Chapter VII: "It's Never Too Late" with Mark Owens

00:00:03
Welcome, everybody, to our first episode of the from Adversity to Abundance podcast. I am your host, Jamie Bateman. I'm really excited about launching this podcast, and I'm really excited about our guest today as well. So our guest is Mark Owens. Excuse me, Mark, how are you doing today?

00:00:23
Awesome, Jamie. Thank you. Yeah, Mark, we had Mark on the good deeds show. I think it was late December, about, about three months ago. And I'm not kidding when I say, Mark, your episode really inspired me enough so that I am actually launching this podcast.

00:00:43
I would say largely because of that episode and episodes similar to it, we didn't dive into real estate too much, but it was more of a mindset and overcoming adversity type episode. And it really did inspire me to kind of think bigger and, and launch this podcast. So I'm really excited. But this, this episode is not about me. It's about you.

00:01:10
So for our listeners, Mark, if you could, it's. It's about you and our listeners. But if you could, why don't you tell us your current situation and then we'll jump back to your backstory. Sure. Ed, the first thing I want to say is that I really, really am honored and appreciate the fact that you invited me on.

00:01:28
And it means a lot to me. It truly does, because that's what I feel like my purpose is at this stage in my life, is to inspire other people and show them what's possible and help them to develop a life of their dreams, whatever their dreams are. And so I really appreciate the opportunity to help. Absolutely. You know, possibly, you know, positively influence people.

00:01:50
So, yeah, I love it. As far as where I'm at today, I am 56, about to turn 57 years old, married for 20, I think, five years. My wife has trouble, trouble keeping track, too. It's not.

00:02:07
Let me see. I've been a full time real estate investor for close to 20 years. Got a son. He's doing amazing. He's in his early twenties.

00:02:16
He's living in Charlotte, North Carolina, is working in an investment bank. My wife is now a travel nurse, so we're traveling around the country. She does a three month gig at one place and a three month gig somewhere else. We're currently in Charleston, South Carolina, which is where I am right now. Nicer.

00:02:32
We. I got a. Yeah, you're from Baltimore. I'm from the Baltimore area as well. I just got a notification on my phone about the snow coming in today, and it's March 30, so imagine the weather's a little nicer down there.

00:02:46
I think it's going to be, like, 76 today. Nice. Sorry. No, it's all good. Yeah, so that's what we're doing now.

00:02:56
I just want to back up just to the beginning of the real estate stuff. Like, I started buying rentals. 2002. I bought my first one. This time last year, I had a little over 100 units.

00:03:06
And then I started downsizing. The Market was, like, doing really well, and I had a lot of interest from out of town investors that were cash buyers without paying real estate commissions. So it was literally saved me hundreds of thousands of dollars in real estate commissions just by doing these direct sales to people at what I consider retail prices. So I ended up scaling down. I've got about 30 units now, 31, somewhere in that range.

00:03:34
And I don't have any debt to any debt except for my visa, which I use for everything, just so I can track my spending expenses. Sure. Then I pay that off every month, and. And I spend a lot of my time just, you know, like, trying to find stuff to do. Like, I'm trying to learn photography.

00:03:52
I try to learn Spanish for a while, but, like, I just. No comprende. I'm just terrible at it not happening. Yeah, it was just, you know, I just. So I'm just, like, spending my time trying to find things to do.

00:04:03
I started doing some coaching, but that's very limited. I'm only taking a few people at a time and all that, because if it starts to feel like a job, then I'm not going to want to do it. If I don't want to do it, I'm not going to give 100%. And if I don't give 100%, I'm going to feel like shit because I'm going to feel like I'm ripping somebody off. So that's like, I don't want to.

00:04:21
I'm not trying to have, like, a volume of, like, you know, 50 people a month sign up. It's like, just a couple of months. And at the height of your real estate, um, kind of investing, what did that look like? I self managed my units, which a lot of people like, you know, they're just, like. They just can't believe it.

00:04:41
And they're like, how do you do it? But, I mean, I'm telling you, like, I built up a bunch of systems and processes where I managed it, and at the height of my unit count is probably, like, 107 units. Those are multifamily or just. I'm just curious. Single family and Maldives combination.

00:04:59
Got it. Like, I could say I have one building, but the one building has 18 apartments, so I would say that's 18 units. And these were all in Baltimore City. Everything in Baltimore City got it. And at the peak, I wasn't working any more than two or 3 hours a day.

00:05:14
And the way that I was able to do that was I just figured out, like, when something happened that I had to do and I didn't like it, I tried to figure out a way to get somebody else to do it, either automate it or get something. So, like, just the easiest example is the tenant calls up and maybe they complain that stove isn't working. Well, I could get stuck in this phone call loop where I tell a tenant, okay, let me call you back. And then I call the appliance repair company, and they say, okay, Tuesday at noon. All right, let me call you back.

00:05:42
And then I call the tenant back, and she says, she can't do Tuesday, she can do Thursday. And you get stuck in that. Sure. Yeah, well, it's happened, you know, so many times. And I finally, I just said, listen, I'm just going to give the damn tenant the number to the repair company, and she can call them.

00:05:54
I'm out of it. I'm out of it. I'm out of, like, 17 phone calls. Just by giving her the number. I did the same thing with, you know, with the plumber, the electrician, the furnace guy, the exterminator.

00:06:05
It's like, just give the tenant, empower the tenant to call. I'm paying for it, so it's not going to cost them anything, and then they can find a time that works good for them. Yeah, I just built my whole business around that. And I've seen some of your YouTube videos and things, and it just comes across that you, your tenants were, and I've heard you on other podcasts as well, but, um, your tenants seems like you had a work, a good relationship with your tenants. You guys were on the same team.

00:06:31
They weren't. It wasn't an adversarial relationship. Is that fair to say? I would say that that is true the majority of the time. I mean, I try to, uh, work with my tenants as customers, not as adversaries.

00:06:44
And a lot of landlords look at their. It's like me against a tenant. I'm just like, man, these are my customers. I want happy customers. I want my tenant to live in this house for 20 years.

00:06:51
I wanted to pay the rent on time, but even if they're late now and then, like, vacancies kill you, turnovers kill you. I want them to stay there. Yeah, forever. I want their grandchildren to grow up in that house. And part of the way that you do that is just treat them with the same respect that you treat your accountant or your attorney.

00:07:09
And that's, that's what I do. I treat everybody the same. I treat, I don't care if it's a section eight mom with four kids from four different fathers or, you know, my, I don't know my title attorney or my accountant or my bookkeeper. I treat them all with the same amount of respect. And I think that goes a long way.

00:07:25
That's actually a really good, probably a good segue into your backstory, I think. Because, I mean, you know, I try to do that as well. Right. And. Sounds good.

00:07:36
And it's, and it's. But it's sometimes easier said than done. I mean, I think that your backstory in particular, you've been through, you've seen, you know, we'll get into that, but you've seen a lot of different things and you've kind of lived at different maybe levels as far as financial success. And you've experienced a lot of hardship and been exposed to a lot of different kind of segments of the population, if you will. And I think maybe, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but maybe that's helped you appreciate person for a person.

