Financial Freedom Requires Having Teammates
On this episode of Next Level American Dream, Abigail and Sean are joined by Ramsey Blankenship. By day, Ramsey is an EOD specialist in the Navy, but outside of the Navy, he partners with real estate investing groups, has acquired multifamily properties, and is a REI podcast host. During the episode, Sean and Ramsey discuss how he found a career in real estate, his excitement for a very lucrative future in his pursuit of financial freedom, and some hard lessons he learned along the way.
Key Topics
Ramsey's Portfolio
His pathway to REI
Pursuit to Financial Freedom
Connect with Ramsey Blankenship:
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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
bought, real estate, people, military, duplex, money, started, years, navy, American Dream, investing, day, multifamily, podcast, partner, Ramsey, building, investor, deal, mistakes
SPEAKERS
Sean Thomson, Abigail Thomson, Ramsey Blankenship
Abigail Thomson 00:01
Welcome to the Next Level American Dream Podcast brought to you by Thomson Multifamily Group. Your hosts, Abigail and Sean, will discuss how you can take your American Dream to the next level through real estate investing, business practices, and personal development. Join us as we share our experiences as a father daughter duo who are trying to accomplish our goal of financial freedom. We hope you learn more about how to define and achieve your American Dream. Here's another episode of Next Level American Dream. Welcome to the Next Level American Dream Podcast. We have an incredible guest for you today, but first please make sure you have subscribed if you have not already. We also love getting your feedback through likes, comments, ratings, and reviews. Today, Sean speaks with Ramsey Blankenship. By day, Ramsey is an EOD specialist in the Navy. Outside the Navy, he partners with real estate investing groups, has acquired multifamily properties, and is an REI Podcast host. During the episode, Sean and Ramsey discuss how he found his career in real estate, his excitement for a very lucrative future in his pursuit of financial freedom, and some hard lessons he learned along the way. If you found any value from today's episode, then please share it with a friend and help us grow. For more information on our sponsor, visit www.thomsonmultifamilygroup.com to start taking your American Dream to the next level through passive investing.
Sean Thomson 01:23
Hi Ramsey! Welcome to the Next Level American Dream Podcast. Thanks for being on the show.
Ramsey Blankenship 01:27
Hey, Sean, thanks for having me, brother! Happy to be here.
Sean Thomson 01:30
So just to give the listeners a background you're in Guam right now. You're in the Navy and you're in Guam for the temporary future, I guess you're headed back to San Diego soon, which is good. Do tell everybody your background and where you've come from and where you are today.
Ramsey Blankenship 01:44
Yeah, so I'm active duty in the Navy Special Operations, which is explosive ordnance disposal. I've been doing that for about 15 years now. I got just over four years until I can retire. But for the past seven or eight years, I've been investing in real estate. I've opened up a couple of different businesses outside of the Navy. And I started out doing real estate, because I bought you know a house in California, which, by the way, if you're in the military, we're able to use the VA loan, which means we don't have to put anything down. So the only reason I was able to buy a house in California. But California is a very appreciating market. Whenever we left California, my wife and I we ended up putting $40,000 in our pocket and I thought we were rich, you know. So we moved on to Panama City, Florida, where I got stationed to being instructed Navy dive school. And whenever we got there, I ended up buying a house that had a couple of rentals on the back. And I discovered that those rentals the small units ended up covering the mortgage. So my wife and I and the kids and everything. We're living in the big house while the people in the little houses were paying for us live. And that kind of really opened up my eyes to the world of multifamily. And so I really started out accidentally being an investor in single family. I wasn't really trying to be an investor just bought a house to live in for my family but because we made some money for the next step for me, it was multifamily. From there about a duplex I got into commercial apartment investing I did the burst strategy on multifamily apartment complex that worked out great that I started investing out of state with some friends doing some joint ventures and most recently have kind of leveled up into doing syndications me and my team have bought a hotel in Southwest Louisiana and we just bought 120 unit apartment complex in Lubbock, Texas. So over the years, I've just kind of kept building this, this this empire I'd call it and rolling the snowball uphill, just to say cuz everything keeps getting bigger. I haven't bought anything smaller since I started so and that's where I'm at today.
