Summary

In this conversation, Rod Khleif shares his inspiring journey from being an immigrant to becoming a successful entrepreneur in real estate. He discusses the importance of mindset, goal setting, and the lessons learned from his experiences, including significant losses and recoveries. Rod emphasizes the need for innovation in business, the impact of economic changes, and the value of building social capital. He also highlights the difference between achievement and fulfillment, encouraging listeners to find purpose in giving back while pursuing their goals.

Takeaways

Rod immigrated to the US at six and faced early struggles.
Mindset is crucial for success; 80-90% of success is psychological.
Rod built 27 businesses, viewing failures as learning experiences.
He lost $50 million in 2008 but focused on recovery and growth.
Setting clear goals is essential for achieving success.
Surrounding yourself with positive influences is critical.
Cash is king during economic downturns; opportunities arise in crises.
Adding value consistently is key to building a following.
Happiness comes from progress, not just achievements.
Giving back enhances personal fulfillment and accelerates success.

 Watch the Interview:

Transcript:

Jon Stoddard (00:00.206)
Welcome to the top &A entrepreneurs. have a special guest today is Rod Cleaf. Rod has got a great story. Immigrated to the US when he was six. Struggled goodbye, bought clothes from Goodwill. know, decided. You're stealing my thunder here, man. You go ahead and tell it. You tell it. All right. You tell it. It's on your LinkedIn, but I love it. Thanks, buddy. I appreciate you having me on. Let's have some fun today.

Yeah, I immigrated when I was six. was born in the Netherlands, know, think wooden shoes and windmills. And really we ended up in Denver, Colorado, immigrated with my brother, Albert, my mother's Vantia. And, you know, we really struggled initially. I, in fact, I remember, you know, eating expired food. went to an expired food store when I was young, we drank powdered milk with our cereal in the morning.

which wasn't very good. will tell you, I remember wearing clothes in the Goodwill and the Salvation Army all the way through junior high school till I lied about my age at Burger King. So when I was 14 to get a job flipping burgers so can buy my own clothes. But I'm sure you've got listeners, especially in the entrepreneur arena that had her harder than I did. It seems like entrepreneurs very often have challenges early on in their childhood and or adulthood that spur that drive like I did.

But, I knew I wanted more and luckily my mom had an incredible work ethic. So she babysat kids so we'd have enough money to eat with her babysitting money. She invested in stocks and in real estate. And the first real estate acquisition was right across the street from us. She bought a house. And when I was 14 for about 30 grand, when I was 17, she told me she made $20,000 in her sleep. And I'm like, what? You made 20 grand, you didn't do anything? So I got into real estate right when I turned 18.

You know, my first year in real estate, I made about 10 grand. Second year, about 10 to 12 grand. My third year, I made over a hundred thousand. And so, you what I'm known for on my podcast- old were you? I was a hundred grand. I was 20. 20. Okay. So this is 1980. It was pretty decent change. hundred grand back I wasn't making money in 80. I think I was still listening to rock and roll and yeah. Right. Right. Well, I was too, but I was very much a capitalist. But

Jon Stoddard (02:10.094)
But you know what happened was I met a guy talking about mindset and psychology and how really 80 to 90 % of your success in anything really is your mindset and psychology. know, fast forward to today, I've built 27 businesses. I don't call them failures when they don't make it. I call them seminars. And several of those were worth tens of millions of dollars. Most were spectacular flaming seminars. know, in 2006, my net worth actually went up $17 million while I slept.

And you might be like, wow. And I was like, wow. And I thought I was a freaking real estate god. Because at that point, I'd owned 2,000 houses that I rented long-term, multiple apartment complexes. But I got a head so big, I could barely fit it through a door. when that happens, god of the universe will give you a nice little smack. Well, that was 2008. I lost $50 million in 2008. Yeah. Yeah. So on my podcast, I teach people how to buy apartment buildings. And on my podcast,

You know, I talk about the mindset it took to have 50 million to lose in the first place, but then just as importantly, the mindset it took to get back to the success that I have today. But we can go as mechanical as you want, about the &A and about business. I gotta talk to you about the mindset part. first of all, I wanna go back because I had called a friend of mine who interviewed you earlier, Joshua Wilson down in Florida also. yeah, yeah. good things about you and said,

Yeah, you got to talk to him because he went up, crashed, came back and went back up again. what? So we all know it was the crash. was the ego was the overextending yourself. you know, not not not in my case. me tell you what it was. The reason the reason I crashed and burned. So I had 800 houses and I was only a 30 % loan to value. People are like, you were over leveraged. No, I owe 30 cents on the dollar. Okay. But here's here's what went wrong. So

I had 800 houses and I had several apartment complexes. Well, my houses were two hours north of me, two hours south of me, everywhere in between. Okay. So very difficult logistically, but here's the things that killed me, the big ones. So Florida has no state income tax. So property taxes are higher, which impact what? Cashflow, right? Okay. I had properties in wind and flood zones. So they had higher insurance, which impact what? Cashflow. But what killed me was these were C class houses. You know, there's A, B, C and D class. D is the hood.

