From Convict to Real Estate Tycoon: The Powerful Story of Akam Ahmedi

What if you could transform your life through discipline, grit, and an unquenchable thirst for knowledge? Meet Akam Ahmedi, a man with an incredible journey that will leave you in awe. From being a college graduate to a three-time felon, Akam propelled himself through trying times and emerged victorious. His inspiring story not only symbolizes resilience and ambition but also drives home the fact that you can't let your past dictate your future. Listen in while we delve into how Akam capitalized his probation period to build a formidable $40 million real estate portfolio and invest $500,000 in early-stage technology ventures.

We explore the nitty-gritty of real estate and venture capital, analyzing the pivotal role of strategic networking and skill development. Discover how Akam learnt to focus on the journey, mastering the steps that led to his goals, and the significance of acquiring assets as opposed to just accruing wealth. We also discuss the power of a solid morning routine, gratitude, and the art of transforming negativity into positivity. Whether it's battling limiting beliefs, seeking inspiration, or learning how to invest smartly, you'll find a wealth of knowledge that can be applied in your own life.

We also probe into the realm of personal growth and mental wellness, shedding light on the transformative impact of simple practices like gratitude and positive thinking. Additionally, we dissect the commercial real estate market scenario, and discuss the potential economic implications of rapid shifts in interest rates. We also emphasize the importance of mentorship in navigating the often convoluted world of real estate. Learn how you can reach out to Akam, to glean from his rich reservoir of knowledge and experience. Tune into this enlightening episode loaded with actionable advice, riveting stories, and stimulating discussions.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:27

Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Latinos in Real Estate Investing podcasts, where individuals just like you come to learn how to create wealth through real estate investing, entrepreneurship and business ownership. Today's guest is Akam Akam Akmadi. And Akam was a college grad, turned three time felon, nonviolent, shortly after school because of his ambition ambitious marijuana business stream. I want to talk about that a little bit. While serving years of probation and thousands of hours of community service, he built a $40 million commercial real estate portfolio with his team. He's also an investor in the early stages of technology company kind of a venture capital, I guess one can say. In a way. He's invested over $500,000 in early stages technology company Akam.

Speaker 1: 1:12

Thank you, brother, for coming on and being a guest here, and I think we're going to have a lot of fun here today, you and I. Yeah, we're going to ride it All, right, how does an ex felon I'm just going to get to it, hey brother. How does an ex felon because we might have some people that have had some trouble with the law clean up their act and go to become a millionaire, right? What was the pivoting turning point for you to get you to where you are today, my friend?

Speaker 2: 1:36

Yeah, there's a lot to go into it, but honestly, it's simple in that it comes back to you. In my life I've learned very quickly. Well, I guess not in the first part of my life, right, I didn't learn too quickly. I kept making mistakes after mistakes. The thing was, I always had the ambition Individuals had this ambition to go out and create a real estate portfolio or business portfolio, whatever it may be. But oftentimes I can speak for myself and I've seen it in other people too. But in my direct experience I've never had anyone hurt me. I mean, of course, people, the backstab you talk about, you all that good stuff, but I've never had anyone hurt me. I've only been hurt by myself in my actions and my choices. It's as simple as that.

Speaker 2: 2:22

When I was younger, my parents fled Kurdistan, iraq, and we ended up in the States. I was about four years old. I grew up in a small town called Roanoke in Virginia. From there, I always had ambition, because I would see my parents work and I hate to say like this, but they would work like dogs, they would work so hard. My dad would use this term it's called Kikad which essentially means you're working hard to labor jobs and you're working very hourly, hard labor jobs. I would watch him work and he did a great job of budgeting, fighting for the family, even giving us great gifts when we asked for them. My dad always told me hey, go to school and get a job, which I thought was interesting because I would watch him work 60, 80, sometimes 100 hour weeks, same with my mother. They both worked factory type jobs.

Speaker 2: 3:14

As I started getting into my teenage years, I realized that that was not the path. There's nothing wrong with having a job, but it's not the path to massive wealth. I got that from my parents, even though my dad told me that I went to school, ended up getting a full ride, which I was super grateful for. During school I just had a great time. I wasn't super focused on building a business. But when I got out of school I had a ton of ambition and just got straight into it. I had one job after school. That job was great small business. It was actually a real estate tax credit syndication company. The problem there was I wasn't getting paid that much. After taxes I would make like 40 grand a year On top of that. The commute was an hour both ways. It was two hours a day. I quit and I got into marketing.

Speaker 2: 4:02

While I was getting into marketing, one of my buddies from school hit me up. I was like hey, we can do this. That's rent, it's legal. Long story short 11 pounds of marijuana. I get sent across the country. I'm the one that ends up taking the head. There I was. I'm at a low in my life. That's when I was transitioning from marketing to real estate.

