Supercharge Your Real Estate Career: The Mindset and Work Ethic Formula with Nick Lamaison

00:00:14 - Mike Mills

Howdy. Howdy. Howdy. Hey, Realtors. Right now, we are in a market where houses linger a little bit longer, and there's actually a lot of Realtors out there right now hanging up there for sale signs they're getting out of the business. So how do you not just survive, but how do you thrive in this industry right now? Whether you're feeling the squeeze or simply looking to elevate your already successful game, today's episode dives deep into the mindsets and habits that can transform your real estate venture even in the slowest of seasons. If you've ever thought about walking away or you just want to edge in your strategy, this is one episode that you don't want to miss. So, hello, everybody. My name is Mike Mills and this is Mike Mills Mortgage and Finance podcast, and I have 13 years under my belt as a mortgage loan originator. So I've been in the trenches with you guys. I understand the intricacies of this ever evolving industry, and every week I want to bring you fresh perspective from leading professionals in the real estate sphere. From spotlight interviews, from top tier agents, to strategies on how to market yourself in this competitive field. And not just that, we connect the dots with professionals from industries that touch every aspect of being a Realtor, offering you a 360 degree insight into the forces shaping the real estate industry today. So why should you tune in every week? Because whether you're a seasoned pro or someone simply fascinated by the real estate market, this podcast is your blueprint to success, ensuring that you stay informed, innovative, and always a step ahead of the competition. Now, before we dive in, just a quick reminder to all my listeners out there. If you're finding value in these episodes, do not forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss another update. And for the full episode experience, make sure you check out and subscribe to my YouTube page. Mike Mills, Mortgage and Finance. Your support keeps this thing going and helps stuttering I'm gonna wrote all this stuff out. I'm trying to be good on this. Your support keeps me going and keeps me bringing back more enriching content week after week. So let's get started here. So today we're excited to welcome someone whose journey in real estate in the real estate world is nothing short of inspiring. After being a real estate investor for half a decade, my guest took the plunge and became a licensed Realtor just over a year ago. And while stepping into the market that was headed in a downward trend might have dissuaded many, he kept charging ahead, leveraging his unique skills and mindset. Being a former college athlete or quarterback specifically, he knows a thing or two about strategy, focus, and perseverance. His unwavering positive outlook and steadfast daily routines have not only driven his success, but can serve as an example for every Realtor out there. Whether you've been in the industry for a day or a decade. There's a lot to glean from this guy's approach. So let's welcome Nick Lamaison to the show. Howdy, Nick.

00:02:55 - Nick Lamaison

How's it going, Mike? Thanks for having me.

00:02:57 - Mike Mills

Sorry, that was a, uh I'm trying to refine my game on this thing, and I'll get better at this as we go, obviously, but I got to put a few things in the front side of this deal to make sure because we're trying to grow it a little bit. So I apologize for you being my test dummy. Yeah, my test dummy.

00:03:14 - Nick Lamaison

No worries. Happy to do it.

00:03:16 - Mike Mills

So I want to carry over our conversation from lunch the other day that we had a couple of weeks back. I really want people to understand kind of where your head is and how you approach your business every single day. And I think I was inspired by our conversation because I love it when I meet positive people that impact their business and their life in a way that it doesn't matter good or bad, they're always in the same place. Look, we all have good days and bad days, so a time where we're all perfect all the time. But I think your approach is something that could really help a lot of people. And so that's why I wanted to bring you on and kind of talk about a little bit. Now, obviously, you've only been selling for a year, but we'll get into that some too. But you've been in the investor, so you've been in the space a while, so we're going to talk about that some. But before we get to all that, let's find out a little bit about how you got to where you're at.

00:04:06 - Nick Lamaison

Right?

00:04:06 - Mike Mills

So we got to know the backstory some, where we came from, how we got here, and then we can kind of dive into the rest of it. So why don't you tell everybody a little bit about where you came from and how you got to be an agent?

00:04:15 - Nick Lamaison

Yeah, absolutely. I'll really start with just how I got involved with real estate in general. Overall, I think for me, it all kind of was like when I was younger. As a kid, it started as a fascination, to be honest. It kind of started with, like, MTV Cribs okay. And just, like, looking at different home designs, I want to say one was like, Master P. He had, like, the gold plated roof. And that I don't know, it just caught, you know, I had that intrigue on it. I was like, oh, I'm generally interested in this. And then as I got older, you kind of kept hearing that consistent dialogue of real estate is a good investment. It's one of the safest investments, creates 90% of the millionaires. And so all of that was just kind of in the background. And then it really came to a forefront when I kind of made the plunge myself and bought my first property because at that time, it was just a good general idea. I didn't know much about it, but then I purchased my first property, and now it seemed like everything opened up, and it was really just the opportunity, because I realized all the opportunity from an investor side. I realized all of the intricate details of the transactions and how that worked and what I liked about my transactions or what I thought could be better going forward. And so really, once I purchased my first property, then it kind of really started getting the ball rolling, and I was like, I love this. I'm super passionate about this. This kind of reminds me of my old athletic days. I like the fuel and the fire that this is bringing back. And so there was a duality of, well, I'm still in corporate America. I'm still working my job there, but now I'm building this investment portfolio. And then it came to a forefront where I said, I got to pick what direction?

00:05:59 - Mike Mills

You got to pick a road.

00:06:00 - Nick Lamaison

I got to pick a road. And I kind of pulled the trigger on it last year, my wife and I was a decision we made together, and I'm very happy. Year one has been great. It's been crazy. Yes, tons of learning things, got to meet people like you and all kinds of other really cool people, but it's been very fun. But I see some of the long term telltale signs right now, and I'm trying to keep everything in perspective and say, hey, give yourself time. This is what I'm doing for the next 30 years, right? So don't burn yourself out in year One and really kind of focus more horizontal maybe than so vertical right now and see, how many different segments can I get involved in, how much can I build out? And then just kind of scale from there, right?

00:06:45 - Mike Mills

And just see what opportunities come up. Now, you're in a unique spot because you mentioned it a little bit when you said it a second ago, but you are a former college athlete. And whenever I've hired people in the past to do stuff with our company, I actually really enjoy hiring former athletes because there's a certain level of work ethic that those guys have or gals, too, where, look, we all played stuff in high school, and that's fine. I was a high school athlete. That's one thing. But when you go to college, it's a whole other ballgame. And actually, my daughter's 16 years old right now, and she's a volleyball player, and so she's about to be 16. We're kind of talking about, is this something that you would want to pursue? And she says, yes, but then she also nowadays has access to the Internet and has access to other people that have been through it, and she's like, dad, it's like a job. And I'm like, yeah, it absolutely is. Look, you get the stepping on the court on whatever day or on the field on Saturdays for you, and you get that adrenaline rush that comes with that. Right. And that's kind of the payoff. But the lead up to that is six or seven days a week of practice and following your nutrition schedule and getting up early and practicing late and trying to get your grades together and all that kind of stuff, it is not an easy thing to do. So when I come across former athletes, typically they have a stronger work ethic than most people that you meet. And so can you speak a little bit about what that journey was like for you, going from coming out of high school into college and then, look, you're not in the NFL, right? So it's not like the story ends with you getting drafted by the jets. But there's so many lessons that people can pick.

