Brant Phillips Show 30: From Middle Class to Millionaire, Steve Davis
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Brant: Welcome everybody to The Brant Phillips Show, the show that is about one thing. You know what it is, it’s all about creating results and today, today my friends I have a very, very special guest. On the show, I have arranged an interview with Steve Davis. If you don’t know who Steve Davis is, he was the Vice President of Lifestyles Unlimited for over 27 years. He was one of my personal mentors when I first got into real estate investing, not always like a one-on-one mentorship, just vicariously I was following everything that Steve was doing through Lifestyles Unlimited.
He was a radio host of the Real Estate Investor Radio Show. For over 15 years, I used to listen to Steve on the radio. He’s a real estate and entrepreneur through and through. He’s created over $800,000 a month in sales and he’s mentored over 100,000 families over 30 years, helping other people to create their dream life to learn how to properly invest in real estate to create not only financial success but just to create like that well-balanced lifestyle success. He’s also author of an upcoming book that’s coming out very, very soon called From Middle Class to Millionaire. I’m going to just tie this in right into the interview where Steve and I start and I hope you get a lot of insights from this and get just encouragement and motivation to begin taking action to create the results that you desire in your life and in your business. Hey Steve, how are you doing today?
Steve: Excellent. Excellent.
Brant: Great, man. I appreciate you coming on. It’s an honor to me. We were discussing before we fired this up. I was just thinking about it. That in 2010, which was my second year in real estate, I had done about 25 deals at that point in time and you were one of my mentors who I had tremendous amount of respect and just looked up to an incredible deal. I asked you, you didn’t know who I was at the time and you were gracious enough to come on to a YouTube interview we did back in the day. I think YouTube had maybe been around for a couple of years, I’m not quite sure. Here we are eight years later. So, what’s going on in your world these days?
Steve: Well, I really appreciate you inviting me to do this interview because I really enjoy talking about this material. I appreciate the kind words about being your mentor but you need to take some credit because so many people enroll in the program and they do two or three houses their first year. To see somebody come in, take the material, believe it and then execute it the way that you did is just phenomenal, you did a great job.
What’s going on in my life right now is really I’m focused primarily for these next two years on writing a book and then publicizing it, which will require a lot of travel which is funny because that’s one of the things that I’m against in business, is travel. Because it takes you away from your family, it takes you away from leading a balanced life in some cases but we’ll talk about that probably later in the interview.
I’m writing a book called From Middle Class to Millionaire where I share a group of beliefs that I gleaned off of a group of highly successful financially independent, many of them millionaires, how they think about money, how they think about investing, how they think about leading a balanced life. It’s so different from what I was taught growing up in a poor … I’m sorry, that’s not the right word. I was in a lower middle class family, lower middle class family and I was given a group of beliefs about money. I struggled and struggled and it was very, very painful for me psychologically, emotionally. I came up with this mission statement that I want to educate, empower and motivate others so that they don’t feel the same fears and insecurities about money that I did and that’s what this book is all about.
Brant: Man, that’s awesome. I’ve seen the same thing. My background was very similar. Growing up we were right [smack down 00:04:59] probably in the middle of middle class until my father who relied on his job all his life lost his job. We lost our house. My dad was unemployed for about 18 months, bankruptcy the whole nine. I got to experience a lot of things in my life at an age where it impacted me enough. This is like the middle school time of life. It impacted me enough to know that to this day I carry that with me that those were things that I never wanted to experience again or for my children.
Now, I believe that I’ve fully shifted out of that, this middle class mindset. I see it all the time, the further I get away from it, it becomes more obvious the distinctions between the mindset of middle class and millionaires and it’s impacted me so much. Our coaching program is called The Wealth Passage because I believe that creating wealth is not just about doing deals, it’s not about owning rentals or apartments or anything like that. That can create financial wealth but it’s this whole other mindset you really need to have to create impactful lasting wealth that impacts all the areas of your life.
