Abundance through Instability and Loss with Homeschooler and Investment-Club Creator Emma Powell

Speaker 1

00:00

 In this episode of the form adversity to abundance podcast, I got the chance to chat with Emma. Powell of the high-rise group. Emma is a commercial real estate investor a homeschooler of six. She's been featured on the Bigger Pockets podcast as well as in Business Insider and some other outlets as well. She's really impressive. However, the years leading up to the pandemic were quite a struggle for her. Get into the passing of our father, her brother's cycling accident, which was very serious. And then extremely sad situation with her sister's son. Not to mention the challenges that come along with homeschooling, as well as a lot to do with her husband's job instability. And which really led to Emma's I guess path down toward real estate and her shifting. Her priorities. We talked a lot about recently research shifting where she thought she wanted to scale and be super active in commercial real estate and now she's actually created an investor Club so that she can actually be a bit more passive herself. So I think there's a lot that the average listener can relate to in this episode. She's certainly been through a lot of trials and tribulations and, but she does not take the victim mentality whatsoever. A super impressive, she definitely takes ownership of her situation and, you know, puts her family first and there's just a lot of selfless act action that you will get from her and a lot of positive inspiration. And I know you're going to like this one.

Speaker 2

01:50

 Inspiring stories of real people, overcoming incredible odds to live life to the fullest. We are all guaranteed to face. Hardships, how will we handle the adversity? Join us to be moved by everyday people who have turned poverty and prosperity, and weakness into wealth Be Inspired as these relatable Heroes, get vulnerable and former counterintelligence investigator Jamie Bateman puts his interviewing skills to the test, restore your faith in humanity as you experience. True Cinderella stories of average people turning surreal struggle and deep despair into booming, businesses and financial Fortune. Take ownership of the life, you are destined. Stand to live and turn your adversity into abundance.

Speaker 1

02:42

 Welcome everybody, to another episode of the form adversity to abundance podcast. I am your host Jamie Bateman. And today, I am really excited to have Emma Powell of the high-rise group with us today. Emma, how are you doing?

Speaker 2

02:54

 Doing? Great.

Speaker 1

02:56

 Awesome. Yeah, we were chatting beforehand a little bit and every everything we covered may be more interested in your story, so I am excited to dive in a little bit here. So for the listeners who are unfamiliar with, you could you give us a little bit of From today the last couple years as far as who you are and what you have what you're up to?

Speaker 2

03:18

 You have to put myself back together a little bit. It's like a little mini therapy session there and every show for you show, you got here. So I think where I am today, really, most, like, with most people, it's all mostly a result of the adversity that we have been through. And so, if you want to look back on when we first relocated to Utah, Was from Austin where we felt like we were going to raise our kids and spend the rest of our lives there. And then through a series of layoffs from the tech industry. My husband worked in chip manufacturing and then in it for data science startups and the tech industry is just notoriously unstable. As far as Jobs go they hire they fire, and so we had been watching that for years and I had to really never take in proper precautions on my own self or for my own responsibility to protect our family from that. Agility. And so the last time he got laid off, we were just putting in a pretty tough position, and we relocated to Salt Lake City and with me not having a job. My business was back in Austin. I didn't want to rebuild that and so sitting here across the country, very short notice I think he got laid off the week before Thanksgiving in 2017, and we were in Utah settled into our rental house, the first weekend of February of 2018. And so it was pretty rapid. What's you're lucky? He found a job. So fast and so, but at the same time it was, it was so rapid, and I was just so lost. We got rid of everything, we owned, we didn't have any debt which is it was kind of easy move from that standpoint. And I joke the house was spotless and the kids were getting a little bit older. My youngest was in kindergarten at that point, and I was bored and didn't have a business. Didn't have a point, didn't have a purpose. My kids were having so much fun. Just exploring the new house. Exploring, the new neighborhood, and I just didn't have anything going on. So out. That adversity, I thought. Well, this is an opportunity for me to invent myself in the way that I have always had a lot of excuses for why I have never done before. I didn't have time, I didn't have money, I didn't, because we'd sold that house in Texas, and suddenly, I had a lot of time and I had money and I just decided that it was time to stop. Looking at hard things, that happened and all the reasons and the obstacles of why we couldn't do something and just went out and did it. So I built a real estate business to commercial real estate, investing business.

Speaker 1

05:43

 — so, and how many kids do you have? Did you say?

Speaker 2

05:45

 Yeah, we have six kids and we're.

Speaker 1

05:48

 Just going to gloss over, you know, you had nothing going on, got it, okay. All right. But so, your commercial talk about your commercial real estate business, and then we will jump back. So, what does that look like today?

Speaker 2

06:05

 I am actually in the process of scaling it down, and I think that was again through when you grow up. Certain point where you have to ask yourself that question, like, why am I, why am I doing this? And getting the systems and processes in place where you have to ask yourself? Am I going to scale this bigger? And am I going to make a big business out of this or when it got to the point where I could no longer handle it by myself because I was dropping balls. You know, you're juggling too many balls and then had to ask myself. Do I want to keep going with this? Or was the whole reason I got into this? To have passive income and spend more Time with my family. Now the answer to that was passive income and more time with my family. But at the beginning, when in 2018, I remember specifically saying, I need a job. I need something to do. I need some active investing because otherwise it's me just collecting mailbox money and watching cat videos on YouTube. Yeah.

Speaker 1

07:05

 Sounds like you were trying to, you know, I don't want to say you weren't it sounds like you had that some bit of, uh, Fulfilled. You wanted to serve more of a purpose outside of your family, or, you know, I don't know how to phrase that, but it wasn't just the best mailbox money. It was, it was you wanted to add value and do something notable sounds like and then now maybe you have done that and you're trying to scale it down a little bit. Is that, is that true? Yeah, okay. So 2018 you were looking to do something outside of the home and make some extra income and then, where did things go from.

