From Fear to Fortune: A Mother’s Bold Leap into Wealth and Freedom with Elsa Nguyen

Transcript

[Jeune Ortiz]
Welcome to the United States Women in Real Estate Investing Podcast. My name is Jeune Ortiz, I’m the founder of REI Social and I am the host of this show where I get to interview amazing women doing wonderful things in the world of real estate. And tonight I’m proud to introduce Elsa Nguyen, who we’ll be talking to and learning a little bit more about.

Thank you for joining us, Elsa.

[Elsa Nguyen]
Of course, thank you so much Jeune for having me on your podcast today, it’s an honor.

[Jeune Ortiz]
Yes, absolutely. So, before we get down to business, I just want to hear a little bit about who you are as a person, where do you live, where do you work, you know, all of those kinds of fun things.

[Elsa Nguyen]
Alright, definitely. So, I am a mother of three, young, beautiful children, teenagers, and I came to this country as an immigrant at the age of 13, came from Vietnam, so, you know, people from anywhere but the United States know that the United States is a land of opportunity, so, you know, when we pack our bags and all move here, we all came with the hope and dream that one day we will finish school and, you know, we established so on and so forth, so I was one of those dreamers. Long story short, you know, fast forward 30 years in the U.S., I finished school, I got my MBA in business administration, I went to work in finance, accounting, but I felt that it wasn’t fulfilling, even though the numbers came fairly easy for me, but I felt that there was more to it, right, than just an 8 or 5 job, and that’s when I started exploring what can I do that I could be my own boss, what can I do that would allow me to grow with no cap, like unlimited growth potential, so the only thing that, and I didn’t have a lot of capital to start a company like other people, and I didn’t know how to go VC and ask for money, so I’m like, okay, well, you know what, I’m going to get into real estate, so I can sell a lot of houses, I’ll make a lot of money. That was just my thinking. I mean, real estate here in the Bay Area is not cheap, right, it’s like a million a pop, and if I could sell one property and make 3% commission, that’s $30,000, so I sell 10, I make $300,000, so I’m like, okay, maybe I get into real estate, I can make a lot of money, like a lot of people, so that’s kind of my journey into the world of real estate when I decided to give up my full-time accounting career and pursue real estate full-time, and I did work in real estate full-time for a couple of years, making decent money, but I still feel like, you know what, I’m still working for somebody.

I still have to be working like even more hours than before, like now I work day and night time, reading disclosure and inspection report, and just have to cater to so many people, so I’m like, I don’t think this is what I want to do either, right? Yeah, yeah. So anyway, long story short, I was introduced to the idea of syndication around 2019 when someone approached me and asked me like, you know, Elsa, we can put our fund together, our money together, and go and buy that apartment building, right, it doesn’t have to be one person who owns that big commercial real estate, it’s a group of people, and we all can work together, increase the values, and make money that way. So that was eye-opening for me, and the path just kind of opened up from there, so I decided to participate as a passive investor and limited partner at the time, and as soon after that, I started doing my own, I started purchasing my own real estate deal with other investors, and now we are 2023, so it’s been four or five years, and I’m still doing that right now.

[Jeune Ortiz]
Wow, so that is InvestNow Capital Group, that is your syndication company? Correct, yes. That’s amazing.

You know, I mean, you basically just leapfrogged, you did like, here’s my day job, I’m going to sell a few properties as a real estate agent, oh, no, I’m just going to go ahead and start buying commercial properties, and apartment buildings, and all those kinds of things. So that’s amazing.

[Elsa Nguyen]
Well, one thing led to another, right, it was, and had I not taken a leap of faith into the real estate world, I wouldn’t have known about syndication. So I think once we started to walk, the doors were open for us.

[Jeune Ortiz]
Yeah, and you know what I really like about that is, is just the fact that you, you skip so many steps. And I know a lot of investors, you know, they want to start with the fix and flip with the dream of buying and holding and then, you know, working their way up to maybe then being able to do a syndication and you were able to pull funds together and meet the right people. Tell me, where did you meet this, the person who just kind of started telling you about the syndications?

