On this episode of Investing for Freedom, Mike chats with good friend Blake Clark. Blake talks to us about some of the challenges he’s faced in life and how he overcame them, as well as talking about an upcoming project that he is excited to share. Enjoy!
“I will intentionally put myself around people that are way bigger than me. I want to be the little guy in the room, and a lot of people have a hard time checking their ego on that.”
HIGHLIGHTS:
0:00 – Intro
2:46 – Blake’s parents have had the biggest impact on his life, in good ways and bad. He tries to learn something from the people he’s around
5:19 – Blake’s risk-taking is the thing that has impacted his success the most
13:04 – Keep your goals ahead of you and find someone to mentor you
14:38 – Blake talks about how he found his mentor
19:39 – You are only one person away from what you need
20:09 – Blake describes his greatest setback and how it changed his mindset and network
28:22 – Blake’s best piece of advice is to stay consistent
32:43 – Blake discusses more of his background and how tragedy can affect success
41:53 – Blake goes through phases of being object driven and then goal-driven
46:26 – Blake is a big family man and he hopes to bring his kids into his business
51:56 – The next plan for Blake is to start his own brokerage and he gives us details on his upcoming project
FIND | BLAKE CLARK
Instagram | @blake_sells_az
Facebook | Blake B Clark
FULL TRANSCRIPTION:
Mike Ayala: Thank you for joining me on the Investing for Freedom podcast. Today, I’ve got a friend who I met through, actually through my son, which it’s kind of interesting how many amazing entrepreneurs and people I’ve met through Dylan. And by the way, I’m going to have Dylan on the show. Probably next week, we’ll probably follow up with this while he’s in town. But yeah Anyway, so another great person that I met through Dylan and the thing I want to throw out there too. I was thinking about this morning as I was on my way in to record this podcast, the power of social media because this particular guest Blake Clark we talked quite a bit on social media for a while before we ever even met in person. And you know, the Social Dilemma out there, the new movie on Netflix that everybody’s talking about and social media can be a time suck. But the thing that I want to say to all business owners out there, and I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately is how valuable it can be if you create bumpers, I look at this as like, you know, when you’re bowling and when the kids are little, you put the bumpers up. We all have the same goal and it’s the pins down the lane, but the bumpers are there to keep us out of the gutter. And that’s the thing with our time. So as long as you put these boundaries around social media, the thing I want to throw out there is just how valuable number one, this relationship has become. And I’m so excited to hear, for you guys to hear his story and also where he’s going. I think you’re going to be inspired by it. And we’re also going to create a new program where we follow up with guests who have this huge 10X vision 12 months down the road and we’re going to check-in and show you what he’s done. And Blake’s going to be the first one that we’re going to, we’re going to bring back in 12 months.
But anyway Blake Clark, I’m just going to stop here and let you guys hear from him. We ended up finally meeting after talking on social media forever, and I’ve just been so inspired by his story and I’ve been watching him from a distance. And I think this is actually the first time we’ve even seen each other in a year and a half since we’ve met for coffee, right?
Blake Clark: We’re all over social media together. We comment on our stuff all the time.
Mike Ayala: Yeah. And I feel like I know you, and it’s just, it’s just from us communicating on social media. So, there is value to social media, but enough of that Blake, thank you for being on the show.
Blake Clark: I appreciate you having me, man. Thank you.
Mike Ayala: Let’s dive into the four questions. This is going to be an amazing interview. You guys are going to be totally inspired by Blake’s story. So, stick with us. So, Blake who’s had the greatest impact on your life.
Blake Clark: So, it’s a tough question to answer for me, honestly. I think, I mean, obviously, my parents have in both good and bad ways, I don’t think a lot of people will be willing to admit that. And in some ways, there’s a lot of things that I think I learned from my dad at a young age that is exactly who I am today because of that. There’s a lot of things I learned from them at a young age that I’m exactly who I am today to not be like that. And so, there’s good and bad on both of that. I’d say, and then I don’t, it’s really weird. I don’t look at, there’s not one person out there that I’m like, yeah, I want to be like that person. What I’ve really learned to do because as weird as it sounds for me is, I think when you try to imitate and model one person, it just, it confuses you even more. And it gets because you’re like, Oh, I got to do everything like this person and obviously they’re successful. So, I need to do exactly everything they do to be successful. And I found a lot of frustration in that. So, what I tend to do these days is I look at what my goal is, whatever my objection is for that year. I find somebody that’s really good at that, that I just, I admire what they’re good at. So, whether that be like hey, this person is killing it in this business from a sales perspective. Well, what can I learn from that person? And then I’ll seek them out through social media. I’ll seek them out and try to take the best habits from that person. And the key things that make them successful in that. And then maybe, you know, with somebody else, like going into this year, like you and I were talking about before this got started was, it’s a time thing. Like next year, one of my biggest goals is like hey, I want to invest more into myself. I need to, I’ve done a great job of scaling income, but not scaling, probably more passive income that I want to see to free up time. So, going into next year, it’s like, okay, that’s where my goal is going to be. So, let’s start seeking out people that can help me get a lot better at that. One of my really good friends Templeton, he’s a buddy of mine. He’s killer at Like the work-life balance. I’m always envious of that guy. You know, like he’s funny as heck. But the one thing I admire about that guy is he was in my shoes and was able to still be successful, but scale back and you know, do a lot of family time stuff. So, for me, like with people, I don’t look at one person. I just look at like, Hey, that person, I like that part of that person, what can I model off of that? And just take little bits and pieces from everybody to make myself, you know, what makes me happy.
Mike Ayala: That is valuable. And we’re probably going to come back to that because I mean, there was gold in that. So, we’ll circle back. If you could narrow it down to one thing that has had the greatest impact on your success, what would that be?
Blake Clark: Risk-Taking, just I worked for a big company. I’ve worked for a couple of companies for a long time and I invested a lot of time into them. One of them was a big corporate job, invested a ton of time. I was a high, high up production manager there with them. The company went through some challenging times and they basically, they basically said, you know, you can’t hold people accountable to sales anymore. And it’s a sales job. So, my team was struggling. We were good people, and I was just so invested into that job. And then they ended up, I had a competition one day. I told my team, you know, whoever made X amount of outbound calls or whatever, I’ll take you guys to lunch. And that company fired me for that. Cause I, and mind you, I was like one of the top-performing teams, so it was an ego thing for me cause I left and I’m like, man, like I poured eight years at this point, you know, I learned so much invested so much time, Energy was all for the company. All for the business, grew my team, we had great comradery and then to be, let go for something so petty like that, I was like done. Like for me at that point it was, it was basically to rely on myself, it’s like, okay, I got two kids at that point. You know, we had my youngest that was coming in. So, for me it was like, you just got to take risks. Like you got to invest in yourself. You can’t rely on other people for your security anymore. And I’ve always stuck from that. Like that was the pivot point for me, that took me from kind of the stable, like the non-risk I got the job, I got the comfortable, you know, 401k and pension to alright, I have the ability and it wasn’t like that overnight. Like, you know, I’m not going to say I just flipped a switch, and it was like a massive risk-taker and go-getter. But that’s where it started to pivot for me. And ever since then, I just decided, you know, it’s just funny, like the more you do it, the riskier take you’re like, okay, this worked out. Okay, okay, I failed a little bit. Let’s just readjust and do better. And then that has tremendously allowed me to scale. Like I would never go back to an hourly job ever again, like looking back, I’m almost disappointed in myself that I spent my entire, almost twenties working for people when I could have just figured this out a lot sooner.
Mike Ayala: I don’t want to, I don’t like to get stuck on these questions, but you just said something that before the show you were telling me, I put a post-up a long time ago that said you know, your neighbor, your boss will never pay you enough to be his neighbor. And I mentioned that, and you said you actually live next to him, right?
