This episode of 3 Degrees of Freedom is excited to be joined by Elijah Brown, a highly accomplished individual who has had successful careers in both real estate and the military. After obtaining his bachelor's degree in business from the University of Southern California, Elijah began working in real estate as an analyst for Healthpeak Properties and eventually co-founding GoldHawk Capital, which focuses on acquiring value-add multifamily properties. He is also a Civil Affairs Officer in the United States Army Reserve.
In this episode, we discuss Elijah's journey of "location freedom" as he is living a fully mobile life, working a job, and running a business. We cover what he has learned about life through this journey, his advice for people looking to create this for themselves, and his vision for the future.
Elijah also shares his thoughts on the feasibility of this lifestyle with kids and family, as well as his approach to working towards his time and financial freedom.
Join us as we dive into this lifestyle of True Location Freedom & Van Life with Elijah Brown.
Connect with Ethan using the links below and learn more about his business:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elijahwbrown/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elijahandhana/
Website: https://www.goldhawk.us/
Unlock 3+1 degrees of freedom (time, location, financial + health) with our 5-Point Blueprint! https://elevateequity.org/podcastgift
If you really enjoyed this content and are looking for more, you can continue to learn more about us in several different places for free!
If you'd like to have a FREE copy of our 7 Ways Commercial Real Estate Syndications Protect and Build Wealth, simply click the link below. We are here and vested in your long-term success! elevateequity.org/7waysEbook
Unlock 3+1 degrees of freedom (time, location, financial + health) with our 5-Point Blueprint! https://elevateequity.org/podcastgift
If you really enjoyed this content and are looking for more, you can continue to learn more about us in several different places for free!
If you'd like to have a FREE copy of our 7 Ways Commercial Real Estate Syndications Protect and Build Wealth, simply click the link below. We are here and vested in your long-term success! elevateequity.org/7waysEbook
This episode of 3 Degrees of Freedom is excited to be joined by Elijah Brown, a highly accomplished individual who has had successful careers in both real estate and the military. After obtaining his bachelor's degree in business from the University of Southern California, Elijah began working in real estate as an analyst for Healthpeak Properties and eventually co-founding GoldHawk Capital, which focuses on acquiring value-add multifamily properties. He is also a Civil Affairs Officer in the United States Army Reserve.
In this episode, we discuss Elijah's journey of "location freedom" as he is living a fully mobile life, working a job, and running a business. We cover what he has learned about life through this journey, his advice for people looking to create this for themselves, and his vision for the future.
Elijah also shares his thoughts on the feasibility of this lifestyle with kids and family, as well as his approach to working towards his time and financial freedom.
Join us as we dive into this lifestyle of True Location Freedom & Van Life with Elijah Brown.
Connect with Ethan using the links below and learn more about his business:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elijahwbrown/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elijahandhana/
Website: https://www.goldhawk.us/
Unlock 3+1 degrees of freedom (time, location, financial + health) with our 5-Point Blueprint! https://elevateequity.org/podcastgift
If you really enjoyed this content and are looking for more, you can continue to learn more about us in several different places for free!
If you'd like to have a FREE copy of our 7 Ways Commercial Real Estate Syndications Protect and Build Wealth, simply click the link below. We are here and vested in your long-term success! elevateequity.org/7waysEbook
Unlock 3+1 degrees of freedom (time, location, financial + health) with our 5-Point Blueprint! https://elevateequity.org/podcastgift
If you really enjoyed this content and are looking for more, you can continue to learn more about us in several different places for free!
If you'd like to have a FREE copy of our 7 Ways Commercial Real Estate Syndications Protect and Build Wealth, simply click the link below. We are here and vested in your long-term success! elevateequity.org/7waysEbook
Welcome back everyone. Today we've got Mr. Elijah Brown on the Zoom call with me. Elijah, how you doing man?
Elijah Brown:I'm well. Thanks for having me on. Appreciate it.
Derek Clifford:Awesome. Do you mind telling me where you're taking this podcast recording from too as well?
Elijah Brown:Yeah. I'm on a beach somewhere near Cabo, Mexico.
Derek Clifford:In a van.
Elijah Brown:In a van. That's right.
