“There are many ways of getting into the game. The key is knowing how to do it and minimize risk.”
– Marco Kozlowski
In this episode, Marco Kozlowski, Francesco Galluccio, and Gabriel Araish discuss the fundamental steps for entering the world of real estate investment. They underscore the pivotal role of mindset and education, emphasizing the need to align actions with goals. Throughout their conversation, they stress the importance of seeking guidance from seasoned mentors who have achieved success in the industry. They caution against outdated advice and advocate for investing in education and mentorship as strategic decisions for long-term prosperity in real estate investment.
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SHOW NOTES
Please enjoy this transcript, but please note that it may contain a few typos. With many episodes lasting over 2 hours, it can be challenging to catch minor errors. Enjoy!
Marco Kozlowski: Hey, everyone, welcome to big fat real estate checks. My name is Marco Kozlowski and I’m here with Francesco Galluccio and Gabriel Araish, just have a little bit of fun with names today. Today we’re gonna get, we’re gonna figure out how to get started in real estate investing, how to get started what to do to begin, we looked at the top, Google most Googled searches, and what those trends are. And that was in the top five. So we thought why not do a podcast on how to get started. And of course, our objective is for you to get the cutting edge information here at Big Fat real estate checks. And I am joined with my my two compadres, my brothers from another mother, and two really awesome guys. And I don’t sound like I’m wanting to date you guys. And that’s definitely not on how much stops
Gabriel Araish: testosterone levels must be low.
Marco Kozlowski: Hold me, please hold me. So yeah, so if I’m a complete beginner, and I just I just want to get started. What do I do?
Frank: I’m curious why everyone’s googling that because I just saw a recent stat. This is up in Canada, by the way that over 71% of people in their jobs currently today are want one out, basically, one out of the rat race. So that’s an astonishing number. And that’s why I guess they’re Googling shit like that, like, how do you get started in real estate? Because I guess you know, the words out real estate made a lot of people wealthy over the years. And yeah, to get started, I think Third, the first thing for myself is mindset is because people traditionally just know one way to buy a property. And maybe they don’t have enough credit, or they don’t know how to manage your property, whatever. These are all the internal beliefs that they have. And that’s the big obstacle. And that’s why a lot of people just don’t start it. So
Marco Kozlowski: in fear, fear of the unknown fear of not knowing what to do fear of loss, fear, fear, fear, fear, fear, and you can lose your acid real estate if you don’t do it properly. And there are many ways of getting into the game. Key is how to do it without risk. And I know a guy, but yeah, I
Gabriel Araish: don’t know if you can say without risk, but with you know, risk being mitigated as much as possible. Yeah.
Marco Kozlowski: Thank you, Attorney.
Frank: Well, this idea he was waiting to say that he was Disclaimer, disclaimer is mitigation, right? This while there’s risk to everything, right. But
Gabriel Araish: yeah, but it goes hand in hand with that mindset is definitely the first step. And, and mindset, I think and fear kind of go hand in hand where your mindset is going to have to help you. surmount the fear that you have of getting started. So once that’s kind of dealt with the next step, and it’s going to be more important now than it was 10 years ago, is to get the right education around how to become if you if it’s an investor, that you want to be in real estate, or involved in real estate, because, you know, if all you’re talking to are people that were in the game 10 years ago, and seeing that they became wealthy, then yeah, that’s great. But inflation took care most of their wealth, it wasn’t like you have no idea whether or not they were really good at what they did, or if they got lucky, because of the timing. Whereas now in this cycle that we’re entering, and that seems to be becoming a little bit more of the trend. Everybody in their mother is, you know, thinking of real estate, so you really have to become a professional at real estate, if you want to excel at it. And the only way to do that is to get educated. And we’re seeing a lot of different, you know, I guess deals that have gone wrong moving forward from from deals, especially for if they were bought in the last year or two. And, you know, with with this increase in interest rates with the changing of the tides, the cycles, you know, in the US, there’s an election coming up, like there’s all these variables that are coming in, that are impacting the way the underwriting was done two years ago. It’s making it that it’s going to become harder and harder to become a real estate investor. If you’re doing this on your own, if you’re like trying to just figure it out, then trial and error, you’re probably going to run out of time and money before you figure it out. So in my opinion, getting educated is is probably more important now than it ever was.
