Not Your Average Investor Show
Not Your Average Investor Show
437 | 5 Top Investing Lessons From Our Top Investors (Community Appreciation Show)
Since it's Summit Week, we are turning our attention to you, our community, and focusing on what has worked for you...
But we won't be the ones sharing it.
On this show, we will follow the annual tradition of bringing some of the best and brightest in the community to speak to you directly!
Join Gregg Cohen, co-founder of JWB, and Not Your Average Investor Show host, Pablo Gonzalez, as they introduce you to faces and voices behind the names you hear every week on the roll call!
Some surprise guests will join us to share:
- what they needed to understand before investing in real estate
- how they adapted their strategies to match their goals
- why they keep tuning into the show every week!
We call this the Fan Appreciation Show and it's one of everyone's favorite episodes every week!
If you're missing out on the summit, don't miss your chance to still meet our community's leaders, and if you're coming, get a head start on meeting them.
Listen NOW!
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Welcome everybody to the weekly edition for the most special, not your average investor show of the year. It is our yearly tradition folks. It is where we go deep into the community to find out the top lessons learned and we have with us. A legend, a legend by himself. He's co hosting the show with us because we realized we can't oil the ocean. Sometimes you can't stop the tide from rising.
Lee Bishop:It's happening.
Pablo Gonzalez:You just can't do it today. We have guests in house star Lee MVP Bishop. Say hello, Lee. Hello
Lee Bishop:everybody.
Pablo Gonzalez:With me as always, the man that I affectionately like to call GC, cause he's got the genius concepts, cause he knows how to generate cash flow, cause he's a great co host, cause his name is what GC? Uh, what, what Lee? What GC? Ha ha! The Greg Cohen! The Greg Cohen! Tell him to say hello. Tell him to say hello.
Lee Bishop:Not Greg, say hello.
Pablo Gonzalez:Hello everybody! Fantastic to be with you today. today, We just want to share a little bit with everybody else. We talk about Lee as the MVP often. the reason why Lee has earned the moniker of the MVP is because you probably know this. Lee is the number one guy that gives his number out to people in the chat. He's the number one guy that We'll take anybody's call just to help them out. And we want to, we're going to talk through kind of Lee's experience over the years of giving out advice and what people ask him and why he's been so valuable to everybody. We've got a couple of surprise guests that we're going to talk about. And then we're going to reveal the weighted on top 10 attendee list of the year, which we will, which we will finish with. So Lee, Let's just start with when people generally reach out to you. What's the first thing that they're asking about? Like what are they what are they what are they coming to you with?
Lee Bishop:I mean honestly, they want to know what my experience is. Okay, and why am I such a supporter for JWB? And why do I believe in what their message is and what they're doing in their product and it's it's My experience has been outstanding. So When people call me, they say, you know, have you had any mishaps? Have anything ever happened? I said, you know, the JWB team takes care of any, you know, all of the issues that we have for the house. So as my wife says, you know, it really has been one of those things where It's a load of pressure off of her, you know, just peace of mind is, is how she puts it, you know what I mean, when, when, when I said, well, we're going to be investing in JWB, she's like, what I said, we're going to take money out of the, you know, the retirement money out of our 401k, she was like, What and then I, I paid cash for the first house and bought four more, and she was like, slow down, trick her. What are you doing? You know, you've lost your mind. Yeah. And really, you know, now that she's, she's seen it and had had a chance to experience it. She's like, oh my God, we should be telling everybody this. Which is why I, which is why you do. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's, it's a no brainer. I love talking about. My experience and how it's been and what I've been doing, you know, how it's affected me how it's made my life better You know, we're I'm having money and and it's paying for you know itself and I'm not having to show any more money out But the biggest thing is not having to worry about when we do we did pull the trigger and said we're retiring now Money's not eroding right? I mean that was the biggest issue. We wanted to see that that There was going to be a continuous flow of income coming in and not eroding the capital investment so that, but really people call and they say, you know, what's your experience? Come on. Come on. I see you're a bubbly guy. Come
Pablo Gonzalez:on. Do you work for JWB? Do they ever ask you that?
Lee Bishop:I'm wearing a, I'm wearing a swag and I love it. Do you that? No. Yeah. Oh yeah. They always say So how much is JWB what's your payroll, you know, what's your IT and clean ID, you know, and I laugh, I say, well, you know, it's Lee Bishop. I work for myself.
Pablo Gonzalez:The B in JWB is not Bishop?
Lee Bishop:It's not Bishop. You know, as much as I would like. Yeah, me too, by the way. but honestly, I love talking to people. Okay, that's, that makes it easy for me. Yep. And when people call me on the phone and they say, really, have you had any bad experiences or anything like that? You know, Greg has always said, be honest, tell them whatever you, you know, don't embellish, don't lie, tell them, you know, and that's what I love about this guy. Cause he, he says. Look, it's your experience. You know, we can't script this stuff, right? And my experience overall has been outstanding. So, you know, the JWB team has been there for me on all of my issues with the houses. You know, it's not like me doing it myself or, or something comes up and I go, I got to figure out how to fix this. They come up with the solutions, you know, with vendors. And all I'd do is say yes or no, and you know, where if it's a, an issue where the tenant has done something goofy, I still have to pay for it up front, but if it, if there's proof that it really was something that they did, then the, the tenant has to end up paying me back, but it's not like a maintenance fee that has to be paid to me. Rated into the rent. So, you know, if the tenant
Pablo Gonzalez:pays it,
Lee Bishop:the tenant pays, yeah, the tenant reimburses me, but it's, it's all part of the rent, you know, it's like rent goes up for a hundred dollars or whatever they work it out. You know, JWB works it out. So that's a win, win, win for everybody, you know, which is awesome. Yeah.
