Never, Ever, Ever, EVER Quit!!! with Cliff Holmes

When Cliff Holmes came home from work late, he found a dark house with  note on the counter from his third wife. After two years of thinking about the signs he missed, his passion for work and what was next - he made a bold move.  The recovering workaholic sold everything and began a new chapter of his life focused on international travel.  Listen to his journey of investing well, spotting opportunities and discovering what important in life.  And oh yeah - most importantly don't ever, ever, EVER Quit even if you lose it all! 

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Transcript

Welcome. You are listening to the Overseas Life Redesign podcast where you'll hear fine, relaxed and inspirational interviews with people who are really living the dream. I'm Dawn Fleming and attorney turned alchemist and your host for the show coming to you from the tropical island paradise of Isla Mujeres, Mexico. Listen to conversations with courageous souls who step out of their comfort zone and designed a new way of life. They'll share their experiences, wisdom, and offer practical steps you can take to redesign your life overseas. Listen, and you'll believe if you can dream it. You can achieve it.

Dawn Fleming

  00:43 - 01:02

I am here this afternoon with cliff holmes. We met through Facebook, part of the living Earnin paradise group, and he just happened to be visiting our island paradise of Isla Mujeres. And so I convinced him to sit down for an interview and, thank you so much for agreeing to talk with me this afternoon.

Cliff Holmes

  01:03 - 01:08

Thank you, Dawn. I'm so happy in your view out the window is like it is paradise. It isn't like paradise. It is paradise.

Dawn Fleming

  01:09 - 01:45

It is. It is. It really doesn't get old. It's a lovely view and I'm glad you're facing that direction anyway. So you are from Missouri and we had a chance to talk the other day, a poolside pool patio, a happy hour, get-together. So, really amazing story. And that's why I grabbed him for this interview. I really wanted to have him talk about some of his experiences, but, CPA background, professionally, but grew up on a farm. You wanna tell me how that came about Okay.

Cliff Holmes

  01:45 - 02:38

Okay. I was born at six 30 in the morning. Okay. I won't go quite that far back. Yeah. Well, I was raised on a farm and a dairy farm. I left the farm very early, 17 years old and started a university graduate with a degree in accounting. and there's a lot of time in between there, but I'm sure we have limited time. So I'll try not to regress what the real important stuff. I was only. I only worked in the accounting world until I was 39 years old. and, consequently in the, and simultaneously during my college years, it began my, I think it was my second semester in college. I, I started reading a lot and I was already, already interested in it before I started reading a lot about real estate investing, but it kinda, it kinda clicked for me early on, which is really unusual, but I was kind of an entrepreneur.

Cliff Holmes

  02:38 - 03:31

I mean, I was, I was a six-year-old boy that went, went through the countryside, looking for pennies and nickels and quarters from our neighbors. And what could I do What can you pay What can you pay me And of course when you're a little boy, in your, in your entrepreneurial spirit, you realize you can smile like that. Everybody's going to give you at least a quarter for doing much, much of anything and it stuck. So I was always, I was always creating, jobs for myself in my, in, in, in the community where I was raised rural, very rural Missouri. there were 29, 28 kids in my graduating class. It was a very small school, a very small town. so, during my college years, I realized there was a big world out there off the farm and the opportunities to me were enormous unlimited.

Cliff Holmes

  03:31 - 04:43

So I just went for it and I started buying one at a time and turning some of them into rentals, even. So the houses that I owned, I would own them for a while. Then I would rent them out for a while, go to the next home. And during that same period of time, of course, I asked for graduation, I went to work for the firm and at 39 I was actually making more money out of the farm than I was as a partner in the firm. So I said, goodbye guys, I'm going. And I was going to retire while I was talking to Don about that recently. And I won't, we won't go deeply into that. It didn't work too for me to retire at 39. I had, I still had some properties, but nothing like what I had when I finally did retire a few years ago. I don't, I never hardly ever, ever used that word retire because I do not like that retire. I'm not going to retire. I managed my portfolio online with an iPhone. That's, that's my office. That's in, it's maybe five hours a week off, of any kind of work whatsoever. And it does really not work. with crypto and equities, it's, life has been really interesting in that world. leaving the firm and leading real estate. I don't know, Dawn, if you want me to go into my very specific properties.

Dawn Fleming

  04:43 - 04:54

Well, I'm just a little curious. so was, so was this something you, you weren't raised with this way of, of being this entrepreneurial spirit that you have

Cliff Holmes

  04:55 - 05:51

So, we, my, my, my mom and dad had, when I was real little held little bitty farm and they grew it to a larger farm. So we were substantial a substantial farm by the time I left for college, but a farm is a business. it is, basically entrepreneurial. I come from an entrepreneurial family, you know, they didn't manufacture shoes and, sell groceries, but it was a business, a farm business. So I guess I had a lot to do with it. And then my grandparents also were entrepreneurs and business owners as well, but very, mostly agriculture and very, very small. And, I remember when I was like 12 years old, my, my grandfather had retired from his farm and he was like in his early seventies. Okay. And he was in Oklahoma and we used to visit them.

Cliff Holmes

  05:51 - 06:39

And I remember, I remember I, it made an impression on me because my grandfather is a Shawnee was in Shawnee where he actually lived to until his death, but he has sold his farm and bought this, two or three-story house. it was, you know, this is back in the seventies so that this old house probably could have been built before the turn of the century. It was really old and it was multilevel. And he had a, he was a single guy then and, grandmother died and then his, so he had different people living on these different levels as renters. And that was really my 10 to 12 years old. And I'm thinking, well, grandpa's making money off these people that, all those kind of things stuck with me. It wasn't, I wasn't just at a plant have a good time where I was, but I'm thinking about those things at a very young age.

Cliff Holmes

  06:39 - 07:30

So that's some of my, when I w when I first started realizing the world is there's more out there than just getting a job, getting a paycheck because I was, I was at a young age. I started realizing there was a, I wouldn't want to say category of people, but I started to recognize a difference of wealth in people. You know, there were people that we didn't when I was a kid, but there were, I saw people that vacation every single year, there were people that I knew that all that holiday, that holiday multiple times of the year. And I knew you didn't do that unless you had some things going for you. There had to be money coming from somewhere. So I guess I realized with, with a little bit of ingenuity, maybe I could be some, I can be some of those people that actually got the holiday more than once in a lifetime, because of course now a holiday every day.

Dawn Fleming

  07:31 - 07:47

Right. I know we'll get to that. so the other thing I want to ask you about is, you told me about the book that you wrote and the influence you've had in the farming industry and, you know, seeing different tax returns from different people and seeing what they want to talk about.

