In episode 37 of Wake Up to Wealth, Brandon Brittingham interviews Mark Evans, a real estate investor and business consultant, as he discusses the importance of relationship capital, the transition from being a boss to a leader, and the critical lessons learned from near bankruptcy.
Tune in for insights on wealth-building and the power of community in achieving financial goals.
SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS
Brandon Brittingham
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mailboxmoneyb/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brandon.brittingham.1/
Mark Evans
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/markevansdm
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/markevansdm
WEBSITES
Brandon Brittingham: https://www.brandonsbrain.org/home
Mark Evans: https://www.markevansdm.com/
This is Wake Up to Wealth, a podcast dedicated to helping you change the way you think about wealth. And now, here's your host, Brandon Brittingham.
Hey, are you ready to take the next step towards homeownership? At Responsive Mortgage, the guys that we trust, they make the process simple and tailored to your needs. Whether you're a first-time homebuyer or looking to refinance, their expert team is to help guide you every step of the way. With competitive rates and personalized solutions, they find the right mortgage fit for you. Visit ResponsiveMortgage.com today and let them help lead you home. And these guys, Responsive Mortgage and Mike Benton, are my friends and they're a sponsor of the show, so we trust them. Reach out to them for all your mortgage needs. Tell them I sent ya. Hey, what's up everybody? We are back again with another episode of Wake Up to Wealth. And I cannot thank you guys enough because you guys have continually made us in the top five in investing in Apple. Multiple times we've leapfrogged Dave Ramsey and got the number one spot. We're averaging 65, 70,000 downloads per episode. So thank you all for listening and supporting. We greatly appreciate you being part of the Wake Up to Wealth crew. Today, I'm super excited. I've got a gentleman by the name of Mark Evans here. It's kind of funny how small the world is because we get to talk and have some mutual friends. And we met from Bobby Castro, who's a guy that helps both of us do some cool stuff. And it's just funny, you know, when you get to the top of the mountain, a lot of times it's the same people. And it's just pretty funny that we get talking and we have the same circle of friends, same people that we know. And that's always really cool. And it's always why I stress it to everybody. Relationship capital is the best capital you can ever make. And so, Mark, thanks for being on the show today. I appreciate you being here with us.
Brandon Brittingham
Definitely, Brandon, thanks for having me. I mean, dude, it's a prime example of getting in the room. You know, amazing things can happen. We wouldn't be doing this right now if we weren't in that same room.
That's the truth. Absolutely. So if someone's listening to this and they don't know who you are, you know, give us the elevator pitch, who you are and kind of what you do.
Well, small town Ohio kid hillbilly. I know it doesn't look like it today, but I am June 2, I'll be in business 29 years. I've never had a job my entire adult life. If I don't kill it, I don't eat. I'm definitely eating over here. I started off in a seamless gutter company. I bought it two days after high school for 1000 down creative financing. I didn't even know what I was doing back then. I just knew I didn't want to work for anybody. Turned that in and was doing a lot of work for investors. Became a pretty big real estate investor. Was really bad at it for a long time, but became really good at it. And then through that process, started creating a lot of vertical integration through acquisition of companies from siding, windows, garage doors, everything. I mean, pretty much everything inside of around the house, because that's what we did. We rehabbed and sold houses all day. And now if you fast forward, December 31st
Thank you.
excuse me, 2005, I took off for a month and I thought I had a business. I realized I had a job. So from 96 to 2005, I had a, you know, I, you know, I work 16 hours a day. Like we all do here. We all love working. That's what we get to do. And, uh, but I was sitting on the beach South beach with my girlfriend, now my wife, Dina on a flip phone, closing deals and putting out lots and lots of fires. Um, and realized I got to figure this out. So that one month turned into seven years travel around the country and around the world. We went everywhere. We went all kinds of places. And while I was doing that, I was working on the business. It forced me to work on the business, because guys like you and I, Rayburn, we'll just jump in. We'll solve it. Solve, solve, solve. Next, next, next. Problem is, that's cool at the beginning. It's not cool as it gets bigger. It's everything. We are the bottleneck to everything. We are the problem and the solution as well. Did that. Finally built some real businesses. And I've been virtual ever since 05. I have offices all over the place. I never go to them. I have team members all over the world. and still do real estate investing, have a lending business, have the media side of things, have a fintech company. I'm involved in many blue-collar businesses through acquisition, equity, a little bit of both, and actually getting ready to take a 60-day trip tomorrow. Actually, I leave tomorrow, Brandon. So me and my wife and kiddos are going to head out to Hawaii, Tokyo, Australia, New Zealand for 60 days and kind of just explore. Obviously, I still do business. The truth is no one would know this is going on, Brandon, in our world unless we told them, right? Because we have this beautiful thing called the interweb. Teams are still running. Businesses are growing and cranking, hiring, firing. Problems still exist. You know, wins are still happening. So it's I'm sure we'll get in some of that today, though. But I appreciate you having me, Brandon.