[Elsa Nguyen]
That’s a really good question, Jeune. The very first person that kind of introduced the idea to me was my broker. And at that time, I still remember vividly, I was sitting in his car and we were driving to show a property.

And when we came back, and he goes, you know, Elsa, and we were at a stop sign, and we look over at a big building, and he goes, I want to buy that building. And I want us to buy that building together. I was like, how, you know, you know how expensive that building is.

And we live in the Bay Area, we live in San Jose, Silicon Valley, it’s not cheap. And he goes, no, you don’t need money to buy that building. People are going to give us money to buy the building.

I’m like, who’s going to give you money? It just made no sense to me at the time, right? He’s just going to go and ask people to give you money so that you can develop that building or buy that big building and go, yeah.

So anyway, I never did anything with that broker in terms of the development, but the idea was introduced. And a year later, I ended up working with another broker, but I still kept in touch with that person. With the new broker, I ran into a lady who was actually working on a syndication project, and she works in the office, the same office with me.

And she asked if I wanted to invest with her, and she’s like, this is the return, this is what we do. And she explained the whole model to me, and it brought me back to what Andrew, my last broker had mentioned, and that made a lot of sense, right? So we could leverage, and then what we do is that we improve the piece of the property, and we share that profit with the investor, because the investors are typically the ones who come up with most of the capital for the down payment.

So the way that she explained it to me made complete sense. So I went ahead and I invested with them as a limited partner, but I told her that I want to be on the other side. I want to be the one who kind of just pulled this together, so if there’s an opportunity for us to work together, I would love to do that with you.

And because I put it out there, and I believe with the universe, when you put something out there, it will come back to you, right? So because I put my desire out there, the next thing I know was another year come by, and this woman has the opportunity to start doing her own deal again, and I asked her right away, I’m like, can I partner with you? What can I do to help you?

And she goes, no, no, I got it, you know, I don’t need help, but I kept on showing up at her office, and I asked her, I was like, can I help you? Can I just like sit here and shadow you, like you don’t have to do anything, I just want to sit here and watch, right? So I show up to her office almost every day for six months, and then she turned around one day, and she goes, so what can you do?

And I say, well, I’m pretty good with numbers, right, and you know what, actually, I think I can put you on my deal because I’m not good with numbers, right? She said, I’m a very social, outgoing person. She can talk to investors, she can put together presentations, but she is not good with numbers.

And so she goes, maybe you can help me with the number part, because number doesn’t make sense to me at all. I don’t know how to do the performance, I don’t know how to calculate return, and I’m like, well, you got me, right? Oh, I love that.

Yeah, that’s how I really became my, I got into syndication, my first deal, and it was quite a big deal. So we were doing a hospitality, a hotel development at the time for 132 Rooms Hotel, it was a land development project. So I came and I joined forces with her on that and became a partner.

And then shortly after that, I started doing, I got more into multifamily than a hotel because of COVID.

[Jeune Ortiz]
Okay. Yeah, COVID, COVID stopped a lot of things, right, in its tracks. It did.

[Elsa Nguyen]
Yeah. It destroyed a lot of stuff that were really on the path of growth and things to change around, like nobody saw that coming.

[Jeune Ortiz]
Yeah. I love that you partnered with somebody who basically had a lack in the skill sets that you have. And I think that’s so important for partnerships to work is that you’re complementing each other, you’re not trying to do the same stuff.

[Elsa Nguyen]
Right. Right. Yes.

And at the same time, once I partnered with her, I grew in the area that I was weak because that was her strength. Correct. So I gave what I was able to give, but at the same time, I also gleaned a lot from her and I grew in that area as well, which, you know, like if we have a growth mindset and always open for learning, I think there’s just so much opportunities out there, so much we can grow from.

[Jeune Ortiz]
Yes. You know, every single investor that I’ve interviewed so far, they have said something to the fact of, you know, the positive mindset, the growth mindset, the learning mindset, and how important that is in order to be successful in this business. Do you agree with that?

Yeah.

[Elsa Nguyen]
100%. 100%. I’ve never done so many, what you might call it, declarations in my life, you know, that positive reinforcement.

Yes. Yes. Because you needed it, right?