00:08:07
And they all have, everybody has value. So with that, why don't we dive into your backstory, if you don't mind, and because, again, this, when we got into this on the good deeds show, it really did blow me away. So I think our listeners are going to really benefit from this. So if you could dive into your backstory for us. Okay, so I was born in 1965, Baltimore City, grew up in a blue collar, mostly white neighborhood, working class.

00:08:39
There was where I was growing up, like, the dream of like ten 1112 year old boys was to get a job driving a forklift at a factory. Like, that's as far as we can see, man. If you can. If you can get a job driving a forklift at Knoxville or Pepsi, like you're set. Like you're set for life, because then you can go buy your little row house, you know, with like two, maybe three bedrooms, have a couple of kids and, you know, one car.

00:09:03
Is it. Back in the seventies, most families just had one car? Yeah. And you could live, you know, a happy middle class life. And that was our dream.

00:09:12
And I had never really felt like, I just thought, like, there's got to be more than that. There's got to be more than just driving a forklift. And. But I was too young to really visualize that and my family structure. I was an only child.

00:09:29
Mother had me when she was 17, quit school, worked at a factory. Didn't meet my biological father until I was like 17. And he was a junkie, in and out of Jamie. And, you know, he's just a bad guy. I had another stepfather for a few years and that didn't work out.

00:09:46
Then I got another stepfather, but him and I never really related because he was like, he went to college. He was like, like nobody in my neighborhood went to college. It's like, who is this guy? You know, like. And so I never really felt like I fit in.

00:09:59
And so what happened was, you know, we had drug education in school, like in elementary school. And you're sitting there and you're looking at the pictures and you're hearing the stories and, you know, you're thinking like, oh my God, I would never do that. There's people crazy, like, my God, why would you do that? And then I think I was like twelve years old and one of my friends asked me if I wanted to smoke some pot. And I'm thinking like, this is a chance for me to fit in because I never really felt like a fit in.

00:10:28
And so I did. So I got a quick question. Was that the dare program? No, no, there was. I don't think there was a dare program back then.

00:10:37
This was like literally like 1975. Got it. The reason I ask is I did some studies in criminal justice back in the day. Really didn't end up doing anything with it, but, and I remember one of the things, you know, you can argue both sides to almost every type of like criminal justice policy and education and different, different, you know, government policies. There's pros and cons to everything.

00:11:02
Well, I remember the D A R E program in particular actually stood out as having no positive effect and potentially a negative effect because it exposed kids to things they wouldn't have been exposed to. That's a whole separate story. But that's interesting. Yeah. In my neighborhood, it was very easy to get exposed.

00:11:23
Like I said, I was smoking pot when I was twelve years old and so were all my friends. So I was twelve years old and smoking weed, smoking cigarettes. And something happened that changed my relationship with my parents forever. You know, my mom up until that point had always told me, you know, like, if I ever like, smoke cigarettes or like anything like that, like, come talk to her about it. And I trusted her and she.

00:11:53
So I started smoking cigarettes this was before I started smoking weed, and I went and talked to my mom. I said, mama, you know, I want to talk to you. You know, I smoked a couple of cigarettes, and you told me if I ever did anything like that, to come talk to you. And then she started screaming on me, telling me I was stupid, made me chew up a cigarette, and completely humiliated me. And that changed our relationship up till today, where I no longer saw her as a friend or a confidant or somebody could talk to her.

00:12:22
I saw her as the enemy because she stabbed me in the back. She told me to come talk to her, and then I come talk to her, and she humiliates me. And I think that may have also been partially what led me to saying yes when I had the opportunity to smoke weed. Got it. Then I started.

00:12:40
She found that I was getting high. We ended up moving out of Baltimore City, out to Baltimore county, which was at the time, a lot different than it is now. It was a lot more innocent, a lot more naive. I was a city kid coming out to the suburbs, and I felt like my classmates, even though we were the same agent, I just felt like they were little kids, you know, like, I mean, on the street I grew up on, there were, I think, you know, one of my best friends fathers was shot on the corner. A couple years later, another one of my friends, his girlfriend's mother, was stabbed to death up the street from my house.

00:13:16
I mean, it said. And then I come out to Perry hall, and it was almost like a leave it to beaver kind of neighborhood. Like, very, like, you know, just different, innocent and. Right. Yeah.

00:13:27
Yeah, it seemed like it to me. And so I was the bad kid. You know, I started. Then my drug use started to escalate where, you know, it was like, went from weed, the drinking, to, you know, all the pills, and, you know, inhalants and, you know, everything I could get my hands on. I'll kind of speed through this.

00:13:45
But, you know, I failed the 10th grade, went to a couple years of summer school, ended up getting kicked out of high school in November of my senior year. And I was very defiant and resented authority and didn't want to hear, like, people telling me what to do. And I don't know where that came from, but it was there. And the vice principal called me into his office and about my truancy, which was chronic. And he told me the next time I cut a class, he was going to suspend me to the board of education with a recommendation for expulsion.

00:14:21
And that was like a challenge to me. So he gave me my pass to get back to class, and I walked out the front door and of the school. And then the next day, I go back to school and I get my. I get suspended with a, you know, recommendation for expulsion. And I went home.

00:14:36
I left that on my kitchen table in my house. I packed up my stuff, and then I moved down to my grandmother's house, which was back down in the city, in the neighborhood that I grew up in. And I was a drug addict. You know, I was very good at manipulating people, and. And my mother and her mother had had some issues.

00:14:53
I was very good at putting a wedge there and making it look like I'm the good guy, my mother's the bad guy. So my grandmother took me in, but there was zero structure there, and I just. I had thought that, okay, look, I'm gonna quit school, and then I'm gonna go get a job. I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna go get a job and make some money, because this stuff's a waste of my time. I mean, how many times can you learn about the same shit year after year after year?

00:15:18
Oh, we're doing another semester on american history. We've had those semesters on american history for the last six years. It's like, yeah, and change it. I remember not. I've gotten more into history now.

00:15:30
I'm not super into it, but I can relate to that. I was like, well, what does it mean to me? I can't change anything about what happened. Exactly. When you're a kid, you don't understand that.

00:15:40
Now. You can look back and you can see the history, and you can see how it tends to repeat. And we try to learn from it, but, you know, and it's not us individually, but as our society and our politicians just keep falling into the same tract. I didn't care about, but I just. Sorry, go ahead.

00:15:58
I think there was. I got out of it. I got out of school. Couldn't, you know, couldn't. That's okay.

00:16:03
It couldn't get a good job or anything like that, and. But just kept doing my drug stuff. And then I was 17 years old. It was. I remember it was February 1982, and I remember this because I actually wrote it on my calendar because I was proud of it.

00:16:19
The first time I saw it was a friend of mine. I saw his brother shooting coke in his bedroom, and I asked him, I was like, man, like, how much is that? And he said, it was $25 for a quarter grand. I was like, well, how many shots do you get. And he said, two.

