Finding Your "Investor DNA" to Choose the Right Strategy for You | Clayton Hepler

In this episode, Dalyn Hazell sits down with Clayton Hepler, and they deep dive into the cash flow banking system, build lasting wealth for generations, acquisitions, finding deals, and house hacking.

Clayton Hepler is a Chief Wealth Strategist and CEO of the Creative Capitalist and podcast host. He empowers entrepreneurs, executives, and real estate to create, protect and multiply their cash flow. This system positions their money in savings to earn uninterrupted compound interest while they can simultaneously put it into assets that multiply it. In other words, they can make their money work in two places to accelerate their path to financial freedom and abundance. His goal is to help over 10,000 entrepreneurs and real estate investors in their plan in reaching financial independence by December 25th, 2024.

Key takeaways from this episode:

03:15 - Who is Clayton and how he jumped into the real estate industry

07:18 - How important acquisitions are to real estate

08:36 - Jumping into real estate while enjoying your W2 job

10:05 - How a W2 job can make you a better real estate investor

11:40 - Why following your investor DNA is important

14:17 - How to figure out your investor DNA

18:46 - How the whole life insurance policy strategy works

30:54 - How to build an abundance mindset and eliminate the scarcity mindset

Tune in to learn more useful insights from this episode!

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Connect with Clayton

Email: clay@creative-capitalist.com

Phone No.: 724-708-6677

Website: https://www.creative-capitalist.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clayhepler/

Connect with the Host, Dalyn Hazell:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dalyn.hazell/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dhazell24/

Email: dalyndhazell@gmail.com

Transcript

Introduction  0:00  

This is the real estate investing for Freedom podcast, where we bring on the experts to teach you the golden nuggets of real estate investing. So you can escape the rat race and start living life on your terms. Now, here's your host Dalyn Hazell.

Dalyn Hazell  0:23  

Welcome back to another episode of the show. If you're new or returning, I'm glad you're here and you're tuned in to a good one because I sit down with Clay Hepler today, and we go all in to the cash flow banking system. What does it mean to build lasting wealth for generations? And what are the families like the Rockefellers and those wealthy families doing to preserve their money over time, because,  it is said that the first generation earns it, the second enjoys it, and the third squanders it? So we definitely don't want to end up like that. We want to build lasting wealth for generations. So we talked all about that. We talked about acquisitions, how he's finding deals today, and he's also house hacking and triplex so we could go into that. And just overall good stuff, a gambit of topics that are very relevant today. So make sure you stay until the very end. So with all that being said, I welcome you onto the show Clay Hepler with the creative capitalists, Clay, welcome to the show. How are you doing today?

Clayton Hepler  1:18  

I am doing tremendous, it's a little cold here. I'm talking to you from a three-unit and or,  Pittsburgh mansion. And unfortunately, when we bought it, we didn't have the money that to put it in insulation. So our furnace is working hard, but I can feel the draft here in my podcast studio.

Dalyn Hazell  1:37  

Wow. So you haven't insulated yet, huh?

Clayton Hepler  1:40  

Yeah, yeah. So So last year, unfortunately, when we originally purchased this property, our contractor took the $10,000 from us that was allocated towards insulation. And so it was kind of like the last thing that we had. So we were like, well, I guess we're not gonna have insulation, we're just putting really high-efficiency furnaces, and it works. But not as well as it could have.

Dalyn Hazell  2:02  

Yeah, now all the units that have that issue are just yours.

Clayton Hepler  2:06  

So as physics,  heat rises, right, so we're on the second floor. And our first-floor tenant is like, sitting pretty. Our third-floor tenant has smaller square footage, and we put a furnace above him. So basically the heat comes down into his unit. So it's actually pretty effective. But the way that our units are structured for some reason, it's just the worst unit. And so we have like this wind tunnel of the draft that comes in through ours, our wall. So it's,  it's it was a good first house hack, but not,  not you can't get everything right on your first deal.

Dalyn Hazell  2:46  

Oh, no. And your house hacking? I mean, you're doing it. So I'm sure it's worth it,  colder temperatures, for sure. It's all worth it. Well, cool, man. Uh, welcome to the show. And why don't you tell the listeners a little bit about yourself? And when did your aha moment in real estate come about?

