55: How we can Succeed in Business and at Home: Work-Life Balance as Entrepreneurs
Behind Their Success: Ep 55
Jim: [00:00:00] You're going to be successful in business.
You want to be successful at home. At least that's what we believe. And that's not always the case. I saw some sad situations with mentors of mine with large balance sheets and completely dysfunctional, non existent family lives. And that scared me
Paden: Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Behind Their Success podcast. I am Paden Squires, the host. And today we have on Jim Sheils. He is a real estate expert with extensive knowledge in the build to rent niche. He's a partner at Impression Homes, a company that specializes in building rental portfolios in Florida's high growth markets for individual investors and institutional buyers.
In addition, Jim is the co owner of 18 Summers. Providing family education services to entrepreneurs and professionals seeking to strengthen their family relationships while at the same time succeeding in business. Jim, good morning. Welcome on the show. Payton. Thanks for having me. Good to be here. Yeah, absolutely.
Jim.
Jim: So tell me, uh, about the 18 summer stuff though.
Paden: You know, really like what's kind of intrigued me reading about your [00:01:00] background a little bit is, it's not just all business, right? Um, it's, it's, uh, you got an emphasis on family and living a kind of a more holistic life, right? Not just, not just about money. So tell us, tell us a little bit about what you're doing there.
Jim: Yeah, we're, um, my wife and I never expected to be involved in that, but we've really enjoyed it. We, we ended up writing a book kind of begrudgingly, um, you know, sharing a little bit of our family story and some things that worked for us to make sure when you're building, You're going to be successful in business.
You want to be successful at home. At least that's what we believe. And that's not always the case. I saw some sad situations with mentors of mine with large balance sheets and completely dysfunctional, non existent family lives. And that scared me. Uh, and so we wrote a book, um, About 10 years ago, it's now on its third edition and, uh, it's become a Wall Street Journal bestselling book.
And I always joke, I don't think it's because our writing is that spectacular. I think it's the message that people resonate with. And there's a lot of successful real estate investors, entrepreneurs out there that this is an [00:02:00] area that we don't get a lot of teaching in. And, uh, you know, there's lots of ways.
How do we acquire the next deal? How do we market better? How do we invest? But how do you actually strengthen your family life for an unconventional lifestyle like an entrepreneur, like a real estate investor? Because it can overtake you. And, uh, and that's kind of our focus. And we've been able to work with a few hundred thousand families now, try to set some simple principles and rhythms into their family life that.
We'll get them all the way there, but it can keep them at least 80 percent together, which is yeah.
Paden: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. I, I, I saw recently, I can't, you know, I'm pushing the stat. I don't remember exactly what the stat was, but it was, uh, it was like divorce rates among entrepreneurs and how that is just so much more sky high than like even just, you know, you know, divorce rates are high enough regardless, but even it's even higher in the entrepreneur
Jim: type world.
And it doesn't surprise me. It doesn't surprise me. And I would even push to the real estate entrepreneurs. Um, um, There's some badge of honor people put on and say I'm available at all [00:03:00] times and I can close at 1am on Friday night. And I'm going,
Paden: Ooh,
Jim: you know, that's, that's going to be costly elsewhere. So, yeah, but especially real estate investors, sometimes it's hard for them to turn off.
Paden: Yeah, like real estate investors, of course, of course, and that's just kind of your, typical, entrepreneur kind of high driving personality. Just, just really in general. But yeah, I mean, like you spend so much of your working day, like building your baby and taking care of your baby, like your business, right?
And it is so hard to, uh, it's like, I heard somebody say it this way. It was like, you know, uh, A lot of that problem comes from because the business becomes like the new mistress, the new distraction. and that's, you know, I thought that analogy was pretty spot on.
Jim: Yeah. Yeah. Get you in trouble. That's for sure.
You know, it's, and that's our whole message. How can we succeed in business, but succeed at home? Like I, I'm the last person to take away ambition, uh, but I also have seen some really sad cases where. People delegate themselves completely out of family [00:04:00] life or they listen to horrible advice that was out there when I was, half my age now in my early twenties and you know, the advice was put your head down for the next 5 to 10 years.
