Wealth Building with Ken Van Liew

Come on one level, this is George G. And the time is right welcome today’s guest strong and powerful Ken van Lew. Ken, are you ready to do this?

Unknown Speaker 0:18
Yes, Sir George, good morning, Top of the morning here.

george grombacher 0:21
Good morning, excited to have you on. Ken is the founder and CEO of global real estate strategies. He’s the chairman of advanced capital funding, and he is the best selling author of the modern wealth building formula, the first and only God that you’ll need to build wealth through real estate investing. Kent, tell us a little about your personal life’s more about your work and why you do what you do. Yes, sir.

Unknown Speaker 0:45
You know, I’d like to start out with a mantra that I put together. Years ago when I was at a personal development event with Tony Robbins, and I still say it today, you know, and it’s it really is my purpose in life. And I am integrity and honest and loving leader with magical empowering skills to create endless opportunities and to meet and to bring everybody that I meet to their greatness and leave them with power, freedom, self expression, peace of mind. And I wake up every day, and I say that, and I believe honestly, that if I live that, everybody around me is going to be pretty darn happy. And they’re going to complete what they want in life. And I follow those principles. And, you know, I was a slow starter wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but kept falling on my mentors, and, you know, the suggestions that people made, and, you know, it finally rubbed off. And I’ve been very, very fortunate, you know, I’m with the same woman for 39 years that I met in calculus two, when I was taking it for the third time. But, you know, I then applied some of my gridiron principles, you know, I was an all State football player, and we, we turn that all around, but we, you know, created a wonderful family three, unbelievable children. My son is serving our country as a US intelligence Marine officer, two tours under his belt, Eagle Scout, his twin sister graduated number one in her class and culinary nutrition, that’s how come I’m in such good shape. And, you know, she married a doctor, and just doing fabulous, and my youngest is horseback rider, so just wonderful family. And that’s what life’s all about. And, you know, like, I actually have an empty nest. So we, you know, we talked about hobbies and, and having free time, so, you know, I get to pay it forward and, and just enjoy life every day, you know, wake up and pinch myself and get to talk to people like you and spread the word on what’s happening, and how to create an extraordinary life. And, you know, one of the analogies that I did, unfortunately, from building skyscrapers is, you know, how building a skyscraper is analogous to building an extraordinary life. And, you know, and that’s what we’re here today to help people build an extraordinary life.

george grombacher 2:54
Nice, I appreciate you sharing that. Congratulations on 39 years of marriage, and three kids who are who are off in the world doing amazing things. Yeah, yeah. I love it. George, I

Unknown Speaker 3:05
appreciate that.

george grombacher 3:06
So I saw in your background, that you are a civil engineer, and I saw that you were in the building industry. So I’m very glad that you talked about how building a skyscraper is analogous to building a successful life. So I’d like to dig into that.

Unknown Speaker 3:23
Yeah, you know, it’s, it’s funny, you know, and I’ll just tell you how I feel about it. Because, you know, I really had the shared experience of building like, 10 skyscrapers and, and it’s, at first, it’s not easy, and it became subconsciously conscious for me, you know, where I do in my sleep. And, you know, we joke around in New York City, when you start a skyscraper, you see this green fence for about six months, you know, and you walk by it every day, but you really don’t see anything. And the reason why it’s because we’re building this extraordinary foundation down to rock in some instances, we would dig down 30 feet, to get to the support that I feel at a foundation that someone needs to build a life. That’s like a skyscraper. So you know, it takes time and that’s why, you know, it takes six months, maybe even six years in life for 10 years to build or 20 years to build that strong foundation. And then you know, all of a sudden, one day you see the first floor and then every four days I was in the concrete business for a short time, you see a floor pop up, and within you know, 20 days you have 20 floor, you know, within you know, 80 days you have 20 floors. Next thing you know you’re at 40 floors and, and it’s in reinforced concrete and in life, you need to build that backbone, right and that’s that reinforced concrete structure. And right away is that structure is going up around the fourth or fifth floor. It will have panels coming in from Canada. Why? Because you need that tough skin and you start to put the skin on the building as you go up. And the windows because you’re batten down the hatches because life gets tough. You got to weather the storm. So the first thing in a high rise is you got to get weather tight. Get Skinner and get the windows and get the roof on because then the excitement is starts right. So in life, life is like an elevator goes up and down right and the elevator is the first thing we want to get install because we have a hoist on the outside of the building, right? So you want to get life going up and down first, it’s on the outside of your skin. Now it’s on the inside the bottom is that life is all over the place, it goes up and down, sideways. And that’s representative of why when I’m building a skyscraper, the elevator is the critical path, get it done, get the hoist off the side of the building, close up the building, because that’s one lane that the water keeps getting in, right, you got to batten tight down the ship. Then once you’re water tight, you’re working on all your systems, right, you’re putting your studs, all your little interior bones, right, you’re wiring yourself up with electric and putting your HVAC system system in. And your plumbing, of course, we talked about a lot, you know, health, right you are what you eat, right? And all of these systems is what’s going to make you up into the future and 93% of all businesses fail without systems, right? These systems are key. But then what it really comes down to is you can build an affordable product, or you can go luxury, and you know, I really worked myself up, I built luxury like 1055, Park Avenue millionaires listening, glass fishbowls, on the middle of Park Avenue, and that’s what it was all about, you know, the finishes putting the final touches, you know, that magic touch on yourself polishing the edges, you know, if you’re rough around the edges, and I am one day, I just sat down and I’m like, wow, you know, this is kind of what I do in my life. You know, and it worked out pretty good, you know, and it just happened naturally. And, you know, I just think the analogy of construction or skyscrapers in that building something, you know, Rome wasn’t built in a day, you know, you know, overnight success takes 30 years. You know, it just doesn’t happen like that. And, you know, that’s what I just wanted to share with people because, you know, one day I’m going to write my, I’m going to write a book on that, you know, and I just think, you know, your little short version, you know, people just never give up, you know, just keep plugging, you know, it’s a tough time now. And my goal is to get people out of there, out of the way of things, you know, because a lot of barricades, you know, what society and the pandemic, and things get rolling and things getting shut down. And, you know, we need, you know, which is one of the acronyms of modern wealth building formula, bold leadership, you know, and that’s what the B stands for.

