Episode 2 – Financial Freedom for Entrepreneurs with Rennie Gabriel

Justin Keltner  00:00

Hello, and welcome to the high impact entrepreneur, where we talk to small business owners, consultants and coaches from around the world to hear their stories of generating massive impact and growth in their businesses, their lives and their communities. I'm your host, Justin Keltner. Thanks for joining me on this journey of personal and business development, inspiration and discovery. Here's today's episode.

Justin Keltner  00:23

Hey, everyone, welcome to this show. I've got a very special episode here today. I'm really lucky to be joined by the awesome Rennie Gabriel. We're here actually in person at his home office in Encino, California. So yeah, just really excited to be here with you Rennie. It's such a pleasure to meet you, Justin. Thank you. Cool. So, yeah, Rennie is an award winning author. He's the best he's best selling author. He's translated into eight languages with this with this book. There's just so much amazing stuff that he's doing in the world. He's got this charity, which you can see back here. It's called shelter to soldier. And he donates 100% of his profits from all of his books and trainings to that to that nonprofit. And we're going to talk about that a little bit here today. So if you can just give us a little bit of an intro for people that maybe don't know you yet that aren't following you yet. Tell us a little bit about yourself, how you got to where you are right now, just to share your story a little bit. Probably a good place to start is to say that I at one time, well, more than once went broke.

Rennie Gabriel  01:34

I had a couple of business fail, excuse me, I had a business failure had a couple of divorces. At one time, things were so bad, I was running around collecting soda bottles and cans, to get the refund money to buy food for my family. So I know what it's like to have no money. So I can look at my situation now. And I am very blessed, very grateful. I don't have to work for a living, I can donate 100% of the profits. From the work I do to the charity shelter to soldier that you mentioned, they're saving two lives at a time. dogs that have a purpose in life, that could have been euthanized, are rescued, and trained and trained as service animals, for soldiers who put their life on the line for us and come home with traumatic brain injuries or stress disorder who might have otherwise committed suicide. So PTSD, traumatic brain injuries, the rate is almost 22 per day, almost one an hour committing suicide, and not one who's gotten as service animals committed suicide. So this charity saving two lives at a time. It's amazing. Yeah. So I'm just thrilled to be in a position where I can donate 100% of my profits to them because I don't have to work for a living anymore.

Justin Keltner  02:55

That's it's really great that I mean, there's a lot of there's a lot of things like the fact that you were able to connect with them just all the amazing work that they were doing. You're a financial planner. I mean, you were a finance. Yeah, yeah. You don't do a lot of that now from anymore. But you were certified as a financial planner. Yeah. And you built obviously, this this big business around creating wealth of the income. You have the book, the platform, everything else. How did you get there? Like what was sort of the origin story around how you went from, you know, you mentioned this in some of your TED Talks where you couldn't even pass the high school math?

Rennie Gabriel  03:35

No, no, I did. Yeah. I mean, the teacher was nice enough to give me a D in the math class, because he saw how hard I was trying. But every single test I took, I failed. But I was doing the best I could. But I was a failure. And now. And one of the nice things that I realized as I got older, was the success or failures you have in high school have nothing to do with the accomplishments you can create in life. So you know, for anyone who's listening, that's an important factor. Yeah, you don't look at that, Oh, I didn't do well in high school. Therefore, I won't do well in life that has nothing to do with anything. Let's see, there was some also in terms of business. One of the things that I noticed because I've been a serial entrepreneur, I've had art galleries at a pension administration company. I've done business coaching, I've got real estate portfolio. One of the things that I noticed that too consistent is the businesses that I did on my own, or either failures or mediocre businesses where I had complimentary partners, to myself in the business, those were successful. As an example the pension ministration company we grew and sold off to a public company, the art gallery business I did on my own and when bankrupt. The real estate investments, I had two partners, my wife and a realtor. And we grew that from the first three unit purchase with all the money I had in the world at age 53, which was $18,000. We grew that to a multimillion dollar business within five years.

Justin Keltner  05:23

Tell me more about that. There's so many parts and so many layers here to your story. So I want to kind of take it one part at a time here. Okay. So, back when you were I think in, in high school, what is that right in high school or college? is when you first started, like the financial planner stuff? or What What was that?

