Smiles To Syndications: A Dentist's Path To Passive Income Prosperity (Episode 6)

Frank Hereda (00:02.341) All right, welcome everybody to another episode of Focused Free Fit. And I'm excited today, we've got a great guest and someone that we dabble in the same areas. So I'm excited. I hate to even use the word dabble because we're serious. But yeah, welcome Dr. Jeff Anzalone to the podcast. Jeff (00:25.674) Yeah, thanks Frank. Happy to be here excited about it. Frank Hereda (00:28.505) Absolutely, absolutely. So let's get right into it. I would like to know about you in your early life. So before you, you know, how did you know you wanna be a doctor? What was your family life like? Parents married for a long time, divorced. Just to give us some perspective, I always like to ask my guests what it was like growing up when they were kids. Jeff (00:51.658) Yeah. I had great, had great parents, have great parents, are still both alive. And my dad's dad, my grandfather, they came over from Sicily, which I've never been to Europe before, but we're looking forward going over, taking the family next summer on a trip and hoping to get to see where I'm from. Hardworking blue collar family. He was in World War II, came back. with his brother started a hardware store that my dad still runs to this day. Started, I think 1941 and blue collar background. And I think the, so you asked me what, wanted how I got interested in being a doctor. We were always taught not to play with matches as kids, right? Well, I was taught that too. And the, the day before I turned eight. Frank Hereda (01:41.661) For sure. Jeff (01:47.87) a friend of mine and I, a friend growing up, we didn't listen to our parents. We fooled around with matches, played with fire. There was a big metal gas can sitting next to it. My friend said, well, let's see what happens when you pour that on it. It flamed up, you know. But unfortunately, it gave me second and third degree burns all on my legs. And so I'm literally riding my bike home, cry, you know, my blisters all on my legs. And I, you know, with kids, I can't imagine what. Frank Hereda (02:02.953) Heheheheh! Jeff (02:17.15) my parents went through. So I had to go through, and before that, when I went to a doctor, it was just checkups. So I never really experienced that before, but it was like a month of having to go and getting these peroxide scrubs, like the worst pain ever, had to do skin grafting. I was in the hospital for so long, I had to learn how to walk again. And that plastic surgeon was great, Dr. Worthen, who's unfortunately passed away now, but he... Frank Hereda (02:37.109) Wow. Jeff (02:44.514) That kind of got me on the track of, hey, this would be cool to be able to help people in some way in the future. And that was always in the back of my mind. And then growing up, you know, my dad would coach us and all kinds of ball and everything like that. But I noticed the kids dads that were physicians, a lot of times they weren't there because they're always working versus the kids dads that were dentists, usually they were, of course they were there, but a lot of them were coaching. and I have some family members and other friends that were dentists. So for me, it was more of a time issue, like lifestyle issue, not wanting to work all the time. Eventually went to dental school, then went to a surgery residency after that. So that's more how the background is. But my mindset, I didn't really learn much about mindset and all that until a few years ago, but looking back on it, we had the typical. blue collar, middle class, growing up mindset, limited mindset, scarcity mindset. I'm sure people have probably heard, hey, we can't go on that trip. It costs too much. What do you think we're made out of money? It's too expensive. So I heard all of that. So I always thought money was just limited. And when you go through life like that, whenever you get something, you just want to hold on to it. You want to save. You know, and I have a... somebody that I know that works with me that she's the same way. It's like gets cash and just literally just saves it. Like, I mean, it's just a mindset thing. And it really took a while and we can get into this more how I transform that. But I think first thing for people, you have to, you know, you have, you have material, you know, I've heard it one time, like you have information that you know. But then you have information, you know, you know what you know, but sometimes you don't know what you don't know. And life is more of that. It's like 90% or more of that. So all I knew was just scarcity limited. I didn't know all of these other things out there. So you almost have to look at where you are right now, look back, don't let the past define you, but you need to understand your starting point. And then from there, you can move forward. Frank Hereda (05:02.901) That's. That's really interesting. What I think is the neatest part about your story, you at such a young age were already deciphering or at least noticing a pattern of who is at the games and who wasn't. That was first. But then you even went even deeper and you were able to notice, okay, well not all the doctors are not here, just the ones who aren't dentists. And I think that's really interesting because as a kid, I don't know that I was that sharp. You know, I didn't pick up on that kind of stuff at that age. I feel like my son does now he's that, you know, he picks up on stuff like that. But I think that's interesting that you were able to pick that up. And so, and then carrying that on that, that