Yeah. So, man, So a lot of people say kind of what you just said of, I've got a business, but they don't, they've got a job. I know it's probably a lot of things, but like, what do you think is one or two things you could pinpoint of I was actually able to transition to here to basically sit in the owner's box. Right. It's like where you could have businesses running, where you're not, you know, basically tied to doing that. Like a lot of people say they want to do that. And a lot of people say they're going to do that. But as you know, there's there's a few there's a small percentage of people who actually get to do it at the level that you've done it at and be successful. There's a lot of people that try to do it and they fail. Yeah.
Well, I mean, listen, I think it's a discovery process. You know, what kind of what kind of business owner are you? You know, I think a lot of people are trying to be something they're not. And, you know, the truth is, we're all delusional, man. You know, our delusional actually serves us and hurts us at the same time. That's why you got to be in the right rooms where people can counterbalance this delusional behavior and thought process. I always tell people, I'm not here to train you how to do it. My biggest job is how to untrain you. It's kind of like a new program on a computer. You got to take out the old disk and put a new system, hardware. We've been taught a lot of bad stuff, man. We've been taught a lot of limited beliefs. For me, it's like real estate investing specifically, when I left in 05, I'm a chest to chest business guy. Real estate, you're in the house, the seller's selling, motivated, we're running ads, we're doing all these things, the office is cranking. I actually love that. back then I loved, like I wanted to be the boss. You know what I mean? I was like, I'm the boss. You come to me for the problem, you know, solutions. And then through the discovery though, I realized I'm not as important in the business. Problems will happen. I am good at everything, but I'm not good at everything all the time. And no one's going to do it as good as us, right? We always say, we always, all of us have the same exact track. No one will do it as good of us. Okay, but if they're only doing this 100% of the day, and that's all they had to focus on, and they only did it 50% as good as me, but I have five guys doing it, they're way better than I ever could be as one person. There's problems in that. You're going to have slippage. You're going to have over budgets. You're going to have these things that are going on, but now I can focus on the business. Like Walmart, 10% of their profits get stolen out of the front door every day. So they figure out a solution. It's not like Sam Walton in there back in the day, I'm going to stand in the front door and I'm going to protect everything, I'm going to run everything. No, Jeff Bezos is not boxing everything and shipping labels today. It's a business. And again, that's not right or wrong. Some people just don't want to do it or can't do it. Honestly, Brandon, it's a control freak thing for sure.
Yeah. One of the things you just said that if you guys are listening, I don't I don't want you to miss this because it is gold. You said, you know, I can't be good at everything all the time. You know what I mean? And I think that's the mistake that we make as entrepreneurs is. We want to be good at everything all the time. We wear a bunch of hats and a lot of us entrepreneurs are extraordinary in our ability, but then what happens is you're actually losing because you're stretching yourself too thin. Yeah, you probably would do it better than most people, but to your point, if they could do it at 50% of your capacity, you're going to get there a lot faster than just putting the shit all on your shoulders.
Exactly. And this is seasonality too, right? When I was able to work 16 hours a day, I had a girlfriend, now my wife, I didn't have kids. I love working. So it's like now, depending where you're at in the journey, my biggest fear, Brandon, is you got these guys 40, 50, 60 years old, has these amazing children, grandkids or whatever, and they're still acting like they're 17 years old or 22 years old, grinding 16 hours a day bragging about it. Like, dude, listen, if you're a success in business and failure at home, globally, you're failing. Because the ultimate goal... No one cares about what you've accomplished in business. Your family is really why you're doing all this crazy stuff anyway. So I'm very conscious of that thought process. Because I don't want to be great at business and not great at home.
