Exciting announcements and updates are waiting for you in this conversation. Chris Seveney and Jamie Bateman talk about parting ways. Nope, they’re not breaking up because they’re joined at the hip by multiple business ventures. However, Jamie will be releasing his own podcast soon, entitled “From Adversity To Abundance.” It’s focused more on the human side of note investing and business in general. Mindset and growth are huge themes that you will surely resonate with. Curious to know more? Join in!

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Chris And Jamie – Announcements And Updates

Before we get started on this episode, I want to add a little precursor that this is going to have a lot of humor and everything should be taken with a grain of salt based on where this conversation is going. That’s my way of saying I’m basically going to be roasting somebody but that’s okay. I am along with Jamie Bateman. How are you?

I’m doing well.

We have had a lot going on. I don’t think we have done an episode, just you and me, in a while. It’s about our breakup. Jamie and I have been in an online relationship for four years and then we finally met each other in person then what happened? A lot of people, when I met them, said and as expecting to like, “You are shorter than we thought.” I hope my height was not the deal-breaker. We do have a lot of announcements on this episode that are going to be positive for everyone involved because I’m excited about a lot of things that you’ve got going on. I’ve got some stuff going on as well that we want to share with people.

I’m excited as well. We are not breaking up, for the record but we are redefining our relationship.

We each have a few hundred thousand reasons why we wouldn’t want to be breaking up from that perspective. What I mean by that is Jamie and I have multiple business ventures that we are involved in.

We are attached to the hip, whether we like it or not.

You’ve got something that you have been working on for a while. Why don’t you share with people what that is? It’s exciting.

I’m launching my own podcast. The name of it is From Adversity to Abundance. It’s going to focus on more of the human element of facing adversity and then battling through or over around that adversity and getting to an abundance mindset, growth mindset, and a life of abundance. It’s rags to riches type of thing, but more a mindset and focusing on people’s stories and backgrounds. I have recorded a bunch of episodes already. In episode three, you are going to be the guest. I’m excited about it.

The Good Deeds show has been phenomenal. My experience with it has been great. It’s not over yet, but I’m super happy and honored that you asked me to be a part of it. It was September 2020 when I started on the show and it has been awesome. I have learned a ton. I have relaxed a little bit but I found that the episodes that personally I’m more into are not necessarily note investing based or focused. I’m heavily involved in notes. I’m not leaving the note space or anything like that.

I love note investing but it’s the human side, mindset, small business, and growth. That’s what appealed to me more. There’s an opportunity for a broader audience there as well. We are still going to focus on investing in the business and there are still going to be a lot of similar topics to what you and I have covered and what you have covered previously to me being on the show prior to that. I’m working on launching.

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One thing I want to also touch upon is you mentioned the human side of things and you are knocking out a note space. Actually, you are doing the exact opposite. You are in a growth stage for your business, which is awesome as well. Can you tell people a little bit about what you’ve got going on because you’ve got some exciting announcements on the note side of things that work?

We have a fund that we are launching. That’s going to be more performing note-based and centered around the preferred return and not so much upside-based. It’s more of a liquidity fund with monthly payments. You and I have our integrity mortgage note fund that’s going very well but that’s closed as far as the capital raise goes. We are ironing out exactly the launch date but we are going to be raising capital. It’s going to be an evergreen fund. We will have periods of where we are raising capital and then we will close and reopen it. I’m excited about that.

I have been expanding my team and I feel like the team is in a very good place. We did the website and got some exciting things going on with funding management as far as software and investment management for the investors to have a one-stop-shop to check out their investments, research, and see what’s going on from a detailed standpoint.

I’ve got the new podcast, a new fund, and some new team members. I’m excited about the future. People say that Chris and Jamie are breaking up. We have had multiple very honest, open conversations. We can take this conversation wherever you want to go. I know we are going to get to what you have going on, which is a whole lot but I want to say upfront at least that it’s not like that at all.

Managing the fund together has been challenging and primarily because you have your systems and a full-time job. I have my systems. I’m setting my ways in some ways. It has been going well but it makes sense for me to launch my own fund. It’s a growth thing. It’s not in lieu of our current fund or anything. We have BIFI going on. Shante is doing most of the work there with her staff. That’s very exciting as well. With the podcast and fund, it makes sense to branch off and continue to work together in a lot of ways, more in a synergistic way, as opposed to every day, all day.