Derek Clifford:Break it. Awesome, man. I love it. For those of you who don't know, Elijah, you may have already gotten a little bit of a picture of that already, but he's a highly accomplished individual who has had successful careers in both real estate and also in the military. So thank you, sir, for your service. After obtaining his bachelor's degree in business from university of Southern California usc, he began working in real estate as an analyst for Health Peak Properties. And he quickly rose through the ranks there and was promoted to manager responsible for underwriting various real estate properties. And in 2017 he co-founded Goldhawk Capital which the logo for those of you who are looking at us on YouTube, you can see that in the upper right hand corner. There you go. Focuses on value-add, multi-family properties. And as a managing partner, Elijah oversees all aspects of the business, including the underwriting, due diligence, negotiating capital markets, investor relations and he serves also as a civil affairs officer in the US Army Reserve. Always received numerous awards for leadership and problem solving. Elijah, awesome to have you, man. And again, gotta say thank you for your service, man. Really appreciate what you guys do.
Elijah Brown:No, I appreciate that, Derek, and thanks again for having me on. I've been looking forward to meeting you in person and having a face-to-face discussion for a little while. We're both in the same LinkedIn group in the Yonah Weiss Challenge. We've been commenting on each other's posts for for a couple weeks now, and so it's good to final put the face.
Derek Clifford:Exactly right. It really is cool to meet the person behind all the content that you're admiring and I'm saying that in a one directional way here from me to you. Really cool to meet you.
Elijah Brown:I like both directions.
Derek Clifford:Yeah. Really cool to meet you in person. It's amazing what LinkedIn can do and just has, I know, so much power to connect really great people with one another. Anyway, so we've got a lot of talk about man and not enough time Let's talk about this real quick. Obviously we like to talk about the three degrees of freedom. There's location, time, financial and right now I obviously know that location freedom is one of those things that yeah, right there right, front and center. And generally that's where I recommend people start is location freedom. Because once you have that, then you can start to lower your expenses. You just have a lot of options, right? In what you can do with your life and start to get some of those life experiences in before waiting for them. Before you retire, right? So now that you're fully mobile, you're working a job. Like a full-time job. Yeah. If you have a business, right? Can you take us through how this all unfolded? This seems like a lot, right? Like how did you have a job then through the business and then also become.
Elijah Brown:I used to have a W2 job last year and got it. They wanted me to come back to the office and I was not, interested in that. And, but anyway I now full-time just doing my real estate portfolio and trying to grow Goldhawk Capital. And thanks to our friends at e Elon Musk and, Ventures, we have a Starling satellite, so we're able to really get wifi. Pretty much anywhere. Especially here in Mexico. I'm not sure about the entire world, but it allows us to essentially work from the road and location. I completely agree, super important and that incredible piece of technology has really allowed people to focus on location. We're out here and we're not the only ones with a van, with a school bus, with an rv. There are just so many people out here now enjoying their lives and doing what they want. In the location that they want because of that piece of technology. And so it's, just been incredible for us and for others as well.
Derek Clifford:That's very, cool, man. Con congrats on all of that and it makes perfect sense. There is an individual that maybe you have met, maybe you haven't. His name is Don Stafford. Have you met him before?
Elijah Brown:Yes. Yeah, I know Don and I actually just saw him face-to-face at the best ever conferences.
Derek Clifford:That's great, man. That's great. Yeah. Something it just came to my mind that that might be a product that you'd be interested in because it's, something that's, near and dear to you, right? Just because you have all these things and you can clearly see that there's a demand for people wanting to become locationally independent. So that's, pretty awesome. So my next question is what, has this journey of location freedom taught you about life so far?
Elijah Brown:Oh man, that is a big, that is a big question. Okay. So it flipped my idea of what's the purpose of this all? Why am I here on it, on its head? A couple years ago it was like my, purpose was to win some kind of game to get, wealthy and feel successful. That's not the point anymore, traveling and having these experiences have really opened up my mind a lot to the thought that maybe I'm just here. And the purpose of all this is to just have a really good time and to enjoy the world while we're in it. And one day. We're going to die. And when you're laying on your deathbed at the end do you don't wanna have any regrets you just want to have all of those great memories from all of the experiences that you had. And traveling and being in different locations and doing what you want and creating those great experiences is what really makes all the difference in the end.
Derek Clifford:Yeah, that, that sounds awesome. And so can you tell us a little bit how your mindset has shifted since you first started this, right? Because I know that there's like the experiential part of this, but when did you get the idea to be like, man, I could just go nomadic, and like what kind of path did that set you down mindset wise?