doctor obviously had a big impact on your life. And so, um, I think we downplay a lot of those, uh, relationships in our life sometimes. So that's really interesting. Okay. So you had that, you went to school, you get out of school and walk us through. why the transition? I mean, obviously you're still practicing, but I know you had a moment in your life that made you transition into focus more on building wealth, if I'm not mistaken, and walk me through that process and what led you to go through that change. Jeff (06:20.118) Yeah, I'm from a relatively small town in Louisiana and my family's here, friends, all that kind of stuff. So I always wanted to come back here and practice. So there was a group during my residency that I've been speaking with. And every time I would come up and visit, you know, we would talk, you know, I was going to join their practice and I called them one day, I finally found my graduation date and I called them and said, Hey, you know, I'm graduating on this Saturday, like in June or May or something like that. I was like, literally I could have the U-Haul packed up, ready to go be at work by that Monday. And it was just like silence. And I don't know exactly, I guess I've blocked that out of my memory, but it was literally those two people were having issues and eventually they broke their partnership and they're just like, it's just not a good time to bring somebody in. I'm like, wait a minute, we've been talking for the last three years. We had a two month old at the time. $300,000 in student loan debt. And we had just bought a house in my hometown. And the way that we bought it was the banker, this was before the 08 crash, the banker knew the group I was going in with. He's like, look, just sign some, we'll make it work. And that was it. And I had a house, it was crazy. So that incident really took me, if I thought I had the scarcity limited mentality, then it really took me back. I mean, I was, I was in survival mode and high school and college, I had a law and service. So, you know, I connected with another dental specialist. He let me come into his office to rent and kind of teach you, because they don't teach you anything about running a practice, you know, or business or whatever. So he was teaching me, I was working out of other general dentists offices. I was mowing yards on the side. It's probably the most well-trained yard guy in the country, you know. Frank Hereda (08:17.437) Heheheheh! Jeff (08:18.358) But again, I guess just that having that amount of debt over my head and just seeing how quickly things can change, I was just focused. At that time I was a big Dave Ramsey fan. Because back then it was like him and maybe Susie Orman, that was pretty much it. So I followed, for that first seven, seven and a half years, I followed his seven baby steps and we walked through, Frank Hereda (08:39.669) Pretty much it. Jeff (08:47.554) paid off the student loans, eventually paid off that first house. And when I got to that point of being completely debt free, you know, it was great feeling, but it was like, okay, now what it was like, okay, well now I've got the next 30 years I have to work. And that's what everybody does. Right. And about two or three years after that, we went snow skiing. And I think my kids were maybe eight, six or eight years old at the time. Unfortunately, I fell and had a wrist injury. And Frank, that was the wake up call for me because my kids were still in it. It was almost like this was happening again. Well, you know, this is another thing that's going to happen to take away my income because if you can't, you know, use your hands as a dentist, it's pretty hard, pretty hard to work with your feet. You know, that, that was my wake up call that I've got to do something more of like an insurance policy. Frank Hereda (09:36.552) Right. Jeff (09:44.942) to protect my family, to provide for them. And again, I only had this one income stream. And then I started to really take a deep dive and trying to figure out what else can I do because my time was limited. And I just started studying the really ultra wealthy people and a couple of things stood out to me. Number one, the majority of them had real estate in their portfolio. I had zero at that time. And the second one was they had all of these different income streams coming in and I only had one. So that really helped me limit myself to figuring out a way. How can I still practice dentistry, invest in real estate for ultra, for extra income streams, just in case something happens. And that eventually kind of led me down the path to where we are now and teaching this to other people as well. Frank Hereda (10:41.093) Okay. There's so much to unpack there. What a great story. So you realize that you, so you started working out of a friend who is also a dentist to learn the ropes. I get the whole, so being a business coach, I talked to a lot of doctors. I taught to real estate agents. Same type of thing though. They go through, well, same as you. And then real estate too, they teach you to get your license, but then not to how to run a business, same thing with a financial planner. I used to have an investment license, that kind of stuff. So. How long did it take you to learn the business side of it before you, I don't know if you ended up having a partnership with the person to let you rent or did you start your own business? And then I wanna ask another question about the streams of income, but did you start your own practice off of that? And how long did it take you to get into your own