In this episode of The Mailbox Money Show, Bronson Hill and Nate Hambrick sit down with real estate icon Rod Khleif to discuss mindset, reinvention, and one of the biggest investment opportunities of the next decade — senior housing.
Rod shares how losing over $50 million during the 2008 crash reshaped his approach to goals, decision-making, and gratitude. He breaks down the coming “silver tsunami,” why senior housing faces a massive supply shortage, and how returns compare to multifamily real estate. The conversation also explores AI disruption, career reinvention, and why owning responsibility is the fastest path to growth.
This episode is packed with insights for investors looking to stay ahead of major economic and demographic shifts.
🎙️ Guest: Rod Khleif — commercial real estate investor, educator, and host of one of the world’s largest commercial real estate podcasts.
Get my new book: https://bronsonequity.com/fireyourself
Full Transcript:
Nate Hambrick: So one of the things I was gonna ask you, Rod, is how you process when you lost that 50 million dollars. How you process that internally, because I’m sure it wasn’t entirely your fault. There were there was other people’s money involved.
Rod Khleif: Countries went bankrupt, you know, but but listen. Let me tell you something Tony Robbins taught me this, and you talk call me the Tony Robbins a real estate. I spent 23 years with Tony, I was on his team for eight years. And let me just say this, if you’re listening, if you have an opportunity to see him, just do it, trust me, you’ll thank me, but you know what he tells you to do is there’s a couple things.
Number one is life is about meaning. It’s not what happens to you, it’s the meaning you place on it, and two people could have the same horrific, outwardly horrific experience. And Tony, I’ve seen Tony bring PWDs on stage and people that have no arms and legs. People that are deaf mutes and which have the most amazing personality, because they place different meanings on it. But so that’s number one, life’s about meaning,
And number two is it’s incredibly freeing to own every aspect of what happens to you, positive or negative. Just friggin own it. Okay, and yeah, it doesn’t feel good in the moment, but when you do, it’s very freeing. And it’s probably the best way to handle something that happens to you. You know, when I lost 50 million I hit under a rock for a while with my eyeball poking out feeling sorry for myself. But then I remembered what I did to have it to begin with. And so the first thing I did was reassociate with my goals, what do I want?
That’s right, and that’s the first thing you should do if you’re listening and you haven’t, you know. Maybe you’re in comfort, you know you’re not where you want to be. Maybe you’ve got a good job. But you don’t have the freedom to do what you want with your family, and so that, you’ve got it.
You’ve got to create that hunger. You got to create that burning desire, like Napoleon Hill talks about in his book Think and Grow Rich. You got to want it, you got to want it bad. And so, if you come to one of my boot camps, for example, the first thing we do is goal setting on steroids. Because how do you get it if you don’t know what it is and you don’t know why you want it? So, that’s step number one, that’s the first thing I did. And then, then the second thing was I made a decision. And that’s the same thing if you’re just getting started.
You got to decide. I don’t mean dip your toe in the water, I don’t mean one foot in, one foot out. I mean, it’s done. You know, the Latin root for the word decision means to cut off. So great analogy, you probably heard. If you’re gonna attack the island, you burn your ship. So you’re taking their damn ship.
Bronson Hill: The decision is such a big deal. I remember when I made the decision I was gonna leave my corporate job in three years, less than three years. Didn’t know how I was gonna do it. I was like, something with real estate, something, and I did. Then I was able to leave it in just under three years and have them replace my income with passive income or investment income. And so, it’s like Tony Robbins will say, it’s in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped, because if you don’t…
Rod Khleif: That’s right.
Bronson Hill: They’re going front of you like and I’m a big out of you, I got to interview interview on this show, Dr. Benjamin Hardy. If you know Dr. Benjamin Hardy, who wrote the book Who Not How, and he wrote that’s in 2x. And so that book 10x is the whole premise of that is I’m gonna talk to you about this as well. But you’ve done some big things in your life.
He said it’s easier to have a 10x goal rather than a 2x, because a 2x goal is like, well, to work to get 2x the results of what I’m doing now. Well, I know what I gotta do, I just gotta work twice as hard, do twice as much, and do it, and just burn yourself out. But a 10x is, you’ve got to let go of like 80% of the stuff you’re doing.