Sean Thomson 03:47
It sounds like this wasn't exactly intentional what we were talking earlier. And, you know, I think a lot of people in the military, they they don't really don't necessarily have a plan for when they when they want to exit the military and things like that. So was this was this intentional? I guess once you saw the possibilities, it became more intentional, right? Is that or were you always planning on kind of starting another business to for your exit out of the military?
Ramsey Blankenship 04:11
So originally, I had started reading all of the you know, all of the common books that investors read I read Rich Dad Poor Dad or read Dave Ramsey, automatic millionaire and stuff like that. I was just in finances. It was something that I enjoyed. Yeah. But what I was doing was I was following the Dave Ramsey method that was like the first one I got into probably because being young got same thing. And I remember coming home from the Bay, I go Navy Federal, every first and 15th I'd go get all of our cash from the paycheck out and bring it home, give it to my wife and she would take all that cash and divided up into the different envelopes and everything that Dave Ramsey tells you to do. And I remember her handing me two envelopes, right I give her two $3,000 worth of cash. She gives me two Lopes is Here's your, your, here's your cut, right. And she, you know, she's got all the money saved for Christmas, say for birthday save for, here's for the mortgage, here's everything bah bah blah, right and she gives me my two and one of them says gas and one of them says entertainment. And the one that said gas at $100. And it opened up one set entertainment at $75. And so there is nothing entertaining about $75. That is not enough for me to have fun, right? And did all of the books that I had read said, you know, don't drink expensive whiskey, don't drink Red Bulls don't do don't go to the movies don't go out and basically took a list of everything that I love to do and said, don't do it. And I was like, This is not cool. I don't like this at all. But whenever we sold our house in California, and made that $40,000, I thought we were rich. I was like, Wow, I've never seen $40,000 in my life. My dad literally built our house in Louisiana, for $36,000. And here I am, all I had to do was live in a house, I wasn't even trying to be an investor, I just had to live in a house get paid $40,000 and not the other the other way where it was save, save, save, don't do anything that you want to do. And we were saving about 500 bucks a month. Right? So we literally saved about the same amount. Just being very strict and not doing anything wanted to do that we did the other way of just living in a house and making a real estate decision. So from that point, I was like I I'm dipping. I'm drinking whiskey, I'm getting my Red Bulls, I'm getting all my vices, and I don't care, we're just gonna invest in real estate and start making decisions. And that's kind of what led us to really looking at things as far as income outside of the military, because the military doesn't pay you a lot of money until you've been in it for about five or six years. Right? It really when you start out, you just don't have enough to invest. You don't have enough credit. But it does build you up, it gives you that that w two income, it makes you lendable. And then there's programs out there to where you can buy a house. And you start kind of unlocking these programs along you stay in the military. Yeah. And I've been in long enough to where anything that in the military that I have access to I've been able to use it and the VA loan has been one of those. It's been great because you can 100% leverage zero money down. So if you can buy something for zero money down and it makes you passive income, well that's 100% return on investment, right. And that's exactly what we did once we got down to Florida. And so it's honestly it's been kind of a path to get started of making decisions based on things that I wanted. When I bought my first duplex I was looking at buying a brand new truck. And all of the books tell you don't buy a brand new truck. That's a bad decision. It's depreciate depreciating liability, and I get that. But once I started paying attention to the stuff Robert Kiyosaki was saying, he said, Don't say I can't afford it. Ask yourself how you can. And I had that 40 grand, right. And I was looking at a duplex and I was looking at $40,000 truck. And I'll say, Well, if I pay this truck off, I won't have truck notes. But then I thought was, hey, if I bought this duplex, it was a it was a $40,000 duplex, I bought it I put 13 and a half $1,000 down, it rented for 450 aside, my all in expenses were $300 a month I was getting paid $900 a month. Guess what the truck note was 600 bucks a month dude. I said okay, well I got to do is buy this duplex and the duplex will buy me my new truck. And it happened exactly like that. I held that duplex for five years, paid off that Toyota Tacoma. And then I sold the duplex and doubled it It literally doubled in appreciation. And when I sold it, I took that money and I bought our family adventure van is like a Mercedes Sprinter. So I got two vehicles on a one and a one decision right. And I've done that every at all on the way most of my real estate decisions have been How can I unlock something else that I wasn't able to get before in life? And right now what I'm working on is how do I unlock my retirement? How do I make retirement where I don't have to get out of the military and go get another job working for somebody else telling me what to wear, what to do where to be and how to do it. And I get to happen I am I will I will go dead broke if I have to I am not working for somebody else when I get out of 20 years of the military. So that's my goal.