For example, for the integrity performing fund that we have going together, you are right, it’s a little more challenging because also I am like an ultra-high type-A person on that and I fit my role in where that is, and with you managing a lot of day-to-day. I have worked on asset acquisitions and more on a high peripheral level assisting on things. I’m trying to let you take the lead on that, which I hope has been valuable and educational for you.

Part of it happened with circumstances at the beginning of the fund but we fell into our natural rhythm. Our hands worked well where you raised more of the capital. You are getting more of the assets, the front end bringing everything back. I have done more of the day-to-day management but it’s worked well.

The fund is doing very well.

It makes sense to go this way. You are in high energy and you like to bring it. You’ve always got tons of ideas. Do you want to talk about what you have going on?

I’ve got a lot going on. I will say this personally with me and probably these thoughts have gone through your mind over time and stuff but my schedule is always very erratic because I do have a full-time job. I have matured a lot over the years. Thanks a lot to you as well for assisting me in that component to it of understanding. It’s not always just about me because I have always run my businesses like I’m the one-man-shop. With integrity, basically, I have my work schedule, then I have my full-time job. Trying to fit in meetings and stuff has always been challenging.

 

That’s where I had to learn. It’s like, “I do have to step back and let Jamie run with this and take the lead,” which, for people that know me, it’s not an easy thing for me to do. I have to have 100% trust in that person, all the trust in the world, for that to happen. On the episode with Jamie, I tell a story nobody else has heard. I have told certain stories about my past on this show but I have not gone deep into a lot of the stuff that I’ve gone through over the years. I questioned how much I have called adversity compared to how you define it. It’s different for everybody. I have had struggles in the past and overcome them.

You have had successes that you don’t like to talk about.

I like to think I am humble but with a lot of that stuff that’s also going on, Jamie is going to do his thing and rocket it with this show. In particular, we are going to be rebranding the show. It’s still going to be note-centric. We are over 200 episodes, which I never in 1 million years would have thought I had gotten this far. I’m very appreciative to you, to Gail, and to people who have been a part of this. We are going to rebrand it. We are still going to talk about notes but also going to expand it a little bit. It’s going to be rebranded. Creating Wealth Simplified is the new name. It’s not only about notes but it’s also going to be about other aspects of real estate that we are going to talk about as well.

We will talk about some probably infinite banking, which you are a big fan of basically, fix and flips, everything in general, to understand for people what are the options out there. I talked to a lot of people because I never knew about self-directed IRAs or 401(k)s. There’s that whole aspect of what options are there out for investors. As people know, I brought on Lauren Wells, who started with me but she and I have been in communication since about 2021, which is an awesome story that we are going to share on one of the episodes.

She is going to come on and be the co-host of the show. I’m going back to bringing on a woman. We had Gail and then Jamie. We are flipping back and forth. Personally, I can’t do it alone. I recognize that from the standpoint of I need support and Lauren is my rock now with keeping my business operations running. From a podcast perspective, when I did those few episodes by myself, I thought they were awful. I had no one to banter with it.

It’s a couple of things and we will see how it goes for me. In the actual episode, the content. It is hard to talk to yourself but also scheduling, planning, and being consistent. It is easier in some ways to have a co-host. Gail and I need to start our own podcast and take you guys on.

We talked about having a roast of where we have like Lauren and Sandra to roast them. We should probably do that. I’ve got Lauren, who’s joined us. She’s going to be heading up our investor relations. I’m going to be bringing on two other individuals as well who are going to be coming on to join us on portfolio and asset management because we are looking to scale significantly. There’s going to be an ample opportunity coming up. I have been working with my favorite attorney, Brian Gallagher, on some really interesting things that are a little outside the box compared to a traditional offering that people have seen. We will have some announcements on that.

Everybody is different, obviously. You have been through adversity. If people listened to the episode where you are the guest on my show, they would understand this more. To me, I don’t struggle as much as it maybe is. You take on tons of things that would scare 9 out of 10 people. You are not afraid to just take on. To me, taking on a team member is no big deal. I don’t mean that like, “Just hire anybody. They are not important,” but you struggled with trust issues or something where you would like to do everything yourself.

