Can You Really Balance a W2 Job and Real Estate? with Nathan Murith

Nathan: [00:00:00] how do you block that, you know, month off vacation every year? How do you make it happen for us? It literally was put it in the calendar. Tell employee, employer, sorry, coworkers, rest of the family, Hey, it's there.
Oh, crap. Now I got to buy airfare to get there. And then what do I need to offload to somebody else so that I could be unplugged while I'm there, but it's just forcing yourself or backing yourself into that corner and just make it happen. And then you see that, Oh, you know what? All these, plates that I was spinning did not break actually.
Dustin: Welcome back to the seven figure leap. I have an amazing guest today for you. This is someone who I think is the very first guest who actually has a full time [00:01:00] W two career, but it's also a very successful entrepreneur and someone who is an alumni of our accelerator program, a former member of our mastermind program and someone who I've learned a lot from as well, which we'll definitely unpack today and before I introduce Nathan, let him kind of give his spiel and about what he's all about.
we were just talking before we hit record and reflecting, it's a really interesting time to be recording this because I literally got back about 10 hours ago from an overseas trip with my wife to Italy and was able to unplug from my business completely for two weeks. And Nathan in two days is flying over to France for an annual month long trip with his family, where he is able to do the same, not only from his entrepreneurial perspective.
Ventures, but his w two career. And so I think that's going to be a huge part and theme of what we're going to talk about today is how do you do that, right? Like how do you design your business around your life and let you enjoy, each to the fullest. So Nathan Murith, a very good friend. I'd love to have you.
And, very grateful to have you here. And, yeah, I'd love to let you introduce yourself briefly before [00:02:00] we get into your entrepreneurial journey and unpack all the good stuff you have for the audience.
Nathan: Absolutely. Thanks, Dustin, for having me. And hopefully this is not too painful after sitting on a flight for who knows how long. And I also hope that my being a full time W2 person is not going to scare your audience away because I know it's not typical,for the show, but before being, you know, full time W2, employee, I'm actually a husband and a father of two young kids.
That's where my passion first and foremost, being a good husband, being a good father. to six year old boy, four year old girl by day, my W2 job, as you mentioned, Dustin is I'm a technology executive, so I've been doing technology software teams, you know, technology products for the better part of, you know, 25 years.
and when I'm not doing all those things, parenting, trying to be a good husband and, you know, successfully, hopefully, managing my W2 career, I also spent quite a bit of time, both building a, remote Real estate, you know, rental portfolio for ourselves, for our family, for retirement, for our kids, which we can get into, whenever, [00:03:00] but we've also spun out of that, an education academy for, busy professionals and, and parents who are looking to get started, in, real estate investing, you know, regardless of where they live.
and, specifically for people who have busy jobs, busy lives, and don't want to give those up. Necessarily, and then occasionally do some podcasting. I try to golf, but I'm not very good. And, I've been known to make a pretty mean pizza at home. So I think that's me in a nutshell.
Dustin: That's it. Yeah. So I'm also a poor golfer who still enjoys it. So I can relate to that. And I think to set the stage a little bit for your real estate journey and, and I've actually been a client of Nathan's and went through this group coaching program with a remote real estate academy and it was awesome.
And I'm getting ready to pull the trigger, this year and starting that whole part of my journey as well. I think to give people a flavor for that, it's kind of a fun story. So, a former alumni of the accelerator program, Scott Stern introduced Nathan and I, and Scott's actually in a similar situation as Nathan and doing the W2 thing and creating a lot of [00:04:00] side hustle income.
And when Nathan and I very first had our, our, our introductory call, I live in the St. Louis region. And he's like, Oh, where do you live in St. Louis? Do you live like by Choteau or Limburg? And he's named these very specific streets that only St. Louisans would know. And I'm like, well, I'm actually in Illinois.
It's a, you know, suburb of St. Louis. I'm like, so do you. You obviously are very familiar with the city. Like, why are you so familiar? He's like, Oh, I own property there. You know, I have these rental properties. And this is before I understood the full picture that he was just going through.
And I'm like, so I'm kind of naive. And I'm like, that's really cool. Like how often do you get over this way? Like maybe we can, you know, meet for a drink
or whatever. He's like, Oh, I've never been there. It's like, wait, hold on. So you have like more than a dozen rental properties in this city. and you're very intimately familiar with it, but you've never actually been there yet.
You have all this investment there. So I think that is, maybe a great indication of what real remote real estate investing is about. And if you're doing it at, the scale and the ability level that Nathan teaches and does for himself, you can literally. [00:05:00] Own all this real estate and never actually visit the cities that they're in.
so Nathan, did you want to maybe share, when you got in entrepreneurship in general, like just a little bit about your career arc. So you mentioned for 25 plus years, you've been in the technology. industry you're in California, just give people the idea that like you're nowhere near St. Louis, so, about almost as far away as you can get.
So, yeah, like when did you get into entrepreneurship was real estate investing the first and only thing that you've done on entrepreneurial side of the coin.
Nathan: probably not, but, I guess maybe this is a bit of imposter syndrome or whatever, a better term is for this, but I don't necessarily see myself as an entrepreneur and it's not necessarily something that I've. aspired to be, or it wasn't like in, in my vivid vision or my cards or anything like that. I think it comes back for me.
It's more about I've always just worked. So like when I grew up in Switzerland and worked a lot and worked hard, I started working on a farm that was not my family's farm. It was just this kid from school that I went to, and became friends with. [00:06:00] His parents had this farm and it started with.
You know, six years old, you just go play at the farm because there's a lot of stuff to do, right? Jump on, you know, bales of hay, play with animals, all that stuff. And then when you're seven, eight years old, you're old enough to, you know, shovel cow manure and then clean this pig pen and do this, do that.
