SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome everyone. I'm very excited to have you joining us live today. Or for those of you who are listening podcast style later, welcome. We have a special guest today, Dr. Ted Lynn, who's going to be presenting for you. You're in for a treat. I think you're really going to love it. Of course, I have to open by quickly introducing myself. So my name is Rachel. I serve as the director of communications here at Black Swan Real Estate. For the last almost four and a half years, I've had the privilege of being the right-hand woman for Elaine, for Nick and Elaine. So if you've invested with Black Swan, you've probably had the chance to get to know me or email me about your InvestNext Access. And it is just such a treat to be here and to get to be introducing Ted today. If you're wondering why Rachel is hosting and not our usual hosts, Nick and Dr. Elaine Stageberg, I'm very excited to share that as Elaine is in the hospital delivering baby number six today. So hopefully we have an update on that soon. Please feel free to send your good thoughts, prayers, energy their way as they go into this day. But we're very excited for that. So congratulations to Nick and Elaine. And thank you guys for being here with us today. I'm very excited for this. So with me today, I have Dr. Ted Lynn. And before we get started, Ted, if you want to just go to the next slide, I'll share our usual disclaimer. So this is, of course, a presentation for informational purposes only, not a solicitation to sell securities. If you're making any kind of investment or financial decisions, as always, you should consult your own professionals, your CPA, tax advisors, financial planners, anything like that. So keep that in mind. And then if you want to go to the next one, I'm excited to welcome Dr. Ted Lynn. So this is who you're here to hear from today. Ted is a really special guest. Ted has had a relationship with Nick and Elaine for many years. He's a board certified physician in family medicine. He also did his fellowship training in sports medicine. He's a real estate investor with a diverse portfolio. So you guys are going to hear about that today. And hopefully that serves as an inspiration for you. Really, what Ted done is the blueprint for creating a life of financial freedom, a life on your own terms through real estate investing. He's also a certified life coach and a licensed financial planner. And on top of all that, he's a husband and a father of three. So, Ted, thank you for joining us today. We're so excited to have you. Go ahead and take it away.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Fantastic. Thank you so much, Rachel. I really appreciate the introductions. And it's certainly an exciting day. Can't wait to hear from Elaine and Nick about how their day is going for baby number six. That is absolutely amazing. So obviously, we wish them all the best and we're sending uh kind of just amazing energy their way. So thank you very much, everyone. So I wanted to kind of talk today about just share my experiences in terms of my real estate journey, because there's not just one way to do things. And, you know, I just want to kind of remind that for people, we are all physicians and we all know that, you know, different pathologies, you can treat them very differently. There's not, you know, kind of one thing, one size fits all. So I just want to share my experiences, not because it's right, but it's just another way of doing real estate. And it might give you a little bit of ideas in terms of maybe this might be the road that you want to travel. So just a quick introduction. Like Rachel said, I'm a board certified family and sports medicine physician, was a certified or am a certified life coach. I got that about two decades ago before this medical space knew about life coaches. About four or five years ago, uh, I completed my licensing for a financial advisor and worked at a financial advisement firm. They sold out private equity. So I am kind of on my next transition with the financial advisement side of things. I'm married with three kids. I if I apologize in advance if my nails uh are distracting. That is, you know, obviously a sign that I'm a girl dad as well. So three kids, ages five, nine, and eleven, two older boys, and our five-year-old is a girl, and she's also my manicurist. I live in ski country, Colorado. So for those of you who are who know Colorado, that's where I'm based out of. I live in Prisco, Colorado, which is in the middle of ski country. We're just a short drive away to uh quite a few of the world-class resorts here in Colorado. My investment is, you know, at this point, we own 12 plus properties over three states over the course of my investment career over the last 20 years. Have done a mix of short-term rentals, medium-term, long-term co-living arbitrage, dip pretty much everything and kind of fell into it accidentally. So I'll kind of share that story with him. So again, let's kind of move move forward. So most of us here have talked about real estate as getting to financial freedom. That is our destination. And the financial freedom really is the ability to make life decisions based on the purpose and alignment of who you are and what you want to do, rather than just, you know, kind of making decisions out of financial necessity. So if you're able to get that point, it moves the financial necessity out of the way and allows you to find your purpose and to fulfill your purpose and move forward in line with move forward in life with alignment. And real estate really is just the vehicle on that road to get to your destination. There are a lot of different vehicles that you could get. You know, mine happened to be real estate, but isn't, you know, and all beyond. There's certainly other ways to do it. But for many of us, real estate is a great way to do it. So for me, that was the vehicle that I happen to take. And it really wasn't by design. It was more kind of like, hey, there's a car here. It seems like, you know, I could take it. I'm just gonna go ahead and take it on my my destination. And I also just want to remind people that, you know, most people we obsess about the vehicle. And sometimes we obsess about the destination, but we forget about the road and how we're gonna get there. So on the road to financial freedom, you know, there's there's a lot of different roads that we could potentially take. So if you kind of think about, you know, there is this expressway, right? It's fast, it's direct, it's optimized for speed. So when I think about like, you know, kind of scaling what, you know, Nick and Elaine have done and several other positions, right? That's your expressway. You're kind of doing it. This is your your job potentially, right? Or a big part of your of who you are. And you're kind of really kind of putting the pedal to the metal and kind of going where you want to go. There's another way to do it, and that's kind of more, you know, I consider that to be a local road that you take. Usually a little bit more scenic. It's a little bit more intentional. You take your time more based on community, right? Not to say that the expressway isn't, you know, any of that, but a lot of times that's kind of what taking the local roads is like. I see the local roads as more a portfolio built around life, right? Not the other way around. You are not building a portfolio, right, to, you know, kind of for your life, but really your life draws your portfolio. And there's also, you know, kind of the the off-rooting, you know, kind of adventure of, you know, kind of getting to your financial freedom, right? And sometimes that's unconventional, adventurous. It could be creative, that could be a lot of different things, but in real estate, it's no longer the standard long-term rentals, right? It's kind of more the your arbitrage, co-living, and also just strategies that you stumble into because you have to, right? Because you're trying to solve a life problem. So we'll kind of go go over that. And the right