476 | Money Advice From Millionaires | Real Estate Investing

Sep 9

[00:00:00] Joel Worcester: Problem there, but, um, Joel, once you, once you get us started with just,
[00:00:02] Joel Worcester: you know, how
[00:00:02] Joel Worcester: you guys came to KC, um, a little bit about your backdrop as far as real estate.
[00:00:06] Joel Worcester: Uh, and I'll,
[00:00:06] Joel Worcester: I'll get curious with some questions here, but just give us, give us kind of, uh, where you guys come from. Yeah. So we were from Oregon originally and, um, we decided right when I graduated college and then, um, Jesse dropped out, uh, and then my older brother had just graduated as well. And we, we played sports together.
[00:00:24] Joel Worcester: We were very close. And we wanted to go into business together one way or another. We had, just from an early age, we kind of realized we had the, you know, entrepreneurial gene and we, um, we, we played sports and kind of the next, um, we were, we all played small college basketball and we won a state championship together at the highest level in Oregon.
[00:00:38] Joel Worcester: And so we, uh, they're like sort of a natural, I think, uh, transition. We realized we weren't going to be playing in the NBA. Um, and probably too late for me at least. And then, uh, but as soon as we kind of woke up to the real world, we, uh, business just kind of made sense. You know, a lot of similarities to sports, I think, um, in, you know, You can put in as much time, you can always get better.
[00:00:54] Joel Worcester: You can always grow, you can always help your team more. So there was just a lot, um, that kind of related to us with, with business. And we read a lot of business books, um, a lot of entrepreneurship stuff, uh, rich dad, poor dad was kind of instrumental good to great, um, that you, we started off kind of trying to formulate a philosophy of how we wanted to do business.
[00:01:13] Joel Worcester: And then we started a business from there. Yeah. In our, you know, very early twenties. And then, uh, uh, we tried to, we started doing real estate in Oregon and it was just really hard to make numbers work. So it was a 2007 and we, uh, market was at an all time high. And fortunately we didn't have any money and we weren't in a place to really buy much, but we learned a ton.
[00:01:30] Joel Worcester: We bought a handful of kind of creative financed, uh, seller finance deals. Um, that were like huge, you know, fixer uppers. And then the market crashed and we still couldn't make numbers work. We decided by then that we, you know, from rich dad, poor dad philosophy, and just reading a lot of stuff, we wanted to be a, um, cashflow generating passive income generating business.
[00:01:51] Joel Worcester: And we, it was just very hard to do that in Oregon on the West coast, in either the coast, because so many people are buying, you're competing with all these people who are. Who don't need the positive cashflow. That's they're speculating essentially that, Oh, rents are going to go up. Values are going to go up, but I can negative cashflow for a couple of years.
[00:02:06] Joel Worcester: We didn't, we weren't okay. Negative cash flowing and just like hoping the market goes up. So we long story short, we ended up. Um, knowing someone in the Kansas City market, we compared the two markets and we ended up, um, moving, you know, going back and forth, a bunch of looking at properties and then, um, Jesse and our other brother moved and then I moved within a couple of years.
[00:02:24] Joel Worcester: So, we had, you know, by 2009, 2008, 2009, we were doing everything in Kansas City and we bought our first apartment complex. And so we were doing, I think, in early 2009, we had, I think, 75 units. Of just small, most of them in Kansas City, uh, Missouri area. And, uh, we had, most of them were, you know, single family duplexes, just small multifamily, we've got 75 units total.
[00:02:47] Joel Worcester: And then we bought our first apartment complex in June of 20, uh, 2009. Then, and we raised money for that was the first time we raised money from kind of like outside sources, accredited investors. And then we did the same thing in, um, later that year in 2000, uh, like December, I think of 2009, and that was a little bit larger property.
[00:02:58] Joel Worcester: Both of those, we got incredible deals on them. We've been, we'd really learned a lot by them and we didn't have property. We didn't buy a bunch of property like everyone else did at the peak of the market, and so we weren't licking wounds like everyone else was. So we just got incredible deals and they did very well from, from the beginning.
[00:03:15] Joel Worcester: And, uh, and then that's kind of, that, that was kind of the foundation of. Our bread and butter. And we've just done that, you know, over and over on kind of a larger and larger scale over the last, you know, 15 years. Yeah. I appreciate you saying that, uh, Jesse, Joel mentioned a few minutes ago that you guys kind of had the entrepreneurial spirit or it was in your DNA, but you had mentioned earlier that, you know, your dad was a pastor.
[00:03:34] Joel Worcester: Where,
[00:03:34] Joel Worcester: where does
[00:03:35] Joel Worcester: the entrepreneurial bug come from?
[00:03:37] Joel Worcester: I mean, I think we have different answers. So our oldest brother, Paul
[00:03:42] Joel Worcester: and Joel, both.
[00:03:44] Joel Worcester: I think probably to a greater degree than myself, like, we, we didn't, we didn't
[00:03:47] Joel Worcester: have a
[00:03:47] Joel Worcester: lot.
[00:03:48] Joel Worcester: I mean, we
[00:03:48] Joel Worcester: were lower middle class. So we
[00:03:50] Joel Worcester: weren't, uh,
[00:03:51] Joel Worcester: going
[00:03:51] Joel Worcester: hungry or
[00:03:51] Joel Worcester: anything like that. But, um, they, they share their stories and Joel
[00:03:53] Joel Worcester: can share his about kind of noticing that we
[00:03:55] Joel Worcester: didn't have as nice vehicles and, you know, noticing that we didn't have as, you know, as nice things.
[00:04:01] Joel Worcester: And, and then I, data,
[00:04:03] Joel Worcester: I think more so with
[00:04:04] Joel Worcester: them.
[00:04:05] Joel Worcester: shared about our financial
[00:04:07] Joel Worcester: struggles. I know with our
[00:04:08] Joel Worcester: oldest brother, Paul,
[00:04:10] Joel Worcester: So it was kind of close. I know to our oldest brother, at least, um, just that we had a lot of, you know, worry
[00:04:12] Joel Worcester: and concern
[00:04:13] Joel Worcester: around our finances. So I've heard that from them. For me, it's
[00:04:16] Joel Worcester: more just the competitive side. Like I just relate
[00:04:18] Joel Worcester: it to sports.
[00:04:19] Joel Worcester: Um, it's,
[00:04:19] Joel Worcester: you know,
[00:04:19] Joel Worcester: I love competition and,
[00:04:22] Joel Worcester: uh, business to me is the greatest sport that exists because you
[00:04:26] Joel Worcester: can create
[00:04:26] Joel Worcester: your own scoreboard, you know, you're, you're always, there's always a new challenge,
[00:04:32] Jesse Worcester: uh,
[00:04:32] Joel Worcester: and there's, teamwork and there's so many, I mean, it's like, it's, it's, it's sports on steroids,
[00:04:35] Joel Worcester: Um,
[00:04:35] Joel Worcester: and so, yeah, it's just a competitive That's the element to me that, um, that. I've always loved business.
[00:04:39] Joel Worcester: And yeah, we, we tinkered with stuff from a young age and
[00:04:41] Joel Worcester: our dad, I, I, I definitely credit our dad.
[00:04:43] Joel Worcester: Like he put
[00:04:43] Joel Worcester: us.
[00:04:44] Joel Worcester: to work. So
[00:04:45] Joel Worcester: just the idea of
[00:04:47] Joel Worcester: hard
[00:04:47] Joel Worcester: work and kind of the satisfaction you get after
[00:04:50] Joel Worcester: putting in a long day and getting, you know, we, we worked kind of under the table jobs, summer jobs, we worked for our dad. Um, and
[00:04:55] Joel Worcester: so we definitely, from a very young age, just kind of had that ingrained in us.
[00:04:59] Joel Worcester: And so,
[00:05:01] Joel Worcester: uh, but yeah, I would definitely say it's the, it's just the competition
[00:05:03] Joel Worcester: that I drive to drive to win the one
[00:05:05] Joel Worcester: for more.
[00:05:05] Joel Worcester: It is funny how you guys have described Paul, you know, the oldest as maybe a little bit more in tune with, you know, that, that,
[00:05:11] Joel Worcester: that
[00:05:11] Joel Worcester: carrying of the weight maybe. But that, I think that's more of like a, a firstborn thing.
