Billy Keels  00:00

Today's conversation is sponsored by first generation Capital Partners. If you're an accredited investor, and you want to know about how we're helping other accredited investors keep more of their income, go to firstgencp.com, forward slash going long.

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00:12

You know, I was big into mutual funds and other things where I just didn't want traditional conventional investments. And I always tell people that okay, so I want you to pick up the phone and try and get a hold of the fund manager for your mutual fund. Good luck, alright, because you're not going to be able to get a hold of that person.

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00:27

You're listening to the going long podcast with Billy keels, the number one podcast for long distance real asset investing.

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Billy Keels  00:37

Welcome to the going long podcast, we're back once again to continue to help to educate you so you feel much more comfortable as well as confident investing beyond your backyard. And yep, I'm your host, Billy keels, and I am super excited to welcome you back to another episode with today's amazing guests. And like if you're in the oil and gas industry, and you've been trying to figure out how you can make even more real assets work for you like this is a definitely an episode you're gonna want to listen to until the very end. And I want to thank everybody who continues to share the podcast across LinkedIn, Instagram, you're tagging us, thank you so much for that because it continues to bring new, new new, going long podcast family members to us. And we really appreciate you want to recognise you for that. And also to, you know, if you still want to think about leaving that review, we'll go ahead and stop thinking and go ahead and do it. We've even had a little video here. And on Spotify and Apple podcast platforms, you can do that. And also too, if you want to find the previous episodes, just go to first gen cpe.com forward slash podcasts, you can find every single episode once again, it's first gen cpe.com forward slash podcasts. And you can find every single episode that has ever been released. So with that, like I said, if you've been in the oil and gas industry, or you're in an industry where you're just thinking, Hey, listen, I've got a lot of deep knowledge. And I know that there's some things that I can be doing beyond Wall Street, like today's guest is really going to give you some insight into how you can make real assets work for you. He is the principal at Birch prosper, and we're gonna get to the conversation that we had with Mr. Brandon Jenkins. And we're gonna get to that just after this. Are you a busy high paid professional, someone who's made $200,000 The previous two years and also expected to earn $200,000 This year, or maybe as a couple you file jointly and you've earned $300,000, the previous two years, and also expected to earn $300,000 together this year, or maybe yourself or as a couple, you have a million dollars in net worth not including your home. Well, if you meet any of those criteria, then the IRS considers you to be someone who is an accredited investor. And so that probably means you're a top producing software sales executive, or maybe you're a highly paid consultant, maybe you're a lawyer, maybe you're a doctor or a business owner, you may even work for a professional sports franchise. But one way or the other, you've done a lot of really hard work to get to where you are, you've done 100% of the work. And nowadays, you're continuing to get crushed by taxes. And that means you're only bringing home 50% of the reward. If you're tired of doing this over and over and you're looking for a solution to start to keep more of your money, you can go to first gen cpe.com forward slash invest so that you can start to keep more of your money, which means that you can start to have the freedom to choose what you want to do when you want to do it with whom you want to do it. So once again, go to first gen cpe.com forward slash invest, to see how we can start to help you today. Once again. That's first gen cpe.com Ford slash invest. So you know what, if you'd like to understand how combining your corporate industry experience can help you solve other people's problems when it comes to achieving long distance, investing success? Then guess what? Today's the conversation that you're going to want to listen to until the very last word, I promise until the very last word. You know why? Because today's guest listen to this not only had early life experiences supporting in the management of crisis situations, that's key. He also had professional experience in the oil and gas industry with some market leading organisations. And I'm sure he's gonna tell us a little bit more about that. And guess what he's got these dynamic skills, and things like full stack web development. That's super intriguing. He is also the host of the super popular podcast, the capital stack podcast, and he is the principal of birch prosper gives me great, great pleasure to welcome to today's conversation, Mr. Brandon Jenkins. Brandon, welcome the show, man.

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04:26

Thank you so much for having me, Bill. It's a pleasure to be here and you know, really, really in awe of your your production and the value that you add to the to the space so I'm happy to be here. Thank you.

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Billy Keels  04:35

Hey, thank you very much, man. This is a team effort man. This is all team effort. So they just they let me get in front of the camera and in front of the audio and just kind of have wonderful conversations with guests like yourself. Brandon, I want to jump right into it man because you're not you know, you're gonna get five questions. Actually. You're gonna you're gonna get a lot more than five questions but at least five questions. So help us understand that where is it that you call home? In the US?