Rod Khleif: And you got to think.
Bronson Hill: You’ve got to become a different person. So how do you like continue to 10x your life, again, and again, and again, with impact, and like, how is that process go for you?
Rod Khleif: Well, I again it starts with that burning desire. I I love it, I want to do it, I get more.
I’d get so much juice and love every single frickin day. I mean, my students now, let me, can I brag for a second? My Warrior Program, my coaching students, I think they own upwards of three hundred thousand units right now under my tutelage. I mean, just something I’m incredibly proud of, and tons of senior housing, tons of self-storage, tons of mobile home parks, and industrial flex space, you name it, every asset class. And, and so, that’s what juices me at this point. And I forgot what your question was, ’cause I just went off on a tangent there.
Yeah, it’s because, you know, I live by another Tony M’s which is constant, never-ending improvement. And so, we just look on how to improve things, and I have big goals. I have big dreams, and I have I am statements down in my exercise room below us here. I’ve got a kick-ass exercise room, and one of them is, no, thank you, thank you. You know, one of them is, I’m the best in the world at what I do, and candidly, respectfully, humbly, I am at this point, which is just mind-blowing to me. That sounded really egotistical, but I have a lot of statements. I haven’t embodied yet.
Well, one of them is, I’m a business genius, you know, anything, because they’re aspirational. I am statements, you know. Anything you put the words “I am” in front of as an identity statement, there’s no greater force than the human psyche, then they need to remain consistent with how we identify ourselves. So, like another thing, in my boot camps, I have everybody do an I am statement, and something they’re aspiring to bring themselves into. It’s a very powerful exercise that I learned from Tony, actually.
Bronson Hill: Let me talk about some of your mindset work, and then I’m sure you have some questions around this for Rod as well.
Nate Hambrick: Well, actually, I was gonna bring it up because we interviewed Gideon last week, and one of the most powerful takeaways that I had from his talk is, with your aspirational I am statements. Writing down the ones that you don’t truly believe. And then writing down every single reason you don’t believe them. And what he said was, that I really resonate with a lot, is you can tell the ones you need to address first by the ones you avoid the hardest.
Like, there are some I am statements that I have for myself that I don’t fully believe, and there’s some really deep reasons I don’t fully believe them. And so I want to just kind of ignore those and put those on the backburner. I guess a follow-up question for you, Rod, that I was gonna ask is, how do you keep aspiring towards bigger and better things. While still being simultaneously content, because you don’t want to, you don’t want to run your life on a treadmill constantly?
Rod Khleif: Easy answer, go for it. Easy, easy answer: gratitude. That’s it. I mean, gratitude is the most powerful emotion we have available to us. It lowers our blood pressure, it strengthens our immune system. And it brings us closer to spirituality.
It’s how you manifest everything you want in life. And if you’re operating from a place of gratitude, you are content, and and it doesn’t, you don’t minimize your motivation. You know, at my live events, I do something that Tony taught me as well, which is emotional flood. We turn the lights down. We, everybody put their hands over their heart, and they breathe into their heart. Heart’s incredibly powerful organ in our bodies. And it’s got memory, believe it or not. There’s scientific studies where people have had heart transplants and feel what happened to the person they got the heart from. And we just do gratitude, and there’s never a dry eye in the place, but it’s, you know, gratitude. That’s it. That’s an easy answer.
Nate Hambrick:. Do you do sticky notes? Do you, are you just, because you’re a total badass and you’re an OG. You just have done it so a lot. How do you practically keep gratitude at the forefront of your brain?
Rod Khleif: Easy. And mornings. I’ll sit in my recliner in my other building here at my compound, and I’ve even got, no. I don’t have my vision boards up here, and I’ll sit there. And I’ll just be grateful for the people I love in my life, my students, my foundation, the things that I do. And then I’ll do gratitude for the things that I want, as if I already have them. I’ve gotten emotional being grateful for things I don’t have yet. And those of you that are analytical that just went, “Oh, good God,” well. This is how I had 50 million to lose and how I got it back. So, ignore it at your peril, because it freaking works now.