00:08:30 - Nick Lamaison

They could probably use me right now.

00:08:33 - Mike Mills

Yeah. Did you see there was a thing on the Internet about the guy that had the bar in Green Bay who said that he was going to give away oh, yeah.

00:08:42 - Nick Lamaison

And everybody ran up their tasks, and.

00:08:44 - Mike Mills

Then the jets ran that product back.

00:08:46 - Nick Lamaison

That was hilarious.

00:08:47 - Mike Mills

Oh, it's great. But I just want you to talk about how going through college athletics and all the successes and failures because it's filled with both absolutely. What that kind of puts you at for today and how that's benefited you being an agent and an investor.

00:09:02 - Nick Lamaison

Yeah. So first I'll touch on kind of like the difference in the high school. I went to junior college, too, before college. And then I will say the biggest thing for me is I was just a guy who was pretty talented. I had a really good arm, great work ethic, but I didn't have a great regiment routine and discipline yet when I was in high school and junior college was still developing that. But when I went to college, it was like sink or swim. It was like, if you want to compete at the highest level, I mean, these are a lot of the people I played against went into the NFL. People I played with went into the so, you know, you have to be dedicated to your daily regiment. Your routine doesn't matter if you feel like it. That's the last thing any athlete should be thinking. And they're in college when they wake up in the morning, it's like your day is already decided. Yes, you're working out at 06:00 A.m.. Then your day is going to be a collection of practice, study hall, film session if you're a quarterback, another film session, maybe some more workouts and different things like that. It's pretty much like a 06:00 A.m. To 10:00 p.m. Job every single day. And what I didn't realize then, especially as you're younger, too, you're kind of rejecting that. You're like, gosh, so exhausting. Everybody thinks it's the glitz and glamour of college football, and you're like, I don't have a second to myself.

00:10:19 - Mike Mills

Yes.

00:10:20 - Nick Lamaison

But what I didn't realize was that was the most helpful and the most valuable thing for me, because that literally, if I look at my routine today, this morning, and I look at my routine back then, it's the exact same thing. And it all really starts with that level of discipline where it doesn't matter how I feel. I don't care. I always say how people feel in the morning is like a collection of how hydrated are you? How much did you eat? What were you listening to the previous day? What movie did you watch? And just a collection of all these different experiences. And then whatever you do during your rest time, maybe you sleep well, maybe you don't. And then you wake up and you go, how do I feel? And then a lot of people let that dictate their actions. And what we've done is we just reverse engineered that and said, I don't care how I feel. How I feel is a byproduct of the day. That's cool, but I'm going to still wake up regardless and execute everything that I need to get done. And football really kind of and the college life instilled that into me at a higher level. And there was pressure behind all of that, whereas, like, in high school and junior college, it was like, oh, you're a great athlete, and there's no pressure behind you.

00:11:26 - Mike Mills

Everybody's singing your praises.

00:11:28 - Nick Lamaison

Exactly. And everybody's like, oh, this guy's going to make it to the next level. And then also kind of the second point you talked about was it taught you how to deal with a lot of failure, which helps me tremendously in the sales field now, where it's like, hey, I'm going to throw. An interception on a drive, and I can go pout about it. And I'm probably going to throw another interception, maybe fumble the ball the next time, and you're going to go to the sideline and you're going to put the headphones on. And it's kind of like this. Coaches, what's funny is I wanted to tell you this. They don't yell at you during games, okay?

00:12:03 - Mike Mills

Incredibly smart. No, because they don't want to drag you down further.

00:12:06 - Nick Lamaison

Exactly. So, like, practice that's.

00:12:08 - Mike Mills

Forget about it.

00:12:09 - Nick Lamaison

Make one mistake, and you're going to know for sure. The whole team will know as well. But in the games, they're kind of nice, hey, what'd you see there, what's going on? They're trying to keep your head in the game. But throughout that career and all of that, you just dealt with so much that translated into today, where it's like so much adversity battling through things. How do you build great rapport as a quarterback? You've got to build great rapport with ten other guys, at least on your offense, and another eleven on the defense, who come from all different walks of life, all different personality types. There's just so many different things you have to adapt to. So it's literally, I think, about today, it's almost comical how well it prepared me for my life and everything I do, but I keep that same mentality where I wake up. I don't care how I feel. I genuinely don't.

00:13:00 - Mike Mills

Well, I think it's hard for kids, or it is hard for kids, because we were all a kid at one point, but you don't have the benefit of time or wisdom, I guess you would call it. But I don't think of wisdom as smart. I think of wisdom as experience, as going through stuff. And when you're an adult, you look back and you go, man, that was easy, that was great. You know what I mean? And I didn't realize as a child or as an adolescent how hard life was going to be. And I don't mean hard like, I've had a good life. There's people who have way worse than me, but I just mean the grind of it, right? And we talked about this when we had lunch the other day. Is it's one of those things where you wake up in the morning or people wake up and they think, everything's going to be great today, right. Or everything's going to work out?

00:13:47 - Nick Lamaison

Yeah.

00:13:47 - Mike Mills

And more often than not, it doesn't, right?

00:13:50 - Nick Lamaison

There's always going to be almost never, right?

00:13:52 - Mike Mills

There's always going to be obstacles, and there never really is an end. Right. You don't really get to it's like, okay, I'm working really hard. I'm going to get this buyer a contract, right? As a realtor right? I'm going to get this buyer a contract. We're going to get them under contract. We get it done, we get the option period. We get the earnest money. We go through inspection and the appraisal and the loan and all the other stuff, and you get to the end, you're clear to close, and you're done, and you sign the contract, and you get your check.

00:14:16 - Nick Lamaison

Yeah, right? Yeah.

00:14:18 - Mike Mills

Okay. Well, now what?

00:14:20 - Nick Lamaison

Exactly.

00:14:20 - Mike Mills

You got to go close another loan, right? You got to go buy it, get another help another buyer, help another seller. So it never ends. And when it does end, aren't you just dead at that point? That's kind of what happens when it's all over. I always joke about the people that will tell me, when I retire, I'm going to spend every day on the beach.

00:14:40 - Nick Lamaison

Yeah, exactly. I'm like every day.

00:14:42 - Mike Mills

Every day. At some point, that's going to get old and get boring. You have to have a reason to get out of bed. And what you illustrated there was just people's your desire internally to know that I'm getting up today, I'm going to go through my routine, go through my workouts, go my practices, do all this stuff, and then I'm going to have to do it again tomorrow. And I'm going to have to do it again the next day. I'm going to have to do it again the day after that. And if you don't have to do it anymore as a college athlete, well, that means you're not a college athlete anymore, right? Is that what you want? It's the journey, it's not the destination, right?

