Jack Duffley: Investor, Attorney, Business Owner

LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE ON:

What makes every REL Freedom story exciting and interesting is that everyone is taking a different approach to building their income and wealth. For Jack Duffley, he's using a few different techniques and combinations on his journey to financial independence. By day, Jack is an attorney who recently opened his own practice after spending time previously working for a large law firm doing commercial real estate work. Outside of that, he's worked at a few different real estate investing projects, having done a house hack and had various rentals in Chicago, Houston, and Indianapolis. Understanding the need to diversify and grow his income, he also acquired a steam cleaning business doing $300k/yr in revenue and recently hired a manager to run most of that so that he can remain hands off. Jack is also the author of "The One Property Retirement: A Simple Strategy for Building Your Nest Egg" in addition to documenting his journey to grow his Net Worth on his YouTube channel. If you're looking for ways to piece together your future plans, while maintaining some flexibility and diversification of income, this is a great opportunity to listen and learn from Jack and his journey!

In this episode with Mike Swenson, we discussed:

• Jack's time in law school, which led him to better opportunities
• Jack's first property, a house hack in Chicago
• How Jack made a philosophical shift toward an offensive mindset with his investing by focusing on building cashflow through his steam clean business
• How Jack sees real estate and stocks as a defensive or longer-term play when it comes to building wealth
• How Jack is running his steam clean business and hired a general manager to be able to run the day to day so that Jack can stay more hands off
• How your sacrifices now are going to pay off later
• Jack's journey of building his net worth and tracking it, which he shares on his website and Youtube channel

Timestamps:
0:00 - Intro To Jack's Career
2:46 - Jack's Journey
7:32 - The Steam Cleaning Business
14:15 - Strategies For Managing His Business
26:35 - Building His YouTube Following
37:40 - The Future
41:21 - How To Find Jack

FOLLOW JACK:
https://duffleylaw.com/ 
https://jackduffley.com/ 
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_g4GptJd1A5vzfu2CR4dRw

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Minnesota Real Estate

Read the full transcript here:

Mike Swenson
Welcome to The REL Freedom Podcast where we inspire you to pursue your passion to gain time and financial freedom through opportunities in real estate. I'm your host, Mike Swenson. Let's get some real freedom together.

Mike Swenson
Hello, everybody, welcome to another episode of The REL Freedom Show talking about building wealth, gaining time and financial freedom through different opportunities in real estate. You know, what I really love about highlighting different people's stories is everybody has a different journey. Everybody has a different set of skill sets and passions that they have. And so really, the goal of these episodes is to help you find somebody that you connect with, find a story, find a path that really resonates with you and take action. I had listened to a podcast earlier this week, and somebody was talking about, you know, there's so many real estate investor wealth building theorists out there that talk about what you should do, but they don't take action on it. And so here's somebody today that's taking action, putting himself out there and working on his path. And so we've got Jack Duffy, here, Jack is a commercial real estate attorney and also real estate investor currently in Houston, Texas. Previously, you were in Chicago. In addition to that, you also own a steam cleaning business. And so like a lot of people that we see you've got a few different spots where you've got irons in the fire, and you're continuing to grow and to put it together. And so we're excited to hear about your story and how it's coming along. So welcome to the show, Jack.

Jack Duffley
Thank you, Mike. Appreciate the very warm intro. Not quite as warm as it is here in Houston right now. It's like 101 degrees outside. But you know, it's not we're not in Chicago anymore. But yeah, I appreciate that. You mentioned having all irons in the fire. Sometimes I just wonder if it's too many at once. And you know, that's I guess that's the journey, you go from doing too much to too little or too much, again, just a constant balancing act. But a happy to be here. And I appreciate you having me on.

Mike Swenson
And I know a lot of people they talk about the focus piece, right? Like, you know, the one thing I know you've actually I saw that on your website talking about, you know, reading the one thing and Gary Keller's pursuit. And you know, previously I was with Keller Williams, and we read that book an awful lot. So there's an approach there, knock down that domino and keep going. And then for a lot of people too, you know, I read another thing this week where they were talking about having that diversity to be able to adapt as markets change. And as things change, and so there's different paths out there, I'm sure Gary, he's a strong personality, he would tell you his ways the right way. And yet at the other times, there's a tonne of people out there that are doing different things and have that flexibility. And the cool thing is, is you can shape your life the way that you want to. And so some people take a different path. And so talk a little bit about your background padding up to where you're at today. And then we'll we'll talk a little bit more and dig deeper.

