DGS 48: Why Psychology Is Linked to Success with Preston Brown

Make your own decisions rather than dealing with unnecessary pain and doing what the world dictates. Find a way to hit the inspiration point, rather than the desperation point by focusing on four cores!

Today, I am talking with Preston Brown, who started in real estate as a home flipper. Now, he has seven divisions of property management: Roofing, real estate, brokerage, home flipping, hard money lending, title company, and home warranty insurance. He invests in business, but also in his body and mind.

You’ll Learn…

[03:28] Preston found DoorGrow online when looking for franchise property management opportunities.
[04:20] Cycles, models, and understanding the dynamics of various industries.
[04:50] Impact of embezzlement on Preston’s businesses.
[06:00] Low cost of DoorGrow services that offered so much value and showed how to avoid the Cycle of Suck.
[07:55] Preston did a study to show clients their options and costs with his companies vs. other companies; shows differences between price and value.
[10:11] Preston increased pricing, got rid of bad doors, and lowered operational and staffing costs.
[11:30] Launch a business at the right size; bigger is not better, profitable is better.
[13:30] Psychology is linked to success; you don’t buy a product, but you buy a feeling of certainty and comfort that you could achieve success with the product.
[14:50] Four cores people think about to create a natural alignment: Spirituality, physical fitness, family and love, and money and wealth.
[16:30] Happiness: Life condition equals blueprint; progress makes you happy.
[19:55] Preston systematized all of his businesses using DoorGrow processes.
[23:45] Don’t focus on getting rich quick; to have the best business in the world, deliver more value than any competitor.
[27:20] Your body is a direct reflection of your business.
[30:00] What’s your identity in each of the four cores? Notice, appreciate, and believe.
[32:10] Try this tactic: Use one hour each morning to program your body and mind to attract everything you want.
[34:45] Positive vs. negative emotions in business.
[36:37] Secret to Success: You cannot revolutionize, you have to evolutionize.
[38:35] Do 80% psychology and 20% strategy for all parts of your life and business.
[40:05] Be proactive, rather than reacting and putting out fires.
[42:45] Life hits everyone; you will face problems and challenges in life and business.
[46:45] State value and build rapport; out pace strategy problems using psychology.
[52:25] Focus on the four primary needs and two divine needs.

Tweetables

Resources

Preston Brown email

Mike Michalowicz

Tony Robbins

DoorGrowClub Facebook Group

Transcript

Jason: All right we are live, welcome DoorGrow hackers to the DoorGrow show. If you are a property management entrepreneur that wants to add doors, make a difference, increase revenue, help others, impact lives, and you are interested in growing your business and life, and you are open to doing things a bit differently, then you are a DoorGrow Hacker.

DoorGrow Hackers love the opportunities, daily variety, unique challenges, and freedom that property management brings. Many in real estate think you’re crazy for doing it. You realize that property management is the ultimate high trust gateway to real estate deals, relationships, and residual income. At DoorGrow, we are on a mission to transform property management businesses and their owners. We want to transform the industry, eliminate the BS, build awareness, change perception, expand the market, and help the best property management entrepreneurs win.

I’m your host, property management growth hacker Jason Hull, the founder of OpenPotion, GatherKudos, ThunderLocal, and of course, DoorGrow. Now, let’s get into the show. Today I’m hanging out with Preston Brown. Preston, welcome to the DoorGrow show.

Preston: Thanks, Jason.

Jason: I’m super excited to have you here. Preston has 500 companies and runs a ton of businesses. Preston, give us a little bit of background on you and how you got into the whole real estate scene, and then give us a quick picture of what sort of empire you’ve got going on down there in New Mexico.

Preston: We’re in Texas, but almost. West Texas where you got Mexico here, and Mexico here, and Texas here. We do a lot of business in New Mexico, Southern Mexico, and El Paso.

Jason: Alright, El Paso, Texas. Preston, give us a little bit of background. How did you get into the real state scene?

Preston: I was selling Amway and I had a guy tell me that his business was better than mine. If I would take an opportunity he had, and if it worked, I needed to leave him alone with my Amway bullshit, that’s what he asked me to do. He ditched me on a whole new flip, I went and did it. I made a bunch of money, this is when you couldn’t screw up and everybody was a genius and the market was perfect. I flipped it, I made $30,000.

I’ve never made that much in a year in Amway. I dropped it and ran headlong, headstrong, into home flipping. From there, we only opened seven companies. We opened nine, we shut down a few. We have seven operations and 27 teams, we did $23 million of gross revenue. We’re not quite a big business but I outsold Justin Bieber which is awesome, that’s what we do. We have seven different divisions of property management, roofing, real estate, brokerage, home flipping, hard money lending, title company, and home warranty insurance. I think I got them all and if I missed one, that’s normal.

Jason: Great. How did you come across DoorGrow and what inspired you to become a client? Take people back to what you’re dealing with the way your business was when we first ran into each other.

Preston: I found you online and I’m really glad I did because we were looking for a franchise property management opportunity or something. We had this great home flipping company, a big home flipping business that was like 30 or 40 transactions a year, we were doing more than 100. We still are by far the largest. Growth principles and home flipping are very similar to growth principles and property management. We were keeping a lot of our inventory so we would manage it ourselves.

We opened a property management company for that. Our realtors wanted us to help their clients, so we were like, “Okay, why not, it makes sense.” We started helping clients and we had this model where we were very affordable for our homes and that translated into a model where we were very affordable for these client’s homes. We learned about what you talked about the cycle of suck, where they don’t do repairs, we’re the cheapest option, everything else. Just because your growth model works for two different industries, it doesn’t mean you understand all the other dynamics of the industry. I had no idea about the accounting.

