Episode 13| Jeffrey Holst: How Connecting With People and Being In The Right Room Made Jeff The 37th Most Interesting Person In The World

Jeffrey Holst is a real estate investor and entrepreneur. He lives his life by his motto "There's no bad days." He also wants you to remember this is the last life you will ever get. In this episode, we talk about how Jeff connects to famous authors, and gets into rooms with the people he wants to connect with. We also talk about some of Jeff's fun adventures and experiences, and how to gain freedom from normalcy.

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Like I mean, it's really nice not having a job. No, it's not. I never do anything obviously. Right. You, I'm still putting deals together and stuff, but I get to choose when I want to do them, how I wanna do 'em. If I wanna take a month off, like last year I went to Africa twice. because I thought it would be fun to buy a safari lodge in Africa. Now I haven't bought one yet, but I'm looking at them. All right. Welcome back to The Art of Connecting Podcast. Today we have Mr. Jeff Holstein. How are you doing today? Excellent. No bad days. That's right. So tell a little bit about no bad days. Where does that, where does that saying come from? Well, mean, it just comes from my general belief that we get to choose how we perceive the day. So I choose not to have bad days. I've done that since I was 17, so 28 years now. Somewhere around there, 28, 29 years, something like that. And yeah, I just made a decision that I was gonna choose positivity over negativity. And that's, that's, I mean, if you think about it, somewhere in the world right now, someone's having the best day of their life somewhere else in the world. Someone's having the worst day of their life and the day is either good or bad, depending on how that person's perceiving it. The day itself is objectively neither good nor bad. So once you recognize that and then you kind of. Incorporate like sort of a radical responsibility into your life where you're like, it's my choice, so I'm gonna figure out how to choose to, whatever bad stuff I'm going through, I'm gonna choose to find the positive in it. Mm-hmm. that's what I do. I love that. Awesome. =Well I, before we start recording here, I was telling Jeff A. Little bit about what we're all about. So I just wanted to ask you real fast, cuz me and Jeff met at a networking event. He was coming, he was at Newgen Networking and that was the first time we met. And so it seems like you go to a lot of networking events. What, what are some of the things that you enjoy going to and, and how you connect to different people? Yeah, so Yeah, of course. I, I go to pretty much anytime I have spare time, I just go to things. But mostly because I like people, right So like, it makes it a lot easier. It's been incredibly beneficial to my business and everything, but, but that's not why I do it. I it because I like people, so I go out and meet people. And I go to real estate networking events. The, of course Newgen networking. But I'm also, I travel a lot. So like last week I was in Maui at a small group mastermind event with eight people that I didn't know, and now I know them all and it was amazing. And some really big name people there too. So now have like some really cool friends because of that. I mean, we took a private jet over to Maui. I mean, it was just ridiculous. That's awesome. Yeah, but I mean, and I, I'm in Puerto Rico a lot, so I do there's a Crypto Monday meetup that I go to most of the time. There's a Saturday morning Dealmakers breakfast for real estate investors that I go to almost every Saturday when I'm in Puerto Rico. There's another group called Uncommon Entrepreneurs, but it's not always just groups too. Like I go to cigar places to meet people. I've met some really great people there. In fact, one of my business partners I met at a cigar place in Old San Juan. I've met people at gas stations and convenience stores that I've, I've, you know, that I've formed long-term relationships with. Even people I went to college with or high school with. I mean, that's, see that's the thing about business in general. is that relationships are really the only thing that matters. Mm-hmm. I mean, people think it's numbers and product and, and that stuff matters, but if you don't have the right relationships, none of the other stuff, you're never getting to the other stuff. Cuz even if people love you, if you don't have any friends that, that can help promote your business, like, I'll give you an example. So there I have a friend who, who's a pretty big name social media in influencer. And I had this idea for an app and I told him about it, and now we're gonna build this app, right? Mm-hmm. Now I could never sell this app, but, but he can. One Instagram post and the app's gonna be popular. And, and the only reason I can do that is because of him. Like, if I didn't have that relationship with him, that wouldn't happen. And the only reason I have that relationship with him is cuz I went to four 40 years ago or something, I went to a real estate meetup and I met somebody who met somebody and then that person introduced me to someone else, and that person introduced me to someone else. And pretty soon I'm standing in front of this guy who's, you know, pretty big name influencer. And then all of a sudden he's like, Hey, tell me about your life, you know, and I tell him a little bit about it and then he's like, Hey, you should hang out with me more. And then you know, I went on his, his podcast and, and then you know, now we're friends and we hang out and we in fact went to Maui together this week. So that was pretty awesome. That's incredible. That's so much fun. So I, I, you're on pretty much every podcast. I've ever listened to When I, when I search Jeff Holt, it's like, I'm, I'm part of the Action Academy with Brian Lubin. You've been on his podcast, bigger Pockets, all that kind of stuff. So what has that experience been like for you to go on to all these different shows and, and see the different ways that people do it and, and k what has that gotten at, what have you gotten out of that? Well, I mean, it's all about relationships really. Like, that's the same reason I say yes to the podcast. And, you know, it wasn't always like this. I was at a real estate meetup four or five years ago, and I'd never been on a podcast anywhere. And, and we had our own show, the Old Fashioned Real Estate show, but we didn't even think of it as a podcast. It was just a YouTube show where we sat around and drank old fashioned, like the bourbon drink and, and talked about real estate and we didn't have guests or anything. And and we did that to, you know, sort of grow exposure to our business. And I was sitting at, we, we sponsored a local real estate event here in Chattanooga. the guy who put it on was out of Oklahoma. He came in and, and he walked up to the table and he said to me, and we, I think it was like $400 sponsorship. It was really cheap, right? And he said, oh, thanks for sponsoring my event. You know, like would love to hear a little bit about your story. And I just kind of threw out this like, you know how I got into real estate story? And he was like, that's amazing. Like, you need to come on my radio show. And I was like, you have a radio show? And he's like, yeah, I have a radio show in Oklahoma. And I'm like, all right, well, I don't know anyone in Oklahoma. I'll go on your show. So I did the show which is really like a podcast. I mean, a radio show is on podcast are essentially the same thing. And and his radio show is a podcast, right? Like, I don't even know that it's on the radio anymore. Okay. It used to be on the radio, right? The guy's name is Steven Mc Colberg, it's savvy Landlord in Oklahoma City. Anyway, so he he invites me on his show. I do an episode of a show, and then he says, Hey, I'd love to have you come talk at my next event in oklahoma. And I was like, Okay, I'm gonna go to Oklahoma and talk. Right? And, and the thing is, I, this is about saying yes, right? Mm-hmm like, I didn't, I didn't have anything to sell at that time. I didn't have, I didn't have a, I have a book now, but I didn't have a book then. Right? I, I just I just thought, well, I'll just go and maybe I'll help out one or two people and I'll meet some good people because this is what it's about. It's about meeting people. Mm-hmm. So meeting Steven, that was great for me and that was a relationship that's been really cool. But, but the people that I met at his event, in fact, one of them. is the reason that I, you know, I was in Maui this week actually, like, because she encouraged me to, to, you know, it was a person I met that was speaking at his event. And, and she, she's a short term rental person. Her name's Elizabeth Colgrove. You should all check her out. She's amazing. Although she doesn't have a huge social profile, she does speak at events sometimes and, and I became really good