Speaker 2: 4:24

I was helping this real estate coach build out his marketing funnels and email campaigns. While I was doing that, I was studying his competitors, because there's a lot of individuals who have programs and teach real estate, specifically wholesaling. At that time, when I was doing that, I came across a young fella. At the time I was 23 or 22, turning 23. This kid was 18. He was making anywhere between 40 and 50 K a month. I was just super persistent and would hit him up, not stop, probably for a good two months. He finally asked hey, what's up? What would you want to do? I'm like hey, coach me. Hey, mentor me, coach me. How much is it cost? I'm going to do whatever it takes. This is not going to be a waste of your time. He ended up throwing a price that he said how much do you think it's worth? I was like, hey, this is either your skills, this is your service. You tell me what the price is. I don't want to downplay your success or your skill sets. He threw out a price. I put it on the credit card at the time. At this point I'm on probation. I forget what it's called. It's like pre-trial probation. He drops his cold calling system to me. He met towards me for about three months and I just get started in the wholesaling realm.

Speaker 2: 5:36

Once I got started in that wholesaling space, it was very evident to me that this is just a high-fank job. Even if you create a business out of it, you see that you're not really creating massive wealth and you're being taxed at the highest tax bracket. It was a great skill to learn, though, because you start to understand real estate, the basics of real estate. You start to look at it from what buyers are looking for, how sellers stay. You gain all these skills in the meantime, but you realize pretty quickly if, the longer that you're in it, I'm not creating wealth, I'm not really acquiring, and I want to be in the acquisitions game. I want to buy and hold for the long term to create more options for myself.

Speaker 2: 6:17

So from there, the pivot was the flipping. Flipping. Essentially it's wholesaling, but you did the same thing right and then we got you're right, and then you get it to. Then we got it to multifamily real estate and that was the best decision I made, because that opened the doors to the commercial realm and so it took the skills from wholesaling and just started going direct to seller apartment buildings. And what I wanted to, what I want to focus on too, is there's nothing wrong with going to that smaller multifamily because institutions are too small for institutions. But I wanted to go larger than that because I always thought that less is more right. So if you focus on larger deals and you just close a few of them, that's more powerful than closing let's say, I don't know 24 unit deals, and so that was the focus, that's what we did. And then we, you know, now we're here where we've gone full cycle and all that's amazing.

Speaker 1: 7:12

So how many doors do you have? Today? We're at 242. 242, that's amazing, man. That's a great number. You probably went through this evolution, right? You come in this business. I went through the evolution and you're like, okay, I like what Akam is doing, right, I like what Martin is doing. They own these multifamily, they have hundreds of doors and I can't do that. They have these limiting beliefs that it's like I can't do what he does. I can't do what they do. These guys. What they don't know is that you started you probably maxed out that credit card, right, when you first paid someone to teach you. What advice are you telling someone now? Those wholesaling skills are valuable. You learned that there's deals out there without it having to be on the MLS. How do I get there About?

Speaker 2: 7:55

10 seconds ago, martin you it was. The answer was actually in what you said. You said they don't have the financial education and you said they don't have the skills. I'm all about creating investors and self skills and assets, and it's in that order for a reason Because you have to invest in yourself first, beyond just financial education. You have to get your mindset right and create a belief system that you are a vessel that has the ability to do just about anything that you want. The issue is with individuals I've seen time and time again is that they decompress the time as if oh, I need to create a portfolio of 242 units in three months. That's not how things work.

Speaker 2: 8:39

If you're starting to scratch, if you invest in yourself and your financial education just education overall you start to learn a bunch of different things. This knowledge will compound over time. When you go out there and actually take action on the information, you start to fine tune your skills. The more information that you educate yourself on, the more you start to realize the gaps within your skill sets. That you need to go out there and acquire or build the relationships of those folks that have those skills that complement your skills. That number three when you're going out there to acquire the skills through action in turn. The result of that is you start to acquire assets. It goes in that order. If I just look back at the last 10 years for myself, that's exactly what happened in that way. It's not necessarily about, hey, I need to become a 100 millionaire over the next year. When you think like that, you're actually not going to take much action at all because it's just so large.

Speaker 2: 9:42

If an individual comes to me and they ask me more, hey, how can I go out there and close that $1 million deal, I would tell them go online, learn from a few folks not too many folks. Go out there and figure out which asset class you want to learn from, who you like learning from, because everyone has a different style in terms of educating. Once you understand that, hey, I like this guy, martin. I'm a real big fan of how Martin possessed the information, how he goes about it. If Martin has something that's paid, I actually don't know if you do have something that's paid or not. If they're giving that much value to you for free, then pay for the course or the program, because the reality is it's either that or you can go to school and the school is just a bunch of watered down old information.

Speaker 2: 10:27

The individual is online. These creators online actually have the information, especially if they have the experience. Those who have the experience are actually doing it. It's powerful to learn from them. Then go out there and actually take that action from what you learned from that individual and go acquire the assets, whether it's Martin, whether it's myself, whether it's some other individual you find online that you can connect with. That is exactly what I would do, because all of the information is out there already to go and acquire the deals Powerful brother, really, really powerful.