Blake Clark: Yeah. Really good guy. I worked, one of my jobs. So, after that had happened obviously, I got a job right away. I didn’t come, I needed kids. I actually took on three jobs. I was driving kind of trucks in the evening and work in a call center. And I was doing a kind of marketing for a large doctor’s office. And they had hired me to do a lot of their social media marketing and just event marketing. And I was like the face of the business. And so, I started to scale. They started off at three offices, got up to, I was like seven within the first, like two years, helped them scale up, build out their business. And then I decided, you know, it was like, man, I don’t really have a retirement. I lost my 401k and the company investment when I lost my big corporate job. So, I was like, let me get into real estate to just start buying some rental properties. You know, I just needed a place to something, you know, and it seemed like a good idea. And I like rentals for some reason it gets stuck on that when I was younger. And so, I went to them and said, hey, I’ve got to quit. I didn’t even have a job lined up at that time. I just said it’s going to take me three weeks to go to real estate school. And they were paying me a salary at that time plus a bonus. And I said, I don’t feel right taking a salary from you guys and going to school and you guys pay me for a month. So, I’m going to, and he’s like, well, man, we need you. And he’s like, how about this? How about I still pay you for the month. You still help out, you know, after school and after, you know, outside of classes still do some marketing stuff and I’ll even pay for you to go to school and all that, as long as you promise to come back. Cause at that point I had no intention of doing real estate, like full time. It was just strictly going to, get my license just to have access to deals to invest in. So yeah, he paid me to go to school. I came back, the first year I did really good in real estate. I went to him again a year later, said, hey man, I got to probably quit, real Estate’s doing good. He gave me a raise not to quit. I’m going to hang out with you again for two years. And then by year three, I had to quit. But on year two, I’d actually sold him his house, which is in my neighborhood. I quit. And then six months later I bought a house three doors down from him.
Mike Ayala: That’s awesome.
Blake Clark: Now we’re neighbors. We see each other every day.
Mike Ayala: Well, and that’s such a great point. Cause when I, you know, when I threw it, when I throw that post out there and I say something, I even hesitated to put it up for a while. Cause I have a lot of employees and trust me like I want my employees to quit. I mean, I want, I made a comment about, you know, Dylan, our content guy. I’m like, I don’t know, and maybe he has no intention of leaving. We’ve never talked about it. But I want to see them prosper. But the reality that we all know is that 70%, 80%, 90% of the people are not going to put that level of work in. And so anyway, back to the post, when I put that, I hesitated to put that post out for a while. Cause I don’t want, I don’t want it to come across demeaning or demoralizing or anything to employees, but if they take it properly like you did, I mean, obviously you didn’t do it based on my post, but this is such a great story that I actually throw that post out there cause I want people to do what you did.
Blake Clark: Yeah. I think you should always have it in the back of your mind to help develop your people. It gets important to me. I think that they’ll feel that. And to your point, there’s probably always going to be those people that I think you’re right. They don’t have it in them and not in a bad way by any means. It’s just, the personality isn’t there. Or you know, maybe they value the weekends off and the nights off, you know, they are very content and that fits in with their end goal in life. You know, not everybody’s end goal is, Hey, I want to make a shitload of money and that was one thing for me. And I still catch myself on that because I get so invested into people where I’m like, no, you got to think bigger. You got to do this and this. And my wife and a lot of my friends got to reel me back. Sometimes they’re like, that person doesn’t want that sometimes. Sometimes you can’t force that on people. And I’m like, you’re right. Like it’s not even my place, but I always, it’s always the intention exactly like what you said to help people. You want to see them grow. You want to, I get a lot of self-fulfillment when you see people you help. They take that advice and they run with it and they start reaching goals because you are willing to help them. It’s an amazing feeling for me.
Mike Ayala: Well, and that’s why the process you know, what do you really want? Why do you want it? What are you going to do, to get it, measure results, and then adjust? That’s why that’s so important in whatever process you use, whether it’s mine or someone else’s, it’s so important that you go through that process and figure out what it is that you want as an individual. What Blake just said is just such wisdom. Cause I fall into that same trap too. I’m constantly like trying to get people to fit into what I want. It’s what does Mike really want?
Blake Clark: You get mad when they don’t do it. You’re like, no, you’re capable of so much more. You get so frustrated and it’s just like, I got to let go of that sometimes.
Mike Ayala: And that’s why, you know, the roadmaps are so important, whatever roadmap you’re going to use to really determine what you want because the adjust is important because it’s your roadmap and you have the freedom to adjust that. But you really need to. I was having a conversation this morning with a girl that lives in England and Dubai and my mentor, David Osborne. I just spent three days with him. He’s awesome. He’s like her dream mentor. And she went into his office at one point in time. And she was talking about how he has pictures of every, like all 72 properties that he owned then, he’s got goals all over his wall. This guy keeps this stuff in front of him. But the thing that’s inspiring to me is David will be the first one to tell you that he wasn’t born organized. He wasn’t born a goal setter. Like he went through a process. And so, you know, I guess what I’m getting at is just whatever it is you want in life back to Blake’s comment that was so wise, it’s your dream. It’s your vision. It’s your life. You figure it out but keep it in front of you. And then I’ll go back to what you said before. You know, find that one person that has it just, it could be 10 steps ahead of you. It could be a hundred steps ahead of you but find that one person that can mentor you in that. That was so wise.
Blake Clark: Yeah. Yeah. I put a post-up on my social media last night, asking people if they pay for a mentor, it was good. I got a lot of people that said they would. And I had people that said they wouldn’t. And I remember for me, I remember being that guy at one time. It’s like, no, I’m not paying anyway. I’ll figure this out. And then as you get older again, with the time, my times worth something, you just figure it out. You’re like, man, I could totally just go to somebody that’s already got this figured out. I was already 10 steps ahead. It’s like what you said, compensate them for their time. You know and a lot of people look at that completely wrong. Like why do I have to pay somebody? Well, their time is worth something. They’ve probably lost a lot of money. Like the same thing for me building my businesses. Yeah, I made good money, but I’ve lost a ton of money figuring things out. And so, it’s the right thing to do. You just go to that person and said, I’ll compensate you for your time. Teach me what you know, cause their time is valuable. It’s worth money, you know and man, you can shave off so many years of just, I mean, yeah, there’s going to be that always that humbling part. Like I just figure it out on my own. True, But would you rather speed that process up and just get that done in a year instead of figuring it out five years and the money you’re going to spend and waste, figuring it out on your own over five years versus whatever compensation you can give that mentor just to help you to figure it out in six months to a year, I’ve been down this road many times. It’s just cheaper to pay a mentor.
Mike Ayala: I agree so much.
Blake Clark: Save yourself time.
Mike Ayala: You know, and I think some people out there that you’re the, probably the people that answered no to your thing. I mean, it could potentially be, you know, they’ve been burned by a mentor or whatever, but I think a lot of people have this preconceived idea about, well, and I won’t even say burned by a mentor, probably burned by some program they bought run into the back of the room that didn’t really add value to them. But the other side of this, and I want to point this out because I think what you said again is just so wise, if you don’t have skin in the game and somebody in your position that we’ll get into this in a little bit, but you know, you’ve got a lot of people that are trying to, I’m doing air quotations, pick your brain. From your perspective, you want to have somebody that’s got skin in the game too. And you know, they’re committed to actually not just picking your brain and wasting your time. Because and there are so many people that want to pick your brain and they’re never going to do what you tell them to do. And so, if they’ve got vested interest through finance and capital, they’re going to be more committed to that process.