It’s amazing how much output you can muster. It’s incredible. I don’t know if I have seen anything like it but you are one person. Anybody can scale Elon Musk. He’s got a lot of employees. I don’t think people realize how you are facing your fears in some ways here as well. You are getting out of your comfort zone more than people probably understand by hiring someone and hiring more than one person. I’m excited to see your growth in the future as well.

I think of a few things. One is people who joined my team. I include you and Shante in this as well because I don’t jump proverbially embedded with anybody from that standpoint. It takes a lot for me to trust somebody but then when they build that trust, they are like family to me. I am also human in the sense of I’m an extremely sensitive person. I come off and get a ration of what a lot of people and stuff. I can take it sometimes. I do have emotions. I am human. I’m not a robot.

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I was talking with somebody and had also had some other personal stuff going on. A comment came through. The comment was fine at any other point in time, except it hit me a little bit harder because of the point in time where I hit. That person doesn’t know that at this point and it’s somebody who I trust with my life essentially. It poked me at that one time.

Where I was going with this is the people who I let into that little inner circle, I don’t know if you understand through me how much trust I have in that person of literally, “I’ve got your back,” in any situation because it’s not very easy for somebody to get that. If you get inside that little circle as part of business partners and a team, the amount of respect I have for you is a lot.

I know that it’s not only about me but I do appreciate that.

I have mentioned that to Shante, some of the other people, and Lauren as well.

We appreciate that.

I say that because for me, sometimes people will think of, “It’s just a job.” It’s not a job. It’s like, “You are not a partner. You are an employee. I consider you like a family member,” from that perspective. I joked to somebody at one point in time. I said, “It’s like Fast & Furious or Bad Boys with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. They work together but they are like family.” That’s more of the role I talked about.

My wife and I have been watching The Last Kingdom. It’s medieval or post-medieval fiction but there’s tons of violence and then the Will Smith thing happened. The next morning I’m like, “Please, don’t.” We gave the caveat at the beginning to take everything with a grain of salt now. My first reaction because we watched the show the night before with all this death, murder, and war, and then everyone is freaking out about a slap. I’m like, “Who cares?” I’m not saying it’s good to use violence.

That’s not the point. I hope this conversation we have had so far if the people can at least walk away with the fact that there was no big falling out or anything like that. We have already talked to some people who were looking for that. It’s like, “What happened,” the drama. It’s like, “Nothing happened. What happened was we were honest and open. We can have a big boy conversation without some major drama going on.”

It’s interesting too because I have heard from a few investors who basically made comments like, “I’m a very difficult person. I divide things.” I don’t know if I do or not. I find it that comical of I have tunnel vision with my business. I’m not worried about what other people do with their business. I hope people are successful. I look at our relationship as we are hiking that mountain. We get to the edge and every time we get the edge, I kick you off or throw you in the pool and say, “I hope you know how to build the parachute pretty quick,” from that sense but I would also be there to jump with you and on the way down.

Sometimes I will tell you how to build that parachute and you will also give me advice on how to do things as well. It’s definitely a mutually beneficial relationship for both parties where if you look at our two personalities, I am very aggressive and you are the logical thinker on things. We worked very well together because I’m always like, “Go, go, go.” You are like, “Chris, why don’t we think about this for a second?”

 

I compared you to Lamar Jackson because you improvise and maybe make a mistake or two, but somehow, you make this incredible come from behind and make this amazing play. You are very talented. You called me Mac Jones because he is boring, deliberate, consistent, and gets the job done. We are very different. When you asked me to be on the show, I’m an introvert by nature and I’m not a public speaker. My first reaction was, “No,” but I didn’t say that. I was like, “Yes, I need to do this.”

That is a good takeaway for people not to say yes to everything but when the opportunity presents itself, say yes. We don’t have the following that Joe Rogan has. We are not famous but I will say that saying yes to that opportunity did open up other opportunities. Had I said no to that, I don’t think we would have been a part of BIFI. I doubt it. Our relationship grew from there. I’m excited to see how it grows in the future.

That goes into play of there is a risk involved in things and getting people to do things that are a little bit uncomfortable. I know a lot of people think I do shoot from the hip, which I do but I don’t. I’m a very logical and forward thinker. Typically, I’m shooting from the hip on an idea that has been in my brain for probably 60 days. It’s not like I just wake up one morning, call Brian and say, “I need this done tomorrow.” I would say, “I need it done by Tuesday.” I will give him my four days.

