Podcast 207. Why Yes Management Plays an Important Role with Ace Hagerty

Average Joe Finances:
0:00

Hey, Welcome back to the Average Joe Finances podcast. I'm your host, Mike Cavaggioni, and today's guest is Ace Hagerty. So Ace, super excited to talk with you today. We had a nice little chat before recording and I'm excited to talk about what you're working on and what you're doing. So welcome to the show.

Ace Hagerty:
0:17

Hey, Matt, I really appreciate you having me on and. I'm just excited to be chatting with you. You have a phenomenal podcast and I think what we talk about is just so important for people on their financial journey and really in the broader scope, their journey in life.

Average Joe Finances:
0:33

Awesome. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Hey, let's kick this off the same way I start every podcast episode, and we wanna know more about you. So if you could share with me in the audience who you are, what your story is, just give us your background. Who is Ace Hagerty?

Ace Hagerty:
0:51

Yeah. No, I appreciate you asking that. Oh, there's a whole lot to unpack. I've been doing real estate for about 10 years now. I started off as a fix and flip guy and my story. Essentially was, I was a structural engineer. I still am a structural engineer actually. And a buddy of mine, a realtor, came up to me and wanted to flip a house. And back 10 years ago, house flipping wasn't as popular, I would say, as it is today with HGTV and all of that. And so I just didn't know much about it, but I knew enough being an engineer and also I was working for a contractor at the time and decided to give it a shot. Back then since I worked at W-2 I was able to get bank financing. So I said it was a second. Home Bank didn't really care too much at that point, so instead of putting down 20, 25%, I only put down 10% and used the rest of the money. Hired my own guys that they had from my construction company, plus some other subcontractors I knew. Project managed the Flip, did a pretty much cosmetic flip, which was a great first. Project to start on. And we flipped it within three months because we bought it as a short sale. And back then, I don't know what the laws are. I haven't done a short sale pretty much since. But you couldn't sell the property for 90 days after buying it. So that's a learning lesson by itself. Learning the rules before you jump feet first is always good, what, at least the timing worked out. Timing worked out phenomenally. It gave us 90 days to rehab it, and so I didn't have to rush it or anything like that. I had, like I said, bank financing. Interest rates were probably around five, five and a quarter back then, so interest rates were decent and we fixed it up and it was back in California where I'm originally from. We found a buyer. So he found the deal, brought it in. I fixed it up and on the back end he sold it. So he was front end, back end. I was in the middle. We were both in our lanes, learned a little bit from each other of the different parts of the project, but walked away with 90 k, split between us 50 50. And you would've thought after that first flip, I would've gone to my boss and said, here's my two month. One month notice whatever people do these days. It's been a long time since I've been unemployed, so I don't even remember, but you would think at that point I would've been smart enough to say this is something I should probably do full-time. Fast forward 10 years, I've done a whole bunch of things like we talked about before, the show, fix and flip. Buy and hold, both long term and short term with Airbnbs. I've also worked for, as a partner for a turnkey rental company doing out of state turnkey rental properties. Georgia, Ohio. Currently I live in Nashville, Tennessee, where I got my contractors' license during covid and decided to do ground up construction, single family homes, Airbnbs as well, short term rentals. And so I've done a little bit of everything over my career, however, This gets into the, actually really interesting part of my story. About a year and a half ago, my now ex-wife approached me and she was like, Hey, I can't handle this anymore. Cuz like I said, structural engineer. Multiple real estate businesses going on, and my life was just completely outta balance. I'm like, probably most of your listeners a high achiever, which means we're gonna work long hours, we're gonna get out of our W two s, a lot of us, and trade 40 weeks for 80, a hundred hour weeks with no guaranteed pay, no health insurance, no 401k. We're doing it ourselves. And so she approached me because my life was just completely outta balance. I was using things like alcohol, pornography to numb issues that I was dealing with personally, stress, things like that. Trying to juggle projects and as when you wear yourself too thin, there's gonna be cracks in all parts of your life and everything is gonna suffer. Business, personal relationships, all of that. So it was at that point that I really had to make a decision, am I going to clean up my life? Clean up all of these habits and these rituals that were not serving me in my life, and really focus on what's important. So essentially that was my rock bottom. And what I did after that for the next few months was I consolidated my businesses. I focused mostly at that point on the development, got bought out of the turnkey rental business, got bought out of that. And really just focused engineering. I tapered down a bunch. It still brings in great capital, great revenue and it doesn't take me very long to do that. But I tapered that back and focused on my developments and so that I could spend time not only with my ex-wife, but also get my shit together. That really, that's what it came down to. And so I did that. Things went well for the next few months. I was making progress. I hired a personal trainer and I was doing things, but I wasn't making the type of progress that I was hoping for because I was slowly making changes and I realized after a few months that like if I keep going at this rate, yes, I'm going down the right path, but I need to, for me, where I'm at in my life, if I have any hope of saving my marriage, I need to supercharge this. I need to do something that will completely transform my life. And at that time, my mentor was putting on this thing called the a hundred Day Challenge. For any of listeners that are familiar with Andy Frisella or 75 Hard, think of 75 hard but for a hundred days and think of 75 hard as kindergarten, and this is college, so sounds brutal. It was insane. So for the a hundred day challenge, there's eight parts of your life, health and fitness emotions and meaning, relationships, spirituality, work, career, mission, legacy, finances all that. And so for the a hundred day challenge, you can do one of the categories or you could do 2, 3, 4. I was like, you know what? I need to do all eight. Wow. I'm not happy with my spiritual walk. I'm not happy with my finances. Like I said, I was born thin and cracks everywhere in all parts of my life. My relationships were crumbling. My businesses were on a downward trend. Like I said, my spiritual walk wasn't where I wanted it to be. My health and fitness, I had gained weight. I wasn't exercising my emotions and meanings that I gave, things were just very negative, not very good. And The magic of this a hundred day challenge is that in that short amount of time now, it's not short while you're in it. A hundred days seems like a long time when you're in it, but in the grand scheme of things, a hundred days goes by just like that. So what did I do? I set up a bunch of goals, a bunch of things that I wanted to do to change my life. I had to prepare for it. So I did things like, okay, I'm going to continue with my trainer. I want to lose a certain amount of weight and build up a certain amount of muscle. So I got with my trainer, I was like, okay, what are the metrics that we need to do and what's the plan of action? And I didn't want to do it myself with diet or exercise. I hired somebody for that. You just tell me what to do and I do it. I don't have time to worry about this other than just doing what I need to do. There's a bunch of other things that I want to do that I'm gonna put more time and energy into. So I did that.