Then you can milk the cows and you can, you know, go to the slaughterhouse and you can get your tractor's license. So I started doing that from the ages of six, eight. Six, seven, eight years old. I don't know, young. And this was, you know, 6 AM to 8 AM before school. And it was like a 4 PM to 7 PM in the
afternoon.
So I just. Did that when I wasn't doing that, I was interested in and technology because that's where my,mother used to work for digital equipment corporation at the time. and she'd bring home computers and I just tinkered with those. So I
was passionate about those. And then that led me to, well, when you're not in school and doing the farm thing, mornings and evenings, you know, I started building websites to help, you know, people out, you know, [00:07:00] conference management systems, just because people needed help and I was interested and I wanted the income.
and then I had jobs in, you know, surf shops before and after college. And I, you know, had all these kinds of summer jobs, traveling, stuff like that. So it was just always busy doing things,and I think why I'm saying this exact, I think it led to, I got into my technology career, so undergrad grad school did the whole startup thing.
We were very fortunate, had a successful exit, of, you know, with our startup in New York, but typical startup story when you're in this startup, you do everything. I mean, I was writing code, I was managing people, making out, you know, making coffee, taking out trash. You do everything, customer support, absolutely everything.
And again, these are 12, 14, 16 hour days.and then that just, so I continued my technology career, did that kind of working for companies as an employee. but on the side, I always. Kept myself busy and I was curious about a lot of different things. and you know, I spun up a few websites just to catalog tools for real estate [00:08:00] investors and, you know, side projects like that, smaller things here and there.
But then I had, our two kids or our first kid, I should say we now have two, but when we had our first kid, I was. Looking to diversify from the stock market, primarily because, as I'm sure almost everyone here knows that, you know, when you're in technology and your technology employee, a lot of your compensation is tied to, you know, restricted stock units in that company.
So it's tied to the stock market very, very directly. And I was looking to diversify from that a little bit because I didn't want to have just that massive exposure to this one, you know, investment vehicle. So I started just looking at a bunch of different things out there, you know, art, you know, Bitcoin, you name it, all kinds of different things.
And, I still can't remember for the life of me, but one point I heard somebody talk about real estate on a podcast. And this person said, When my kid was
born, I bought this rental property. I put it on a 15 year mortgage. and by the time [00:09:00] my kid will be 18 and ready to go off to college, this property will be worth two, three, 400, 000.
It will be completely paid off by a tenant. And that will serve as my kid's college fund. Either you sell the property, you refinance it, or use the two, three, 4, 000 a month of rental income to pay for college. And I just remember hearing that. I was like, that's. Genius instead of me having to save for now, two kids over 15 years, putting my money aside every.
To get to that two, three, 400, 000 per kid, whatever your goal is. I said, let's buy a rental. and then one, so about the first one, I think three days, three weeks, sorry, later bought the second one. and then once you have two, you're like, well, let's, this is nice. This is easier than I thought. and then I set a bunch of goals in there.
One of which was I'd like to have enough rental income for those rentals to self fund the next purchase of a rental. [00:10:00] So I set that as an X school and then kept doing that and got to a point where. Our machine started working essentially, and more and more of. My entourage, friends, family, friends of friends, co workers, neighbors, people you talk to in the street or whatever, like, Oh, you live in California.
Basically, the story you were saying, you live in California, you invest in real estate, you know, thousands of miles away, and you have a full time job and a family. How do you do that? Can you help me? I'd love to do the same. And then you start giving, you start teaching, you start helping. And then that just turned into a more structured program to not really help busy professionals kind of give away the keys to the kingdom, everything that I've all the mistakes I've made, plus all of our processes, you know, tools and whatnot to just help people get started
Dustin: Well, I want to definitely unpack that more. So I kind of let you go there because it was, I was actually a little bit captivated by the story and then I didn't know that about you and you don't know this about me. I haven't shared it here on the podcast either. But Yeah. Other than, you know, little [00:11:00] projects and things when I was, a true kid, when I turned 12, one of my good friends didn't own the farm, but lived on the street from a horse farm.
And so my very first real job, I would say that the thing that gave me consistent summer income was working on a horse farm, putting up tents. Bales of hay, which is the worst job ever. It truly makes you appreciate, the next job I had,
which was working at McDonald's. I was like, this is like, everyone complains about it.
This is the easiest money ever compared to like being in the top of a dusty hay barn when it's 110 degrees outside. so I love that. And I think, a very clear theme in what you described in your journey is a work ethic. You have a very strong work ethic and you have, since you were small and, It's like your experimentation, I think, is the thing that came up for me, too, is like, wow, so you tried so many different things, some of which came from, like, my mom was in this industry.
So I was curious about it. And I saw this need to help people with, like, whatever conference management systems are, like, and you just saw these different opportunities and you just went and it wasn't even about, you know, This [00:12:00] identity as an entrepreneur, which I think is really cool that you just kind of open with that.
You're like, Hey, I don't even like call myself an entrepreneur. I just I have these lifestyle goals. I have these these goals for my family. And these are all just different vehicles to meet those goals. And some of those vehicles you find really Interesting and captivating. And so you obviously go deeper in some versus others.
so I love that. Yeah. I, I didn't actually know the term entrepreneur, I think, until like college because I grew up very blue collar and just had all these like, different odd jobs. And, and so I very much respect and appreciate the fact that you like, I'm not really an entrepreneur. I like I'm a real estate investor and I have my W2 job that I, that you love and technology.
so yeah, all that to, I just want to kind of recap what I heard there from the values and some of the things that motivate you and the reason why you do what you do, but it sounds like, was it six years ago that you guys had your first child?
