Gary Boomershine, who founded REIvault and RealEstateInvestor.com, spoke with Joe Fairless about some of the most valuable insights he has learned throughout his lengthy career. He initially founded RealEstateInvestor.com in 2005 out of necessity to get a leg up in a competitive marketplace. At that time, Gary had spent the last few decades working in IT sales in Silicon Valley, and he had just recently returned to real estate investing.
Today, he is active in buying and selling, flipping, and private lending. Residential homes are his bread and butter, but he has also dabbled in multifamily and other property types. While he was investing in real estate as a full-time job, he launched REIvault as a side project. REIvault is a cold-calling and lead generation service provider. His 250 investor clients compete directly with Offerpad and Opendoor.
Gary is currently active with nine masterminds. While he contributes up to $50,000 per year to invest in each mastermind, he professes that this is money well spent. The investment enables him to connect directly with smart, talented, and like-minded individuals who are a source of coaching and inspiration. In addition to talking business with his group members, he gets real-life advice on finding a work-life balance.
While real estate investing with a buy-hold strategy is passive, the process of wholesaling and rehabbing properties constitutes a true business with long hours. By connecting with others who are in a similar place in their lives and in their business activities, he is able to find ways to balance and optimize his time.
When Gary Boomershine talks in detail about time management, he describes the 5/10/3 approach to scheduling his day. He wakes up at 5 a.m. every day, and the first five hours of his day are purely devoted to personal time.
Two hours of that time are allocated toward health and fitness with a cardio-based workout. He then takes approximately 90 minutes to journal. This enables him to improve his mental focus on the things that are most important for the day. He specifically talks about how important it is to define goals and to create a plan for achieving them, and this is part of the value he gets out of journaling.
The other 90 minutes of his daily personal time is allocated for various other personal tasks, such as spending time with his wife, doing chores, reading the Bible, and more. At 10 a.m., he focuses on work activities. Starting at 3 p.m., his attention turns to one thing that will drive his business forward.
Gary adopted the 5/10/3 practice from a professional coach who reminded him that we all have the same 24 hours to spend each day. Optimizing that time with the 5/10/3 approach has been effective for Gary to date because it enables him to achieve his goals and to find balance.
Gary emphasized the importance of journaling in his daily life. He prefers to write his thoughts down with pen and paper rather than on the computer. Generally, he focuses on what he wants to achieve and how he wants to do it.
Gary rarely revisits his journals. Instead, they provide him with a way to organize his thoughts and to identify the things that he wants to intentionally focus on. More than that, journaling gives him mental clarity so that he can be a great leader in his family and in business. It also enables him to properly leverage the talents of others so that he can focus on activities of more value each day.
He also talks about the difference that the traction principle has made with his business operations in a competitive marketplace. RealEstateInvestor.com has 90 employees who all work remotely. He pulls them all together quarterly for a face-to-face meeting. That brings them all up to speed and gives them focus for the next quarter. He is moving toward using this principle more consistently with REIvault as well.
Gary Boomershine establishes three things each day that will receive his full attention. On the specific day that he spoke with Joe Fairless, he discussed structuring a creative deal involving an office building with a gym.
He also recorded a video with one of his mastermind group members, Chris Arnold from Multipliers. The video delves into the importance of working old leads regardless of how poor they initially seemed. More specifically, because the market has tightened up, cold callers and direct marketers increasingly need to fine-tune their sales skills in order to be effective in their positions. The video he created provides those marketers and sales professionals with a powerful tool to use in today’s competitive marketplace.
The third thing that Gary focused on that day was planning a family trip to Montana over Labor Day.
When Gary talks about his best advice for others, he refers to insight from two investment gurus. First, he talks about Robert Kiyosaki’s definition of wealth. According to this definition, wealth is not a fixed dollar amount. Instead, it is achieved when your passive income surpasses your living expenses and enables you to spend your days how you want to spend them.
Second, he emphasizes the value of Warren Buffett’s KISS principle. This principle, which is also referred to as “Keep It Simple, Stupid,” reminds us to focus on the big objectives and not to get caught up in the fine nuances when working in a competitive marketplace.
From his own life, Gary Boomershine has a few other words of wisdom to share. He has learned the hard way to carefully vet potential partners before teaming up with them. More than that, he stresses the importance of giving back in a meaningful way and leading an intentional life that is rooted deeply in your personal goals.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this blog post are provided for informational purposes only, and should not be construed as an offer to buy or sell any securities or to make or consider any investment or course of action.