[00:05:13] Joel Worcester: Like we, we, as a fellow firstborn, like we were, we were part of the adults
[00:05:17] Chaz Wolfe: first,
[00:05:18] Joel Worcester: you know, so like we were, we were in that conversation. Uh, I've really just life. I can see it with my firstborn. She's very much in tune with like carrying the weight with us, as opposed to my other younger. So they're like, when's the next time we get to play?
[00:05:28] Joel Worcester: Yeah. What would you say? Would you add anything to that Joel being closer to age and Paul? Yeah, no, I think that makes sense. Uh, yeah, I think Paul and I kind of carried that weight together. I definitely felt it. I remember a motivation very early on. And I, at that point, uh, I was probably middle school, early middle school.
[00:05:39] Joel Worcester: And I was. Gonna definitely play in the NBA and uh, and it was, and my motivation, one of my big motivations was to take care of my mom. 'cause she was, she, she's the one who we were always short on money. And so I was part of those conversations where my dad, my dad was, he's an amazing person, incredible role model in so many ways.
[00:05:53] Joel Worcester: But he was a warrior, so he would, he would always, and we were fine. I mean, we, we were definitely low on money, but he would talk to us regularly. And I don't know if this is helpful or not, but about how, like, we might go bankrupt. Like we might, we might like end up in this and we were, they never had money.
[00:06:01] Joel Worcester: They, they didn't spend money, but they didn't make, make any. And so my mom was, my mom was a teacher. At a Christian school, you know, didn't make very much. My dad was a pastor of a small, of a small church. And my mom was the one who kind of did the, I felt, did the extra work and was the, just a soldier and would do anything for us.
[00:06:16] Joel Worcester: And I, that I know from a young age, I was very motivated to like, take care of her. Not that I ever needed to, but they ended up being our, you know, They don't ever do this. I don't advise anyone to do this, but my parents had, you know, no savings, no anything, but they had their house that had gone up in value in a good, good location in Oregon, near the University of Oregon campus, and it had gone up in value quite a bit over time.
[00:06:41] Joel Worcester: And they took out a second mortgage, about a little over 200, 000, and that was like our seed money as a company. So they, they invested like 200, 000 into our company very early on. I was like, and they were like maxed out, but, but it went really well. So they got a quarter, they got a quarter of the company and it, it ended up, it ended up, being an incredible investment many, many multiples, um, later, you know, it was an incredible, that was like one of that's probably one of the best.
[00:07:02] Joel Worcester: Feelings about, uh, about, you know, having a successful business. It's just that it, you know, my mom benefited from that a ton, which is cool. Yeah. What do you think, you know, I, I can relate to that, especially, you know, growing up in a single mom home and, you know, wanting success to be able to kind of like, you know, pay it back and take care of her and even my grandmother, but you know, for that, for that moment of when they made that deposit of 200 grand, it was the opposite of what you had said you were motivated by, like, you wanted to take care of her, but here she is, you know, taking care of you kind of, and, and believing in you.
[00:07:29] Joel Worcester: Yeah. What did, what was that moment described like when you saw the money come in and it was like nervousness or like fired up? Like what was that? Yeah. We were overconfident, not, I hope we weren't pompous ever, but, um, but like we thought we could do anything. I mean, I think that's kind of the entrepreneurial part of that is you kind of, I mean, so we, I thought it was going to be a great investment for them.
[00:07:45] Joel Worcester: Like I was, I was very confident that we were going to make them a lot of money. Um as a result of that but but at the same time I felt a huge burden Um, but I already had the burden anyway So it's not like it was more like an opportunity and we're gonna prove that this will be You know, I mean it's like when it's that kind of stakes with your parents Money, and they don't have anything else.
[00:08:04] Joel Worcester: It's very motivating. I mean, it's like not an option to fail for I mean That's how I looked it was never an option to fail anytime we went through I mean We probably negative cash flowed for seven years You We were doing, you know, we were doing better and better, but we would, you know, we were a very high growth company and we were adding cashflow.
[00:08:18] Joel Worcester: We were also trying to add a team and stuff like that and expenses. So we had a couple of times where it was, you know, didn't look good. I mean, I think any, any of those first, you know, three, five years, three, five, seven years. Of any business is, you know, there's going to be some scary moments, but I think for us, and that's something that we all had in common, Jesse, Paul, and myself is failure, failure was just not an option.
[00:08:36] Joel Worcester: We barely paid ourselves anything and we were just going to do whatever it took to succeed. And there were some times where it was like very hard to sleep at night. Um, but you know, we couldn't lose. And then my father in law invested, he was kind of an early investor to a good family friend. So these people, it's like.
[00:08:50] Joel Worcester: Okay. We're not going to lose their money. Like I couldn't live with myself if that happened.
[00:08:55] Chaz Wolfe: Well,
[00:08:56] Joel Worcester: you
[00:08:56] Joel Worcester: obviously you're speaking from, from integrity. There are unfortunately people who would take anybody's
[00:09:00] Joel Worcester: money, let alone their parents and not feel that way. So you say it so nonchalant because it's
[00:09:05] Joel Worcester: the character of who you
[00:09:06] Joel Worcester: are.
[00:09:07] Joel Worcester: Um,
[00:09:07] Joel Worcester: but obviously that's why they invested in you because they believed
[00:09:09] Joel Worcester: that that's what
[00:09:09] Joel Worcester: you just said was true, right? I appreciate that. Yeah. Yeah. It is interesting to see. And I get it. Like people make venture investments and you know, it's not like everyone who's lost other people's money is not a bad person, and it's not, they don't have integrity and all that.
[00:09:23] Joel Worcester: Um, but, but yeah, I do sometimes get surprised at how easy it is for people to lose other people's money and feel okay about it. Because, um, I wouldn't have been the case for us. I know Yeah, I remember when I opened up my, uh, first, uh, franchise,
[00:09:37] Joel Worcester: I was 24
[00:09:37] Joel Worcester: years old and my, my best buddy at the time, um, he asked me,
[00:09:41] Joel Worcester: what if people stop buying that product?
[00:09:43] Joel Worcester: And I was like, okay, I,
[00:09:45] Chaz Wolfe: well,
[00:09:46] Joel Worcester: I guess I would
[00:09:47] Joel Worcester: go back
[00:09:48] Joel Worcester: to sales and I would pay off the loan. I was going to about to get about a, you know, a 400, 000 loan as a 24 year old. And I would pay it off and then I would probably do it again, you know, kind of that weird, like evil,
[00:10:00] Joel Worcester: a little
[00:10:00] Joel Worcester: bit messed up up here, you know, and he was just like, okay, like just checking to make sure, but what you just said, Joel and Jesse, I want to hear your opinion on that, but there is something when you decide, like, that's what I heard you say, Joel, is that I decided
[00:10:11] Joel Worcester: there
[00:10:12] Joel Worcester: was zero chance I wasn't going to win.
[00:10:14] Joel Worcester: It was my mom on the line
[00:10:15] Joel Worcester: or whatever that was in my case, it wasn't necessarily my mom's money, but it was like. Zero chance. I'm going to fail if,
[00:10:20] Joel Worcester: if this
[00:10:21] Joel Worcester: thing doesn't work fine,
[00:10:23] Joel Worcester: I'll
[00:10:23] Joel Worcester: pivot and move on and I will still win. Exactly. That's your thoughts on that, especially being the competitor.
[00:10:29] Joel Worcester: Yeah.
[00:10:29] Joel Worcester: I mean,
[00:10:31] Joel Worcester: I see
[00:10:33] Joel Worcester: both our parents investment.
[00:10:35] Joel Worcester: And then we had, as
[00:10:37] Joel Worcester: I think a lot of young entrepreneurs,
[00:10:39] Joel Worcester: um, kind of
[00:10:39] Joel Worcester: friends and family was
[00:10:41] Joel Worcester: our
[00:10:41] Joel Worcester: early investors and I see it as a blessing that we have,
[00:10:46] Joel Worcester: you know, 15
[00:10:47] Joel Worcester: plus years of,
[00:10:50] Jesse Worcester: um,
[00:10:50] Joel Worcester: basically every investment We are indebted to
[00:10:50] Joel Worcester: someone else.
[00:10:50] Joel Worcester: and.
