don't let these people beat you.

All we want to do is take from you.

Everything you've ever known, everything that you've ever had.

They can take your business, your apartments, they can destroy your

family, but what they can't take is who you are and what you're made of.

They can't take your passion.

They can't take your desire and they can't take your knowledge because

you can go get all that back.

He goes, you go build another a hundred million dollar company.

Welcome to Seek, Go Create.

This is your host, Tim Winders.

I'm an executive coach.

Work with leaders and leadership teams.

I am currently in the passenger seat of the RV in, uh, Kind of in

the Black Hills of South Dakota, just talking with our guest.

he's a biker and, Sturgis week is going on for those that are aware.

500, pile in and around us here in the RV, we've got some motorcycles.

So you may hear that low rumble of a Harley Davidson in the background

during this podcast, but that's okay.

We're here.

We're here to have some fun.

I've got a great guest.

We're going to be talking about some real estate success and redefining success.

What that means.

Got somebody that's got a lot of experience.

And so I'm looking forward to it.

Let's jump right in.

I've got Mike Murawski.

He helps busy professionals create passive income and grow generational wealth.

He's a trainer and coach for real estate investors.

public speaker, and he's the host of the insider secrets podcast.

He's also an author.

He's got a lot of things going on.

He's got 30 plus years of real estate experience.

And listen to this.

He's got over, I think he's controlled roughly 285 million in real estate

and real estate transactions.

Mike, welcome to seek, go create.

Thanks, Tim.

Appreciate being here and super excited after our initial conversation here.

So

Yeah, I am too.

And maybe, and I know you won't, it won't bother you one bit if you hear

that little boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom rumble in the background, will

I may break out in a sweat or something, but

I see on your shelf behind you got a couple

of motorcycles on the shelf for those that are watching the video.

yeah,

Cycler, good.

Very cool.

listen, let's, let's jump right in.

We, we have just met.

But, let's just say you bump into somebody out and about on an airplane or something

like that, and they ask you what you do.

What's your response?

yeah, I'm a huge networker too.

So this is a great question.

I, I think everybody needs to know their elevator pitch, right?

I'm the chief investment officer for a multifamily hedge fund.

We buy large apartment complexes in specific markets.

Partner with people like yourself and sharing the profits.

So that's something you'd be interested in.

I love the question there at the end.

It's man, let's decide if we need to keep talking or not.

that was a great model for people listening in of a great elevator pitch.

I bet you've said that a few times

I have said that a few times.

you mentioned you're a networker.

Tell me, let's go and dive into a little bit here.

Networking.

Is it something that you've always done?

Did you teach yourself or are you, is it just a natural or what is that?

What does that look like for you?

Yeah.

I think truly, I think I'm an introvert.

I've never been a guy to go up to a girl in a bar and try and pick up a girl.

I've always had that trepidation, that little bit of fear, but.

I love to go to these networking events and just meet people

and walk up to people.

and what I really liked Tim is I like when I'm speaking at an

event and I work the room before I speak and they'll have a picture.

Like I was just at an event this week that I was speaking at, it was a luncheon

and they had a picture of me and a little blurb on the screen and I'm talking

to somebody and they went, Like this.

anyway, hey, you're the speaker.

I love that, but yeah, it's just, it's an icebreaker.

and the people I really love to network with are the ones where you

look at them across the room and they got their face buried in a phone.

and they're supposed to be at a networking event meeting each other.

And those are the people I always walk up to.

Hey, hate to interrupt you, but

Yeah, the interesting thing about that, my wife and

I are fascinated by that too.

We've got, we're recording this on a Friday.

We've got a date night.

We're going out tonight and we'll go places and you see people, actually

we start to see people our age.

You and I would be more in the mature category, I believe.

we're both in that boomer generation.

I'm on the very end of it and it's fascinating to go out.

See two people on what they might be calling a date.

Like you just mentioned networking where they're supposed to be

getting around other people, but yet they're both on their phones.

And, I don't know that kind of bothers me a little bit.

What's your thoughts when you see that?

Yeah, I'm a big people watcher too, right?

So I do the same thing.

I'll see people, they'll sit there all night having dinner with each other

and don't say two words to each other.

And it's really, where is that at?

and I'm not trying to be critical, I think part of that is that, I have this

relationship with Jesus today in my life.

And, I've learned over the years that You know, this kind of thing

that we're doing right now, Tim, is more important than anything else,

Yeah, I agree.

It's that heart piece.

and I think these devices are great tools.

I know you probably use the heck out of them in your business.

I do in my business, we're on one of these tools right now.

And it's allowing people to listen in on these tools, but I think

some people become slaves to them instead of making them a slave to us.

I don't, I've got this, maybe this Holy Spirit, but I want to dig a little bit

more on this networking because I had this thought because I do notice some

people that are really, really good at it.

I think some people do it.

For various reasons and all that.

But what, when you're networking, do you have a motive or an agenda or something

going through your mind as you're, I hate to say working a room that sounds

manipulative, but you're, you go in a room that's got 20, 30, 50 people in it.

And, you were obviously teaching and speaking.

So you had a purpose to be there, but what is, what's your general

thought when you go into a situation like that about other people?

Yeah, great.

that's a great question.

one of my companies is my core intentions, right?

I think we have to be intentional about everything we do.

So if I'm in an event that I'm speaking at, my intention is to

know the room before I get on stage.

I want to know my audience.

So I want to tailor my talk a little bit to who's there and, how detailed can I

get or how broad do I have to be right?

the other aspect is, Tony Robbins, said at one time I had heard him say

that you're only one person away.

and take that in any context.

you may be, maybe, you know about the six laws of separation,

six degrees of separation.

