Ekabo Home Financial Freedom Mastermind Podcast
A podcast for those who do not believe they were put on this earth to work 40 to 50 hours per week for 40 to 50 years, to hopefully retire at the age of 65.
Ekabo Home Financial Freedom Mastermind Podcast
136. Revolutionize Your Life: Lessons from a Vet-Turned-Entrepreneur!
🌟 From Vet to Real Estate Tycoon: How Jason Balara Discovered the Secret to Financial Freedom! 🚀
Join us for an enlightening episode of Vet Life Reimagined, where host Niyi Adewole sits down with the dynamic Dr. Jason Balara, a veterinary surgeon who has transformed his career by venturing into real estate investment. Discover how Jason is not only changing the lives of animals through his mobile surgery service, JMB Mobile Veterinary Surgery, but also empowering professionals across various fields to achieve financial freedom with his innovative company, Lark Capital Group.
🎤 Episode Highlights:
In this episode, we are thrilled to welcome Jason Balara, CEO and co-founder of Lark Capital Group. Jason's remarkable journey from a veterinary surgeon to a successful real estate investor is not just a story of career transformation; it’s a powerful testament to pursuing your passions and reshaping your destiny.
What You’ll Discover:
- Passion-Driven Success: Learn how Jason’s dream of healing animals evolved into a thriving entrepreneurial venture in real estate. His story reminds us that it’s never too late to chase our passions!
- Impressive Portfolio: Jason shares insights into his diverse investments, including 236 multifamily units in Atlanta, 450 units of student housing in Phoenix, and self-storage facilities in Mississippi. Discover how he leveraged his background in construction to create a unique blend of veterinary care and real estate expertise.
- The Power of Syndication: Understand how Jason empowers individuals from all walks of life to invest in real estate through innovative syndication strategies, making wealth-building accessible to everyone.
- Navigating Challenges: Jason candidly discusses the obstacles he faced during his transition, including rising interest rates and market fluctuations. His experiences offer invaluable lessons on adaptability and resilience.
- Time Freedom: Explore Jason’s vision of achieving time freedom through strategic investments. He emphasizes the importance of starting early and making sacrifices to create a life filled with opportunities for you and your family.
🌍 Why This Matters:
In a rapidly changing world, many feel stuck in their careers or overwhelmed by financial pressures. Jason’s story serves as a powerful reminder that with determination, the right mindset, and actionable insights, anyone can reinvent themselves and thrive. His journey inspires us all to break free from conventional paths and pursue our dreams, regardless of our current situation.
📈 Don’t Miss This!
Join us as Jason shares motivational insights on resilience, adaptability, and the courage to pursue your dreams. His lessons are invaluable for students, professionals, and anyone looking to change their life. Whether you’re just starting out or are a seasoned investor, this episode is packed with actionable advice to help you take control of your financial future.
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Niyi Adewole is a licensed realtor in Georgia, brokered by EXP Realty. Feel free to reach out at Niyi.Adewole@exprealty.com if you would like to work with an investor friendly real estate agent.
Welcome to the Financial Freedom Mastermind Group Podcast. Here we're all about breaking free from the 40 to 50 year work grind and accelerating our journey towards financial freedom. Join us every Wednesday at 7 pm Eastern as we explore different types of investments that can fast track your path to financial independence. We serve as a hub for connecting with fellow members during our sessions so you can share successes, ask questions and keep the momentum going.
Speaker 2:Good evening everyone. This is Nigi Adewale, host of the Acaba Home Financial Freedom Mastermind Podcast, and tonight we have none other than Jason Valara, ceo and co-founder of Lark Capital Group, joining us. He is a man who went from the operating room to operating massive real estate deals and he's also the host of the Know your why podcast, which is focused on educating investors with similar backgrounds on how to invest passively and grow wealth through commercial real estate. Jason, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Nii, thanks for having me. I'm excited for us to get to chat again. Super looking forward to this. Come on now.
Speaker 2:I'm pumped too, because you are investing in my backyard as well in Atlanta and other areas around the country, and so we're going to get into that. But I really want to first start at the end and then jump to the beginning. And so if we had to take a 30,000 foot view of what your portfolio looks like today, do you mind just talking through that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, sure, I am invested in. About 236 units of this is the Atlanta portfolio of multifamily that I'm the lead sponsor on. I'm a smaller part of a student housing deal another 450 units in Atlanta sorry, arizona, phoenix, arizona and then 450 units of self storage in Mississippi, lp and other deals. But yeah, I think those are probably as far as active management. Arizona property is a part of my fund, so that's another piece of that puzzle. Come on now.