Rennie Gabriel  05:42

Probably in my late 20s, I, let's see, no, I taught school when I graduated college. So I was a school teacher. And then probably couple, three years after, I realized that I wasn't earning enough living enough money to support my family. As a school teacher, I went into sales. And I figured if I'm going to do sales, I have to find some industry, that's going to be around for a while. And so I went into the life insurance business. And so that was probably in my 20s. And then I evolved to working with business owners, and setting up pension and profit sharing plans, left that business for a short time to go into the art gallery business where I went broke, went back into the pension business. And with two other people, again, I think wealth creation is a team sport. So with two other people, we established the pension company, we built that up and sold it off to a public company. And I invested some money in real estate, which was great, because I created a passive income at my standard of living, it was enough that if I chose to work, or chose not to work, it was okay. And I was probably like 39 years old. So I had a taste of that. And then I had a divorce. And then I got remarried and another divorce. So whatever i'd built up from that point, you know, was decimated. So by age 50, I found myself broke, and starting over for the third time.

Justin Keltner  07:17

Wow. That must have been such a traumatic experience. Like it's, it's one thing to fail in your 20s and your 30s. But then, later on in life, it really makes you think, like, Do I Do I have time to fix this? And what was that experience? Like? What would you say to anyone who's in that

Rennie Gabriel  07:33

it's never too late? I mean, I was at age 50. And I was looking down the road saying, well, let's see in 15 years, am I going to be eating cat food? Or am I going to be eating tuna. And I figured I don't want to be eating cat food, I got to really get it together. The advantage I had was I had the education to know what to do. But I didn't necessarily have someone to do it with or model it after. You know, I found Tony Robbins says model what works? So is it okay, what is it that what what are the wealthy people I've seen have? And what I saw what they all had real estate. So I said, Okay, that's what I want to do. And so my wife had this realtor, and the three of us pooled our money together about this reo property. When we improved it, what we were doing was buying properties that were mismanaged and had deferred maintenance. And I'd taken a class at UCLA, on how to effectively manage while they enter properties. So 14 years later, I'm getting to put it into practice. And so I managed the properties. The realtor found the properties, we rehabbed them as like doing a fix and flip, only we kept them for a while. But when we sell them what was an example, the three unit when we sold it, my 18,000 was worth 125,000, in like five years. And what we did instead with nice under the tax laws, you have what's called a 1031 exchange. So you can move all of the gain from one property to a similar property. So from that three in it, we got a 15 unit. Along the way, we bought other properties. And within, let's see, five years of the time we started, we went from three units to 50 units we only managed and then we decided to separate my wife to my wife and I took half and he took half and it's worked out very well.

Justin Keltner  09:35

What would you say to somebody and a lot of my viewers are entrepreneurs, they're they're building some kind of business. Their goal, obviously is to have flexibility around how and when they earn their money. Yep. What would you say to an entrepreneur, maybe they don't have 20 or 30 or 50,000 to invest? Right now into a property are there other vehicles that they can use, let's say, to still get into real estate to get into those types of things.

Rennie Gabriel  10:04

Yeah, there's probably a couple dozen different types of investments that are available in real real estate, their student housing, there's trust deeds first. And second, trust deeds, there's real estate investment trusts, partner with someone else who could do a fix and flip. There's office condos, there's office buildings, I mean, there, there's raw land, there's motels, hotels, I mean, the list gets really long. So there's all sorts of areas of real estate to invest in, and all sorts of ways to invest in it, from buying a property subject to existing mortgages, to trust deeds, owner carry back, books, shucks, that some of the terms are escaping me now. But I'm hard money lending, you know, besides all that, and I've never even mentioned the bank. So there's all sorts of ways of financing it. There's all sorts of categories that someone can get involved in real estate. But there's other ways to the important thing is wealthy people are not limited to stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. And that's what most people think that's all it's available. That's not the case. Besides the real estate, we Oh, there's another category triple net leases, where Walgreens pays me rent. And they take care of everything, I don't have to worry about the plumbing, or the electrical, or the parking lot or anything. Check to the positive every month, and I do nothing. As opposed to the apartment buildings where I do have to take care of the tenants. You talked about some of those strategies in your book. Yes, I do. But before I even talk about strategies in my book, The first third of it is deck dedicated to the most important part, which is the mindset piece. It's the attitudes, it's the belief systems people start with, because if I don't deal with that, first, all the great techniques, tips and information is a waste of time. As an example, if you have a fundamental belief that no matter how much money you make, you'll never have anything like Henry Ford says, If you believe you can, or you believe you can't, you're right. And I'll have to admit, in my first marriage, I believe it doesn't matter how much money I make, I'll never have anything. And she made sure that Yeah, but that's not the case now. So the attitude has to shift first, in the first third of the book is about shifting the attitude. It's about the paradigms and the belief systems that you have, and how people in their own field of expertise, have spoken about what they think is true. And they were 100% wrong. So if so if your parent, or a school counselor or teacher told you what you can or can't do or capable of, and they're not even experts don't bother believing.

