Tabatha Thorell - Building Legacy Wealth
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Tabatha Thorell is a native of rural Nebraska, is a proud mom to 5 girls, and is also a dynamic speaker, best-selling co-author, life and business coach, podcaster, and seasoned real estate investor. Tabatha and her high school sweetheart started investing in college by renting out part of a house to friends, and their path has built and grown from there. With a desire to leave a legacy of wealth to their future children, they believed that real estate was the way to do that. Tabita is the host to her podcast "What Went Wrong" where she shares inspiring stories and insights from other sharing their success and struggles to help others.
In this episode, you will be able to:
- Discover the secrets to building wealth through real estate investing and unlock your financial freedom.
- Uncover the key strategies for achieving time freedom through real estate investing and reclaim control over your schedule.
- Master the art of buying your first investment property with proven tactics for success in the real estate market.
- Explore the pivotal role of mentorship in achieving real estate success and learn how to find the right mentor for your journey.
- Learn effective methods for managing real estate investments within your family and build a thriving portfolio together.
The key moments in this episode are:
00:00:00 - Building Character Through Real Estate
00:01:45 - Getting Started in Real Estate
00:04:43 - Lessons Learned from First Property
00:08:21 - Vision for Time Freedom
00:10:36 - Overcoming Negative Viewpoints about Wealth
00:13:31 - Work-Life Balance and Family Unity
00:15:48 - Teaching Wealth Building to Children
00:23:04 - Investing in Real Estate and Other Opportunities
00:24:55 - Legacy Wealth and Overcoming Fear
00:27:11 - Facing Challenges and Building Resilience
00:30:27 - Building Wealth and Inspiring Hope
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Tabatha Thorell
We take our kids to these properties and we would rip out carpet together and they would paint and they would play and we would do the work together. So we were building character in our kids when they were really young and we were all together and we would make it fun, and then, you know, it would be hard work. And it's like, okay, if you do this, then I'm going to go take, you get ice cream, you know? And so it was teaching them those things that, yes, like some things you, you do have to roll up your sleeves for, and, you know, you got to get that a little bit dirty to, you know, reap the rewards of what this.
Mike Swenson
Welcome to the REL Freedom show, where we inspire you to pursue your passion to gain time and financial freedom through opportunities and real estate. I'm your host, Mike Swenson. Let's get some REL Freedom together. Hello, everybody. Welcome to another episode of real REL Freedom, where we talk about building time and financial freedom through opportunities and real estate. I'm your host, Mike Swenson. If you want to get started on your real estate investing journey, check out our website, freedomthroughrealestate.com. we've got lots of articles, videos, things for you to learn to try to decide what's going to be the best path for you on your real estate investing journey. And I'm so excited today. We've got a wonderful guest that we're going to be talking with. We have Tabatha Thorell. She is a rural nebraskan best selling author, speaker, life, and business coach. You've done a lot in the fitness coaching as well as real estate, uh, with your family. You've got five kids, and so we're going to talk also to probably a lot about handling things and juggling a lot of things with many different spinning plates at the same time. So excited to hear you talk more about your journey. Welcome to the show.
Tabatha Thorell
Thank you so much, Mike, for having me. I'm excited to get going on this conversation.
Mike Swenson
And I should also mention, too, podcast host as well. So, yeah, you've got the what went wrong podcast. So why don't you just give us a little bit of background and kind of how you got started and we'll go from there.
