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Speech Transcript

Unknown Speaker  0:00  

Hey, this is David gray with the military millionaire community and if you really want to learn how to level up your life, you should be listening to and need to be listening to the time to shine today podcast with my friend Scott Ferguson. Time to shine today podcast squad Welcome to Episode 108. That’s 108 And today, I get to bring on my leather neck friend, David paray. From military to millionaire, it’s fantastic program have had a chance to test drive it and I follow him everywhere he is on social and the email I get to my read every word because they’re just full of chock full of knowledge Nuggets to help you level up your real estate investing life. You know, David is a he is a marine. And he really has his heart set on helping military veterans either active or retired, really level up through in real estate investing. He has a hostile Journey awesome backstory which we dig into and remind you to network in educate yourself, but always take action. So without further ado, here’s my really good friend David paray. From the company millionaire military to millionaire

Unknown Speaker  1:24  

Hey time to shine today varsity squad at Scott Ferguson. It I got my loving next friend from the west left coast. My boy David parade like Hip hip hooray but pronounced array. He’s a fired up marine that likes to fire up other veterans. He’s got a website called from millionaire three from military to millionaire.com. That’ll be in the show notes. You have to check it out. I’m a veteran as a lot of my listeners know that a bunch of tours did a bunch of deployments did the deed and David and I and I never even think Thought of starting a podcast or starting to help others level up. I was just too worried about getting out and kind of going into the scipy world, his civilian world, but David’s here leveling up and helping other people that are in the military, even not in the military level up their life a lot through real estate investing. David, like I said, as an active duty marine who’s dedicated his free time to helping service members and veterans learn how to build wealth through real estate investing entrepreneurship and personal finance. And he is his resume speaks for itself. He’s legit guy and David, if you can come on it introduce yourself to the time to shine today. bursty squad, but first, what’s what emoji Do you use the most? Shaka Shaka emoji love it you love it. What’s your favorite color brother? Blue. Why is that? I on the colors chart for the like when they talked like Marketing, they say that blue is the color of like trust, like building trust with a brand. So I don’t know why I originally chose blue. But I would like to think that that since transparency and trusted stuff is kind of core values, kind of correlated naturally, I don’t know if that, I’m going to tell you that. That’s why I chose it. But I’m sure what I did. I was just like, everybody likes red, and blue, blue, no red. I could go red every once in a while from a personality standpoint, but I’m a blue guy, and I got the Atlantic Ocean over here. And I get to go out to it every day now that the beach Nazis are off there, and they’re allowing us to go out to the water. So blue is kind of my jam, too. So let’s get to the origins of David. You know, I’m really want to dig in you and I have had some conversations off air. But like, let’s get into the origins of you starting out getting in the Marines and that aha moment that was like to start helping other people level up.