Clayton Hepler  3:04  

Yeah. I mean, so that's a reality? That's a really great question.  I was, I think I have to kind of give my whole backstory here. So, your listeners can really understand. So I was on the fast track to working for the government. I was on the fast track to working for the State Department. I went to college specifically to work in the embassy, United States Embassy, and I speak Spanish and Portuguese. So I wanted to do us Latin American bilateral trade, economic political relations, and I went to what a site is, and I was doing work from the for the embassy down there. And it ended up really just not working, not working out. I was like, I don't want to stamp passports for five years just to get you to know, a raise. So I dropped out of college for a semester and I said, Hey, I just want to take some time off and that time off turned in turn to definite I haven't gone back yet. And during that time period, I joined a family business, which was a luxury chocolate business. So we sold chocolate to higher and specialty shops,  think about like cold foods, but like smaller Whole Foods, small businesses, and  Hotel chains, like four-star five-star hotel chains. And when I was doing that, I met this guy that was basically owned a bunch of businesses in the Washington DC area, the specialty shops and this was kind of his like retirement gig. He had like seven businesses, especially shops, and I really befriended him, and he was a cent a millionaire. He was the first set of millionaires that I ever met. And for those who don't know your audience, that's someone with a net worth of over 100 million, I think it was like 120 or 130. And he originally taught me about how wealthy people operate and think. And he taught me about like a family office and like,  advisors, investment advisors for real estate for different private placements for insurance advisors, and he taught me about accountants and attorneys and all In this whole world that like I didn't know of, and he said, Hey, Clay,  I've befriended him. And he's like,  you should start learning about real estate. So it gave me Rich Dad, Poor Dad, as you can imagine, that's like the book to start out. And after that, I just consumed about,  bigger pockets, like all the content, and got a real estate last year. And I just was like, This just makes too much sense to buy a house and live in it, and have your rent be paid. So that was my first foray into real estate, I actually left my family's company to join a firm, a real estate firm, and like four years into, or four months into real estate for five months, I got this property under contract and close it a couple of months later. So that was my first experience in real estate.

Dalyn Hazell  5:47  

Oh, yeah. It starts with being around the right person. And for me, it was like, just like, I was running away from something, but I didn't like it. My job for you. It was like you were running towards something that you thought was a new venture. So I think it's interesting how people like to get into real estate for different reasons and different motivations. So Well, cool. And so once you left the family business, you said you went to a real estate gig, what was that gig? Like?

Clayton Hepler  6:15  

Yeah, yes. So I'd have bent toward, hey, I want to go and provide value to someone. So I can really learn this kind of a hands-on approach. So I joined this firm, a really great firm locally in my market, which is Pittsburgh, and I just helped them do some multifamily deals in the first year buying sort of,  Mom and Pop sort of multifamily deals. And then I switched to a role as the director of acquisitions, helping build out a wholesaling and flipping arm. And in our first year, which was this last year, which is 2021, we did over 60 deals. So I did all the acquisitions work, and I did all the dispositions work. And we had a lot of guys come came alongside who were super helpful with transaction coordination, and kind of more high-level stuff, but I was the guy in the trenches, building the sales processes, and getting the deals under contract.

Dalyn Hazell  7:08  

Or, oh, acquisitions. I mean, explain how important acquisitions are to real estate. Because as we know, if you don't have any deals, you don't have any checks?

Clayton Hepler  7:18  

Absolutely. So I like to think of real estate in,  basically two distinct buckets. And within the context of these two distinct buckets, there is sort of nuances, right, so the distinct buckets are, you get a property to closing. And then and then there's all the real estate after closing, I actually had a guy on my podcast this past week, that was discussing that he doesn't think there's enough content on YouTube that talks about when you buy a building, what what do you do, right, which is like, which is the majority of the time that you're going to own a building, like 99% of the time is actually owning it. But back to my analogy with the buckets, the bucket says, acquisitions, underwriting due diligence, you need to find the deal, you got to find the opportunity. And it's, it's getting more and more hard to find opportunities,  in that's just because the markets, there's a lot more people in the market, but you just got to find creative ways to find it. And then obviously, after the second bucket is the property manager, the asset management, the repositioning of the asset, and the renovations of the asset. Right, right.

Dalyn Hazell  8:29  

So once you've finished that role, I mean, did you move into your doing your own investments, your own thing, are you still with that company?

Clayton Hepler  8:36  

Great question. Yeah. So, I am I still have my job at my at the company that we do wholesale for and flipping, and I am have been buying on the side, right. So I was fortunate enough to have been very close to the market. And so I bought my first three-unit, and then about six, six months later, I bought us another three-unit. Then about two months later, I bought another single-family home. And then like four months later, I bought a six-unit. So I'm doing this all while having a full-time w two that's incredibly demanding. And the reason why I wanted to get into the W two is that proximity really power and that that's kind of a theme that I've tried to go after my entire life is understanding that in order to really under to get to the nuts and bolts of anything, you've got to go deep into it and be around people that like you referred to earlier that teach you about this specific thing that you're getting into.