[00:10:50] Joel Worcester: Our father was both. Our parents were very servant oriented. Um, it's kind of adding value
[00:10:53] Joel Worcester: to others, serving
[00:10:54] Joel Worcester: others. And,
[00:10:55] Joel Worcester: uh, to me, I, I did, I definitely see it as a huge
[00:10:57] Joel Worcester: blessing that
[00:10:59] Joel Worcester: we were kind of forced into it from day one that, yeah, we're doing this, this business. Yes. There's a competitive element, but at the end of the day,
[00:11:03] Joel Worcester: we're reporting to friends, family.
[00:11:06] Joel Worcester: And investors that we feel incredibly indebted to. And I,
[00:11:09] Joel Worcester: I think
[00:11:10] Joel Worcester: that's a just a great framework Cause I think in business, the competitive and the ego can like go too far. And I like how you talk about,
[00:11:18] Joel Worcester: you know, with gathering the Kings about, you know,
[00:11:19] Joel Worcester: family oriented and down to earth. I think there's an element when you're.
[00:11:22] Joel Worcester: Reporting to and serving someone else, um, it humbles you and you realize,
[00:11:26] Joel Worcester: okay, this isn't about me. It's not
[00:11:27] Joel Worcester: about my own ego. I'm really trying to do good for And so I see it as, it was
[00:11:32] Joel Worcester: very difficult. It's a lot harder,
[00:11:35] Joel Worcester: you know, to start out with, you know, you know, a
[00:11:36] Joel Worcester: lot of
[00:11:36] Joel Worcester: people that get
[00:11:36] Joel Worcester: into real estate
[00:11:38] Joel Worcester: get
[00:11:38] Joel Worcester: in later in life.
[00:11:39] Joel Worcester: they have their own money.
[00:11:40] Joel Worcester: So they're, you know,
[00:11:41] Joel Worcester: Investing their own capital and then maybe pooling it with some other people. Um, and so I would say relative
[00:11:45] Joel Worcester: to that, the way we
[00:11:46] Joel Worcester: got started, the
[00:11:46] Joel Worcester: stakes were a lot higher as Joel said,
[00:11:48] Joel Worcester: you know, seven plus years where we were right on the edge,
[00:11:51] Joel Worcester: um, in terms of making it.
[00:11:53] Joel Worcester: um, but I think in hindsight, it was a
[00:11:55] Joel Worcester: huge blessing.
[00:11:57] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah.
[00:11:57] Chaz Wolfe: I
[00:11:57] Joel Worcester: I think that you're right. It can, it can go. I'm glad that you see it now as a blessing too, because you've got hindsight, right? Um, there, there's a. There's a uniqueness underneath that umbrella of pressure. And so I want to kind of, I want to go down that rabbit hole because we've kind of created this little spot here.
[00:12:07] Joel Worcester: And, um, you know, you took,
[00:12:07] Joel Worcester: you took
[00:12:08] Joel Worcester: family money, you've
[00:12:08] Joel Worcester: taken friends and
[00:12:09] Joel Worcester: now other investors that maybe you have relationships with, but this is like a really big deal. And I know you guys take it seriously. That creates. Potentially like this immense pressure and I want to talk about how you guys operate inside of that pressure.
[00:12:22] Joel Worcester: I can remember, um, wanting to grow our, uh, realist or a, um, our franchise portfolio. And we were two or three in, and I really wanted to move faster. I wanted to go,
[00:12:29] Joel Worcester: you know, to like
[00:12:30] Joel Worcester: mall, like another three locations. I wanted to double.
[00:12:32] Chaz Wolfe: Um,
[00:12:32] Joel Worcester: Faster than I could do it on my own. And so I was talking to my wife about maybe asking her mom if she wanted to invest, she was appalled, like, Oh my gosh, no.
[00:12:39] Joel Worcester: Like
[00:12:39] Joel Worcester: if we lost my mom's money, I wouldn't be able to sleep. And I, my perspective was,
[00:12:45] Joel Worcester: that's
[00:12:45] Joel Worcester: not even an option. I'm going to like make your mom money. This is a blessing. She should want my phone call, you know, I didn't receive this pressure, but she did tell, talk about how maybe you guys received that pressure still, even today as you guys.
[00:12:57] Chaz Wolfe: you know, take,
[00:12:57] Joel Worcester: You guys have huge investments. Um, how do you guys deal with it?
[00:13:02] Joel Worcester: Yeah. So, uh, I mean, I think Jesse said, said it well, but, um, even, you know, I think it started out with, uh, you know, friends, family, you know, very close friends, family, like my father in law, like I couldn't have probably felt a bigger burden, you know, like from like wanting to not screw it up. Um, I mean, you, you relate that with your, your wife, but, but I also, I had a similar perspective with you.
[00:13:21] Joel Worcester: Like Uh, is, and I was like, Hey, we, we're going to make him money. You like, this is going to be good for them and we'll do anything. And I genuinely always believed that. What is your best option? Like we're just going to do, and that's, that's obviously a lot of, there's a lot of naivete as part of that and overconfidence and all that, but, but it turned out, I mean, those were very good investments for them early on because they, they invested directly into our parent company.
[00:13:47] Joel Worcester: Um, but, but it just, I think that just extends out. And what I really, as we've grown over the years and added a lot of investors, some who we don't know. Um, it's, it becomes a little bit less personal, but, uh, like across the board, like our investor relations team, like anyone that we care so much about transparency.
[00:14:02] Joel Worcester: So it's like, I feel like if I feel okay about an investment that doesn't go well, if we've been incredibly transparent and we. You know, we did all the due diligence we could we should have done all of that So and if a deal doesn't go really well, we learn from it and and try to grow from there Um, and we work with accredited investors.
[00:14:19] Joel Worcester: So and we're taking a small amount of their capital So the as it become has kind of become less personal Um, it's we have I think a lot we have great team and all these things in place to just make sure that it's You know that even if i'm not as hands on as I was back then You Um, we have all these checks and balances in place to make sure that we are treating them really well.
[00:14:35] Joel Worcester: And we've generated very high returns overall, but we also do syndications, you know, that's, that's kind of our bread and butter. And so someone could end up in one deal and it just doesn't go that well. We missed the pro forma. You know, they don't get a great return and that sucks. So, um, I think we have a culture where every Investment that we look at we are looking very long term Like we are looking at it.
[00:14:55] Joel Worcester: Like this isn't about making us money at all. Like I no one feels that way It's about like how can we generate a great return for investors? So even though we will miss sometimes those misses are usually Not that bad. And we, um, we can usually recover and usually most of our investors are in multiple deals.
[00:15:10] Joel Worcester: So they have, if anyone's in more than one or two deals, they almost for sure have a good return overall with us. Um, I don't know if that answers your question. Yeah, no, it's good. I mean, I think
[00:15:19] Joel Worcester: that there's,
[00:15:19] Joel Worcester: um, you know, a strategy there of how you deal with the
[00:15:20] Joel Worcester: pressure, right?
[00:15:21] Joel Worcester: Jesse, you want to add anything to that?
[00:15:23] Joel Worcester: Yeah. I mean, for me, the, the pressure.
[00:15:25] Joel Worcester: Um,
[00:15:25] Joel Worcester: What it produces
[00:15:30] Joel Worcester: for me is a focus on what is
[00:15:32] Joel Worcester: in our control and how we, how can we just keep
[00:15:35] Joel Worcester: getting better and better
[00:15:36] Joel Worcester: and better? So, like,
[00:15:38] Joel Worcester: 1 example of that is, um, and I took
[00:15:40] Joel Worcester: this from, can't
[00:15:42] Joel Worcester: remember what
[00:15:42] Joel Worcester: the other
[00:15:43] Joel Worcester: group
[00:15:43] Joel Worcester: is. Um, I think it's Blackstone maybe,
[00:15:46] Joel Worcester: Um, but, uh,
[00:15:46] Joel Worcester: like a break the deal process where every new investment
[00:15:49] Joel Worcester: that we do, we bring, you know, a large group of us in,
[00:15:51] Joel Worcester: into a room and we try to
[00:15:52] Joel Worcester: really rip it
[00:15:53] Joel Worcester: to shreds and find out,
[00:15:54] Joel Worcester: you know, what are all the potential problems, try to
[00:15:57] Joel Worcester: de risk it, try to
[00:15:58] Joel Worcester: do a sensitivity analysis on it.