00:16:34
And I was like, man, can I get one? And I did. He said, man, you'll sell me some of his. So I did a shot of coke, then I did my the other one, like, 1015 minutes later. And that really changed things, because up until that point, I had done some bad stuff.

00:16:52
I'd stolen cars. I'd broken into some houses. I had broken into schools and stole, like, triple beam scales and stuff like that. But because that's what, all the drug dealers like, you could trade those for, drugs as a whole, easy transaction. So the.

00:17:10
But that changed everything, because, you know what happens when you start to do stuff like that is you think, well, if ever, you know, if things ever start getting bad, I'll just quit. Like, I would never let it get that bad. I mean, that's what everybody that weighs 300 pounds says. I'll never let myself get that fat, you know? And then years later, there they are.

00:17:27
And so it's very. It's the same trap. Whether it's you're talking about your weight, which a lot of people in America can relate to, or the drug stuff, you say you'll never let yourself get to that point. And then you do, and it's very gradual, so you don't really notice it because it's just a little bit more. A little bit more.

00:17:43
A little bit more. And so I started shooting coke. And then, like, a month later, I found out another guy that I knew was doing heroin. And I thought, man, I'd like to try that out. I like coke.

00:17:57
Heroin's probably pretty decent, too. And, you know, caught him up, ended up, you know, that day or the next day trying heroin for the first time. So, you know, by the time I turned 18, I was already shooting coke and heroin and that. I'll give the short story. But over the next few years, I was in and out of Jamies, rehabs, living in the street, in abandoned houses, sleeping under bridges.

00:18:24
I got stuck in California, had a hitchhiker from California to Baltimore with no money, got kicked out of a drug rehab in Virginia. It was like, it was winter, and it's like I violated my probation. I'm gonna go to prison for four years for violating my probation. So my choice is either go back to Baltimore and go to Jamie or go somewhere else. And my thoughts are, well, if I'm gonna live outside, I'm gonna be homeless.

00:18:47
I'm going south. So I hitchhike to Florida and wound up in Jacksonville, Florida, which is, like, literally like the home of the homeless. I mean, there are so many homeless people there, and I think that's because a lot of people hitchhiker to Florida or drive there or whatever, and that's the first big city that they hit. And there's a lot of resources. If you're, like, living in the street, there's a lot of missions and shelters and, you know, stuff like that.

00:19:09
So there's a lot of resources there for people that are, like, down and out. Right. So it's. There's a good thing, but it ends up drawing more homeless. It was good for me.

00:19:20
I don't know if it was good for people that, like, live there. Right, right. You know, but when you're hungry, you know, and you're cold and you don't care, just looking out for your Maslov's hierarchy, you know, like, I need food, shelter, clothes, you know, I worry about the self actualization. Right, right. That's 30 years later, I'm sitting in that camper in South Carolina talking to Jamie Bateman.

00:19:41
Right. No, that's. That's just a whole. I mean, I. You know, I was talking to my daughter.

00:19:48
My daughter's 14. She's almost 15. We were talking about drugs. And, you know, it's like, I I don't have a ton of experience with that, you know, myself. But I haven't heard a lot of people who say, oh, I just.

00:20:01
I'm experimenting. I guess. They say I'm experimenting, but it's like, well, does that ever turn out positively? And I'm not. I'm not judging here.

00:20:09
I'm just saying it isn't for me. If you experiment with heroin, it usually. I haven't heard anyone say, oh, I'm really glad I I did that. You know, in hindsight, the experiment worked out well. It's like, you know, it doesn't go well.

00:20:23
Right. Listen, I agree with you 100%, but here's the other part that people don't want to talk about. Is it. People usually start with weed. Gotcha.

00:20:32
And I'm not saying that weed leads to heroin, right. Because it's. It's. It's not. Weed doesn't do anything.

00:20:37
Weed is just a drug. It's. But it. What it does is it opens us up to, well, what's the next step? What's the next step?

00:20:45
It's not pot's fault, because there were a million decisions that I made as an individual between the first time I smoked weed and the first time I shot coke. You know, they said, I don't blame pot for this at all. It's just. I mean, this is 100% my fault, but let me. I want to fast forward through a little bit, because I want to get to the part that was, I think, the most important thing.

00:21:06
I'm just going to fast forward to the summer of 1989, when my drug use reached, like, the part where I was at the point of no return. I ended up. I robbed the bank in Philadelphia, outside of Philadelphia, 1989. And I was already out on bail for doing another, like, a theft. I think it was.

00:21:29
I think they charged me a strong arm robbery, but it was eventually dropped, the theft. I was out on bail for that. I needed money to pay my rent. My girlfriend, like, was, you know, really, you know, pissed off and all that again, because I fucked up again, and I just decided, like, man, I'm just gonna go rob a bank, you know, that's it. So I went, I'll tell you how I used to steal cars.

00:21:52
I. I don't. Like. I'll tell you how I did it. People can figure it out.

00:21:57
What I used to do is. And I stole a lot of cars. I would. I would find, like, an apartment building in the area, wherever I was at, and I would get the address, and then I would call a pizza delivery place, and I would say, you know, back then, they had payphones, right, but they were like, dime. It might have went up to a quarter.

00:22:14
I put a dime in it, call the pizza place and say, hey, I want a large pepperoni pizza. I'm at 4100 Buchanan Avenue, apartment G. And then I sit across the street. 40 minutes later, pizza guy pulls up. They always leave the engine running, always, because they're in a hurry.

00:22:32
Sure. I sit across the street. I see the guy get out with the pizza, run in, opens the apartment building door, starts running up the steps. I go hop in his car and take off. That's how he used to steal cars.

00:22:43
And sometimes I get a free pizza, too. I mean, it was awesome.

00:22:51
Might sound like a dumb question, but what would you do with the car at that point? I would. I would use it to go rob whatever I was going to rob, whether it was a drug dealer or, you know, usually I used my own car for drug dealers because they already knew me anyway. But for the. You know, for the bank and for other places I was robbing, I was just stealing cars.

00:23:07
And I would actually use them for a couple of days because there's so many of them. Like, police aren't actually out, like, looking for them. They find the stolen car when it's in an accident or you know, something like that. Or you get pulled over because you were speeding or ran a red light or something. So that's how they find them.

00:23:22
They're not actually out, like, looking for them. At least in a big city like Baltimore, maybe if you're in a small town or something, they might, but big city like Baltimore, they're not. They got too much other stuff to worry about. So, 99, you robbed this bank. Robbed the bank.

00:23:37
And it was like, the next day, my girlfriend didn't even know about it. You know, I paid the rent, you know, got a bunch of money hidden in the kitchen, and, you know, nobody knows but me and a friend in Baltimore that I told. And the next morning it was like, you. 05:00 in the morning. 06:00 in the morning, we get a knock on the door, and we're laying in there sleeping, and my girlfriend goes up and answers the door.

00:23:59
And it was a sheriff or one of the deputies and a bail bondsman, and they were revoking my bail because apparently one of my girlfriend's friends called them up and said I was going to, like, leave the state and abscond from justice. Bless you. So the. So, you know, they, you know, I'm just like, look, I was a drug addict. I'm very good at manipulating people.