Speaker 2

07:40

 There? Yeah, so I add a real estate and wedding photography business in Austin, and I was doing it part-time. I knew I didn't want to work more than part-time because I do really enjoy spending time with my kids and I do really enjoy helping homemaking activities, have a lot of hobbies like so and I played piano garden and like, to play sports and just do all those, those kinds of things. But at the same time, I have this thing where I want to go outside and, and build something, build a business build in my community. And, so I really like the idea of part-time Homemaker and part-time business person. I realized when I was so bored after my husband laid off, and then he got his new job. Part of the reason that we weren't living, the passive income lifestyle, where we my kids were home schooled, and I was home, and he wasn't, and he didn't work that far away. I think it was like a five minute commute, but at the same time it's like, we couldn't go wander around and travel and do the things because he was still working. And at that time, I wasn't really thinking that I was going to retire him. It was Like I was trying to protect us from the layoffs, protect us from the hardship and when that mindset kind of shifted around to this business, have the possibility to not only protect us from hardship at also lead us into abundance. That was where it really changed. It wasn't like, now I need something to do to keep myself busy because it was whether inside the home or outside the home. If I can free him from the need to be making money and to go into the office, then that's when I don't. Actually need a part-time job inside outside the home anymore. We can go do all of these things together. And so that was when I realized I don't really want to build this huge business and I think he put it best when I was struggling with this. This thing should I scale or should I not? And he said, well, I don't want to just get to the point where I am ready to quit my job, and we just replaced my job with your job. He goes to the name of the one right on board.

Speaker 1

09:34

 Trailer, just traded problems, basically gotcha. Okay. So we will get, we will get into that some more, but Let us back up kind of into your story a little bit more, you know. Historically you can pick it up wherever you'd like we touched on several things before we hit record the first time and just get it. And you know, we I think a lot of the things you have dealt with and this is not me trying to judge. It's just I think a lot of people will be able to relate to several of the things you have gone through, right? So pick Get up where you'd like to you mentioned. A couple you mentioned your parents before we hit record. You mentioned your husband's you know I guess instability with his employment and I mean just homeschooling six kids and that's enough adversity for me right there just that but yeah pick it up where you'd like to, and we can dive into some of the challenges that you have faced personally and with your family and kind of your mindset and getting through those obstacles and challenges. Just.

Speaker 2

10:43

 Well last fall. My sister's teenage son passed away from cancer, and he had been battling with it for about two years. And at the end, which is common with cancer. It was very, very sudden. It went from he's having a new round of chemo. He has this chance of survival to getting that phone call. He's going home and it took probably three days at that point.

Speaker 1

11:19

 Wow. I am very sorry to hear.

Speaker 2

11:21

 That. Yeah. So that opened an opportunity for me to just take a closer look at my life and spend some time with some therapists. And it opens some doors that I didn't know you needed to be looked at. So sometimes that's the experiences we get from those and the year before, when my father passed away that was difficult. I was obviously extremely difficult but at the same time he was 83, and we had the experience where he had a heart attack a month or two months before he passed away where we all Gathered into Seattle, it was before the pandemic. It was the fall of 2019. And so we were in his hospital room. We were in the nursing home with him. We had wonderful experiences. We said what we needed to say. And even though we could have continued to enjoy great times together, we didn't feel like there was anything unsaid. And so it was a beautiful experience that I felt like was really bonding for my siblings and me, and we were able to say goodbye. To him in a way that had dignity and celebrated his life. It was very, it was very different watching. My nephew battle, cancer during covid isolated in the hospital, and then eventually at age 17 lose that battle. And so afterwards, I knew when I was talking with my therapist, and she was just asking about trauma experiences, and I started talking about things that I never really let it bother me before and I would see her eyes widen her eyebrows go up, and she would start scribbling notes. I have a brother who's a quadriplegic from a cycling accident, he actually lives near me. He we moved here four years ago, and he's been here a couple of years before us. And, so I hadn't had like, up close and personal his battle with, with his new life, basically and sit more close and personal now, And realizing it's not just the fact that you can't walk. It's affects every part of your physiology and your mental health. It's right. Yeah.

Speaker 1

13:44

 In this, this is in no way, it's just me relating on some level, right? But I guarantee some of the my friends are going to make fun of me for even bring this up again. But I ruptured my achilles last year and this is not a sympathy not for me, but the point is it Affected, I couldn't drive for three months, right? And it affected our family in so many ways that I never even thought about, it was just like, oh, my leg is the problem, right? Well, no, it's really. That was the start of all the problems, right? And so point being it. I mean it created a lot of stress for our family. My wife had to drive the kids everywhere and it's just a lot of things I couldn't do, and I mean, just so that times 10 or 100 is what, you know? What your brother has been dealing with it. It's just so much more than just the physical ailments. Oh yeah. Yeah, that's, that's a lot. And I think it sounds like you're kind of like me and that we were talking beforehand that You know, we don't at least I will speak for myself. I tend to like keep things at a distance, you know, emotionally you're too which I think sometimes is the right move on some level but and not if it's not from Center then that's like it's just easier to move forward with you know it Without Really facing someone else's adversity and sounds like it sounds like this is now you have had some things kind of very much front and center where the It or not. And so, I mean that's a lot of right there. And then again, with the instability from the employment side and then just homeschooling to me, that's you may think that's no big deal, but I think that's a lot of adversity is being from a big family myself, like you said, you are. I can only imagine how much work that is in and of itself. And I know you mentioned some of the challenges with, I think one of your son's as well. So yeah, I would be there. Anything else you want to dive into? As far as kind of challenges you have had to work.