Gregg Cohen:I'm just loving this, man. know
Lee Bishop:what
Gregg Cohen:I was thinking as I'm hearing you speak, I'm like, you know, I think, you know, to really reach a level of success, we all need somebody to help us, right? Somebody who's really giving us their time, who's been in their, in, in, has been in a level of success that is maybe a little bit farther than where you are, but it's where you want to be. And we have to have somebody who is generous and kind and just, you know, I think it's just having that personality that, that you have, right? And I, I know that I, I had people in my life when I was starting out. That I could look back and say they were my Lee, you know, like they were kind and generous and they were above where I wanted to go as far as rental property investing, but out of the kindness of their hearts, they made themselves available, right? And it wasn't because it made them any money. It was because. They cared. And so as I was listening to you speak, I was thinking about myself when I started 20 something years ago. And you know, for me, it was a number of people. One of them was fan Merrill from fortune builders. Right. And you know, and whenever I needed at that moment, you know, it was well before I started paying fan a lot of money to learn as education, which I did. And it's been paid back many, many times over. He would just pick up the phone or he would call me and be like, Hey, how's that going on? You know, how's that going? Did that did that go the way you wanted and that that caring individual, we all need at least You know, we need this community has a lead and we're so thankful that we have a lead But you know, we all need a
Lee Bishop:lead. It's it's not like, you know, i'll get one call and it'll be 10 minutes You know, it's always somebody that says Do you mind if I call you back or i'm going to have more questions after I talk to my wife Or husband or whatever, you know, I mean,
Pablo Gonzalez:what do the follow up questions look like?
Lee Bishop:Well, it's going to be like, um if If you were to do it all over again, would you do the same thing?
Pablo Gonzalez:Oh, yeah?
Lee Bishop:Yeah, you know, would there be anything different that you would, that you would have done? Or did you have any regrets? Now that you've done this, would you, would you say, oh man, I wish I had, you know, my regret is
Pablo Gonzalez:People show up and they're like Is this legit? What is your experience? Yeah, you're like experience is good. Then they're like, all right, I'll be back And then they call you again. They're like, whoa, would you do it again? Is that really how it goes? I'm, not sure.
Lee Bishop:This far interesting from from pulling the trigger, but I just need to To know and I tell them my only regret is I didn't know about this one 40, you know? Yeah. I find out about this when I was 50. You know
Pablo Gonzalez:how, how old were you when you started Lee?
Lee Bishop:It was 2017.
Pablo Gonzalez:2017. Okay. And I'm
Lee Bishop:62.
Pablo Gonzalez:And you're 62. So like five
Lee Bishop:years. Five years, you know. Yeah. Caver Hall math, you know, So
Pablo Gonzalez:20 17 62. I'm trying to do math in public right now. Yeah. No. Doing eight. So you started in your mid fifties and this was and this was a retirement thing, right? Like you, you know, you, you invested with retirement money
Lee Bishop:to
Pablo Gonzalez:totally retirement. People, people ask you about that part.
Lee Bishop:Yeah. What,
Pablo Gonzalez:what do people misunderstand about the investing with retirement money?
Lee Bishop:So I don't think it's a misunderstanding. It's how do I get started? Okay. You know, really it's, it's I mean, even. With like Jen, you know, who's Fairy Godmother, you know, she can't be on the show today, but she was calling me up saying What what did you do to get started and how did it work? And what did you have to do and was it a difficult process? And as long as you had somebody like me holding her hand And then you know, like she got legal advice because i'm not going to give legal advice But she you know when she found out what it was that the process was and that It's it's like the whole unknown, you know, if you don't know something. Yeah, who are you gonna talk to? Yeah, and so, you know when people on the show see that, you know I I did it with them with retirement money then they call me up and they say what did you do? How did you get started? What was your first reaction or what? What was your first step, you know? So But I was saying the people in the community don't want to pay, you know, if they want somebody to give them a little advice, I can get them started, I can put them, you know, make them take their first step. Because everybody, you're not going to do it on your own. You know what I mean? The big unknown is, oh, what's the, what's the first thing I have to do? You know, is it forming the LLC? And everybody's different. You know, you said, what is your first thing? I've talked to like three or four different people in it more than that, but I mean There's like three or four different ways of investing, you know your 401k. Yeah, you know And certainly the first thing I had to do was set up the escrow account so that I have a proof Of money going from my 401k into this, into my solo 401k in my case, but, you know, I had to have a proof of where the money was going so I didn't have to get hit with a 20 percent and a 10 percent and give my money away before I even spend it.
Pablo Gonzalez:It's
Lee Bishop:as simple as that.
Pablo Gonzalez:What do you think about that first step piece?
Gregg Cohen:Yeah, I, you know, I think there's a lot of materials out there and a lot of resources out there for folks who have the desire to learn about it, but there's, but there's still this leap of faith to like pick up the phone and talk to somebody and, you know, of course we, we're here at JWB to, to be that resource and to, to do that, but you know what, listen, we're a company, we're going to sell you something and at the end of the day, you know, people, it is so nice to have another resource that is not Inside JWB that has been in your shoes. So I just think, you know, this is how, this is how people become successful. You have resources and different walks of life, maybe with different, you know, relationships and whatnot. And we all come together, around the idea of doing something really good for people.
Pablo Gonzalez:Yeah, that's awesome.
Lee Bishop:It's so it's like when the when the water rises all the boats rise, right? Yeah, you know and honestly if it if and then when people get together and they talk about man I never would have done it if I hadn't talked to you. That makes me feel great You know, I mean that's like that's like my benefit out of the whole thing You know what? I mean when people say I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me I'm talking to this guy in Alaska who said I have this property and as soon as I sell that, I'm going to be buying with JWB because he's happened to stumble on the show and I, it was one of those times where I put my phone number out there and I didn't know him from dirt, you know, and he calls me out and he goes can I talk to you about investing with JWB? What do you really think? You know, and, and this was like multiple, I said, listen, next time you call. Make sure your wife is, you know, because I don't want to have to say it three or four
Pablo Gonzalez:times.