If you buy a $180,000 house for $90,000 and you put $3000 to repair it, you don’t need to know much about accounting to know if you’re going to make a profit, it’s simple math. When you get into property management, the reporting and everything else. When we found you I think maybe with one year before, I think we’ve been embezzled. My wife’s childhood best friend stole a quarter million dollars from our customer’s trust accounts. It was painful. I remember for the first time, my business had all taken off, we paid off debt.

I had a quarter million in my bank account and then this happened. I had $300 in my bank account because I had to put it all back in and I didn’t know how I was going to pay my own personal mortgage. It was rough.

Jason: Sadly, you’re not the only property management business owner that I’ve heard of that happening. People get embezzled constantly in businesses. It’s a dangerous thing.

Preston: We’ve been embezzled since, it’s gonna to happen but you want to get embezzled because it’s going to happen for $1000 or $2000 in your accounting and your accounting team attacks it. With a good business model, you find it as soon as it happens. A lot of times you get it back because somebody will pay that back or they would go to jail. If it gets to be the elephant in the room, you’re dead. It was a lot of pain.

I think I muted you when we were on the call. I told the gal that I was sitting with who was running my property management company, I was like, “This guy is giving us everything a franchise company would give us, and more, and he’s doing it.” I think your Seed Package was $3,000 or something, if I remember it correctly.

Jason: It was less.

Preston: It was crazy. There is so much value in this thing and I was like, “Don’t tell him that this is the best thing I’ve ever seen in the world until after we’re a customer.” We’ve proven that it’s real, I didn’t even think it was real, and then we got in, we did it. We have 600 units in our property management division at that point, every month we were making $5,000 or losing $10,000. It was a total cycle of suck. Lots of work, lots of people. I think that one point in time we had 15 staff members falling over each other.

We implemented your systems, I fired $200. I didn’t do it as fast as you told me to do it just because I was scared but it took me about a year. We’re about 460 units now, I think. When we talked a few months ago, I was at 380 units. In a bad month we’re growing by 15 units a month, in a good month we’re growing by 25. We’re one of the most expensive in town, we have irresistible guarantees on our leasing. We actually guarantee that we’ll rent your property out in 30 days as long as you list the price that we tell you.

If we don’t, we charge you nothing. We haven’t had the honor once. We’ve done a study almost like some of the insurance companies out there like, “Just come to us and we’ll show you what everybody charges, and you’ll go with us.” We’ve got this study that we showed them like, “Here’s all the guys that are cheaper, here’s what they’re doing. Here’s what we’re doing. Here’s their average time on the market which you can get within our MLS system. What’s your mortgage payment? If you don’t have a mortgage, what’s the loss of rent that you would have received?”

The money you didn’t make is like money you spent. It hurts more if you spend it but if you didn’t make it, it’s still a revenue loss. We can actually show them how there’s a difference between price and value, you’re making more money as an owner working with us. Our service is through the roof, we have better reviews than everybody.

Jason: You had so many doors and not being profitable is such a huge surprise to me. I knew it was because you had to be really successful in another area, there’s no other way. You’re like, “My real estate business is crushing it, we’re awesome.” You were able to siphon resources even then having 15 staff members, 600 doors and now you’ve fired 200 owners in a year.

Preston: Over 200 owners. When we did that, we probably lost another 150 over time and our growth is all setback.

Jason: Your growth outpaced that, you’re actually growing. What about profitability?

Preston: We have four staff members.

Jason: That’s all you have right now? Four on the doors?

Preston: Our profitability monthly is just over 30. We’ve got some very creative stuff we’re doing with maintenance, we’ve got some very creative stuff that we’re doing with the way that we interact with our roofing company. We’re charging 10% a month like a lot of property managers do in our market, we’re charging three-quarters of the first month’s rent as a leasing fee, or two month’s rent if you want us just to lease it only. Leasing fee, we’ll manage your property. I think it’s 15% a month, it’s what we charge.

Jason: You’ve increased your pricing, you’ve gotten rid of the bad doors which is lower than your operation cost significantly. You were able to reduce your staffing cost which is probably one of the biggest expense, going from 15 down to 4 people, I’m sure there’s some savings there.

Preston: Our reviews from the previous company were all one star, we suck. Everybody hated us, we were the devil. I think we have one review site that’s just pissed about us and we’re a 4.7.

Jason: Your online reputation has just gone way up which is part of the cycle of suck, getting out of that. Great. People listening to this, they might hear this and go, “That sounds great for him. He had 600 doors to work with.” You’re behind the pay loan, you’ve gone through the whole seed package process that you’re talking about. How did that impact that business, and then I think it even started a ripple effect through all of your companies, correct?

Preston: Yeah. One time I called you my own personal Michalowicz, who is this author I read a book by after I met you, and then you told me you were actually doing stuff with him and I was like, “Well, okay, small world, stuff is starting to make sense.” If people are hearing that and they’re thinking that, A, you’re insane. I would rather start a business, small business, that’s the right size and develop it.

We launched a title company just this year and it was funny because I launched the title company with one title officer and we got up to about 80 files with the one title officer and the profit play was through the roof, because we launched with the right size. We were turning away business. You want to be in a position where you’re turning away business. I would rather have a property management company with 10 units that is the right size with one person running it, doing all of that, than a property with 200 units, destroying your reputation. The clean up, it wasn’t $250,000. We probably spent between the losses that we had to replace, the reputation, the rebranding, everything we had to do, I am saying it was supposed to be $500,000 that we have spent to fix the company.

Do it right from the beginning, that seed package which—we did it backwards, you even told me when we got back there, I really start newer people out and tell them to do it right in the beginning, you’re going to go through hell doing this. I hope you don’t hate me six months into the process because you stop as property man, I think you even told me I had to stop. I wasn’t used to hearing it but I listened and I appreciate it.

If anybody is hearing that wrong and listening to that wrong, they’ve got the wrong psychology. Bigger is not better, profitable is better. If you’re going to flip one whole year and make a ton of money, that’s better than flipping 50 and making none. If your ego is running your business, ego stands for Editing Goal Out. You’re going to lose all your money very quickly.