Speaker 2

15:56

 Through? Well I think that Like I said, who we are and how we deal with these things that happen to us in our lives, really has really speaks a lot to who we are on the other side of it. I think it's funny that you brought up the Achilles because it's one of those little things. So, I am I have actually an Achilles disorder to if we want to name it. And it actually stems from, I mentioned earlier back from when I was a kid. When I was a teenager, I had a sudden, Pressure, and it was just rapid onset. Nobody knew what was wrong. Got into the hospital, and I am going to use the words almost died. It was, it was really, really bad, emergency surgery. I was, I was out, I was down for quite a while and had some pretty extensive antibiotic use afterwards which that doesn't number on your joints. And so I have had since that time. Really a lot of problems with my joints at some knee. Sorry I have got an Achilles think they're just wearing out, I have a lot of pain, right? So I wouldn't call it chronic pain, but it's nagging. And so what a my hobbies is hiking, its how I relax. It's how I like to spend my time. And, so I just spent a lot of time working on my joint issues, and it's just kind of funny because when you have a situation like my brother's situation, and my sister has the same problem with her heels, so it's partially genetic and it's partially from the end of antibiotics. She also had cancer during I am sorry complaining about our heels but I feel like I am not even allowed to talk about it because she has cancer. So our heels on our Achilles are just, we just don't bring it up, and so I think that sometimes the denial that we're in, that something is going on. And that's why I think working with a therapist was actually helpful because I don't, it's not like I am at my brother's house helping him in the morning and get transferred to his wheelchair. It's not like I am over there, we don't even see each other all that. At often there's a crisis or a holiday or something. And I there's a lot of guilt there that I am not able to you just kind of feel helpless. And, so I think that, that, that dealing with these things, there's just a lot, and we have a tendency to just bury it and ignore it or on the flip side, to develop a victim mentality. And this is going to hold us back. And here's why I can't do all the things I want to do because of all these hard things that have happened. And sometimes I even feel like inspiring stories from people who have overcome adversity instead, Be motivating. Because what's wrong with me? Why can't I do this? And.

Speaker 1

18:34

 Yeah, no, absolutely. You're right. I mean, it's just like anything else. It's like either extreme is not good. So pretending you don't have problems or pretending, you don't have emotions, is not healthy, but staying there stuck and wallowing, and is not healthy either, right? And so, again, I am not preaching to anybody. I said this is an applies to me, just as much as anyone else, but And so that's an individual thing, I mean, as far as where's the, you know, the healthy zone for, for each person, I think. So that's the, that's, that's a lot. I mean, yeah, and as far as like, and this show it just gets into some of the things I didn't necessarily see. Coming were one, was it? It kind of sets us up to compare ourselves to other people based both with the adversity level, you know? People have been through or the types and I guess, you know, probably a bad choice of words, but quality and quantity of adversity and in quality and quantity of abundance. It's like, how do I compare to this person? Well, I think it's inevitable, we do that and it's actually been listening to a podcast about this yesterday that we do. That's just in our nature to compare and I don't always think that's a bad thing because you can, you can look at like, you know, No realize that your heel issue isn't really all that big of a deal compared. If you do, compare your that adversity to someone else. And I think that to me that's encouraging because okay someone else has been through this or something worse, so I can too but you're absolutely right. You can look at someone else's, you know, major accomplishments or have in and just and that can backfire as well. So yeah. It's a, these are complicated Waters to navigate, I would say. And certainly, we're not trying to fix all the mental health issues in the world, or address, all these solve all the problems in one podcast episode. But so, so what would you say kind of, is there any kind of common theme as far as either your mindset or just one or two, maybe tactics that you may not have even thought about this before? But that have enabled you to get through those various.

Speaker 2

20:58

 Issues Yeah, I am definitely a big rocks kind of person and that goes to the analogy when you're trying to put a bunch of rocks, big rock small rocks and sand into a jar. If you focus on the sand first and the big rocks won't fit. But if you put in the big rocks, first, the sand will pour in, and we will fill in all of empty spaces. And so, I mean, I have heard that analogy plenty of times and it never really struck me as, you know, mind-blowing, when I heard it, but as time goes on, I recognize that. That's just the way that I deal with life. And that's the way that I saw problems, I like to find One solution that will spread out or trickle down and solve a lot of other problems. And so, I would say that there's a book that I read when I started homeschooling, especially when we really switch strategies to something called unschooling where we're not doing a lot of formal education and because like you said, six kids homeschooling, it would be too much work, it would be unsustainable. And, so I am trying to find a sustainable way to educate my children without making myself crazy. And so finding the big rock that's going to solve all these problems. There's this book in the unschooling community called nonviolent communication and it was written by somebody who worked in the International Community doing a lot of negotiations, political negotiations, like, Jewish and Palestinian, you know, over the years, really borders, kinds of situations and his main premise in that book that really hit me hard. Was you cannot control other people, and he didn't really say it that overtly. But as I do, only thing that you can hope to Do is communicate and you can't even make sure that they hear you. You can't even make sure that they understand you. Because that's what we say, we all just want to be heard, but we can't even control whether or not heard. All we can do is communicate and then that's it and the rest you need to let go. And so when I started recognizing that, I could categorize My Life by things that I can control and things that I can't control. That eliminated pretty much everything. Yeah, it was really good. Yeah, so you take the situation. In. Let us take my son, you, that you mentioned. He has autism. We dealt with a lot of autism in my family and you know, people who have autism who don't believe autism is a thing. It's, it's, it's been. It's been fun to learn to deal with emotions and socializing and deal with adversity, all of kind of things. When, when you don't quite think about things the same way that other people do. And so, it's like you recognize that you can't control that situation and there's nothing you can do about it. And so you stop worrying about it because we used to think with my son when he was growing up like what did we do? How do we cause this? Like my husband, right? What would obsess over the way that he would come in and see the? He was loading the dishwasher the wrong way, and he'd say no let us go. This way the goals go that way. And then my son became very, very controlling and obsessive that certain things were the right way and had to follow the rules. And this is not the way that it's done. My husband really thought that it was because he had these very particular ways of having him do things as a kid.

Speaker 1

23:59

 And your husband was blaming himself.

