We just put that type of property under contract. And so we had a conversation with him, we whole saled it to him. And we collected a$60,000 wholesale fee, which was like the most amount of money I'd ever seen. welcome back to The Art of Connecting Podcast. This is your host here, Haydynn, back with another episode for you guys. And today I have Chris Michaels here on the show with us. I always start the show just telling a story of how we met Chris. Chris is new to the art of connecting experience here. And so I tell the, the viewers and listeners how we ended up getting introduced because I think it's really cool to talk about the connections that led us to coming together on the show here. So my amazing executive assistant, autumn, who edits the show and makes this show possible even connected me with Chris because she does some work for Chris in the background from what I understand. And she said, you need to talk to Chris'cause he's awesome. So that's how we ended up getting connected to come on the show today. Chris was so excited to have you here. Yeah, thanks brother. I appreciate you having me and looking forward to connecting more and adding value however I can. Awesome. So why don't we go ahead and get started with just an introduction to the audience who doesn't know you. Yeah, for sure. So my name is Chris and I run a company called The Storage Rebellion. And essentially what we do is we help folks use self storage as a vehicle to create an extraordinary life. And our whole slogan is we use ordinary garages to create extraordinary lives. And over the past, call it seven, eight years, what we've done is created a, community we're a premise of what we do as well is all about connection. And within that community we have supported folks all over the country to help them get educated on self storage and how they can utilize it as an asset class to develop financial freedom. And we go beyond the storage aspect of it, if you will. And so we believe that money alone will not create an extraordinary life. And it doesn't matter how much money you have, if you're not fulfilled or you don't have peace or you're spiritually, mentally, physically unhealthy, then it doesn't matter how much money you have, you're not going to have an extraordinary life. And so a lot of what we also do is tap into the personal development side of things and we believe good business principles are oftentimes good life principles and vice versa. And so a lot of what we do, as mentioned, we teach people self storage, but we really dive deeper into that lifestyle element as well. And so we've been doing that the past eight years, I believe it's now and been extremely fortunate to not only get connected with so many awesome people, but we've also been able to help hundreds of people around the country leave their nine to five jobs and, go on and do some really cool stuff. And so it's been a tremendous blessing and I love having the opportunity to always support others and, and and reach new people as well. And so I'm excited to, to chat with you today as well. I love it. So I, oh, I happen to own a storage facility just for context. And so I, I'm in storage, so it's kind of fun to, to get to interview you and, and learn more about it. Yeah. I've got some good buddies that, that run different communities as well and, and do storage. So it's, it's cool to get to have you on here and if you know of anybody that wants to buy a storage facility, I would love to get rid of mine. So let me know anyone who's listening to, if you wanna buy a storage facility, I'd be happy to sell you mine. Anyways, that aside. I wanna learn your, your story of how you got started, but more than just the general like, oh, how did you get started in storage? I would love for you to talk about the connections that kind of led you to learn about this asset class. Yeah, for sure. So this is kind of a big backstory. I'll do my best not to kill the whole show with it, but I previously to self storage investing I used to have a very small marketing business, if you will. And so I was helping people with their social media and one of the things that I always wanted to do was get involved in real estate investing, but I just didn't know where to start. And I was very overwhelmed by all things real estate'cause mostly'cause I didn't understand it. I started hanging out with some real estate folks and they started talking financials and analyzations. I'm like, ah, this is so foreign to me. And that created this sense of overwhelm and that kind of slowed me down from getting started. And anyways, I was doing marketing for I got in, I got I got connected with a real estate investor who asked me to help him with his marketing. I was like, well, this is a cool opportunity'cause I wanna learn more about real estate investing. And so the funny thing is, is he connected me with Mike Wagner, who was actually creating the storage rebellion at that time. Who reached out to me. And then he asked if I could help him with his marketing. And so once I got started with him and the storage rebellion, that's when it kind of opened my eyes to something much bigger than real estate investing as a whole. And so that's when I really uncovered the world of self storage. And I was like, whoa, this is actually the class that I want to be a part of. And so as I got more involved in the storage rebellion, I started kind of moving my way up in the company, if you will. Started doing deals myself and was able to lean into that existing community that was being created to get additional support. And in fact, I found my very first deal, because of the connections within the community that we were creating and, and through the connections of Mike Wagner and went on to do three deals at that that first year when I decided to get started. And the funny thing is when I first did my, I should say, when I did my first deal, I was completely broke. Like we were we're about to go into foreclosure in our home, like behind on our credit card bills could not afford our utility bills. You know, the mortgage