Jack Duffley
Sure. And funny bring up that range poster man that this got to be few years old at this point when I was first kind of starting to document the documenting. So you went deep into it. But yeah, kind of ebb and flow on how much the one thing and focusing on one thing. Sometimes that makes a lot more sense than than diversifying, getting more perspectives. We can talk more about that but in as for kind of what I'm doing now and how I got here. I started my kind of real estate investing journey right out of undergrad and went to the University of Illinois, and then proceeded to go to law school right after that I was going to law school at night, that Chicago Kent College of Law, it's kind of a mid tier school in downtown Chicago, then evening programme and ended up getting a full ride to school. So it was a big reason I went to law school because I just wasn't going to have that same financial burden. And I was thinking that come out of school as like a JD advantaged real estate guy. And long story short, I found that my best opportunities were in law because a lot of people were bothering to give me a job because I just thought I'd be an attorney. I was applying to like analyst spots and light and all that stuff. But they weren't having it because they saw my resume and it screamed a law and that's one of my best opportunities ended up being so I finally caved and became an attorney which I am today but while I was in law school, my very first year I got my first property which is a house hack in Chicago. It was a two bed two bath condo. So while I was kind of waiting for my wife to finish school she was she did like a dual degree. So she was like a year year behind me there were the same age though. And we're kind of waiting for her to finish her school and then we'd get married thereafter. I started house hacking renting out the extra bedroom, extra bathroom. And that was a really nice way to completely subsidise my housing costs while I went to law school a couple years after that, was this

Mike Swenson
like a short term rental or was it a long term rental where you just had a tenant and they just rent it out that room?

Jack Duffley
Yeah, it was a long term. My condo association didn't allow for short term. And it was a little bit vague on roommate kind of partial unit restrictions but I I didn't bring it to their attention.

Mike Swenson
All homeowners associations are different. So yeah,

Jack Duffley
it was a pretty small building was only like eight units. And I still own that unit as a rental today, which was the ultimate plan, get that great owner occupied financing, hold on to it turned it into a full time rental. And that's what it is now. And to appreciate it nicely, and rents gone up a good bit. And it's in a really desirable spot in Chicago, like right along the lake. It's like a garden unit, condo, it's how I was able to afford it. Even though it's in a pretty good spot, I had to go underground for it, I guess. But, uh, that was kind of my first foray officially into real estate, I've been listening to bigger pockets and all that great stuff for years at that point, and was really getting to know the game a lot more. None of my family are really in real estate. So I was kind of learning a lot about the investment perspectives and all that from some of those sources. And it was great. I learned a lot on that deal. A couple years later, we run into, you know, the pandemic era and the greatest fiscal binge of all time, which caused the Bonanza and real estate all over the place, I was able to buy a rental property in Indianapolis, which which actually, only two days from now I'm in the middle of selling, so I bought it in July of 2020. And we'll be selling it this this Friday is the plan here in June of 2023. Bought that thing for like 85 grand put 30 to 40 into it over a couple of years, got some nice cash flow and now selling it for 180. So it's a nice appreciation there. And but I've decided I really want to focus on some other things and kind of get back to that. But to round out my real estate journey here, I bought a townhome in Chicago, that was another primary residence in Chicago, lived in that for a year, we then moved out of that one bought a house down here in Houston, which is probably not going to be a rental anytime soon. But since my wife and I are getting a little bit tired of moving so frequently deal, but you know, it's it's been good so far, because we got two nice rentals out of it with great financing. That townhome was at like 2.99% fixed for 30 years. So we'll gladly take that right now. So as of now we have four properties. One of them's my house, if you count that, and then one of them in the middle of selling, which will give us some nice cash that we can use to pay off some debt elsewhere. So that's kind of my real estate arc in a nutshell,

Mike Swenson
and then talk to about you know, picking up a steam cleaning business. Yeah, so