Nathan: a little, almost seven.
Yeah.
Dustin: that was a very much an inflection point.
It sounds like where you'd heard these different things about real estate investing and you'd experimented with different [00:13:00] things with real
estate tools and websites, and obviously you'd listen to podcasts, but that time of becoming a dad for the first time, it sounds like that really made you take more action.
So is that, was that when you started the actual real estate investing for yourself?
Nathan: Yeah, I think the simplest way to answer that question is yes, that was the catalyst or the trigger. But before that, my wife and I were already kind of on this path and had this idea of Owning assets and owning real estate has rarely ever been a bad thing. So when we were looking to purchase our, and this is two, three, four years before I first born, I can't remember now, but when we were looking to buy our primary residence, we were looking at it through the lens of, we're going to buy this until we need to move out of it because reasons, you know, one kid, two kids, schools, whatever those reasons may be.
And we'll hold onto this and rent it out And then buy our next one. So even when we purchased our first, primary residence, we're looking at it. Knowing that [00:14:00] eventually we'd want to rent it out. We didn't turn out to, or it didn't turn out that way for a bunch of reasons. We can get into if we want to or have time, but we were already in a sense, doing our homework and looking at real estate as a vehicle for us.
But then you're right. That having that, that first kid, our son, is really what said. Well, here's the reason I heard that from whoever it was on this podcast. And here's my motivation. I can't buy in my backyard because at the time we lived in San Francisco proper said we knew we wanted to do real estate.
So that's when we started looking elsewhere essentially and see how we might be able to do it just. In a different market.
Dustin: Yeah. And I think the, the underlying mindset there. So something, you know, people listening may be like. real estate. Yeah. Maybe, it scares them to death to do it out of state. Maybe they live in California, New York or someplace where it seems or is prohibitive. so maybe real estate's not the vehicle, but I think the bigger strategy here is the idea of instead of thinking about how can I pay for things in my lifestyle that I want, college education, vacations, going to Europe for a [00:15:00] month.
How can I instead Invest that same money into an asset and let the cashflow generated from the asset fuel those things. And so for some of us listening, that might be real estate. And for some of us, that might be our business. it could be,
there's a lot of different vehicles obviously, but the, the bigger idea here is what can I buy that produces income and that income can pay for the stuff I want versus directly buying the stuff I want and having it have no value.
once it's used up, because I never heard that. Express the way that you said it. And that's going to stick with me for sure. This, I wish that my kids are 19, 17 and 15. So I wish I would've thought of this 18 years ago, but the idea that like, yeah, why don't you buy a house when they're young and let the house pay for their college.
And then when the college is over. You very likely still have the house, right? So you still have the underlying asset and you've had the cashflow or the, you know, like you said, the, home equity, however, whatever vehicle you use, you still have the underlying asset when it's done. So am I capturing the essence of this,
like
Nathan: Well, a hundred percent, but I think even on top of that, the thing that, and [00:16:00] I'm an engineer by trade, and maybe this is where this came from or white resonated with me even more, but, and I haven't actually done the actual math I should probably, cause it'd be easier to talk to this, but what are the savings accounts for college for 29, four or five 29s, whatever those five 29s is.
So if you want it to save, you know, say 200, 000 per kid in a five 29 account, That's 200, 000. Of course, assume it. Yes, I understand. There's, you know, some interest. There's some compounding. Absolutely. But it's going to be relatively small compared to the total 200, 000. That's 200, 000. Essentially of your hard earned money that you're putting aside out of your paycheck or your business income or whatever it is every single month, year, whatever timeframe you choose.
So you're saving 200 grand. Of course, minus again, compounding interests, all that, but let's say 200 grand, whereas with the real estate, I mean, I could put 000 down of my own money [00:17:00] to buy this assets, at day zero, have the tenants pay for it over 15 years, have it appreciate for, you know, over 15 years, and it's worth 200, 000 or more, but I only put 25, 000 down, I did not put 200 or have to save 200, 000 of my own money.
So it was like, which of those two is better for me. I was like, yeah, the math is pretty straightforward is that I'd rather pay 25, 000 for this thing rather than having to find a way to save 200, 000. So
Dustin: Yeah. And then the 200, 000, the 529, you give it to the college and then you're done. Right. Whereas the house, like you said, if you have a rent 2, 000, 2, 500 net on the rent, because it's paid off at that point, then the cashflow from that could very well pay for the college. And worst case, maybe you take a, you know, 50, 000 equity off
Nathan: yeah, you refinance it, pull the money out, pay for school. But now you still have the asset and you have had the school for free. We'll pay for it by your tenant free for you in a sense.
Dustin: Yeah. And I, and I think the other thing there that, We're not going to geek out too much on real estate [00:18:00] investing, but I think for anyone listening whose primary income, especially as a business, this idea of diversity is really important. So Nathan recognized the diversity you need because he's in a tech job where his compensation is tied to the stock market effectively and in large part through stock options.
And so if you're in a, if you're. A business owner, you have the same dynamic, except your income is tied to your business. And that's a very good thing unless it's not right. And so having this, diversity of different income sources becomes really important. And I think one of the cool things that I learned from Nathan about real estate investing, specifically as a business owner, you know, my number one expense far and away in my business is taxes.
Right. And so the idea that not only Are you getting an asset that appreciates and you're having someone else pay the majority of, of the mortgage off through tenants. You also get to depreciate the value of this asset off your tax return, which I still can't believe is legal, but you know, it's the way things are created.
This idea that this thing is actually going up in value, but [00:19:00] the government lets you look at it and say, You get to treat it as if it's going from, to zero and you get to deduct the depreciation, you know, the, the, the value of the thing over time, even though you didn't pay for the whole thing, right?
