Episode 1: Why The Value-Driven Investor Podcast? Our Story

We kick off a new journey together as we launch the Value-Driven Investor Podcast!

A podcast that introduces you to a community of Value Driven Investors that vow to live life on their terms.

If you have a deep desire to take back your life, regain control, provide for your family, grow closer to your spouse and family, then this podcast is the key that unlocks unlimited potential.

Welcome to the Value Driven Investor Podcast.

This episode introduces you to the founder of the Value Driven Investor, Tim Murphy.

Tim details his story, from broke-ass 20-something with no future living at home, to millionaire investor in the Twin Cities of Minnesota.

This episode also features Robert Grand from Eugene, Oregon. Robert is a real estate agent and investor who has built his growing portfolio while also serving his community as a full-time firefighter.

Tim and Robert will map out the future of their desires and provide inspiration for you, and path allowing you to Live Life on Your Terms!

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In This Episode….

• The story of how Tim and Bob met (2:00)

• Value Driven Investor is all about legacy (7:30)

• Impact Club, how Bob fulfills his legacy (8:50)

• How Tim gives back, his WHY (11:15)

• Tim's story, from college to million dollar real estate investor (13:00)

• The book that opened Tim's mind to having it all (14:20)

• Bob's story, how this firefighter became a real estate agent/investor (25:30)

• Mapping out the future of Value Driven Investor (39:00)

Quotes

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Full Transcript

Tim Murphy (00:00):

Welcome back to the value driven investor podcast, where we forge value driven investors on a mission to live life on their terms, no matter where you have come from or where you are going, becoming a value driven investor is in all our best interests because becoming financially free allows us to focus on what matters most fulfilling our purpose, our community, a value driven investors is committed to showing you the way with the support of this community. You are sure to reach your goals for all of us in the value of an investor community. There is no greater gift than the gift of giving because together anything is possible. Man, I'm excited to be on this podcast for the first episode of the value driven investor podcast. This is exciting, but what's even more exciting is that

New Speaker (00:59):

I got a buddy, a good friend of mine out of Eugene, Oregon, and Bob grand is his name. And I'm really excited because he agreed to come along this journey with me the value driven investor and the whole premise of the podcast, at least right now, because it's day one and everything changes is that we want to almost create a timeline that is replicating a replication of almost mine and Bob's evolution of becoming an actual real estate investor. Now the value driven investor on day one is going to be everything real estate, because that's what Bob and I know, but maybe one day, just one day in the future, call it five years, 10 years down the road, the value driven investor turns into investing in anything like Bitcoin. I love it. Gold. I love it. Who knows what else? But the one thing I do know is Bob and I love investing, but even more, we are experts at real estate investing. And so Bob, I'm really pumped to have you along for this journey with me, and this is going to be exciting. What do you think, buddy?

Robert Grand (02:05):

I'm super pumped about this whole podcast. I'm glad that you, you kick the idea over to me. That, that makes me feel awesome. Like I'm actually doing something in the investment world, you know, I'm new to it in the last couple of years. But with us being able to do this together, I think it's going to be pretty Epic.

Tim Murphy (02:20):

Yeah. And that's, what's cool about Bob and I is that Bob and I met in a group where we were learning how to create awesome content through storytelling. Now that sounds really weird to investor guys that are in a group with a buddy of ours, Ryan Fletcher and Ryan Sloper, who are trying to find out how do we tell better stories to connect with more people? Because the reason we wanted to do that is that we were excited about growing our real estate business or also our real estate investment business. Now, Bob, give us a little shout out about what, you know, when we met, what was the reason why you joined that group? I know for me, we met at that mastermind down in Orlando and I was really trying to figure out how can I create better content to big, better connection with people. And why were you down there again?

Robert Grand (03:10):

Well, so for me, like you know, I just was a Keller Williams and I went through the whole maps coaching program. And no matter what they told me at the time, you know, as a real estate agent, before it was doing investment, no matter what they told me at the time it always came back to like making telephone calls and cold calling and door knocking and all that stuff. That's really all, they knew how to teach you. It, it was really hard to teach you how to tell a story. It was really hard to teach you how to connect with people. So the easy default thing would be hammer the phone lines for three to four hours a day and you'll get results. And I did that for a long time and it was successful. But one day I was sitting there looking at my numbers with my maps coach and I was looking, I was like, huh, I had this revelation.