[00:15:59] Joel Worcester: And so that's an example of,
[00:15:59] Joel Worcester: it's like, that
[00:16:00] Joel Worcester: is a hundred percent in our control. And if we keep adding good systems,
[00:16:05] Joel Worcester: um,
[00:16:05] Joel Worcester: and good oversight, uh, it, to me, it's,
[00:16:07] Joel Worcester: it's increasing the likelihood
[00:16:09] Joel Worcester: that, you know, the
[00:16:09] Joel Worcester: investments
[00:16:10] Joel Worcester: are going to go
[00:16:10] Joel Worcester: well, that we're not going to miss anything. Um, and so like, for example, last
[00:16:14] Joel Worcester: year, uh.
[00:16:14] Joel Worcester: I think our acquisitions team
[00:16:16] Joel Worcester: underwrote a little
[00:16:17] Joel Worcester: over 300 properties
[00:16:18] Joel Worcester: and we bought two. it's things like that where I'm like, I'm looking at the marketplace. I look at the other deals that
[00:16:25] Joel Worcester: people do.
[00:16:26] Joel Worcester: Most of the other deals that I see other people, acquiring, I question, I think it's too high
[00:16:31] Joel Worcester: a price. And so for me, it's, it's, it's
[00:16:33] Joel Worcester: just that, that obsessive focus on what is within our
[00:16:36] Joel Worcester: control and how can we keep.
[00:16:38] Joel Worcester: Getting better
[00:16:39] Joel Worcester: and better.
[00:16:39] Joel Worcester: And Joel will
[00:16:40] Joel Worcester: tell you this,
[00:16:40] Joel Worcester: I'm a bit of an idealist. So I there's always,
[00:16:41] Joel Worcester: I
[00:16:43] Joel Worcester: always think that where we're at today is not, you know, that great, uh, relative to where I think we can uh, but it definitely pushes, I think it pushes us in a healthy way
[00:16:52] Joel Worcester: to keep trying to get better.
[00:16:54] Joel Worcester: that
[00:16:54] Joel Worcester: mindset, that idealistic mindset could potentially be just like, you know, big dreams and be in the clouds. I've seen that happen many times with whether it be investors or entrepreneurs, and they've got
[00:17:03] Joel Worcester: this perfect
[00:17:04] Joel Worcester: scenario and that's what they're headed towards.
[00:17:06] Joel Worcester: But what it doesn't do for that
[00:17:07] Joel Worcester: person is it doesn't
[00:17:08] Joel Worcester: focus them down to what you just said of these are the things that I control my exact plan and I'm going to stick to it and we're going to get better. We're going to have discipline, a lot probably like
[00:17:15] Joel Worcester: the sports you
[00:17:16] Joel Worcester: guys were a part of for many years.
[00:17:18] Joel Worcester: What do you think the difference is when you said you felt the pressure, it focused you down to the discipline, where maybe this other idealistic entrepreneur is just like, we're going to make it. But then like never the pressure doesn't actually
[00:17:29] Joel Worcester: like focus them
[00:17:29] Joel Worcester: down to the things that matter and move the needle.
[00:17:32] Chaz Wolfe: Joel, you want to give that
[00:17:33] Joel Worcester: I'll, I'll answer that quickly
[00:17:35] Joel Worcester: just
[00:17:35] Joel Worcester: cause
[00:17:36] Joel Worcester: I am such an for me, it is partners
[00:17:38] Joel Worcester: and good people. Like
[00:17:39] Joel Worcester: if I had just gone off entrepreneurially on my own, I think I would be
[00:17:45] Joel Worcester: that total So I have been humbled
[00:17:47] Joel Worcester: so many times over the years of just realizing how critical it is for me to have
[00:17:52] Joel Worcester: amazing partners.
[00:17:53] Joel Worcester: Joel is an amazing partner. And then just
[00:17:55] Joel Worcester: in the areas of the business that I'm focused on. Having a team around
[00:17:59] Joel Worcester: me that
[00:17:59] Joel Worcester: compliments my skill sets because I'm
[00:18:01] Joel Worcester: a big starter, not much of a finisher. And so I
[00:18:04] Joel Worcester: try to surround myself with
[00:18:06] Jesse Worcester: with finishers.
[00:18:07] Joel Worcester: think you've, you've met Josh Brown, for
[00:18:09] Joel Worcester: example, he's our,
[00:18:11] Joel Worcester: our kind of, um, Uh, skill sets are, are just like uh, uh, a key, you know,
[00:18:12] Joel Worcester: two keys that fit really well together.
[00:18:14] Joel Worcester: Cause we're kind of the, the,
[00:18:15] Joel Worcester: um, you know, a yang and a yang
[00:18:17] Joel Worcester: type
[00:18:17] Joel Worcester: of thing.
[00:18:18] Joel Worcester: So,
[00:18:18] Joel Worcester: yeah, that's, that's
[00:18:19] Joel Worcester: my take is it's nothing, nothing special about me. It's
[00:18:21] Joel Worcester: just having
[00:18:22] Joel Worcester: good partners.
[00:18:24] Joel Worcester: Joel, you want to add I. Completely agree. Um, I think the balance of partnership. I think that's one of those things where entrepreneurs starting out.
[00:18:34] Joel Worcester: It's I think that usually you sort of you're very confident. You think you can figure it out and it's very easy to kind of go on your own. And, uh, I just advise anyone try to find a part. It's so hard to find people who are like minded. You comp your strengths, compliment each other. So it's hard. And a lot of times you don't just team up with your brother.
[00:18:56] Joel Worcester: Like I'm incredibly lucky. Like we, we are very similar. Um, I mean, I mean that, I mean, I'm, I'm incredibly lucky. The three of us. And as we got more successful, we had disagreements with my. Older brother in different ways of looking at things. And so that happens, but we all, the three of us all had very similar goals.
[00:19:09] Joel Worcester: Like, what do we want to be in, in 10 years, in 20 years, what do we want a company to look like? And so we had very similar ideas, very similar drive, very similar ambition, but, but very complimentary and sometimes clashing strengths, which I, which I think was an incredible blessing. So I don't take that for granted.
[00:19:25] Joel Worcester: I mean, I got so lucky. Um, just to have two partners who are willing to, to make no money, do just work 80 hours, make no money, do everything it takes to win. And we were like rowing the same way, like we wanted the same thing. So that was like, I just agree with what Jesse said, and that is very unique. And I would say if you're like advising an early entrepreneur, uh, like find those people and don't, don't just like, don't just go partner with your best friend.
[00:19:52] Joel Worcester: Don't go partner with your best friend. You know, like find that person who you really, I got lucky, like find that person who really, you know, compliments you and really has the strength and get to know them really well. Cause once you enter that partnership, it's like a marriage, I think it's probably, and usually harder to get out of than a marriage and, um, especially if you aren't successful, that makes it even harder.
[00:20:05] Joel Worcester: So, uh, like we were lucky that we had a certain amount of success so we could do a buyout thing when we. When we started looking at things differently with with our older brother, but um, but yeah, I mean, uh, partnership is incredible and so important and also can be Be very dangerous if it's not the Let's talk about some of those disciplines that you guys are focused on. Um, you know, oftentimes in real estate it's You know a buy box or like things that you said you looked at 300 deals only bought two What are some of those x's and o's every single day that you or your team are just like no, this is what we do This is how we do it
[00:20:37] Joel Worcester: and we're going to get
[00:20:38] Joel Worcester: these things right every single time.
[00:20:42] Joel Worcester: Great question Yeah, you can go for it. Jess. you so our work Kind of wheelhouse, uh,
[00:20:47] Joel Worcester: on the real estate side is a hundred units and above. for a long time, it was just Kansas city, but now it's about, about a four or five hour drive. Uh,
[00:20:56] Joel Worcester: kind of, if you
[00:20:56] Joel Worcester: can do a day trip
[00:20:56] Joel Worcester: there and back, that's about
[00:20:57] Joel Worcester: our radius. Um, and.
[00:20:58] Joel Worcester: historically.
[00:21:00] Joel Worcester: I would say it was really kind of the value add, you know, it might be a,
[00:21:04] Joel Worcester: B C product,
[00:21:05] Joel Worcester: ideally in a step up area, you know, a C asset in
[00:21:10] Joel Worcester: a B area. Um, but something where
[00:21:12] Joel Worcester: there's upside potential, you know, there's, there's some untapped
[00:21:14] Joel Worcester: potential in the property. Um, there
[00:21:16] Joel Worcester: was a period there
[00:21:16] Joel Worcester: where.