Your family will understand. I think that's horrific advice. Horrific, especially where a friend of mine, David Bach, he's a big financial author. He always said to me, Jim, the years are not all created equal. And that always stuck with me because You know, the time you have with your eight year old is very different than the time you have with your 28.
And so that's why we called it 18 summers. The average person will spend about 85 percent of the quality time they ever have with their children by the end of the 18th summer. And when you start to think of that, man, you better do those. Our first 18, right. To try to get more time with them, because I think a lot of people, if they're intentional, they can get way more time with their, their kids after the 18th summer.
But if you don't do the 1st 18 right, that's where I see some really sad cases. That's where kids just, hey, I don't really know you. You're kind of a stranger. You weren't around. And when you were around, you [00:05:00] were absent minded. You were a little bit on your
Paden: phone,
Jim: Yeah, it's just it's something.
The good news is it doesn't have to be that way. It can be avoided. Yeah, you're terrifying me. It's the people that and I've just did a podcast last night with a Large real estate podcast and he kept saying to me. Well, I'm always asking myself. Am I doing enough? Am I doing this? And I said, you're keeping yourself in check.
Then it's the people who say to me, no, I don't need to go over that. I got that down. I can't tell you how many times paid in a big event or I've been brought into company to consult. There's someone on the leadership team that does that. And it kind of concerns me. You know, I, I don't, I don't try to prejudge, but I'm like, Ooh, When you say that with such confidence and such shutdown, normally it's because you don't want to go there or they're, they're completely, and sometimes they do look, sometimes they do, but the majority of times they don't want to go there or they're so blinded.
to everything we just [00:06:00] named always on their phone, never really home when they're there. They're not there being a little bit, you know, testy and impatient and, stomping over them with a with a call right when they're in the middle of a conversation with their family, they don't even realize it and not realizing that's dangerous.
So kudos to you when you're saying you're scaring me. I scare myself on every interview I do because I have five kids and I still am concerned. How am I going to mess him up today? Yeah. Keeping yourself accountable and in check and in question yourself is one of the healthiest things I think you can continue.
Paden: Yeah. And you know, I've, heard it said this way. It's like, if, if you're a person that's worried about something like, you know, worried about being an involved father or whatever, you're probably a person that doesn't need to worry. But if you're a person that doesn't worry, you're probably the exact
Jim: person that needs to be worried about it.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I, I've said the same thing around addiction and alcoholism. Where I've said I remember growing up with some wild people and there were ones that were kind of keeping themselves in check and I don't know if I want to do this and I don't want to have a problem. Oh, you're fine. [00:07:00] I got no problem.
And it's, it's that lack of self reflection can be very dangerous. And there's a balance here. I'm not saying don't beat yourself up constantly. That's what this is about. This is just a little bit of self accountability, some soft question of yourself, but, to say now I'm complete. Anytime I say I'm completely fine in that area.
I catch myself and go, Oh, wait a minute. Is there something here that I need to look at?
Paden: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's kind of a pretty arrogant statement, right? We all, we all got, you know, gains to make and really every year. So, you know, Jim, you've done a lot of cool stuff. You've grown, you know, grown big, big real estate portfolios, done, done a lot of cool stuff, written some great books.
Like if you had to pick like one skill of yours that, uh, you would credit as that's kind of led to your success. What would that be?
Jim: I'd say it's the ability to build and nurture long term relationships. Um, that, that would be one of the more, um, blanketed skills that I've used [00:08:00] in whether I'm family education or real estate investing. in real estate, I think the thing that's gotten me good traction is getting clear on one sentence at a time.
A mentor of mine taught me that years ago, you know, the most successful real estate investors. Do not need three paragraphs to explain what they do in real estate investing. They in one sentence. and that was my whole separation from near poverty to wealth was what started me as I learned how to find a fixer upper.
fix it up and then either rent it or sell it. That's it. That's it. I mean, there's no way. Oh, well, I do some of this and some land development. And then I also have done a little bit of this and I've done some trailers and then I looked in the multi anytime someone says that to me, they could be very successful.