Speaker 1: 10:58

You said it's skills, self skills and assets. I mean, dude, never heard of that, put that way before. What an amazing way to put it. That was just beautifully delivered.

Speaker 1: 11:09

My next question for you, my friend, is so there's a listener out there. They have a limiting belief. You know you have some of these gurus out there. This is my stance on it. I like to get your feel on it, what your thought is on it. You might know actually I know for a fact that you know him, listen to him. But I also am very self aware Because of my experience. I also understanding human psychology. I also take it and I'm like, dude, you're tripping. How are you telling someone has no real estate experience? Nothing, nothing. Just has a regular W2 making 60 or 80 or 100,000 dollars a year to go and buy a 100 unit apartment building Wow, you know, they don't even know yet how to acquire financing for that. They can't wrap their brain around that. They're still thinking that they have to save up 20% or 25% of that money to put it down on a five or eight million dollar property. How are you?

Speaker 2: 12:04

telling them that About a year ago, maureen, I would tell individuals start with a single family, learn the skills, but put it in your mind not to stay there. If you understand that this is a step in stone for me, I'm going to come in here, I'm going to learn these skills. I'm going to make, I'm going to create capital and money through single family wholesaling. I wouldn't even flip if I was just getting started and I had no experience in real estate. I would actually wholesale, build my base of buyers, because while you're doing that, you're also building relationships in the space. Right, even though it's single family, you'll come across some commercial folks. But now, the more and more you know, I died deeper into commercial. My advice is actually to get straight into commercial. And you asked a question and you said well, how Right, like I don't. First of all, I don't. I'm knowing that's a lot of money. 20% of that I don't have it. I don't even have the network to sign off on a loan. I didn't even know. You know that was a thing, right. So, like, these people will say these things and this is why it's critical. All I change the game. The online world just changed the game.

Speaker 2: 13:08

I would network heavily, and networking is an interesting concept, but online it's not that difficult. Put yourself out there, put yourself in Facebook communities there's so many of them where, where, where these commercial real estate investors are meeting, meeting up and talking and posting. And I would get on Twitter, I would learn on YouTube and I would actually DM individuals on the platforms that allow you Like. Twitter has a big commercial real estate community, as does Facebook communities, and you can go basically every, every platform has it. So I would actually go network. So I'm going to tell you a story, martin about because I understand. I understand what these individuals think. So I didn't have a limiting belief in regards to the numbers, how big they are.

Speaker 2: 13:54

My problem was how in the hell am I going to get financing as a felon? I because, because I understand that these lenders some of them will not lend to a felon, but I didn't realize at the time that that's not the case in commercial. I mean, they they're going to do some. You know they're going to check your background and you know that that sort of thing and make sure that you're you're going to pay the mortgage right. But this is the key part to any individual that has any limitation.

Speaker 2: 14:20

To get commercial, you don't have to do everything yourself. On all of my deals myself and my partner we found the deal and we raised the capital not all of the capital, but a lot of the capital and we brought in an individual because I don't have the operational experience of managing this, you know a hundred unit asset and so we brought in someone that had the experience of doing so and we gave them a piece of the pie, piece of the equity we gave. We had someone sign off on the loans. Actually, it was the same individuals, two individuals, same group, and they signed off on the loan because at the time I didn't have the network to sign off on four and a half million.

Speaker 2: 14:59

So what I'm ultimately saying is you don't have to go out there and buy a million dollar property to do everything yourself, like there are people out there that are really good at the things that you're not good at. For example, in my case, it's not that I'm not willing to be good at operations, I just don't have. I don't have. It doesn't bring up the fire, and so it was better especially in the beginning, when I'm building my portfolio and I'm still learning the game to bring in someone so that way we can actually close the deal and execute the business plan and then throughout that process to me that's meant to us I'm learning everything that I need to know in those one to three deals and then I can go off and do it myself because my confidence levels have risen exponentially. So I would tell people to build a base of relationships through online communities.

Speaker 1: 15:46

I love that. I love that Real estate, especially in the multifamily, is a team sport. It doesn't matter what game, what level you're playing, wholesaling, flipping it to team sport.

Speaker 2: 15:56

I got a quick question for you because I think that's a really good question and it can be answered in a thousand ways depending on the person. What would you, if you're talking commercial real estate or apartment buildings, larger apartment buildings how would you approach an individual that said, hey, more, and I would love to get into commercial? I don't. I'm not interested in single-family, I just want to jump straight into commercial. I've never been in real estate but I know this is for me. What would you tell?

Speaker 1: 16:17

them. My advice to a person like that I would say start with, first of all, educate yourself. I mean, you nailed it right. First of all, who you're spending time with. For me, my biggest thing is I am who I spend time with. I'm very intentional and I'm very protective of my circle and who I'm listening to right, who I listen to is a man to me. So who you're spending time with. Then the next thing is I'm saying okay, now start going to meetups and start learning. Like, start networking, start being around this energy.