Unknown Speaker  3:51  

Well,

Unknown Speaker  3:52  

it started with a whole bunch of bad decisions. I joined the Marine Corps in oae. And you know, I got to do some of the fun stuff. I got to go to Afghanistan. Then and I blew I mean, the first four years I had like nothing to show I traveled the world I lived my life. I had a great freakin time did all this tattoos and Harley Davidson and road trips and lived the like Marine Corps life. But in like 2015 I was hanging out and I just realized, like, I had nothing financially to show for, you know, the last seven years of being in the military, right? I had a car, a nice car, I had a nice bike. I had tattoos, I had drunk a lot of alcohol. I had some great memories, but there was just nothing. I mean, my 401k was miniscule because I didn’t do anything smart with it. And the Epiphany came a buddy of mine was trying to get me ironically into Amway to do some multi level marketing stuff. Sure, and which is fine. But he handed me the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I just kind of joked It was like, dude, a marine. Like we don’t read books. Come on now. And right, yeah, yeah, the purple. It’s actually behind me on my shelf back there. Yeah, yeah. So I told him, I don’t want to read that book. And he literally pulled it as a CD out of his pocket and was like, Well here you drive a lot as a recruiter put this in your car and listen to it. I was like, Alright, fine, like you call my bluff. I’ll listen to it. Are you happy? Holy shit man changed my life. I mean, I listened that book. And it was like another book. I downloaded audible and it was like book book book book. And within three months, I bought a house. And because I was moving out of my apartment at that time, I hardly got totaled. It was like all these things just came together. I had money to buy a house and bought a house lived. It was a duplex, I lived in one half and I rented the other half. And I just had this epiphany where I’d gone from spending 550 bucks a month to live in someone else’s apartment to owning a building that cost me 615 a month, but the other person was paying me 500 and I was like, Oh my gosh, what have I been doing my whole life. So I just kept kind of combined some real estate. My wife had a single family, I bought a 10 unit apartment and so on and so forth. And in 2000, who didn’t like december two On 17, January 2018, I was talking to a well known buddy of mine, a real estate investor. And I was just, you know, whatever is like, Man, this is cool, blah, blah, blah. And he’s like, Dude, why don’t you just start a blog? Like, why don’t you like I had started writing for myself because it’s therapeutic. I was kind of documenting stuff like journaling about stuff from deployment and whatever, but I had no idea what to write about. I wasn’t, it was hidden. I wasn’t putting anything online. And my buddy was like, dude, just start writing about what you’re doing in real estate. People will eat that up, right? And man, it just started to grow. And it just kept growing and I was like, Oh my gosh, he’s right. And then it kind of just morphed from there. But that’s that’s beautiful that someone actually handed you Kiyosaki his book. And and you actually took action on it, which is, which is a big thing and now that you’re you’re have a payment of 615. But someone else’s making that payment, it’s like nice because you don’t have that lower back pain of having to reach into the wallet to pay that note every month, right? And it gets rid of that. lower back pain, which is awesome. No, that’s awesome. So you did you have a mentor that kind of was there for you? Or did your your mentors like dead people reading books that they wrote or like, how did it work for you, bro? I would say I had a lot of mentors and the vast majority of them were authors. Okay. And I think that was kind of the main what I did was, as I read books, I started to realize what I didn’t know. And so anytime I was reading a book and I didn’t understand something, I would just go to good old Gunny Google and I would type it in and and this website bigger pockets kept popping up.

Unknown Speaker  7:31  

Yeah, eventually I signed up for

Unknown Speaker  7:32  

Yeah, I signed up for bigger pockets and I could find answers to almost I mean, you know, you still got a vet, make sure that people sound like they know what they’re talking about. But you can find answers almost everything on bigger pockets. And I just started digging around on there listening to podcasts. It just kind of grew from there between books, podcasts and YouTube university, I was able to find majority of what I needed to know. And then I would go out and like local real estate investor associations and just meet up with people who are already doing it and either pick their brain or mean at one point I found a deal in Hawaii that would work as a house flip. Mm hmm. And I basically like gave it to my buddy It was like let me be a part of this just teach me right and you know rather than make and he made a pretty decent chunk of change off it and I got a ton of knowledge and just getting around those people we didn’t cut you in at all. I got a piece but not much. But I wait. So he usually gave like a $10,000 finder’s fee. Nice. I was like give me two let me be a part of the deal. I don’t want anything else. Right. And I’m a sponge that knowledge right? Yeah. And he made he made equity on the backside. But I don’t care. That’s, you know, that pays dividends long run, right. Oh, absolutely, man. Absolutely. So you’re starting. Were you married at the time that you bought your first property? Or your like your investment property? We were engaged. you’re engaged. Okay. So I gotta ask you like what was her thoughts are the rest of your family’s thoughts about your getting a stable income, enough to keep food on the table lights turned on. was the family’s thoughts and what they think about your choices as you started to rise in the prosperity ranks and not just with money, but with mindset relationships, stuff like that. What was your parents, your parents and your fiance’s thoughts at the time? Hmm It’s a good question. It’s funny because we had a huge fight about money this week. So it’s not a it’s not a one stop shop. People people think differently right? Like I’m a very I don’t have much of a risk aversion I’m very much a the best word for it is fuck it and like I’m the build the parachute on the way down guy and right right. My wife is not she is very debt averse, risk averse, you know, and so I kind of had to back off on some investments that I was going to bake and and just kind of focus on paying down debt a little bit to keep her happy which is which is fine. There’s nothing wrong with that. I would just rather like build the debt build the portfolio might pay itself off over time, but there’s been some some some rough patches there. The cool thing with real estate though is I tried a lot of stuff, right? Like I did some Amway, I did, like, I tried some random entrepreneurship things. And there was always all this negative feedback in the universe about it. Right. And I remember when I started talking about buying a house, like there was a lot of like, cautionary tales are cautionary, but there was nobody in my like sphere of people that I actually cared about. mm, who told me it was a bad idea. They’re all like, Well, yeah, you might want to watch out for this, but that sounds great. And so I was like, well, this is the first like, crazy idea I’ve had that everybody seems to approve of. I better go for it while I can do it, right though. So will that trigger you? You have a coaching group that you have and plus you have the your eye? Gunny? Are you a staff in that Staff Sergeant for now I’m in zone for Gunny this year. So Cantor’s cross so Staff Sergeant is like three levels, lowest as high as you can pretty much go on the enlisted side right around there. Yeah. So What do you think makes a great leader? Ooh. A lot of things that I don’t know people would agree with me on in the military. For For starters, I don’t think running makes a great leader, but there’s this mentality in the military that if you run fast, you must be a great leader.