Speaker 2

24:01

 Writing himself, but when we step back and realize like we cannot control the fact that our son has autism, we did not cause this we did not create this and what you let it flow then you just focus on. Okay how do we cope obviously? He still has autism but when you stop the blame game and you stop the what if game? So when you stop the, what if I could control this game you only focus in on what you can control. And what we notice is most of it goes away, the other parts of it, you They can get focused in on what you can control and then the Senate. There are few things that you cannot control that you're still really upset about. It's really bothersome, it's really stressful. And that's the stuff that we found that. We need to do some more inner work on how to not let that stuff bother you. And you have two options there. You can either expand your circle of control or you can just learn how to stop letting it bother.

Speaker 1

24:55

 You. That's really interesting and my son is autistic as well. And we Actually, just this morning, had a went on a school trip, to try to find a better fit for them. So we have dealt with some of that as well and yeah, and it's a couple things that came to mind. One is that as you were talking its you know, the fact that you can Free Yourself of worrying about things that you can't control, it's not only that it helps you personally, you know? Oh, that's great. You don't have to feel that stress. That's that is good, right? But also its there's Opportunity cost there because you're not focused on the things you can control. So I don't know if I would think about it that way until you were explaining it. But, so I just you were talking about focusing on things you can control. Well, I think because you're, if you're obsessing over, did we cause this, you know, what do I do wrong? Well, you're not actually focused on things you can control and therefore, you're not as effective in your impact. So and then the other thing I was going to quickly mention was my son. In the last two weeks, he just made this is it will likely change tomorrow. So I am not a spiking the football per se. But it's like we always had this huge Battle of getting him out of bed and getting them to school because he doesn't like school at all. And you now and then magically I guess he saw that the end of the school year is almost here and for the last week and a half he's been at my car in the morning, waiting for me to go to school, you know, because and so Turn around 180 and has Behavior. What did we what had we done to change that or cause that nothing? So a lot of it is, you can't control it. This is the point. So, you know, and that goes both ways so that I found that very helpful as well. Myself just when I actually had gone. Part time, we talked about recently, quit my job, I had gone part-time in 2015 and around that time it was a big mindset. Shift. And I have talked about this before but it just huge piece of it was just not worrying about the mainstream media and all these things that are you know, these topics are important. Politics War, certainly important but I have very little impact on them. If any. And so it just didn't do me any good or my family, any good for me to be focused on those things. I really started focusing on the things I could control in my team around me and things like that. But this Episode isn't about me but so let us see. So okay, so let us get back into the 2017, 2018 shift, and then we will talk more about kind of what you have going on today and I will fire off some other questions. So what did your 2018 to 2020 pre-pandemic? What happened with your real estate business?

Speaker 2

27:53

 Well, we had that house that we had in Texas. Now supposed to be the forever home. It was a little ranch, the homestead and hit The Sheepdogs. The chickens and the goats and the whole nine yards of and that just of course, like any dream that you have. Once you start living it, it just it wasn't what we thought it would be. It was more expensive than we thought it would be. It's just, and we were kind of watching that unravel a little bit. So when he got laid off, and we decided when we moved to Utah, that we were going to move back into a little neighborhood and give up on the whole Farmstead thing. And so that was kind of tough mindset shift for us. And we thought, okay, we will just rent really cheap for a few years while we sort ourselves out. We didn't have any other And that's one of those another situation like that. The whole Dave Ramsey thing, like he really blessed our lives in a lot of ways, and he really harmed us in a lot of ways as.

Speaker 1

28:38

 Well. So you went through like the his programs or.

Speaker 2

28:42

 Yeah, we're living in Texas for so many years. He's really popular in the Evangelical Christian Community and especially homeschooling in that area. We spent a lot of time in some Evangelical homeschool groups and so my kids went through the high school program listening to him on the radio. Dio, like we're from a very frugal family, very self, sufficiency type of preaching at family and so that really resonated us with us in a lot of ways. But I think we're really falls down is on the investment advice. It's kind of like home, you know, get some ETFs and mutual funds and pay cash for a real estate. And what happened at the end of 10 or 15 years of doing that was we owned no real estate in our house. Still isn't paid off because we had some kids. We felt like we're constantly putting our lives off, right? And we were never done anything. And so, we were living suso frugally, and we weren't making any progress in our goals because we weren't using leverage. And so yeah, we did have to kind of bring ourselves around to more of the Rich Dad, why we're trying to do dad with the Ramsey and it just, it's just.

Speaker 1

29:46

 Yeah and that's I mean it's partially entertainment. a. It like it is, I mean I do think it's kind of like I will put it like almost like CrossFit like it CrossFit integrate for lots of people and it has Dave, Ramsey has done a lot of good and you know he doesn't care what I think but it's not a matter of. It's just a plug and play like this. This is for everybody and it's like you're not even listening to what my situation is at all. You don't know what would work best for me and so same thing I did CrossFit for a while. It's like you just show up and whatever is on the schedule you do and it's like I think in general crossfit's done a lot of good for people but that's pretty harmful. If you Aren't careful ways. So, that's interesting. Yeah, I mean and you can't I think for people who are in debt and for you know many people Dave Ramsey has a lot of quality principles that should you should apply to your life. But yeah he's very inside. Leverage is very anti infinite banking which is a whole different story which has to do with leverage as well. But yeah, so you pivoted your mindset and you were able and then you move more. Toward the Rich, Dad kind of approach. What does that mean for the listener out there? What does that mean?