Jon Stoddard (04:32.098)
These were C just above D. so, tougher demographic, number one, older properties. So there's a lot of maintenance. And so if I sent a guy to one of my apartment complexes, everything's the same. The plumbing parts are the same, the HVAC parts, the appliance parts, the door locks, everything's the same. So you can stockpile parts and they can be in and out in an hour. Well, if I had to send somebody one of my houses that's an hour, hour and a half one way.

They'd have to go see what was wrong because every house is different. Go to a Home Depot or a Lowe's where we have an account. And then I don't know about you, but when Rod's happy ass tries to fix something, he goes to Home Depot more than once. It's the same thing with maintenance people. And so, you know, what took an hour at one of my apartment complexes, it took all day at one of my 800 houses. So that really killed my cash flow. so it's like this is very interesting because I was reading some history about some acquisitions in the funeral home business and HMO business back in back in the years.

It doesn't scale because everybody's different. Well, this didn't scale because every house was different, okay? And so, you know, listen, it was great while the gravy train was running in 2006 and nobody could see the end. this is, by the way, it feels all, this feels like 2006 all over to me again right now as we record this. you know, so, and the last thing.

that's kind of specific to real estate is I didn't pay attention to my tenant demographics. I mean, if they had good credit and they had a job, you know, I let them in and they paid a deposit. Well, you know, come to find out most of them were plumbers, electricians, drywallers, painters, roofers, all of which fell off a freaking cliff in 08 and 09. So they didn't have a job. So it was just like the perfect storm. And then what's really crazy is I actually went upside down. My portfolio dropped more than 70 % in value. So was like, okay, I'm done. And I threw the towel in, but, but you know, it, it, it again,

My, I'm known for talking about, you know, that the mindset it took them to be there to start with, and then the mindset it took to recover. And, you know, I've bought thousands of apartment units the last few years and to get back to where I am now. And, but, but again, we can take this wherever you want. So I want to first, we're going to get to that what's happening now and what does it look like? But I want to ask you about what you're in a hole. You're digging out this first time. What was the mindset and what was the change?

Jon Stoddard (06:49.377)
to find that out of that sand pit. Yeah, yeah. And honestly, it's very similar to get there in the first place. Okay, it's becoming very, very clear on what I wanted and why I wanted it. So, you know, if you come to one of my boot camps, I've got a boot camp coming up the end of July in Denver. I only do one live event a year and it's the three-day boot camp. But, and I'll tell your peeps how they can come for literally $197 and it's not a sales pitch. But the point is,

when you come, the first hour and half are spent doing goals. I mean, it's called, call it goal setting on steroids because how the hell you get anything if you don't know what it is with clarity and then as importantly know why it is that you want it. And so this is first thing we do because you have to create what Napoleon Hill in his book, Think and Grow Rich calls a burning desire. You got to want it. And so that's the first thing we do. And so that was, that was how I recovered that one of the ways there were several things, but one of them was knowing exactly what I wanted in

Reassociating with that instead of focusing on the pain and the loss, you know, if you're listening to John, I know you're a leader. Okay. And right now more than ever, the world needs leaders as a leader. It's critical that you direct your focus to the things that you want, not what you don't want. Cause whatever you focus on gets larger. Don't get me started on the fake news. And you know, the news isn't there to inform us. It's there to scare us and startle us. You know, that's an example of that, but it's important that you focus on what you want. And you know, like, for example, they asked mother Teresa,

when she was live, if she was anti-war and she said, no, I'm pro-peace. know, this is just a play on the same thing. But the point is, that's the point I'm making there. And so, you know, I re-associated with my goals. That was the number one thing that I did and got realigned, re-associated and just, you know, picked myself, dusted myself back off. And then I, then, you know, I got around people that were actually thriving through the crash. I was in this mastermind, very high level mastermind, about a hundred grand a year. And there were people there that were killing it.