Jason: You went through the seed package process and then you told me you got a little sidetracked in the middle of it because you started rebranding your other companies and changing some of your other companies based on the stuff that you learned. The last time I talked to you, you mentioned Tony Robbins to me and how Tony Robbins had a big influence on you. Today we’re going to chat a little bit about psychology and how that’s linked to success. Explain to everybody how is psychology more linked to success than what people might think is linked to success?

Preston: I’ll put it this way, you taught me this too. I got it refined and defined with the Tony Robbins organization, but when I bought your product, I didn’t buy your strategies, I bought a feeling of certainty and comfort that I could achieve success with your strategies, does that make sense?

There are a million strategies out there, there’s tons of folks. What sold me on your product was the psychology and that got me to make the leap. Nobody else can deliver that certainty for me in my life, I was in a position of pain. Amazon, the largest retailer in the world, their retail outlet is the largest sales organization in the world right now because they ask one simple question, how do I eliminate all the pain points from my business?

When you maximize the psychology, you’re asking different questions, how do I eliminate all the pain points from my life? You’re going to look at that, there’s four cores that people think about. My background was psychology in economics and I’m probably going to quote Tony Robbins or his organization 10 times here. I don’t want to take any credit away from him, go to his events, amazing. There’s four cores and I’ll just ask you a question on these four items because it will be interesting to see what you would say.

I want to hear your opinion on the average American, not the successful clients and customers of people who are moving up in the world that you know. In the four cores that we looked at, you have health, wellness, and fitness. Do you think the average American right now is going to think of their health, wellness, and fitness and feels really good about where they’re at?

Jason: The average American does not feel good about where they’re at probably in most of those areas.

Preston: Let’s look at the second core, faith and connection with your god or universe or whatever it is you believe in. Do you think the average human is happy in their faith or connection?

Jason: No.

Preston: Let’s look at family, love, and all that. Do you think the average human […] the way they are is happy with their family, love, and all that?

Jason: No.

Preston: Do you think the average human is happy with their money, their success, and everything else?

Jason: Nope, definitely not.

Preston: What do they focus on? They’re focusing on the pain points, they’re focusing on what they’re unhappy on. I’m not happy with my money, I’ve got to find strategy. I’m not happy with my body, I’ve got to find a strategy. Strategies are complicated so they don’t do it. Once you get the psychology right, if it was I’ve got to find a way to do this, I should do this, I should do this, we could should all over each other all day long but it’s not going to do anything. Once it becomes a must, once we have to because the psychology flips in, we do it. That’s where it becomes a beautiful way of meeting your needs. Happiness if you look at it as a simple formula, life condition equals blueprint.

Everything has a blueprint. Everybody knows what it should look like. Their blueprint should look like this, your liabilities look like this. In any of your four core areas and it looks like this, that doesn’t look alike. Those don’t match. Progress makes you happy. When you start approaching getting like that, then all of a sudden it matches. Life condition equals happiness and you match your life to your blueprint, it’s going to look the same. You’re not going to see one behind the other because they match. Naturally there, you then take advantage of the law of attraction—I almost hate quoting that because I don’t believe in that bullshit where you “I want money” and then it comes. Life will change, the world will change, the technology will change, and naturally the world will elevate and you’ll have to elevate.

There’s constant growth, you’re not growing, you’re dying. There are probably a ton of strategies that work in everything; in property management, business, in anything. It’s getting the right psychology and figuring out how are you going to meet your needs in your business. How are you going to drive value not only in your customers—they’re critically important—but also yourself, what are you getting out of business?

When I bought your product, you gave me comfort. Of those six human needs that Tony Robbins always talks about, comfort or certainty, variety or uncertainty, significance, love, connection which is technically one, most people will go for connection because love is some scary stuff, and then growth and contribution. I love my property management company right now because there’s growth, we’re learning new things, but also we’re contributing, we’re helping other folks.

You got the connection, you got the fund, you got the good camaraderie, you got the certainty that things are going to be okay, you got the variety of all the craziness that goes on in the market, you’re meeting all the needs in that business so when a new strategy comes up, you can figure out how to get there because you’re not focused on the pain points. Does that make sense? Focusing on two different things…

Jason: I remember when we first met, you were talking about that, you told me about your business and I got really excited when you told me about your business because I was like this is fixable and it has so much potential. I got excited, I think I told you, “Preston, I’m really excited about your business because it’s going to be completely different in six months to a year, you can change all of this.” You can get out of the cycle of suck, your business can easily be profitable. You got to get rid of the bad doors. You can increase your pricing. I could see the potential of where you can be because of the other clients I’ve worked with. I think that’s what you’re saying, you’re like, “Okay somebody else can see this because I don’t see it right now.”

Preston: It took me two years to do everything you told me in that company because honestly, I got about halfway through it and I got so excited with your process I literally took your process and I was like, we’re going to the home flipping company. We revamped all our construction methods. We’re going through the real estate brokerage. I bought out partners, we revamped everything. We launched a title company, we launched the home warranty insurance company. We just started systematizing everything. We created new bonds and connections between the different divisions. We’ve got a software that interconnected everything. I can literally sit at the computer right now and see everything that’s going in seven divisions on one dashboard. I’ve got this crazy tool that allows me to drive…

Jason: Those kind of things always existed, they exist but you were able to get past the things you were stuck on is what you’re saying. Once you’re past things you’re stuck on and you can see your own vision, you can start creating the reality that you want. You’re like I want a dashboard with eight companies or seven companies on it and I can see everything. You can go make that happen. I want a business that I don’t hate and I don’t want to have to be in and I have somebody else running that piece for me.

I think what’s really interesting in business is that a lot of business owners are looking for the right way, which is this set of tactics, and they want somebody else to tell them how they should have their own business. What sort of structure should I have in my property management company, what sort of business model, what sort of team should I have, what should my org chart look like?