Cliff Holmes

  07:48 - 08:53

Well, that's a big, that's a really big topic, three more days. Okay. Well, so, because I didn't mention that I was, I was raised on a farm and when I left the farm, I actually told Don, this is I'm never going to be around milk cows, the rest of my life. Well, that didn't work very well because I realized just very shortly after that, that, that once I, once I wasn't being forced to do things on the farm, I actually liked the farm. if I could have it in my way. Okay. And that's, that's one of those things about being an entrepreneur, the entrepreneurial spirit, isn't it, isn't, it isn't, in my opinion, it isn't even primarily about making a lot of money. Not definitely not a priority. It's about being, it is about independence and, and definitely wealth brings independence. But I think that we, I know I would, I would that's, that's why one of the reasons I quit working for somebody else when I was 39 years old, I wanted that independence, but that wealth come along with that.

Cliff Holmes

  08:53 - 09:46

And I knew, I knew that I can make, I could have more freedom. And it just so happened at welcome with that if I could spread myself out. and I, I told something to Dawn, I think it was Dawn when I've mentioned this about Warren Buffett. One of my old-time heroes, you know, Warren buffet was in a small business himself also until he was like 58 or 59 years old, one, one small business, and it was successful, but it wasn't large. And it at a fairly late period of time in his life, which now really is not to me, it's not that late. He realized he could, he did. He sold his business and it started investing in, in, in, in the equities and a lot of different businesses. And now he's, he's known for repeating this very famous statement that he says it's much more profitable to own little pieces of a lot of different businesses than it is even owning your own one business.

Cliff Holmes

  09:46 - 10:45

And that's kinda how I developed my real estate. I really wasn't interested in buying and owning and building an empire of 30, 40, 50 story buildings and having my name on the outside. I want to know a lot in a lot of little pieces of real estate. And I think I really understood the aspects and the benefit of diversity. You know, if you happen to buy, if you've got, if you have an S there's that old cliche about having all your eggs in one basket if you put all your, all your money in one, one unit, and that something happens unforeseen you're sunk and you're starting over again. So I started buying small properties and I never really bought very many large properties. I even like, Dawn mentioned about the agriculture life that I had, my agricultural life, really, it never really stopped except a year or two when I was in college, because then I, I started buying farmland, small pieces, 40 acres, 80 acres, 107 acres, 500 acres. And then they kept growing and rolling. Then I put several pieces together to, up to a large ranch,

Cliff Holmes

  10:46 - 10:48

that, that, yeah,

Cliff Holmes

  10:49 - 11:11

I don't like using the word expertise, but my experience, and even when I was a child, had a huge influence. because remember it's not all about money, even though building wealth is very, is very beneficial and it's, it's, it's a worthwhile project. There's some, I don't want to minimize that, but doing something that you really like, and I really liked,

Cliff Holmes

  11:13 - 12:18

Discussing and building upon and learning more about techniques. And I saw, I thought I saw as a kid, that we were doing a lot of things that could have been done, better farming. So when I started buying farms and putting them together slowly, I started my mind started creating these ideas that were definitely not Orthodox farming practices. And then I met some value, very, very important. That became very, very important to me, a South African man by the name of Alan savory. And he actually, created the concept. He didn't create it, but he expanded on it. the term that he calls holistic management. And that was probably close to 30 years ago when I first, met, I didn't meet him 30 years ago. I met him quite a few years later, but I was introduced to him and some of his mentors actually, and that kind of progress with on my own farm over, over about a 30 year period and somewhere along about that ten-year period.

Cliff Holmes

  12:18 - 13:05

I began, meeting people that were interested in what I was doing in the agricultural world and doing it financially well. And they were saying, how can you do this And I was a pretty young man at that time, which is typically farming now is a truly a multimillion-dollar business, even when you're considered a small, a small farmer. And that was this guy that, at that young age being able to do that well, I'm going to give most of the credit to holistic management. And then I started being asked to write, articles and, and agricultural, periodicals. And I, I got, I got that. It wasn't a full-time job. And he got to the point where it felt like a full-time job. I think I was at one point writing for four a month. I mean, it's for four articles in, in different four different magazines every single month.

Cliff Holmes

  13:05 - 14:09

And then it started being online. And then one of those, one of those, publications is acquisition is still today. It's acres. The USA is actually a past, is a publishing company. It's recently sold to new owners that with the prior owners, I was writing for their magazine. And then they asked me to if I was considered writing a book. So I wrote the book and the books now on, on, on, on market for Amazon on amazon.com, it's called ranching. Full-time on three hours a day, which is truly a silly name, but it's what it means. And you can obviously because I was doing it, making a good living on a farm, working three hours a day, using holistic management in a nutshell, that's what my agric, what my act, the the, probably the pinnacle of my agricultural world. And then when I decided to so-call retire, that ranch was a substantial piece of property. That also was part of my, real estate portfolio. and it, it went also, it's sold everything sold. That's might be your next question. I know.

Dawn Fleming

  14:10 - 14:20

No, that's, that's great. So it sounds like you, you came, just came across these ideas, and started implementing them gradually.

Cliff Holmes

  14:20 - 15:10

Yeah. And I'm not gradually unsaved because I don't do any, I never did anything gradually. I was all in all the time and there's a couple of topics we won't go too deep into because I am the Aqua central, workaholic. There's no question about it. In fact, that's one of the reasons that I knew that when I decided I wanted to check my lifestyle change, I knew I had to completely get out of all my businesses. 100%, just like when I thought I could retire at 39, you know, I only had a few pieces of property. And the next thing, you know, at 39 at the time I was 40, 41, I was way, way, way, way over my head again, and just keep going and going. And then it didn't stop until I said, okay, I'm done. And that's that, that, that idea of having to work 24/7, I don't recommend that to anybody.