You are only six people away from anybody you wanna meet in the world.

so how do you get to that person, right?

You only get there because, You learn about this person.

I'm a big, tell me about yourself.

I don't, there's that old joke, right?

Enough about me.

What else do you want to know about me?

I'm not like that at all.

I want to know about you.

And I truly want to know about you.

I want to know what makes you tick, what you're, where your heart's at.

and see if there's a connection.

Tim, you and I got on this, we had never met before and there was, we

could, I could tell there's going to be an instant connection between us,

So Mike, have you always been that way or have you developed?

Here's the reason why I asked that I was pretty hard charger.

I grew up into the business world in the eighties, which was

go, go, go money, money, money.

And I had a lot of that was baked in me.

And so when I started doing some business in the late eighties,

early nineties, I did a network marketing for a little while.

That's actually where I got saved.

So I don't say anything negative about it, but.

I recognized as I networked that often, and I was pretty good at it

because I'm outgoing and all that, but often I looked at people as if they

had a dollar sign on their foreheads.

And I'm not saying, I'm not saying that because I'm proud of it, I've

recognized it and I wasn't looking at them for their potential or,

what can I do for them as much?

It might have been a little bit more trying to impress versus inspire,

trying to sell instead of share.

And those are some things that I've had to come to terms with.

But what's your, have you always.

Been in the role you're in now, or have you matured into it?

Have you learned, did you make some mistakes along the way?

I think this is valuable conversation for people because it's powerful.

Yeah.

Listen, I've made my share of mistakes, some small, some big, no doubt about that.

but just like you said, I've been in real estate 30 years and when I went in

the business, I was on the sales side.

So as a residential sales agent, Tim, my first nine months in

the business, I did 78 deals.

I was remaxed rookie of the year.

And, here's what happened though.

It was churn and burn.

I knew, so I was in the business for 15 years and I knew that every time

I picked up the telephone, I made 20.

Every time I dialed the telephone, I made 20, right?

I made 20, 000 phone calls a year.

Your listeners can do the math on that.

And, it was churn and burn.

It took me three years before somebody said, do you have a database?

I'm like a what, I didn't keep track of anybody.

I didn't know anybody.

I didn't.

And, so here's where it made sense to me.

I'm in the grocery store one day and I see a client that I had a year and a half, two

years before she says, Oh, you're going to have to come by the new house for dinner.

We just moved.

I'm like, what?

I go, you just bought your house?

She goes, yeah, we looked for you.

We couldn't find you, but we bought a bigger house, and sold

the house that we bought with you.

And I was like, Then I had to figure out, how does that never happen again?

Because I just lost.

About 700, 000 worth of business, but it was a learning experience.

But like you said, man, early on people had a dollar sign on them.

It was, I was probably in the business five years before I really started

to build relationships with people.

And then when I went the apartment business, that's when I really started to.

To see more and more that I needed to have deeper relationships with people.

Yeah, because you don't, we'll get to that later.

I want to talk about some other things before we get into the multifamily aspect,

but that's not a churn and burn business.

some, you know, the real estate is transactional for a lot of people.

And even we did single family homes and I was turning a lot of that early on,

but the multifamily, those are bigger kind of longer legged transactions.

And you've got to be comfortable with all the parties involved.

Correct.

Yeah, a hundred percent.

Yeah.

follow up question.

I'm loving this conversation on networking because there's a piece I want to

mention something to the audience.

There was a conversation on an episode that probably if you back up a few, if

you're listening in here with a Mark Slabaugh that we had this conversation

where he said something to the effect of.

You're not going to make significant change in your life.

If you're hanging out with the same group of people you've always hung

out with, he said, you've got to change your network to make changes.

And to me, this relates to that.

You to continue moving forward and growing.

You have to grow, but yet it's not just that churn and burn.

So the follow up question I've got for you, because you mentioned

you're a follower of Jesus early on, where were you at spiritually

early on, because I had been saved.

but that transformation process was still going on.

I still had two feet in the world system and, I was just dipping my

hand barely into that baptismal pool to get reborn and all of that.

I don't think my heart had been transformed to look at

people the way I needed to.

Where were you at spiritually?

And maybe this will be a good time to back up and see, your

spiritual background and all.

you're asking some tough questions today, Tim.

Oh yeah.

Come on now.

so I got baptized and sobered up in 1983.

I went into real estate in 1991.

So let me just, date this a little bit.

But I was a pocket Christian.

So what I mean by that is I pulled God out of my pocket when

I was in a jam and I needed help.

Help me out of this.

it's like you're getting pulled over by the police for a speeding ticket and you

go, Oh my God, Jesus, please help me.

but it wasn't till a number of years later that I really, had decided

to build a relationship with Jesus.

And then that probably started spilling over into how

you perceived other people.

It did for me.

I think you probably started, I'll use the term your heart started softening to

other people versus looking in the mirror.

Thinking about it's all about you.

is that kind of your

100%.

100%.

Yeah,

so fascinating.

So 1983 seems like a real pivot.

we talk about redefining success here on seek, go create.

Obviously we've all been through it.

I think people that say they haven't gone through significant

change, catalytic events.

I really would like to know more about them.

Cause I don't see how that can happen in this world we're in, but,

But you're in, are you in Chicago?

Is that right?

I am.

Yeah, I live in Chicago.

I've been here my whole life.

I'm about ready to hang up my snow shovel, though.

I'll tell you then, Scottsdale and Vegas are looking pretty good.

it's a beautiful day here where we are.

And my wife and I were just booking our winter travel.

And we're thinking about Arizona is where we're looking down like

Casa Grande or something like that.

So we were excited about looking at that, that area.

Grande is a beautiful area.

We're actually building a development there.

Oh, nice.