Robert Grand (03:52):

It was like, you know, I'm spending like 90% of my time on acquiring 10% of my business. And I was like, if I just cut that out, you know, I would have a lot more free time to just connect with people. And that's what drove me to that program. So I started searching, you know, and went on the path and, and that's how we ran into the PSS program. That, that would kind of evolved into a lot of other things down the road. But the premise of it was connecting with people and telling story, which is how I want to do my business, which is how in everything I've read is how you do business. It's all about the connection and how you can get your site. Yes, it's totally the right way. Any other way. It's just, it's, there's too much friction, too much pain to go through to, to build that relationship. Once you do, you know, you might be okay, like I've built some great relationships with with people that were expired listings that I'm still friends with today, but it took a lot to get there. They weren't just going to trust me right away because they didn't know me. They didn't know like, and trust.

Tim Murphy (04:49):

Well, and that feeds right into me, Bob, because that was my whole thing. It's like I was doing lead generation as a real estate agent. And it was just like, I was just pounding my head against the wall, like, Oh, these leads, Oh, I got a cold call. All, they don't want to talk to me. Oh no, but everybody hates me on just a sales guy. I'm like, I can't do this. This is not who I am. I'm not just a sales guy. I'm a guy that I'm a relationship guy. So how do I create better relationships? And that was the storytelling piece. And I think what really connected us together is that number one, we're two alpha guys. We, you know, Bob's a firefighter. I mean, the guy runs into burning buildings. The guy's an alpha all day long. And me, I'm an old jock, you know, hockey player, football player, Minnesota guy.

Tim Murphy (05:32):

And we just ran into each other and we started talking and it was like, man, I like the way this guy thinks. And the biggest thing was is that we are like freethinkers, man. I mean, if you tell me, Hey, this is the rule, this is how you have to do it. I'm going to run the opposite way and do it differently. And if I realize, Oh wow, you were right. Then I'll do it. But I'm going to test what everybody's telling me to come to my own conclusion. And that's what I love most about Bob is that he thinks exactly the same way as me is that, Hey, you can tell me and give me great advice, but I'm going to come to my own conclusion. And, but once you say that, that's part of being an awesome real estate investor is having that freethinking mind to solve your own problems and come to your own.

Robert Grand (06:13):

Oh man. A hundred percent. I think that's like, that's probably the biggest part. You know, being that problem solver where you're just going to take anything that you can find and you just keep trying to figure out the solution, problem, solution, problem, solution, problem solution. How do I get it done? What do I do? What makes sense? And it just, that allows for creativity to kick in, which is one of the things I like. And that's what I didn't like about the old sales process is it was just a, it's a, you know, almost like a factory style process where you're like tall call on telephone three hours one day, make this happen, make this happen. And at the end it's like, you don't feel like you truly have a relationship. You didn't solve anybody's problems unless you got them to a list or an investment purchase or something like that. So it's, it's just a different approach that I think that a lot of people want to go down that path and they feel like that's the right way, but they just don't know how to do it. You know? And, and it takes courage to be able to shift gears and say, this is how I'm going to build my business and I'm going to get rid of the rest of it.

Tim Murphy (07:07):

Well, I know there's one more thing, Bob, that I want to let everybody know before we both tell and share our story of how we became for me a broke kid out of college that didn't have a pot to in and sat in my dad's basement until he told me son, you got about 12 months and now I'm kicking you out and he was dead serious. And then you can tell your story, right? We all got a story

Robert Grand (07:27):

That is very, very true. Mine's not as dramatic as yours. I don't think Ben, if you're, if you're, if you're actually in the basement, I think that's the that's, that's a pretty good one. So,

Tim Murphy (07:38):

But, but the biggest thing is Bob, I want people to know about like the legacy. Cause I think like that's super important for both of us, the value driven investors, it's legacy. I mean, you know, making money is great and we've had long conversations about this, but making money. Isn't what fulfills us. It's not why we want to get up in the morning. It's not what like, is that energy that just is like, God, this is what life is all about. People call it purpose, people, call it your why they call it all kinds of things. But I think what's amazing about the two of us is that we have that just burning desire that we want to help people we want to give before we receive anything. And yeah, if I have an opportunity to make money on a real estate deal, the first thing I always ask is how can I help you?

Tim Murphy (08:22):

And let me tell you something, I know you're the same way and you have something that's called impact club, which is impact club in Eugene. And what you do is absolutely amazing on top of being a firefighter that runs into burning houses and save, literally saves people's lives because you're an EMT firefighter which, you know, I love you for that man. But the other thing is, is you have this impact club and tell us a little bit about this impact club. And then I'll share my, you know, my big push for my daughter Shanley and, and our type one diabetes push. But tell us about impact club. Yeah, man, impact club Eugene,

Robert Grand (08:56):

You know, originally founded through Ryan Fletcher impact club. I started a branch of it here locally in Eugene and Ryan was the dude that we originally connected with to learn how to tell story and all that the concept came about, I believe back in Orlando and people, and he kind of presented this. Before that though, we did like this thing called declarity water project, where I went up to his place in Washington, he lives right up the road from me offered to donate $1,000 with nine other people. So we donated $10,000 total to actually donate and create a a water system to a place in Africa. So to provide them clean drinking water, which I thought was kind of a cool concept. So that was kind of like one of the, I think the original start of that, you know, kind of concept and the testing of it.