Cliff Holmes

  15:11 - 16:22

And I'm in, in this conversation that we're having now, that that may be a CA C like a casual part of the conversation, but what I guess one point that I would like to make, and I didn't, I didn't, I didn't ask Don if I could do this, but I would suggest that we do, our, our careers and our wealth building, because I know it can be done on a more guided, trajectory than what I had mean. Again, you don't have to go in 24, seven, seven days a week for 40 years nonstop. It's not necessary. I have a personality and a character that tends to go way overboard all the time. I have no stop. And it took me a long time until I realized that's what character I had in fact, until, until I sold everything or got to the point where I knew I needed to sell everything, I thought I was, I was living in casual life. There was absolutely nothing casual about my, my existence. It was gone, go, go, go, go. And, and I wanna, I wanna make sure if I say anything of value, that that's not a requirement to build wealth, it can be

Dawn Fleming

  16:22 - 17:50

That's, that's a great point. and we did talk about that the other evening, and I did want to kind of bring that up because it's, it's easy. And I know I've, I've been guilty of that before, you know, attorney and, and being in that environment and working with partners that have no life and, and that, you know, 16, 17 hours a day, seven days a week, and then, you know, the divorce and three small children that told them that they hated them on a regular basis and working in that environment are not, you know, it's not pleasant and it's certainly, it's like, Oh, you don't want to make partner. no, thank you. I, I don't want to be you right when I grew up. And so, having that, that balance in there was funny. just today I was kind of talking about, the difference between, endurance and resilience and, you know, the the endurance, you know, like, you know, running a marathon and leaving it all on the field and that's okay to do in short bursts. Right. But it's not necessarily a good way to live your life. Right. you will burn yourself out and you have to recharge your batteries and, and you, kind of learn that the hard way, I guess, from based on what we said. So, you had had said that, that you told me about the moment when everything changed for you, which wasn't, necessarily, a surprise, but it was, a shock when you want to talk about that a little bit, talking about marriages.

Cliff Holmes

  17:50 - 18:35

Do we have to talk Okay? Yeah. Okay. I'm okay. Talking about it. I probably wouldn't have been five years ago, but yeah. And that's, that's, that is one of the conversations that Don and I had. it is still very challenging for me to talk about it because I know that, that I made huge mistakes in my personal life, that I didn't know. And you think, well, how did you not know you were working 24, seven for 40 years I thought she was taking care of everything else. And I thought I was doing what I was supposed to do. I don't want to, I don't want to blame it on anybody. I don't want to say, well, that's how I was raised or things like that. It's it was completed, I was oblivious to it.

Cliff Holmes

  18:36 - 19:41

I just, I didn't And so, yeah, so, and I, you know, that the last 20 or so years, my life was, flying here, flying there, I'm doing this presentation, I'm doing this book signing, I'm doing this, this presentation in addition to all my, my rental properties and my agriculture projects and everything it was, and I never felt overworked. And that's the crazy thing. I was still grabbing more stuff, you know, at one point in time, I know it's like, yeah, it's been over 25 years, dad, we started a small, food company and organic food company that grew to quite a pretty good size food company became quite profitable. Well, that was probably, and, and, and my now ex-wife was very involved in that. And, I thought that she was pretty happy with that while I was, you know, doing this and doing that and what I realized afterward, I was not knowingly, I expected too much from everybody else because I had no limitations on myself.

Cliff Holmes

  19:42 - 20:31

And now I realize I can think back to when I came home from one of those presentations, being gone for a couple of days and she's gone. And so it was the insides of my house, the interior of my house. Oh, I sit there and I walked through an empty house. And then I looked over at the countertop in the kitchen and there was a piece of paper. So I walked over and I picked it up. It was a Dear John letter. Okay, bye. You know she was standing by and, I won't comment on whether that was a good way to leave or a bad way to leave us what she chose. And that's the reality that hit me. Oh. And she spoke a little bit about why not a lot, but enough that it got me to thinking about something that I hadn't even crossed my mind and I didn't sleep for the next two or three days thinking, what the heck am I going to do

Cliff Holmes

  20:32 - 21:17

And I didn't know what to do for the next three years. I walked around in that house trying to figure out what am I supposed to do I don't know. I was like, you know, I obviously love my wife a whole lot, and I liked being married. I do like family life. It probably didn't appear to her like I did, obviously. Okay. So I was oblivious that's this, and it was all my fault. And I took, I took all the blame. So, it took about three years for me to realize I can't, I'm, I'm a, I'm a, I'm an addict. I'm a, I'm not a drug addict. I'm not an alcoholic, but I'm a workaholic. And I've been at my way, my whole life, because that was not the first ex I was, she's not my first ex-wife. So I learned, I, it took me three years, believe it or not, one or two.

Cliff Holmes

  21:17 - 22:02

And, and during that three years, I actually started selling, I sold the food business. I started selling some things that were really, that needed my attention. Cause me, I psychologically knew I wasn't myself. So I had, I had a pair of to start parents, some things back a little bit. I didn't want to just lose them. I, you know, I started doing that, a responsible way, I guess you would say I didn't sell a lot of property to some of those things that require my attention 24 seven. Yeah, I did. And I thought, well, it's kind of nice not having as much responsibility. Well, when this, when this thing sold and another thing, so, and this has, Oh, I see them with mail. And I still have that letter, that dear John letter. So I kept reading it and kind of filling in the blanks.

Cliff Holmes

  22:02 - 22:58

I said, Oh, I I'm, I'm a nutcase. I'm just a nutcase. I just like to work. And I was, I guess I was 57 at the time, the da, something like that. And not really, again, not really retirement age, but I didn't need any money. I had more money behind than I would ever spend it, which was wrapped up mostly in real estate at that time, but it could be easily liquidated. And I, I had, and one thing we left out, I'd actually started investing in equities in college also. So I had equities too. And I, you know, so I wasn't, I didn't have to, I didn't have to all of a sudden learn how to make a living at an, at a new stage in my life, just because I was approaching retirement. I've been realized all I had to do is start selling property and move that money into equities, which I did. And now with cryptocurrencies, by the way, I live in two currencies. Okay. but anyway, I don't know if I answered your question. I'm rambling.

Dawn Fleming

  22:58 - 23:08

No, I did. no, that's okay. So, but then you were talking about making the shift and did you get addicted to getting rid of stuff

Cliff Holmes

  23:09 - 23:12

Oh, no, no, no.

Dawn Fleming

  23:13 - 23:15

You went the other direction.

Cliff Holmes

  23:15 - 24:06

Okay. Okay. Let me back up just a little bit. And I, and I don't, what I don't want to do is get into a lot of personal aspects because I'm not a marriage counselor check. Okay. And I always, the only thing I know is I created my own problems in my marriage. Okay. And I'm never taking responsibility all my a hundred percent. She's a good woman. So once I realized I was an addict, I won it and it wasn't the type of business. It wasn't the real estate. It wasn't because I had agricultural lands. It wasn't because I wanted a rancher because I had a food company or because I'm an author. It wasn't that, that wasn't the cause of reasons is all me, because I did not have control over. I had no breaks. There's no, there's no stop on me. So I knew, that over those two, that three-year period of just kind of wandering around the ranch.

