Welcome to The Get Real Podcast, your high-octane boost and in the trenches tell-it-like-it-is reality therapy for personal, business and real estate investing success with your hosts, power-preneurs Angela and Ron. It’s time to get real!

Angela: Hey everyone. Thanks for joining us. So another episode of the Get Real Podcast. I’m Angela Thomas and I’m here with Ron Phillips. Hey Ron.

Ron: We are here.

Angela: We are here. Ron still waiting for the hurricane. So…

Ron: Haven’t died yet.

Angela: Hasn’t died yet. Ron is still here. Woo. And I today am happy to be living in Draper, Utah. So yeah, which is weird because usually I’m jealous but yeah, today we are going to, you know, repeat ourselves a little bit. We love talking about how to set goals and reaching your dreams. And we’ve talked about it a lot, but today we just want to dive into some of the hang-ups people might have and talk about how to get past them and find real success. Because we keep talking about this, but we, you know, we still see on our newsfeeds everybody complaining about their lives.

Ron: You know, and I know that we’re probably preaching to the choir. I sure hope we are. I hope you’d take a little of, I don’t know, fragment of what we talk about today and you can implement it. It will help you change just a little tiniest bit that you need to be able to catapult forward. But man, I’m sick of complainer’s. Gosh, dang is it me or is everyone else’s newsfeed full of people who cannot seem to get their lives to motivate in the right direction? I mean, am I the only one?

Angela: You know, I saw something the other day and I know everyone knows this, but I read that social media is an exchange of energy. You think you’re relaxing, but it’s really an exchange of energy. And I’ve noticed, you know, going on social media, the energy is mostly negative, you know, right. That’s what you’re talking about. Like you see so much negativity out there.

Ron: And I then I jump in the fray on some of these, man, I just, some of my can’t help myself and then I’ll jump in there and I’m like, you, you know, I just don’t understand. And some of these people I know, which is the most frustrating thing and I just want to go and I want to grab them by their head and shake them around and go, what the hell is your problem?

Angela: Oh my gosh, I have an example. Okay. This morning, I took a picture of it because it was in my news feed and it upset me for some reason. I looked at Instagram this morning I don’t usually do that. But this girl got on there, she’s one of those Instagram influencers and she took picture on her front porch to be funny with one of those back to school chalkboard things. And it said she was a mother, you know, it said her age. She’s like, it’s the first day of my kids back to school, back to my life. And then she had listed like what she likes to do. And it was basically, you know, drinking grownup juice and coffee and watching TV and so happy that her kids weren’t there so that she could do these things in peace, go shopping and watch TV and drink her wine and…

Ron: The kids that she chose to have are now in her way and she cannot enjoy life now because the children that she opted to bring into the world…

Angela: Are ruining it. Yeah. And it said on the bottom of the sign, motherhood happens between coffee and wine, which I know is meant to be funny. I can take a joke, okay. But man, that’s a sad existence. It just reminds me of, you know, waiting for the weekend. Yay it’s Friday. We hate Mondays.

Ron: And I just don’t get any of that stuff. I really don’t look, I get it, life happens. You know, your girlfriend didn’t work out. I get it, right. Your job sucks. I get it. You know, you’re fat, you’re out of shape. I get it. You don’t have all the money you want. You didn’t get to buy the Bentley this year. I get it. I get it. So what the hell are you going to do about it? Because one thing I for sure can guarantee everybody on here. If you open your mouth and you complain about something like that, the one thing I can guarantee you is nothing is going to change for you. Not one thing is going to change.

Ron: Next year you’re going to be bitching about the exact same thing, promise, promise, because you will have completely lost interest in whatever it is that you’re complaining about in two or three days because there will be some new thing that has really taken the place of the old thing that was really the worst thing in your life.

Angela: What a sad way to live. I mean.

Ron: And some of these people, again, some of these people are my friends and I actually hope some of them are listening to the podcast because I cannot reach through Facebook and shake them.

Angela: And that’d be fun if you could.