Average Joe Finances:
8:46

That's a lot of power. You're handing off, handing off,

Ace Hagerty:
8:49

Yeah. And that's the importance of coaching, finding the right coach, finding someone who you can trust and put your faith in. Because honestly, I had a beer gut. I had a beer gut since I was 22. I'm, at the time I was 38 years old. So a good 16 years of having a beer gut and never thinking I could get rid of it. Never thinking I could have six pack abs or muscles or anything like that, that just wasn't in my identity. So there were things like that. I wanted to write a book. I had tried writing a book, so there was a project aspect of it. So I was like, in a hundred days I'll write the first draft of a book and actually finish a book instead of writing 50, 75 pages and then petering out and getting focused on something else. Obviously working on my marriage, my relationship, so seeing a therapist or marriage counseling, figuring that out as well, and spending time on that. And I can go down the list. It's really not that important, but there was. A lot of things that were on this list. And then I took that, that, that goal, that playbook and I was like, okay, what are the things that I need to do every day or every couple days or every week to make sure that I'm making progress, I'm keeping score and keeping track of what I'm doing so that by the end of this a hundred days, I come out of it completely transformed. And that's what this process does. And by having the daily discipline, so I was getting up at five 30 every morning. Now I get up, I think usually around 4, 4 30. So I've stepped it up since then. This was.

Average Joe Finances:
10:20

That sounds like when I was active duty in the Navy.

Ace Hagerty:
10:23

Yeah. This, that's what time was getting. Yeah. I'm like Jocko or Goggins. I love those guys. So yeah. Getting up.

Average Joe Finances:
10:30

Oh yeah, they're great.

Ace Hagerty:
10:32

Yeah. Mark Wahlberg, I think gets up at 2:30 AM every morning. So I was like, yeah, I'm on Mark Wahlberg time just had a couple hours cuz of time zones. So anyways, for the a hundred days, I would just, I had this checklist and I literally printed it out, paper, laminated it so I can check everything off and then wipe it off at the end of the day. So I just had a list of things I will do every day. So get up at five 30, go to the gym, read my Bible. Do an hour of studying every day because for my book, I needed to do a lot of research and then do an hour of writing every day, which equated to about 300 words a day. And so I just had all these things that I needed to do because I planned 'em out properly. I had my goals and I had my why Now. Originally, my why was to save my marriage. But to be completely transparent, I am a spiritual person. My why turned into even something that was more important than saving my marriage. It was saving my soul because I had gone 38 years and I'm high achiever. I went to uc, Berkeley for my master's in structural engineering. I have all these wonderful accolades, whatever, who cares? What are the results in life? I was getting to be almost close to 40 years old and I look back on my life and I had to ask myself question. If I died today, would I be proud of the person that I was? And yeah, I didn't get in trouble with the law and I provided for my family and everything, but truly did I do anything remarkable that when if I got hit by a bus today, would I have left an impression on the world at large? Like a big impression? Cuz that's what I want to do. I wanna leave a big impression. On this world when I die. And I honestly, I was like I haven't, I've been selfish. I haven't been giving enough. That's because I haven't been growing enough and loving myself enough. So this a hundred days is a way to take back my life, to be in control of my life, to get over all these obstacles that have been just stopping me year after year, not writing the book. One thing, at the end of the a hundred day challenge, I told myself as a celebration, I would hike a tall mountain. And so at the end of it, I finished it, transformed, did the whole thing, and as a celebration, I hiked a 14 er, which is a 14,000 foot summit mountain. They have a whole bunch in Colorado. And my buddy who did it with me, him and I were like, when we get through these a hundred days, we'll celebrate by hiking this mountain. People didn't tell me that in April in the Rockies there's still a ton of snow. And so we not only hiked up a 14,000 foot mountain, which I've never done, I've only hiked a couple miles on flat ground ever in my life. We had to do it in snowshoes, and in crazy weather as well. And that was another thing. I got to cross off my bucket list throughout this whole process. Write the book, climb the mountain, lose the gut. I did all of these things in a hundred days. I couldn't believe it. At the end of it, it completely transformed my life. And real estate is great. Finances are great, but if you're not taking control of your life and doing the things you need to do consistently every single day. All this stuff, real estate, finances, that's just a byproduct of who you show up as every single day of your life and every day we have a choice. We have a choice of what we don't do. Yeah, sometimes it's hard. I did not want to get up at 5:30, get up at 5:30. I used to sit up at the beginning of a hundred day challenge,