Steve: Yeah. It’s really interesting Brant that you went through that which was obviously very, very painful. Then you went on to prevent it from happening to you. I made the mistake of watching it happen to my parents and then letting it happen to me too. That’s a sign of extreme, in my opinion, extreme intelligence when you don’t wait for the catastrophe to happen, you prevent it. Where most people including myself, I waited for the catastrophe to happen. I won a national sales contest, they sent me to Hawaii for a week. I got back from Hawaii, they cut my pay by $20,000 a year and that woke me up. I should have woken up because I had seen that it didn’t work for my parents, I’d seen that it didn’t work for my grandparents but I did it anyway. It’s really an interesting concept that we’re following paths that we do know don’t work. We know that it didn’t work for our parents, didn’t work for our grandparents, and then we go and do the exact same thing.
Brant: Yeah. I did too as well. I wish I could take credit that I didn’t but I went into law enforcement for seven years and figured out the grass would be greener on the corporate side of life so I went into corporate sales and did the whole thing. I was winning awards for sales. I hated sales and I just made a decision. After about four or five years of … about year three in the corporate world that’s when I started taking action. I realized day one it wasn’t for me. I remember coming home the first day of my corporate job and my wife is excited because I have normal hours, I’m not a police officer anymore. She said kind of, “Honey, how was it?” I said, “I absolutely hate it.” I said, “This is not for me.”
Steve: Oh my God.
Brant: I told her, “Don’t worry.” I said, “Don’t worry, I’m not going to quit. I’m going to do well, I’m going to perform, I’m going to pay the bills but I’m going to find something else. There’s got to be more to life and to making an income and just…” And that’s what led me down the rabbit hole. It took me about 10 or 12 years too before I really began taking action after the time I got out of college. One of the things I believe that you’re going to be covering in your book is what we’re talking about. It’s this mindset that leads to a result which is something like you mentioned like 95% of Americans fail to retire by the age of 65? Speak on that a little bit and what you see the middle class migrating to like the flock of the middle class I guess you’d say.
Steve: Yeah. It’s the US Department of Health, Education and Welfare that figured that out, the US Department of Health, Education and Welfare. What they did is they followed a group of Americans from I think age 18 to 65. What they found was that by age 65, 54 were living off of the government or family support. In other words, they were a burden to their family. Five were still working because they had to, and I think that statistic has gone way, way up. I’m not sure what year these numbers are coming from ‘13 or ‘12 or somewhere around that time frame but I think there’s been a market change and it’s probably 10 or 15% are still working. Then here is the shocking one, 36% are dead by 65.
Brant: Yeah.
Steve: So, the golden years, they’re just a golden [lock up 00:10:47]. It’s not happening. They show you in the commercials the elderly couple on the cruise ship or walking the beaches of Greece or flying across the country to go visit the grandkids. That’s not happening. These people can’t afford that. They’re barely getting by. I read one statistic that said that the 54% were actually living at or below poverty income levels, at or below. Only 5% of Americans retire well-off or wealthy. I’m not sure what the difference between well-off and wealthy is but only 5% retire successfully. Again, this book is discussing the belief systems. I just basically studied that 5% over a 27-year period to come up with this group of beliefs.
Brant: Yeah, and what you said about those who do retire are deceased within a couple of years, it brings back an experience I had in my life was, when I was at the police department, it was really … it was actually pretty depressing hearing my co-workers, other officers in that essentially a state job, right?
Steve: Yeah.
Brant: It was a 20-year retirement at that point in time. I don’t know what it is now, meaning if you serve for 20 years you can retire. So, everyone at the police department were always counting their years. I’ve got eight years left, 10 years left, five years left until they could retire. I had and a lot of guys would work longer a bit after their retirement and what have you. I had a lieutenant that passed away and he died less than 30 days later right after that he had a heart attack and he passed away. I wasn’t really close with him so it wasn’t like someone close to me but it was just like wow, like he worked here for 30 or 40 years, I don’t recall and then just died. I would hear guys saying this all the time and I caught myself doing it, like 17 more years and I’m like, “What are you doing? That is a long time.”