Dalyn Hazell  9:44  

Yeah, so I mean, do you recommend that because not everyone should just jump in and start being their own boss right off the bat like being we think of it as a wholesaler or flipper. Do you recommend how you started out or how you are still doing it where you're kind of working Working with another investor partnering and learning those foundational building blocks as you go?

Clayton Hepler  10:05  

That's a really good question. I think that you got, you have to know who you are. Right? In real estate, we see the 500 stories about the guy in Guile that just went out on their own, and they did it. Right. I'm in the camp that says, Listen, I'm a little more conservative, I think that the best way to start out is to, obviously get around people network with people that know. And along the way, get to have conversations with people who know about it, and you befriend them and add value. Obviously, that's super cliche, but it's true. And I think the best way to get in is actually house hacking. So I bought my first property, three units and a low downpayment loan, right, it's favorable financing, and you get to play landlords, you get to play contract, you get to play property manager, and that I think that those are all critical skill sets that you need, at least to understand the fundamentals of to take your game to the next level. Plus, if we're starting earlier on our financial freedom process, we want to make sure that we can minimize or mitigate some of our biggest expenses, which is on average American budget is 35% of houses.

Dalyn Hazell  11:22  

And you're doing it right now in your three units. So let's talk about that investor DNA you mentioned, that's something I haven't heard phrase quite like that before. Explain how knowing yourself and having that self-awareness is key to being the right investor to picking the right strategy.

Clayton Hepler  11:40  

Yeah, so we are sold. A, we're sold, the notion of we should give up control of our capital or money,  in the way that we do that is we give it up to retirement accounts, we give it up to,  financial advisors, or we give it away in paying for online guru courses that are going to make us flip 100 houses in our first year. And I say, No, let's take back control of our capital, not only our financial capital, which I speak about a lot but also our intellectual capital, right. And so what that looks like is understanding who you are, as an investor, not every investor is actually going to thrive in a role of buying multifamily properties, or short term rentals, or single-family homes, like I hate single-family homes like I bought a single-family home, excuse me, every time I go out and go to this property. I'm like, Why did I ever buy this? I can't believe I bought this property. But I had to make the mistake. But all along the road, I realized that it's more important to get clarity early to understand who you are as an investor in what you bring to the table. People like to pretend and think that they can do things that they can't do. Now, I don't say listen, shore up your weaknesses. But what I do say is in my example is I am, I'm an acquisitions guy. I can underwrite deals, I can find deals, and I can build relationships with people. That's my background in like, I shouldn't be the guy that's like overseeing property management or overseeing renovations. That's just not me. And I know that I made mistakes. And I know that so that you can extrapolate that and say, Okay, what type of asset do I actually want to own for 10 years, instead of saying, I just want to speed up my way to financial freedom to go and buy the,  $15,000 membership or a mentorship program, it's important to know who you are, and get clarity on that first. And that's what a lot of times I teach my clients like, before you go into going into multifamily or buying mobile home parks, or ATMs or self stores or whatever it is, know who you are as an investor. And what you can play the long-term game is because if you can go and do something every single day and lose at it, right and not and not make the money at it. That's what that's one of the litmus tests, I say, because you enjoyed so much, you're gonna beat out the competition in the market in the real estate market that we're currently in. There's so much competition from people that are,  they're not following their core investor DNA and they lose, they lose.

Dalyn Hazell  14:17  

Because there are so many strategies and from, from my perspective, I mean, I would say to somebody, like buy your first deal, whether it's a home a condo, just buy it, and then figure out what you like and don't like, like, obviously, don't buy a bad deal, but figure out what you'd like about that and what you don't like and as with multifamily,  you have the privilege of like wearing fewer hats because the scales are bigger, but just knowing that investor DNA, a good way to do that journaling, I mean, daily journaling can do that for you. 100% And then,  just taking,  learning, talking to people that you look up to, they can kind of be your guideposts. What do you think about that as well?