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04:59

Absolute So I am in Washington, DC, I was born and raised here and the nation's capitol, went to school here. So I went to Howard University, both graduate, undergraduate and graduate. And so by degree, I'm a chemical engineer. I spent 10 years in Houston, Texas, which is actually kind of where a lot of my story with with regard to this space kind of started. But I worked in oil and gas for some time, and then came back to Washington, DC, where I now live with my wife and three children. And so, but for anyone who's kind of familiar with this area, you know, DC is relatively small, but I live in southwest DC right near the waterfront. So it's kind of where the, down the street from the the monuments. So good place to be in the area here. Yeah.

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Billy Keels  05:43

Hi, fantastic. So the nation's capitol, and there's monuments. And also I'm sure, we're going to talk a little bit about that experience you did 10 years living in Houston, Texas, or in Texas. I used to live in Houston. But that's a whole different story. We'll talk about that afterwards. So here's the other thing, Brandon, I love positivity. And so I would love for you to share with us, what's the most positive thing that's happened to or for you, in the last 24 hours?

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06:06

Absolutely, we'll share that. So two things that I want to share. One is I made my bed this morning. Okay. And, you know, I honestly, I forgot the name of the gentleman who, who made a famous speech on that. But I couldn't agree more that the impact of changing your bed as simple as it sounds, it gives you a victory, or when I guess you can call it first thing in the morning. It For Me is a reminder that every day, we really can start fresh. And we really can start new. And so I like to become a bit every morning is kind of the first step that I do in my morning routine. And it just helps me start off on the right foot. And so that regardless of whatever happened today, for before, it reminds me that this is a new day. And so this is a new opportunity to make an impact, right. And so, I know it sounds like you know, to some people who, especially if you don't make your bed in the morning, it might sound like this is exaggerated, but it's true. Once you get to the point where you kind of internalise it, then it becomes something that is for you. And it will help you sort of It's a restoration. And it's for me it is. And the second thing that I did is last night was I read a bedtime story to my two daughters. So maybe we'll talk about it, but I have three children. And so my my two daughters are old enough to appreciate it, my son is only three months, so he maybe can appreciate it just yet. But I read a bedtime story to them. And, you know, for me, it really helps sort of set the tone for them in the morning. And I just believe that as adults, there's actually a lot that we can glean from the behaviour and the attitude, the positives, you mentioned that you like positivity. And so I actually think that the positivity that children exude, it's something that we can learn a lot from. So those are the two things that made my bed and read my children a bedtime story last night,

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Billy Keels  07:53

which is awesome. And by the way, your three month old, he's already recognising it, just the fact that you're around and just keep reading to him take it from somebody who did a lot of travelling when my kids were young, so but they're still young now. So we get to read bedtime stories and all that kind of good stuff. But I appreciate you sharing both making the bed and also being able to read those bedtime stories, those are awesome. And just a reminder, especially for everybody who's a super busy professional, which we have lots of them listening today. So here's the thing, and I'm going to tell you, Brandon, and I just want to thank you because I think you've probably heard or watched or listened to the podcast before. So you know that I'm a recovering perfectionist. That means I do things that are kind of impossible sometimes or tried to do them. I tried to do them, like tell your entire backstory in, I don't know, two and a half seconds, never what's gonna happen. Help me out. Please tell us your backstory. In your own words, you can take a lot longer than two and a half seconds you take the time that you need. But also, if you could help us talk to us about some of the major decisions that you made to get to this point in your journey, and then we'll see where you and I take the conversation from them.