And it really, and being a, being self-employed and being a, you know, run your own company, we have to deal with so many, so many elements at the same time. So it’s really, especially a lot of unknowns with the interest rate rises and things are just not what we had projected for it to be, it’s a, it’s a very stressful job. So if we don’t stay positive and believe in a higher calling, believe that, you know, we will get through this, it will be very easy for most of us to give up.

So I’m 100% with them on that, staying positive and being, you know, like really firmly believe that this too shall pass and then we can make it. We just need to be able to see that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

[Jeune Ortiz]
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I can already tell you’re a person who doesn’t take no for an answer.

Showing up every day for, what did you say, six months? Was it six months that you showed up to her office? Yeah.

So yeah, you broke her down. That’s awesome. So, you know, we talked about the leapfrogging and you happen to have some people, you know, in your life that just kind of came to you almost magically, let’s call it the power of attraction there.

But if somebody who’s listening wants to do what you’re doing or get started with their own syndication, what would you tell them the steps to take?

[Elsa Nguyen]
You know, knowledge is powerful, right? So if you don’t have a knowledge in whatever that you want to do, it will be very difficult to attract people to you. So the first thing that I would tell them to do is surround themselves with like-minded people, right?

If they want to do what I do, if they want to do what we do and quit their job and go into self-employment full-time, a lot of their family members would probably be the first one to say, you’re so crazy, right? But the truth of the matter is that if you truly believe that, you know, I can make this work, then they need to start hanging out with people who have been proven success being an entrepreneur. So I would say hang out, you know, surround yourself with the right group of people who has the same dreams and vision of at least supported of what you do.

I don’t recommend that you quit your job and abandon your family. If you kind of want to go into, you know, self-employed just like us, been full-time, they should at least have some sort of saving or support before they do this or do this on the side. But I would say surround yourself with the right people so then you can get the mental, the mindset, right?

And then you’re going to have to, they’re going to have to study. So like for me personally in the beginning, I invested into a mastermind so then I could just, first of all, to be in that group of people. And second of all is to learn because I didn’t know much about, I mean, I know numbers, I know the balance sheet, I know how to reconcile the bank statement.

But when it comes to a certain industry, we really need to study all over again, right? So the basic is there, the foundation is there, but I still need to learn how to underwrite an apartment building. I need to learn how to look at that model and know what number to put in there for once.

And then I need to learn everything about multifamily. I need to learn about the market, the employment, what’s a good place to buy, what’s a bad place to buy, right? Different type of neighborhoods, so on and so forth.

So those take time. And the more that you invest in yourself into books and reading, then the more you will gain the knowledge. And when we talk to an investor and we have the knowledge in whatever that we do, it just comes out.

Like we don’t even have to prove ourselves. Once you know, you know, and they know that we don’t know or they know that we know. So it’s to start with that, you know, education and surround yourself with the right people.

And then I believe once you get that down, the opportunities will almost present itself. You know, people come to you and then you start your story. And it’s just like for me, opportunities always present itself.

A lot of time we don’t seize the opportunities because we’re not ready for it yet. And that readiness is a lot of time is on us, right? We don’t have I don’t have the money to buy that yet because I don’t have the investors and I don’t have the investors because they haven’t proved myself to them yet.

So nobody, nobody trusts me to give me the money to buy. But the opportunities was there and it could be a numbers of things. So that’s what I would say is that.

You know, it’s we don’t just go from step one to step 10, we can go one, two, three, four, five, one step at a time, but it does involve time, big time commitment and and a lot of hard work.

[Jeune Ortiz]
Yes, for sure. I love everything that you said there. It was a lot.

And I mean, but it was like it was like gold nuggets all over the place. You know, surround yourself with like minded people.

[Speaker 3]
Yes.

[Jeune Ortiz]
Find mentors. Yes. Know that your family may not be the most supportive because they’re the most protective.

Yes. And it’s you know, they don’t mean to pull you down. But unless you have a really strong network of people who believe in the same vision that you have, it definitely can.

You have your whole family structure that can bring you down so quickly and your friends can bring you down so quickly. So you need to have the mindset and you need to have the the network. So I love everything that you said there.