Um, I couldn't be that way because I'm already scattered enough, uh, but just that's what I think is separated. Having a very clear one sentence in my real estate [00:09:00] investing, and I continue to do, and that's continued to evolve. I don't find fixer uppers now. I build new construction properties, for longterm wealth for myself and investors.
That's my, that's my whole moment right there. and so anyway, if people can get clear on one sentence. Uh, that's called the, the, the mastery instead of jack of all trades.
Paden: Yeah, that's, that's, that's a lot of what we talk about here and a lot of different intro entrepreneurs I've talked to is just focus and clarity, right?
Like, you know, you, you say, you know, maybe that person's being successful doing flips and. And buying trailer parks or, you know, or in long term storage or, you know, it's doing everything in real estate, right? I would venture to guess they're probably not successful But you know, I mean very few people are able to do all those different different things But like it really is that the massively successful people are the ones that got really like one thing And they're really good at pressing that one button over and over and over and just printing money,
Jim: right?
That's it That's it. I was [00:10:00] told making money should be boring. How dare you say that? But then you have time to go jump out of an airplane, go surfing, go, you know, mountain climbing, have that be your adventure, your excitement. The entrepreneur has this confusion. Like it has to be scary and ups and downs and sideways is in, well, then you're, you're burnt out for everything else.
You know, if making money becomes boring. Well, then you can do your, your artwork and your adventure and your thrills elsewhere. and that's something very hard for a lot of entrepreneurs to grasp, including me. I thought I was doing some, Oh God, it's gotten to the point of boring.
And then we throw a hand grenade and we blow it up. And so, you know, boring's a good thing. Boring's a good thing, you know, and then you can, you have other opportunities for other avenues of your life to really blossom.
Paden: Yeah. You know, I think as entrepreneurs, we are really good at, yeah. Like you said, throwing that hand grenade, like, Hey, everything is.
Going to, well,
Jim: I'm actually feeling relaxed. This is [00:11:00] terrible.
Paden: Yeah. That makes me uncomfortable. I have to be on edge. I think that the general skill of entrepreneurship is like just taking chaos and trying to create some order out, right. Like, and if you can get that order and that machine, like, this business that runs as a machine that may, you know, doesn't need you whatsoever, that, um, That's the ultimate, like the ultimate goal of an entrepreneur, right?
Is to create that order. but at the same time we start to create a little order and terrible and just blow it up again. Yep, absolutely. We do.
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Paden: So do you, you know, um, along your way, you've, like I said, you've done a lot of things. what do you think is the best decision you've made on?
Jim: Best decision I've made is to focus on, on one skill set on one type of real estate investing on one skill set I should be handling. And the other things I should be delegating, you know, again, I would try to do all things and I'm terrible at certain things. I mean mm-hmm
For example, oh, this, I've rehabbed over a [00:13:00] thousand houses. I'm horrible at rehabbing myself. Horrible at it. Like I'm not very mechanical, like, I mean, it's a joke, like you don't want me fixing it. It's, uh, it wouldn't want me either. . Yeah. So you've done all these rehabs. I said, well, I understand. The overall flow of a rehab, the piece is bringing in the right people, but to actually do the work to actually repipe a house or, or put in new duct work or lay a foundation, we'd be in a lot of trouble.
That'd be an ugly house if I'm doing it, but I just learned. How it worked and how to oversee it. And, and I focused on one type of real estate. Uh, that was, that was key.
Paden: Yeah. And, and that focus, it has so many different synergies when you really start to focus in on like a, like a niche or a specific area.
One. You become like known as that guy, the go to guy. This is the guy that builds, you know, new rentals, right? and two, it allows you to become extremely efficient at it. Because like I said, you're doing the exact same thing on repeat. It's just rinse and [00:14:00] repeat, rinse and repeat. And then, and if you have a model like that, you can also train people.
