From Pain to Purpose-Driven Profit with Faith-Based Visionary Lee Arnold
Episode Details
Transcript
Discover how real estate mogul Lee Arnold went from losing everything in the 2008 crash to restructuring his approach to real estate investing and building a purpose-driven business. But what you'll find surprising is the unexpected role faith played in his journey. Stay tuned to find out how he turned adversity into abundance and transformed his business with a powerful twist.
My special guest is Lee Arnold
Lee Arnold is the CEO of Secured Investment Corp, a seasoned real estate investor, developer, and bestselling author. With years of experience in perfecting real estate investing and private money lending, Lee offers valuable insights into the industry. Having faced the challenges of the 2008 real estate crash, he brings a unique perspective on restructuring and reprioritizing business approaches. Lee's journey from adversity to success showcases his resilience and determination, making him a valuable guest for real estate investors looking to learn from industry experiences.
"The biggest investment in business is people."
"If you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life."
In this episode, you will be able to:
- Navigate the Shift: Understanding Real Estate Investing Before and After the 2008 Crash
- Ethical Entrepreneurship: Incorporating Faith into Your Business Strategy
- Accelerate Your Growth: Unlocking the Benefits of Mentorship in Entrepreneurship
- Talent is Key: Importance of Strategic Hiring and Talent Acquisition for Business Growth
- Diversify Your Income: Leveraging Real Estate Licensure for Additional Revenue Opportunities
Book and Resources
How to Win Friends & Influence People
Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition
Connect with Lee Arnold
WEBSITE: https://leearnoldsystem.com/lp/
LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lee-arnold-ceo/
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/leearnoldsystem/
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/SecuredInvestmentCorp
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Learn more: https://www.myfinancialhaven.com/jamiebateman/
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Connect with Jamie
BOOK: From Adversity to Abundance: Inspiring Stories of Mental, Physical, and Financial Transformation
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Speaker 0
Hey, everyone. This is Jamie Bateman. Real quickly, I wanted to share with you something, that's been pivotal in the growth and success of my businesses, and that is my partnership with Haven Financial Services. I've been working with Haven for over a year now. Christine Valdez was on episode seventy of this podcast. So go check that out if you wanna hear her story. It was a fantastic personal story for sure. But Haven has been awesome. They provide me with monthly reports that are super clear and discernible, and it that provides me with clarity and focus so that I can do what I do best, which is running my businesses, not preparing financial reports. Again, if you're in the market for top notch financial service company, or if you just wanna check one out, go to w w w dot jamie bateman slash haven and check out Haven Financial Services. Again, that's jamie bateman slash haven. Can't recommend them enough. Christine and her team have been fantastic. So I definitely recommend you check out Haven Financial Services at w w w dot jamie bateman forward slash haven. Let's get back to the show. 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. They've got several several businesses connected to the main business. And he 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 best selling author. And he spent years perfecting the real estate investing and private money lending process. 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 in in, leading up to the two thousand eight 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. He does not, shy away from talking about how he's brought, God and his faith in Jesus into the forefront of his 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 pro capitalism, very pro profit, but they that that that's not counter to nonprofit and supporting nonprofits and supporting people in need. Secured Investment Corp 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. There's a lot for the person wondering, how do I incorporate my faith? How do I do good by doing well? And what that's 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 gonna wanna miss this episode? Speaker 1
Welcome to the from to abundance podcast. Are you an entrepreneur or aspiring entrepreneur? Then this show is for you. Each week, we bring you impactful stories of real people who have overcome painful human adversity to create a life of abundance. A life of abundance. You are not alone in your struggle. Join us, and you will experience the power of true stories and gain practical knowledge from founders who have turned poverty into prosperity and weakness into wealth. This podcast will encourage you through your health, relationship, and financial challenges so you can become the hero in your quest for freedom. Take ownership of the life you are to live. Turn your adversity into abundance. Speaker 0
Welcome everybody to another episode of the from adversity to abundance 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? Speaker 2
I'm doing fantastic, Jamie. Thank you for having me here. Speaker 0
Absolutely. This is gonna be a fun fun chat. I'm excited to see where it goes. For the listener who may be unfamiliar with you, Lee, who are you, and what do you have what do you have going on today? Speaker 2