cuz I was used to 6:
13:59

37.. I used to sit up and I just, I couldn't keep my eyes open. I would just be like rocking back and forth. Just like if you sit up for a couple minutes. You won't go back to sleep and you will get up and eventually it got better. But yeah, it's hard to change your habits. Your body is so wired to what it was used to doing for so long. It's not easy, but it does get easier. By the time I hit day 30, 40, 50, like I was on a roll, I was like, man, I could do this all day long. And that's when you really get the empowerment, the inspiration. And I could get into the specifics of what's going on in your body with dopamine release, adrenaline release, all these great neurochemicals that really keep you motivated and keep you going and keep you energized. But you start to gain momentum and that is powerful. And I wrote it in my book. It's about my journey, but it's also about people. A lot of people call it biohacking. I just call it giving what God gave you and really leveraging your nervous system, changing your nervous system, using the right neurochemicals, the right tools to get your energy levels up. Like I was only eating 1700 calories, like I'm 5'10". I'm not a big guy. But 1700 calories is nothing. I was trying to lose weight. I stopped drinking caffeine, so I was doing things like cold showers, Wim Hof, breathing, all these things. I talk about how you can do it in the book. But I had more energy with no fuel in my body, no caffeine in my body, no sugar. I didn't eat any sugar, any artificial sugar, and. I had more energy at the age of 38 than I did throughout my entire twenties and thirties. It was, it blew my mind. I couldn't believe it until it actually happened, and I, it took faith just to know, having faith in my coach, my mentor, my group, my trainer, all, everybody I surrounded myself with having complete faith cuz trust me. I think I know better every, most people think they know better, but.

Average Joe Finances:
16:08

Yeah.

Ace Hagerty:
16:09

A lot of times we don't. That's just us lying to ourselves. That's our ego kicking in. So.

Average Joe Finances:
16:13

That's, yeah, that's, that's phenomenal. What a background. Probably one of the longer ones I've had on the show, but man, so worth it to hear that. To hear your story because I'm sitting here taking notes as you're going. So there, there's a lot to unpack here, right? You were experiencing like that ultimate burnout, right? Of trying to balance your W-2 day job and then all the real estate businesses you were doing. It was controlling your life. And then your your spouse at the time came to you and said, Hey, like this is not working right. And I feel like this kind of message will resonate with a lot of people that listen to this show that might be, burning the candle at both ends and, firing off all cylinders at once. We all know the sayings right? And. I feel like a lot of people will really resonate with your message, which is why it's so important. And, you wound up taking a step back and taking control by doing this challenge. And I wanted to say something while you were saying this, but I let you finish, but you ended this challenge with a challenge, right? So to celebrate Yeah. You wind up doing something you've never done before. For a lot of people would look at that as being insane. But you said, no this is what I committed to, and I'm gonna do it. And I think that's probably the biggest takeaway from this was your commitment throughout the entire challenge, right? Not only your commitment, but your commitment to yourself, but also your commitment to your coach, right? Because if you can't commit to yourself, you're not gonna be able to commit to someone else. I think you took that, that self motivation and that self commitment and that self-love that you needed. Took care of yourself first, and then you were able to give it to others. But the fact that you were able to say, Hey, coach, just tell me what to do and I'm gonna do it. You just handed off all of that to, to them. That also proved that you really trusted them, that they were gonna make the right decision for you in your best interest. So obviously finding the right coaches super huge. I wanna get into one of the things you talked about too was the momentum that you started building up, right? As you were going the momentum's one thing, right? So you talked about that. What I wanna really know is, as you were doing this right, cuz you still had your businesses going, you were still working. Where did you find the balance while you were doing the challenge, right? So after you started, how did you juggle everything else while still doing what you were doing with the challenge?