Unknown Speaker  11:18  

Super remember that and,

Unknown Speaker  11:20  

and, and I say that from somebody who right now doesn’t run fast, but I have been an athlete for a long time. He had injuries, you know, getting back there. So I think the first thing is trust. Marine Corps, sometimes, I don’t want to say has a problem with this, but there’s in the military, there’s a lot of, you know, inspect what you expect micromanage type, like it gets kind of muddled sometimes, right? And I’m a very firm believer of the idea of like, hey, look, there’s a general patent quote that I actually have on my email, and it basically says, Don’t tell people how to do things, tell them what to do, and let them surprise you with the results. And I’m very much like, Hey, here’s what needs to happen. Let me know if you have questions right? Right, I think that’s great because I every time I have a leader who trusts me to do things, I will go above and beyond to accomplish whatever that person wants me to do. So you’re saying, don’t really teach them what to do, tell them what to do, and let them kind of do it. And if they do fall on their face, you can at least pick them up and say, This is God, God, I will, I will always trust a person to do the right thing. And then if they aren’t able to, you know, make it work, then I’ll step in and help but rather than some people start off from the idea of, of not trusting, and just saying, hey, I need to help you along the way, hold your hand, and I’d rather let them know, let them learn on their own. I hear you. I’m the same way. It’s like I have people that kind of work for me. They come to me and they say, Well, you know what, what should I do here? I’m like, you know that with me with my mentors with that was a lightning rod. They’re like, you give me your fucking, you know what you’re thinking and then I’ll tell you if it’s right or wrong. They wanted me to kind of learn as I went along. And you come to me with a recommendation I’ll tell you if it’s wrong or not because I remember my mentors I started investing in real estate they’re like what should I do? Well, what do you think? dummy it’s kind of like that. But I understand with you building from military to millionaire who is like if I was out talking to somebody you know, because we’re allowed to do that here in South Florida. I know on the left coast there you guys aren’t quite but before I’m out pressing flashing people in someone was talking what would a key word or phrase that they might use that I would think that they’d be a great contact connection, referral for? For military to Millionaire?

Unknown Speaker  13:38  

keyword.