Ron: For whatever reason, when you comment on something, when you write it down, people take offense, but a guarantee, if they’re listening right now, something will shake them. And go, oh yeah. Oh, I guess I couldn’t change that, okay. Yeah, my girlfriend dumped me. Okay, so find another girlfriend. There’s freaking women all over the place.

Angela: And why did she dump you? Is there, you know, something you could change about yourself? Maybe…

Ron: Guaranteed, guaranteed.

Angela: Possibly there’s something…

Ron: Could be that you’re, I don’t know that you’re a complainer. Maybe because of your Facebook posts. I would think that, I don’t know.

Angela: It just sucks to like waste your life complaining about things every day because your future happiness is lived. I mean, you’re living it today. You’re living your life, your life is happening today. And what you’re complaining about is just making it worse. You know, you’re not glad we’ve talked about this before, like living for some awesome future. Everyone thinks like, you know, successes. I got to just plow through, you know, these years and get to where I’m actually happy. Wherever that is.

Angela: Like retirement or, you know, once you’ve achieved some goal of some kind, but it’s happening right now, you got to find a way to enjoy it and be happy and, you know, start taking those steps towards whatever it is that you’re complaining about to fix it right now. Because watching Netflix everyday and eating, you know, ice cream in front of it isn’t going to get you. There.

Ron: It’s certainly not going to get you in shape.

Angela: Yeah, if that’s your thing.

Ron: Yeah. So when you complain or even those of you out there who joke about how you’re fat, when the joke really says, I wish I were skinny, but I just am too damn lazy to go exercise and eat right, then I, you know, again, same thing, right? It’s all over Facebook. I have so many friends who were like, yeah, haha. Well, I’m, you know, I know you, I know you’re just joking about it because inside you’re thinking, wow, I’d really like to change this aspect of my life that I’m really not happy about. Or those of you out there who don’t have the money that you want.

Ron: Rather than focus on what you don’t have or rather than focus on the thing that is causing you the grief. How about if we get outside of ourselves just a second, take a look and let’s figure out how we can change the reality because you’re the only one who can change it. No fairy is going to come along and just, you know, sprinkle a whole bunch of dust on you and then poof, you’re a millionaire. Doesn’t happen. It also is not going to happen next week, most likely, okay. It’s just probably not.

Angela: And that fairy can be, you know, many different things. Maybe you’re waiting to win the lottery or be offered your dream job or come up with this crazy business idea that it’s just going to blow everyone away and change your life. Whatever. A fairy dust you’re waiting on…

Ron: You’re going to go from low-level manager. All of a sudden next week you’re going to be the CEO earning millions of dollars.

Angela: Some huge promotion.

Ron: Probably. Probably.

Angela: Yeah, probably. Right. So whatever your fairy dust is.

Ron: So how do we fix this then? We can give you just really simple stuff to implement. The first thing is to stop freaking complaining. Just cut it out in all of its forms, so if you really don’t like the fact that you’re broke, then stop posting all of the memes about how broke you are in a funny way, when everybody knows, you’re just complaining about the fact that you’re broke. Same thing with if you’re out of shape, same thing if you, whatever, right? All of this stuff that you complain about in every form in which you do it, stop it.

Ron: Because all you’re doing is you’re robbing yourself of the future you could have by focusing on all of the crap that you don’t like. Did I tell the story in the last one about the kid that I was trying to teach how to mountain bike and he kept looking at where he was supposed to not go.

Angela: I know you told me that story, but I can’t remember if it was on a podcast maybe just summarize it.

Ron: This is exactly what I’m talking about because, oh, here we are going down a mountain. Now you can imagine them that we are going down a mountain, right? It has banked corners in it and you’re supposed to be going fast and this kid is going like zero miles an hour because he’s scared to death. And on a bank you can’t go zero miles an hour because the thing is banked for a reason, right?

Ron: But he was watching the edge of the trail.

Angela: He’s looking at where he doesn’t want to go.