Ace Hagerty:
18:44

Year, No that's a great question. One thing that people can do that's easier said than done is you can get up earlier or you can stay up later. Now, if you're taking care of your body diet, taking care of your body, exercise, taking care of your mind, making sure you're not stressing out too much. You can go with less sleep. I always thought I needed minimally eight, nine plus hours of sleep and so I would get up earlier. So I was, like I said, get up at five 30 and then I'd stay up till about nine, 10 o'clock. On average I was getting about six hours of sleep. But what I learned through studying about sleep is we get do it in 90 minute cycles. So six hours is four cycles. I get enough sleep cycles in, I get the REM sleep that I need. Then I found out, hey, I actually, I don't really need as much sleep as I thought I used to need as long as I'm not, I cut alcohol out. So I'm not going out and drinking or watching tv. Another thing that I took out was watching TV at night for the sleep reason. So I stopped looking at screens two hours before I went to sleep. I'd go to sleep in a certain time window, and so that by itself opened up. A whole bunch of hours. Now, just as important as doing something like that is a lot of people call it time management. I call it yes management. What am I saying yes to? Because if we say yes to everything and not just the most important yeses, that can just kill our days. And so I really had to be intentional and purposeful about what I said yes to. And you had mentioned the W-2 job. The engineering business was my own business, so it wasn't technically a W-2, but for anyone who the reason I bring that up is most solo entrepreneurs, that business was a solo entrepreneur business. So meaning I do everything.

Average Joe Finances:
20:48

It's not 40 hours a week, it's much more.

Ace Hagerty:
20:51

And on top of it, your boss goes from being like a normal boss. Your clients become your boss, and if you can't manage those bosses, Just say yes, because I love helping people with engineering. I'm really freaking good at it, and I love being able to help people. So I would just take on jobs. I'd take on jobs. I'd be going to job sites around six, seven o'clock at night. I'd be going Saturdays. Sometimes I'd even be going Sunday. So one thing I had to do was set up certain boundaries on what I said yes to. And it's gonna be different for everybody. But if you spend the time and think about, okay, where do I spend my time? Maybe you have to spend a week just mapping out at the end of the day, how would I spend my hours today? So you can get an accurate account of what you say yes to. Because if you're not even saying yes to it consciously, if you're doing it, you're saying yes to it. So how are you spending your time? So I really had to evaluate that ahead of time and plan accordingly, because I knew with that kinda list, it's like business owners that say when they have kids, they become so much more efficient at their businesses because they have no other option. They've got a freaking kid. Instead of a kid. I had a hundred day challenge. I finally understood what people meant by when they would say, once I had to become more structured and more disciplined and set up the proper boundaries, man, you can just take care of a whole bunch of things. And another thing too, there was a book called Who, not How I forget it. It came out recently. I'm sure a lot of your listeners know it. Phenomenal book. It could be summarized literally in a paragraph, and it's essentially say, instead of ask the question, how do I do this? With my health and fitness, I had to be the one eating and I had to be the one working out. However, I didn't wanna figure out the exercise routine. I didn't wanna figure out the macros. I didn't wanna figure out the diet of what I should and shouldn't be eating. So I was like, who can I hire to take care of this? And you'd be surprised. My coach was online. I never met with the person I knew enough at the gym. To do what I needed to do and I took videos of it to send to him and everything so he could critique me. But I didn't even need to meet with a personal fitness coach, which is great too, because it's a whole heck of a lot cheaper as well to do it that way. And it got me the results that I was looking for pretty easily. I just had to put in what he, the work that he told me to do. So.

Average Joe Finances:
23:17

Nice.

Ace Hagerty:
23:18

Leveraging is huge. Who not How is such a powerful concept as well.