Clayton Hepler  15:01  

That's a good that. I think journaling is very helpful. Uh, one of the things that I've actually heard and this is not in this specific context, but asking people that are close to you, what do you think are my gifts? What are my core skill sets, like my three top gifts, and what you can do is if you see what your gifts are, from these people, you can say, Oh, you're really good at teaching, you're very personable, you're really good at talking to people, or you're detail-oriented. And then taking those top specific gifts, and then applying them to whatever context you're applying them to. And related to your investing journey. It's gonna save you so much heartache, it's gonna save you so much heartache. I know guys that,  spent five years buying single-family homes, and they realize five years later, that it was like the worst decision that they bought single-family homes, they are trying to sell them all now and it's just a pain in the butt. So do that homework upfront. Getting clarity on who you are as an investor, it's going to make your life so much easier.

Dalyn Hazell  16:01  

Yeah, I love your approach to that investor DNA. So let's shift gears and talk about this strategy you're very passionate about, and I've never even heard a phrase this way. So maybe you can start with a definition and then go from there. But what is cash flow banking?

Clayton Hepler  16:17  

Right. So I have to tell you a little bit about how I originally heard about this topic, this concept. So I'm going to go back to the conversation that I had earlier about my mentor. So I realized that in order for me to get to be as wealthy as this guy, or more than financial freedom and most importantly, abundance. I needed to think and act like a wealthy you and I both know that real estate is amazing, right? Like real estate is the tax advantage. You got cash flow, you have depreciation, you have an appreciation, you have the debt paid down. I mean, it is it's one of the crown jewels assets that you can invest in, in if you're an American, right if you're the United States citizen, but one of the other crown jewel assets, it's not even an investment vehicle, it's a savings vehicle. And very wealthy families like the Rockefellers, Rockefellers, the Rothschilds, and the Ron have used this specifically designed life insurance, to warehouse their money to put their money in, which gives them four to 6% uninterrupted interest on their money. And then they take that money that they would have flown into a bank, a normal bank, and then they go in and leverage it to buy real estate, to buy businesses to pay for marketing expenses. And they use the cash flow, the value of the production that they got from investing in those assets, to pay back their own personal bank. That's, that's what I've learned. There are so many other benefits to it, there are creditor protections, there are guarantees,  guaranteed growth guaranteed on the principle, and their death, there's a death benefit that you can pass to your heir tax-free. It is a really amazing saving vehicle that has been used by the ultra-wealthy and can be structured in a way that can accelerate our path to financial freedom for any, any person, any person.

Dalyn Hazell  18:15  

Yeah, so kind of go in a little bit deeper. Because of my upbringing,  I've been raised with Dave Ramsey, and so I always bought term. And so what's the difference between this, and obviously you're not making money from we're not pitching you on anything, because,  you're not selling this, this is something that wealthy people have used. It's, it's all we're saying here. So I want to dig deeper into this strategy is that you buy a whole life insurance policy, and then you just wait, and it goes up in value, and then you can leverage off of it.

Clayton Hepler  18:46  

Great question. So I agree with Dave Ramsey. The whole life insurance that is sold by your local Northwestern Mutual or mass mutual agent is an atrocious way to save your money. And so I agree with him and exactly what he says the reason why I agree with him is the way that he talks about the structuring of these policies of a normal life insurance policy is different than the way that I structure. So the guarantees are that you have to pay a premium to pay for your life insurance. When you pay a premium, which is like a mortgage payment. You can think about this as a mortgage payment that you pay either monthly, quarterly, or annually. When you pay in that premium, you get a cash value growth in your account. Now conventionally, when you use whole life insurance that is not structured for early cash value, it takes years for you actually for their actual to be cash value to show up in your account, which is For any real estate investor in for any person looking to get to financial freedom, that's a huge no, no, right, because you're getting a negative return on your investment for the, for 15 years, you don't have any, it doesn't catch up for 15 years, the way that we structure them, we add term insurance, we add riders to the policy themselves. So all that that means is we have the base policy, the premiums that you would pay to get the life insurance. And then we have basically these, these additional things that we put on the side of a life insurance policy that give you early liquidity. So instead of waiting,  10 years to get your to get part of your money back in the first year, you get access to 70% of the money that you put in. Okay, so people will hear that and say, well, well, well wait for a second, I'm not getting access to 100% of my money. And I would say listen, I felt the same exact way, when I originally heard about this, you have to pay for the death benefit, you have to pay for your insurance costs. So there's a cost of putting you're setting up one of these policies. Now, depending on your health, depending on your age, usually between this third year, and the six-year, that's when you break even. And then you're and then the cash value that you put in is going to be that compounded four to 6%. Every single year. Does that all make sense?

Dalyn Hazell  21:28  

Yeah. So Should someone do you still have your old term insurance policy, or do you just say there's like a rider to it?