company's knocking on our door. And I was like, how the heck am I gonna get out of this? And that's, that's actually what gave me that nudge to step into storage investing. I really just leaned into community. I leaned into the people that I had surrounded by myself and and that allowed me to, to learn how to do it, to get started. And ultimately I got myself out of debt and put ourself in a really good financial situation. And so fast forward to today. Mike has left the storage rebellion and I ended up taking over the company. So now I own it. And and all of this started just through. Some connections, right? And it kind of goes back to just having this marketing business, which then led to the next thing that I was supposed to do, and then that led to the next thing. And so. It's funny and how, you know, when I feel like in, in anything that we do, if we really look back at how we got there, it generally always has to do with our relationship. And so it's something that we we're really big on, especially within our community. It's all about relationships and connection, networking. You probably heard the, the phrase before, rising tide lifts all ships. And that's that's essentially what we aim for. Yeah, and as you were saying, your story, I, I'm writing some notes and something that I thought of. This is a new saying, so maybe I can get credit for this, but it's probably said before. But connections without action is useless. Yeah. You've heard all the other things, but like if you get connected with someone, right? Like you got connected to the guy who was in storage and you said, Hey, can you help me with my marketing? You took action and did the best job that you could, and clearly you showed up for him for, for him to want to connect you to Mike, I believe is his name, right? Yep. So a lot of people are out there and they're the, and I can't remember what book I was reading, but you have like the, the business card goblin or the business card Monster that just like eats up all the business cards but never does anything. Yeah, sure. And so I just think about like, you, you, you got connected to these guys and instead of just being like, oh, storage. That's cool. Mm-hmm. And keep going at what you're doing. You said, I'm gonna take this opportunity and I wanna work with you and I wanna learn about what you're doing. So I just thought of that, you know, connections without action is useless. You can just go and, yeah, collect all the carts, but the, you know, the action is what gets you where you want to go. Yeah, absolutely man. And that's, yeah, you gotta coin phrase that. That's a great phrase. Yeah. I see so often folks kind of sitting on the sideline, not just in storage, but other areas of life as well. Similar to what you're, you're saying, the concept there is a lot of people will spend too much time consuming rather than actually doing something with it. And they tell themselves this lie that when I know enough, then I'll be ready and. You don't, that's not how you get ready. You actually get ready by stepping into it. Right? It's like if you were in sports for an example. If I wanted to be, I'm gonna use golf as a, a hypothetical example. If I wanted to be a great golfer, I'm not gonna get great by watching Tiger Woods play golf for endless hours. I could understand the game perfectly and, and look at the swing and be like, okay, I know exactly what he's doing. But until I go do it, that's how I start to develop myself. And so my encouragement is always take action, because that's where a lot of the biggest lessons are. And I know sometimes people are afraid to fail, but it's all on, it's all on your interpretation of what failure is. Failure is the biggest opportunity to learn, right? That's where growth happens. And if you don't fail, then you're not gonna be growing. So look at that as a, it's a positive thing, right? That's a group. That's a cool opportunity. If you get the opportunity to, to fail at something, you are just way more equipped to be better off in the future. And in fact, that puts you ahead of a lot of people who have not yet come across that failure. And when they do, you can be the person who says, oh, here's how you overcome that. And so it really does come down to your perspective around it. But I always thought failure was just a stepping stone to success. There was a, a video I just saw yesterday. This was Meet the Robinsons. So I remember watching this movie when I was a kid. That may make me seem young to some or old, to some. But me meet the Robinsons the, there's a video and it said, this is the whole point of the movie, and it's a scene where it says, you've failed. Good job. We're so proud of you. And it's like, I, I, that didn't click until I watched that video of like, that's one of the few movies, kids movies out there that I think actually has like a wonderful message behind it. Yeah. And the whole scene of that movie was just like, or the whole frame of it was you failed. Good job. Yeah. Like, we're proud of you. And then there's like a guy's, like the failures, the first key success. The kids like crying and like, and then he like starts being all happy that he failed. And so I wanna rewatch that movie, and now that I know the, the frame that it's in, and yeah, kind of rejo that from the perspective that I have now. But man, if you're afraid of failure, it can hold you back forever. Mm-hmm. But if you don't even fear it, then it's not even a thought. Like it's for me when I fail now, it's like, all right, cool. Like, I learned something new. That's, that's great. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I lost money, but that, you know, it's okay. Like, right. Keep going. In valuable lessons for sure. Yeah. I love it. So you bought your first facility, I read on your story on storage rebellion. It was a 10,000 square foot facility, which is the size of mine. So I would love to hear about, well, first off a quick question before we dive into that. Were you located close to where your facility was or did you remotely manage it? No. So, yes, that's a good question. I remote managed it. Well, I shouldn't say that. Because that one I didn't actually purchase to own. I wholesaled it. And that was I'm in New York. That property was in South Carolina. And again, we kind of go back to connection, right? So the way that this happened was I found that first deal and because I have never done storage before. I was very hesitant, maybe not the right word. I, I didn't know what I didn't know. And so I leaned into somebody who was smarter than me and the person that I leaned into had an extensive real estate background and just started getting started in storage, but enough to know more than I did. And he was local to me. And so I reached out to him and I was like, Hey, I think I found this deal. Would you be willing to. Get on a call, walk through the deal together and see if it makes sense. And if it does, maybe we can find a way to make this an opportunity for the both of us. And so we looked at the, the the numbers and he was like, yeah, this looks like a really good deal. And he said, funny enough, I'm actually gonna be about 30 minutes from this property next week because I have family that lives nearby and we're going to visit them. He's like, why don't I bring a contract? You call the seller. I'll meet with him. I'll walk the property and if it all looks good, we'll make him an offer right there and see if we could put it under contract. And so that's essentially what he did and he FaceTimed me. We're walking through the property. And all looked good. He made an offer to the seller, he accepted, we put it right under contract then and there. And mind you, this is all within a couple weeks of getting started. So like, I'm just figuring out how to do this. I find a deal and now we're under contract and I'm like, holy smokes, this is happening really quickly. And Scott was the person who I, I partnered with on that. And what I said was, Scott, you know, I like the idea of owning this property. However, I'm really broke right now and we're struggling financially, and my thought is, what if we wholesale this? My understanding is if I wholesale this, I could collect a fee for it and I could potentially get myself out of debt. And he is like, absolutely, this is your deal. You found it. Whatever's gonna be best, we can do that. And so that's essentially what we did. And so now mind you, the storage rebellion at this time is kind of, it's just getting started. We're starting to bring community members in and a member had joined. Who was really hungry to get out of their nine to five job. They were looking for a deal and they actually raised their hand on a call and said, Hey, I'm looking for a deal. This is the kind of property I'm looking for. And I was like, well, holy smokes. We just put that type of property under contract. And so we had a conversation with him, we whole saled it to him. And we collected a$60,000 wholesale fee, which was like the most amount of money I'd ever seen. And especially in that amount of time and so got outta debt and, you know, then went on to do more deals afterwards. But it was really cool because like, again, going back, it was like one connection spiraled into all of these connections where. Everybody was winning and everybody was supporting one another. Like I got to do a deal. Scott got to do a deal, Shane, who we wholesaled it to, got to do the deal. We all got to make money on it. The seller got out of the deal that he was hoping to get out of, and so like. It's just kind of funny when you think back of like, where did this all start? And just the power of relationships and so so yeah, anyways, we wholesaled that and and then I found my second deal a couple months later, I wholesaled that again for another 60 K. And then my third deal, I ended up stepping into ownership for the first time. And then and that was a big one for me and whole bunch of lessons came with that as well. How many units was the one that you decided to keep? That was 138 units. It was just shy of 18,000 square feet. So there's something that I wanna say on the wholesaling part, and then I wanna ask you a question about your facility box. Sure. So when you were talking about that, I just heard the, the nagging voice in the back of my head of people that are like, oh, well you just got lucky. Your first week you came in and you happened to call this person and they just happened to be the right one and you just got lucky. That's not possible for me to do. What do you say to that person? Yeah, I, you know, to be honest with you, I think it's a, I think it's a handful of things and I think Lux probably somewhat part of it. I think it was just timing. I think it was also likely very part of God's plan and. You know, he wasn't actually the only person I reached out. I probably reached out to a couple hundred folks. And I was doing that every day just, and it's funny because the way that I was doing it. Was, I was messaging people on Facebook who had a business page for self storage. And so I would just go on Facebook, go to their business pages, and then I would message them and say, Hey, I'm actually looking for a storage facility. I'm not sure if you've ever thought about selling, but if so I might be interested. And I gave him my number and Facebook at that time. It's a little different now. Then at that time, it would block you after about 30 messages or so.'Cause they thought you were spamming people. And so I can only do about 30 a day, and then Facebook would cut me off for 24 or 48 hours. And then once it freed me up, I'd go back in and message another 30 people. And so I just did that over the course of however many days. It was, it was a couple hundred that I sent out. And and he was one of the people that responded and, and, he was looking to get out of it. And so it's, you know, it's it for real estate storage when it comes to finding deals. It is timing and circumstances. I could share a whole bunch of stories for this, right? So like, you're not gonna convince somebody to sell. Unless it's their time to sell or unless they have to sell. So