Well, my name is Lee Arnold. I'm the CEO of a company called Secure Investment Corp, which under that has some subsidiary brands, including Kobo Capital, the Leonor 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. Speaker 0
Love it. As as I've gotten to be more familiar with what you have going on, I'm very impressed, and it's, it's quite a lot. That's for sure. So we we'll get back to that more. We'll drill in a little bit more on what you have going on and and, how you all are serving. And I wanna get to some of the some of the ways your your nonprofit and some of the, the ways you all are contributing to society, I think, in a in a really positive way. But before we get there, I know it hasn't always been rainbows and butterflies and and unicorns. And so, I know the two thousand eight crash, the real estate crash and crisis impacted you and your businesses. Do you mind starting there with your backstory and and let us know kind of how things unfolded from that point for you? Speaker 2
Sure. Yeah. I started investing back in nineteen ninety five. I saw an infomercial on TV, and that's 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. Two thousand four, five, six, and seven, I got heavily involved in real estate development. I was developing very large, multi, multimillion dollar properties. And so when two thousand eight came, it was a it was painful. 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, and then the whole thing just fell out. In one day, I went from sixty eight employees to six to four employees. So sixty four employees got loaded up in a day. Wow. 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 and mainly the personnel. 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. And while there's that's that's our role, right, as CEOs Speaker 0
to Speaker 2
drive the organization forward, but, we can't get so far at a out ahead of our teams that they can't possibly keep up. So Yeah. That's what I learned from that. And so since then, we've been implementing, rules and and rails that will kinda keep the train moving forward at the right pace, that we don't burn everybody out. Speaker 0
Absolutely. It makes a lot of sense, and I appreciate you being, you know, vulnerable about that. It's 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? And so, we wanna 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 two thousand eight crash looked like, but I think as I I'm almost assuming that. And as we get away from it, it may be you know, that's probably a poor assumption. Just for a little bit, do you mind drilling down on sort of what what the business looked like and what I 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 the mistakes that were made? Maybe not just by you personally, but how did because I know you weren't the only person, you know, in this in the that that really went through some pain at this time. What mechanically went wrong at that time? Speaker 2
Well, for those that don't recall, two thousand so we had the September eleventh two thousand one, the World Trade Center issue. And 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 two thousand eight and nine. And so money was cheap. You didn't there wasn't a lot of requirements to get it. And so we were buying a lot of property, single family, multifamily. I was developing twenty million dollars ski in ski outhouses on the back side 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 So my real estate portfolio, for example, I had a lot of rentals that I had over leveraged to create liquidity, 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 gonna pay on last are the real estate investments that are nonperforming, the land that we had funded for new developments that were partially constructed. All of these things stopped paying. And Mhmm. And we we lost sight of what the government is always gonna focus on in times of calamity, and that is affordable housing. So I I 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 bath, four hundred square foot houses. You know, you get to a point where that just seems boring, and I wanna get fit. Right? I want Sure. I want 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 that was the fatal flaw. Got it. We got away from what is safe, what is easy, what is consistent to chase bigger and bigger things. Risk of losing, Speaker 0
you know, your first love. The thing that Speaker 2
we all as investors usually cut our teeth on was that first fix and flip, you know, the two bedroom, one bathroom, hundred square foot house. Speaker 0
Yeah. Makes sense. Speaker 2
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, the more ego driven type of investments. Even though the numbers didn't work. You know? Fun to talk about the big things. Right. So what we learned from that coming out of it, the government drops interest rates to zero. Speaker 0
Mhmm. Speaker 2
They pump a bunch of money into Fannie and Freddie. Mhmm. And 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 home buyers, on what we now use, which is called our five point buy box. And this is properties that are under twenty eight hundred square feet, under five bedrooms, three baths, under four units or less, so residential single family, under half of an acre of ground, and the retail sales price doesn't exceed the FHA cap. If we would have stayed in that lane Speaker 0
Mhmm. Speaker 2