road is really, you could take any of these roads. There's no right or wrong, but really the right road is a road that's aligned with your life, your values, your priority, and also your season in life. So just kind of keep that in mind. There's no right way to do things. Just like there's not a right, you know, specialty that we chose right. You know, it's, you know, we chose our specialties because of, you know, kind of certain aspects about it that we're drawn to it. So let's kind of talk about what I feel like is a missing piece in real estate. And I want to kind of try and bring that in. So I think like most of the courses and most of what we see is about like, okay, well, let's talk about optimization. Let's talk about leverage, refinancing, tax strategies, short-term rental loophole, depreciation, door counts, unit metrics, you know, price per door, things along those lines. But I are I would argue from my perspective that there is actually something even more important, right? It's like, how does your real estate, how does your home, how does your sanctuary support your lifestyle? How does it add to more optionality and flexibility in your life? How does it bring more joy and alignment to yourself and how you live and how your family chooses to live? And also, like, how do you create a portfolio for an intentional living? Or how does your intentional living kind of, you know, can be supported by a real estate portfolio? And then we'll kind of go ahead and talk about that. And I I feel again, no right or wrong, but I feel like, you know, kind of our industry is more optimized for wealth accumulation. But a lot of times, you know, we don't take that step and take a step back and say, okay, well, you know, what is life that you are trying to build? Because it is very, very different for everyone. And I want you to just, I want everybody to just kind of think about it. So I was just kind of taking you through my own journey. You know, so I, you know, I look at my real estate journey and my life, right? And there was really kind of three cornerstone stones or three pillars that really kind of laid the foundation. I think the first one was a financial foundation revelation. So that was, you know, kind of when I was in my third year of residency before I was about to graduate, I was able to get connected with a with a financial advisor. And I think that was my first revelation was I don't need to work full-time forever. And then, and forget about the forever. I realized I didn't even need to work full-time. So the beauty about working with my financial advisor, and I know there's a lot of, you know, kind of potential, you know, kind of feelings around financial advisors. But for me, Stacia, right, was one of the, you know, if I look at the women who have made an outsized impact in my life outside of my mom and my wife, it really would have to be Stasia, my financial advisor. And I'll talk about the second woman later on in the, in our, in our presentation. So sitting down with Stasia helped me determine what my destination was. You know, so kind of had a simple fee-only financial plan. And, you know, we talked about, okay, well, what's my destination, what I wanted. And back then I didn't really know much, right? I was like, well, I guess I just want to retire with the same lifestyle. I wanted to travel. And that was kind of pretty much it. I didn't really know what when I wanted to retire. It was just like, well, I guess 65, because that's when everybody else does, right? So we had a basic framework and we worked in reverse. And I think that was kind of one of the pillars that made the difference was I'd worked with someone that helped me get, you know, to understand what my destination was. And from there, you could kind of work backwards and see what you needed to do and what path you wanted to take to get to that destination. So let's kind of look through, you know. So my initial base plan, again, was pretty simple, right? I didn't really have the sophistication. And I also, coming out of residency, I didn't really know what I wanted. So, you know, kind of we turned out that, you know, kind of my freedom number at the time was 5 million. And I kind of pulled that out of the hat. And, you know, Sasha was like, this is gonna change and shift, you know, but it was just kind of like, well, 5 million was probably based on a 4% rule and, you know, kind of what I wanted to do, you know, kind of, you know, that probably made sense, right? Probably around 5 million, plus minus a few minutes, million didn't really matter. And again, retired mage at the time, you know, that's I don't know, I guess 65. That's when you collect social security, right? So that's kind of where I started. I knew I had 35 years to get to that freedom number, and I really wasn't thinking about early retirement. But the mind shift and what changed my life was realizing that I only needed to save $2,000 a month. And over 35 years, I could get to that five mil if I just did that. And my student loan repayment, based on my repayment plan of I think it was like 30 years, right, was about $1,000 a month. So with that base, right, with that foundation, I was like, wow, I only needed to work 12 hours per week. And that was my that was my base, that was my foundation. And everything else I considered gravy. And what Sasha said, I still remember was, you know, everything above 12 hours, right? That is for living and creating the life that you want, whatever it may be. And at the time for me, right, it was travel and adventure. I wanted to meet somebody. And, you know, going through residency and training, you know, in med school, you know, I feel like as as physicians, right, we're kind of, you know, we've we've worked so hard, right? And I just wanted a change, you know. I'm in family medicine because I'm interested in a lot of different things. And for me, the life that I wanted was to create a lot of different experiences, right? That I had read about, but I didn't have a chance to experience going through medical training. So that was the first pillar. And then the second pillar was really the real estate pillar in terms of how I fell into it. My first condo, if any of you know about Denver, is a neighborhood in Stapleton, and now it's called Central Park, and it's in Denver, and it's really a kind of this planned development, really for families, right? And I, oh, I loved it. So I got in early on, it was just kind of being built out. A lot of it was still kind of, you know, bulldozed land, because I was like, I am a family medicine doc, and this is where I'm going to go ahead and create my private practice. So I was like, I'm gonna go ahead and buy my condo there, you know, as soon as I graduate from residency next year, I will go ahead and start my private practice. And that was the plan. But you know, in life, and as many of you will know, things happen and things don't necessarily go as planned. So I ended up, you know, kind of thinking sports medicine would be pretty interesting to add to my, you know, kind of skills and experiences. So I applied for sports medicine fellowships, and I didn't get into the one in University of Colorado. And I was so disappointed at the time. But my backup plan was pretty good. You know, my second choice was out in SoCal. And that, because you know, the universe had said, hey, you know, you're not going to University of Colorado, we're gonna go ahead and send you out to SoCal, that you know, path, you know, changed my life really kind of forever. So that was really the second pillar. And at the time when I was moving out to SoCal for the year for fellowship, I rented out my condo in Stapleton Furnished. And lo and behold, it covered the mortgage, the HOA. And I had like 50 bucks left over, I think. I was like, wow, like that was a light bulb moment for me because I was like, wait, someone else could cover my housing costs. I think that really kind of shifted the way I viewed real estate. Before it was just a place to live, but now it's kind of like, hmm, this