Like it doesn't need you to come in and do your magic owner thing. You can train people because it's the same dang thing over And over and over again. And that where you build that machine that allows you to really step out and, you know, become an owner
Jim: and really not be an operator anymore. Absolutely.
Absolutely. It's like, why would you want to keep going back to freshman year of high school instead of, you know, for me, senior year of high school is a lot easier than freshman year of high school. Why? Because you get experience, you get in getting used to things and understanding things and, and, uh, if you're always jumping from one thing to the other, like you said, Peyton, first of all, people won't know where to find you.
If you don't really stake your, your flag somewhere, I do new construction turnkey rentals or oh, you're the family guy that works with entrepreneur families. It's, it's very, like you said, directional, but if you're doing 17 different things, does anyone ever know how to refer you to someone? They can't even pinpoint where you're at.
Uh, and if you're always [00:15:00] going from this to the next to 17 other things, you'll always be a freshman. You'll never get on that inside track, that senior level where it's, you know, easier and some reason that scares people used to, for me, like, Oh man, I have to be, man, it's nice to look at it and go, Oh yeah.
Okay. That's it. I would build that one. Yep. There's a margin. Okay. Yeah. And see, I'm okay. It's boring, baby. Yeah. Yes. I've got five kids. I've got plenty of excitement otherwise.
Paden: you know, I don't think I told you that, but you know, I am, I have three young kids, you know, I've got an eight.
Eight year old girl, seven year old girl, five year old boys. So, um, yeah, it's constantly balancing the chaos of work and, you know, yes, I'm your classic person, good at creating chaos and, feeling like, Hey, I have to be busy or something's wrong. so, you know, you're, you're speaking my language and, and I've, done a lot of work of just trying to become more and more aware of just all of that.
Jim: Yeah. Well, progress isn't, is. What's important, not perfection. One morning I always give to everyone, people say, what's like [00:16:00] one thing that you always try to impart to people if they ask on family life? And I always say, don't try to, fit you and your family into that horrible saying of the perfect family.
Whew, that just puts a ton of pressure on people. Yourself, your spouse, your kids. And it's just not realistic. And what I've learned is family life is not about perfection. It's about bridging imperfections and just most of the time we have together, because that can be pretty fleeting. And when you take that pressure of perfection on yourself as perfect father, the perfect family, you know, strive for excellence, but perfection, man, that's family life is messy.
You can't, you know, that's like, you know, some mornings you're brushing your teeth with the Oreos or it feels like it was young, right. And so anyway, just. What's possible is better than, you know, trying to be perfect.
Paden: Yeah. And it's, it's just linking, your satisfaction, I guess, in that area to like progress or, the daily activities of getting better and [00:17:00] not necessarily the outcomes, which is, which is, you know, really hard for everybody to do, but like focusing on always focusing on the process and not, you know, not, not, yeah, exactly. So on the flip side of this, Jim, you know, you've made a lot of good decisions.
What's, uh, what's, uh, one big mistake
Jim: that, uh, we could learn from, uh, doing too many real estate deals. So that's, that's where you get all these, uh, high fives and. wow is when, oh, you've done how many houses and that. And I said, yeah, but if I could go back, I would do less deals of better quality.
And now in my portfolio, I'll get into the a hundred, a hundred property club. Well, I've more than doubled that. And. Didn't stop to think are these properties putting money in my pocket or taking it out. Are they? Yes, they're
Paden: just a prime thing to hit the hundred properties or what, you know,
Jim: and so, it's the quality of the property And so I would have done less deals and do less deals of better quality [00:18:00] with less leverage.
That's it That's my whole thing would have given me a little more holding power or less. Oh, well, I'm doing this deal and rushing to these two. Oh, those went bad. So these two have to pay for that deal. Yeah, you got pushing money around all over the place. Yeah, it's so trying to do too many deals.
without being a deal junkie. You know what I mean? It's almost like being a deal junkie. If I do more, it's better. That's just not true. do less of better quality with less leverage. That's what I encourage people, you know, because cycles come and that's yeah, wait, I had a ton of properties, but I had very little Equity in each one and they were in so so neighborhoods in so so condition, worse deferred maintenance than I realized, which brought over lots more tenant turnover and tenant issues and not the best tenants.