Clayton Hepler  21:37  

Yeah, so you can think of the rider as just a way that we structure the policy so that we decrease my commissions or any life insurance Commission you decrease your death benefit, which gives you an earlier cash value into the policy. So that's all you have to do when you think about that specific play. That's all it is,

Dalyn Hazell  22:03  

okay. And you can use the cash value for any purpose to invest to live off of.

Clayton Hepler  22:09  

So here's what I do with it. Because I eat my own cooking, a lot of times, it's built specifically with these types of products, people just sell them and they don't use them to invest. So what I do is I put my specific amount every year into it. And then I take out policy loans, and I invest in my deals with him. So I took out policy loans to buy this single-family bird that I did, and then I refinance and paid my policy loan back. Okay, so my money is still in my account working. And then I have that asset. Right. So you it would have been a similar sort of situation if you just want to use cash. But if you look at over the long period, 20 3040 years, the amount of compounded compounding of your money at four to 6% is millions of dollars of difference in terms of the amount of money the amount of capital that you can have in your own banking system.

Dalyn Hazell  23:07  

Right? Hmm. So so it's like you have like a forced savings account, you're paying for your insurance. And it's like an IRA that you can tap into at any time, essentially,

Clayton Hepler  23:17  

exactly. It's like an IRA without any sort of government regulations to pull out the capital. And the really good thing about it, is you define the payback periods. So I always analogize this, it's, it's very similar to equity in real estate, right. So if you have a home equity line of credit, which I do have on one of my properties, or a line of credit on one of my properties when you pull out a line of credit, you can go and go and buy something, you can buy whatever you want with it, you can do the same exact thing with the policy one, I just use it to buy assets, so that I can continue to pay back my bank, right. But you can go and buy a car with it, there are ways to use it to buy a car when we can get into that later if you'd like to. And you actually end up winning by using this type of thing for buying a car instead of paying cash. But you can think about it as a line of credit, but you define the payment terms, right? So you only have to pay the interest every year. So say you take a $100,000 loan out, you only have to pay the interest. So if you need a big you have a big business expense, and it's going to take you two or three years to get that capital back. Right. So you invest in some marketing,  thing that's gonna take two or three years and you use the policy loan to buy the marketing thing? Well, you don't have to pay back the policy loan, like you have to pay back a line of credit or a mortgage, you define the terms which are really attractive for real estate investors in particular. So they don't have like if it's a hard money loan, you don't have someone knocking on your door.

Dalyn Hazell  24:53  

So when can somebody expect this little nest egg to get big enough to where it actually starts to move the needle? You can buy assets with it.

Clayton Hepler  25:02  

I mean, I started buying in my first year,  when you open up a policy like this as I said, you have 70% of the access to your capital in your first year. So, the second year, it's like 80%, third year, it's like, depending it could be 9590,  and then it could break, I mean, then it can break even. So, I used it in the same year to do that.

Dalyn Hazell  25:25  

Gotcha. And so that's where you were saying, like, by the fourth or fifth year,  you've kind of broken even you can access all your capital,

Clayton Hepler  25:32  

yep, you can access your capital. And by that period, you're starting to get,  1% in terms of your IRR, and 2% tax-free returns. So this is all tax-free growth. So what that means is it depending on what your tax bracket is, it could be,  one or two percentage points higher than if it was just,  in a taxable account.

Dalyn Hazell  26:01  

Yeah, this has been interesting. So, like, Where Can somebody learn more about if they wanted to take out one of these policies?

Clayton Hepler  26:07  

Yeah, so  I might my podcast, creative capitalist, you can get me  Clay at Creative dash capitalist, you can email me you can text me, I give out my phone number 724-708-6677. Text me call me I love to talk about it. I it's not right for everybody, for a lot of, especially entrepreneurs, real estate investors, it's, it's really good, it's a really good thing to implement.