Robert Grand (09:42):

And then, you know, so fast forward a few years later, impact club rolls out. I instantly want to start one and I'm nervous. And, and just, just to start anything locally, because it really puts you on the spotlight, right? So, and, and, and the concept of impact club is this 100 people, $100 each $10,000 donated inside of one hour. So that's kind of just the general concept and, and each quarter, you know, you come together and you vote on a local nonprofit and that you want to potentially be and present at the next impact club. So then we hear three of them pitch. And then at the end of that the group, the collective votes, the winner. So it's kinda cool. And 100% of the money goes to them. We just kind of hold the money in an escrow account, you know, here to say and then as soon as we figure out the winner, then the winner gets the money shipped over to them, which is a cool concept.

Robert Grand (10:35):

If you want to learn more, just go to impact club eugene.com, or you can go to impact club.com and see kind of the bigger picture of it all, but that my local clubs impact club, eugene.com. And so, you know, today we've donated 128,000 over the last three years, and it's been just a growing thing and we have a we're up to like 116 members now, which is totally cool. And, and I just love it because it's another thing for me to connect with people in the community right now we're stuck on virtual events and that's not my favorite thing. But I really like going to the live events. And so we do those live events and such a good time because good people just want to, you know, come out and support local nonprofits. And it's just such a fun experience, you know, each quarter. And we have such a great time and, and we don't get out locks. We're working all the time, you know? So it's, it's just one of those things that you get out and get to do something.

Tim Murphy (11:21):

Yeah. So the thing that I do to give back is I have my daughter has type one diabetes, which if you were to find anything out, go on the internet, follow any of my rabbit holes on the internet with content, you would definitely see that I support JDRF. That's a big nonprofit for type one diabetes. The other thing Bob and I have in common is that his daughter also has type one diabetes. So that really sealed the bond for us when my daughter was diagnosed two years ago, and she's now nine, I had also joined Ryan Fletcher's group to learn more about storytelling because I wanted to tell the story of my family type one diabetes. And I knew I was at a crossroads where it was like, are you going to hide it? Or are you going to be someone there that's out there leading the charge to find a cure?

Tim Murphy (12:09):

And I knew instantly that I had to be a leader. I had to get out there and I had to be a good example for my daughter. And that's what I did. And team sugar, shea.com is where we raise money for JDRF. And that we've been doing for, like I said, I think this last five, six years, and we've raised almost $90,000 doing that over the last five, six years. So it's been, it's been awesome, man. It's been awesome. And I want to go on out, Bob, obviously we've shared a little bit of our story, how we've connected, but let's get into the real story, which everybody's waiting for. How did you guys become real estate investors? Why in the hell should I even listen to you? Right. So the first thing is I'm going to kick it off with telling my story, and then I'm going to have Bob jump in and tell his story, because I think it's important that you guys get to know who these two guys are, that are going to be hosting and part of this podcast.

Tim Murphy (13:03):

Because that's what life's all about is you got to know somebody, then you got to get to like him. And then one day, if we earn it, you can trust us. And so my story started out when I was graduating college, I graduated with an MIS degree, which if you don't know what that is, it's computer programming. Yeah. Everybody says computer programming and you're a real estate investor. My old man said the exact same thing. Cause I told him, you know what, dad that degree, I don't think I'm gonna use it. It's just not my style sitting in a cube, not communicating with people, not being around people and, and, and being more introverted. It's just not my style. And he's like, son, why the hell did I even send you to college? If you're going to do real estate then?

Tim Murphy (13:43):

And I was like, I don't know, dad, it'll all pay dividends. So my dad was always a big influence in my life. And again, I came back from college. I was broke just like everybody's broke. When they come from college, I played sports. Didn't have a job. And I sat in a, in the basement. I said, dad, Hey, I need 12 months. Give me 12 months to get my feet under me. And let me in, I'll find a job and I'll be out of the house. And he said, son, you better be out of the house cause I ain't paying for you any longer. And so that's exactly what I did is I, I discovered what I wanted to do in the basement of my dad's house. And it really came from a book by Robert Kiyosaki called retire, rich retire, young. And I read that book and it just opened up my mind.

Tim Murphy (14:24):

Now, if you're listening to this podcast, I'm pretty sure Robert Kiyosaki probably has some influence on you because he is one of the biggest influencers in the real estate investment field. And so I read that book and it just opened up my mind and I was just like, my gosh, I'm an entrepreneur. I want to live life on my terms. I want to create the life. That's perfect for me. How do I do it? What can I do? And real estate seemed like the thing. And while this book just opened up my mind, I was like, I'm like, this is it like, this is it. And, and that's what I did. I just said, you know what? This is it. And funny thing was, is after I read that book, I ran in my uncle and my uncle was kind of in a shift too, because it was right around 2009 11 happened.

