Dan Tripp
Quick Facts:
- Profit Strategy: Rehab and hold
- Number of Units: 3
- Personal Money Invested: 20%
- Amount Earned: $200 profit per month
- Prior Experience: Politics, advocacy, financial services, etc. with some single family home investing in 2021.
Dan had a problem to be envious of. His business paid him well, and he was frugal. By 2021 he needed a place to invest the money he had accumulated.
Dan ran a thriving political advocacy business. The path to this success started when he was elected to the state legislature at 24. He served in this role for 12 years.
Now he does advocacy projects around the country. He incorporated his business in 2011, and after a couple of great years, he generated cash that needed to be invested.
Dan’s Call to Adventure
But that isn’t the start of his story. His life wasn’t always financially abundant. He was married when he was younger to a woman who fancied herself a high roller. He recounts a story about the end of their relationship. “The last month we were together, she wanted us to look at a million-dollar house. It was a stately house on the top of a mountain. I was doing okay financially, but there’s no way I could have afforded this house. She was doing well financially, so we went to see it. I pooh-poohed the idea of buying a million-dollar home. It made no sense whatsoever financially. She looked down on me because of that. When we separated, I left feeling down on myself. I engaged in a lot of negative self-talk.”
He had some liens and a business loan that went bad. The unpaid debt and his ex-wife’s opinion made him doubt his ability to do “big things.”
He has “been at the bottom.” While he never went through bankruptcy, there was a time when he “didn’t have two nickels to rub together.” His credit score was “in the tank.” Less than ten years ago, he was “at the bottom, looking up.” He shared, “I just had to get up every day and not let the bad stuff drag me down.” The key to this ability was his introspection. He was committed to self-exploration and self-development.
Dan began asking himself, “how can I improve? How can I add value to people? That’s what life is all about. Zig Ziglar said it best, ‘you can get anything you want in life if you help enough people get what they want.'”
So that’s what he did. He worked hard at uncovering what others needed so that he could provide value. He explains, “when you do that, you start snowballing goodwill and fortune.”
That is probably the secret to his business’ success. But first, he had some weeding to do. With his divorce, he was freed of the burden of his ex-wife’s spending habits. Next, he had to clear his mind of the resulting negative self-talk. His blossoming business then took priority. The final move was to get out from under his looming pile of debt.
Perhaps the start of his quest for financial freedom came when he began following the teachings of Dave Ramsey. Getting debt-free became the objective.
Dan’s Quest
Dan and his wife were true teammates, tackling their finances together. “One of the reasons we are in a healthy financial position today is because of decisions we made early on as a young married couple. We worked in unison to be debt free. We were both fans of Dave Ramsey.”
They worked tirelessly to pay off their mortgage and erase all their debt. Dan and his wife were finally 100% debt free. The position they were now in was powerful, but to achieve financial independence, they needed to make a mental adjustment.
Dan’s Mental Shift
He began the process of researching investment vehicles. “Do I put our savings in the stock market? Do I invest in real estate? Should I buy another business? What do I do with this money?”
He suspected inflation was inevitable, so “it became ‘mission critical’ for me to find where to put these funds. I settled on real estate. I did a bit with the stock market, but it felt like Las Vegas. It didn’t seem wise to bet on my family’s future.”
He and his wife decided to go the real estate route. His dad and brother were realtors, but Dan had never been interested in real estate.
“When I decided to invest in real estate,” he explains, “one of my mentors suggested I buy ten books on the topic. He advised me to immerse myself in real estate before I purchased my first property.” In Dan’s research, he learned to look for a single-family residence in a nice neighborhood. “Not the best house on the block, but not the worst.”
His goal was to build passive income — the specific objective was $20,000 per month. He bought a couple of single-family homes. “The cash flow was great. They were good properties that didn’t need a lot of repairs.” But he’s an intelligent man and did the math. After the first two investments, he realized, “this is going to take me 20 years to scale this process.”
He shared the predicament with his brother, a Lance Edwards graduate. His brother advised him to read Lance’s book “Big Money in Small Apartments.” The name captured him.
When he read it, “the lights went off.” He realized this would be how he would scale. He loves Lance’s quote, “single families are ‘feel estate,’ not real estate.”
He quickly learned that apartments are all about numbers and scalability. He has an MBA, so that made sense to him. He decided to start Lance’s program.
His lessons continued.