You could call it prayer if you like. That’s fine. It kind of is prayer in a way, but that’s how you manifest what you want. You basically believe you already have it, and you thank God for it. Do you, thank the universe for it, or whatever you believe. But that’s how you get what you want in life. That’s how I’ve gotten everything.
Bronson Hill: It’s interesting. Jesus said, whatever things you asked for in prayer, believe you’re receiving when you have them. And it’s this idea of visualization, and just like making it as real as you can. And actually, Benjamin Hardy this is interesting, and I love Nate’s question, because one of the questions I had for him is, how do you go from, like, The Gap in the Game. Which The Gap in the Game is one of his books, which is like, as an entrepreneur, I’m never satisfied, right?
I’m always kind of like, you know. And then, but you have to measure. You got to look back, and you’ve got to be grateful for how far you’ve come. Look at the growth. Don’t measure forward how far you have yet to go; measure how far you’ve come. And then also keep creating this bigger future. And so, you have to stay in red. I love, love that answer.
Rod, I want to talk a little bit about real estate. I know you are, obviously, we’ve talked kind of generally about it, but you have had some new interests here. And have really started looking into and doing a lot more in the senior housing space. So, talk to us about, what’s compelling about senior housing, and what are you doing in senior housing?
Rod Khleif: No, easy answer. I mean, it’s a frickin tidal wave of seniors, as they call it the silver tsunami. 10,000 people a day are turning 65, and and in five years, they’ll be turning 70, and ten years, they’ll be turning 75. And there’s a huge shortage of housing. Huge. I mean, I’m sorry, beds in senior housing, huge shortage. In fact, they’re not even sure how they’re gonna be able to meet that demand.
I was gonna do senior housing literally in 2007. And I formed a company, I was, right before the crash. I mean, I had the domain name affordable senior housing dot com. Hired a CFO and a COO, and we were looking at facilities, and then my world collapsed in a weight, you know, and I shelved it. I even got my administrator’s license to be an administrator here in Florida, did a three-day class. But listen, I mean, is a wave coming? I got crushed by the 08 09 wave. I’m surfing this one, okay, ’cause it’s coming. There’s some opportunity in the space. There was unfortunately a lot of death from COVID, a lot of these facilities, they got in trouble.
The one we just closed on two months ago, or was it, is empty. I was able to raise the money in like two days, because the returns are fantastic. Much better than multifamily, actually. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m still in multifamily. I still teach multifamily. I mean, I give you an example of the deals are coming in multifamily: I’ve got a 200-unit asset in San Antonio. That right next door, is a 300-and-some-unit that sold for about 43 million in 21 or 22, 43 million. It’s down to 28 now, the bank owns it. The numbers don’t make sense for us until it gets to 24, 43 to 24.
Okay. I mean, that’s the kind of stuff we’re seeing right now. And so, I’m definitely not out of multifamily. But there’s an opportunity right now in senior housing, because, you know, to build a new facility, it’s like 200 to 250 thousand a bed, okay? And you can buy these existing facilities for a whole lot less than that. So, I mean, like, a fraction of that.
And so, that’s very exciting. We intend to buy 10 facilities in the next 18 months, and we’re on track. We’re reviewing a lot of assets, and it’s just one of these things that’s not going away. It’s got huge legs. It’s the need is not going away. In fact, it’s gonna be desperate, actually, in a while. So, yeah, no, it’d be crazy not to get into it. And I’ve got a bunch of students that already, and I own a ton of these facilities. So that they’re ahead of me on it.
Bronson Hill: Yeah, no, it’s great. You said it to be a trend, when you see things the next 10, 15 years, it’s gonna be huge. It’s gonna be so much growth. We’re building a part of a building project in Arkansas, where we’re seeing just incredible demand. And another trend, I mean, there’s a lot of trends. People want to stay at home. I mean, who knows? I mean, now they’re saying the Tesla robots may take care of folks at home. Eventually, we’ll see if that happens.
But actually, let’s talk about that for a minute—AI. I mean, I was at Tony Robbins, since we’re talking about him. He said that in the next five years… last month I saw him in Anaheim. He was saying in the next five years, I think there’s gonna be more change to the way that humans live because of AI and robotics than we’ve seen for the prior thousands of, like, years of great.