00:15:16 - Nick Lamaison

And on that I want to say on that, and this is something I'm not perfect at either, but I want to say, especially now in this business, being a realtor on the sales side, all of your joy and being proud of yourself. Each day you have to remove it as far as you can from your closings and your commission and all of that. All of it is rooted in your daily effort. So if you got up and you did 30 tasks today that were really high priority and you got after it and you had great passion, you probably get to the end of the day and you're like, well, I didn't close a deal today, but it's like getting away from that. And I'm hard on myself with that too, because I'm like, well, why do naya not feel the same joy and excitement and level of energy from just my daily effort as I do from my closing? And then closing feels like a celebration. It's a win. You do the posting, you do all this and that.

00:16:05 - Mike Mills

You get money. Money is great, right?

00:16:07 - Nick Lamaison

And that is true. But I think I'm always just hard on myself. I'm always trying to make myself better. And I think the more that all of us can root ourself in, our joy and contentment is all rooted in our efforts because the collection of your efforts will bring the results that you want.

00:16:24 - Mike Mills

So you were talking a minute ago about going horizontally in the real estate business. And I think if I remember correctly when we talked, are you still doing property management? Okay, so talk a little bit about that because a lot of agents hate property management. They can't stand it. And I've heard from multiple different successful agents that have done property management, are still doing property management, that it's actually a very beneficial thing to your business. So how did you get into that and what does that look like for you?

00:16:50 - Nick Lamaison

So kind of happened kind of slowly and gradual. So I first was just managing my own properties and at the time when I was working corporate, just but was acquiring properties, one of the owners of the branch there, he had like nine properties. And so I'd like pick his brain on an extra shift on Saturday. I was like small time then. He was a big time guy. And then, so he always told me, he taught me in that time when I was talking with him, that you can manage X amount, but once you get to X amount, then you're going to want to outsource it. And I said, okay, so I took that with me. But then one of the most important lessons he taught me, and I just want to make sure I communicate, is the importance of building really good relationships with your tenants. It is important I do a really good job of learning all of my tenants, understanding what they do for a living, what their passions are, what motivates them, why are they with me, and for how long, and what's the next plan and all these things. So anyways, so as I kind of started progressing, I would meet with different real estate investors, and I'd ask them, hey, what's your take on property management? When do you think I should do that? How many properties do you think I could take on by myself? And I had a couple calls with some different guys, and they all kind of told me, don't do it. Well, they were telling me, don't pass it off to a property management company. Okay? And I want to say I don't have anything against any property management company, and I work with property management companies all in DFW from time to time. But they had told me that they don't build the relationship with the tenants. And so there's so much turnover, and there's just not that kind of you guys are working together feel that you can have. And so what I did was, I was like, okay, let me just see how long I can take on all of my own properties. And then I really never got to the point where I was like, this is too much for me to handle. This is too much for me to manage. And for me, the real estate business, just by and large, it's a big people business, and I love the people side of it. So I never would want to not know who my tenants are or not know what's going on with them, just because I'm generally fascinated in those types of things. And so I just had taken it on by myself, put all the resources together. I made some mistakes there. Sure, I used to work with some third party companies that I won't mention any names here, but I kind of moved away from because I saw a clear divide between putting a Band Aid on a problem and finding root cause of the problem. And so when I put bandaids on, I got so many more calls specifically related to maintenance. My tenants were more frustrated, and it was just so many more things I had to work through. It like, work for a month, and then it would break again. Fix a little sensor, it breaks again. So what I started doing is getting all those vendors myself, individually. So I have my plumber, my AC guy, roof guy, painting, get your own book, everybody. And then I moved away from those third party companies, and then now it's even been easier because every time there's a problem, I get root cause fixed right away and it's handled. And so that went so well. That well. Who, who else can I help with? So, you know, a lot of my marketing is know, hey, rental properties. And it's profitable here and it's profitable in some markets in the US. And some markets not. So and so me, I have a large background in the Southern California area, and so a lot of folks, they want to invest money, but it just doesn't make sense because you can't get.

00:20:03 - Mike Mills

The rent for what you're paying for the property.

00:20:04 - Nick Lamaison

Exactly.

00:20:05 - Mike Mills

Done.

00:20:05 - Nick Lamaison

Cash flow. Now, the 1% rule, as I like to call it, it doesn't work there. So a lot of those people reached out to me and said, hey, if I bought a property over there, would you manage it for me? And so that's kind of how organically it kind of started. And I just took those on and what I did is I just standardized what I was doing. Yeah, you put a process naturally done. I standardize it. So now anytime we bring in someone new, we use that same standard process. And so everything has been kind of organic how it happened, but now it's growing more and more because we're doing a good job now. Not only I'm looking after properties the same way that I look after my own.

00:20:41 - Mike Mills

Yeah.

00:20:41 - Nick Lamaison

So it most oftentimes goes really well and there's an incredible level of communication with everyone throughout which I know everyone feels good about, even when bad things happen. But now the focus is like, okay, how can I scale that? Like I talked about, go horizontal and then scale from there. So now say, I know we're going to get into it a little bit later, but now I want to take on larger communities and kind of expand that and kind of look at what does the scope of work look like for those. So we're looking at like a 60 unit complex right now, doing property management for them. So we're kind of kicking the tires on that, looking what that looks like, what would the scope look like, what all is going to be involved? We'll see how that goes into the next year. But that's how the property management came about. Was just doing it by myself. I learned an incredible amount. I standardize all of that and now I help clients with that and then now trying to expand it to the multi unit facilities.

00:21:41 - Mike Mills

Well, it's funny you said a minute ago about making some mistakes and I think the internet or social media or whatever you want to call it's, kind of ruined people to the expectations of how this kind of stuff works. Because what you see people talk about is, well, look where I'm at now. Look what I did now, look where I got to. And not enough people, I don't think, are saying, hey, look, I'm here doing this. But you didn't see the two years of hell that I went through learning and making the mistakes. And mistakes cost money and mistakes cost time and they're frustrated and the frustration part of it and the failure feeling like I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Should I get out of this thing because it's not working the way I thought. All of that. I think everybody that has any level of success at anything goes through that. And I don't feel like that part is highlighted enough because in order to really help people understand that are looking for that or trying to find it, you got to understand that it's okay to have failure. It's okay to screw up because everybody does.

00:22:36 - Nick Lamaison

It's part of it.