Jack Duffley
that's been part of kind of a, I've really changed my philosophical lens on this really over the last year, where I increasingly see real estate and stocks in particular as as defence, when it comes to the world of finance, it's all about preserving your capital, you're protecting yourself against inflation, as long as you buy all rights, and you get some fixed rate financing, ideally. So it's really great for that you get great tax write offs, all the stuff that we're plenty familiar with here, all the great benefits of real estate, you can say a lot of the same things about stocks, and that you can defer capital gains by you know, not selling, so you're not taxed while you own it necessarily. And typically, those things will go up somewhat with inflation if you buy a good business asset. So anyways, I kind of see those more and more as defence are great when you have a lot of cash to protect and grow grow up slowly but surely. And on the flip side, we have offence, which I would consider driving more income. And in some ways you can kind of use real estate as an offensive tool, especially when it comes to flipping or, or doing really active real estate investing, where you can drive up the income in a big way. But really, I just want to focus right now more on the offensive side of increasing my earning capacity, and getting better on that front to where I will have a lot more money to invest into real estate into stocks where a 10% gain makes a huge difference, because it's on a big sort of initial principal amount. Whereas right now, let's say you got $100,000 to invest 10% is 10 grand, and that's all well and good. But it's really not gonna move the needle long term considering where I want to go. Whereas if I can learn how to make an extra 100 grand a year, that that's repeatable, and that's a skill I can take on anywhere. And then I'll use that income that I can now bring in to go invest in, in those things. That's kind of the philosophical shift I've made. And to that, I started looking at private businesses, looking at looking at those as a way to really scale my income in a big way. Because you can usually pick them up for one to three times free cash flow, their annual free cash flow. So we're talking about really cheap from a cash flow perspective, but there's going to be some more active involvement. Typically you got to you're now running a business and depending on how systematise Things are can be a lot or a little work. But you're always gonna have to kind of work through some problems when you take over 100% of a business. So that's kind of that's how I got to this point. Now. How to I bought a carpet cleaning business, carpet and steam cleaning back in January of this year. Shortly after I moved to Houston, I was kind of looking around for businesses or a lot to pick from narrowed it down to a service based business, a home service business very easy to understand. There are plenty of complicated businesses out there. And I just wanted a nice starter business for you to get the fundamentals. Practice building a team, try out some strategies with sales and pricing and, and bundling and all that great stuff and all the things that go into a business, which are many things and really focus on working on that skill of running and managing a team and running and managing a business. So that's how I got to that. So it's a relatively small purchase, it was under $200,000. And I use personal loans actually that I qualified for ease in my salary at the time, I was working in big law up in Chicago, and then down into Houston at the same firm. And that's kind of that's how I got into that really trying to shift towards that offensive mindset, if you want to call it that.

Mike Swenson
Back in the day, I used to do some financial planning. That's actually what I originally was considering right out of college. And so I talked with a financial planner, this was maybe 10 years ago. And he said, You know, one of the things that people don't realise is their greatest asset is their ability to build and earn earn an income, right? So like you said, you know, I can spend my time on real estate which is which can be passive. I agree there's, there's a piece there where it's like pushing a snowball down the hill, it's not going to pick up a lot of steam right away. But once it starts to you can see a lot of results. But yeah, and for somebody in your shoes, you've got the debt from being in law school, building that income and getting that consistency in your income is really kind of the great, one of the greatest snowballs you can build there. And then that will fuel whatever you decide to do in the future. So yeah, I think it makes a lot of sense. Was that something that was a franchise? Or did you just buy out somebody or Yeah, I

Jack Duffley
bought a, it wasn't a franchise, I specifically avoided those just because often they can come with restrictions. And for this kind of first one, I just didn't want to deal with any extra kind of overhead to worry about. Granted, there are plenty of decent franchise opportunities out there, if you're that's what you're going for. But I wanted something where I could just take control do pivot it however I want to do it, if I needed to, a lot of the businesses I looked at, what you'll often find is that they're either being sold by someone who's looking to retire, or they're sold by someone who has another business that they want to worry about more. So that's almost always what you're going to see. And because you got to think that the really bad businesses, the ones that are failing, probably aren't being sold, they're probably being wound up into bankruptcy. So it's not really going to be like a nice clean sale like you might look at like whatever the house in many cases where it's just listed out in the open market, you got a bunch of people come in your market price for it. And that's it. And it kind of works a lot like a typical real estate transaction. Some of these businesses have real estate involved. So typically, you're just going to see a lot a lot of these are publicly listed. They're not always off markets, many times they are but many times they are on the public market. And that's where I found this one it was it was a publicly listed business and took about a month and a half or a month to sell and close. And yeah, that was it, it was relatively straightforward to do. I kind of had some background, being in law, looking through the contract and making sure it wasn't getting hose hosed somewhere and keeping an eye on that. And also just having analysed rental properties and stocks to invest in a lot of the same fundamentals really do transfer over since ultimately, you're buying a revenue stream, which is the same as when you're buying a piece of property buying a revenue stream, and you want to make sure you're getting decent price on that stream. I acknowledge the risks before you go in. The risks will be different compared to a property in many cases. But the general fundamentals are ultimately the same. So that's why I was comfortable with it. And it has been a great experience that I've learned a lot from already in these first kind of six months

Mike Swenson
now how much of your time has spent kind of managing it getting familiar with it is a pretty hands on pretty hands off. And what's the strategy? Is it really just keep the lights on the path that's going are you looking to make any changes to be able to grow? Or what's the strategy there?