Very good.

tell me more.

Let's go ahead and let's dive into a little bit of the redefining success.

Sounds like 83 was a big year and 91 was a big year, whichever one you want

to choose, but, just tell a little bit more about the redefinition or the

transition, whatever occurred there.

And I'll just let you share whatever you feel, knowing that

our audience can handle the deeper stuff too, if you want to go there.

Yeah, listen, 83, I was in the construction business, new

entrepreneur or newer entrepreneur doing everything, hiring, firing,

bookkeeping, marketing, sales and still banging nails in the field, right?

And I went from one, one helper working with me to having 25 employees and

trucks and heavy equipment, 1990 and 83 was a pivotal year in my life.

My dad got murdered.

I became a Christian.

and I sobered up.

it wasn't, and it didn't all happen in that order.

I sobered up, I became a Christian and my dad got murdered in that

order, but in 91, I was burned out.

I woke up one morning and I looked at my wife at the time and I said, I'm done.

I can't do this anymore.

I, luckily I had somebody knocking at my door to buy my company.

So we sold the company and said, let's take a year off.

any good entrepreneur never takes time off, right?

You're always spinning, doing something.

We went and bought a couple of two flats and, And, house hacked

them and house hacked them long before house hacking was sexy.

and people do it all the time now, but back then people

thought, what are you crazy?

What are you doing?

So it was a different environment.

But I learned an important lesson.

So Jim Rohn, I, been following Jim Rohn and Zig Ziglar at that time.

And Jim Rohn said, success leaves clues.

And I always grabbed, gravitated to that.

So I met this real estate agent who was extremely successful, said,

Hey, I want to go into business.

He said, I think you'd be great at it.

put me, help me, get in the business.

Made me a cassette tape of the fundamentals of the

way he built his business.

And I went and duplicated exactly what he did, and that's where

I sold 78 houses that year.

I went on to build a team selling between a hundred and 130 houses a year.

And we did that for about 12 years.

were there pivotal points?

Yeah, I think there were pivotal points along the way.

I got divorced from my first wife.

and, really focused more on my career than I was focusing on when I was

married and, building a business and again, still turning and burning, right?

I hadn't gotten to that point in my life yet where relationship mattered.

So it seems as if, and I would guess knowing, the generation that

you come from and the way you've talked so far that you would be one of these folks,

we would consider a very hard worker.

I'm guessing that you're a guy that it's probably hard for somebody to outwork you.

Would that be correct?

Yeah, you, you could say that, Tim.

might have sobered up, but I did not from work.

All right.

so here's my follow up to that, just to get you thinking a little bit more, I've

noticed that about myself similarly.

And I say this is, I'll make a statement and then I'll just let you respond to

it in whatever direction you want to go.

I have found that often our superpower when it's overused

or misused, misused kryptonite.

And so someone who is categorized as a hard worker.

I would love for you to share whatever, and there's no right or

wrong here, but share what are some ways that has really helped you?

And what are some ways that may have been a hindrance or a kryptonite?

Because sometimes we could just try to work our tails off when we should

be sitting back thinking or pausing or allowing the Lord to do something.

I've noticed that for me.

I don't know if you have it, you could say, no, Tim, I just worked

my way through it and I'm good.

But, what are your thoughts when I say that?

the initial thought that comes to mind that is because I'm

such a worker, because I'm so focused, because I'm such an entrepreneur.

and an overachiever, I've damaged marriages and I've damaged relationships

with children as a result of that.

and some of which are irreparable, which is really sad.

But I also feel that I've left an example for my children of work ethic, because if

you look at some of the, people out there today, they're just a lot of laziness.

and, there is a middle of the road you got, you know, that where you could

be, where you could live, where you can operate, there is a middle of the road.

I don't necessarily know that I found it, but, there, there's a message in there if

somebody wants to listen to that again.

Yeah, and I know what it is and the reason why is

I've struggled with that myself.

I fortunately do still have, I'm about to be married 35 years and

have, the two children, but I do think that my work ethic has made

the relationship tougher with them.

Maybe.

I don't know if that's the right term.

And there were some generational things going on.

you and I are roughly from the same generation and I

want to make sure I say this.

I don't think we're right.

Or wrong.

There's some generations after us that they are approaching work

and life differently than us.

And maybe in some ways we could learn from them.

I don't know, but I do find, and I went to Bible school.

I'm going to ask you about Bible school here shortly, because I

know you went to Bible school.

It's, it was very interesting when I was in Bible school, there was this

group of people that they were busting their tail, trying to, get God's

attention, do impact for the Lord, all that kind of stuff, which is great.

And then there was these people that were just sitting around waiting.

And I couldn't relate to the sitting around waiting, but I

do think I should sit around and wait a little bit more on that.

anyway, and I don't know how to reconcile that.

Some people probably just need to be hustling a little bit more and some of us

probably need to hustle a little bit less.

maybe that's the great tension that we have.

So at what point did you go to Bible school?

I saw Bible school somewhere on your resume.

Yeah, I went to Bible school in

20, between 2014 and 20.

18.

So 2014, 2018, you probably want to catch up before that.

Yeah, probably do.

That's oddly enough.

That's when I was in Bible school, 15 to 17, 18.

Wow.

Okay.

That's cool.

let's back up a little bit.

Cause obviously I think there were some stages along in your life here.

talk about, at some point along the way you were going through this churn

of all of your real estate and it was, which is, I love the transition

because to me that's very transactional.

you are a real estate agent, so you, the relationships needed to be

better, obviously, but pretty much you go to a closing, get a check,

you walk away and you're done, you move on, you do the next one.

At some point, something clicked in your mind.

And I don't want to say, I don't want to put words in your mouth, like you started

thinking more long term or you started thinking differently about transaction.