Tabatha Thorell
Yeah, well, Mike kind of shared, you know, I am, I married my high school sweetheart. We have five beautiful daughters. We live in my husband's hometown, and we actually started real estate investing when we were in college. Um, my husband, his, my father in law started getting properties when my husband is about 15. And my husband helped him renovate the properties. Manage the properties. Um, get it going. But my father in law had no experience with real estate at all. He sold his cattle to buy real estate. And so, you know, he did this, and he had the mindset, like, you got to do everything yourself. If you pay somebody, you're going to go broke, you know? And so that was just kind of the leadership that we had when we went into this, but nevertheless, it got us started, because when my husband was 21, he's like, hey, tab, I want to buy a house. And he was renting a property from his uncle, actually, at the time. And he's like, I just want to buy a house. Live in the basement, rent out the top. And I'm like, awesome, I'll help you renovate it. Great. We'll make it look pretty, you know? And so we bought this big old house, and we tore nine layers of wallpaper off. I mean, man, I remember. I still remember that wallpaper. Your first house, you'll never forget. And we just made it look all beautiful and pretty, and we got tenants in there. And he and his brother lived in the basement. His brother actually paid him rent, too. So, you know, here he was, 21 years old, renting out to these college students, and, you know, living rent free, and it was cash flow positive. And so we just kind of got going on that. And there were so many lessons when we bought that first house. First of all, you want to make the house look nice, but let me tell you, after the first set of renters, we were like, okay, so the chair rail and the crown molding and everything that we loved was kind of destroyed, but that's okay because we just learned what we needed to do to make it look nice because we still wanted a nice living space for people. But we learned not to put so much emotion into the house as well because we love to make things look pretty, and sometimes that doesn't always happen. So, you know, we just learned, you know, what to do, not what not to do. We were so. We were so green, you know, of what was going to work and what didn't work. And here my husband was a 21 year old guy, and when you work with college students, you work with their parents, and most their parents are mid forties, early fifties. And here's this 21 year college student, you know, dealing with these, you know, middle aged parents. And so it was just kind of comical, some of the conversations that they'd have. And we knew enough that we, you know, we. There was Google back then. You know, I'm not that old and so we just looked up different laws and stuff to make sure that we were doing everything right. But we just got started. Like, we just did it, and we didn't know. I mean, we were not an LLC. We were not, you know, there was not. We weren't even married, and we were just doing this together. And he actually bought a second property before we were married as well. And so, you know, we were just rolling with it and just taking each step, but we were doing everything ourselves, and that was probably our first mistake. But again, in the beginning, when we bought our first house, we were, like, nickel and diming everything. It was like we wanted it to be cash flow positive, so that's why we bought the second house. So within, I think, the next year, because when you buy your first property, something you have to realize when you just have one, it's kind of like a house of cards. Like, one thing goes wrong, and it just, like, will, it can all crumble, you know? And so when you have that second house, you can kind of borrow things from Paul to pay Peter, and you kind of move stuff around a little bit. And if they're both cash flow positive, you can kind of use the cash flow from this house to, you know, renovate this house, and so you have a little bit more leverage. So whenever we're working with people, we're always like, okay, we want you to take the first step and buy the first house, but then we want the strategy of, okay, you're buying your second one and your third one. Um, the single family home. And the reason why we do single family home is because that is the path to least resistance. Um, most of the time, you don't have any big renovation things like you would if you have, like, a duplex or four plex or, you know, a ten unit thing, because it's, you know, three bedroom, you know? So it just. It makes that less scary when you're buying your first property and. And less overwhelming, especially if you have job and kids and a marriage and things like that. So that's kind of what we did. And we got married and we had kids, and we just kept accumulating these properties. But again, we were doing everything ourselves, so it was a part time job. I mean, I'll just be honest. It was not this passive income that people talk about. And we. Again, we'd buy old houses, and so we'd renovate them, and we'd kind of see the diamond in the rough. And so we were building our wealth, and we knew we were doing that for our future, but we didn't have the right mentorship. We didn't have the right coaches. It wasn't until about 2012 that I even realized that you could get a coach for something like that. And then when I saw after a coach for that, I just couldn't find the right fit. I'll be honest, it was a lot of male heavy do this as a business, you know, get this money. Like, just very aggressive where I just didn't see the fit. And so we just kept doing everything ourselves. And finally, after baby four and five, we were like, okay, we have got to have, um, you know, we have to be time wealthy. And that's what I want people to realize is, like, you get time wealthy by getting other people's wisdom and doing it faster and better. And that's where, for me, as a coach, it's like, I love to help people do that because we struggled for almost 20 years, and we knew we were building stuff, and we knew we planted the seeds, and, you know, we were accumulating, and we were over $7 million or $7,000,000.07 figures in real estate. But to just do it all ourselves and have it be passive, we needed to change the infrastructure. And so that's kind of what we've done in the last few years, is really changed the infrastructure. It's allowed us to look at the next two to three years and double our portfolio and do it with ease and grace and not, like, this scary overwhelm of, like, oh, my gosh, what are we gonna do? It's like, excitement. Like, oh, yes. What's the next thing? What's the next thing? So that's kind of been our journey.