Through two thousand four, five, six, seven, and eight, we would have been cleaning up in two thousand nine, ten, and eleven because the market's just tanked. All of those types of properties were going into foreclosure, and we could have been buying them all up. Speaker 0
Mhmm. Speaker 2
But instead, we were dealing with massive default, massive foreclosure litigation, short sales. I mean, it was it was a house of cards, and it took a minute to dabble that thing. Speaker 0
Well, no. It's and, again, like I said, you weren't the only one in that in in a similar position. We had, I just we just rereleased an episode with Fuquan Bilal. He's done a lot of note investing, and he lost two million dollars personally in that in that crash. So walk us through the next, say, ten years, Lee. How did you rebuild? What how did you know, what was the low point for you, but then how did you start taking steps to rebuild maybe from a even a personal and family standpoint? Speaker 2
Yeah. 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. I had a great relationship with him. But when I started making money from twenty, from nineteen ninety five to two thousand eight, I was making a lot of money, and my relationship with the lord had become very distant. When I lost literally everything in two thousand eight and nine, felt like there 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 two thousand nine, the first thing we did is we installed God as the CEO. So I'm actually the chief visionary officer of the organization. God's the CEO. And we said, okay. We're gonna build this company now. We're gonna use our business as a ministry. And so everything we do on the for profit side is gonna be used to feed the nonprofit side. So we formed a five zero one c three nonprofit called He's the Solution Ministries, 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're 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, so all of this is done virtually and online. But by making that change, and making God the priority in the business, he can exit 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 going to be revenue to finance the mission of the business, and that is preaching the rights Speaker 0
and Speaker 2
sharing the gospel. So that was the main thing Speaker 0
Mhmm. Speaker 2
That we changed in two thousand and nine going into what's brought us to present day. Is making that the main thing. God first, family second, career third. So Yep. Just just having balance in those things is really important. Speaker 0
I was just at a a mastermind I mentioned to you before we hit record, and one of the presenters, a guy I would say is a friend now, that he's all about impact investing, and and the whole presentation he gave was strictly about impact investing, and 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. And I was talking to him, and he said, you know, I didn't have any intention of of doing this, but but God spoke to me and said, no. Go go all in. So I was curious, Lee, was there any from a personal standpoint, was there any hesitation or reservation, you know, from your perspective as far as either losing out on customers, you know, if if you're going this sort of bold route. Not sort of. It's it's bold. Right? And losing customers or or sort of just, I don't know, just taking 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? Speaker 2
Well, hesitation and tremendous fear. Right? Because we are bombarded daily by the media and even at the at the state level saying separation of church and state. Right? Separation of God and prophet. And so there's there's that hesitancy to to be bold for fear of losing customers who are not gonna 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 wanna do business with. Mhmm. Who have a similar belief, who have a similar, appreciation of faith in the workplace and being bold for Jesus in what we do. 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. Speaker 0
Mhmm. Speaker 2
And so what we thought would be something that'd 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. No. You gotta keep that stuff separated. We don't. And we don't make they apologize apologies for that, and we won't. And Mhmm. You know, if people are offended by that, don't do business with us. That's fine. Sure. And other people are like, hey, that's cool, man. I I I buy into that. I believe that way, and I I wanna be involved with a company that's not hiding their light under a bushel, so to speak. Speaker 0
Mhmm. Sure. Well, it sounds like in a in a lot of ways, you were brought to your knees by circumstances, I mean, by by God, and, and you became vulnerable and listened. Right? And then, 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, business and faith. How did you, you know, technically start applying those lessons? What businesses did you build over the next ten, fifteen years? Speaker 2
You know, it's the the core fundamentals of the business have not changed dramatically. We're still doing the same things. Right? We're still doing real estate investment education. 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 pre crash. So the business as a whole is still, for the most part, still what it's always been, real estate focus. But where profits were the main driver Mhmm. Now the main driver is purpose and intentionality and serving. So it's it's a service led mentality where my desire for anybody that comes in our organization is to serve them in a way that'll be meaningful and impactful for them, their business, their family, their desired outcomes. And so we wanna we wanna lead with a heart of service in how can I best provide value to my client? Mhmm. And my client is gonna be one of three things. It's gonna 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. Speaker 0