Average Joe Finances:
23:22

Yeah. So even outside of, real estate, right? Because that's a question we always ask when we run our own real estate business too, right? Who? Not how, how do you find the right person for each job? But you also took it to the level in your personal life too and said, Hey, no, I can also apply this here, right? And figure out. Who's the right person to help me on my physical aspect of my journey, right? I can do the eating right, I have to do the eatings. If I don't eat, I'll die. I, I could do all that, but who's gonna tell me what I need to eat? I, when I need to eat I need to work out, and what kind of workouts I need to do, like what kind of physical exercises. By figuring that out, Getting the right person in your corner there was huge. And I also wanna go back to something else that you said that I really liked was the yes management, right? So yes, we always talk about time management. Time management. The but the way you described the Yes management resonated so much to me that I was like, I say yes to a lot of things that I probably didn't have to say yes to or shouldn't have said yes to. That kind of started ruling my day. And so if it's got me asking that question I know that there's people listening to this show that are like, huh, maybe that's what I really need to focus on. What am I saying yes to? And I've had somebody come on before that, that, we always talked about you, you have to be able to say no more. But the way that you put it is it's not so much say, no more, say yes, less. Yeah. It's not, yeah. Wow. That's powerful stuff, man. So I definitely appreciate that. And now, okay, so we talked a little bit about how you found that balance, right? So you started getting up earlier, you found that you needed less sleep, right? This was something I figured out too while I was in the military, right? So I did 20 years in the Navy. And sleep deprivation was something that I always had to deal with. So I had to figure out the right time to, to try to get those four to six hours in that I would get every night. Actually it's more like four to five. It's still kinda like that, but I've been trying to get a little bit more sleep now that I'm retired. But. Being able to find that balance, I think is so key. And by you describing the way that you did it, I feel like it makes it more palatable palatable for people to to maybe try this on their own. Figure out what's gonna be that, that breaking point for them in their sleep cycle and figure out what's gonna work for them. Everybody's built different, right? We all have different bodies and however, I feel as you're putting yourself through this challenge, like you said, it started to get easier and easier. I feel as people start changing their habits these things will become easier and easier. So if you want to actually no, nevermind. I'm not even gonna have you elaborate on that. I wanted to ask you. Okay. Cuz you described how you got to where you are. You touched on this a little bit, but I don't feel like we went deep enough in this But I feel like this changed over time for you as well, but what is your why for doing what you did? And like I said, I know you touched on it was you were trying to save your marriage, you were trying to, also change your, get your spirituality spiritual habits back. And yeah, but I feel like we could go a little bit deeper into that because I. It changed while you were doing the challenge, so what made that change?

Ace Hagerty:
26:40

I realized at the beginning of the challenge, and once again, this goes to coaching, this goes to faith, this goes to trust. When I was putting this my why together with my mentor, I told him, he was like, why are you doing this? I was like I'm saving my marriage like, Seems like a pretty legit reason for most people. And he's no, you need something deeper than that. Something more powerful. Cuz if you put your faith in people, chances are you're gonna get disappointed at some point. People are fallible just by nature.

Average Joe Finances:
27:11

Everytime.

Ace Hagerty:
27:11

Nobody's perfect. Nobody's perfect. I don't, and I'm not here to preach or anything like that. People's spiritual walk is their spiritual walk. However, for me, I really dug down deep and I was like, if I don't do this, if I don't accomplish all these things in the next 10, it's just a hundred days. Yes, it's a lot to do and it's gonna be a challenge and it's gonna be difficult, but put some perspective in it like I live in the us. At a phenomenal time, and I know we're, people are scared right now because of interest rates going sky high and the economy's shaky and all this and that. But take a step back, like I wake up every morning and that's where gratitude comes in. I wake up every morning, I can breathe. I'm fully functional body, fully functional mind, and I get the opportunity to do whatever I want. That's the brilliant thing about being an entrepreneur. Entrepreneur. You don't have to clock in. You can do whatever you want. And so for me, my why was to save my soul because if I can't do this, shoot, God's not gonna want me in the afterlife to stand next to his side and fight the good fight between good and evil. And that these are just my beliefs. So I might get a little spiritual with what I believe in, but at the same time, It gave me the strength that I needed because there were hard days. There were days getting up at five 30 sucked, or I had to stay up late because I did not do everything on that list. If I was not efficient with my yes management during the day, guess what? I was up till 11, 12, 1 o'clock.

With that 5:
28:44

30 AM staring me squarely in the eyes. So that was my why. Now, in addition to that, As I was going through this challenge, I started to realize a few things. I really liked learning. I hadn't, I would read books now and then, but I had to do a ton of research for this book, and as I did the research, I just got more and more excited. I was like, oh man. I rediscovered my love of learning because I went through college. I did really well. I was an engineer. Went to grad school, top grad school in the country at the time for structural engineering. I worked my butt off, but I loved learning and I lost that over the years. And so just to learn, not because there's a test or anything, but learn because I have an opportunity to grow and be better at something that didn't even directly apply to my engineering business. It didn't apply directly to my real estate businesses, but I just rediscovered a love of learning and growth. And once I started doing that, I wanted to help more people. The whole point of me writing this book and starting my podcast is to inspire people to take control of their lives and to stop being victims and being victors of their lives, be in control and live their lives purposefully so that when their time comes, cuz it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when we die. They can look back at least on their lives and say, yes, I gave it my all. I did what I wanted to do and I grew and I gave to the people that I love the most. And if I'm gonna preach that, also I need to be an example of that cuz nothing pisses me off more then these talking heads are people that are on social media or this or that, that don't actually live the life that they're preaching. It's like getting financial advice from a poor person or somebody who spends all their money and never has anything to spend on their family or their investments or anything. And so I knew too if I'm gonna be a good leader and I'm going to really make a change in people's lives, I have to start with me first. And that's why I do ice baths. That's why I take cold showers. That's why I climb mountains as celebrations instead of going to the bar and kicking a few back and relaxing. My life has completely changed because of this challenge. And so yeah, my celebrations are to climb harder. Mountains. I just speaking of wealth and learning, I just did a Tony Robbins Wealth Mastery program with about a dozen people this past weekend and we would get in the 16 hour days cuz anyone that does, Tony Robbins knows. He goes 14, 16 hours a day with really no breaks. We got 1 35 minute break one day. So my buddies and I decided to run a 5k. We said we'd take it easy, but guess what? Some people were throwing up, other people were almost blacking out because we would push each other because we've created a culture where we push each other to be the best versions of ourselves. And some people from outside looking in might think we're crazy, but we love each other. We've formed a strong tribe, and these are all guys I've only met in the past year and a half. Once you start being a different person, you start attracting. People around you. I know the law of attraction is very popular with the Tony Robbins crew, but a lot of other people talk about it as well. The energy you put out, you get back in. I have relationships now, both personally and professionally, that I feel closer to these people than I have people that I've known for 20, 30 plus years. And my life has completely changed because I did it from the inside out.