may be able to provide, you know, some flexibility, some optionality. And when I go ahead and I look at, you know, the 50 bucks, I was thinking, well, that's not really gonna kind of reduce the 12 hours that I needed for my baseline. But what if the cash flow could be bigger, right? Potentially I didn't have to work as much. Potentially I would have more income for the gravy in my life. And the second thing that I noticed, kind of moving out to SoCal, is as physicians, we have a superpower. And yes, we have a lot of kryptonite as well. But I think the one thing that we tend to overlook, and it's very rare to do it in any other profession outside of medicine, is the ability to titrate our income. And it's really a hidden asset because if you could go ahead and titrate your income up and down and decide how many shifts you want to take, how many clinic days, how many procedures you want to do, how much call you want to take, right? You can really titrate your time, right? To say, hey, I don't need as much income. I'm gonna titrate this down a little bit and go ahead and work on something that I'm passionate about, that I feel is my purpose. I want to travel, whatever it may be. I think that's something that we tend to forget. You don't have to work full time all the time, right? You could go and titrate that up and down. And how I fell into it was working at Kaiser. And if any of you work at Kaiser, you know that goodness, there is always patience and there is always shifts. And Kaiser SoCal is so big. And at the time, I could literally call into the schedulers in the morning and be like, hey, I want a four, eight or 12-hour block. Like, what do you have? Right. And they would be able to place me somewhere. And like if I woke up and I was like, God, today is an amazing day. I don't want to work, I didn't have to. So there was so much flexibility and optionality. And that's kind of where I saw it to locum. So after a fellowship, you know, the project of practice kind of just disappeared. And I was like, wow, you know, it's like I may have to put that on the back burner. I'm gonna start doing locums. And because there were so many shifts available, you know, I was like, hey, this is probably something that I could I could do in my life. And really, it was also a massive reframe because, you know, at at that time and the way things were structured, right, it really was, wow, money did grow on trees. You know, so like, you know, our parents, you know, if they ever kind of told you, well, what do you think? Yeah, the work, money doesn't grow on trees. I think if you're a physician, right, money does. You just have to go out and take the time to pick it, right? And that I think is is a huge superpower that we tend not to see. And the third pillar, right, the trifecta of what kind of supercharged and changed my life, the last ingredient was life coaching. And I can't stress this enough. This supercharged my life. If you do not have a life coach and you don't, and you do not know what it is, I would really strongly suggest you, you know, kind of look at the committee. There's, you know, kind of over the course of the last several years, physician life coaching has really kind of exploded. You know, talk to Elaine, you know, kind of think about her Freedom Legacy flagship course, right? That, you know, they talk about a lot of these kind of life coaching and how to find your purpose and alignment concepts. So really kind of think about it. For me, 20, 20 years ago, right, this really changed my life because I got involved in the coaching community. I got my certification back then, and it really was another pivotal point where the fork in the road kind of led me to life that I have today. So I had a I had a life coach back then, and she really helped me narrow down and really zero in what my values are, what my vision is, and also what is the intentional life that I want to create. I never really kind of thought about it, right? I had like these big picture, like, hey, I know I I love medicine and this is what I want to do, right? But beyond that, at 30, it was just kind of like, well, I guess now the next step is just to work until 65 and trying to hit my, you know, freedom number, you know, where I can retire. And but I didn't really think about anything else. I think the fact that I was able to work with Kathy on and off for the last 20 years, right, has really shifted the way I view my life and the way I live it. So those are really the trifecta, the three pillars, right? One was having a good financial advisory and a good foundational plan of knowing my financial destination in terms of where I wanted to go. The other one was knowing how to titrate, being able to titrate my work up and down as I saw fit to fit my life. And the last one is working with a life coach to be able to help me understand what would really float my boat. How do I want to live my life and what I want to do to leave to the world and the legacy, right, for my family and for my community and for the world itself. So I was just going to share with you a little bit more about kind of, I feel like the road less travel and maybe, you know, kind of the road that people don't talk about as much. Because I think the people who take this road, we're not out there, you know, kind of levering up. We're not selling courses, right? So I think this is, you know, thank you, Elaine, for this platform. I just want to kind of share my journey in terms of real estate and how this could be a road for you as well, having real estate as your vehicle. So when I was working with my with Kathy, my I was pretty simple, right? I was like, hey, at this point, I just want to be by the beach in the summers. I want to snowboard in the winter. That was kind of my thing, right? And so we worked out, okay, well, how do we go ahead and create that? And you know, at the time, I was like, man, you know, kind of the housing is the issue because I want to be able to go back and forth, right? Like I don't want to, I don't want to work more to have a place in Denver and also have a place in San Diego. So how do I kind of figure out that problem that I have to get to life I want? So, you know, that's that's how I discovered co-living, right? That's co-living, I think, you know, if you boil it down, it's a fancy name for having roommates. But, you know, kind of in Colorado, instead of renting out the whole place, I rented out one room. I kept a smaller room, you know, the it was a wit-win for both. My roommate was like, this is great, you know, I pay rent, but you know, it's pretty much a place myself because my roommate is half the time or more he's out in San Diego or traveling. You know, I pretty much have a cut rate, you know, kind of price to have a whole place myself for essentially most of the time. And then in San Diego, I needed to solve that because I I didn't want to have a roommate there and the place was smaller. So I ended up saying, okay, well, I need to figure out a way to rent out these places, you know, when I'm back out in Colorado snowboarding. So really that's why I discovered midterm rentals, right? To it was kind of furnished and I rented out for a few months at a time, whenever I knew I was going to be back in Colorado. So that's how I accidentally stumbled into like the corporate rental midterm. I didn't know about the name at the time, but that's in essence what it is. And I also kind of found out about Airbnb. And this was 16 years ago. If you look at my Airbnb profile, it's wild because it says, you know, you have been on Airbnb for 16 years. And how I found the Airbnb was the same type of thing. My friends was like, hey, you know, it's like you might want to check this platform out because, you know, you're kind of leaving and traveling, you know, for a few weeks at a time. This might be kind of cool, right? To be able to, you know, kind of meet people from all over the world and and have them stay at your place. And that really is like the early days of Airbnb. It wasn't like a professional thing. It was