00:22:36 - Mike Mills

Yeah. It's part of the deal. That's how you learn. You don't learn. When my son was young, he was like two years old and he was in the living room and there was a drawer on one of our TV cabinet or whatever. I don't even know what they're called anymore, but I'm not a furniture naming guy. But anyway, where our TV was, there was a drawer in this cabinet and he was like pushing it back and forth trying to stand up. And my wife was behind me and she was like, hey, he's going to smash his fingers in the drawer. And I was like, yeah, I know. And she's like, he's two. Now granted, I was a little extreme in that situation. Well, when he does it, he's not going to do it anymore. She's like he's two. Sure enough, man, like 2 seconds later he smashes his fingers. But you have to go through these trials and tribulations in order for you to really appreciate coming out the backside and learning every detail about what you just did. So you become better at whatever your craft is. Right. But the other side of that, which is something that you said a second ago that I want you to talk about is the process of it. Right. I'm really big right now on and I've talked to a few people about this in different classes and stuff about the goal. Like I love Atomic Habits, one of my favorite books got you and the ideas behind goals versus processes. Right? And goals are great. We all have our little vision boards and realtors go to title companies and make their little posters and cut out pictures of cars and homes and all that stuff. That's great. That's awesome. Right? But then what? Right? Okay, you've got a goal. Goals are great. But how do you execute the plan to get to it? So I want you to start first and I just want you to talk about your daily routine, like what you do on a day to day basis. Because I think everything is foundational, right? It's like, well, I have this plan for this open house I'm going to do. Or I have this plan for. This, but what happens when your day goes chaotic and you can't execute that plan and it gets down to what do you like in the morning? What do you do, where do you eat, where do you drink? All that kind of stuff. So talk a little bit about your routines and how you get your day going.

00:24:31 - Nick Lamaison

Yeah, absolutely. And I'll start with kind of annual goals first because that's where my daily routines come from. So everyone has annual goals. We all want to do stuff. We usually set them up in January and we usually give them up by February. And so about every November and December, my wife and I, and actually last year, my sister in law, she made it very fun and she's very good at doing that where we were all going to draw and put our goals together. And we all drew this big art piece, little graphic thing. Mine looked horrible, so I won't show it. So what I do is I take those goals and then I just reverse engineer that to a daily habit. And what I always tell people is like, hitting all of your goals is very simple, but it's very hard because it's totally contingent upon consistency. And so if you want to lose 20 pounds in a year, well, there's a mathematical equation that you can do that with 365 days or however you're going to do it if you want to do it in six months. And you can say, hey, I need to be in a caloric deficit, this amount every single week on average. And then eventually by my six months, I will hit my goal. And so that's what I do with everything. So my annual goals are not just real estate related, not just business related. It's every part of my life. Personal, family, relationships, every single thing. So that's how we start the year. And then on a day to day basis, the earlier the better. Just try to get up as early as you realistically can while feeling well rested. Because there's another thing, like, I'm not the nicest guy when I haven't slept that well.

00:26:01 - Mike Mills

Sleep is very important.

00:26:03 - Nick Lamaison

It's super important. Especially too to consistently hit it hard every single day. So it's like, okay, you slept 4 hours and you can hit it hard one more day. But how does day six and seven, how's your performance there probably lacking. For me, it's all get up as early as you can and then it's all rooted in the gym. It's the gym. And for me, it's weightlifting. But I think everyone should have some type of exercise routine, whether it's walking, riding, a physical activity, anything that you want to do, and also stuff something that you like to do, get into.

00:26:33 - Mike Mills

We have to want to do it right. You can't force yourself to go, well, I'm going to go ride the bike every day, but I hate it. I was like, okay, well, then you need to find something else. You find something that you like.

00:26:41 - Nick Lamaison

And so the thing that I love about the gym is it teaches you what's called progressive overload. And so that's why people are successful in the gym. That's why your muscles grow, because you progressively overload the stimulus on your muscles. So when I work out and I increase the stimulus by five pounds every week, my muscles go, oh my, what is it? What is happening? We have to evolve. We have to expand and we'll grow. And then I become stronger, I become better, I become healthier. And so I've taken that same ideology and plugged it into your tasks that you complete each day. So I say, okay, well, how can we progressively overload our tasks and the amount of work that we're putting out and all of that? So first I look at the gym and I go, well, how am I able to progressively overload here? And it's because I track, right? So I'm tracking every single weight, every single rep, every single thing that I'm doing, every single day. Then I'm incrementally increasing on that. So then what? I've taken that into, plugged it into the business, and now I do task tracking. And so this is stuff that would never really be caught. Some of it would be, and so sometimes I'm filling it out two places, but this would most likely never be caught in a CRM. It's like little things you do, text message, little email, little call, something quick, something fast that you wouldn't think about. I'm tracking all of that every single day, all the time, so I can know what's your average level of completion each day. So how many tasks do you normally get? And as I've been doing it, I think 20 has been like a consistent number that I hit when I'm not really trying to go overboard, but I can consistently hit. And now each task has multiple tasks within it. Sometimes it's just one by itself, but now I progressively overload that effort, and so I can kind of continue to push my workload and push my workload and push my workload. Because going back to the annual goals, if I want to do 30 deals, how many people do I need to talk to, right? How many people did I talk to last year and how many deals did I get done? And then it's simple math. And so I just use the math there to kind of define what I want to do in my daily routine. But, like, structure wise, it's gym in the morning. I do a lot of my coaching client calls, like 08:00 A.m. To 09:30 A.m., because it's the only time that won't affect my real estate clients, typically.

00:28:48 - Mike Mills

Okay.

00:28:48 - Nick Lamaison

And no tours. Usually no one wants a tour at 08:00 in the morning.

00:28:52 - Mike Mills

Luckily not usually.

00:28:53 - Nick Lamaison

Yeah, so then I'll do calls from 08:00 A.m. To 930, and those calls are mutually beneficial. It's me pouring into a lot of young guys, typically, that want to get involved in real estate investing, want to learn more about real estate, all those things. But it also fulfills one of my passions, which is being a coach, being a mentor, and really just paying back people that knowing. Like, hey, someone helped me along my way. Someone encouraged me. Someone gave me advice. You gave me advice the other day at lunch, and I took it to heart, and I applied it. What was that you told me? You said, hey, show more of the real side of investing, the things that you deal with. And so I've been posting things about it a lot, and I've gotten so many messages like, hey, thank you for saying that. I was talking to my uncle, and he made me feel discouraged about rental properties, and you showed me even the ugly side of it, and I was okay with handling all that. So I realized, oh, that's it?

00:29:49 - Mike Mills

Yeah. It's just the unknown.

00:29:50 - Nick Lamaison

That's all I'm scared of. Exactly.

00:29:51 - Mike Mills

Yeah. People are terrified of things that they don't know because they don't know. Right. We deal with that in lending all the time. I joke about condos. Everybody's terrified to do condo, lending or not everybody, but lenders look on it in a negative light. It's not that hard. I mean, it's just there's a few extra hoops you got to jump through, a few extra things you got to do. But once you do it a few times, no big deal. But there's just this hesitation to do anything new and different because of that fear. And I'm sure, like you said, when you start posting stuff about, hey, this is investing. This is how real estate investing works, here's the ugly side of it. Just so you know, but this is about as bad as it gets.

00:30:28 - Nick Lamaison

This is as bad as it gets.

00:30:28 - Mike Mills

And then someone goes, oh, well, I mean, okay, I can handle that. They can make that decision for themselves.

00:30:33 - Nick Lamaison

Yeah, exactly. Going back to the routine. So it's eight to 930. I'll do those calls. That gets me fired up. It gets them fired up.

00:30:41 - Mike Mills

And then morning motivation for you, too, right?