friends with her and she just encouraged me to like, you know, do these things. Like, she was like, Hey, you should definitely sign up for this mastermind. You should definitely do this. And and it got me into a circle that I, that I wouldn't have been in otherwise. And, and again, it's just people you meet at these events and so it's pretty incredible what can happen in such a short period of time as you start meeting different people. Like when I think about, I started networking a little over a year ago and my whole life, that's the whole reason this obviously started, but everything has changed since then as far as when I have a problem. you know I have so many people that I can call now to be able to figure that problem out. And also when you start changing the circles, you hang out, pretty, pretty amazing the different things that, that you're able to have exposure to at least. Like, yeah, I mean, again, you hang out with people that are doing extraordinary things, you end up doing extraordinary things. Yeah. I mean that's just what happens. And one of my life goals for a long time has been to just be interesting. Mm-hmm. So I try to do interesting things all the time and I was actually it was in San Juan a few weeks ago and I saw one of my cousins was in San Juan and she messaged me and said, Hey, I'm in San Juan. Like, are you in town? Like, cuz I, I spent about half my time there and. and, and I said, yeah, and I hadn't seen her in years. And she was like, well, I didn't tell you I was coming cuz you know, you're so busy all the time. Which is funny cuz I'm really not that busy, but, but apparently it looks like it on my Instagram that I'm busy all the time. And and so she said you know, I'd love to see you. And I said, great. So, and I was gonna go out on a sailboat, actually, this guy that I met at a cigar house that owns a sailboat was taking me out on a sailboat. And I was like, you should come on the sailboat with me. So it was like my dad was in town, so it was like my dad and his wife and like my cousin and, and my cousin's boyfriend and, and me out on this little sailboat in San Juan Bay. I kind of forget where I was going with the story actually. But, but but the, the, the point is like, I what was I, what were we talking about? We were talking about how you just put yourself in the environment Oh, yeah. And how random fun things seem. Right. Right, right. Interesting. So, so, so the thing is like all like. Well, while you find yourself in these environments, and I don't know where, I still don't know exactly where I was going with the sailboat story, but, but it's a cool story. Yeah, well, it was awesome. I mean, so that guy Todd, who has the sailboat in San Juan, it's like he. you know, I met him at the cigar place and, and over the last year and a half since I've known him, we've become really good friends. And in fact, I ended up going with him and, and his crew on the sailboat, and we sailed from San Juan to St. Martin last summer. Wow. Yeah, it was like six days out in the middle of the ocean and this 40 foot sailboat, you know, and we, we ran out of fuel and the wind died and like, you know, we're just like okay, we're just out in the middle of the ocean, just kind of boing. You know, but it was amazing. I mean, it was like a it was like a really great experience. Yeah. And, and, and that's the thing I was talking about. That's actually how I got into this, talking about being really interesting. Mm-hmm. So my cousin introduced me to her boyfriend as the most interesting man in the world. And I thought, this is really great. Like, I've actually accomplished something cuz I'm like the Doki guy now. So and, and also somebody else introduced me that way not that long ago too, and I'm like, this is I know I'm doing my life. Right, right. Is when people look at me and go, yeah, that's pretty freaking interesting. I want to like hang out with that guy. So for my listeners that are out there that are, you know, just a lot of, I think that my listeners, I like to think of my avatar as someone who really wants to get to the next level, but feels kind of stuck, you know, is looking to get that, that next connection, to pull 'em up to the next level. How did you, you know, how did, how do you enable this interesting life? What, what are some things that you do to, to gain freedom and be able to just say yes to things? Yeah, so I. listen. So i, and I alluded to my story earlier, and for people who haven't heard the short version of my story as I was a bankruptcy attorney in 2008 I was diagnosed with leukemia and it forced me into personal bankruptcy. I had only been out of law school a couple years. I hadn't really had time to accumulate a lot of assets, and I was running a small law firm and one of my attorneys quit the day before I was diagnosed with leukemia. And then I got diagnosed right after that. So we went from two attorneys to zero, literally overnight. And we had a ton of overhead, like five or $6,000 a week to break even. And we were making more than that. So it was fine, but then all of a sudden we were making nothing. And so it piled up this huge amount of debt, ended up bankrupt. And in 2010, you know, just out coming out of bankruptcy, like literally less than a half a year out of bankruptcy, I said, to my wife. I said, you know, we need to take a job that has better insurance cuz you know, I've still got this leukemia problem I have to deal with. Mm-hmm. And so I'm gonna move to Chattanooga. So we were in Grand Rapids, Michigan. We moved down to Chattanooga. I took a job here. And over the course of six years, I started buying real estate. in Michigan. Now remember, no money, negative net worth cuz my student loans didn't go away. I had a hundred thousand dollars in student loans, no assets. This is this huge negative net worth no money. And it's the middle of the great recession. It's 2010. And I'm like, I know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna buy real estate. But the thing is, the reason I made that decision is because I knew that real estate was a great deal right then. And I knew that because I had spent time with real estate investors and I've been talking to them and I've been listening to them. And some of them were running scared, but of them were making all kinds of money. And I thought, I just need to hang out with the people that are making money. So I went back to old school, I found a friend of mine from law school who was flipping houses in Detroit, and he is buying these houses for $5,000, putting 5,000 in and selling 'em for 40. And I said, I can do that. And we used all that money to buy real estate. So we'd flip two or three houses, we'd buy a. Keep it free and clear house in Detroit, it might be a $20,000 house. Didn't matter, but it was running out for five, $600 a month and we just kept doing that. We rolled all the money in and over a course of six and a half years, went from literally bankrupt with a negative net worth to where I was able to quit my corporate job and retire. Mm-hmm. So at 37 years old, 30 years old, I'm bankrupt. 37 years old, I walked out the door and said, I'm never gonna work again the rest of my life. And I haven't had to work again. Yeah. So real estate is, you know, that that's how I bought back my time. But it doesn't actually matter if it's real estate for you. I think the, I interviewed a person probably three or four years ago now two years. It's two or three years ago. His name was Dr. Tony Pinellas. He's out of Australia, like out of perth, Australia. And he said something fascinating on my show. I have a show called Last Life Ever, and it's just about living the best version of your life. And he said, the secret to life life is buying back your time as soon as possible. Hmm. Hmm. And I thought, You know what, that actually is the secret to life because you can continue to do whatever it is that you did. Like I still do some real estate, but I don't have to. Right. I could, I could never buy real estate again. And I'm fine. I do real estate cause I like it Now. I go to networking events and things like that because I enjoy meeting new people and those things turn into profitable enterprises. But I made so much more money after I didn't have a nine to five because all of a sudden I could go to more things. I could do things on my own schedule. I could do things that are more productive. Mm. And my I think the value of the skills that I've learned over the last several years are far exceed any hourly rate I would ever get from a regular salary job. And I also feel like you get more time to relax. Like I was downstairs playing a game pool earlier cause I feel stressed and I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna go play a game pool cuz why not yeah. And you know what that's. where your best ideas come from. So like when I was in Maui, I had this great idea for an app, right? Like I wouldn't have that idea if I hadn't been hanging out in Maui, just having