And they're like, okay, 50 million, get up, you big baby and get back after it kind of a thing, you know? that's, so who you hang out with is critical as well, okay? And, you know, and I will tell you, you know, as entrepreneurs, it's very easy, you know, when we first have a dream or vision about a business, it's a fragile thread. We gotta be very, very careful who we share it with because, you know, people out of their fear or...

Jon Stoddard (09:02.795)
fear of losing you or fear of feeling less than because you succeeded or jealousy or whatever, they can squash your dreams. Let me ask you about that. Yeah. family and who you surround yourself with, did you lose anybody in Sometimes, by the way, sometimes that's family. That's I mean. And so what you have to do, I tell you, is love your family, but choose who you allow to influence you, right? Proactively. know, so many people will default.

but in their peer group to people they work with or people they went to school with. And that's not being proactive. You wanna be around people that want more out of life. Like I've got a student program, I call them my warriors. They're my coaching students. There's about a thousand of them in there. And I brag about something I'm really proud of. They now own somewhere between 60 and 70,000 units that we know of. And I've only been teaching a little over four years, but that's the kind of group you wanna be in a group like that.

in a meetup group or a group of people that have similar vision, want more out of life, and that are gonna validate and motivate and not discourage you. They're gonna inspire you and push you like that group that I was in. And so that peer group is a big piece, but you, okay, it starts with the burning desire.

then, you know, you have to make that decision. And I made a decision that I was going to quit whining and feeling sorry for myself. And, you know, and if you're just getting started, you got to make a decision that you're totally committed. Because, and when I say decision, I don't mean a toe in the water. I don't mean one foot in. I mean, if you're attacking the island, you're burning your ships because you're taking their damn ships home. That's a freaking decision. It's done. Okay. It's total commitment. And when you've totally committed like that, you're like a train on a track. If you don't commit, you'll get knocked off track.

you motivation will get you started, that commitment is what brings you home. And so, you know, once you've committed, then, you know, I will tell you, obviously you have to plan, but you have to be able to push through any fear or limiting beliefs that you have. And, you know, I remember when I immigrated this country, I didn't speak English and I got thrown into school and I found out what bullies were for the first time. And then my mom, proud Dutch woman that she has thought it'd be a great idea to send me to school in wooden shoes and those leather shorts.

Jon Stoddard (11:13.899)
My dad was in the Air Force. lived over there and we visited. And I still have my wooden shoes. Yeah, well, you didn't get get to have to go to school and encounter bullies with your friggin wooden shoes on. So I got my butt kicked again. I hadn't learned how to fight back yet. And then the bullies would chase me home from school and my mom would chase him off with a fly swatter. So the next day I got a butt kick and again. And so, you know, I came up with this limiting belief that I wasn't good enough. You know, many people have these, you know, I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough.

I'm not analytical enough, I'm too old, I'm too young, whatever. And there's a reason the acronym for belief systems is BS because 99 % of them are just that BS. But that's why that, you know, the goals are so important and that burning desire is so important because, you know, that's what's gonna get you to push through that crap. But then you gotta take that first step, you know? And in my case, I just had to get myself back up, you know, but for somebody starting out, you know,

that like in my business that, know, in multifamily real estate, that first deal is always the hardest. It's the scariest. My students, you know, they'll be crying and whining because it's six months. They don't have a deal yet or eight months or whatever. And then they get one next thing, you know, they have five, you know, and it's the same thing, you know, with anything, right? I mean, once you push past that and you realize, you know, anything you give your total energy and focus to is going to flourish, then you're off to the races. And, you know, and we don't want any regret. And I'll tell you,

know, some people fear failure. Like maybe you're listening to John here because you want to start a business and you know, want to be an entrepreneur and maybe fear of failure is holding you back. Let me give you a warning here. There was this nurse in Australia named Bronnie Ware. She was a hospice nurse and so she was taking care of patients when they were about to die and she asked him a question and the question John was, do you have any regrets? And she wrote a book about it. It's called The Five Regrets of Dying. You know what the number one regret was?

not doing what I know I'm capable of, living somebody else's life. I can't think of anything worse than that. So, you know, being very, very clear on what you want and why you want it is that fuel to get you to take action, to grind for a few years like most people won't, so you can live rest of your life like most people can't. That's why you've got to have that so that you take that first step. But, you know, I can keep going. There were a few other things. I don't want to monopolize the conversation, but.