Marco Kozlowski: If you actually Google how do I really become wealthy? It says invest in yourself. That’s the answer. Well, that’s that you unpacked something. And we started done that direction, and I’ll follow my sword and apologize for taking us off that direction. But mindset, if we’re gonna have to do this, I think in multiple episodes, and I know Frank has to go shortly. So we might be frank less than a minute. But the there’s nothing worse than being free.
Gabriel Araish: It’s going to become a short episode.
Marco Kozlowski: mindset because that’s everything at the end of the day, because if you there’s nothing more dangerous than a mind that’s made up. Right? There’s nothing more powerful than a mind that’s made up right and made up mind is a powerful thing. So it’s, it’s it’s important that you’re clear as to what your goals are, what you want out of life, and really write those things down, and then ask yourself are the things that I want? And the things that I’m doing, aligned, and going to get me the things that I really deserve? Because all all Oh, all we have right now is and where we are, how much money is in our bank account. Everything that we are experiencing today is the sum of all our behaviors of the past, right? You’re exactly where you chose to be.
Frank: At the end of the day, it’s the consequences you call it before, right? I think you mentioned this before
Marco Kozlowski: consequences of your actions good and bad. So if you change behaviors, to bad behaviors, those consequences, and also if you change into good behaviors, there are wealth consequences to that. So mindset and education on what needs to be done in order to go into the right direction is absolutely, absolutely necessary. And it’s vital. Because if you think about it, everything that you know, everything that you know, right now is very small, compared to what’s actually have that the vast knowledge that’s possible, right? If you think of all the things that everybody knows, to what you know, there’s a vast difference. And it’s not what you know, that’s gonna get you to where you want to be. It’s what you don’t know, because you don’t know what you don’t know what’s gonna get you to where you want to be. And the more you learn, the more you start opening up doors to different opportunities, and possibilities, and you start shedding old beliefs, like if you know where to get the money without using your money and credit, you know, you don’t need money credit anymore, because that’s what consumers do. Once you know how to create a deal. You know, when someone says where to find a deal, we don’t find them, we we create them because we’re looking for a specific thing. So knowledge and mindset can really completely change the game. So I’m curious. I think playing with that for a minute before Frank has to go is, I think going to be going to have a lot of value.
Frank: Oh, well, you now that you know, you know less than what you don’t know. Right. And it’s and surrounding yourself, I guess, I guess surrounding yourself with like minded people that have done it before. And I think I said this before, like a Sensei, you know, my kids took karate when they were younger, and they had a Sensei, and I was like, what’s that? What’s a Sensei, and if you look it up with Sensei, as someone that’s been there before, that’s what it means, right? So they’re teaching how to do karate, because they’ve done it before they know how to do it. And they’re just passing that knowledge down to the students. Same thing in real estate, you need a sense that you need to surround yourself with like minded people don’t google the shit on YouTube and trying to learn from that and trying to get into a real estate. Because magic will happen. Not may happen will happen. And it’s the same story like the koi fish. So if you get a koi fish and you put it in, I don’t know, a 75 gallon tank, it’s only gonna grow maybe three, four inches. You take that same koi fish and you put it in a pond, it’s gonna grow proportionate to that environment, which is you know, I don’t know how big they get but they get pretty big like a big a couple of feet at least. Right? So you grow proportionately to who you surround yourself with. So that’s another thing look who you’re surrounding yourself with and look who you’re taking advice from which sometimes it’s not a good idea you know, when the broke guy is telling you to do this this is gonna work so and it’s funny because people do can they trust this even family members so Sonya knows your family members? No they say shit and you got the naysayers you got a lot of tripping going on because you know people love misery that they left company and they don’t want to see people flourish or be better than them. That’s jealousy. Right? That’s why I got the car No, as they say in Italy for the for the Malachy or the l have it now the court No, but I have it in all my properties is that we’re on? Java C is terrible. Jealousy is terrible. So just be careful who you’re surrounding yourself with. It’s all just if you are, what’s
Gabriel Araish: that? Was it nobody knows what caught me?