In token, once it gets to that point, it’s like, “Let’s sit back and review.” What I have been working on with Brian had been ongoing when things started discussing. I did a ton of research but once I get comfortable with a decision, I’m like, “I’m good. I’m running with it.” There are all these steps throughout that journey that you take.

You have a strategic game plan as always but then you are very detail-oriented and can work through specifics for sure but then you are flexible on a day-to-day basis as well.

The way I look at it is you are going down the path and then all of a sudden, a storm hits or it gets whitewashed out. I’m not going to sit there, freeze and wait for this to clear back up. It’s like, “I know you are going to get thrown curveballs in life because we have all gone through life where we’ve got thrown curve balls and you’ve got two things you can do.” You can wait, do nothing or figure out what else to do. To me, the engineer in me is, “I love the challenge of figuring that stuff out.” That’s what I enjoy doing. You’ve got your new performing fund that’s coming out. Is that launched? How’s that working?

The start date is May 1, 2022. We may push it back to June 1, 2022, but within that one-month period is when it’s launching. It’s the integrity income fund and its monthly payments to the investors once they get started. We can buy non-performing notes in it. I do think there’s going to be an opportunity for that. It seems like things have already started to open up a little bit with the deal flow but it’s primarily going to be performing first-lien note fund. I’m excited to launch it.

Is it a Regulation D 506(c)?

Correct. It’s an accredited investor. Go to our website and check it out.

It’s LabradorLending.com. For people who are not in the podcast space, there are a lot of nuances in launching a podcast and to do it right. There is a lot from branding, cover logo, cover art, the song, and everything. You can’t just launch like one episode. They recommend you start with ten. There’s a ton of work that has been involved in that.

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This is where I jumped onboard. You already had it rolling. You had Podetize. They are a one-stop-shop for things. They are not perfect by any means. They can be frustrating but they do many different aspects of podcasting. I’m still having to learn some of this stuff and it’s disjointed. The podcasting industry is in a growth phase. It’s only going to expand but I had no idea that there were 25 or 30 different services you can use. They all do slightly different things. There are 30 listening platforms as well. Do you manually upload? There’s a lot to it.

There’s editing, “Do you want to edit it? Do you want to put out transcription as Podetize does? Do you want to put it on YouTube? Are you doing video as well?” I listened to a podcast where now they have the video. On my phone, you are watching the video through the app, not just the cover art. I was like, “How did that happen?” It’s constantly changing. There are always new platforms and there’s a lot to it. I have my cover art, intro and outro done. I’m doing an intro to each episode now, where I will go back and talk about it. It’s not a snap of the fingers type of thing. I am very impatient. I wanted it done yesterday. Most entrepreneurs have that. It’s going to be soon.

For people wondering about this show, we are going to rebrand it. We will be talking about that over the next episodes. June 1, 2021, is the timing for launching. In all of these episodes, everything is not going away. It’s going to be on the same platform and same everything. We are just changing the name. Jamie is going to be doing his own podcast and I will be bringing on Lauren for this one. Lauren has been heavily involved with what we’ve got going on in our next adventure.

She’s got a lot of experience as well. Maybe not with podcasting but with marketing.

She’s worked for a lot of tech firms and also has managed throughout her career over 100 assets of real estate notes and so forth. She’s got that real estate and sales background. She used to work for LinkedIn or for Procore, which is a software that a lot of construction management companies use. She also worked for AppFolio at a point in time, which I know it’s a platform that you are looking at.

She seems very professional. That was a good hire.

A real perfect example is I would get leads through my website. There are two things. One is I typically don’t like talking on the phone. I do but I don’t. I get these leads. I reach out to people. In Gmail and Yahoo, I throw everything in the other non-primary folders. I will be emailing people who might have some interest. I have these warm leads. I basically didn’t spend enough time following up.

She has been taking those already. When people are reaching out, basically, she has been reaching back out to them immediately, which I wasn’t able to do. The subscription component of being able to reach out to somebody when they are interested, I’m the same way. If I see something I want, I want to go get it that day. I don’t want to wait six weeks for it to get delivered.

A lot of people sometimes have that mindset. It’s having that already from that perspective and the other thing I’ve got to say about her before she comes on is she started in August 2021 for me. You bring in people who are very valuable. As they are trying to learn, they will take less money to try and get educated or be part of something special. She did that.