So everything up to this point sounds like, you know, you’ve just been charmed. Right. You leapfrogged your way here.

People fell into your life. But but tell me, I’m sure that you’ve had some moments where things didn’t go right. Things went wrong for you.

What was one of those moments where things just didn’t quite work out for you?

[Elsa Nguyen]
That’s a really good question. You know, it’s will never be it would mean it’s never a straight path. Right.

But what I’ve learned is that as long as we don’t give up and as long as we keep going, we’ll get to our destination. And some of the setback for my personal journey, it could it’s just a number of things. For example, when I did the when I work, when I invest this in the hospitality deal, I actually lost everything because I when I invested in that hotel deal because of COVID, we couldn’t develop that project.

So I lost all of my capital. It didn’t go well.

[Jeune Ortiz]
Right. And how much you lost?

[Elsa Nguyen]
A hundred thousand. Oh, yeah. And thankfully, the project that I work on as a GP, it did not go so well.

I mean, we got hit with hospitality. I mean, we get hit with COVID that we couldn’t execute our exit strategy. But then we were able to maneuver that and able to exit some other way.

So it was, you know, it wasn’t the same as the one that I invested in initially. So that would that would be one setback. Like had I been discouraged, I would have to say, oh, this is this is just not going to that’s not going to work out.

I should just go back to my 85 job. And then, you know, for the works that we’re doing right now, there were projects that I work on when we went way over the budget for the for the construction because because of the general contractors. Right.

So the budget went over because they needed more money. So we had to put more funds into it. And we didn’t exit with the kind of profit that I thought that we thought we would have.

We didn’t lose money, but, you know, we we almost didn’t get through it. So that will always set back. And a lot of it, honestly, right now, I think I know a lot of operators are struggle because of the rise of the interest rate.

Right. They all thought that they would be able to exit the project at a certain cap rate or they would be able to refinance at a certain interest rate. But that’s not the case.

So a lot of operators are so struggle with that. And then that’s something that, you know, I don’t think anybody saw coming with interest rate went from 3 percent in 2021 to what, 7, 8 percent right now. So we did, you know, some of our projects also get affected by that because I were not able to sell it at the cap rate that I thought I would be able to.

So the profit, I thought I’m going to make this much money, I ended up making a little money. It could be very discouraging. But again, I am a firm believer of opportunities and there are more.

So as long as I don’t lose my shirt, I’m just going to keep going.

[Jeune Ortiz]
Good, good stuff. And so let me ask you when a project kind of misses its mark and it doesn’t make as much money as you thought it would, how do you communicate that to your investors and how do you keep them happy and satisfied so that they come back and invest with you again?

[Elsa Nguyen]
Luckily, a lot of, I mean, we have been able to still pay their preferred, usually in a syndication we have preferred return and then they also get some equity, right? So let’s say you invest a certain amount of money and we would structure it in a way where the investor maybe get 7% return, we call it preferred return, that’s kind of like the interest that you will get and then you will get maybe 70% on the profit split at the back end when we sell the property. The challenge is that a lot of time, you know, for my deal personally, we have been able to pay the preferred return, thank God for that.

However, when we sell the property, when I show them the underwriting and I will say, you know, with the 70% profit that you’re going to get, this is how much it’s going to be, but it’s not going to be that much anymore because we cannot sell it at the price that I thought I would be able to sell it because of the interest rates and nobody going to pay such a higher price, right? But thankfully that we have been able to pay the preferred return to the investors and investors nowadays, they know and a lot of them are, a lot of them have lost their capital in some of the investment. So I think as long as they get the capital back, they would be happy.

So it would not be a very difficult conversation to have, even if I cannot return to them, you know, 2x equity multiple as I thought that I would be able to. But if I get to 1.5, 1.4, 1.5, I think they would be OK with that.

[Jeune Ortiz]
Yeah. OK. Yeah.

As long as they’re not losing money.

[Elsa Nguyen]
Exactly. A lot of people just, you know, just like as long as I don’t lose money, Elsa, I’m happy.

[Jeune Ortiz]
Yeah.