Ron: He didn’t want to go there. And I kept telling him, dude, you got to look where you’re going. Look where you want to go. And that’s the thing, right, is that with you can go way faster. You can augment all of your progress if you just stop looking where you don’t want to go. Start looking where you do want to go. Start focusing and being positive about all the things that you do want and where you do want to go. Leave all the rest of the stuff behind. And then the next thing you got to do is you got to stick with it. You have to actually make a full commitment and decision that this is not going to happen anymore. I’m going to do this over here, like I’m going to stop doing this over here and I’m going to start doing this over here and I don’t care what happens. I’m not doing that anymore. I’m going to do this over here.

Angela: An actual decision backed up with commitment, not just a decision for you know, until it gets too hard to keep doing, right?

Ron: Yes. This is not complicated. Number one, stop complaining. Number two, decide with a commitment. We’re not going back over there when tomorrow whatever happens to me. And so now I feel like eating a gallon ice cream, watching Netflix, is that your example?

Angela: Yeah, that was my example.

Ron: See we don’t do that anymore. I’m not going to do it anymore. It doesn’t matter. Instead, we’re going to do X, right. I’m going to go whatever it is. Okay. Decide now you’re not going to do it anymore. And that’s just, that’s just how it’s going to be. You’re not going to complain anymore. I’m going to decide to do something different. Bam. And I’m not going back.

Angela: And this was a longterm commitment. Part of that I think is eliminating. So you make a decision and then you need to eliminate the other paths from your brain. So, I mean, if it’s eating junk food, if you’re one of those people that can’t have junk food around, you should probably throw it out. I like having junk food around. I think it’s comforting, but that’s weird. Let’s not get into my issues. I don’t know. I know, I’m sorry.

Ron: This is where we phone a friend and the friend has to be some kind of a psychiatrist.

Angela: No, I don’t, I don’t think we should get into that for some reason. I panic when there’s no junk food around and then want to go eat it. Don’t ask. I don’t know. But hopefully you’re a normal person and it works for you to just eliminate the junk food from your house so you’re not attempted, right.

Ron: Okay. So if you try that and you eat more, try buying all over the house and maybe you’re like Angela and then that…

Angela: I have to put candy dishes everywhere and have yummy stuff and then I’m okay. I feel comforted and I don’t need it.

Ron: Okay. Now I will have to admit, Angela and I have been complaining about you complainer’s, so we’re going to not complain about you complainer’s anymore.

Angela: Yeah, we’re done with that.

Ron: We have decided now that we’re going to move past you all.

Angela: And we’re going to focus on the next step.

Ron: The next step is focus.

Angela: Oh, sorry. Yeah.

Ron: The next step is focus. It was an awesome segue. Beautifully done. The next step is focus, and this is the one where everybody gets lost, I think a lot of people out there who have been complaining and they finally get to the point where they’re just like, man, screw this. I’m done being whatever and I’m going to do this now. And they decide to do it and then nothing happens between now and the next seven days. They get really frustrated that they haven’t made it right. The million didn’t show up, the hundred pounds didn’t fall off magically. You know, they are not the CEO. They’re not CEO next week. And then they eat a gallon of ice cream and they sit down and watch Netflix.

Angela: Because those old habits are easy to fall into. Yeah, this focus thing is the hardest thing you’ll ever do. Your decision has to be rock solid and focus on it. Because this is easy to do, not just in, you know, habits like eating healthy or working out. But you know, deciding to start a business. If you decide to start a business and then you know, have a million other great ideas and you’re like, well, I started this new business but it hasn’t made money in the first month, so maybe I’m in the wrong one and I should go do this other thing. You can’t do that.

Ron: It doesn’t work that way. No one, I mean, look, we, everybody out there has somebody they look up to, okay. So I think it’s really cool. I love the Olympics. I think it’s super cool that these people dedicate years and years and years of nearly solid commitment and focus to one specific thing. Michael Phelps is one of them, right? So I watched this guy swim and I’ve actually never been a fan of swimming. Don’t really care. But that dude made it exciting.