00:30:43 - Nick Lamaison

Exactly. And that's something that I've realized in my life, which has been really a fascinating thing, which is I am that person for so many people. But so when I come into a day and I don't have the fire, I don't have my energy, I'm not being my normal self, all of the people that I have then influenced now check me on it. And this used to happen back in the corporate space. They go, Well, Nick, I guess we don't want to get better. Like, where's getting better today, guy, where do you go? Message receive. I got it. I'll bring that juice. That's kind of been a cool byproduct of it all, but yeah. So I'll start with that till about 930. Then 10:00 we'll start doing prospecting. And every day looks a little bit different because maybe it's a business or maybe I'm doing a meeting with someone that's something that I'm going to get into a new segment of real estate or do a different thing. So the days will look a little bit different, but about 10:00 A.m. To about maybe six, seven, even 08:00. Sometimes on the later. Like I have my after work buyer tours. It'll just be a collection of work there. So that's basically how it starts. But it all starts from the foundational element of the gym. And I don't ever miss my wife, never misses. It's just not something that's acceptable because I know how many other areas of life that that's going to bleed into. So I miss the gym, then I start missing a meeting. Then I don't want to prospect as much, then I don't want to do the open house, then I don't want to do that one weird meeting that I think is going to turn into nothing, and then it becomes something incredible, right? That's a big thing for me. And also something new that I'm doing is have points and times in your day where you reassess, where you go, okay, how'd the morning start? I was crushing it. 06:00 a.m to 12:00 P.m.. There's a guy ed Mylett talks a lot about. You get three days in one day because of our technology that we have nowadays based on the productivity you can do. And so I'll reassess throughout the day and go, how'd we perform in the morning? We were great. We crushed the gym, and somehow we lost our motivation throughout the day. We didn't knock as many tasks out. So I'll get to noon and then I'm like, all right, well, how are we going to change that up? Because that was always my big thing too, when I was in the corporate space leading a lot of teams. It would be like, hey, you didn't have a great start of your day. Big whoop, it's going to happen to all of us. But look it, we don't have to be great for the entire day now. Let's just be great from noon to six, right? Let's be great for 6 hours, and then we can make what would have been an unproductive day or something that you weren't as happy with now you feel really good about and you build some momentum off of that. And so it's just been a collection of that routine, that foundational gym element reassessing. And then that task tracking actually has been really helpful too, to let me know, because what happens is you come home from work, hey, how's your day, honey? I was good. It was a real productive day. Based on what? Yeah, based on where do you thought?

00:33:31 - Mike Mills

Yeah, because you feel good, right?

00:33:33 - Nick Lamaison

Based on feelings. Again, not actually anything. No data. Exactly. No data. And so doing that, it's just a collection of all of that. And what I always tell people is like, this is the stuff that works for me, and I'm always going to share everything that works for me to hope that, hey, you could take a couple of gems of this and morph it into something customized and how it would fit into your life. But I think just a collection of all of that and then an overarching idea of just get better, just get better. 1% one step, one inch. Sometimes, like, say you're not feeling good, like you're under the weather. Weather just changed right now. You guys aren't feeling good. Just do one thing that you didn't do yesterday, and you just got 1% better in that area. Maybe you didn't get better in all areas, but you know what I mean? It's just about continuing to keep moving forward.

00:34:21 - Mike Mills

Well, when you talk about the exercise thing and going to the gym, there's a lot of folks out there that it's like, oh, gym bros. Everybody's got to go work out. You got to go get buff and all this kind of stuff. And I understand that sentiment. I really do, because people don't want to hear about how much you hit the gym and how hard you work out, especially when they're not feeling great about maybe what they're doing.

00:34:46 - Nick Lamaison

That's the biggest thing that you notice. And I've noticed in myself when I'm slacking and I see super motivational guy. He like, frustrates noise the shit. I was like, God, screw that unfollow.

00:34:55 - Mike Mills

Shut it up. Shut it up today. But what I think gets missed from time to time or often is that the physical exertion, okay? Whether it's the gym, whether it's riding a bike, whether it's swimming, whether it's walking, whatever it is walking, just go walk 2 miles, okay? You don't have to run. You don't have to get crazy. But that is such a benefit to your mind. And it's not just a body benefit. The body benefit is great, right? You feel great. You lose weight. You have more energy, all that kind of stuff. But your brain gets cleared out, all that frustration, all that anxiety, all that fear, all that stuff that exists in your head because life's not going the way you planned it to, or you had a bad day yesterday or today. You've got a big thing that you got to take care of, and you're nervous about it, and you didn't sleep last night or whatever. But when you go do some level of physical exertion, it just takes all of that, and it just pushes it out of your mind. And now, granted, the harder you work, the better it is. You know what I mean? But there is a huge payoff for that that I don't think people that don't do it, they don't realize it until after because we talked about this again, too, in our last conversation. Was when you start that routine and you start working out. And I experienced this in college because we did a lot of workouts in college, and then afterwards, I kind of fell off for a while, had kids. I probably gained 60 pounds or something like that. But once you start getting back into the swing of it and you're working out again and you're feeling good and you're getting that energy and that movement, then if you fall off, because we all do, right? I work out a lot, but then I'll go a week where I don't. I'm like, but that week, I feel like crap. Yes, I feel terrible. And then my body's going, what are you doing? What are you doing here, man? You need to get back to that because we're not liking how this is going. So it's that being out of once you do it and you're in that routine for a while, getting out of that routine is horrible. You hate it, you feel miserable, and you can't wait to get back into it. So it's like this thing that just builds on itself. But it's not about being a gym bro. It's just about the mental clarity and all of the stress that relieves from doing that is I don't even think you can measure it.

00:36:59 - Nick Lamaison

And another thing I want to add on it is it's hard. I do it every single day. I never really miss workouts, but it's hard every single day. But what I do is I self hack. I know what I'm not good at. I know every single thing that I'm not good at. And I retrofit certain technology, different routines, different mindsets with things. So say, for instance, I never miss the gym, but it's not like I have to wake up and go sprint to the gym. All I have to do, Mike, is roll over, open up my Himalayan sea salt, take a swig, take a swig of my pre workout.

00:37:35 - Mike Mills

That's it.

00:37:36 - Nick Lamaison

I don't have a choice anymore. Because it's like and I figured this out, I said, Well, I'm not going to lay in bed feeling all tingly and having this pre workout, my heart's beating out of my chest. And so for me, it's kind of like self hacking, where it's like, you don't have to be great and have this magnificent level of motivation as you go into the gym. You just got to roll over, take your salt, take your pre workout, and your body will wake up. You'll be ready to go before I know it. Then I go in it. And also, too, I do another thing where I know that we as humans get bored of everything. We get bored, we get tired of the same things over and over. So understand that and listen to your body and see when that stuff is coming on. So say, for instance, in the gym, if I'm not filling it, it'll be consecutive exercises where I'm just kind of like, what's going on here? I'll go buy some new shoes or I'll go buy some new shorts or I'll tell my trainer, hey, can we switch things up? I need a little bit more, whatever the case may be. And I think it's that process of self hacking which allows me to stay dedicated to the discipline and the regiment even more because I don't have to be perfect. I'm flawed, and we all are flawed, and I'm going to be lazy by nature, and it's just the nature of who we are. And so self hacking yourself aligned with a good daily routine that can help you execute all the goals, I think for me has been a winning strategy.