Speaker 2:And that's pretty incredible. Like you're talking about and the things that you're a part of is like where everybody wants to get to right. It's like we're all playing kind of a game of Monopoly, and most people start out with the little houses and then you get to the red hotel, but you seemingly have made that jump into the larger buildings a lot quicker than most. And so, when we go back to the beginning, what made you even want to get into real estate to begin with?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I'm not sure that I did it quicker than most. I've been in some level of real estate and construction since I was a teenager. A lot of it was on the residential side of things. So it was in 2020 that I had kind of gotten away from real estate for a few years with my veterinary career outside of our own personal home, which we renovated. Our son was a year old. This is actually. Everybody else has a 2020 story that's related to the pandemic. For me, it was sort of a coincidental lining up. My son was a year old. I realized I was working a lot and on call a lot and I wanted to look at things, at ways to scale and find ways to make money sort of outside of the OR that didn't require my hands as the only source.
Speaker 2:That's the piece right being able to have your dollars start to work for you. And was there, like you mentioned, the pandemic moment and also having your son and kind of thinking through like, hey, how can I start to make more impact and have dollars come in without my actual hands being put to work? Did you read any books or listen to any podcasts? That helped bring that point home as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, funny enough. So the book that and it maybe doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but the book that really kicked it all off was Long Distance Investing by David Green. And because originally my I live in California, I wasn't sure I wasn't sure anything I would do out here outside of flipping would really be able to cash flow, and flipping just is another job. And so I started to think you know, I read his book. I actually read it three times or read it twice and listened to it once or something like that. But I went through that book a bunch of times and from there really dove in on podcasts. I had not been a big podcast listener and so I went down the route of looking for single family real estate to buy and rent and actually, because of some connections, was looking in and around Atlanta and I just kind of came to this place alongside of listening to those podcasts and reading books, and then I heard what syndication was. I just sort of came to a place like how long will it take me to buy 100 houses? Like 100 single family houses. I place like how long will it take me to buy a hundred houses? Like a hundred single family houses and I was like, probably a while, but I can buy one apartment complex with a hundred units not as fast as I can write by one single family house, but still quite a bit faster than I can get, you know, a hundred single family houses. So that it's not as simple as that. Like, say, that's an easy way to explain my thinking and that was my thinking at the time. Now it's now I realize it's not quite that simple, but but that's kind of the idea is I is I.
Speaker 3:I knew I wanted something that again, didn't require me to swing the hammer, what you know, whatever, whatever you want to use, whatever analogy you want to use, but I wanted something that could scale, that I could do from home or from a laptop or you know, and with my family around. So it was a little harder to do that when you're doing surgery. So it's, you know, looking for other avenues of income. You could argue that I was looking for passive income Didn't turn out to be passive. Maybe I didn't understand exactly what that word means. I think a lot of people don't, and so you know, it was just a way to find, I don't know, some time. Freedom really is what it came down to. Come on now.
Speaker 2:And you hit on a couple of things there. One of those is a lot of people get into this thinking it's going to be fully passive, right, like hey, I'm just going to go kick my feet up and dollars are going to rain in through the door. And we learn pretty quickly when you get in there that if you don't pay attention to this thing, just like anything else in your life, it's not going to go in the direction that you want it to go. And so what were some of the things you learned when you first got in? Some of the things that you thought were going to be easier and maybe they weren't, and some of the things that you now, being a vet in this game, yeah, it was.
Speaker 3:I mean, there's a few things and some of it was timing. Like I got my first deal, we closed. Like I got my first deal, we closed on our first deal in December of 2021 and actually the second deal in December of 2021. And then the third deal was in July of 2022. Everybody knows what happened. Well, maybe not everybody, a lot of people know what happened, kind of starting around that June, july, late 2022, when all the interest rates changed and went up very quickly.
Speaker 3:What I learned, you know, kind of in hindsight, that's maybe most important and, to be fair, I didn't go into syndication with the thought that I would be passive, but I looked at it as a road to passivity. What I have learned in a specific answer to your question is until you are already quite wealthy I would even argue until you're already financially free you need some active income. It can be in real estate, it can be out of real estate. It doesn't really matter where that active income is. But the choice that you have to make is do I want to get progressively more passive over time? And unless you're already uber wealthy or you win the lottery, it's not like you're just going to plunk down a bunch of money and be able to retire, because it has to be quite a bit of money. But if you look at the math and you start doing that and you're doing a bit each year, you'll be there. But it's going to take, you know, depending on markets, might take five years, might take 20. But the strategy is a sound one For me.