Jon Stoddard (13:32.205)
What do you do? What do you do? I know what I do. It's like a momentary failure or something didn't happen your way. What do you say to yourself in your head? Great question. Great question. So here's the thing. There is a formula for success. And I mean, success is never a straight line. It's like a boater or a pilot. You're off course 99 % of the time. Now, do you make it? Yes. Okay. But, but

but you've got to recognize it's the same way with your goals. So when you get your nose bloodied or your butt kicked, it's critical that you refocus on your ultimate outcome, your goals, and then you change your approach. And when that approach doesn't work, you refocus on your ultimate outcome and your goals and you change your approach. And I think you can rinse and repeat here if that doesn't work. I mean, cause you're going to have walls drop in front of you. And I can tell you, I've had several situations. I had a big...

litigation support company that I built after I lost everything in 2008. This was a company that helped people in foreclosure. And we helped thousands of families save their homes. But in the end of 2010, it almost went bankrupt. So were at the bottom, all your are below market value. So you started a company to help other people not lose their homes. So that's That's your first shovel.

That was- were helping people to help yourself. Well, I was helping people and it helped me as well. I it was for fee, but we saved a lot of homes. It wasn't a fun business. will say this, wasn't a fun business. Nobody's happy when they're losing the homes. I sold the business a few years ago, but it was a $10 million company with 60 employees. But the point I wanted to make there is it almost went bankrupt in 2010 and I had to innovate. Okay. I had to pivot and I didn't bankrupt it. I just changed something where we actually-

I built law firms in five states and we supported those law firms, but I built them ground up. Nobody had ever done this before. And I had to innovate. Another example, right before COVID hit in February of 20, I had 800 people scheduled to be in Orlando at a live event. And I'm like, what the hell are we gonna do now? And so I had to innovate. And if you go to multifamilyvirtualbootcamp.com, you'll see Rod on his phone recording, I still haven't changed it, I need to change it. But I'm recording the video for that event. Because like the next day I'm like, hey, we gotta go virtual.

Jon Stoddard (15:53.291)
And so I, you know, we reacted probably quicker than anybody else did as far as, I built a video studio now here in my compound in Florida. But, you know, so sometimes as an entrepreneur, have to innovate, we have to pivot. Okay. And we go through these transitions and guys, there's a recession coming. Okay. I don't know how bad it's going to be. I, I, I hope, I don't think it's going to be as bad as 08 and nine. All the indicators indicate it's not.

But to think that it's not gonna happen is naive. It is absolutely gonna happen. And if you're not paying attention to it, I mean, I'm having conversations with my team every day about it because it's coming. And so, but anyway. Let me go to this because there is a storm coming, but it looks a little bit different. I mean, we've both been on the planet for a while. So, interest, the Fed is pumping a ton of money out there. Interest rates are less than inflation right now.

It makes holding cash a losing proposition. higher interest rates will slowly come and cause unemployment. It's going to swallow up tax revenue because the government has to pay interest on the massive debt. It's also increased the rate of default on home mortgages. commercial is coming too, just so know. Commercial. That's how the 2008 market seized up. It's kind of like a doom loop. And it encourages more inflation. But

In contrast to 2008, there's still trillions of dollars in private equity family office money looking to be put to work. That is absolutely correct. What is the play here? I'm trying to, you know, everybody wants to play this poker game of like, what's going to come up and then next. So my brother and I had a conversation at dinner last night. My brother's a brilliant guy, top of his class, engineer and

we had dinner because I wanted to ask him that question because we're both in a lot of cash right now and it's killing us because it's it's just like depleting. But, you know, I know that with crisis, cash is king. Now it doesn't have to be your own cash. It can be just availability of cash, but you know, there are exponential opportunities when things like this happen. And so, you know, I was like, God, I got to invest in something. It's killing me. It's killing me. And he's like, you know what, maybe you should just sit tight.