Elijah Brown:So I was going down the regular corporate path of go to a good school. I went to usc, it's a good school. I did their business program. I ended up getting a job at a real estate investment trust out of school with a high paycheck. And it was a great experience and I did that for four years. But I think with how it's happened with a lot of people, Covid and the move to a remote work environment really changed things where people realized that you can be just as productive and efficient, maybe even more from a remote setting. And there was a lot of waste and time wasted with being in the office that people didn't really like. So that kind of was like the first thing. And at that point we started working on the van. We started building out the van because we had this. Vision of working remote forever and getting to really enjoy our lives just through, through traveling and seeing different places. And so once the van was done we set out on the road and we realized, wow I, really never want to go back to a cubicle in an office setting like that until it's my office with my employees, and I'm the guy who gets to choose when I go in. It's a lot different now. I'm here, I'm literally looking out the window at a beach, like with a white sand beach, and the water's warm enough where I could go run in right now. That type of stuff really changes your mindset. My friends right now are, in an office. So it's I, feel bad for them, but at the same time, like I've been telling them this whole time Let's have a chat. I will help you get to this beach. Like we will get here together. Like I know exactly what you need to do to get there. All you have to do is just first become an a credit investor and then no. But there, there are a lot of different ways to do it and it's just, you gotta have more of a an abundance mindset to be able to do that.
Derek Clifford:Yeah, I was gonna ask you too what do you tell people who obviously there are people that, that, envy the lifestyle that you have. And what do you tell them would be the first step? Or what advice do you give them for people that are looking to create this kind of freedom for themselves? Because this is really unique what you have and, might I add also that I assume that you're under the age of 30 as well, which is another reason for all those, listeners out there to be extremely jealous. That's what we wanted for.
Elijah Brown:No I appreciate it. And this is covered in, Rich Dad Poor Dad, in the Robert Kiyosaki's cash flow game and everything. The, first step is you really gotta figure out a way to make a significant amount of income because just. Investing like 25 or $50,000 into a deal is, not gonna provide you with enough cash flow to replace your expenses or to cover your expenses. And the whole goal of all this is to cover your expenses so that you're free. And so you really need to figure out a way to make a significant amount of income. In the beginning, for me, that was putting real estate deals together, taking sweat equity in the deal because I didn't really have enough cash making. Like profit sharing fees on the backend and then rolling those into other deals. That was how like I was able to make my income on the side of my W2 job. Now, that doesn't have to be for every, everyone and I, highly recommend against doing that because it sucks like doing all these deals, like trying to like source a property to buy, do the underwriting, finding the bank, the investors, making sure it closes renovations prop. It's a lot of work and. I don't know about you, but on every single deal that I've done there, I've just been so many like roadblocks and hurdles that I had to like move mountains and pull strings to overcome that. It's just not for everyone. It takes probably a special person to be willing to do this. When I got started, maybe with you, I had a nice pair of rose colored glasses and I didn't really comprehend how much work it was going to be. I know now, and so it's not for everyone. What I'd recommend for other people is to figure out what you're good at and what you're passionate about. Start some type of side hustle, whether you know you want to do real estate or you wanna invent the next widget. Whatever it is, do it on the side. It's gonna take a lot of sacrifice. You're gonna have to go home and not turn the TV on and not drink a beer. You're gonna have to like actually work hard for a little bit to try to get that, income stream in place that get that side hustle. And then once you've. Once that side hustle starts working and paying off you need to not spend that money needs to be invested into cash flowing deals passively, and eventually that will replace your expenses. It's, not a get rich quick and it's not a get free quick. It's, a long-term game and you have to be willing to put in the, years to get there. But yeah, I, it's doable. Absolutely. I couldn't agree with you more, man. And actually that's exactly how it happened with me as well. Although I did it a little bit later on in life. I did it I left a couple years ago and I'm 38 now. So you can do the math that that you're definitely like maybe a full real estate cycle ahead of me, which is. Which is awesome. Congratulations. But what I, but what what, worked for me was I worked really hard, just like you said, right? I did side hustles and I put in the consistent long-term work to make it happen. Yeah. And then I was living in a very expensive area. I was living in in the Bay Area in California, and as soon as I left, As soon as I became, because when Covid came, it allowed us to work from anywhere. Yeah. And