This caused a shift in Joshuas reality, so he dropped everything. JOSH DORKIN: But it gave me the time to really think about life. I hope to share that journey with you all via this blog, and perhaps through other forms like video or a podcast. My excitement for the company and brand never waned, but I really stopped loving going in to work, but didnt know it. Some people dont see that, its almost like when you get a new car, and then you start seeing other similar cars that are the same color that you never saw before. Thats why two of the biggest names in the real estate world teamed up to write the most comprehensive manual ever written on getting started in the lucrative business of real estate investing. He was the longtime co-host of The BiggerPockets Podcast, and he's the author of seven books that have sold more than a million copies combined. Josh talks about what he did to get to a place of happiness and how big changes in his life became catalysts that helped him, his family, and the business grow. I remember the exact phone call that I made to the two of them to tell them what was going on. And, you know, the issue I had with those, which led me to founding Bigger Pockets was I, you know, I didnt like the idea of getting caught up in this funnel where, you know, its like, hey, come to our free course, and the free course is just an ad for a free boot camp, you know, some kind of boot camp, which is an ad for a course, which is an ad for, you know, training, and, you know, by the time youre done, and you look up, youve just spent $50, $75,000, to train with some, you know, self-anointed guru and, you know, youve got nothing to show for it a lot, you know, high failure rates and things like that. We grew the platform and its offerings. Dan Daugherty: Well said. I got to be my own boss and although I worked absolutely crazy hours, I never felt the stress of a crappy boss or pressure to act under some artificial timeline. And inevitably, you know, I really struggled through those difficult times. C X" And in order to do that, we were going to have to penny pinch at home because my wife was not working. Knowing I was in for a long visit to Home Depot yesterday, I made sure I had my list together and set out to pick up all the materials I needed to renovate our guest bathroom. I dont know, you know, I certainly have my own unique and distinct perspective, like anyone else. And so once you start tackling them, its amazing how your load gets lighter and lighter and lighter. And hopefully, you know, hopefully, somebody listening takes something away from it, I, you know, entrepreneurship is challenging, its really, its really, really tough. And so within the business itself, you know, hey, I mean, you used to work at Google, you know, as a media company, Google would change your, Google changes their algorithms all the time, as an example, right? You know, how do I make it so I could either scale this, get to an exit or just, you know, sell it and quit and be done and find something else. JoshuaDorkin.com linktr.ee/jrdorkin Posts Reels Videos Tagged Show More Posts from jrdorkin We grew the community. When I founded the company I was teaching full time at a special ed high school in the Los Angeles area. Josh Dorkin: Absolutely. You know, part of my job and one of the things that I pressed upon my staff was, you know, if youre not spending significant time every day learning, youre not going to grow, youre not going to get better, youre not going to be competitive with other people across your area of expertise. I was already working 40 hours a week at least on Bigger Pockets in those first two years. If Squarespace had an autosave function and you didnt lose almost an hour of work on a great blog post when your iPad shuts down. This caused a shift in Joshua's reality, so he dropped everything. Why I left BiggerPockets is a little more complicated. She went through something called conversion disorder, which basically the brain kind of shuts the body down. Yeah, yeah. Was it 2009? You know, not only are you raising money from people who now, you know, you dont want to lose anyones money, but also just in terms of mindset, you know, that theres the freedom that you think youre going to have may not necessarily be there. We have a guy named Josh Dorkin. They checked my blood, my heart, my eyes, and did a CT with contrast of my head and neck to check my brain and blood vessels. Just Released: Two NEW BiggerPockets Books to Help You Build Wealth Through Rental Investing . Be there for your families. Where previously competitors were weary of one another, we helped people learn that coopetition was a better model - one where people could compete AND cooperate for mutual benefit. I had never, I hadnt invested another penny in. He