Lee Bishop:That's funny. You know,
Pablo Gonzalez:yeah, yeah, that's, that's cool. I mean, as you're talking about, I'm like. I feel the same way as of like, I wouldn't have done it if it wasn't for you to this zoom chat, right? Like for me, it was like hosting this show. Yeah, it was all of you, right? Like it was like hosting the show, seeing everybody in the zoom chat, just continuing to ask me like, when are you getting started? When are you reading rich dad, poor dad, what are you doing with your money? Kind of thing. It was like. It's, it's that whole, you surround yourself with people and you, you just kind of like become like them, right? Like,
Lee Bishop:well, if they're why you say all of these people were successful. Yeah, they're, you know, more as more people were coming on to the show Yeah, who were clients already, you know, and they're and and it's always a lot of things are saved How many how many houses do you have right? And it's not really about how many houses it's how do you protect yourself from just having? If you just have one, you're vulnerable and people that have one, maybe two, can still get into that, exposed, you know, either the house, one house gets vacant and it's not paying for both of them, or, you know, I mean, there's reasons why you want to have, in my case, five houses, but at least have three, you know, so you can build in that security and your retirement account, in my case, most people don't have,
Pablo Gonzalez:makes sense.
Gregg Cohen:Yeah, and I think there's I think each plan is so different, but we have to take that idea of, like, minimizing vulnerability, and that has to be a part of the plan, right? So, like, if you're investing in your retirement accounts, we absolutely can never get into a situation where There is a big expense thing that isn't free and able to be liquid in that retirement account because Or that you don't have reserves to cover. Or that you don't have reserves, right? I mean, you know, it's, there's so much more than just the selling of a rental property for a JWB client. It is a holistic plan because this can be a beautiful thing, but if you don't do it well, if you don't do it with intention Or if you don't have people advise you correctly Who have done it thousands of times Yeah You can be one of those stories where people I don't know why anybody would do this, you know, they don't have a good experience and you know, they might just be just as loud as Lee the opposite way. Like, Oh, why would I ever do this? Right. You know? Right. So there's, there has to be intentionality. And that's what I love about, you know, what we do for people is no plan is the same for each individual. The retirement account is perfect for you. But at the end of the day, there's core tenants to building a good plan, which is of course, maximizing the opportunity and the growth, but. protecting against vulnerability, right? And this is an asset class that absolutely can do that when you do it the right way. Yep. Yep.
Pablo Gonzalez:Lee, I want to get to the top 10 attendees, but you mentioned something. You mentioned something. You mentioned something. that people ask you around, would you do it again? And I want to ask you that question. What do you answer to folks? But I would, I would with the caveat of, would you do that again today? Right? Like you are, you were 54 when you started you're now eight years later and you've reached retirement your, your retirement life. Seems to be pretty comfortable. You have all the cash you need, you're making moves, you're buying, you're buying homes in, in Galveston, Texas by the beat, right?
Lee Bishop:Yeah.
Pablo Gonzalez:if you were a 54 year old Lee right now in 2025, would you do it again?
Lee Bishop:Yeah. Yeah. I would have done it if I was 30 and knew about it, but I didn't know about it. You know, at 62, I would certainly if, if I were saying, okay, I'm getting ready to retire and my wife is saying, Hey, we got these you know, accounts that are retirement accounts. I wonder if, you know, when you're talking to your guy and he says, you're at the 98th percentile, so you can live the way you want to live now. I mean, we talked about this during the Kelly bear bond show, but you know, but. But it was one of those things where you say, right now I only have two weeks off. I'm gonna have, oh yeah. 50. I get where you're going. Yeah. 52 weeks off. Right. My defense are gonna go up, you know, I mean, purchases are gonna go up. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Support, right.
Pablo Gonzalez:You
Lee Bishop:know, if I'm
Pablo Gonzalez:drinking this many bottles of wine in a night. So explain that decision. Explain that. You mentioned that, that idea of like. You did this because you didn't want the asset to diminish while you were still living off of it. Explain that piece.
Lee Bishop:Yeah, so, as long as you're having rent, you know, that's either paying for the asset and you're still having positive cash flow, and you're still looking at the five profit centers, you know, you can borrow against money if you need it, you know. And that's what we did to buy a house. We borrowed against one of our assets to pay for and We're able to put down, we're able to put down 25%, you know, down on this house and, and we're able to comfortably move right into it. You know, and all of the houses aren't paid for yet, but through the C3X, you know, that has to be put on hold for a second, you know, until everything gets approved for a mortgage, you know, at 62.
Pablo Gonzalez:Explain what he's explaining right now, GC.
Gregg Cohen:Yeah, so the first thing, I didn't know that the profits from your JWB portfolio provided the down payment. Oh, you have your new house in Galveston. And that's really cool. That's really great. So we talk about, you know, achieving an outcome, right? You know, it's nice to make money and that, you know, at the end of the day, that's what we hope to do here. But we hope to do a lot more than that, which is to achieve an outcome. So it's really cool to know that you guys are able to move to where you wanted to go and to know that your JWB investments paid for it. But what, what Lee is also talking about when he says things like C3X, you know. Again, this whole planning and this intentionality about how we build a portfolio for you is not just about how to build the buying part of your plan. At some point, you will get the right number of assets in your portfolio, and then it will be about how do we strategically help you pay down The debt so that you can maximize your cashflow, maximize, you know, speed up the date of financial freedom or whatever that outcome is that you're achieving. C3X is one of those strategies. It's all about strategically paying down your loans for you, and it can pay down the same amount of debt in a much faster. Way so that's something that our team helps our clients do and it's a whole, you know, it's scientifically proven. It's not, you know, it's, it's so simple to when you sit down, right? So we have simple to execute. But again, if you haven't met with somebody, if you hadn't had a lean your life to even put this in your head, like we are hopefully right now. And if you hadn't talked to a team who's done this thousands of times, you might just go around just. either buying the wrong number of assets or even after you buy the right number of assets, just paying them or pay for 30 years. Yeah. Paying for 30 years. And you would, I mean, I don't know what the math is, but five to seven years, you probably could have shaved off by doing it strategically. Right. Yeah. So there's a whole lot of fun stuff that we get to do with this portfolio.