Sean Thomson 09:33
Yeah, we're done suddenly, you're gonna have to it sounds like you're making the right moves and right decisions like you said, it's all about the decisions you're making to take that next that next step to get to the next place you want to be in life right or get the next whatever necessity that you that you have in your in your world, right. So let's talk about your path seems kind of like you You are accidentally doing it but it's you know, it's intentional, right? You're making these decisions. Let's talk about where you went from. So you got the duplex, you got the truck, I'm sure at this point, you started to think, Hey, this may be this may be a future for me, what did what did you start to do differently when you started to realize, Hey, I can take these this duplex phenomenon and make this happen over and over again or scale it up? What did you What did you start? When did you start to make that change?
Ramsey Blankenship 10:20
Yeah. So when whenever we bought, we started living in that house was called a house hack today back then we didn't know as a house x. Martin investment was what it was called. Right. But that gave us that allowed us to save all of our housing allowance was about 1500 bucks a month. And I saved up bought the duplex. Now I'm making an extra $600 a month paying it off the truck. But in my mind, I'm still adding all this up, right? Eventually I said okay, I think I can handle a larger apartment complex. And I bought that seven unit apartment complex. This is where I was doing things right in one in one fashion. But I was doing thing wrong in another. And what I mean by that is on paper, things were going well, I bought the apartment complex, I had to put $50,000 down, I put $50,000 over time in fixing it up. And I ended up cashing doing a cash out refi and getting all $100,000 back tax free in like two years. So that was my goal one of my money back in two years. And back then you could do that today. You're looking at four years before you get your money back in most investments. It's pretty tough if you bought a day. But anyways, what I was doing what I was doing, I was doing everything myself, right. I was managing it myself, I was renovated, it was a complete rehab, like I was cutting into the foundation, I gotta tell the city I was doing that. But I was cutting into the foundation. And I was rewiring all the electrical I was you know, I was doing everything myself. And I didn't know how to do it. So it was taking me all the extra time like I could have if I would have removed myself from that equation hired somebody else, I could have got that same amount of money back. And I probably could have bought focus on buying more properties in Panama City, Florida, which is that was my biggest mistake in real estate right now is that I didn't buy enough properties in 2015. Because right now they're worth double what they were worth 2015. But I ended up so what I mean by on paper, I looked like I was successful. All right, at that point in time, I was at a pretty good rank in the military. I had 12 rental units outside the military. I had a business me my brother started a baseball bat calm or a baseball company that we ran baseball tournaments every weekend throughout the summer a very successful business. And that was what I was also able to dump that money into real estate. Right. But what ended up happening is I had to put myself in dang hospital. Right. And the reason that is because every day Monday through Friday, I would get up I'd go to the US Navy dive school. From about six to nine I would do physical training with the other students that we had. I mean, we would just run we'd beat these guys to hell it's it's, it is it is the gut check of the Special Operations community is Dav school. That's where you get us where you earn your key. And I had to facilitate all that. And then we'd get the water. And for six, eight hours a day, we would be diving in a pool breathing nitrogen just getting tired. And then after that, I'd get out and I'd go to my apartment complex and renovate it till the sun goes down to that Monday through Friday. But on Friday, I'd pull my trailer with me to the DOD school I'd leave the dog school, drive three, four hours to Mobile, Alabama or Hattiesburg, Mississippi and I throw a baseball tournament, championship game with it. And on Saturday or on Sunday night. I'd be driving back three $4,000 worth of cash in my pocket, start the thing, start the process next Monday. So again on paper, good rank in the military, real estate investor, got his own company, things are going great. Everything was going fine until one day I sent off an email and I stood up in my office and I could not see it. It was like midnight, right? My eyes were blown. Like I've got tunnel vision. My ears were ringing. I ended up getting that tension headache, ended up dropping down to my knees and all I could do was scream from my wife I got to help help me. And my wife tells a story which she'll tell you as she walked in that room and saw a broken man have spent three days in the hospital with most antagonizing pain you could ever imagine. Just straight up head with headache. And what was happening was my spinal cord, my eyes were trying to touch each other. My brain was in the middle, right? I was so dehydrated. I was so stressed out. And I was so fatigued that eventually my body just said no, I'm not doing it anymore. So from that point on, I realized that my strategy wasn't going to work. I couldn't do everything myself. I had to start delegating, outsource. start hiring help trusting people. And from that moment, my real estate journey has changed. Because now I partner with people. And it's allowed. I went from 12 units to now I'm at 157 units, right? Because now all those are partner with people. So it's a smaller percentage ownership. But I only do the things that I want to do because they don't stress me out anymore. Right? I don't have to go in there and do drywall and paint or manage properties or deal with tenants. I don't do any of that stuff anymore. I do the stuff I like doing. Right? So that's, that's what's allowed me to scale up to 157 units is partnering with people, trusting people building good teams and removing myself from the things that don't want to do anymore.