business? And so for people that are wondering how to start their own business, how long did that process take and how challenging was it for you while you were paying off debt? Jeff (11:39.754) Yeah, that's a good question. Well, the first thing was just starting to make money. That was just going to work and that sort of thing. But I was upfront with him from day one that I eventually wanted to have my own practice because he was a different type of specialist. So it really wasn't like competition or anything. But I had these, and I still write on these all the time. So literally I started writing down. So I was looking through it through a different lens once I got to the point where I was making money. Frank Hereda (11:56.169) Gotcha. Jeff (12:07.598) Because I wasn't just going to work like most people do. I was going to work going, okay, I know how to do the procedures, but, and I gave myself a timeline within two years, I wanna be able to start my own practice. What do I need to know? And I just started writing down everything, like employees, hiring them, how to interview them, payroll, ordering supplies, what supplies do I need? I mean, just literally. everything business related. And then I looked up one day and I had like all these notes. It's like, you know what? This would probably benefit somebody in my situation. And I found some girl that kind of helped me edit it and I self published it and still selling books today on Amazon. It's basically called What They Don't Teach You in Dental School. Very basic. It's super basic. I don't know. It's like under a hundred pages. But that was one of the first books that I wrote and you know for For people out there that go through struggles and trials and tribulations, I guarantee there's other people out there that can benefit from it. So make sure that once you get past that, you maybe write it down. I mean, back then there wasn't YouTube and all that. It wasn't real popular. So now you can just simply make a YouTube video and somebody could do a book for you or whatever if you want to do that. But I think that's really important to, because I think God puts this here. And it gives us to these trials and tribulations because he's had something bigger for you that maybe you have to go through, or maybe there's other people that need to hear, you know, what you've done and it would help them too. And I can't tell you how many times I've told my kids, I mean, you said, you're a father, you know, I've told my kids something on and on and on. And then one day they come home and like, Oh dad, you know, guess what? I heard, you know, blah, blah. Like son, I've been telling you that for 10 years. I just have to hear it from another source, you know? Frank Hereda (14:02.893) It's crazy. It is so true. Yeah. So, okay. So you basically were taking down notes and then you said, you know what, someone can benefit from this. And then you also is at the time where you said, okay, I'm starting my own thing. Now, I'm going to put this book out and I'm going to do my own start my own business. Jeff (14:04.174) So it's just crazy how that works, but yeah. Jeff (14:23.074) Once I was comfortable enough and I was looking for buildings and eventually the building that I'm in now, it was an older dental office. The guy was moving, building a bigger dental office. And what was cool was he didn't want a lot of this equipment. So when he left, I was able to, you know, he just pretty much just gave the equipment to me, which I've since replaced most of it. But again, I was able to save a lot of money initially upfront and do that. Because again, I was still in super scarcity mode, super limited mode at that time. So it was nothing but investing in the stock market because I knew I was going to be working forever, just mutual funds, index funds, that sort of thing. This was before I got into real estate or anything like that. So this was about two years after I started working with that other guy. Frank Hereda (15:18.993) It's I think it's interesting because having multiple businesses now and having had multiple businesses in the past, uh, I feel like people look at anybody who has their own business and they think, Oh, they've got it made. And what I try to explain to them is it's constant risk, more risk, more risk, more risk, because you're always trying to reinvest back into the business and improve the business or help more people or whatever. So you're constantly having to grow and be better and invest in yourself in the business. That's a very difficult thing to do. And that's what I think is, uh, challenging about being an entrepreneur. Was there anything else that was challenging for you on this journey of starting your own business? Jeff (16:01.338) I think once I left and I didn't have, you know, cause if ever needed something or, you know, I had the guide like right there, it was, you know, it's kind of like going from dental school or residency and then going out on your own. It's that leap of faith, which I think is 99.9% of what keeps people from really taking chances or risk in life is just people don't like change, you know? And that's how we're, that's how our brain is wired. You know, I can remember, I think it was last year. I was writing paper checks to my employees, paying them and we got a new CPA. But the thing was they're like, look, you're still doing paper checks, but I think it'd be beneficial to switch over to direct deposit. It'd be easy for your staff. Okay, so we set it all up and then we have a meeting every morning and I told them, so hey, good