Pablo Gonzalez:And beyond the C3X, what you didn't talk about is like the idea that. You're able to take a loan out of one of your homes that you still own to go purchase the home that you want to live in. And like you said, the asset doesn't go down, right? Like you didn't have to take a lump of cash out of your stock market portfolio, pay taxes on it, lose the ability to gain appreciation from it to go buy this house. You still own these homes that are paying you cash flow. You were able to take that out. Buy a new home that you're gonna live in like a stone's throw from the beach and and now yeah And now and now like and you still keep that thing, right? Like you still have that thing working for you That's the whole not average way of seeing retirement right like of like these things don't go away. They continue to do better So these outcomes that you can create with rental property investing one of the greatest outcomes is this flexibility of continuing to hold the asset and continuing to like have optionality versus like having to have like a terrible tax event and losing part of your net worth in order to take a decision, which I think is pretty incredible. You ready for the top 10 attendees list? There's some surprises. Right at 10. This is no surprise. Legendary. The first family patriarch and matriarch. Ken and Carolyn Moline coming in with 49 shows attending 40
Gregg Cohen:and that's how many shows that we have total at just to set the scene I think that's 75. Oh, yeah, 75. Yeah. Yeah, we're talking about what was the number 40 49 50 out of 70 Call yeah That is incredible. That is investing in your community. That's investing in your education.
Lee Bishop:Ken's still getting value.
Pablo Gonzalez:Ken's still getting, by the way, Ken's a legendary. We got to bring him back on for another show. We got to bring Ken on at least once, twice a year kind of thing, right? Ken started in his eighties. was in a, was in a pinch in retirement, took a jumbo reverse mortgage on his house, bought a house, like straight up cash here in Jacksonville, then refinance that house, bought multiple houses. And I think we increase, you increased his cashflow in retirement by like double, through this advanced strategy. When I hear people say it's too late for me to start in real estate, I'm like, uh, listen to Ken Millie.
Gregg Cohen:Yeah. And you want to know something similar. The big outcome that Ken wanted. Yeah. And Ken and Carolyn was they wanted to be able to retire and stay in their home in their community. And if they didn't have this strategy and this investment, it was very likely they were going to have to sell their house to go and move somewhere else in order to be able to retire the way they wanted. So it's all about that outcome. Yeah.
Pablo Gonzalez:All right. The next three names are kind of surprising, right? we've got number six coming on in a second, but nine, eight and seven, nine, Chris Brewer with 52 times, eight Ronald swing with 53 times and Carla Hinton with 55 times. These are three names that I've never checked in on the roll call. How cool is that? Yeah. You are sneaky. If you're here, we'd love it. If you check in, in the chat right now, thank you so much for coming. I'm dying to get to know you, right? I'm dying to get to know you. If you want to check in on the roll call, if you want to come on the show and like, tell us about your experience. We, yeah, I want, I want to give you a nickname, right? So I'm just. It's it just goes to show that the impact of the show, right? Like we know all these names, we know all these folks. And yet, like there are people that are part of this community that haven't even raised their hand yet. Amazing. So it's just incredible, incredible. So, Carla Hinton, Ronald Thwing and Chris Brewer just really pumped that you make a, that you make a habit out of being here. So thank you for being here. We'd love to hear from you. Up next is a guy that everybody's heard from. We call him the ringmaster around here. Drew Barnhill. Welcome to the show my friend.
Andrew Barnhill:Glad to be here, Pablo. Thanks for bringing me up. It's uh, I'm so excited for this weekend. I look forward to this every year.
Pablo Gonzalez:Dude, I can't, I can't wait to see you, man. You were, you were the original, you and Jen were the original Not Your Average Investor Show meetup when Jen happened to be in Atlanta. You said that you were in Woodstock. You got together and now you are top six, 56 times. 56, 56,
Andrew Barnhill:56 times. I don't, I don't remember missing that many, but, but I know I had to miss the last two because I've been in India on, on work, you know, the last couple weeks. and I had to miss a couple too, but I, didn't know I missed that many, but that's all right. You know, I tried, you're
Pablo Gonzalez:traveling mad, you're over there partying in Margaritaville, you know, sometimes you just, you miss on the show. I am, and
Andrew Barnhill:the awesome, in fact you know, if anybody wants to go down there and I can show you around Margaritaville on Sunday or whatever, if you're going to stick around around like that, yeah, I would love to do that, it's, uh, it is an awesome, an awesome place here, you know,
Pablo Gonzalez:Love it. Drew, what is, what is your kind of like, you've come to the show 50, you know, 56 times. You're a guy that gets on the phone with people all the time, right? What is your biggest takeaway from the show these days? Like what keeps you coming? What are you learning? What are you seeing out there that you want to share with folks?