fun. Mm-hmm. I mean, we were riding bikes down volcanoes and you know, walking across lava beds and watching the sunrise, you know, stuff like that. And and, and that's how Puerto Rico is for me too. Like, I spend a lot of time in Puerto Rico just hanging out with people. You know, I go out on the sailboat a lot. I you know, I go, go to the bar and drink, you know, walk on the beach get up in the morning and have coffee. Looking at the oceans, have this great, amazing ocean view. It's just unreal. Mm-hmm. But that time is where all my best ideas come from and, and you know, it doesn't take that many really good ideas to make a lot of money. There's a a lot of opportunity out there. I've got a couple things I'm working on now that I think are. really game changing for me. And, and it's just like all that stuff happens when you have free time and you don't have, when you have less stress, you think clear absolutely. People think that I'm crazy cuz I, I, so I don't make very much money and I'm very upfront and open about that. I make like probably 35, 40 grand a year, but I make enough to where I can pay my rent and do things that I enjoy and every single day I meet new or come up with a new idea and, you know, I hear all the time, it's like, you're doing so well, you're doing so well. It's like you can live well without having to spend all this money on having a big fancy house in the car and all that kind of stuff. And I think people tend to not value their free time as much as, as I, I think that they should. Well, yeah. And to figure that out at your age is amazing because the thing is time is the only thing we have, right? It's the only commodity that just con constantly erodes and goes away, we never get it back. Now we can extend our time a little bit, you know, we can eat healthier, we can exercise more, whatever. But, but once that time is gone, it's gone. Mm-hmm. like we don't get it back. And you can always make more money. So Yeah. I mean, if you're enjoying your life, that's, that's actually the thing, right? Like, that's why I said figuring out how to buy back your time as soon as possible is the most important thing. Like, the cool part about and I learned this from the Kiasaki board game, actually. Cashflow 1 0 1, right? I need to get get that yeah. It's, it's it's a really great game. Yeah. So the cool part about like, Living on less. And this is from like the finance, you know, the fire people, the, the, the financial independent, retire rich, you know, retire early. People like these guys, they, they got this right? Because if you can live on 30,000 a year, then you only need 30,000 a year passive income to have all your time back. Mm-hmm. you don't have to do anything. Right. If you're like me and you spent insane amounts of money, you need a a lot more than that. It takes longer to get there, but it's okay because, you know, you can do it still. And I mean, I, it took seven years. It wasn't like it took a hundred years, you know? Yeah. And retiring, you know, in your thirties is still pretty good by most people's standards. And you know, I'm 44 now, so I haven't worked so six, seven years now. It's been pretty good. I'm not gonna lie. Like I mean, it's really nice not having a job. No, it's not. I never do anything obviously. Right. You, I'm still putting deals together and stuff, but I get to choose when I want to do them, how I wanna do 'em. If I wanna take a month off, like last year I went to Africa twice. because I thought it would be fun to buy a safari lodge in Africa. Now I haven't bought one yet, but I'm looking at them. Right, sure. And and then you know, to you know, before Covid I was going a month every year somewhere. I went to Africa and climbed Mountain Kilimanjaro in 2020, right before Covid in 2019, I went to. China for a month, or, well, three weeks. And I think I brought Covid back so you guys can blame me. They're call it the Jeff Byron. Yeah. And yeah, and I'm, you know, in, in 2018, I don't remember exactly what I did that year, but I mean, I, I went to Australia for a month, one year. I went to egypt for, for three and a half weeks. You know, and, and this year, I mean, I, I've already done, I went to Mardi Gras for a week. I went to maui for a week. I went to Puerto Rico a bunch of times already this year. And I mean, it's what, March 15 or 14 right now? Yeah. So like, we're in the first quarter and I already requalified for Delta Platinum for next year. So I think we're hitting diamond for sure. All right. Yeah. And diamond's great. I've, I requ I qualified for the first time last year and I freaking love that. It's like, so amazing. So yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna be flying a bit more this year I think. I'm planning on going to Australia and to Fiji later in the year. And I think I'm gonna go, there's a carnival. In in England piccadilly. Mm-hmm right. And I think I'm gonna go to piccadilly. It's like the, the English version mardi gras and just hang out there. Check that out. Cause I've not been to England since nineties. Okay. Is a long ago. Yeah. So I gonna hang out there. Plus I'm actually like, you talk about networking and bring this back to your show right, right. So I met this guy on twitter. He's a British futurologist. His is dr. Ian Pearson. I think it's like at time Guide on Twitter. And I, so I met this guy just like randomly tweeting with him. And over the years we just kept up a conversation back and forth future technologies and it's just something I'm interested in. And he's like, was like the. The chief Technology Officer or futurologist for British Telecom, which is like a huge, like, like he, so he's calling it like, they quote him in the newspapers in England all the time and stuff. So it's weird that I even know this guy at all. And I interviewed him on both of my shows about the future you know, and what stuff people could do to prepare for the future in, in real estate investing. And spoiler alert on that, the, the trick is to buy pretty places. Literally. Like that's the whole secret. Like they're not making more pretty places. They can make more apartment buildings, but they can only make so much stuff that's. Near pretty things. So like mountains and beaches, that's where you wanna buy. That's why Southern California is so valuable because they can't make more southern california. Hmm. Like, it doesn't matter that like the people in Southern California get displaced and they, I mean, it does matter, but, but they move out and they go live in Phoenix or whatever, but Phoenix isn't as nice as Southern California. It's just not, so it's never gonna be as valuable as Southern California. And so he's like, you know, just buy pretty places. And that's actually one of the reasons I'm in Puerto Rico now because Puerto Rico is so pretty and it hasn't gone up in price yet, so y'all should just go over there and buy some land. Like you're gonna re you're not gonna regret it, I promise. Jeff's trying to get his land by go up Actually, you know what, I own nothing in Puerto Rico. I don't even own my condo. I rent. So how come? Well, I mean, I I wasn't sure exactly where I wanted to live on the island. And I mean, I've been there a year and a half off and on, and I mean, I'm there less than half the time, so so it hasn't been that big of a priority. I did put an offer in on a 21 room guest house this week, so, My fingers crossed on that. Maybe I'll have a hotel for you to come stay in. Heck yeah. yeah. And visit me in Puerto Rico soon. I think I'll probably get it too, actually, so. We'll, we'll see. But if you need somebody to manage it, I can. Yeah, right, right. I mean, we, we might, we might feel to work something out, but see that's the great part about having time freedom, right? Yeah. And flexibility you know, to do what you do from wherever you want to do. Cuz there's also that geographical flexibility that's really important. It's one of the best parts about the way my business is structured is that I can literally, if I need to, I can run it from anywhere. Like if I lived in Australia, I might have to be up in the middle of the night once in a while, but because of the time change, but I, I could do what I do from there. Right. Right. And it's an amazing, if you can separate yourself from it being tied into any one place and then you can bounce around a little bit. I mean, it's not a lifestyle for everyone. I mean, I'm gonna be honest, man, like all the travel I do, it can get tiring at sometimes. Yes. I love it. So it's invigorating to me, like experiencing new things, doing new things, like look at this. So last week. I went to universal Studios with Brandon Turner from Bigger Pockets. Heck yeah. Like just the two of us hanging out at Universal Studios. Now that's ridiculous, right? Like, like most people can't do that. Sure. But like he was like, Hey, you're in la. I'm in la. Let's go to Universal Literal. Literally that's how the conversation went. Yeah. Yeah. So