news. You're not gonna have to go to the bank anymore. You can just wake up and you have your. money in your account. I was thinking it was just going to be so exciting. It was literally like telling them it was the end of the world. Oh, wow. I don't know about that. That's too confusing to me. And then literally a month later, like, oh, that's the best thing ever. Because people just do not like change. Myself included. Ask my wife. That's just how it is. Frank Hereda (17:25.405) Sure. Yeah, but it sounds like you did the right things. You got a mentor, you found somebody who was in the industry and you had some people that came before you that were able to help you. And then when you got that business with some of the equipment, all those little pieces help and come together. You said something earlier about what you saw, the wealthy people you were hanging around doing. My first question is, how did you start hanging around more wealthy people? Did you go to a group? Did you have friends that were wealthy and you said, I'm going to start paying attention or did you, did you pay money to do some type of mastermind? What were you doing that, that you helped you change that part? Jeff (18:01.814) Well, the wealthy people that I was talking about, most of them was when I was doing my research online. And then once I decided on real estate, the wealthy people in my area that I grew up with, that, I mean, they're literally maybe four or five families own just about all of this. It's kind of like that anywhere. So my friends now were running all this rental property. Frank Hereda (18:08.624) Okay. Jeff (18:29.354) land and everything. So I was going to them and I thought at that time I had to go out and buy a house or something and rent it out. That's what I thought real estate was. I was going to lunch with them and you know getting them to look at houses. So that's how I wanted to start. Well luckily there was a guy who was actually a retired dentist. He has a mastermind. He's having this big meeting for dentists in Dallas. for real estate and I was, so I signed up and I thought I was gonna go there to learn how to do this even more. But what it was, it was literally 99%, all these other types of investments I never heard about that was passive. And it was great because I was still able to utilize and I think everybody that's right now that has a good W-2 high paying job, that's your biggest wealth building tool is your primary income. You look at the school, the time, the energy, the effort, the debt that went into doing that. So focus on that and allow me to focus on that, continue building that and then taking that extra money, putting it into these different investments that could build multiple income streams instead of what I was doing before, which was Vanguard index funds. Frank Hereda (19:48.405) That's what I tell my clients all the time is be the best employee you can, if that's what you're doing or whatever your job is, be the best at that you can to make as much money as possible. And then you put that into whatever the alternative investments are going to be. What, talk to me about the different streams at this, at this, uh, conference, like real estate, I'm guessing is one, or were you talking like different types of sectors in real estate, or was it other things like in the index fund investing and Jeff (20:00.918) Mm-hmm. Frank Hereda (20:15.778) Did it go all across? What sectors do we cover here with that? Jeff (20:19.038) It was the majority of it was, and I don't remember every single one of them, but the main one was what I'm in now, real estate syndications. I'd never heard of that before. There were some people talking about hard money lending. There were, you know, it was, everything was real estate involved. Frank Hereda (20:23.355) Yeah. Frank Hereda (20:26.69) Okay, alright. Okay, gotcha. Okay. Frank Hereda (20:34.973) Gotcha. Okay. Gotcha. So syndications is an interesting topic. I'm in a syndication. I have a lot of people that I know that do it. I'm sure you do too. Talk to me about syndications and what interested you about that, that made you, I want to know about the process of you left thinking single families was the way to go. Then you go to this conference. I don't know what happened after. I think you're going to say you started to do syndications, but But how did you decide on how did that process work out where you were like, this is why I'm gonna do syndications and then what made you change and what action did you take when you got back? Jeff (21:09.726) And then also back then they were talking about the crowdfunding was just getting started online. Okay. And so that's where I wanted to start. So back then you could start with like 500 bucks or a thousand bucks. And the way that I was buying this, these properties online was like Amazon. Like I'd go to Amazon and look at shoes and go, Oh, those look good. I'm going to do that. So I'm like, you know, going through back then, uh, realty shares was a big. Frank Hereda (21:15.95) Okay. Oh, okay. Jeff (21:38.37) patch of land. So I was in, I was doing that. And I was looking at saying, okay, well this, this apartment building looks good or this self storage building, these numbers, whatever, what is this COC and IRR that those are high numbers. That was literally how I was investing. So I'm doing it and I'm getting like these little bitty, you know, returns coming in. I'm like, oh, this is cool. I said, so I'm going to step it up and do this, this bigger investment online, Realty Shares. Frank Hereda (21:39.835) Okay. Frank