Speaker 1: 16:49

And I would say, if you really if that's what you don't want to flip, you don't want to wholesale buy a five-unit, I will start there, but you got to get educated before you do it. Because start in the lowest hanging fruit, which is five units. Right, anything here in Pennsylvania I know, new York or is considered commercial. The rest of the world, I think it's five units. The rest of the states, pennsylvania, five units or more. Start with a five-unit, small enough, and then build a team and understand small how and who you need to have around you. So you need to have a good handyman, you need to have a good property man, you need to have all of these people around you so you can understand, understand the numbers, understand what horse appreciation means, understand how you're buying, understand where your exit strategy is. Build the network bankers, lenders that would be if I'm coaching someone, that's what I'm telling them. I'm telling them start there Three, four, five-unit. I would say start with five because you have control.

Speaker 1: 17:41

We just bought, akamai, just bought a five-unit. Literally, we just bought a five-unit fire property. We bought it for 110. So I'm preaching what I do. We bought it right. We're putting about 130. It's going to be y'all in 130, 140, 40,000 over budget, but my pro forma numbers.

Speaker 1: 18:02

So, even at my $40,000 over budget and I did two things right, I did two things. Akamai, I added a closet in two rooms that had windows, so you know what that is. In two apartments. I added a closet in these apartments that had windows and you know what that did. That instantly created a bedroom apartment. I created $60,000 in equity at 8 Cap, $4,800 in annual rent, whatever it's $60,000.

Speaker 1: 18:32

But once you start understanding that, then you start knowing how to play the game. You see the chess pieces I have behind me. You start learning how to move pieces of the puzzle. But anyways, that's a long answer to your question, but that's what I would tell them. My next question to you, my friend, is despite the hardships that you've had, right in with this limiting belief of felony and you just expressed to us that your limiting belief was will the bank lend me money? Right, and you didn't know how and what is your ritual, because we talked a little bit earlier about personal development how did you conquer that limiting belief you know through your ritual and your belief system? How did you reprogram that?

Speaker 2: 20:31

Definitely. It's changed over time. I'll tell you about my morning ritual as of like the last year. So I wake up between 4.30 and 5. And that has been a game changer and I'll touch on that a little bit later as we talk about it. But waking up early has been a game changer Because when I used to wake up later, even at 9 o'clock, I would get anxiety because I felt like I was already behind. And I wasn't behind, but I felt like that because I woke up behind. So everything changed for me when I started waking up early. But 4.30, 5, I'm up.

Speaker 2: 21:02

First thing I do I go brush my teeth, I go downstairs, make some coffee, go back upstairs and I pray. After prayer I go downstairs, grab a cup of coffee, drink my coffee it's nice outside. I'll go on a walk 15 minutes, come back inside. So all this takes probably 30 minutes and then I get straight to work. The first thing I do when I sit on my desk is I plan out my day, and I'm not talking everything. I just look at my calendar, see what you have, and then I break down the priority task that I have to get done today and then I have another segment of other tasks that if I get to knock out, and so I go over my day and then I also talk about or I write out what exactly could potentially block me from getting my tasks done. So, for example, a great example would be social media. If you know you've been too involved in consuming, you would write that down. Put your phone away. These are small little things, depending on who you are and what your blockages are. I write those down and then I write down a few things that I'm grateful for, and then I start my day. I immediately first thing I do, I start reading. I pull out my iPad. I'm a big Kindle guy, so I pull out my iPad and I start reading. We'll get into. I'll tell you about some of the things that I'm reading currently, and after reading for about 30 minutes, I'm writing.

Speaker 2: 22:23

So I've instituted the writing over the last four or five months because I've learned that one you got. You have so much stuff in your brain. As humans all of us, we do, and it's so at least for me I find it very healthy and powerful to release my thoughts onto paper or, for me, online. I put everything in my Notion Notes and I just write everything out how I'm feeling, what I'm thinking, the ideas I add, all of these things I'm writing out. And then sometimes I come across a specific idea and I'll take that idea and I'll plug it in as like a problem at the top. I just put it at the top of the page and then I just bring up everything about that idea that I have and solutions, and I created a story out of it. That's something I've been doing recently. So that way there's a problem, a solution, and maybe audience can get something from that piece of writing.

Speaker 2: 23:15

So that's how my morning starts. And after I'm done with my writing, I go, I get my breakfast. I gotta get my breakfast in because I work out after I hit my macros, and so I go get my breakfast in, come back upstairs and that's when I actually start working. And the first half of my day, or the mornings in my day, is all creativity related. It's all planning, creativity, writing and learning, and then I'll hit the gym. At this point it's like 9 am. I'll hit the gym and then on the second half of my day I'm working on commercial real estate and anything content related that's awesome.