Jon Stoddard (18:08.629)
and wait for some opportunities to come because they are coming and he's kind of right. Now we're still looking at deals. I'm probably gonna put something under contract today in the, what, a $12 million range and we got another one in the $40 million range. But we're being super conservative right now. We are stress testing the hell out of these deals. Now this is real estate. I know you talk more business, but real estate is a business. These multi-family apartment complexes are absolutely a business. We do a business plan and we raise money and then we have to

follow the plan and you know, but debt is so challenging right now because really all that's available is bridge debt in my realm for these assets and that's adjustable rate debt. It's a five-year term, typically three years with two one-year extensions and you know, hard to inflation though. Like what is it? What do you see? Well, you've got to buy a rate cap, okay, for the term of the loan. I can tell you, they used to be about a hundred grand. We just priced one out on 25 million.

and it was almost a million dollars for the rate cap. so you got to factor all that in too. a Carter type rates or what? No, I don't think it's going to get that bad. But they have to, you know, they've talked about five more rate increases. They just raised it 50 basis points a couple of weeks ago, half a percent interest, which is staggering, frankly. And sellers are just now finally starting to realize, hey, you know, I screwed up. I should have sold earlier and I'm going to have to adjust my pricing if I want to sell before it really gets bad. And so

there's gonna be some incredible opportunity in my space, in the multifamily space, but possibly also with businesses as well. Now, as it relates to businesses, I've been reading that it's anticipated that service industry businesses will actually do quite well because there's that pent up demand for travel and people may not spend as much on goods, but they might spend things on movies and fun and travel. So I thought that was an interesting perspective.

If any market, the Doctor Strange movie from Marvel, it kicked butt over the first couple of weeks. So people, it was kind of demand to go to a popcorn and spend $20 on a pop. Right, right, right. I think people will do that. And so, and you know, the other things that are indicators that it won't be quite as bad as employment right now is insane. I mean, you can't hire good people. I mean, McDonald's is paying $15, $16 an hour, Hobby Lobby is at $18, Amazon's at $18. I mean, you know,

Jon Stoddard (20:31.565)
So the rate of pay has gone up and the unemployment is very low. You know, factor that in. And then, you in my business, you know, can't speak to business. I understand the employment. Like, why is it low? Because you're waiting, sitting around looking for $25 an hour. Good question. If I knew the answer to that, I'd on My wife helps run a small business and hiring people today to do what she needs them to do is

Just a few years ago, $15 an hour. It's now 25. Right. know. Same, yeah, same, same. Maintenance is maintenance people in my, in my, has literally almost doubled in salaries and, you know, fast food and all these things have gone way up. And so, you know, it's going to be interesting to see what industries do well through this. And my brother and I were trying to figure this out last night to capitalize and get the highest cash on cash return for our investments. But then we kind of, the conclusion at the end of the night is, we're just going to sit on our cash right now because

know, we both feel like there going to be some exponential opportunities to really get exponential deals. Okay. Now, we're still, like I say, we're still buying and looking and doing all that, but there could be some exponential opportunities. By the way, let me just say this, if you allow me to plug my event, if you are interested, if you're interested in multifamily, for God's sakes, come spend three days with me in July in Denver. It's not a sales pitch. It's three days of training. I expect, you know, somewhere between 800 and 1000 people and

I teach every aspect of this multifamily business buying apartments and there's no greater hedge for taxes than multifamily investing. It's the greatest asset class out there by far, know, much better than retail or office or industrial because for a lot of reasons, we don't have to get into them but the point is it is. if you're interested Rod in Denver.com or you could text my name Rod to 72345 now.

price is going up in a couple of days, this probably won't air in time. It's $197. Now, if the price has gone up and just DM me on any social channel, I'm on all of them and I'll make sure you get that price. Also, please remember this, if you are interested in this, I've got a bonus special right now that if you're a friend of John's, just to let me know, you heard me on John's podcast, that if you use the word bonus when you check out, you get my deal evaluator software and my document library. Hell, the two of those are worth two grand minimum.

Jon Stoddard (22:52.947)
I've spent tens of thousands on the document library. So you get that with it for 197 bucks. It's kind of a no-brainer, honestly. If you're interested in this business, if you're not, no harm, no foul. But let me just say this as well. So I have a podcast. called Lifetime Cashflow Through Real Estate Investing. It's the largest, I'm blessed to say, that's not ego, but I'm blessed to say it's the largest commercial real estate podcast in the world now. And every week, I do a clip called Own Your Power, and it's motivational. And so if you

know, if you want to get juiced, if you're having a down week, come listen to my podcast. I promise you, you give me five minutes, I'll juice you. I do one every week. There's hundreds of them there. And if you just remember this, rodslinks.com, if you go to rodslinks.com, can see all my free stuff. got a ton of free stuff there, but there's also a link to the podcast there, but it's called Lifetime Casual. 10 million downloads? 13 million. Rod 13 million. 13 million like in the next week. What kind of doors does that open for you?