Tim Murphy (15:11):

And he was big in the paper industry. And he knew a lot of people in the world trade center that went down and he just, he couldn't do it anymore. So he was doing, he had his own construction business. He had started, my parents had hired him. So he came over and my uncle, he can talk like nobody's business. So he came over and I, I was sitting at this little fold-up table with my computer and he goes, what, what the hell are you doing, Tim? I said, I've tried to figure out where I'm going to go in life. And he goes, well, what are you thinking? And I said, well, well, I know that I got 12 months and my old man is going to kick me out. So I think I'm going to go down the real estate route realm. And he said, real estate.

Tim Murphy (15:47):

He goes, son, that's smart. And he told me all about how he had flipped and build houses and this and that. And whatever one thing led to another. And I said, well, what are you doing now? And he goes, well, I'm actually building a house over in Lakeville, which is an area in Minnesota. And he said, Hey, do you need a job? I'm like, well, I'm not really unemployed right now. What do you got? And he, he goes, well, why don't you help me build this house? And I said, well, if I like real estate, I better learn about how to build. I said, so you probably need a guarantor. And he said, yeah, I do need a grunt. I go, well, let me tell you, I'm not that cheap. So he goes, Whoa, pay a 10 bucks an hour. He said, are you kidding me?

Tim Murphy (16:28):

I just graduated college. I have a college degree. How about 12 bucks an hour? And he's like, sure, all right, let's do it. And it was awesome because I was able to work a year of construction with my uncle and build this house. And it was an invaluable experience and it solidified everything I wanted to do, which was real estate. And it was construction and it was building things. And so from that I had told him what my aspirations were on being, coming in investor a real estate investor. And we talked a lot about becoming a real estate investor. And he said, well, what are you going to do? What's your big opportunity? I said, well, by the way, I got a buddy down in Arizona. And that buddy has a great opportunity to own a couple properties. And we have built in renters because he's at this golf Academy.

Tim Murphy (17:19):

And so he can bring these kids that are coming from out of state to the golf Academy and they can be our renters. Oh my God. Now obviously I'm cutting the story as short as I can, without giving you all the details, because I don't want this to be like three hours long. But what happened was is we, my buddy down in Arizona became the property manager, my uncle, and I flew down to Arizona and he's like, Hey, I'll buy a property. We'll fill it up. Let's see how it goes. Well, needless to say, we found a property. I did all the work at which I told him I do. And he was the money guy. We found this property and we wrote an offer and he got accepted. And I'm gonna tell you, I was, it was like jumping out of a plane at 30,000 feet without a parachute because I had no idea what I was doing.

Tim Murphy (18:03):

I just knew I could do it. I just knew. I think I can do it. And my uncle, he's a riverboat gambler. He's like kid, I know you can do it. And plus, if every, if the hits the fan, he goes, I'll take care of you. And so we did it. I bought a property, but the best part of this whole story was the neck. This morning, I woke up, my uncle says, Hey, are we going home? And I said, well, you know, we're not going home for another two days. And he goes, well, great. We're going to go out and buy another property. And I was like, what are you talking about? We're coming down to buy one property. We're not buying two. He goes, Nope, we're buying two. So within five days we bought two properties. It's down in Chandler, Arizona. We rented them out.

Tim Murphy (18:43):

Everything was going great until I found out that my buddy got really excited when those rent checks came in and everything kind of just started to fizzle away. I'm not going to go into details on exactly what happened, but I will tell you this. I thought I could trust my buddy. And then all of a sudden what happened was he decided, you know what, all this money coming in, wow, what can I do? How can I make this work? And I just, he was my manager and it wasn't working out. And that is one Oh one of real estate. It's a people business. You have to trust people and you have to put people in charge. And sometimes it doesn't work out and that's okay. But then now you have to make decisions on how to solve that problem. And for me, it was about 2007, I believe on the timeline.

Tim Murphy (19:32):

And I was just like, Hey, you know what? This isn't working out. The properties have gone up ridiculously since we bought it. Let's just sell. Let's just move on because I can't go down there and live down there. I can't manage these properties. And that's exactly what we did. We literally sold. And I always tell people, we literally sold the day before the market crashed because right after we got the last property sold, because it took us about a year, we made great money and then boom, the Arizona market crashed because the whole economy crashed because of the mortgage problem. And so I was sitting there going, I am so lucky. I just missed that bomb that would have hit and possibly lost my uncle thousands of dollars. Let's go do it again. And so what happened was, is the mortgage. The market crashed him.