Hereda (21:59.743) Yeah. Jeff (22:07.962) crowdfunding deal. It was a apartment complex in Oklahoma City. I was like, I'm gonna go big time. I'm doing 50 grand. Put my money in and then you know they typically send you monthly email updates. Then I noticed after several months, I didn't get anything. Then six months, eight months and then finally I started getting some little things from them. Long story short, the sponsor, the general partner that was running everything, he found, again, this wasn't disclosed to us, he found a building in a high crime area. Everybody was moving out. Well, he got the bright idea to throw a bunch of money into it, make it nice, and then rent it out and people would come back. Well, guess what? It didn't work out. He lost all his money, packed up in every embed. And I started having these people email me and go, Hey, are- I saw your name on the list. Are you an investor? Maybe we should do a lawsuit. But, but in the long story short, every investor, including myself, lost all their money, 50 grand. And I, and that, and at that time I was, was started a blog debt-free doctor.com because again, I was writing down all these different things. I was learning kind of like that book. Frank Hereda (23:28.649) Were you on the journey of becoming debt free or were you debt free because you paid off your loan or when you started that blog? Jeff (23:34.602) I started that blog at the point, let's see, it was debtfreedoctor.com because it was kind of the tail end of me and my journey and paying off all that debt, Dave Ramsey, that sort of thing. Okay. Then once I started getting to real estate and learning about it, I started writing articles on it. And then that happened. Then I wrote an article about how I lost $50,000 in real estate. And I took like a year off. I was like, Frank Hereda (23:47.017) Gotcha. Yeah, gotcha. Jeff (24:03.674) I could have quit, but I said, yeah, from, from investing or else. That's like, you know, I could have quit, but I'm like, all, I mean, all of these people that I, that I know and, and other people online, I mean, it's working for them, so I don't want this just one thing to make me stop because if, if I do, then I'm just going to have to go back to what I was doing and, and I didn't want to do that because I, I. Frank Hereda (24:05.093) A year off from real estate? Okay, gotcha. Gotcha. Jeff (24:31.666) That's not what I wanted to do because of that hand injury that I had. You know, that to me, you have to have a why. And that was my why driving me. If you don't have a strong enough, why, you know, Simon Sonic book, start with why. That's not going to push you forward. You know, cause it would, it would have been easy to quit, but that was my driving force and then I started actually going. So on there, I took a step back. So like, I didn't know what I was doing. It was on me. I didn't know how to evaluate real estate. I wasn't able to meet these sponsors. So I started going to meetings to where I could meet these sponsors, but I can meet investors. So that was nice because I could meet with investors and they would say, Hey, you know, that guy over there and that person, they're really good, but stay away from these three. And, you know, so I was, and with anything in life, now that I've been doing this long enough, there's only just a handful of really good ones out there. The majority of them are scams. Unfortunately, so I really started writing a lot of articles about that. I learned how to blog. I learned how to find the high volume, low competition keywords because it was like, what's the point of writing these articles if nobody's finding it on Google? And that one skill right there has literally changed my life. Just that $500 course that I took. And it's amazing what what it's done because now I started a YouTube channel and then now Instagram and then now working with all these sponsors raising capital, but it all goes back to learning how to start a blog. I mean, it's crazy. It's very interesting. Frank Hereda (26:11.689) That's interesting. You said something interesting that one of my previous guests had said, and I agree with both of you, which is the mentality of, well, one, you didn't quit. You could easily have quit. And that's, I think, a common characteristic among people who are successful. But his belief that if they, I just have to keep going. It worked for them. I know it's gonna work for me. I just have to keep going. And, uh, and having that belief, I think is a big part of it as well. Your why absolutely. Um, so, so you bought this course and that really helped you. What did you learn along the way? And tell me about the first one that did work. So you had your first indication. You say, okay, I'm going to do this out. First of all, what a gutsy move. You've invested 50,000 outside of where you lived and, uh, you weren't even there. And, uh, that and then you had to wait a year and a half to find out it's gone. Then you took another year off. So, so far we're about two and a half years in on this journey before you took a class that maybe changed things for you. What did that look like after, you know, what did you learn in that class? And then what did you decide to do after that? And what did you do differently the second time? Jeff (27:23.594) Well, I realized, well, I started realizing what I didn't know. Remember, you don't know what you don't know. We talked about before and there was just so much to it. And the main thing is people are looking at all these return. I mean, people can write down whatever