Frank: Oh, it’s the red horn, the red horn who caught it? No,
Gabriel Araish: it’s a corn. It’s no, but this was an English podcast,
Frank: it is both, they can look it up google it. Oh, no, the red the time horn. All right, the red, it’s like a red pepper, pepper, pepper, red horn what? Yeah, and they had that shit, you know, all the times have that shit hanging from the rearview mirror was for whatever reason. But anyway, it’s just going back to my point is if you’re really sincerely looking to if you’re one of the 71% of Canadians or even Americans that want to get out of their job, we want something better for themselves. And people are starting to realize this, that, you know, having a gob is not going to cut it, they’re not going to retire for it, you know, because when you retire, you’re going to be still gonna need some money, right? So if you are going to be jumping into something like real estate, like, I’m biased, I love real estate, but it’s a great vehicle. There’s other vehicles to make you wealthy, but this is one that’s very popular amongst all the wealthy. You know, you got even celebrities doing this shit. So just think before you get advice from someone, make sure if they’ve done this before, make sure that that the sensei and follow their process, they each one has a certain process or whatever, one better than another, but you’re gonna do it take the leap of not even a leap of faith is make an educated decision to get someone to help you with it. Yeah,
Marco Kozlowski: make sure that your values are aligned with their values, make sure that you’re you’re making sure that they’re the results are, you know our sound, it’s important because and that they actually care about your your well being. That’s really important as well. Now, it’d
Gabriel Araish: be a fit, that’s for sure. It’s
Marco Kozlowski: got to be a good fit. Yeah, not, you know, we’re not for everybody, not everybody’s for us. And that’s totally fine. Because both of you were in, you know, had a tipping point, we’ve already had a podcast on this. And it’s, as soon as your your mind is made up, to do something bigger, and are prepared for the sacrifice that it takes because there is going to be a sacrifice, right? If you have a box that can fit nine cubes. And that’s the time that you have, you have to remove something in order to replace it with something else, right. And we only have so much time in the day. And you have to be prepared to sacrifice a little bit of time, not all the time, just a little bit of time. And replace that with something that you’re persistent and consistent with in order to learn a new skill. Because if you took 20 minutes, every day to learn a language, in a year you’d speak another language to learn an instrument to go to the gym, our mind is an amazing thing, where if you are just learning something consistently for just 20 minutes, 25 minutes every single day, you are the consequence. Is that knowledge or is that skill. And everything in life can be learned, no matter how shy you are, or how extroverted you are, or how how much you think you know, or don’t know, or how good you think you are not good enough, it doesn’t matter. Anyone can learn a skill that will get you to a certain point to achieve a certain thing.
Frank: Actually, you mentioned remember the exercise we did, and I encourage everyone to do this actually did the T exercise, right? So just draw a letter T and on the left hand side, right, everything that you do, I guess in 20 minute increments, you know, whether brush your teeth or shower, mow the lawn shit like that. I don’t know, whatever, right? Walk The Dog scoop shit, whatever, right? So you put all that down, go to work. And then on the right side, write down everything that’s on the on the left side that’s helping you achieve your goal. And you’ll be astonished how many things are on the right side? Yeah, yeah, it’s scary. I did that for the first time. I was like, wow, so just, it’s alignment. Alright,
Marco Kozlowski: I want to make sure that that we’ve said this right, right. So on the left side, every task that you’re doing, right, that takes at least 20 minutes of your time, right as many as you can. And on the right side, write down everything that you wanted to life, right.
Frank: Right. Oh, yes.
Marco Kozlowski: Everything that you are that you want out of life.