Rod Khleif: Agreed. Did you hear Elon’s latest interview with Joe Rogan?
Bronson Hill: No.
Rod Khleif: Oh! You need to listen that interview. It is so I couldn’t stop listening. It’s that good. It’s the most recent one.
Anyway, you know what Elon said. He said, within the next three years, anybody that does digital work at their computer is gonna be out of work. Everybody. Can you imagine how many people that is? So if you’re listening and you’re in IT, you better be thinking about this, okay, and be thinking about it—another vehicle. You better be thinking about reinventing yourself.
And he said, literally, in five, seven years, anybody that works with he called it atomic matter. Basically works with their hands and does things, is gonna be, there can be robots doing a lot of that stuff. So, yeah, we’re gonna see some incredible changes over these next few years. And of course, there’s that whole “honor is” component as well. We might get wiped out by AI, because a lot of idiots programmed stupid stuff into them, in Silicon Valley. Into the large language models. But yeah, it’s a fascinating conversation. You got to check it out. I mean, he’s about as smart as it gets. So, yeah.
Bronson Hill: So, on that note, what do you think? Obviously, owning real estate is a huge, you know, you can’t…There’s no time out there that says people don’t need a bed to sleep in, or a roof over their head. So, what do you… I mean, what are ways you think someone who, let’s say, somebody’s listening. And they work a job, and it’s something that is at risk, or their kids’ jobs…
What do you say people do? I mean, it’s like, for all…
Rod Khleif: It’s easy, it’s easy. Get your ass to Rod’s boot camp. Hello. Come on. I mean, that was a layup. That was a frickin layup. Yeah, exactly. No, listen. I do these virtual events every couple of months. You can come for $47, and I don’t sell anything. They’re two days of training, $47. So, tell me your excuse.
Okay, but yeah. No, you got to decide on your vehicle, guys. And you just got to decide if you’re in this, if you’re in that place. Don’t be scared. Just reinvent yourself. Don’t hide under a rock. Realize the only constant in life is change. And yeah, it might be unfun for a while. I lost 50 million, that was unfun too. But, you reinvent yourself. So think about what vehicle you might want to get into.
Buying businesses would be an incredible vehicle, you know. I mean, if there were two of me, one would be buying businesses, because these people that are turning 65 want to retire, and a lot of our own businesses. So, it’s incredible opportunity to do that. And of course, real estate is an unbelievable opportunity in real estate right now. With the interest rates, with Powell screwing, putting the screws to Trump and not lowering the rates.
So, I know there’s incredible opportunity all over. But if you’re sitting there listening, you’ve got to make a decision. And pick an alternative vehicle, and just recognize you have to reinvent yourself. Don’t be afraid of it. But don’t wait either. Okay? Don’t say, “Ah, well, maybe it won’t happen.” Well, I gotta tell you, when Elon says it’s gonna happen… I’m sorry, but I’m gonna believe it. So, I would be looking at that, and, you know, we’re embracing it out in our business as well.
Bronson Hill: And one podcast I listen to is the All-In Podcast, which has got these four billionaires. There are almost billionaires that are talking about, maybe a lot of people on there. They say that, like, it’s very similar to, like, when horses were replaced by cars, right? It didn’t happen immediately, and people weren’t saying, like, “Oh, I don’t want to have… like…” There were people that were saying, like, “Oh, what are the… the horseshoers? The guys putting horseshoes on horses?” What are they gonna do?
Rod Khleif: Buggy whips.
Bronson Hill: Yeah, the buggy whips, or the… yeah, there’s people that actually had a business. But, like, the jobs that became available were much better. I mean, the Ford, in fact, five dollars, they had much, much better jobs. And so, there’s this idea people are concerned we’re gonna end up like WALL-E, like the movie. Where we’re sitting on a… this is this old cartoon movie where you’re sitting in this floating thing. And everybody’s super fat and overweight, and nobody does anything. We’re just entertaining ourselves to death. But, it brings incredible opportunity, as you said.
So, that’s awesome, buying businesses, senior housing. I think that’s huge.