Justin Keltner  13:08

Where do most people have their attitude app in terms of money in terms of finances? Like what's what's the common sort of thread with those people? Like Where? Where do they think that I'm not talking about like specific tactics, but

Rennie Gabriel  13:26

what are the conversations that they have, in their mind generally about money, there's a pile of myths that they have. And unfortunately, they are reinforced through society. They're reinforced through books, movies, TV programs, fairy tales. The bottom line is, so much of the media is designed to help people believe that only poor people are good. And rich people are mean evil, deceitful, are made their money in horrible ways, taking advantage of other people. And that's not the case, the biggest philanthropists happened to be the wealthiest people. Andrew Carnegie said the only purpose of making a lot of money was to give it away. And he built libraries all over the world. And he started Carnegie Mellon University to educate people. So what I'm getting at is, Warren Buffett has a great quote. He says, of the billionaires I've met, money just brings out the basic traits in them. If they were jerks, before they had money, they're simply jerks with a billion dollars. So the opposite is true. If someone says I'm afraid of making a lot of money, it'll corrupt me. No. Only if you are corrupt to start with. Yeah, if you're a good person to start with, and you make a lot of money, you'll still be a good person and you'll be doing good things. The saddest thing I heard this from one of the people I know the saddest thing is a broke philanthropist. So You know, that's not where I want to be. And I enjoy making large donations to charity. And the reason I can do that is because I've created some wealth.

Justin Keltner  15:09

So it's, it's really great that you addressed mindset, because you're right, like mindset is one of those things that whether you are running a business, whether you're just looking for ways to give back to charity, to give back to causes to leave a legacy to leave an impact, you've got to have your mindset right first, because if you want to make an impact in the world, and that's really a big part of what this show is about, it's about making an impact in your business and your life with your family, everything else. If you want to make a big impact, you've got to have money. For the most part, like it's, it's possible without, like, there's a lot of things you can do. But there's this whole idea, like you said, where society thinks that or they say that, if you have a lot of money, if you're wealthy, you're a bad person. But the reality is, how much impact can you really make if you don't have money? If you're just saying, hey, I need to pay rent, I'm struggling for my own survival. I mean, okay, you might give $20 a month $50 $100 to charity, if you're struggling to pay your rent, you're probably not even doing that. Yeah, you're probably not even doing that. But the difference between that and hey, let's build our business. And I'm, I'm looking for ways to do something very similar right now. Like I'm looking at tying in my product offering with, okay, these are the causes we support, I'm more actively working on building out my business, not just because it's good PR, because, to me, the point of any of this is, yeah, there's a certain amount of money and to a certain level, sure, it makes you slightly happier, right. But there's this diminishing return, I was

Rennie Gabriel  16:41

gonna say more comfortable. Because the happiness comes from inside. It's, you know, I recognize my life is very blessed. I've got my health, I've got prosperity, I've got wonderful relationships around me. And you know, the health and the relationships are two thirds of my blessings. The prosperity is only 1/3. Yeah, that's a that's a great way to look at it. Yeah. So anyway, so the happiness comes from the inside the money buys comfort, can't buy happiness. I've met plenty of people have plenty of money, and they're miserable. But I met people who are just having ordinary lives are still very happy. So you can help both, you can have a lot of happiness and a lot of money.