Speaker 3:I went into syndication with the intent of being active in the syndication as the asset and construction manager, because that was my background. I also invested in all our deals on the passive side. So it was kind of like I was just trying to do both at the same time and I learned that debt structure matters a ton. I learned that partnerships matter a ton. Real estate works, but it's not the same in every market and so it's just kind of being, I think, adaptable and looking at what the controllable factors are and letting the non-controllable factors kind of just go past, which is not always easy to do.
Speaker 2:No, and you said so many nuggets right there. The last piece you said about controllables versus non-controllables this is something I preach, not only to myself but to all my team members and anybody I come in contact with. There's a lot of what if? Scenarios that people try to run through, like you know, if I get this thing under contract and then this happens, how are we going to handle that? And it's like, guys, you really just got to take that first step and then address things as they come up. Control what you can control, mitigate for the risk, but you don't need to worry about things that you literally have no control over, right? Ie something that's really heavy in the news and I got to kick it to you to ask if this is affecting any deals. But tariffs, right, this came out of nowhere and it potentially is going to change interest rates, things of that nature, but it's a hot topic in the news. Anything that you feel this is going to change for you from a deal sourcing or managing standpoint.
Speaker 3:I do not consider this in the list of controllables thing. I think I know nothing, but let's preface that I think I know nothing about what's going to happen, right? I don't, and I and I no longer believe anyone who says they do does like I don't actually think there's anyone who actually knows what's going to happen. We can look at certain things, we can make educated decisions, but ultimately you got to move forward somehow, and so how I think this is going to affect I guess I'll give you the good and the bad. My worry is about our residents, because I think that this is going to hurt people that don't have money that's my that don't have, you know, kind of live in paycheck to paycheck already. I think this is going to hurt them substantially, so that could make it hard for them to pay their rent, which obviously affects me. I think that there's so many like rabbit holes and things you could go down on this knee and I think so that's probably the bad. I think that's the worst thing that I see is that it can really affect people that are living paycheck to paycheck in a market way In a good way. It might bring down interest rates for us in real estate. It may actually affect real estate in a good way. It might bring down interest rates for us in real estate. It may actually affect real estate in a good way, and although the stock market looks pretty brutal right now, none of my real estate value has changed and, in fact, if rates go down in response to a recession, my real estate values will go up. So in most recessions even though what everybody remembers is 2008, in most recessions, real estate goes up. Stock market goes down, people struggle, but real estate goes up because it's a tangible inflation correlated asset.
Speaker 3:So I guess, yeah, my big worry is about our residents. If you can think about things from a long-term perspective, it'll be fine. That's just how it works. You have to figure out what to do in the meantime, and so I mean, I'm sure maybe we'll talk about my fund, but there's some reasons why my fund is structured the way it is. But this is my biggest fear. Concern is about residents, and obviously I'm also concerned about them being able to pay the rent. But I'm concerned for them about it. I'm concerned for us about it as well.
Speaker 2:I 100% agree, and I've had to answer this question as well, with my network and people reaching out to ask about it, and I'm in a similar vein as you. Even before all this, there was a growing wealth gap in our country, right, and that middle class was really disappearing and continues to, and it's really become more of the have and the have not. So, if you have, you're going to be able to ride off the storm. There's going to be some buying opportunities, to your point. I actually reached out to Melinda the other day like, hey, man, let's start prepping for a refinance. A couple of these I got in 2023 when rates were crazy, and so it gives you options.
Speaker 2:But if you were already going check to check, as you mentioned, and prices start to increase on some of the items that you're pulling in now, it just puts a heavier squeeze and it's almost a question of how do you get out? And that's why conversations like this are so important, because you have to start somewhere, whether that's through a house hack, whether it's through investing passively, whatever bits you have into different funds, and just try to make sure that your money's going to work for you some way somehow. That's the only way to get ahead, at least in my eyes. I 100% agree.
Speaker 3:I think that the unfortunate reality is people. Right now people are talking about tariffs. Before that we were talking about rates. Before that we were talking about inflation, right, so there's always a thing, there's a thing happening that's going to be newsworthy, that's going to affect financial markets. I think a lot of people hear those headlines, don't necessarily understand what they mean. I also don't fully understand. Again, a lot of what I say is learning the hard way. But inflation being down from what it was a few years ago does not mean prices go down. It just means they don't rise as quickly. So the reality is that people were already strapped because inflation had been so high. We had this black swan event with the pandemic, and then they printed all the money.
Speaker 3:But the point being like, these are things that are out of our control. The very best way you can sort of mitigate this is figure out a way to make more money, and it sounds like I don't say that coming from a place of privilege. It may sound like that when I just told you what I own for real estate. If I told you how much of a struggle the last couple of years have been. At the end of the day, I can sit and be sad, or I can figure out another way to make some money, to work harder, whatever it takes. And I that goes to me that's at whatever level you're at, like whatever financial place you are.