Rod Khleif: Even multi-family, there’s, there’s incredible deals in multifamily right now. You’ve got to be conservative, and they have to pencil out. But I can tell you, the proverbial debt wall is hitting, it’s hitting the wall. It’s like a trillion and a half dollars in commercial debt that’s due by the end of next year. And my God, those, those people have two options: you either sell, and sales are down 90%, or you got to refinance. And to refinance, you got to meet debt service coverage requirements, and both of those things are extremely hard right now. So, I mean, incredible opportunities upon us.
Bronson Hill: So, I’ve had a challenge getting investors excited about multifamily the last couple years. I mean, I think there’s something, there’s a deal. We’re seeing, like, 2016 pricing right now, which is, like, crazy. Is everything else cost a hundred percent more in our society, besides multifamily real estate? And oil is down, which is kind of interesting. But, like, what do you?
How do you speak with investors? Obviously, you just talk about the opportunity. But are you seeing, you’ve got challenges.
Yeah, they kind of say, “I don’t want to… multifamily.” This, I had to burn there. So, therefore, multifamily—bad.
Rod Khleif: A lot of people have lost money. I mean, a lot of these assets are being sold for debt plus fees, and they still don’t even pencil out, you know. And, and of course, the debt plus fees is eliminating all the equity that got put into those properties. And those investors are, you know, are not happy. But you’ve got to put on your common sense hat, and, and yeah, it’s much harder. I mean, much harder. And that’s why the senior housing, like, I said, I raised the money in frickin two days. But because it’s a compelling argument, and people haven’t been burned there, and I don’t think they will be unless the operator is terrible.
But we are lined with a national operator. They’re just as amazing. I think they’re gonna be fantastic. But, yeah, no, I mean, you’ve got to educate, you’ve got to communicate. It’s education-based marketing, really. The same things you’re doing on your podcast, and same thing I’m doing on mine. And by the way, if I could plug mine, I’m blessed to host the largest, really, the largest commercial real estate podcast. I’m pretty sure, in the world at this point.
And so, if you’re interested in suffering through listening to me, it’s rodspodcast.com. So, hope you’ll check it out. Maybe. You know, I think incredible opportunities here, but it’s gonna be scary. And it’s scary for a lot of people. I probably scared the shit out of people with what I just said. If that’s you, don’t get scared. Reinvent yourself, and/or get excited, because there’s gonna be incredible opportunities.
Nate Hambrick: You know, I think a lot of people that have nine-to-five jobs are scared. They’re gonna have to learn a new trade. When the reality is, there’s a real world in which you can lean into how fun it is to learn something new. I mean, how boring—I know, I’m preaching to the choir with the three of us. How boring would it be to learn a skill set in your 20s, and then do that exact same skill set till you’re 70? But that sounds like my hell.
Rod Khleif: Thank you
Nate Hambrick: Right? And so, the people who lean into the fact that it’s really fun to learn a new thing. That it’s really fun to overcome challenges and learn the new roles that don’t even exist today. Those are the people that are going to continue growing. Feel free to add something.
Rod Khleif: Yeah, something else, I want to add something else. I want to add, there’s a lot of people that are comfortable. And we know the comfort zone is a nice, warm place, and nothing freakin’ grows there, right? And Tony Robbins has another famous quote: the quality of your life is in direct proportion to the amount of discomfort you can take. So, get uncomfortable. That magnificent life of your dreams is just on the other side of comfort. So, you know, push yourself—very important.
Bronson Hill: Well, it really, it’s like, you know, and this is how my free frame is: that life is not happening to me, it’s happening for me. For my heart, it is. And you think of, like, I’m actually training right now for a physical competition called Hyrox.
It’s like this, you get paid to be punished. It’s five miles with all these… well, running, and heavy sleds, and burpees, and all kinds of stuff and it’s great. But I love it because I’m getting stronger, and I see, I’m actually training an hour or two a day. And I’m seeing myself getting in the best shape I’ve ever been in, I’ve never been this consistent with it. And so, it’s kind of like I’m seeing it on the business side too. We’re like, I’m reinventing… Planning to do, I was talking about this for modular homes. We’re after the fires in Altadena, California.