What’s really fascinating to me is that so many people try to answer those questions but I look at those questions and it’s all inherently broken. The inherent brokenness of those questions is that they’re the entrepreneur, they’re the business owner and they’re asking me something that I just want to say, “What do you want? What do you want to be doing in the business and not be doing?” That’s going to tell you what your order chart should look like. What do you love doing in the company? What fulfills you and brings you joy and is in alignment with your values and what is it? What makes you feel alive and what drains you and kills you?

Every business owner is so different like, nope, it’s your business, I can’t just step in your business and would feel in love with what you’re spending your time doing. Likewise, you probably won’t feel in love with the stuff I spend my time doing in my business because you’ve built your business around you and my business is built around me. That’s why we have a team, that’s why we want to make sure as entrepreneurs we’re well supported. I think that’s the inherent disconnect.

That goes back to what you’re saying with psychology. If we really understand the mindset side of things, if we really understand at our core who we are and how we meet our needs… I wrote on my board this morning certainty, variety, significance, connection, love, growth, and contribution. When things are really fulfilling us in the business, or when they’re not, when we’re in pain, that’s because something is not working. There’s conflict there between who we really are and what we’re doing.

Preston: When you take those six needs, Jason, and you match them to your four core which is your spirituality, your physical fitness, your family and love, and your money and wealth, you create a natural alignment. When you get that alignment—everybody focuses on money and it’s funny because all the people who don’t focus on money are the ones that have all of it.

They’re focusing on giving it away, they’re all philanthropists. You either have one of two money problems; not enough money or too much money. The people with too much money are giving it away. That’s what they spend their time doing and everybody is like, “How do I get there?” Align the four cores. If you align the four cores and have a terrible strategy, you’re going to be way better than the guy that doesn’t align his four cores but has a brilliant strategy because he’s going to keep tripping over himself.

People don’t understand that in this day and age. Everybody’s looking for the get rich quick, that type of system. You want to make answers to those questions that everybody is asking you in the best way that I heard it from a coach I had once. You want to have the best business in the world? Deliver more value than any competitor you have. That’s it, that’s the only answer. You can’t get into the freaking line on every single different business because the way you do that might be different than the way I do that in our industry, in our life cycle of our businesses based on the personalities we have.

You can’t actually go and say, “Hey, do all these things.” Align your four cores and find a way to deliver value. If you’re not taking care of you, you’re not going to align your four cores. You’re screwing yourself from the start. If you’re not delivering value to you, you can’t really care about your customer like you should and the way that they deserve to be honored because you’re not whole here.

A lot of people get in business because they want to make this huge amount of money, and yes, that’s a huge part of it, that’s wonderful. Business is not all about making a huge amount of money even though that’s one of the side effects, business is about serving and charity starts at home. Serve yourself, align your four cores. Use that journey in your business to just become a better human.

When you become a better human, meeting your own needs, whatever they are, it’s fine. When you’re meeting your own needs, then all of a sudden you can care about your customer. When you care about your customer, then you’re going to deliver more value. When I say deliver more value, I don’t mean miles worth more value which a lot of young businesses do.

Baby businesses are like, “My competitor’s doing X so I’m going to do X, Y, Z.” Stop, do X plus a little bit. Michael Phelps wins the Olympics every year by two millimeters, two millimeters, that’s it. If you do X plus a little bit, and then you have the cutting edge, and great—I don’t want to call it marketing because it’s kind of a bad word these days but—if you have a great lead capture system—marketing can either be a tax on the stupid if you’re doing it wrong.

Blanket marketing is a tax on the stupid, but if you do a little bit of marketing that’s very targeted, that speaks to people, compliments with your reviews, it can add up. A lot of that might be sweat equity, it might be networking. We get more marketing out of our networking which is time. Then we do a lot of our ad spend marketing, we’re going by 15 to 25 doors a month. Almost every business day, we’re signing up a new door.

Your system is one of the best systems that I’ve ever seen for any business. I’m sure one day you’re going to probably tool it to where it goes to more than property management. I’m really excited about that day.

Jason: It’s been discussed. It’s really tempting for us as entrepreneurs to start going off another channel. I’ve had to really keep focused because it’s tempting. It’s interesting you mentioned the four cores, so I’ve heard them phrased with all letter Fs; faith, family, fitness, and finances. One way I’ve also heard of it is body, being, balance, and business.

It’s really the same four things, and those four things from my experience, and when I work with coaching clients and I talk about those things with them, I tell them that your body is a direct reflection of your business. A lot of them don’t like to hear that. If they’re out of shape, and they’ll say, “Well, my business is really healthy.” and I’ll say, “Well how much healthier could you be or could your business be if you were physically able to be present and you are on point and your brain was sharp, and you were healthy?”

Right now I have a personal trainer, he’s working me out like crazy and telling me what to eat. I have a coach just on the physical side. I’m in a course working with a coach on the relationship stuff because I feel like that’s critical in life and I can level up there. I have a Profits First coaching account. I have a business coach who is awesome. I have coaches in all of these areas.

Originally, I couldn’t have a coach in all these areas because of where I was at, I was struggling. Whichever area of those four is the most difficult for somebody right now, that’s what it is, for those who are listening, that’s what you need to focus on. Usually for entrepreneurs, it’s not the business, usually what’s holding you back in business is your marriage, some sort of misalignment there or struggle, or it may be your fitness, you’re just not on point. You’re working too hard and you’re not able to be present, so then 90% of your effort is really meaningless.

You’re not even really conscious as to what work you’re doing and you’re reacting through your whole day. Whichever of those areas you feel like is your biggest sore spot, whether it’s your physical health, your emotional relationship, or your mental logical things that you’re working on. Whichever the four major key areas is kind of your weakest, go all in on that. Focus on that and you’ll see every other area expand, every other area is connected. Your marriage is a direct reflection of your business.