Speaker 1: 23:54

You fit on a couple of things there and you said gratitude. Those of you that been listening to this podcast, you know I'm big on gratitude. I'll share this with you. I shared this with another guest Just on Monday. I went to the beach with my family. We go to Wildwood, new Jersey, every year for a few days and we just kick nighttags and my wife and we just hang out there, right.

Speaker 1: 24:13

And this time around I decided I wanted to take my journal with. I usually leave my journal. I have a journal where I write my top three goals for the year, three things I'm grateful for every morning. Three things I'm grateful for Top three goals, three top acts and then the rest of whatever I have to do. But this time I did not take that journal, but I took my other, just my thoughts journal, where I just write thoughts. And I had a vision. I was like I'm gonna go meditate on the beach, I'm gonna wake up early on Tuesday, I'm gonna go meditate on the beach and I'm gonna journal. And it didn't. You know, sometimes we have a vision and it doesn't work out that way.

Speaker 1: 24:47

I'm a big. I go with what feels right to me when it comes to me Right when it comes to me, I know what I need, I listen to my body, I listen to my mind, I listen to what I'm by me with. And that morning I woke up at five and I was like I'm on the beach, I'm all the occasion, I'm just gonna go walk to the beach. We're a block away from the beach. I got there, I pulled out my journal, dude, and the only thing I come that can, came, that came to my mind was just I wrote a Whole page of great gratitude, just I, just I could.

Speaker 1: 25:15

Usually I use this journal to think my, to get my, whatever is in my head out, so it can clean my, you know, cleanse my, my thoughts, and I could just go execute. But on this day, dude, I just it just was just a whole page of gratitude, just just that's all I had. That's what I had. I was by the ocean, further the beach, sitting on the sand, and I was just Gratitude. It was just I mean a little grateful to be here, and you mentioned that. And what I find is that a lot of successful people are all I mean. I don't haven't found one person that I, that I've interviewed, that's really playing on a high level that doesn't have a form of a Gratitude ritual in their day. Can you talk about that a little bit? What has that done for you in your life and in your business? How has that impact your business and your life and your success? I go?

Speaker 2: 26:05

off topic here, course, correct me, because I think there's so many different ways to hit on this and you could take it. There's so many different places that get very deep with it. Just go for it, trust yourself. Yeah, for sure. No, no, I just let it. You know is good, don't worry, I just got the, the gratitude I found to you know.

Speaker 2: 26:25

It's so interesting because the two things that we have as human beings we all have and I think are the most valuable resources there. It's time. No one's no one asked to be born. We're born and here we are, and you have time, and there's gonna be a day we all die and it's not okay. What you do, you're not gonna forgo death, it's gonna happen, right. And number two is, while you're here, kind of tying, tied in with time, while you're here, all you have is your attention, and so no one sees what you're attending to, right, only you do. And if you believe in a higher power, the higher power sees what you're doing and what you're thinking. And so, before anything, ever, before anything ever comes to fruition or manifest, you have to think it and then you act through with it.

Speaker 2: 27:10

And so, with, with gratitude, I found that when you actually practice, practice gratitude, as some people, just in a lee have it down. They do it so naturally and that I believe that's why some people are extremely powerful, because when you're in that state of gratitude, it's no other emotion can really penetrate you. And so if you're always practicing gratitude and you make it a habit to tap into that gratitude, and even the smallest moments, it doesn't have to be structured like hey at 530. I'm gonna practice gratitude. Doesn't have to be that way. But if you can tap into gratitude at all parts of your day and I genuinely do believe it makes you more powerful. It's something that I have it faster, I'm not gonna say I have, but when I do sit down, I have those moments of extreme gratitude. I always have a more productive, more powerful day. More productive, more powerful day, I'm more positive to my relationships and and I'm more impactful to others. And so if you're more impactful to others, you're likely more impactful in the work that you do. You're likely more productive and impactful with the thoughts that you have.

Speaker 2: 28:14

And so, to go back to the thoughts that we have as humans, I think this is where almost everyone not everyone, but you know everyone at a certain point, you know, has limiting beliefs some sort, and it's it's your ability to catch these thoughts and it's like, for example, you have a negative thought. You catch the thought what you like wait, why am I having that? That's not me, where's that coming from? And you could actually practice pruning the, the neural connections that have been made in your mind for past experiences, and that's why the thought comes through your mind, right across your mind. You can.

Speaker 2: 28:48

You can then state the, the statement, that thought that came to your mind, or the image that came to your mind, and tell yourself, not, you don't have to verbally say it, but like, mentally, like I don't want that. That's how I am. And you can. Then, if you study a little bit about NLP, you could, for example, if it's a thought some people thinking words, some people thinking images, and so if it's a thought, you can actually, if it's a negative thought, you can take that thought and Treat a. Have you ever heard of variant annoying voice, even if you like the person you like? Why this voice is not the most pleasant?