[Elsa Nguyen]
Yeah. You’re not going to.

[Jeune Ortiz]
And you losing a hundred thousand. I mean, that’s that is a bitter pill to swallow for sure.

[Elsa Nguyen]
That was very my first deal. I mean, it’s a lesson to learn. But at the same time, hey, you know what?

If it wasn’t for that, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing right now.

[Jeune Ortiz]
Right. Yeah. I mean, there’s there’s risk in what we do.

There just is. And and you have to you have to take that along with all of the wins that you get. You know, it’s it’s a risk reward kind of job that we work in.

Yeah. Yes, definitely.

[Elsa Nguyen]
Which is a price that I pay for the career that I’m a profession that I’m in right now. So I was just education.

[Jeune Ortiz]
Yeah, there you go. School of Hard Knocks. Tell me, what are your favorite types of deals to work on?

What are your favorite syndications?

[Elsa Nguyen]
You know, I was doing I did mostly 90 percent of what I’ve been doing with multifamily. And I love I’ve done varieties of things. So I’ve done anything from a five to seven years old into a almost like a fix and flip but for a pregnant.

And I usually those deals are usually smaller deals, maybe 10 units under. And I can get it done in a year or so. So it really depends.

But I love I love strong returns. So I would look for deals that, you know, even if I buy a 10 units apartment, let’s say for a million dollars, ideally I would like to sell it for two million dollars once I fully turn the property, fully stabilize it and turn it. I want to be able to at least double, maybe not double, double would be great.

But maybe 1.7, 1.8 of the original amount that I put in. I would be very happy with that. So I usually look for those kind of deals.

And unfortunately, a lot of those are actually in California. So, you know, I am probably the only one that like loves California market because it’s the blue state. But it comes with it comes with this positive.

It comes with some of the good thing because it’s such a strong rent control state that a lot of these apartments are paying rent, let’s say a thousand dollars where it should be two thousand dollars in rent. Right. So if I could increase the rent by a thousand dollars per unit, I could even at 10 units apartment, I can double the values of the property.

And now the key is how do I, how do I, how do I relocate this tenant so I can increase the rent? So that is a fun part to work with. But the reward is awesome.

Right. You know, you double the net income, you double the price of the property.

[Jeune Ortiz]
Yes. Yeah, absolutely. So let me let me see if I understand correctly here.

So sometimes because there is rent control, you need to get the tenant to vacate. So that way you can upgrade the apartment and then charge more. So what are some of the things that you do in order to get somebody to to leave their rent controlled apartment?

[Elsa Nguyen]
Give them money until they leave. Cash for keys.

[Jeune Ortiz]
OK. Cash for keys. Cash for keys.

Yes.

[Elsa Nguyen]
Everyone is different. And every city is different. Not every city in California has rent control.

Right. So some of them with a two months notice, they have to leave. Right.

If you want them, and I usually with those, if I want them to leave sooner, I will give them money. I’m like, you know what, two months you have to leave anyway. Here’s some money, take it and leave it in 30 days.

So most of them will take that. So it’s actually not as bad as we thought it would be. And then once we once we have them out and we can go in there starting to renovate the units and a lot of time, honestly, these tenants who pay super low rent, the landlord never really touched the property.

It’s never been renovated. Things are broken. It’s just unlivable.

So they, in my opinion, you pay a little bit more, but it’s for your health, for the sake of your children, whatever it is. You know, they should consider, you know, a nicer place to live because a lot of them hold on to this apartment because of the cheap rent. But the quality of life is super, super low.

I mean, this carpets probably haven’t been replaced in 20, 30 years. Imagine the dust and the mold and it’s just bad for the health. Right. And the bathrooms never be, you know, just like some of this apartment, you can’t even walk in there.

[Jeune Ortiz]
Wow.

[Elsa Nguyen]
So they need they need a facelift. Really, they do.

[Jeune Ortiz]
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, definitely.

And so you you mentioned that you invest in Silicon Valley. Are there other areas in California where you invest or is it just kind of are you working all of California?

[Elsa Nguyen]
Yes. Yes. So we do and we do invest more in SoCal than NorthCal because I find more opportunities in Los Angeles than here.