Andrew Barnhill:Well, the biggest aspect for me, quite honestly, is the sociability of it. And I get to meet so many people through you guys, so many wonderful people. And I love it. I'm kind of like a people person. In fact, that's why my company sent me to India, because they said you're great at building relationships and, you know, kind of thing. And, and I love, I love talking this kind of stuff. You know, another thing that, you know, people have a hobby. Some people, you know, do landscaping. Some people do woodworking. My hobby is playing with money. I mean, I'm, I'm an accountant by trade and I just, I love doing that. So I like to play with a lot of different financing strategies and different things along that line. And one thing I will say to everybody, you can't say this about the stock market, but you can say it about real estate. Real estate in this country, there's never been a 10 year period where that real estate didn't appreciate at least some. You gotta go to 20 years in the stock market for that. And also, real estate Set up right will pay for itself that entire 10 set it and forget it. You know, literally, especially with JWB. You know, they're a great team to have on your side. They manage everything for you and it's so easy. And then at the end of the 10 years, you look up and, Wow, okay, now I've made all this money. And I've not only done that, but I've done it with leveraging. And leveraging is the key to everything in real estate. You know, you can certainly leverage in the stock market, but you take down terms of the stock market, and you get something called a margin call. And those are never fun. I've had those before. And you don't get a margin call in real estate because you're literally dealing with fixed rate loans. And that's something that we have in America, and we should all be grateful for that. It's the 30 year fixed rates. You know, even in Canada, they have 30 year loans, but they reset every five years you know, along these lines. So, that's a, that is a, as an American, that's a great tool to take advantage of. 30 year fixed rate is just a, an amazing thing. And like you say, rents go up every year, but that payment stays the same. Except, of course, for insurance and and taxes and like that, but those are typically marginal. You're not, I mean, I've had some of them go up, you know, you're talking about 30, 50, 60, 70 a month kind of thing. And along that line, it can happen that, and that's an extreme environment. You know, you don't typically have that. And I'll say one thing on insurance. One thing we have, it's going to get better in Florida with the changes that we've had to the laws and everything like that. There are companies starting to come back to Florida. So I think we've had our shots in Florida as far as the insurance rates go. And one thing I will add to that, people think about Florida, they think about hurricanes, but if you study the last 100 years of NOAA weather data, Jacksonville actually has the same hurricane risk for damage as New Jersey does. It's in a unique little pocket there that typically there's only been one direct hit from the Atlantic in the last hundred years. And that was 66, I think from Hurricane Dora. So it typically does not happen when we get hurricanes over here, they typically come across the state and they have to go through a lot of land and they're typically not more than a tropical storm by the time they get here. So don't think about Florida because the Carolinas, Virginia and all these places have a much greater hurricane risk than Jacksonville.
Pablo Gonzalez:Drew with a bunch of takes. Drew with financial engineering takes, insurance takes, hurricane takes. What'd you think about that, Lee?
Lee Bishop:I think it's awesome. What do you got on
Pablo Gonzalez:that?
Lee Bishop:Although I did talk to somebody else today about hurricanes and whether or not I had to worry about them and he's been negative, not for a hundred years.
Pablo Gonzalez:Yeah, well, we'll have Whitney, Whitney will be at the summit. So everybody will be able to ask her all the insurance questions. GC, what'd you hear in there that you that you want to comment on? I
Gregg Cohen:feel like I just want to hang out with Drew. Just, I mean, I've always loved hanging out with Drew. I think every time I hang out with him, I'm like, man, this guy is like in my head. Like we both loved it. We love to financially end, right? We love creative strategies. He gets to be a little bit more creative these days than I do, because, you know, he's managing his own money. I got to manage, you know, well, you know, others that might not always, you know, have the same risk profile as drew does, but at my heart drew, like that's where I started, you know, like I bought houses on credit cards, right? Like I, you know, and there's, there's just like the. The, the thrill of like figuring out how you're going to do this in a not average way is something that I know Drew and I relate, can absolutely relate to each other on. So, yeah, man, I just can't wait to see, and I just appreciate you being so much of a part of this community. Because I think early on when, when we had the first meetups, which were like 10 of us getting together, 20 of us getting together. I just remember Drew being there and just being like, I instantly knew that that guy was going to tell me exactly what was on his mind and he was going to tell me the truth,
Lee Bishop:right?
Gregg Cohen:And there's other people that, you know, fluff this or fluff that or whatnot. And I just always loved being next to Drew because I knew I was going to get exactly what he thought. And I think that's such a rare, a rare trait in this world. So can't wait to get a little bit more of that this weekend, buddy.
Andrew Barnhill:Absolutely, absolutely. Like I said, I look forward to this every year and everything like that. I get to see my old friend Lee and hang out and everything like that. And Pablo and his karaoke. It's become an event that I truly look forward to in my life. And just talking with the people. You know, I'm just a person that I love people. I love talking to people and, and, and, and especially figuring things out. The biggest thing you can tell me is that there's a deal here that it cannot, cannot get done. That's, that's a challenge. I mean, it's still up to me to challenge. Okay, I'll figure out a way to get it done. And that's what I love to do.
Pablo Gonzalez:You're coming to the summit. You're going to ask Drew, how do I get the deal done? He's the guy to go to the, how do I get the deal done? Right? There's always a way. There's always a way. Always a way. All right, brother. We'll see you on Friday, my friend. See you soon. Tied with Drew at 56. We've got number five and number four. Number five, Mike Foster. Oh, we all know Mike Foster. Number four. I've never heard of this guy. Lee Bishop. You're number four, Lee. How does that feel? I've had some
Lee Bishop:issues.
Pablo Gonzalez:You've got some issues, my friend. You're in the top five. How about that? You're in the top five. You're in the top five. You're in the top five. Number three. Yeah. Anybody, any guesses? 58 times?
Gregg Cohen:I don't remember.
Pablo Gonzalez:The Shaw Man! Oh, Nadeem Shaw! Right,
Gregg Cohen:Nadeem Shaw. I hate dogs. Yeah, yeah. How do you feel about that? It beat
Lee Bishop:me. I got beat by the Shaw Man!