I don't know what it was, but where did something click along the way with this

real estate journey that you went on?

Yeah.

Great question.

So 2005, I saw the markets changing and wasn't real sure what was going to happen.

I've always kind of, you know, I I've been the kind of guy that

here, I'll give you an example.

One, a friend of mine and I, are driving from where we live outside

of Chicago to the lakes one weekend.

And I said to him, I go, man, that corner right there would

be great for a white hen.

You may remember white hen, they were little, store pantries, like

7 11s, but a different version.

He goes, no, you're crazy, they'll never build one there.

The next weekend, we're driving to the lake again, there's a sign on the corner

that says, coming soon, white hen.

That's the kind of guy and I predestined this stuff,

were a prophet.

You were a prophet before you even knew it, right?

So I, so 2005, I see the market starting to soften and I

knew that things were going to change.

I didn't know what was going to happen or where the market was going to go.

I had always wanted to be in the apartment business.

there's a couple of big syndicators here in Chicago and a syndicator is

just a fancy word for somebody who raises private capital, marries it

with real estate, runs and operates that deal, stays in the middle.

and I, that's what I knew at the time about it.

And so 2005, I said, Hey, I'm going to go in the apartment business.

So I started an apartment, I went and syndicated my first apartment

deal in 2005 and Tim over the next 30 months, I scaled a business

to 4, 000 units in five markets.

I built a property management company managing 7, 500 units.

I built a hundred million dollar company in a 30 month period between 2005 and,

Yeah.

and then what happened?

2008.

Yeah, I'm an overachiever.

2008 happened.

the residential world went upside down and I thought it's residential.

People are still going to need a place to live.

They're going to need apartments.

We were buying apartments in markets that have one type of employment,

one employer in town, tertiary markets that didn't make sense.

And when 2008 happened shortly after the commercial crisis

happened and we went upside down.

So Tim, I had grown way too fast.

I was very unstable.

I tell the people I coach and train today that take your time.

It's a marathon.

It's not a sprint.

I owned 60 million worth of real estate at 85% loan to value.

I don't know who was worse.

Me for taking the money or the banks for giving it to me.

I didn't pay attention to the details.

So I didn't watch those KPIs, those key performance indicators.

like I watch them today.

I, was over under capitalized to run my business.

I hired a hundred people.

I had a payroll that was a million dollars a year.

it, it just, it didn't make sense.

We started to come off the rails and I probably at the time I had 38 companies,

but at the time I decided, I had 12 companies that should've, I should've

just let them go to foreclosure, let a few of my investors get hurt.

But I tried to save everybody.

I'm the oldest born.

I'm the hero.

I want to make everybody good.

I don't want to give anybody bad news.

I thought, at the time, Tim, I thought this is just a recession.

This is going to last 17 or 18 months.

The markets are going to bounce back.

There'll be a 10% correction, just like the past couple of recessions.

But that's not what happened lasted seven or eight years of

40% correction in the market.

You can't weather that storm.

So I'd gone to my accountant and my attorney and said, Hey, what do we do?

I came up with a plan that I was going to move money from my profitable

companies to my non profitable companies.

My accountant and my attorney both said it was okay to do that.

Just leave a paper trail when the markets bounce back, put the money back.

that was fine, except I didn't tell my investors I was doing it.

for non-disclosure, and we're in a business that you are

held at a much higher standard.

You're scrutinized at every step of the way.

I didn't tell my investors, so I wound up being charged on wire fraud

and mail fraud charges, and I got sentenced to 10 years in federal prison.

And in 2000, 13, I lost everything and went to prison.

So many questions I've got.

I bet.

What's interesting is 2013 when it's, when we lost everything

bankruptcy was a year before that we moved out of our big old home and

lived in a Honda van for a while.

So it was, I don't want to make light of prison, but it was our own little prison.

I think everybody went to their prisons.

first thing I'm going to, I'm going to go there a little bit more, but

I want to back up to that 08 and the mindset that you had heading into it.

Hard worker, probably in your mind, you could work your way out of

any situation, but you also had a spiritual background where you had

given parts of your life to Jesus.

Maybe not all of it.

Spiritually, what were you thinking during that time?

let me tell you where I was and then you could respond with where you, I

thought number one, that it was going to be about 12 to 18 months also.

I didn't realize the government was going to get that involved and it

would prolong and a lot of stuff there.

we don't need to go down that road, but I really did think that the

Lord, I was one of his favorites.

And you know what he did it just didn't look like what I thought But what were

you what was going on spiritually for you then, where were you at with the lord?

I know you mentioned earlier.

I use the term atm machine you get in trouble You get pulled over you go to

him because obviously when you all of a sudden start realizing that there's

wire fraud There's stuff like that going on You're probably not as cool hand

luke as you Typically are I could tell you've got a good little poker face and

all that what was going on the inside

I was a mess.

I was a wreck.

my, my wife, I started drinking.

prior to that.

And I was so messed up in my started.

I should say, started drinking again.

So we're both sober going to program working, working a 12 step program,

involved in the church, serving a church.

Great relationship with Jesus.

My business started to go sideways.

I never talked to my wife about business.

So she didn't know anything.

Once in a while, I'd say, Hey, we bought another apartment complex.

I raised some money.

I met this really interesting investor, but I never told her anything.

Hindsight says that was a good thing now.

But at the time wasn't a good thing.

I, had, all this stuff going on.

And then she started drinking.

I thought she was having an affair.

I thought.

at least she's not having an affair, And, so I didn't do

anything about that piece of it.

And I, I started drinking then like a year later.

And cause I had figured my life's a mess.

It's off the rails.

I'm losing everything who cares anymore.