Mhmm. Speaker 2
So people wanna add an income stream to their business just to create stability and options and opportunities for themselves and their family. Speaker 0
Mhmm. Speaker 2
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 to scale that side of the business. So I wanna get bigger. You know, I flipped a couple of houses. I made, you know, fifty to a hundred grand, but I'd like to scale it and potentially make real estate my full time endeavor. So Speaker 0
Mhmm. Speaker 2
That's that's client number two. 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 while 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 send those monthly payments either to them or to their self directed IRA. About sixty percent of the people who buy notes from us are doing it through a self directed IRA or some other tax tax advantaged vehicle, through which they're making those investments. 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. 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 or Or or and it doesn't have to be a religious thing. Right? For those who are not believes you don't have to believe in god to be useful in marketplace. There's a lot of nonprofit charities and organizations that are not religious in nature, but are still doing really good things. But that's our message. How do we take profit and and become purposeful and intentional in serving and and just being a blessing to other people. Speaker 0
Yeah. Absolutely. I love it. That's one of the realizations I had a few years ago is as I kinda built up my note investing mortgage note investing service, I guess, services is is it really does boil down to active and passive investors. And so we create a little mentorship, you know, for those who wanna learn, on the active side, but then we have funds as well on the on the passive side. And so, really, it it it it's not a now now you have a one stop shop. It seems to really be able to serve almost everyone. Is that fair to say? Speaker 2
Yeah. That's fair to say because that's exactly how we built it. Mhmm. One so that, no matter where you are, there's there's a place we can plug you into. Speaker 0
Mhmm. Speaker 2
But the thing that we also want to really encourage people to do you know? Speaker 0
Mhmm. Speaker 2
It's not uncommon for people to say, well, when I retire, I'm gonna. Right? Speaker 0
Sure. Speaker 2
I'm gonna go on that mission trip once I retired. I'm gonna go do this and serve at the church once I retire. Speaker 0
Yeah. Speaker 2
You know what? I asked a pastor years ago. I said, so, pastor, what's your plans after retirement? He goes, Lee, show me this the this chapter verse in scripture reference in the bible that speaks to retirement. Speaker 0
Right. Speaker 2
Because, you know It's Speaker 0
not there. Speaker 2
Never retire from serving and blessing other people. That's a full time endeavor. The mistake we make is we think that it it starts when something else ends. Mhmm. And my message is it should be incorporate incorporated and woven into everything that you're doing now. I mean, you can be tactful and intentional now. Even though you're working Speaker 0
a corporate job Speaker 2
and you've got a family and you got small children, you can be doing all of these things now. You just gotta schedule for them and make a make time for them. Speaker 0
Yeah. I couldn't agree more. Retirement, I I just don't, I don't it's a fairly new concept, actually, and and I'm not sure that it's the the best way to go for most people. 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 in serving, in in some capacity. Speaker 2
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 wanna get ourselves out of a financial jam, or we hate our job, and so we wanna do something that we don't hate doing. Well, if if you can be intentional about the business that you are in or the business that you wanna go into Mhmm. And hold it in a way that's it's enjoyable, it's exciting, you love going to work. I don't remember who 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. Speaker 0
Mhmm. Speaker 2
Yeah. Then what what exactly is it I'm retiring from? You know? I I don't get up and put on a suit every morning because I have to go to work. Speaker 0
Sure. Speaker 2
I could put on a suit on because I love what I do. 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 I I don't go to work. I I go to the hobby and get to play all day. Speaker 0
Yeah. That's fantastic. But I will say you talked a lot about serving others and and and serving your clients. And so, you know, I do think where some people get tripped up, especially younger people, is, oh, follow your passion. Well, that's fine. You should do something. This is my opinion. 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? 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 gonna 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 you're just doing whatever serves you. So I think that's, you know, that's that's just my my two two cents because people will kind of disagree on should it should you follow your passion or not. I I think the way you're approaching it, you're combining, you know, 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 and adding dollars to your business, and then you're also then letting that those funds purposefully adding funds or or capital to these nonprofits. So, yeah, it's that's, there's a lot there's a lot there, and and I love the mindset. Speaker 2