Your spirituality and your connection to your purpose and your inner self and whatever that looks like, being, or fate, or religion, or whatever you wanna call it, your spiritual side is a direct connection to how you show up powerfully in your business or in your marriage. They’re all interconnected. You can’t level up one without taking the others up. When you change, like you’re saying, everything else has to change around you, it has to.

Preston: One of the best things that I ever learned, A, everything you’re saying is so true. You could go super simple on a human and say, “What’s your identity?” For most of us business people, as entrepreneurs, we’re focus driven, focused. We go learn entire identity as a part of this business, our baby, this thing that we’re creating. What’s your identity in each of the four cores? It’s really an interesting question because there are certain beliefs, there are certain values, there are certain global rules, there are certain things that you perceive and believe.

NAB is the acronym, remember it however you want. It’s notice, appreciate, belief. If your identity in your marriage is, “My wife is always nagging me and I really hate going home,” this, that, the other. Maybe you need to notice something else, appreciate something else, and build some beliefs. Is she really doing that to hurt you or is she doing that to meet her own needs? If she’s doing that to meet her own needs, are you not being her needs? If you’re not being her needs, what can you do to meet her needs?

I guarantee you, you might spend 10 minutes meeting her needs and save yourself 20 hours of nagging. That’s literally the ratio. I’m using that as one example but you could use that in all four cores, what’s the identity that you have in each of the four cores because those identities that we developed here is who we become. We’re here for short times, it’s who do you wanna become? How do you wanna become a better human?

I love what you do because you help so many people, it’s been really cool on the sideline watching your journey, A as one of your customers, B as one of your fans. You have a relatively small organization, by comparison to the organization you have now when we first met. Your growth has been just astronomical, it has been really cool to see you just delivering all these people. I think people are coming out of the woodwork to hear you because you’re actually helping, you’re actually delivering value, that you’re being your four cores.

If a person wants to start by meeting their four cores in a very simple way, I’ll give you a tactic, this is something somebody taught me and it’s super easy. One hour in the morning, you need to take a 15-minute walk at a high rate of speed. We’re biochemical organisms, we have biology, that’s our body, it’s our meat suit. You maybe hit your mind, body, spirit. I don’t know what you believe but in the book I read it says, “God made me in his image.” It doesn’t mean he looks exactly like me, it means mind, body, spirit equate to Father, Son, Holy Ghost.

I need to program my mind, program my body, program my spirit. If you do something to the body in the morning, a 15-minute walk is actually gonna trigger your metabolism to turn on as if you were 20 years old. If you had the body now that you have when you were 20, would you be happier? That’s a question I would ask most people. 90% of people say yes, some people say no, but I hangout in circles where a lot of people are […].

That 15-minute walk is going to, as a biochemical organism, release those endorphins, kick on your metabolism, do all sorts of things, start firing different neural pathways. Do some chanting while you walk, I know it sounds nerdy, it sounds dorky. A lot of people are gonna be like, “I’m tuning out, this guy’s definitely crazy.” If you’re walking and you’re literally saying, “Everyday in every way I’m getting stronger and stronger.” You’re chanting to yourself and telling you this, you’re programming your central nervous system.

Your central nervous system is nothing more than just a science, than energy levels that rested idle, your brain idles and the energy level, I think it’s 70 to 90 megahertz, your organs are about 60 to 70 megahertz. There’s an electrical impulse that goes from your brain to your arm if you’re gonna lift your arm, you start programming your central nervous system—and language is the way we do that—and you put yourself in a beautiful, I’m totally putting Tony Robbins here, this stuff is true.

I started doing this hour every morning. I’m telling you, you create attraction, you just start attracting everything you want. You do 15 minutes of walk. I generally do about 30 minutes of reading something empowering or listening to something empowering, there’s thousands of motivational videos on YouTube. If you don’t have a great book or Audible account or something like that, program the mind. You have to stimulate the thinking machine and build it. If you’re not growing, you’re dying.

Everything in life is in a cycle of growth or death. If you’re not programming the thinking machine and the meat suit, then the body starts to die and the mind starts to die. Anything that’s on its way down is not going to excel anywhere, that’s including your business. The spirit is our emotional energy. Here’s something really cool that nobody is ever gonna tell you. This is actually mine, I’m not putting Tony Robbins, thank God. There are only three emotions that exist, there are thousands of feelings.

You could say anger is an emotion, this guy is full of shit. No it’s not, anger is a feeling. You cannot feel angry thinking about puppies unless you are biochemically really abnormal. There are three feelings, one, we’re humans, we’re animals, […].

For the purpose of business, there’s a positive emotion and a negative emotion. The positive emotion has super high megahertz levels. When you are in a beautiful state or powerful state, that’s like these YouTube videos, motivational videos, good music, chanting, you’re programming that neural association into your central nervous system, the walking, the chanting, reading a book, maybe some breathing exercises, gratitude exercises or some motivational videos on YouTube, you do that stuff for an hour everyday, you will change your whole life. That positive emotion, I don’t remember the exact megahertz level, they did studies on it at MIT and Harvard, it’s amazing.

You’re sending huge energy waves, entire body, and you’re gonna be in a beautiful state. You can’t change anything for the bad state. You ever notice depressed people shoulders forward, head down, eyes down, they’re in the same pose that they normally are right before they flush. Their state is probably shit. Whereas people that are moving forward in life, shoulders back, head up, eyes up, moving, speaking loud and talking. They have a better pace and a better energy. You can see it, you can feel it, and you can tell it. They’re somebody that’s making moves in life.

Do that hour in the morning, it’ll help you get to your four cores. Everybody wants the secret to success and here’s the secret, you cannot revolutionize. You have to evolutionize, just take one baby step everyday. If you take one baby step everyday, if you give yourself one hour a day, your business will be a thousand times better. For the people out there that are like, “I don’t have an hour a day,” wake up an hour earlier. It’s worth it. If you don’t have an hour a day, you’re already dead. Find an hour.