whether there is a death in the family, a divorce, they're ready to retire, they gotta cash out, whatever it is, it's timing and circumstances. And so your goal is to get in front of as many of the right people as you can in the more often you do that, you're just increasing your odds for somebody saying yes, but more importantly. Because when we look at self storage, there's probably 80,000 storage facilities in the United States. Wow. And re I should say this, I should say your follow up sequence is gonna be the most important piece of that. So like I have talked to. At least a thousand of the same people over and over and over, because I know it's timing and circumstances and so they might not be ready to sell right now. But it doesn't mean in six months, 12 months or three years, their time will be, will have come. And a really good example of this is I actually have been following up on a property that's in my hometown for about three years, and I talked to them a couple months ago and they again had no interest in selling. Two months later. All of a sudden things have changed and they want to retire and now they want to sell their facility. And so like you just never know when it's gonna happen. You some, a seller could be so, or I should say an owner could be so certain in the fact that like, no dude, we're not selling this. If we do sell, we're passing it down to family. And I've heard that so many times only to see that shift. And so maybe a couple weeks, a month later, they're like, you know what, shit, maybe it is time to retire. And they sell it. The property that I owned in South Carolina, there was a, a competitor probably three miles up the road and, I had reached out to them all the time'cause I was like, I wanna, I wanna own this market. And so I was trying to get all the properties in that market and I kept reaching out to them and like, no, no, we're not selling, we're not selling. And then I ended up that was through the, that was through one of the owners. I ended up having a conversation with another owner of that property. And they were like, again, now we're not gonna sell, actually, we're gonna pass this down to our kids. And I ended up giving up on it and so I just stopped reaching out to them. A year later, I found out that they sold it and they didn't sell it to somebody in their family. It was a completely, it was another storage investor. And so, like, you just never know. And the follow up sequence is so key to the s your success in storage and real estate. And'cause again, timing and circumstances, you just don't know what's gonna happen and when, and you just gotta be on top of it. So the question I would have about that is there's a specific owner that I've been trying to reach out to about a property that I would love to purchase for one reason or another, and. I've reached out to her really about probably every quarter, every six months we've owned the property that we like, that we have. That kind of correlates with the one that I wanna buy for two years now. And I met her in person. So I've actually met her and she texted me back. I wish I could pull up her, her text as I, I can't ever remember her name off the top of my head. I have to, I I just remembered it actually. Lemme pull it up. So. Right. So she said I said, Hey, seller name. I hope you're enjoying this amazing weather we're having, just being so nice. I know our last text you weren't interested in selling, but we are still looking for another asset to purchase. I just wanted to let you know we're still very interested in purchasing your property When you're ready. Hope everything's going well and that we're still being good neighbors. And she said, we'll keep you in mind if we do decide to sell, but we're good for now. And I just wanna thank you after that. So that was in March of this year, so like, when do you follow up? And when that seller said, thank you, we're good for now. What do you say to that? Like, that exact text that I just read for you? Yeah. So as far as when would I follow up again? For, so, so if it, if we were going off of that example, I would probably follow up somewhere between maybe 45 days, somewhere in the 45 to 60 days. Now if I have spoken to somebody and I've, what I've gathered is that. There is a chance that they're probably gonna sell. Then I'm following up generally every 30 days or so and just doing a quick text. But, you know, anytime they, they message you back or they email or you end a call and they're like, yeah, we're just not interested in selling right now, what I typically like to do is I'm always focused on furthering and strengthening the relationship. And so like most people would just be like, all right, cool. And end the conversation and follow back up and maybe three or four months later, but like, I just like to have that conversation with him, so like, yeah. No, no worries. I appreciate you always being responsive and, and taking the time and, and I hope this doesn't come off as an annoying to you because that's certainly not what we're aiming. But that being said, it sounds like things are maybe going well for you. What are you guys seeing right now in the market and, and really just trying to open it up for a conversation. And so I always think the more that you get to know somebody it just strengthens that relationship. And so when that time does come for them, you're gonna be top of mind for them. They're not gonna remember especially right now with storage being a hot asset class. These owners are getting hit all the time. Hey, do you wanna sell? Hey, are you considering selling? They're not gonna remember any of those people. They're gonna remember the ones that they had a relationship with. And so that's my advice is always look for ways to continue the conversation in a meaningful way. Yeah. And with this one, when I met her actually,'cause she was, she was at her house and we were. We're, we're neighbors. So had a, a situation and it was like, oh, go talk to that lady. She owns a place. And so I would knock on the door. Super sweet. She's like, yeah, we