My police department was right by the hospital and here in Houston, it was Texas Woman’s Hospital. We had our first child at Texas Woman’s Hospital while I was still at the police department. We’ve had three other children over the years all at the same hospital so I’ve been back to my particular police department three times each time we’ve had a child. Very little had changed there. I went and saw the same people and it was this … Every time I went back I just, I could see it more clearly. It was a really … It was good to see my old friends and things but it was a gloomy atmosphere and they were talking about counting down their years to retirement.
I think that a lot of people too, they view retirement as like this finish line and it’s going to be all sunshine and rainbows and all these types of things but they don’t have a lot to live for is what I’ve seen in a lot of people, like what’s next? Then unfortunately what’s next for a lot of people is not only can they not travel the world but they’ve got a tremendous amount of either health issues or financial stress and it just takes a toll, it just takes a toll on everybody.
Steve: Yeah. The statistic you referred to I know is the white males. White males’ life expectancy after retirement is three years. Black males is less than that and I don’t know the other statistics. Retirement is, it’s again, it’s the big golden line. It also when you bring up that story about people counting down to when they retire, then they’re not in their calling. They’re doing something just to bring home a paycheck instead of … like my father was a police officer and it was his calling, never once did I hear him counting down the days. It was a joy to him. That was different obviously for these or most of the people that you were talking to and if people would go to their calling … it’s like people who say this to me, it will be a Wednesday, right?
Brant: Mm-hmm.
Steve: And they’ll go, “Woo-hoo, hump day. Only two more days to the weekend.” I’m like, “Are you kidding me? Is your life so bad that the only two days out of a week that you’re happy about are the weekend? Maybe you should change jobs.”
Brant: Yup, I agree.
Steve: If you’re counting down the years or hump day is a big deal for you you’re not in your calling.
Brant: Yup. No I agree and I don’t want to take a deep spiritual turn here but I do want to … what I’ve gleaned from this and my own experiences in life is that call it whatever, everyone out there has their own beliefs like God or the universe or whatever. I believe that we were created by some type of infinite creator, right? This design that created and that somewhere inside each and every one of us is like this desire to create, to be creating new things and new experiences.
With me, the thought of retirement is like it’s equal to like dying or decaying or just stagnating, the word in itself. And so that’s why, I don’t like the word and my father just retired and it scares me a little bit so I’ve been bringing him to the office to do some work with me because I think like, that’s my thoughts on it, is like people … It’s not just health that they die and I’m sure there is some stress but it’s they don’t really have a purpose or something to keep them moving forward. It’s just this, this desire or this innate calling to create, create … For us it’s business or it could be deals or motivating people and encouraging people, whatever it is but it’s definitely, there’s people who you’re right, like your father and … I had friends at the police department who they were born to be police officers. They were in their element. That was their calling and it wasn’t mine. It’s just something like, even if someone desires to retire, my thoughts are have something else to take some space of, to fill that space or time that you have because if you don’t, that’s where I see where people start the decaying process really.
Steve: I think you’re absolutely right. That there is a purpose for every person. I think some people have multiple purposes. I can’t think of an example of one but what I mean is I’ve known these people that were happy at two or three types of careers. They were just happy people and it seemed like they always chose the right thing to do. They understood what made them happy. I saw them throughout their lives even though they were in different careers at different times, they were happy. The people that do find their calling, they live longer. There’s a book, The Purpose Driven Life, I forget who the author is but what a wonderful book. It actually addresses that issue that once a person loses their purpose their life expectancy drops dramatically. If they don’t have a reason to get up in the morning, their life expectancy drops.
Brant: That was yeah Rick Warren, I had to look that up. Yeah that was a great book and it’s the principle, I believe it 100% to be true. There’s something I wanted to talk to you about. One of my things with my coaching students is I’m really big on we get, these new students come in and some of them are really eager and chomping at the bit obviously to get started doing deals, maybe to quit their job, whatever, hit their goals.
While there’s a speed element to building a business and you and I both know that we’ve seen guys come in and do five deals a year, 10 deals a year or 20 plus deals their first year so there’s speed to it but one thing I always encourage them to do is, creating wealth is a long-term game. I was reading this weekend and not Steve Jobs, Bill Gates. Bill Gates said, “We overestimate often times what we can do in a year but greatly underestimate what we can do in 10 years, over the long-term.” I want to talk to you about this idea of getting rich quick because I think you’ve got a little bit of a different spin on it on a way for people to get rich quick.