Blake Clark: That is just such a low barrier entry to weed people out at this point. Not only to your point with skin in the game, I’m only, anything that I’m a hundred percent invested in, I’m going to put skin in the game. You know, like I’ve had mentors that I seek out and I’ve offered, like I will pay you. And they ignored me for a little while. I will, listen, I’m going to pay you. And you’re going to either tell me, yes or you’re going to tell me, no, but I’m going to be here. And next week, guess what? You’re going to get another DM for me. And the week after that, there was one guy I chased for a year to coach me. I kid you not on social media, just coach, just chased this guy. Chased him, DMD him. He would reply about personal stuff. Like he’s got some cool cars like this dude does very well. And I’m a car guy and I’m like, it’s a cool car. And you’re like, yeah, thanks man. And then I’d shoot him a DM on the next week about business. Ignore it. It shows read and ignored. I’m like, alright then like, you know, he’d do something about his house with like a pool. And I’m like, yeah, I built my own pools and Oh, thanks for the advice that, and then next week he [15:58 inaudible] I asked him, he ignored it. I started seeing a trend. I’m like, all right, he’s going to talk to me about personal stuff here and there. But when it comes to business, he just gets really quiet on me. And then I just kind of hounded him and hounded him and hounded him. And then finally that DM went out, I kid you not, that was like a year of this. Like I was getting so frustrated. Cause I was like, I’m one of those guys now that I’ve learned to just be very, I get so attached to a goal or an idea that I just won’t let it go. Bothers me. It bothers the heck out of me. And I had this conversation with him, this text and I shot him a message. I was like, listen, I’ve been chasing you for a year. I want to learn like, you obviously have this figured out. I want to learn. So, either you’re going to teach me, I’m just going to keep, you’re going to have this going on for another year and I’ll pay you. I don’t care. Tell me what it costs, but I know that I can learn from you. He read it and he didn’t respond and I’m like, alright, it was already in my mind like next week, next DM is going to go out. I get a random phone call one night on my phone. I’m in my office and phone rings. And he’s like, hey, is this, I’m like, who? He’s like, Oh, you messaged me like, oh crap, like you found me on Instagram. I’m like, well, you didn’t find me. We’ve been messaging on there. But he literally went to the call button on my phone and called me. And he’s like, all right, you got one shot. Here’s what I’m going to do. You’re going to pay me. It was like $15,000. He’s like, you’re going to pay me 15 grand, but I’m going to bring you out to Lake Powell and you’re going to stay on my yacht and it’s going to be, I’m going to bring all my team with me and what I do. And we’ll pull back the curtains on the business and I’ll answer everything you can. And I was like, and I was like done. And he’s like, you’re good, 15? I go done. Yeah, Done. And so, I didn’t even think a second about it. Because I’ve been watching this guy for a year. Like he’s got it figured out, you know, he’s where I want to be. So, I remember telling my wife, my wife’s like, how do you know this guy? I’m like Instagram. She’s like, you’re paying them how much? So, we drive to Powell and we’re sitting in this little bar and he was like, he’s like, all right, my wife’s like, we’re getting catfished. He’s probably not even here. And you spend all this money. We never met this guy before. Sure enough, the dude comes up on his boat. Picked us up in a helicopter, blew around Powell. And dude, it was a game-changer for me. Like I learned, to put it in, the money I paid him, I made back in three days. Like it was like that one, like just from the information. And now on top of that, I’ve got a relationship with that guy. Anytime I pick up the phone, I’ll call him. He’ll help me. If I’m stuck. We stayed at his house whenever we go, the power of social media. You know what I mean? It was like that barrier to entry where, you know, he probably gets hit up all the time for stuff, but it’s like, yeah, we’re willing to pay you. And I was relentless, and he had the same conversation. I mean, he is like, do you know how many people hit me up? I got nice cars and stuff. And nobody does anything. It’s a waste of my time. He goes, I make more money just doing what I do on a day-to-day than even trying to help anybody anymore. But it was a combination of relentless and willing to compensate them that, that removed that barrier to entry, the skin in the game. And dude, one of the best relationships I have in business now.
Mike Ayala: That’s awesome. And you know, just back to the social media front, the power of it, there’s a deeper lesson in there that most people will never find because even pre-social media, there were guys that would do what you did, and maybe it was through letters or, you know, trying to get through the front office or whatever. It’s always existed. But social media, LinkedIn, like even on LinkedIn, you can see like how many connections now and there’s that old theory of the six degrees of separation. You know, somebody that knows somebody that knows somebody that knows somebody that knows somebody that has what you need, but now like you’re one person away through social media. So that’s such an inspiring story.
Blake Clark: Barriers removed. It’s so easy. Like you have access to everything at the click of your fingers. It is Crazy.
Mike Ayala: What was your greatest setback and what did you learn from it?
Blake Clark: Greatest setback, man. Changing my mindset and also changing who I surround myself with. I grew up not in an environment that bread I should say, I just didn’t come from like a money background. I grew up poor. So when you grow up poor, I think you grow up with a poor mindset and not even by design, it’s not like you’re, I don’t think anybody’s parents are ever, like, I want my kids to fail. It’s never the goal, but I think that what you don’t know, you don’t know, you know what I mean? Like what I know now and the lessons I’ve learned, I’m going to pass onto my kids. And they’re probably going to have a better opportunity to do something because of the knowledge I’ve acquired, where I didn’t have access to that one as a kid. So, for me, it was like, I went through that whole thing of just grown up poor all my entire twenties, just hanging around the wrong people. Not being around people that thought big. And that’s the thing for me is like, if I’m ever in a circle of people and I’m the one that’s doing the best, whether it be financially or business or anything like that, I’m in the wrong circle. Like I will intentionally put myself around people that are way bigger than me. Like I want to be the little guy in the room. And a lot of people I think have a hard time checking their ego on that. Like traditionally you look at people and they’re like, I want to be the heavy hitter. I want to be the guy that makes, yeah, I want to be the moneymaker and be better than all my friends. Like it’s such a wrong way of thinking. Like, cause it’s just number one, it’s a different conversation that you sit down with people that think big, you get so much more out of that conversation. Like you leave that, and you go home and you’re like, man, that was just packed full of information. Instead of hanging around people where you’re just like spending the day talking about, you know, like the football game, which I’m not a sports guy. So, don’t crucify me for those of you guys who listen to football. They’re going to tell me to shut up.
Mike Ayala: Are they even playing football?
Blake Clark: Cardboard cutouts on the stand. But that for me was the hardest part was letting go of just the relationships that weren’t serving me. You know, I’ve got, and I’ve got friends that his day that are great friends that aren’t ever going to go big and that’s, there’s nothing wrong with that at all. But I got really bad about like when I was in my younger, like thinking in my head like I need to, I need to be at the top of the crown. I need to be the dude that’s making, you know, whatever it is, the most money have the most things, the nicest car, whatever. And at the end of the day, like it wasn’t serving me. And so for me now, like when I figured it out, like in my late twenties, when this whole transition started, it’s like, I had to put the ego at the door and say, I don’t want to be the smartest guy in the room. I’ve been thinking backward this whole time. I don’t want to be the guy that’s making the most money. I don’t want that. I want to be the little guy because if I surround myself with people that are going bigger, I’m always going to learn something. Every time I’m around that guy, every lunch, every hangout, every time we’re out on my boat and those guys are with me and I’m learning stuff like I’m going to go higher. They’re going to pull me with them. And so that for me was probably the biggest game-changer for me. Who I am today will be very different in three to four years. Because as I, you know, and I’ll always maintain these relationships to people to get to me. But I’m always looking up like, man, that guy is way ahead of me. Now I’m here. How do I get to that level? It’s always climbing that peak. And so, I seek the people big time now that is where I want to be, you know, go after them.