we, he paid for the ticket. It was ridiculous. There you go. Yeah, it's funny, I I was on my, I'm in a, the Action Academy, the mastermind, and one of the guys in my pod, he's about to start working for bigger pockets, hopefully. Cool. So he would be working directly under the new ceo, whatever his name is. Yeah, yeah. Scott Trench. Yeah. Yeah. So he's like, so, so Brandon's not there anymore at Bigger Pockets, right? He left a year ago or so, but, but yeah, he he's doing big things though. Yeah. Brandon's got some really big things on the horizon. He started this thing called The Better Life Tribe. I don't know if you've heard of that, but it's closed for our new members now, but I think they're gonna open it up once a quarter or something. So keep an eye out on it. Better Life Tribe. Okay. It's like a better life.com. Cool. It's, and it's it's it's pod based mastermind you know, and it's all a hundred percent of the CH profits go to charity. Oh, to That's awesome Support. Yeah. To support anti-sex trafficking, char. The 10 Tim Tebow Foundation actually. Okay. So I'm a really big fan of this. Yeah. In fact, Brandon told me that he started it because his goal is to give away a billion dollars during his lifetime. Wow. Yeah. And he thinks he can do it in 10 years. I think he can. I think he can too. I told him, why don't we do it in five? Yeah, there you go. So I told him, I'm like, why not? Let's just go for five. Yeah. It's pretty incredible how I, I've, I've started to notice this as I start connecting with people. You're literally like being one person away from having that intro. Yeah. To whoever, like whoever it may be. Yeah. Like anyone, no matter what your position is, what you do. Like I reach out to people on LinkedIn all the time, and a surprising amount of people actually respond to be like, oh yeah, it's crazy how many people respond. CEOs of companies. Yeah. I mean, I interviewed I interviewed the comedian TJ Miller on Last Life ever. And then TJ was like, you know, he, he was like in Deadpool and he was on Silicon Valley, the HBO O Show and. I literally just messaged him on LinkedIn or on Instagram. Yeah. Like I, I'm, I literally just messaged him on Instagram. Now, in fairness, I did meet him once, so I had a picture of the two of us together. But he didn't remember that, right? Like there's no, I mean, like, I just had a picture. I just, I, I email, I got his email address off of, off of off of Instagram and I sent him a picture of the two of us together and I was like, Hey, remember when we hung. You know, laughing emoji and then I'm like, just kidding, would you like to go on my show? And he was like, yeah, that sounds great. Yeah. I mean, I don't, I mean, don't bombard TJ Miller with, with requests cuz it's probably not gonna work cuz he's not gonna say yes to everyone. It's the right place, right time. Yeah. Kind of thing. But, but like, yeah, he, he came on my show with an hour and a half interview. Like, it was insane. And it was really fun. And you know, the great part about that is if I saw TJ somewhere right now, he'd remember me. Mm-hmm. Like we had a con, we had a real conversation over multiple emails, you know, and stuff like that. Yeah. And in fact, he endorsed my book. That's how I know he didn't remember me. Like, like, I mean, like, it's so ridiculous. Right? Like, just like TJ Miller endorsed my book. No, his endorsement was hilarious. So, you know, you all have to buy no bad days, how to make every day great. And then you can see his endorsement. Yeah. We'll, we'll keep it secretive like that. Yeah, absolutely. And the book's not out yet though, in fairness. I don't. Okay. I don't know exactly when your show comes out, but the book comes out April 25th, 2023. Okay. Gotcha. And where would people be able to buy that? Everywhere. Everywhere. Okay. Everywhere. Yeah. We're everywhere. Amazon, Barnes and Noble, target, Walmart, and else. Yeah. Yeah. So the answer would've always been no if you hadn't have sent that email. Yeah. You know, of course. And, and no matter how big or small you think you are, cuz some people think they're really big and, and some people are big and they're like, oh, I could never send that email. And that was exactly why I got started because I just want to encourage people to just send the email, you know, cuz the answer is always, always, always gonna be. No unless you just ask. Yeah. And you know, the other thing too to keep in mind is like, when you are networking, this is a, this is too, I think is really important. Say, say you're at a a real estate event or a conference or yeah, you're at 10 x whatever, right? And you just happen to be in the room with someone really famous, don't fanboy them. Mm-hmm. like, that's the whole trick, man. Just like beat, treat them like they're a real person because the, like, so like, do you know The Economist Harry Dent? Does that sound familiar to you? That name sounds very familiar. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you well, you might be thinking of Harvey Denton from batman, the Batman villain, but probably probably not. But but, but Harry, Harry Dent jr. He wrote a whole bunch of bestselling books in the eighties and nineties. He's not as famous as he used to be now, but, but he's an economist, Harvard trained nba, you know, like, and Pretty Cycles. And he's, he's got a pretty good track record. I mean, he's got a pretty big following on, on youTube and he's got a huge newsletter following like a paid newsletter. Like, I think it's like $150, $200 a year, something like that. Wow. And he's got a whole bunch of subscribers to that. And he lives in San Juan in puerto rico. And. And I met him at a real estate networking event in Dallas. Mm-hmm. He was keynote speaking and he was in the hallway afterwards and I walked up to him, I started talking to him. I said, this, this is, this is, this is why, why I'm telling this story because this is actually really good networking advice. I think people miss this all the time I walked up to him, there's like 10 people around him, and I start arguing with him. I'm like, you're so full of shit, And he's like, what? I'm like, I'm like, you're wrong about this. You're wrong about that. Like, I'm giving him examples from his books. Cause I read his books. I always liked the guy and I agree with him on a lot of stuff, but, and he was was just like, well, I didn't know that the that the Fed was gonna print this much money, or my prediction sort of been right. And I'm like, yeah, sure. Whatever. Like you know, you know, like, I'm just like, I'm, I'm just jiving with him a little bit. And he literally said this to me. He goes, man, this is like one of the best conversations I've had in a while. He's like, I wish we could talk longer, but I'm about to go have lunch with Robert Kiyosaki. And I'm like, No problem. I'll catch you in San juan next weekend. No, I didn't live in Puerto Rico then. I hadn't been to Puerto Rico in two years then I didn't have any plans to go to San Juan that weekend, but I knew he lived in San Juan. And he goes, you're gonna be in Puerto Rico next weekend. I go, yeah. He goes, huh, here's my cell phone number. Give me a call when you land. And we'll bank to plans to meet up. Literally like, like we're having a discussion in the hallway. There's a bunch of people around. Mm-hmm. And they're all just like, what do you think about whatever, Harry? And he's telling 'em the same stuff he says every day on YouTube and everything just repeats. Repeats over and over. Repeat. Repeat. Yeah. And I'm arguing with him and he's enjoying the conversation because I'm just treating like he's a person. Mm-hmm. Like, like he's right about a lot of stuff, but he's also wrong about a lot of stuff. Yeah. Because that's when you make predictions, that's just gonna happen. And, and so now I find myself on a plane to San Juan that, I mean, I literally just went, I left, I went and bought a plane ticket to San Juan. I don't even know if he's gonna answer his phone. Right. I'm like, I'm just gonna fly to San Juan. I'm gonna go there next weekend. I told him I'd be there next weekend, I'll be there next weekend. I text him when I land at the airport and he responds with, where are you staying? And I say, I'm staying at this hotel. And he goes, oh, that's really close to my apartment. That, that was a coincidence by the way. Just dumb luck. But again, I said, yes, right? I showed up. Yeah. If I hadn't showed up, it wouldn't, that coincidence couldn't have happened. He's like, I'll meet you at the hotel bar. Markets close at five. I'll come right after that. And he literally just like walked up to me at the bar and he goes, good to see you again, Jeff. And we sat down and we talked for two and a half hours. Since then, I regularly communicate with him. You have had him on both of my shows. Right. And every once in a while he reaches out to me like just to check how I'm doing and he convinced me to move to Puerto Rico because