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08:55

absolutely will. And I appreciate you giving me the opportunity. So you know, I mentioned that, that I moved to Houston, Texas, after graduating. And I like to talk about kind of my journey because you know, you start off, especially if you when you graduate from school or not? Well, when you start off as a professional working adult, you know, you're really coming from a place of excitement and energetic and ready to tackle the world. And so that's where I started. So I have I moved down to Houston, Texas to work as a petroleum engineer. And I started off as what's called a drilling engineer. So we you know, if you've ever seen an oil rig, whether it's onshore or offshore in the water somewhere, drilling engineers are responsible. They're like the focal point of that of a project of a drilling project. And so I sort of cut my teeth in that space, where it's a bit of project management is risk management, it's engineering all these things. And then I shifted from that role to what's called a reservoir engineer, which kind of is a little bit closer to the balance sheet. So you kind of take in some of the The inputs from different parts of the business, and then you can sort of translate that into what the value of the assets are on Wall Street, really. So as much as I love the oil and gas business, as much as I enjoyed the projects, I enjoyed the people. For anyone who is familiar with that industry, you understand that it is very volatile, you understand that it's tied to a commodity. And so any adjustment in the price of that, you know, per barrel, you're going to see a reaction in the marketplace, you're gonna receive, see a reaction as far as headcount is concerned. And it is, you know, to my knowledge is it really is one of the more reactive businesses out there, there's some companies that will kind of hold on tight, if they're a larger company that's been around for a long time. But you tend to see a lot of companies react. And so that's what I saw. So in the time that I worked in the oil and gas business, I worked through three downturns, one of which was a major downturn. And so I saw the people who, you know, my colleagues, you get laid off, get impacted by it. In that particular downturn, I was not impacted in terms of my role, but my, it really affected me, because I saw that, you know, hey, I need something to offset this risk. I'd already been interested in, you know, investing and things like that I really didn't have kind of a background in terms of my upbringing, you know, to have an awareness of those things. So I sought a solution myself, ultimately, was led to single family investing. So I would buy properties, pick, you know, fix them up, and then rent them out the what they call the birth strategy now. And so I would do that had about 1212 properties, and eventually wanted to scale. And so you know, so I started to think, well, how can I do that, you know, how can I increase the velocity of my capital? How can I take advantage of economies of scale, that are inherent to some investment vehicles. And so one of my co workers, he and I were sort of having the same epiphany at the same time. And so in Houston, Texas at the time, there were a lot of meetups, a lot of local groups that would meet to discuss these types of issues. And it led me to the syndication space. And so when I found out about multifamily syndication opportunities, and investments and groups, I just absolutely fell in love with it. And so that's kind of what led me to this space. And so I started investing as a passive investor. And now I'm an active investor as a general partner on these deals. And so I just absolutely love this business. And that's kind of what got me to this space now.

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Billy Keels  12:22

So when you get to this space, there's a number of different things that I really want to draw on one of what you said that you didn't, doesn't sound like you really talked about, how do you create multiple streams of income at your dinner table at nighttime? Sounds like you're a first generation. You know, first generation, I always like to say first generation accredited investor, first generation financially savvy or savvy, you're right, because I was in a very similar situation. We never talked about money. Actually, when we talked about money at the dinner table, it was usually pretty bad subject, it was my parents, because they would never had enough of it. But in spite of that, right, you had the the knowledge, you were in an industry that you started recognising like, Hey, listen, you're moving in the right direction, you're gaining more experience. But at the same time, there was something around the volatility, not just once, but twice. And here's the thing, it you saw it three times. So you were able to work through that you were able to recognise and this may be me extrapolating a little bit, the things that were positive about where you were the things that were negative, and you did an overall and said, Hey, look, you know what, maybe it's time for me to pivot, I've got some skills, I've got people that are thinking in the same way that I am. And I'm always interested in like, you could have chosen a million other things like you were already in the commodity space, right? You could have chosen collateral, something in oil and gas yourself. But you decided to go towards another type of real asset, right? Because commodities are real assets. This is a new real asset. What was it that took you to that new real asset, which was that single family residence that kind of got you started?