Speaker 2

31:04

 Leverage of other people's money and leverage of other people's time, which means Partners so. Dave Ramsey's very anti partnership as well. And leverage of other people's Knowledge and Skills, so Partnerships with people and Partnerships with people for money. So whether it's a loan or Equity partners, and when you realize that you can Leverage other people's money skills time, then you realize that there's no ceiling to that. And so the way that it was explained to me, best was a local fund manager. They imagined institutional fund, and we were at our Mastermind together, and I was really grappling with this idea of scaling my business, and he was trying to encourage me to get out of the multifamily syndication game and start a fund. And he said, you already, you're already doing it. You already do the SEC reg, D funds. And when hating for these multi family deals, you already know the laws. You already know how to raise Capital. You already know how to do this. They said, if you just go and you just shift your focus from asset management and finding these deals, just go raise money and then you can place them with skilled operators because it how much, how much did you raise your potential to earn income? When you went from being a stay-at-home mom to a photographer? I said oh I raised it quite a bit. Is it? What about when you went from being a photographer to a real estate investor my said quite a bit again, I mean that Big words that Chef right there. He said, what about when you decided that you're going to do just residential fix and flips Wholesales that you were going to do, commercial real estate, big stuff not just duplexes and 12 plexes that you were going to go for the big stuff. The hundred plus units. I said, oh wow. That just blew the lid off. That just blew my abundance mindset, all the pieces, and he's kind of doing this with his hands, and I am blowing it out. And then he said, if you became a multi-family syndicator and you became a fund manager, and the hand just went off the scale. He's a guy. That's the difference between In what you can earn as a multi-family syndicator and a fund manager. He's a. So if you're going to be working, you might as well put your effort to the place where it is going to be the most valuable where it will have the most leverage. And so that mindset shift of how to leverage was really what changed, what changed between being able to think about things from? I want a couple of rentals and paid off rentals. Dave Ramsey style, right? I am going to be a fund manager. And go blow.

Speaker 1

33:28

 The lid offs this so explain the difference between a you know, so you're saying with the syndication you go find a multi-family deal and then you go raise some money to fund it right? Is that with one property usually right? Yeah, whereas a fund you're focused on raising of the capital first and then you're going out and placing that Capital with operators who actually are managing individual deals. Is that.

Speaker 2

33:56

 Correct? Yeah. So Can have a single offering fund or a multi offering fund. So single offering is what I was doing, where there's one property and the fund is very, very specific to that property. Is this address. We're going to do exactly these things, and we're going to expecting these kinds of returns. And that's what you basically go sell to your investors. I hate to use the word cell because there are opportunities that you're giving them in and all of that. But that's what you just close your investors that you what you have going on and it with a multi offering fund. It's like these are the kinds of properties that Going to be doing, this is the kind of investment, we're going to be in, you can get pretty specific. Like we're going to do these three properties, right? Right. We're going to do this type of asset. And so, once can really be the sky's the limit, you can design them, however you want. The question is, can you sell that fund so blind pool? Because if they don't know what they're investing in, it could be like, I don't know what I am gonna invest in, but I am amazing. So you should just put some money with me. I am sure I will find it before. It might in less than that if your grandfather owned, but most people would not. And so the more specific that you can get the better but the more General, you can get the better, all right? And so finding that balance between those two things is really the difference between a fund and raising money for a single offering.

Speaker 1

35:11

 Got it. Okay. Yeah, because we have a note fund and it's more, you know, it's a, we raise Capital. We have a general idea of what asset type. We're going to be buying, but I have no idea which assets I am buying yet are so that's more like the fun model. You're talking about. But so, and so, where does it stand today? Are you running a fund right now? Or what's your business? Look like right now?

Speaker 2

35:38

 Well, I came at it from a little bit of a different angle than a regulation defund. Because the problem, the main problem that I have in my businesses, I am really actually not good at raising money from limited partners, what you really need to be good at if you're gonna raise money from limited partners. And, so I am figuring most of your listeners know something about how Oh, the SEC governs, the legalities, the regulations around raising money. So if people are going to put money in, and they're not going to do any work, they have no say they're limited partner whether they're putting it in as Equity or whether they're putting it in as debt their rules that where you have to follow about how you raised me. I am actually okay from raising money from debt partners that limited partners. I really just have not had success from Equity Limited at Harding side. Gotcha. Because most of the people that I attract tend to be other entrepreneurs who The money of a limited partner, maybe 100 Grand to and 50 Grand somewhere around there, and they will contact me, and they will say hey I want to do a deal because I am good at joint ventures, but I was doing small enough deals. Like maybe, I only needed two or three hundred thousand dollars, and we could go buy a crappy class D. Property in a smaller town, and so I was I was Raising that but then when I started doing much larger stuff, and we're doing 67 million dollar raises, I can't have 20 30 joint venture Partners in there. It's illegal. And first of all like, who wants to handle that? Any that many people. And so we had a deal, this is probably the biggest professional adversity I have ever had. We had a deal that we were buying. It was a 200 plus unit in Texas, and we couldn't raise money for it because it's just raising money from limited. Partners is its a specialized skill and our team that we gather. We were just not getting the job done. And I remember, we let that deal go. And we lost all of our due diligence money. We lost a bunch of earnest money. I paid back the artist my partners and I paid for one partner who didn't have the cash to pay his portion of. I just lost a lot of my in that field. And what I learned from that was, do I want to keep doing this? Do I want to keep scaling? Do I want to keep raising money on a clock? And I am obviously really struggling with raising money from limited partners and I kept having people reach out. I thought I had the money for that. I thought I could do it. That's silly people who doubt and say that. Hey, I want to put money in a deal when I went to go do the raises. They wanted to be Her GP they didn't want to be one of the partners. And, so I am just kind of wine and about this to one of my joint venture Partners who also happens to be a Securities attorney and whose dad runs an Institutional fund and just saying like the raising LP is so much harder than I thought it was going to be. And I said, I have millions of dollars here with Co GPS, small grow GPS, II, can't use it. There's nothing I can do with it because I can't form gigantic joint ventures, and he said, well, it sounds like what? Describing is an investment Club. I was like, oh, okay, now this is, it wasn't that at all? Yeah, that's hard. You better learn how to raise money from limited partners. He had that background and that knowledge, and he was in my work Graham, and he sent me home with a research project and there's nothing. I love better than a good research projects at home. And I took this basically this massive failure of this deal that fell through. I lost almost as much money that. Or as my husband makes in a year, it.