You only paid a down payment. And so do you want to talk just a little bit about that? Maybe through the lens of someone's entrepreneur, they pay massive quarterly tax estimates. how can real estate investing specifically. Help with tax
mitigation. And again, we don't have to get too deep on this, but I think at a high level, you can explain it a lot better than I just did.
Nathan: Yeah. And before, before I jump at that, I just wanted to touch on something that you said about, you know, diversification that, you know, me being in a tech job, my comp being tied to, you know, stock and the stock market quite a bit, which is entirely true. So going, you know, diversifying and going into real estate is a good way for that diversification.
That's entirely true. But there's another thing that was critically important to me, which I think might resonate. Very much so with entrepreneurs or people that are of an entrepreneur mindset is for me the or when you compare stock markets to owning your [00:20:00] rental property in your real estate, there's only one of those two that you can actually control.
I had zero control over the stock market. Whether the market was going up or down, the company was doing well or doing poorly. That would impact me. Of course, my contributions to the company help. But when you're in a 12, 000 person organization, it only helps that much. Whereas with real estate, I can choose where to buy, what to buy, what remodel to make, which tenant to place in the house, which tenant
to not renew the lease for if. You know, we're having issues with them. I could choose when to buy. I could choose when to sell. So you have control of this asset, which you don't have, with the stock market. And that's another aspect that was very, very interesting to me and which is another reason why I'm a big believer.
And this is what we do. This is what our program does as well. It teaches as well as like strong believer in single family homes. because they're easier to understand control manage is what people want to buy, whether it's other investors or owner occupants, but you have control over those. Another big thing in real estate investing that a lot of people [00:21:00] talk about is like these syndications, you know, these companies that buy.
600 unit, you know, luxury buildings in Florida and they're looking for limited partners, i. e. looking for funds and money for people to come and invest alongside them, which a lot of people do as limited partners. But then again, you find yourself, yes, you're investing in real estate, but I feel like you lose all of that control.
Because it's now in the hands of the operator, for the tax question. I'm not a CPA. I'm not a tax professional. So I can't really speak much to that. But you basically covered it, right? It's like when you own real estate, you get to in the tax code in tax law, you get to depreciate, meaning you Reduce your tax burden by a specific formula.
We don't need to get into that because that's going to scare everyone away. and that's essentially just a paper loss on your tax return, which just, you know, reduces and minimizes [00:22:00] your tax burden, what you owe. When in fact you didn't shell out any of that expense or that money, it's a. Phantom expense, right?
Or it's a paper loss. and you could do that with any real estate, right? So that's one advantage that it has. There's all the different aspects of who owns it. Is it you? Is it a company? Is all this stuff. But again, for the sake of this conversation. I don't know that it's worth going into those details, right?
Dustin: No. And I think a thousand percent, if you will, if you're like, wow, this actually sounds really intriguing. You should go, learn from Nathan directly in this program, and cover those details and figure out how to structure it and do all the,legalities that are involved. But overall, I'd just say it's it's a very simple strategy.
I think it's something we all generally understand a lot more than we would In many cases, the stock market, and syndications and some of these more, you know, sexy and, exotic sounding investments. I think investing in single family real estate, whether it's in your local market or in another state that you grow to understand and you have a team, you know, on the ground there, a realtor and a property manager, [00:23:00] it's much lower risk.
it's much more predictable and I think there's a lot of. Of advantages to it that are specifically advantageous to entrepreneurs. So, and, and to people who do have businesses because of control. I think I'm really glad you brought that up, Nathan. You know, I, there's certain things I control my business, but not everything.
Right. And businesses is a pretty, Risky thing, which, you know, generates its own higher rewards in many cases, but it is risky. and you can only control what you can control there. And obviously if you have a job, you only control the little role that you plan, the bigger companies returns, with real estate though, it gives you another element of control.
It gives you this, diversity of income and it has these tax advantages. So I think for entrepreneurs in general, number one thing is get your business operating well and start generating. surplus cash from it. And then number two, once that happens, you have a great new problem to solve, which is what do I do with the cash?
Right. And so one of the, if anything you can do to reduce your taxes is going to be a huge return for you and anything you can do to diversify. [00:24:00] Create quote unquote, more passive income and things that aren't dependent on you and your business. I think it's just a super smart next step. And like I said, I've invested in Nathan's program.
I've learned a lot of this stuff. I'm excited to start to implement it here in the second half of the year with Nathan's guidance. We kind of went a little deep there on real estate investing, but I think it's something that people will be very interested in. You're the first guest we've had with this experience and expertise.
so now kind of going back to you and your story, Nathan, I think we understand your history, kind of your motivation and, and the things that you're focused on with your family, and how you got into real estate investing for yourself. You started to talk about it a little bit here, but I like to spend just a couple of minutes talking about this transition you've made.
Where I would, say the real estate investing may do an entrepreneur, but especially at this point where you're now teaching other people, what you've learned and running a group coaching program and, being a creator, in the sense of educational products and. coaching, tell me about that transition, what your experience has been like with it.
Like, I guess, first of [00:25:00] all, why did you start doing that? And then what's been your experience in being a real estate investing trainer or coach or whatever title you might give to that?
Nathan: That's a great question. so it started from a place of wanting to help others. and I say that because I remember myself when I was starting to get into this and I started the journey, like almost everyone that gets into real estate investing is like podcasts and books and YouTubes and forums and Facebook groups and, you know, bigger pockets.
I just
say that name because it's the biggest one out there. and. It's horribly confusing because we mentioned this a little bit, but especially in real estate, shiny object syndrome, you can invest in so many different kinds of real estate. You just slap the word real estate on, on something. And it could be, you know, mobile home parks.