started BiggerPockets to help democratize the real estate investing landscape for himself and others, aiming to make it accessible for everyone, regardless of income or education. I began to feel hopeful and knew at some point wed all be able to move on - no matter the outcome. I wish it would touch more on farmland and syndications a little more but those could be considered more niches. Almost everyone that builds a business wants some kind of growth, but as much as I loved seeing my brainchild thrive and grow, I was having less and less fun doing it. There are few things worse than seeing your child suffer and this period was easily the worst of my life. We launched amazing products like the podcast, which today is still one of the top 10 business shows in the world. On show 313 of the BiggerPockets Podcast, we interviewed Jesse Itzler and what most struck me was our conversation about how short and precious life really is. It's time to stop just thinking, talking, or dreaming about the future real estate investing can give you. Shopping these days is just a little less fun. You got to deal with them. You know, I couldnt breathe. Last month I had the opportunity to speak at the Denver Founders event for Colorado entrepreneurs and had a fantastic Q&A with my friend Chris Franks. And so, you know, its a serious decision to raise money or not to raise money. And instead of working on the business, I was working in the business exclusively. Today, BiggerPockets has grown to more than 870,000 members. And after about two years, I quit my job teaching and I went full time. I believe the program is available for all Amazon users, so even if you arent Prime, you can partake. The blur lasted a little less than 10 minutes, but after that, my eyes just felt funny. What do you do when somebody is ripping the copper piping out of your vacant unit? This tip will teach you how to be a philanthropist (for free) every time you shop on Amazon. (Where the hell have you been Josh?!? So, in 2004, Dorkin launched BiggerPockets, a website for real estate investors to ask and answer each others questionslike a Reddit for property owners. COVID you know, your kid gets sick. Purchases from the BiggerPockets Bookstore can only ship within the United States. And so we spent weeks going through the business, realize that we had, you know, created a product that was a little overly bloated, there was you know, wed built too much, too many features. But did you, were you ever really depressed at all? I got through it, thank goodness, and, again, it was another one of those moments for us where were like, you know, what are we doing? And you know, continue to love Bigger Pockets and love how its impacting peoples lives. I remember you and I met, it must have been like, what, when did you found bigger pockets? You know, like any entrepreneurial story, lots of ups, lots of downs. The political upheaval, the COVID chaos. But, fast forward to where we are today and shes fully physically functional. Sitting alone in my hospital bed, all I could think about was my girls, Julie, and the rest of my family . . Where else can we dive into this? In all three cases, my wife was able to kind of talk me down and calm me and you know, but it was like, you know, stress, right, stress and I think we humans just internalize so. And, you know, were in a position where we have an opportunity to do something like this, like, do it. It became more than a website - it became a brand and an ideal. What do I do? After two years, I quit my teaching job, got married, moved to Colorado and began working full time on BiggerPockets. This caused a shift in Joshua's reality, so. You know, we are not residents yet, you know, were doing our trial balloon now so to speak. Its fabulous. I kept this pace up for over 8 years . I doubt it. Of course, this was an extremely difficult transition for me, but I believe that several years later, I have become a highly valued board member that contributes immensely to the business and Im hopeful that I can find other opportunities to do the same for other companies. something that I used to think gave me hustle street cred, but today I realize was just a formula for burnout. First, for those who arent sure how to do the math, in order to determine someones net worth, you need to take into consideration all assets and liabilities and put together a balance sheet.. Josh Dorkin and Brandon Turnerlongtime hosts of the world's #1 real estate podcast, The BiggerPockets Podcastgive you an insider's look at the many different niches and strategies that exist. Dan Daugherty: Thats right. He was wrong. Josh Dorkin: So you know, weve always wanted to come to Hawaii. Well, then you need to figure out a system how to stop being responsive to your email and be