Mike Ayala: One of my mentors always said you know, if you’re the smartest guy in the room, you need to find a bigger room, exactly. I love it. And you know, for those of you that are out there that are hearing this and it sits with you weird, you’re not saying that you don’t have relationships with some of those friends or family members. It’s just if you truly, it’s like budgeting time. And I look at relationships in buckets, one of the things with GoBundance, there are different pillars, right. And one of them is authentic relationships and you can have an authentic relationship with your high school friends or your college friends, or even, you know, a couple of friends that just call it what it is. Like we’ve got a relationship with a couple of friends that we just love hanging out with. I’m never going to spend time with what I call an energy vampire. If I’m done with that dinner and I feel like 10 times worse than what I went in, I’m cutting that off. But that doesn’t mean that like every couple of dinner that we go out to has to be around the business. And I’ve got some friends that I dearly love, and we laugh, and we love, and we have a great time together.
Blake Clark: They’re authentic relationships and they appreciate who you are, and you appreciate who they are and it’s pretty mutual.
Mike Ayala: But I think you also have to get to a point where you’re budgeting that time. Like you obviously didn’t get to where you’re at by spending 90% of your time with those relationships. You probably narrowed it down to 5% or something like that.
Blake Clark: Yeah. You said the energy suck thing. That was a big one. Family and friends do, both, that’s the hardest part is, is the, I don’t even know how to answer that for some people. Cause I don’t ever, I’ll never feel comfortable and be like, Hey, cut a family member out. I’ve had to do it because it’s been on that, you know, and you’re going to find yourself as you do better in life, like you do better and better and better. It’s like a rubber band man. Like the gaps start to go and you’re going to have these really weird feelings. At least I do. I don’t know about everybody else, but you’ve got these really weird feelings where you’re like, man pulling away from these people and I feel bad about it. And almost like you don’t deserve it. You’re like, Oh, I got a nice house. And I got nice cars and I got all these really cool things I work towards that make me happy. But I got family members over here that don’t have that stuff. You know what I mean? It’s almost liked guilt inside. And I struggled with that. I really did for a long time until like one day I was just like, whose life am I living? Like you have to, like, you almost have to think about that. Like what makes me feel good inside? For some people, it is having nice cars, a nice house. For some people, it’s making a ton of money, being able to donate that to that church. For some people, it’s ramping up their income as fast as possible to get enough assets to replace their income. And then they live the rest of their life you know, not with a ton of money, but enough to get by and not have to work anymore.
That is happiness to that person, everybody’s looks different. But just understand, you’re going to have to give up relationships to get to that level because to expect that what you want is what your group of people who are down here right now that they’re all going to follow suit, which I wish they would have. Man, If I could get all my friends and family to be on the same mindset, same thought, wanting to grow the same way I did, that’d be amazing. It just doesn’t work that way. And it’s frustrating to try to don’t ever think you’re going to get everybody to do it.
Mike Ayala: You know, I just came out of a three-day meeting with the champions in the GoBundance group. And there were some really, really smart guests and just brilliant people. I’m definitely leveled up to what you’re talking about. I feel expanded. My energy’s high. One of the things that were said, and this goes back to what you were just saying, a guy in the room said, fighting the current is exhausting.
Blake Clark: A hundred percent. Yeah, it is.
Mike Ayala: Yeah. So I’m just like hearing that, you know, when you’re talking about a current could be people trying to, I was going to say people trying to hold you back, but even further, like trying to get people to come with you as fighting the current too, right?
Blake Clark: For me, it was the pulling apart. I mean, it was, there was always going to be those people think that try to hold you back or don’t want to see you do well or whatever. I mean, it is what it is, but yeah I’m that guy that, naturally, I like to see people win. Like I just do. I don’t even see the competition. Like I’m in the real estate industry and everybody has this mindset like, Oh God, I couldn’t sell every freaking house in the world. I can’t sell every house in Arizona. All I need is my little sphere of influence, my pocket and I’m happy. And if I can help other people get to where I’m at, great, there’s more than enough to go around you. You have to have that abundant mindset with people. And so, my thoughts of trying to get people to see things that way, it just doesn’t work out. I finally had to sever that. I was like, it’s just not going to work out. If they want to follow me. And they want to learn from me, I’m here, I’m active, but I’m not going to force anything for anybody to try to do that anymore.
Mike Ayala: We could totally end here. And Blake has brought so much value to this conversation, but we’re not going to do it. We’re going to finish the questions and stay with us because we’re going to get into Blake’s background and why he is who he is today. It’s inspiring. And then we’re going to talk about his next big thing, which I think is going to be pretty cool. So, the fourth question, what is the single piece of advice you find yourself sharing the most?
Blake Clark: Consistency. Like that’s probably, I mean there’s a lot of things I think that does tie into some form of success, but I think for people just consistency, you have to do just see so many people give up so soon myself included, you know, on things for a long time until I finally just figured out, like it’s doing the same, whether you like it, don’t like it. If you know that this action is going to move you closer to this goal, you know, whether it’d be like working out, right. Like I want to get in good shape, well you can’t work out three days a week and expect to be shredded. Like you can’t eat good three days a week and not the rest. You’re all in or you’re not. And so, for me, anything you do, I think consistency should be at the foundation of what you do. You know, whatever that looks like, whether you want it. If you work at a job and you want to get promoted, be the best at what you do, but do consistently like, every day show up every day. And so, for me, that’s, it’s just, I’ve broken it down just day by day wins. Brick-by-brick. Like if you have a goal at the end of the year, I’m a big fan of reverse engineering. Like hey, if I want to make this much money or if I want to own this many investment properties, or if I want to own this car, it’s going to cost me this, whatever that looks like. If I want to scale my business to this. Okay, what does that look like on a, if it’s a five-year goal one year, whatever? Okay, if it’s a one-year goal, what does that look like month-to-month? Okay. What do I have to do day by day that’s going to get me there and okay, Let’s get to work brick-by-brick. Like every day, do the same thing. And those that follow me on social media they’ll see that. I mean, I post a lot of funny crap, but every day, I’m out running in my neighborhood. I don’t like it. I hate running. My body’s not built for running, but I like to be in shape. And what I’ve found for me is, if I get up and work out first thing in the morning, every day I’m going by like 6:00 AM, I’m at full speed. My minds go, I’m not waking up and burn an hour and a half of like being in that weird Fuzzy haze where I got to drink coffee and get my day going like 4:00 AM, I’m done. I’m done with that. Hit the gym. I’m done, out of there by 6.30. So, by 7:00 AM, when everybody’s rolling out of bed, I’m like full-speed, emails are answered. And I do it every day, Consistently Sunday through Sunday. I don’t take days off.
Mike Ayala: This guy’s a machine, you guys.
Blake Clark: You have to be that intentional. At least I do. I don’t want to say for everybody, but for me, it’s just consistency doing the same thing. You know, if you’re in sales, make the calls every day, make the social media posts every day, market every day. If you want to see consistent results, you want to be consistent paychecks. You want to see consistent growth, do the things every day.
Mike Ayala: Wow. So, I have a question because there’s always this like, well, yeah, easy for him. Were you born a habit guy, or did you learn to stack this?