And now it's like I own way less of way higher quality with way less leverage. it takes away less work. I'm sure you know what I'm just managing. Absolutely. Absolutely. And if, if in real estate comes in cycles, I always tell people that [00:19:00] if you don't think there's going to be, there's always cycles.
There always has been. And so if you have holding power through those, well, then you can ride through them, you know, very comfortably and also with new opportunities. If you're over leveraged going into these. You're going to be sweating and really scratching to just stay alive through that opportunity times, you know,
Paden: the best position is to be, is to be sitting there with a bunch of dry powder when everything's, you know, blowing up, right.
But yeah, you're right. The people that are running over leveraged and, you know, running over leveraged in the good times, right. Like at best, if they're going to survive it. The worst thing is though. You're right. They're going to not be able to execute on opportunities that are limited.
Jim: Yeah, because you got to, you got to survive.
You can't be in, thriving, creative mode when you're, when you're scratching to survive and believe me, I've been there. A lot of people
Paden: there in 08, 09.
Jim: Oh yeah. No, I was very lucky. I mean, we scraped the grounds of bankruptcy, but we held, we protected our [00:20:00] investors. We came through and a lot of people fell and, and for us, we said, if we just, if we can hold our feet, so many other people are going to fall, we'll be able to just power through.
And, uh, and we did, that was a Peter Lynch saying sometimes the best time to invest is when there's blood on the street and if I had stopped, we were dead. And that's where, maybe that's somewhere my deal junkie came. Deal junkie got me in trouble, but deal junkie got me out of it. And now I'm like, now I'm going to do less and better.
Paden: Well, not what you learned the lesson is like, okay, I've been through that. I don't want to do it. You don't need to, So, Jim, looking back, looking back to, I don't know, so, you know, early, Jim, right? Early in his, real estate career, if you can give him one piece of advice other than kind of maybe some of this other advice you've given what would it be?
Jim: don't focus. Focus on one area and one type of property and when it comes to holding properties, focus on a little higher end. That's what I would do. when I first started [00:21:00] investing in California, I was living in California when I first started and bought my first rental properties, I was trying to look at all different areas in California, driving over and it's, you know, like we talked about, do you want to be the senior or the freshman.
Trying too many markets. It doesn't matter if you buy one house in an area or a hundred, you're going to need a team there, a support group. So I like to more focus on, you know, one area, get that going. Then if you decide to go another great, but you'd be surprised how hard it is to really dial into one area really well.
So, and I think I would have saved some, some real, you know, blood, sweat and tears just focusing on one market. There and going deep into that.
Paden: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's, it's always advice and the amazing thing. So like I'm in, you know, I'm in a mastermind group with, you know, 30, 40 around the, around the country.
And every month we do a call and somebody's on like the hot seat, just kind of telling them, telling them what's going on in their world and business and whatnot. And almost every single time the advice [00:22:00] given and taken away from that person is. I need to get more clear on what I want and I need to get more focused and that's like every single time, like without fail, everybody's like, yeah, that's, I just got to get more focused.
I don't know what I'm doing, you know, and that's it. And that, you know, kind of the advice you give there, it's just always, always zero constantly letting go of things that you shouldn't be doing and getting more focused.
Jim: That's great. And I, and to piggyback on that, that advice to that young person was you are really crappy at certain things and that's okay.
Stop trying to be one of my best business coaches. Dan Sullivan said, if you focus on strengthening your weaknesses, you're going to have stronger weaknesses. That's not, you know, the most successful entrepreneur, you know, Gary Keller, the one thing that's a great book for all of course, you know, delegate the rest, focus on your top what you can do to move the needle, what your unique abilities are that bring the most to the team and delegate the rest without guilt or shaming yourself.
that was a [00:23:00] huge lesson that took time or I wish. That young, you know, starting out real estate investor of 26 years ago. I could tell him, Hey, delegate the rest, focus on your top talents.