Well, the challenge is, I went and did all this, it took in California, took like almost a year to get all the licensing, all stuff done. I got all done, and now I’ve got these expenses. But, like, it were too early, the comps are not there for the new construction. So now, I’m gonna be a dealer. I’m gonna basically start selling these homes to people, which is what I wanted to do anyway, right? And it’s gonna give me… but I’m gonna get paid to learn how to do this. I’m gonna become…
Rod Khleif: You can’t… I’m sorry to interrupt. You can’t, literally—you can’t create value just building one and create the comp. You can’t do that, or is this too challenging there?
Bronson Hill: As I’ve looked at it, and my friend as an appraiser, or the realtors. I’ll just go, I’ll break it down for you. So, I’m seeing, with the land cost, with the building cost, with the unit itself, five hundred thirty-eight dollars a square foot. I’m seeing older stuff that was built in the ’50s or ’40s selling for 550 to 650 a square foot.
So, the challenge is, if there’s nothing new there that’s built now, when the new comps come out—I mean, just the build cost is like 550 to 800 dollars a square foot. It’s gonna come out… it’s gonna be much higher because people have to make money, I said, once they start selling. But it could take another six to twelve months before we’re actually there.
So, the challenge is, I said, somebody could do it. But then, it’s not gonna appraise, and they have to bring extra cash if you’re early. But the other side of that, Rod, is that I can now help someone build on their property. Maybe they can’t build on their own, and at 50% of the cost, are moving faster, they can believe in seven days in a factory. And they build them really fancy. We can help them, and we get paid to do that. So, here’s a chance that I actually get a perfect way to do it.
Rod Khleif: You’re pivoting to—you’re pivoting to… it’s the same thing. We’re just talking about, you… Yeah, I would tell you something. When COVID hit, I was supposed to have 800 people in a boot camp in Orlando. I’m like, what the hell are we gonna do? Good God, I’d sold a bunch of tickets. So, I’m out in the backyard on my phone, recording a video, and I built this studio out of an office here, my compound. I built it, like, overnight. I’m like, “Come to my virtual boot camp,” and, I had to pivot instantly, and it’s okay.
Yeah, it sucks. It’s a little scary. You know, I’m sure it was scary at first when you figured it out. But you just, you know, you suck it up, and you pivot. You realize anything you give your total energy and focus to will flourish. Just remember that, and, and so, give it your total energy. Don’t hide from it, and you’ll figure it out.
Bronson Hill: I love it. I love it. It’s really the first thing is, people will say, and this is what I love about what you do, Rod I just wanna honor, you, for a minute. Like, people will say, “I just want to have more money. I just want to, like, not have to work,” or whatever. But the problem is, with that, is there’s nothing strong. There’s no power behind that. There is no vision.
Okay, you have enough money. Well, what are you gonna do? You’re gonna sit and watch TV all day, or walk your dog all day? You’ve got to have some driving passion for your life that lights you on fire. You’re like, “I can’t believe I get to do this, that I get to live this life and create these experiences with my family or give in this way.”
What’s any of some causes? What’s the cause?
Rod Khleif: All right. Let me, let me, let me share a story with you. I’m glad you queued it up that way. So, you know when I lived in Denver, my dad worked for… my stepfather worked for Continental Airlines. And we were able to fly for practically nothing. So my brother, I literally would fly to Hawaii from Denver for $35 round trip. Standby.
Okay, we’d camp out on the beach. True story. Not a cooly beach. I remember, anyway. So, but I knew I wanted to live on the beach, and there’s no freaking beach in Denver. Okay, so I mean, I would visualize the palm trees and the sand and the surf, and 20 years later, I built this incredible mansion on the beach. Just to describe it…
I owned the beach on one side, I had my boats on the backside. It was called a Gulf to Bay. It was a slice through an island, and giant waterfall from the second-floor balcony to the pool. Pools in magazines. About an eight to ten million dollar place. Now, 10,000 square feet. Big spiral staircase up through the middle. Elevator. Wine cellar. I’ll land the plane with this… on the second floor I had aquariums built around the staircase. Cost me almost 200 grand.