like people pretty much ran in your place and you got to get to know them a little bit and you got to share your local insights, right? And that was the beauty of the early days of Airbnb. But really, that was to solve a problem as well, because I was like, man, you know, it's, you know, I travel, right? I go overseas for two, four weeks at a time. Like I needed something shorter than the midterm placement. And that's kind of where Airbnb fell in. And again, right, none of these were were planned. I didn't know any better. It was really just to solve a problem to fit my life. And the key lesson here is right, I really wasn't looking to build a real estate empire. You know, I was really looking to build an intentional life. And, you know, I go back, I look at like, you know, my prices I set on Airbnb, for example, it was $80 a night, which is, you know, and my place was right off the beach. And it's really kind of crazy if you think about it. And I didn't know any better about pricing because my my long-term rental lease rate was about $40 a day. And I was like, well, if I get $80, seems pretty good. It covers my place and also pays for a hairline ticket somewhere. So so I didn't really know any better, right? If I knew better, I would probably have said, oh, well, what's the local hotel rates? Right. And I kind of try and match that. And my real estate kind of grew again. And it wasn't because of anything intentional. You know, kind of after I had my life, I was like, wow, I'm traveling, I'm working where I want to work. This is fantastic. I want someone to share, share that life with, right? And you know, working with my life coach, Kathy was like, okay, well, you know, tell me, what do you envision your partner to be like? And I was like, again, very simple. Right. I was like, yeah, I want her to be smart, fun, and athletic. And she was like, okay, well, you know, kind of where do you, where do you find smart, fun, and athletic women? And in San Diego, well, I had that said, I was by the beach, right? I was good to go. But Stapleton was a family place and it didn't really fit right, kind of, you know, the the potential partner that was looking for her. So I said, well, you know, I think all the smart, fun athletic women that I know in Denver, they all hang out at this place called Wash Park, right? So I ended up getting a place in Wash Park. And then, you know, same type of thing. You know, I couldn't get to, you know, kind of downtown real easily. And I realized that all my dates I was going to a community called Platt Park because they had the best sushi in town. So I ended up, you know, buying a place in Platt Park because, well, I could just kind of walk over to the sushi place for my dates. And it was also close to light rail station. So I could go downtown and, you know, have dates down there if I wanted. So that made more sense. So that's why I picked up another property. And again, now my portfolio is building and nothing to do with cap rates, nothing to do with, you know, kind of cash flow. And back then you could cash flow a little bit, you know, but you know, the finances was really not a part of it. I knew I had a floor if I was able to rent it out enough for that floor, if I was able to earn enough, right? I just and saved enough for a down payment. I just went ahead and pulled the trigger. So again, you know, you could kind of see that, you know, my real estate portfolio, again, was just kind of driven really by life. So that's kind of why I really want to hit, right? Like real estate is not always about leverage. It's not always about STR loopholes. It's not always about, you know, kind of cost seg depreciation, right? It's not always about scaling, refining, you know, and kind of having houses, you know, kind of having more houses and more babies and scaling, right? It can, and that is an amazing way to build wealth, but it doesn't need to be. You know, if you feel like your path and your road is a different road, you could take a different road to real estate and you could still build wealth. You know, I've kind of shared with you a little bit about, you know, kind of what the real estate could bring. And, you know, again, for me, it it gave me optionality. I had these places where I could actually now, you know, as my life changes, as my season changes, I can move back and forth, right? Yeah, I might move back to Stapleton once I have a family, right? I had that flexibility. It was alignment with the life that I wanted to live. And also as I start building, right, over time your rents get bigger. And now you have more margin, right? So now I'm kind of like, wow, I'm actually cash flowing enough that, you know, it wasn't the 50 bucks I started with per month, right? Now I'm actually able to use that to be like, hey, you know, now, you know, pretty much all the cash flows from each of the properties are now kind of paying for each other, right? So now I had a portfolio that was in essence self-sustaining, you know, and as long as there wasn't any sort of big, you know, cap expense, you know, I was gonna be okay. And even so, I had the cushion, right, to be able to work more. I wasn't working full time. So if anything happened, I just pick up a few more shifts, right? To pay for what needed to get done. So now my portfolio, like I said, is very, you know, kind of organic and in many ways accidental, right? We're kind of at 12 plus properties at this point, multiple strategies. Although right now, at my stage, in my kind of season of life, it they're all long-term rentals. But at one point, we had four STRs, right? In over, you know, two different states. And we really never sold a property because for us it really wasn't about leverage. You know, we wanted to know each of our properties really well. We wanted to know the people who lived there. So we never really kind of thought about scaling. But even with, you know, kind of this organic and accidental, you know, kind of growth, still ended up with a pretty, you know, kind of sizable portfolio for the grand scheme of things. And now, you know, I think hard to say if I'm gonna pick up any more real estate, right? Because my life is also changing. And I think when you get to about like, you know, kind of between 10 and 15, right, it really kind of starts becoming sometimes it feels like it's more of a job rather than just, you know, hey, this is something that you know kind of brings me joy. So, you know, that's more of a technical discussion, but you know, kind of at this point, you know, we're we're really happy with where we're at. So let me just kind of give you a recap, right, in terms of how I got here and how this may kind of relate to your own life. You know, I had different phases, you know, I had this beach phase, beach and snowboard phase is what I call it. San Diego summer, Colorado winters, you know, kind of traveling during shoulder season internationally. I have my looking for love face and sometimes in all the wrong places, but was able to nail that down, right, to kind of places where I, you know, I found my significant other and where I found my wife. You know, I had my young family phase that I didn't really talk about, but that moved us into the burbs, right? And we picked up, you know, kind of other properties and burbs. And as you know, my family grew from one to two to three, right? We also kind of you know looked for bigger homes and kind of you know went and picked up properties that way. And really, I think, you know, kind of most recently, our biggest change, right, was we moved into our most profitable short-term rental. You know, I live up in Frisco now, and man, our property here was just like making cash, right? For those of you that that do STRs, I mean, sometimes if you get in the right spots, right, and run it well, it brings in so much more and then I think with so much less pain than sometimes medicine does. But you know, after a while, you're hearing about all these amazing stories from your guests and how much fun they're having. And I was like, I don't know