Justin Keltner  17:28

That's a great point. I think it's about first getting away, like you said, from those myths of society that say that money is the root of all evil, money is bad, you have this, and then from there going to, okay, there's a certain amount of money that I need. Okay. And then after that, okay, where does the happiness come from? And that's probably a whole nother conversation around happiness and fulfillment and everything else. But it's important to know that, yes, it's good to be wealthy, because you can give back to us and causes you to do stuff. There is more comfort. It's nice, but only to like a certain extent. Am I getting that right?

Rennie Gabriel  18:07

Yes, you are getting that right. And it's funny. I'm going to use an illustration from my TED Talk, which is, you know, when we're young and we have fairy tales, like, you know, the spoon eloped with the plate and they jumped over the moon or whatever it was. So many people are familiar with the story of jack in the beanstalk. I mean, he's a poor child. His mom gives him a cow to take to the market. And he exchanges a whole cow for magic beans. And mom is so upset. She throws the beans out the window, but it grows this huge beanstalk that goes all the way up into the heavens. So jack climbs up there and he sees there's a giant who's got a goose that is laying golden eggs. So it takes some of the eggs, take them down. Then he takes he goes up back up and steals the goose he sings steals the singing heart. The giant chases him down the beanstalk. He chops it down, the giant falls to his death. So what's the moral of the story? Most people don't recognize that the moral of the story is they think jack took advantage of his opportunities. No, jack murdered someone. And it's okay because jack was poor. And the giant was rich. That's right, right. So it's okay to kill the rich. If you're poor. What kind of lesson is this, that fairy tales are teaching.

Justin Keltner  19:37

Do you think that there is maybe like something behind that? Behind them saying that behind it and when I say that, I don't know who exactly that is. But there's obviously somebody that's creating these stories. They come from some conversation somewhere. Is there some almost I don't know like I wouldn't gender I wouldn't against the wealthy. No, no, I

Rennie Gabriel  20:03

wouldn't call it a conspiracy or a hidden agenda. But think of it this way. Let's say you were going to make a Hollywood movie. And we'll use Titanic as an example. And you've got people you want to buy tickets to your movie. And you portray the rich person who Mary is engaged to, as a real jerk. And but you paint jack, who's poor, as the wonderful, kind and noble person who wins Mary's art. Are there more poor people who can buy tickets, or more rich people who can buy tickets to your movie? It's true, more more poor people. Exactly. So you gear the movie to attract the poor people? Because that's where you're going to sell more tickets.

Justin Keltner  20:53

If that's the case, then either they don't realize or they don't care how toxic that actually makes the conversation around wealth and around money. That's, I mean, there is a fallout from that.

Rennie Gabriel  21:08

Yeah. So in terms of the movies, they make the money by pandering to the poor, or the middle class or whatever, not to the wealthy. You know, you don't see Jeff Bezos spending time watching movies. At you know, he's going to spend time making them and selling them. And along the same lines, I don't think this I hope this is not a conspiracy. But the banks don't educate people on how to effectively use a credit card. They induce people through contests to charge more on their credit card. Like it's an entry in a contest. And the person who wins the contest gets their balance paid off. Well, what about the 10s of 1000s of people who increase their balances, who have to pay it off month after month, and pay 1618 20% interest? The banks don't educate people on how to handle money effectively. They don't. I went into a bank recently, this happened like a couple of weeks ago. And I said, I want to open up a separate account so that I can buy some cryptocurrency. And the person who handles the new accounts asked me She said, What's cryptocurrency? This is the bank employee doesn't even know what cryptocurrency is. Highly, it's been around for what 1011 years now. That's how when cryptocurrency started, teller doesn't need that Teller, the new account person had no idea what I was talking about. So the banks aren't going to teach you how to handle money, they're not going to teach you how to balance your checkbook, they're going to encourage you to take out loans, because that's where their profit is in the spread between the savings and the loans that they make. They're going to allow you to buy a car that you can barely afford, because of the payments you'll make on that or the mortgage you can barely afford, because they're going to earn more interest on that. But I hope it's not a conspiracy.