Jack Duffley
Yeah, so right now, I mean, it kind of varies how much time I've spending on it. One of my first hires actually was a general manager. I wasn't big law at the time. So that's a lot of hours. I'm not in big law at this point. I actually very recently in the last two months, really the last month it's been up and running, I started my own law practice. So that's kind of where I was before I was doing big law full time and then business and real estate and investing very part time that's kind of switched out or I have a lot more time towards business and investing and less time devoted towards law and that might ebb and flow as I get more clients have got a couple I'm working with right now. While I'm kind of the commercial real estate space. Another way to make money in real estate is working on the transactional side is you're plenty familiar with as an agent so I see that long term is probably more of a side thing, to help just have some extra sources for income and making connections with other investors and those sorts of people. But ultimately, I want this portfolio to grow and grow of having multiple businesses, not just this one. So with that in mind, since I'm trying to sell this portfolio, I wanted to make sure that I wasn't the prerequisite to keep the business running. So I hired a general manager right away to take control of the just day to day operations, so that I was spending way more of my time on finding more people to hire, selling, setting up systems and that sort of stuff. So it's however much time you really want to put into it, I, Ted haven't really been keeping track of the time I put in, but it's at least a few hours a week, sometimes many hours. But really, I don't have to be there, I can go on a trip and not really have to pay too much attention to it. Because my manager has things under wraps. So that's really reassuring, going forward that as long as things can run smoothly, and we're trying a bunch of things out. So there's a lot of experiments here that are not profitable. And some are and you know, we're kind of working through things, but it's all a learning process. And I want to make sure that I'm not micromanaging, though, because even though that might feel right in the moment, kind of like with, you know, rental property management, too. It's like, I could do everything myself. But I really want to set up the systems to where this manager has the autonomy to make decisions himself, whether it be hiring or just day to day with customers, putting out fires, all that good stuff. I want, I want my manager to have autonomy there so that not only are they more confident in running things, I don't need to ask for permission to do anything. But that gives me more time just focus on the things that I think I can move the needle and in a much bigger way with maybe that's finding other deals, maybe that's just making some major strategic decision at a very macro level, rather than getting into the weeds as much. It's all important, just kind of where's my time best spent. And since I want to grow this portfolio, I think it's best spent in the weeds, even if that feels right today, I know long term, it makes sense to try and teach someone else how to do that for the long term and, and set up the incentives in such a way that that makes sense, which is the tough part.

Mike Swenson
One of the things that I think works well with people is having things that complement each other and having opportunities where things like you'd mentioned kind of ebb and flow between your rental properties, your business and your law practice, you really have control over your time. And, you know, depending on the season, you can do a little bit over here, you can do a little bit over there, I have a friend that I've known in the real estate space that was an attorney, and then has over a few years shifted into real estate full time and now shifted into commercial real estate when he's talked to me in the past about how you know, depending on the season, depending on business and how businesses and each of the industries can kind of pick his time to insert here and there. As things are building and growing. And I see somebody like you as you've got the opportunity of choice here, where you can kind of pick and choose where you're going to spend your time what's going to produce the most fruit. And at the end of the day, you're you're rolling a multifaceted snowball down the hill, but you get to pick and choose how you're spending your time what you think is going to move the needle the most, and also gives you a little freedom of choice and variety, which is nice to be able to dabble in a few different things.