00:38:59 - Mike Mills

So when you've carried that over with the routines of doing what you're doing every day and the small steps and again, that's one of those things that people may not really fully understand is it gets it gets to a micro level where it's like, this is the time that I get up. This is the first thing I do. This is what triggers me to do the next thing. This is what triggers me to do the third. And even when you map that out in a day and you write it down, which I do think is a big thing, I don't know how you feel about that, but I was like, just write it all out. Because not only that helps ingrain it in your mind. You may not ever look at that again. You may not need it or use it or whatever, but that's going to help cement it further into your brain on what these steps are. And guess what? You're not going to get it all done every single day. And more often than not, you're never going to get it all done right. There's always going to be things that you fall short of, but that's okay. That's part of the thing. Part of the journey is I want to aim at the top of the mountain. I may only get halfway up the mountain, but if as long as I continue to aim at that, then that's where I'm going to try to get to. And next day I'll get up 60%. Next day I'll get up 70% or whatever. And so so what about that whole process? Do you take over to your real estate business as dealing with your clients? And have you created processes for yourself that when you meet a new buyer, when you meet a new seller, these are the steps that you go through with them to make sure that a you don't forget any steps because that's a big piece of it. And then, B also make sure that everything gets followed through and you go through the same process with everybody.

00:40:23 - Nick Lamaison

Yeah, I do. I mean, it's not as something as organized as, say, like what I did with standard processes in the property management stuff. It's a little bit more loose, and I'm able to adapt.

00:40:33 - Mike Mills

But everybody's different, right?

00:40:34 - Nick Lamaison

And also for me, it's like, just the way that I think I kind of had to do it that way. I'm just so quickly thinking about different things and adapting and adjusting to different priorities. Like, I could literally be on one meeting, and then in the next hour on a completely different meeting, and the next one a completely different one. But I think for me, just from a real estate standpoint, how I've taken those things is you just have to be so consistent with the tracking. So, like, going in your CRM, what's the need of that client, making sure you're tracking all of that, okay, have you followed up with that individual again? And then when you start to see that normal process, everybody's worked with a buyer who was gung ho in the beginning, and then all of a sudden, they stopped texting back so frequently, and then the calls, what do you do at that point in time? So I think it's more like I'm figuring out the general plan, what are the triggers in the relationship with the client than based on what I need to do there. And it's more identifying that and knowing, okay, I know where these three or four or five clients are. I know where these two or three over here. I know where these 15 are over here. And then based on those buckets of where they're at, I know what I need to do. And to your point, you want to get it all done every single day, but it's like, sometimes if I've got, like, two, three closings in a day and I hit the gym and then I've got a couple of meetings in the beginning, like, hey, prospecting. Might have to take the backseat on that, which is that's probably usually the first one. And don't do that. Don't take a backseat to Prospecting because it'll bite you. But you just try to be as best you can every day and always get better. But I think for me, it's understanding the deal flow and where they are and understanding where they are too. I think that's a big thing, is putting yourself in their shoes and understand kind of what's their need and who they need you to be right now. Like, right now, I don't need you to be my real estate agent. I need you to be my friend, right? Or I need you to be my counselor, or I need you to be whatever think. For me, it's just finding out where the client is in the process, and then now I know, all right, this is who I need to be for them.

00:42:38 - Mike Mills

Got you. Now, recently, you've been doing a lot of social media, okay? And I say recently, I think you've been doing it since the jump. But I hate to say your generation, because I'm a little older than you, but it's a big player in getting yourself out there to potential clients. Potential customers is being seen on social media. I mean, however you feel about it, like it or don't, it's necessary in a lot of ways, right? It can be done. You don't need to have it. There's other ways to do it, but it's still a pretty necessary process. So what has your experience been like with that? Just starting from when you got into real estate and what you thought you would do on social media versus what you're doing now? Because mean, there's a lot of different things. Like today I saw you were doing some ice plunges, which I told you the other day, actually this morning, because I rode my bike for an hour because I told you my allergies were bothering. We talked about this when we came on. I was like, I had to clear my head out, right? And then right after it, I turned my shower on just as cold as it would go and just jump. And I never do that, just get right in because I want to start doing the cold punch things. But I'm such a little you know what? That I'm just like such a wuss. And I'm like, I can't.

00:43:48 - Nick Lamaison

I can't.

00:43:48 - Mike Mills

It's too cold.

00:43:49 - Nick Lamaison

It sucks. There's nothing nice about it's. Horrible. I hate it every single time I do it.

00:43:53 - Mike Mills

Yeah, but so what has the social media journey been like for you? What were your expectations and what has it been actually been like? Are you feeling traction? Is it a long term game? Short term game? How's that all work out for you?

00:44:04 - Nick Lamaison

Yeah, it's definitely a long term game. It's definitely not what I thought I was going to do, the direction I was going to go with it. So I thought, okay, I'm going to post houses. I'm going to be that realtor. Who posts those really beautiful homes? Because, like, my wife, my sister in law, they would always be like, hey, you should do your marketing like this. And they would send me stuff on Instagram. And then so I started with stuff like that. But your social media will show you what and your followers will show you what they want to see, and the market will show you what they want you to do, what you want to do.

00:44:36 - Mike Mills

I mean, do you like looking at beautiful homes on?

00:44:39 - Nick Lamaison

Yeah, it's cool. But to be honest, what I quickly realized is people don't want that from me. Yeah, they want to see it every now and then, but people want to get more of this. Like, what's my first hand experience on things? What's my motivational stuff like, how am I approaching each day? I try to use my story as like, hey, here's the effort that I'm putting in. I'm not talking about it. I try to not speak about theory. I try to say, hey, this is what I'm doing. And so the social media kind of took on its own thing. Now it's become where I'm just using it to build my brand. And I want everyone to know who Nick Lamaison is, that I'm a real estate entrepreneur, that I have a multifaceted way of assisting people and it's all coming from that approach of helping in my real estate coaching, I'm helping those guys and gals in deals. I'm helping from a transactional and negotiation standpoint. I'm passionate about that. I want to win just like I always wanted to win on the football field and then in the property management side, I want to make sure that your investment, I want to help you to make sure your investment is intact and you feel comfortable and there's great communication and all these things. And so now it went quickly from hey, I'm going to be the realtor who posts tours and that's going to help me progress. And now luckily, people want to see me and they want to see what I'm about and who I am as a person and what my motivation system is and what wins I have and what losses I share. And so that's been the evolution for me. And there was a fortunate page that reached out to me, school of Hard knocks. And those guys were really awesome. And they gave me an opportunity to interview on their show and kind of got me a bunch of attention. And that also showed more of what the market wants from you, too, because now I just had 2000 followers in a week come to the page and they want different things and they're asking for it and they are not being shy about it. And so it's just a journey, just like anything else. I think it's just like anything else. You get started and you see what's going to work for you and what's going to fit for you because it doesn't matter how miraculous you can be on one day, one given day, it's how good can you be every single day and what's realistic for you. And so I found kind of certain parameters that I'm like, okay, every week I know I'm going to do. I think they call it talking head, right? That's where it's just like you talking.