Speaker 3:When I was, I was that kid. When I was that teenager, that college student that didn't have money and I was like, well crap, my credit card is getting too high, I'm going to go pick up an extra job and it's just like it sucks, like it's not, it's not good, but it's like it is what you have to do to mitigate this stuff sometimes. And while you're doing that, you have to figure out how. That's how I'm going to set myself up better for the future. Like it's, it's not easy, it's not easy, it's just, but that's the recipe, it's, it's what's the. It's simple but not easy, right?
Speaker 3:Like figure out a way to make more money. Use that more money to set yourself up better for the future. That's it.
Speaker 2:That's it. That's it. And literally just making a couple of sacrifices as early as you can is going to help you in the long run down the road and then you can start to have some of those creature comforts and kind of go from there. But one of the things I wanted to jump back to is your profession, right Veterinary doctor and surgeon. And I didn't appreciate until a few years ago how difficult it is to even get that certification to where you can become the veterinary surgeon, right. Like one of my guys coming up that I went to middle school and then we went to different high schools, but we stayed close.
Speaker 2:He was at my wedding, things of that nature had an affinity for animals of all kind right, and he still does. He has plenty of pets, things of that nature that are like family, and he wanted to. He has plenty of pets, things of that nature that are like family, and he wanted to become a vet and it was through him that I realized it's harder to get into vet school than it is med school because there's not as many around. I think there's only a handful right. So how was that journey even going through the process of getting to where you are now?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it's four years of college, undergrad college, it's four years of vet school To be a specialist. It's essentially an additional four years of training in that specialty. So it was, I mean, it was, you know, 12 years of mostly schooling. The specialty training is truly training in surgery. But yeah, I mean you're learning with mentors and guidance and things like that. So, yeah, it's a long road and that sort of thing.
Speaker 3:It's an interesting thing because at every level you think, you kind of think to yourself the next level is going to be easier and it's not. And then you get to the point when you finish your residency and you're like look at me, I'm a surgeon. And then you have to go take a test that you have to study for for two plus months and the pass rate is probably about 60%. So you have to pass that test to really be considered a surgeon. And then you're in charge and it's maybe harder than it was when you had someone standing over your shoulder saying, uh-uh, don't do that. There's some level of comfort in having mentors that are right there with you in anything. I mean you could use that in real estate too. Have a lot of good mentors in the real estate space and it accelerates the learning curve and it helps you avoid mistakes. At the end of the day, it's a long road. You got to really be dedicated to it and want to do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's one of those things where it relates back to what you were talking about in the advice you gave before, which is you have to be willing to do the hard things to get to where you want to go. 12 years of higher education and at the end of that, 60 pass rate I don't know that I would take that on, but it's one where, if you have that drive and you're putting in that energy and effort which is what you can control then you can achieve that and really hit higher heights. So I love that and one of the things that's kind of built off of that and one of the things I know you're passionate about and it's part of your fun and I want to talk about that fun. Last, but I want to skip ahead to something that you call Not One More Vet, right? Can you explain what this organization is, why it's impactful for you and why you support it?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So most people outside of the veterinary industry do not know this. Veterinarians are the highest suicide rates of any profession. I think we flip-flop with dentists, but in general veterinarians have the highest suicide rate. So Not One More.
Speaker 3:Vet is an organization dedicated to helping reduce that statistic, basically, and so they do that by providing support emotional, in some cases financial, but ultimately support resources, education, you know, just really being kind of a resource or a I don't know what you want to call it, but a beacon for people that are struggling in the profession. And the interesting thing is people outside of the profession don't know, they don't understand why that would even be a thing. But everybody inside the profession understands exactly why it's a thing. And so there's a pretty big, I would say, discrepancy between you know kind of what the public knows of the veterinary profession versus like what it actually is and so. But every veterinarian goes into it because they love animals, like that's it. That's the reason. There's like there is no other reason to become a veterinarian. It's like people love animals and want to help them and there's a lot of sacrifice that goes along with that and a lot of stressors that then unfortunately trickle down to this high suicide rate.
Speaker 3:So most of us have someone that we lost to taking their own life. For myself, it was one of my mentors when I was a student and a resident and, as everybody, always, I feel like people always say this, but they're like I never would have known, I never would have thought it would have been her, and that's 100% true. I never would have thought it would have been her, and that's 100% true. I never would have thought that. So you don't know what people are struggling with and so, anyway, if you're interested in Not One More Vet, they actually have a very good website and they do a newsletter and there's a lot of. They're a growing organization.