00:24:22
I'm very good at, you know, sizing people up and making, like, quick decisions on how to respond to the people. Sure. And that's just one of the benefits that you get from living that lifestyle and street smarts kind of. Right. And people emotion, I guess, whatever they call that.

00:24:38
Emotional and intellectual intelligence. Yeah, mine was on fire. And so I just thought, like, I'm sitting there and I'm. And I'm like, okay, sort of taking me back to Jamie. I'm like, okay, well, I'm gonna get the fuck out of this.

00:24:49
How am I gonna do it? I'm like, I just need to buy some time to just think about this. So I was very courteous with the guys. I was very non confrontational, nothing like, okay, no problem, man. Can I.

00:25:02
Let me get. Can I get dressed? You know, just asking permission. And I remember, like. But I was a cocky.

00:25:08
I was a cocky little punk. And I remember, like, you know, tying my shoes, and I looked at my girlfriend and I winked at her, and she. She didn't know what I was, you know, she had no idea. But I'm like, man, I'm getting the fuck out of here. Like, I'm tying, like, I'm getting dressed to run.

00:25:22
I'm not getting dressed to go to Jamie. I'm putting on loose fitting clothing. I'm tying my shoes tight like I'm getting the out of here. And. And then I didn't know how I was going to do it, but I knew I was.

00:25:33
And we're on the top floor. It's like a row house. And we were on the top floor was the third floor apartment. And in the kitchen, there was a fire escape with steps that went downstairs. And then in the hallway next, between the kitchen and the bedroom, there was a stairwell that went down, you know, through the common area.

00:25:50
Yeah. And I asked the sheriff, I said, listen, man, can I call my grandma, tell her what's going on? Because she's the one that bailed me out. I don't want her worried about me. Do you mind if I just call her for a minute?

00:26:00
And he said, no, no problem at all. Because I was acting very pleasant, you know, very compliant. No bullshit. And I got on the phone, and I didn't even call her. I just pretended I did.

00:26:11
And I'm just talking to, like, dead air. I'm just talking and just trying to figure out what I'm going to do. Because the bail bonds guy was standing by the door that goes out to the fire escape, and the sheriff was at the other door to the kitchen that led to the hallway that went down the steps. And I just kept talking and kept talking. And the sheriff asked me if I would.

00:26:32
He said, man, you got to hang up. I was like, all right, just a second. They said. And he's like, man, you got to hang up now. And I said, all right, man, just a sec.

00:26:39
And I kept talking. He came around behind me, which he shouldn't have done, because then he left the. Left me a path to the hallway, and he reached around and grabbed my hand. That was on the phone. Yeah.

00:26:52
I spun around and picked his ass up and threw him on the kitchen table and then spun back around down the hallway, down the steps, out to the alley. Then I went down to. It's called the Schuylkill river, which is a fairly large river in the Philadelphia area. And I'm figuring, you know, they're going to be looking for me now. Okay.

00:27:14
Yeah, I just threw this. I just threw this deputy over the kitchen table. So they're probably going to be looking for me. Took this to the next level. Yep.

00:27:21
And. And then it was just, uh, you know, I got to get the fuck out of here. So the river was too big to cross. Like, I, you know, I would have drowned if I'd have tried to cross it, but there was a bridge that went across the river. Sorry about the traffic if you hear that.

00:27:35
So there was a bridge that went across the river, but it was a pretty far way across. And I thought, I can't leave myself exposed by going over top of the river because it's going to be easy to spot me. So I went up and climbed up underneath the bridge where they had these girders that go across. And, uh, and I, and I kind of, like, just hauled on and just kind of wiggled my way across and got to the other side of the river. There.

00:27:56
There were, this sounds like shit on tv. There was. There were railroad tracks, and there was a freight train going down the railroad. And he was, he was going pretty fast, probably, like, I'm going to guess 15 miles an hour because my top speed for like, 5 seconds is 15 miles an hour, like, somewhere, right? And I was running as fast as I could.

00:28:15
It might have been a little slower, maybe 12 miles an hour, because it was on gravel and I was running as fast as I could trying to grab onto this train. Didn't know where it was going. Didn't care. I'm just going to hop on it. I'll hop off whether it's, you know, the next day, two days later, I could be in Kansas.

00:28:29
I don't give a shit getting out of here. But I was afraid. Like, I was just barely keeping up. And I thought, man, if I fall, like, I might, like, get my arms cut off. Like, this is, like, this isn't working.

00:28:41
And so I stopped chasing a train and a backtrack. There was another town on the other side of the bridge, and I can't remember it was called. I was in Norristown. That's where I started. And I can't remember what the other town was, but I just thought I was walking around.

00:28:55
I'm like, man, I need a ride, you know, and I'm just thinking, like, I'm going to jack somebody. I don't know what I'm going to do, but I need to get out of here. And there was a. I'm walking through this little neighborhood, and there was a car that just pulled up in front of this pharmacy, and he double parked in the street and left the motor running. And he went in the pharmacy, and I was like, there's my ride.

00:29:16
That's like the law of attraction, right? Well, I just attracted a car to Jack, and I went and hopped in and took off. And I'm heading back to Baltimore. It's a funny story. There was a kid that was hitchhiking, and I picked him up.

00:29:31
People, people used to hitchhike back in the seventies and eighties. I hitchhiked, like, all over the place through. Yeah, I know. My father's told me stories about, about that. Yeah.

00:29:39
And, uh, this kid's hitchhiking. I picked him up and we're driving, and I told him, man, I've hitchhiked all over the place. And he's like, yeah. And I said, yeah, but I found an easier way. Like, I don't really hitchhike anymore.

00:29:51
He's like, really? What do you do? And I was like, well, I steal cars. And he said, really? I was like, yeah, I just stole this one.

00:30:02
And that would have been like, that would have been a great Instagram pic. Right. Face he made before. Before memes were a thing. Yeah, exactly.

00:30:15
Yes. So I dropped them off. A little while later, I made my way back to Baltimore. No money. I got a car.

00:30:23
I got a bunch of money back in my apartment, but my girlfriend didn't even know about it. And wouldn't you know, the very next day, the feds raided our apartment. Wow. I found the money. Found.

00:30:33
How old were you at this point? I think 24. It was 19. It was 1989. Got it.

00:30:40
Right. And, uh, yeah, that was around August, something like that. 89. And maybe the very beginning, very beginning of August. And, uh, so then, and I don't.

00:30:52
Mean to step on your, your toes here, if we can fast forward a little bit, because I know you hit on the good Deeds episode, we hit several other stories that were critical. I remember several things where, like the attorney when you were in Jamie, and I think cab driver, I'm sorry, but those were critical key points. And I don't want to, I don't want to miss, miss those. Sure. So, so what happened was at that point, I'd kind of given up.

00:31:19
And I just thought, well, I'm just going to get high to a die. Like, I'm just going to, I'm going to rob stores every day or whatever. I'll steal different, you know, steal a different car every day, and I'll just do this until I either get shot or overdose. Like, there was no, like, Jamie was never an option. It's either I'm going to get shot or I'm going to OD.