Well and 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 wanna understand that there has to be a profit component to finance, feed that endeavor. So take your passion, figure out how to monetize passion Speaker 0
Mhmm. Speaker 2
In a way that produces profit so that we have money to invest in those passion projects or or those ministry components, but there 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? Speaker 0
Mhmm. Speaker 2
Because even nonprofits have expenses. So Sure. 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 gotta find guys like me and you Yeah. 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 Mhmm. At some point, you have to learn how to steward a for profit business. And and if you can do that in in something that you are passionate about Speaker 0
Mhmm. Speaker 2
That's great. Speaker 0
I'll tell you. Speaker 2
That's the goal. That that's a big win. Speaker 0
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 so I love it. I've got some rapid fire questions. Are you ready? Sure. What's one thing that people misunderstand about you, Lee? Speaker 2
Well, that is a rapid fire question. Speaker 0
That one trips people up sometimes. I'll be honest. Speaker 2
You know, I I think that where people where people misjudge me is I have been accused of being a charlatan. I have been accused of using my faith to to fleece the flock, if you will. And and people think that everything I'm talking about here about faith and purpose and intentionality in mission, is is all being said or done, to get people in so I can take their money. Speaker 0
Mhmm. Speaker 2
You know what? I don't really need money. I don't need to make more money. I don't I I could shut the whole thing down and just go flip houses and service loans and write paper, and I'd be fine. I mean, my organization could be substantially smaller. And quite honestly, I'd probably make more money because I wouldn't have, you know, I wouldn't have all these Overhead. And people I gotta pay. But what I've learned is by running a larger and larger and larger organization and and scaling the for profit side of the business Mhmm. 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 nineteen ninety five. Right? I'm I'm just flipping houses. I'm doing ten or fifteen deals a year, which could provide a very nice living. You know? Making a quarter million dollars as a solopreneur, flipping Yeah. Fifteen houses a year, that's a good living. And I I should've just done that. Right? But here's the problem. If I'm only flipping ten or fifteen houses a year, I'm interacting and engaging and influencing with ten or fifteen sellers, ten or fifteen buyers, ten or fifteen tenants, ten or fifteen 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. I mean, I've got a database of over a million people that I communicate with on a daily, weekly basis. We send almost fifty 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 it will occur in the business. And so when when I'm operating business as a ministry, the bigger the business, the bigger the ministry. Mhmm. So Sure. Speaker 0
Got it. Speaker 2
That's the that's the mistake people make about me is thinking and doing this for the money. And don't get me I I do find God's taken very good care of me financially. Yeah. But that's how it motivates me. Speaker 0
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. But, I was gonna 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? You're probably not reaching your full potential. So, if you could go back and give your eighteen year old self some advice, what would that be? Speaker 2
It's not about the money. Speaker 0
Love that. Love it. From Speaker 2
like I said, from eighteen to thirty, all I 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 I'm an eighteen year old punk that's making a lot of Speaker 0
money from Speaker 2
well, I grew up on a farm. You know? I grew up very poor. 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, you know, punk hillbilly that grew up on a farm and drove a tractor, trying to prove that I was that I was something. Sure. And and over the years, I realized it doesn't matter what people think, and I really don't care. Yeah. I I I just I wanna leave this this world in a better place than when I found it. Speaker 0
Mhmm. Speaker 2
And I wanna influence people for a positive and purposeful reason. Speaker 0
Yeah. Makes a lot of sense. And, yeah, it's it's there's definitely an element of, hey. My eighteen year old self probably wouldn't have listened. Speaker 2
No. He wouldn't, though. He was Speaker 0
a He was a punk. 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? Speaker 2
Number one, don't leave your success in the hands of others, and be very careful who you align yourself with. You know, I I've been in the real estate investment training business for over twenty 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 twenty years doing live events in seminars and ballrooms all over the US. 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. Speaker 0
And they thought, Speaker 2
Hailey, I just met so and so. We have a lot of affinity, and, you know, we we just really hit it off, and we're gonna we're gonna partner together. Speaker 0
Mhmm. Speaker 2
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 Speaker 0
That's good. Speaker 2
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 gonna 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 that's a double whammy double whammy win. So early in my career, I 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. Speaker 0
Mhmm. Speaker 2