Unknown Speaker  13:41  

I’m talking, I’m a listener, man. When I go out networking, I never even talk about myself ever. You know, I let them unless they asked me. You know, I’d like to get out of people and see who I can connect with because that time to shine today. I know I sound like a broken record to my listeners. But we’re all about, you know, not having anyone feel like they have no one. You know what I’m saying? We Want to make sure that they are put together with the correct person? So if I’m listening, who do you think would be a great referral for you? In a perfect world, I want to reach the like 18 to 25 young service member before they get into financial trouble. The reality is that nobody goes looking for advice on finances until after they seem to have hit a bad spot. I would probably say it would be someone griping about how they haven’t gotten their next paycheck yet, so they can’t do because that seems to be a common thing in the military. You like blow all your paycheck on food, booze car, whatever. And then you’re like, Oh, thank god it’s a payday weekend. So I was like that was the key phrase is talking about a payday weekend like it’s the greatest thing in the world that probably means that that service member needs that like Yeah, sure. I still had already day weekends but I don’t care if the payday weekend or not, it doesn’t freakin matter it right? I get paid cool, but money’s already spent SPOKEN FOR A budgeted amount, whatever. But, ya know, that’s serious issues with That that’s a great point, David, like, I you know, I practice real estate for 16 years in the Detroit area as a real estate agent. But my dad was kind of like the president of the Union, Auto Workers Union for quite a few years. And he got me really ingrained with a lot of the people that worked on the line and stuff at General Motors, Ford and stuff. And I became friends with them. And then a lot of my buddies I went to high school with because you know, Detroit Motor City, they would all go work at the plants and stuff. So I always made sure that the day that I hung out with them was every Thursday because that was payday, they were in a good mood, right? They were ready to spend money, and I go and buy the whole round of a, you know, a whole bar around. And then we would talk and be like, Oh, man, I’m looking to buy I’m looking to sell so I made sure I strategically did that. But with you. I think that’s a great point, that when people they’re they’re getting that paycheck, they’re not allocating it to, like they say, you know, pay yourself first by investing in themselves. And that’s what you Guys do phenomenally for millionaire military millionaire. And that’s why, you know, I had to get you on this podcast, because there are some listeners out there that are veterans where they know veterans that are looking to make that transition possibly in the next few years. It’d be great for them to get connected with you. Am I saying that right?

Unknown Speaker  16:16  

Absolutely. We would love to help anyone and everyone

Unknown Speaker  16:19  

else. I love that. So David, let’s get in our let’s hook up with Marty McFly. Let’s get in our DeLorean. That’s not too far in front of your time as you know that. All right? No, I’m all for back to the feet. Okay, love it. Alright, so let’s get that DeLorean. Let’s go back to the 22 year old David paray. What kind of knowledge nuggets with what you know now are you dropping them David. Um, the first thing would be set up an allotment to an account that I don’t touch whether that’s increasing my Thrift Savings Plan 401k allotment or simply having a savings account somewhere that I don’t have a card to and I don’t blow the money. I would just focus on saving more my income Cuz I blew money because I had it had I had I only gotten $1,000 a week or a month in my paycheck. I spent $1,000 a month. But I was getting more than that. And so I spent more than that. And so I think the first thing would be just keep some of the money out of sight and just let it grow. There’s an obviously, there’s a military, you have something set up for you guys to do that now or Yeah. Okay, that’s good. So the Thrift Savings Plan is the first one I tell everyone is like, absolutely invest in your tsp, especially if you’re new in the military, and you’re on the new Retirement System, because they will match 5% you’ll never get a better return than having the government give you 100% return for the first 5% of your paycheck, you invest. You can lose half your money and still have not lost a penny. It’s pretty solid.

Unknown Speaker  17:43  

That’s beautiful, man.