I met all these great people in Puerto Rico. Yeah. And Puerto Rico's like a networking mecca because of all the tax advantages there that like, there's all these really interesting like influencers and stuff that have been moving there and Bitcoin people and all this stuff. And so even though I hardly see Harry because he moved outta San Juan to the other side of the island I do see him every once in a while. I had dinner with him maybe two months ago or so, and, and, and it's just an, I mean, it's just been an amazing experience and relationship. And this is a guy who literally, you say one step away from everyone. Remember what he said to me is, I would love to talk to you right now, but I'm going to lunch with Robert kiyosaki. Mm-hmm. Right. This is the kind of people we're talking about. Like, so now if I want to meet Robert Kiosaki, how am I gonna do that? I'm gonna call Harry up when I see he's speaking at the same event as as Kiosaki. And I'm gonna say, Harry, I'm thinking about coming to this event Yeah. And you know what's gonna happen? I'm gonna have v i p access. Absolutely. And it's gonna happen because Harry's my friend, he's gonna be like, I got you. Yeah. And you guys to go to the same dinner table. And they're like, exactly. He's this guy. It's like, exactly. This is my friend. Yeah. And I mean, actually Matt Kiosaki threw a different person before and I don't know that I would really want to hang out with him. He's kind of grumpy. Let's just say he's grumpy. sometimes ha money. I think money really magnifies who you are. Yeah. If, if you are, well, and, and age can do that too. I think he's, he's not the same guy that wrote the purple book like 25 years ago. Yeah. You know, he's, he's spent the last 25 years being insanely famous and being hounded by people all the time. Hmm. And I think he's just gotten crotchety, you know, he's older and just doesn't wanna deal with it anymore. I know if people were asking me the same questions over and over and over again, I'd probably get pretty tired of it as well. Right. But that goes back to my pro tip. Right. Just treat treat him like he's a person. Cuz you know what? I would say if I met Kiasaki, what's the coolest place you've traveled lately? You know, I wouldn't be like, can you explain to me how assets work? Cuz that's what everyone's asking him, right? Yeah. Like, and he's getting up on stage. I've seen him talk live a couple times. He gets up, draws on his whiteboard, this is an asset, assets feed me. This is a liability. Liabilities take money from me. I mean, it's good teaching, but like how, how annoying is it to have to teach like cash flow 1 0 1 over and over and over and over again. And I know he does it because he has a passion for it. And he's helped literally millions of people, like almost everyone in the real estate space cites him. Yeah. As their inspiration. You know, I mean that's in fact they changed the question for a while. On bigger pockets, they have that final four question they said like, besides Robert kiosaki what real estate book? Like, you know, like they changed it to that. Cause so many people would be like, rich Dad Poor Dad. Right. Rich Dad, poor Dad. It's the best real estate book I've read. Of course. I don't actually think it's a real estate book. If you actually, and I I read it every year. Great book. It's actually an accounting book. Mm-hmm. It's not about real estate. He doesn't barely mentions real estate in that the book. Right. It's a business book. Yeah. It's it's what it is. I agree. I I hate accounting actually. I failed accounting. And so Rich Dad, poor Dad, it was a good book for me because it dumbed it down, but I didn't love it. I'm not like in in love, fallen in love with Rich Dad, poor Dad, because. That's just not my thing, per se. It's also super basic, right? Like yeah, it, it's, it's a good book and I reread it because I want other people to read it and I want to be really super familiar with it. Mm-hmm. I've probably read it like 10 times, like once a year for the last 10 years. And actually the, the first time i, it's not been 10 years, it's been however long since I quit working. So 2017 I was like 2017, that's literally what I did. Like the very first day that I was done working, I went, okay, now what do I do? Mm-hmm. And my dad had this condo in Florida and I went down to his condo in Florida and I bought a copy of Rich Dad, poor Dad. And I sat out by the pool reading this Rich Dad, poor dad. And I remember having this conversation with this, this old, older couple that was in the pool. They were like, oh, you're just down visiting your family? And I'm like, nope, I retired. And they're like, that's not possible, And I'm like, no, I retired. I'm like, and my dad was like, he's not retired, he's just looking for a new job. And I'm like, I'm like, no, I'm really retired. Like I'm not going back to work. You know, and, and retired is probably the wrong word cuz I'll never quit working. I just retired from having a job. Yeah. Like, I'm never never having that j o b it's, it's a you're financially free. Yeah. Is really weird. Don't have to do anything. I have my own schedule now. Yeah, yeah. Cuz I, I'm the same way. Like, I, at 22 years old, somehow by the grace of God I'm able to do what I want, when I want. And it's not because I have a bunch of money or my parents have a trust fund, it's because I decided that I'm gonna do that. You know, and that is the secret, right? Like, I actually think I went the really slow way, you know, like I, I, in. You know, when I was coming up into the real estate world we were watching like late night infomercials about no money down, right? Like, this is like when I was 15, 16 years old, it was like Carlton Sheetz and no one's ever heard of them anymore unless they're 40 or something. I know who Carlton Sheetz. Yeah. So, so Carlton Sheetz inspired me, right? But like, Carlton's strategy is good. But we didn't have like, you know, this is like in the mid nineties, like they didn't have youTube. Mm-hmm. Google didn't exist yet. So like, there was no like Gary V and like, you know, like all bigger pockets didn't exist. You know, all these resources that are out there now, like in the real estate world are amazing. But there's also like Gary V, who's not a real estate guy, who's teaching people how to like scale businesses and like, you've got people like Ty Lopez and, you know, there's just, and, and, and a million other people out there. Mm-hmm. there's so many influencers out there that have such great ideas. Producing so many different ways to make money. And and you know, I think that just like the.com you know, startup companies of 2000 were the billionaires and the multi-billionaires of today, the richest people in the world. I think that the social media influencers, the really big ones are the, they're the future trillionaires. They're the ones that are gonna be super rich. Take somebody like Mr. Beast, right? Mr. Beast is like all, all over YouTube. He's the biggest YouTube star in the world. That guy has so much reach that, that he has so many eyeballs on him, right? That he can do whatever he wants to make money. Like it's easy to make money when you have that many people like Grant Cardone on bigger pockets back in 2014. And he said, if I can get half of America to hate me, I can get elected president. Right? I always thought that that was brilliant. Hmm. And, and it's the same concept. And this is something I I I stole it from Brandon Turner actually, because he's, he's been saying this over and over again, but like the idea is the more. like it used to be like, like your idea plus execution is how you got is how you made wealth. Like execution was a multiplier of the idea. If your idea wasn't executed well, if you did zero execution, you made no money. If you did like normal execution, you made a little money. If you did like really good execution, you better. That's true. But there's a second multiplier now, and that is eyeballs. Mm. Like if you have people paying attention to you, like Kylie Jenner is a billionaire because she has three employees that help her sell makeup. She doesn't even make makeup. She doesn't fulfill makeup. There's another company that does that for her. But because people know who she is, she gets the value of it. Mm. That's the the multiplier. Now, the execution's important. The company that does the job for her, they're making money, they're executing, right. They're the ones creating the product and executing and they're making good money. I'm sure tens of millions a year probably. but she's making billions. Right, right. Because she's got the eyeballs on her. Well, and then if they stop doing it right, then she can always just go to somebody else. And that's just, yeah. And that's just networking at large, right? Like, like what you're talking about. Meeting people, like, you know, connecting with people on a human level. If you can do that a lot through social media, you