Steve: Yeah. I think it comes down to and this has been talked about by multiple, multiple people over the decades, over the last several hundred years. The middle class have a distinct, everyone can call it belief and you mentioned it. There’s no such thing as get rich quick. When you look at the millionaires and the billionaires and the thought leaders in the [inaudible 00:21:31] industry, they actually say the opposite. That there’s actually no such thing as get rich slow.
Part of that or at least the part that touches me the most is what we’ve just been talking about, it’s your biggest asset is not money, it’s not credit, it’s time. What so many financial planners are doing is they’re telling people that you’ve got to put your money in the stock market, you got to put your money in IRAs, 401ks, put it in stocks, mutual funds and leave it there till you’re 65 and then you’ll have a million bucks and they tell you how much you have to put in every month or how much you have to put in every year and what rate of return you’re going to get based on your averages and all of this stuff.
Let me tell you something Brant. I don’t give a rat’s ass about being rich at 65. I want to be rich now because at 65 what’s gone? Your time. Not only that, your health is not the same, your energy levels are not the same, your sex drive is not the same, it’s not the same. Getting old sucks. I’m 54, I can attest to it, I’d trade every dime I’ve got, I’d trade my Ferrari, I’d trade my boat if I could go back and have my body from 25 but there’s nothing we can do about it but you can do something about when you get rich.
Brant: Yeah.
Steve: And that is to focus on things that make a difference today that produce cash flow today. This can really be any business but it has to be a business not just self-employment. If you buy a business, it could even be multilevel marketing. I even interviewed six or seven people who have down lines that they produce, I think that’s what they’re called and they’re making between six and 25,000, the people that I interviewed, they’re making between six and $25,000 a month doing nothing. We can even work with that. I obviously did it with real estate, you’re using real estate, something like 70% of the millionaires in America used real estate so obviously real estate is the great vehicle for that but there’s no such thing as get rich slow because your life is gone.
The other thing Brant my dad died at 65 and my grandfather died at 65. Do I really want to wait till I’m 65? No. At 27 I wanted to be rich then, right then, and so I started my real estate career, three years later I built a small fortune and for most people the definition of it I retired. I kept working but I had enough income that I didn’t have to work.
Brant: Yeah, and I mean that’s what I learned from you when I started 10 years ago and from Lifestyles was that you can have both sides. You can have the money and the lifestyle and the life right now. I was 32 so you actually beat me by about five years. I was 32 when I made up my mind I’m like, “No. I can do this. I can create wealth and take trips to Mexico and travel and do all the things that I wanted to do when I was still at a relatively young age.” Man, just the, you said you still worked and you still work today and I know that you don’t have to work and I know that yeah I probably still do have to work.
I don’t have to work as much as I do but that’s the thing it’s whenever you build … when you’re doing something that you enjoy, it’s true like it’s like you’ve never worked a day in your life. Or you just build the business to where you’re doing the things that you enjoy doing and that you can structure it around, like what is the ideal life? I’m heading out to the beach tomorrow to hang out at my beach house for a couple of days and I know that things were getting done and I’ll do some writing and reading and “Working down there” and come back in a couple of days. You can build it any way really that you desire to but you’ve got, I think a lot of people just don’t believe it or they don’t see it because it just comes back to their middle class mindset. It’s like, “Well, I’ve got to do this or do something until I’m at least 65.” And it looks like that number is even getting older, it’s like getting, pushing 70 quite frankly.
Let’s change subjects a little bit but not too much and talk about diversification. I know this is one of those buzz words that we hear all the time that I know neither you or I really buy into but I’ll let you talk about that a little bit.
Hey, this is Brant and I hope you’re enjoying today’s show. If you’re in a place in your life or your business where you just feel stuck or you just don’t know what actions to take to help you get unstuck or on to the path to creating the results you truly desire, please take a few minutes and go to my website brantphillips.com. There are some really valuable resources and information that may be able to help you out. If you’re interested in really speeding up results with the help of a coach or mentor and adding true accountability and guidance to your life and business, please reach out to me from my website as well at brantphillips.com or going directly to www.brantphillips.com/coaching. Now, let’s get back to the show.