Speaker 1: 29:20

Yep, I'm an NLP practitioner. I'm a certified NLP practitioner as well. I'm familiar.

Speaker 2: 29:25

Yes, that's awesome. So you, you know you make it an annoying voice, something squeaky, something that you're not interested in, and then you push the voice away, so it gets further and further, and you can, you can prune those neural connections that have been installed in your mind and Create a new mental map, right, replace it with something more positive, and so, the more you practice gratitude and, of course, learn more about psychology. I think the combination of the two is powerful, because you enhance your emotional experience, which elevates your, your conscious mind, and then you, you actually practice throughout the day. You can't force it. Your mind's actually smart, it knows when you're trying to prune neural connections and so, but if you're conscious and you just tell yourself, hey, I like be thoughtful, the things you think about throughout the day, when you add those thoughts, you can catch them and then you can remove them from your experience. And over time, as you do this it's not a one-day thing, it takes, you know, years. As you do this, for years, you completely change your mental map.

Speaker 1: 30:23

Yeah, and, and those of you, those listeners that have been listening to me for a long time I use a strategy which I also learned in NLP, which actually I learned it through what's his name? The secrets of a million, of a millionaire mind. The author. I could tell, yes, yes, harvecker, harvecker. I went to an event that what one success resources was around. It's called the secrets of the millionaire mind event. Actually, I learned something there.

Speaker 1: 30:51

But I also learned that in my NLP and my listeners will hear me say, like if I'm having a conversation, because the unconscious mind picks up everything, as you know, picks up everything that's being said, your thoughts, it's absorbing it. So if I'm having a conversation and I mentioned a word or I mentioned a situation where someone had cancer, I would immediately say I reject that for you and for me, which I'm sending it a message to the unconscious Mmm to reject that and that's not a command that I wanted to follow. Just because I'm sending, I'm doing that now, I've been doing that for years I come right. I've been doing that for a year, so it comes out naturally and when I talk about this with people that are closer to me, that I speak to on a regular basis, they're like, yeah, you say that all the time and I'm like, yeah, I just I do it unconsciously.

Speaker 1: 31:36

Now my unconscious mind knows if, even when I have those thoughts, one of the things I do is, when I have those thoughts, you know, you ever been driving and you're like, I'll have a thought like, what if a deer jumped out in front of me? Or bear, because I live in the woods, dear? And I'm immediately I'm like, why am I thinking that? I reject that? Right. So I immediately reject that idea because it becomes a picture and you make it real, right, right. So it's one of the strategies that I use, which is very similar to what you, what you mentioned. My final question for you, my friend, because we're running out of time here what books are you would you recommend for someone to read that you know wants to level up in their life?

Speaker 2: 32:12

Hey, here's what I would actually recommend, because it's it's interesting when people point out so there's one book changed my life, but I'd say your book, that if you, if you're a critical thinker and then you apply this book to Learning skills, you can go out there, learn any subject or skill that you want.

Speaker 2: 32:29

And this I should actually read this in the last year and I was like, wow, I wish I would have read this when I was 14 or as early as possible. It's on the art of impossible by Stephen Kotler, and the reason I mentioned this book is because you asked a question and it's a great question, martin. Which book would I recommend? I changed my life and I think there's. So there's too many of them and Everyone is such a different path that if I were to point out a real estate book or you know you, not everyone's interested in real estate I were to point out a marketing book, not everyone's interested in that, maybe doesn't apply to their life, and so they're like, okay, I'm not gonna listen to that, but if everyone should read Stephen Kotler's book, the order than possible, because if, say, you're a marketing guy, you it's, it shows you, it's a practical book, it shows you. Hey, these are. This is how high performers like think and this how they execute. But this is how you these are five ways you learn skills and you can actually go apply them and tell you exactly what to do.

Speaker 2: 33:24

I'll give you an example. If you want to go with our real estate and you read this book, you read this book, then you like, okay, it tells you, hey, if you're starting for zero, you've never done real estate in your life. Go find five books on Real estate. Like we'll go look up five books, or find the resource to find five books. One should be, you know, basic level, really interesting, and then it gets deeper and deeper. Like the second book. It's a little more deeper. The third book is gonna be like a textbook where it's like odd, it's very kind of hard to take in, but you have to get through that.

Speaker 2: 33:54

By the time you read that fifth book, you haven't like more than enough to be like wow, I know a lot of real estate not an expert, but I know a lot about. So it applies to any field. And, martin, the reason I love that question, I love this book, is because Since I've read that book, I've gotten really good at this meta skill. I've gotten a lot better. I want to say I'm an expert yet, but I'm getting better and better with each day. I've gotten better at learning and that's a meta skill I think everyone needs to get down because, with with the online resources out there and and all everything that's out there for individuals to consume and take in and then execute on, I think the, the meta Metaskills are something that skills that individuals should lean into and learn more about, because those are the skills that are actually, I believe, personal belief, that take you to the next level in any endeavor that you take.