[00:21:18] Joel Worcester: The market got so
[00:21:20] Joel Worcester: ridiculous,
[00:21:20] Joel Worcester: in my opinion, cap rates actually went
[00:21:23] Joel Worcester: lower on these value add
[00:21:26] Joel Worcester: older properties. Cause there was kind of
[00:21:27] Joel Worcester: this,
[00:21:27] Joel Worcester: There was a craze, you
[00:21:28] Joel Worcester: know, I think a lot of people, you know, we were fortunate to be one, you know, from 2009 to 15,
[00:21:33] Jesse Worcester: 16,
[00:21:34] Joel Worcester: 16, and there did a lot of these value add, uh, you know, projects
[00:21:37] Joel Worcester: and did really well.
[00:21:39] Joel Worcester: And so it kind of became a buzzword. Um, and so we've done since then,
[00:21:41] Joel Worcester: we've done
[00:21:42] Joel Worcester: some newer projects.
[00:21:43] Joel Worcester: Um, we've partnered with
[00:21:44] Joel Worcester: merchant builders and built, um, some new product, um, and then, uh, built a property ourselves, uh, with an in house, uh, construction But I, I would say, you know.
[00:21:51] Joel Worcester: Uh,
[00:21:51] Joel Worcester: by and large.
[00:21:52] Joel Worcester: And like,
[00:21:52] Joel Worcester: for example, the two properties that
[00:21:53] Joel Worcester: we bought last year, um, were traditional value add deals. there was a, uh, a mentor of mine, um, many, many years back, 30, 000 plus units.
[00:22:02] Joel Worcester: and
[00:22:02] Joel Worcester: he said,
[00:22:03] Jesse Worcester: when the,
[00:22:04] Joel Worcester: the, market is down, he's like, I buy, I buy
[00:22:06] Joel Worcester: existing, I buy older properties, I do
[00:22:08] Joel Worcester: value add. And when the market gets really hot,
[00:22:10] Joel Worcester: I just get pushed
[00:22:11] Jesse Worcester: in.
[00:22:12] Joel Worcester: To kind of the newer product, um,
[00:22:13] Joel Worcester: and not that we're
[00:22:14] Joel Worcester: trying to emulate
[00:22:15] Joel Worcester: that, but we definitely have experienced that a little bit where the market was hot. We did more of the
[00:22:20] Joel Worcester: newer product
[00:22:21] Joel Worcester: just because
[00:22:21] Joel Worcester: the, I'd rather
[00:22:22] Joel Worcester: if the operates are similar. I'd rather have a newer product. It's a lot easier to
[00:22:26] Joel Worcester: manage, but 100, 100 units and above and about a 5
[00:22:29] Joel Worcester: hour.
[00:22:30] Joel Worcester: drive time
[00:22:31] Joel Worcester: radius of
[00:22:31] Joel Worcester: Kansas City is really our
[00:22:33] Joel Worcester: niche and we do in house property management, um, and always have. And so, uh, that is a lot of groups.
[00:22:38] Joel Worcester: Um, I talk with a lot of
[00:22:39] Joel Worcester: investors
[00:22:40] Joel Worcester: kind of
[00:22:40] Joel Worcester: around the the feedback we get is
[00:22:42] Joel Worcester: there's a lot
[00:22:43] Joel Worcester: of groups of our kind of size, um, and capabilities.
[00:22:47] Joel Worcester: In
[00:22:47] Joel Worcester: terms
[00:22:48] Joel Worcester: of kind
[00:22:48] Joel Worcester: of the size of properties, we can buy, uh, the amount of capital we
[00:22:51] Joel Worcester: can put
[00:22:51] Joel Worcester: together that type of thing.
[00:22:51] Joel Worcester: Uh, but most of them will be either, you
[00:22:53] Joel Worcester: know, regional. So
[00:22:53] Joel Worcester: they'll have a much wider geographical footprint, or there'll be in multiple real estate food groups. So they might do.
[00:23:01] Joel Worcester: Um,
[00:23:01] Joel Worcester: you know, multifamily, but then they also do,
[00:23:03] Joel Worcester: you know, retail or officer, you know,
[00:23:06] Joel Worcester: some other components store itself storage or something like that.
[00:23:08] Joel Worcester: And so
[00:23:10] Joel Worcester: we
[00:23:10] Joel Worcester: always kind of had that,
[00:23:11] Joel Worcester: uh, hedgehog
[00:23:12] Joel Worcester: concept approach good
[00:23:13] Joel Worcester: to great, um,
[00:23:13] Joel Worcester: of just wanting to be narrowly focused and really have like, uh, a narrow niche.
[00:23:17] Joel Worcester: Um, it's
[00:23:17] Joel Worcester: a multifamily in a relatively small geographical radius is That's that's our
[00:23:24] Joel Worcester: Yeah, something I've actually been
[00:23:25] Joel Worcester: impressed just
[00:23:26] Joel Worcester: as I've gotten to know you guys and before we even met Jesse originally.
[00:23:29] Joel Worcester: Um, as I was just kind of reading up on you guys, it was like that, that hedgehog approach or just like, no, no, no, this is the game
[00:23:34] Joel Worcester: And we're, and we're not going to get distracted. And as entrepreneurs, we can always get distracted. And you know, I love the create, I've said for many years, I love the creativity of real estate.
[00:23:38] Joel Worcester: I'm not doing it for my full thing. Like you guys, I like to play and invest and that's my creativity space. But this is like, this is the thing that you're doing and building, just like I'm building gathering the Kings. And so. I have to be narrowly focused on this is what we're doing. This is who we're attracting.
[00:23:53] Joel Worcester: And same thing for you. I'm just so impressed with that. In case it came from a book, came from a mentor. Joel, would you add anything to just like your superpower? Cause I think it's what you guys have, honestly, is a little bit of a superpower where you're just really laser focused. Yeah. I appreciate that.
[00:24:05] Joel Worcester: Yeah. One of our core values is mastery and focus, um, and to be the best in the world at something. So. We try to in everything that we do, um, and we're entrepreneurial. So, you know, as you point out, there's that, that there's that entrepreneurial energy to like, Oh, try other things. And like, You know, so I think we very purposefully made that a core value because we understood that we're only going to be great at anything if we go really deep on it.
[00:24:28] Joel Worcester: So we had to kind of, we spent a lot of time saying, what do we want to be great at? What do we want to be the best in the world at? And so. As our company has evolved, we have like, we'll add business units that are complimentary to what we already do. Private lending, you know, we grow our acquisition. So whoever, whatever that person is doing for us, they need to be the, what we think is the best in the world at that thing.
[00:24:50] Joel Worcester: So that, that means the best in the world at acquiring at like our, our acquisition team, it would be the best in the world at identifying and, you know, and purchasing. Cash flowing, you know, multifamily real estate in the Kansas area. So that's something that's a tangible thing that we can be the best in the world that by, as Jesse pointed out, by looking at 300 properties, I mean, all they do is look at properties.
[00:25:12] Joel Worcester: And, you know, we're going to look at 300 and get three, you know, in a, in a given year. So, um, but yeah, we, we had to be very intentional about we mastering because we would organically, we would kind of just go off and try other things and we'd be okay at a lot of things. And we, especially, and I think going back to, you know, we started with investors.
[00:25:28] Joel Worcester: It's not okay to take other people's money. I mean, we, we had the mindset, like, we can't take other people's money and be like, okay, at this, like, like anyone who has money has thousands of options of where to invest it. And so just feeling that the weight of the fiduciary responsibility, I think that pushed us into like, Hey, if we want to, if we want to like build it.
[00:25:45] Joel Worcester: You know, stand and feel okay about ourselves and, you know, show our faces in public. We need to be great at whatever we I mean, I think it just, you know, both of you guys playing sports, it just all these like,
[00:25:54] Joel Worcester: I mean, this is the play. These are the practices. These are the drills. Like. These are all the things that we just, we just do repeatedly over and over and over.
[00:25:59] Joel Worcester: It doesn't matter that I can already do it. I just, I keep doing it. You know, I was listening to a clip the other day of,
[00:26:04] Joel Worcester: of Steph Curry.
[00:26:04] Joel Worcester: Obviously he had had just an incredible game, uh, with the last, with the gold medal game and, and they said that he's the greatest shooter, uh, ever 3, 200 something shots or something like that.
[00:26:13] Joel Worcester: But that he's for 15 years, at least that's just his 15 year NBA career. Every single day, he shot 500 shots in practice. Like that's what he does.