00:31:37
Like, that's it. And I'm just going to keep. This is what I'm choosing to do. And after it was September, I think it was September 8, September 7 of 89, I decided that I was going to go out to Alaska. They had this Alaska out Valdez, like, oil spill, and they were hiring anybody to just come out and, like, wipe oil off of ducts, rocks and whatever.

00:32:00
I'm just like, man, I'll go hide in Alaska. I'll get a job. And, you know, and I thought, I'll just like, I'll just try this, you know, stolen cars out there and what I did, you can't do this anymore, but you could go out, fill your tank with gas and just take off. Like now you got to pay first. Back then you did, you know, and so I would just pull the tank and take off.

00:32:18
And, I mean, that's how I got, like, I stole a car in Georgia, made it to Pennsylvania just doing just that. So it wasn't a big deal. And, I mean, it's a terrible thing to do, but it was very simple to do it. Sure. And so I just started robbing stores, like every day.

00:32:36
You know, it wasn't a lot of money. A few hundred bucks here, a few hundred bucks there. But, you know, if you're a junkie and you're broke, $300 is a lot of money. And in September 7, I decided I'm going to go out to California and or Alaska. And I talked to a girlfriend and I just told her what I was going to do.

00:32:54
And her and I had been friends for years, and she was, you know, kind of hardcore like I was. And, uh, I said, well, let's go hang out tonight. So I went and got a motel room out on, it's called Pulaski highway in the Baltimore area, and went out. And that night, you know, I had some money from previous robberies. We went, bought some drugs, got a hotel room.

00:33:15
We're getting high. And then I thought, let's, you know, let's go rob something else. So we left the hotel or motel, went robbed another store, went and bought some drugs on our way back to the motel. And I ran a red light in a stolen car and ended up, to make the long story short, ended up getting caught. You know, I got boxed in.

00:33:38
I couldn't escape. There was cars in front of me. It was like 02:00 in the morning, September 8. Like, I'm thinking, like, are all these people going, I mean, Jesus Christ, you know, like, I got no space to navigate. And the car had stolen.

00:33:50
It was like a 280 z or something. It was really fast. It was a fast car. So I thought, if I get an opening, like, I'm out of here. And.

00:33:59
And so, you know, they get us boxed in, and the cops are, like, jumping out with their guns out and the lights on and all this. And the. I asked Barb. I said, matt, hey, barb, give me the drugs. She gave them to me.

00:34:11
And I'm just thinking, like, look, I'm not going out like this. Like, they're gonna have to shoot my ass. Like, I'm not just getting out and, like, turning myself in. So I got out and opened the door and put my arms up, and I looked around at the. For an opening, and then I just took off running.

00:34:29
And, I mean, I remember, like, gritting my teeth, like, just thinking, like, man, if they fucking shoot me, like, just keep fucking running. No matter what, just keep fucking running because I'm gonna go to Jamie for the rest of my fucking life. That's what I'm thinking. And it's like, I would rather. I would rather bleed out in the street, didn't spend the next 50 years in Jamie.

00:34:48
And, I mean, it sounds crazy to say, but it seems logical it did to me. I mean, it's a. It's a tough choice. It's like, you know, do you want to die tonight or do you want to spend the rest of your life in prison? I'll die tonight, right?

00:35:00
And, you know, a few minutes later, I ended up getting called. You know, I kind of got trapped in this, like, little warehouse complex where there was, like, nowhere to go. And I ended up. I got called and went to Jamie, you know, and I can. I admitted to everything.

00:35:16
I mean, like, I had a bank bag. Not. Not from a bank, but, like, a drop bag from a store that I'd robbed. And, like, it was obvious that, you know, I was up to no good. And I had.

00:35:24
The feds had a warrant for my arrest and all this stuff. I think I left that part out. The feds raided my apartment the day after I escaped from the sheriff. And, you know, my girlfriend found out about everything, so that kind of fucked that relationship up a little bit.

00:35:42
Yeah. Yeah. Gotcha. So I wound up in, you know, I confessed everything. And part of the reason I did it because I didn't want the girl that I was with to get, like, blamed for anything.

00:35:54
So I just like, look, man, she has nothing to do with this. She's just a girl I'm hanging out with. Like, I'll tell you everything I did, but you got, like, you got to. Cut her loose, right? Right.

00:36:01
And so they agreed. And I admitted to, like, it was, like, 23 or 28 robberies in Baltimore City, Baltimore County, Hartford County, Carroll county and a bunch of cars and all this other stuff. And, you know, so I'm sitting in a county Jamie and, you know, I've got, you know, I'm looking at literally, like, hundreds of years. And I thought, all right, well, I'm not done. You know, there's.

00:36:27
I'll get out of here. I'll figure out a way to get out. And I attempted to escape from that Jamie. And I mean, like, I missed it by that much, you know, thank God. But I managed to break a piece of steel off of one of the bunk beds, which was about 4ft long, thick.

00:36:46
And in my cell, I pride they have this really heavy duty mesh security screen. I pried that whole frame off and all that. And then there was this heavy duty, like, cast iron, like, mesh behind that attached to the window. And I kept prying at that, and I got a hole in it big enough for, you know, me and a couple of other people. Like, you could fit out of it as long as you didn't weigh, like, 300 pounds.

00:37:11
And then I was using this piece of steel and prying out the plastic. It was plexiglass. Prying that out when they rolled in and called us. And, I mean, it's like three, four, five minutes. We'd have been out of there, and it wouldn't have just been me.

00:37:26
I was on the high bail section. Like, everybody had hundred thousand dollar bailing up. I think my bail was like $600,000. Like, everybody. It would have been like 100 guys going through that window.

00:37:35
100 skinny guys going through the window. So the bad guys would still be in Jamie. But, uh. And they. They called us and I went to, you know, so then I ended up getting put on lockup for six months, which means, like, you're locked in a cell by yourself, you know, 23 hours a day.

00:37:51
You get out an hour to go take a shower and. And just walk around the tier. Imagine. Yeah. And that.

00:37:58
That was really good for me, that it worked out like that. Because then the thing that happened that began to change for me was I went and my attorney came in and my parents stepped up, got me an attorney, and he came in to see me. And we're sitting in this little conference room. There's like, a metal table between us. And I'll never forget it.

00:38:18
I mean, because he really made me feel stupid. He looked at me and he said, man, what the fuck is wrong with you? Like, can't you even stay out of trouble in Jamie? Like, you're already locked up? And then he said, don't you realize that if you do what you're supposed to do, you can be home by the time you're 30 years old, you'll be young enough to start a whole new life.

00:38:43
And I never, I hadn't considered that. You hadn't thought about it like that? Five years, start a whole new life? Like, really? Is that an option?

00:38:52
Huh? And I mean, I didn't say that to him at the time, but I remember the next course of the next couple days, I really thought about that. And I thought, okay, I'm gonna give this shit a try. And part of, and part of the thing that really made a difference was my friend Barb, who was with me when I got locked up. Yeah, she had managed to get like a few weeks clean, like maybe a month clean.