Speaker 1: 34:45

Would. I love that. That's thank you for sharing that book. I've never heard of the book. I'm literally gonna pick it up. So this, I'm gonna down the whole immediately Again, there's always something you can learn from everyone, so my brother really appreciate you coming out, man and sharing. Before I go, I want I want to sleep back to real estate. I still got a few more minutes and I and really, yeah, conversation with you. I want to switch back to real estate and here's my final question. You know the market is in a funky place right now, with interest rates going where they are Inventory, where it is commercial real estate demand has fallen off a cliff. Where do you foresee this market going? What are your thoughts?

Speaker 2: 35:26

I'll touch up on multi-family, but I can, I could touch up on other asset classes too. So I love studying economics and learning more about economics, because it it's a it's a huge component variable and commercial real estate right, it's dead dirt commercial real estate, any real estate's dead German, and even the businesses are too. So I think the markets it. For me this is my personal standpoint is I think the markets are gonna Get worse before they get better. I there's a lot of people that have hoped that, hey, things are gonna get better in the next year. I don't think so. I think I don't. I don't know if we're gonna have a full on depression or anything crazy like that, but I do think asset classes are gonna get hit. Individuals will lose their jobs. That's, it's already happening. It's gonna happen further more. So the issue with everyone that is that's in the camp with, that believes that interest rates are gonna go back down, is, to me, when I see it is, if they go back down, it's gonna make the long-term trajectory worse for the people of the United States, actually all over the world, and the reason I say that is because they printed so much money. I mean like, I believe, 70 to 80 percent of the money supply was created during COVID, and so we've never done that before, we've never printed that much money before, and so if you, if you, lower the interest rates too early, demand will rise again and demand will rise very quickly. It's actually been very difficult to kill demand by even raising the interest rates as much in a matter of a year and a half, two years, and so if they were to lower interest rates too early generally they will, but if they do, I think the, the markets go insane Positive light, but then it's gonna be very difficult. Inflation will go through the roof over the next decade and I think that'll create Long-term adverse effects that are gonna be harder to come back from. And if they keep it where they are and continue to raise interest rates, and so what? So what does that mean? Where? Where the opportunity is gonna lie?

Speaker 2: 37:15

I've actually taken in the last year I have not acquired multi-family, and that's because there's been such a gap. The sellers, you know, expect the, you know the prices that they were receiving during covid, and the buyers obviously guys like me and guys like you are not willing to pay those types of prices. Doesn't make sense with the where the debt is that right and so you know. I touched up on a few points of individuals losing their jobs. I do think this is gonna start happening more and more. A big property management over the last seven or so years sat it very easy and I'm actually seeing that with a lot of the people in my network. They're saying the property management help you all of a sudden are slipping up when they're big. They've been great and I think that's actually indicative of hard times coming individuals losing jobs. It's getting tougher for the consumer. So any of these assets that are consumer based Apartments being one of them I think you're gonna take a pretty better depending on the locality, because real estate is location based.

Speaker 2: 38:09

But I do believe multi families gonna have a huge opportunity and it's had a 15 year run. So I believe multi families gonna have a lot of opportunity and and offices are getting destroyed. As you know, offices it's just not just from the work, from home movement, but I believe a lot of the businesses that were in offices Also have a warehouse needs. So I believe industrial asset class is going to be one of the hottest asset classes over the next decade. I believe it's gonna have an insane run. It's my personal belief, and so that's why I'm focusing a lot on industrial real estate. Alongside multi family, there's gonna be a lot of opportunity and multi family and an industrial with offices. I think you're gonna see the steepest discounts because they're just getting hit left and right in almost every city in the country I come.

Speaker 1: 38:54

I want I want you to elaborate or unpack that a little bit more with the few minutes we have left Are industrial. Tell me what you're seeing. An industrial that you believe that there's going to be a tremendous amount of opportunity there.

Speaker 2: 39:07

The industrial that I'm referring to, because industrial has a bunch of different sub asset classes within it. The industrial that I'm referring to is not the big box industrial that those target warehouses, walmart warehouses, amazon warehouses that's not what I'm referring to and that's actually that's the same thing as getting into, like, like a 500 unit. What I'm referring to, an industrial, is the smaller industrial asset, like small, sorry, smaller units. So 1800 to 3000 square feet unit size. But you might have an industrial park of a hundred thousand square feet or fifty thousand square feet, but each unit is 1800 3000 square feet.