When you give you one hour a day, you’re going to evolutionize, not revolutionize, which means you’ll be able to handle your four cores and you’re gonna evolutionize that identity, that neural association to who you are, not based on the you today but on the who you wanna be. It’s going to gradually get there and your business is gonna get there. It’s really cool. A couple years ago I showed up to my parent’s house and I took my check and paid their house off. Last week, I bought myself a $20,000 Rolex just because I’ve always wanted one and finally I got it.

In spanish we call it […], which means cheap, I couldn’t see buying a watch for a price of a damn house. These are fun, stupid things that people don’t get to do. You know why they don’t get to do it, it’s because people want that when they don’t try to figure out how to become the real them. When you become the real you, it doesn’t really matter. I waited over a year before I bought it because I didn’t care that much. It wasn’t that I couldn’t afford it, the money was there, I just had other shit that was more fun to do than driving over the […] to buy a damn watch.

When you find the real you, you find this blessing, you find this purpose. You start delivering value in a way that God, the universe, or whatever, made you to do, that’s where life gets beautiful and fun. 80% psychology, 20% strategy. That is all of life, do that hour everyday and watch what happens to you in a week. I’m not telling you this because you already know this, Jason, but I’m sure there are some people hearing it and they’re thinking, “Another rich guy, screw that guy. He’s lucky.”

Yes, I’m lucky, I’m gorgeous, I’ve got a hot wife, a bunch of paid offs sports cars, stupid watches, tons of houses, investment property, but I was a broke kid, piss poor, in a trailer park 10 years ago with $20,000 in college debt. Now, I’ve got a million dollar bank account a couple times over. I’m not the rich asshole, I’m the guy that figured out some—I don’t even think I’m anywhere near where I wanna be—but some of my four cores. I’m still rolling, I wanna go national. I know that’s what you’re doing too, I’m privileged to be on this line with you because I think you’re a way ahead of me in that route. Everything you’re doing is amazing.

Jason: Preston, I really appreciate it. I’ve noticed that, when it comes to morning routine, the same thing. I’m investing that time early in the day, getting up, kids want my time, spouse wants my attention, business wants my attention, my team wants my attention, and I have those quiet moments to invest in myself, it’s an absolute game changer. Everybody should be doing that but a lot of people get up, they start looking at their phone and they immediately let the day take over their life.

I think what you’re touching on is a lot of people are in each of those four areas, they’re reacting, they’re putting out fires. They’ve got a fire with their family, or kid, or the teenager, their marriage, or they’ve got a fire in the business they’re working on putting out. They’re jumping, they’ve got a crisis of faith, or they’ve got some spiritual problem they’re dealing with, or they feel like they’ve lost their their purpose, or their body is breaking down. I was there, man.

I remember sitting in my desk trying to finish a sales call. By the end of the sales call, I was laying on the floor because I wasn’t eating, I wasn’t sleeping, I was working way too many hours. I thought, “That’s what I need to do to get ahead, just focus on the business.” I know from experience that just focusing on business is the worst way to grow and expand your business when you’re neglecting three significant core areas of your life. I was doing that and I realized in that moment I lost my ability to be effective in all of them.

I couldn’t even do business anymore, I was in so much pain. My back was out, my pelvic bones had gotten rotated because my muscles were so weak. I couldn’t stand, I couldn’t sit. I was laying on the floor for two weeks, it was ridiculous. The universe had to give me this, or God, or whatever, had to give me this really strong experience to realize this but my physical health is directly connected to my ability to make money, without a question. If I let that go, I can’t do it.

Steve Jobs, at the end of his life, probably would’ve paid anything to have more health. Lots of entrepreneurs are probably that way. You can’t just buy it, you can’t just throw money at somebody and then magically have health. I was like, “I have to have health, I have to.”

It doesn’t even matter if things are stressful in my marriage or with my kids, nothing else seems to matter because that takes over everything and it’s all consuming emotionally.

Preston: You’re hitting such a beautiful point and I love it. People get messed up focusing on that stuff, that’s the key to state. We talked about long term happiness is life condition equals blueprint. When your life condition and your blueprint align, you’re aligned and you naturally grow. You’re not gonna get there without state.

All of those things you talked about, which are major things, and they’re critical, and they’re crisis, they’re distractions. You’re gonna get those if you have something in common with you and me and you’re that you’re a human.

If you’re a human, stuff’s gonna go wrong in your marriage, stuff’s gonna go wrong in your business, you’re gonna get an asshole customer. You might mess up, you might have a faith crisis. Life hits everyone. If you think that the only advantage that is gonna get you there is to have your life be perfect, you’ve got this beautiful delusion and you need to share what you’re smoking because it sounds really good. That’s probably only gonna work with property management companies in Colorado.

You gotta get in state, you gotta manage that mind, that body, that spirit, you’re focused. I was doing a leadership training awhile back and it was really funny because the leadership training focused on literally two things. If you wanna be a leader, you owe this not only to you but to everybody that you’re committed to serving because a leader is a servant. You maintain your state all the time, you can’t bring your bullshit into your business, you can’t bring your bullshit into your marriage.

I don’t bring my business home with me if at all possible. I’m sure I screw up sometimes, I’m not perfect. My wife actually now works with me at the company, we have funny conversations about it sometimes. We try not to bring the negativity, stuff’s gonna go wrong. Right now there are 500 different families, probably more now, that eat everyday in El Paso, Texas because of one of my companies. I guarantee you, at any point, every single day of the week, there’s somebody epicly fucking something up at all times.

If I find those things and focus on them, I’m dead. I gotta look at the 499 that are not screwing something up. Have a little faith, have a little connection, keep myself in state, that mind, body, spirit. That was Tony Robbins’, physiology, focus, and language and meaning, which is an interesting thing when you go to psychology.