so I realized that there were so many places to live that were much cheap, cheaper than my current area. Yes. Yeah. And it's funny that you never put that two and two together cuz no one ever really mentions that. It's not really talked about. But as soon as that happened, I realized, oh my gosh. Like the passive income that we're making on the real estate that we've been working so hard to build over the last five years has now gotten us to a point where, If we move, it covers our expenses. Otherwise, we were still working on our full-time job trying to make the, income level match that of the Bay Area. So that's why I like to lead with location freedom first because it gets you the experiences, and it gets you the ability to choose how much money you spend on how you're gonna live your lifestyle. Oh yeah. And come to Mexico, it'll be like, that's right, $2,000 a month. Yeah. There you go. You
Derek Clifford:can live if you live like a king with 4,000. You're right. Yeah. And so the, whole idea is to think about to, to think about how all these things play with one another. And, they're all interrelated. And I, I don't think that you can get away from the hard work. It just doesn't work that way. And so I love that you give the advice that you just gotta start somewhere and make it happen. If you wanna sit in the beach and do podcasts in a band looking at the nice, warm water And you want that type of freedom. I think that it's inescapable that you're gonna have to find some level of work right to, to bridge yourself into
Elijah Brown:that. Yeah. And it's not to say that I'm just sitting here Oh yeah. On vacation, yeah, I'm literally working, like I, I wake up and I work
from like 7:00 AM to one or 2:00 PM in the afternoon, and I'm still checking LinkedIn and emails in the afternoon too. I'm trying to grow something. I'm just choosing where I
Derek Clifford:do it. That's right. And also choosing the time of day in which you want to do it. If you want to take a, day off let's face it, the all that stuff could wait. You just want to be on top of it and help be proactive to grow your business. So I
Elijah Brown:just, I'm not gonna get fired if I
Derek Clifford:take a day off. That's right. That's right. And the other thing that's important too I, know I'm railing on about this, but like, when you escape the full-time work and you do something to build on your own, you're building your own. Security, right? You're not going to build someone else's giant machine money-making machine. You're building your own little bit by little bit, and so that money and time that you're taking and energy is getting invested into your own venture, not into someone else's machine, like in a w2.
Elijah Brown:And, Derek people might think that's like risky it's risky, right? Having one stream of income from your W2 employer instead I've, got interest in 20 different deals that are each their own stream of income. So it's it's actually less risky cuz it one of those fails. Then I've got the others. Yeah, it's, I don't know why people think that getting a regular job is job security.
Derek Clifford:Yeah, exactly. Who hasn't heard about someone getting laid off? And just get blindsided. And that, that's like a normal thing that's supposed to happen. Yeah. To everyone at least once or twice in their life. So it's totally makes sense. Alright let's switch gears just a little bit here slightly. Do you have, I forgot to ask you this at the beginning, do you have family traveling with you?
Elijah Brown:Yes. My girlfriend's actually right next to me. Awesome. Very cool. Nice. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. We we built the van out together. She, she did a, she likes to use the power tools and she's pretty good at it. That's awesome.
Derek Clifford:That comes in handy. I love it. She's laughing over it. Yeah. No, let's let's talk about that. Like, how has this vision of you guys, like how, have you two both aligned on this vision? Is it, is this did you meet. While you were executing this vision was this something that you both wanted or was there like a conversation that needed to happen to be like, Hey, let's take this show on the road. Or how did that go?
Elijah Brown:Yeah. You know what's funny? When we first got together, it was five and a half years ago, and we, were very different people different age different types of interest and we've grown together over the years. And I, think I could take credit for this. The traveling in a small vehicle thing was originally my idea. I wanted to do a school bus. And I presented that to her and I think she thought that I was crazy. And but we. I, kept talking about it and showing her the videos, and eventually she came around to it. We ended up deciding to do a van because the school bus was not really practical for us. But we, embarked on it together. We shared the vision before we even bought the van. We bought the van together. And then we, took on the ultimate challenge of two people. Building out doing a construction project, which is you'd think that would be almost impossible to do with your significant other. But we got through it and we did it and it came out really nice. And we're very proud of it,
Derek Clifford:that's awesome. Yeah. I, picked up on that, that you said we, when you guys were when, both of you were, constructing the van. Yeah. Which is an awesome idea. And this all sparked through Covid, right? Or was this before that?
Elijah Brown:That you had this? No, I wanted to do it before and I had wanted to do it for a while, but Covid gave us the opportunity. Excellent.