Jack Duffley
That's really well said. And that's actually probably my number one challenge. Now it's not that I'm not in big law. I'm just for context, I was part of a round of layoffs, commercial transactions are down I suppose. And then I was part of a group. We're seeing a lot of layoffs throughout the big law space right now, especially in real estate and elsewhere. And it's funny because I was kind of scheming with with another person like, hey, maybe in a year's time you think we should start our own firm or something like that. And that person was like, Yeah, I kind of liked that idea. It will a week later I get this layoff announcements. I'm like, yes, that decision was pulled forward quite a few months. But it really put me to the test and like okay, I have all this time back now. What am I going to do with it, I can spend it all towards the business, I could try to open up this law practice, like I was kind of thinking about anyways, that seems like a really nice opportunity for the short term medium term, at least since you know, lawyers make decent money. So you know, minds will take advantage of that if I can and that's a great vehicle to meet other people in a way to provide value to someone else then all that's all the better. And I can be a lot more flexible with it since I don't have another you know, management are boss system over me. It's I am the boss of my own time and my of however, I want to arrange things with potential clients. So that's been very liberating. It's also just kind of nerve wracking because it's like, Okay, now it's like, where do I want to actually shift this time? What actually makes sense to good exercise to think about and go through and I have really no choice but to do that now. So but yeah, it is something I'm working on. This is very kind of new arrangement now that we're really only a few months into this tour. I really don't answer any One other than myself for the people I specifically choose to answer to if you know what I mean, dangers and your spouse? Yes, of course, yes. I like to think we're aligned and a lot of thing on a lot of things. But yeah, it's definitely it, we have a very happy arrangement. There are hiccups as always, but you know, we've gone through a lot just in the last year moving from Chicago to Houston. And that overall has been good. In some areas. It's annoying, because it all of our families up in Chicago, but in other areas, it's been great. She's got her career going. And that's been really awesome. A lot opportunities down here, that I like to think there's a much better entrepreneurial spirit down here, which I appreciate. So, and it's a lot warmer. The only time that's a problem is right now in the summer, but the other eight months, it's great

Mike Swenson
real estate agents, you know, having been full time in real estate since 2014, the challenge that most agents have is being able to manage their schedule, because they liked the freedom of their schedule. And what they don't realise is, I could do anything with my time. So I could also choose to not work. And so a lot of people don't realise the actual amount of work it takes to build the momentum, and to keep that momentum going. And because you have freedom of choice, because you don't have to answer to anybody that is a challenge for some people, because they don't know the best place to spend their time. And you know, I can go upstairs and go kill two hours spending time with my kids right now that, you know, we're on summer break for them. So it's which I enjoy doing. I like the ability to have that choice. But I also need to continue to work on fueling the business and growing the business. And so it's finding that balance of what's the best use of my time. And when you're dabbling in a few different things. Yeah, you got to figure out what's the most strategic way to move the needle?

Jack Duffley
Yeah, it's I mean, it's certainly not for everyone, because you have to be okay. With, you're really just weighing opportunity cost and delayed gratification, like in a major way all the time. Like, yeah, by sacrificing things now, is that going to pay off later. And the difference between this and like working w two, where you're getting a fixed salary every month, there's a lot more uncertainty. However, I would definitely counter that with, you know, if you're working, if your only source of income is, is from a particular employer, that's non guaranteed, even if it feels like it, because you're one management decision away from, from getting booted for whatever reason, asked me how I know. So like, it's like, I think when you have that perspective on like, okay, every decision I make has a cost, and nothing is guaranteed. So I'm gonna have to just try and weigh things appropriately. For both the short, medium and long term, make sure everything's kind of covered, preferably leaning towards the long term, if I can, because that's what the biggest payout will be. But yeah, it's, it's been a, it's definitely been a challenge. But it's been pretty fun. Maybe that's just because of the way I'm wired and sounds like the way you're wired very similarly, in that, that challenge of kind of putting the puzzle pieces together is, is very rewarding. And beautiful, at least when it goes right because it very much is rewarding. And maybe one of the reasons it is rewarding is because sometimes it doesn't go right. And you really see all that. So you know, you see both sides of that, when you're in full control, you can't really point the finger at other people. And I think that's a really good thing for if you're kind of wired in that particular way. It's not It's definitely not for everyone,

Mike Swenson
I my mindset coaching call a mastermind group. And so I was just on a call shortly before we're recording this, and they were talking about this person has been a coach for a long time. And he said, You know, I would go into sales organisations and, and talk about, like, who wants to double their income? And everybody's like, yeah, I want to do that. And he's like, okay, so what if I said it, that means you have to double your problems, to be able to double your income. And people are like, whoa, you know, it's like, and, and that's the thing. He said, you know, can normal people will work until it gets hard, high achievers work until the work is done. And that's the challenge is yes, it's hard. It's challenging, but I'm not going to give up because I'm not finished yet. And I continue to push through and the more problems you solve, the more your income is going to continue to grow. And it's refining you and shaping you and making you stronger. And so it's it's a challenge, like and then people look up when you're successful, and you've sold a business, you're making a bunch of money and said, everybody says like, oh, you you haven't really well, you are really lucky. It's like, you know, it's the iceberg. It's all this stuff below the water that you don't see that it took to get to where you're at today.