Hey, are you ready to take the next step towards homeownership? At Responsive Mortgage, the guys that we trust, they make the process simple and tailored to your needs. Whether you're a first-time homebuyer or looking to refinance, their expert team is to help guide you every step of the way. With competitive rates and personalized solutions, they find the right mortgage fit for you. Visit ResponsiveMortgage.com today and let them help lead you home. And these guys, Responsive Mortgage and Mike Benton are my friends and they're a sponsor of the show. So we trust them. Reach out to them for all your mortgage needs. Tell them I sent you. So, um, you mentioned this a little bit and it's kind of become popular on the internet, right? Business acquisition. Um, you know, and, and it's funny, actually had somebody call me the other day and they're like, ah, you know, I'm going to pivot and I'm going to start buying businesses. And I'm like, well, what the fuck do you know about doing that? Right. And how about figure out your business first, but it is, it is a, it's a lucrative business. We've done it, you know, not at the level you've done it at, but like, if you would, you know, just kind of share, like, what do you look for? You know, how do you evaluate one? What do you come in and try to do? Like, like, how do you, how do you look at that whole process?
Yeah. Real quick, the disclaimer for me is, you know, I have a lot of contrast. You've got a lot of real estate people, business people here. And I think you guys got to understand like a buying a business is not like buying a piece of real estate. I know it's, by the way, that's a good marketing strategy. Like buy a real estate deal. It only makes a thousand a month. It's a hundred grand or buy a business for a hundred grand and it can make you as unlimited sort of. Maybe, but the problem is with real estate, there's always a value to it. The truth is if you buy the wrong business and you don't know how to manage it right, it actually has a negative benefit because there's debt to it. You have employees, you have hard costs. I have businesses I've sold and I'm losing $80,000 a month. Those are not worth money. Those are actually, you're paying and or breaking even just to get out of them because you have liability attached to it. single family house, dude. And I've had many of these where I could buy it and just landlock it and make 300% in 20 years, 10 years or whatever, depending on the location. I don't have to do anything. Just pay the taxes every year and mow the lawn twice a year kind of thing. So there are definitely different categories in investing. But investing in business, like I said, I did my first one in 1996 and I did multiple up to 2000. And again, the truth is I didn't even know what I was doing. I was just so dumb I was like, why wouldn't I buy something where the phone's ringing 80 times a day? I don't have to do anything. Like literally, like I lived with my parents. I was 18 years old. I bought this gutter company. I literally, the day I buy it, I plug in the back. This is old days. So a lot of your viewers might not know. We plugged in a phone and actually had a voicemail, like answering machine with a tape recorder. And I literally, the phone was ringing off the hook because it was an established 16 years in business. And it was needed product gutters in Ohio is a big deal. So I kind of had like, as I started getting a little bit more mature, I started realizing kind of what I was going. But now what I what I'm looking to do, honestly, man, when I'm establishing it, like I said, I call it the torch method. So first is the T. Time, right? We're all at different times in the game. How much time do I have? Some of you might have a lot of time on your hands. That's awesome. You could buy different businesses that I can't buy or won't buy simply because of a time factor, right? And then the O in the torch method is opportunity cost. This needs to be low for me. Like I can't have if I take my attention into this business, it better have a very high probability and value or my opportunity costs on what I actually have going on that I know works for sure. And I'm growing as well. it doesn't take away from that. And then I'm looking at risk. You know, like, let's be honest, not all businesses have the same risk profile. You know, if I'm buying a mom and pop store on the corner, which I don't do that, but if I did, that's a higher level of risk. One, I'm virtual. Two, I don't like to have that. I wouldn't mind owning the real estate and renting it back to them potentially, but I don't like the risk factor of that. And online, does it have assets? Does it have employees? You know, there's different risk levels. And then you gotta ask yourself, what skill am I bringing? Honestly, Brandon, a lot of these people aren't bringing any skill. They have an idea and they might have access to a little bit of capital. But if you don't have skill sets on managing these components, you're going to get smoked because there's real players entering this game now. Like it's it's it's way different now. By the way, I bought my seamless gutter company for twenty five thousand dollars. And the thing was making six figures. Well, it was making grossing 650 ish the first year kind of thing. So you could never do it now. And it came with equipment, came with a truck, it came with all these things and a thousand dollars down, like it was literally a handshake, two page contract, you know, good old boy thing, you know? And then I'm a cashflow investor. So I'm going to ask myself, how much cashflow does this have, or is this a cash suck? Some of you guys listening to me are really good. And my mind breaks with this, by the way. But when you do startups, hey, my burn rate is $100,000, and I go six years burn rate, because you're going to constantly be raising money, raising money, raising money. I don't do that. I can't do it. My brain doesn't work like that. I'm not that smart. Genuinely, I'm not that smart. However, I know if 100 comes in, 80 goes out, net 20, I like that model. I understand basic cash flow structures. What am I building this for? Because a lot of you guys are creating fragmented opportunities, meaning you're in the gutter company, and then I'm gonna go do software, and then I'm gonna do this, and I'm gonna do this. There's no connection. So what happens on part of the torch method, the E is enterprise value. If I buy this company today, does it add to my enterprise value of what I'm really trying to accomplish?