Sean Thomson 15:36
That's a massive lesson, but you learned it absolutely the hardest way it sounds like you know, that's I can see that. Now. Now. Now you know exactly that, what what not to do. And I'm sure you're never gonna forget that, that lesson for sure. But so now you've got you've got the ability to scale because you have these partners, you've stopped, we've stopped running yourself in the ground, because you already have a busy schedule, just with your day job. doing all this other stuff on top of that is already a problem. Right? So is going as hard as you were, I could see how your body's like Forget it. I'm done. But so having the scale now with the partnerships, that's changed, that's changed everything I would imagine. Are you guys, what do you what are you hoping to do now from from this point forward with your business? So you're going from 157? You just gonna continue to grow it? What we're doing is syndications, right, we're syndicate
Ramsey Blankenship 16:32
100 units, and above apartment complexes. We look from Mobile, Alabama to Jacksonville on I 10 corridor. And then we also look in Texas, Dallas, Houston, Lubbock, Texas is on fire right now. We've got good partners in Texas that are also in a military flavor that first responders, active duty, all those people, those types of people that we like to partner with, because we speak the same language, that same thought process, okay? But when you're doing syndications, typically, the way that it works is you have a general partnership team that that makes the purchase, they go out find the asset, they understand how to make it better, how to make it money, and then they get investors involved. Those are the limited partners and what I mean, the limited portion as they're limited to the risks they get. But say somebody's got a high, high net worth job, like a doctor lawyer or something like that they don't have time to learn how to invest in real estate, they just probably won't do it, they may buy some really, really nice real estate along the line because they like it. But they don't have time to understand the details and the math of that stuff. So they partner with people that do and that would be the people like us who who understand real estate have been investing in a long time, we just don't have the finances to be able to purchase 100 unit apartment complex by ourselves, right? And really, honestly, who does. So you got to pull together, people with money, you got to put them partner them up with people that idea. And eventually that's how the investment comes to fruition. We've done that in Lubbock, Texas with that 100 and it's 119 unit apartment complex. And that was our first syndication. The reason I started syndicate now is because I'm five years from retirement. And typically these are five year holds. syndicating part of the general partnership typically does not make that much money at all until the sale or they make a little bit money on the on the acquisition side just to keep the lights on throughout the five years, make a very small amount managing the contractors, the managing the property managers managing the leases, all leasing office, just making sure that it's hitting the metrics for the investors. And then over typically five to seven years possibly shortened down to three, depending on the market goes. Once the metrics have been met for the investors to get their appropriate return. sell the property that's usually where the general partnership makes their money. So the way I've got lined up is the first invest that we made was five years out from the get out of the military. I got to continue making these large apartment complex acquisitions. Because when I get out of the military, you know the money's not going to be there that I make in the military. So I needed to come from somewhere else and it's going to come from those sales, there'll be some passive income involved. But the way really when you look at syndications at once you decide I want to get I want to get started syndications. just expect there to be about a year or two you actually do it. And that's that's I mean, I'm doing it I'm going to focus on this is going to be is this is going to be what I'm going to do. You're still about a year out six to eight months at a minimum there's just so much to learn that you have to start raising money you got to start finding deals people gonna have to take you seriously in the game. And it's very hard to do that if you haven't done one before. Right and so that's kind of with us. We we all four of our guys that are on our team. None of us had done a syndication before. But we had all been in the real estate before and it took a long time and we we put together a website we put together our logo, we went did some training, we went and raised capital but But at the beginning, definitely in the beginning, you kind of run into a chicken, the egg scenario, what comes first, the money to buy a deal that you don't have? Or a deal to buy with money you don't have? Right? So what do you do? Do you raise money first. So you find a deal first. And what I say is, is you focus on relationships. First, you build relationships with people, then matter what for eventually the opportunity to money because it's got to be the right people can't just be building relationships, people that don't that, that are not interested in real estate at all. But you get yourself out there, you get your name out there, you let people know what it is that you want to do, you let them know what it is that you're going to do. And eventually, there'll be the ones who want to do that, too. Whether they have a deal, and you can bring capital to that or you have or you find a deal, and they can bring capital to your deal. Or you can partner up and take something down together doesn't matter what it is. But relationships don't get started. Once something needs to be done, relationships have to be started to get something done. So that's what I tell people.