The amount of stuff behind the scenes that she has been doing, basically almost like managing a new entity we’ve got going on and like, “Hold my beer. I’ve got this,” as well as not even bringing up the fact of like, “Hey, look.” She knew eventually the adjustment was coming once she came on full-time but never even brought it up.

 

The type of person that it says about her is phenomenal. I haven’t talked a lot about on this episode about our relationship over the last several years. We met doing a JV deal together. I joked early on about how we hadn’t met and then we finally met. For me, it has been very uplifting in a sense to work with you because we are different people. I get to relate to seeing how other people operate. It has been very educational from a professional and personal level because we are both humans.

We have our personal and professional struggles. We are both very competitive. You were an athlete. I was an athlete but you definitely kept me grounded. I was looking over my shoulder, where I always liked to tell people, “I’m that person who likes to look over your shoulder,” but I’m more pushing you. You are more of pulling me back a little bit and not stopping me from doing things. You are giving me a different perspective on things because our backgrounds are very different. It probably allowed me in much sense to get to the level of where I want to go to, which is by bringing on people because I did have those trust issues and we are just two dudes, in that sense.

To go out, start BIFI and give Shante that confidence, a lot of that comes from the relationship I built with you to be able to understand and then put trust back in people because, as everyone knows, I have been a one-man-shop for the last years. I would rather spend the money on technology versus people. Now, I have flipped a little bit to put my trust in people. A lot of that, I want to say thank you.

You have pushed me in a lot of good ways. It has been mutually beneficial for sure. When I got into notes, you were way ahead of me. You still are but you definitely were a mentor. We have become more friends. We push each other now. If you start working with Chris, you will be pushed. You have high standards. You don’t want to have regrets when you look back and I appreciate that. We have pushed and pulled each other in good ways. It has been a good journey and it’s not over. It’s just changing.

We still have business ventures together and I’m sure we will also have more in the future as well. You are close to catching up with me though, because when we shared our lender disbursements, yours was very close to mine. When I shared mine and said, “This has been a good week,” and then you forwarded me your disbursements.

That was a mistake and that went back to zero.

Jamie helped me with these DC loans, which he invested in. We joked like I am all investing in Jamie’s deals and he invests in some of my deals and stuff. In this DC deal, we sold one of the assets. We’ve got the payoff, which is a seven-figure asset. It’s because Jamie has invested, I wasn’t bragging. I’m like, “This is a nice poll this weekend. We can return some of the funds. You can come through.”

The disbursement PDF of that size.

Jamie joked, “I’m a little behind you in disbursement. It was $10.” That’s not a reflection on Jamie’s assets in business or funds. It’s an inside joke on one of the things he has coming.

The timing was pretty good because we received it within ten minutes of each other. Shante told me the story of having that check and driving it to the bank. She was nervous about having that much money. Where do we want to go? Do we want to tell what’s going on with our notes?

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We can wrap up this episode with some of the cool stuff that you’ve got going on. I haven’t disclosed as much about what I’ve got going on because there are things that I’ve still got to work on that I somewhat can’t disclose yet.

What happened? Any of the highlights or lowlights as far as managing assets or crazy stories?

I’m going to shift a little bit from the crazy stories because we do tell a lot of them and flip it a little bit on some of the compassion side of things. I had a borrower who was in a car accident and a seven-year-old child was killed. It was a delinquent loan. We are in the process of restructuring a payment plan, which we agreed on prior to this incident happening. When I heard about this, the first thing to me is, “I will let this person grief.” We will touch base with them in 30, 60, 90 days or whatever the magic number is.

I know some people might say, “Bad stuff happens to people all the time. Where do you draw the line and stuff?” It is a fine line. Before this show, I joked at you, “How are you mentally? How’s your peace and stuff?” You shared a personal story on something. The close person I have lost is my father. I couldn’t fathom losing somebody younger than me. I don’t even mention anything like that happening because of the karma type thing, but sometimes in this business, show some compassion and make sure that the people you work with show compassion. That’s extremely important.

I’ve got a similar thing where I bought a Georgia note that was automatic ACH with strong pay history. It’s not an incredible return but it has been paying like clockwork. We transferred it to BIFI. It boarded and the borrower’s son died. They said, “All of our expenses are going to go towards his funeral costs.” I’m dealing with all of this. I have no idea what it was from or anything like that but the servicer of BIFI asked, “Can we waive the late fees for a couple of months?” I’m like, “We can.” It reminded me because it happened to my borrowers. That’s where we, as low-level note investors compared to big banks, have that discretion to show compassion.