heard about how you bought that from the person that you bought that real estate from and how they retired on it, and we'd like to do something like that. So I walked away from that. I was like, score. Yeah, we're gonna own a finance property and we're gonna own, you know, these great properties. Well. It's been a long follow up sequence since then, and I'm still, still just talking to her, you know, and trying to yeah. Build that relationship. But I also don't wanna be annoying, right? Like, I don't wanna be the person that just PEs someone is like, then they just stop responding to me because it's like, no, I told you like three times that we don't wanna sell the property and like, leave me alone. But I know the fortune's in the follow up, it's that like, you just gotta figure out a way. I, I, I think it's hard for me to, to string that line of. What's not annoying, but also still staying top of mind. Yeah. And I mean, that's a good, I think that's something most, most people struggle with. One of the things that you could potentially do is not make it, well, lemme say it this way, instead of you reaching out to say, Hey, have, has anything changed? Are you still, like, would you consider selling? Maybe do a check-in and, you know, hey, I know we spoke a couple months ago and I hope this isn't bothersome to you, but just wanted to see how things are going with your storage business and also let you know that we're still interested in buying in case you know, of anyone who's looking to sell. So, kind of it, it's like a little bit of a psychology where they, it takes it off of them and it kind of like, Hey, who could you connect me with? Maybe. It's, it's a slightly different frame that could have. Different results, but like there's, there's some subtle things that you can do to not be annoying, but like I think the annoyance part is more so maybe a, maybe that's an internal, maybe that's our own belief, right? Like, it's our fear of, ah, I hope I'm not bothering them. I hope they don't hate me, type of thing. Yeah, she's a super sweet lady and you do get in your head, especially a follow up, it's like, sure. That's what separates a good sales person from someone who makes, you know,$10 an hour at sales. Right. It's that person who's willing to like almost push the line a little bit. And sometimes you fall fly on your face and other times you look like a genius. Right, right. It's like. For you, Chris, I guarantee to your community, everyone thought you were an absolute genius because, oh, he just, he made$120,000 this year on wholesale fees, like mm-hmm. This guy's a genius. What is he doing? Like, I want some of the secret sauce that Chris has that's dripping out of his hands. But in reality, it's simply just that you put in the reps, you sent out the maximum number of messages that you could per day, and you followed up with these people. Sure. That's the key, right? Right. There's no magic formula that's like, oh, just say this certain thing and you'll magically be successful. Yeah. It's not it doesn't have to be overly complicated, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. And I love what you highlighted. That really goes to the theme of my show is how do we further the relationship? How does this not just be, Hey, I wanna buy your property. You know, which most people that say that are not actually trying to buy the property, they're just like. Basically blowing smoke up your butt to, to try to get you to get under contract and wholesale it, so. Mm-hmm. You know, how do we create a relationship with these people to where they actually want to connect with us, and when they do decide to sell, it's like, I'm only selling to Haydynn'cause this, this kid is persistent and I know he's gonna take care of us. Yeah. I think there's two really big things. One of'em beyond what we're we're talking about here, but you know, it goes hand in hand is, one of them is to try to find as many common bonding points, if you will, as possible. So like I have a, a member in our community who was looking at a deal in his hometown and he called him. They had a great conversation and I was like, dude, if he's in your hometown, set up a time, go meet him face to face. And they ended up meeting up and it turns out they have. So much in common. Like they're both, they both love the same football team. They're both huge hunters. They both go to the same places to vacation, funny enough. And so like they found out that they have so much in common and that strengthened the relationship tremendously and they just actually became friends out of it. And so like, I think approaching it with that mindset of like developing a friendship, if you will. But the other thing too. Is to always ask yourself, how can I add value to this person's life? Mm-hmm. Even if I don't sell this prop, or even if I don't buy this property, how can I add value to them? And those are the things that that people remember and, and that draws you closer to them if you're supporting one another. That's great. So to those of you that are listening to this, you have a decision. You can take all of that stuff that we just talked about and do absolutely nothing with it. Or you could take all the things that we just talked about and just start doing one or two of them. Yeah. And watch your life change. Mm-hmm. Like 99% of people are just gonna go onto the next podcast. They're in their car, you know? Hmm. That was a good episode. I really enjoyed the conversation that Haydynn and Chris had. And they're gonna do nothing. Yeah. Like nothing. And I, I think if you take any of that and just apply it for people who, specifically if you wanna get into real estate, but you could apply this to anything. If you're wanting to grow your marketing business or you're wanting to, to grow your manufacturing business or whatever it is, who's that person that could make a difference for you? How do you build the relationship and figure out how to add value and see if they can help you with what you need? Yep. So simple. You know, you know what's funny too, as we're kind