Speaker 2: 39:44

There is so much demand all over the country by small business and medium-sized business owners definite hundred percent, yes, it's, it's all over to like. I've studied a few markets I'm in two right now for the sasset class and and what where you're seeing is there's so much demanded, there's the supply is so little that they're not being built. Like if you go to every locality and look, martin, after this, I want you not you don't have to do it today but take the time and look through a market that you, that you're already in, that you understand very well, and just look for these types of assets and Look at how many there are. There aren't many, but they, the demand for them, is so high because these business owners don't only have they don't only have office needs. Matter of fact, they probably only use the warehouse space for 10 to 20 percent. Office rest is warehousing space to store supplies. So think about your. It's a lot more than this Jim's. Use this space. Any HVAC or any contractor related business. Use this space, dude.

Speaker 1: 40:39

I space like that right now. As you've mentioned it, I was gonna buy on set just to store material, leftover, materials from jobs that we you know that we're moving from From apartment to apartment right.

Speaker 2: 40:50

So a lot of business owners are. What you'll see in the existing asset class, martin, is a lot of business owners. Um, they'll, they'll do, they'll develop one themselves and use it for their own business, and maybe they've had a business for 20, 30 years and now they're ready to sell. I think the opportunity is actually in existing if there's always opportunity this thing but developing them because the cost to construct them is not that high. They they don't need to look super sexy.

Speaker 2: 41:14

This is the multi family. It's not housing, it's a beat-it-beat businesses, right, your tenants are businesses and with businesses, they have to pay. Like, if they don't pay, martin, you know this. With businesses, like they have to operate their business, they don't pay their screwed. And so I don't think you, from my experience, you don't have the same issues that you would with. You know, consumer type assets like apartment buildings were, you know, tennis can't pay, they can't pay. You got to go through that process and the way the whole country is moving some states aren't this way just yet, but they're becoming more tenant-friendly. It's becoming more difficult for landlords not to stray anyone away from housing one of the greatest opportunities. But this industrial asset class, I think for me when I look over the next 10 years moving forward, I believe it's going to be one of the hottest, if not the hottest asset class because of the supply and demand.

Speaker 1: 42:02

Brother, thank you for sharing that. Man Really really learned, learned something new. I'm definitely going to take you up on that. I'm going to definitely. We have a co-star subscription so I'm going to jump on co-star this weekend and start studying that class. You know I don't really understand it much. It's like anything right, it's a muscle. There's so many different spaces, there's so many different items you can take within our space. You know I like to play in my lane when I'm good at it. I'm a multifamily. I'll buy, flip a property. You know I'm a multifamily guy. That's who I am right. I'm always looking for the opportunities because I understand they're running. I understand supply and demand. I understand real estate and it's probably not probably. I know for a fact there's no difference to get financing for that. It's income base. It's income base, it's DSCR. It's the same numbers. It's just understanding the demand, supply and demand of that asset class. I don't know that. You just talk that.

Speaker 2: 42:56

And your market right. And, by the way, as you're doing research on this, if you ever want to go back and forth, you have questions, let me know. I'd be happy to help. Appreciate you, brother.

Speaker 1: 43:06

Let's go right into the outer way, my friend, we're going into the entire round. We're going to ask you a series of questions. You don't have to think you could justify if you want, but they're just for fun, so people can get to know you a little better. Are you ready to play? Let's run it. Let's do it. Real estate is a moneymaker.

Speaker 2: 43:23

My advice to young people is learn from people who are doing what you want to learn and do.

Speaker 1: 43:29

People coming to Tampa Florida should try Great market.

Speaker 2: 43:32

Go to the St Pete Beach.

Speaker 1: 43:36

The market right now is undeterringed. I've always wanted to travel to Dubai. Never underestimate the power of your mind. I think the president right now is terrible. Family or business, both Book smart or street smart, street smart all day. Wine or beer, neither Skill or popularity, skill Words or action.

Speaker 2: 44:02

Action.

Speaker 1: 44:02

And lastly, more time or more money, more time.

Speaker 1: 44:10

My friend, I appreciate you coming out and sharing your wisdom, your insights and all of your thoughts with myself and my audience. I really appreciate that. My friend, if people wanted to get a hold of you, connect with you on IG or Facebook or social, wherever you are, or they wanted to just connect with you, find out more, maybe you have a program they want to talk to you about. Hey, how can I learn from them? I'm really vibing with Akam. How can I learn from them? Where can they find you, brother?

Speaker 2: 44:37

They can find me on Instagram at AKInvest. You can also find me on Facebook at Akamamedi, aka last name, h-m-e-d-i. I'm sure you'll put it in the show notes, martin, definitely. So you can reach out to me in those two places. I'm pretty active. And then on YouTube, I do plan on putting more law form content, really breaking down commercial real estate and some of the things that I'm doing and experiencing from all the things that we talked about today and really going deep dive into that. So my YouTube is just my first name, last name at Akamamedi, but you can find me there. Dm me if you need anything. I do have a program where we teach how to acquire commercial real estate everything we talked about today, a to Z. So if you're interested in reaching out, just reach out to me. Appreciate it. All, right, brother?

Speaker 1: 45:27

Thank you so much for being here. Really appreciate you, my friend, and we'll see you soon. Thank you, bart.