Speaker 3:But my whole thought was okay, I want to do something to give back to the community that has, in a lot of ways, raised me. So you know the community that has, in a lot of ways, raised me. So a lot of my best friends are from the veterinary world. A lot of my mentors are from the veterinary world. Most of my investors are from the veterinary world. It's what I know. I still do it. I love surgery. I still do that on a regular basis because I love it now, which is different than it was a few years ago and that's part of why I got into real estate more heavily. But yeah, I mean, not One More Vet is a great resource for people that are struggling.
Speaker 2:Come on now and you're the one that brought it to my eyes because I did not know. I'm one of the people that is a little bit more outside and so I did not know this was a thing, but we're definitely going to post this into the show notes. We're going to blast it out when we send out this episode to make sure that more people are aware of this organization. And, as the CEO of the Lark Capital Group, one of the things that you're doing through that group is you're actually donating some of the funds raised and collected to this organization, which is awesome, and I want to dive a bit more into the actual Lark Capital Group and the type of investments that you're helping some of the veterinarian crew get involved with.
Speaker 3:Sure, yeah, and the focus right now is that fund and the structure. In a nutshell, the structure of the fund is we are investing in multifamily assets as well as small businesses, which is, I guess, a little outside the box. The reason I did that is actually, in a lot of ways, just because of my own experiences when I got into. I don't do things halfway knee, so when I decided I wanted to get into syndication, we went really pretty aggressively, not only in the acquisition side of things, but as much as just investing our own capital in our own deals and other people's deals. And then interest rates shot up and basically we had really established pretty good cash flow fairly quickly doing it that way and then it all went away. So the interest rates caused a lot of challenges in the space and basically all of the distributions that we were getting got put on pause and have been on pause for since then.
Speaker 3:And so just prior to that happening, I had a W-2 job as a surgeon, full-time W-2 job. I had my business. I have a mobile surgery business on the side and I also had the real estate Lark Capital and so there was too much going on. I couldn't do it all. I decided to leave the W-2 because real estate was going so well that I was like, good, now I can just focus on my own businesses, I'll grow the real estate thing. And it was like I left that job at the end of May of 2022.
Speaker 3:And it was like the next month everything, everything went crazy. So bad timing. I had two options. One was to go back to a W2 job, but if you remember, at the beginning I mentioned this like this is all about time freedom. So I, what I decided was, oh, I want, I want to be in control of my time, whatever that looks like. And so what we did is we actually ramped up our surgery business, our mobile surgery business, pretty substantially, like grew it at least 50% each subsequent year from 2022, and did it while not really working more, just really dialed in the efficiencies and I worked probably about between 10 and 15 hours a week on that business. What I realized was in a business, I can pull levers and make changes, substantial changes, much quicker than I can in a real estate deal that might be.
Speaker 3:You might argue that, like a short term rental might have the same ability to make changes quickly, but you're still market dependent. Right, you have one. If you have one short-term rental, you can change that. Every time you have a new renter you can change the rate. But, like, it's market dependent, my prices as a surgeon are market dependent, but I can do more surgery and I can pick up more clinics. So there are some very I would say, pretty easy levers that I could pull to ramp up the business. And so I got in my mind like, well, why don't I do that with other businesses? And then I thought, okay, why don't I do that for investors? Can I make those two things go together? Because I do still think real estate makes sense as a long-term asset. I think you get appreciation, you get tax benefits, you might get a little bit of cash flow. It's iffy right now, but if rates come down that's likely to go up. So the idea was to combine the two, get the real estate benefits and then layer on the cash flow of small businesses on top of it. So that's the structure of the fund.
Speaker 3:As I dove deeper into the business acquisition side of it. We already have that multifamily 452 unit in Phoenix Arizona. That's part of the fund. And then I've been working on business acquisition. I came to the realization that what I know and what makes most sense is construction, and so that's the area that I'm focusing. It also ties in well with real estate and so we're under contract on a rebar company actually rebar fabrication and installation, so that'll be a part of the fund. Company actually rebar fabrication and installation, so that'll be a part of the fund.
Speaker 3:The cash flow on businesses versus like just to give people very real numbers, like the current cash flow in my fund, based on the real estate asset, is about four and a half percent cash on cash, which is not amazing but actually pretty good in today's market. Like it's better than a lot. A lot of it's zero cash on cash. Right now A lot of these small business deals because of the way that leverage works with the SBA and the level of cash flow that they might have. You can get 100 cash on cash, 200 cent cash on cash like quite high cash on cash numbers.