Angela: He did. Yeah.

Ron: People focused on the Olympics and watch him in the Olympics and they go, man, you are so good. He the metals and he, you know, he’s, you know, now he’s got all the money and everything else, but nobody actually thinks about the years and years and years that he spent every single day, hours in the pool, perfecting, gaining strengths. I mean working on it.

Angela: Completely dedicated, he didn’t start swimming and then decide maybe he wanted to be a runner, you know.

Ron: And that’s a problem. That’s a big problem this day is that people who have success somehow it just works for them and it doesn’t work for other people. And that’s so wrong headed. Yes. Michael Phelps. Genetically, if you look at that dude and then you  look at me and you go, who’s going to win? You don’t even don’t even have to know who he is. Who’s going to win the lap down the pool? Guarantee it’s going to be him. The dude firms are like, you know, humongous long things. You’ve got these big long legs. I mean he’s made swim,

Angela: But Ron, what about all the other guys out there that are his height and have the huge long arms and the huge long legs?

Ron: Yes. I may not be genetically predispositioned to be Arnold Schwarzenegger. I’m not, okay. I don’t have the same…

Angela: I’m glad you can finally admit it.

Ron: Most people I’ve been trying for years, it’s not ever going to happen. Maybe Franco Colombo, which, you know, rest in peace Franco. But look, the reality of situation is if I don’t spend the same amount of time in the gym and I don’t eat like those guys eat, I’m never going to get there no matter what my frame looks like. It doesn’t make any difference. And everybody who throws people, rich people for instance, under the bus and says that they just, you know, somehow they magically did this.

Angela: They lucked into it.

Ron: That’s because they have no focus in their own life. They’ve never decided to actually go out and take a risk and they don’t understand what it takes to get there. So what does it take, number one, stop complaining. Number two, make a decision that you are going to do X, whatever that is and do that with a commitment and then focus on it and you got to focus…

Angela: Longterm.

Ron: A long, long time. I mean, if you want to lose a hundred pounds, it’s going to take you a year minimum.

Angela: If you’re extremely committed, yes.

Ron: Minimum. right? If you hit it like an animal is going to take you a year, maybe longer, right? If you want to become a millionaire and right now you make $15,000 a year, it’s going to take you a minute.

Angela: You got to climb ahead of you.

Ron: You cannot think that next week you magically be a millionaire. You can’t think for all of you millennials and what’s the other one? What’s the next generation Z?

Angela: I always forget, Z something.

Ron: For all of you out there, anyone is actually listening. You can’t expect to have what your parents have when their 40s and 50s and 60s when you are 20. Now God bless you. If you can do it between 20 and 25 because you have been more dedicated and more focused than your parents, right? But when you start out, if you think that you need to have the same everything that they have, you’re going to end up broke. Instead try to have to have a work ethic and a focus and a determination to get somewhere and make it happen instead of complaining like everyone else that your age does.

Angela: Oh man. Now we got you going. All right. You got a point though?

Ron: I’ve done with this topic.

Angela: No, no. This is awesome. Okay, the next one we’ve talked about a ton. So Ron said, you know, stop complaining. Mega decision focus number four would be create a plan, right?

Ron: Wow. That’s a novel concept.

Angela: I know we have talked, we have beaten create a plan to death, but…

Ron: To death.

Angela: You need one.

Ron: We have a business plan, life plan. Pretty much every plan you can think of. Talked about goals, which is basically a plan. I held up my goal sheet. Remember that podcast?

Angela: Yeah, that was way back.

Ron: Come on. So we’ve talked about this in detail.

Angela: If you don’t have a plan already and you’ve been listening to our podcast. I don’t know what to say. Yeah.

Ron: We are so fired up we’re talking over each other. It almost sounds like we’re on some kind of new show, MSNBC or something.

Angela: Was that bad?

Ron: I think it is. I stopped watching three years. He goes, unless it’s gotten better.

Angela: Was it because they were talking over each other?