Tim Murphy (20:20):

And I walked away with a good chunk of change. My uncle's like, let's go do something again. And I was like, Hey, I gotta take a break here because I was a real estate agent. I have to go sell more houses. I have to make a living. How am I going to survive? Am I going to foreclosure? Those are happening. Short sales are happening. What am I going to do? I'm a real estate agent. And that was the mindset. And Bob's been there. He had the real estate agent mindset. And I was like, well, I have to survive this crash by being a real estate agent. That was like for the first, probably year or two, I was like, gosh, how am I going to make this as a real estate agent? And then I met another buddy who became my partner. And he was working with investors while I was doing short sales.

Tim Murphy (21:01):

And I realized, man, let's keep in touch with this guy. And he was killing it 5,000, 200 transactions in one year with investors because the banks had to get rid of these properties and investors were snapping him up. And there was a magic formula for how to get these deals from the banks. And he knew it. And I sat by him. His name was Jason, good buddy of mine love the guy. And he showed me, this is what we're doing. And so what I said was, well, why are you doing it for someone else? Why don't you do it for yourself? Because I want to get in this game. And he's like, that's smart. He goes, you're right. How do we do it? And he was caught up in being a real estate agent and sure he was doing a couple of deals here and there, but he wasn't thinking like an investor.

Tim Murphy (21:43):

And that was the paradigm shift in my world, his world. And Bob will tell you his story. It was also the paradigm shift in Bob's world. When he went from thinking like a real estate agent to thinking like an investor. And so exactly at that moment, I said, Hey, let's do a deal. The next deal we think is a great deal. Let's do the deal. Let's flip it. And let's become real estate investors. That's exactly what I did is I took a deal in Brooklyn park. Minnesota was an $80,000 deal. We bought it from the bank. We stole it from the bank. We flipped it for, I think one 50 or one 75. I had two partners in the deal. I had another guy financing it. I had so many people involved in that deal, but I didn't care because it wasn't about me making money on that first deal.

Tim Murphy (22:25):

It was about me just doing my first deal. Because again, it was like jumping out of an airplane, flipping a house like, Oh my God, everything could go wrong. How do I get financing? Who's going to do the construction. How, what is it going to sell for? I don't, I'm a real estate agent. I should know what it's going to sell for all these things that go through your mind. I was freaking out, but I didn't care. Cause I'm like, I got a job. I got a jumper. I'm never going to do it. And so that deal, I broke even nobody really made any money. It wasn't a great deal. Like we thought it was, it was such a small little deal. There wasn't enough margin, but I didn't care. I was like, I did it. I did it and I didn't lose money. So let's go do the next one.

Tim Murphy (23:02):

And I did that and I did that and I did that. And for five years we did it and I did hundreds of transactions with investors that we were working with. And then with my buddy, Jason and I, we had hundreds of these little flips and we stole so many houses from the bank and it felt amazing because the bank wasn't doing anybody's any favors at that time. And so why are we going to look out for them? Why do we care about them? So we did short sales and we did foreclosures and we did real estate investing. And then the next thing that I was I did was the banks quit giving houses away because the market started to turn. So the market started to turn and there was less and less foreclosures coming on the market. And the banks were not selling the homes at these ridiculous prices because the market was going down and now it was finally kind of plateauing and going up again.

Tim Murphy (23:51):

Now the banks were like, well, we're not losing money everyday. We hold these assets. Maybe we can sell it for a little bit more. Maybe we just hold onto these for a little bit longer. Well, now all of a sudden these foreclosures and the prices that we could get them at were not as exciting. So I was like, I went to one of my, our contractors is now a good friend of mine. We do a lot of big projects together. His name's Chris. And I said, Chris, what are we going to do? And Chris had been doing new construction before the market crashed market crashed. He had a whole bunch of lots and he lost his, had to take, you know, deal with the banks. I don't want to go into that. That's his story to tell, but he came back and he said, you know what?

Tim Murphy (24:28):

Let's do infill development instead of buying dirt, which is what I used to do. Let's find awesome property and awesome locations. And let's take the house down or let's do a total remodel or let's pop the top and let's redevelop existing, awesome locations. So the first house we did was an $850,000 new construction that we tore down in the middle of a neighborhood. And we built a brand new $850,000 house. And I went from doing 200, $300,000 flips to buying the house was two 75. And then the construction was like four 50. I'm like Chris, I'm going to lose my. I'm going to lose everything I had. My wife was freaking out. Everybody's freaking out. I was at the edge of that plane. Again, looking out 30,000 feet. I'm like, dude, you're kicking me off the plane. And he kicked me off the plane.