Blake Clark: I was fortunate enough to have a dad that worked his ass off when I was a kid. And I learned that he came from a construction background. So, like when I grew up, he owned his own kind of concrete company. I always laugh. Cause I tell people this story, but I like my most fond memories of my dad. We have a lot of them, but I still like to this day, remember being a kid and had this old pickup truck and you’d hear it start up. It’s like an old 64 Chevy flatbed and I’d look out my window. It was like four in the morning and he smoked cigarettes, which I don’t. But you just see the cigarette cherry in the dark, walking back and forth in the morning, loading up his tools into his truck, his construction tools. And then you see his truck pull out of the yard with the cigarette cherry driving out. And that was before the sun was up and then you’d see him come home when the sun was down, I mean sunup to sundown. He was a, my dad was a really hard worker. So, I learned that at a young age because when I went to work, I came up in the kind of construction background and I got my first job at 12, I wanted nice clothes. And my parents were like, you’ve got to work, we can’t afford it. So, I got a job washing airplanes. And so, my job when I was younger, that’s what my dad did. I’m going to take you to work in the morning, on my way to work I’m going to drop you off at this airplane place. You’re going to wash airplanes in the morning before they open, get off catch the bus to the place after school, clean their planes. You know, and I hadn’t worked every weekend, Saturday and Sunday. And then my dad picked me up on his way home from work and give me a ride because I wasn’t driving at 12. So, I learned work ethic from him at a young age. So luckily, I was, that’s always stuck with me. I’ve always been consistent, always worked. I’ve never been a guy that’s done the bare minimum when it came to work at least.
Mike Ayala: You just grind. Keep going with your background, your family story. Cause this is huge.
Blake Clark: Yeah. So, I learned that from him. The things I probably learned that I didn’t want to do is like say we grew up super poor. So, we came from, I grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada is where my family was born and raised. My dad ran his concrete business there. And then so I had a younger brother. I have an older brother, who’s a half-brother from my dad’s previous marriage, there’s myself. There’s my sister. And there’s my brother. We were all very close in age. My sister is a year younger and then my little brother was two years younger. So, one day my dad coming home from work, and my brother and I had this thing, we used to play across the street and field from our house. And my dad would come home, and we’d ride on the back of his truck backing in. And then one day my brother was on the back of the truck and his foot slipped on the bumper and I was standing next to him and he, unfortunately, had fallen on the bumper and the ball hitch went through his eye. And so, he went, my dad was backing up, he went underneath the truck. And so, I remember beating on my dad’s door, like hey, he’s under the truck. So, my dad grabs him, goes inside the house, throws me and my sister out. Remember the helicopter come to pick my brother up. And I remember that night, my parents coming home and letting us know that he had passed away.
So that put my dad in like just crazy depression. I couldn’t imagine what that would’ve done to me if that was one of my kids. So that house, we ended up losing, he wasn’t working for a while. And so, we lost that house. We went and got a rental property and then my mom actually ended up, because he wasn’t working, and my mom had a job doing like some campaigning and stuff like that. And so, she ended up in Arizona actually helping a guy. This is like 96 running for like Senate. And I remember my dad, we were in this rental house and then one day he was just like, we’re going to move to Arizona. And he packed up, we had U haul, threw everything in this U haul. He had an old, like 64 suburban and something and whatever didn’t fit in the U-Haul, we had a yard sale. We sold and so we came to Arizona with a U-Haul and like two trucks. And until he was able to get a job, we stayed in an office building luckily in Phoenix for like a month or so until my dad was able to get a job doing construction, got a rental property in South Phoenix, which we didn’t know about South Phoenix at the time where we were at, a little bit of a rough area. So, we were there for like, Oh, we’ve gotten this rental property like for six months. And my mom’s car got stolen. It wasn’t even anything nice. It was like a 96 Buick LeSabre or something like that. Got stolen and they took it out to the desert and like wrecked it. And then we got like a 96 or 97 Pontiac Trans-M while we’re still living there, and it got stolen and they lit it on fire.
My parents were like, I think it’s time we probably get out of here you know. And my dad was doing, he got a job doing construction again at that time doing like dirt work and stuff. And we ended up out in Maricopa of all places. And when I was out there and I’m talking 96 97. So that town there was, I mean, I still remember us going out there and there’s this person riding a horse down the street and mind you all from like Las Vegas. I grew up in Vegas. My dad, you know, part-time was like a DJ. So, I grew up around, you know, him packing up on the bars on Saturday nights and all that. The Vegas life as a kid, you’d imagine. So, I’m like, my parents were going to move me out here. You know, like there’s nothing out here. I remember my graduating class, there was like 30, 40 of us Maybe, we were a two-way school, like elementary, middle, and high school was all on one piece of property back in the day. It was a good thing. Cause I was a little bit of a troublemaker back then. And so, it was a small town. I got let off the hook for things I probably shouldn’t have. So, I was doing good. I started working and then I graduated high school and just doing construction, I moved out. I had my daughter by the time. Well then, the economy hit, my dad lost his job in the recession again. And that house got foreclosed on and I’d kick myself in the butt for that. Cause I remember he came to me top, he’s like hey, you want to buy it? And I just couldn’t afford it at the time. Like I was young and not making a whole lot of money, had two kids. And so, I didn’t buy the house.
So, they got foreclosed on, they lost that house, gotten a rental again. And they actually ended up in an Oregon one day, just they gave up out here and my dad was like, I’m just done. Like he’d just been kicked in the pants so much. So, he ended up in Oregon, they still live there to this day. And then I’d moved out of Maricopa. I lived in Gilbert, started working and that’s where I’m at now. So, like I remember growing up and seeing a lot of what he had been through. Just told myself, like, I don’t want that. Like it just don’t, I got remember growing up and just, you know, always stressing about money. I remember fricking repo guys driving by her house, trying to repo our cars. Cause my dad couldn’t afford it. So, when you’re a kid, you don’t think anything of that. And then you get older and you’re like, man, you know, it sucks. And so, like I think a lot of people have this really, they’re like, man, why are you so hungry at this age? Like why do you, you know, you should be content. And it’s funny. Cause I look, I remember I made a post on Facebook. I think I was like 26 and just met my wife or something like that right around that age. And I was like, man, if I could just make a hundred grand a year, I’ll be so happy. It came up as one of my memories and I look back, I’m like, man, if I made a hundred grand a year, I feel like a loser right now. Like where I’m at, Because I just pushed so hard, you know. But it was just one of those things where I probably will never like, I’m actually terrified to go to end up in that position. Not that I think it ever would. Cause I don’t know if I’d ever would allow myself, but that, so many good memories of being a kid, but just seeing my parents stress out about that and stuff so much that you know, there was no financial planning for them. They’re in their seventies now and they don’t have financial planning. They don’t have any of that. So, the reality is, he’s probably going to be working until the day he dies. So, it’s tough.
Mike Ayala: Yeah. And your dad obviously had a tragedy, but here’s the question and you know, if you’re not comfortable with this answer being out in the world, we can edit it down. But the question that I would have is if that tragedy because your dad was obviously a hard, hard worker, but I guess my question is, is that enough? If that tragedy hadn’t happened, do you think that he would have ever had the mindset to be successful or is it because of that tragedy that he wasn’t, his hard work enough?