Oh, that's money. I've never heard somebody relate it that way. That's a good one.
Well, again, I discovered this the hard way, because I was buying everything all over the place and my resources got so limited. Again, it's kind of like real estate, right? If you do single family investments, that's good. But if you do apartment buildings, that's a different team, different lawyers, different commercial broker, everything's different. But you're like, I'm still a real estate investor, so it's the same. Well, no, if you're doing rehabs now, if you're a rental portfolio, like these are all different businesses disguised as the same business. However, if I did single family, this is exactly how I progressed. I did single family rentals, and then I moved over to single family rehabs. I call it the one step over method. As long as it's one step over and I can actually use some of my resources, the same bookkeeping, some of those, and then expand resources with relationship capital, that's different. That's a lot easier to make these moves. Reason most people won't do it though, Brandon, it's boring. It's like, I want something new and it's exciting. It's, well, Sometimes, honestly, real business isn't too exciting.
Now, that's a good point. Another thing that you said that I think is so important. I've had to learn this the hard way. I think it's a gift and a curse as an entrepreneur. You said opportunity costs. And I think so many people miss this. And We were in the room together when a gentleman said, one of the biggest struggles you're going to find as an entrepreneur is you've got to say no to really good ideas to execute on the great ones. That stuck with me. And opportunity cost is, I remember one of my first mentors, I was looking at an opportunity and we thought it would make us a million dollars, right? shit ton of money, especially to me at that time. And, but he sat me down and he said, that's going to cost you three. Yup. And I said, you're fucking old and crazy. And he said, okay, so walk me through what it's going to take you to make that million. And then he said, okay, now see how much that takes away from everything else that you're doing. That's making way more than that, by the way. And then I was like, holy shit, like a light bulb went off. And I was like, that's real opportunity cost. And that's, I wanted to highlight that because you said it. You eloquently said it very easy and I just don't want people to miss that because entrepreneurs, all of us, we chase the shit and we chase the shiny object and we forget. It takes away from the main thing. I love the enterprise value and the one step over that, that is genius. Another thing that you said that I wanna highlight is, you said you don't wanna do startups. And I think to your point, the buying businesses or whatever you do needs to be tied to your identity. Another thing that the when we were together in Florida, the founder of Netflix said is he was good at startups, but he was bad after they were startup. Right. And he knew that and he knew when to get out. So that's really cool. So, so you, you went through the torch method and I really appreciate that. Cause that's gold to break down for our audience. So like, what do you look at? Like, what is, if you were to pick one, what is the ideal business? Like today you want to buy, like what kind of revenue are they doing? What do you think you bring to the table? And then ultimately, do you look to exit? Do you look to roll that business into something else? Like, how do you look at it?