I had no relationship, other than the fact, I think my saying at the

time, Tim was, how the hell could you do this to me after all these years

of following you, seeking you trying to, how could you let this happen?

I had two missions in life at the time.

One was to.

provide safe and secure housing for my tenants thinking I

was doing a great thing.

And the second was that I wanted to employ a thousand people because I wanted

people to work for a great company.

I wanted to be the best company in the country to work for.

I wanted to, and I always thought with those two missions, how do you go wrong?

How does this come off the rails?

yeah, there was no relationship.

So I want to move on, but before we do.

I know I can guarantee you've been asked this before, but I'm going to

put a little bit of a twist to it.

I think you mentioned a few things that you probably should have done.

Could have, should have, would have, we could do armchair quarterback,

have more reserves, different things like that, obviously communicate with

your investors, those types of things.

But is there anything that you would have done differently?

And I want to say this personally.

In your quiet time, in your time that, not working differently or structuring

differently, but anything that you would have different, because I've

got a very clear answer for me, but anything for you that you just, if

you could go back and say, this is something I would have done differently.

two things.

One is I would have had a better quiet time and I would have

listened because I didn't listen.

I didn't listen to God and I didn't listen to the people around me.

and I'll give you an example real quick.

So 2008, I'm closing the biggest deal at the time we had

closed about 280 some units.

I'm in a closing room at a title company in Cincinnati, deal's not closing,

my office isn't wiring the money.

All day I'm there, 11 o'clock in the morning, finally 5 o'clock

in the afternoon, my partner gets on the phone, he says, I

don't know how to tell you this.

don't know how to tell me what, where's my 500, 000.

It was, I had to move the money from an escrow account this

week into a business account.

And I said, whoa, hold it timeout.

I said, you knew we weren't supposed to do that.

So now I'm just circle back for a minute.

Remember I said a minute ago, I never told my wife anything about business.

So this is Wednesday.

I wind up dry closing that deal, which means just means

we signed all the paperwork.

I said, I'll have it funded by Tuesday.

I go home over the weekend.

I sold my partner's equity in that deal and, raised the rest of the capital.

I needed to get the deal funded by Tuesday.

Important point right here, Friday night, I go to dinner with my partner

and his wife and my wife and my partner.

And I aren't really getting along.

and on the way home from dinner, my wife says to me, I don't trust him.

And I go, I think I'm being a good husband at this point.

And I go, Hey honey, I got this under control.

Don't worry about it.

When I should have said, tell me more.

What do you mean?

Fast forward about five days.

I'm at lunch with my outside legal counsel.

So we had an in house legal counsel and then I had an outside attorney.

About five days later, I'm at lunch on Wednesday afternoon, the

next week with my attorney, we leave lunch and he's a big guy.

he played football and, he's walking in the parking lot.

He puts his arm around me and he says, I want you to know something.

I said, what?

He goes, I do not trust your partner and I don't like what's going on.

So two incidents within five days of each other, that was a red flag.

And I said, I got this under control.

Don't worry about it.

I wasn't listening to God and I wasn't listening to the people around me.

that's my fifth biggest mistake that I made during that time.

If I could rewind the clock, I wouldn't have picked that guy to be my partner.

and I would have listened to my wife and would have listened to

the key individuals around me.

And, often God is probably using those people

around us to, to speak to us.

And I think that's the big test of how soft our hearts are.

If our hearts are hard, man, it's all about us.

That's what I noticed with myself.

so in 13, you go to prison.

And then you mentioned earlier between 14 and 18, you were in Bible school, kind of

bridge those gaps for me, bridge prison to Bible school and share whatever you think

you might need to share about prison.

People probably going, man, ask what prison was like, but, if you

want to share whatever that was, I

Prison sucked.

I wouldn't think it's great,

So I,

obviously you didn't serve 10 years

no, almost eight.

but, so here's what happened.

I went to prison and, I thought my life was over and I always tell

people, I say, I never flew private.

I didn't have a big house.

I didn't have a boat.

We didn't have a fancy car.

I was the neighborhood baseball coach.

I was home every night for dinner.

And I got ripped from that to live in a 12 by 12 room with three men.

I didn't know, nor did I like wondering what the hell happened in my life.

at what age and when you were 50, mid fifties.

53.

And I, I'm in prison about three weeks and my wife divorces me and it

wrecked me and now I'm like, okay, now what, how do I get through this?

and I'm mad at God, by the way, at this point now I'm pissed.

and I walk into gym one day and probably I'm probably in about six

weeks and I walk into gym one day and I always tell I say, you know what?

I was just window shopping.

I wasn't looking to pick up a weight.

I wasn't ready to work out.

I had gone from running marathons to being 35 overweight.

Absolutely hated myself.

Tim, frankly, I wanted to kill myself, but I was too afraid to, And, this

guy walks up to me, young kid, younger than me, 25 years younger than, and,

probably 20 years younger than me.

And he says, look, don't let these people beat you.

All we want to do is take from you.

Everything you've ever known, everything that you've ever had.

They can take your business, your apartments, they can destroy your

family, but what they can't take is who you are and what you're made of.

What they can't take is what's up here.

And what's in here.

They can't take your passion.

They can't take your desire and they can't take your knowledge because

you can go get all that back.

He goes, you go build another a hundred million dollar company.

It won't be a problem for you.

And I don't know what it was, but.

the switch flip.

And it was, I think that, and this is why I tell my story a couple reasons.

We all have these defining moments in our life and what do we do with them, right?

How do we, do we, do we go this way or this way?

I tell my story 'cause I wanna bring hope and inspiration.

I don't want people, people are trapped.

You said it, you were in that Honda in a prison, right?