It’s that and make quick decisions because that’s one of the things when I was talking with somebody about explaining the business and what differentiates us from institutional lenders. I said, “We are human. We make the decisions.” We can make them as a team or group with her. We can make a quick decision. It’s not like you have to wait six months, and then make an answer on something.

It goes through nine levels of approval.

I have had crazy weeks where I have a borrower with multiple loans that we are trying to work something out and they keep making promises that they never have. We have negotiated two short payoffs on some loans that are a win-win for us. We sold that DC asset. That’s a big score there. There’s a lot of activity and things going on. I am seeing a lot of bankruptcies pop up. I had 4 or 5 loans going to bankruptcy.

In our group, it was interesting because I made a comment on a post about a loan. I don’t know this investor. I don’t know the note. I wasn’t commenting or trying to be disrespectful. I was just putting a bug in people’s ears, “Did you evaluate this for bankruptcy?” One of the comments and even one of the other people in the group mentioned like, “Bankruptcy sits on your credit for a long time.” I’m like, “Yeah, it does but also it does in a foreclosure.” You’ve always got to put yourself in somebody’s shoes and it depends where you came from. I didn’t grow up in a family with a ton of money. My parents took us on a lot of vacations. My childhood was awesome. I would never replace it.

I remember I was working as a janitor in high school and making $5 an hour. If a borrower can’t make a $250 payment, their house is probably their prize, especially if it’s equity and they have $10,000 or $20,000 equity, that’s $1 million to them. Granted, most of us who make average or decent livings will be like, “I would never go through a bankruptcy.” When you are struggling and if you can’t make a $250 payment, those people are struggling. They are going to fight in the sense of to them, seven years of bad credit or whatever is. A bankruptcy probably isn’t going to faze them like we face somebody who makes $150,000 a year, driving a brand new car and trying to have that image or perception basically.

The stigma of bankruptcy is not as bad. It’s not as much of a factor as it would be for you and me.

 

I know people who were like, “Don’t think about that but also that’s going to hurt your investment because when they do file bankruptcy, if you did pay a lot for that note, you are going to get crushed.” What do you got going on before we wrap up?

I’ve got a couple of properties that you know about. One is the North Carolina CFD that I have probably been talking about since I joined you on the show. This one has been crazy.

Andrew was on the membership group.

He said the membership group was great.

He said, “Have I seen the latest pictures?” I said, “No, I haven’t,” so I couldn’t wait.

My attorney said, “Are we good? Can I close the file and bill?” I said, “Can you hang on for a couple more weeks because I don’t feel like we are out of the woods yet.” She came in and thankfully, the property is vacant. She hasn’t been living there. She was renting it. It’s a long story. She ripped out all the appliances. She was screaming and yelling. She was threatening to rip off the front porch, which she said she paid $4,000 for. As far as I know, it’s still there. I’m trying to get this listed and sold.

My other one, which was the one in Michigan, the mattress vomiting RV one with the blight issue, which I found a meth charge, unfortunately, in that one, we’ve got to do an eviction. The land contract is canceled. There was a 90-day redemption period that’s over. She can’t redeem. Unfortunately, we have to evict her. Those two CFDs were becoming REOs and preyed on at the same time. Hopefully, we can get some profitable exits on either one. They are both joint ventures. These are two of my remaining joint ventures.

There are two things I will mention. One is I have a property that I had to get cleaned out and stuff. Do you want to guess how many used needles they took from it?

How many?

It was over 1,000. I joked to them, “Their family is not diabetic, are they?” I have family members who are diabetic. Back in the day, before they had the pumps, they had to use needles, which don’t get me started on diabetics have to pay for needles but drug addicts don’t. That’s a whole other story that we are not going to go down. We did Cash for Keys to get them out. On the North Carolina one, there are two things I would recommend you do. One is to file a police report and say, “These are missing.” Share some emails because if stuff continues to disappear and stuff, that could be covered in insurance claims.

I have had that issue happen where somebody threatened to destroy a place and they did. Most deductibles are for $5,000. It’s typically not worth it but this one was overkill where $30,000 of stuff. At that point in time, we hadn’t filed a police report and insurance claim. The police will never do anything but for insurance purposes, they are going to say there was a police report filed. It’s an FYI because if they do something, then you are going to have to get it done. Did Christina take a look at that property for you?