george grombacher 7:28
Nice. I appreciate that. And I certainly agree had talked a lot about making sure that you’re building on a strong foundation. And that foundational stuff, it’s not necessarily the sexiest stuff, because especially when we’re talking about the building, you don’t really look at it or see it, but we need to leave that framework to be able to build up 10 stories or 100 stories or whatever. And certainly, I imagine when you’re talking to folks, and they’re excited about real estate investing, they just want to go, how do you talk about building that financial foundation? And so just sort of, maybe there’s a progression that people need to go through in order to actually be successful doing it?

Unknown Speaker 8:08
Yeah, you know, and I think what I’d like to just share is that it’s a perfect analogy, right? Because, you know, we all want to build that financial foundation. And, you know, I’ve always say that sometimes people don’t know what they want, until you tell them, you know, and, you know, some of the oldest, you know, books out there, the richest man in Babylon, you know, building your foundation is, you know, saving that 10% of your income and forgetting about it, you know, and, and that builds a foundation, because 20 years later, you’re going to turn around and there’s going to be a nest egg. You know, and I think, you know, I won’t really want to tell the listeners that, you know, if you don’t have a lot of money, don’t think you can’t build a nest egg or you can’t build the foundation because I didn’t have a lot of money. You know, I came from wonderful loving family, blue collar family, you know, my dad climbed telephone poles, he started his career at $2,200 a year. You know, and my mom made far less than that as a bank teller. And, you know, the bottom line is, is I just never had it, you know, I couldn’t I couldn’t figure out how to pay for college, I was getting $10 a week, I learned about financial aid, you know, but I never thought that I couldn’t do it in some fashion, you know, and it then came to the point Fast forward years later, where I was like, Hey, honey, can I go to this outing and play golf with all these rich guys and ask, I’m gonna ask for money. You know, and the next thing you know, I had someone you know, give me $100,000 Because I created a gravitational pole, you know, and a story, you know, and what I what I had accomplished, you know, for others and how I can now do it for myself and share it with other people so people can benefit from the investment and a lot of people don’t really know that there’s people you can trust out there and there’s private investments in real estate. So if you don’t have the time And if you go out and do it yourself, and you’re more passive, you know, a lot of doctors and lawyers, you can’t even, you know, get them on the phone to take care of your health, and they have a little nest egg and they can’t put it together, they can’t maybe build on top of their foundation. So you got people that are building their foundation that have a foundation and don’t have time. But you know, I think really what it comes down to is believing that you can build the foundation no matter what, and you know, and then it leads to, you know, how I did, you know, a $17 million project, when I didn’t have any money, I was six figures in debt, you know, and, you know, because of building analogies, I said to myself, like, if I can build something, I would be entitled to a fee. So you know, one of the things that kept me late at night, laid up at night, was that in real estate, there’s actually like nine or 10 different ways to earn fees, one of the chapters in my book is nine ways to earn fees, because, you know, not, you know, and these are skill sets, you know, it doesn’t have to be construction, you can, you could sell your financing skills, you can sell accounting skills, you can sell administrative skills, no matter what your skills are, you could sell it to that syndication or that investment and get started, even if you don’t have money, right. And one of the things that I also want to share is that we have a tendency, and I do it myself, we devalue ourselves, we don’t realize the value of ourselves, and the opportunity cost that we give up sometimes by trying to do everything ourselves, you know, and I guess it really comes down to just believe in yourself, you know, believe. And don’t be afraid to ask someone to give you help, because people like me, you could see and I learned, everybody wants to help you, you know, and once you ask, you’ll be surprised what occurs?