of talking about this, like anytime you're starting a business, it usually starts with an idea, but then that's gonna lead you to a who. So, in other words, here's the thing that I have, I've created now who can I find to help me? Who can I sell this to? Who can help me grow this? And then generally well, I, I should say sometimes what happens once you've made that connection with the who, things start to move in the right direction. But where I find some entrepreneurs may be getting stuck. Is they stop relying on the who, and then they bring it back to themselves. So like, okay, now I'm in this position. We're making a little bit of money. Things look good. Now it becomes all about what else can I do? To make this business better and bigger and more profitable and we stop leaning into the who that can help us continue to grow and build. And so like, especially us,'cause we have a community and we do storage and as you know, there's a lot of different spaces and niches and industries within the storage space, like software companies, AI companies, management companies. And like those are all resources and people that we can add value to because we have an audience and they can add value to our audience. And so like leaning into those people, those who's allow both sides to continue growing the business. And I think sometimes we get wrapped up in like, I need a new funnel. I need a new ad copy. I need more advertising. I need a different offer. More offers like. Maybe not, maybe it doesn't have to be that complicated. Who, what, what is like your prime offer? What is the thing that you're really good at, and who could you lean into to expand that reach and go and serve more people? I, I know folks who will like. If business is kind of at a lull, they're like, we need a, we need a new offer. We need a new a new training, whatever it is. And then they put this together, but they don't have anyone to sell it to. And so like, you're not leaning into the who. And so there's actually a really great book for those who haven't read it. It's called The Science of Scaling. I think it's Dr. Benjamin Hardy and he really talks about this concept of creating an impossible goal and when we create not a hundred x goal, but what we think is an impossible goal. So for an example if I were to look at my company and say, well, you know, it would be really cool if we could bring in 50 new members to our highest level mastermind group before the end of the year. That's a pretty good goal. But what if I said I wanna bring in 500 new members by the end of the year, which to me might feel like an impossible goal. But what happens when you shift to an impossible goal? You start to eliminate all of the pathways that aren't going to get you there, and you start to focus on the one or two avenues that can actually make that a reality. And so generally what you'll find is when you start thinking about. How can I actually achieve this impossible goal? You start to move away from like the things that you've always done, right? So like if I want to go to 500 new members, it's not more money in advertising. It's not more funnels, it's not a new offer. I need to get tapped into additional people and resources and people that can help me reach bigger audiences. And so essentially the promise of it is when we. When we think about an impossible goal, it will oftentimes lead us back to the who, who can help us get there. And anyways, that's a tangent, but I think it's really valuable. It's so serendipitous that that is the book that you mentioned. I was on a call with Dr. Hardy probably about a month ago when he unveiled his book. And so he sent a signed copy to me and, I am in book club. We just did our book club this morning with some local entrepreneurs and it was my turn to pick the book and that's the book I picked. No, that's awesome. We're about to dive into it. And so I'm really excited to hear that it's had that impact on your business.'cause Yeah, I mean, you must've dug right into it because that book came out a month or a month and a half ago, so it's pretty cool you're already implementing. Yeah, I I actually I heard he was on a podcast with Ed Millet and, that's how I, that's how I heard about the book. And then like right after that podcast, I bought the book and just started cruising through it. And I was like, holy smokes. Like, yes, this is, this is what I need to be doing more of.'Cause I think we oftentimes can really forget, we can forget these types of concepts and like, and you, and you guys will, will see this in the book, right? So like, they don't, they just don't think big enough and, they're like, well, I want to grow my business by 10 x. It's like, okay, well that's gonna create, that's, that's going to kind of keep you down the Yeah. You're, you're gonna stay on a very similar path that you're on. And it isn't until you move, until the impossible goal that. There really is only a few avenues that can get you there and you start to really eliminate all this stuff in your way. So anyways, it's a really powerful book. That's cool that you guys are reading it. And and furthermore you got to have a conversation with him, which is awesome. Yeah, he's a very like, low key, cool, subtle guy. I like him a lot. Yeah. And I was, it's funny'cause before reading this and before our conversation, I was just thinking about that too. I was like, I was just contemplating on like, is what I'm doing right now. What's going, you know, is there enough bandwidth there to get me to where I want to go? Like, there's so many entrepreneurial journeys that have gone down where like, it was a great idea, but there was not like, it was like riding down a one lane highway and you're, you want to, you wanna start bringing in all this traffic to come to your drive-in movie theater and you have a one lane highway and it's like, you wanna fit in 2000 cars. It's like, am I gonna fit 2000 cars down this road? No, the, the highway is not wide enough. Like is right. Is the project that I'm working on right now for the goal that I have to raise$15 million