Mike Swenson
So, what was that tipping point at the beginning? Obviously, your husband seen his dad do it, maybe pave the way a little bit, but was it. You knew that real estate was a path to build wealth, and you wanted to get started that way. You saw the opportunity of having tenants pay rent right off the bat and be able to live rent free. What was kind of that beginning point for you that allowed you to jump in?
Tabatha Thorell
I think it was two things. First of all, it was my husband was like, yeah, I can live rent free. You know, like, I can have people pay for my rent. When you're in college, and you're literally, like, you're not even paycheck to paycheck. You're, like, barely getting by, right? So, like. And I was a waitress, and I was hustling, and I was doing everything, and so I think that was very appealing. But we did see it from the beginning as a way to build wealth because he was in, we were both in college, and he was like, I know I want to farm someday, because that was, like, what his family had done. But he was like, I don't want to be a slave to farming. I want to have another source of income. So we're not struggling and farming, there's no retirement plan, there's no roa or whatever, you know, all these different things. Like, we knew we were going to have that, and I knew that I wanted to own my own business, be my own boss, whatever that was. I didn't even really know that was entrepreneurship. I just knew that I wanted to not work for somebody else because I didn't like people telling me what to do. So with that, I have to provide the retirement right? And we knew that, like, we wanted a family and we didn't want to be, you know, even 65, 70 still, like, working and working in the fields and doing this stuff. So we were like, if we do this and we do it right, like, we can. We can make this work. And I can't really tell you other than early two thousands where it was, like, when the new reality shows of, like, renovations came, the flipping houses and stuff. And we saw that and we were like, that makes sense. And I thought I might be a real estate agent. Like, that was a way I could do my own business, you know, and things didn't work out, and I wasn't one. But, like, you know, we just saw that as a vision of, like, we wanted time as a family because we saw our dads work their fingers to the bone and hardly ever get ahead. Like, it was always a struggle. And yet they were working 1618 hours days. Like, that's crazy to me. They were the hardest working men, and they're barely getting by. So we saw this and we just, we just trusted it. There was no rhyme or. We didn't see people, like, in our own life that were, like, real estate investors and making good money. Actually, if anything, I had a negative viewpoint of that because I always thought, like, you know, the rich people were greedy and they were doing it, like, shady, even with housing. Like, you know, oh, those investors must be nice to, like, have a million dollars. You know, I just had this negative, horrible viewpoint of, like, money and wealthy people. And, you know, it took years of really, like, looking at that and being like, that's not true, you know, and so. But we just knew that we wanted, probably most of all time, freedom. And we thought, like, this was the best way to get that. And so we just went with it and we just trusted it. And, you know, I did read a lot of books, even though I didn't have, like, direct mentorship. Like, I was just reading a lot of books and my husband was listening and reading a lot of books on, like, how to make this work, cash flow positive, you know, the lingo, you know, all of those things like financing and how we can do that. And he's very smart in that area, and he just has an intuition about stuff. And so we just, we just led with that. And so I think a lot of people right now, they're, they're relying on the government or, oh, I have a retirement plan with my, you know, my corporation or my business. But here's the reality. You know what they can promise you all day long, and at the end of your years of working there, they can go bankrupt. They can pull it. They can say, oh, I don't want to do this. There's a lot of legal ways out of giving you what you deserve for working for that company. And also, like, Social Security and the government. Like, if we've learned anything over the last five years, is like, do not trust the government with your money because there's always going to be a thing. There's always going to be a situation. And this was the way that we could control that situation.