Gregg Cohen:You have to read fisticuffs this weekend while you guys are hanging out. I have to step up
Pablo Gonzalez:my game! I want to see you guys arm wrestling. Is that cool? He beat me. He beat you. He beat you fair and square. Tough guy. Number two. 59 times. Gerard Wendling. Gerard, we call out, doesn't always. Yeah, yeah,
Gregg Cohen:didn't see that coming. There have been some surprises. I feel like last year when we did the top 10 list, we sort of had an idea. At least in the beginning, I mean at least near the top.
Lee Bishop:Yeah.
Gregg Cohen:This year, it's really nice to see some new names.
Pablo Gonzalez:It's nice to see some new names. we want to have you all on the show, right? Like we want you to show your voice, share it as much as you want. Numero uno. Any guesses who numero uno is, guys? I don't know.
Lee Bishop:Throwing a blank.
Pablo Gonzalez:I think I know. Yo no se, but it is. El gran amigo Bill Shields desde Duval joining us live. Bill Shields, get in here in the middle, Bill Shields. Get in here in the middle. Bill Shields, give us a Buenas tardes desde Duval. Buenas tardes amigos desde Duval. Bill, you know what I love? You know what I love about, about this right now? Is that you guys, you're staying at Bill's house.
Lee Bishop:I am staying at Bill's house. You guys have
Pablo Gonzalez:become legit good buddies. Tell us about the, tell us about the adventures of Bill and Lee.
Lee Bishop:Oh God.
Pablo Gonzalez:How did that start?
Lee Bishop:Wow. How did that start? It started with the show. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and then. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. last year at the summit, we were talking and, we were in town and we, we invited them over. We knew that there were some issues going on with Robin and we said, Hey, we're going to make dinner. You know, we brought, we brought some Italian food down and they came over and had dinner with us. That first night, my wife is going. What are we doing? We're making dinner. I'm seeing a trend here, Lee. I'm not a good finance guy. I'm not a good finance guy. But they came over and we fell in love with them. They stayed for about six hours and we got to know them. And we became brothers, I'm telling you, so it was cool.
Pablo Gonzalez:tell us from your perspective, Bill. So, did y'all invite him down to the River House and stuff like that? You, you guys have done like a couple things together, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lee Bishop (2):Well, you haven't been to the, no, I haven't been to the Well, you guys hung out in Orlando
Pablo Gonzalez:or something like that? Yeah, he was in
Lee Bishop (2):Orlando at the, they have the, what do you call it? We had an op here. Yeah, yeah. Last June. Yeah. And he invited us down for that. So, we spent a week with him in June down there. And he got to know us. Right, different, different Yeah. A good ation It went from a day to a week. We drank and we were married. Yeah, we married. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, the last year is, yeah.'cause Robin's mom had just passed away. Yeah. And she was living with us in our, we had a RB that we had set up in our backyard for her and her dad. He had passed away a year before. But so anyway, she was living there, we were taking care of her. And, uh, she passed away like a week. Yeah, for the summit. Yeah, it was like, we're just happening. She was like, I don't want to do it. She said, like, well, you know, they're, they're great people. They're going to, you know. They got dinner waiting for us. We can drink a little wine, eat a little Italian food and, and by the way, can you bring a pot? Yeah, we can bring a pot. This Airbnb we're staying in doesn't have a pot we can cook in, so we brought a big jumbo pot over. You know, next thing you know, we're. Becoming friends. So yeah, I love it. Awesome. Yeah, that's great.
Pablo Gonzalez:That's what this community is all about, man. Like these friendships are so real, right? Like this to me is like everything that we're playing for. Like the KPIs of this community are like, how many folks are taking trips together? I
Gregg Cohen:love it, man. You've known Bill for a while, right? I was going to say, I mean, Bill knows my family real well. He knows my house real well. Bill is a draftsman and he does a lot for JWB, for a lot of our projects and our house builds and whatnot. Bill actually drafted the plans for my own personal house. So I have so many reasons to be thankful for bill. But yeah, I mean, it's just, uh, it's really fun to see, you know, our relationship grow, you know, because you tend to have relationships that, you know, like we're more of acquaintances before the show, but, but now we're real friends. And I think it's not just creating new friendships. I think the show, and it's funny because I think. Um, actually investing has helped me get closer to maybe even some of the family members that I have that, you know, maybe I didn't get to talk to as much, I started to invest and, and now I get to talk to him much more often. We have kind of like a common. Common you know, common thread there. And I, it's been great to get closer to you as a friend too. I mean, I think back in the day I was like, oh, who should I, I had to ask my friend and my business partners, Hey, I need plans for my house. Who should I go to? And they're like, oh, go to Bill. But I didn't know Bill. Right. But now I know Bill and I know Bill and, um, and Bill knows, bill knows the show because, was it 60, 61 time? 61. 61. 61. You go 61.
Pablo Gonzalez:So
Gregg Cohen:it's been pretty awesome.
Pablo Gonzalez:And Bill, you are also a real estate investor, right? What is your kind of like track record of the real estate investing?
Lee Bishop (2):Well, I started working with JWB in 2015, like doing the drafting, the plans, Jessica, and then Lisandro and people like that way back in the day. And I was always, I kind of started hearing mainly through Lisandra because we communicate a lot about the plans for the downtown Riverside houses and the things we were doing. And he would talk about the investing. I'm like, yeah, I just wanted to do that. But it's like, just was never in a financial position to get involved. You know what I mean? And then so I just kept doing that. And then the show started in 2020. And it's like, I started to listen to that, like, as soon as I found out about it. And then y'all started talking about, I think you were talking about Rich Dad, Poor Dad.
Lee Bishop:Yeah.
Lee Bishop (2):Next thing you know, and at about that same time, we're going to the High Springs kayaking with some friends. So we're, my wife said, go get the kayaking. So we got the audio book and we're listening to it. I'm sitting going, We're driving to the high springs kayaking,
Lee Bishop:We got a bunch of properties.