why we're not living up there, right? Like, you know, forget the cash flow. Like, I want to live that life full time and not part-time. So that was really, you know, kind of the big game changer last few years was moving up to mountains, saying, hey, we're gonna go ahead and forgo the profitability of the STR. You know, I don't need to put the pedal on the metal. Let's go ahead and choose life, right? And that mountain living uh over the ROI. And that's where we are. So I wanted to just kind of go back and kind of run through some of the big lessons of this talk. I want you to kind of consider as you go back and think about, you know, how your real estate portfolio, you know, kind of brings you the freedom and brings you the joy and brings you a more intentional and aligned life. And if you're just starting, also, right, just kind of what are the things potentially to consider? Because again, it's not always about this tax strategies, it's not always about the loopholes, it's not always about the depreciation and the tax benefits and the cash flow and the growth. So just want to remind, right, there's a lot of different ways to get to your financial freedom destination. And it doesn't necessarily even have to be real estate, right? But this is your vision. Do it on your terms, right? And I think that will really make a difference. And that's gonna change, right? And it's gonna be different for everybody. Financial freedom and how you want to live your life really looks different from a physician, life coach, and financial planner like me with three kids in ski country, right? Than it does for when I was a 30-year-old 20 years ago, right, with no obligations. And that is gonna shift and flow, but have that ability, right, to shift and flow. Don't get caught in those golden handcuffs that we always talk about. Here we're kind of lesson number two, right? It's like, again, you know, I talk about this, but your life should shape your portfolio. Don't let your portfolio shape your life. Don't go ahead and go out there and pick up real estate and then have to pick up more hours and have more of a handcuff, right? Just because you think it's gonna get to your destination sooner. Go ahead and kind of say, hey, design that life you want to live and then see how real estate could go ahead and add to it. Okay. And same thing. Like for a lot of us, like real estate for a while was my identity. When I was thinking about leaving medicine, I thought about, okay, well, do I go ahead and lever into real estate full time? Do I become an agent, right? Do I become a property manager? I have all these experiences, right? But a hammer doesn't define the carpenter, right? Like they say. And I think real estate is really a tool. And I keep on saying that. Take it up when it serves you and put it down, right? Sell your properties if it doesn't, right? But keep that in mind. How does your real estate serve you? You should not be serving your real estate, you know. So don't get those two kind of mixed up. And I think the last lesson is what I kind of insinuating and started out with is the scenic route is okay. Some roads take longer, but they it may take more joy. I live down in Colorado, and one of the things that we love doing, right, is kind of taking these road trips, right? Like, you know, again, you know, sometimes we get on the freeway. Yeah, it gets from point A to point B to the fastest, right? But man, sometimes taking the back roads to their mountains and seeing the aspen and being able to pull over and be like, oh my God, check out the stream or this campsite or just a place that we could camp. Now, yes, you know, it may not get me to my destination faster, just like sometimes it may not get to your financial freedom destination faster. But I want everybody to just, you know, keep in mind like, don't forget about the road. Don't forget about the journey that takes you there. You have the vehicle, you have the destination, but really the road, right, is kind of what makes the biggest difference in terms of how we live our life. What is the journey that we take? And you know, I I think this is so important because if I had to go back and give my, you know, go back 20 years and give my 30-year-old self, you know, kind of one advice, right? What would that advice be? You know, and what gift would I give my younger self? Right. And it wouldn't be like, oh, I would give myself like, you know, a million dollars, right? Or oh, you should have picked up that that real estate property that you decided not to pick up. Man, that would have, you would have crushed it, right? You know, what I would what I would kind of give is like, you know, I wish there was a community that I had gotten involved with and there, and I wish there was one where I knew of one because, you know, I did make mistakes along the way. And, you know, those mistakes are usually not shared in talks like this, right? It's usually shared over, you know, kind of a glass of wine. It's over shared over, you know, kind of a fireside chat. Yeah. So, you know, the community is really important, you know, kind of learn from people, you know, who have, you know, been lost and who are able to draw maps for you to give you a better guide. You know, and it's it's okay, right? Like, you know, if I had this community, I, you know, I probably could have gotten, you know, to where I am now, maybe a little bit quicker, right? But really, it's that community in terms of, you know, kind of growing with the community, growing with others. And that's a gift I would, I would really want to give my younger self. And I think that's so important. So that's that's why I'm here to as a guest speaker for Elaine and Nick, you know, because they have really created this amazing community. And that really is what, you know, freedom and legacy, it really is what all set brings, you know, and really also real estate in real life. So, you know, if you have that opportunity, you know, I do think that, you know, that weekend will change your life because you are gonna meet so many other physicians, right, who are in different stages of their journey and could share with you the ups and downs. And if your experience, right, there is nothing more than to be able to give back. You know, I'm at the point where I'm looking at, hey, I am gonna come back on medicine because I think there is a bigger, you know, path for me to be able to work with, you know, other physicians, right? To be able to help them get their financial, you know, kind of destination, right? To be able to help guide them on their road. Like I said, the the two biggest, you know, the the two biggest impact people outside of my mom and my wife, right, was really Stasia, my financial advisor, as well as Kathy, my life coach. And that's part of the reason why, you know, I have gravitated towards this space. And, you know, just a last reminder is again, again, many roads to freedom. There is not a single right way to carve your own path. The only wrong road is the one that someone else designed for you. Whether or not it's your parents, it's pressure from society or whatever it may be. You know, choose your own path. And again, this is just a reminder of, you know, the the really that thing that we've been talking about, right? You know, if you have a life aligned, that really is what financial freedom is. Know your vehicle, and you can have a lot of different vehicles for the rook different type of roads that you may want to take, depending on your season of life, depending on your priorities, and know your destination because that destination is not really a number. It really is about a life of purpose, a line bit, and freedom. And it's really defined entirely by yourself. And thank you very much for the opportunity to share my experiences and to be able to kind of, you know, hopefully give you an idea of potentially the the path that you want to take. And I really appreciate the opportunity so much, Rachel, uh, as well as Nick and Elaine. And I'll turn this back to back to you, Rachel.