It could be, you know, storage units could be syndication, single family, all this stuff. So it just gets confusing real fast. But then the thing that annoyed me even more so, I think is in all of these forums, I won't name any particularly. I quickly realized that there was always [00:26:00] somebody trying to sell you something and there was no way to get good quality information out there for free.
so I started from that place. It was like, I'm just going to try to be that person as much as I can. I have so many hours a week that I could dedicate to this, helping others, no agenda, I've got nothing to sell. Nothing to give. We gave away our tools and stuff like that, but really from a place of giving, giving back to the community, helping those that are getting started.
And I did that for a while and I quickly realized, I can't remember who said this, maybe Pace Morby, another big real estate person or personality, that essentially said, don't ever give anything away for free because it just doesn't work. I heard that once, okay, you, you do you, I mean, I still want to be generous.
I want to give, that's where I authentically and genuinely came from. And that translated to. A bunch of people, you know, reaching out, can you help me? Yes, I can. Here's what you should do next and book a call for next week. And then we'll book a call for two weeks [00:27:00] from that. And we'll go over the progress you've made and talk about that.
And then more and more that transpired or that, that translated to people not showing up, people not doing the work, people rescheduling these calls. So me just wasting a whole bunch of time. So that was that, you know, I was growing frustrated around, you know, those aspects, but then around the same time.
Shameless plug for your program. Dustin,Scott was a friend of mine who knew what I was doing and what I had going on. He said, you should talk to Dustin. Dustin has this fantastic program and mastermind that you should, join. It's all about podcast guesting and then more because you have your, your mastermind as well.
Right. and I joined that and I think that was. Catalysts to, or that plus, you know, that Pace Morby comment of doing something for free will just not work because people don't care. They don't have skin in the game and putting those two things together. Surrounding myself by a group of entrepreneurs, people that have done stuff like this before I have people that kind of [00:28:00] help you out, build up your confidence, show you what the next step is.
And all of this that I'm talking about here is, you know, what I was, what I was able to kind of benefit from in your community, That's really what pushed me to say, okay, let's, go and let's do this. And it just so happened to right around the same time, another investor friend of mine was looking to do something similar.
so we said, why don't we just partner up, join forces. He's also a busy professional, three kids under the age of three. So I said, Hey, if we do this together, it'll be Easier and more scalable, for us to do this and do it. Well, do quality training, coaching content and all of that. and that's where it came from essentially.
Dustin: That's awesome. Yeah. I, and I didn't intend for the shameless plug, but I'll, I'll take it. Cause you're totally right there. It was like when you came into the seller, our podcast profits accelerator program, you certainly had the knowledge you were doing it for yourself. You had done some coaching for people, I think in many cases for free.
And, the way I always put that as people won't pay attention unless they pay or people who pay, pay attention. I wish [00:29:00] that wasn't true. I've tried to help a lot of people. for free, and it's kind of, is always the same outcome, right? Like people don't have skin in the game. They're not invested.
They just don't get the results because it's, they haven't flipped the psychological switch where it's important enough for them to actually do it. so yeah, when you came into the accelerator, I know your interest was like, how do I make a scalable group coaching program that. It's very, very effective, but also, you know, recognizes the true time constraints you have as a dad with two young children and a full time job, and, you know, the things that you're trying to do, with your free time, which we're going to get into here next.
And so, yeah, by the end of the accelerator, I think you had a very clear plan. And then you met this partner and then you went and implemented it. So I believe I was in your very first group group of the group coaching program and you've continued to refine it and you've sold out additional cohorts since then.
So, yeah, that's awesome. I mean, I hadn't really thought about that in the context of our conversation that. You know, the accelerator did play a [00:30:00] role in helping you get over that, that next vision of what this was and what you just said is kind of ties to how you open this, or maybe you don't have the self identity as an entrepreneur.
So I think being in a, in a group. Of people who are good, are entrepreneurs and their coaches, and they have lots of different ideas and structures and ways of delivering their expertise, showed you some options, and then you kind of did your engineering thing and evaluated the best options and went and launched the thing that worked best for you.
And so where are you at now with your group coaching program as far as like, what's the status of it? How many cohorts have you been through?
Nathan: So we've been through, I guess, technically two cohorts. after the first two that you were in the first, as you mentioned, Dustin, right? We changed the model a bit because we, we wanted to make it better and improve it essentially. But we realized that the, the, the structured time bound group coaching format
doesn't necessarily apply as well.
Cool. All 12 or [00:31:00] 15 or however many people you have in any given cohort, because you might be ready to buy tomorrow. You might want to learn now to buy next year. You might've already bought three and want to learn more systematize your, your processes in your rental, you know, operation. And, in order to solve for that, we changed the model a bit where now it's. You could go through the content self paced, no more than 20 minutes a day, is required just like for your actual real estate investing,endeavors, right? we structured, the course so that it wouldn't take too long. Anyone more than 20 minutes a day to go through the content. If you want to binge, of course you can.
But the whole point was to kind of fit into busy professional lives. So now it's more of an evergreen self paced, you go through the content yourself, whenever it works best for you. And then we have, Group coaching time slots every week that are optional and people can attend when if and when they're ready and to ask very specific questions.
So they still get all of the value of having face time with [00:32:00] Aaron, my partner and myself, right? and get the content itself. So it's changed a bit in that sense. And I think as of today we have So you're part of the first 12. I think now we're at about 50 people in like the, the community content. And this was launched six months ago.
I think if that like early Jan is when you, you joined, if I remember correctly.
