Here's a moment that changed my life, and it happened by accident.
It was the final day of an agents' conference, Mastermind Day, where we were grouped by sales volume. I was selling about $20 million a year, which should have put me in one group. But someone messed up and seated me with the agents selling $75 million and up. Out of pure curiosity, I stayed.
What they talked about wasn't tactics. It was wealth building, lifestyle design, thinking bigger. One woman casually mentioned she takes 4-to-8-week vacations with her family. That single comment was the permission I didn't know I needed. A man described growing his rental portfolio by 100 units a year, and it hit me that I was thinking far too small.
Five years later, by deliberately spending time with people ahead of me, I grew my portfolio by 200 units in one year. The mechanics hadn't changed. My inner game had.
That's the part nobody teaches, so let me. The inner game of wealth has four pieces.
1. Mindset
Tony Robbins says success is 80% mindset and 20% mechanics, and I've found that to be exactly right. The right mindset means seeing yourself as the creator of your life, not the manager of your circumstances. When you operate from there, you make better decisions about your investments, your time, and your relationships.
The most practical piece of mindset is this: execution beats knowledge, every single day. Most people stay stuck consuming content, waiting until they know enough to feel ready. That moment never comes. So commit to just-in-time learning, take action now and figure out steps 5 through 10 along the way. I cover the practical version of this in the 5-hour-a-week system, but the mindset underneath it is simply: do more, consume less.
And ask yourself a question almost nobody takes the time to answer: what does living an extraordinary life actually look like for me? Get specific, find a compelling reason it's a must, then take 2-3 concrete actions toward it.
2. Proximity
You become who you spend time with. That Amelia Island story is the whole point: I didn't get smarter that day, I got adjacent to bigger thinking, and it reset my ceiling.
I dropped out of college at 21 because the environment wasn't for me. Then I joined an office surrounded by business owners earning multiple six figures and investing in real estate. If I hadn't changed my environment, I wouldn't be where I am. Proximity is power.
So raise your standards and get in rooms with people playing a higher-level game:
- In-person meetups. Some of my closest friends I met at local meetups. There are people in your own backyard on the same journey. Try a few until you find your group.
- Conferences. I've invested over $100,000 in conferences, and it's returned tenfold. Every single one, I gain knowledge and meet someone who changes my trajectory.
Look honestly at the people around you. Are they pushing you toward big goals, showing you where you're thinking too small, and giving you perspectives and referrals you couldn't get alone? If not, it's time to rethink who you surround yourself with. If you're not sure where to find that room, I walk through it in how to find your investor peer group.
3. Habits
Mindset and proximity get amplified by daily habits, the small things that quietly decide your trajectory. Three I've built:
- Feed your mind an hour a day. The "5-hour rule" that high performers swear by. I spend at least an hour reading or listening to podcasts. It compounds.
- Analyze deals 30 minutes a day. Make deal analysis a daily habit and you become an expert at spotting good ones without thinking. The underwriting framework is in how to underwrite a multifamily deal.
- Schedule thinking time. Most of us live in busy mode seven days a week and never stop to think. This has been a game-changer. In each session I ask myself things like: What can I remove from my calendar to create space for my goals? What am I doing that someone else could do? How can I spend more time with people ahead of me?
Habits feel insignificant in the moment and decisive over time. What one habit will you build over the next 30 days?
4. Ask "who," not "how"
This is the single biggest shift, and it's the one that finally broke my plateau.
As a beginner, I obsessed over the how: how to find markets, how to get more deals, how to structure financing, how to be strategic at every step. Strategy matters, but you can only get so far solving everything yourself. I tried piecing it together alone and hit a ceiling.
Then I noticed a pattern among my high-net-worth friends. They don't ask how. They ask who:
- Who can help me get to the next level?
- Who can find me properties in these markets?
- Who can manage renovations for me?
- Who can manage my properties so I can be with my family?
- Who can run my books so I can focus on closing deals?
Today I rely 100% on a trusted team to run the day-to-day: investor agents across the country, property managers, bookkeepers, contractors, attorneys, CPAs, 1031 intermediaries. My investing only works because of the team behind it, and that team exists because I started asking who. Building it is the subject of hiring a remote team.
The takeaway
You can learn the mechanics of this business from a hundred articles, including the ones on this site. What you can't download is the inner game: the willingness to act before you're ready, the courage to put yourself in rooms with people who make you feel small, the discipline of daily habits, and the humility to stop asking how and start asking who.
I got a five-year head start on that lesson because somebody made a seating mistake. You don't need the accident. Just choose, on purpose, to spend time with people playing a bigger game, and watch how quickly your own definition of possible expands. The portfolio follows the mindset, not the other way around.
This article is educational and reflects my own experience. It isn't financial advice. Build your own plan and consult the right professionals for your situation.