Justin Keltner  23:10

That's that's really that's really interesting perspective. I think I think it is it's it's that in some way? I don't I don't think it necessarily is either. I think that there's a lot of just this this conditioning in society that keeps society the way it is. And in a lot of ways, it's good for people. And it's bad for other people.

Rennie Gabriel  23:31

Yes, but it's good for a few. You know, I just think it has to do with when there are myths in society that people buy into, without critical thinking than the myth, the myths, the myths. Well, that's hard word to pronounce. The fossils continue. I can pronounce that. We have problem with myth s. As an example, people think it takes money to make money. No, when I was age 50 and broke. I'm saving $500 a month that $18,000 I saved up created millions of dollars a well. If I had no money at all, I would have worked with someone else who had money in a way to partner together. I had time someone else had money. It doesn't take money to make money. And people think well, small amounts of money don't really matter. I got a graph in my book that shows if someone sets aside $10 a day, that's $300 in a month, they can create a $1 million portfolio. $10 a day is a couple of fancy coffee and a muffin at Starbucks. And there are people who do that and don't think twice about it. And they wonder why they don't have any money. So, you know, my parents used to tell me money doesn't grow on trees. Except one of my friends had a ranch with an orange orchard on Then he was growing money on trees. They were they look like oranges. Yep. Oh, the biggest myth of all, that really frightens me in terms of how harmful it is. And that's the idea that people are told by their CPA or other financial gurus, that they should pay off their credit card debt or consumer debt before they save or invest. And that is the absolute most damaging thing anyone can do. If they want to create wealth. Let me give you that lets you and I have an experiment, and I'll put you on the hot seat. Okay. So let's say you had no car loans, you had no credit card debt, you had no student debt, you had no mortgages. If what I'm saying I'm not saying what you do have, I'm just saying, if you had no debt, would you be financially free? No, because you'd still have to work. That's right, why you still

Justin Keltner  25:58

have expenses to pay yourself to pay your rent every month, you still have to pay your your, for gas for groceries, everything exactly.

Rennie Gabriel  26:04

Got to pay utility bills, got to pay all that stuff. Which means if you don't have assets that are generating the income, that means you've got to be generating the income. So the fact that you're debt free is irrelevant to creating financial freedom. When I started over at age 50, I had credit card debt, the best I could do is make the minimum payments, if I'd have taken that $18,000, and paid off my credit card debt, I wouldn't have had it to invest in the real estate, which is what created millions of dollars. So when people are told you got to pay off your credit card debt, first, they're being told stay a slave the rest of your life, because something's gonna go wrong, the water heater is going to break the car payment, the car is going to break down at the wrong time, they're going to go back on their credit card that they just paid off, and build up the debt again, and then spend time paying it off. And then it's going to go get paid down. And then it's going to come back again. And they're going to end up at age 65. With no assets, because they spent all their time focusing on getting rid of consumer debt. And it was nothing but a roller coaster.

Justin Keltner  27:14

What you're saying is actually very, very profound. Because I'm thinking about it, I'm analyzing from my perspective of I've had, you know, good years, I've had bad years, I've I've had debt, I've gotten rid of debt, like it's it's been that roller coaster. And I've heard that exact same advice before, of what most people tell you, which is, Oh, you got to start to pay this off. This is higher interest, organize all these credit cards, pay this, pay this, pay this, pay this pay this, and the entire time that you're not thinking about paying yourself and putting that money into assets that are going to actually support you for the rest of your life.

Rennie Gabriel  27:46

Exactly. I had credit card debt that I was paying maybe 14 16% on, I was buying individual stocks. When I started with the $500 a month. And after three years, what I put in was $18,000, what I had was $18,000. I mean, maybe it was up by 1%. And I'm carrying 16% credit card debt. But again, if I didn't have that $18,000, I wouldn't have been able to start with the triplex, then we bought seven units, and we bought another 10 units and we got a 15 unit, I wouldn't have been able to do all that. If what I did was pay off the credit cards, I'd have had no money, I wouldn't have been able to partner with my wife and the realtor. So that's what I think is the most damaging myth of all, is the idea that you need to pay off credit cards or consumer debt before you save or invest. You've got to start saving or investing now. Period, you got to treat yourself like you matter. You got to treat yourself like you matter by paying yourself first before anyone else gets money. And that money you're going to keep for the rest of your life. That's the money you're going to use to invest. And it doesn't matter if it's stocks doesn't matter if it's bonds, mutual funds, oil and gas do real estate, triple net lease. Real estate investment trusts, I don't care what it is. That's the money that's going to produce an income so you don't have to work when you don't want to.