Dustin: Yeah, that's awesome. So I love the fluidity of like, Yeah, let's you did the first one kind of, you know, if it was specifically modeled after what I do, but, you know, mine's more cohort base has a lot to do with providing a mastermind experience. And, you know, I have a different outcome. I'm driving. Whereas yours, if you think about your avatar, there, many of them are busy professionals with W two incomes, or they're entrepreneurs and they're really busy.
And so probably that the structure doesn't work as well for them. plus the. Being in community is important, but the idea of like being in a tight knit mastermind group, who's going through rapid business transformations [00:33:00] is not the same reality as your avatar. they're doing this typically as a secondary side project where they're wanting to get into remote real estate investing.
So it makes a lot of sense to me. but I think the main thing I took away from that Is being flexible, right? And launching something and then figuring out how to improve it versus sitting around trying to perfect things before you take action, which is where a trap that a lot of people fall into.
So kudos to you and your business partner for, yeah, for going that route. I'm really excited to see where this continues to evolve. I want to transition. I want to talk a little bit about it. And, lifestyle designs, the right, the right word. I want to talk a little bit about what you're going to start doing here in a few days, which I think is an annual event for you and your family.
And then we'll close out the show by kind of handing the mic to you and let you teach us, my, myself and the listeners about some of your top strategies to enable, to What you're doing, which is basically having a life that you love, that's built around where your business and your W2 or your real estate investing, all the things you're involved in [00:34:00] is built around your family, right?
And it's like, my family is my priority. And you've got this, this block of time on your calendar, at least once a year that I'm aware of, and everything fits around that. And I want you to help us to get clear on how we can do that. But I guess to set the stage for that, I mentioned at the opener. You know, you're leaving for France for basically a month.
And, but this is not the first time, right? This is something you guys do on a, on an annual basis.
Nathan: I think it's the fourth or fifth year in a row that we've done this. Just go and unplug and do the whole family thing for a month, sitting on the beach, drinking French wines.
Dustin: Not bad. As someone who's just gotten done drinking a lot of Italian wines, I'll have to see how they compare at some point in the future. But yeah, tell us about that. Like where did this come from and, why is this so important to you, I guess, as a starter?
Nathan: where it came from, from a horrible experience. The first time we tried to travel back to Europe. so for context, my wife is French. I was born and raised in Switzerland. So we've got all of our family, no family in the U S. pretty much all of our family members and [00:35:00] friends are back in Europe. but when our son was born two and a half months old or something, we went back to Europe for the first time.
and had all these people to see on my wife's side, the family's remarried. So that just means more people in different households. so we went, and we did the. House hopping from one family member to friend, to another family member, packing, unpacking with a two and a half month old. And it was absolute misery with a nine hour time difference.
so he said never again. and we're fortunate that in my wife's family, there's a relatively large condo that's on the beach, Atlantic coast of France that can host, you know, plenty of people. So. What we started doing is, Hey, let's all kind of chip in, in terms of effort for the travel. We go from West coast to France, and then my family comes from Switzerland to France.
Her family comes from, you know, various parts of France to this one spot. And we just spend a week with my family week with hers a week with friends and sometime together alone as well. And we just get to see everyone in [00:36:00] this big one trip. And we do that, intentionally, no work, no, no, nothing. really, and just spend time together, really.
So it's been fun
Dustin: That's
amazing.
Nathan: Yeah,
Dustin: And the form and function of that, obviously for every listener would be different depending on what, whether, maybe you're not family centric, maybe you are, but I think the, just the idea of having the option of saying, Hey, what if I just like a month where you call it a sabbatical, you can call it, you know, whatever you might want to call it, but.
The idea of just taking off a month and not having things implode and be a disaster as a result, I think, maybe sounds like a fantasy for, for some people, I think it would have felt like a fantasy for me a year ago. I just did, two weeks in Italy. And the week before that, I was at a conference in Idaho where I really wasn't working either.
Things continue to work and function. And, So I feel like I've got a mini version of this working now, Nathan. and I think when I get the real estate machine cranked up, it'll be even better, but I would love to just hear from you some of your insights. This is sort of the smart strategy part of [00:37:00] the interview.
We're kind of hand the microphone to Nathan and you've learned a lot of lessons over the past four or five years of how to do this for yourself. And now you're working with entrepreneurs in various forms of functions. you've seen how some people are operating their businesses and how.
In many cases, it's so dependent on the founder. So like teach us, teach me, like how can, how can, how can people start, getting things in place to where they could have this outcome of like a month a year or two weeks a year, whatever it works for them, or they can just literally completely unplug from their business and, and totally focus on something else.
Nathan: yeah. Well, hopefully I could provide some value and help here, but I don't know that I'll have anything crazy magic, you know, silver bullet, you know, magic wand to say, but I've been thinking about this a bit and, I think for me, what's worked. Really could be broken down intotwo things.
One is kind of mindset and one more like, say, process tools, whatever, you know, technology, [00:38:00] whatever you want to put it. And I think it all starts with. Mindset in the sense that for any and all of this to work, one has to be extremely intentional about wanting that.
And I say that, you know, coming from a place where I never thought that way before, you know, five, six years, I don't know when it changed. I mean, I have to spend some time thinking about that maybe, but I was just kind of going
through life as a W two employee, no offense to any w two is kind of, you wake up, you do the work thing, you go home and okay, great.
Sometimes you have some vacation, you know, maybe one day you have kids and all of that. and I think it's after I have kids maybe back to, to the previous, you know, section that we talked about, you know, having kids being a catalyst. But at one point it's like, this is not the life that I want.