Sean Thomson 21:04
Yeah, that's part of my businesses, I have so many, I've a ton of people that I know that are in real estate and do this sort of thing. But you know, everybody wants to see your deal. They're like, I talked about investing and things like that, like, well show me your deal. And I'm like, it's too late by then, you know, we got to be kind of committed to it before, before I get to that point, right? Because it's, you know, it's, if you're, if you're not already sort of emotionally invested in making this investment with some property, then you know, it's going to be too late. By the time the deal starts happening. They're going to get left behind because they're, you know, they're just not in the in the things properly. So, creating those relationships early and kind of establishing, hey, you know, you have an interest level, let's move this forward. It's very critical, I think. And then, like, you got four partners, you said, I think those relationships are constantly being sort of generated, you know, I have tons of people in my network that are that are potential partners of mine, because multifamily is such a team sport, or team business. You know, you got to have someone to secure the debt, you gotta have someone that brings liquidity, you gotta have someone that brings capital, you gotta, like you said, find someone that's finding the deal, operating the deal, you know, all those different things. It's really kind of an ownership group that you have to put together every time you do one. So relationships is definitely good advice. Because it's all built on that five, I think too.
Ramsey Blankenship 22:22
That's what I like about the larger deals. There's never been a smaller deals, it's just not enough meat left on the bone for you to decide what you want to do, you kind of got to do at all, or at least when you're getting started out. Especially if you're not good at understanding the numbers, you're going to buy something be like walking, I can't afford a manager. Well, guess what? You're it, you're off the bat brother. Have fun with that. And I'm telling you, if you if you buy something and you have to manage it, and you buy something that needs to renovations done, but you didn't consider how much that's going to cost. You will find yourself doing stuff you don't need to be doing to save money that you don't necessarily need to say so that you can build a business that really isn't gonna work out. And what I mean by that man is whenever I was doing that, that renovation on that seven unit apartment complex, man, I'm sure you listen to the BiggerPockets podcast before I was in there jamming out the BiggerPockets podcast here I am putting spackle and drywall like I cannot stand doing this back. It's just my enemy. It is my enemy. I hate it. But here I am doing it. Yeah guy on the bigger pockets podcast to say Look, man, there's probably some guy out there I don't think he said schmuck. But I just what I heard, he says so some schmuck out there right now doing so this guy gets paid 56 an hour at his day job. But he gets off work and thinks he's this big investor in areas doing something somebody is willing to do for $10 an hour, like drywall or paint. Yeah, I'm putting this mud on this wall. Like, this dude is talking to me right now. What am I doing? Why am I doing this? I put this back back in that book. And I went out got on Craigslist and hired me some dude, I think his name was Baba, from Panama City Beach. And he showed up and he did all my drywall for about 1015 bucks an hour. And he did it way faster than I was doing. It would take me three hours to do he was able to do it, like 3040 minutes. So I wasn't just saving $10 an hour. I was saving about three $4 an hour because I still could do it three times as fast as I was. So how big of an idiot Am I over there? robbing that time for my family? Right? And this is while I was on shore duty. And then the Navy you got what, typically five years where you're deployable in three years where you're on instructor duty, kind of working a nine to five and you're not necessarily deployable? Well during that time, that's whenever I decided to go out and do drywall and paint to save three, four bucks an hour I could have been at home eating dinner with my family. And I robbed them at that time. And you know, I didn't realize it at the time. I thought I was Doing the right thing I thought like on paper look successful, people would consider me to be a successful person. But inside I was dying man, I was I was burning myself dry. I was disregarding the things that my family was telling me. You know, I was basically not seeing my kids grow up. Well, thank God I call it my, my 20s, right, because now that I'm in my 30s and this is what culminate this on the why like