First Blind and Deaf Person to Complete Hardest Race On Earth (and he owns rentals)

0:00in fact I've had to go through this twice where you unexpected tragedy loss pain and it's it's yeah of course it's it's an awful awful place to be in in fact you know being sucked into darkness forever is is one tough thing but then to go silent as well it's like being trapped in your poty and it it's very it was very lonely it was very frustrating and it's kind of funny during the whole Co quarantine time

0:49Whenever was complaining about being locked at their houses I'm thinking not so bad I'm okay but but I love how how Elrod talks about it in I think he mentions it in his the morning miracle which was a was a great book but he talks about it all the time but he he went through a personal tragedy of his own and he gave himself the time limit to grieve and once they decided he was going to say whatever it was 15 minutes or 30 minutes or five minutes and and after that he was going to stop grieving and stop complaining and he was just going to get get

1:38Active get busy on something else and I love how he puts it because once you make the decision that once your time limit is up and you're going to get busy doing something else well you don't actually need all that time he didn't need five more he didn't need more 5 Seconds and it's the same for me I I was I was you know not a very happy guy and not very pleasant to be around when I came back from the hospital having Gone first blind and when you go 100% blind you get the added benefit added bonus gift of a sleep disorder that that comes with not being able to wind your internal

2:27Clock called the Circadian rhythm because it it your your internal clock is set by sunlight and when you go deaf well when I went deaf I also had the bonus gift with that too which was a loss of my vestibular balance the inner ear gyro so I came home blind sleep disorder deaf and I I couldn't even get on my treadmill since I'd been running for the last few years before the the menitis and so I was I was I when I came home I was almost falling off the toilet type

3:15Of bad balance so I'm sitting there at my my breakfast counter my like you you know the bar in my kitchen trying to think of you just talking about talking to myself that the awful selft talk about you know you can't do this and why is this happening to me again and you know when have I paid my dues all of that and it's all it's all you know these questions they have no answers and they lead you to nowhere and basically a downward spiral depression so once I realized that it wasn't getting anywhere with that kind of thinking I decided that I was just going to look towards well what can I do and why

4:05Is this happening for me versus why is this happening to me and I'd been doing this for a few years with the blindness and I learned that the best way to learn something is to teach and I was teaching others how to get through this you know trauma in their life and basically I decided that if I was going to learn how to do it again I might as well pay attention so I can teach and so it wasn't it went from why is this happening to me to why is this happening for me and then why is this happening for me so I can teach others

4:55And what would you say to somebody who who maybe is going through something I don't know if I should say similar but their own version of whatever feels insurmountable to them is there is there advice that you can I mean I yeah is is I guess is there any advice that you would offer absolutely for one we're rarely I don't think we're ever given anything that we can't actually deal with on until we're dead we can keep fighting and and pushing forward and one of the best ways to do that is to have a a positive outlook you have faith in a good outcome

5:44Yeah and surround yourself with strong people that can help you when you're at your weakest thankfully for me I have incredible circles with from my family to my military brothers and sisters sers to you know these ma masterminds and I talk and I of course not every one of my days are you know happen you know with a sunrise and bright shy you know heavy day I've got bad days you know I've got tough days but you know it's it's my support system that helps keep me moving forward amazing and and this is I I know this is a real estate show so I want to hear about your deals that youve working on since we last spoke but I know in your spare time

6:33Since you know between doing deals and raising kids you you trained for the the the badwater 135 and completed it as as the first and only fully deaf and blind person to complete this ultra marathon which I'm sure a lot of people have heard about from David gogins you know he kind of made it more famous I think and talks about how grueling the the races so the question comes up for me U because I want to hear about this experience of of doing this over the last year but what drives a person to subject themselves to this kind of torture well you know it's you know they say in a a marathon 26.2

7:23Miles after 20 miles you're halfway there and what they're getting at is that you got to get past the physical part to get to the mental struggle and there's something about ultramarathons it's like climbing mountains or anything that's a a hard Endeavor is that there's some you you you grow stronger from it and it's not just the physical part but it's a it's a mental strength and to subject ourselves to these these challenges makes us stronger so doing something like bad water it was