00:39:15
After we got locked up, she started hanging out with the first guy ever shot cook with that went to a drug rehab and he had like, I don't know, two or three months clean. And now she's hanging out with him and she's getting her stuff together and nobody done that. I didn't know anybody that ever got clean. Right. And so I'm seeing like, man, it's possible, like, you can, you can get off the drugs.

00:39:33
Yeah. And I'd be young enough to start a whole new life. And that's where my mindset started to change. Exactly. This is the critical piece.

00:39:41
I mean, so many things I could, I could, you know, we could talk about from here. I remember in the previous episode on, on the other, on good deeds, we talked about side, several different kind of pivoting moments or really critical moments in your life. And this was obviously one of them, if not the biggest. It was huge. I mean, but then there's one other thing that happened.

00:40:05
There was, there was three piece, three pieces to it. The next thing that happened is after I got off lockup, like, I had committed myself, like, I'm going to figure this out. Like, I don't know what I'm going to do. Drugs didn't work. Or, you know, drugs obviously don't work.

00:40:16
Rehabs don't work. Jamie didn't work because I've been to prison before. Living in the streets doesn't work. Different churches doesn't work. Different girlfriends in different states.

00:40:24
I got to figure something out. I don't know what it is, but I got to figure something out. And then I found a book. It was called you can if you think you can. And it was on the tier, on the table.

00:40:35
And I didn't, like, I didn't know, they had soft outbox, like, I don't know if it's a new industry or what, but I didn't know they had. I think it's grown a lot. Yeah, yeah. And I looked at it and if you think you can, I was like, I got plenty of fucking time. I'm going to read it.

00:40:48
I think I've already read every Stephen King book in the Jamie, so let me get and read this thing. And halfway through that book, something clicked in my head and I realized that I can take control of my life and become the person that I want to become, but I have to believe in myself. And up until that point, I didn't believe in myself because I was always focusing on my failures. And halfway through this book, I was smoking cigarettes back then. You could smoke in Jamie back then.

00:41:13
And halfway through the book, I'm like, man, fuck this. I'm taking control of my life. I'm taking over. I'm going to run this shit. I'm going to run.

00:41:21
Not the drugs, me. And I, right, took my half pack of cigarettes out and I gave it to this guy Frank Britain said, frank, I'm fucking done changing my life. And of course, you know, it's like all heard that before, you know, he's. Thinking, right, sure, yeah. But that's what happened.

00:41:38
And that's really, I mean, that's. Yeah. This mindset shift, it may not have happened in 1 minute. I mean, there were, it was over time, but there, there were critical. Well, there was a time.

00:41:49
Yeah, yeah. I gotta tell you, like, at that, in that, through that book, there was like, there was a time. It was in an instant, like I knew, like, it was like that. It wasn't like a dimmer switch, like slowly going on and off. It might have been a dimmer, like, like preparing or fertilizing my mind for this, but once I read that one thing, yeah, it convinced me, like, man, I got this.

00:42:09
I got it. And you can imagine, like, I mean, this is, and this isn't just with, like, drug stuff. This is with everything in life. Like, you know, this, like, if you guys are gonna get a boxing ring, yeah. And one guy is thinking in his head, like, man, this guy's gonna kick my ass.

00:42:24
I hope he doesn't hit me in the face, man. I hope he doesn't. Like, he already lost a fight. You already done right this. If the same guy goes in with the attitude, man, I'm gonna kill this guy.

00:42:33
I'm gonna tear his face off. His mom ain't gonna know who he is when I'm done, you still might get your ass kicked, but the chances of winning are significantly greater if you believe in yourself. Yeah, absolutely. It's the belief that's the fuel. That's really what I want this podcast, not just this episode, but this whole podcast to be about.

00:42:51
It really is about the mental mindset piece. Real estate was your. We're not going to go into the weeds on how you did all your real estate stuff, but that was your, you know, kind of asset class or strategy as far as how you were able to build wealth and that kind of thing, but kind of doesn't really matter, you know, if you didn't have the mindset piece down, real estate never would have happened. You're the mindset's everything. Credibility.

00:43:19
And you don't have to start where I started, you know? You know? Right, right. It still applies to people who haven't robbed 23 or 28, you know, banks and cars. And I gotta tell you, man, the.

00:43:32
This is one of the things that I did that anybody, anybody that's listening to this, you can do this. This isn't like magic or anything, like, up until this point, and this is something that I did myself up until this point, when I thought about who am I? I just thought of all my failures and losses and things that I fucked up and people that I lied to and people that I hurt. And that's what I used to define who I am, the kind of person I am. And then I decided I'm gonna, you know, sounds corny, but I'm gonna flip the script, right?

00:43:58
I'm going to look at this thing and I'm going to sit down and I'm going to write down all the good things that I've ever done that I can think of. It ain't going to be a long list, it's going to be a short. List, but that's what you're going to focus on. That's what I'm going to focus on. Right, right.

00:44:11
And that's what I did. And the first thing on the list was I quit smoking cigarettes. That was the first. Yeah, I mean, and this is, when I say this, it's going to. It's going to sound so much less dramatic, you know, but I had a similar shift, kind of, you know, just, I was going to work every day, had the nine to five job with long commute, and.

00:44:29
And that I didn't have a terrible life. I'm not saying that. Right. But I would. I just kind of fell into the trap of kind of groundhog Day.

00:44:38
And that's this is what life is kind of thing. And then I, you know, realized I started pointing to my strengths and the people in my life that, you know, that could help me. And kind of just my focus changed and so it became more about teamwork and growth and strengths and looking at the positive. And that, for me, was a critical piece. This was back in, you know, 2013, 2014, just to start really kind of ratcheting up the real estate and node investing and things like that.

00:45:06
But again, not, not as dramatic of a story, but it was really important because I could have easily just gotten caught in, you know, ho hum, woe is me. This is my life and that kind of thing. So the mindset piece is critical. Yeah, I don't. Yeah, people don't.

00:45:23
I mean, like, people don't have to apologize. Like, well, you know, I wasn't that bad. Like, it's. This isn't a competition. This isn't right.

00:45:29
You know, it's. I regret all of that stuff, but if it wasn't for that, I might not be here today. And I've. I've tilted the scales where I think I've done more good than bad now. Yeah.

00:45:42
And. But I just, there's some things I want to mention that to me are important. To help people to heal is like maybe twelve years ago or so, I looked up the cop that arrested me. I looked him up on Facebook and I found him. Yeah.

00:45:58
And I sent them a message and said, hey, did you used to work in eastern district, Baltimore City Police Department? And he didn't respond. And he's probably like, uh oh. And then I sent him another message a couple weeks later. And I said, listen, you arrested me September 8, 1989, on Monument street, the corner of Monument in Crescent.

00:46:25
And you saved my life. And I just want you to know that I am truly sorry for all of the shit that I ever did. And that's not how I was raised, and that's not the kind of person I am. And I sincerely regret all of it. And I just want to thank you because you saved my life and I appreciate it.