SPEAKER_00 37:41

Well, thank you, Ted. That was wonderful. I've been taking all kinds of notes here. So thank you for that. What a journey. I just love how organic your path to creating your ideal life has been. All kinds of nuggets of wisdom here. I hope there have been lots of takeaways for people. Ted, if you want to pause your screen share, we could do a little bit of QA. We've had some questions come into the chat. All right. Let's start with Chad. He asks, how do you manage all of these assets remotely while remain while maintaining adequate returns?

SPEAKER_01 38:15

Yeah, you know, it's it's it's setting up systems. I think that the first thing for us is because I lived at pretty much all these properties, I know the property pretty much inside out. You know, I fixed these and whatnot. And and keep in mind, like this is a journey over 20 years. It's not something that picked up and scaled over the last like, you know, kind of a handful of years, right? You know, so like all these properties I know really well. I know when the furnace was, you know, kind of out right over the course of, you know, kind of the decades. I know, okay, well, this is kind of what uh the tenants generally will ask about. This is kind of what are some of the things that we need to kind of improve on, right? And because like for us, like the the maximizing the ROI was never really the the kind of the the forefront, right? It really was about creating a sanctuary for our tenants, right? I wanted them to kind of feel the same way as when I lived there. And you know, I think the story is like, for example, like the Platt Park place now, you know, that my tenant has been there probably for God, almost like seven, eight years. Like he was like a college kid when he first lived there with roommates. And now he's you know, reach out to me and be like, you know, I love this house. I love this community. I'm gonna ask my girlfriend to marry me this summer. And I want to know if there's a possibility, right, to purchase this house. And that like those returns for for me, again, very different ways, right? But that that that's worth more than the ROI, right? So, you know, my my ROI is probably not maximized, but I would say that, you know, kind of working remotely or kind of managing these remotely, like know your properties, right? And really set up systems. Like all my, you know, kind of we have like kind of these these rolling, you know, kind of lease renewals, right? Like in Florida, all my root lease renewals is done, you know, kind of in April, right? In Colorado, it's all done in May. So since I'm working on it, you know, it's all I kind of cluster everything, right? I go out and do my site visits, right, the same time every year. You know, I have already established boots on the ground. And because I've lived at a lot of these properties in the community, I already have relationship with my vendors for in this like decades now, right? So it really makes it really easy. You know, if you keep the same properties, at least for for us, you know, you know the properties well, you know your vendors, and it really makes it really easy, right? Because you trust your, your plumber, you trust your electrician. You can just say, hey, this is what's going on. Can you have it head on over? You know, your vendor goes over, talks to Ted. It's like, oh man, I remember this place. I remember the first time I came here when we were doing this fix, right? And it really is that community that really is nice and and it really makes a difference. So I would say, you know, get your systems down, you know, and then you can maximize your return, right? When you have better systems. And sometimes the reserve returns aren't always about hard numbers. I think you'll probably get a lot of a lot of joy, I think, working with with tenants as well.

SPEAKER_00 41:10

Mania asked, do you have recommendations on where to find a good financial advisor to help make that foundational plan that you had described at the beginning?

SPEAKER_01 41:20

Yeah, I think I guess maybe this might be something I should talk to Elaine about and kind of see if we could kind of get something, you know, kind of figured out under Black Swan. But I would say like meet, it's, you know, it's a little bit like finding your own personal physician, right? I think, or your life coach. You know, you go through a few of them, you talk to them, right? I wouldn't necessarily jump. And it's kind of like looking at properties, right? There's not really, you know, kind of you don't want to, you know, buy that first property that you see, right? Look around, you know, talk to different people, ask about what their philosophy is and see if they're in alignment with you. So I would say that's probably the the biggest thing, right? You know, I I you know, I started out with Seychelle. I didn't realize how good she was. She didn't do a lot of real estate. So as I build up my real estate, I kind of, you know, I looked at others, right? But really, you know, kind of as I go back, you know, it's I got sold products, right? That I'm just kind of like, or trying to sell me products, I'm like, yeah, this just doesn't make sense, right? That's part of the reason why I got into the financial space. But, you know, kind of ask around, talk to your friends, right? You know, talk to other physicians and and shop around, you know, and and same thing with life coach coaching, right? It's Kathy made a huge outsize impact, but I had to, you know, kind of go through a few coaches, right, to see who I would really connect with. And that's the same thing with a financial advisor. It's the same thing when you're buying home, right? You know, kind of shop around, be okay with that, you know, and you don't need to kind of pull the trigger right on the on the first financial advisor that you that you meet.

SPEAKER_00 42:46

All right. Next, Tanya said your intentional in approach is inspiring. Have you ever purchased a property in an area that you did not live in at some point? She's working on the pivot to purchasing for lifestyle rather than income.