Speaker 3:Now what you do with that doesn't necessarily mean like investors get 100% cash on cash because you want to take some of that. To grow the business, you want to actually create something bigger than what you've bought. In the way that I modeled and underwrote, the fund was actually not doing that and just taking the cash that the business throws off and layering it on top of the real estate so it makes for nice returns. It has taken longer than I would have liked to get the right business closed and doing what I say it's going to do. Once it does, I have no doubt that it's going to really kind of kick off. The investors are already getting cash flow, but it's going to dramatically increase that once we get a business under our belts. Come on now.
Speaker 2:And I'm a huge fan of this. I was actually just having a pretty in-depth conversation with a colleague a former colleague out of Chicago, and he's looking to get into the same thing. He's looking to get into like light manufacturing, just the small odds and ends that go into a million different products. I didn't even know that was a thing, but he's looking to get into that. So I love the aspects of taking that business cashflow, because that's something that you again, as you mentioned, you can pull different levers, you can make it more efficient, you can cut costs and increase production and have a lot of cashflow that you can then pour into real estate and allow that to just manifest over time. The one piece with a business that's a little bit different in my mind is the time and the involvement needed, and so how are you doing with that piece? Because when you come into, let's say, this rebar business, is there already management in place? Is it something where you got to come in and really take charge of this whole thing? What does that look like?
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, that is a great question and certainly very relevant to how it all works. Because one thing I think people should understand is real estate a syndication. It's a business. It should be run as a business. A lot of us do that from a distance. I told you my assets are in Atlanta and Phoenix. A lot of us do that from a distance.
Speaker 3:I won't be running businesses from a distance. I want to be here and be able to be a part of that operational team. The businesses I have looked at, and the one that this rebar company does, have already kind of an operational team in place. So my role will be as more of a business development type of like, because a lot of times you're looking at you know business that this business has been around for 23 years, the guy's ready to retire, he's probably been ready to retire for like six years and he just he admits like I haven't tried to grow it, I don't do any marketing, I live in Los Angeles. This business is just North of Los Angeles, in Ventura. For people who know California, he doesn't go into Los Angeles city or County and so people people who don't know how big Los Angeles may not understand the market potential of that alone for this. But just just increasing geography, nothing else. Just increasing geography is a tremendous opportunity in this business, and he basically just didn't want to deal with like sending drivers into LA and I'm like I'll find someone who can drive in LA, it's fine, don't worry about that, we'll figure that part out. There's plenty of people that drive trucks in LA and that's the beauty of it. This guy has built a really, really nice business without really trying that hard, and so I shouldn't say that he has worked very, very hard but hasn't looked at it from a business development standpoint. He looks at it from a it's a lifestyle business for him, and so I can take what he's already built Number one, don't screw it up. Number two, so I can take what he's already built number one, don't screw it up. Number two figure out how to add my skill sets to it, and some of that is going to be by implementing efficiencies. Some of that is going to be just I don't know that his skill set is realizing that LA is a big market, but just expanding the market.
Speaker 3:I have a lot of contacts in the construction world. I just got my California contractor's license, but I already knew a lot of people in the construction world that I've just tell everybody about this and they're like yeah, we have jobs, we can use you for the rebar. Like I already have potential addition, additional business beyond what he's what he um and plus he's great. Like I think one of the things that I noticed different in the thought to be fair, like I said, a lot of what I tell you is things I've messed up, but I I thought that buying a business would be very much like buying the real estate, and it kind of isn't at all.
Speaker 3:Real estate tends to be pretty transactional, especially in the syndication world.
Speaker 3:Like you're buying an asset from a company, your company is buying an asset from a company.
Speaker 3:Nobody does it in their own name or whatever.
Speaker 3:A lot of these businesses you're looking at, he's the guy, the license is in his name, he's it, and so it's very, very much relationship driven, and so you have to build a rapport, establish trust and, frankly, I like it better.
Speaker 3:Like I like the fact that I get along very well with this guy, I like the fact that I can take over this business. He says he wants to stay involved and I can say, hey, I want to take a vacation with my kids? Who better to keep an eye on the business while I'm out of town for a week than the guy who ran the business for two decades? So that relational part of it is incredibly important and, like I said, I like it better. I think it's better than just being super transactional and once you're in you can add on. Most of the work they do is for concrete companies. Well, I bet you there's some 70-year-old guy who owns a concrete company that wants to get out, probably wouldn't mind selling me his concrete company and we have them both together. There's just a lot of opportunity for organic growth through the relationship side.