return they want. Like, Oh, this is a 20% IRR, 10% cash on cash, 3X equity, multiple. You can put all the numbers you want. And unfortunately that's legal. The, the The thing with real estate syndications is, you know, it's a group investment that the passive investors are putting their money in. They're like the passengers on the plane or the pilots on the plane of the general partners. The most important thing is finding general partners that you can trust that have a track record. Kind of like if you can pick a mutual fund, you don't want to get one that's only been out for six months. You want one that's been out for 20 years. You want that track record. You want the experience. That's the number one thing. And that's what I focused on, you know? And at that time I had read Gary Keller's book, The One Thing. I've read it multiple times, but at that time that was my one thing, finding trusted resources. And at that time I did found a group, got a lot of reviews. I met with a lot of people and like, Hey, best with this guy. I said, okay. I even called him up, talked to me on the phone. Hey, if you want to come meet me versus the. the crowdfunding where you don't know who you're working with. So another $50,000 investment, apartment complex in Dallas. It took me about two years from that $50,000 loss to this point, about two years to make another investment. And Frank Hereda (29:10.173) How old are you with, just a curiosity, how old are you at this time? How old are your kids? Jeff (29:15.394) This was 2017. So what is that? Seven years ago, something like that. So I'm 49. So I was at 42. So my kids were like 10 and 12, something like that. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Frank Hereda (29:28.341) Okay, I just like to give people perspective because that's stressful. Like you're running a business, you've already lost 50 grand, you're convincing your wife to let you do it again, you've got two kids that are, you know, I mean this is not, this is a stressful situation for most people. Jeff (29:44.135) Yeah. The preferred return was an 8% preferred return. So meaning like if you invested a hundred grand, they were they were paying monthly. So for a hundred grand investment, they would pay you $8,000 a year. It was a five-year hold period and they would pay that monthly. I invested 50 grand and it took like three or four months and I got I remember getting a check for $333.33 which is which is 8% of 50 grand is $4,000 divided by 12 is that. I was like, holy cow, this just paid for my internet bill or electricity bill or whatever, and I didn't have to treat patients. And this was like a February, and then by December, just a few months later, I invested another 50 grand with them. Guess what? I got $666 and it was like a month, I'm like. So, and I don't know if there's a term for this or not, but I know with Dave Ramsey has the debt snowball, you know, where you pay off your debt smallest to largest. Well, I was thinking this is a passive income snowball. I started small and then I started adding more streams, more streams, more streams. And that's what really got me going. And what was cool about it, you know, I'm telling people about it. Jeff (31:08.262) And I was getting ready to invest in another, this is 2020, apartment complex in Dallas. And I said, Jeff, if we make, you know, do everything legal and make you like a co-journal partner, do you want to see if some people on your email list, at that time only had like 220 accredited investors, and I had two different lists. One that weren't accredited, but bad. I said, do you want to see if some of those 200 people want to invest? And here's kind of. If you're a general partner, here's kind of what you get. Blah, blah, blah. I was like, all right. So I took their email that they sent out and I kind of changed it a little bit to my, like it's coming from me. I sent one out, 48 hours later, I sent another one out and then they emailed me and then they were sending it out to their list too. Then they emailed me and said, okay, you can stop, we filled it up. You just raised $2.4 million in 48 hours. I was like, what? Because I didn't know what was going on. I'm just sending emails out. So that got me into the whole world again, you don't know what you don't know of raising capital. Again, Frank going back all started from learning how to start a blog. Just that one skill, I want people to understand that no matter what you do, your job, if you're an employee, if you're a business owner, whatever, there's something out there, there's one skill that you can learn. And I like to write, I didn't know that, but I really like to write. I really like to do YouTube videos now that we've gotten into that. But if you just learn one little skill, it's, you know, and I remember doing that. I was like, you know, I have a nurse anesthetist that comes a day a week. Well, it takes about 25 minutes in between each cases for a patient to wake up. And then we put another patient in. So she comes a day a week. And I remember one of my nurses early on when I was blogging, because I would get finished and that's when I would write my blogs in between patients. And she was like, why, you know, Dr. Anzal, why, why do you, why are you doing this? Are you even making money on it? It's like, no, I just enjoy doing it. So I did that for two years without seeing a dime and I was just enjoying doing it. So my point is Jeff (33:22.774) So many people do these side gigs or side hustles, and it's just focused on when they want to make money. And I really think that you