Mike Swenson
Yeah, I totally agree. I grew up in small town Minnesota. Minnesota. And, and so my parents worked for a company, and both of them had their plans kind of altered shortly before retirement age. They were fortunate enough that they were able to make it work and kind of get to retirement, but they didn't necessarily have momentum into retirement. And so, you know, because they saw the opportunity of we can bring somebody in for cheaper, and we'll either reassign your job, reassign your duties. And I saw that and I thought, you know, I want to be more in control of what happens later in life. And I know, you know, that was 2025 years ago that I started to see the writing on the wall for my parents career. And I was thinking, well, things are going to change more and more the next 25 years. And so if that's what they did, maybe this work, safe, stable, save for retirement in your retirement plan isn't going to be the best option in the future. And that's why I turned to real estate as well as how can we do something that's going to build wealth? And you mentioned kind of the time freedom as well. So talk a little bit about that piece. I mean, I know you mentioned doing it all on your own, being a part, part time job and all that, but talk about that work life balance or trying to juggle everything as you're working other areas of your life and building a family of five kids.
Tabatha Thorell
Yeah. So we sought out this for time, freedom, and it did suck a lot of time out of everything. But again, there were certain things that we did that we should have done differently and we could have done differently. And that's what I want to, like, make really clear to people. Like, the things that we did in the beginning, it was a survival mode, and those were limiting beliefs. Those were things that we saw growing up that we just should have shifted earlier, like in our early thirties instead of our late thirties. And again, we didn't know. We didn't know. So we, the one good thing was that we just took action. So no matter what your belief system is, no matter what anything you have going on, it's like we just took action. And that was the one thing. And then along the way, it was like, oh, like this happened in this and we just shifted and do this. And even though, you know, I say it was a part time job, it would be like we take our kids to these properties and we would rip out carpet together and they would paint and they would play and we would do the work together. So we were building character in our kids when they were really young and we were all together and we would make it fun and then, you know, it would be hard work. And it's like, okay, if you do this, then I'm going to go take, you get ice cream, you know? And so it was teaching them those things that, yes, like, some things you do have to roll up your sleeves for. And, you know, you got to get that a little bit dirty to, you know, reap the rewards of what this was. Because they knew, like, with these rental properties, we'd be like, okay, we are going to plan a trip to Disney world. And because we did this work on these rental properties, we get to go like, what's one special treat that you want to get? And we would, like, build this up. And it was teaching them to plant seeds and, like, reaping that and building character. And I think that's where a, a lot of wealthy people who just go to a job, you know, like a stockbroker or whatever, and then come home tired and exhausted and don't have a relationship with their kids, that's where we are the ones who are wealthy because we get to instill in our kids what will actually keep the wealth from generations on. And so we were just instilling them and spending time with them and, like, laughing with them. And, you know, it was never perfect and it was never easy. They whined, they don't want to pull up the carpet, they don't want to do this. It's hot in there, you know, whatever. But it was looking back on that, it was building something in them that I couldn't just teach, like, on a board at school. You know, it was like, that was the life lessons and the life learning. And so that those, that was for us, I mean, you call it time freedom, but it was like family unity, which is essentially why we want time freedom because we want to spend more time with our kids. So at least that element, like, they could come to work with us and we could do it together and we could show them how it is. And, and they love, they love rental cleanout day because people leave stuff all the time and they go in there and they're like, I want to keep this. And, oh, look at this, you know, and they just think it's, like, so fun. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, that's junk. Let's get rid of it. But they love that, you know? And so for them, it's like finding the treasures and doing the things. And so, you know, they know what that means. And then now, as our girls are older, as we have it, almost 15 and almost 13 year old, you know, we're teaching them, like, if you have a rental property and it's cash flow positive and you're in school and you have sports and school and activities, you can't be working a job. And if you do, this is what the amount of money you're going to make and you're going to have to work this many hours and you're going to miss out on family time and friend time. Or you can buy a property, we can show you how to make it cash flow positive. We show you how to work with a property manager. You check in with them once a month, and this is the amount of money that you get. And we're teaching them those things. And it makes sense to them because they're like, oh, my gosh, they're learning not to just trade their time for dollars. And that's the whole reason. If I never have true time freedom, I mean, we all long for that. But if I can teach it to my kids to have it earlier, like, and have those things, then I'm like, then it's worth it. Like every generation, you know, I think you just want a little bit better. And so it's like, they see us doing that, and then now we're being able to take on projects or even passion projects that might not pay us, but because other things are, we can do that. And it's also allowed us to like the home we live in now. We never would have been able to afford that if we didn't have that rental income. If we didn't make that decision, that was in 2012, making that decision, like, five years prior, we, we never would have had that. You know, like you said, you don't know what it will lead to. And we just took the leap and was like, okay, we're going to do this. And then this. His grandparents house came up for sale, and there was no way we would have been able to afford it. But he was like, hey, we have this cash flow positive from the rental properties. We can maneuver some money around. It was like, okay, that's awesome. We never planned for that. Like, we didn't ever think that was going to happen, and then it did, and we were just prepared for that.