for my fund, is what I'm doing right now. Is the lane wide enough? Are there enough people that have the resources to do what I am aiming to do that are going to participate in this? Oh, hey there. It's me again. I know you expected Morgan Freeman to come on and talk about the biggest company in the world. Well, I'm sorry, but you get the next best thing. This show is sponsored by the company that I co founded, Acadia Capital, and acadia is a hard money lending fund originating loans in Southeast Tennessee and Northern Georgia on residential one to four unit renovation properties. We are regulation D five Oh six C fund and are actively seeking accredited investors. We provide fantastic first position real estate back returns. If you're ready to get your tired and lazy capital to work with a minimum 8 percent return, go to Acadia loans. com backslash invest. Not only do we accept standard investments, but we can also accept self directed IRAs and other self directed retirement accounts to take advantage of tax advantage investing. Thank you so much for listening to Art of Connecting now back to the show. Yeah. And when you start thinking that way, it changes the direction you're going in because it's like absolutely. Like, oh, you know, I say I wanna raise$15 million in the next 12 months, but am I even talking to people that have$15 million liquid to invest? Mm-hmm. The answer was no. So I started my new event that is bringing together a room of a hundred people that are doing at least a million a year in revenue in their company. And so it's like, all right, well now I have the right room to be able to at least have a conversation. And so it's really, really interesting to do that exercise and think about. If you are an entrepreneur is this road that I'm going down and that I'm pursuing, what is, what is the destination and is that destination even where you want to be? Sure. And if the answer is no, you've gotta turn around and get back to the, get back to the beginning of the road and start building a bigger road. Yeah, exactly it. Yeah. So sorry for that tangent there. It's just something that came to mind. No, you put it perfectly. Yeah. It's, it's such a great exercise, man, and I'm so, it's so cool to hear that you do that in, in a re on a regular basis. You have to constantly evaluate too. Yeah. Like, is this going to gimme where I want to go? Mm-hmm. And not to say that you should change all the time.'cause that's another, it's kinda like there's two sides, right? Like you have the side where it's like, just keep doing what you're doing every single day and be an expert at it. And then there's the other side of like, is what you're doing even big enough to reach your goal that you have? Right? So it's. I don't know what the, if you have any advice on that as you've been in this longer than I have, you know, how to, how to ride that line. Say the, what's the question again? How to, yeah. So I think, so you hear this advice of like, yeah, there's two camps. Pick one thing and go and do that. Mm-hmm. Don't build your bridge and then halfway, halfway down the bridge go back and start over. Which is, I guess what I just exactly described to do if Sabrina Turner says, don't do that. Right? Mm-hmm. And then there's the other camp where it's like. Is your bridge wide enough? Like Sure. Are you even gonna be happy with the bridge when you're done completing it? Right. And if the answer is no, you know, I had to go back and restart my bridge and build a bigger bridge. Mm-hmm. So what, what is your stance on that? Like keep building, finish up what you're doing and then start something else. Or is it like, evaluate what you're doing? Is it big enough to reach your goal? Yeah, I, I think it's maybe a little bit of both. Maybe more so the latter, but like, it is really tough. And, and I think a lot of it comes down to what is your ultimate vision and your goal. And then similar to what you said, I think you put it perfectly, is like you have to keep continuously, keep analyzing what you're currently doing and asking yourself, is this actually moving the needle and is this going to get me to. Where I am aiming to be, because sometimes we go down all these different routes, right? Like and I think the book, I think the book actually talks a little bit about this, where we might think, well, this is the thing that I want to have or achieve or create. And you're thinking about, well, how, how do I get there? And you're like, well, maybe I need a podcast. Right? And, and so you launched this podcast, but what if the podcast wasn't actually the thing that you needed? To get you to where you wanted to go. And sometimes we have this tendency to, to just overload ourself and to do as much as we possibly can, do as much of everything, because surely if we do everything that's gonna get us to the end result, right? And oftentimes that kind of depletes you and it actually can slow you down quite a bit. And so try to keep it as simple as possible and just continuously keep asking yourself. Is this moving me to where I want to be? And if it's not, now, you kind of gotta take a step back and ask yourself, well, well why is that? How did I get here to begin with? Did I do this? Am I here because I thought this was going to serve the vision? Or did I, did I maybe lean into what I'm doing now for different reasons? And so, like, you just have to look at it from a handful of different angles, if you will. At the end of the day, you just have to try to figure out what am I, what do I really want to do and what's gonna get me there the fastest? And yes, sometimes you, you gotta drop some stuff, sometimes you gotta rebuild a little bit of stuff, but you're not really gonna know unless you take that step back. And also, I think this is why community is so powerful. If you can tap, tap into other people who can help you look at things from different angles. I feel like that's where a lot of that, that's probably one of the biggest keys to success in my opinion, is you need to be surrounded by the right people. You need to be