00:47:04 - Mike Mills

You talking to screen, right?

00:47:05 - Nick Lamaison

So for me, talking head is a big part of it because I'm constantly investing in people and so people want that for me and I'll continue to expand on it. I like to put a lot of assets and liabilities, type of explaining those types of things. Kind of like the rich dad, poor dad mentality. So it's kind of taken that as well. So it's multifaceted for me, it's long term game but it's building a personal brand because I want everyone that works with me to want to work with me and because of who I am, what I do, my story, my mentality, all that stuff. And so social media just kind of took that over but quickly made me realize, hey, what you thought it was going to be, it's materialized into something else. And now I don't know where it's going to go from here, but I'm just going to keep showing up each day and see what happens.

00:47:58 - Mike Mills

Well, I think realtors that look at social media and they see it as the old school advertising. Call me now, here's my number. I'll take good care of you and your clients and all that kind of fun stuff. But what it turns into, I think your example is very typical actually, because what people find that do it consistently. There's people that are on social media but just aren't consistent about it. When you do it consistently, you start to understand that people want to know about you. The people that you're putting information out there to you, they're interested in you. If they have to buy or sell their house and they feel some connection with you or have talked to you or whatever, then they'll think about you. But ultimately they don't want you to talk about selling homes every day because.

00:48:47 - Nick Lamaison

I don't want to talk about it.

00:48:48 - Mike Mills

Right. It's kind of boring after a while when you need the service, it's great. But otherwise now that doesn't mean that you don't ever talk about biden.

00:48:57 - Nick Lamaison

No, absolutely.

00:48:58 - Mike Mills

You have to keep that in the repertoire. But you also have to talk about you, your family, what you do every day, your experiences, because that's what resonates with people more often than not. And if you want to impact your sphere and you want to touch them in a positive way through social media, then those are the types of things that people want to see. And that's what they're interested in is they want to see what you do on a day to day basis because maybe they can take a little bit from that.

00:49:22 - Nick Lamaison

Right.

00:49:24 - Mike Mills

When I'm on there myself, when I'm looking through things, I'm looking at news. So that's a big thing. I go and check the people that I follow for information, but anybody that it's not informationally based, I am trying to figure out, okay, how do they organize their life? What do they do on a day to day basis? How is it that this has been successful? What worked and what hasn't worked? I want to know their story. I want to know everything that's occurred because that's going to help me take a little bit from that and go, okay, I can apply that to what I do. Because this person makes sense to me and I can connect with them on the same we're kind of the same, even though I may not know them, but we're on the same wavelength about how we think about stuff. And so I can take a little bit from that. Honestly. That's how I found you.

00:50:05 - Nick Lamaison

Right.

00:50:06 - Mike Mills

The feed tells you the stuff that you're interested in. So obviously I follow realtors. I'm very interested in health and fitness. I'm very interested in motivational stuff. So of course you pop up. I'm like, okay. And then I start going through I'm like, oh, and he's here locally. Okay, great. That's how I reached out to you. But that's the kind of stuff that I feel like people really want to see and they want to find. And when you post that type of information that isn't just industry based, then you tend to get much better feedback on that than if you're just posting stuff about real estate all the time.

00:50:38 - Nick Lamaison

I agree. And the one last thing I want to say is social media is the best nurturing process.

00:50:44 - Mike Mills

Yes.

00:50:44 - Nick Lamaison

Because no one really wants to get that phone call or text all the time, like, hey, we still at six months, right? We're still at six months. That's the timeline just kind of can seem disingenuous at times. Whereas it's like, oh, hey, saw your post. And also, FYI, it's not six months anymore, it's actually three months. And it all stemmed from me showing my breakfast from that day. So it's really helpful.

00:51:06 - Mike Mills

You're just back in their head again. Oh, yeah, I forgot. I tell agents all the time when they send me. They'll send me a client, say, hey, I just talked to so and so. Here's our information. Them a call. Then I'll reach out and call them, or I'll text them and I may not hear from them, like, how to go with whoever? And I'm so, well, I haven't heard from them yet. I reached out again and I don't understand. I just talked to him, they were gung ho. And I'm like, well, life happens. Yes, they talked to you. Everything was gung ho. And then their kid got home from school and broke his arm and they had to take him to the doctor, and then they had to go to dinner that night, and so and so had a birthday, and so then it's a week later like, oh crap, I was thinking about buying a house, I just totally forgot. But then, unfortunately, good or bad, we all live in our phone, so we're all swiping through stuff all the time.

00:51:45 - Nick Lamaison

Absolutely.

00:51:46 - Mike Mills

So if they see you and they go, oh yeah, I totally forgot. I talked to Nick the other day.

00:51:49 - Nick Lamaison

I forgot to call him back. Yes, perfect.

00:51:51 - Mike Mills

So it's not just selling things, it's just being top of mind. And that's what you're trying to do, as in any profession, not just real estate, and mortgages it's with anything.

00:52:01 - Nick Lamaison

And I will genuinely have clients that are like, one day commenting and going, wow, that was really cool. Or wow, what a beautiful like when we went on vacation recently, oh wow, this is so beautiful. And then literally the next week it's like, hey, Wednesday, can you do a call at twelve? Yeah, let's go.

00:52:18 - Mike Mills

So do you have any things that you're specifically doing right now to find new clients that you would tell people, hey, I'm having some success with this, or I'm not like, is there anything that you're working on right now that you have had success with? Getting new business, not just the sphere.

00:52:32 - Nick Lamaison

I think that this is a little bit nuanced to me, so I don't know how this would work for everyone, but my real estate coaching side of the business has been ridiculously successful. As far as a lead gen, I don't even look at it as a lead generation because it's all passion driven for me. It's like I'm literally investing in these people for free. I do free calls all 08:00 A.m. To 930 every day, but almost every single one of those calls has turned it into a client, right? Whether it's a client that is local here in DFW that I can help, which I'm excited about because then I don't have to do this other process where if it's someone from another state, I have resources where I'm connected to realtors all over the whole you know, I talk to a guy who needs someone in Missouri, Pennsylvania, Utah and Aurora, Colorado. Like, just everywhere, random places. And so what I do then is, you know, we're talking through this process. I'm teaching you everything about real estate. I'm teaching you some really helpful strategies as a new beginning investor. And so I don't want to just throw you out to the wolves at that point. And so if you're in DFW, I got you. My team will help you. But if you're not, I'm still going to be involved in the process. And what I'll do there is I'll reach out, get a reputable realtor, and then I will vet them myself. Because I would never want to teach someone some intricate knowledge on investing and how to get going and then pass them off to agent who doesn't really know what's going on because the range of knowledge is massive from agent to agent. Yes, it is. Second for that. Yeah, I'm just kidding. And so then I will find that agent, I will vet them, I'll make sure they know everything about inspection reports, everything about quality of homes, everything about negotiating, everything about what's the right property for this person on the first property if they want to scale to more. And so I'll do all of those calls and the clients really appreciate that footwork. And so then I'll get them set up. And then basically what we'll do is we'll do a zoom call and it will switch to an intro level. So it's like, hey, me and you have built great rapport. And then I've went and found an incredible resource who's going to kind of mimic and be my presence in that environment. And then we're going to do an intro call. And then also I tell them, I say, hey, keep me involved. All along the way. You'd rather two realtor brains on it than just one. So it's not like I'm watching what the other person is doing, but it's like, hey, don't be afraid to say, hey, this is what our strategy is, or this is what we're going with. What do you think about it? And they just got that level of.