So, this gives you an idea of the house. Two months after I moved in—I worked for this thing for 20 years—two months after I moved in, I’m floating in the pool at night. Pool’s changing colors, and I’m looking up at this testament to my ego, which is really what it was. It was to prove to the world I was good enough. You know, I got picked on in school, and I had this limiting belief that I wasn’t good enough. And my mom sent me to school, I didn’t speak English, sent me to school in these freaking wooden shoes. These are the actual shoes. Okay.
I got my ass kicked again. Yeah, it was for show-and-tell, but it was like crack cocaine for the bullies. Okay. And then the bullies had chased me home, and she chased them off with a flyswatter. So, the next day, I got an ass beating, and I came up with this belief system that I wasn’t good enough. And so, if this house didn’t freakin’ prove it, right?
So, I mean, I’m looking up at this testament to my ego, my family’s inside sleeping, and two months after I moved in, I got depressed. And I don’t mean a little depressed—I mean I was really depressed, and I’m like, what the hell? And that’s when I went out and bought a Tony book, and I bought some other books. I read Tony but even finished the book Unleash the Power Within—and I went and saw him live.
This is 25 years ago—20, 25, 26 years ago in Fort Lauderdale. I realized that there were three things happening with that. One is, you should never achieve a big goal without having other goals lined up behind it. You know, like the good book says, “Without a vision, the people perish.” You need a vision for the future. So that was number one.
Number two is, it’s never about the goals. You got to have them, but, you know, they say the happiest days in a boat owner’s life are the day they buy the boat and the day they sell the boat, right? Well, it’s the same way, you got to have the goals, but happiness comes from progress and growth. And I didn’t know what I was gonna do beyond that. It’s like, what can I do beyond this? And so that was a second thing.
But the third thing and I’m landing the plane here. I know it’s a long thing, but it’s good. There’s a real message, you guys. Don’t leave this because there’s a message. If you want success, stay with me here. I went and saw Tony and found that he fed families for the holidays. See, I’d been totally focused on me, Rod, Rod, Rod, blah, blah, blah—show the world I’m good enough, and saw it. Saw Tony, he fed families for the holidays. So I called my brother in Denver. I was gonna go visit him for Thanksgiving. I said, “Bro, let’s feed five families.”
It’ll be a kick in the ass. So he found five families through his church, and we bought toys for the kids and frozen turkeys and roasting pans. The third family changed my life, guys. We go up to this shack and that’s what it was. It was like a one-bedroom shack, and it wasn’t even a one-bedroom. Because you had to walk through the bedroom to get to the kitchen, which had the bathroom off of it.
And there was a Hispanic woman there with five kids. She comes out, and she sees this stuff on the porch, and she starts crying. Her kids come out, the older ones start crying. I start crying, and I was hooked. And I will tell you and please know, there’s no ego in this. And those of you listening, don’t leave, because there’s a real message in this. You know, in the last 25 years, I’ve fed over 150,000 children in my area for the holidays. I provided tens of thousands of backpacks filled with school supplies to local kids.
We did 2,000 in August. I’ve done thousands and thousands of teddy bears for the local police departments for officers to keep in their vehicles and think counter a child that’s been in a traumatic situation. And the reason I bring this up, Tony Robbins calls it the science of achievement versus the art of fulfillment. How achievements are science? You want to learn real commercial real estate? Get your ass to my boot camp. I’ll give you the blueprint. You just got to do it.
But fulfillment is an art. You got to figure out what juices you. For me, it’s kids. It’s also the elderly, but maybe for you, it’s animals. Maybe for you, it’s the environment. Give back now. And, if you don’t, say, “Well, you had money. That’s why you did it.” No, actually, I didn’t when I started. And you want the money? That’s how you get it. Okay, that’s how you get it faster. That’s the way God works. Now, you don’t do it for that reason, but that’s the way it works.
And, so, give back now. I interview people that are extremely wealthy here in my studio thousands and thousands of units. And I can tell if they were like I was back then, before my epiphany, and I feel sorry for them, honestly. But they’ve got it. They’ve got to evolve on their own to realize that true happiness in success comes from giving back and making the world a better place.