Ron: Well, it’s just because they suck on all ends. Everybody’s sucked. Their a bunch of complainer’s that’s why.

Angela: They are. Yeah. All right. We’re not going to get deep into the plan thing cause we’ve done that. Feel free to go back and check those out, but there’s a reason. The first action we take, you know, in our other business, you know, well our actual business, not our other, this podcast is not a business in our business.

Angela: First step we take is building a wealth plan, what we call wealth plan to show people you know, how to reach their financial goals using investment real estate, because they’ve decided to focus on that, you know, that vehicle to build their wealth. The same thing in whatever area your working on a plan is pretty freaking important. Don’t skip it. All right, I’m done. Last one, which goes along with focus and dedication, commitment is to follow through on your plan.

Ron: Angela just did. She said she was done and then she really wasn’t done.

Angela: Oh no, no, no, no, no. I was done with creating a plan.

Ron: It was also a great segue into follow through because even when you feel like you’re done, you’re not done.

Ron: You’re not done.

Angela: No, follow through.

Angela: Yeah, and remember that you know, success is not a straight line. You’re not just going to decide tomorrow and suddenly it’s easy to stop eating ice cream in front, okay. Is that that example is getting old, but you know what I’m saying? Success is paved with failures. The road is paved with failures.

Ron: I think the best meme I’ve ever actually seen about entrepreneurial-ism is that it has a line, it says it shows what people, what people think it is and it’s like a line and then it goes straight. It goes up at an angle, right. And actuality is this big scribble. Like the line goes all over the place, it looks like something that your grandma, you know when she had the knitting ball.

Angela: The naughty knitting ball. I’ve never heard of that.

Ron: They would hand it to you and go, could you just untangle this? And I’d be like, Oh my gosh, are you serious? No, my calling is a, I’m a quick start. I’m not going to, I can’t do the ball thing. No. Anyway, follow through. This is really important for people like Angela and I because we are the people who will start a business and then a month later start another business.

Angela: We get bored.

Ron: And sometimes it’s like a week in between. Because we have so many brilliant ideas, but this does not work. You must follow through with whatever it is that you start and you don’t have to go all the way all the way. And when you encounter whatever it is you’re going to encounter because you will, something will get in your way. You have planned for that at the beginning.

Ron: Something is going to get in my way. So what happens if I’m planning, one of the things that I love that Grant Cardone says is that you have to plan for that to happen and then you have to have already been out working it, right? I mean, so you set your goals, I think we said this on the goal one, right? But you set your goals way high and then you work toward that goal and the idea is to hit that goal. But if I come up just a little bit short of that goal, because life got in the way, I’m leagues ahead of where I would have been if I had to set this stupid, reasonable, realistic goal, right. Because if you set the realistic, reasonable goal and then life happens, then you’re below average, which is unacceptable in my world.

Ron: So in order to be above average, you have to set your goals way above average because life always gets in the way always. So your plan has to account for that from the beginning. It has to account for that. So you can’t plan, it’s like a rental property. If you plan on the pro forma happening exactly how the performance is and you’ve not counted anything in there for maintenance and vacancies, then I guarantee you it’s not going to happen because two things are for sure. You’re going to have a vacancy and you’re going to have maintenance, right?

Ron: It’s same thing when you got your weight loss plan or your, I’m going to be a millionaire plan. Something is going to happen. I guarantee it. That’s going to get in your way. And so the only way for you to be able to focus and follow through and get through all that stuff is to have planned for that stuff to happen in the beginning. Something’s going to get in my way. What am I going to do when it happens?

Angela: One little thing on that, that was great. I just want to say I heard someone saying, I’m sorry, I don’t know who said this, but it’s a daily and hourly battle against the worst parts of yourself. So sometimes life gets in the way. Sometimes a bad tenant, you know, if it’s real estate. But with most goals, the biggest thing you’re dealing with and trying to overcome is yourself, your own…

Ron: Almost always.