Average Joe Finances:
32:43

Ace. I absolutely love that, man. And one of the things you said too about, the whole taking control of your life piece, that's, that's why you started your podcast and wrote your book. That's huge and that resonates so much with me because, our motto at average, Joe Finances is beat debt, build your wealth and control your future. I that, that. Having that control is probably one of the things that people don't realize they don't have in life until they get to the point where they actually take a step back and realize they don't have control and then they take control. So that's one of the things I like to do with this podcast too, is to offer, bring people on like you, experts like you that have gone through these different things in life and challenges and stuff, and show your side to that, right? And give them an opportunity to listen to what you're saying and then maybe decide that, Hey, maybe I wanna do this a hundred day challenge. I wanna change my life. I wanna do what Ace did. And that's the reason why I have this podcast too. So this is fantastic, man. This is really valuable information and I greatly appreciate it. However, we are running outta time, so I'm gonna go ahead and transition this into the final round. We've only touched a little bit on your real estate side, so you can jump into this if you want here, because the first question I'm gonna ask you, ACE, is what's the biggest mistake you've ever made in real estate?

Ace Hagerty:
34:08

Oh I've made a whole bunch of mistakes and I should probably write a book on exactly. What not to do, right? They say the definition of an expert is somebody who's made all the mistakes that are needed to become an expert. So I told you briefly about my first flip in California. So when I moved to Nashville five years ago, I thought I was gonna be the next flip or flop Nashville guy and all that. And so I came in bravado. Yes, I've flipped houses, I've have rentals and all that. And when you start becoming full of yourself thinking you know everything, that's when you start making mistakes and you're not as careful. And I was in a new a new area. A new way of construction. It wasn't California anymore. It was Nashville, which at the time was a fantastic market to be in as well. Lower price point. I ran my numbers not fully understanding what construction costs were. I hired a contractor who wasn't the best contractor around, but it was my fault because I did not manage him properly. I didn't set up the right expectations, and even if I did set up the right expectations, I didn't hold him accountable to those expectations throughout the project, and so I didn't keep very good control of my budget. Then when we went to sell, it wasn't the best time of year. There was a little bit of a lull for whatever reason, I forget exactly why, but I just wasn't paying attention to the project. I wasn't giving it my focus or my energy that I needed to, even though I took a step back, I wasn't managing the project anymore, and I trusted a realtor. Who ended up not being the best of realtors. His a RV wasn't very good, and that was up to me to really double check and make sure that the comps worked out. And I didn't do that. And I didn't manage my budget. So budget went up and he tried to get me on change orders that I just wasn't on site enough. And jumping into a new market and a new area, I should have put more controls in place. I should have looked at my numbers more. I should have. Kept score of my metrics better. So I was just making little mistakes all over the place, cuz in California I knew the crews, I knew what the costs were, I trusted my guys. But here I am in a new market and I was, I didn't have all of that, which I had in California. And so a lot of it I wasn't even aware of because you're not aware of what's, what the mistakes are until you make them a lot of times. And so ended up losing on that deal. Just got out of it after selling to some homeowners, dropped my price. Dropped my price, and I think I lost about 35 grand on that.

Average Joe Finances:
36:53

Oh, wow.

Ace Hagerty:
36:53

Deal. Which probably I think has been one of my bigger losses. I've lost a little bit of money here and there, but that really stung because I did not ever lose money before that, and I was damn sure not gonna lose money after then to make things worse. I almost couldn't pay for my wedding because two weeks before the wedding I couldn't pay any of my vendors because all my money was tied up in my projects. And thank God that project sold and I got the closing two weeks before my wedding. Now I would've been able to borrow money from maybe, you get resourceful, right? I could have borrowed money from a relative. Or maybe somehow get a private loan from another investor or something. But how embarrassing is that on the surface? Like you Yeah. Almost couldn't pay for your wedding. Yeah. Wow. And that really hurt. So on top of it not being a great investment and a great flip, and I lost money, I almost was not able to pay for my wedding. So that was.