Speaker 1

38:59

 Was devastating. Yeah. That's and then not only that, I mean, it's just a pylon while we're at it, right? But just the I mean, it's probably, you know, your pride and just, I don't know. I mean, I can't, that's I am not saying I am immune to that. I just that sounds very challenging because you kind of walk away with your tail between your legs and then lose all this money. And yeah people back and Yeah, that goes against the whole like, oh well if you find a good deal all the money just shows up magically. It's just I don't think, that's always the case.

Speaker 2

39:36

 So it doesn't, at the same time, that experience is, what gave birth? Yeah. Pivot as they birth to the investment club. And so we're on our third and fourth deal, right now that we close it for Q in quarter, one and quarter to and now we have more than an almost Two dozen people who now through the club have done their first coach EP deal. And then we have also got some small fund managers in there who are just looking for places to put their Capital that they're good at raising LP capital, and they're looking for a good deal, split it. And what we're really good at in the club is meeting good operators and finding the deals and Screen. Good deals. So I have way more deals than I have money. So and I mean, I want to go in as limited partners. We have got great opportunities for him, but if people want to get the toes wet as a CO GP, There's never been an easier way to do it and it took us, we have been in operation for about a year and it took us a while to get all of the legal Hoops to jump through and also getting all the cats heard it in the right direction. But right now, I am really excited about what we're building because for the first time you're not paying thirty thousand dollars to Guru and learn all about it. I never three years later. Still, haven't done a deal. The club was completely free because I don't want to deal with the.

Speaker 1

40:52

 Assistant. What's the name of the club is?

Speaker 2

40:55

 We're doing that right now. We're actually in a rebranding everything why not more about it on my website?

Speaker 1

41:03

 What's your.

Speaker 2

41:03

 Website and we will it's hard, it's a www dot high-rise dot group. It's Hig HR is e and basically after we did our first couple of deals, we realized we had something pretty cool here and it was able to fulfill a lot of holes in the industry for people who were really struggling to build this business and really frustrated. Um and we recently just got to the point where it I can't run it by myself anymore rather than starting to charge money for it and create all this ice. If you know what I am just going to run it like I run my home school and you don't have to run it. So we basically formed committees and created people with jobs and I basically get to function inside of my area of expertise and control what I am good at controlling and the rest of it, I got to delegate, and I am really enjoying What the club was turning into and how people are building what they need to make their businesses.

Speaker 1

42:02

 Successful and cool. That's why I kind of and it came out of, like you said, just reflecting on a failure. I mean, whatever you want to call it a Learning lesson, people have different names for it, but it's not something you know you had something professional go sideways, not the way you wanted it to and you but you didn't just quit, I mean you were talking to someone who's plugged in the industry. And I think that speaks to networking, and just, you know, being a part of something, a mastermind or something bigger than yourself because I don't, I don't know everything, you don't know everything. So, so that's really cool. And now, you feel like you're moving, you're able to focus more on using your strengths and your skill set from your previous experience. And, and then let other people who are really good at, Raising capital or whatever else under a run like that underwriting. That's really cool. I am really curious. I know there's some other groups like that out there, but I feel like those are it's only going to grow. Because as people get, I mean, just, you know, people are lots of people looking for alternative investments, just for numerous reasons and, but they don't know. Most people don't have the time to, you know, I have with notes, we were talking about this before is The end of the day, most people end up. Deciding whether they want to be an active or passive investor they might be both, I am both right, but and there certainly is a middle ground there but you don't always know and that's what you were talking about before is you don't you know the push is to scale right? Oh you got a scale? Well maybe there's an in between there and it sounds like, that's what. Yeah, your investment Club can offer as well.

Speaker 2

43:59

 Right. Yeah, for people like me who I am Just realized I wasn't cut out to be a principal sponsor. Because to do that, you have to be really great asset manager, and you have to be building a business and put people in key players in place to be running a business. And I just didn't want to build a business again. Like you said, trading out of the same problem. Where now, I have a job even though I returned, it just wasn't a good fit for our lifestyle and so in order to scale back and stop being a principal sponsor but not just go straight to being a limited partner and really operating a fund would have just been The same thing, it's running a fun business instead of a syndication business. So that wasn't a good fit for me either. I actually took my partner's Dad out to lunch and just Grill them for a couple of hours and just said, like, tell me the life of an Institutional fund manager, right. Yo, and just tell me what this is like and at the end of the meeting, he just sat back, and he said no you know maybe this isn't for you. I was like good. That's.

Speaker 1

44:52

 All I think that's here. That's very good advice right there because we just sometimes follow I am we don't take that. We don't create this space to think about where do I want to be? What I want my life to look like in five. Ten years or even next year. So okay go talk to someone who's doing it and see if you want to do it. And chances are the answer might be no you know so that's really good. All right I am going to rapid-fire go through some questions, and then we will wrap it up. What's one thing that people misunderstand about you?

Speaker 2

45:28

 People assume that because I talk a lot, and I am actually not a very good conversationalist that I am not a good. Good listener, but I am actually a really good listener. It's just I do better if I am in a situation where I can listen to you on a podcast or I can hear YouTube channel or I can read your stuff on social media face-to-face. I tend to take over and dominate a conversation and so people will laugh a lot about how my husband was been a really good listener different. But I guarantee I know the names of your kids and your dogs and this type of thing, I know a lot. I am always watching. I am always observing. I am always listening, but doesn't always come.

Speaker 1

46:06

 Out in Cross that way. Got it. If you could have coffee with any historical figure, who would it be and why?

Speaker 2

46:15

 I don't know how to admit this one. Probably Elon Musk. Honestly he is. He is a conflicted. Human when I first was exposed to him years ago, I was watching a video, and they were talking about some of the things that he was working on that. We're going to change the world, and they actually referred to him as our Lord and savior Elon Musk, and I was like who is this guy? And the second doing was just off the wall. Fascinating from as time goes through an Only when they were looking at removing him from the Tesla board, and he was having to say, like I have a problem with time and I have a problem with admitting timelines for things, and he started looking at his own shortcomings, and then he goes and just spews it all out on Twitter and his relationship issues with him and you're just watching him. Be this incredibly complex and conflicted kind of person, but he's the kind of person that I could just sit down with and talk for hours about. He's kind of nun, schooler. He knows a lot about human behavior and relationships. We could talk about business all day. Long obviously can't turn my head in circles but science data like all the things I am a dilettante he could just really film. I feel like.