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13:57

So there are a couple of things there. One for me is I had one of my college buddies, you know, actually, he and I would chat all the time, he actually moved to Houston went up, not too long before I did. And he so he started off buying properties that he would flip them. And, you know, before he and I talked to, you know, spoke about it, I really didn't. I really didn't see it firsthand. And then I said, You know what, let me let me come out there, and she kind of check out your operation a little bit. And so, you know, as we were kind of driving around, he said, Yeah, that property right there on that, and he would drive around the block on that, when to own that on that. And so it just immediately clicked to me to say that, you know, this is what I want to be a part of. Now. After that, I started to sort of seek out education, right. So I started to listen to podcasts. I started to read books, I started to you know, do all these things to educate myself take courses. I'm still I felt really comfortable with it. And I'll say something else too. So when I was in undergrad, I remember this was back when you could get a CD for like five 6% I think it was like a three month CD or something like that it was a very relatively short term with a high interest rate back then. And I remember, I had gotten to the point where I saved up $2,500. And I was in undergrad, which to me was just a tonne of money at the time. And so I take my money down to, to the bank, and I say, you know, hey, look, I want to get you a CD. And they sat me down, it's okay, good. It's, you know, it's really positive thing, you're a young guy getting started. And let me get the paperwork, and I'll bring it right back. Well, between the time that they sat me down, and they said, they're gonna go get the paperwork, I get it. Okay. And I did that, because it was just fear, it was fear of the unknown. And so I've always looked at that as, after what I said, you know, I'll never do that, again, I'll never have kind of an opportunity that because I did some, some research I didn't, you know, and so I felt comfortable going in, but I just got nervous and fearful to left. So those are two things. One is it was seeing it for myself. So I saw my, like I said, my college buddy, and so that he had done it, and I had success with it. But then also, because of what I experienced long ago, I knew the value of taking action. And so those two things are really kind of the reasons why I ended up going down that path. And then also, of course, naturally the the other reasons why real estate makes a lot of sense, right? Passive income, depreciation, so you get tax benefits, do it accelerated depreciation, you get appreciation, if you're in the right marketplace, you get the benefit of leverage, so you can increase your purchasing power. So all those things to me, you just, they it makes the real estate asset class a very attractive, and I haven't looked back since

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Billy Keels  16:31

that's, you know, that's fantastic. And I think we've all been in that spot. Where, when you don't have enough knowledge, everything is scary, right? So you got up and left. And you're like, I thought I came in here feeling like I was going to do this. And then like, at the last second, I just kind of got nah, I gotta get out of here. I don't have enough knowledge. But it is the importance of knowledge, and putting that knowledge into practice. Right, that's where you actually gain experience. And it's the experience that helps us to either move forward, or sometimes not move forward. But usually those experiences are the ones where we, where we grow and learn the most. I mean, I've told many times a story or, you know, I lost $25,000, or I got a $25,000 experience that I will never, ever, ever repeat. And I always share with other people. So I gained, I paid full price for that so that other people in the future don't have to pay full price. And you know, it's kind of one of those things. So I appreciate you helping us understand why you moved into this space. I also want to draw on your previous experience, right? Because we have a lot of people who are working professionals that think you know what I like my job, or maybe I don't like my job. And I want to do something completely, radically different. And I always want to remind them that hey, listen, even when you're going into your job every single day, there's a lot of skills and skill set that you have the potential to build. And it's up to you whether or not you're building it. So I would love to know, when you think about the oil and gas industry, the different experiences that you had, and you talked about drilling, and you've talked about reservoir engineering, if I understood you correctly, like what are some of the overall in that 10 years of experience that you now see, that are really helping you in the new space with birch prosper today. And the way that that previous experience, you are in fact leveraging it to help others. Oh, yeah,

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18:19

you hit it on the head right there, I like to share the same thing with people that listen you, there are a tonne of skill sets that you're learning and you're fine tuning every single day. And that all you have to do is sort of apply it to something that you're passionate about. And you'd be surprised at things that could come from it. And so I'll tell you, for me, interestingly enough, the skill sets that I learned in both of those roles apply directly to what I'm doing in as a syndicator. So on the drilling engineering side, one of the things that there's several things we have to do one is we're project manager, we I was a project manager, you also have to steward costs of the project, because you need to understand you're basically using vendors, you know, if I kind of give a quick summary here. So in the drilling process, you have a drilling rig, right you have equipment on site, you have drilling fluid, you have cement, you have all these materials, you have all this personnel that you're using, and it's a team effort in order to successfully achieved the objective, which is to drill a well right into the reservoir and then to extract the resources that way. So you need to understand how each piece of the puzzle how each team plays a role in the overall project. They also need to understand the risks associated with each each group. So they might have certain types of personnel or equipment they bring on site to where it could be a safety risk. There could be some financial risks, if there's equipment damage, you know, there could be some skill level needs to be a certain at a certain place because it could be a higher risk activity than another one. Right you might need to have. Another thing is is there a lot of moving parts but you need to understand how this piece of stream here affects Something that's way downstream. So you have to have a picture of the overall process. Right. So if I compare that to the department, acquisitions and an operating business, I need to understand well, how does the financing impacted? Do? You know? How does the general contractor the property manager independent subs? How do they impact the overall success of the project? You know, how does the market different, you know, how, what are the jobs look like, right now? What's the population growth look like? Is it in the path of progress, you know, so I have to have all these elements and things that I understand. And I'm taking in to say, Okay, this property is in the right spot, it has the right tenant base, this market has the right growth, that I appreciate my investors, like this kind of market and project. So I'm gonna go forward on it. And then also, in the, as a reservoir engineer, a lot of what I did was risk evaluation, I did asset valuation. So I had, you know, huge analytical role in at home. And so a lot of people don't like to deal with spreadsheets, I love spreadsheets. I love doing risk analysis. I love scenario analysis, you know, people talk about Monte Carlo, if you're familiar with, with the data analysis, I love that stuff. So for me, building my own spreadsheets to do different types of analyses, I enjoy it, you know, so I understand, you know, how does the vacancy and things like that impact the deal? How does the exit cap rate impact the deal? So, all these things, analytical project management, right, risk management, they all come into play in my role right now.