Derek Clifford:Yeah. Yeah. By the time we caught onto this like it was already in the middle of Covid and it was already like at six months in and so people were, already. They, were already buying out all of these sprinter vans and stuff like that. Yeah. They got expensive. Yep. Yeah, they got really, expensive. And then you can buy you can already, you can buy them decked out, yeah.
Elijah Brown:You can buy them for $250,000
Derek Clifford:if you want. That's right. That's right. And now there's whole like industries and separate companies that do specifically digital nomad type. Vans, right? That's got solar panels and all these fancy things on it. So these, some builds,
Elijah Brown:they have 4K curved monitors like built into the walls and oh yeah. Amazing. Yeah, no, there's some fun things I would probably put in my next build. That's really
Derek Clifford:cool. So my wife and I, because we were late to that, we had to settle with just being digital nomads through Airbnbs. So we just Oh, cool. We have our Honda CRV and we just. Live off of whatever we can take with us in the car. Yeah. And then just drive from place to place. And so that's what we do now. Very cool.
Elijah Brown:Where are you at right now?
Derek Clifford:Now we're in Austin, Texas. Awesome. Yes. So we're, enjoying it. It's almost time to move on to the next location. Any,
Elijah Brown:I dunno if you'd like to meet us in Baja, California.
Derek Clifford:Hey, that sounds good. That sounds good. We'll talk offline for sure. All right, so let's talk about the other degrees of freedom cuz we we, definitely covered location freedom. There's more to talk about there, but I wanna make sure I hit the other two with you guys. The second is time freedom, and then the third is, financial freedom. How do you guys feel that you're actively working towards your time and financial freedom right now? Are you leveraging this location freedom to help you with those? Yeah,
Elijah Brown:definitely. Step one was like decreasing our expenses as much as possible. I, joined the Army because they paid for school. I don't have, I don't have any debt. Instead, I was working three part-time jobs in school, getting my stipends, and then using that money to buy rental properties while I was still in school. We don't have Debt. We don't have credit card debt really we, really don't have any student loans. And the ne the next step was like, where can we go so that we're not spending a lot of money on rent and food and stuff like that. And now we're in a van that we own outright, so we don't have that expense. I would say all together, we probably spend two grand a month. Between the both of us. So amazing. That's, very doable. You could passively invest in one real estate deal and get that type of, income, and so it's not very hard for us to afford to live like we are on the deals that I've invested in already. So that's, really step one. Step two is like now, Growing those streams of income through additional investment. And for me part of that is my business, which is essentially fund of funds. And for, your listeners, I'll explain what that is. Essentially, I'm a passive investor in deals, and when I partner with other passive investors, we can put our money in a big pot in L C and we can write a much larger check for a fund, for a deal, for a sponsor, or whatever it is. And because we can write a larger check together. We can negotiate better terms. So you'll hear a lot about a profit split where the sponsor or the person putting the deal together, they'll take maybe 50 or 40% of the profits at the end of the deal once you've been paid back and with our large check. We can get that por, that, that profit split much more in our favor. I'm looking at like 80 to 90% of the profits versus regular people getting 50 or 60%. That's right. That's my like, active business side where I'm, looking to like partner with other investors. But then also my own investment, my personal investment portfolio. I have equity shares in multiple cannabis companies. I have Shares in multiple multi-family syndications and now Airbnb syndications as well. And so I'm looking to significantly increase those so that one day we can buy a house in Hawaii. Awesome. Very
Derek Clifford:cool. Yeah. Yeah, I like it. Now as far as time freedom goes, I know right now you both are Balls to the wall. Like really trying to work hard. Yeah. To get your, business up on the ground so that you can get some true freedom in the sense of time. Because right now, let's face it even when you do create this location freedom, you still gotta work really hard. Yeah. We all are. That's why we're all, I wish I didn't podcast together. Yeah. Yeah. And what, does what does time freedom look like for you guys? And how are you starting to design your day to build yourself more towards that?
Elijah Brown:Yeah. So first we decided, like right now, how many hours do we really wanna work? We're, both pretty much part-time right now because we figured we're, going on the, trip of our life incredible experience. We wanna at least enjoy half of it. And in the afternoons we close the laptops and we go out and we, enjoy ourselves. But I think in the future as we establish more and more passive income and wealth we'll start looking at what. Types of things do we wanna do with our time that's gonna make us feel the most fulfilled. And I think that will be more towards like lifestyle experiences and just, having a good time. But obviously I want to, we want to use our, twenties and our our, head start here to try to build as much as we can before we, we end up settling down. Sounds good.