surrounded by folks who can look at it, the problem you're facing from outside the box.'cause you're inside the box and you need somebody who's outside of it to say, whoa, hold on a second. Have you thought about this? Or. What if, what if you do continue down this path? What does it look like for you? And you might think it looks this way and they can show you, well actually, if you continue this way, you're gonna end up in a place you don't want to be in. Here's why. So like, anyways, I think yeah, I think always having people to lean into is so, so powerful and don't think you have to do everything yourself. I think that's actually a recipe for disaster. Lean into as much support as you possibly can. Yeah, I'm recovering, doing everything or so I, many people, when aut first started, when Autumn first started, she was like, how did you do this? Like, how did you deal with this? Like, it's, it was chaos, right? Yeah. And she's like, it's still chaos, but I'm working, you know, to try to make this like actually be a system. Yeah. And the last thought that I had it, I think to sum up what you just said. It doesn't have to be where you're building the bridge and you look at the other person's bridge and you want to go back and rebuild your bridge to do the same thing. The question is, is your bridge to the right island, right? Are you going to the island that you want to be on? Are you going to the island that has water and food, or are you building a bridge to an island that you're gonna actually hate being on anyways? Right. So that was what I kind of got out of the way that you Yeah. Described that. And that was what I thought of was like, are you going like, like mm-hmm. If you're building the bridge and you know you're going to the right island, ignore what everyone else is building because you're gonna end up being distracted and go back and try and do it the way they're doing it, and then you get stuck. And then there's always someone who's doing it better or smarter than you are, but if you just keep doing it, you'll get to the island. Sure. Yeah. Ask yourself the question. Is the island that I'm building the bridge to the island I want to be on, so. Mm-hmm. I love that. Yeah, I think you said that perfectly. And I'm sure that's gonna inspire some folks. I like, I like how you said that. I hope so. Yeah, that it's a Brandon Turner's analogy, so you can, you can thank him for that. We have come up on our time here. So I wanted to ask our final question, and that is, what is a connection to a person or group of people that has changed the trajectory of your life or career? A connection to a person. I, I would say, you know. Probably the one that I shared when we first kicked off, I think the connection to Mike Wagner, who, who turned out to be my business partner and then later the person who or I should say the company I was able to take over as well. Mike, not only was, is he one of the most brilliant when it comes to self storage investing, which is. Been in valuable asset. He's, he's, the reason why he left the rebellion was to go on and pursue this more deeply was he's really good at personal development. And what I love about Mike is he's, he's able to show you things from so many different angles, no matter what it is, if it's business or personal. And he really has an amazing way of. Helping you look at things differently. And I have experienced such tremendous growth, not just professionally, but personally in my relationships, in my marriage and, and being a father. Like I've learned so much from him. And I just think that, you know, I'm a Christian and I believe God works in mysterious ways, and I look at the journey that I've been on and the people that I've connected with and the changes that have happened in my life as a result of those connections. And it all comes back to one person. And then you have to ask like, why? Like how did that even happen? And because it happened, all of these things turned out so beautifully. And so I really think it's just the hand of God. But yeah, that's, that was one relationship that was a major change for me and one that I still have and, and appreciate and value very much. Hmm. So true. All things work together for our good. Yeah. And for our future it's, it's awesome. Well, if people want to keep up with you or learn more about storage rebellion, where's the best place for them to do that? Yeah, you can. If you wanna learn more about self storage, you can dive into our free network. It's storage specific. It's not on Facebook because there's too much noise on Facebook. And so we have brought our community to our own platform, and it's at storage rebel.com. And if you get, if you create a free account. You'll jump into our network. You can connect with a whole bunch of investors. We also have free resources, free trainings to show you how to get started and start finding deals. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram at Storage Rebellion. And if you wanna connect with me personally, you can find me in our network, or you can email me at chris@thestoragerebellion.com. I'm always happy to connect. Fantastic. Chris, thanks so much for coming on the show today. And guys, thank you so much for listening to the a Connecting It's every episode I, I'll keep saying it without you guys listening. It's just me having a conversation with someone in a microphone. So super grateful for you being here and listening to the show. And I truly hope that you take action on something that you heard on this episode. If it struck you I don't care what level you're at, these conversations are valuable. And I know I learned something from our guest every single episode that I do. So with that being said, if you got value out of this, do me a favor and go and leave a five star review wherever you're listening to the show. If you're on Apple Podcast, Spotify, wherever, go leave that review and share the episode with someone else. That is the best way for a podcast to grow. Alright guys, thanks for listening to The Art Connecting Catch you on the next episode. Thanks.