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Billy Keels  21:27

Fantastic. So this is one, once again, you're leveraging something that you spent a decade doing, right. And you're actually now applying that similar type of skill set to a new scenario, right? It's really the same thing. I've spent almost three decades in, in big multinationals. And I've seen from different perspective, like how those skill sets that I was building for almost three decades are are also helping me today in different ways, right? Because we all have different experiences, which I think is, is fantastic. So appreciate you giving us some insight there. And Brandon, I also want you to I would love for you to talk because you've made this transition, right? You've, you've been on the active side, you've passively invested in and you're also the good steward, as you mentioned with others on in your in your current role. So talk to us about that person who's thinking, Well, you know, what, should I be an active investor? Should I be a passive investor in in real assets? What do you say to that person, because that person is kind of trying to figure out they know, Wall Street's not the thing for them, but they just don't know like, they're doing their job. They like it, they're making a lot of money, but they also want to be able to have control. Talk to us about what your perspective is on that active versus or active versus passive investing and things to think about? Well, I'll tell

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22:35

you one thing, one thing that I like to say is, so I've been a limited partner, or a passive investor in syndication deals, I've been a limited partner in 11 deals. And so now I'm an active investor. But I'll tell you that one of the things that I really appreciated about being a limited partner in these deals was, first of all, it gave me first, first, you know, front row seat, in terms of the view as far as how the investors conduct their business, how to communicate how they implement the, the, the plan to improve the asset. But one of the things that I really loved was that I could pick up the phone, and I could get a hold of the operators, I could get a hold of the general partners, right, the leadership team, the, the active investors in the deal, the ones who were doing the asset management, I can have a conversation with them, I can say, hey, look, you know, I got this month report. And I want to ask you a couple questions about it. So prior to that, you know, I was big into mutual funds and other things where I just did more traditional conventional investments. And I always tell people that okay, so I want you to pick up the phone and try and get a hold of the fund manager for your mutual fund. Good luck, alright, because you're not going to be able to get a hold of that person. Alright, but you can do that if it's a syndication opportunity. And you can you can say, Hey, listen, I want to meet, I want to, you know, let's grab coffee, let's let's have lunch, let's talk about it. We can do a virtual meeting, whatever it is. And most of them, at least in my experience being experienced, they will gladly say, Sure, let's talk about it. Now, for the people who if you're considering getting into the active space, eventually, I usually tell people, Hey, you want to start off as a passive investor before you make the transition? Because in my opinion, I think it pay it's it pays dividends. And it's an earn while you learn kind of scenario, right? So you're you're earning return on your capital, while you're understanding how things work, and how, you know, a project gets executed and how they exit these kinds of things. So that's typically what I would tell people is like, you want to be a passive investor first, you want understand the ins and outs, you want to sort of get over there still that knowledge of fear factor that just like anything else, and so being able to sort of test it out that way, is I think it's better than jumping both feet into the active side, because there's some things you need to understand before you do so. Yeah.