Tim Murphy (25:19):

And I, I thank God for Chris every single day, because if he didn't kick me out of that plane, I there's no way I would've done it on my own. There's no way I would have done that deal on my own. But from that point forward, I had been flipping houses from, you know, $200,000. And now I'm literally flipping a house for 1.4 million. And I did my biggest deal last year, which was a $1.6 million infill development. New construction deal bought the house for three 75, put in almost a million dollars. And we sold this project for $1.6 million. Now that was the evolution of Tim Murphy as a real estate investor. It's a long story, but it's a story that I think you need to know because you're talking to a guy that's been doing it for 17 years. You gotta be able to trust the person that you're getting advice from. I've done hundreds of deals. I've done big deals, I've done small deals. I've done all kinds of real estate residential deals. And right now I'm moving into the commercial world because it's my next step. It's the next evolution of Tim Murphy as a real estate investor. Now that's my story, Bob. I'd love to hear your story, man, because your story is just as an inspirational,

Robert Grand (26:33):

Well, my story is definitely different than yours. I didn't have to hang out in a basement or anything like that. So, but yeah. So my story, just going back, like to, to, to like my, you know of, of where I came from, I grew up in a really small town and my mom was a local real estate agent back then. And a little town called Oak Ridge and she sold houses. And as a kid, she, you know, forced me to kind of like, I wouldn't, I shouldn't say forced, but asked me and didn't pay me. So it seemed forced at the time to help her, like when she needed property cleanup and stuff, she'd put my brother and I to work and we'd do all sorts of stuff, you know, to get properties ready to go. And I did, that was probably about how far I took real estate at the time.

Robert Grand (27:11):

You know, I didn't really think anything more of it. And, and she was, you know, probably an average successful real estate agent, like the average agent, you know, do some deals here and there and made a decent living at it and kind of, it was, you know, up and down like a rollercoaster. But, you know, I got into becoming a firefighter when I was 16 years old because I had to do some community service and stuff in the small town Oak Ridge. And there was a 40 hour community service program that you could do, which was the entry-level firefighter course there. So I got volunteering at that really young age, which really spiked my curiosity for the fire service. And that's really where I got going. I just want to be a firefighter because I just loved the adrenaline. You know, it's like quick, decision-making having to make decisions without, with limited information.

Robert Grand (27:56):

And it was just like, you get these massive adrenaline bursts. And it was just almost like this crazy euphoric high, when you go into like a burning building or help somebody, it was just, it was insane. You know? So that's all I could think about doing my whole life. It was almost like almost like a drug you might think, you know, like you just kind of become addicted to that. And so as soon as I could, you know, I asked, you know, I went to college and I said, Hey, where should I get hired on at the fire department? I'm like, well, you'd want to get hired on this fire department. So I just go there and get hired on. And that's my start in the fire service, you know, which is at the Eugene Springfield fire department was Eugene fire department now. And we're merged with Springfield.

Robert Grand (28:29):

And so, you know, fast forward, I fast track through my career inside of like eight or nine years to get to the position of captain and, you know, that's all I wanted to do. You know, I just wanted to do that during the course. I was like that typical firefighter who was always hustled on a side deal, you know, working on houses, flipping his own house, just doing those types of things. I didn't consider myself a house flipper. I didn't consider any of that. I was just into it to make money and keep progressing my family down the road, which was the path that was showed to me by every other firefighter out there, you gotta have a side hustle, you gotta have something going, you got to make that extra money. You gotta work tons of overtime at the fire department. And it was just like a lifestyle, you know, and that, and that's what a lot of guys did there.

Robert Grand (29:10):

And they still do it today. But it was interesting. So one day I'm on a fire being this gung ho fire captain, and you're like, Oh yeah, we're going to go in here. And, and, and it was kinda one of those fires where like, it's hard to explain, but when a house has really kind of canned up with smoke and it could kind of just explode basically where it catches on fire, you got to do some things really quick to open up the house, right. So you got to cut some beds and do stuff and kind of vent the vent, the roof and just get smoke out of it. So it can escape and not explode. And I don't want to, to explode like it's to Rupt like the movies. Cause I don't really, I've never really seen that, but it'll, it'll catch fire, you know, and just burn everything.

Robert Grand (29:46):

So that's the goal just to stop it. So I'm doing that, you know, doing my thing and I think I'm like Superman, you know, and, and like it was hardcore physical fitness guy and I could just run down you anything big, strong, tough, you know, you couldn't hurt me. And I climb up this ladder, do some work and just like, ah, just jump off the ladder, you know, like three or four feet to the ground, skip the last few steps, mean, why would you need that? You know, instead of stepping down with 80 pounds of gear on you, you just jump off of stuff. And I felt like a pop, like right in my knee. And I was like, ah, that kinda is weird. Some like run around this fire kind of dancing with my knee. And it's like, ah, it's not feeling right.