Dalyn Hazell  26:31  

Well, let's shift gears here and talk about like how you think long term before off-camera, we talked about your vision of helping 10,000 entrepreneurs reach financial freedom, and what really got you into thinking big and thinking long term like that,

Clayton Hepler  26:47  

right. So it's all a core part of my investor DNA, right? So I love real estate, but real estate doesn't get me up at night.  keep me up at night and get me up in the morning. It's just boring blocking and tackling great cash flow, love it. But I, unfortunately, never really experienced total financial abundance in my life, my family lost pretty much everything in 2008. And before that, I we get it we live pretty, we live pretty well. But I was never in a position to experience a lot of financial freedom. And I think that we as, as human beings are at our best at our highest self when we are financially free. And when I say that, I mean, we give back more, we're more more more open, we want we go and invest in more experiences. And the moment that when I talk to someone, and I help them with something like this, at the moment that I see that it clicks, and they say yeah, like I'm going to get to financial freedom and the amount of relaxation they have. And they say,  I can go, I can go and be a better dad, for a better mom. Or can take one of my goals is to take my mother and my father on an all-inclusive trip to Lucca, Italy, I mean, I'm talking vineyards, I'm talking the best of the best, and I can't do that now. I can, I'm close to it,  hopefully, sooner rather than later. But the amount of joy that that fills me up with to give to the people that I have. And when I see people that say I've just had financial, I have I can spend more time with my daughter, I can be a better human being because I can be present. I'm not constantly thinking about scrimping and saving and delaying my life and deferring it. And that's such a shame. Because we're we're meant to experience we're meant to give back. And this is sort of my way of thinking, hey,  I believe I was put here for a reason. And I found it. I found the reason why I'm here. And it's helping people get over their kind of their financial, the narrative that's in their mind that that the conventional narrative of how to get to financial freedom and abundance, break that and say I can be so much more abundant. And I can be abundant in my relationships in my life. And unfortunately, our culture is a capitalistic culture. Well, that's fortunate, unfortunate, and it revolves around our ability to produce and have money. So I'm just a facilitator for that.

Dalyn Hazell  29:41  

Yeah, it is all up here.  it starts there. And I think what goes beyond that, too is you're impacting those people that are closest to you,  your family members, friends, colleagues, and just creates a ripple effect because a lot of people watch the YouTube videos, take the courses and And then they don't do anything with it. So it's another level to see,  hear back from people Oh, this is what I did with your advice. And I'm sure that's been very fulfilling for you.

Clayton Hepler  30:12  

I mean, what would you do if you were totally financially free? What would be the first thing you would do?

Dalyn Hazell  30:17  

So I would,  I would do more trips,  give more and not that I already not that I don't give now or don't wreck trips now but it would just be more abundance, it'd be more frequent. And surely that would lead to more happiness, you know? Because those magic moments are repeated over and over in quicker frequency rather than once, twice, three times a year. So that's for me, that's abundance. And so how can somebody begin to build this abundance mindset and eliminate the scarcity mindset?

Clayton Hepler  30:54  

Yeah, so I got I was not always like this, actually, the moment that I switched that I flip the switch in my head, that event, I need to change the way I view the world because scarcity is a greater The greatest destroyer of wealth. It's not like who we are. It's not investing in a bad piece of real estate. It's not investing in a bad stock or crypto like a new coin it craters or whatever, it's you, it's scarcity. If you are constantly in a consumerist behavior, your thinking like like I'm going to consume everything, I'm going to hold everything back, I'm going to scrimp I'm going to save you don't think abundantly don't think production and abundance aren't about to like, let's all run in a field like levitate and, and sing songs. Abundance is about having your decisions governed, not by scarcity, but governed by value. When you think abundantly you can create more in the world you focus on how can I serve more people? Versus how can I take from more people, right? You don't try that you don't think about stealing and stealing is not just like going to your local giant, or your local grocery store and shoplifting ceilings, like stealing moments from people because you don't want to pay for the bill for your friend, right ceilings, like I don't want to go out and experience this specific thing with my brother, or my sister, because you know what, I'm just not, I'm not in that financial position. He cripples our daily lives. And so that's, that's why I'm so passionate about the abundant versus the scarcity mindset. And when you when you're in abundance, you focus on your, the person that you're serving, how you can serve them better how you can create an environment where they flourish better. And if you start to think that way,  for example, three years ago, when I was dating my now fiance, she came to Pittsburgh, we had a long-distance relationship. She came to Pittsburgh, and it was her birthday. And I love birthdays now like I'm like I every birthday, we go on a special trip. And it's just, it's incredible. And she came to Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, and we went to a restaurant at happy hour that wasn't even that nice of a restaurant at happy hour. I didn't order a drink or an entree for her birthday. It was 530. And what I got here was an old shoebox with alike, old like stained panties. And I said I didn't even wrap it. I just gave it to her. And I said, Hey, I'm gonna buy you,   some underwear for your birthday. And it was like 60 bucks and like that the amount for the meal was 60 bucks. And some people were like, okay, $120 for a birthday. Like, there are some people, that's all they can do right now. But the fact that I could have done more, and I was living in scarcity, and I ruined that moment as most people say, when I tell them a story, they're like, as your fiance or she broke up with you. But I allow that narrative to define my daily lives in my real estate, and business and explode my wealth consulting, cash flow consulting, and business didn't explode my life. And my daily choices didn't explode in abundance until I made the decision to live in that world. And that's a decision we can make every day.  when you go to the grocery store, do you grab,, your cereal box and look at the price? Or do you say what is this worth it? Is this valuable to me?