Blake Clark: No, I don’t think it is. For me, cause a great example is me, I was a hard worker, and I did okay. Like I made okay money. I had job security. I did Okay. Hard work will get you somewhere. But the reality of it is you only have so many hours in your day. I don’t care how hard you work, you got 24 hours and of those 24, you got to sleep. I mean, I don’t, unless you’re like me, I sleep about five hours a night, six hours a night, but you got to eat and you got to spend time with some kids and you know, you got to take a little time. But the reality of it is, is you’re only going to work so hard a X number of hours and that’s only going to carry you so far. You have to learn how to start leveraging. Like that’s the thing for me. And that’s, I’m still in the, I’m in that phase right now. I’m young and I make pretty good money. I probably should have started leveraging a long time ago. Even then like I’ve deviated away from it. I’ve done good. I bought my rental properties and then I go through these weird phases where myself, where like I almost went really lean for a while remember I sold all my nice stuff and I was like, I don’t need all of this. It’s a lot of stress to maintain. But then I almost get unmotivated. Cause I like nice things. Like I didn’t grow up with nice cars. Like my first car was a friggin 86 Toyota pickup and it was primer. I didn’t buy my first brand new car until I was 28 years old on Father’s Day. And I probably could have afforded one, but I put all my money into my businesses, and I didn’t, you know, the house I have. I went back and forth on that twice. I had a deposit on the house next to it and I talked myself out of it. I can’t afford this and know it’s too scaping though. I could, I just, I talked myself out of a lot of things. And then I found for me personally, it’s not for everybody. I attach myself to goals. So, whether, you know, for me, I like nice things. I like, I like investments. I like all that just depends on what my goal is set for that. So, I’ll say, Hey, I want this, what do I got to do to achieve that? And that’ll push me like that, It’s not for everybody. And I know there are some people that they’re like, Oh, there’s more to life, blah, blah, blah. But for me, I enjoy that. I like the goal. I like setting a goal and I like hitting that goal. And then it’s onto the next one and that’s how I grow. Cause otherwise I think it goes back to your why, if you don’t have a goal you’re working towards, you’re just going to kind of flounder out, I think.
Mike Ayala: Yeah. Well there’s two things and I’ve often said, and I’d be curious if you believe this, but you know, money doesn’t change who you are or just amplifies it. And then the other thing too is like you’re right. We probably do have those people. And I don’t know that most of my listeners are those people. But we probably do have those people. That’d be like, Oh, well, you know, you’re just motivated for things and this and that. And I like, even back to the goal thing, everybody’s motivated, you know, people say money doesn’t matter. But if the goal is to just make enough money to pay for groceries. That’s still a financial motivator. If that’s the life and the existence you want, then have it. I don’t want that. And I’m the same as you, when I set goals for myself, sometimes they’re object-driven. Sometimes they’re financially driven. Sometimes they’re family driven. Sometimes they’re health driven.
Blake Clark: Changed. Wherever you feel like. Like there’s no set way. I try to tell people that all the time, you know, and I try to mix it up. I go through these phases where I’m like, it’s very object driven. Like I want this, this, this, this, this, and this. And then I go phases where it’s more like, okay, I want to invest in my business and grow it to this, this, this. And so, it just changes. I don’t know. Like I don’t get too attached to that anymore. I used to, I used to think there’s this exact map, you have to follow that everybody, just do what makes you happy. Just make sure it’s the right choice.
Mike Ayala: Yeah. And adjust when your desires change, like they’re yours. They’re nobody else’s. I messaged you the other day. And again, we haven’t even seen each other for a year and a half or something, but I messaged you the other day because you got one of those things you’ve been working for it. And I told you, man, I’m like, I’m proud of you.
Blake Clark: Yeah. You did.
Mike Ayala: And you didn’t go get debt on it. You went and paid cash for it. Right.
Blake Clark: Like I told myself, if I’m going to buy this, it’s going to be cash. And it was tough because I was saving up money. That’s been a goal, you know, since I was a kid at the poster on the wall, [42:22 inaudible] had that poster, I think.
Mike Ayala: It’s not a girl by the way, because you’re married.
Blake Clark: No, I’ve already got one of those. I wanted one and so, you know, I had some cash saved up and then it’s like, Oh, I’ve got to start a business. So, we started it. And then like last year was like, Oh, I got to start my team. We needed an office. So, I had to buy an office and do the build-out, and then we got our house, and it was like, okay, I got to do the pool first for the family. So, like every time I’d save some cash up, there were priorities that always just took place. And then I almost talked myself out of it. I was like, I went through this weird thing at the end of last year where I was like, you know, do I really need that, it is kind of dumb dah, dah, dah.
And then I caught myself because I told myself, I was like, I don’t need that. Which I don’t. It was more of a goal, but then I got so upset at myself. I was like, no, you’ve wanted this for so freaking long. Why are you just going to give up? You’re so close. Like, why would you quit? And tomorrow I would sell it. I don’t like, that’s the funny thing about me with my goals. Everybody’s like, Oh, you got it, it’s cool. I like it. I enjoy it. But it’s just the goal. And it also, because I’ve had other nice vehicles and cars or whatever, and they always get sold. Cause it’s just a vehicle. But to me, it’s the, again I get really attached to these things. And so, like I told myself, I was like, I don’t need it. I can take that money and go put it in this investment, whatever. And I like told my, but then the thought of me not checking that off the list bothered me more than just not having it.
Mike Ayala: And you’re going to take me for a ride in it. What is it?
Blake Clark: It is a Lamborghini Huracan.
Mike Ayala: It’s beautiful too.
Blake Clark: It’s super fun. So, yeah, it felt good to check that off and it feels weird now. Cause now it’s like, what’s next? Like I literally don’t have any more car goals. Like that was it. And I just wanted one since I was a kid, I had like the poster on the wall with the checkered floor. I think everybody had that as a kid. It’s like, Oh, I finally was able to afford one and I was like, I’m not taking debt on this thing. It’s if I’m going to do it, it’s cash. I want to be able to be liquid if I have to sell it to tomorrow, get underneath it.
Mike Ayala: Yeah. You actually showed me the title. Which is cool. And again, these are benchmarks, right? These are mile markers. Like if we’re going to drive from here to salt, there are turns, they’re just mile markers. That’s all they are.
Blake Clark: And like now next year, like I said, it’s not even an obstacle. Like next year for me, it’s like, okay, I’m going to go heavy on investments. Like I hit this object goal that’s off the list. What’s next. What’s important for me. And I took a week, I thought about it. I was like, okay, what is the next year really going to look like for me, where am I going to invest my time, energy, money. Like, and so for me it was like, okay, I want to invest in more passive income because yeah, I made a lot of money this year and I hit goals and I got my toys, whatever you want to call it and stuff. But I found out at sacrificing my time. And it’s like, you know, and so for me, it’s like, how do I buy time? So now next year, goals for me are really centered around investments and time.
Mike Ayala: Well, and really, you talked about how you don’t like to speed, but as far as buying time, you can get there a lot faster now with this car.
Blake Clark: A hundred percent, a hundred percent. Yeah. That’s why I don’t understand people when they’re old and they drive slow. It’s like, man, your days are numbered. Speed it up, you’ve got to get there quicker buy more time.
Mike Ayala: Speaking of fast, Dylan Burns our content guys in the room and he got pulled over on the way out here.
Blake Clark: You got a ticket? Oh, there you go, dude. So, you decide to throw the wink at them and be like, I’m sorry about that.
Mike Ayala: Why don’t I try to pull this together. So I want you guys to understand, I mean, I think you got a lot of insight into Blake and you know where he’s at and just one of the most inspiring, motivated guys that you know around. And I just love spending time with him. But you’re also a family man. I don’t need to know, you know, the details on where to find your little daughters and all that stuff. But talk to me about that for a minute.