We were going back and forth. I was already down the path of I had a real answer and everything. If she still wants to buy it, that’s fine but I doubt she will. I’m also wrapping up my ID theft issue. It is finally getting that wrapped up. As far as the properties go, I created a new entity and moving properties over. I’m not done as far as the IRS issue and all that but it looks like it’s coming to a close here shortly.

You've got to step up your game for the next endeavor. Click To Tweet

I volunteered you to come to the membership group to talk about asset protection and not necessarily what you should do but talk about what can happen. This wasn’t your fault. This was a breach by a company that you wouldn’t think of having been breached.

I still don’t know exactly what happened.

I have a question for you on that because you know where the breach occurred. That company probably has cybersecurity insurance. Are they paying all your costs?

I don’t know 100% exactly what happened. I know a lot of what happened from piecing it together. There was a small business loan lender that they let out these PPP loans and they were definitely to blame for not checking the application but I don’t know if there were some other issues. Fraud was rampant with these PPP loans. Most of these perpetrators did not go to the next level as they did in my case in filing a fraudulent IRS tax return but it’s to be continued. We will see. I had two different people that told me your group was awesome. I’ve got eyes and ears in your group.

Typically, you can ask me anything. We would go around but people bring up topics. For the next episode, we are going to be deep-diving into how the big bankruptcy, and in another episode, we are going to be talking about asset management. What’s interesting on the asset management side is I’m going to have other people speak. I use a Mortgage Office. I have spent tens of thousands of dollars. Most people shouldn’t spend that much. There’s other software, whether it’s Podio, ClickUp, Excel or Pipedrive.

I’ve got certain people who have used each one of those and discussed it as well but we will talk from a high level of the things you should cover but how you manage that or what system fits you the best. I find that most people for the cost and you get me for four-plus hours, plus you can set up calls at any point in time with me. Most people set up a call once or twice a month now. You are getting me for five hours a month for $20 an hour.

Somebody that just joined said that he did so mostly because note investing can be a lonely venture.

Jamie and I have worked together for four years, then we finally met and he’s leaving the nest.

I don’t know if I told you when we met. It was at the rooftop bar that Aaron had generously reserved those two cabanas. I saw you and I was going to walk up from the front. I was like, “He’s always got the advantage. I can’t give him that advantage.” I had to come around from the back or the side, from the flank, so you couldn’t see me. I had to be ahead of you at least on something.

In that case, you were and there are many times you are. Don’t challenge me on it because like that one time on BiggerPockets when you passed me, I was like, “Here we go.” For anyone out there, I am ultra-competitive. If you do want to challenge me, I am always up for a challenge but please, just make sure that if you do, in most instances, you are ready to compete about it. I did most of the fun in this whole episode. You can wrap it up and poke fun at me at the end. I’ve at least got to give you the floor from that perspective if you can come up with anything.

I have been thinking about this for two weeks on some of the stuff I was going to talk about. This isn’t something that came up. We have been talking for 3 or 4 months or when the New Year started, about some of the stuff we wanted to accomplish, the directions and paths that people wanted to go down. This wasn’t something that just happened overnight. You gave me plenty of time.

Has anybody else breaking up with you after meeting you in Florida?

Gail broke up with me because she left the podcast. People always say, “It’s them, not me.” There’s a very common theme with that. Those trust issues start coming back again. When Jamie said, “Chris, it’s me, not you,” it’s like, “Okay.” You can’t come up with anything. We’ve got 5 or 6 more episodes that we are going to do. We will poke the bear once in a while about this topic. I will remind people of the transition because some people may not have read this episode. My challenge is you’ve got to step up your game for the next episode and bring it on. I will let you wrap up this episode for us.

I hope this was informative. We didn’t get too far into the note specific-stuff but I hope this episode was informative, especially for the readers who know us and have followed us. I’m excited for both the past and the future. We hope you’ve gotten something out of this episode. Please go out and give us a positive rating and review. Don’t forget to go out and do some good deeds. Chris, take care.

 

Important Links

• From Adversity to Abundance – Spotify
• BIFI
• 7E Investments Appoints Lauren Wells as Vice President, Investor Relations & Strategy
• Podetize
• Podio
• ClickUp
• Pipedrive