Mike Swenson
It gives you the power of choice, you know? Like, I think about my kids. I'm not going to make them get into real estate, but if they want to, great. Or if they want to do something like that on the side or buy a house and have their friends live in it with them, you know, in college or after college, and they still work whatever job that they're excited about and have that opportunity, great. You know, it's. It's an option. They don't have to do it. They can do it. I know there's other people out there that are like, well, why would I build this wealth if. If I don't have any? I don't want to leave it to my kids. I don't have kids that I want to leave it to or whatever. You always give it to charity if you want. Like, there's so many things. You get the choice to choose. However you're growing this asset, you get to choose what you want to do with it in the future. And that's the way I look at it, is, yeah, if my kids want to, or maybe they don't want to right out of the gate and ten years later, they do want to do something. You know, I'm happy to work with them if they want to work with me in the future, but if they don't, that's okay. But they get the choice to do that.
Tabatha Thorell
And I think it's teaching kids, like, 90% of millionaires and above invest in real estate because they know that that is an asset. And so it's teaching your kids or it's teaching yourself. And I have not met a human being that said, well, I don't really want to make a lot of money. I mean, I've heard people say, like, well, I'm comfortable, it's fine. Like, I've heard people say that. But if you talk to somebody, even if they don't have kids, if someone who's driven, it's like, okay, you're either driven by status, which a lot of us are, or contribution, like you said, like, how can I give back to this? Because I also look at it like, we have the ability to take a home, make it look better, and give a home to somebody who wouldn't have a home, because a lot of the people that we do, they cannot buy a home for whatever reason. That's not for me to judge. I'm not here to say, oh, well, you did this and this. They can't get a home, so they need a home to live in. And so when you look at it from that perspective, too, it's like, if you have the ability to do that, why wouldn't you do that? And then if you have the ability to earn money and if all you want to do is donate it to some, you know, country and provide fresh water, why wouldn't you? Those people can't get fresh water, but you can. So I think in that sense, it's like, when you look at that from a contribution standpoint, and that's what I always, you know, I coach with people, and, you know, sometimes, like, well, I'm comfortable, or we don't need to earn a lot of. We don't need to get six or seven figures, it's like, well, why, like, why don't you, like, if you have the ability to do this and have that infrastructure and have it run for you, I mean, I'll be. Real estate is never completely passive. And the only way that it would be completely passive is if you are literally like the bank for the invest. Like, if you are just a true investor and you have a whole team, but you still have to manage that team. So it's still not passive. Like, you still have to have communication skills and you still have to have connective skills. So it's never completely 100%, because if you have any stake in it, you're going to be involved some way, but you can be physically step away from it. Build a team that can do it, or you can kind of do a mix, which is what my husband and I do. We have a team of people, but we also still go in and we'll renovate different things or we'll do stuff like that. So I think that's really important for people to understand. You can be as active in it or as inactive, but it's never completely passive. But it is a way that I always like to say, it makes money babies. You know, like, these houses make money babies. Whether you like it or not, when you buy a house, if you hold it, it will increase in value unless there is like some big catastrophic thing. And usually that's covered by insurance. And so don't even worry about that. You know, it's like, again, and like you said, if my kids don't want to do real estate, that's 100% fine. But I'm going to ask them, what are you buying? That's assets. Because if all you're buying is liabilities, if you literally are working and using money as a tool, and all you're buying is liabilities, that's selfish, that's materialistic. That is what I think the true definition of greed is. Because when you don't buy things that can gain in value and you could give and it would add value to somebody else, then you're just literally materializing everything. And so it's just looking at things a little different and saying, hey, you don't have to do real estate, but, like, what are you investing in? What value are you giving in? And there's other ways that you can invest other than real estate, but that is just something that, to me, it makes the most sense because you're. It's the least risky, really. Like, when you look at it, it's really the least risky.