Justin Keltner  29:24

That's great. That's That's such a that's such a different way of looking at it. But it makes a lot of sense when you when you really do the math, because it's not it's not like a to b right. People are thinking a to b Okay, I've got the 16% debt. I don't I don't want to have that anymore. They're I'm losing this money, but they don't realize the opportunity cost of not putting that money into something else is a lot more than 16% It's

Rennie Gabriel  29:47

huge. It's enormous. If I think that okay, if I paid off the $16,000 debt, well my credit cards with the $18,000 that I had, okay. They find out I've gotten rid of 16% debt. But you talking about the opportunity cost that $18,000 in five years turned into 125,000 kind of gotten rid of the credit card debt. So what I had nothing, I would have had nothing, I wouldn't have had 125,000, I would have had no debt.

Justin Keltner  30:23

That's that's one of one of those one of those big myths. thank thank you for sharing that. So one of the one of the things we talk about a lot, and I've just got a few more questions here. So one of the things that we talked about a lot, and this this kind of movement that I I'm trying to move forward a little bit is this idea of high impact. And it means a lot of different things to me to other people, obviously giving back to charity there, there's there's so many areas of impacted within a business. What's the definition to you of high impact? Like what what does it mean to be a high impact entrepreneur?

Rennie Gabriel  30:57

I'd say in simple terms, it's making a difference in the life of someone else. That's it. I just got an email today from one of the people in my program, who talked about how I've changed his life. The difference is made in his life, where he was when we first met where he is now. I call that high impact, making a difference in the life of someone else.

Justin Keltner  31:22

Awesome. I love that. are many people. Yeah, yeah. And you do it at scale. And it's like, one slight, you know, a conversation, something that somebody reads in your book, in your blog, wherever else that can make a difference, this person got value, this person got value, even if it's a little thing that changes their life, a 10th of a percent that compounded over time. And over scale with people is huge.

Rennie Gabriel  31:49

Exactly. He demings talked about continuing, continuous, ongoing continuous improvement that he brought into the the Japanese manufacturers after World War Two. And, you know, just let's improve 1% a year, just 1% a year. People the American manufacturers didn't care for his concepts. The Japanese adopted them because he came from America. And guess what the Japanese ended up building better products, the Americans?

Justin Keltner  32:21

Funny, funny how that how that happened? Yeah. And they're they're learning it from us. And then we're looking at them like way. Exactly. We're pretty stupid over here and not listening. Yeah, exactly. I want to I want to get, like a little bit more personal and talk about kind of your story and some challenges and things because a lot of people especially after the last couple years, and everything that's that's happened with the pandemic, they're, they're struggling a lot. And they're really just looking for some inspiration to overcome that. And you've had a lot of adversity that you've been able to crush that you've been able to move forward from, what would you say, has been like your single biggest challenge with your business or just life and finances? For you? And how are you able to overcome that?

Rennie Gabriel  33:13

I'd say the biggest challenge that I had to overcome was the idea that I had to do things by myself. And unfortunately, that was ingrained in me when I was a small child. Because I was a latchkey kid, I'd come home from school, five, six years of age, and there's no one home. So I made up the idea that I'm responsible for myself, I'm the one who has to take care of me because parents aren't even there. Well, the difficulty is, when you're 3540 years of age, having the emotional makeup of a five year old, running the 40 year old body is just not effective. And so that was the conversation, I had to break up that I had to do it myself. I had to believe it was okay to ask for help. And my world began to transform when I was willing to ask for help. And that's why I came up with the expression. wealth creation is a team sport, not a solo sport. Because it's when you're involving other people who have different skill sets, or even some people have similar, you need someone who offsets some of your weak points. But the point is, it's a team and you grow together. And you ask each other for help and support. And it makes a world of difference.