Cliff Holmes

  24:07 - 25:04

I realized I want something different. I'm not ready for three years. I'm not ready. I'm even today, I'm not ready for a relationship. because I'm not going to put another woman through that. But if I ever could think that I can, that I could receive another relationship in a good manner, I have to change my ways. And the only way I know this, the only, and I knew that thin at the end of the three years, I knew the only way I could change my ways if I'm not connected to any kind of business whatsoever. And even today, even, even in my, I was showing Don long ago, even this is my office. And I, I don't, I limit, I limit myself to five hours a week. all I'm doing is, is, monitoring mostly my investments, which are all digital investments, nothing, nothing hard, no real estate.

Cliff Holmes

  25:04 - 26:02

And I'm, and I've had opportunities and opportunities keep coming to me because that's the world I live in. So I have to really, I have to have a strong back and say, no, no, absolutely not because I know what will happen. Just like that first drink, that first drink, it will not stop. And, and, there's a whole lot of financial-economic details that we've skipped over real fast. That, that came that when I started selling properties, that gave me more opportunities for more properties. And it was so tempting to take that drink. I mean, it's, if, if someone's never been an addict of any kind, I don't think it's going to be probably a challenge for someone to understand the workaholic addict, but it is someone that isn't, it has been an addict. They know they know what I'm talking about. And it's a, it's a real thing. And maybe I was over the top, even on that, in that category, I think. And I laugh about it, but it's not, it was it's because time has passed now. It was no laughing, man.

Dawn Fleming

  26:03 - 26:18

Yeah. Well, and, and we talked about the fact that you, actually ended up making up some, making some really good decisions by not reinvesting in the commercial real estate arena that you later saw. Ooh, I'm glad I didn't, didn't do that.

Cliff Holmes

  26:20 - 27:06

Quite familiar with some of that. And me being an old war-out tax guy, you know, I didn't want to pay taxes on a lot of property that I sold. and we will have to go to the details of it, but there's, there are some loopholes, in the tax code that lets you forego your capital gains tax. If you basically stay in the business and in one way or the other, and I am, being an entrepreneur, one of the things that we probably have common is we want to pay a little number of attacks is possible that we will not commit tax fraud. And most of us will not. Anyways, I wasn't going to do that. So, they want to pay those taxes. And when I, when I wind up selling, especially if they're really big property, and I looked at, I actually looked at a lot of properties to reinvest in, and I had conversations with some of the people that I was having, this kind of Frank conversations with.

Cliff Holmes

  27:07 - 28:00

And there was one individual that brought to my attention, cliff, what are you doing You're going to do it again. And she was right. Oh my gosh. She was right. So I, I, I said, no, and I paid the taxes. I paid the taxes, but the balance in inequities in cryptos, and I never looked back and, and, and I will say one thing I've always been in, in, in, from an economic standpoint, I think I've been, cause I'm, I'm never been a shepherd since a post on the ranch. I will never claim to be the sharpest knife in the drawer. I am a very lucky man. I am lucky. And, so that's all this happened prior to two COVID years, 2020. And even though a lot of people suffered and still are suffering financially from, from, from COVID. those of us that invest in certain areas like I did in the tech world, we, we hit home runs all 20, 20.

Cliff Holmes

  28:01 - 28:53

I am lucky the taxes that I was talking about. Didn't want to, didn't want to pay to make those back three or four times. Right. So you, and sometimes I, I think that, and I don't want to say it in, in my, in my, in my, my place, because like, I'm not, I'm not a sharp guy. I'm B I am lucky, but some, I forget who it was that said, maybe Einstein, maybe, or Abraham Lincoln. One of those, one of those guys said something about, being lucky is there's a big correlation between the work of being lucky and hard work. Absolutely. And I think, I think it is, that, you know, well, I can't quote it it's I forget what it goes. Something about wearing overalls, you know, hard work or luck gets to gets, it gets confused with hard work because it comes dressed in overalls and works boots.

Cliff Holmes

  28:53 - 29:36

And I think man, and that was me. Definitely. So that's where if I had luck, that's where it came from. That COVID, I don't know what happened in COVID. I just, I didn't think about the COVID coming, obviously when I started investing and I'm not the only one that that's, who's our equities did really well, but, you know, if, I think if you, but I didn't just sit on the money either. I did a lot of research. I researched for a long, long time and, and I, I still research and you never stop whatever your, whatever your business is, you know, you can't really stop. You gotta keep going. Yes. It, because think, as things are constantly changing things, change every single day. Nothing is the same tomorrow. If you think it's the same tomorrow, you miss something, you didn't, you didn't catch it and it is changing.

Cliff Holmes

  29:36 - 30:27

So, but, but I don't manage people anymore. and in most of us that, that, that has been in business knows that as we scale our business, we will manage people. It's next to impossible to have a business of any type that I'm aware of, and not manage people. And that really is the hardest part. And that's truly what takes most of the time managing people. But I don't know that anybody's ever come up with a way to, to scale a business without having people, except inequities in the markets that we can scale up cannot kind of like what the Warren buffet said, you know, it was, it was, it was better to have a whole, a lot of peace, a whole lot of little pieces of a lot of different businesses than one. I mean, it's just, it's just, it just makes a lot of sense. So

Dawn Fleming

  30:27 - 30:55

Except the fundamentals are all screwed up right now, but, in terms of, if we can, we can talk about that too. But, I had a conversation with a male owner of, Saudi peso a few years ago. We were even, it was happening back then. Of course, we saw it in the.com boom, back in 2000, but the correlation between stock price and earnings and all that, it's, it's kind of a scary time too,

Cliff Holmes

  30:55 - 31:44

You know, and, and I, I hear people talking about that, but I also was in business in 1979 through 1981, with 26% interest rates. And almost 47 years, I saw lots of things. And I don't want anybody to think with this little conversation that we're having here online, that I succeeded in every business I had, because that's not the case. And probably there was about a 70% failure, but the thing is, you get up and you keep going and you never stop. And I think that's a big difference between a lot of people that maybe even if we're talking about investing in the site, you've got a full-time job. And, you want to, you want to start investing in something to build wealth. And people have said, well, real estate is good to rent. The real estate is good and you go out and you buy one piece of property and you don't hit a home run.

Cliff Holmes

  31:44 - 32:37

It's a bad deal. And you wind up go belly, going belly up on your very first time out of the gate. A lot of people will stop and quit and say, I did that once. There's no money in real estate. Oh my God. I have seen that. Well, that was, that was never me. I don't know why. I just, you know, I have some really good mentors beginning before college, but definitely in, in, in college and a lot of stories about some people that I met, like Sam Walton and, and Ross Perot, this is going way back. Okay. A lot of, a lot of young people who know some of these names. So, those people, I, I, I made an attempt to associate myself at an early age with the people that I saw were succeeding. I didn't understand how they were succeeding, but you get a surrounding yourself.