bigger deals. I only do the stuff I like doing. And now that now that I've got my passive income set up, I mean, not to get too much into my household, but, Bro, I don't, I hate cutting grass. Guess what I don't do. I don't cut grass. I hire somebody cut grass. We just met my wife. We just found an app on the internet where somebody come pick up your laundry and drop it off. We hate doing laundry, I can't you tell me if I'll do laundry, you tell me to fold clothes, I'd rather go ahead but a nail gun. I can't stand doing it. So we found an app, somebody picks up and drops off our laundry. We got a house cleaner now. And you might think well how can I afford to do all this? Well, look, man, I put in the time when I was young and set up some passive income. And now I'm, I spent that time now I'm buying that time back. because me and my wife, we I would rather sit down and watch a movie with my wife or somebody doing our laundry moment, or you're cleaning our house than us have those stressors in our life. And by the time we're done with all that we don't have the bandwidth to care about whatever, but what everybody else in the house feels? Well, now. We're happy. We got all this stuff getting done for us. Like how could you not be happy about that, right? And it really doesn't cost that much of our money to get it done. It's worth it. It's worth buying back our time.
Sean Thomson 26:43
So, you've given a bunch of advice, I don't know if this is going to be a good question or not. But if you if you had someone that was in sort of in your position or similar position to you, what would you sort of tell them to get them started down a path like you're on now, I mean, you're not finished by any means you've got I can tell you've got a lot of successes ahead of you that you want. But you've also made a few mistakes along the way. And you've talked about him several times you're doing everything yourself is the number one you've talked about. So how would you How would you explain to someone that's that's that's asking you, Hey, I'm, I'm 10 years behind you? How can I How can I start this process and learn from your mistakes and not make the same mistakes? What would you kind of set them? What path would you set them on?
Ramsey Blankenship 27:29
Well, I wouldn't, I wouldn't even tell them don't make the same mistakes. Right? I'm like, Yeah, I might give them some information. But mistakes is what we learn from right. So if you avoid mistakes, and in fact, one of my firt the first people in the Navy that I whenever I finally got out of boot camp and met him he says look, mistakes are expected doesn't mean that they're accepted. Right? That was a good thing and says, Okay, well, it's okay to make mistakes. But I guess they're the punishment that comes along that. But then he said, the difference between a mistake and failure is a failure, something you refuse to learn from. And I tell you why that was told to me about 15 years ago, 14 years ago, I've never forgotten that concept. Right? Because it whenever whenever you get my advice that would be Get Started focus on your future, focus on things that are going to buy you back time. Don't think of it an aspect of money thinking the aspect of how much time is it going to cost me now? And over the 1520 years that I hold on to this thing, or five years, however long it is? How much money is it going to bring that I can then trade out to save me time? Right focus on your time. And don't go so hard? Thinking that you're saving yourself all this money don't go so hard that you forget why you're doing this. Okay, if you're doing it to retire, well, what does retirement look like retirement looks like enjoying your time? Well, now all you're doing is cashing in your chips now so that you can enjoy them later. Take some of those chips and enjoy it. Now. enjoy what you're doing now. Because Don't be the guy who you who wastes his youth building as well. But by the time he's wealthy, he can't do useful things anymore. Because you've sacrificed your youth, you've sacrificed your health, and you forgot to learn the lessons along the way. Know why you're doing it. And then pick out what you like to do. If you don't like doing it, you're going to be miserable doing it when you don't like it. So do things you like to do and partner with people that you don't that who like doing those things. And if you do that, then you will maintain yourself, right, you won't get burned out. You won't. You might you might make some mistakes, you might have some failures, but those things will be your tuition to real estate investing, right? There's not a college that you can go to pay a tuition you come out and you've got all the answers that tuition is your failures in real estate or your mistakes. If that makes sense.