Speaker 1

47:24

 Yeah. I mean that's a really good one. I like that. He's I mean, he's elon's brilliant. And I mean, yeah, I am curious to see where the Twitter thing goes. No, that's a good one. And yeah, I know he's had a lot of relationship failures, I guess we would say, right? But Amber Heard.

Speaker 2

47:45

 Like.

Speaker 1

47:45

 You said, he's a human right? A brilliant. Complicated human. What's your favorite meal or one of your favorite meals? Doesn't have to be your favorite meal?

Speaker 2

47:58

 I am not allowed to talk about food. Well, why not? Okay.

Speaker 1

48:06

 We can fast-forward.

Speaker 2

48:08

 Yeah, that's another adversity right there. Gotcha. Yeah. Okay. So That's a loaded question, got.

Speaker 1

48:16

 It. Alright how about in your opinion? What's one of the most important personality traits for someone to be successful in entrepreneurship or real estate? What's it doesn't have to be the number one thing. There's obviously multiple things but I guess it's kind of like the Bigger Pockets question. What? Separates people from, you know, the successful from those who give up or fail?

Speaker 2

48:43

 I will tell this one in a story. I know we were talking about how people learn best through stories. I will try and keep it short. It's not exactly my forte. But we were talking one time about how I am not, very detail-oriented. And I don't like life like to dive deep into the numbers. And nitty-gritty on this, I know a lot about a lot, but in the particular deal, am I really going to read all the fine print? The answers are known. I, I really want to make sure that my partners are aware of this upfront and that they understand that their roles are their roles. And my role, Roll is my role and my partner was laughing one time, and he said, you know so, and he was describing this guy's business and Hoover successful, huge income just, and he's a few. So scatterbrained ADHD, he's all over the place and that's one of the reasons. He's so successful is because he's a huge thinker, and he can really zoom out and look at all of these weird problem-solving dreaming type of things. And they my partner turned to me, and he said, you know, he makes you look like a CEO I mean, sorry, I didn't even say the right thing. He said he makes you look like an accountant, and I just started working at that party. He said he makes you look like an accountant and I stopped and I thought to myself like somebody who's so much more successful than me that I kind of assumed out big picture problem, solver. And there's this guy over there. That makes me look like an accountant. I thought I am obviously embarrassed about how little I am involved in the details, right, right? Comment made me realize. I need to be less involved in the country. I need to start the more, and so I yeah one I have been working.

Speaker 1

50:18

 On that. So that's I just my wife, just started a new job about a month ago and it's been challenging for and there's a ton of detail in the lot of moving parts and all these things. She's struggling with frankly, but I was trying to relay the point that Tons of successful people would be awful at that job. Like she's an already way better than like probably Elon Musk her. You know, would be at that job because that it's really not about that. So everyone's different we all have different skill sets and so you're not really a details person but way more than that's not holding you back and you need to be more big picture. Focus is what.

Speaker 2

51:01

 You're what you're saying, right? Creative problem solving. How can you solve? Problems that have market value. That's basically a successful entrepreneur, right there. You can't be a creative Problem. Solver if you have got your head down all the time. Now, on certain things, I can be very detail oriented because I am the one in charge. I am the only one doing it. I know all kids in the schedules, and we're supposed to be and all that but because there's no one else in charge of it. But if I can delegate the put somebody else in charge of that. So I can continue to zoom out more and more, and be more of a creative Problem Solver. Then that's really where you want to spend most of your time as an entrepreneur.

Speaker 1

51:35

 Sure, makes a lot of sense. What's a book or two that you'd recommend?

Speaker 2

51:40

 Well, that nonviolent communication, one Marshall Rosenberg. Excellent. Excellent. And I think the ones that are most life-changing are the ones that you're probably the worst at. And so somebody might read them be like.

Speaker 1

51:51

 Frank. Uh, I have been doing this for 10 years.

Speaker 2

51:54

 Exactly what for me, not knowing how to communicate, effectively that was, that was a really tough one and then there are two more again along the lines of communication because that's something. I pride myself about being good at but because I have spent a lot of time working on it and so now I feel good at it and I think that if you work at something, you can start out as something that you're naturally, maybe not that talented at. But when you recognize that and really start to focus on it, you can become good at it. So there's that I think Chris of awesome. Nothing explains the difference told.

Speaker 1

52:25

 Ya forever. Never smoked a difference.

Speaker 2

52:28

 Great negotiator, even though died, he learned from had no idea what he was doing and Chris became the great one and that Guy will still be Like A Beat cop because he never really identified what he was doing did and went on to become great at it. So communication books like that tend to really get me excited. I always think you're amazing because it's something I have had to put a lot of effort into.

Speaker 1

52:50

 Yeah it's a critical skill that's and there's so much. We all had a lot of room for growth with that with communication. That's really good. So, all right. Well, two more questions. How do you like to serve others? That's the first.

Speaker 2

53:04

 One. This has been a struggle for me, over the years because I have so many kids that I have had to kind of come to terms with the fact that I am serving by serving my children and making responsible young adults. And so first, I want to go and change the world and I want to be feeding all the hungry and I want to be. But that's a that is actually a form of narcissism. It's called the community narcissist who goes out, and they're just talking about all the great things that they do and sharing it. And, so I think that my need to go out and change the world actually points in a little bit of ego. And I kind of dial that you go back to say, I created these little humans, and I am going to make them the best contributors to society that I can possibly do. And that has definitely been a big step back in ego for me. So that's, that's the way that I like to serve. But now that they're older because they get a discount on their car insurance. If they are young, volunteers and volunteer regularly, I have been able to use that as a little bit of Leverage to go out and do some of those volunteer things that I enjoy. Mr. Never really what they do when they were younger.