Dalyn Hazell  34:27  

Yeah, absolutely. And that goes with everything. I mean, we tend to look at the price tag versus the value, whether we're on the receiving end or the giving end, we have to value ourselves accordingly. So,  some people have come to me for mentorship. And I give them a price and then it's either yay or nay because they internally value.  see what that value is for them. But for one person, it's like, oh, yeah, like sign me up and another person is like nothing, And then they continue to do the same thing over and over. So it's like, do they have the abundance or the scarcity? It's either-or, it's kind of like a switch like you said, you just flip on one day, after reading enough books or,  in your case, that first exposure to that DECA millionaire, I bet that switched your switch your mindset pretty fast.

Clayton Hepler  35:21  

Yeah, and understanding too, that you are your greatest asset, it's not a piece of,  piece of real estate or stock or a cryptocurrency or it's you. And when you start to think that way, investing in yourself like in a mentorship with you, you've done already, right? You've had the experience, you've made the mistakes. So why don't they compress,  years into days, and have a conversation with you? And when you're willing to invest in yourself, you're basically saying, and you're allowing a professional to help you along your way, what you're saying to yourself is, I'm worthy, I can produce the value to pay for this. I want to invest in myself, right? When you go to a grocery store, do you get the highest quality food? Or do you go get them you know? 40%? Beef? 60% fat, right? Like your body is super important. So so how are you treating your body? How are you treating yourself? Do you give yourself Self Love? Or? Or do you give yourself self-hate there is it's a huge, comprehensive thing you have to think about? That's what starts with abundance. And that's why the wait, that's why I teach my clients to do and that's what I do in my life because it's a total game-changer.

Dalyn Hazell  36:33  

If you by chance clay Have you done any sort of like scripting or law of effort Law of Attraction techniques?

Clayton Hepler  36:41  

Yeah, so I, I've done pretty much everything, right. Like, I've gone to the Tony Robbins stuff, as I've done, I paid for coaches like performance coaches, I, what I do every morning is I read my goals, I read a script of what I want my life to be like, it's December 24, 2024.  I have three people working for me, in my wealth consulting business, we go on a yearly treat every year with the spouses, they feel like in my context, they can do better than in any other context. I have $30,000 a month and a passive thing. I mean, I do it all right, because like, I believe you're aligning, your subconscious mind with what direction you're going in.

Dalyn Hazell  37:26  

Yeah, when I wrote down on that notebook paper last year, what I wanted, it all came true. And I'm still just in disbelief at all that it was from listening to a mentor, like you or it was a YouTube video. And they were talking about it. And I wrote down, I have left my job at this date. Sure enough, it happened. I have this many houses, sure enough, it happened. I have this much income, sure enough, it happened. And it's like, wow, I wish and now I do that with everything in my life. And everything just grows and rises. So it works. Just started hitting your head.

Clayton Hepler  38:03  

It totally works. And you know that the perfect example is you in order to have in order to hit the next level, what I've realized is it's about intentionality, right? Like if you're going to the gym, and you just started going to the gym or just started working out, you can just go in the gym and like lift up dumbbells, and like, bench press a little bit. And you're like, holy crap, this is so easy, right? But if you've been going there for years, and you put in the work, it's intentionality, it's, it's,  if I lift this,  dumbbell this specific way, I'm going to get this specific result. And with food, if you want to be super fit or in our personal finances, if we want to be fit financially, it's about intentionality. And as you said, the scripting, when you get so intentional about the direction that you're going in, and, and who you want to work with and who you want to be around. You have a vivid vision for your life. It just falls into place much easier than if you're just kind of like throwing yourself around and trying to figure it out along the way. That never works. Yeah.