Jack Duffley
Yeah, I don't mean to suggest that either. approach is better than the other. I think a lot of it has to just do with incentives. Because maybe you are someone who's wired for the long term and really do put in big effort, but you just have circumstances that incentivize you to act in a certain way. Like maybe you have a tonne of debt. You had a medical accident or something or medical bill that came up to where it doesn't make sense to focus for some delayed payoff thing because you need something right now. Or you know, you have kids Putting through school, then you want to give the best opportunity for them. In there, there's a lot of factors there to where even if you are, you know, a super hard worker and you do go the extra mile sometimes just makes sense to go for that short term win at the expense of the long term, because you just, you need that for the short term to get through a problem. So, and some people are just wired that way anyways, and as long as they're okay with it and don't point the finger at others, if long term isn't this great, and they're enjoying the short term in the meantime. So this kind of depends on your preference. It's just some people are wired to really just constantly look at the future in the long term, as opposed to the here. And now there's plenty of cost to that, especially when it comes to just frustration and mental health, I suppose. But everything, everything has everything's a system of trade offs, you know, some things will help a lot more for some time and others will not. So, you know, not to say that either is better or worse, it really just kind of depends on the situation. And what you're going for

Mike Swenson
delayed gratification is nice. Sometimes you also need instant gratification to give you that energy boost for the delayed gratification.

Jack Duffley
Sure, sure. Yeah. And in that way, the short term win becomes the long term win too, you know. So it's kind of a game of mental gymnastics, I guess,

Mike Swenson
oh, for somebody that likes putting out content, you know, making making this show doing this content, it's great. I know that you do some great content with a YouTube channel that's got over 5000 subscribers. So congrats on that, I'd love to hear a little bit more kind of about that journey and your process and how that's worked. Building your your YouTube following?

Jack Duffley
Yeah. So I started that while I was in law school, in January 2020, is when I started doing it for a few years now and didn't have an exact goal in mind, it was more just as a way to kind of document talk about what I'm learning, or what I'm going through. What it's really become is a great way to meet other people, I mean, yourself included, and plenty of other creators to where I wouldn't have really thought to reach out to people. And when you have a little bit of an audience, it makes it very easy to connect with people. Because sometimes one of your audience members will be like, Hey, I know this person or, or maybe that audience person is someone with another channel or as a business, or maybe doesn't necessarily create. But it's been really awesome for that I've met a number of great people through YouTube, even at my relatively small channel size of, you know, five or 6000, if you're what I'm at now, but it's really just been awesome for that. And yeah, but like I said, overall, I'm just trying to talk about my experiences and what I've taken away from it. If that's helpful to anyone, then great. Sometimes you get some feedback on things that makes me think about something and a little bit of a different way, or a lot of a different way. So so that's pretty nice, too. You have a lot of helpful, thoughtful people in the audience, too, that that can help kind of keep me honest, or just point something out that I might have not realised, which, which I really appreciate. So it's been a great, it's been a great journey. And thank you for the kind words about the content.

Mike Swenson
Yeah. So is it something you know, thinking about how you're spending your time and managing your time? Are you putting together this content? You know, in spurts where it's, you know, once a week, you plan it out once a month? Or kind of how do you do it? Or just when it comes to you, you just pull out your phone and shoot or your camera? How do you focus on kind of keeping that content consistent?

Jack Duffley
Yeah, I've Well, for now, just one recurring video every month. And that's I do like a net worth update every month, where I go over the change in my net worth from the previous month, whether that's good or bad, or positive, negative, show my debts, assets. So everything's on there, and kind of go through that exercise, the ideas that I'm tracking till I get to a million dollars and net worth and $30,000 per year passive passive in quotes, income. So I'm just kind of documenting that process every single month on the first. But otherwise, yeah, I try to put something out every week, maybe a few shorts, ideally, a long form or two, trying to do a live stream series where I talk about what's going on with the business as well. And things I'm learning from that previous week or month or however long it's been between episodes. But I just tried, I have editors helping me out. So that's something I had to put a tonne of time towards it, I do put significant amounts of time, but I think it's worthwhile. And I just try to have something in the pipeline at any given time. And that often comes out to one to two videos per week long form and maybe one or two shorts is kind of the target, but it's a very soft target. The point is I don't want this to consume my life because this is kind of this weird paradox with creators. It's like you want to be doing interesting things or things that are helpful or entertaining. But eventually kind of see the shifts sometimes especially in finance, where guys will go full time into creating just content, but now they're not doing anything interesting in the investing world. So it's like, well, what are they going to talk about? So they often just talk about making content So, you know, it's you kind of lose that sort of uniqueness. So I never want the content to be, you know, in the majority of what I'm doing. And it's certainly not, I always want to make sure that content comes second to whatever I'm doing first. And I know you're the same way since you've run your agency. And that's, that's, I'm sure it takes way more time than putting out the content, even though you do spend significant time towards it.