I think we're trapped in a prison in our minds, and unless we get out of

there, I might have been behind a wall, people are trapped from addiction,

from abuse, from childhood trauma.

You know what?

You can get over it.

Go on.

So this kid, this guy says, come to my class, start working out,

you'll start to feel better.

And I said, okay, don't ask me why.

But the next day I show up at this guy's class and I'm working out and I

start working out and I start losing weight and I start feeling better.

I, all of a sudden I start writing.

I wound up writing two books.

I wrote a book called exit plan, your complete guide to multifamily

investing and why you need an exit plan.

My second book just came out on property management.

I wrote an ethics course.

I taught real estate investing, property management and ethics

in prison for six years.

I went to college.

I got a bachelor's degree in theology.

I was on an outreach program.

I, went into the community, told my story to small business

owners, local college students.

I met a professor from the University of Minnesota.

He and I co authored a paper together that got published in the Business Journal

of Ethics that gets taught today at the collegiate level for forensic accounting

and sales and marketing classes.

I came home, thought I was going to just go into coaching and training business and

that would be my new life, my new design.

but what I, I started underwriting again because I needed to figure that out

so I could teach people how to do it.

And I find a deal in Florida and I go to a couple of my coaching

clients and we partner on a deal.

along the way, my securities attorney says, Hey, I think I

can get you approved by the sec.

And I'm thinking there's no way this isn't going to happen.

And three months later, she comes back with a written approval from the sec

that I can be an issuer of securities, a sponsor of deals, raise capital again.

And, it's funny how life is.

Come full circle.

Yeah, and I want to pause there to make sure because as you were

talking about going to prison for what you went for, I'm actually trying to connect

the dots between what you're doing now, which is you're raising funds and putting

syndications and all that together.

And I'm going, how does that happen?

That is, that's somewhat miraculous.

I don't know all the details of that, but that doesn't happen

to just everyone, does it?

No, not at all.

Yeah, because usually you, you make that mistake and there's not

a second chance to go back because you, I think you'd already even reconciled.

You're probably going to coach train, probably not be

the deal maker again, right?

Yeah.

I actually thought, I actually didn't think I'd ever raised capital again.

And it's funny cause what happened was I was actually on a podcast

one day, it was a lunchtime event or about 150 people on this event.

And somebody says, Hey, are you raising capital?

I said, no, they said, why not?

I wouldn't want to put my money with anybody other than you because

you've already made the mistakes.

You know what to watch out for.

And I went, wow, that's interesting.

So

It is interesting.

And I find that, all right, this is, I keep wanting to dig into real estate,

but I think this is more important, Mike.

I dealt with quite a bit of shame, but I never admitted it for a while.

And I think that shame kept me from communicating, doing

things like this, just sharing the story and things like that.

Did you experience that?

What did it look like?

And then how, if you did you overcome all of that?

Because, you know, at some point you just kind of feel like we need to go

hide under a rock because I don't know.

I hate, I hated myself.

I couldn't believe that I did this to myself, to my family, that, listen, I came

from nothing built this great success.

I had a couple of smaller successes along the way, but built this

hundred million dollar company.

And just got wiped out, Hey, Tim, if the market would have corrected 10% or

bounce back or there'd been a little glitch, it would have been different,

but this was a 40% correction.

We were in markets that you had, employment, in the area was

transportation and distribute and small parts manufacturing businesses.

They got wiped out.

People got, our occupancy in apartments dropped 30%.

You can't mitigate that storm, but here's I think here's where you wanted to go.

so I'm sitting in the chapel at church one night and prison's

not a great a place that you cry.

But I cried for 18 months every day.

They would find me in the chapel, in the balcony, in a fetal position,

not being able to, function.

there were a couple of times that guys had to carry me back to my dorm.

for count, it was bad.

I met a guy though, best friend, good friend of mine today.

And I went up to him, I went up to him after Chapel one

night and I said, can we talk?

And, we talked for a few minutes.

He goes, look, I'm going to give you, I'm going to give you two books.

I want you to read five chapters out of those two books.

if.

After you read those, if anything resonates, come back and see me.

One book was by Henry Cloud.

It was, it was called, How People Think or How People Change or something like that.

and I read that, I, and then the other book, I don't remember what the other

book was, but I read that and went back to him and he goes, You read those?

He goes, nobody I give those to ever reads them.

I read them.

And he and I were inseparable for 18 months.

And he taught me how to let Jesus love me.

And, that's what changed.

That's what changed me.

It changed my heart.

It changed who I am.

so the difference, the contrast between Mike

pre 2013 and then Mike today.

listen, I have no doubt your hard charger, all of that.

But there is a.

There's a softness.

There's an openness.

There's, you and I, when we first clicked on, I think both of us felt

like we were long lost friends.

we could have, hung out together and all of that.

I'm guessing that wasn't quite, I'm sure you were a nice guy.

I'm not saying anything, but is that a contrast from the way you were previous?

what are some other things that are, Differences in, I'll just say your heart.

I don't even know if that's the right term today versus then.

And then I do want to know, I do want you to know we're about to go

into what are the differences in the way you're doing business now versus

the way you were doing business.

that's probably a good segue.

So I have a friend who's been in the apartment business for years.

He actually used to work for me we fired him and he went on to do, over

a hundred thousand units, between then and now, done really well in

the business and we're great friends today, he's my biggest cheerleader

in the world, he says, I'm going to be the Michael Milken of multifamily.

and, but here's what he'll tell you.

He'll tell you that then I was a dick today.

You couldn't find somebody nicer.

So was there a contrast?

Absolutely.

I thought it was about money.

I thought I had the world by the short hairs.

I, and you know what, I didn't care about people.

I really didn't as much as I said, I did.

I didn't, today I care, I hope you don't flat tire in the RV.