We do have properties in San Diego County. Right now, we’re actually my favorite projects that I’m working on right now is that we are looking, we are getting into assisted living space. So we’re doing assisted living with this project in Fresno that we’re working on.

And there’s such a huge demand for senior care assisted living right now. The pay is much better than multifamily. So once I know like how much money is in this business, because I mean, you can work with private money like people just have money to pay to live in a senior care home, assisted living.

Or if you qualify for Medicaid, Medi-Cal, they also pay for that. Some insurance company pays for that as well. So we can definitely work with those agency if we don’t want to work with private clients.

[Jeune Ortiz]
Right. So tell me a little bit about this assisted living. And when you are you’re buying assisted living places and then kind of can not converting them, but upgrading them.

Is that right? Or are you.

[Elsa Nguyen]
I would buy an apartment building, you know, or a property, whatever that may look like. And then instead of renting it out to a long term tenant, I actually will rented it out to, I will rent it out to an assistant, an operator who will run it as an assistant living. So in my case, I would run the assisted living myself.

So I will open up another company to run, to operate the assisted living. So I actually don’t lease this to people. I would lease it to another company that I own and I run the assisted living space myself.

[Jeune Ortiz]
I gotcha. I gotcha. Yeah, that’s a great way to do business when you are able to have all of the other businesses that support all of your businesses.

That’s fantastic.

[Elsa Nguyen]
Yeah, might as well. And I think it’s a strong, you know, with everything goes on right now in the market. I think the investors are looking for a safer place to invest.

And I feel that assisted living is a very strong play right now. I do get a lot of positive feedback. A lot of people reach out and ask me, like, how do I invest with you?

And, you know, just just knowing that, like, our facility is up and running next year. But I already have an agency that I work with that have people that they’re ready to place in my facility once it’s ready to take residence. So you can see the demand is so high.

That’s why. And then, you know, we can charge a little bit, a lot more money than if we were to lease it out to a long term tenant as well.

[Jeune Ortiz]
Yeah, and they take care of the place.

[Elsa Nguyen]
Pretty much, yeah.

[Jeune Ortiz]
Yeah. A few years back, I was actually looking into developing assisted living as well, but it would be in a house, not in a big facility. And I found California was a little bit difficult to work with as far as that specific type of investment goes.

But I just remember, you know, looking at the research and I kept seeing, I forget what the phrase is, something like the white wave tsunami or something like that because of all of the people who are entering into that senior care age where they’re going to need more and more help. I mean, the generation that’s entering that now is enormous. And so, you know, I think I forget the generation.

It’s baby boomers. That’s who it is. So it’s the baby boomers, which is a huge generation.

And so, yeah, that’s really smart of you to get into that and to build that out. I think that’s fantastic.

[Elsa Nguyen]
Yeah, I’m super excited for this new ventures and we’ll see how that play out. But that would probably be my focus for the next couple of years.

[Jeune Ortiz]
Yeah, yeah. No doubt it’s going to keep you busy for probably a lot longer than that. So if somebody wants to invest with you, how would they reach you?

What’s a good way to contact you and find out more about some of these syndications that you’re doing and the requirements that you have and all of that?

[Elsa Nguyen]
Yeah, so a lot of time you can just go to our website, investnowcapital.com to just learn about who we are and the deals that we work on and the testimonials. A lot of stuff are on our website. We have blogs and educational stuff, resources that they can check out as well.

And there’s also the email address on the website that they can just send us an email directly from the website. Otherwise, I can be found on LinkedIn, on the Elsa Nguyen or Facebook or, you know, anybody can also, they can always email me if they want to reach me directly. Elsa at investnowcapital.com.

[Jeune Ortiz]
Okay, and the website again is investnowcapital.com. Okay, all right, very good. And do you need to be an accredited investor?

[Elsa Nguyen]
Not necessarily. It really depends on the deal. So if it’s a smaller deal, I usually don’t do accredited investors that we can take.

If I’m going to raise like a few hundred thousand dollars, there’s no need to make it an accredited. But if it’s a big deal, then yes.