Derek Clifford:Cool. So I was gonna ask you, and you think, you may have already answered it in this question, but what does a day in your guys' life look like? For those of who are wondering like what this all what it all means, like day to day. Sure. So
Elijah Brown: it starts at 4:00 AM with the cat going crazy. Where is he? I was gonna show you his name's Mink. But he, starts Getting the zoomies at four in the morning and going nuts, and we have to try to calm 'em down, but at that point we're already up.
Derek Clifford:That's a good alarm clock
Elijah Brown:by the way. We're usually outta bed by around six or six 30. And then lately I just, I immediately jump on LinkedIn and check my posts and, respond to some comments. We have coffee and breakfast and then we get to work. We work from around seven until noon or 1:00 PM just taking meetings with Prospective investors and cogs and fund managers and stuff like that. My girlfriend Hannah, she runs a branding and graphic design studio. It's called Sunnyside Studio. She's very talented and she's got a number of clients that, that she does work for.
And then around 1:00 PM we close the laptops. We typically have lunch at some point, and then we, go explore. So right now we're on a beach. With a whole bunch of other people we haven't met yet. And right after this, podcast, I'm gonna close the laptop and go have, a drink with someone. I don't know. That sounds awesome. We will go meet someone new. Yeah. Very cool.
Derek Clifford:And then you get up and do it. So is every day the same or do you guys like take some breaks? Or is there like this, because one thing I noticed is that being nomadic and being on in business for yourself, Is that you could do this every single day. Because every day seems the same except for the amount of people that reach out to you. It tends to slow down on the weekends, obviously. Yes. But I've noticed that if you don't watch it, you can be doing all of your work while you're in these fantastic destinations. If you're not controlling it. So like, how do you guys control the cadence to not want, I think routines
Elijah Brown:are super important, especially when it's like we're out here like in a Kind of an austere environment and we need to just do something the same every single day. But like every four or five days we go to a new location. So we'll spend the whole afternoon driving to the next spot or going and exploring something in the area. Two days ago we were in a place called Santiago and they have this incredible like waterfall and swimming hole. And we went out there and I went and jumped off a rock and that was nice. That was a cool experience. So we're always just looking for cool, interesting things to do wherever we are. And then obviously going to the next location, something to note about like Van and RV life is that there, there are a lot of maintenance admin type of things you have to do on a weekly basis. So you're gonna spend half a day with. Emptying and cleaning out the toilet you have to find a shower once a week at least. You gotta do laundry somewhere. And sometimes we can do it in the sink and then put it on a clothes pin, but sometimes we just drop it off at a lavon and someone else does it. It, there's just a lot of things you have to get fuel. So it's, yeah, you're, you are gonna be losing probably half a day every single week to have this type of lifestyle, but,
Derek Clifford:Yeah. But then at the same time though, you don't have to jump on a plane and go somewhere and then fly all the way back, like you're flying there and back and you've got your transportation handled where you are. So you don't have to rent a car or Right. Unless
Elijah Brown:you're going to a conference. Correct. Yeah. So like I flew outta Cabo last week and went to the, Best Ever conference, and then I got back and had three days and immediately had to leave again for, Army reserves. Yeah, no, that, that makes sense. I'm just flying out of wherever I am.