I care about you today, right?

Yeah.

the cool thing is let's circle back to our beginning conversations.

I feel like the Lord guided me, we talked about networking.

I'm guessing you networked and went out and met people

like we talked about earlier.

But to me, what just clicked in my head is you're now out ministering to people.

You just have this vehicle of real estate that allows you to interact with

large numbers or number of people, but you're just looking for what you could

do to love on people, to help people minister, maybe say a strong word to

them if they need it, is that correct?

Yeah, a hundred percent.

Yes,

Today it's about how do I help you?

How do I help you grow?

What do you need to know?

sure.

So you've got all these skills in real estate.

You obviously, I think that the Lord did not want to remove you from that because

the doors opened up to go back into it.

How are you approaching that differently today?

Then you were in, let's say pre 08, because I think the years, if

there are anything like mine, the years you had from 08 to 13 were

the dark, the real dark years.

my guts were turning and all of that.

It sounds like yours probably were too.

So let's go the way you were doing business, anything you want to

share pre 08 to the way you're doing business now, what are some

things you're doing different?

if you listened to those five mistakes I made, I grew too fast,

I was over leveraged, undercapitalized, didn't pay attention to the details,

and I didn't listen to people around me, what I'm doing different today is I'm

more conservative in my underwriting, I'm putting more eyeballs on that.

I'm making, more strategic decisions, 2007, I closed 17 deals for 2200 units.

It was stupid, right?

You don't need to do that.

matter of fact, there's been a couple of multifamily people who have just

imploded recently in the changing market because of that effect.

large 3000 property portfolios and, so today I'm much more conservative in

my underwriting and double checking, triple checking, as a carpenter,

they say you measure twice cut once.

Yeah, so that's what I'm doing today.

I'm paying attention to the details.

I'm more involved in the asset management.

I'm not just relying on other people.

and I'm much more transparent.

I tell my story every chance I get, I want people to know who I am, what they're,

who they're getting in partnership with.

And I have no problem today telling somebody I can't do business with you

or don't want to do business with you.

And if somebody says that to me, I get, I'm okay.

where I might not have been before.

Hey, one thing, Mike, you mentioned earlier, you

mentioned this transaction that was in 2008 that, you closed it dry.

It wasn't funded.

You were going through some things and it seems to me like that deal.

You were hammering it through and by God, you were going to make that deal work.

I had some condos we purchased on the water down in Florida

that I always joke with people.

I could tell you when the absolute peak of the real estate market was.

It was when we closed those we shouldn't have, but we did it anyway.

That was the absolute peak of the market in that area.

But it seemed like You were just driving deals through regardless, and now you

are maybe looking for clues or you're maybe going back to quiet time you

mentioned, you're, you missed some quiet time is as far as a personal thing.

What are the things now that lets you know?

To back off or this isn't a deal.

And I know all the analysis.

I'm almost not looking for the practical.

I know the numbers and all that, but there are probably deals today that

come across your desk that in Oh eight before you would have hammered

them through, is that correct?

yeah.

so is there, I guess I'm trying to tie together some practical

and spiritual, and if I'm making things try to match that they shouldn't,

but the Lord told me to pause more.

here's the thing though, we're in an environment right

now where it's hard to get, it can be harder to get deals done and you

gotta work a little bit harder and you have to push a little bit more and

you have to ask some harder questions.

It doesn't mean the deal's bad.

It just means it's a harder environment right now to get anything done in.

It doesn't mean that I shouldn't do that deal, but back then there were

a couple of deals that I should have said, Oh, nevermind, let's not do it.

Because the environment was so good and so robust and the deal

was still really hard to get done.

there's, am I making sense in that?

Yes,

like right now it's harder to get deals done regardless of the deal.

but that doesn't mean it's not a good deal or you shouldn't do it.

Like I'm doing a deal right now that it's just tougher to raise money today.

people are, my credit card, that's up or, we're not ready to invest,

we're not sure what's going to happen.

We're scared.

We're nervous.

Don't be nervous.

this is the time to be in front of the next bull run.

This is the time to position yourself.

We're going to come out of this and we're going to come out of it

pretty quick and you're going to say, darn, I should have gotten

involved, but this will be a retrans, transference of wealth in this country.

or that's a good transition because before we finish

up here, we've got a few minutes left.

I wanted to ask from your unique perspective, what are you seeing related

to the economy and all that's going on?

We, I love talking to people that have lived through a few cycles.

Because I think we have unique perspective both, both macro cycles and micro,

both personally, you've gone through cycles, but also at the big level.

what are you seeing?

What are you saying?

what are you thinking about?

what's going on?

We don't have crystal balls, but we've been through some of this stuff.

So what is, what's Mike looking at right now with all of that?

Yeah.

So I, I see some.

similarities to two thousand seven, eight, nine, right?

But different.

So if you look back in 2007 and eight.

They were financing residential real estate at 125% of value and

you could walk into a bank and get a loan for 80% of that 125% and 20%.

So now you bought that 125% of value house.

For no money down, which at the time was a great thing because they thought

that the appreciation would continue.

we all know what happened, right?

All that bad paper, because it wasn't just good borrowers, but it was

mediocre borrowers that were doing that.

the joke used to be that if you could fog a mirror, you could get a loan, right?

But, and then look what happened.

but today you have a lot of equity in houses and you've

got interest rates at 3%.

People don't have to move.

You don't have the foreclosure problem that we had in 2008, right?

So although the market has slowed down, I think it's going to be a soft landing.

I think the feds are trying to create something difficult,

by raising interest rates.

And even though they're raising interest rates, we're still not

seeing the shortage in the workforce.

employment is good, right?

Still.