00:46:45
And not too long after that, I got a response from him. And we're friends today. I mean, we've met, talked, you know, I've got. I talked to him maybe six months ago. There's number on my phone, and we're friends today.

00:46:57
And so. Was that difficult? I mean, for me? Yeah. No, no, because I'm.

00:47:06
That for me is like, it's healing for me to express, you know, to tell people how I feel, like I have remorse and regret. Gotcha. But on the different side, I called the attorney that, like, said that life changing thing to me. Yeah, he. He spoke truth into you, is what he did.

00:47:24
And I haven't talked to him since 1990. I mean, this is, like, really funny, but I called him. He's still practicing law. He's got to be 100 years old, right? And I found him in the phone book, and I called his office, and he got on the phone.

00:47:37
You know, the lady's like, well, is he expecting a call from you? And I was like, well, probably not. Which case is this involving? I was like, well, you know, it's a case from, like, you know, 1989. Okay.

00:47:49
And she put him on the phone, and I just relayed the story to him, and I just told him how, you know, the comments that he made, it changed my life. And this is where I'm at today. Like, you know, I have a great life. I'm a respected member, contributing member of society. I have an amazing son.

00:48:05
Like, you know, it's like, I've got good friends, like, good people that I hang out with, and. And I just wanted him to know that might not have happened if he hadn't said what he had. Like, that was, like, just a huge impact. It made a huge impact for me. Now, I didn't know it at the time, but he told me that I was actually on speaker, like, after I told him this, like, his whole audience or his whole office staff, like, heard this conversation, and he didn't say it, but it sounded to me like he was becoming emotional.

00:48:38
I can imagine just hearing it. Sure. I mean, and I still do when. I talk about it because it's such a life changing thing that. That I'm so grateful for.

00:48:49
But, uh, I mean, I cannot. Yeah. I mean, it's. I'm sure he has done well financially and all that, but I would guess a phone call like that would be, you know, more important than any of that stuff. I'm sure when he sat down with his, you know, significant other for dinner that night.

00:49:06
Yeah. He said something to the effect of, guess who called me today. Right. That wasn't. Yeah, that wasn't your everyday, your average Tuesday.

00:49:18
But, you know, my point is, and I've done this with other people under other circumstances. It's never too late to call somebody up and apologize or to thank them for something, you know, if somebody did something meaningful in your life, you know, even if it was a boss at Burger King 20 years ago and they said something that made a positive impact in your life. It's never too late to find those people and let them know you'll make their day. You will make their day when you do that. And it makes my day happens to me sometimes where people call me up, you know, tell me they heard this podcast, and it, like, made a difference in their life.

00:49:50
Like, man, that's what it's all about. I mean, that's what makes it worth it. We sure could use a lot more of that, given the last, just the general, you know, dynamic of how things are with social media and people tearing each other down, and, you know, there's too much of that going on. Keyboard warriors, you know, bashing people, the online mob. And so, yeah, I mean, that's.

00:50:11
I love it. That's so. I mean, that's. That would be fantastic if we could get more of a movement like that. People probably we running over.

00:50:20
We are running over a little bit. You know, we may end up, I don't know, maybe we'll break this into two episodes. But. But, yeah, I mean, I've got a few more questions we can. We can run through real fast.

00:50:30
I got plenty of time. Yeah. I mean, so just to kind of finish up the. So you. You just the very short version of, you know, where'd you go when you.

00:50:40
After you made that mindset shift? Then you got into real estate, and then you had all the. And you ended up quitting your. Your job. I know there's a ton of detail in there, you know, that we're skipping over, but if you could just give the 32nd synopsis of what happened from the mindset shift to where you are today.

00:50:58
Sure. So, that mindset shift happened. It was either April 20 or 22nd of 1990. I stayed in prison for another little over four years. I got locked up September 89.

00:51:10
I got out in June of 94. So however many months that is, I think it's like four years and nine months before I got out, I got a two year degree in business, uh, from a local junior from, you know, community college. They actually have the instructors come to the prison, same book, same exams. Everything's the same. It's just you're in prison, and I got a construction certificate where you're, like, learning how to frame houses and, you know, just all that stuff.

00:51:33
And I just figured I got to do the time, but that doesn't mean I have to waste it. Like, I'm going to. Like, I'm going to make the best use of this time. So when I get out, I'm as best prepared as I can be to take on, like, a whole new life. Yeah.

00:51:46
And right before I got out, I. Maybe six months before I got out, this is another. This is really important lesson is I wrote a letter to my high school girlfriend that I had broken up with in high school, and I broke up with her because I knew where I was going. Like, I knew, like, I'm a loser and she's going to go to college and have a great life, and, like, I can't change. And so I broke up with her, but I had always regretted breaking up with her.

00:52:10
I mean, I was in love with her, and she was just such an amazing woman. And so I wrote her, like, maybe six months before I got out, and just, I still remembered her address. I mean, like, this was before email and all that stuff. And I wrote her a letter and just told her how things turned out. And she wrote me back and said, you know, I'm doing great.

00:52:31
Graduated school, got a great job, got an apartment, got a boyfriend. Don't ever write me again. Oh, geez. And actually, she. She had broken up with her boyfriend.

00:52:43
She didn't tell me that at the time in that letter. And so I got that response. I was just grateful that I got a response. You know, it kind of gave me some closure. Like, I was able to say the things I wanted to say.

00:52:54
Yeah. And. But then I thought to myself, well, I didn't say everything. Like, I didn't really tell her the real stuff. And since she's not going to talk to me anymore and I don't blame her, let me just go ahead and tell her.

00:53:08
I want to go deep and just tell her why I did what I did and how I felt about it, and I'll probably never talk to her again, but at least I have this off my conscience. Like, this is off my plate. And so I wrote her. You know, it took a few days to get the letter just right and then dropped it in the mail. A couple weeks later, I got a response.

00:53:29
Well, you know, we can talk. We can write. Month or two later, she was coming to see me, and then a few months later, I got out of Jamie, and a couple months later, we're living together. And a couple years later, we got married. We're still together.

00:53:42
Traveling nurse. Yeah. And so the point of that story is, like, man, if somebody says, like, no, he's got to find a different way to ask the question. Yeah. Yeah.

00:53:55
You've been. You've shown that you've been resourceful your entire life. I mean, you always figured out a way to make it happen, you know, whether. But, but the big thing was you were maybe going down in the kind of negative, dark path before, and you've changed your direction. I think that you develop a lot of skills when you head in that direction.

00:54:17
Like, a lot of life saving skills. I mean, just as an example, when I got to Florida, hitchhiked the Jackson bowl, and so I got nothing. No money, nowhere to go, no food. And I'm thinking, well, I gotta get a job. But if I get a job, then I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna get paid for a couple of weeks.

00:54:34
And I can't go to the shelters and the missions to get lunch and stuff like that because I'm at work. Oh, right, right. Yep. Sure. So I can't go two weeks without eating.