And, last little note on this—at my last boot camp, we had a thousand people, and we did kind of an honorary thing. We called it the Hall of Fame award for some of my warriors, some of my mentorship students. And we picked them based on how much they help people in the group, not how many doors they had. Although they were successful. And we did a PowerPoint for each one. I started noticing a pattern: every single one of them does something philanthropic—schools in India, schools in Latin America, veterans, homelessness, veterans suicide. And I looked at the thousand people, and I pointed to the PowerPoint, and I said, “That’s what we call a frickin’ clue, my friends.” Okay? Power moves to those who serve.
Bronson Hill: It really comes down to how are we serving the world and how are we on our purpose and helping others fulfill their purpose. I think it reminds me of that quote from Zig Ziglar: You have anything you want in life if you help putting up other people. And sometimes it could be a meal. It’s so powerful to speak it with strange will bring you a meal. Tony Robbins talks about that. So, Rod, I just want to really acknowledge you. Just so appreciate your transparency on us. I’ve always had a lot of respect for you in the way that you show up. Thank you for bringing it. For all the value you add to people. How can people hear about your boot camp?
Rod Khleif: Sure, sure, I appreciate it. I’ve got a Linktree that’s got all sorts of free resources. I mean, it’s got numerous books that are best-in-class they’re not crap. They’re really good. And so, rodslinks.com—Rod’s, plural, Links.com. If you’re driving, text the word LINKS to 72345. And my boot camp site is there. If the price is more than 47, just DM me. All my social media is there. Just let me know you heard me on this show, and I’ll get you that price. And again, I don’t sell anything, and it’s two days of training with nothing being sold. So, no freaking excuses.
And the bonuses, how the bonuses are like three thousand dollars so there’s no excuses. And I answer every question on my socials as well. So, there are Rod’s Links. And by the way, at the bottom is a goal-setting session that I do, and it comes with a guide. I’m not gonna try to sell you anything if you haven’t done your goals. If you haven’t done it with your spouse. If your kids are over 10 years old, have them do it. People spend more time planning a frickin’ Christmas party than they do designing their lives—that’s designing your life.
So again, rodslinks.com, tons of free resources. You’ll get a lot of value, and I hope I hear from you. And my podcast link is there. I love doing the podcast, and I think you might enjoy that as well if you have any time after listening to this great one.
Bronson Hill: Thanks so much, Rod. Appreciate you.
Let’s just stick around for a second here. We’ll kind of record the wrap-up here. So, yeah, Nate, great show, man. Really enjoyed. I just love, obviously, super inspirational. And I think one of my big takeaways was being willing to pivot. You’ll be willing to look at some things. Sometimes it makes sense to switch, and I’ve always thought that way as an investor. It’s like, you don’t have to be stuck on multifamily or stuck on a certain asset. You can switch when it makes sense to switch—that’s a really big thing.
And the second thing is just the importance of the mindset—of just continuing to sharpen your mindset. That life’s happening, for you and not to you. It’s you’re never a victim. You’re always being empowered. So, what are some of your takeaways?
Nate Hambrick: Yeah, so, the first one was owning every aspect of your failure. Even if it’s technically not yours, and it would be very easy to blame circumstances or somebody else, there’s such power in being able to own every single facet of your spectacular failure. Or seminar, as Rod calls it—which I’m gonna steal that one. That’s great.
And then the second takeaway is just having gratitude for the things that you have and the things that you don’t have, right? I feel like I do a fairly good job about that. But whenever you have conversations with people like Rod, it reminds you there’s always that next level of being truly grateful. Because the reality is, we live in America, we won the lottery ticket. Like, so many things are going well that we do not, or that we do, take for granted, right?
And whenever you take that time, especially in the morning, to truly be grateful for the things you have, it’s amazing how much more opportunity comes your way. So, absolutely phenomenal.
Bronson Hill: Love it. Love it. Well, so glad you decided to join us today for this interview. You can check out the links below. We’ve got Rod’s links down below. We’ve also got our investment club down below. You can check out the deals that we’re doing, and we’ll look forward to seeing you on the next episode of the Mailbox Money Show.
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