Did you know that the English language has more words than any other language on Earth? We have 3000 words to describe emotions and the average person only uses 12, your brain is a brilliant computer.

Say you’re driving and somebody cuts you off, a lot of people say, “That pisses me off.” What pissed off me? If I’m gonna get pissed off, I’m generally at the bar and I’m like, “I’m gonna punch somebody.” Pissed off means your adrenaline is on high, you’re gonna be the most certain person in the room, you’re gonna make yourself significant. Am I really pissed off the guy cut me off or am I annoyed? Was it irritating? Whatever language you use to tell yourself how you’re experiencing something, your brain is not dumb.

If you have a bad day and you say, “Man, that was rough. I’m a little anxious about that.” You’re probably being real. But if you say I’m depressed, you’re gonna sleep an extra three hours the next day, you’re not gonna wanna go into the office, and your brain is gonna start […] you have all the feelings that come with depression. People focus on all these ancillary pain points that are associated with their four cores. We have our four cores and you’re gonna have pain points, that’s because you’re human.

That makes you equal to everybody else in the world. I know why you asked it. I really appreciate it because I’m ADD so I get off topic all the time. You’re asking the right questions to keep me on, thank you. People can’t look at that stuff, you have to let go and say what’s my mission? What’s my purpose? What am I delivering? What’s my value? In leadership, you maintain your state first, foremost, and you never stop. If you’re going through divorce, that’s outside of the office. When you come inside of the office, you’re there to serve, you deliver value.

The second thing you do is master rapport. Master rapport with your people, your team, your customers because you can’t deliver value, you can’t get that connection with another human. State is number one, rapport is number two. You can even look at all the good examples in history, all the bad examples in history. God, you have an amazing state and ability to deliver rapport. The sun finally set on the British Empire.

Hitler had an amazing state, an amazing ability to develop rapport. How many millions died? These two secrets, state and rapport, are some of the most critical things for leaders. If you’re in a beautiful state, you’re doing that hour in the morning, you’re managing, you’re trifecta, your mind, your body, your spirit. You’re doing those things and you’re keeping yourself psychologically tuned because that’s 80% […]. All of your problems are generally gonna be strategy problems.

If your marriage is going wrong—this is gonna suck, I’m sorry if I’m telling people this—you’re probably right where you deserve to be in life. You probably weren’t perfect either. I am sure that she is wrong as well because normally fire and gasoline make bigger flames. If you’re having problems in your business, you’re probably right where you deserve to be. Wherever you’re having problems, those are strategy problems. You can’t fix strategy problems with the same level of maturity that got you into it.

You have to upgrade your psychology, upgrade you, and all of a sudden you could outpace the strategy problems because you’re gonna become a better human which is, A, gonna give you access to better strategy, access to better […]. Anything is the psychology but good psychology is gonna help you recognize the right strategy. You look at all the most successful people in the world, they’re not trying to figure out how to make money, they’re trying to figure out how to better the entire world. The money just comes, the love just comes.

Jason: Because they’re focused on contribution, contribution is what creates value, this desire to contribute. If you lose connection, you’re like, “How do I create more value?” They just think, what do they want and how can you help them.

To bring this full circle and bring this home, I think what you’re saying is what would be really effective is make sure at some point in your day, especially early in the day when you’re present, when you still have willpower, to start focusing on those four key areas of your life. My experience is an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

If you’re dealing with fires all day long in all of these areas or in some major areas, start doing little deposits in the morning, investing in yourself to level up in those areas. Learn about relationships, learn about sales, learn about marketing, learn about business, learn about whatever it is that you need to be learning about. If you are struggling in property management, get the Seed Package and invest those hours watching the videos and learning and going through our program. Do something to invest in you.

Preston: If you’re struggling in your business, buy the Seed Package, that is fire, it is beautiful. I don’t care if you’re struggling with property management or your friend in property management sends you this damn video and you sell lollipops, buy the ****ing Seed Package. It has revolutionized seven of my companies. Jason needs to focus on property management because he got it really over successful. Even if you’re not in property management, share this with a struggling friend.

Jason: Maybe we’ll need to release the Seed Package for all small businesses or service based businesses, we’ll see. If you’re investing daily into those four major bank accounts, you’re not gonna get to the point where you’re bankrupt. If you’re not, you’re gonna end up bankrupt in one of them. I was bankrupt in the body area laying on the floor calling for my wife to help me. Nobody could really do anything about it, I had to heal.

Now that I’m investing daily into my health, I’m investing daily into my relationships, I’m investing in my business, I’m constantly investing and feeding in. I get coaches, you get books, you get whatever you need to do to invest in those areas where you’re weak. If you’re investing, those bank accounts will be healthy and your financial bank account will become more healthy, it’s just going to happen. Your bank account is a representation of your level of contribution.

Preston, you have a high level of contribution, you’re making big changes and affecting a lot of lives and families down where you’re at. I honor you for that because that’s a big deal. A lot of people look at the business owner or entrepreneur and they show us on these TV shows where some entrepreneurs get something shady and they’re like, “Look, he had these many cars. He had this plane.” The great entrepreneurs and the good entrepreneurs, they also have lots of trappings and systems and people and business and things around them.

It just shows their level of contribution that they’re able to have, their level of impact. My hope is that everybody listening to this is able to increase their level of contribution, increase their level of value that they’re offering to others, and to start investing in themselves so that they can start leveling up in business and in life. Preston, any last words you want to say before we wrap this up to the people that are watching?

Preston: You hit beautifully on contribution but I wanna rehit those six human needs for everybody. When you make a decision to succeed, it goes from a should to a must and it just becomes a driving force in your life, you have to do it. You’re gonna do it because you’re either inspired or you’re doing it because you’re desperate. Let me tell you something, I bought the Seed Package when I was desperate. I literally had a cratering, terrible situation, and I had no idea what to do, I was desperate.