Well, you know, it's created some my ability to meet some great people like you, you know, and if I want to raise money for a deal, you know, we just bought a 296 unit asset in San Antonio and we raised the money very quickly. So it does all that. The mechanics of that. What kind of like SEC filing did you?

do that. it's a syndication. That's a syndication where you actually do what's called a 5063 syndication. So I can only talk to accredited investors. That's why I'm able to talk about them.

on the podcast. Back in the day, if you raised money, you had to have a, you know, they used to have what's called a three touch rule. You had to talk to somebody three times before you could tell them about a deal. It was the 506B program. But now they've got since the Dodd-Frank Act, they came out with this. you know, you can shout out from the list. The reggae and the 506C. So I just want to point out to that, that social capital you created has made raising capital for your investments so much easier.

Jon Stoddard (24:50.125)
piece of cake. And of course, I developed, know, I used to tell people early on in my podcast, I'll never sell you anything because I never intended to do anything with it. And then they hit a million downloads like, okay, knucklehead, you probably ought do something with this. So I wrote a book, away 20,000 copies of the book, but then people are like, please create a course or something. And now, of course, I've got a thousand students around the country and I do sold out live events. Every one of my live events is always sold out and, you know, and I love it, man. I freaking like, fact, look on the wall behind me, you can see.

some of the hundreds of thank you cards from listeners, the whole wall back there is covered. can't even see behind the green screen. know, when you love what you do, work is play, right? So let's go back to that conversation you had with your brother about what their criteria you're kind of putting in a filter for what businesses. Cash on cash return, buddy. That's it. All the way down the line. It's all about how much money my little dollar soldiers are making for their work. So it's all about my cash on cash return.

And if you're not familiar with that term, you know, if you put a hundred grand into something out of your pocket and you get 10,000 back the first year, that's a 10 % cash on cash return. So that's, and it's an annualized number and 10 % used to be our bare minimum on our multifamily assets. Now we've dropped that because we've had to with what's happening in the market. But you know, it's down around seven, real six, seven, but that's still better than you're going to get, you know.

targets of opportunity that, know, hey, man, I got to sell and. See, thing of it is, I'm kind of in a unique position because we have deals coming from us from all over the country. From your students, like kind of. Just had a student give us a deal. I can't say where because we haven't locked it up yet. But, you know, they need three million. I can raise that in a day. And so, you know, we get deals that other people don't get. And so, by the way, if you are an accredited investor,

you know what that means and you have an interest in, you know, being in our pipeline just to see if we get a deal to find out about it. Just text the word partner to 72345 and then register on our portal so that you get first glance at a deal that we get because I'm very, very conservative because, you know, hit me once, shame on you, hit me twice. It's my own fault, right? So I'm very, very conservative and even with that, we're still finding great deals and so

Jon Stoddard (27:01.665)
But yeah, you know, there's two parts of this. I love is I wanted to get your, you know, take on what's going to be happening, where the opportunities are with what's happening right now, because everybody, once you start talking about a shit storm coming with the economy, people start going, okay, conserve cash, conserve cash, conserve cash. And then they still look for opportunities, but it's there's a different level of criteria or filtering. put them correct. Correct. The second part is

what you did with your celebrity status and sharing your story and that social capital you created to actually help your business grow faster. I'm actually doing a course right now on creating reach because my students, know, in this business, they have to, you know, to do what I'm doing where they raise money, they've got to have some sort of a presence somehow.

do their own meetup group or their own. I've got a few dozen students have done podcast interviews, some award-winning, I mean podcasts, know, Facebook groups. You know, I'm blessed to host the largest multifamily Facebook group on Facebook, over 45,000 people in there. And it was just working it, you know, but, you know, but I'm on all social channels now. My team's even got me on TikTok. I couldn't even spell TikTok, you know, three months ago. And now I've had videos that are almost at 800,000 views.

like, that's funny. that's funny. And then you like 30 minutes later, you're like, know. I know. It's those algorithms. You know, I don't know if you've ever seen the social dilemma, but those that movie, the social dilemma, you know, those supercomputer algorithms know how to suck you in. mean, listen, I don't even want to look at my phone is how much time I spent on those damn videos, because you just get sucked in like crazy. But but anyway, the point is, you know, there are so many ways today to

create reach and you don't need the millions of downloads that I've got. You don't need to spend a million dollars. You build it on LinkedIn. but here's the secret. Okay, there's two secrets to this. And in fact, Josh and I talked about this when he was down in my compound here last time I saw him, your buddy. But you know, there's two secrets here. One is you've got to add value period. If you put crap out, you are crap. heard that that's somebody else's quote. But the point is you've got to add value. That's number one. Number two is you have to be consistent.