00:55:15 - Mike Mills

Support, just additional resource.

00:55:17 - Nick Lamaison

And I didn't do it for that reason, but it's like almost 100%, every single one of them has turned into that. So that's been a very unique lead gen strategy that's helped me.

00:55:31 - Mike Mills

So we're almost out of time here. We're at 55 minutes. Things have gone by quick. But I do want to get your what are your goals for 2024? New things that you're trying to get into? Do you have any new processes or systems you're trying to implement that you're tinkering in with right now? Where do you think these things are? Where are you trying to head next year?

00:55:54 - Nick Lamaison

So I'm going to give you some detailed stuff, but first I'm going to say, I just want to be better. I just want to get better. I just want to do more. I just want to kind of keep pushing things forward because the more I push, the more it gives back. And I just start to see more opportunities and results. Like even this podcast today, this was all just from putting myself out there. And so I want to make sure that we've made really good amount of progress in year One, more than I thought we would have. And it's been fun and fascinating, especially.

00:56:21 - Mike Mills

In a tough market.

00:56:22 - Nick Lamaison

Exactly. But now I'm like, well, sweet year one and then I know myself, well, sweet, that's how we did year one. Okay, let's double that year too. I think from a detailed standpoint, I kind of want to push up and do double the deals for next year that I did this year. I want to expand the property management into some of those more multi unit, kind of start to expand that business further, put some more resources together on my own team, hire some more staff to help me with that. Luckily, I've got a lot of that staff within my family, so that will be really helpful to me and I use them all the time. And then let's see, I want to take on more coaching clients. I want to build out a more robust kind of infrastructure with resources to help expand to more people. So a lot of people will come to me and say, hey, do you have any courses I can buy? And I'm like, no, but I got 30 minutes on calendar if you want to schedule that with me. So it's like also listening to what people are asking for and then responding with those things. So I want to build out that coaching segment further. I want to perform better because I don't ever want to talk about anything without the performance. Backing it up, all the results backing it up. I want to acquire a couple more properties myself, personally. I just want to continue to keep going on acquisition, really, because that's my wife and I's. Big thing is just acquire, acquire, acquire, acquire. We don't over leverage ourself, but it's acquiring because we know that everything is contingent upon time. The longer we can hold real estate over the long haul, the more lucrative and just better it's going to be.

00:58:01 - Mike Mills

For us, especially because of the scarcity that it's sitting at right now.

00:58:06 - Nick Lamaison

Right. And who knows what the legislation is going to be on how many homes you can have later on or whatever the case may be. So we just want to try to because I think even though I'm still promoting it so much, I think rental properties and real estate has become widely, widely popular. So most people know that it's a good thing to be involved in, a good thing to do.

00:58:27 - Mike Mills

Yeah. People know it now. They just run into the means and the ability to be able to do it. That's where they struggle these days.

00:58:32 - Nick Lamaison

Yeah. And then one big thing, we'll see what materializes. I'm trying to talk to him about interest rates and what the news is saying versus what I'm actually seeing on deals. And I sent him something this morning, but I've got a builder who wants me to help him in Q One 2024, help him sell a 40 home community over in DeSoto. So we'll see how that materializes. And for me, that would be just fun to take on. I'd get every single outlet I could involved in that and kind of push that stuff forward. So a lot of really exciting things, more of the same. I'm glad that we did the horizontal expansion this year, and I think that can be helpful for a lot of people, too. Like, say if you're struggling right now, or you're like, gosh, this one area isn't working, but you've kind of already kind of built another thing, go spend a little more time in that. See if you can develop that while you're maybe in a low season in this area. So just expanding, growing. And then I always stay open to new business opportunities and ideas. But I think just scaling up a lot of what we created this year will be the goal for 2024.

00:59:39 - Mike Mills

Yeah. And you're going to do it all at once. Right. That's the key takeaway from all this stuff. All the goals are great, and everything that you're trying to get to is great. But it all starts with what are you doing tomorrow morning and what are you doing tomorrow afternoon and how are you planning your day after that and what's the steps that it's going to take to get there. And that's the whole guise of all of this is the idea of get rich quick or the idea of success overnight. If you just do this one trick, this one little thing that'll get you there, and it's just not bitcoin mentality.

01:00:13 - Nick Lamaison

Yes.

01:00:15 - Mike Mills

Bitcoin is something else, but it's going to happen overnight. And the reality is that none of this happens overnight. It's one step at a time. Like you said, it's getting a little 1% better every single day and trying to add to it and keep building on it, because that compounding of habits and that compounding of small successes and small failures. But learning from those failures is what ultimately, in five to ten to 15 years, puts you where you want to be. And it's not going to happen overnight. You can't get frustrated by it and, oh, by the way, when you get there, there'll be another hill you want to climb. You know what I mean? It never ends. So tomorrow keeps rolling. So I really appreciate you coming and chatting with me for a little while and kind of going through all this. I always love, especially as we get to the end of the year and start moving into next year, you got to get your head in the right spot, and so I really appreciate you coming in and doing that with us. Anything you want to leave anybody with before we go, or leave everybody with before we go, how to contact you, socials, coaching, any of that stuff.

01:01:13 - Nick Lamaison

Yeah, so mainly it's LinkedIn and instagram. Just Nick Lamaison. N-I-C-K-L-A. He's got it here, for sure. LinkedIn or instagram? And reach out to me whether you need some help with something. You just want to throw an idea off of me, get my advice on something, get me involved in something, just don't be afraid to reach out. I'm open to everyone. Whether we're working on a deal together or I'm completely investing in you and plugging in a tremendous amount of motivation or anything that's helping me into you, I'm all for it. So you guys reach out for anything you need.

01:01:51 - Mike Mills

All right, Nick, I appreciate it, buddy. We will be back next week, next Tuesday. This episode will be published on Tuesday on Spotify and Apple. So check it out then and we'll see everybody next week.

01:02:02 - Nick Lamaison

Awesome.

01:02:03 - Mike Mills

Thanks, guys.

01:02:03 - Nick Lamaison

Thank you. Mike.

01:02:04 - Mike Mills

Yes, sir.