[00:26:20] Chaz Wolfe: And they
[00:26:21] Joel Worcester: they did the math on it. It was like, millions of shots to make 3000 in the game. And that 3000 has literally made him the best shooter of all time.
[00:26:32] Joel Worcester: Yeah, it's not about the millions, but you, but you
[00:26:32] Joel Worcester: can't have the 3000 without the millions, it's a great,
[00:26:35] Chaz Wolfe: so, um,

[00:26:36] Joel Worcester: yeah, Joel, did you
[00:26:37] Joel Worcester: watch the end of that gold
[00:26:39] Joel Worcester: medal game? I saw highlights. I saw highlights. I was going to text you. I actually watched it.
[00:26:43] Jesse Worcester: end.
[00:26:44] Joel Worcester: I watched it live.
[00:26:45] Joel Worcester: It was insane. Yeah, it was, it was unbelievable. He just
[00:26:48] Joel Worcester: went, went to a whole nother level, which like you said, Joel, when you have mastered
[00:26:52] Joel Worcester: something, you know, we talk about self mastery or, or mind mastery, even
[00:26:55] Joel Worcester: business mastery,
[00:26:56] Joel Worcester: marriage master. I mean, you can, there's a lot of things that we still need to master. We can't just even focus on
[00:26:59] Joel Worcester: particularly one like in business.
[00:27:00] Joel Worcester: Yes. Like you guys are mastering,
[00:27:01] Joel Worcester: you know, multifamily,
[00:27:02] Joel Worcester: but. It, it takes like deep work focus, which is the ability to
[00:27:05] Joel Worcester: just like really hone
[00:27:06] Joel Worcester: in, but it takes like a long period of time and like just this extreme
[00:27:09] Joel Worcester: effort
[00:27:09] Joel Worcester: or in intensity or obsession with, you know, doing it and then doing it at the highest levels, right.
[00:27:13] Joel Worcester: Yeah, I love that. And it, it, it, it has to be an obsession, I think, to practice. So I love your state, uh, Steph Curry analogy. Like he had to be obsessed to do the, to take those 500 shots. Like everyone, I mean, anyone can show up at an Olympic gold medal game and like want to, you know, and like be motivated at that time, but the, I mean, he's there because of those.
[00:27:30] Joel Worcester: 500 shots per day and he was obsessed with that like and and that's how we've been like Upset getting obsessed with the work that we know we have to do and it's so mastering focus is a core value But like one of my weaknesses has been like being too obsessed like you're saying having the balance It's like that's probably been the hardest thing for me at least and I know jesse can relate to some degree but uh I mean to probably a large degree but you have we have these other things that we know are really important family and You know, all these, all these other things that are, you know, more important, you know, in the whole, in the whole scheme of things.
[00:27:53] Joel Worcester: And how do you balance, how do you balance that? Like, that's, that's the thing. I still haven't figured out. I'm 41 now, so. Um, let me know when you, when you have got that Yeah. Well, I'm going to, I'm going to turn it back on
[00:28:01] Joel Worcester: you. Uh, I'll give you a little runway though. Um, what I have learned is that
[00:28:03] Joel Worcester: just
[00:28:03] Joel Worcester: because you know, my, my marriage or my
[00:28:06] Joel Worcester: children are
[00:28:07] Joel Worcester: more important to me than my business, it doesn't necessarily mean I spend more time with that.
[00:28:12] Joel Worcester: And so
[00:28:12] Joel Worcester: importance or value doesn't necessarily, or priority doesn't necessarily equal Exactly. And, and I think that that comes down to maybe some communication with those who are involved with whatever equation that we're trying to create, but how does that look in your family, whether it be with your wife or you're with your kids,
[00:28:27] Joel Worcester: maybe other
[00:28:27] Joel Worcester: extended family, like, what does that look like as far as the obsession on that?
[00:28:31] Joel Worcester: Yeah, I just have to, uh, time block, like being very intentional. And so that, you know, I, I would. I would be a mess without time blocking. Like, I'm going to, and, and, it's strategic, it's like, I know that if I don't spend time with my kids, I, I'm not gonna, they're not gonna be as happy, and I'm not gonna be as happy, and so, I just need to do it, but once I'm in the, like, you know, in the swing of a work day, and all this stuff, it's easy to, Neglect that.
[00:28:47] Joel Worcester: But if I've like, if I've time blocked it off and said, it's like, I'm not going to neglect it. I know that would feel terrible. I, yeah. But Joel, I became an entrepreneur because I didn't want anybody to tell me what to do. And now you're telling me that I gotta like, yeah, I gotta stick to a schedule.
[00:28:58] Joel Worcester: What I don't understand. Yeah. It's like the blessing and curse of that freedom is we have to, ironically, we have to actually be more disciplined because, We don't, I am not accountable to anyone really. I mean, I'm accountable, obviously my partners, investors, but I can do whatever I want with my time. And that's, that can be a curse.
[00:29:18] Joel Worcester: So I have to be extra disciplined because I don't have someone who's telling me, I, you know, I can't, I can't, you know, spend 15 hours working in a day or whatever, like I, I, I have to be strategic about that.
[00:29:29] Chaz Wolfe: Yeah.
[00:29:29] Joel Worcester: Yeah. Jess, you want to add anything there to
[00:29:30] Joel Worcester: just the obsession
[00:29:30] Joel Worcester: about you, your family, your kiddos?
[00:29:33] Jesse Worcester: Yeah.
[00:29:33] Joel Worcester: mean, I feel like I'm as, bad at this as
[00:29:36] Joel Worcester: it gets. And for
[00:29:37] Joel Worcester: me it's, it's future oriented
[00:29:39] Joel Worcester: versus Like my biggest
[00:29:40] Joel Worcester: struggle, even if I've time
[00:29:41] Joel Worcester: blocked and
[00:29:42] Joel Worcester: I'm okay, I'm on, spending family time.
[00:29:44] Joel Worcester: I
[00:29:44] Joel Worcester: will sit at one of my kids soccer games envision their whole life
[00:29:49] Joel Worcester: and, and
[00:29:50] Joel Worcester: estate planning And, and, and,
[00:29:52] Joel Worcester: how am I going to.
[00:29:53] Joel Worcester: You
[00:29:53] Joel Worcester: know, transfer
[00:29:54] Joel Worcester: ideas and wisdom them. And all of a sudden I'm like, what just happened in
[00:29:58] Joel Worcester: the last, I
[00:29:58] Joel Worcester: mean, I'm not even, I'm, I'm struggling to even watch the game.
[00:30:00] Joel Worcester: Um,
[00:30:00] Joel Worcester: that is by far, and I don't have it figured out
[00:30:03] Joel Worcester: at all. Uh,
[00:30:03] Joel Worcester: it's, it's something I was mentioning. I was in a, uh, kind of an
[00:30:04] Joel Worcester: all day mastermind group just on Wednesday.
[00:30:07] Joel Worcester: And we talked about that
[00:30:08] Joel Worcester: a ton and I'm just trying to learn
[00:30:10] Joel Worcester: and listen to others. Cause yeah, that is like my biggest, and I'm trying not to beat myself up over it. Cause I feel like, um, future being future oriented and planning and strategizing is a strength. So I don't want to beat myself up that that's kind of
[00:30:23] Joel Worcester: the place
[00:30:24] Joel Worcester: I go to.
[00:30:24] Joel Worcester: And that is my happy place.
[00:30:25] Joel Worcester: like
[00:30:25] Joel Worcester: I like to sit quietly and think about the future. Um, but I'm still trying to
[00:30:30] Joel Worcester: figure out
[00:30:30] Joel Worcester: just to, yeah, just
[00:30:30] Joel Worcester: how to be present.