Jon Stoddard (29:16.813)
So whatever vehicle you decide to choose, a Facebook group, a LinkedIn page, a YouTube channel, a podcast, a meetup group, whatever it is, to create that reach, you've got to focus on how you add value and you're not going to be in it for a few months. This is something you're going to do consistently. And that's how you build that. if you want that's why I everybody goes like, they asked me if I want to start a podcast. And I go, here's what you want to do. Set a goal for 100, right off the bat. Not just like if it's going to do 10 or 15. 100. Right, right. Otherwise, don't bother.

You know, and there are times I do not feel like doing a fricking episode. Like I do those on your power clips. Those are all from me, written from me, you know, and I'm like, man, I feel like crap, but I get one out every week. I do have a question for you. You know, I do an hour podcast or a 32 minutes or 40, like this right here. How difference in change, like in like attendance and audience did you get when you started doing the smaller clips, the 90 second? Well, listen, listen.

So I'm known for mindset and psychology, okay? I talk about it all the time. I really believe it. You know, that's again, that's how I had 50 million to lose and how I got back was all mindset and psychology. I'm not technically skilled at all. And so, you know, I will tell you, I think the reason my podcast has done so well is people don't remember what you said, but they remember how you made them feel.

You you come to one of my, you come to my bootcamp, you will cry. I promise you, you will tear up, you will laugh. It's not your typical real estate bootcamp. Because not only we spend time on goals, I help you create your identity statement, which is critical to pull you into it. We do all these exercises that, so you freaking take action with what you learn. So it's not just, you know, you're not just like most people, they'll go to an event and never do a damn thing with it. Not my event, okay? You will leave super juiced, super motivated, super ready to take action and with the, you know,

plan to do that. And so I take that very seriously. And like when I talk about adding value, let me show you something. I have written, here's some of the books I've written in the last gosh, two years, okay? Cause I'm always writing. And I give them away for free. Okay. I just, they're lead magnets for me. You know what that means, where you get somebody's email address and then you can keep.

Jon Stoddard (31:29.953)
you know, sending them stuff. so this our digital marketing people. they know what that is. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Exactly. So, so, you know, and I'm always doing that. I just finished one on asset management. And again, I give them away for free, but they're quality. mean, they are freaking a couple of these are the best in the business. And so, you know, I'm adding value and I will tell you, if you sit and look at the most successful people on the planet, they're the ones that add the most value. Okay. I mean, look at Bezos Bezos. I can buy your hat on Amazon.

in 30 seconds right now. I could go on there and buy that hat that you have on. I mean, that's adding some freaking value, right? And Musk turning around the electric car industry. mean, so again, focus on adding value. And when you do that, success is inevitable. It just is. And the point where you help people save their houses when you were coming out of that first 2008, I mean, that's biblical.

you look at. you brother. actually have a better story than that and I'd like to share it. Typically what I'll do on these interviews is I'll talk about my goal setting because I'll describe the process but here's what I'll do. If you go to that rodslinks.com, I did my goal setting exercise. It takes about an hour and a half with music with a guide you can download on January 1st this year. I do it every year around the 1st and it's there and you can do it with your spouse and I'm going to encourage you, highly encourage you to do it to get aligned on what you want. So go to Rod's Links

Go to the bottom, rodslinks.com, go to the bottom and you'll see my goal setting workshop with the guy and do it. But, and why did I bring that up? okay, so, right, right, right. So one of the stories I like to tell was, you know, I grew up in Denver and, but I knew I was wanting to live on the beach and there's no beach in Denver, obviously. So I would visualize the palm trees and the sand and the surf and the waves. And 20 years later, I built this $8 million, 10,000 square foot mansion on the beach.

Okay, the beach on one side, I had my boat lifts on the backside. It was called a golf to bay. was a slice through an island, which was unthinkable when I was 18, but I made it happen. But the point is two months after I moved in, so I worked for this thing for 20 fricking years, two months after I moved in, I'm floating in the pool at night. And I mean, just to describe this house, okay, it had a waterfall, giant waterfalls on the second floor balcony into the pool. had to walk through the waterfall to get in the pool. Pool was in magazines, elevator, wine cellar.