Yeah, again, just to be clear, I have construction background, right? I grew up in construction my whole life, so I understand construction very, it's simple to me. So, you know, I just gotta say that because I do, that's why I like the blue collar space. My family's blue collar, I'm blue collar, like it's just, it's through my blood. And I believe, I saw my uncles, I saw my mom, my dad, my parents, all these guys and gals work really hard and never get to the end of the finish line and get a payday. So I have an internal mission to really help great blue-collar guys and gals take what I know and understanding in my relationships and my connections, everything. That's my biggest value, my knowledge, my relationships and connections. And I do have a little bit of banking relationships too, where we could plug in. A lot of these companies in the blue-collar space specifically, I like them doing anywhere from $5 to $10 million gross Typically, EBIT is going to be anywhere from 700 to 1.5 million. I like to come in around that point. I don't like them when they're too small. Again, I'm not in the day-to-day. I'm not a micromanager. I'm more forecasting, big vision. Here's the targets. Hey, we're going to bring in these three people, four people. Typically, we'll bring in a books person, someone to jump on the books and really understand that and give us visuals. and data to support everything they're saying, because we're all good at saying stuff, but very few people are good at actually accomplishing it. And then I bring in an operations driver. Typically, I'll lay over an operation third party. We just pay them out monthly and say, hey, I need you to go do every two or three weeks, especially in the beginning. I need you to do site visits and I need you to drive the team, reorganize the team, drive the team. When we come in, there's a little bit of disruption, right? Of course. So my company, We have anywhere from 25 to 60 employees when we're stepping in. And our job is to go in there and to streamline, get their books tight, because no one has good books typically. Let them get some good, and again, if you ever feel overwhelmed or anxious, it's really because you don't have good books. You know, because business is just math. Humans mess it all up. And this is way easier to get done. By the way, I suck at this. That's why I hire people to do it for me. So it's like, and it's like, man, I don't know what's going on. Everything's falling down. It's like data, not drama. So every day, like anybody that was talking more than three words, I'm like data, not drama. But so we'll step in. I like blue collar. I like roofing. I like siding windows. I like HVAC, plumbing, electrical. I like them where, like I said, I'm going to go in and get a, 3x, 4x valuation today. That's where I'm going to come in. Oftentimes, I don't mind bringing money to them as well. Oftentimes, they don't need money. They need knowledge and connections in a playbook. They need clarity of where they're going. These are already focused people, by the way. I think this is a big misunderstanding. People have focus and clarity mixed up. You're focused. A lot of people just focus on the wrong problem or the small problem. And I can step back. I'm not emotional. I understand the playing field a little different because I've been around long enough, where it's like, hey, guys, we need to gain clarity. And then we're going to take this clarity, and we're going to hand it, plug it into your focus. Because these guys are, there's a lot of amazing people out there just working way too hard for way too little. So we typically, we're trying to sell them within three to five years max. And sometimes what will happen is there might be a singular focus. But a roofing company tomorrow I'm taking down actually we actually already have two other companies that will fold into that, and we'll sell them probably in about 18 months. They want three years, they want to be out in three years or less. I think it's going to happen way sooner, because again, that's our power. We'll come in and like, hey, you're bringing us in at 3x, we're going to sell this at 8 to 10x when we go on the exit. But again, those are the type of companies I really like.
Yeah. One of the things you said, too, is this is not to be understated. It's most people's books are not right. If you're an entrepreneur out there, one of the things that he just said, you know, data, not drama, your decisions are math and they're all based on data. The struggle that I see so many people have is they don't even have the data. They don't even have the right data to make a decision. and they don't have their back office tight enough to even have the right data to make a decision. One of the things you should really be concerned with as an entrepreneur is investing and having that side of your business correct. Because if not, you're going to have problems.
Well, problems are coming for sure. And out of that, you'll sleep a lot better at night. The thing is that what you said, Brandy, is very important. It's an investment, not a cost. A lot of people, and I did this for years, so I'm talking out of experience. For the first nine years, I thought an accountant, bookkeepers, tax advisors were a cost, not an investment. Really, I realized that when I almost went bankrupt twice, by the way, how much of an investment they really are back in the day. I never did go bankrupt, but I was close. I mean, I had the paperwork filled out, I was ready to file. And I just ended, I was like, one more day, one more day, just give me one more day. And then I figured it out, but I can tell you, these are great investments. And again, you don't have to go spend 20,000 a month for these individuals out of the gate. It all depends on your size. Once you get clarity, on data, and don't get too complex with data. That's another thing I see too, Brandon. A lot of people get complexity inside of their data. They know data about everything, but they don't know what to do with the data. They're clueless. It's like you have overconsumption. Ideally, you're finding six, seven KPI points that really can move the needle. Let me give you some basic sales calls. How many calls are you making? And what's the conversion? Real simple, right? I don't need I don't need to know cold leads, warm leads, hot leads, follow up leads, blah, blah. Like, I just need to understand the main important ones. Obviously, if I need a deep dive into them, we can. But I see a lot of people. So they're deep diving on the stuff and why they're deep diving. They're not actually doing the work. And there is that other side of the category where I have people in companies I've had to let go. They know everything about the data, but they don't know what to do with it in the companies. Right.