Robert Grand (30:21):

You know? And so then after the fire, I, I go like right to the chief at the time, I was like, Hey, you know, my knees kind of, something's weird. I felt a pop he's like, okay, well, why don't you just go off duty and just get to Slocum liquids, which is the orthopedic place that we can just walk into and get checked out. So I go in there and they're like, yeah, you potentially, you know, fractured something in your knee. And you know, long story short, I end up having surgery on my knee cause I did fracture my kneecap and it was kind of a weird deal where I was off for like four months. And it was the first time in my life where I couldn't do anything for three to four months. I had a surgery and I was on the couch and I was like depressed, you know, thinking like, what am I going to do?

Robert Grand (31:00):

And I was, I was actually talking with my mom at the time and she's like, well, she goes, you better come up with a backup plan. And, and, and I think that conversation kind of happened because I was for the first time in my life concerned that I could have a career in career ending injury at the fire service that would take, take me out of my game. And that's all I could think about doing, you know, it's like, I felt like I was a professional athlete, very low paid professional athlete, you know, but I was one yen and that's kind of how I went and I was like, man. And so I'm sure a lot of people go through those when they're in those types of positions, like thinking like, well, what would I do if I can't do this? And so she was like a real estate agent, right.

Robert Grand (31:37):

And so I was like, man, maybe I should do real estate. I've always liked working on my own houses. You know, I've done all this types, different types of things. And so she's like, yeah, you should become a real estate agent. You can just work with me, blah, blah, blah. And so I do that. And then I really start to get into real estate realizing I can make some pretty good money here if I'm just hustling. And you know, I originally just started working with my mom and just kind of working a deal here and there and kind of everywhere instead of having to do something that's physically strenuous outside the fire department, it was better for me just to do something that was more professional. So I didn't, you know, risk myself twice for getting hurt. So I could remain at the fire service, you know, the rest of my career.

Robert Grand (32:14):

I'm smarter, not harder. Yeah. Thanks smarter. Not harder, man. So, so I, you know, going down that course one day I got a call from my mom and she wanted us to come over to the house, my brother and my sister and I, and so she told us that day that, you know, she had pancreatic cancer. And so it was kind of a horrible situation for me because I was like sitting there thinking like, well, what am I going to do anyways? You know, it's like horrible, she's going through this. But also, you know, we work together, we have this business and it kind of threw a lot of things up in the air, but you know, I didn't care about that at the time I just cared about, you know, what, how to help her and make sure she was okay. And in the end, you know, six months later she passed away.

Robert Grand (32:54):

And so at that time I had to make a decision, you know, do I stick it out in real estate or do I, you know, just hang it up. And so I decided I was just going to keep going, you know, and, and keep, keep that path moving for our family. And so that's what kind of got me to Keller Williams, where I got into the coaching programs and did all that stuff and did a bunch of cold calling and just start hammering the phones to realize that, you know, I'm spending 90% of my time focusing on 10% of my business. And if I just cut that out, I could actually just connect with people, which is what I'm good at. And I kind of went that model and that's kind of what, you know, fast forward got me into the group where we met and we went that path and learned how to storytell and do everything that, that kind of comes along with that, which really just involves being human and connecting with people.

Robert Grand (33:42):

So then you know that my brother joined me in the real estate ranks, you know, a few years ago and I was getting burned out on just regular real estate sales. And we were, you, you and I, Tim, we're having those conversations. You're like, man, you should get an investing. And I was just like, gosh, I've never really done it. You know, like is a business model. I've always, and I was still at the time doing it on the side here and there, but not full time. And then, you know, my brother and I, we start working together and we just kind of have the same, like, you know, regular, real estate's good. But our true passion is investing. That's what we've always wanted. And he came from a financial background when he joined as a financial planner, he was previously a financial analyst.

Robert Grand (34:19):

And so he's like, I can handle all the analyzing of the properties. He goes, you understand the construction? And he goes together, we're great real estate agents. He's like, we can make this happen. And so I was like, you know what, you're right. Let's just shift everything. And then, you know, you and I had some conversations about this, like how does the switch work? How do we get grown down that path? And really like what it came down to was exactly what you were saying. Like the airplane door opens and we're like, Hey, Bob tethered to me, we're jumping. I'm like, no, Tim, I'm not jumping. I'm not jumping. Like you're tethered to me, we're going off. And we jumped. And so, you know, we made that jump dude and like, that's, I would've been like, you know, just like in a quick consolidate approach, you know, or thought process.