Speaker 1

54:08

 My daughter turned 15 today, so I will have to look into that. Not that one, it's.

Speaker 2

54:14

 Not that much. It's only like maybe 5% but you know, they're at the Humane Society, and we're volunteering at the charity garden. And you know, it feels just really great to have something that's been nagging at you for so many years. I thought we did a little bit but almost never and now we're finally getting into it. And I just feels.

Speaker 1

54:31

 Great to volunteer you're talking about. Yeah, now I can really To that. It's I always feel like I should be volunteering somewhere. And I am not usually. All right? And then, last but not least. Where can our listeners find you online?

Speaker 2

54:46

 If you go to high-rise dot group, / contact, you can use whatever way you want to contact. Me on there. Whatever is easiest. I have got links to all the socials that I use. There's a calendar link that you can book a phone call with me. Don't hesitate, I love, I love those. 30-minute calls for my favorite things to do like podcast interviews and those 30 minute calls if I could just only do that in my business, that is what I, that is, what I would do in delegate everything else.

Speaker 1

55:10

 So you have been on a bunch of podcasts you were on BiggerPockets, right? Yeah. I just, how did, how did you pull that one off?

Speaker 2

55:18

 I always joke. It's like, you need to be a woman because they're looking for a little bit more diversity. So I just started listening to episodes when they would say like the type of guess they wanted on and.

Speaker 1

55:29

 I do remember Brandon specifically saying that I kind of stopped listening to it to be honest with you but What does he want? Not when he said that? Yeah, but once Brandon left and then I don't know, but I know it is.

Speaker 2

55:44

 True. Listen because David's taking it in a very different direction lately. Okay. We're, so I was a little disappointed too but David's definitely doing some new stuff, and I am actually really liking it because okay, it's definitely some new content and forcing you to think about some things a little bit. Nice.

Speaker 1

56:01

 I will have to try again. I was enjoying this Sunday ones when they were doing. Like more of the mindset less, you know, granular, real estate mechanics, I guess but have to give it another go. So I cut you off though. So it was there. Contact you however, they want through your website and, and, and if you want, if anyone's looking for an awesome podcast, guest, you're open to that as well.

Speaker 2

56:25

 Right? Would love it. Come and join the club. Learn how to invest in commercial real estate. We meet every Monday night at 6:30, and we have got a slack Channel. And the reason we do that Of like a more public Facebook group. This we do discuss 506 B deals in there, and we like to keep it nice and private. So we don't want operators deals, getting out there in the public even though we're not offering them, we just finished. All right we're gonna off.

Speaker 1

56:48

 And I know I said last question like three questions ago, but how do you define commercial real estate? Are you know, for your group anyway? Because that is sometimes a nebulous term like what is commercial real estate?

Speaker 2

57:02

 We use the lender definition. So anything, any property that is for non-residential use, or is for residential. Use has to be 5, units are above it. Now, we specialize in multifamily because that's what I know best. And, you know, I was the one running the club but now that we're branching out into more committees, we would like to diversify into, especially mobile, home parks, still storage or the to this people seem to be most interested in, but I also think multifamily development some grounds up. So we're looking at some pretty I think I am ground up projects right now. So if there's something that you know about, like we have got a, an RV park investor in the group. And so we are able to look at a wider variety of deals because we have experts in those deal types who can it hormones? If somebody brings us a deal and I don't know anything about it. I am like Hey Joe is this a good deal or not? So it's actually really nice to have delivered one another that way.

Speaker 1

57:55

 Well and also this nobody knows really what's going to happen with the economy here. So it's pretty nice to have experts across So many different asset classes and strategies. So that's good. In the group is free. You said.

Speaker 2

58:07

 Right? It's free. And they're two reasons. I do it one. I don't want to start another business for reasons we already discussed and to if I charge with it, I might have to get into some SEC stuff where I am running an investment company, or I am a registered investment adviser. Yeah, that's not it at all. We are a club. We all make our own investment decisions, we all put our own knowledge in there, and we're not asserting anything or charging money for anything. And that's what I need out of it and that's what attracts other people's, we create it to be what we want it to be.

Speaker 1

58:38

 That's awesome. I am gonna have to check it out. So.

Speaker 2

58:42

 We come up for people who live in Salt Lake City team.

Speaker 1

58:45

 Okay live once a month. Nice. All right. Well Emma, thank you so much for joining me. This has been really good. I know we had some couple technical issues, but we will work through that. That's no big deal. But thank you so much. I know. Pilar really gonna be able to relate to several things. You said just, you know, you definitely have dealt with a lot of adversity, and it's not looked the episode. I just released today. I mean, you know, he was raised with without running water. Louis no, running water, no electricity. And dealt with all kinds of, you know, abuse. And I mean, just really just bouncing around from different home to home. And It's like, it's almost like, okay, we got that. It's like, we don't we can stop comparing, right? But you have dealt with really quite a bit and so it's really impressive. How you have been able to you, you don't have a victim mentality at all, you just figure out, figure out a way to get through it, or around it. And, you know, and deal with that adversity and get to that abundance mindset and you're definitely living proof that it's not always all about scaling either. It's also focusing. Hang on quality versus quantity and I think I might have to go back and re-listen to this one because you have dropped a lot of knowledge, so we appreciate it. So, thanks a lot Emma.

Speaker 2

01:00:11

 It was a pleasure being on, Jamie. And I think you're the first interviewer who's ever made me cry.

Speaker 1

01:00:17

 I don't know if I am proud of that, but I guess it was an eventful interview, then other to our listeners out there. Thank you so much for spending your most valuable resource with us. We appreciate it and please give us a positive. Rating and review. Thanks everyone. Take care.

Speaker 2

01:00:35

 Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of the form adversity to abundance podcast. If you're enjoying the show, please feel free to rate, subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to your podcast that helps others find the show, and we greatly appreciate it. Thanks again for listening, and we will catch you in the next episode.