Mike Swenson
Talk a little bit about where you think this path is going to go for you or what are some things that you're looking at into the future here?
Tabatha Thorell
So, yeah, the next two to three years, we will acquire probably 15 more properties, which will more than double what we have now. We're just in the midst of buying out some people's rental properties and we're looking at storage units. We are working with a company of building up one in our local area, and we love storage units. We think that it's a great income investment. If you've never bought an income property, it's not where I tell people to start. I mean, not that you can't, but it's just there's different entities, there's different things and stuff like that. But I mean, by all means, if that's where you want to start, then go for it. But if you're like, hesitant, I'm not sure. We always tell people single family homes is the past, the lease of resistance. But, you know, we constantly look for like the apartment units where we live. It's a little bit harder, but that's where I'm building up connections because I'll tell you this right now, your best deal, your next deal is going to be through the connections you make. The connections that we have with our local bank have helped us so much, but we build relationship with them. They know us. Like, literally, if we come to them with anything, they're like, okay, how much? Like, I mean, it's just like because we've built that up with them over time. So it's the relationships that you built. Me doing these podcasts, I work with podcasters and they're like, oh my gosh, I have this deal, or, oh, I have this thing. And, you know, building those collaborations, your network of people, will really help you move the needle. And then we just recently decided to launch a program that helps families of entrepreneurs buy their first and second income property so they can build that wealth. So they, we call it legacy wealth because it's, again, it's not just about buying the property. That's great. But I'll be honest, guys, there is a thing called YouTube and everything you need to know is on there. I mean, it really is. But then, you know, Mike, you talked about it, but people still don't do it. They're still scared. They still don't, you know, they have the knowledge. We have the knowledge, guys, you know, if you want to be a millionaire or make, you know, be financially free, even if the word millionaire freaks you out, but you want to be financially free, you guys know that real estate's the thing because 90% of millionaires are doing it. So I always do the thing, like, do what rich people are doing, do what people ahead of me are doing. So if they're buying real estate, I'm buying real estate. Right? Like, if I want to do that, you want to do that. So, you know, you know to do that. So what is the missing link? Think it's that person that's going to push you out of the nest. It's that person that's going to keep you accountable. It's that circle of community that's going to say, okay, that's a good deal. I would do that. Yes. Okay, this is how you get financing. This is how I would negotiate. It's maybe being prepped a little bit with how to handle the different finance, like financing options. It's how to negotiate with the seller. If you're doing a seller finance deal, it's knowing the psychology of that. So when you go in and you're the most confident, because the reason why people don't buy income properties is because they're not confident about it. Bottom line, if you were certain, if I came to you, Mike, and I said, okay, I have this three bedroom house, you're going to be, after everything, taxes, insurance, even a little savings, because you always got to put a little savings for that house just in case, you know, all the things, right? All the numbers, and you're going to be cash flow positive, $500 a month, would you do it? If you would have 500 in your pocket after the property manager and you literally were just kind of the, the, you know, CEO of that, like, you just had to talk to him once a month, would you do it? Absolutely. You would do it. I mean, who won it? That's like dollar 500 cash for just doing a little bit of work in the beginning. And so if I gave you that certainty, you would do it. The problem is people put so much in front of that certainty that they think, I can't have that certainty. So I'm not going to do it because it might be taken away. Well, here's a little tip, guys. Everything and anything you have in life can be taken away. Your job, your spouse, your kids, that's just the reality. So if you live in that fear, in anything, it's like you're going to live in that fear and everything. So for us, like, buying a house and doing the thing, sometimes I'm just like, oh, I just don't want to negotiate