should, again, just take something that you like, that you're passionate about, or an issue that you had, like a failure or trial tribulation like I had, and just go, you know what? I just want to turn around. I just want to help other people. How can I get my voice out, whether you want to do Instagram or Facebook or blog or YouTube, whatever it is? It's amazing. You have no idea where that can take you. Frank Hereda (33:56.317) Totally agree. Um, I love the fact that you say that. And I would actually, you said both, but I would actually go more to, and if you like writing, then definitely blogging, uh, we do YouTube as well. We have one for our real estate channel and I started another one, but that's a great way to build an audience too. I say, find your tribe, right? So you're finding, you're attracting your tribe and then that's a great way to get their contact and you can do live videos, you can do all kinds of things and create a community. And that's what you didn't have. back in the day, right? So, and that's what's now more prevalent, but that's really, really interesting. So, you started to raise money, help assist raise money. Now, are you doing deals on your own? Are you still doing them as an LP or co-GP? Or what are you doing now? What's the, what does it look like, the landscape now, and where do you wanna go? Jeff (34:51.718) Once I got in, as this is my personality, once I got going, I wanted to, again, I didn't want to work for somebody else, kind of like that other dental, I wanted to do my own thing. And luckily I connected with the guy. So I'm in a Facebook group for dentists that are interested in real estate. And there was a dentist in there and he reached out to me and he said, hey, I've partnered with a real estate attorney in Nashville and we own two RV parks and we're killing it. You think any of your investors would be interested. And I was like, I don't know. Then I saw, I started creating content articles and videos about it. And I had a little bit of interest. So they had a deal coming up and I have an SEC attorney and I ran and they're like, Hey, we can offer you, this is what we can kind of offer you. If you can raise the money. I was like 800 grand or something like that. And what they were offering me was literally nothing. And And I said, look, I'll do this. And I told him, I see, see attorney. And he was just like, man, what are you doing this for? And like, you're literally working for friends. Like, look, I want to show them. I want to prove myself and then just see what happens. Uh, raise the money. And I did and didn't say anything else. And I didn't even have to ask. So the next time we did a deal, I said, Hey, you know, we want to make you like a third partner with this because you did so well and you know, that I would have been, I would, if they would have still wanted the same terms, I would have, you know, done some negotiation. But. And then actually this year they went back and say, you know, we were reviewing things and on that first deal, you didn't really get what you deserve. So we're going to give you a little more equity in that deal when it, when it sells or whatever. And so now I've actually, uh, we've started a, uh, man in that real estate attorney, we've started the blue metric group and, um, we're now we've just acquired our 17th RV park and. Frank Hereda (36:31.753) So it's, oh, sorry, go ahead. Jeff (36:48.018) We're really building it out. I mean, it's a fantastic asset class. Private equity has pretty much bought up all the mobile home parks, and they're starting to get into RV parks. And our kind of our overall goal is we're going to, you know, private equity that's calling us now, they want us to have at least about 30 parks, and then they want to come in and, you know, potentially just buy out the whole thing. So that's our overall strategy right now. But we get in investors, we're able to, pay them really good returns. You know, basically everything that I was wanting back then, I'm able to do it now for other people, which is really cool. So it's pretty much come full circle. Frank Hereda (37:29.589) That is really cool. That's really neat. So it's funny too, because you, would you have ever guessed that you'd be doing RV parks if, you know, if you had asked anybody probably. Jeff (37:41.15) No, I mean, like people would, people, you know, would up until literally a couple of years ago, what do you do for a living? I'm a dentist. Now they ask me that and I say, well, I, dentists by trade, but I'm mainly involved with army parks and mobile home parks. They're like, wait a minute. That's usually always a good, interesting conversation on a plane. People are like, wait, how did you get into that? And you know, so that, that's pretty cool. Frank Hereda (37:55.677) Yeah. Frank Hereda (38:04.985) Yeah. So I hear you say you help other people do this. Is it just the people on your blog? How do you do you have anything different that you help people with? Or do you just walk people through deals? Or how do you get you know, what's your do you have another way you reach people or just through your blog? And that's when you help them when they show interest in investing. Jeff (38:24.054) Well, for me it's education first. So we have the articles, then I repurpose those into YouTube videos. And then some on Instagram. And then people typically will reach out to me and if they're interested in investing in deals, we have an email list that we send out. People can look at them, but they won't invest. You know, a lot of times they'll want to have