Derek Clifford:Yeah. No that, totally makes sense. Awesome, man. Cool dude. So I have one last question for you. Sure. And then we'll head into our rapid round. And that is, do you guys see this as a permanent thing or do you eventually think this is going to end and how do you guys know when this journey's
Elijah Brown:gonna end? It's gonna end. We're thankfully young enough where we don't have to say it's gonna end in a year, it's gonna end in three years. We're just playing it by ear now. And I think going back to what's the most important thing? Why does this all matter? It's like that we can have a, good time and have great memories while we still can. And so we're, gonna do that until the magic runs out. And at that point, once we're, sick and tired of it who, knows how, long until we get there then. We'll go and settle down and we'll plant roots and whatever. But for, now we're just enjoying all the new experiences. I love it,
Derek Clifford:man. Very cool. I love listening to your story and I'm, sad to say that we're gonna have to get close to wrapping up the show, but I could be talking to you all day about this cuz it's fascinating and I know that the folks out there who are listening to this will, will definitely want they, probably envy you just like I do, being able to be that close and. And tra travel everywhere and have those experiences, you can do it too. Absolutely. Yes, absolutely. Alright, if you're ready for it, we're gonna head into our rapid round. We're gonna rapidly ask you six of our favorite questions that we ask every one of our guests. And they're meant to be answered in about 30 seconds or less. If you can do it, I'm really
Elijah Brown:bad at this and I did not prepare for this. So
Derek Clifford:You have no reason to be concerned. No one else did. You're good. And we also have the magic edit button as well, so we can always, edit things out. It's all good. That's right. Number one. Name any resource that was or is essential in your journey to pursue your freedom
Elijah Brown:LinkedIn. Yeah,
Derek Clifford:well said. Said. And yeah. Is that
Elijah Brown:yeah. L LinkedIn's so important because after exhausting my friends and family network, like I went to everyone I knew I had to start funding my deals with new relationships. And the absolute best place to find new relationships, especially PE professionals who have high income and high net worth that place is LinkedIn. Absolutely.
Derek Clifford:Awesome, man. Thank you. All right. Number two. If you woke up and your business and job was gone and you had $500 a laptop, place to live and some food, what do you think you would do first?
Elijah Brown:Oh man. This is the premise of undercover Billionaire, which is like my favorite show ever. I actually, I literally wrote an article about this a month ago. It's on LinkedIn. That's awesome. Okay. I would start with with relationships. It's, all about making connections and friends with the people in the location where you are because you are going to leverage the crap out of those and, utilize those to get to where you wanna be. Once you figure out what that, that business is gonna be. I would try to get involved in some type of High cash flowing, low overhead business, like a laundromat or a car wash. I would try to figure out a way to buy one with with the relationships that I made.
Derek Clifford:Absolutely. Doing some seller financing, right? Yes. Get yourself, yeah. Find the right people. I love it, man. Absolutely. Some stuff. Yeah. Great. Question number three. What does your and your goal setting practice
Elijah Brown:look like? Oh, interesting. So really up until this year I like half-assed the goal setting. And you know what I found? It's like I would set some goals and then I would get a month in and I had not taken any action. And it's because I didn't associate any like short-term actions and metrics with those goals. This year I've laid it out. I wrote up a Microsoft Word document with all kinds of. Bullet points of what I wanna do and, I'm now tracking it in Microsoft Excel because I have like specific metrics that I need to hit. And for example, I wanna be at 10,000 LinkedIn followers by the end of the year. I'm well on track to do that, which is awesome, but that's because I'm tracking the metrics and I know what's working and what's not, like articles are not working. Yeah, it is a good chance that next month I will not write articles. Yep.
Derek Clifford:Engagement is important, by the way. Yeah. Engaging in other people's posts because not only is there the algorithm that rewards you, but there's also some social pressure. I hate to say that, but that's absolutely the, fact of life. Absolutely. Number four, what are the core work habits that you guys attribute to most of your success?
Elijah Brown:Core work habits. Okay. Yeah. Okay, I'm gonna go in a little bit different direction. So we both actually use a software called Asana where whenever something comes to mind of I need to do this, I need to do that, or this needs to get done, we add it to the, it's a to-do list. It's a checklist of things that you need to do. That helps us, us stay really organized. And so I'll go through my day and I'll have my checklist pulled up and I rank it by like priority. So I I go through and I do the things that I need to do and that is like accountability. That is organization and that is what really helps me get through, the day. And, I think it's for both of
Derek Clifford:us. Yeah. Heck yeah, man. I use it. I use it all the time. That's awesome. My number one thing I'll have to show you later on What I don't wanna take away from your day of No,
Elijah Brown:but you, know what? This with this whole LinkedIn challenge thing I've been going to my post like every five minutes to like, see who's commenting should I respond? And that's the most distracting thing ever. It is. I, need to like, I need to, like my girlfriend was telling me I should just like, close the LinkedIn browser and don't even look
Derek Clifford:at it like, yeah, eventually you'll get to a point where you'll just start batching stuff. That's what I have to do. Yeah, I get the first batch in when I see like a bunch of people have posted on the spreadsheet that I made. And then also I'll go in and just comment on everyone's, and then I gotta do my day and then I'll go back at the thing and then comment
Elijah Brown:again just to help people out. Very good idea. I'm too much like of a instant gratification monkey.