8:11About getting getting past the physical side to that mental part and running for 42 hours and change straight across Death Valley and over three mountain ridges it there's a lot of selft talk and there's a lot of that I talk about all the time you know where you know you that that that voice in the back of your head that says you the voice of fear and doubt that tells us we are we're not strong enough we're not smart enough we haven't we haven't prepared enough for this or you know who who who am I

9:01To think that I could do this it's just too much so should probably quit and we we rationalize right who how many times the the thought has passed through my mind is that if I just rolled my ankle nobody would would say say otherwise nobody would nobody would question say rolled my ankle and I just I can't I can't move forward anymore but nobody else would know except me I would know so on that on that road in California running across Death Valley when that voice

9:49Came to me and said you're not you're not good enough this is too hard you don't have it and it's time to quit that's when I I just smile and I say I've been waiting for you I've been expecting this wow that's incredible and and I think a lot of people just think about what it takes to do 135 miles I can't even imagine running for 40 hours straight but that's just part of I mean the training that goes into I kind of followed your some of your training you know through some of your posts on on Facebook but can you share a little bit about what the typical training looks like for to to prepare yourself

10:38For something like this absolutely yeah a a lot of it was you know I live in I live in Florida the Panhandle and it gets warm here so that was that was part of it it's not just putting the miles in but it was also heat training and I consider getting a but just leaving my garage door shut and put you running in the treadmill in my garage with that sun radiating through the tin door yeah was good enough and plus with the humidity at 5,000% and my my coach knew how to make things extra miserable for me cuz I have two speeds run and

11:28Stroll Meander and she said you need to do so many miles at a high incline on your treadmill in this hot garage with a weight vest power walking and I said I hate power walking it's so it's it's the right kind of training both physically and mentally so I I had I had that while I'm sweating and paying attention to my nutrition and I was I was I was becoming physically resilient I also had that voice in my head all the time going this sucks yeah

12:17Maybe you should just tell your tell your coach you did it and then we go inside to the air conditioning yeah so it's a physical and a mental resilience so and that's that's how we we we we prepare for the the hard times whether they're a surprise or they're intentional to come is you we we get up in the morning before the kids yeah I I got up at 4:30 or so and I put some miles in and then I would wait until mid afternoon before the kids came back from from school daycare and I'd go back out there when it was really nice and hot and

13:06I'd do the rest of my training so I often do two days and that's how how I prepare cuz I know at 2: in the afternoon half the battle is just just getting in going into that garage yeah oh I'm sure yeah I remember one of your posts that you were talking about that where you you know got up early in the morning morning got you know 5 10 miles in and then got your kids ready for school got them off to school then you obviously have work stuff still in your your real estate Investments to manage then you know you're running in this particular one I think you ran all afternoon then had dinner with the family then got back on the treadmill at night after the kids went to bed it just sounded like I don't know how a

13:54Person does it let alone without the use of sight sight or or sound or or having hearing it just it's incredible and it kind of brought up a question for me because you you hear about so many people who are successful like you know like David gogin for example like you know super intense guys accomplish so much but it's it seems like a lot of these guys it's at the expense of their family in their relationships and you know that seems like those those two can a lot of times contradict each other you know success and having a good family but you you've seems like you've struck a balance and you have you're able to to kind of balance those two things so how how is it that you think about that or how how do you balance

14:44All the achievement that you've had you know even being blind and deaf and then also maintaining a good relationship with with your family at the same time for one I don't think that balance isn't it isn't a stationary thing we're constantly balancing sometimes we've got to make adjustments back and forth It's Like You leaning back the back the back two legs of a chair and trying to keep it up constantly working to make sure that you know we don't fall one way or the other so it's not balanc it's balancing and sometimes we got to give a little more attention to one thing or another

15:33I I try to keep it so everything gets as much attention as possibly can but my my my wife and my kids do know that if I take on one of these big challenges like bad water that I'm going to need to put a little extra attention to my training so maybe we get an extra extra takeout meal a week or maybe dad's Cuisine isn't doesn't have as much Focus you know on it not usually like you know my usual efforts when it comes to the businesses

16:22That's what having actually everything in life it's what having a a strong team around you to so you shouldn't have to do everything when it comes to real estate my wife is an incredible project manager she she is also the one that runs the channel manager and does the customer relations so I mean she's she's doing a fantastic job and you it's all all around it's about surrounding you yourself with the right people so that you can focus in on your strengths and other people can and help you know lift up your weaknesses great advice great