Paden: Yeah, that's great advice to and like, I think the 1st step in that is you need to become as self aware as possible, right?
Like, you need to know what those are. And that comes through just study and lots of great tools out there. Personality tests, whatnot, like, just understanding what your natural strengths are, you know, like everybody. A lot of our brains are, you know, and our natural skills are really set, you know, probably in the first five, eight years, right, of our life.
And it's not like you can't do things, but, you know, we have these certain, uh, your brain's really formed and you have these certain natural abilities, right? You're generally better at some things or the other, and you need to understand that. Like, I I know I have a high social ability. I have a pretty high attention to detail.
I'm pretty good at being like in public accounting and financial advising because I have the two main skills. High attention to detail. I'm really good with people. the rest of the [00:24:00] stuff I need to delegate your bread up, right? Like my, my number one thing I should be doing is just talking to people, talking to clients.
Like that is. If I could do one thing, that's all I should ever be doing is just in front of people. but I hold on to stuff. I hold on to work. I feel like, oh, I got to do this and that kind of stuff. And it's, it's, it's a constant battle of let go.
Jim: There's going to be a few things you're like, no one can do it better than me.
And you're probably right. And that's okay. It doesn't need to be done. As good as you do it to get to the next level or to keep things going in a positive way. But one thing that's also reassuring, and also kind of a kick to the rear for everybody is there's been plenty of times like, oh, no one can do this better than me.
I was dead wrong. There were people that did it way better than me. And I'm like, oh man, I was my own. You know, cog in the wheel, like get out of the way. So,
Paden: yeah, yeah.
Jim: And
Paden: that's, that's the same thing. You know, people on my team, they're, they're, you know, we do personality tests and stuff. So we're all really like our strengths are, [00:25:00] you know, just people on my team that have much higher attention to detail.
And like, you know, I have clients are like, Hey, I want you to do this work for him. Like, no, you don't, you want him to do like, like I can communicate it and do other stuff. But like. Honestly, they probably do better work than I do. And you want me to get
Jim: out of the way, I promise. Perhaps, and you want people smarter and better than you in certain things around you.
If you're always trying to find people you think are just below your capabilities or your intelligence in an area, whoo, that is the kiss of death to a successful organization. the bottleneck then because everything's going to go through you. Yeah. And you're, you're also holding down, you know, excellence and growth and progress and best results for, for everyone on the team and your clients.
And so you got to get rid of it. And that was something I had to, again, years ago. Oh, gosh, this person's smart and he does. That's a good thing. That means you're doing a good job recruiting. I mean, the best in any sport can't outplay that [00:26:00] best player they're recruiting, but they know how to inspire and lead the team.
Paden: Yeah, I mean, I would think of entrepreneurs would, would, um, See that maybe as like more of like you're a coach of it, a team and you're like recruiting in players. Like, of course you want the top players, right? Like, you know, they're going to make your job easy. They're going to make you look smart and, you know, way smarter than you are.
Right. And, um, so like it's, not letting your ego get in the way, you know, that's a lot of things, especially with entrepreneurs is the ego. I agree. I agree. Well, Jim, it's been a great conversation, man. what's the best way people connect with you or get to know more about you or just kind of, yeah, kind of what you got going on.
Jim: No, a great starting point is called JJ playbook. And that is me and my wife's kind of page that breaks into our family principles and our real estate journey. A lot of our clients are on there. You can learn about our building company that builds new construction properties for investors. Uh, but jjplaybook.
com, you get a free download of our bestselling book and also some more [00:27:00] info that I think will support whether it's your family journey or real estate journey or both. That's awesome, Jim.
Paden: Anything else you want to leave for the listeners before we sign off?
Jim: No, appreciate you having me. Um, great conversation.
And again, tell people don't beat yourself up, you know, just cause something goes wrong. Doesn't mean it's the end. Just pick yourself up, dust yourself off and keep moving forward. Whether that's business family or
Paden: that's right, guys. Yep. Just take that next step forward.
All right.
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