Mike Swenson
I think you you have to enjoy doing it. For some people do see the short term success with it right away. I view it as it's that delayed gratification. Right. Yeah. You know, one of the most impactful things to me, that really kind of got me over my own mental hurdle of creating content is, you know, think about this as a legacy that family members, you know, can look back on later in life, you know, when, when Mike's passed away, at some point, the internet's the internet's gonna be there, right. And so they can go back and watch videos of dad or grandpa or whoever. And so, to me, I was like, you know, this is, you know, just like you documenting your journey, I'm not necessarily sharing one to one as much as you are, like, month by month by month, but the stuff that I'm talking about are the experiences that I'm having, you know, interviewing guests, your like yourself, all of this stuff are things that I'm learning and growing and doing. And so yeah, I can look back on that, and, you know, and be something that I'm proud of. And so that was kind of that mental hurdle for me where it's like, here's, I'm okay, making content and putting myself out there, because I'm an extreme introvert, you know, I'm a pretty private person. And yet, at the same time, I do a podcast twice a week, and I put out all this video content, but if you, you know, if you go up to me, you know, if we had a networking event, I'm probably the person that's talking to one other person, because I, you know, I, I, the batteries drain, when I'm out talking to a lot of people, and I fill my batteries by, you know, spending time by myself for thinking or, you know, meditating that kind of stuff.

Jack Duffley
Yeah. That was a least a partial motivator to kind of just the, to see where their perspectives have gone. And one thing I think will be kind of nice is you could really point shifts and thinking or approach and it's all kind of there. So if someone says, oh, that didn't happen, or Yeah, I guess kind of what you're saying before, oh, it's just all luck. Well, I could be like, I mean, you could think that but like, if you want to get like an actual lesson out of, out of it, perhaps like you hear it all, it's, you know, you can see what I did, maybe it'll work now, maybe not. But it's kind of nice, just to have that to point to, but you can't really do it, if you don't document it, you know, preferably closer to the actual date to happen. So that was kind of one reason, even now, like looking back a couple of years ago, at some of my content, my my thinking has changed quite a bit on on some things. I'm, I don't think I've ever deleted now. Or maybe I've deleted a video that had a mistake in it that I replaced thereafter. But I don't think I've ever deleted any other videos, even if I don't necessarily agree with them, because I tried to just come from a place of good faith, come from a place of good faith and, and trying to be honest, and really just talk about things honestly. And even if there might be a little bit off or, or my opinion has changed, and I'm going to remove that because I have just come at it from a good view. If you need to clarify something then then sure. But I sometimes I don't like people will hide their mistakes or whatever. Even if they have grown from them since then, it's just I don't really like that vibe. So that's kind of another reason. And you mentioned kind of the social battery to it has helped kind of with that, for me. I'm generally pretty extroverted. I've gotten more as time goes along, maybe because of the channel. But I recently did a meet up in Chicago, I did a meetup as well in Omaha just with a lot of people who watch my content. And I was able to get like a dozen people to show up in Chicago to just hanging out at a like kind of a happy hour sort of thing I hosted. And that was great just meeting other people who kind of follow along with whatever I've got going on and some who really don't. But we're friends with people who did, and they came along. So just that that I think is a really huge opportunity, when you can build any sort of following. I guess maybe in one word, its branding that that's just very nice to have when you have a positive following that's focusing more on the educational aspects of your content or or maybe just chiming in with their own reflections. It's just like a nice community to be able to unnecessarily lean on but there's a lot of value that can be exchanged in many different directions when you can put something like that together. So it's something I'm really looking to do more long term is meetups and those sorts of things. partly through the channel and also outside of it.

Mike Swenson
I think what it does, you know putting yourself out there is it does open the door for future opportunity. It also allows allows people to connect with you. I was talking with this about this with somebody else who has a large social media following And he was saying, you know, if I cold call people, it's one to one, right? I'm picking up the phone and talking to one person picking up the phone talking to one person, you put this content out there, you allow people to connect on a one to many level. So how many times when people reach out and they're like, Oh, I feel like I already know you because I've seen your content. And so that's what you're doing is you're cultivating relationships, to where when they do want to reach out to you, they know you. And what he was saying, as a real estate agent is, it's not like they're going to call you and be like, Hey, I've been watching your stuff. For the last six months, I'd like to sell my house and I'm also interviewing for other agents. So if you could just share with me why I should hire you know, it's usually you got the listing. These are the common list views, because they've seen you they know like and trust you based on the content that you've put out there. And so it allows you to build relationships without having to put on the phones.