Steve: Sure. This is another one of those things and just like with this that I said the middle class can all quote this. “There’s no such thing as get rich quick.” That’s their belief system. There’s a belief about diversification that every single person really probably in the United States middle class, upper class, poor can quote and it’s this quote. “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” Andrew Carnegie, a billionaire had a comment over 100 years ago about diversification. When I go into a room and I’m speaking to 3,000 people, I’ll ask that 3,000 people or 5,000 people, I’ll say, “Don’t put all your eggs what?” And in a chorus they all say, “In one basket.” Then I ask them, “How many people in the room know what Andrew Carnegie said about diversification over 100 years ago?” You know Brant, I won’t get but maybe five hands. Out of four, three, four, five thousand people, I’ll get five hands. Then I’ll say, “What Andrew Carnegie said was to put all your eggs in one basket and spend your entire life making sure nobody kicks over your basket.”
It’s just funny that everybody knows that middle class belief but almost nobody knows the billionaire belief. Every single millionaire that I know is focused. They are not diversified. They are mastering one thing. When I look at you, you are a master of single family real estate whether it’s flipping, renting, owner finance, you’ve mastered it. Because of that laser like focus you’re exceling and building wealth that’s permanent residual income for the rest of your life, so focus is it. If you go back to diversification which we’re supposed to be discussing, I’m sorry I got off [crosstalk 00:30:44].
Brant: It’s all right.
Steve: Follow the rabbit. A word [inaudible 00:30:50] that Peter Lynch and Sam Walton all billionaires call it diworsification in most cases. Now my anti-diversification rant is a rule, meaning there are exceptions to it but not for most people. We’re talking maybe a few people should be diversified, five-10% but I think 90% or more of Americans should be focused on how they’re going to be helping serve other people because that’s the only way to make money. You focus on how you’re here to help and serve other people and you do it the best, the fastest and focus on it. You look at the athletes, you look at the actors, they’re not diversified, they’re focused. Ellen makes, I want to say Ellen makes somewhere around $25 million a year. It’s Ellen. Everything Ellen. She’s amazing, amazing marketer.
Brant: Let me ask you this and we’ve probably answered it already in one of these conversations but so after the last 30 years that you’ve been helping people probably over 100,000 families over the years and members. What is it? If you had to boil it down to a couple of things that you’ve seen. What are some of the common denominators that you’ve seen from the people who just go out and absolutely crash it and those who don’t? Is it something like almost like tangible like you can see it and sense when someone is going to create success or?
Steve: Yes.
Brant: Talk about that a little bit because sometimes I think I’ve seen that too where I get feelings like this guy is going to absolutely crash it. I can tell, I can sense it or there’s uncertainty in people. Talk about your experiences like helping other people.
Steve: I think the three that I like to put at the top are integrity, honesty and personal responsibility. The integrity and the honesty are easy to describe because they’re so simple. They tell the truth, they live the truth, they are who they say they are, they don’t pretend they’re something they’re not. If they shake your hand and tell you that they’re going to do something, they do it. They are honest to their families. In other words, they are in committed relationships, and not that the single people don’t succeed. I’m just talking about the ones now that are in relationships. They’re committed to that relationship, they’re committed to it with every level of honesty that they can get.
Every business person that I’ve ever done business with … I’ve done 20 plus handshake deals over the last 27 years, 20 plus. Do you know that only one of them didn’t keep their promise, only one? These people are high, have high, high levels of integrity and honesty and oh humbleness, there’s a fourth one and they’re humble. The reason that humble is so important is because that makes them easy to teach. See like you came in with a very humble attitude so you were easy to teach. You picked up the material, you accepted it, said, “I don’t know any better, I’m going to go do it and you did it.”
Brant: I didn’t. Yeah.