Unknown Speaker  17:45  

Yeah, so I would tell myself that I mean, I could have doubled the amount of money I have in there right now if I’d been smart with that fund when I was younger, and just put money out of sight. I mean, compound interest is incredible. So if I had known to do that, when I was younger, I would be doing much open up for. Yeah. Let me ask is there with you being a marine and actually wanting to level up other people’s lives while you’re leveling up your life? What do you think is the How do I say this? The the thing that people will maybe misunderstand about David the most? Well, aside from the fact that I talk too much, and they might not think I care about them now. That’s actually a great point, man. I mean, you’re trying to help them so much, that they’re thinking that maybe you might are looking to level yourself up before them, but really, you’re wanting to help people, you’re seeing people and that’s one reason why I reached out to you is you’re actually doing that. So I think that that’s probably straight and true, because Marines are hard asses are team players. They’re in there. It’s all about that, that that and then when you kind of step out of that people might be like, What are you trying to do? You know, I mean, that’s you that and It’s not a bad thing because that you guys have a family. You guys are the baddest asses on the planet you guys get it done. But But yeah, so we have some fun yeah yeah you guys do and most fun I had when I was in over at Gator gardens was with the leather necks the Marines man so so while you’re working with somebody and they first come into the familiar area the military to millionaire is always honestly for me right yeah. So is there any question that you wish they would ask you but never do I think I just wish people would be more honest. There’s always a there’s always a facade and it’s human nature right? Nobody wants to talk about their struggles, but it’s always like, Hey, where do I find you know, I don’t have money for this or whatever but never like it’s never like man, I don’t have money saved up to invest. Can you help me? Roll or like that’s that’s like how people say it. It’s never it’s never like, man, I have a huge expense problem and I blow money on stupid shit. Can you help me with that? It’s always like, Oh man, I don’t get paid enough. And so I just kind of wish people would come to me with more of a. I guess the biggest question I would say people should be asking themselves is Where does my money go? Right? Usually not the income that’s your problem. That’s how much you spend Sure. There’s a lot of imposter syndrome going and going on out there where they act like they have this they like go out and spend an entire two weeks on a car in the military that they make on a car and then they wonder why they’re, you know, cash poor. So no, that’s great that they should come in Be honest. say this is my situation then you can tackle it no matter if they’ve made kind of not so great decisions, you can still correct them, especially if you’re catching them the 18 to 25 year old range that you’re looking at. Oh, yeah. You know, so thanks in the world. Let me so what you know we talk at time to shine today a lot about our dash. You know, our dash is that little thing between our life day in depth day, how do you want your desk to be remembered David, like, you know, your epitaph, if you will, like, how do you want that to be remembered? And that’s a Yeah, some really good questions. I like this. And I’m shy baby. I know. I’m like, oh, man, it’s funny because I actually have a time capsule over there where I wrote some of that stuff down for myself for like, 15 years down the road. I try to remember what I put in there. I would probably, I would just want to be known as like a transparent resource. I think a lot of people get sucked into the sales and scams and money making side of the coaching world, which is great, right? There’s plenty of money to be made in that sphere. But like, I’m not trying to be the guy who made $6 million from selling a course I’m trying to be the guy who helped 60,000 or 10 whatever. People buy a house that Yeah, actually made money.

Unknown Speaker  21:53  

And yes, wow, I love that, bro. It’s like I have a goal to have, you know? 100 people become millionaires you know, through time to shine today because you know the people that listen no and other people that have turned him in you know, we we teach we’ll have time to shine today when you join us, we teach how to make your first dollar online and then when you level up from that, then we’re going to put you with people like David that’s going to teach you how to even how to level up more and it with real estate investing, then I know if I hand somebody off to David, and he makes them a millionaire, it makes me a mortal because they started here, you know, and a guy that goes down so that’s that’s awesome. That is a great that’s what I wanted to hear about your dash brother. That’s phenomenal. And so we’re gonna as we wind stuff down a little bit I have my leveling up lightning round you and I can sit bullshit. 1520 minutes on each one of these topics. Okay, but I need five seconds for sink top your head. No. Why’s why it is just say you’re ready, brother. Ready? All right, here we go. What’s the best leveling up advice you’ve ever received?

Unknown Speaker  22:59  

take action on what you Learn, love it.

Unknown Speaker  23:01  

share one of your personal habits that contributes to your success. I wake up at 355 every morning. Nice I think I’m a badass at 530 All right, so what? okay not the flavor of the mall not the book that’s that you’re reading right now. What is the go to book that if someone’s going to come to you as a David man, I want to be you or I want to aspire to fire up. What’s that book your hand into him? Either Rich Dad, Poor Dad if they haven’t read it, or four hour workweek. There you go. Tim Ferriss, he’s right there in your neighborhood too. Awesome. So if you can be one age for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Unknown Speaker  23:37  

Fuck today.