a call and they don't understand some things, so we'll walk them through what different things mean. And, um, I actually have a coach that I hired this year who's working with me because for me, I've hired, I've had coaches, business coaches, business coaches, real estate coaches, and they've helped me so much. And I'm in the process now of starting a coaching program because there's so many things that I can help people with and you can attest to this as a coach, people that pay, pay attention. And most of the people that I talk to, they don't do anything because they don't pay anything. And I really want to get people in that are serious about changing their lives. They want to put up some money and that means that they're serious to help them. And that's what I'm working on now. And I'll have that up and running by the middle to end of the year. Frank Hereda (39:45.801) Do you see yourself ever not being a dentist anymore and going full time into the real estate space or you think you'll keep it split for a long time? What are your plans for the future? Jeff (39:55.67) Right now I'm part-time, I'm practicing three days a week. I'll eventually sell, bring somebody in or sell my practice and then I'll do, I tell people I practice three days a week, but I'm involved with real estate seven days a week. So it keeps me busy. And I think that's really important because I know people that are still working because they have nothing else to do. And I know people that are retired, that are bored. And I didn't wanna do that. I wanted to retire to something. And I think that's important. Frank Hereda (40:09.806) Yeah, yeah it does. Jeff (40:25.234) I've been doing this for almost 20 years and that's a long time to do something. And life's too short, you know? And so I'm excited about this next stage of my life. Frank Hereda (40:28.987) It is. Frank Hereda (40:34.365) Good for you. Last question before we wrap up. What's the one thing that you wish you knew when you started that you know now? What piece of advice would you give anybody who, whether they're in your shoes or another job, and they want to be financially free, that's what I'm passionate about for people is, besides being focused on what they're doing and being in shape, it's the financial freedom part. That's why it's free. So. What would your recommendation be? What's the piece of advice? Jeff (41:06.218) Now, I can only answer that question based on my personal experience. For me, I didn't like all that student loan debt hanging over my head. So I would have continued to just bust my butt and pay that off as quickly as possible because we get out and we have a good income. What I would have done differently is after that, I would have as quickly as possible started to figure out ways to replace our personal expenses to become, to get to the point where work is optional. Because if not, you have lifestyle creep. You know, you get the bigger house, the cars, the kids get more expensive and it's just like, you know, weddings and you never, the best time to do it is early on in your career because life just gets more complicated and more expensive. So going back, that's what I would have done differently. Frank Hereda (41:54.269) Very true. So I hear you saying what I say is cash flowing your life. So focusing on cash flowing your life as soon as possible. Paying your expenses, passive income. Jeff (42:04.682) Yeah. But it's just a different feeling if you can go to work and you, you're at work because you want to be there. You don't have to be there because work is optional. That's a whole, that's a whole, you know, somebody comes in and they're just working their butt off and they really need this dentistry and they can't pay for it. Well, if you're strapped with debt, it's, you're not going to do it. But if you're like, okay, well, money's not an issue. I'll do it for you. Again, it's just a different mindset. Frank Hereda (42:13.875) Absolutely. Frank Hereda (42:28.525) Exactly. It is. Well, you do things differently. You look at things differently. You have a different feeling and outlook. So I agree. Well, this has been great. What's where would you like people to find you if they want to go find you? What's your YouTube channel? Social? Where would you like people to go your blog? Jeff (42:48.322) Yeah, the easiest thing is everything is on the blog, debtfreedoctor.com. I have the link. If you want to take a look at some of the YouTube videos, they're there on the blog. Instagram link is on the blog. I have a, right when you sign in, there's a free passive income guide that I put together. So once, once they do that, you put your email in, we'll send it to you. Then you'll be put on our email list and we send you. just articles and videos throughout the month. And then if you're interested in investing in deals or eventually coaching, you'll have our email address. You can just reach out. Frank Hereda (43:29.973) Great. Well, I appreciate it. Thank you for the time. We know you're busy and, um, if anybody has any other questions, they can always also go to frank rita.com and, uh, Jeff appreciate you and good luck. We wish you the best and maybe we'll have a second part to this in the future, you never know. Jeff (43:49.442) Yeah, once the coaching program gets up and going, yeah, I'd love to come back and share some stories of different wins we've helped our clients. Frank Hereda (43:59.013) Love to hear about it. I wish you the best success. So, uh, look forward to talking again. All right, everybody till the next episode. Have a great day.