Speaker 2:Come on now and that's the piece, and I could see the energy and the passion that you have for this and it's one of those things where you're right. There's a huge opportunity here, and I know a lot of people are talking about this social media and other podcast things at Nature, the baby boomers and people that have had businesses for many, many years looking to just get out and retire right now and the key is what you're bringing in. You're bringing in a certain skillset and expertise, having operated syndications and different real estate deals and been in high stress situations and, more importantly, you're bringing new energy. You're willing to adapt to the world as it is today. Right, there's so many new tools that have come out over the last 20 years where somebody who's just been inundated with it and hasn't done the online stuff hasn't expanded, they may not have that energy for that, and so sometimes it just takes a person coming in with new energy and new vision to really take it to the next level.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and he actually says that he recognizes. He's like like I just don't have the energy to push it from here and it's like he doesn't need to. He's he's cash flowing like plenty for himself. He has no debt on the business. Like he's not. He has no worry about money or anything like that. His biggest concern is is taking care of his employees. I'm like, well, I want your employees to stay, so I'm going to take care of them too. So it's like it. It's just, if you're, if you're open to looking at it that way, like that, that relational type, it's still a transaction, like there's a contracts and things, but like, at the end of the day, I want him to stay a part of the business. I want the people he has now to stay a part of the business. I just want to figure out how I can make their lives better and the business grow. That's it. It's not again.
Speaker 2:It's simple, but not easy, as are a lot of things right. It's usually pretty simple what you need to do, but it's are you going to do it, and so I'm happy that you're the one taking it over. Just from our interactions, both on the Know your why podcast and on this one, I think it's been pretty awesome in getting to know you, and so one quote that is integral that you put out there when we were kind of prepping for this, that really hit home is that investing takes time. Investing takes time, and the longer you wait to start, the longer it will be until you see success. Can you elaborate on that? Like, is this something that you tell other people as well and some advice that you give?
Speaker 3:folks I try to. I think it's a hard piece of advice to just take at face value until you actually realize it, and I think I mean that's probably true in a lot of things like a lot of advice that people get is it's like people don't want to be told what to do. But I'll give you, I'll give you an example of of like, how, like a real life example of sort of how this, um, how I look at this now, and part of it honestly is because I didn't, I didn't do this, I didn't do you know the things I should have as far as investing in stuff for the first 10 plus years of my veterinary career, like I made good money. I could have. In fact, funny, funny thing I finished my residency in 2008. There's a lot of real estate. I could have bought it a discount if I started doing it back then, and it can't go back in time. That's fine, but it illustrates the point. And so where this came into play in a real life example is when I had a W-2 job. I trained residents in surgery and I used to tell them I'm sure they got sick of hearing it, but I was like, look, if you take the first two to three years after you finish your residency. Because what happens is you go from like I told you it was like 12 years, the first eight years you're paying for it, nobody's paying you, and then the last four years you make just enough to live on, and so you go from that to being having a profession that you can get paid pretty well. And so I tell them, like, take those first two or three years, pretend you're still a resident and take all the rest of that money and invest it and you will be financially free at a very early point in your career. By doing that. None of them have listened to me. Fine, it is what it is. None of it. But I can say that because I wish I did, because there are always market cycles and if you invest at a bad time and you have a bad experience and then you stop, the only thing you've experienced is pain. If you invest all the time, then you're going to get to also have those really good bull runs and you're going to. You're going to experience that, but like you're going to, overall, do better. And it's if you don't do it. You'll just work for the rest of your life, which is fine, but it's if it's everything.
Speaker 3:For me at this point in my life is about time, more, more time with my kids, more time with my wife, like I my. My next big goal it's not going to happen this year, but I want to be able to take summers off, like off when my kids are off of school. We and it won't be off because I can do a lot of what I do from a computer but I can't do surgery. So the goal is to have enough things going on that I can remove myself for, say, two months and we can go to wherever we want because I'm not tied to anything. So it's all about time, freedom, maybe location freedom.
Speaker 3:I don't care to have a giant bank account. I don't care to have stuff. I've worn the same clothes probably for the last 20 years. For the most part, my wife's, like you, probably should get rid of that t-shirt. I've worn the same clothes probably for the last 20 years. For the most part. My wife's, like you, probably should get rid of that t-shirt. I'm like I don't know. It's comfortable. I just don't care about stuff.
Speaker 3:My truck is 10 years old. It's got a crack in the windshield. None of that matters to me. I always am looking at what can I make happen five years from now. What can it look like when my son is six now, what can it look like when my son is he's six now? Like what can it look like when he's 14, 15, 16? Maybe he comes and works with me, maybe we, we do some things together, like my daughter's three, like I just want to be around for them, and that means right now and for as long as I can stay alive.