Lee Bishop (2):Yeah. Yeah.
Lee Bishop:Kind
Lee Bishop (2):of the Cornholio or something. So we were both excited. So we're, you know, long story short, we're, we're, we're kayaking in high springs in the Santa Fe and there's this lot right by the high springs boat ramp. We're like, honestly, it was like, I was interested in investments at the same time. I was like, I want to make money now because I'm like. Old and I want to retire, so I'm like, thinking more cash flow. So I'm thinking, okay, so we got, we found this lot. It's like out of the flood zone. And how can this be out of a flood zone? It's right by the river, but it was up on a bluff, and it was just sitting there. I'm like, Buy this lot. Next thing you know, that was our first investment. So we bought the lot, and it was a long three year process. It was very painful. I've shared a little bit with that with you. We had the best contractor. Ended up basically finishing half of it. You know, we were upside down on our construction loan. A lot of things happened and we put a lot of money into it. A lot of blood, sweat and tears and we're proud of it. And, but it, yeah, it kind of, it kind of, it kind of got a hold of us financially. So we've been kind of dealing with that. We finally finished it in 2023 and it's been successful as an Airbnb, but you know, it could be more successful, but it's been good. And we also had a friend that has a, like a co op storage thing that they're building storage units in Montana. So we. We were good friends with them and he showed me the returns on the first one they did. I'm like, okay, well, let's, let's try that. Cause I'm thinking, you know, the whole, in the, my mind, my wife's mind, we're like, how can we get, you know, returns coming sooner, you know, instead of the long haul, which is probably smarter, but that was our mindset I could hit, I could hit any day now. So. Think in 2025 things are gonna start It's gonna be a good year because free and up. Yeah, we're gonna gonna free up. And then we're also building kids for our houses, for our, we're building kids. Sit for our, robin know we got houses, we're gonna make kids. I know if it's possible we're gonna try, but, so we've got a lot going on. Yeah. A lot of good stuff, but Which is kind of. You know, that's, that's kind
Lee Bishop:of where we're at. I think that's awesome that he's building houses for his kids. Do you know how many people would give something else to, you know, I mean, that's
Lee Bishop (2):huge. I could build them and sell them, but, like, we kind of just felt like we wanted to set them up, you know. That's why, you get them a leg up and And that's been hard, right? Yeah. Yeah. 27 and 30.
Lee Bishop:Right.
Lee Bishop (2):I
Lee Bishop:mean, to start out in life. I love that. With parents that care enough to say, you know, I have the ability to help them. That's awesome. I, I, I, I'm in with that.
Gregg Cohen:I share the same desire for my kids, too. And for other family members that I have, and they're
Lee Bishop:a little
Gregg Cohen:young. Yeah,
Lee Bishop:mine, mine are young, but
Gregg Cohen:you know, mine. They're all my daughter last year. It's quite the little investor. But I love the idea of giving homes to kids or for future generations too because it's not just the financial thing. It's such a beautiful little business in itself. And at first it's easy to understand. I can explain to my daughter or my son, Hey, somebody is renting this home. They're going to pay rent to you. Right? And then I can help them understand, well, there are expenses that come along with it. We have to pay money to do this. And then there's tough decisions, like, do we spend the money to do this today knowing that it will cost us less in the future, or that it will raise more income? So it's like this beautiful, not just financial thing, but it's this beautiful education, like business in itself that I really love. And I think that both of those things really help our future generations, you know. Bill, I reached out to you and I was like,
Pablo Gonzalez:you know, you broke, you broke my model. Like I think about it a lot. Right. Cause I was, I was telling Greg, I was telling Greg from like day one, I'm like, Greg, if we're going to do something really cool with marketing. If we make people best friends, everybody will in invest.
Gregg Cohen:I do remember you saying that there pops.
Pablo Gonzalez:Yeah, I did say that. And I feel like it's worked a lot, right? Like it's worked a lot. But we sit here, I feel like you guys are really good buddies. You're the number one attendee. And you haven't bought anything with jw. I know. Um, I'm still super pumped that you've like, come into my life and like you're like a, like a super fan of the show. But like, it's amazing all the externalities that come out of this exercise, right? Like, it's like all these, all these different walks. And I guess, I guess I would just say, like, you just mentioned this idea of like, you had, you were looking for short term cash flow. You had some real, you had some real reasons, right? Like, you're like, this thing's gonna add to my lifestyle. You know, this, this High Springs house, right? Like, I can't argue with that. I love the Santa Fe River. Um, and this other stuff, like how would you, you know, like if you were to, if you were to go back to, that was what, like 2020? Started in
Lee Bishop (2):2020, yeah, 2020 to 2023 for various reasons, delays in, in Alachua County, but yeah, so a lot, we purchased a lot, I think in, yeah, at the end of 2020, when we finally got purchased, yeah. Yeah,
Pablo Gonzalez:what's same question for Lee? Like if you were to do it over again, would you have, would you have, would you have done the same thing? Would you have thought a little bit differently? Like what's the lesson to say? Yeah, I think, I mean,
Lee Bishop (2):we might've just took a deep breath. I mean, we did kind of, we were like, all right, this sounds like a great idea. My wife loved the river.
Lee Bishop:It'd
Lee Bishop (2):be cool to have a second home slash Airbnb. Someplace to go for a vacation. Yeah, that kind of thing. But in hindsight, I might, it would have been better probably to get. Turnkey rentals through JWB just because of, I mean, you look at the appreciation. Yeah. I could refinance those out, right? Yeah. So, and h Yeah. Hindsight's always 2020, but yeah, it would've been a lot easier.