Blake Clark: I got a beautiful wife. I got three kids, two older kids that are 12, 13, and then I got my youngest is six. It’s crazy, man. They all just got such different personalities, which has been, I don’t know, man. It’s always weird being a dad. Like I don’t like, you always wonder if you’re just doing it right. You know what I mean? You’re like, oh man, like I’m the jerk that has to set down the rules. And I have that daughter, who’s going into the whole fun teenagers right now. And the puberty thing. She was like my best kid, like from day one easiest. And then all of a sudden, this year I’m getting the backtalk, I’m getting the eye rolls and I’m not used to this stuff right now with her. So, you wonder if you’re making the right choices and decisions. And so, I’ve tried to, a lot of what I do today is built around what does this look like for them? Cause I know they kind of watch what I do and it’s back to the passive income, you know, and buying more investments and stuff. It’s really just building something for my kids one day to have, you know and so I’m really big on not handing them anything. Like I’m never going to build anything if they take me off and they grow up to just go down the wrong path, I’ll sell it all on my last final days. And I’ll buy cheetahs and leopards and all kinds of unnecessary things and blow money just to make a point or whatever. The goal is to build businesses for them to come into and work. And I try to teach them again, my older two kids are with an ex-girlfriend of mine, and her and I are very different people in our own ways. And so my kids, I always tell them, I was like, you guys have, you guys are at a really interesting paradigm between us too, because you see things one way through my side and you see one thing through hers and I’ve come to realize like I’ll probably never be able to get them to see things exactly my way or her. But if they can take the right thing and just take the best from both of us, I’m hoping it’s the right decision. I don’t know. We’ll find out. I mean, you know, it’s fun though. It’s being a parent is fun. It’s challenging. But it’s really cool to see them turn into the people they are.
Mike Ayala: I’ve never met your wife, but it seems to me from the outside and again, this is just my view from social media, but it seems like she’s flourishing and blossoming right now too.
Blake Clark: She’s, yeah, when I met her, we worked together at the University of Phoenix. That’s where I was at. She’s always had a job, hard-worker. We had our youngest daughter together and when I met her, she didn’t even want kids. It was funny. I remember dating her and just like, I don’t want kids, I don’t want marriage. I’m like, perfect girl. And then she ended up helping raise my older two, which at that time they were really young, fell in love with the process of, you know, being a parent. And so, we had our youngest, and then she was like, the plan was for her to go back to work. And you know, we had my daughter, and the time came like three days ago and she’s like, I don’t think I can do it. I don’t think I can leave her. I was like, that’s cool, I’ll get another job. So, I got a job working during the day. And then I was driving trucks at night doing food delivery, just do whatever we had to do to make ends meet, to make up for her salary and stuff. And mind you, that was like right after I had just gotten laid off. So, I’m like taking two or three jobs, like working, whatever I can to allow her to stay home, to raise and just to get our businesses off the ground. And I was making money here to invest into this business, which was losing money at first, you know, as it got going and stuff and really interesting time. And Ashley, she did that and stayed home, and then she helped me run my businesses and stuff. And then now as our kids are getting a little bit older and my youngest is in school more, she’s getting back into doing the real estate stuff with me too. And she’s doing really good at it. She enjoys it and yeah, I’m all about it. We’re struggling with the whole family time thing now. Cause it’s just a busy career doing both of it. So yeah, she keeps me grounded. I go a little wild with my ideas sometimes. And I don’t like being told no, which is a problem. Like I’m that guy that’s like, my mind will go like a hundred miles an hour and she’s sometimes she’s like, that’s not realistic and bothers me sometimes, but she’s right.
Mike Ayala: There’s a couple of businesses that I invested in and other things that if I would’ve just listened, I’d be a lot better off.
Blake Clark: It’s just, you learn, you just know.
Mike Ayala: I won a couple of times too.
Blake Clark: As long as you win more than you lose in life, that’s all. You’ll never go through life losing.
Mike Ayala: Yeah. So, you’ve got an interesting concept. I love it. One of my mentors he passed away, you know, probably six or seven months ago, but his name was Bob Helms and he often said that he was the only guy that he knows that did real estate in seven different decades, which is pretty cool.
Blake Clark: That is really cool. We’ve seen a lot of changes.
Mike Ayala: Yeah. But he wrote a book, and I can’t remember the name of the book, but yeah, I’m drawing a blank. But anyway, the book was around. He had seen so many agents along the way and he had invested in real estate along the way, but he had seen so many agents that didn’t understand investors and they actually shied away from him because they thought investors were always trying to rip him off or they didn’t want to pay the fees or whatever. I’ll pay fees and then some like, I want to take the easy route. And so, Bob wrote this book for agents, on how, and I don’t know how successful it was or wasn’t it was. I think it literally launched like six months before he died. So, I don’t know how much he promoted it or anything, but the concept is powerful. He was trying to get agents to understand that if they just aligned with investors, they’d probably be better off. So anyway, I throw that up. Like this next thing, it sounds really interesting to me. So, give us, you can share details or not, but just give us the high-level. And this is what I’d like to have you come back and tell us how badass it’s going to be.
Blake Clark: Yeah. We’re going to go, the goal for next year is to start my own brokerage. Before I get calls from a bunch of brokers asking me to come to them. My biggest thing with brokerages is especially a lot of the big ones are, they’re great for some people’s situation. They just don’t offer enough options. I think, especially as I’ve been in this business, you know, I do great on the traditional real estate side, but you know, I have a couple of really good friends that are investors too. And they solve a ton of problems for people. You know, like I said, people that pass away and you know, the families like living in a whole another state, they don’t have time to come out here and fix the house up. They’re like, Hey, can you just give me my cash so we can pay for their funeral. Yeah. Cool. So, he does a lot of that and he changes a lot of lives on the good, he’s a super honest guy. Like this guy, like he’ll just be completely upfront with people. People love him. He’s very truthful in what he does. And so, I learned a lot from him. I was like, yeah, there’s totally a value here. I can see how awesome it is. So we are going to partner and basically start a brokerage that the big vision and I haven’t ironed out every detail on it yet, but essentially what it’s going to look like is agents can come in it’ll be a lower fee structure, no percentages. So, if they want to come in, park their license if they’re tenured, you know, works great. They’re not paying crazy percentages. They can do their thing. Teams will be there. My team will be there. I’ll still do all my coaching. There’ll be an opportunity for that. His team will be there, but he’s going to do more of the wholesaling, Off-Market, fix flip. Cause that’s what he does. He does a lot of volume in that. So, I want somebody that’s a newer agent to come in and I want them to have options. I want them to have different menu items of what’s going to work best for their career because to assume every agent that comes into the business is going to be great at just doing volume or marketing or it’s crazy. You know what I mean? Like when I got into the business, I wouldn’t have ever thought I’d be on the investor side of it either. But after being in the business and kind of learning how to play all sides of the fields, every opportunity I played to my advantage, I want every other agent to have that opportunity too. So that’s our goal is to just to start something where somebody can come in and they can kind of dip their feet. You know, if you want to do the volume side of it, you want to learn the structure of doing traditional residential real estate. Well, I’m the guy I’ll help you out with that. I’m great at marketing. I’m still figuring it out. I’m still learning. I don’t have all the answers, but I’ve done Okay. And then if you want to learn the fixed flip wholesale side of things, he’ll be there to run a lot of that. And his team and his disposition specialists are going to be there. So, there’ll just be just options for people to grow. You know, not just getting stuck in their traditional, come in, work on a team and you’re done type deal. You know, I want to create something a little bit bigger for people. So, I’m excited. It’s a challenge.
Mike Ayala: Yeah. And I’m excited to see it play out. And really, I’m not asking you to pull out your crystal ball, but you had made a comment, you know before we were talking. I mean, I think your timing’s impeccable, cause some people might be hearing this saying, well, you know, why would agents want to flip and wholesale and kick it over to your buddy on the other side right now, you know, there’s low inventory. Interest rates are as low as they’ve ever been. Things are getting bid up, but you’re talking about launching this over the next 12, 24 months, we’re going to be having, you know, I mean, at some point in time, things are going to slip a little and that might be a great opportunity for people to…
Blake Clark: Yeah. I think the reality of it is, I mean, anybody, I haven’t been in the business that long, I wasn’t in it when the last economy crashed. I studied up on it a lot because I think there’s, history leaves clues. If you look at any and this is where people always get hung up, right? They’re like, Oh, the economic crash is bad. No, it’s not. Sometimes it’s a good thing. Sometimes it is a good thing for housing prices to kind of readjust. And that’s how markets go. I mean, otherwise, it’s going to go so high that nobody will ever be able to afford it. And so, it’s a good thing. If you look at, if you play your cards, right. If you do it right. You know, obviously, from investors you know, if you’re a long-term investor, nobody worries about that stuff.