[00:30:32] Joel Worcester: Um, and like our family's been playing a lot more board games it's, competitive, so it's in the present and it's active
[00:30:39] Joel Worcester: and
[00:30:39] Joel Worcester: we literally have, I think probably like 50, 60 board games and that's kind
[00:30:44] Joel Worcester: of our, that's the, that's one
[00:30:45] Joel Worcester: way where I can find that I'm super present because I'm trying to beat my kids at
[00:30:50] Joel Worcester: What about for you, Tess? Good question. Um, you know, I think, I think you're right with the time blocking. If you looked at my
[00:30:57] Joel Worcester: schedule, um, and my wife's,
[00:30:58] Joel Worcester: it's just like every minute of the day, hasn't it
[00:31:00] Joel Worcester: has an assigned purpose. And,
[00:31:02] Joel Worcester: um, and so that, that's by far number one and you're right. That discipline actually is what equals Um, it's, it's,
[00:31:07] Joel Worcester: the entrepreneurs and the investors who are listening to this going, well, I have
[00:31:10] Joel Worcester: all the freedom that I want, but their, their, their week wasn't planned out and they're just shooting fires all day long and they
[00:31:15] Joel Worcester: think that they have freedom, but they really don't.
[00:31:18] Joel Worcester: Yeah. They're being tugged and pulled in all the different directions. And which then to me, it, it pulled me away from the
[00:31:20] Joel Worcester: things that I
[00:31:21] Joel Worcester: said that I wanted, which was time with my wife, time with my kids. And so when I sit down on Sundays and I plan that out, literally every single minute of the week, I know exactly how the week is going to go.
[00:31:29] Joel Worcester: And now
[00:31:29] Joel Worcester: there's obviously
[00:31:30] Joel Worcester: wiggle and I'm not like a robot, but
[00:31:32] Joel Worcester: I'm telling myself how
[00:31:34] Joel Worcester: this week is going to go.
[00:31:36] Joel Worcester: and then I'm going to freaking stick to it because I'm a winner and I'm going to do what I said I'm going to do. Yeah. And my family can count on that. Yeah, I love that. And I, like, I even have to, uh, I will time block, you know, recreation time.
[00:31:44] Joel Worcester: So it's like, Hey, this is the time where I'm going to, I'm going to do whatever I feel like doing in the moment. Like, like, I'm going to read, I'm going to really like, there's no, but like, I am such like, I'm so like achievement oriented and goal focused. That I, to relax, I have to, for one, earn it. So I have to like accomplish things.
[00:32:01] Joel Worcester: And then two, I have to have like strategically planned to relax. So it's like the only way I can relax and, and everyone is different. So it's like, it seems like it defeats the purpose, but it's like, that's how I. Like the, the, the opposite that you were describing, that's like hell to me. So,
[00:32:16] Joel Worcester: Yeah. well, and, and so to be on it, there's a couple of nuances here.
[00:32:19] Joel Worcester: I just love this conversation. We probably go hours on this, but, um,
[00:32:21] Joel Worcester: for, for you,
[00:32:21] Joel Worcester: Jesse, have you, you guys ever looked at a working genius? It's a Patrick Lynch, Tony program. Okay. At live. Oh yeah. Yeah. Okay.
[00:32:26] Joel Worcester: Are you wonderer? I'm no, but so my
[00:32:31] Joel Worcester: wife is, I'm the, I'm the, um, the second two,
[00:32:33] Joel Worcester: what are those? Oh, okay. okay.
[00:32:33] Joel Worcester: So
[00:32:33] Joel Worcester: the ideal, uh, ideator and the galvanizer. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That makes sense. I can, I can see that,
[00:32:38] Joel Worcester: that,
[00:32:38] Joel Worcester: that ability that you have to just
[00:32:40] Joel Worcester: Sit
[00:32:40] Joel Worcester: and be, which was, you know, what Joel's saying, like, I don't know what, what that's about. I'm like, I'm like Joel where my leg has been shaking this entire time because I I'm just Ready for the next thing, you know,
[00:32:47] Chaz Wolfe: And
[00:32:49] Joel Worcester: so to, to,
[00:32:49] Joel Worcester: encourage you, Joel, but then also, um, to align with Jesse, like Friday afternoons, I have a two hour block for think time and it is one of the hardest things I do all week where I go, I actually leave my office, I go to a place
[00:33:00] Joel Worcester: and I sit, I have a notebook.
[00:33:01] Joel Worcester: It's designed just for it. blank notebook.
[00:33:04] Joel Worcester: One, one,
[00:33:05] Joel Worcester: one Mont Blanc.
[00:33:06] Joel Worcester: and I go, and I and I write down my thoughts, and it is one of the hardest things I do every single week. Yeah. There you go. Yeah, you're further along than me, because I can't, like, I can't meditate. I've, I've tried to do that a little bit, but.
[00:33:17] Joel Worcester: Just hasn't gotten into my schedule, but yeah, no, that's, that's great. I relate.
[00:33:22] Chaz Wolfe: Well, I
[00:33:22] Joel Worcester: I want to, I want to, I want to, uh, end the show here. We're just talking about the future since we've been kind of talking about living in the future, but.
[00:33:27] Joel Worcester: you know, from a real estate perspective, maybe business, but economically you're thinking ahead, you know, there's some interesting things happening right now, politically, economically.
[00:33:33] Joel Worcester: What are you guys thinking, doing, looking at, and the next.
[00:33:36] Joel Worcester: Yeah. So, uh, you can go first if you want guests, but I, no, you, you
[00:33:44] Joel Worcester: got it. So, uh, like just our business, like our, our, you know, main business, real estate interest rates have had a huge impact on things. And we've been very fortunate in that we've locked in low interest rates.
[00:33:57] Joel Worcester: We have one deal. We have like 25 active deals or portfolios. Right now. Uh, and we have one that has interest rate exposure. So we're incredibly fortunate. Um, we walk in interest rates and or purchase, you know, with long term non recourse agency financing. Most of it's non recourse agency financing. That's like, it was either 10 or 12 year terms.
[00:34:16] Joel Worcester: Um, and so that we're very fortunate with. Um, but we have, I mean, we have one deal that has some exposure. And so we're dealing with that. Um, and, and then I think the interest rate environment, the reason I talk about interest rates right now is I think that's going to have just a huge impact on what happens with real estate.
[00:34:32] Joel Worcester: If rates don't, and rates have dropped considerably over the last, you know, 30 days. So, um, and we're now expecting rate cuts. Um, which I think will happen, um, to some, to some degree, it'll be interesting to see how that plays out. But if that doesn't happen fairly aggressively, there's a lot of commercial real estate owners who are very exposed.
[00:34:48] Joel Worcester: And so I hate for anyone to suffer or, or feel pain or anything, but we also see this as an opportunity. And we've, we've, um, purchased, you know, a handful of deals over the last couple of years, uh, way less than I would have hoped, you know, knowing the rates went up and knowing that a lot of people are exposed and those people who.
[00:35:04] Joel Worcester: You know, when the tide comes in, there's plenty of people who, you know, their shorts are down. Uh, and I would have expected more good deals, but because there's so, because like us, we're rarely going to sell anything because we have, we're locked in. So there's a lot of owners who are just not selling right now.
[00:35:21] Joel Worcester: And so there's been been slow, you know, very little inventory. And the, those, the deals that we are buying are, you know, someone has to sell because of interest rate exposure, but there's still a lot of other buyers out there, so we're not getting as good a deals as we would hope, but, but to answer your question, um, we are, we would love to buy a lot of real estate over the next year or two.
[00:35:42] Joel Worcester: Um, I think when we're trying to buy with bank financing now, which is, which we can refi into long term. So we're now buying with a little bit shorter term financing, like five, we're fixed for 10 years, but, and we have interest rate exposure for five, not to go to in the weeds, but, um, so we're being very strategic about how we buy real estate right now, um, to take advantage if rates do continue to go down.
[00:36:01] Joel Worcester: And then on the other side, we are, we're very involved in Hawaiian bros. I, we haven't talked about that on this, but, um, we co founded it and I'm, I'm on the board. And so, and we've, we've raised a lot of capital for them and, and we're still doing that. So, um, and then once we get to a certain point with Hawaiian bros, we will, uh, we'll start a venture capital fund.
[00:36:14] Joel Worcester: So I don't know if Jesse mentioned that to you, but, but that's, that's something that we're very excited about. We love investing in, you know, In people in new companies new ideas. So that's kind of the next thing. So we're not we're not You know shutting down anything we're doing we're pivoting from what we're doing We're still but we're like the our growth Is going to be just buy more real estate and then and then start this venture capital fund Where we're investing in all these deals and that's that's super exciting.