Lee Bishop:Yeah, because we, I
Lee Bishop (2):mean, we basically spent a year and a half driving to High Springs every weekend, so we had to finish that house.'cause it's like you can't. It's you have built house. That was you. Yeah, it wasn't me and my wife, my kids, Robin's brother, Mike. He's like jack of all trades. He saved us. He did so much stuff and helped us with so many things. But yeah, I think. I think that would definitely be a more streamlined book, path to have taken.
Lee Bishop:Yeah.
Lee Bishop (2):But we are where we are and things are looking good coming up this year. That's, I'll just say that. But
Lee Bishop:you
Lee Bishop (2):are
Lee Bishop:eventually gonna get into
Lee Bishop (2):turnkey. I mean, I like to build build a sell idea, like the idea. So we're gonna do both. I think so.
Gregg Cohen:You know, and I think it's easy to, you know, to poke fun and you a little bit here. And we appreciate you being a good sport. But I just really think, I think your path is very similar and maybe it's a little bit more call it high profile now, you're a little bit more visible because you attended 61 shows and, and, you know, but I think, I think everybody has probably gone down some type of path. I think about people in our community that, you know, came to JWB as their second or third attempt at getting into rental property investing or real estate in general. And so I know that you have a lot of folks that are walking that path. I've made a lot of mistakes, right? Like if you can go back, I mean, think about where I started in 2006 and I went all in on all forms of real estate at one time happened to find that turnkey rental properties and building that rental property portfolio was the one thing that worked. But There was a litany of other things that did not work that I lost a lot of money and I spent a lot of time and I called in a lot of favors from people that loved me to help me, you know, get, get to the finish line. But you also had a lot of time
Lee Bishop:too.
Gregg Cohen:Reestablish.
Lee Bishop:Right. And we're talking about bariatric gener talking.
Gregg Cohen:Yeah. Thank you guys. You ain't getting no younger quite well and you gotta have friends around you that poke fun at you or else, I mean this the journey. Exactly right. Yeah. You
Pablo Gonzalez:let's what friends do, right? That's do, that's surprising. Ah, man, I tell the story all the time of we started this thing January 2020. By December 2020, we're having like a fan appreciation show. And I think we're here in 2025. This is our fourth fan appreciation show. Like all the stories that have come out of it, all the legit friendships. Come out of this and, um, and now we are on our fourth summit and we know what we're doing. That's weird. I was talking to Greg this morning. He's like, man, we haven't. You know, like all the times that we've done this and I'm like, yeah, Greg, we're becoming, we're becoming an event company, man. This is not our first rodeo anymore. You know, like the amount of preparation and the amount of seeing around corners and the experience that we're curating for folks. this weekend, I think you guys are going to be like really wowed by how far just like it's all come. And like to think that we got a hundred folks coming here to see each other.
Lee Bishop:So anyways, I'm excited about it. I'm, I'm, you know, all the way down here, 12 hour drive, I was going, man, it's going to be fun.
Gregg Cohen:Well, it's, it's unlike anything that folks. Have seen before in the single family rental space. If you, if you, if you invest time to learn about this asset class, you don't get this with the backdrop of an operator who. Um, you know, I was invested over 100 million in a downtown and it's showing you what that downtown looks like today and how, where it will go. And you get to meet the people that are controlling billions of dollars and then connecting the dots for what's this going to mean for your five rental properties. And Bill's future JWB rental properties. So it's, it's going to be unique and a ton of fun. Yeah,
Pablo Gonzalez:I'm just grateful for all of it. I you know, there's a there's somebody in the chat that checked in under the phone So, I don't know who you are It just says not your average guest asking if we're more long term rentals or short term rentals and if we're going to go over inventory Today wasn't for that today was a celebration of the community. It is long term rentals Um workforce housing in jacksonville, florida next week We're going to have a case study and and you're going to really see kind of like These outcomes that you can create with this workforce housing stock here in jacksonville. So, sorry if you If you showed up to like the one show a year where it's really just a party, but like you can't manufacture this stuff. I think this idea of community the fact that we had 100 people showing up today in the chat At you know, like being part of this that we get 100 folks that show up every single week Like 80 of them are return people, right? Like just like the fact that we've been able to do this the fact that folks show up week after week just so grateful That you take an hour out of your day to be here you guys Coming down here spending time in studio being on the show I'm just really grateful, and I'm really grateful for you Lee right like You are, I love, I love
Lee Bishop:crashing this show. You are the MVP and Disrupting.
Pablo Gonzalez:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like you're your craziness and you're rambunctiousness and your laugh and your stories have really made it all, man. But your support is really everything, man. So yeah, I, thanks for being the MV know,
Lee Bishop:I, I wouldn't have it any other way. I just, I just, you know, really believe in the, the message and the business and, you know, you guys, you guys have really done something special here. And between you and Pablo pulling this whole group together, it's that special too, you know, so it's like the cherry on top of the sundae, you know, I like it, you know, like I show up because I, I still get, you know, I, I say, Almost every week I get a nugget. I call it a golden nugget. I always get something out of the show. And it's always, like, in the chat. Somebody will be throwing something out there, and I'll be going, Well, damn, I didn't know that. You know? So I'm always learning, too. And I'm not even in the business anymore. Jane said, You've had heart issues? We're retiring. You know, and I still get stuff out of the show. I'm loving it. I appreciate
Gregg Cohen:it for that. Means the world to us, you know, having folks. You know, believe what you believe I think is like the greatest gift as an entrepreneur And I think this the show is has been my latest entrepreneurial venture. It's been Pablo and I's entrepreneurial venture the birth of my entrepreneur right and And uh to have people believe in what you're doing where you're putting your time and energy is such a gift So I love you guys. I appreciate you. Can't wait to uh to share it all with everybody this weekend
Pablo Gonzalez:Any advice for folks before this weekend before the next show? Don't
Lee Bishop:be
Pablo Gonzalez:average! See ya on the summit!