When you do anything from inspiration, I’ve made other decisions from inspiration, the results, the rewards are beautiful and it’s all about meeting the needs. When you start meeting the needs, what’s gonna be needs? You can inspire yourself doing that hour but the needs are certainty or comfort. You probably eat the food you eat everyday because it comforts you or makes you certain or whatever.

Here’s how funny God is, the way he made us, certainty and uncertainty are exact opposites. Those conflict a little bit. Uncertainty, or also could be called variety, are you getting the variety you need? Are you getting the unique situations? Is your job mundane? Is your business boring or are you inspired by what’s going on that keeps you driving forward? Connection, love, and the last one, significance. Connection, love, and significance also conflict with one another. If you need to be significant all the time, you’re not gonna have that connection and love with your wife, or your team, or your customers.

If you need to be loved all the time and you make everybody else more significant, you’re gonna break it too. You have to find a way to balance these. The way to do so is one contribution because those are the primary needs, those four are primary needs and two is growth. If you’re really […] everybody here but it says read my word and feed my […]. Those are two main points, read my word, and feed my […]. Learn more, and grow, and help people. If you’re contributing, the moment you help another human, you’re gonna be immediately certain and comforted.

You’re doing something good, you feel that in your soul. If you’re biochemically normal, that helps you. You’re establishing variety and uncertainty because, man, you never know how they’re gonna react but you’re gonna get some excitement and thrill out of the variety because you don’t know how they’re gonna take it. They could laugh about it or they could cry and hug you, you never know what they’re gonna do. You’re definitely connected to them, maybe even loved. You’re certainly the most significant person in their life, that’s contribution.

When you’re growing, you’re certain and comforted that you’re getting better. You are absolutely getting variety because you just learned something new, you’re definitely significant because it’s going to help you become a better you and that’s the first person you need to worry about. You’re definitely gonna get love and connection because that growth is gonna propel you forward because you’re not growing, you’re dying. Anytime you’re propelled forward, you’re learning. You got those four primary needs and those two divine needs.

All the people watching this and all the people plugged into this are probably very, very interested in jumping into that growth, that contribution. If you’re not having success, you’re probably stuck in one of the primary four. You meet all four by hitting the divine two. If you’re stuck in one of the primary four, you’re never gonna hit the divine two until all of a sudden you become desperate. If you can become inspired rather than desperate, you can make a decision rather than the world dictating to you.

When the world dictates, you’re still gonna make the decision, it’s just gonna take longer and there’s gonna an epic amount of pain associated. Find a way to hit the inspiration point rather than the desperation point. I’d love to close on that, bro.

Jason: Preston, thanks for coming out and sharing with us. How can people get a hold of you or connect with you?

Preston: Email me, I’ve got an email I’m gonna use forever, it’s prestonrealtor@gmail.com. Call my office, email me, I respond. I’m very responsive. Please don’t call after [9:00] PM.

Jason: Preston, I appreciate you hanging out with me here on the DoorGrow Show. Excited to see what you continue doing.

Preston: I’m looking forward to doing more with you, brother. Thanks for having me.

Jason: If you’re now just tuning in or you’re catching the tail end of the show, make sure you join our DoorGrow Club Facebook group. That’s where you can get a feel for what DoorGrow is all about. You can connect with other DoorGrow Hackers, other people that are running property management businesses just like you. The group is free, we do make people apply. It’s only for property management business owners to get in but you can get to that by going to doorgrowclub.com, it will redirect to the Facebook group. Make sure you get in there.

If you are interested in learning and hearing more about the Seed Package, just go to doorgrow.com/seed-package or just go to doorgrow.com and just hit us up on the chat and let us know you’re interested and we’ll get you case studies, we’ll get you testimonials including Preston Brown and other clients that we’ve worked with. We want believers and action takers, those are the people that we can help through this process.

If you’re struggling with growth, you’re wanting to grow your property management business, we have a system and a process that we will help guide you through and take you through that. We will basically rehab your business and help you figure everything out. Check that out. Make sure you get your tickets to our upcoming conference which is DoorGrow Live. You can check that out at doorgrowlive.com. We’re doing the conferences here in St. Louis, it is during the same week as NARPM Leadership, it’s back to back at the same venue in St. Louis which is a really cool venue.

If you’re looking for more connection, you’re looking for relating and creating relationships with other business owners like you, some that have dealt with things that you’ve dealt with, some that you can help with problems that you’ve dealt with, this is the place to be, this is where the DoorGrow Club connects with real life. You get to make some relationships that may last a lifetime. We’re gonna be sharing ideas, and tactics, and strategies and maybe even revealing some new offering there at DoorGrow Live.

I hope you get your tickets at DoorGrow Live, we’re starting small this year. I’m sure it’ll be much bigger next year, make sure you get a seat while they still are available.

For those of you that are property management business owners that have gotten beyond the challenge of growth, you’re beyond the Seed Package challenge, our next level is the DoorGrow Masters, the DoorGrow and skill masterminds. If you are a DoorGrow master or want to be a DoorGrow master, make sure to reach out. I would love to have a conversation with you and see if you’re a fit for that group.

This is for property management business owners that really wanna align their business with their personal life, get clear on what their values are, what they want their business to look like, and then make the business aligned around them to create the business that you love, that supports you, and how to properly build that team that supports you as an entrepreneur. I would love to have a conversation with you about that group. Reach out to us, check us out at doorgrow.com.

I appreciate everybody tuning to the show, make sure to like us, listen to us and subscribe and all that stuff on iTunes and on our YouTube channel and everywhere else that you see us. We appreciate it. Through you, we’re going to be able to transform the property management industry. Bye everybody, talk to you guys soon.

Jason Hull

Jason's mission is "to inspire others to love true principles." This means he enjoys digging up gold nuggets of wisdom & sharing them with property managers to help them improve their business. He founded OpenPotion, DoorGrow, & GatherKudos.

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