Yeah, that's a good point. That's a really good point. Hey, are you ready to take the next step towards homeownership? At Responsive Mortgage, the guys that we trust, they make the process simple and tailored to your needs. Whether you're a first-time homebuyer or looking to refinance, their expert team is to help guide you every step of the way. With competitive rates and personalized solutions, they find the right mortgage fit for you. Visit ResponsiveMortgage.com today and let them help lead you home. And these guys, Responsive Mortgage and Mike Benton are my friends and they're a sponsor of the show. So we trust them. Reach out to them for all your mortgage needs. Tell them I sent you. So you just mentioned it, you're on the brink of bankruptcy and obviously you turn that around. I'm always interested more in, for me personally, I think that success is a bad teacher sometimes. I've learned way more when I got my ass absolutely handed to me than when I hit the walk-off home run. So, you know, what do you think was a lesson you could share in that? Obviously, you didn't give up, but what do you think you learned? What clarity did you gain for going through that?
Well, then again, we just saw it happen real time with Kansas City Chiefs. They let their foot off the gas a little bit.
I was there, by the way.
Yeah, I saw that when you're winning, you know, you kind of think you keep winning. I promise you they come out next year fucking hungrier than they've ever been. Yeah. Getting embarrassed like that on national national TV at that stage is a whole nother level. And that's what happened to me. I was very young, naive. I was spending lots of money at the club being silly. You know, I thought I had everything figured out. I was having fun. Yeah. Listen, I was the boss, not a leader. That's the big thing that changed. You asked that earlier. I did transition from a boss to a leader. I don't want to be a boss to anyone. I want to lead leaders and I want to be a beacon to them. I want to help them and guide them and level them up. If I level humans up in my organization, the organization levels up. That was not the old me. That's new talk track for me for the last 12 years. The old me was like, this is the way it's done. You can't question me. I'm the boss kind of thing. I just got cocky, man. I thought I figured it out. Not only that, I wish I understood the torch method. I didn't understand opportunity cost. I didn't understand my time involved. We take for granted. We're like, oh, yeah, it's only going to take an hour a day. Every business I buy, every business I buy, they're like, oh yeah, only spend a couple hours a day. I'm like, how? Like you think about it, you're not even sleeping three hours a night because you're stressed out, overwhelmed of what you've got to do tomorrow. Like that's thinking, and oh, by the way, you're working 12 hours a day.
The brain damage, people forget that.
Oh, it's real. Yeah, it's very real. So, yeah, that was like the biggest lesson, man. It's just like, you know, be humble. I'm a student forever. I'm constantly investing in myself. We are the best our investments in ourself. Obviously, you know that, Brandon. So, you know, I'm like, I always want to learn. I'm very curious not to just learn, but curious to be better. Who's doing it better than me? As you get bigger, it's not about competition, it's about collaboration. Absolutely. When you're in the beginning, it's all about competition. You're always worried about everyone's trying to take your client, take your buyer, take your seller, whatever. At the end of the day, it's like, I'm like, how do we collab? This is what you do, this is what I do. How do we do more together? What's one plus one equals four? How do we do that? And but this is comes with maturity, longevity, getting kicked in the face many, many times. You know, so I don't get this ugly face, but I've been getting kicked a bunch of times, that's for sure.
Switching gears a little bit. So you've taken a lot of your knowledge, right? And you and you've built community. I'd love for you because I'm just I'm such a huge believer of that. We've got a huge community here with the podcast. You know, I run a couple of groups as well, but you do some cool stuff. I'd love for you to touch on that.