[Jeune Ortiz]
Okay, good. It’s good to know that there are those two options as well to invest with you. Absolutely.

Okay. And so, you know, you’ve got a lot going on. We talked about your positive mindset and things like that.

Tell me what is kind of your daily ritual that keeps you fired up and positive and just helps you get through your day?

[Elsa Nguyen]
Very good question. So I usually start my day with sort of like meditation or affirmation. So I do write out some affirmation that I read kind of in the morning and then I do a little bit of meditation just so that I can get in tune with the day.

And then after that, I go about doing my day. But I think that affirmation card that I write out for myself, I read that before I go to bed and I read it in the morning. It helps a lot.

You know, it really helps a lot. And, you know, I try, I mean, I do, I love reading and I do love reading a lot of self-help books, mindset books. I read a lot of those.

So those are also very helpful. But, you know, I think just to have a, just to have an organized mindset, just have a like I like to, I like to kind of just pencil, like pen out what I’m going to do this week, like things that I want to achieve this week. And then, you know, my long term goal, my short term goal and just try my best to stick to it.

Right. We started maybe 10 things on our to-do list and the first one being the most important thing that we need to work on for that week. And then I worked out the list for that week.

So then that way I know that I accomplished what I set out to do. And then from there, you know, we, my partner, Garrison Gilbert and I, we are the, he’s also the co-founder of the company. We meet every Monday to kind of just go over our goal and just reaffirm what we need to work on just so that we stay on the same page.

So we’re very consistent with that.

[Jeune Ortiz]
That’s good. I really like that. You are organizing your day ahead of the day so it doesn’t control you because there’s always stuff that’s going to come up.

And if you just if you don’t put in the big rocks, then you’re just going to constantly be pulled away from the important things that you have to do. Yeah. OK.

Yeah, I like that. I’m picking up all kinds of great information.

[Elsa Nguyen]
I’m sure you do have your schedule too, you always seem, you also seem to be a very organized person as well.

[Jeune Ortiz]
Well, I definitely try to be organized, but, you know, it never hurts when you hear just reminders, you know, from people again, like, oh, yeah, that’s right. That’s something else I could be doing. Tell me, what is the book that you’re reading currently?

[Elsa Nguyen]
You know, I just downloaded Dr. Joe Dispenza’s book, I don’t know if you heard of him. He’s a chiropractor that got in a car accident when he was like 18 or something. And the doctor said, you’re not going to survive, you’re going to die.

You’re never going to move, leave your bed. And he was depressed for a while. But after that, he started to train his mind and it became so strong that not only he got out of bed, but he was completely healed.

And now he’s teaching people about the energy, you know, just because his mindset is all about energy. If the stronger your energy is quantum physics, you put it out there, it’ll come back to you. And I’m reading a book called, I think it’s called Supernatural, something like that.

Probably one of the first books that he wrote. I heard about him. I listened to him on podcasts and I read a lot of his stuff here and there, but I never really read a book that was written by him.

So I finally did pick up one, so that’s the one that I’m reading right now. Amazing. Nice.

[Jeune Ortiz]
Okay, I love that.

[Elsa Nguyen]
I’m sorry, what were you saying? Joe Dispenza is the name.

[Jeune Ortiz]
Joe Dispenza. Okay, fantastic. Now I’ve got a reading list.

I’ve got all kinds of things, my to-do list here. Well, we’ve covered a lot of ground today in this interview. Is there anything that I haven’t asked you that you were hoping that I would or that you kind of just want to communicate out to the people who might be listening?

[Elsa Nguyen]
No, I think we covered a lot of stuff today. I can’t think of anything else, but just leave it. The last thought is that just do it.

Don’t be afraid. There will be always obstacles, but if everything is new ceiling, then it will not build character. So if you want to do something, just do it.

Come up with a plan and get it done.

[Jeune Ortiz]
I love that. All right, Elsa, thank you so much for joining me this evening. And for everybody else, thank you very much for joining us.

And remember to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast app and visit unitedstatesrealestateinvestor.com for more podcasts and industry news. And with that, thank you very much, Elsa. It’s been a pleasure.