Steve: Some people are arrogant. They may think, “Well, I know the right way, I’m going to do it my way.” They modify it a little bit and destroy the business model, but then the fourth one, this is probably equal to the other three is they just take personal responsibility. I was with a multimillionaire and got into a car wreck. He got hit from behind and I was in the passenger’s seat. Do you know he got out of the car and tried to figure out how that was his fault? Now that’s an extreme example.
Brant: Yeah.
Steve: He got out of the car and asked if the guy who had hit him was okay, told him immediately that he’s fine and not to worry about it, nobody is injured, we’re all safe, let’s not worry about it and said something to the effect of, “I was following the car ahead of me too close and I had to slam on my brakes,” when really obviously the guy behind him was following too close and he didn’t slam his brakes off but it was just, it’s just the sense of, “Man, what can I do better next time? How can I improve? What?” They don’t rely on the government, they don’t rely on financial planners, they don’t rely on jobs, it’s all personal responsibility. “I am going to make it happen, I’m going to do it.” They put together teams to do that and get out there and take responsibility for their lives. I would have to say that’s probably number one but they’re all so close I’d hate to put, I’d hate to put honesty or humbleness below that. I guess I’m going to have to say they’re all equal. You’ve got to have all four of those things to really succeed in the business world in America.
Brant: Yeah you do. You definitely do. The humility thing, that’s something that I’ve seen from being a coach where all of these are really, when you look at all of them they’re all, if you don’t have them, for me as a coach to work with somebody, they’re non-negotiable, you have to have all of these characteristics. I’ve seen it first hand, the humility thing you mentioned that it’s … I’ve seen that with people who are seeking coaching and mentoring and they’ve given their time and they’ve spent a substantial amount of money and they don’t want to listen, they don’t want to see. I’ve had that conversation, I’m like, “There’s a lot of coaching programs out there, this is our model, we’ve done this hundreds of times and it works if you do it like this but you want to do it like that. I’m not saying it’s not going to work but it’s not in our model, it’s not proven, why do you want to do that?”
We have students who veer from what we do and often times it doesn’t work out. It doesn’t work out well at all. Sometimes it’s quite ugly because they’re recreating a wheel that probably doesn’t even roll properly. But yeah, so integrity, honesty, personal responsibility and humility, absolutely. I agree wholeheartedly with that. Those are the things that need … they need to have to be able to create success. Man, let’s talk about your book. Let’s wrap it up and talk about your book From Middle Class to Millionaire and anything else that you want to share with our listeners.
Steve: Well, I think that you hit on some really good topics today. If people want to learn more about those topics then my book which won’t be out until at the latest July 1st we may get it out a month or two earlier. It just depends on a couple of things that are going on with my book writing mentors. I happen to be lucky enough to have Jack Canfield of Chicken Soup for the Soul helping me write the book but yeah timing, it will be out the latest July 1st and maybe a month or two before that. If people would get on my tip of the week email list or follow me on Facebook, I’ll announce it right as it comes out. My website is getrealwealth.com, getrealwealth.com and the name of the book is From Middle Class to Millionaire, the Belief System of the Millionaire. I guess that’s as much as I have to say about that.
I just think that people need to be constantly reading whether it’s my book or other books. There’s so much out there. There is nothing out there that you want to do that there’s not two, three, 100 or more books on so that you don’t have to make the mistakes, you don’t have to trial and error through life. Go read, read and read some more until you master it.
What happened to me was right after they cut my pay, I still had some credit cards left and that’s all I had but I was so committed to getting out of corporate America and out of that situation that I literally spent $25,000 on books, CDs, DVDs, boot camps, workshops and it finally jelled, it finally clicked in my brain. Now, a lot of you won’t need that much but … I don’t want to pick on myself but I feel like I’m a slow learner. I have to hear things 10 or 15 times before they sink in. That’s why I always read the same book. I’ve read the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Dr. Stephen Covey probably 15 times. I’ve listened to it 10 times. So, it took that much for me. I’m not telling you you have to go spend $25,000. I’m just saying that start reading. Jim Rohn said it best. He said, “Formal education, which is high school and college is there to get you a career. Self-education is there to make you wealthy.” And that’s reading. So they need to read your book, they need to read my book, they need Stephen Covey’s work, they need, they get out there, whatever subject, whatever business they want to get into, start reading every book you can get your hands on.