Jon Stoddard (33:45.995)
big giant spiral staircase up through the middle of the house. I'll land the plane with this on the second floor. There was aquariums that were built around the staircase. cost me almost 200 grand. So that gives you an idea of the house. So two months after I moved in, I'm looking up at this testament to my ego, because really that's what it was. It was to prove the world I was good enough, you know, and, and that's the truth of it's a little embarrassing, but I look at it and I got depressed. And this again, I worked for it for 20 years, two months after I moved in, I got depressed. I'm like, what the hell? I mean, really depressed, like what the hell's going on?

I just achieved success. had the Maserati in the garage, the Lamborghini, the Mercedes. I had all the stuff. I had a beautiful family, beautiful house. What I realized was several things happening. Number one is it's never about the goal. You got to have the goals to juice you and create that burning desire. But they say the happiest days of a boat owner's life are the day they buy the boat, the day they sell the boat, right? It's about who you become on your path to the goals. And happiness comes from progress and growth. But there was a bigger thing happening.

realized that I was totally focused on Rod. Show the world I matter. Show the world I'm good enough. Rod, Rod, Rod. Well, that was the year I went and saw Tony Robbins because I went out and bought some books and one of them was his. I'm like, I really like this stuff. So I went and saw him with my brother and I saw that he fed families for the holidays. And I'm like, what a concept. Do something for someone else. I'm embarrassed, sad to be 40 to get that memo. Well,

I went back home and I called my brother and I was gonna go visit him in Denver for Thanksgiving. said, hey, let's feed five families. Let's have some fun. So he went to his church and found five families that really needed help, found out if they had kids. And we went out and bought big Thanksgiving dinner, frozen turkey, toys for the kids and boxes of food. It was a blast. And the third family changed my life, John. We go up to this house. There's this woman in there with five kids in this crappy one bedroom. Wasn't even a one bedroom. And she comes out and she sees the food and the toys and she starts crying and her.

kids come out and the older one start crying, I start crying and I'm hooked. And I'm blessed to say in the last 21 years, we've fed 110,000 children here in Sarasota and Bradenton, Florida. And I'm not telling you this to brag, there's a message at the end of this really important one. We've also done tens of thousands of backpacks filled with school supplies to local kids that don't have the basic supplies they need for school. Don't get me started on that. Greatest country on earth, kids don't have supplies to school. We've, you know, I've done tens of thousands of teddy bears.

Jon Stoddard (35:59.095)
to local police departments for their officers to keep in their vehicles. So if they count our child has been traumatized, they can comfort the child. And the reason I bring this up is, as an entrepreneur, we've been taught to achieve to be happy. Like we can't really be happy until we've achieved. A lot of people have that mindset. I'm gonna tell you.

Tony Robbins calls it the science of achievement versus the art of fulfillment where achievement really is a science. If you wanna learn multifamily for God's sakes, come spend three days with me. There's a map and a blueprint, you just have to take action. But fulfillment really is an art. You've gotta find something that juices you and incorporate that into your life. For me, it's kids, maybe it's the elderly for you or the environment or animals, whatever it is. But if you're sitting here listening to the show saying,

You've got blood dripping from your teeth. Yeah, I'll do it when I have the money. No, big mistake. Do something right now because instead of achieving to be happy, you'll be happily achieving. And I know it's a play on words, but it's an important one. And you'll get to success much faster. Now you don't do it for that reason, but I'm just telling you. So if you're not giving back in some fashion, do it immediately, even if it's just your time because your success will come quicker. I just promise you. But again, that's not why you do it. Yeah. And the way you see it,

every achievement, you're gonna be more grateful for that achievement and it just grows. You're more patient in your achievements. Kleefe, how do people get in touch with you? audience is on LinkedIn. what's the best way? Rod Kleefe. Rod Kleefe, I'm on LinkedIn for sure. you know, Real Estate with Rod is the best way to get to my website because nobody can spell my last name. So if you go to Real Estate with Rod, it goes right to rodkleefe.com.

And there's tons of free resources there, know, links to my podcast, my bootcamp, my lots of free books and videos and articles and stuff. If you have an interest in this business, come check it out. And again, if you're not interested in the business, but you feel like you could benefit from some motivation once a week, for God's sakes, subscribe to my podcast. I promise you'll enjoy it. I'm really proud of it. Yeah. Rod, thank you so much. Thanks, brother. Appreciate it. Pleasure to meet you. All right.