Average Joe Finances:
37:52

At least that's pretty rough. So I definitely appreciate your transparency there because. That, that went a lot deeper, than just, Hey, this mistake that I made in real estate, I lost, some money. No, th this was like, you almost lost a lot more than just $35,000. So I definitely appreciate you sharing that. The next question I have these all kind of tie into each other but what is something that you've learned that you wish you knew when you first started?

Ace Hagerty:
38:20

Oh man. Yeah there's a lot. Cause I learned a lot through mistakes like I alluded to or said before. I think just being better with my numbers, knowing my numbers cuz I had such high margins in California because I had a good realtor. Good contractors. I was doing it with bank financing, which was at a good interest rate. And so certain things, certain fundamentals that every investor should do, run good, accurate numbers, get good accurate comps, get good accurate costs for rehab, holding costs, all the stuff you can just freaking go on bigger pockets. And then they have their own calculators that you can use.

Average Joe Finances:
39:02

Yep.

Ace Hagerty:
39:03

Know your numbers. Know your numbers. Numbers don't lie. And another thing too, don't manipulate your numbers to make them look better. It's easy to manipulate numbers and hope that you'll get the return you're looking for. You hope.

Average Joe Finances:
39:18

Yes.

Ace Hagerty:
39:19

Because if you hope also, that's never gonna happen. Yes. Look where we are right now. A lot of my developments I've made pretty decent money on, but there's others that are not selling right now for just different reasons, whether it's a Airbnb or a single family home. Interest rates affect all of that. So the hope of the profits I was gonna make, I'm not gonna make those, but you know what, it's all right because I've learned not to hope anymore. Yes, there's best case, but what's worst case? And and so yeah, if I would've known my numbers better. I would not have made that $35,000 mistake. But then again, that $35,000 mistake has made me a lot more than $35,000 over the years.

Average Joe Finances:
39:59

Yeah, I mean it was, it was an educational tool. So I really appreciate what you said too about not fudging your numbers and changing that, cuz I've talked about that several times on this podcast where, you know if something doesn't pass the, doesn't pass your sniff test, don't force it to pass the sniff test cuz it's still gonna stink. So I definitely appreciate that cuz, I feel like the folks that wind up getting to the point where they feel like they're gonna lose everything is because they overestimated. Or they just didn't do their numbers right. Or they said if I do this, if I tweak this here, this'll look better on the back end here and this and that. That's a mistake. If you have your own set of rules for yourself, do not go outside of that. Do what's right and don't try to change it to make it work. So I definitely appreciate that. So speaking of the next question is ACE, do you have any tips or tricks that you would recommend to someone that is just getting started out today?

Ace Hagerty:
41:02

Tips or tricks? When I started, I did the Brrr method, which I'm sure your audience is very familiar with. It wasn't even called the Brrr method back then. I don't know. I just go back to the basics. Robert Kiyosaki, rich Dad, poor Dad, is one of my favorite books of all time. He talks about OPM, other people's money and OPT, other people's time and those, the fundamentals. I always go back to the basics. Kobe Bryant, from a basketball standpoint, I hate the Lakers. I'm a Golden State Warriors fan, but I love Kobe Bryant and he would always go back to the basics. So I'm tips or tricks. Learn the basics. Learn your numbers. And then you could do cool things like leveraging other people's money, whether it's a bank, whether it's a hard money lender, private investors, friends, family and then other people's time, like the who, not how. And once you start just doing the basics, like with basketball, learning how to dribble and pass and basic shooting. You can do a lot of damage. You don't have to worry about the seller financing stuff or the zero down stuff that a lot of these gurus teach. The more intricate, and there, there's places for that, don't get me wrong, but for someone starting out, just read the classic books and learn the classic formulas and the classic ways of doing things because those aren't gonna change. The basics. Never change the basic principles, because once you've learned those principles, then you can do the cute stuff and the brrr method stuff and all of that.

Average Joe Finances:
42:35

Yeah, no I definitely appreciate that. Get the basics down. That, that is super huge. Great tip there. Okay, now you've already mentioned some really good books, and I know you have your own podcast, so I'm gonna preface this with. Besides your own and your own book as well. Do you have a favorite business investing or real estate related book or podcast or both?