And I for the last thirty years of my career, I've always looked at how can I learn from this person, how can I get mentorship from this person Speaker 0
Mhmm? Speaker 2
And then how can I earn through this relation? Speaker 0
Sure. I can in the lab term. Speaker 2
The mentality going in is, am I gonna learn from this thing? And if so, what am I gonna learn? How am I gonna learn it? And what will I use it for moving forward? Speaker 0
Love it. What's one one challenge that you're facing in in your business or any of your businesses right now? There's always a there's always a challenge. What's one of your challenges? Speaker 2
My biggest challenge is talent. The bigger the enterprise Speaker 0
Yeah. Speaker 2
The bigger the enterprise, the more important the people. And this is something that it took me a minute to learn because as a 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 Speaker 0
Mhmm. Speaker 2
Because we for whatever reason, we attribute employment costs as a as a, as an as a loss. Right? So it's an expense. If I pay Right. Twenty dollars an hour, that's an expense to the organization. Employees are one of the greatest investments you can make. Your your first employee should be producing a three to five hundred percent return for you through their efforts. So if I'm gonna pay somebody twenty bucks an hour, if I run them correctly, if I manage them appropriately Mhmm. They should be producing a hundred dollars an hour. Well, a hundred dollars an hour is over two hundred grand a year. And I'm paying them twenty bucks an hour? That's only forty grand a year. So the greatest investment in business is people. But as the enterprise grows and scales, the the level and nature and aptitude of the hire has to get elevated. You've gotta hire better people, and better people cost more money. Speaker 0
Mhmm. Right. Speaker 2
I'm just I'm I my challenge is finding really, really good people that wanna work, that love to work, that care about people, that are mission minded. That's my biggest challenge is finding these types of people. Speaker 0
Love it. What is a we're we're almost out of time, but what is a book or two that you could recommend for our listeners? Speaker 2
Number one book, you gotta read the Bible. Specifically focusing on Proverbs, because Solomon, the 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 in every success book starts there. Secondly, you've gotta read Rich Dad Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki. Thirdly, you've gotta read, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie. Speaker 0
Mhmm. Speaker 2
And the fourth book I'm gonna give you five. The fourth book is you've gotta read The Goal by Elihu Goldratt. The goal is about systems and process and procedure and and how things should function and flow. And the fifth book you gotta read is, Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely. Speaker 0
Predictably named one. I don't have. Haven't read that one. Speaker 2
Predictably Irrational? Oh, man. Speaker 0
That's a good one. Speaker 2
This book will change your life because people 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 how to present things and bring people to your way of thinking in a way that they want to do it is is really helpful. Speaker 0
Sure. Understanding the psychology behind behind things. That's fantastic. I asked for one or two, and you gave me five. So and then the the Bible has, what, sixty six books? So you you gave me seventy one. What is one question, Lee, that I have not asked you that you wish I had? Anything you wanna cover? Speaker 2
Did you ask me what I would do differently if I was starting over? Speaker 0
Let's do it. What would you do differently? Speaker 2
One, I would invest in mentorship sooner. So I would I and and paid mentorship. Mhmm. Not some uncle that gave you a couple of pointers along the way. Yeah. Mentorship early, investing in training, going to seminars, going to experts, seeking them out. Mhmm. 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 twenty five years of my career as a licensed real estate broker. And there's just so many instances where agents are gonna be involved, have to be involved. Eight out of every ten deals you're gonna 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 twenty five percent referral fee on every transaction. So it's a tremendous income stream, ancillary income stream. I'm not recommending agency as the driver. Speaker 0
Mhmm. Speaker 2
It's an ancillary income, but it's easily a six and seven figure additional income stream, through agency. So that's what we're gonna do. Speaker 0
Fantastic. Well, as we wrap up here, Lee, this has been really good. Lee Arnold, where can our listeners find you online? Speaker 2
You can find me at the lee arnold system dot com. You can find me at coco capital dot com, or the easiest one is b b four j, the number letter b, b bold, the number four, jesus dot com. So it's just b b four j dot 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. Speaker 0
Sounds great. Thank you so much, Lee. This has been fantastic. Appreciate your time. Speaker 2
My pleasure. Thanks for having me, Jamie. Speaker 0
Absolutely. And to listener out there, thank you for spending your most valuable resource with us, and that is your time. Thanks, everyone. Take care. Speaker 1
Thank you for spending your most valuable resource with us, your time. If you like the show, please share it with your friends and fellow podcast listeners. One entrepreneur at a time, we can change the world. See you next time. Speaker 0
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