Meaning I don't want to coast through life. I want to be intentional about what I'm doing, how I'm doing, when I'm doing it. Okay. And with intention comes. I know what I want. I know what I [00:39:00] don't want. I stick to those things. And with that, it's I guess becoming more comfortable with just saying no. I used to say yes to everything.
I have to help you. You need help. Sure. You need this paper. Now you need this thing tomorrow. I have an opportunity here that I have to take it up, you know, right now. And I would just go after everything. And that becomes overwhelming. I think I got, you know, bouts of potentially close to burnout type stuff.
Cause it's just, just doing so much, you know, long days working side projects, all of that. And now I'm just more comfortable with saying no and no, it doesn't have to be no F off. That's not what I'm saying. could
also just, but it could, also just be, yeah, you know what? Not right now. I love the idea, but not right now. And just this morning I had an opportunity to get on another podcast that I'm very interested in getting on to talk to the host and said
we could do it today or tomorrow and I just don't have time because we're leaving on Thursday, as you mentioned, so I said, I'd love to, but not right now. [00:40:00] Being comfortable with that and being intentional about what you want and don't want.
I think it's really where it all starts. And then from that point, it kind of goes into tools, technology, stuff like that. And everybody's looking for the silver bullet tool in my experience and all of that. But at the end of the day, for me, the, the number one tool in all of this is my calendar. I just, every. It's every hour of every day, Monday through, you know, Sunday, 365 days a year is booked. It's booked either with sleep time or family time or reading time or project a for w two time or real estate time. So I have blocks for each of those and I just stick to that. So I do, you know, the, for example, six to 8am it's me with the kids and the family.
I do breakfast and it's interesting cause you probably heard me say this in the, in our real estate academy, Dustin, but in those two hours, there's [00:41:00] 20 minutes of those two hours where I'm, you know, drinking my coffee. Next to my kids having breakfast. And that's when I go through my daily real estate process, where I look for new deals.
I look for emails from my property manager. I respond to stuff and they're interested. They're intrigued. To the point where my son once said, he's six, and he once said, do we just buy houses for other people, ? So I was like, well, kind of. But it's not exactly what we do. and then after that, I have an hour for working out right.
And then I have a big block of time for, you know, W2 and that's broken into the different projects that I do. And then in the evening I have kiddo time again where I do dinner, bath story time, all that. Then I have an hour with my wife, and then I have an hour for me to, you know, relax and whatnot. Then I just have my.
I'm sleeping, leave me alone. And that's seven days, you know, a week, 365 days a year. And that's what really just helps basically implement that intention. So if I don't want to do [00:42:00] something, or if I don't want to have time to do something that is asked of me, it's not on my calendar, there are no slots.
There's no empty time. And then a lot could be done today in terms of automating your life, automating responses to things with, you know, chat, GPT or any other AI built into your, your mail provider. I very intentionally tried to forget everything, meaning I don't want to clutter my brain with.
To do list items and things I need to remember and whatever. So anytime something comes up that will need action from me at one point, I put it in a reminder where I put it on a to do list, all of which is super easy from any phone today. You have the shortcut menu and it says add to reminder, add to to do app, ABC, whatever it is.
and then I just forget about it until I get reminded, and that way I can really focus on what I'm, you know, trying to tackle at that moment in time. And I don't have to worry about, [00:43:00] oh, I have to remember to take out the
trash. It's Wednesday night, they come Thursday morning, and I remind them, like, okay, let's move on.
That's actually, I know what you said. There's like, well, there's no magic bullet. Of course, that's true of every like,
Dustin: thing that's worth doing. And so I think what you shared, there's actually gold though. And because I think it's something that many people will overlook. So what I heard was number one intentionality.
So. Being decisive, right? And so like the word decide literally means like to cut off. So, once you decide this month, I'm not working or, you know, at, I'm, I'm not doing podcast interviews except during these specific times, whatever that decision looks like for you, you can decide once and then that creates.
the ability to be intentional around that decision. So I think that's, but that's a really important first step that a lot of people skip. They're just like, well, that'd be, you know, Be cool. If I could, like, have a month off to spend with my family, but they never decide to actually do it or when they're going to do it.
And then, you know, be able to plan accordingly. So I think deciding and having that, that, that mindset and that comfort [00:44:00] level of saying not right now to things is really important. And then, like, once you decide, how do you make
that a practical application? I think that's The calendar is it right. And so on a micro level, that's like having an ideal week and batching and putting things in a, in a structured format.
I think what some people will hear when you describe, well, from six to eight in the morning is kid time. And I cook breakfast and I have 20 minutes to work in my real estate is maybe the, like this loss of spontaneity, but I think that that's like a total farce. That's something I'm actually pretty passionate about personally.
And, Nathan and I's mutual friend, Tony DeLorenzo, And some of this, I'm going to go like way, I'm going to take like a total 180 right now, but I think it's the same concept. he, he runs a company that this wife called one extraordinary marriage. And one of the things they talk a lot about is scheduling sex.
So I was just scheduling intimacy and the, direct reaction to that from people, I was like, well, then you lose all the spontaneity. And it's like, no, not at all, actually. , but what happens when you schedule is it actually happens. And then the spontaneity can happen within the window in which it's scheduled.
And [00:45:00] I know that that's kind of an extreme,example of this, but I think it speaks to the reality of like, we're all super busy. it's very easy for us to overschedule. And so the antidote to that, and the way to design your life around what you really want is to first decide what you really want and then to schedule things accordingly.