[00:36:36] Joel Worcester: I love I love analyzing um, you know new companies new ideas and that balance of like the math and then just the like Belief in a, in a person, in a, in the psychology kind of behind it. Um, that balance is super invigorating to me. Yeah. You get to have your own shark tank. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, Jesse, what would you add to forecast and, or, you know, you're right, we haven't talked about Hawaiian brothers, which is totally what we should have, uh, spent some time on, but, um, it'll be part two, I guess. . Yeah. Jesse, you wanna add anything to that? The only thing
[00:37:02] Joel Worcester: I'd add is just the, um,
[00:37:02] Joel Worcester: I feel like we're
[00:37:03] Joel Worcester: kind of on the precipice. And and trying to figure this out
[00:37:07] Joel Worcester: So this is a
[00:37:07] Joel Worcester: challenge that I'm
[00:37:08] Jesse Worcester: invigorated
[00:37:09] Joel Worcester: by is the, the
[00:37:10] Joel Worcester: challenge of
[00:37:10] Joel Worcester: scale. Um, and
[00:37:11] Joel Worcester: I
[00:37:12] Joel Worcester: I think we, you know,
[00:37:14] Joel Worcester: we're
[00:37:14] Joel Worcester: butting up against where we're going to have to
[00:37:17] Joel Worcester: scale.
[00:37:18] Joel Worcester: um, you know, through finding.
[00:37:21] Joel Worcester: know, really great people or just, you know, growing the team with really great people, which we have
[00:37:25] Joel Worcester: a phenomenal team Um, but kind of that,
[00:37:29] Joel Worcester: the team makes fun of me. because I talk about systems and, um, SOPs like way too much. Um, but just cracking that code of.
[00:37:39] Joel Worcester: how to, how to
[00:37:42] Joel Worcester: bring someone on board and, um,
[00:37:46] Joel Worcester: educate them and, and, and, uh, make them a part
[00:37:49] Joel Worcester: of the culture
[00:37:50] Joel Worcester: and our values and kind of how we think not
[00:37:52] Joel Worcester: just, not just tactically, you know, how to do X, Y, Z, but how do we think about
[00:37:58] Joel Worcester: buying
[00:37:59] Joel Worcester: deals?
[00:37:59] Joel Worcester: How do
[00:37:59] Joel Worcester: we think about management? How do we
[00:38:01] Joel Worcester: think about leadership? And so that is something that I would love for us to chat
[00:38:05] Joel Worcester: in a year or two and say,
[00:38:07] Joel Worcester: we have all these learnings
[00:38:08] Joel Worcester: that I can share with you and we can go deep on that. Um, but
[00:38:10] Joel Worcester: that's something that I'm really excited about. And
[00:38:13] Joel Worcester: I don't know, we don't have the,
[00:38:14] Joel Worcester: the, the code cracked, but, uh, it's something that I think we're going to
[00:38:18] Joel Worcester: do a lot of work on
[00:38:19] Joel Worcester: in the next Cause we have, these big goals of, you
[00:38:24] Joel Worcester: know, we want to buy more property. We want to expand into
[00:38:26] Joel Worcester: new markets, but
[00:38:26] Joel Worcester: at the end of the day, we're going to
[00:38:28] Joel Worcester: be capped
[00:38:28] Joel Worcester: by the quality of talent
[00:38:30] Joel Worcester: and the quality of people that
[00:38:31] Joel Worcester: we can, uh, find and, and to what degree they can execute,
[00:38:36] Joel Worcester: You know, the, the, the vision and,
[00:38:38] Joel Worcester: and,
[00:38:38] Joel Worcester: you know, the tactical
[00:38:39] Joel Worcester: and the more,
[00:38:40] Joel Worcester: um, cultural, uh, you know, plans yeah, I mean, you guys, uh, the exciting piece there is like, you know, neither one of you were
[00:38:47] Joel Worcester: like, yeah,
[00:38:48] Joel Worcester: well, you know, doom and gloom, you know, and I think that that's where growth. Mindedness, um, is birthed is like, no, there's always another opportunity. No matter what's coming around the corner. We had a guy at one of our last, um,
[00:38:59] Joel Worcester: events.
[00:39:00] Joel Worcester: he's a kind of a big real estate guy, but he just came in and talked about the economy.
[00:39:03] Joel Worcester: Um,
[00:39:04] Joel Worcester: and, and he's an
[00:39:04] Joel Worcester: immigrant. He was, he was more patriotic than anybody else I've ever had on this show and, or come speak to any of our events. And he was like, look, he like had
[00:39:14] Joel Worcester: this, you know, super nerdy
[00:39:15] Joel Worcester: spreadsheet and like,
[00:39:17] Joel Worcester: literally like line by line, all the bad things are about to happen over the next three years.
[00:39:20] Joel Worcester: He's like,
[00:39:21] Joel Worcester: but
[00:39:22] Joel Worcester: we're, this is America, you know, like he was way more optimistic
[00:39:27] Joel Worcester: after he shared all the best stuff. You know, he's
[00:39:28] Joel Worcester: like, this
[00:39:29] Joel Worcester: is probably going to happen and that's okay. Like there's, if you look back far enough, all this has pretty much happened over the course of the last, however many hundreds of years.
[00:39:37] Joel Worcester: Okay, great. Like this is freaking America. Come on, let's go. Let's get excited. And it was just a totally new
[00:39:43] Joel Worcester: spin on
[00:39:44] Joel Worcester: a, the truth, but then be like, it's okay. Like we're going to figure it out. That's what we do as entrepreneurs and maybe Americans. I love that. Yeah, that's, that's yeah. Like every, every negative is an opportunity.
[00:39:58] Joel Worcester: I mean, that's very cliche, but it's, it's true. And like, I think that's a mindset that's hard to, you kind of have it or you don't. I mean, anything can be trained. I'm a growth mindset person, but. But that's so critical to, to, uh, success. I think in anything is seeing opportunity where other people are seeing the doom and gloom.
[00:40:16] Chaz Wolfe: That's right. That's right.
[00:40:17] Joel Worcester: that's right. Well, I appreciate both of you guys for being here and spending the time. Um, of course we'll continue to build the relationship, uh, being so close together here in
[00:40:23] Joel Worcester: Kansas city,
[00:40:24] Joel Worcester: but if anybody's listening and they want to connect a with you guys online or social media, or they want to invest, or they want to come to some of your events, like.
[00:40:31] Joel Worcester: How can they find you guys?
[00:40:33] Jesse Worcester: yeah,
[00:40:34] Joel Worcester: Worcester investments com and, uh, Worcester is like Worcestershire sauce or Worcester, uh, Massachusetts. Um,
[00:40:41] Joel Worcester: it's not very phonetic,
[00:40:42] Joel Worcester: So you kind of have to
[00:40:43] Joel Worcester: figure your way into it.
[00:40:44] Chaz Wolfe: in there.
[00:40:46] Joel Worcester: Yeah.
[00:40:48] Joel Worcester: Um, but yeah, website is, is, uh, the best we have all of our contact information and they
[00:40:52] Joel Worcester: can connect with our,
[00:40:53] Joel Worcester: our investor relations team is really
[00:40:56] Joel Worcester: Kind of the key to getting
[00:40:57] Joel Worcester: connected to us.
[00:40:58] Joel Worcester: Cause if they don't have the answers, then they can connect
[00:41:01] Joel Worcester: a person with whoever
[00:41:02] Joel Worcester: does. So, um, that's, that's usually the best way to
[00:41:05] Joel Worcester: Well,
[00:41:06] Joel Worcester: I appreciate both of you guys for being here, both Kings in your own right and winning. Uh, we've given some, uh, incredible stuff for the audience here today.
[00:41:13] Joel Worcester: So thank you for both of being here. Appreciate you. Thanks for having us. Really appreciate
[00:41:18] Jesse Worcester: All right.
[00:41:18] Joel Worcester: Wow, guys. Well done. How'd you
[00:41:22] Chaz Wolfe: How do you feel about that?

In this episode of 'Driven to Win,' host Chaz Wolfe interviews Joel and Jesse Worcester, co-founders of Worcester Investments. The brothers discuss their journey from borrowing $200,000 from their parents during the Great Recession to building a multimillion-dollar real estate empire. They share their experiences, challenges, and strategies for handling immense pressure, dealing with investors, and maintaining integrity in business. The episode also touches on their disciplined approach to real estate investments, the importance of partnerships, and their future plans for scaling their business and venturing into new investment opportunities.

Worcester Investments Website:

https://www.worcesterinvestments.com/

Chaz's favorite morning drink to fuel him for his day:

10% off Code: GATHERINGKINGS10