Speaker 3:Like we had a. We had a silly conversation last night. I was like you know, daddy, how long do you want to live? And I was like like I think. I was like I think a hundred, and cause I just turned 50. So I'm like that gives me another 50 years. And I was like, also, it gives me 50 more years with you. And so I was just like by then I'll, I'll see the cool things that you've done and I'll probably be pretty happy with my life. So, yeah, if I can make it to a hundred, that'll be, that'll be cool. But that means I got to take care of my health. I got it like and you need time to do those things. So it's just kind of that it all comes down to time.
Speaker 2:Come on now, and you said a couple of things here, but the one I want to really highlight is the amount of time it takes to set yourself up for life, which is not that long, especially in this country, with the opportunities that we have in this country, with the opportunities that we have.
Speaker 2:And so imagine, as you said, you do 12 years of schooling and now, when you have an opportunity to continue living like a student and invest those funds, you go and live like somebody who has already made it and now you've lost a bit of that opportunity. Then you get the golden handcuffs and now you're kind of stuck because it's hard, it's very hard, to go from this level of living to go down. But it's a lot easier if you're willing to sacrifice, especially early which is, I know a bit of what I did and you've done a bit of that sacrifice as well and just live like a student for a bit and later on you're going to be able to live however you want, because that money does compound and it just works for you and works for you and works for you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, time is the most powerful weapon you have, and so the faster you like. Here's another thing that happens. I mean, I know in the veterinary world I'm sure it happens in other spaces A lot of veterinarians have a high student debt burden and I see them like practically kill themselves working extra shifts to pay off their student loans in five years. And I'm like don't do that, stop. It's the worst. I mean I understand like people don't want debt hanging over themselves, but it's like a low interest debt that's backed by the government. Just put it on auto pay, work that hard, but take all of that extra money and invest it, and then your investments will pay your student loans later. And it's like, if you do that same strategy that you're already doing and just do it for money to invest, we think you know we work, you know it's 12 years. It's like you get out. It's like I I deserve the new car, I deserve a nice house, I deserve this, this and this. I'm not arguing that that people do deserve those things, but if you could deserve them in three years, it'll be. You'll be much easier to afford them. Just pretend, pretend you don't deserve them. Yet I don't know. I don't know how to change the mindset around it and, frankly, it is easier to do it then. In order to do what I'm doing now, I've taken a pretty big step backwards in terms of paycheck, I guess, if you will, my net worth is much higher, but the actual like money we have in the bank money coming in all the time like it's less because I'm investing it, but I know five years from now all of that will have doubled, like it's just, and so it's like.
Speaker 3:And that was a lot harder to do when I already had a family, I already had kids, I had already been making good money for a while, like that's what. That's the biggest reason why I say I wish I had done it back in 2008. Not because I was like knew that there was going to be a crash and real estate was going to be super cheap, or I knew what was going to happen after that. It's because I didn't have anything anyone else to worry about. I could. I did live in a one bedroom apartment Like I didn't need anything, like I didn't need anything.
Speaker 3:And it's like if I had just funneled all that money into investments, then I would already be taking summers off with my kids and it wouldn't even be a question, like now. It's like that might be tricky. It wouldn't be a question, and so it's just. It's just. I'm saying this like trying to be an example, not not like judging. I'm just like look, look, I made all the mistakes. Don don't have to too. Just listen to what we're saying Like start now, that's it Come on now, Start now.
Speaker 2:That is what you need to do. You heard it from Jason and Jason. If people want to reach out to you, if they want to learn more about the Lark Capital Group, if they want to know more about what you're doing on the Know your why podcast, what is the best way they can get in contact with you?
Speaker 3:I mean, it's all on our website, larkcapitalcom. You can also email me directly, jason, at larkcapitalcom. I'm also the only Jason Ballara, so if you Google my name, you'll find all the stuff. Ultimately, I can be reached through the web. Everything that we're doing is on the website. But, yeah, just email me directly is fine.
Speaker 2:Come on now, done and done and we encourage everyone that is listening to this, either live and or in the future, to go ahead and take Jason up on that offer. I can tell you he's just as awesome as he is on this podcast. He is what you're talking to him one-on-one. And, jason, we do appreciate you joining the Acaba Home Financial Freedom Mastermind Podcast and sharing a bit of your story and a lot of the knowledge.
Speaker 3:So glad to be here. Thank you, Nini. I really appreciate the invitation. It's been great.
Speaker 2:Done and done.
Speaker 1:Join us every Wednesday at 7 pm Eastern as we explore different types of investments that can fast track your path to financial independence.