Brant: That is also one of the habits of the wealthy. I was reading this weekend, I was reading this weekend a business book and it spoke exactly about that. It was talking about, oh no, I think this was something I was reading online but it was talking about how much to this day that Warren Buffet still reads. You know how much time he’s allocated per day to read, how much Mark Cuban reads, all of these just incredibly successful entrepreneurs and how important reading is. It’s one of their habits. It’s their daily habits that is just instinctual that this is … there’s not a finish line, just like with our education like there could be a finish line but for me for you I know for like the truly wealthy, it is a habit of success that there’s, you never cease in learning because when you cease in learning like you cease growing, you begin this decaying dying process. So, I agree wholeheartedly.
In today’s world, it’s a lazy excuse if you’re not reading books like … there’s talk radio, there’s cable television that is essentially potato chips for the mind for the most part. Where we’ve got audible, we’ve got YouTube. There’s all of this that we can download. There’s podcasts, there’s iTunes. There’s all of these out, these sources where we can be taking in content every day and just improving ourselves.
As a matter of fact, I remember you talked about books and CDs. When I first made up my mind like I was going to go this, I was working in the corporate world and I remember Seven Habits of Highly Effective People was one of the first personal development books that I ever read and it literally changed my life, it literally changed my life. It was like, it just changed my life and I began seeing things in a whole new light.
I remember I got CDs, like a CD series from Robert Kiyosaki and man, I used to put that thing in my CD player, in my car and we lived out in West Houston off Bear Creek and I used to sit on Clay Road for 30 to 45 minutes every day going into work and I would listen to that. What I tell my students today was that to make that transformation like your book says like From Middle Class to Millionaire, you really have to change who you are, you have to rewire your brain and change that mindset and that’s …
Man, all those last two and half years while I was doing real estate working my job, it was hard. It was really hard doing 10 deals a year and managing and managing rehabs, getting the finance and doing all that stuff and working a full-time job and with a wife and kids. Man, it was really hard but I look back on it and I’m so grateful for that time sitting in that car listening to Robert Kiyosaki and anything else I could get my hands on to read because that’s where I was … I was rewiring my brain. I acknowledged there is a problem, I knew I had desire to sell more and I couldn’t get it the old way of doing things. So yeah just talking about that and how important it is I guess that’s my encouragement. One of the encouragements for people listening to this is like just make it a habit just like brushing your teeth like make it a habit to consume content that’s useful in getting you where you want to go and the results you want to get because it’s out there, right? There’s the maps have already been created for us, thank goodness.
Steve: One thing I want to share with you. My son shared this with me the other day, he’s a fan of Dwayne Johnson, The Rock. Dwayne Johnson said this, he said, “There’s going to be pain in your life no matter what you do.” He said, “But you can have the pain of discipline or the pain of regret.” The pain of reading those books, the pain of listening to those audio CDs if you’re not like you and I who love it, but for a lot of people it’s hard, it’s a pain. Think about this, you can either have the pain of the discipline of listening and learning and changing your life or you can have the pain of regret that you never did it.
Brant: Man, Steve, I really appreciate you coming on today and sharing everything with our listeners.
Steve: I appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me.
Brant: Yeah. Looking forward to you coming out to Reaction next week. We’re going to have some good times out there next week so looking forward to that. Everybody, find Steve Davis, getrealwealth.com, getrealwealth.com. Look him up on Facebook. Anything else you want to share in terms of getting in touch with him, Google him in the next month or two also From middle Class to Millionaire to make sure you get a copy of Steve’s book that’s coming out.
Steve: Yeah. I’ll keep everybody posted through Facebook, just remember to like my, when you go to Facebook, like my public figure page. I’m already full up on my regular friend page so everybody needs to go to the public figure page, Steve Davis.
Brant: We’ll get all those links posted here on the website in the show notes. All right Steve. Thank you. Once again it was an honor and I appreciate you coming on the show.
Steve: Thank you.
Brant: And encouraging me and encouraging all of our listeners.