Cliff Holmes

  32:37 - 33:40

You surround yourself and you get little pieces of information, you know, and having lunch with Ross, Pearl on one side, and Sam Walton, on the other side. And we're just talking and I mean, yeah. And, and, and have actually a photograph or two with that. And you, and you hang on to those things, but you hang on to the words that they said, and then you, then you, then you, then you pass onto the next one into the next one. And you start, you see similarities. And I think, I mean, patterns. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I remember I believe it or not, are, are no longer president Trump. I will just tell a very small story that he told me. He said, did you do this And I'm, I stretch it a little bit because I want to put an emphasis on it because I've said this over and over and over again, when a Donald Trump president, Donald Trump's, words that matter most to me is he said, again, I stretch it because I'm going to put emphasis on is, is you never, ever, ever you never, ever, ever do you ever quit ever.

Cliff Holmes

  33:41 - 33:42

And that's what it takes.

Audio

  33:44 - 33:45

We'll be back in a moment.

Audio

  33:48 - 34:39

Islam will, Harris is a Caribbean Juul off the coast of Cancun has to Leto Del Curry Bay warmly invites you to enjoy our spectacular oceanfront Villa located in the heart of El Centro and a short walk to play in Nortek, which is ranked one of the top 10 beaches in the world with an ocean view of crystal clear turquoise waters, overlooking both the Caribbean and Ken city skyline. We offer a fabulous location for you to enjoy all the peace and tranquility you're looking for on vacation. While also taking in all the excitement the Island has to offer with activities, either within walking distance or a golf cart day, an excursion away, please visit has to Leto Curry bay.com, www.castillitocaribe.com. We look forward to seeing you soon.

Audio

  34:44 - 35:38

Is it time to go Are you starved for adventure in new experiences Do you feel like you're slowly dying inside just a little day by day, afraid of having to work forever with never enough money to retire or live the life you have always imagined life doesn't have to be that way. Instead. Imagine waking up in paradise every day saying pinch me is this real. Join me for how to retire overseas on a shoestring budget in this free live workshop. You'll walk away with your own custom roadmap to a dream life in paradise without breaking the bank register for our next free workshop at paradise roadmap, doc, welcome back to the overseas

Dawn Fleming

  35:38 - 35:45

Life redesigned podcast. Thank you so much for being here. And we invite you to subscribe. If you like, what you hear,

Cliff Holmes

  35:46 - 36:52

You cannot quit. You can not stop just because your first job out of the gate was a failure, or maybe it wasn't quite as good as you thought it was, or, or the market's changed or, or there's a COVID or it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what it is away from a marriage with nothing. That's right. Don't stop. You want to talk about that You, you had mentioned that. Oh yeah. You said you started over. I didn't, I wasn't able to rebuild very quickly. yes. Attribute that to the education that you gave yourself. Basically the experience we'll have by then, by the time I was 20 years old, you couldn't stop me. obviously, there's good things and bad things about that at 20 years old and at 58 years old, I wasn't wise enough or my hearing wasn't as good as it should've been even all those years to what, when, when someone in my family probably said something to me about, are you taking care of the household chores

Cliff Holmes

  36:52 - 37:38

Like you shouldn't be, but you taking care of your Wi-Fi. If I, if it, if it was sad, I never heard it. So it happened more than once. meaning I had more than one wife, so yes, dot DAS talking about my first wife, I think we divorced when I was like 31, maybe right in that area. And I felt, I really, I felt I was in distance. I felt really guilty, about it. And, I basically got, basically I did. I just gave her everything. I had, whatever we had she had and, you know, even cashed out life insurance policies, it's yours, it's yours. Now we were, we were still building, we were still billing, wealth. So it wasn't near what it is today, but I would miss this was what I knew. And, and this will sound a little bit, egotistical.

Cliff Holmes

  37:38 - 38:27

It's not meant to be, I knew but got on several different properties by that time. I knew whatever we had built at that time. Number one, I knew I did it. again, this is not a good tricycle. but more importantly, knowing that it was me that built what we had, whatever it was at that particular time, I knew that I could do it again, and I could do it again much quicker because I don't have to make all those stupid mistakes that you make an 18, 19, 20, 21 all the way to 30. You try not to. And I didn't make very many of them because I learned, I do learn. I might not be the sharpest Fitz post in the ranch, but I can learn some things, but not about not as quickly about marriage and taking care of family. That's what I have a big failure.

Cliff Holmes

  38:28 - 39:28

I'm not good, probably not going to get a chance to repair that or fix that. We'll see. But I, I do, I do know how to help other people, create wealth and build wealth. And it's not about making money. It's about building wealth. And those two things are really are hardly ever connected. And then when I started traveling and speaking, it was about building wealth. It was, it was prefaced on agriculture, because my, most of my writings at that time was about agriculture, but it was dealing with agriculture as real estate, as an investment, and the other assets as an investment and how they can return for you. So I hope that I've helped some young people along the way during those years. consequently, agriculture has gotten really tough, but I don't, I don't think, you know, in, in, I'm not, I'm not one to say, well, yeah, things are really hard today and it's tough.

Cliff Holmes

  39:28 - 40:16

I don't really, I don't really fall for them cause I'm not, I wouldn't never if I was 35, 39 years old again, you couldn't stop me from doing it COVID would not stop me. And just like the equities. I mean, so my equities have done really good during COVID those companies that I bought into those are those are businesses, just not the same kind of dishes as I had those businesses did really well to share those guys that are multi-multi multi-millionaires are billionaires. Now. They didn't just crumble it because something looked really bad in the environment. And it was really bad. There's always, there's always little, there's always little cracks. There's always a little day piece of daylight I could do is look for that daylight and then wiggle in there and make, make that, make that crack a big opening, and never stopped.

Dawn Fleming

  40:16 - 40:57

So, yeah. So let's, let's see if we can make that, take that down to a more personal level. So you've obviously done well for yourself. You've, you've been in a stage where, you know, basically walked away from everything and started over again at 30, but what would you say to somebody that maybe is facing a financial ruin situation that 50 or 60 years old, and especially in this environment where everything's so high and inflated, like where you, no way my web magic wand and, and, you know, you gotta rebuild. W what would, what advice would you give to someone that I know And we'll give you a legal disclaimer here. We're not giving financial advice here.