today. You know, I'm just like, I just don't want to do it. But then I take, I'm like, no, I'm going to call them. I'm just going to see. And then you get in it and it's like a game. And then you're like, oh, I got it. See this property? And, ooh, I wonder if we could work the numbers. Like, right now we're looking at a, like a lake property, and the numbers are high where we live. Like, front properties, very expensive. And I'm like, I just kind of joked with my husband last night. I'm just like, can we just work the numbers, like, just for fun, you know, just to see if we can make it happen. And, you know, he kind of grinned. Because then you start to vision, like, your life of what that looks like, and maybe you just want to up level your house or make a bigger impact or you do have a family and you want to leave a legacy that is generational. And it's not just about the money, you know, it's about the legacy that you leave. Whatever your vision is, whatever your intention is, there's no wrong thing. Even if you just want to be. If you want to do the business of real estate, that's totally fine, too. And be that real estate guru and have all the things and get that status, that's fine, too. But, like, knowing that forefront is really important whenever you buy a house and just know that that's going to serve you. We knew from the beginning we wanted to build wealth for our kids. And so all the struggles, everything, because there was a time when I just told my husband, sell the houses, I was like, I'm done. Like, we were getting calls and stuff was breaking and, like, things and money was going out like crazy. And I'm just like, I'm done. Like, I don't see you, our kids don't see you. And he's just like, just take a deep breath. Like, you know, we did think about it, and we were like, okay, we need to change some things. And then that's when, you know, usually at that breaking point is when you change it, and then that's where the breakthrough does happen. Like my podcast, what went wrong? It was like we were doing, you know, too much. And it took that breaking point for us to say, okay, we need to. We need to hire people out. And that's when we started hiring out some contractors, some subcontractors, and things like that. And we took more load off of us. And guess what? Our bottom line was still good. We were still cash flow positive, and it helps in our taxes, I'll tell you that right now. So if you want any sort of tax break in your current business, you got to buy property. So those are the things that we're doing, and we're excited for real estate agents.
Mike Swenson
Are you tired of letting the busyness of life get in your way from achieving your real estate investing goals? I'm super excited to announce we've created the REL Freedom investor agent tribe. It's a place for you to come get educated and network with others so that you can make sure that you're hitting your real estate investment goals. So find out more on our website, realfreedom.com. click on the store link. We've got a membership, we've got a mastermind group and some private coaching as well. Check it out. I've priced it super low. The goal is to get you and not have price be a determining factor to keep you from your goals. So come check it out. Schedule a call with me and we're happy to see where your real estate journey is going to take you. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing for people that do want to reach out to you, learn more about you or connect with you. How can they do that?
Tabatha Thorell
So we have a website called Keep Legacy wealth and our freebies, our free resources are on there. So go check that out. It's kind of what we're about. So we're really formulating this group that wants to come together and build that wealth long term and again, invest in your kids. And we do a lot of success and wealth principles for the entire family, not just for you and how to buy that property in that second and that third property. So that's our big passion. And then what went wrong? The untold stories of bouncing back. That's on every podcast channel and YouTube. So go check that out. I just interview entrepreneurs and they tell me like their most horrific stories and how they got out of it. And so it's very intriguing. I mean, we have everything from, you know, drugs and alcohol to suicide to a mom not wanting to get out of bed and take care of her kids, you know, like all walks of life. But just giving people a little bit of hope. Like your darkest day is going to be right before your brightest day and that, that's what these stories do and I just love it. So, yeah, that's what we're doing.
Mike Swenson
Well, thank you so much for coming on and sharing. Excited to see where you guys continue to grow. So best of luck to you in the future.