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Billy Keels  24:44

So I love that perspective, number one, and that you're sharing that with people I kind of give a little twist. I'm kind of laughing because I'm thinking to myself, well, if for those people that decided they want to just jump in actively first, even though they've heard the reasons that they shouldn't And I would just add that the moment that you do it actively, you're also going to think about the words that Brendan just said to you to see, to really understand why you're working your full time job, and you're super busy. And you're also actively managing a portfolio of assets that are moving all the time. Ie I did that, you're going to realise the words of wisdom that Brandon just said to you so. So yeah, so I just thought I would smile and say, if you didn't remember exactly what Brandon said, just kind of like push the minus 50, or the 15 seconds back, do it like three or four times. And you'll hear exactly what he said, and you will understand what how golden it was. Trusting that you're enjoying today's conversation. And you know, if you're tired of getting crushed by taxes, and you're looking for greater freedom, to be able to choose what you want to do, when you want to do it, make sure that you go to first ncp.com Ford slash going long, and see how we can help you today. Let's get back to the conversation. One other thing, random because, you know, before we get into the going on final three, I know that for one of the things that you also put a lot of time and focus on is really the abundant mindset, right, and having this mindset that is abundant, which sometimes it sounds like really, really easy to do. But I know that for me, it's always an exercise in continuing to be abundant. Because where I come from, I grew up in scarcity mindset, not that it was anything that was done purposefully. It's just what happened. So talk to us about for you the importance of having this abundant mindset, and also being able to actually make that abundant mindset. Reality.

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26:36

Yeah, I think that is probably one of the most important things that you can have. I believe in this and any venture. And so when you have us because I was the same, right, I was raised sort of to with a scarcity mindset. And I don't think it wasn't intentional. So kind of the same situation. But when you have a scarcity mindset, and you start to go down the path of wanting to build wealth and wanting to grow a business, I think that inherently we think that my success means someone else's failure. And so if you decide to start down the path of wealth, if you don't decide to do so, and you say, Well, I have a scarcity mindset, that means that someone else has it, which means that I can't achieve what it is that I want to achieve. So both perspectives are wrong, and and they're not healthy. Having an abundance mindset, in my opinion, it just to me is huge, especially in this specific in this business, because it's a team environment. So you start off wanting to you know, for me, I started off as a single family investor. And I think that, you know, you can put you can kind of do that as a solo investor sometimes. But when you shift into larger asset classes, larger projects, you're going to want a team around you. And so I believe that it pays to have an abundance mindset, because you're open, you're sharing, you're giving, and and therefore you sort of you know, in turn will receive eventually you don't you don't give an order to receive. But that's just the way things work, right. It's just you focus on giving you focus on making an impact, you focus on benefiting the lives of your investors, the communities where you operate. And then you know, in turn, you know, you get to sort of benefit from having an abundance mindset being open and sharing. And so I just think that that's a better way to grow wealth than trying to fight over scraps and trying to take things from everyone else around you and being sharing and open. So I've been pleasantly surprised to find that that is how this space operates for the most part. And so that's one things I really enjoy about

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Billy Keels  28:23

it. All right, well, fantastic. I appreciate you sharing that. And just the transparency around it, right? It's not something that is every single day, it's super easy to do. It's just the constant reminder and how you can put that into, put that into practice that abundant mindset and the benefits that it can provide not just others, but also to yourself in terms of being able to have that. That feeling. So here's the thing, Brandon, before we jump into the going on final three, can you just do me a favour real quick? Can you tell me how you're helping others? With birch prosper, please? And then we're gonna get into the going long into the goal on final three, how are you helping others? And who are you who you typically helping today?

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29:02

That's a good question. So one of the things that I have. So I'm here in the DC area, like I mentioned, and I have a meet up here. And I have been like so when I when I lived in Houston, there were tonnes of these meetups where people were sharing information about how to invest in apartments, you know how to build wealth through this asset class. And when I moved back here, it might just be a fallout from the pandemic. I don't know, maybe maybe they dropped off, but there weren't that many meetups here. So I thought, well, you know what, let me start one. And, and I really, really enjoyed so we have this, we meet up once a month, it's in person. And you know, folks come out and obviously it's a free meet up. And so sometimes I'll have a speaker come out and talk about a specific aspect of the business. I'll talk I'll lead in with a you know, 1520 minute talk about specific asset of the part of the business. I'll give them things like you know, limited partner calculators, I'll give them different sheets and things like that to help them understand what it means to build wealth here. And so for me giving back to people buy directly owing them how they can build wealth in this space, regardless of which path they take. That's something that for me is huge, you know, because I like to, I like to show people directly that, hey, this can benefit, you could benefit your family. And you can achieve time freedom, financial freedom, location, freedom, you know, as long as you have sort of the right guidance, and so so that's one of the things that I'm doing to help people.

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Billy Keels  30:23

Okay. All right, fantastic. Well, appreciate you letting us know that and being able to meet up with everybody once a month and do that face to face, I'm sure. Will you talk a little bit more about that? Here in a couple of minutes, but we got getting the girl on the going long, final three. And the thing is, Brandon, I never ask any of our guests today, you're our special guests. Any of the going on final three unless you tell me that you're ready. So are you ready?

