I’m just publicly announcing that I’m gonna lose like 30 pounds in the next six months. It’s like, it’s kind of out there now. Yeah. And it’s some level of accountability, right? Like you’ve, you’ve kind of laid down the gauntlet and people are [00:28:00] gonna ask you about, Hey man, how’s, how’s your, how’s your weight loss going?

Mike: And, uh, you don’t, the last thing you wanna say is like, I haven’t done a damn thing. You know?

Rafael: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Mike: So, awesome, man. So Raphael, you, you, you, a huge giver in the industry here. If folks want to reach out to you, I know you do a lot of coaching, mainly around helping people scale up their systems and processes and things like that.

Mike: Obviously a lot of mindset stuff too. Like if they wanna reach out to you, you’ve got a podcast, you’ve got all kinds of things going on. Kick ass office, we’ve already talked about that. Uh, aside from dropping your address, they come check out your kick as kick ass office. Where, where would they reach out to you and learn, uh,

Rafael: more.

Rafael: Um, you can find me everywhere on social media. I’m pretty active on Instagram at Raphael Cortes, c e o, uh, that’s on there. I do have a, a, um, I coach, uh, real estate wholesale and I scale real estate wholesale businesses, right? So I, I help, um, students, uh, through a couple of different programs. You can find more about that in re ei wholesaling.com.[00:29:00]

Rafael: You can also download a free course that I have on there, uh, real, uh, the wholesale 1 0 1 course. Uh, it gives you a good breakdown and overview of what the entire process looks like and how you can get to your first deal and that sort of thing. So it’s really good content. Uh, it’s a solid, um, uh, training, um, uh, program that I put together there, and that’s completely free so they can find it at r e i wholesaling.com.

Mike: Awesome. We’ll lot a link down in the show notes here. So thanks, uh, thanks for hanging out with me three weeks in a row now, buddy. Yeah,

Rafael: I know. I know I’m putting my mic fixed.

Mike: We gotta figure out what we’re gonna do, uh, next week, I guess,

Rafael: bro. Name it.

Mike: Yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much, guys. I think, uh, hopefully this, this was timely for you.

Mike: I think there’s a lot of stuff over the past couple years that’s made us kind of question why we do what we do, what’s possible. Like the economy’s fizzling a little bit. There’s some people that are thriving. You know, what makes somebody thrive versus just kind of get by or step back because they say the market’s bad.

Mike: I’m just, it’s, it’s between your ears, right? It’s that mindset that you have of believing in yourself. Off, believing what’s possible and being intentional about what your goals are and just going after [00:30:00] ’em. So hopefully this was a little shot in the arm for you today. Uh, Minnie, thanks to Raphael for sharing some great, uh, insights.

Mike: Thanks buddy. Thank you everybody. Appreciate you bunch. Thanks for joining us again. We’ll see you on the next show. Thanks for listening to today’s show. There are three ways I can help you start or grow your real estate investing business if you’re a new investor In just getting started, the Flip Nerd Investor Coaching Program is the most effective program in America.

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