That’s why I am like oh I wanna cash out. Well, if you’ve got a good portfolio and you want to cash out, cash out, wait for it to drop right before. But for the most part, like I buy rental properties. I’m going to hold onto those things for 20 or 30 years, I’m not going to retire for 30 years. So, for me, if I buy it now, it’s not going to really make a difference for me If I buy it Now. If I buy it three years from now, who cares, I’m going to buy it. In 30 years, I’m going to probably bet it’s going to be worth more whether we have a couple of up and down. Am I going to be wrong? I don’t know. There’s always risk involved. But if I got somebody in there paying my mortgage off for me, what do I have to lose?
Mike Ayala: As long as the rents can carry you through those downtimes, it’s fine.
Blake Clark: And so, you know, I think that agents if they’re smart, they’re going to learn the importance of again, the menu. They’re going to learn the importance of handle, how to handle a short sale. I don’t think like my prediction is, I don’t think it’s going to be as bad as we saw in 2007. Because I will say that I think our lending standards are a lot better now. We have people turned away on loans all the time. Like there are people that, you know, if they’re not doing pretty good on paper or credit or anything, they’re getting rejected. Like it happens all the time. So, I feel really confident in our lending right now that it’s just, there are a lot more cheques and balances to prevent that. That’s not to say that the housing, market’s not going to slow reset. I don’t think it’s going to be what it was. But I do think there will probably be some foreclosures, some short sales that are going to happen. So, I think that if agents can get ahead of that, figure it out, start working on it now, start knowing what that looks like. You know, you’re going to be a better agent when that time comes, because then you’re going to be able to go in and offer people that are in a tough spot. Like hey, I got to, you know, I lost my job. I got to move. I need to, you know, I got some equity in this house. I can’t afford it anymore. I’d rather cash out now. Okay, I can give you cash. You know, who knows what that looks like? So that’s kind of, just thinking ahead, it’s going to, it’s inevitable, no matter what anybody says, it will happen. There will be a reset. So, if you start planning for it now and educating yourself on it, you’re only going to be that much more prepared.
Mike Ayala: I love that. And I have two thoughts on that. I would also say, and I agree with you. I don’t think the short sells and all that is going to be as bad. I also think that people probably are holding more equity in their homes. Because you know, a lot of people got burned last time. You know, I’m not, I mean, I’m sitting there probably like 40% equity in my house. Maybe more. And some of that’s market-driven, but also some of that is like, I put a lot of money down and I wouldn’t have done that five years ago or 10 years ago. And so, I think even as you know, the value of real estate has increased. I think people are taking less out of their homes.
Blake Clark: They’re not using as a tool anymore, as much as they were. And it’s the same thing with like, COVID this year. It was funny. Cause we got a lot of people like oh, the market’s going to crash because of COVID everybody’s losing their jobs. And I was the first one to say, no, they’re not, they’re not. And people thought I was crazy. They’re like, no, they’re not. I’m like people have so much equity in their homes right now. They just do. Especially most people that bought their houses two, three years ago, they have equity. When a house goes into short sale or foreclosure, in most cases, it’s going to make it all the way through that process, if it’s truly upside down in most cases, you know, unless the seller is just ignorant and it’s like, I’m not selling them and let this thing go to auction.
Mike Ayala: But think about that. Somebody lost their job, they can’t pay their mortgage, but they got 80K sitting there. They’re going to sell that house. It’s going to, whether it’s a cash investor is going to cash them out or they’re going to go on the market, sell it traditionally, pay off their mortgage and then walk away with 60 K and go rent a house, whatever that looks like. It’s not a typical situation where they’re going to walk away from all that equity and allow it to go to foreclosure. And I told people that I’m like, guys, it’s not going to happen. Even to this time right now we sell people saying, well, all these people are, come December, January, February. We’re going to see people foreclosing maybe. I mean, but there’s plenty of buyers that are now. I mean, our inventory is so tight right now that there are buyers that will go pick those houses. I don’t predict it’s going to put a dent. I think if anything, interest rates will probably raise a little bit next year and slow it a little bit.
Blake Clark: Well there’s a lot of investor money on the sideline too. Cause we can’t find a home for it. And so, you know, when those assets start coming, they’re going to get gobbled up to your point. So, I’m listening, I’m hearing like the voice of Bob Helms, who I said was like a voice in my ear for a while. And what I would hear him say, talking to you, and I just loved this guy. Not only talking to you but the agents that are potentially listening there are more agents in Arizona in every other state than there’s ever been. Because people like they see the market’s climbing and yeah, it’s easy. You go get your license. And so, there’s less inventory than there’s ever been. There are more agents than there’s ever been. And so, the more services you can offer to your clientele, which that’s what Blake’s really saying. I mean, they’re creating a menu of options. And so, I think you know, what you’re offering is going to be amazing and you’re probably going to attract the best of the best of the best. And I have a feeling that thousands and thousands and thousands of agents are probably making no money right now because there’s no inventory. I think agents like you and certain ones are killing it, like having their best years ever. But I know a lot of realtors that just, you know if you haven’t, if you don’t have the clientele base and you haven’t really worked the system, you’re not making any money. And just seeing this, I hear Bob helm say, I think you’re going to do really well through the menu options. And I think agents are going to really want to come to work at a place like yours. So, if people are interested, where would they find you?
Mike Ayala: I’m all over social media. Like my Instagram’s @Blake_sells_AZ, on Facebook you can find me on Blake B. Clark, I’m on there. That’s usually the easiest way to find what I do. I try to stay pretty active on my social media. I’m big on education. I just like, I mean, if anybody that follows me, I share a lot of goofy stuff. I like to have fun with what I do and joke and, but I also try to add value on my social media. Like, I’ll share if we’re going through some challenging deals or what’s going on or, you know I’ll try to give tips on, you know, whatever I focus on for that month, if you’re looking to do cash offers, I just did a big value series on that. So yeah, just, you can find me on that. It’s probably like the most active place I am every day is just trying to drop knowledge out there for people.
Mike Ayala: Well, you’re obviously a very giving person and a lot of that stems from your story and I appreciate you sharing it with us. And by the way, when you see my Instagram loaded with a white Lamborghini, I didn’t have to rent it to take the pictures. I borrowed it. Anything else that, you know, we didn’t cover that you want to…
Blake Clark: No, I appreciate you having me on here. Like I said it’s really cool what I think you do, man. I’ve been kind of following you too, as you go and you’re trying to really work to help people do the investing side of things, which I know I’m probably going to be aligned in pretty heavily with you. Cause that’s like I said, I went through this year was about growth reinvesting into the business side of things, hitting some personal goals. And then next year for me, it’s more like, okay, I need to get more passive income, more investing for freedom. So that kind of stuff excites me, man. I’m looking forward to it. And some of the stuff you’re dropping, I’m sure I’m going to be giving you some calls on some stuff. Cause that’s where, that’s where, like I said, all the fun goals have been hit for me. I think at this point I got the house I want; I got all this stuff I want and we’re doing good businesses is going and starting this new one. But yeah, for me, the next phase is going to be a lot of the investing side of things.
Mike Ayala: Well, I appreciate your time. It’s been a great show.
Blake Clark: I appreciate it, man. Thank you, guys.