Angela: Always almost always your own limiting beliefs, your fears, your bad habits, your self destructive tendencies, whatever it is, it’s an hourly battle against the worst parts of yourself. Especially when you’re first getting started. You’ve made the decision, you’re focusing, you’re starting down this path. Those bad habits that you have and you know, your own personal demons are going to hit you hardcore when you’re first starting out on this path.

Ron: They’re going to hit you, your old friend set’s going to hit you. Everything’s going to hit you. The finances are going to hit you, everything. Everything is going to hit you. So what do you do? What do you do? Are you the person who’s going to, you know, curl up behind the toilet and sit there and sob? Or are you going to actually go out there and hit this head on and make something freaking happen? And before you’ve even made your decision, this stuff can happen to you where you feel like you, well, you know, I would go do this, but I’m probably good enough. I’m not this…

Angela: Making my dreams would come, you know, come true. Would be easy, if. What excuses are you fighting against? There’s everyone’s got one or 20.

Ron: Yeah, or way more than any of us need and none of, and the reality is none of them are true. Why is it, why is it that the person down the street who’s no smarter than you can do exactly what it is you want to do. And you can’t tell me why. Yeah, you can’t, I mean, I’m sure you could come up with some really good excuses. But they’re not, none of them are true because if someone is no more talented than you, and they don’t have any other leg up, right? Matter of fact, some of them are worse off than you and they still can make it happen. Well then why can’t you do it?

Ron: I remember sitting in the first seminar, real estate seminar I went to. I don’t remember looking at the guy up in front of the room. The only difference I could tell between me and that guy is he had money and I didn’t have any, he wasn’t any smarter than me. He certainly didn’t have more time than me because I was, I had just been laid off. I had all the time in the world, right. And he wasn’t any smarter than me. So what did he have that I didn’t have money? Well, he just taught me how I could do this stuff without money. So what is it that’s holding? What really is it that would hold me back from doing what he taught me? What is it?

Angela: Fear.

Ron: It’s me. It’s all me. It’s like when I was in high school. I remember the guys go down the hall and they’d be like, they’d suck the air in out from underneath somebody. And they go, yeah, now it’s stopping you. The air’s gone. You know, they challenge you to a fight did then not happened to you? You didn’t go to school.

Angela: I’m like, what are you talking about man?

Ron: Those of you who went to school and there was fights back in the day. Right? You challenged somebody to a fight, you and you know, they take all the way. They’ll take all the excuses away. They take all the air away from them in front of them. Like now what’s holding you back? Nothing’s holding you back. Well, nothing’s holding you back. I just took all the air.

Angela: Great example for anyone that knows what you’re talking about. Yeah, that’s good.

Ron: Angela lived a deprived life everybody.

Angela: I know so sad.

Ron: You didn’t have to meet anybody at East Road after high school. I mean, it’s really terrible.

Angela: I bet if I had gone to high school, I would’ve been in tons of fights. But as it were, I was homeschooled, so I missed out.

Ron: She would’ve won tons of fights.

Angela: I would’ve won tons of fights.

Ron: The East Road. For all of you, for any of my high school friends who are listening, everybody knows what it is.

Angela: All right. So I think that’s it. You know, you have to reach down deep and, you know, find your discipline to overcome all your excuses and that’s how you find freedom and reach your goals.

Ron: And we will try really hard just stop allowing Facebook to direct everything that we do. But…

Angela: No, we need to get off Facebook.

Ron: This one had to be said just in case there’s any lingering folks on, that are listening to our show who had not quite gotten the hint the first many times we talked about this. Now there’s, there shouldn’t be any doubt, right? It’s easy. Stop complaining, make a decision, make it focused. You’ve got to completely commit to it. And then all you really have to do after that is create a plan and follow through on the plan. It’s a very simple, very simple.

Angela: Okay. Thanks Ron. Thanks everybody for listening. If you’ve got any comments on it, want to tell us off, tell us another topic we should talk about. Please visit us at GetRealEstateSuccess.com or on Facebook at Get Real Podcast and we’ll see you next time. Thanks.

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