Cliff Holmes

  40:60 - 41:55

Yeah. you know that's, that's the thing is for me as a really easy question. Okay. And it's, it's really the same answer. I get a lot of times on similar questions and it's, it's asking about it as a response that people, other people have given, that I also steal they're, their thoughts also, you know, you're going to be 60, 70, 80, in, in relation to education. You know, you can be 80 years old and have an education, or you can be 80 years old and have no education now. And I'm not saying that education, as Y as far as diplomas and such-and-such is a key to, to assure you of success in the financial world, because it's not, however, it probably has never heard anybody either. So you can be 60, 70, 80, or 90 or a hundred. You can have wealth and you can have an education.

Cliff Holmes

  41:55 - 42:39

Are you going to have no education And you can have no wealth? So you decide you just, just because you're 56, just because you're 76, are you going to stop wanting to be creative in this world Just because of a certain age. I mean, there are mornings that I wake up and I look in that mirror and I see this old man. I'm, that's got the old man that I am, but I see that a guy I'm not going to stop now. I'm not going to be, I'm never going to not be in business in equities and other markets, but I'm not going to be, because of the reasons that I've already given in, owning a small business anymore. I'm not going to be going to do that. But I am not. That doesn't mean I'm, I have ever stopped learning ever, and I'm never going to stop building wealth.

Cliff Holmes

  42:40 - 43:32

And I don't want to brag about it, but I've doubled my wealth since I decided to retire. And it, again, it wasn't because I'm so smart is just, I didn't stop. Remember never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever stop ever. I don't care what the age is. I will never stop. And if, if for some reason I wake up in the morning and the world's upside down and all of my, all of my investments have gone flat, I'll start again. I will not stop. So from a practical standpoint, what, what would you do Like, like the second thing that I do, I've always done. I'd go out there and find a piece of property. I'll start with scratch one. It, but it wouldn't take me as long. Just like the second time I did it. And that's the thing that, that, sorry, you were saying real estate foundation, you know, real estate, you know, what about the thing about, there, there are people that make money in every industry, and there are people that lose money in every, in every industry.

Cliff Holmes

  43:32 - 44:26

You know, there are, there are people that have in companies that make and sell shoes and make billions of dollars. And there are companies that make them sell shoes and go bankrupt. Right. And whether we're talking shoes or appliances or, or, I don't care, it doesn't matter what any real estate also, it, it, isn't about the product. It's about you. So if it's me or anybody else learn, learn the field that you're in learn, and honestly feel that you're in. I don't mean, I mean the dollars and cents. I mean, you've got, you've got to know how to read a financial statement. You you've got to get it because probably if you, it, some point in time, you're going to have to scale up, meaning one, renting your bedroom out. If you've got a house, if even if your house is a rental house and you've got an extra bedroom renting that one-bedroom out is not going to create a whole lot of wealth.

Cliff Holmes

  44:28 - 44:59

One of the, one of the ways that we describe it as scale-up, how do you scale that bedroom Well, believe me, I've seen people do this. they rent out both bedrooms, including their own bedroom. And I actually had an Airbnb and I did that. Actually. I moved out into the, for a, for a weekend. I moved out into a camper for the weekend, so I could run out of my bedroom. And I, quite frankly, didn't have to have the money. I just did it because that's what my mind thinks. So you have to scale up and you, you, you

Dawn Fleming

  44:60 - 45:07

Creative really is, is what I'm getting from you is just get creative and figure out, like, what would you do

Cliff Holmes

  45:07 - 45:57

You, you can't stop with renting one bedroom. and, that I've been in the real estate business, whether it's agriculture or whether it's, you know, duplexes or, or, or condominiums, multi-family units. We start thinking it doesn't take long before we start thinking. And that's why, that's why my, where my mind goes. My mind and my mind go to bedrooms. Well, there are so many bedrooms that require, you know, if you're, if you're creating a 10% margin on each bedroom, how many bedrooms do I have until I can make a hundred thousand dollars a year You know, that doesn't, you don't have to be a mathematician to figure that out. You can figure it out. It's math, right Accounting is very simple. Reading financial statements is very simple, but you're not typically not born with that knowledge. So you haven't learned it.

Cliff Holmes

  45:57 - 46:46

You have to learn along the way, and it does get more complicated. So at some point in time, this is where I was actually going with this conversation. You, you, you, you, you're going to have to during this scaling-up process, and if you're a working-class person, like most of my, my, my, my people are my friends, my family, meaning you don't have, you know, a rich uncle to go get money from, you're going to have to talk to the banker. And the way that that banker reads you, your ability, your, your credibility to that banker, how he sees you and how you communicate with him, meaning your knowledge on, on finances and economics and the industry that you're talking about. Borrowing money for that determines not necessarily your experience of success at it, that determines whether he's going to give you that very first loan.

Cliff Holmes

  46:46 - 48:05

And that very first loan is sometimes the hardest one to get an app. And I will promise you that after that point, it gets easier and easier and easier and easier. And pretty soon the banker just says, Oh, it's cliff homes. He knows what he's doing. Give it to him. You know, it's, and that's that is taking that confidence that you have in yourself. And we talked about having employees and, and, and, and, scaling up. You have to transfer, you get to the point where you can transfer your confidence and where other people have confidence in you. You know, if you've got 35 people working for you and them, and they think you're a loser, good luck with that. If you people that work for you, you've got to have confidence in you, your banker and your banker is he works for you. Your accountant works for you. Your attorney is he's your, he's your employee. You don't work for him. If you don't like him, leave, there's a hundred thousand other attorneys, a hundred thousand other bankers, but you build that confidence in yourself and transfer it to the people around you. And then they help scale up the bedrooms for you. It doesn't mean it ever gets easy, and it probably never gets easier than it was the first time, but you never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever quit. Never.

Dawn Fleming

  48:06 - 48:50

Well. And it's, you know, it goes back to what you're talking about, you know, surrounding yourself with the right people that have the right way of thinking, rather than thinking, Oh, what was me You know, I, I, I don't know what to do. I mean, I was even thinking about, when we first moved to the Island here, one of they are property management company that we had at the time he started out renting, long-term doing long-term leases and then dolling up the properties and turning them into vacation rentals. And so it was an, a lot of people, have done that in Airbnbs, in the States as well. So this idea that, Oh, well, I've lost everything and I don't have any money. You know, there are always ways, right. That you can still fill that, that wealth, that income and that wealth without having that, those resources,

Cliff Holmes

  48:50 - 49:36

That's right. And I don't know if you've met too, but you, you jogged a memory of mine. And, and, and this is something I talked about when I used to talk about my, I used to have given a lot of presentations and, and there's some disagreement among, especially the younger crowds that today, and what I'm going to tell you in this. I believe that that, that, that consumer debt is an absolute trap. And I think it's completely unnecessary, it's unnecessary. And it has, having an impact, I basically never had any consumer debt. Once I realized what it was all about at a very young age, I might not even be 20 years old, meaning if I, if I own something, I owned it if, and less it produced money. And that a lot of people might not understand what I'm talking about.