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30:43

I'm ready. Let's do it.

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Billy Keels  30:44

You Born ready, man, I knew you would be ready for this. So here we go. So we started with you over in DC. Southwest quadrant, I think you said of DC. And I'd like to bring things back for this guy who's from Columbus, Ohio, to this side of the pond, which I've called home for the last 22 years, which seems absolutely unbelievable. And so I'd love for you to share with me in the go along family. What is your favourite European city that you've either visited or still on your bucket list to visit?

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31:11

So I'll say one of them is Madrid. So years ago, my

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Billy Keels  31:16

okay Hang on, hang on a second. Did you just say Madrid, non Madrid, go ahead, tell the story tell the story. Well, so years

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31:24

ago, my wife and I, we went to Madrid in Barcelona. And what is kind of funny is just before a trip, maybe like a week or so before I had a nice scope down on my knee. And so the whole time I'm there on crutches and I remember why for so upset with me for having poor planning and planning a surgery right before we we had out there. But But yeah, I mean, I really enjoyed it, you know, I got to see a lot of like, we would hop on the kind of the local bus there and just travel from spots site to site and go to some of the museums. It was a long time ago. But but really, really enjoyed. We have a few more on our bucket list. But for us, that was a really good, really good trip.

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Billy Keels  32:03

All right, fantastic. So Madrid, wonderful city, by the way, just because I live in Washington, I was like, it's like a normal thing, like everybody's soccer here and all this other kind of stuff. But anyway, I was just a joke, just a joke, especially for everybody listening from Madrid or like guitar. So going into question number two, right? And this is just, I'm just going to ask you the question. So everybody, I'm not going to play the job with brandy, because he's listened to it and all that kind of jazz. Listen, and successful people make a lot of mistakes. But they're known for the successes that they make. And I tend to believe Brandon, that it is because successful people are trying so many different things, but they do things that are very different than the rest of the population, ie when they make relevant mistakes. And this is important, like the relevant ones, not just the things that don't matter, but they're constantly analysing looking at and they make the relevant mistakes, every time that they make a relevant mistake that they know could improve a process. And you talked about that overall, right? They do something that's spectacular is that, number one, they learned from what the mistake. And then they put different strategies, tactics and actions in place to minimise the probability of that happening again. So I don't want you to think about all of the different mistakes or learning opportunities or however you want to call them. What I'd like for you to think about is, what is the one lesson that you know that the entire going long family needs to hear from you today, something that you paid 100% for, and you want to help them to minimise the probability of that exact same thing happening to them? What's the one lesson?

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33:31

I'll give you the one lesson so for me, what not not a lot of people know about me is I'm a digital content and digital products creator, I really enjoyed. I created a full and entire single family rental course. And without selling a soul. Okay, so I didn't do any kind of pre pre selling. I didn't do any marketing. I didn't do anything to kind of say, hey, well, the worst of it is I didn't serve a my intended customers. So I didn't say hey, what problems are you having that I can solve? But I went ahead and created the whole course. And so the reason I'm sharing that is because it's my belief that regardless of what you do, I think that everyone should invest in tangible assets. That's my thought. But I think that at the very least, everyone should take full advantage of what we have available to us now. Which is to create digital products, because you can earn passive income or in different streams of income at scale. So I believe that everyone regardless of what your business is, I think you should do this. But you have to do it the right way. And so one of the ways to do it is to make sure you focus on the problem that you're going to solve and then make sure that people are actually needed and either that is a solved problem that they need to solve because you're going to end up creating a solution to a problem that no one has. But at the very least it were the days of if you build it they will come are long gone. And so that's that's the lesson that I would say is don't repeat that so for me I've now my share my strategy is completely different, but I thought that was a really relevant lesson.

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Billy Keels  34:56

I really focus on the problem and solve for the problem. Boom, you've done that, through digital product products, you've recognised that you did that in your kind of like own space didn't really tell anybody. And then guess what, if you can solve a problem, then usually individuals are willing to if the problem is big enough, nobody wants to deal the problem. And so it's just a matter of being able to solve that. So love that. And then lastly, this is about being able to feed our minds a little bit. No, not a little bit branded about feeding our minds a lot. And I would love for you to share with us what is the one book that you would recommend to the girl on family today?

