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SHOW NOTES FOR EPISODE 141: BECOMING A LIFEONAIRE WITH STEVE COOK
Overview
Will becoming a millionaire really set you free? Americans work harder than ever before to pursue freedom, based on the delusion that more money and success will lead to a better life. The typical American trades the vast majority of their time and energy for the hope that, someday, they will be free. Meanwhile, their intense pursuit of financial success is the very thing robbing them of freedom. So, where do we find freedom? What should we pursue? In this episode, Steve Cook, a real estate investor and the author of the book Lifeonaire, challenges you to consider what it is that you really desire.
What You will Learn
- How becoming rich doesn’t necessarily guarantee a happy or extraordinary life!
- The importance of having the right priorities for the life you desire
- How being in debt can often steal the financial freedom you are seeking
- Asking yourself “What is the cost?” before doing anything can help you assess the “true” value
- How the American Dream has been distorted by slick marketing and advertising campaigns the sell you on the idea of buying happiness
- What question a 50 pluser needs to ask, first and foremost, before considering real estate investing for their retirement
About Our Guest
Steve Cook
Steve Cook is a real estate investor and author of the book Lifeonaire, a book that challenges Americans who blindly pursue wealth thinking that it will reward them with what they really want in life.
As a real estate investor, Steve started investing in real estate in the Baltimore area back in 1998 and has done over 500 deals spanning many different types of investing. Today, he lives in Wisconsin and focuses on his family and helping others. He is the founder and author of Lifeonaire, a book that is changing lives of entrepreneurs all across the country.
More About Steve
- Parents divorced when he was a young
- His family was struggling financially
- Developed this desire early on to be rich
- Had entrepreneurial mindset
- By the time he was 21, he bought his first restaurant and bar — but it failed
- Bought a second restaurant/bar at 25 and it went under as well
- What he bought was two jobs and he was lucky if he got paid for one
Getting Into Real Estate
- Decided he wanted to become a real estate investor
- He was deep in debt, had horrible credit and no income
- In 1998, heard about a real estate investing strategy where his qualifications met the bill and he started learning
- Educated himself and learned everything he could
- Became a wholeseller or quick flipping
- Did 105 flips in his first 2 years in the business
- Is still active today but is more focused on new construction
- Has many rental properties
Became an educator
- People heard about what he was doing and how successful he was
- People wanted to know his secrets
- Wrote a couple of real estate “how to” courses
- And started teaching and coaching
- Some of his students started getting very successful
- Then he saw things in his students that he didn’t like
- Saw families falling apart
- Marriages not doing well
- Student were so focused on being successful in business, they were neglecting the things they told him were important to them
- Steve was considering quitting because he did not want to contribute to causing families to fall apart
- He wanted his students to not only succeed in business but, more importantly, to see them succeed in life
A Shift in His Business
- Started changing the way he taught his students
- When people came to him saying they wanted to be successful in business, he asked them “why?”
- He had two students in one week come to him to ask how they could become a millionaire and he said “Why?”
- They both said, “To be a better father or a better husband.”
- He said you don’t need to be a millionaire to be a better husband or father – you can do that today
- They both disagreed
- He told them how he had felt the same way
- He asked, “What if you fail at being a millionaire? Does that mean you’ve failed at being a husband or father?”
- They both dismissed his answer saying, “That’s easy for you because you already have money.”
- The following week he was praying and thinking about those two guys said and he felt God say, “What they really want is to become is a lifeonaire.”
- For the next nine years he contemplated what that meant in his own personal experience and he ended up writing the book.
At What Cost?
- Many different programs say, “Go off, make a lot of money and life will be great!”
- The real question is at what cost?
Putting Life First
- He developed his educational program to have his students not put business first but to put life first
- We want to live an abundant life whether or not our business is successful
- He has his students look at what they want their lives to look like and then design their business to serve that lifestyle
- The “American Dream” has been distorted because the world around us is telling us what we should want and what our lives should look like
- Don’t let the world define what success should like to you – You decide what success means to you!
- He recommends that you first pursue your vision of what a successful life is and then build your business to help you achieve that
- There’s nothing wrong with making lots of money and owning nice things. It’s a problem when the nice things own you.
- Lifeonaire is about discovering what is important for yourself – not the world telling you what is important
“How Did We Get Here?”
- When a young couple first gets married they want the house, nice car, nice things for their kids but end up going heavily into debt
- One day they wake up and ask themselves, “How did we get into this mess?”
- Marketing and advertising is telling them they should have this or that and they are influenced by the message and don’t know where to stop
- They end up going to work every day to pay for all the things the world says they should have
- He knows a lot of “broke people” who make $200,000 per year
- Steve emphasizes becoming debt free
- We can live on a lot less than we think we need
Working to Eat Today vs. Working to Eat 30 Years from Now
- Steve has seen in other parts of the world where people go out each day to earn enough money to feed their family that night
- In America, we can easy generate enough money in a year enough to feed our families for the next 30 years
- Debt creates a scenario where you “trade your future so you can have something today”
- Because we have all those extra funds that we borrow we are under the illusion that we have more than we really have and forget we are beholding to someone else we now owe
Learning What He Taught
- Steve did about a deal a week for the first 9 years of his business
- Was doing everything right
- Single and making tons of money
- He sought council and experts told him, “Go ahead and buy this or that on credit. You can afford it!”
- Put together a rental portfolio of about 25 homes
- Bought a big home for himself – a 5,500 square foot house on 5 acres in one of Baltimore’s most prestigious neighborhoods
- Bought mountaintop vacation home in North Carolina
- Playing by all the rules
- All debt was “good debt”
- But one day he woke up feeling terrible and he didn’t know why
- Then he thought, “I’m four and a half million dollars in debt!”
- “I was making good money and could pay for it but what if something went wrong?”
- He thought of the two restaurant/bars he owned and how he lost everything
- His worry affected his charitable giving and he cut back to put more money aside for the future
- He had to maintain the same pace – making $25 every few weeks just to support his lifestyle – a lot of stress and pressure
Going Debt Free
- He decided at that moment to never borrow money again and he started thinking of how he was going to continue doing what he was doing – but do it without borrowing any money!
- In January 2006, he made that decision and by October 2009 he had paid off the last of his debts
Advice for Seniors Looking at Real Estate Investing as a Means Help Them in their Retirement
- First and foremost, you need to develop a clear vision of what you want to accomplish for your life
- Pick the right type of real estate investing to help you accomplish your goals and to life the type of life you want to live
- You need to know the answers to these questions:
- How much time do you have?
- What kind of resources do you have?
- How much money do you need to make?
- Do you need chunks of money every now and then or consistent monthly cash flow?
- Avoid shiny object syndrome
- Watch out for convincing guru’s sales pitches
- Find what works and do it better
What is Exciting About His Current Business
- He is improving their web presence
- Reaching a broader audience through the Internet
- Providing tools online to help people become lifeonaires
Giving Back
- Has always been an active generous giver of finances and his time
- He used to give to many different ministries and charitable organizations but decided to shift that to just two organizations – one internationally and another in the US
- Internationally, he supports Guatemala
- Brings in teams that come to serve
- Serving in a school for the poor
- Building homes
- Meeting family needs
Where to Buy the Lifeonaire Book
- Buy Steve’s book here: Lifeonaire by Steve Cook
How to Reach Steve
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