Cliff Holmes

  49:37 - 50:26

I can borrow money to buy a rental house. This is bad. That's right. And there's, there's no amount, there's no amount of, of consumer debt that, that, that I can classify as good. But there is, there is an unlimited amount of non-consumer debt that it's, it's all good. It can be all good. And that, you know, if, if you've got one of them, one of the problems that I'm, that I'm seeing with people that want to invest in real estate, typically they've got a job. Maybe they, maybe the guy in the, in the husband and wife both have jobs that make a pretty good salary. And at the time they get a raise, they sell our house and buy a more expensive house in a more expensive car. All that's all consumer debt. They actually have very little disposable income than when less than five years ago when they were making a third of what they're making now.

Cliff Holmes

  50:26 - 51:14

Right. But if they would just say, stop, stop and live within their means and actually go back. And that's really hard when you keep buying up when your house gets bad, every three years you buy another $50,000 house and another $20,000 car, meaning that the car is worth more than that, then you're, you know, you've been driving a Honda a long time if you want you're okay. And if, and you can pay cash more than likely for that Honda, but if you want to drive and I drive an Infiniti, but I still pay cash for it. But there are people that are 22 years old driving a $65,000 in infinity, or, or a, or a Mercedes or a BMW, whatever, living in a, you know, living in a house that's, I probably never live in that, that, that value of a house. And they don't have any disposable income, and they're never going to have any wealth,

Dawn Fleming

  51:14 - 51:23

The food lines that we saw during COVID and, you know, there's 50, $60,000 vehicles. People are in line to get free food.

Cliff Holmes

  51:23 - 52:07

And then I don't remember seeing it. And I don't, I definitely don't want to think as I am not a, there's not a racist piece of skin on my body at all. even before they, everybody started talking about racism,, it was just a stupid thing to me. There there's, there's no racism exists in me, but there's something that I noticed about Ann is just because of where I w where I was living, into my hometown Springfield, Missouri, which is known for, cashew chicken. The SAS for cashew chicken was invented. I don't know if it's tearing up, but it's what everybody said growing up. And this is what I noticed. And I was a teenager when I noticed this and probably very few teenagers would notice this. I would see, you know, someone from the Asian community and it's a small community.

Cliff Holmes

  52:07 - 52:48

So you see this happen, they would come in, and it could have been an Asian that could have been, it could have been, you know, Mexican, it could have been France. It didn't matter. It just happened to be Asian that I happened to see this, and, and Springfield is known for, for Chinese, Chinese chicken. Well, that doesn't mean they're Chinese. It just, it's just kind of a term that we use. And I would, and I would see this Asian person, usually a family, a small, young family, and they would come in. I say, having so many times in that community and, and, and I, and since then, when I've as an adult older adult, I've seen it happen all over the world. Really where I traveled. I see I will see this young family, very young family, even with one or two children.

Cliff Holmes

  52:48 - 53:42

And they were obviously had no money and that they were not driving a BMW. Okay. And somehow, I don't know how they would do this summit before they bought a house or a car. They would somehow probably a rant, or at least the first time acquire the rights to open up a very small Chinese restaurant. I mean, hand to mouth. Okay. And because I, I saw it with my own eyes, even though it was not a legal thing to do. They lived in the back of that restaurant and they built that restaurant and they built the business from scratch. And it was an empty building when they moved in and they built, they would build that small business and would talk about scaling up. And like, with them, just a couple of years view, you could see that everything that they, everything that every penny that they made, it looked like they put white back in the business.

Cliff Holmes

  53:42 - 54:24

And then all of a sudden, whatever the name of that little, little restaurant was on the other side of town, they would open up another one. And within 10 years, they'd have them all over town. These little bitty, still pretty small. But, and, and I, I don't know for sure, but I'm sure by then they bought themselves a nice home and maybe a nice car. That's not the American typical American way we get out of college. We had started making that money. The first thing we do is buy a car and then a house, and we don't have any disposable income to invest with a different, different mentality. That is like that, that clicked with me. So I, I was against in my own family, which did cause some problems, against having consumer debt at a, I just never did have it. Yeah.

Dawn Fleming

  54:24 - 54:27

Well, that's a good addiction not to have. Right.

Cliff Holmes

  54:27 - 54:48

I think so. Yeah. I will make one caveat. The first house I bought was where I live. I had to borrow the money to buy it, but later actually that house turned into a rental. So I think, I think from that point forward, pretty much everything, every time I borrowed money, it had to have the potential to make money, earning money.

Dawn Fleming

  54:49 - 55:07

Well,, it sounds like you have the golden touch, but I know there was a lot of work that went in, into it. So Bravo, I like to shift gears a little bit and talk about what your life has been like since you tired and, kind of,

Cliff Holmes

  55:08 - 55:57

Well, for the first time, because I got married very young, right when I went to college and been married almost practically every day since then, until, until my last wife left, that was five years ago. I have been alone for five years. I have been traveling the last two and a half or so, international traveling for the most part I never stopped. That was something that I had kind of dreamed of doing that. I never thought I could do it because I was in business all those years. And those three years that I spent walking around the house on the ranch, trying to figure out what I'm supposed to do that kept coming back into my head. I think I want to travel. And that kind of was, was, kind of, a light beam way out there that said, okay, that's where I'm going.