Unknown Speaker  23:39  

There you go. old are you

Unknown Speaker  23:40  

and never even I just turned 30

Unknown Speaker  23:42  

Nice. Yeah, it’s beautiful. I wish I was 30 that’s I’m waiting on my midlife crisis. It’s what’s your favorite charity and organization you’d like to support?

Unknown Speaker  23:51  

I really like operation Underground Railroad.

Unknown Speaker  23:54  

What’s that? I mentioned railroad.

Unknown Speaker  23:56  

Yeah. Oh, you are is it’s basically a bunch of teams, guys. who go out of the country and stop sex traffickers. So like, it’s a whole bunch of seals, berets, whatever. And they will like go to another country work with their local law enforcement structure there. They’ll set up sting instruments sting mission, so they basically still play teams games. And they’ll like go and find like, pretend they want to hire girls for sex, trade, whatever. And then they’ll just swarm in and bust everybody. It’s loving and awesome. I’m like, I want to be a part of your charity. Let me get Yeah, let me go. Alright, last question. What is the best decade of music 6070s 80s or 90s? On torn but I’m a hair bands guys. I’m saying 80s Yeah, big hair. Don’t care. Yeah, bro. Love it, man. Dude, how can we find your brother from military to millionaire calm or same thing on every social platform? Gotcha. Yeah, folks, everything will be in the show notes. That you can just click on anything. We’ll have everything from David right down below here. So David, leave us with one last Knowledge Nugget. Do you want the time to shine to the varsity squad to walk away with internalize and put into action? The thing that I’ve been saying for a while and it still holds true is the three steps to learn everything. Learn network and take action, learn read books, podcasts, whatever on that niche. Get around people who are already doing it and network with them. Not just say, Hey, will you be my mentor, but like, build relationships with people? And then take action? Don’t, don’t let the what ifs stop you. Because you will learn more while you’re doing it. Whether it works out or not than you would ever learn from books. Gotcha. Gotcha. I love that man. I love that. And one thing I like also is if you’re getting up at 315 every morning 355 355 so that style not that bad. We’re getting about the same time, because I’m three hours ahead of you. I love it. I love it. Hey, squad, Listen, man. We just had some serious knowledge nuggets. dropped on us by my good friend David pray. You know, you got it. If you’re a good leader, you got to trust you got it. Get the trust from the people that are below you. And you got to know what the hell you’re talking about, you know, when you’re working with people, tell them what to do. Let them go do it, and then have them come back and report to you. He pulled that from patent, but it’s the truth and I do that I and I work with that at all times in listen if you’re 18 to 25 in the service member, or maybe even not a service member, I’m sure David will let you slip through the cracks. If you’re interested go to from military to millionaire comm and check them out. You know, he’s, he’s fantastic. He knows his stuff. He had the balls to go out and do something got out of his comfort zone took action blasted through the fear. You know, he makes sure that you’re honest with yourself if you’re in a shitty situation, take bring it to somebody like me or David, we’re going to put you in the right people. And make sure that you’re leveling up at all times. be transparent, don’t lie, don’t be an imposter. And most of all, make sure your learn network and take action and David is The epitome of that. He is humble yet hungry. He’s always leveling up his health. He’s leveling up as well. And he’s always shining bright just like us here at time to shine. David, thank you so much for coming on, brother. I’m privileged. I’m happy that you’re here and you’re part of our squad now, so you can’t go anywhere, brother. Thanks, Scott. This has been a lot of fun. Awesome, brother. Take care. Hey, thanks so much for listening to this episode of time to shine today podcast. Proudly brought to you by southern New Jersey real estate real estate excellence, who can be reached at 561-249-7266 and online at www dot Sutter in nugent.com. If you’re a business owner or professional who would like to be interviewed on time to shine today, please visit time to shine today.com slash guest. If you liked this episode, please subscribe on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, I Heart Radio or wherever you get your podcasts. There’s a link in the show notes to our website. Also there you will see Our recommended resources, we hope that you will support our show by supporting them. If you like what you’ve been listening to, it’d be great if you could just give us a five star rating until your friends have subscribed while you’re at it. I’m your host, Scott Ferguson. And until next time, let’s level up. It’s our time to shine.

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