So honestly, I don't know why people are just not doing it.

there is a disconnect in the bid ask spread though, from what sellers

want and sellers are still living in 2020 and 2021, you got to get out

of that mode and come into reality.

Pricing has to start to get down where, cap rates are.

Or, for the pricing for cap rates, you can't be, you can't be selling deals

today projected on tomorrow's value and don't be buying them at that either,

make sure you're buying deals on exist.

from a market standpoint, I, I think the feds will raise

the rates a couple more times.

I think they're gonna, continue to try and slow down what they're not able

to haven't been able to slow down.

and I think the market is going to bounce through this.

we're going into an election year and, in the next couple of weeks.

16 months, and, we're going to, we're going to cycle out of it.

And I think we're going to come back bigger and better than

ever, like we typically do.

and you could either take this for, the big picture economy or

even in the multifamily arena, what are some things that concern you?

Maybe about what you're seeing and then what are some things that excite you and I

love to ask questions like that for people that are of the age like you, you're in

your mid 60s now and, I love to ask what excites you, but what also concerns you,

I'm just, I don't think you wake up in the middle of the night and cold sweats

or anything like maybe you did a few years back, but, uh, what, what are you kind of

like going, we need to keep our eye on,

I'm really tired of the, childish behavior in Washington.

And I believe that if the Democrats and the Republicans

can't make decisions together.

Like they used to be able to do that.

There's all this egg throwing at each other.

We don't get, we don't get any better.

so I'm concerned of that, that it's childish behavior.

You're going to have this guy that's going to go run for office.

You're going to have this guy or a woman that's going to go run for

office and they're going to yell at each other and throw things

at each other, rather than say.

Hey, listen, if you, if I do this and you do this and we can work together,

that's the thing that scares me.

I don't know that this, that we can politically ever get back on track.

I don't, that's the biggest thing that concerns me.

And until we really do, I think that we'll grow, but it's just not going

to be like we have in the past.

probably grow in spite of that.

And truthfully, they act like a, and I don't care which side people are on.

It doesn't matter.

Some people act like one side's better than the other.

No, I see a bunch of third graders that can't really make decisions, do things.

And so we entrepreneurs, business people are doing what we're doing

in spite of it, which means we take control as best we can.

So what excites you?

Yeah, what excites me is that I am free.

I'm out.

I have the ability to go and build a future.

it excites me the opportunity out there because as many people,

you know, I mentioned earlier about the rhetoric, right?

People are saying, Oh, don't do anything.

It's a bad time because people have pulled back.

That opens doors for more opportunity.

So I'm seeking and looking for more opportunity and there's great deals

out there, that we have, we've got a couple under contract right now that,

we're marching towards closing on because the opportunity was so good.

Yeah, that's good.

one thing I know you've got is you've got a lot of resources for people.

we had great conversation.

We didn't do a deep dive into all the nuts and bolts of multifamily.

I think that's good.

I love the conversation we have because I think people got to learn about who Mike

is and probably a lot of people going, I want to do some work with that guy.

If someone just wants to connect, get more info on multifamily, I know you've got

podcast or training or possibly even in.

Invest, share now with us where all they can find you, what all you've got

available and we'll include things in the notes, but just go ahead and let people

know where, what all you've got available

So we already know we've established the fact I love the network.

And so I try to put a little bit out there for everybody, wherever you hang out on

social media, whether it's YouTube, go and subscribe to my YouTube channel, whether

it's Facebook, cause you're our age.

Go to my, immunity at multifamily unplug.

I'm on Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, tick tock, I'm always trying to put something

out that will be beneficial, educational, inspiring, something that's going to

help somebody, My goal is it, Tim, if you're having a bad day and you're just

a little down and I could put something out to make you laugh or to make you

inspired, I did my job today, anywhere on social media, you could go to my

website, at Mike Murawski dot com and check out coaching, check out my books,

whatever, you need, send me an email, call me, whatever, if you want to network.

You've got questions.

I'm here.

and podcast, right?

Insider secrets.

Is that right?

Yeah, I actually have two podcasts.

I have a insider secrets and multifamily unplug, which is a video cast.

But Insider Secrets is a podcast on Apple and Spotify.

Yeah, good.

So some people are probably catching this on YouTube.

Some are doing it on podcasts.

They could jump to those there.

And that's for people that really want to do a deeper

dive into multifamily, correct?

Absolutely.

Very good, Mike.

Thanks for that.

And we'll include links for everything.

I recommend people go check all that out.

We are seek go create.

Those are the three names that are in our title.

I'm gonna let you pick one of those words over the other two.

That just means more resonates more with you now at this time,

which word do you choose and why?

I think that, we're all seeking something and, the more

you seek, the more doors that open up and then ultimately, take some action

Excellent.

or go create.

Excellent.

Mike, thanks for this conversation, man.

I have truly loved this conversation for so many reasons and enjoyed

that we're able to get to a deeper level and just connect.

I loved the networking opportunity over the last hour.

If you're listening in.

Go check out podcasts, go check out his resources.

I highly recommend you're probably listening to a podcast.

Now just jump over and listen in.

I think you'll get a little bit more of a Mike Murawski and all

that he's doing and probably learn some things about multifamily.

If you don't already know some things about that, I think that'll be beneficial.

And one other thing too.

We went through a lot of deep conversation here, and I always like to ask, someone

if you've listened to this point, you know, someone that needs to hear some

of the messages that Mike mentioned in his story that may have spent some

time in prison may have gone through some of the ups and downs that he did.

Share this episode with them.

That's one of the, one of the best ways that people get exposed to

messages and podcasts like this.

So please share that.

I appreciate you listening in.

I appreciate Mike taking the time.

We have new episodes every Monday until next time continue being