Robert Grand (35:01):

That's kind of been the whole thing. And since we've made that turn to investing, it's just really opened so many more doors for us. And I've always, I think, deep down, I always wanted to do it, but I just didn't have the courage to do it, you know? And so I think that with us, you know, kind of as a team and my brother and everything, it just gave me that, you know, courage to be able to take that leap of faith and be able to make it all happen. And, and since then, you know, it's like, I think that, you know, you've you spend in the investing world for a long time. And, and one of the cool things, you know, for me is I've only really, truly been like a dedicated investor, the two and a half years. You know? And since then, man, I can say, I probably have 15 to 20 years of investment knowledge compressed inside of two and a half years.

Robert Grand (35:46):

Because as a collective, I've been able to just gather the right information from people and get everything I need and then trust and the people that I'm around and the group and recognizing that they're going to truly be there to help me. And I know that I have the skills to do it. And I think that's one of the great things that the fire service taught me is, is, is how to make decisions with a limited amount of information and get through that fear factor of it. Right? So I mean, if I were, you know, a firefighter to say, I'd never been scared before my life, I'd never been inside of a fire, you know? And, and, and that would be the truth. If any firefighter ever says, I've never been scared, they're lying to you because I can tell you more times than not going into a house.

Robert Grand (36:31):

I've been sitting there thinking like, Oh my God, do I want to go inside this burning building or dealing with a medical call where you pull up and cars are all smashed up and you're like, Oh my gosh, I do not. Do I have the ability to do this? And, and there's that fear factor and your, your internal brain just saying like safety mode, safety mode, safety mode, you know, and, and, and you having to say, I have the training, I had the skills, I have the ability to get through this and get to the next level. And so the fire service really taught me that, which I've been able to kind of take over to the investing side. And, you know, in the last few years, you know, gosh, I've done numerous. Rehabs picked up investment properties, started doing wholesaling got into Bo just, we just recently purchased a 15 unit complex that we're rehabbing. So it's just been this massive compression. And I just keep leapfrogging to the next level, like, learn it, lock it down, go, you know, and, and that's been kind of, you know, my story in a little bit of a nutshell,

Tim Murphy (37:29):

Bob, that's the thing I love about you is that, you know, the value driven investor for me is about giving back. And it's about taking all this 17 years of knowledge and, and pushing it forward and giving it to a guy just like you. The most frustrating thing though, is when you give that knowledge to someone and they don't do anything about it, they don't change their life. When you know that it is life changing, you know, that the information that you're providing and, and the, the support you're providing is will literally change their life. And then they don't do anything is the most frustrating thing in the world. And that's what I love about you being an ambassador for the value-driven driven investor podcast and everything that we're hoping we can do to help people is that literally me and you, you came to me and said, dude kicked me out of the plane.

Tim Murphy (38:17):

Just kick me out of the plane. And when I did, you said, okay, now just tell me, how do I survive? And literally, dude, you haven't just survived, man. You've thrived like you, you're blowing it up. And, and it's just awesome. And that's what the value driven investor is all about. It's about in the future we want to do is we want to take this podcast and we want to give you an outline of where Bob was, where I were was in the beginning. We were just kids. We were just people. We, he was a firefighter. I was a broke kid out of college. And then what did we do? What was that evolution? And that's how we're going to play plan. This podcast is we're going to start with, you're doing something different and you want to get into real estate. And then every episode is going to build on itself and tell episode 55 is us talking about some $20 million commercial building that we just bought and how we did it, you know, but in the beginning, that's so overwhelming to even think about that.

Tim Murphy (39:13):

That's just called analysis paralysis. So we can't start there. We got to start as someone that's sitting there with the idea that, Hey, I just read this awesome book about real estate. And it sounds like it's for me, what's the first step. And so today, Bob it's just, it's a pleasure man. And, and number one, it's a pleasure because I think we're going to get to know each other and be around each other even more, which is going to be even that much better for, for our relationship. But I think it's going to be amazing because we have some great stories. We have live deals, we're doing we're wholesaling deals. We're doing multi-family deals, we're doing flips. We're doing anything that you can get your hands on and real estate Bob. And I seem to get our hands on. And so this episode is episode number one, it's our origin story. This episode, you got to learn about Tim, or if you've got to learn about Bob grand episode, number two, that's going to be coming up is about, what's going to make the value driven investor special. How is the value driven investor going to be different and special compared to all the other real estate podcasts that you come up with that you can turn on, that you all the different real estate websites, you can go to all the different real estate web classes

Tim Murphy (40:26):

You can, you can find out there what's going to make the value-driven vaster special and different. And that's what we're going to talk about in the next episode. So please join us on episode number two, and we look forward to building an awesome relationship from this day forward. Thanks for listening to the value driven investor podcast, where we lead by giving for more information about our community and what's new visit value driven investor.com.

Speaker 4 (41:00):

The value-driven investor podcast was produced by digital legend media in Minneapolis. Build the or legend digital legend media.com.