Yeah, I have two communities, the DM family. You know, it's a $50,000 a year community. There's 33 guys in that group, high level. It's max, it'll never be, we don't go over 33. It's a little bit more hands-on. A lot of guys have exited companies for big money. A lot of guys have built pretty large companies, nine figures or more, some eight. And then, you know, I have the DM Alliance. It's $1,000 a month. We have 154 guys and gals in there. And what we're doing is just teaching them how to build a business right. That's right for them, by the way, not right. That's one thing I got to always focus on, Brandon, when I'm doing this in the community is I don't want to tell you what I would do yet. I need to understand where you want to go so I can guide you the fastest path because what my what I want to do and what you might want to do might be you might want to be a billionaire. I might want to be a hundred millionaire. I don't I don't know. these are way drastically different action plans. Not to say we shouldn't all want to be more, but some people just genuinely don't want that. From my experience, I see where they're at. How long you've been in the game? What are you trying to accomplish? What's your life look like today? What's your cash flow positions? What's your urgency factors? Because a lot of us make very crazy decisions and urgent situations. I need cash today. They melt down everything, just try to get a quick buck. We've all been there. I'm not judging it, but I need to understand where they're at. So those groups are very collaborative. As you know, we're big into relationship capital. The giving muscle I talk about often, I give people rewards for giving, like how much are you giving back? Not just money, but time as well, because I do feel like we have to be great stewards, not only of our wealth, but of our efforts and knowledge and connections.
Yeah. So that's that's golden, man. I appreciate that. So one thing I always ask everybody at the end of every show is we call the show Wake Up to Wealth. And my whole idea and premise behind why I wanted to do this show was because I was never taught correctly about money. But most people aren't. And one of the reasons I did this show was to bring people on like you and open people's mind up to see a different world of you can become wealthy and you've just been taught shit the wrong way. And my vision was I want to give people the knowledge that they can change their life and they can wake up every day wealthy, regardless of what that is to them. So I ask everybody the same question, which I'll ask you is what does waking up to wealth mean to you?
Well, it means a lot of things. Number one, waking up, I can move. That's step one. I can't do anything else if I'm not moving. So you gotta take care of yourself. Healthy, right? Healthy is wealthy. And then just being around my family. I do this because of my family. I don't go out, I don't drink, I don't booze. I'm not doing that crazy stuff. I typically travel with my family everywhere I go. So to me, family is what drives me. And then wealthy too, surrounding myself around people. I love having great people like yourself, Brandon. We're just getting to know each other, but people that challenge me to be better. How can I have a bigger blah, blah, blah, blah, or not even just bigger to be bigger, but bigger vision, bigger mindset, bigger connections, bigger everything. I'm very appreciative and thankful for everything I have, but I feel like, honestly, man, as you know, I don't think we feel like we've done much of anything. I know we've done some cool stuff, but there's so much more to do, and life is, the end is coming. I'm very motivated by death. One day it's coming, and I want it to just be meaningful for my family and all that. Then obviously, we got to have money in there, so don't get it twisted like I'm all about having money, but money's not the first of the line. Even though it is very important up there by air for a lot of people, but there's lots of ways to generate wealth and wealth is relative to everyone here. I think just having the mindset that you're moving towards wealth and listening to a show like this with you, Brandon, I think it's very important for people. It's constant learning. This never goes away. I'm still learning, Brandon, we're all still learning. Don't think you're behind the eight ball. Most people, truthfully, never even catch this idea. You know, they just suffer. That's my family. They just suffer through life and they accept it. You know, and a great way to know this is, are you still dreaming? Are you still pushing? Like if you ask most people what their top five dreams are, they don't even know, dude, they don't even know. They kind of given up on it. Cause like, if you say it out loud, you actually got to work to get it and you got to get uncomfortable and it's scary and you might fail. Um, but, You know, I think to me, waking up wealthy is just being around great human beings and pursuing greatness.
You know, that's awesome, man. Powerful, powerful statement. So for those that want to follow you, check yourself out. Where can they find you? What's the best place to get in touch with you?
Yeah, social media everywhere at MarkEvansDM or get over to markevansdm.com as well, man. Love for people to check it out. And if there's anything I can do, let me know. I love doing this stuff, man. As you know, I think we have to do this. It's very important to help other people.
Yeah, well, I know you're a busy guy and I know you're about to be traveling for 60 days. So the fact that you took the time to come speak to me and my audience, I'm very grateful and I thank you so much for your time and being with us today. Hey, are you ready to take the next step towards homeownership? At Responsive Mortgage, the guys that we trust, they make the process simple and tailored to your needs. Whether you're a first-time homebuyer or looking to refinance, their expert team is to help guide you every step of the way. With competitive rates and personalized solutions, they find the right mortgage fit for you. Visit ResponsiveMortgage.com today and let them help lead you home. And these guys, Responsive Mortgage and Mike Benton are my friends and they're a sponsor of the show. So we trust them. Reach out to them for all your mortgage needs. Tell them I sent you.
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