know, you can get a million Instagram followers or 10 million Instagram followers or whatever it is. I mean, or if you're Trump and you can have a hundred million people follow you on Twitter and you get elected presidents saying crazy shit. Like, it's fine. Like it doesn't, I mean, I'm not getting political here. It's not like a pro or anti-Trump thing. It's just like, like the point is if, if you have a really strong personal. you can do whatever you want. So what I do now, it's all about, that's why I say yes to all the podcasts, man. Yeah. Like, I mean, yeah. And like you said, I've been on everyone's podcast. If I haven't been on your podcast and you're listening to this, you should reach out to me on Instagram at Jeffrey Holtz. I promise I'll say yes. Yeah, and you should also follow Jeffrey as well to see his Avengers too. Oh, you should do that cuz it's really fun. I'm actually about to, to systematize my Instagram a little bit more. Okay. It's like, I feel like right now it's just sort of all over the place because I just do random stuff. So I just, like, just today in fact, hired someone to help me. Just forced me to post at the right times. You know, just stuff like that. I'm not even talking about make content for me. I'm like, well, let's just like, let's just be a little bit more systematic. Yeah. Because I think the best social media influencers are really systematic about it. And so I want more eyeballs on me, not because I have anything to sell right now, but because someday, like Mr. Beast. Mm-hmm. I'm gonna think of something I want to sell and I'm gonna have a lot of people on it. I'm gonna be the Kylie Jenner that, that like comes up with an idea. Yeah. And it's like I was saying about my friend in the app, right? Like our app idea. I'm not, I'm not talking about it yet cuz we haven't built it yet. You know, I don't don't want to like tip my hand, but like, but, but this app idea isn't that complicated and people could copy it if they want, but, but the thing is, if we get it out there and we have all those eyeballs on it, it doesn't matter if they copy it because we're gonna win. Because they're gonna know my party. Yeah. We're the first one there. But also like, everyone knows about it already once, you know, like, listen, Lyft is worth way less than. even though Lyft is exactly the same as Uber. Mm-hmm. because everyone thinks of Ubering, you know, no one says even when you get in a Lyft, you say, I'm gonna Uber. Yeah. I'm gonna go, come and grab, I'm gonna order an Uber. And then you open the Lyft happen. You know, like ever. And Uber's no one. Lyfts. So I, that just brings up a thought to my mind, this conversation. So we talk, I, I actually just interviewed last week, someone named Legacy Mike, and he started mastermind based off of social media. He has like a hundred thousand touches on his Facebook page each month. That's great. So like he has kind of mastered that a little bit. It's creating a media brand really leveraged that. But social media is a mass level networking thing. But the key to it is, just like with the networking events, is you have to be consistent. If you show up to one event, you know, you may make one connection, but like that one that you came to, I happen to be at that one. But if I hadn't have been at that event, I would've missed that connection. We wouldn't be talking right now. But because I go to each one, you know, you may not get a, you may not even get one good connection out of a networking event, but it's the one that you go to that it's worth it. Just like with your social media, you're consistent. If you consistently show up and continually build, you never know when that one person will watch the video or you're gonna have that one reel that goes viral and, and all of a sudden your social media explodes. One of my friends, like, they're here and you should probably interview them actually Ryan and Melissa. Do you know Ryan, Melissa Faircloth. So, so they, they'd be great for the show, right? Because they're really good at this. And you can tell 'em, I told them that too. Like, just make them listen to this, cut it out and send it to them and be like, Brian, jeff says, you have to be on the show. All right. cut. We'll leave it in there so I can just send it to yeah, yeah. Just go ahead and do it. So like the thing. So they have this this hotel that they built, right? It's called The Groovy Nomad. It's an amazing hotel. It's beautiful. Yeah. It's really well designed. And their Facebook page is exploded and their Instagram is exploded. And, and it was like, first, it was like they were posting the same content and nothing happened. Then all of a sudden, like it got shared somewhere and then boom, it exploded. Yeah. And now they have tons of, like, they bought wait lists all the time for their hotel, right? Mm-hmm. like, I mean, this little silly goofy but very attractive hotel in a very dumb place. Yeah. Like you know, like what towns it in again? It's in Georgia. It's, it's in Trenton. Yeah. Yeah. Trenton, Georgia. Like, like who, who, who knew you could make a hotel de a destination in Trenton, Georgia, but you can do it by just getting eyeballs on your product. Hmm. And I mean, that's, that's the power of social media. But I mean, honestly, there's no difference between networking one-on-one and social media. In reality, you're creating connections and those connections create additional connections. And, you know, you might be at a networking event, might meet someone you're telling 'em about your podcast and they say, oh, that's cool. They listen to an episode of your podcast, they happen to share your post on their social media, and all of a sudden it explodes. Yeah. You're, you're seriously, you're, I, my, one of my sayings is, you're one connection away from changing your life. You know, you're one share away from changing your life. All it takes is one little. tiny, what seems like a tiny thing, a conversation, and it can radically change absolutely everything. Well, and you know, this is actually true. I wrote about that in my book, actually. I call it Pivot Points. Mm-hmm. And I said that there's two different kinds of pivot points. One is things that you know are gonna change your life, the birth of your first child, right? It's gonna change your life. You know this in advance. You have time to prepare for it, but more often than not, your pivot points are actually they're actually things that you don't even know that are pivots at that time. And then you look back at 'em and you're like, holy cow. That was an important moment. You know, like, like for me, one of mine is I was sitting in a, in a college class and the professor was talking about this sculpture that Michelangelo made called the Moses. And I was sitting there listening to him talk about it. And it was a story about how passionate Michelangelo was about this thing. And I was just like, you know, there's nothing in my life that passionate. And I just went home and I thought about it. I thought about and I thought about it, and the next day I went. I'm gonna buy a plane ticket to Europe and I'm gonna go see this sculpture cuz I gotta figure out what's up with it. And I'd never been outside of North America. I'd only ever been to canada. Right? Like that's it. I lived in Michigan, so going to Canada was like going across the street practically you know? So like other than going to Canada, like I had never been anywhere outside of the United states. And I was 21 years old and I just like literally three weeks later, hopped on a plane. I flew to London, I packed across Europe, I ended up in Rome. I saw this sculpture and that experience would never have happened if it wasn't for that pivot point when I heard that story. And, and no, it was also a decision I made. Right, right. Like a a lot of people hear that, heard that story. In fact, that day you know, there were probably 50 kids in that room. I'm probably the only one that decided to go to Europe three weeks later. Right? Sure. But so there's, there's, there's actions you take too matter. But, but I didn't know when I heard that story that I was gonna change my life. I didn't, I certainly didn't think I'm gonna be talking about that particular class you know, 25 years later on a podcast. Yeah. And so many people don't show up. I know a lot of people that are like, oh, I'm just gonna skip class today, or, oh, I'm just gonna skip that. I'm tired, you know, and it's like you miss out on those things that can change your life just because you stay in bed, you know? And I'm not advocating for staying up all hours of the night. And, you know, if you're. I guess maybe take a break, but I, I think it's really, really important that, especially in those times that you're like, man, I'm just, yeah, I'm really tired. Those are the best times to go and do it. Cuz that means that you're, you know, you're going the extra mile. So I, I met this girl on a plane. This isn't, this is what I'm talking about, about networking. So I I met this girl on a plane like, I think it was like, like a few days ago. It wasn't very long ago. We connected on Instagram. I'm gonna have to tell her to listen to your show now that I'm mentioning her. So her name's Adrian. Okay. So Adrian lives here in Chattanooga and you should probably interview her on your show too, cuz she's amazing she lives here in Chattanooga. She runs a roller skating company. Okay. Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. So I met her on the plane the day right. Just a couple days ago. So Adrian runs a roller skating company. She manufactures roller skates, which is just awesome. Anyway, yeah, so cool. But, so, so here's, Adrian said something to me that that really, that it sticks out with what you're saying right now. She said, you know, the trick to life is to, when you're not super enthusiastic about something, to be disciplined about it. Mm-hmm. And I was like, actually, that's really actually true. And, and her argument was like, those days when you don't want to get up, like if you're gonna be an entrepreneur, like, like, there're gonna be times when you're not super excited to go talk to your manufacturing team. And the trick is to be disciplined about what you're disciplined about. Like pick the things that are important and make sure you do. Make them non-negotiable in your life. Be disciplined. And it doesn't have to be disciplined like, like, oh, I'm gonna go work out every day. Like, that's good too, right? But it can also be like, every day I'm gonna choose to have a good day. One of my personal disciplines is I never have bad days. It's not that hard for me, but it is a discipline I have to force myself to not have bad days. If some bad shit happens to me, I'll have to choose how I respond to it. Right. And, and if you do it long enough, it becomes easier. It's like going to the gym. Like if you do it long enough, it does become easier. Right. Becomes more fun to run if you run all the time. I, that's what they tell me anyway. It's never been fun for me. I, I've started to enjoy the gym. I'm in there six days a week and it feels freaking incredible now that, that I have felt, but I've never felt the running one like I ran a 10 K once just cuz I was training to climb Kilimanjaro and I was like, this is so horrible. Why does anyone ever do this? I'm like, it was so bad. But but it, what did get easier though? I mean, honestly like when, when I ran the 10 K, like I would go to the gym and get on the treadmill and, you know, do like two, three miles or whatever and it wasn't that bad. Yeah. I mean it wasn't fun, but it wasn't as bad as it was the first time I got on the treadmill. But anyway, the point is a adrian's point about discipline really matters and I think it's this is the other tip, right? Like you were saying, like you might not learn anything or you might not get that connection. Like, if I never see her again, never talk to her again. I'm still gonna remember that she said that to me and that can change my life. Mm-hmm. And, you know, probably I said some stuff to her that might change her life too. You know? I mean, who knows, right? And that's the thing about, about relationships and about connecting and networking and all that stuff, is that you just, all those things can be pivot points that can change stuff. And, and it's also true of reading and, listening to stuff and you know what I mean? Like, like hell Elrod the miracle morning guy. He has this quote. The moment you take a hundred percent responsibility for everything in your life is the moment you can change anything in your life. Mm-hmm. I heard that and I went, whoa. Stuck with me. I've quoted that many times on podcasts. In fact, I met Hell Elrod a couple of years ago and I told him that I quoted that on the Bigger Pockets podcast. And that was at Bigger, bigger Pockets con when I met him, cuz he was keying there. And this is another thing, right? Like I taught to Key to Hell Elrod at bigger pockets con, you know how many people did that? As far as I could tell. Five, because he gets up on stage, he gets done with his speech and he goes backstage and then everyone leaves and goes to their sessions and 20 minutes later he has to walk out. And I went, I wanna meet Hell Elrod, I don't care about some silly session, I'm gonna meet Hell elrod. So what did I do? I stayed in the the room. 20 minutes later he walked out from behind stage. There's five people in the room. Hmm. One-on-one conversation with Hell Elrod because I just showed up. Yeah. And then you also, I mean like I've been to some real estate conferences too, and you really like, you have to be intentional. Like if you heard someone on the keynote, you know, someone's up there speaking. I will literally go hunt them down. I don't care how many people they have around them. I'll wait until every person finishes. Yeah. Yeah. Cause they're gonna talk to you. Yeah. Until, and, and then like, even if they're like, oh, I've gotta go run to dinner, whatever. I got invited out to dinner. I was sitting down with a bunch of big players at dinner, and the, they paid for my dinner. I didn't Yeah, it's, well, it's no different than the Harry Dan story. Right? Right. Like he's a a keynote at a, at a conference and I start talking to him and then what happens? I'm talking to him in now I'm hanging out with him in Puerto Rico, and then I'm going out to dinner with him and you know, now I have his cell phone number. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It all sims back. And this is why I started, cause I was listening to stuff like Baker Pockets listening to these big podcasts. And the the commonality always was, I met someone who, or I knew someone who, in the beginning of everyone's story, and that's why I haven't asked you how many millions of dollars real estate do you have? I don't, not that I don't care about money. It's, I wanna talk about it's cool, it's nice, it's useful to have real estate, but Yeah. But at the, at the end of the day, I'm much more interested in hearing about the rooms that you've been in, you know, the people you've been able to meet, because that's what's fascinating to me, and that's what leads to the real estate. That leads to the whatever your passion is, whether it's making roller skates. Yeah. Or whether it's trading stocks all day. You know exactly When you start putting yourself in the room with the people and meeting your heroes, meeting the book. When you read a book, you can literally say, I wanna meet that person. Oh, I know It's possible to meet any, like, any of these authors. Well, that's, I mean, that's what happened to me with Harry and, and Hal and Robert kiosaki. Yeah. But you know what, also, like a better example of that is I interviewed this lady twice. I interviewed her actually on my show. Her name is Zora O'Neil. No one's ever heard of Zora O'Neil. I mean, she was a N p R correspondent or something, and like maybe she wrote for some magazines, but she wrote this book called All Strangers Are Kin, which is about the Arabic language. Hmm. And I found it fascinating. Like, I love, I think Arabic's really interesting. Like I know that's weird, but like I I, I'm into weird things, so I, I, you know, I go I go to cairo and like, like I walk around in the street and try to learn Arabic just for fun. Right. You know, like weird stuff like that. Cuz like, this is the things you can do when you have like unlimited time to like, do the things that you want to do. You can just go to cairo and hang out. Right? Yeah. And like go to coffee shops and like you know, hang out with people. And so, you know, I did, I like really love Cairo in particular. And, and one quarter of her book is about Cairo. So she wrote, she spent a year. Living in Arabic speaking countries after she got her master's degree in Arabic language. So so she, she speaks pretty good English and she spent a ha half the one quarter of the time in Cairo, one quarter of the time in Syria, one quarter of the time in Morocco. So, you know, different places are wrong. I forget where the fourth one was, but any, any which way I was like, I need to talk to this lady. Mm. Right. So, you know what, I did invite her on my podcast, talk to her, you know what happened, had a great conversation after the podcast, talk some more. And then she was like, you know, we could do a really cool podcast about how to throw a dinner party during Covid. Like, I've never heard anyone do that. Like, do you wanna do that? I'm like, yes, let's do that. So then we did one about dinner parties during Covid. Right. Like, like, you know, like weird stuff like that. Yeah. And like, but the thing is now, like, if I send Zora a message mm-hmm. she knows who I am, she's gonna message, she's gonna respond to me. Like, in fact, last time I was gonna go to Egypt, I was like, Zora, I'm gonna go to Cairo. Like, is there anything I should do in Cairo that, that I probably haven't done? she gave me some ideas. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, that's so cool. Absolutely. Like someone who lived there for a a while now she's like, yeah. And like also, again, it was just somebody I thought was interesting and had a book and now I'm friends with her now. I mean, best friends, no, I don't know if she'd recognize me on the street, but, but the point is she's, she, she cares about me enough to like respond. Yeah. And most people do. Once, once you get through that initial filter and like you get a relationship with someone that care about you. That's why TJ Miller responded. Right? Because I got through the initial filter and he was like, oh yeah, that guy's kind of cool. Yeah. I'm gonna respond. Yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll read his book. And then in fact, when I I asked him to endorse my book, you know what he said, why would I endorse your book without reading it? You should send it to me first. And I was like, I didn't figure you'd read it, so I didn't bother to send it, you know, so I, I go, no problem. I emailed it back to him. Yeah. And you know, the next day I got this endorsement back. Endorsement again that you have to wait. See? You have to buy the book. You have to buy the book. Buy the book. See endorsement. That's right. Yeah. Or just look online. It's probably there. Oh, yeah. We'll, no. Buy the book. Buy the book. Buy the book. So that, that brings me to the, the thought of my approach to when I meet anyone. I don't care like the CEO of the company. I used to work at Fortune 500 Company. I just went up, shook his hand. The people who are, I'm using air quotes here, big and bad, who have the, you know, who are the CEOs or who are the business leaders or are the celebrities? They just long to be treated like people. for sure. And it's so easy, especially these bigger guys to figure out where they're gonna be and when they're gonna be there. And you just have to put yourself in the environment. You know, a plane ticket costs. Like if you fly what's it called? What's that cheap frontier? I flew Frontier. I regretted every second of it. But when I got to Houston, I was happy you know. You can get into someone's environment for surprisingly, listen. Listen. If you, if you wanna, if you want to meet someone famous that wrote a book on how to not have bad days, you can hop on a Frontier Flight to San Juan and show up at the bar I go to. It's not that hard. I talk about another podcast. We'll go on a little scavenger hunt and figure out where I go, and then you just show up there. I mean, probably figure it out from my Instagram for crying a loud, it's not like it's that hard. Right, right. Or send you a DM and be like, Hey, I'm in San Juan. Can you Yeah. And I'll probably show up anyway cause like, I like meeting people. Right, right. But like but yeah, but that's the point. Like, you know how much it costs to get a frontier flight from Atlanta to San Juan. Like literally it, I, I just bought one for someone the other day, like a friend of mine, and it was like $150 round trip. Yeah. It's stupid cheap. Yeah. It's not a comfortable trip Puerto Rico hang out. No, it's not gonna be comfortable. I mean, I fly Delta, as I've said before, like I'm, but, but I, I also have more resources. Yeah. So I'm gonna pay for upgrades in first class and all that stuff, but like, it's entirely possible. Yeah. It's definitely an to get there. Almost everyone's reach. And, and you know, this is actually when I was going to, the first time I went to cairo was in, when I was 22 years old, or 21 years old, something like that. Like, it was, I was pretty young and people were like, oh, like I don't know how you can afford to go to egypt. And I'm like, well, I spent three grand. Yeah. You know, I mean, yes, it's a lot. And it was more then than it is now, obviously because of inflation and all that. But, but I mean, I spent three grand at that time, it cost about three grand to go to disney world for the weekend. Mm-hmm. Like, it's crazy. Like, and I, I knew people that would go to Disney World all the time. Yeah. And I have nothing against Disney World. I love Disney World. It's fun. Right. But I don't need to go to Disney World three times a year. I mean, if you go to Disney World once a year you can afford to go to Europe. Yep. Like it costs the same amount to go to Disney World as it does go to Europe. Yeah, my flight to Berlin was $600 round tripp. Right. And once you're there, you can stay in hostels and backpack and like, you could probably live on like $50 a day. Yeah. And Berlin's cool. Germany's a cool, I went to Germany for the first time last year. It was so awesome. I'm so excited. I'll be there for three weeks in May again, that time freedom thing, like, it's so underrated. Like I just, I didn't have to ask off, I just told my partners, Hey, I'm gonna be out of town for three weeks. That's great. I'm thinking about going to Germany with you in May now. Like come on. Sounds was fun. Like Yeah. Yeah. Maybe I'll do that the first week. I'm just exploring, so Yeah. That's great. Yeah. I only yeah, I didn't have very much time in Germany, so I have this friend who like, he like, he travels like me and like we meet in random places and he was like, Hey, I'm gonna be in Frankfurt. I'm like, all right, let's go yeah, just go to Frankfurt for the weekend. And it was awesome. We had a great time. And and you know, that's the other thing. When you're exploring places, you find the coolest stuff. It doesn't matter where you are in the world, there's cool stuff everywhere. Yeah. One day I was walking around. And I was driving across like the central Ohio and I was like, there's gotta be something cool around here. So I like got on my phone and Googled museums in Central Ohio just to see what would happen. And I found the International Bicycle Museum in New Breman, Ohio. Right. And I went to this, I'm like the only person there. Like there's nobody at the museum, the curator of the museum's taking me around and showing me stuff. And it was so cool. Yeah. They had like famous people's bikes, but they also had like really old bikes and like different types of bike. I mean it was like they had like 10,000 bikes in this room, in this silly museum. And I was like, this is so cool. Right. And like I only found it because I was like, Hm, I wonder what's going on in this area. And because you had time. Yeah. And because I had time cuz most people would be like, I gotta just keep driving. Yeah. And by the way, if you ever driving on I 75, like in central Ohio and you happened through wpa, Canta, stop at the Neil Armstrong Space Museum. Okay. Nothing is cool. It's like $8, two hours of your time. Yeah, right on the highway. The Armstrong Space museum. That sounds awesome. Yeah, it's amazing. Well, cool. I think we first made on the moon the first man on the moon. Yeah. Did they have like an omega, like was it They have a watch. They didn't have an omega that I saw. I know. I have a fake watch guy so that we won't get onto that story. Well, I want to tell you, thank you so much for coming on. I think that there's been a lot of really, really cool stuff that's come out of this, and the main takeaways for me is like if you want to get in the room with somebody, just go do it. you're never too small, and then also focus on finding your freedom, because there's so many ways you can do that. One's by buying Jeff's book and reading about how you don't have bad days, because that's really important aspect of it, is to have a positive attitude. It is all mindset, actually. Yeah, 100%. And then also if people wanna follow you what was your Instagram again, and where should they follow you? It's, it's at Jeffrey Holst. I'm, I'm not hard to find. It's jeffrey Holst everywhere. Jeffrey so it's j e f f r e y, so r e y h o l s d. And it's literally that everywhere. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook TikTok B Real, it doesn't matter if it's a social media. I'm on it with Jeffrey all right, sounds good. If y'all wanna hear more about Jeffrey's Real Estate Adventures and more about that, this is not your podcast, but you can go listen to his Bigger Pockets episode or the Action Academy or Yeah, really just listen to those two cuz those are my favorite. So, well those were really good, but I would actually say, Oh, actually the bigger pockets connecting Academy ones, those are probably two of my favorites. So those are great choices. But I would probably say you should just go to my personal YouTube, Jeffrey Holst and watch the short video I made about my life. Yeah, it's 12, 12 minutes long. It's fantastic. If you have trouble finding it, send me a DM on, on wherever you see me and I'll send it to you. All right, fantastic. Well, thank you guys for listening to the A Connecting. This has been your host, Hayden Fike, and tune in for the next episode. We got some really exciting people coming, and as always, hope you have a great day.