SPEAKER_01 43:03

Yeah, I have. I mean, you don't get to 12 properties without thinking about like, you know, kind of ROI, right? I think I, you know, we we have, right? I think we we started out on property and I think why say in the late 2010s. I was like, man, like, you know, this kind of really works out well. Maybe I need to go ahead and lever. Maybe I need to scale more. And I think that's how we got our properties in Ohio and Florida, right? You know, I put together all these spreadsheets, this data, the numbers and whatnot. So, so I have done that, you know, but it's and it's great. But I'll tell you what, like, you know, I'm at the point in my life where I'm just kind of like, you know, the the return on investment, you know, is is great, but it's not always about the hard numbers, right? For me right now, you know, I have young kids. My return on investment is not to, you know, lever up on my real estate or my assets, right? It really is to be able to to spend the money that we've, you know, kind of saved and grew and to come back on my work, to be able to, to kind of help. My kids, right, kind of discovered their own purpose, discovered their own life and and kind of find their talents and what they're passionate about and help guide them because that that to me, that return of investment is going to bring so much more in in any property, right? But if I have done that, you know, we we have kind of looked at the the numbers and and for us, right, kind of having that experience of saying, hey, we're gonna go ahead and scale, right? I kind of for multifamily is an example of that, you know, it it didn't quite bring the same type of joy as when I bought the properties, you know, for my life and I moved on, right? And I had tenants in them and and whatnot. You know, so so you could do that. I've done that, you know, but it's it's different. So I would say, like, if you are transitioning from kind of like the return on investment, right? I think again, just like that example of the carpenter with the hammer, right? Know when to put it down and really kind of take the time to see, okay, well, what is it that's gonna make a really big difference in my life? You know, do I really need that ROI? Do I really need that growth, right? But like if I had to put a dollar sign, I kind of the lifestyle, right, on the real estate or provide for lifestyle. Really kind of what is that, if it was translatable, right? What is that that dollar sign for you? And man, if you kind of say, hey, this would be worth millions, right? You know, then then I think you should, you know, kind of that helps you walk away from that. I'll just share a quick story. You know, it's I had another friend, he's you know, he's uh MBA, went to West Point, you know, went to UCLA, MBA, and and we spent our 30s traveling, right? And kind of having this kind of life. And and now, you know, he has kids as well. And we were having this conversation. He's like, man, you know, sometimes I think like he called he called it screwing around. He's like, man, you know, if we didn't screw around in our 30s, we would have, you know, a lot more in the bank account. We probably left like a mil at least on the table, right? Kind of doing what we did. And at the time he was trying to buy his primary, and obviously prices have gone up. And I asked him, I was like, if I gave you a million dollars right now to wipe away the experiences that have you had in the 30s living the life that we did, like would you take that million dollars and buy a primary? And the answer in a heartbeat was absolutely not. And I just want to kind of share that example because you know, when you go ahead and you if you want to make that switch right to a lifestyle-based choice, kind of think about that. And you know, I I do have like, you know, kind of stories I could share to people that I know that that wouldn't give, you know, a million dollars back. And I think in Freedom and Legacy, you know, if you remember some of the stories there, right, you know, easily. Some people will say, if I had the the life, right, that I wanted, like a million dollars, no problem. So just keep that in mind. And that's that's how you could kind of make that transition potential a little bit easier.

SPEAKER_00 46:41

Mark asked a question that goes hand in hand with that. Did you find that buying properties where you had a strong desire to live may have led to less cash flow, but also to very strong appreciation over time?

SPEAKER_01 46:54

Yeah, you know, so that's kind of like the balance of real estate, right? Kind of the places that are desirable generally has not as good cash flow, but you generally have more appreciation because people want to live there, right? So that that's usually there is that kind of balance. You know, places that maybe are not as desirable generally will have great cash flow, right? Because people are not buying there to live, but the appreciation is not gonna be as strong. So there definitely is that correlation. You know, in Denver, right, you know, kind of Wash Park, it's a it's a limited real estate, right? Limited, you know, and if you have the if it's a vibrant community, vibrant neighborhood, you know, if you have the means, right, people are gonna want to be in that neighborhood and that's gonna drive up prices. And the cash flow, again, as the prices go up, your cash flow and the rent, right, is probably gonna be compressed. So that I in my experience I found to be absolutely true. So places that you like outside of short-term rentals, right? That's a little bit different. You know, short-term rentals is that's kind of where you may get appreciation and just amazing cash flow. But again, that's a very active, hands-on type of approach. So it just kind of depends on, again, what road you want to you want to drive.

SPEAKER_00 47:57

All right. Our final question from Steven why and how did you choose a life coach?

SPEAKER_01 48:04

Oh, I I fell into it. You know, so it's, you know, it's I guess I'll just sharing, you know, it's you know, I I kind of shared it with it a little bit, you know. I was dating uh a woman at the time. She was a lawyer and she was a life coach, right? And she was like, you know, this has changed my life, and I want you, you know, to consider it. So that's really how it felt. I did not know anything about life coaching at the time. And, you know, I think 20 years ago, it was kind of fairly new, right? I was telling my friends about it, and they were like, well, you know, Ted's living this crazy life. And of course he's gonna do something like, you know, life coaching, right? So so really it was, you know, I can't take credit for it. You know, I I think my my ex, I may have to put her, you know, pretty high on that list of people that have made a huge impact in my life, right? Because, you know, she introduced me to CrossFit, which was a huge part of my life at the time, as well as life coaching. So I ended up taking, you know, kind of a pretty intensive year-long, you know, kind of course, right? Certification course. And and I met a lot of different life coaches there. And I think that's kind of and and Kathy is one of the leaders there. And I and went through a few, right? Same type of thing is you kind of get a sense of what you need. And for me, you know, Kathy is kind of has that very motherly feel, right? But she's also like kind of strict and and she just was able to, you know, kind of separate out the tactical, which as a physician, I think we're all really good about, you know, but and she was able to really do a really good job of helping me, you know, kind of pull myself out of that, you know, kind of the weeds, right? And look at what I want in life on a bigger stage. So that's how I I found mine, you know, and that's how I found life coaching. I kind of fell into it and I had, you know, kind of influences from my, from my ex at the time. You know, I think, you know, you're here, you you have the influence of, you know, kind of people around us. And again, same type of you know, recommendation is, you know, kind of, you know, you have to find a life coach that that meshes with you, right? Not someone that may, you know, agree with you, but be able to recognize and call you out on certain things, right? To really kind of help push your envelope into places that you may be uncomfortable, you know, and that really is where the possibility lies outside of our comfort zone. So, you know, I would say you know, kind of again, you know, work a few sessions, right? But if the fit doesn't feel right, put down that tool, put down, put down that hammer, just like in real estate.