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35:30

I'll give you a good one. And it's who not how by Dan Sullivan, especially because many of you are working professionals, but you have things that you want to build and create. And one of the most effective ways to do that is to build a team or to pull in people or, or someone to help you build it. And the more technical you are, I think, the more likely you are to focus on that how, and you have to try and shift away from that and focus on well, who can help me, you know, who can I put in place to help me realise whether it's, you know, some your dream or some aspect of it, you know, to help you achieve certain things. So I would say that book is a really, really good with the full title is who now the formula to achieve bigger goals through accelerating teamwork. Okay, so who not? How about Dan Sullivan is what I would recommend.

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Billy Keels  36:16

Fantastic, excellent book. There's a couple of books that he's written in that that one is definitely a game changer. For any of us who are recovering perfectionist, or going through the process of recognising your baby perfectionist. Yes, it's definitely one that will help to free more of your time and allow those who are more than likely better, do better skilled and are able to do certain tasks, to let them do it and not focusing on how you can do it. So appreciate that. And it just brings me to the like, thinking about the very beginning of our of our conversation, Brandon, and I'm thinking, Well, you know what, he was reading bedtime stories to his kids. This guy was a chemical engineer who decided he was going to leave his hometown, go spend 10 years getting different types of experience in the oil and gas perspective in the oil and gas industry, really building that expertise, recognising that, hey, listen, this expertise. Not only have I seen kind of this particular industry go through its ups and downs, not once, twice, but thrice, three times, you realise that, hey, listen, I've learned a lot of really cool, great things here. But I've also got some buddies who are doing some stuff. And it seems like they're having more control over their destiny. And I can leverage a lot of the things that I've learned here, I can put it into my own business to be able to help others who are like me solve problems, because when I was even so good at it that I built this course didn't tell anybody about it. And then I'm sharing this with you that that's probably not a good thing to do. And from there, you're also having your own meetup in the DC area, getting people together and you're in through birch prosper. You're really helping others. So like the whole going on families like Billy, just shut up, please and ask him the question. So here's the thing. Everybody in the go along family wants to understand, Brandon, what is the best way for us to contact you to learn more about what it is that you're doing and more of what you've got going on at Birch prosper?

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38:01

Absolutely, absolutely. So first of all, is the website it's birch. prosper.com, that's b i r c h prosper P R O S P er.com. You can reach me by email at Brandon dot Jenkins at bridge prosper.com. That's B r a n d o n dot j e n k i n s at Birch prosper.com. I'm also on LinkedIn. My name is Brandon Jenkins. So it's a pretty common name right? But but on LinkedIn, very active on LinkedIn. My Instagram is birch underscore or at Birch underscore prosper, and then also have a podcast called the capital stack podcast. So those are kind of the ways that you can hear more about me and reach out to me and I you know, always welcome conversations and communication. So thank you.

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Billy Keels  38:50

All right, fantastic. Well, listen, everybody, when you reach out to Brandon Jenkins, check them out, especially on LinkedIn, send them a personalised invitation when you do that, just so that it'll help the two of you have a conversation, let him know that you've already listened to him here on the go long podcast, it will facilitate the conversation between the two of you. So listen, with that, Brandon, I just want to say thank you very much man from the bottom my heart. I really appreciate you investing your time with me and the entire going long family. Thank you so very much.

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39:18

Absolutely, Billy, this has been awesome. Love your show. Love your content, man. This conversation was great. So I really, really appreciate the opportunity to share my story and your platform.

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Billy Keels  39:26

All right, thank you so much, man. And if you give me like 10 seconds just going to wrap things up with going long family. I mean, listen, going on family. I mean, what else like he's telling you like from the practical experience when he was in the oil and gas industry and how he's leveraging that. He gave you practical examples about how you can actually be active how you can be passive. Take today's conversation, share it with two or three other people. That way you can go from the theory to the practice the exact same thing that Brandon was talking about. He's even giving you an opportunity to reach out to him. So take him up on that reach out to him on LinkedIn and all that other kind of good stuff can so as you're taking the theory and putting it into practice with other friends Isn't family and sharing today's episode, I'll be here preparing for the next conversation. So until then go out. Have a great day and thank you very much trust did you enjoy today's conversation and once again, today's conversation was sponsored by first generation Capital Partners. If you're an accredited investor and want to find out more about how we're helping accredited investors to gain their personal freedom even faster, go to firstgen cp.com forward slash going long.