Ace Hagerty:
42:57

Oh, man. Yeah. I just have to keep going back to the basics with all of that. I read The Millionaire Real Estate Investor by Gary Keller. Man, that is such a classic book, but it covers. All of the basics gives you formulas, talks about how to build a proper team, and I find that in my career when I break any of those fundamental principles, something not so good will probably happen. Quick little story. It's taken me 10 years. I'm at the precipice of becoming financially free. I'm one of those guys. Jack of all trades, master of none. I've told you I've done turnkey long-term, short-term buy and hold flips, you name it. I've done a little bit of everything, and a close friend of mine, the guy that hiked that first tall mountain with me, he's a business owner, not very big in real estate, doesn't know much about it, but he followed the principles. He's a great business owner, great with systems, and knows how to get people in the right place, but doesn't know really much about real estate. I can run circles around him. 18 months ago, he decided to buy 70 houses in Eastern Pennsylvania where he's from. So he went locally and he got the right people in the place, got the right funding, found the right contractors, the right property management company, and within 18 months he became financially free. Just by following basic business principles and didn't know more than just, yeah, a BiggerPockets calculator or just your standard buy and hold formulas that you'll get in that book. The Millionaire Real Estate Investor, he did not try to overcomplicate things. He kept it very simple and it didn't take up a lot of his time because he had other people doing everything for him. He has other businesses. That he's way more passionate about, that he was caring about growing. He just wanted that so he could have good, stable investments, brick and mortar investments that will get him financially free, not when he retires, not stocks, bonds, crypto, any of that stuff. He wanted passive cash flowing properties, very minimal time and energy. And he did that in 18 months. He blew my mind away when he did that cuz I was there with him throughout the whole journey, helping them out just from like more of a coaching friend standpoint. But he completely changed my look on how to run businesses properly and how to just stay focused on, on one thing and do it really freaking well.

Average Joe Finances:
45:32

Yeah. That's awesome Ace that's phenomenal. I thank you for sharing that because, a lot of times people think, oh, I have to do, maybe just something really small to start, you can, if you've got the right resources and everything, you can get right into something really big. As long as you're following all the basic principles. It's just with higher numbers, right? You're just adding a couple more zeros onto the end of that. Yeah, you could go buy the a hundred thousand dollars house, or you could buy the $1 million multi-family property that you know that everything looks better. It just depends on, what your abilities are. So as long as you know what your capabilities are. Know, there's, what you can accomplish, right? But following the basics, I think that's the biggest takeaway. So I definitely appreciate that. Okay, so that is it for the final round Ace. However, I have another question I wanna ask you, and this is probably the most important question I'm gonna ask you throughout this entire interview, and that is, okay, you've provided a lot of value, right? Yes. We didn't talk. A hundred percent about real estate, right? We talked about, how you changed your life, how you changed your mindset, how you think, how you do, right? And that provides a lot of value to an audience like mine that is probably in situations where they're like, man, I feel like. Know I'm doing too much, or maybe I'm doing too little. I can't find this balance right? So I definitely appreciate the insight and the value that you gave there. So speaking of where can people find more information about you? You have a website you could share with us, social media. Where can we find your podcast? Where can we get your book? Hit us with it.

Ace Hagerty:
47:09

I appreciate that. I appreciate the opportunity to to talk about that with your audience and sell my services. Everything's superhero by design. Go on Amazon Superhero by Design. Get the book, it'll teach you phenomenal tools about leveraging and changing your nervous system. Pretty funny, inspirational stories of my chaotic life and how I get through life and everything. But just valuable information from some of the top neuroscientists in the world today. The website is superherobydesign.com, the podcast, you can find it anywhere. Superhero by design as well. On the podcast, I focus on interviewing people who are just doing incredible things. I consider them real life superheroes and so they, whatever they do. Whether they're teaching inner city youth or they're doing bigger things on a grand scale all over the world, changing people's lives it doesn't matter. What they do is they have control of their lives. They're living the lives that they want to do, and they just focus on those two fundamental things. I've talked about growth and contribution, and they are strong mission people, and I did that because I wanted to show people that there are just. Amazing people in this world that are doing amazing things, and I just wanted to, they inspire me every time I interview them and talk to them. And all I wanna do is inspire my audience to think bigger, to feel empowered so that they can take control of their lives and do whatever it is they wanna do to just do incredible things. And superhero By Design podcast, and then also on my website, if you're interested in the a hundred day Challenge. We just finished it about a week ago actually, but I do have a free pdf. I broke it down into quarters, so I call it the Quarter Quest. So essentially changing your nervous system and your habits within 25 days. So it's a much shorter but just as powerful way for you to start making those changes in your life immediately in as little as 25 days.

Average Joe Finances:
49:18

I definitely appreciate that and, we're gonna make sure we have all those links in the show notes to make it easier for our listeners to go and find it. So hey, if you're listening, you can copy and paste or click away. Just please don't do it if you're driving right now. ACE, this has been. Phenomenal. Thank you so much for taking the time to, to talk with me today, sharing your story, and sharing your journey. It's very inspirational and I appreciate the resources you're providing as well for my listeners to go check out and maybe try a challenge themself. So I definitely appreciate that. So again, thank you so much, ACE.

Ace Hagerty:
49:51

This was phenomenal. Hey, thank you for having me, man. It was an absolute pleasure coming on with you.

Average Joe Finances:
49:56

Absolutely. And hey, I also wanna thank my listeners so much for joining me and our special guest Ace Hagerty on the average Joe Finances podcast. Go leave us a five star review and tell us what you liked about today's episode with Ace. And if you sign up for a challenge, I wanna know about that too. Make sure you put that in there. All right. Aloha from Hawaii and have a great rest of your day.