Derek Clifford:It's all good, man. It's all good. I love it. Alright, number five. What books do you recommend to for people to jumpstart their success?
Elijah Brown:Yeah, definitely Start with Rich Dad, Poor Dad. That's like most important thing. You hear that from, everyone. But another thing I'm gonna say that you might have not heard a lot and that I've seen a lot books aren't. Aren't really gonna get you there. You gotta go out and do a deal. That's right. I know so many people who I used to make so many book recommendations, like the whole bigger pockets line up. I was like, go read all those books and watch all the podcasts. They'd go and consume more information and read so many books that would make your head spin like more books than I've ever read my whole life. And. These are the people who have not done any deals. And because they're stuck in their analysis paralysis, they're scared. They think if I just read another book, maybe I'll have the confidence to do a deal. But you'll learn so much more just doing the deal than you ever will. Reading the book. Another one is raising Private Capital by Matt Faircloth. And I just met him at the best Ever Conference. That was cool. Cause I read his book like five years ago and it, yeah. He changed my life. He's cool.
Derek Clifford:Yeah. He's a great guy. He's also a GoBundance member.
Elijah Brown:Oh, okay.
Derek Clifford:It's like me.
Elijah Brown:What is GoBundance? I'm not familiar with that.
Derek Clifford:Oh, it's just a mastermind for accredited investors. We all together and talk about how to live a life, fully lived, basically.
Elijah Brown:Oh, cool.
Derek Clifford:We, track each other and we have pods that we set goals with each other, hold each other accountable meet weekly.
Elijah Brown:Oh, very cool.
Derek Clifford:Have a, we have a one sheet, which is our, like our baseball card. I'll, show you after this call. Yeah, show me after. All right. Last question I got for you. What tool or process, and I think I already know what you're gonna answer has become one of your most important time, money, or energy saving ninja magic tricks that you guys use every day.
Elijah Brown:Oh, okay. I'm gonna say my active campaign automations.
Derek Clifford:Yeah. That's a lifesaver. I thought you were gonna say Asana, because that is pretty, pretty cool too.
Elijah Brown:That was good too. But once you make the initial like touchpoint with a potential investor and their, they've given you their, email address Now you have to convert them somehow and you gotta put them through some type of educational program to explain like what it is that you do and how you add value and, get them into a drip and then track them, tag them, and be able to like, understand them so that when you go to pitch 'em a deal, they actually click on it.
Derek Clifford:Of course, Yeah. Yeah, absolutely, man. Yeah, totally. Hey dude, thank you so much for coming on. This was awesome to have you on. And it was, it's great to meet someone like you who's taken your freedom into your own hands. And I'm sure that the audience has felt some of that inspiration. Maybe they're looking to do something like you and may end up reaching out to you. So for those who are looking to find out more about you I'm just gonna give you an open floor right now to let them know how they can find you.
Elijah Brown:Sure, I appreciate it. The best thing you can do is follow me on LinkedIn. That's it. It's linkedin.com/in/ElijahWBrown. That's where I'm most active. I don't really do much on Instagram. I do some Facebook, but LinkedIn is the spot. My girlfriend's telling me I need to plug our Instagram too. So we do have a Travel van life nomadic entrepreneurship Instagram account, it's called at Elijah and Hana.
Derek Clifford:If you guys provided that in the production materials beforehand, I'll go ahead and be linking. I'll link those to the show notes that we are gonna have. We have a web page, every one of our guests and so that will be attached to this podcast wherever you all are consuming. And for those of you who are, listening all the way to the end here in listening to Elijah and his girlfriend's story amazing stuff. Wherever you're listening or watching this, please make sure you like, subscribe, comment just engage with us because then we'll be appeasing those algorithm gods and we'll get a chance to get more exposure to more people and to attract more incredible people like Elijah to come on the show and add more value to you. So it's this amazing virtuous cycle. Elijah, thank you so much for coming on the show, man. It's an honor to have you on.
Elijah Brown:Derek, it's been such a pleasure. Thank you for having me.
Derek Clifford:Of course. Of course. Go enjoy your day, man, and I'm sure we'll see each other on LinkedIn or maybe even on podcast again later on.
Elijah Brown:Absolutely. Looking forward to it.
Derek Clifford:Take care everyone. Have a good day.