SPEAKER_00 50:23

Wonderful. Well, thank you, Ted, for sharing. This has just been a wonderful presentation filled with so much wisdom. I hope everybody has a lot of takeaways. I hope you're thinking about designing your own real estate portfolio, your investments, whatever your vehicle is getting to financial freedom. I hope that you're thinking about it intentionally, the way that Ted has. So, with that, I'm excited to announce that Ted is going to be joining us at Real Estate Real Life this year as a guest speaker. So if you enjoyed this presentation, you'll get even more of Ted. You'll get the opportunity to meet him and chat with him in person at Real Estate Real Life in Rochester this September. We have a virtual option as well. So if you can't travel, you'll still get his presentation, you'll get the recordings, you'll get a WhatsApp group in order to have that sense of community together, even if you're not in person. So we would love for you guys to join us at Real Estate Real Life. That's happening this September 17th through 20th in Rochester, Minnesota. You can register at rerl2026.com. So real estate real life, let me get my self-oriented here. Awesome. Real estate real life is really about what Ted shared in his presentation today. It's about the path to financial freedom, but it's about doing it on your own terms. So we're thinking about security, we're thinking about optionality, but we're also thinking about mindset, family, relationships, what brings you joy. So you'll get the secure your freedom real estate investing sessions, the launch your legacy leadership and mindset sessions. You'll get behind the scenes property tours of the Black Swan portfolio. So if you're an investor with Black Swan Real Estate already, thank you. We're excited to welcome many of you back to Rochester this September. If you're someone who has considered investing, you'll get that behind-the-scenes look of how we operate our portfolio here in Rochester. So it's unlike anything I've ever seen. You get to physically tour the assets that you've invested in. It's one of my favorite days of the weekend. You'll get a guided breathwork experience, which Elaine will be running for us, that's designed to help you connect with your inner self, to have a calmed nervous system and to be able to think about your life more intentionally and not just have that spreadsheet kind of mindset. There's all kinds of networking opportunities. You'll get lifetime access to the session recordings, whether you're in person or virtual. This year, we're also excited to announce that you'll be eligible for eight hours of category one CME. So whether you're in attending in person or joining us virtually, that is a benefit we're so excited to share this year. And then, of course, we have a VIP day as well. That VIP day happens on Monday, September 21st. It's a smaller group in a full day of sessions with Nick and Elaine on stage. There will also be a VIP dinner at Nick and Elaine's home, which is a really special part of the evening. Your real estate real life experience starts on Thursday, September 17th in the evening with the welcome reception. So that takes place here in Rochester, Minnesota. We host Real Estate Real Life at the Hilton in downtown Rochester. One of the cool things about Rochester is you can see how connected everything is with the Mayo Clinic and how that has been so central to our investing thesis. So you'll join us at the Hilton, which has been rated the number one Hilton hotel in North America for I think the last four years now. So we're treated very well there. You can look forward to that. On Friday, we'll do those property tours I was talking about, where you get to physically walk into, touch and see the assets that you've invested in, whether you're in Black Swan Real Estate Fund 1234 or the Secure Freedom Fund. It's a really unique experience. On Saturday, September 19th, we'll get into our general sessions where we'll talk about real estate investing as a tool, as a vehicle, just like Ted said, to create your ideal life. We'll talk about mindset, leadership, relationships, investing. It's a really good culmination of all these things that are really driving you to living that ideal life. And we'll continue that on Sunday, September 20th as well. If you would like to join us for VIP Day, we'll do a full additional VIP day on Monday, September 21st. Last year, Nick decided to show off the Nineagram toilets on V on VIP Day, which is one of the huge cost-saving strategies we've had in our portfolio in the last year as we add these toilets to our portfolio. Just a really good behind-the-scenes close time with Nick and Elaine for both the portfolio for your investing questions, but also for questions about your life, your mindset. So we would love to welcome you to Real Estate Real Life. You'll get to hear from Dr. Ted Lynn. We have a couple other guest speakers joining us that we have not announced quite yet. So stay tuned for those. We have a virtual experience where you'll get to join the conference live. You get lifetime access to the recording and those eight hours of CME. You'll join live on Zoom every day. So it feels as though you're in the room with us. You'll be in the WhatsApp group so you can constantly be connecting with everybody else who's in attendance. Then we have general admission, which will be our in-person attendees in Rochester. Again, full access to lifetime recordings and eight hours of CME. And you'll be able to participate in that full schedule we just went over. And then we have a VIP experience. So that's everything in general admission, plus that VIP dinner at Nick Nillian's personal home I had mentioned. And then a VIP day on Monday, September 21st. You still get lifetime access to the recordings. You'll get recordings of the VIP sessions as well, plus those eight hours of CME. So if this has been on your mind, we would love to host you at Real Estate Real Life this year. If you want to think more intentionally about how you're building your dream life and not just investing for investing's sake, or how did how did Ted put it? I wasn't trying to build a real estate empire. I was trying to build an intentional life. That is exactly what we are doing at Real Estate Real Life. With eight hours of CME this year, we're so excited to offer this to you. And as a thank you for joining us for this session today, we also have a $450 off for your general admission or VIP registration if you use the code MASTERClass. So if you'd like to join us September 17th through 20th with a VIP day on the 21st, you can register now at rerl2026.com. You'll get to see Ted and connect with him. You'll get to connect with a lot of amazing people. And really you'll get a moment to just pause, think about your values, your life, your goals, think about how real estate, investing, any kind of financial decision that you can make is really building towards your real life. You want to be thinking about the life that you want to live, the legacy that you want to leave. It's an amazing weekend. I hope that you guys will join us. So feel free to join us. Ask questions if you have any. You can email me, Rachel, at blackswanteam.com. More than happy to help out if you have any questions, but you can get all of the event details. And then go ahead and register at rerl2026.com. And again, you can use that code MasterClass for $450 off your general admission or VIP registration. Well, we made it in an hour. That is the presentation we have for you guys today. So thank you so much for joining us. Ted, thank you so much for that wonderful presentation. Really looking forward to having you here in Rochester at Real Estate Real Life. And I hope to see many of you there in person as well.

SPEAKER_01 58:18

Absolutely. Thank you so much, Rachel.

SPEAKER_00 58:22

Bye.