17:11Advice and also since we we last spoke you started your podcast point of impact which is an awesome podcast if others you know if people listening to this you should check that out as well but I'm curious what inspired you to start that podcast and I guess how how you decide on these these challenges because you you are doing so much more than than a lot of people with all five senses and so I'd love to hear just like I guess what the inspiration was and how you how you decide on something like this blind DH guy with a podcast I was I was looking for another challenge it I it was a number of reasons reasons one

18:00You know it was it of course the number one reason is that I can reach a a a bigger audience with with some of the messages that I've learned some of the lessons I've learned along the way and it was a way to not just have a a a Podium to to speak from but then I can also bring experts in all different types of areas learn from them at the same time I'm sharing it with everybody else so it's an incredible way to network to learn to share and all I have to do is turn turn turn my microphone on click record and

18:49And of course find the guests but again I I don't do the the technical side as as far as editing and Publishing and all that because it would take me forever I have I have accessibility software and text to speech and software and all that so I can I could probably figure it out in a few years but it took me a while to realize once again to learn the same lesson I've learned over and over again is that you know I don't need to do everything myself so I find people who can do it and we we find a common vision of the the future what we want to accomplish and we do it together

19:38Yeah yeah I think so so many people would be better off so much better off if they took that approach instead of I I know personally I always am like oh how can I accomplish this or do this instead of thinking through the lens initially of okay who can I work with to accomplish this together and I think that's such a smart approach that you have not not to totally switch gears but I think it goes along with that so I I want to hear about your real estate Ventures and what you've been up to since we last talked maybe you can share a little bit about how you initially got into real estate what you were doing initially and then we can talk about some of the deals that you've worked on over the last year well we we started

20:27The the fudge business back in 2015 2016 and excuse me oh after starting the F business it actually actually had some success and in fact a few years later we're we were invited on to the Rachel Ray Show and and it's just surprisingly took off so we we wanted to start taking this active income and started looking passively we we looked into real estate and of course we from all the different methods we could choose from to invest in real estate we picked something that

21:15Wasn't very passive to start with in fact our very first project was outof State ver purchased from an online auction with hard money actually the most active thing I could possibly think of and the the most difficult first project you know for a new real estate investor that could possibly come up with and it went just like you might think it was chaos and a disaster well it wasn't a disaster we had a few things going for us one I invested out of state but in my hometown the place I knew and I've got family there my mom and my

22:03Brother had already done a few flips so they were already in the business and they knew and so they were the boots on the ground and have great contractor there who was just a magician cuz this house also was like it was nearly a century home and every time we peeled back another layer there was another layer of SEL that we we needed to fix I think this I think it was a 1930 house it the I think the 1950s wallpaper was holding the roof up anyways this was 2019 and another thing going for us was the market so

22:53When all of a said and done we were able to do Cash out refinance it turned out pretty terrific after the the know the rehab budget ballooned to double what we regally expected it's an auction we didn't know exactly what was under under the surface and what we found was more rehab yeah yeah but we were able to refinance it for more than we'd originally estimated and we were able to rent it long term for more than we original originally estimated there also and then that turned into a couple more rehab projects and we started doing the the Burr stir

23:42Be bur into short-term rental and that's become our methodology now and it's turned out to be pretty fantastic we've got a couple rental properties a couple short-term rentals in akan Ohio and we've got a couple projects going on in Florida near in our backyard now nice and how is it that you identify one of these bird to short-term rentals what what's the main criteria you're looking at we're looking for similar to what you espouse in living off frontals is not the

24:31Not the Mountaintop cabins and not the Beachside mega mansions but a little bit off the beaten path maybe secondary towns near points of interest but something with enough travelers to keep the occupancy up so our our properties in in Ohio were generally around $100,000 to purchase had enough enough updating necessary to force appreciation so we could refinance out and then

25:20There was enough you know traffic transient population there to to keep it keep it occupied and akan Ohio is fantastic because it's got three major hospitals there are campuses of campuses or satellite campuses of 12 universities it's the the still the headquarters it used to be the rubber capital of the world because that's where Firestone BF goodr all those major manufacturers were right in akan the tire manufacturing itself is moved out but the headquarters and their like research and development like Dow Chemical and

26:08All of that are still right there so there's from from all of that there's plenty people coming and going and we we keep our rentals full