Jack Duffley
Yeah, absolutely. The scale is unmatched. Because of that I was actually I think my very, very initial motivation to put out any content ever. I started like with a little blog, just Jack definitely.com. I was like, Okay, what am I sure I can learn that domain and because ever need it. So I bought that in college. And one of the first things I ever wrote about was my personal statement for law school, how I got a full ride to law school, how I improved on the LSAT and kind of law school stuff. Because I had a bunch of friends from undergrad who were who were going through the process like a year after I didn't they I just kept getting the same questions over and over, like, what do you do here, and I wanted to help them but it was just getting exhausting like having to regurgitate the same thing over and over. So I'm like, Okay, I'll put it in article form. And then I can just point to that, since it's all the same stuff. So that kind of is how I got going for that very reason. So that's that's very well said,

Mike Swenson
you know, as you think about the future, kind of what's some stuff that's rattling around in your head here moving forward?

Jack Duffley
Oh, yeah. And lots of things, Mike. So I mean, right now, I'm definitely pushing harder and harder on the law firm lever, just because I've gotten some traction right away. And I got a lot of good feedback. Like, when I announced that I wasn't going to be in big law anymore, and was going to be going solo. A lot of people who ran their own firms and who maybe have gone through a similar path are like, yeah, man is the best opportunity of or, like the best thing I've ever done, like, really should definitely go do it, you're gonna be way more flexible, and all of all the great benefits of running your own business, in this case, my law practice. So that was just like a nice reassurance. And I've already gotten a couple of clients under my belts working on a few things right now. And that's been really nice. And I want to keep leaning on that. Just because it's a great way to meet a lot of people and build trust with people. So that's kind of what I want to do. Because just for clarification, I do real estate and transactions and not doing litigation. So it's very cordial. And that way and that both parties want to get to the same point. And just as you see being a real estate agent, and both parties want to get to the same point. So it makes it a lot easier than if both parties are at odds with each other. So it's a lot more of a positive space than than LA might have a reputation for. So I do I do like that. And, and right now, I just think it's one of my better income opportunities at the same time, just given where I'm at, given my skills, or lack thereof in certain areas. You know, maybe if I was a better manager, I'd be focusing way more on on that. But for now I'm I guess, I guess you could say I'm a better attorney than a manager, at least I think I am. So I'm focusing on that. But the management skill is still being built up as I work on the business portfolio. And eventually, it'll just make more sense to focus on something else, I would think, or maybe not, who knows. But yeah, that's in the kind of medium to short term. I'm just focusing on trying to meet more people. Let people know what I got going on. If I'm able to help in some way I can clean your carpets, I can. I can provide legal services, you know, I can help with the media stuff potentially so that there are things I can offer value to work for. And eventually I know if I keep doing that sort of thing though. I'll hear about different opportunities, maybe be able to get into them. Uh, or even on the last law firm side of things. Because I'm solo now I can take equity in a deal rather than taking cash, if that makes sense for for someone to do like I'm flexible in that way. So a lot of opportunities there to potentially work through. And so that's really what I'm focusing on just meeting people trying to provide value in some way. And in the meantime, just continuing to keep an eye on that business portfolio, look for deals, and try to build that up over time. Eventually, we'll get back hard into real estate,

Mike Swenson
you know, it's a fantastic opportunity, you're kind of developing your toolbox of the different stuff you're working on. And yeah, you've got versatility, you've got that flexibility, you can pick and choose where you're going to insert yourself and, and as things grow over time, you can be moldable. to that. So I think you're on a great path. And and I think that's the thing, you know, that as I talk about building wealth, and gaining time and financial freedom through real estate is yeah, there's a lot of people in your shoes, deciding where to spend your time. And there's a lot of real estate investors that do that on the side part time. And so you're, you're kind of figuring out how to best deploy your strategy. So that's an awesome spot to be in and you've built some net tourists as things change, you've got a little bit of real estate income, you've got that growing, you've got your business growing, you've got your law practice growing. And so that's awesome. So congrats on what you're doing. How can people reach out to you if they want to learn more? Sure.

Jack Duffley
So I'm Jack deftly on YouTube, too. So just my name should be Jack deftly just about everywhere on social media trying to get more active on Twitter too. So check that out. Or you can go to Jack definitely.com/links. And that's links plural, and you'll be able to see kind of everything there as well including link to my law practice as well if you happen to need something I'm licenced in Illinois in Texas.

Mike Swenson
Best of luck to you in the future.

Jack Duffley
Thank you very much, Mike. Appreciate it.