Sean Thomson 29:48
Yeah, so fail failing is okay. As long as you learn a lesson from it, then it becomes a mistake, right? Is that what you're saying? So no mistakes are okay until you don't learn anything from it then it's a straight up failure. Yeah. Yeah. So we I asked everybody this question, I'm really interested to hear your answer to it. But so what what do you you know, for me, the American Dream of the past is kind of it's kind of gone, you know, getting a job, get going to college working for 40 years for somebody and expecting to be able to retire on a pension just I just don't see that as possibility more, but I think the American Dream, now it looks like 1000 different things. And I think a lot of people are accomplishing it. What is the American Dream to you?
Ramsey Blankenship 30:30
Being able to retire. And like, I'll just give you my definition of success of success. And that is kind of my American Dream. For me, the definition of success is being able to do the things you want to do because you can, and not having the thing to do things you don't want to do, because you don't have to. So for me, whenever I get out of the military and retire, I'm like, I'm probably still gonna do real estate, I'll probably still do, but I will technically, if I want to do those things. Then for me, I'm semi retired, at least, I'm living the American Dream. But if I have to do something I don't want to do because I got to make money, then that's to me, that's not success. Right. Now, I don't know how old you are. But I imagine like for me it most people my age, I'm in my mid 30s. If you think about right now, if you think are your parents retired, most people will probably say no, their parents aren't retired. So that American Dream, it was kind of bullshit anyway. Right? It that my grandpa? Yeah, he retired, he was a bread route driver, he retired and he was able to come home down. But my parents still in their 60s still are not retired. Eventually, they're going to start collecting Social Security. And they'll have some form of retirement. But man, I'm telling you expenses these days, the dollar so devalued. Right? But for me, it's being able to do the things I want to do, because I can essentially I can afford them or I have the time to do it. But not having to do things I don't want to do because I don't have to. Because I've either got the money to do it, or I don't have the time to do it, or I don't want to do whatever it is. That is my definition of success. But because right now my parents don't retire that has been my mode of retirement has been is like I'm almost obsessed with it. And it's almost like the final piece of the puzzle that I want to solve to make sure I can hang my hat up and say, you know what I did it, I was able to retire at before I was 40 years old. Right? Because right now my parents are in their mid 60s, and they're still working, working all the time. And it looks miserable to me. So I don't want to do that.
Sean Thomson 32:40
And it's not an option. It would be different if it were like they work all the time, because they just did. That's just what they want to do. But I think most people are forced to work all the time. But just because like you said, they have to get that money to provide themselves with the things they want in life, right? Is that what you're talking about?
Ramsey Blankenship 32:55
Yeah, and in people who say, you know, I've heard this phrase, if you love what you're doing, you never work a day in your life. And sure, that sounds really cute. But I'll guarantee you if there was a trip to Hawaii going on that you would take off work to do it. So don't tell me that what you what you do every single day is because you love doing you might not mind doing it. You might like doing it, that's fine. But there are better things to be doing and work and exchanging your time for money. And that's to me, that's work. When you exchange your time for money, and I do it the military, I got to go to work after this. I'm exchanging my time for money. Somebody else decides how much my time's worth, right? Oh, hell, no. Yeah, no. If there is a vacation, that you can go on for free to Hawaii, you're going doesn't matter what your job is, you're going so don't tell me that the best views of your time right now is because you love your job. Now you don't you don't mind doing your job? You might you might get a sense of accomplishment out of it. Sure. There are reasons for that. But don't sit here and act like that's the reason that, you know, it's an excuse you tied down to it. So I believe that and I might be wrong. I'm in my young 30s. I might be wrong. But I'm pretty sure I'm not on that one.
Sean Thomson 34:06
Yeah. Well, what do you think you have one or two, you have one or two pointers for people that kind of helped you find the success you're looking for, for? Like, is there a book or a course or anything like that, that you've been able to focus on that says, hey, this is what made the difference for me. Is there one or two things you might have advice for somebody?