Right. so I, I know that sounds simple, but I think it's extremely important. And then I think that other day to day thing that you mentioned that, that I could get a lot better at is the idea of forgetting everything. I love that, that concept of like, I shouldn't have to think about anything twice. it just like, everything's either automated or, I'll be reminded at the appropriate time, whenever it fits into the block that the schedule to be addressed versus constantly carrying the weight of all these open loops, all these unresolved decisions, these things that like you said, the, the trash day, I mean, as, as Might sound to someone the fact that you have to constantly think every week about taking out the trash versus just being reminded in the moment in the block, in the time that it's supposed to be taken [00:46:00] out.
yeah, I just, I, people can hear this in my voice. I'm genuinely excited by what you share because it is so simple. And I think that's the reason most people screw it up. So,
Nathan: it interesting that you talk about how some of this might be perceived as constraining. Mm hmm. For me, it's the exact opposite because now I have the freedom to say, I don't worry about anything because then I see, okay, this is what I'm doing now. This one, I take out the trash. This one, I had to pay this bill.
This is when I had to move this meeting or whatever. so it actually frees one's mind. Now you're just free to think about what's most important. No, in our case, context, switch a lot. W two real estate, teaching real estate, kids, family. Trying to get better at golf, all that stuff. and it's just very freeing in my opinion,
Dustin: I totally agree. And the last thing I'll say on this, cause this is something I've worked really hard on the past six months is you may find that. Maybe this isn't your strength. Like Nathan's very disciplined. He's obviously accomplished a lot. He's got a very busy life and he's been very decisive in [00:47:00] the past several years about how to make that a reality.
Maybe the reality for you is like it is for me, where. I start off with that intention. I'm really good at it for a couple of weeks and I lose it. And so the way I've invested in improving that is by hiring an executive assistant. So I have someone else that allows me to forget everything, right? I have someone else who's a gatekeeper and a protector of my time and really someone that holds me accountable to my own decisions.
and so for a lot of people, I think that that's a super smart first hire as an entrepreneur. Is an executive assistant to help protect you from yourself right to
manage your inbox to manage your calendar and to help you do the things that you said you're going to do because you have that kind of right hand person there to hold you accountable because it's so easy to say yes to too many things and to get overextended on a on a regular basis.
So. Any final thoughts there, Nathan? I know we're, we're going long here and I'm sure I'm running into your next block. So I don't want to take any more time than we have to, but any, any final thoughts that came up there when talking about lifestyle design and getting what you [00:48:00] really want out of your time.
Nathan: honestly, I think we said it all. It's being an intentional. And then maybe the last thing I would add, cause it went back to your first question, how do you block that, you know, month off vacation every year? How do you make it happen for us? It literally was put it in the calendar. Tell employee, employer, sorry, coworkers, rest of the family, Hey, it's there.
Oh, crap. Now I got to buy airfare to get there. And then what do I need to offload to somebody else so that I could be unplugged while I'm there, but it's just forcing yourself or backing yourself into that corner and just make it happen. And then you see that, Oh, you know what? All these, plates that I was spinning did not break actually.
Maybe some did. And. The life goes on, the business keeps running, you know, everybody's still happy and all that. And then you say, okay, let's just do it again and improve next time.
Dustin: I love that. So yeah, if you're listening, you're like, that sounds amazing. I don't know how to start, like pick up literally like. As you, as we end this interview, look at your calendar and pick a week, a day, even, but like pick out something where you block it out and [00:49:00] you say, this is free time or this is something I'm going to do, that's not work.
And you'll find that everything still fits around it. Right? Like that's, what's amazing about this. That's what I just experienced with this, this Italy trip is like, yeah, like what, what would have to be true for me to go away to Italy for two weeks without my laptop, without having to check my email or check in.
And then doing the things that enabled that. And so that, and that's been a real catalyst for me to like, I want to do more of this. So I got in, maybe it's not trips to Italy, but it's just like being able to unplug on a regular basis. And, what
people or tools or, structure do you need? What kind of help, help do you need to make that happen?
So this has been super awesome. a very different kind of interview and something that I really appreciate and I'm looking forward to. Investing in St. Louis alongside of you here in the, in the near future with our remote real estate,with all the things I learned from you and your academy. So, how should people continue this conversation with you?
I, there's a lot of different things people might want to chat with you about. I think most, most importantly, or most specifically the [00:50:00] remote real estate investing. Cause I think that's something that pretty much everyone should at least know about and be able to, to decide if that's something that makes sense for them and their lifestyle design.
Nathan: yeah, I think the easiest for any of this, all of this is just to go to the, to remote real estate academy. com remote real estate academy. com. You'll learn about what we're. Doing in the real estate space, what you can do, can't do, but more importantly, maybe it will give you a means to contact us directly.
And then if you reply or reach out to us, we'll make sure. And I saw us because it's a partner, Aaron and myself, and we'll be in touch and that's really the easiest. So it's just remote real estate academy. com.
Dustin: Awesome. Yeah. Remote real estate academy. com has my full endorsement. I'm, uh, I was in the camp of like, I want to learn this now and implement it in like six, six months. So I'm almost there. So I look forward to having Nathan back maybe in the future when I've
executed on a few of these strategies and talk about my story and it was real remote real estate investing.
but yeah, it's definitely the place to start. There's lots of noise out there in this arena, but Nathan and, [00:51:00] And his partner really keep it simple, really make it applicable for really busy family oriented entrepreneurs, which most of our audience falls into. So Nathan, yeah, thanks again, man. I really appreciate this.
We appreciate you have fun in France. Can't wait to hear all about your trip. And yeah, for anyone listening who wants to go through our accelerator program that Nathan mentioned and really get clarity and get the connections
you need to accelerate your business growth. That's what we do. So you can just go to seven figure leap.
com. Click there. You can have a call with us, find out all about what we offer. And if it's a good fit for you, we would love to serve you, the same way we serve Nathan and hopefully feature you as a success story here on the podcast in the future.