Frank: Yeah, yes, you’re right. I messed it up, man. No,
Marco Kozlowski: no, it’s fine. The on the right side the the, the bro no one’s perfect. All right, I was perfect. You know, it’d be ridiculous. So it’s, it’s all the things that you want in life, the money that you want to make the charities that you want to give back to the places that you want to be the connections that you want to have the person that you never want to have to wake up next to again, or want to wake up next to in the future. You know, whatever, all the things that you want to achieve out of life that were you thought, Man, if I had these things, my life is good. Like I’ve accomplished the things that I want. Right? So on one side, all the things that you’re doing on the other side, side All the things that you want. Alright, if you take a few minutes just to put those two things together, hit the pause button of this podcast. We’ll come back to you in a second. Now, if you’re ready, there we go. You’ve done it. All right. Now, I want you to circle all the things on the left side, the behaviors that you are doing the things that you’re doing today that are getting you closer to what’s on the right side to your dreams, because on the right side is what you want out of life. And if other people have those things, shouldn’t you if other people have accomplished those things, have those things are able to do those things? Shouldn’t you the only difference between them and you is nothing other than behavior. So if you take a look at all the things that you are doing, and circle the things that you’re doing that are getting closer to your dream, most people don’t even have three, which means that you’re going through life, not doing anything that’s producing results to make you fulfilled, full of joy, and happiness. And that’s a mindset. And that’s a behavior set that really needs to be looked at. And it’s terrifying if you are not aware of that.
Frank: Yes, terrible. I know when I did it, I think I had one. I had zero. Well, I listen at the same time I was also and I’m sure many viewers say the same thing. Okay, once I get this done in this time, then I gotta start. Once it ran that start date never comes someday. Whilst procrastinating. Right. So. And that goes back to the fear part, too.
Marco Kozlowski: You know what the true definition of procrastination is? I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you tomorrow.
Frank: Well, that’s like being a perfectionist, right? It’s a procrastinator. So actually,
Marco Kozlowski: procrastination. Yeah, we we had a podcast on that. I think so. Yeah, we did. We did. So yeah. So change your behavior, change your mindset, the only way to change your behavior is being aware of it first. All right, and making sure that you’re behaving in a way that’s aligned with what you want. And the fastest way to learn how to do that is to align yourself with a mentor, someone that knows what to do how to do it, it’s way faster than trying to figure it out yourself, as you guys have said, find someone that you are aligned with, and has done it before. Of course, not that sensei know how to do it, right? Not that started once in the 80s. And since like someone that’s actively Well, there’s a lot of people that teach stuff.
Frank: I know, I’m laughing because it’s true, you know, they had to teach it what they did, two decades ago, one
Marco Kozlowski: deal in their whole life. And that’s now they’re teaching other gurus, you know, and they had no problems. You want someone that’s really had a lot of problems to teach you because you want you want the guy that’s almost crashed the plane three times with one wing, or that literally can take the plane off with no wings and build a wing up in the air if necessary, in order to get this plane landed, you know what I mean? Like you want someone that’s understands how to do it, but also knows how to teach. Because I’m not sure if Tiger Woods would be a good golf teacher, if you’re the best. I’m not sure who the best players in the world are now, because I don’t follow golf. But it’s not the best golf player in the world, necessarily, that can teach you how to play golf. It’s the coach of the best teacher in the world that should be teaching you how to play golf, if that makes sense. Yep, that’s what you want. And those are the people you should be seeking the and the better they are, the more they cost, but the cheaper it actually ends up becoming because your results get you there faster and more effectively. So it doesn’t matter what something costs. It’s the value that you’re getting in the speed in which you’re getting it with the results that you know you’re going to get that has value
Gabriel Araish: for sure. That’s a mindset right there. It shouldn’t be viewed as a cost, but more as an investment. Exactly.
Marco Kozlowski: Exactly. Bang on the money. So I think Frank is about to turn into a pumpkin. So appreciate you being here for the short amount of time Frank, it’s actually my fault. I I got a lot on your plate that’s on my plate. And I woke up later than expected after a long day yesterday, Tuesdays are my longest day. And when I woke up this morning, I’m like, not gonna get up and I went back to sleep. And that is something that all of you should be able to do one day in your life and say, You know what, I choose to go back to sleep and I did. So I appreciate just
Gabriel Araish: let us know next time. Yeah, sorry.
Marco Kozlowski: And I appreciate you very much. Both Frank and engage. And of course, you as the listener. If it wasn’t for you, we’d be talking to nobody like us love is Sharice this is all about you and giving you great content in order to take on and apply directly in your life immediately. And the more you learn, the more you earn. And we just look forward to getting your great feedback. As always, we appreciate you and that’s it for this episode of Big fat or real estate check Sam doodles.