Ramsey Blankenship 34:23
Yeah, I would say so. I read a lot. And honestly, I don't like reading but I do it. I just just one thing that I know I have to do because every time I've read a book, I've taken action in my life and something has changed. So it is worth it to read the books. But the biggest one I would say the book that I use the most is the one thing by Gary Keller, like Gary Keller and Jay papasan. But it has it basically taught me to be intentional about my goals. And I think it's getting kind of common practice. Now you set up your goal, your big goal, whatever it is 10 years out 15 years or however long you want to look out, you start to break it down working in reverse order into feasible chunks, right? And what is the one thing that's why it's called the one thing was the one thing I need to do today, so that by the end of the week, I meet this goal. And by the end of the week, if I meet this goal, what's the one thing that I need to do for this month this year and so on down the line, that book has made it where it's, it's every sit like right now my one thing I needed to do today was get up and get on a podcast with you. And so here I am, right. So it actually works. Because I knew last week that I needed to get on X amount of podcasts because this is part of my marketing for for, you know, getting my name out there and build my brand. And that's kind of what my focus is right now. So it does work. It just gives you kind of a, a thought process. And all I'm doing today in real estate is this, right? There's gonna be roughly an hour my time. And the way that I look at it as I'm building a mountain of layers of paint. So every day, I got to put a coat on, right? And today, this is my coat, tomorrow's probably gonna be underwriting and deal I'll do something else. Right, but it gives me focus, it gives me a ability to schedule off my time and then it allows it let you know that that book basically made it to where it is okay for me to not think about real estate the rest of the day, I get up and knock it out for the rest of the day. I'm doing military stuff I'm calling my family I'm not thinking about Honestly, I'm probably still thinking about it. I mean, that sounds good. I'm still thinking about real estate, but I'm not I'm not sitting there burning through just God I'm not getting burnout. Yeah, I've been burned out brother and it ain't cool almost quit almost quit. When I got that headache. I said what am I doing here? Right But I said maybe I was doing so maybe it's maybe real estate isn't doing anything wrong. Maybe I'm doing something wrong my approach is wrong. And so
Sean Thomson 36:50
that was a good thing in your life. I think it probably a horrible experience but it's probably the one thing that's gonna make you make the difference in your growth I would think that that that experience in your life for sure that story you know? For sure, Ramsay. So you guys are doing syndications, things like that. So I imagine you guys, is there a place where people can reach out to you and find out more about what you guys have going on and learn more about what your business is like and what projects you have working?
Ramsey Blankenship 37:14
Yeah, absolutely. So they can look us up on our website, which is www.realfocus.org. You can email me at ramsey@realfocus.org. Then you can also join my if you're if you're looking to get on to podcast or you're a host of a podcast, and join my facebook group. It's "Real Estate Podcast Hosts," if you are wanting to be a member on on Sean's podcast on my podcast, which is the "Gorilla Estate Podcast," join that and then start putting your name out there.
Sean Thomson 37:50
Yeah, that's awesome. Well, thanks, Ramsey. I really appreciate you coming on. The story you have is fascinating. I love talking to military guys, too. I think I think a lot of military guys, they they aren't thinking about their exit from the military until it's till it's time to exit the military. And I think people that are kind of planning ahead like you have, you've got a you've got a path for your exit and you can coast right into something that's lucrative and successful and that you understand and you don't have to find a job and all that stuff. I think this is a great thing. And hopefully someone hears this and, and can reach out to you and and kind of you know, maybe emulate what you've done. I think it'd be good. Yeah, definitely can feel free to reach out to me anytime. Yeah. Well, thanks for being on the show. I really appreciate it and hopefully we'll talk to you again soon and see you how things are going, alright?
Ramsey Blankenship 38:34
Thanks, Sean.
Abigail Thomson 38:35
Thanks for joining us for another episode of Next Level American Dream. If you would like to learn more about what we talked about today, want to contact the team directly, or are interested in passively investing and being a part of our deal room, head over to our website at www.thomsonmultifamilygroup.com -- Before you go, please leave a review! Your comments help us create more episodes for you to enjoy.