After focusing for years on paying off debt and living frugally, he and his wife faced the challenge of understanding leverage and the risks and rewards. They wanted to remain free of consumer debt but quickly learned the value of leveraging their assets. He clarified, “we realized that if we didn’t leverage, we’d have very little bandwidth.”
Dan’s Why
Lance’s teachings advocate creating a vision board and uncovering your “why.” Dan emotionally shares what he discovered while creating his board. “I’ve got two young children, and COVID amplified my need to be self-sufficient. It taught me that the government will not always be able to come in and solve my problems.” He continued, “I’m a country boy. I grew up on a farm and now live in the city. My ‘why’ is to get back to my roots.”
He says it’s become a game for him of how frugally he can live so that he can “spin off more cash to buy more properties. The goal is always to increase the passive income.” His vision board has him achieving the goal of $20k/month of passive income within the next 3 years. He’s on track to do that.
The Results
Following Lance’s training, things happened pretty quickly. It only took four and a half months from starting Lance’s program to his first multi-family closing.
Now he has an incredible pace going. He writes offers often and closes deals frequently. He’s pursued some “big ones” that haven’t happened yet, but he is confident they will.
The Vision Develops
Dan was taught by his parents, “if you do something, go all out and do it well.” He feels that real estate is a “fun, fun thing to do. There are days I wish I could just do this full-time.”
Dan is familiar with Operation True Potential — Lance’s movement to enhance communities by improving small apartment buildings. Dan agrees that this mission is essential. “What’s your purpose for being in real estate? I’ve got personal reasons that we’ve talked about. But, I am on the county commission here in Greenville, South Carolina. We hear a lot about the need for affordable housing. A segment of society can’t afford houses at the prices they’re going for today.” Operation True Potential resonates with Dan. He wants to be part of the solution.
His Mindset
Dan has always been strong-willed and capable of overcoming obstacles. But he attributes Lance’s mindset training as a part of what has sped up and increased his success — in all areas of his life.
“Something about Lance’s program helped supercharge my mindset.” He describes his morning routine. “I’m in the office most mornings at 4:30 a.m. I go through my vision board and do all the exercises that Lance taught us to do. This mental training has spilled over into other areas of my life.”
His Advice
“Small apartment investing is easy if you put your mind to it.” He recounts a story about his early days with Lance’s program. He talks about how he went through the “assignments” before attending the Bootcamp. He religiously used Lance’s scripts to talk to brokers. He noticed opportunity flow sped up because the brokers would send him listings — and pocket listings, too. He realized Lance’s process works exceptionally well. “I’ve learned that anything is possible if you jump in with both feet with a good, positive attitude.”
He quotes Winston Churchill about “never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever giving up.” He advises, “You’ve got to take the good with the bad. Life will throw you curveballs, but you must keep going.”
He expands on the need for a process that anchors you to a positive mindset to ensure you keep going. He’s developed a robust daily routine. “I do affirmations. I’ve got pictures of my family. Every morning, I look at these pictures, which make me smile. I read my affirmations and my statement. When you do it repetitively every day, it changes your mindset and anchors you to the affirmations you’re talking about or the concepts you’re thinking about. Five or six times a week, I’m in my office going through my affirmations and photos and thinking about my “why.” That process anchors me through the good and the bad.”
He continues, “when I read my statement every day, it feels like it has already happened. I live my future every day. I go online and look for that perfect piece of land I will buy. In my mind, it’s already happened.” He sees himself sitting on “150 acres with my kids. I have a tractor, so we can plant food, and we’ve got a house we built. The kids are running around on ATVs and fishing at the pond. It’s an idyllic life where time is slowed down.”
His morning routine — the affirmations, visualizations, and connection to his “why” — has “supercharged” his mindset. “I see the benefits of that in my real estate business. I see the benefits in my home. I see the benefits in my advocacy business. A positive mindset changes your outlook on life. That’s been a huge benefit to doing this.”
Dan’s Final Advice
“You have to look for your North Star. You have to think big and dream big. Realize that if you just stick with it and work hard, you will get much further than you ever thought possible. Take action. Be bold. Develop a positive mindset. Every day you need to work proactively on ensuring your attitude is helping you, not hindering you. And then you just never, ever, ever, ever, ever give up.”
CREATE. A. MINDSET. ROUTINE. AND. NEVER. EVER. GIVE. UP.