Cliff Holmes

  55:57 - 57:22

I can see the light, you know, I'm going to travel. And that's that, that moved me and motivated me partially to sell everything I had. And I, the, like the, like the, by the next weekend, after closing, I was gone on and I woke up and beliefs. and I went South from there. and I, I, I, I'm very happy the first couple of years, the route that I took, which was very, again, I, I'm not, I'm not afraid of taking the ortho unorthodox, route. I took the route of a backpacker, in Latin America from hostel to hostel. And I went all the way to Southeast Asia and the learning experience from those that were much more experienced in doing that only they were doing it in their twenties. I'm 60. Okay. Doing it, which after a while, I got really comfortable with it and I'm completely comfortable with it now, in fact, even why I stayed mostly in Airbnbs now, I still travel with only a backpack. And, and occasionally I will, I will hop into a hostel for a week because I know that I know what goes on there. It's, it's exciting. They know where all the best places to be, where the food is. And no matter how much money I have, I am always going to be a penny pincher. I always, I can not stop,

Dawn Fleming

  57:25 - 57:25

But

Cliff Holmes

  57:25 - 57:43

I will tell you that one thing about that. And, and, it, it is kind of funny because it's come to the surface more than once. yes, I liked the hostel traveling and backpacking and riding the chicken buses across last mountain America. Now in Mexico, actually, most of them have been replaced with ado, air condition,

Dawn Fleming

  57:43 - 57:43

Your condition,

Cliff Holmes

  57:46 - 58:08

The difference. Now, when I travel, I can say, I can, I can ride a chicken bus and I can ride, I can say to hustle for a month or two, traveling in different countries. But what I do know is now, and I've done this on occasion and I will never stop after a month or two, if I feel like it not, which is different than most of the kids that are kids that are actually traveling in the hostel. I can, I can get a penthouse in the Hyatt anytime I want. Right.

Dawn Fleming

  58:09 - 58:12

And I do, I go to the five-star all-inclusive and

Cliff Holmes

  58:14 - 58:17

Yep. Get my son's on and then go back to the hospital. Yes.

Dawn Fleming

  58:18 - 58:23

That's the difference. So you also told me that you spent some time in Myanmar.

Cliff Holmes

  58:23 - 58:29

Yeah. I've been all over Southeast Asia. You know, I I'm, I don't know how much detail you want on that.

Dawn Fleming

  58:30 - 58:32

Oh my gosh. Have more time. So, you know,

Cliff Holmes

  58:32 - 59:16

Your friend back in Missouri, that's about my age that does have some really good humanitarian work and some of the orphanages in Southeast Asia and Manama. And, I know it is Burma who could be been, had a name change. so I told my friend Ray, who is the third generation in this, in this humanitarian project, I always told him for years, you know, someday I'm going to retire some and retire. Let me know, I'll come to help you at least help with what I think I can do for you guys. In, in, in Southeast Asia on one of your trips, he makes an annual trip there. He works all year long. His family works all year long to click, click what money they can. And then they, they do what projects they can if they have orphanages, like dig Wells and things like that, whatever they do.

Cliff Holmes

  59:16 - 01:00:03

There's a lot of different projects over the years. And his father is actually a retired neurosurgeon and I got to see it. They actually built the hospital, a clinic over there years and years and years ago. So there, this is, this is a month-long project. And why, you know, I'm traveling in Latin America and I get a message from rice and it was something like cliff, you said, you were, you want to become, I'm going to be there in three days. You want to meet me there okay. Right. I can't ask. So I dropped everything I was doing. And, and next thing I knew them in Southeast Asia. And it was a, I had to be careful what details I give. Not because it's a secret because I was moved with, the stuff that re-designate orphanages that is just the humanitarian work.

Cliff Holmes

  01:00:03 - 01:01:14

It is, it changed me forever. And, and I told Don a little bit about this last time we spoke that, when Ray's project was over for him to come back to the States and go back to work, to make money again for the next year's project, I stayed in Southeast Asia and traveled all over Southeast Asia. And one of the places that I traveled to was, was, Cambodia. And I visited the killing fields. So I went from this orphanages of kids with missing arms and legs and just basically starvation, I guess I didn't get enough. Then I went to the killing fields in Cambodia and it was like jabbing a knife in my heart. And, it changed me that trip to Southeast Asia. a lot has changed, changed my perspective these last five years, but Southeast Asia and those events, that we're not just a little bit heart reckoning, they destroyed whatever, the evil I think I had in my heart and replaced it with, okay, it's time for you to do something good for a while.

Cliff Holmes

  01:01:14 - 01:02:03

So I I've been doing a little bit more and a little bit more, I'm searching for new things. I met some incredible people, in Ray's organization from Australia. We've just recently been talking about what, what, I've got a new book coming out, what you gotta Oh yeah. And one of my friends, from Australia there, I met these really great nurses from Australia that were also on. And when we kind of joined forces when we were in Mark and, I made a comment about my new book coming out. And within minutes, she comes back with this message. she's actually South African, but she she's living in Australia. And she says, well, I'm not doing a because I made a comment. I'm not, I, I, in my new book, I'm not out there to make money off. My new book is I just, I'm just doing it for fun.

Cliff Holmes

  01:02:03 - 01:02:50

I do a little bit of drawing and art. I do that for fun. I do everything I do is for fun now. And she said, what about doing a donating We'll sell you, we'll help promote your book. And you'll donate part of that money for, for our projects, the amount of Marcy. That's a wonderful idea. I never thought about that. So I'm going to do more and more things like that. No, it's not going to be anything grand because I'm not a grand person, but I want this, my, my time on this earth, has, has slowly, finally, taught me something and indefinitely myself E Southeast Asia trip. And the people that I met there have taught me that, that I can actually put something back in, not just take it out all the time. So I don't have that. That's a that's a continued story.

Cliff Holmes

  01:02:50 - 01:03:15

Cause I don't know where it's going to go. but it's, it is in the process and I'm looking for those things and I am participating in other projects, very small projects. My part of it is small anyway. So yes, I, I don't want to talk too much about it because I start crying. It will. Wow. So it really, really did have a huge impact on you. I can't describe it. It's too. I don't want to talk about it now there.

Dawn Fleming

  01:03:15 - 01:03:35

Well, this has been awesome. I, I know there, we could be here for hours and talk about all kinds of things, but I'm so excited for you and your, this new chapter of your life and on the decision. And I'm so glad we had an opportunity to meet before we wrap up. Is there anything I didn't ask you that you want to, Oh my gosh?

Cliff Holmes

  01:03:36 - 01:04:23

63 years of life cover. Cliff's last famous words. If there was anything, you know, I know that one of them, one of the things that Don is involved with, on she, she's involved in a lot of things, is, real estate investing in different places and wherever one, however, one chooses to build wealth. I think that that, that it's that real estate itself. And that that's a very broad category. It's so broad. I think that it's hard to go wrong and just never, ever, ever, ever, ever quit and never quit ever it'll come. And real estate is a good place. Really is great.

Dawn Fleming

  01:04:23 - 01:04:35

That was awesome. That's a, that's a good ending. So, well, cool. Well, to be continued, maybe we'll, we'll do a follow-up interview after the book's published this year. Catch up with you down the road. Sounds good.

Audio

  01:04:40 - 01:05:14

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