00:54:43
And I can. I, you know, I can't go in the grocery stores every night and steal food, which is another thing I used to do. I would just grab food and go and sneak it in the bathroom and eat it right in the grocery store. And, I mean, that includes, like, raw hot dogs and cheese. Like, it doesn't matter.

00:54:56
You know, it's like, when you're hungry, it doesn't matter if it's a raw hot dog. And. And so then I got this thought. It's like, okay, I'm not going to get paid for two weeks, but I need to eat. What if I get a job in a place that sells food?

00:55:10
Then I can eat at work. That's what I did. I got a job working in a hot dog stand. And. Yeah, yeah.

00:55:17
And it's just like, so a lot of times, people like, my wife does this all the time. She'll. She just sees obstacles. Oh, you can't do this. I'm just like, oh, wait a minute.

00:55:26
Hold up. You know, I'll find a way around this. And that's, and that's my skill is figuring out. I'll either go over it, around it, behind, under it, blow it up, like I'm. Or I'll go all the long way around.

00:55:37
Whatever it is, there's a way. And just I suggest to people, like, never give up, man. I don't care if you're trying to lose weight and you keep falling off the thing. You're trying to quit drinking, you're trying to quit smoking, and you just keep, you know, failing. Like, don't stop, man.

00:55:53
Just don't stop and don't give up. You're worth so much more, you know, just worth. You were worth so much more. And people don't realize how much their failures, how they can turn that into something where they can help so many people with their stories, you know, because they're not the only ones that fail. We all fail.

00:56:16
I still fail at stuff, but you can take those failures and turn them into strengths and make a difference in people's lives, Jeff. I mean, that's, I mean, that's from adversity to abundance. That's, that's the name of the podcast, right? And that's exactly, exactly. Really is.

00:56:31
I mean, you know, that's the whole point of this. This show is, you know, you may not see it at the time when you're going through the struggles, and I'm not suggesting you necessarily choose to go through struggles. I wouldn't suggest that you do it on purpose. But you can use those, you know. You know, in a way that maybe other people can't.

00:56:51
I mean, because you've been through that, you've developed these, these strengths and these personal personality traits and things, you know, you can use that experience to now help others. So as we move toward the, the end of the show here, I don't know if these are going to be kind of a lightning round. Quick questions. Okay, hanging on.

00:57:11
What is a book or two that you'd recommend to my audience and why? I would say, assuming that they are not starting where I started, rich dad, poor dad. Nice. Probably number one if you're like a business oriented, entrepreneurial kind of person, because that is going to just expose a lot of the b's that we've been brainwashed with since birth in this country. That's probably one of the, one of the, that probably the main one.

00:57:37
I could probably name five others. That's the main one. Got it. How about a movie? I don't know if you watch movies or anything.

00:57:42
Any good movies, man. You know, how about this movie or a movie or a podcast? You, you pick one of my favorite movies. It's a fiction movie. It was called Starman with Jeff Bridges.

00:57:53
Okay? And, uh, it's a tear jerker, so. But that's like, when people ask me what my favorite movie is, that's always one that pops up. All right? The worst one was jaws, so.

00:58:04
The worst one was jaws? Yeah, man. Yeah. I never. Yeah.

00:58:08
I never got into that one. What's one question you wish I'd asked you, but I haven't answered? I haven't asked. Oh, man.

00:58:19
You know, there's nothing really, I mean, I wish I could give you like, a real smart, you know, clever answer, but, yeah, I'm open, man. Love it. We've covered so much ground and I really do feel like you got so much to unpack with your story. It's incredible. There's no way we could cover it all in one episode here, but.

00:58:39
So. And then we've already touched on this somewhat. But how do you like to serve others? How are you adding value to others these days? One way is like this.

00:58:48
Like doing this. I mean, I don't get paid for this. This is my most valuable asset is time. Sure. It's a limited resource.

00:58:56
Yeah. But if I can spend my time doing something like this, where I might potentially reach, you know, maybe hundreds or thousands of people that I will never meet and it can have a positive effect on their lives. Yeah. Like, that's, to me, that's a gift for that. I can am able to actually do that as a gift for me.

00:59:13
It's kind of selfish because it makes me feel good to be able to help other people. But that's probably the main way is by, is by talking. I mean, I give money to charities and stuff like that, but that's. I think time is more valuable than the money. And I agree.

00:59:27
So I would say that that's what I do is I just try to influence people and inspire people to live their best lives. I love it. Now that goes into the next. The final question here. Where can our listeners find you online?

00:59:38
Because I know you do have, you know, YouTube channel and some other things going on. What do you have going on and where can people reach out to you? Okay, so, yeah, I've got a YouTube channel. Best thing to do would be to just email me directly, Markowins.com, and ask me if you're looking for my YouTube channel. I'll send you a link because I can't remember the name of it.

00:59:57
I've got a Facebook group for real estate investors. There's a page in a group just if you do a search, it's Mark Owens Rei. And just the group is there. I think there's like a thousand people and the page is just like a place order. So.

01:00:11
Yeah. Okay. Don't waste your time with that. Email is probably the best way. And then if you tell me what you're looking for, whether it's YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, whatever.

01:00:20
Yeah. And I can just answer you directly. Perfect. Now, you're going to be in Charleston for a foreseeable future. The.

01:00:29
I'm going to be in Charleston for my wife's contract is she starts another one. It's in April, May, and June. I'm staying till the beginning of June. Then I'm heading out to Leadville, Colorado, for a month. Nice to train at elevation because I'm going to be going to Kings Peak, which is the highest mountain in Utah.

01:00:49
Bora, which is the highest mountain in Idaho. I've got a permit to climb Whitney, which is the highest mountain in the lower 48 states, which is in California. And I'm going to do boundary peak in Nevada. So I'm going to do the highest point in four different states in July. So that's.

01:01:04
That's my plans for July. That's so cool. All right, well, there's so much more we could dive into, but we'll have to save that for. We can get you back on another time. This has been really, really good, Mark.

01:01:14
I mean, I just love this. I just love your, you know, I hate that you had to go through all that. I mean, obviously, like you said, some of that was maybe your own, your own doing, but it was all my own doing, man. That's. I mean, that's the only way that you can change your life is if you accept 100 responsibility for what you do.

01:01:30
And I always have. I never blamed anybody else. I made the choices. I mean, it's, you know, I know you say you don't want to compare, but that's some serious adversity that you, that you overcame and that you went through. And now, I mean, you know, you're.

01:01:45
It definitely seems from my perspective, you're living an abundant life. I'm sure you have struggles like everybody else, right? But you've got free time, and it sounds like you've got financial freedom from your real estate and other endeavors. So, I mean, definitely come a long way. And I really feel like this is going to inspire a lot of people.

01:02:03
So I really just want to thank you for coming on, Mark, and spending your most valuable resource with us, which is your time. So thanks a lot. Hey, thank you, Jamie. Thank you for having me. Be happy to come back anytime in the future if you want to continue the discussion.

01:02:18
Sounds great. And to our listeners out there, please go out and rate and review our show. We'd love it. We're in a growth phase, obviously, so we appreciate you listening. Take care, everyone.