proactive, because youre not running your business, your email is running you, right? I realized that like, thats not healthy, you know, its healthy to be balanced, its healthy to spend time with downtime and so, you know, tried to create operating manuals around that, you know, eventually that became like, my Wednesdays, you know, in the year, call it year and a half leading to the exit, my Wednesdays, I didnt go into work. As you can see in the image below, every time you shop while using the smile subdomain, Amazon will show you your charity of choice (in this case, you can see that we support Childrens Hospital Colorado Foundation). k cG-t} We always wanted to be, you know, in Hawaii and Colorado. So you know, whether its that or, hey, Im stressed about money, well, you know, you got to then go and break down your budget, and you got to figure out why youre stressed about money. . Life is short, you know, you dont know what can happen tomorrow. There were books, but like, you know, the books were pretty general, they didnt really say, what do you do when your tenant is stealing electricity from the building next door? His wife and three daughters wouldnt take too kindly to sharing their space. Denver, CO 80202. . I was making money, but I was still ready, you know, that desperate to just get out. But I wanted to be healthier. Quotes "I believe 100% in putting all my eggs in one basket. This book provides a comprehensive overview of real estate investing strategies whether buy and hold to short-term rental and everything in between. A few months back I had the blurry thing, but without the other stuff, and of course, went to visit Dr. Google. . And I think the way you live your life, and your happiness is going to be determined by your outlook on that. He convinced a slew of real estate players, such as veteran house-flippers and rental-property investors, to contribute their know-how to BiggerPockets educational blog; added a marketplace for lenders and others to pitch their services; and installed analytic tools such as a calculator that crunches everything from local property taxes to vacancy rates to determine whether that split-level ranch will make for a profitable rental investment. Whether it is the struggle to communicate at checkout while you and the cashier are donning masks, or the untrusting looks from everyone around you, the entire experience is less pleasurable for all of us. %&'()*456789:CDEFGHIJSTUVWXYZcdefghijstuvwxyz Dan Daugherty: I just might, well, offline, lets catch up, because maybe theres something we can do together. Your In-Depth Guide to the Best Golf Courses Around Denver, Six Bizarre Majors That Will Actually Get You A Job In Colorado, How Trumps Executive Orders Are Affecting Refugees In Lakewood, The Best Ski Run at (Almost) Every Mountain in Colorado, Advertising and Sponsorship Opportunities. Came to be ready to quit and like told my wife, hey, Im ready to sell the business. Joshua Dorkin Oct 2016 Mar 2021. Overnighted packages might take a week or so if youre lucky, standard mail might take weeks, and trying to get a package from the mainland - well, hold on - that might be 2-3 months. And so I, you know, on the side, nights and weekends, while teaching, for the first two years, just started building this platform. You know, well be doing great getting, you know, x million views per month on, you know, through search, and all of a sudden, Google will make an algorithm change, and thatll drop 20% or 30%. It was a very unpleasant experience, very scary again, you know, I was fairly uncertain I would get through it. Thats a really weird thing to say, especially since I loved the company. If thats the case, figure out what you need to do to change. That was all I was allowed to do on Wednesday. When the time came to pick out the shower, I realized that there werent any that matched the size we needed. They live in Grays Harbor, Wash. But Ive definitely drafted an outline. many things and create so many threats, and theres got to be a better way. because I felt that I had to succeed, and because in reality, I was STUCK IN MY BUSINESS instead of working ON MY BUSINESS. &i(y`ryG|29#4#Gj9F){(B;y@OJO,4f7Q$t8*>]SvC,:: Fr9BoQhF8E \lNr)#@ 4S9> HZ)9zve'qQE!Q@Q@Q@Q@Q@Q@JLQ_\h? 5o5IJStAmaMb ; +xWjoI:_g#r3/\)T Moi_9}/?i)me 6Oki!h(pf_ x_V{(n5[Y%{c-Iy,Y^a3{W ?5?m,|W"S*B'D]>V^1_7=|V~ And so I think for a very long time I ran my life, you know, moment to moment and its through conversations with folks like Brandon, you know, lots of, Ive got some good friends who think real deeply, to reading a lot, reading a lot, listening to some, you know, thought leaders in various spaces, you know, my transformation really, I think began from the moment of that I went to my wife, year eight of the company, and I was in tears.