Dalyn Hazell  39:17  

Well, I know we're getting up on time here, but I have a few quick questions. So shifting gears, since your role is as  in acquisitions, any tidbits Any advice for people that are  looking for deals that need help on the acquisition side,

Clayton Hepler  39:31  

totally in this market. People respect to speed and speed comes from confidence. And confidence comes from certainty. Certainty comes from intentionality. So you have to know what you want. related to your investing goals. Maybe talk to this gentleman here, right maybe talk to him about how do you go to plan write it in speed Understand you got your lending relationships, you got everything going on. And you know exactly what you're going to,  get yourself into and speed wins the game.  for example, I just got a six-unit just bought a six-unit,  the, I call the seller off Craigslist, of all places. I call the seller, the seller gave me a basic I'm like it was a rental ad I said, Hey, are you interested in selling this building? And she's like, maybe,  I've been thinking about it, I gave her a full price offer, as is within like, two hours. This is a three-unit multifamily building that I didn't even go in. Now, I don't recommend that to everyone, because I've seen a lot of houses in my day, right? But you need to know what you're looking for. And you need to work with someone maybe that can help you figure that out or just figure it out on your own.

Dalyn Hazell  40:52  

Yeah, confidence is key, and sellers. See that through you whether it's over the phone or in-person more so in person, I can see that confidence. They know if you're a true professional or not, by the way, you appear and talk. Awesome. Well, clay, I have a last few parting questions for you. And this is called the triple threat. It's the same three questions I asked each guest. The first one is what has been the app tool or resource that's been the biggest game-changer for your business,

Clayton Hepler  41:22  

the app tool or resource I like to have it track. I like habits to track. I mean, this is probably like a cop-out. But I like to, like visually track my habits every day. And so I just use it as an Excel document. But there are like a million habit-tracking apps. But I'm really intentional about my habits like what am I doing? Right? Like what's going to move me closer to my goals health-wise, relationship-wise, financially, everything. And so, find a habit tracker and break it down what you need to do to get there. critical

Dalyn Hazell  42:01  

question to what has been your biggest failure in the last year? And why do you think that happened?

Clayton Hepler  42:07  

My biggest failure in the last year? I think it's not that it was not realizing my investor DNA sooner. It was not realizing who I am as a person sooner. I was pretending that clay Hepler was this,  going to be this certain specific person. And when I dug in, like you said the journaling, the journaling was huge. But a journal about who am I what do I bring to the world? And what do I want to bring to the world? It was a totally different answer. And I was really helped by my fiance actually she was incredibly supportive. But it was not jumping into this,  helping entrepreneurs, high producers, and real estate investors set up these specifically designed policies to get them to financial freedom faster, sooner.

Dalyn Hazell  43:01  

On that topic, our podcast is all about helping others achieve freedom with real estate investing, whether that's financial lifestyle or otherwise. So what does freedom mean to us specifically?

Clayton Hepler  43:12  

Yeah, Freedom means to me that I can help my parents in my fiance's parents retire and help my rental properties in my, in my life,  my, my life work in this entrepreneurial life work, helping them live the life that that,  they've lacked for the last two decades.

Dalyn Hazell  43:40  

Like that? Yeah. When you're doing it for other people, it's, it's a little more inspiring. Amen. Because when you do it for yourself, I mean, like, for example, when I left my job last year, that was all about me, like it was my job is my disdain for it. And then after that, I felt I felt good, but I felt a little bit empty. Like I had just done this all for myself. And then I, I wasn't using my time after that efficiently. So then I had to shift my focus. Okay, what can I do for somebody else with this time and part of that podcast? So that's one way that manifested my life

Clayton Hepler  44:20  

yeah, man, the content you put out and the questions you asked are really, really good stuff and I think that people especially now more than ever, or have a hunger to get into getting financial freedom,  people are thinking alternate more and more people are thinking alternatively and in the value that you gave with the podcast. Love it.

Dalyn Hazell  44:42  

Thank you. Where can listeners learn more about you and your life work?

Clayton Hepler  44:46  

Well already,  told everyone I kind of missed the memo earlier. I was like, Oh, I guess we're wrapping up the podcast here. Let me just show but you can get me my website is creative-capitalist.com. clay@creative-capitalist.com is my email, you can text me 7247086677 I'm expecting some spam calls, but  I'm going to pick them up anyway. And I'm on Instagram on LinkedIn, I'm on Facebook, Clay Hepler reached out to me, I love having these conversations whether it's helping you guys out with you're setting up your own banking system, or just talking to you about,  my real estate experience or my alternative investing experience. I love to talk to people about this, so feel free to reach out.

Dalyn Hazell  45:35  

Well, thanks for being an open book today. It's been a pleasure hearing from you and meeting you and learning how you're doing it as a young guy in the profession. So thank you.

Outro  45:45  

Thank you for listening to the real estate investing for Freedom podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe and leave us a review and tune in next week for the next episode.