Justin Keltner  34:31

It curious, because that's really a big portion of my audience are are business owners and entrepreneurs. So you talk about the team sport and immediately what comes to my mind is like, Okay, well, a business obviously, is a team. So do you have any examples of businesses that were created that were created because of partnerships? Oh, absolutely. Maybe somebody tried to do something on their own. They realize Look, I'm not the best this

Rennie Gabriel  34:57

I can give you a pile of examples. You probably heard of Hewlett Packard. Well, those are two people. Apple Computer he had Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs was a visionary Steve Wozniak executed on his vision. Now you probably heard of Warren Buffett because I've already quoted him twice, I think. Do you know who Charlie Munger is?

Justin Keltner  35:20

I do, but only because I've followed a lot of the thought leaders and finance people and personal growth. But most people have not heard

Rennie Gabriel  35:28

That's correct. Because when I asked that question to most people, they say, No, I don't know who Charlie Munger is. No, they didn't realize he's half of Berkshire Hathaway. Warren Buffett, I didn't know that. Warren Buffett has the vision Charlie Munger executes on it. He's half a Berkshire, Berkshire Hathaway. But you know, hear about him because he's, he's the execution Master, he just makes things happen, or in Buffett's the face, and the visionary.

Justin Keltner  35:54

And that's actually kind of a shout out to all of the behind the scenes, people, all of the, like, operations, people that are there, that was really my role. And several businesses like I work with clients in the real estate space and the coaching and training industry, in the medical industry and other areas where I wasn't the front person, like that was ever my role. I was always that guy behind the scenes, like working on the technology working on the systems working on integration. And I think it's important for people that are we're in a place like that to realize, you know, that's half the battle. Yeah, this person can can have their soapbox, maybe they're they're a visionary, the other they're a thought leader, sure that they speak, they're doing videos and everything else. They can't run their business without you.

Rennie Gabriel  36:40

Yeah, I was the execution master. In the real estate business. It was the real is the realtor who found the properties, who negotiated the sales, who came up with the best ways to do the remodeling and improve the properties. I was the one who managed the tenants and handled all of that stuff I executed on his visions I made half of my net worth is because of him. Or no, excuse me, not half of my net worth half of the net worth we created together was mine. And I wasn't the front person, I wasn't the visionary.

Justin Keltner  37:19

How did that relationship come about? Like, how did you guys Connect? Because I know there's probably a lot of people that are on that side of things that are curious, like, Okay, how do I find how do I team up with that person? Whether it's real estate, whether it's something else, like what was was that experience like for you? Um,

Rennie Gabriel  37:34

well, I was kind of lucky that my wife already knew him and had been working with him. He had visited integrity rubbed off on him when I you know what? referral, it's, it's a situation where, if I refer you to someone, that person already looks good, because the referral came from me. And so I was lucky that way. But one of the ways that I advise people who don't have that situation, is if we're talking about real estate, there are what are called real estate investment clubs all around the country. And people do all sorts of different things. They remodel houses, or they do fix and flips, or they invest in apartment buildings, or whatever. And what I suggest is, get together meet and create a relationship with the president of the club. For two reasons, one, the president of the club is going to be one of the most active investors in real estate in the club. And the second thing is, he's going to know who else in the club has integrity that it would make sense to partner with?

Justin Keltner  38:42

And I think that could that's great advice that could be applied to almost any group or meetup or club, especially

Rennie Gabriel  38:48

as they're starting to open. Yeah, young presidents organization, find out who's leading the young presidents organization, and then have that person refer you to someone in the group. As an example, I was looking, I needed a new hv AC heating and air conditioning person, ours ended up retiring. So I went to a college that teaches that and spoke to the teacher to say, who's your best student? And that's how I got a referral to a heating and air conditioning person. So you go to the people who are in that arena.

Justin Keltner  39:25

That's a great strategy. The people who who know the people who are networked you know what they're doing. Exactly. Absolutely. There's, there's a couple more things that I that I want to cover here. I know we're about a time here. So I appreciate all of your time and all this this great wisdom here that you've they've shared with us. I want to ask you about shelter to soldier and a little bit about what they do because I know that that's your your charity that you're supporting. They they're making a huge impact in the world. Tell us A little bit about what what those guys are all about what they do, maybe how one could support them if if they're interested in and supporting that causes.