george grombacher 11:45
Yeah, I appreciate that, Nick, it is. The starting point is a belief that I am somebody who can be successful, I am somebody that can be a real estate investor, or whatever it is, I’m interested in doing. And and yeah, I think we really have a tendency, and certainly I’ve been guilty of this at different points in my life of devaluing ourselves. So I think that that’s something that I think probably resonates with a lot of people. So it’s a function of I need to believe that I am somebody who can be successful. And then it’s, I need to figure out how it is that I want to do that, because talked about people don’t know what they want until you tell them right? Is it real estate investment? What is it? And then how do I get the knowledge and information? Just it’s it’s a big gap? How do we help people close that gap between? I really don’t know, but I’d like to do something. And now I’m a real estate investor. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 12:40
Yeah. And one thing I’d love to just add on that is, I talk about living in a world of performance. And I’ll say that, as we sit and what you just said, was, was so important and critical, you know, I want the listeners actually, you know, pause and think about what George has said, you know, because it’s so important. And the point I was going to make here, which just slipped my mind was that, you know, once you put that all together, in addition to you know, time blocking, and, and, and little things like that is where it really makes all the difference, you know?

george grombacher 13:24
Yeah, I appreciate that. There’s, that’s being being busy. We’ve got, you know, busy lives, I’ve got, I’ve got two boys that are pretty young, and got the podcast and other stuff that I’m doing and then stuff I’d like to be doing and how does it all fit together in? And how do I get the space to start learning and educating myself about what might be available out there? And then how do I figure out okay, now I need to evaluate this, I need to get this new knowledge and then how do I actually get started? It’s, it’s a lot. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 13:58
yeah, no question about it. But, you know, that’s, that’s what it’s all about, you know, I think, you know, I think that, you know, just a great opportunity, you know, to build a foundation to ask people use other people’s money, you know, look into syndication, you know, one of the things that I learned after writing the monitor wealth building formula, you know, the acronyms, meaning massive action, and wisdom and bold leadership and forward thinking, you know, that type of thinking applies to any area of life and, you know, your show just represents, you know, all the extraordinary areas of life and, and when you learn what we’re talking about today, it actually applies to almost every area of your life. So what you learn around business applies to health, what you learn about real estate, applies to health, you know, the one thing that we’re talking about, you know, not only applies in business, it applies to life, you know, you know, it applies to raising your children and there’s a fine thread through everything you know, and once you see the puzzle start to come together, you know, it just relieves you a little bit. There’s a lot of you know, A lot of people out there pressured for no reason, you know, when I always joke, you know, pressures in a vessel, you know, it’s really, you know, either lack of knowledge, or you know, something that you’re, you know, that’s on your mind that you want to talk about, you know, and, you know, it’s really about, you know, communicating, you know, in this in this world today of distractions, and, you know, working out of the house, and, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s put people in a situation where I think they’ve, I wouldn’t say gotten laid back, but you know, people are a little shorter now, you know, um, you know, just because I think there’s more people out of their comfort zone, and I always tell people that life begins at the end of your comfort zone, you know, you know, when I don’t feel when I feel too comfortable, I know, I’m not necessarily where I want to be right, when I’m, when I’m all nervous and pacing the house, then I know, I’m gonna get something done, you know, but I was talking about, I remember what I was going to say about living in the world of performance, you know, it’s such a fine line, about action and inaction, right. So as we sit there, thinking about, we’re not sure what we know, or what we want, you know, it’s so key that you just take an action, whether it’s just one action towards what you’re thinking about, change your physiology, stand up, take that action, right, because, you know, it’s black or white, living in a world of performance is black or white, it’s action or inaction. You know, sometimes we have to take an action, I joke, because you got to get to the corner, because you can’t see around the corner. So you get to the corner. So if you don’t know what it looks like, and you’re just sitting there, you’re never going to figure out what it looks like. You know, and that’s what I want to emphasize before i three thoughts on my mind, and I split the other one out.

george grombacher 16:44
Yeah, I think I think that that’s really well said world of performance. I mean, nothing happens without action. So, you know, to river versus a swamp, somebody put it to me, like that years ago, it’s like a swamp is stagnant. Nothing lives there. It’s just gross and dead. And river cuts through stuff. So so what what can people expect when they pick up modern wealth building the, the modern wealth building formula?

Unknown Speaker 17:10
You know, it’s, you know, I think it’s amazing, you know, in the sense that I, when I finally realized that the six year plan that I created in college and all that kind of good stuff, you know, um, you know, really developed this thing where it changed my life. And, you know, I, you know, what it gives you is something that applies to life, right, because it’s a prime, I call it it’s a lot about sports, right? So there’s an golf, there’s a pre shot routine. In most sports, there’s a pregame warm up, and it talks all about the pregame warmup, it talks about, you know, going into an ice cream store, and how to 35 different flavors. And that’s like real estate and business and you have to like, sometimes try them all, before you get down to it, I call the shortlist the three you like, and then maybe the best one you like, and, you know, really gives you the flavor of real estate. And then it gives you what I call the top down thinking approach to real estate, you know, a little bit different, in the sense that I never did residential, I built skyscrapers and went in reverse and then did resonance. I didn’t do residential first. So it was kind of like a top down thinking. And then it lays out the systems, right, it tells you like where you’re at in the lineup, if you look at a baseball lineup, you might be the leadoff guy, you may be batten third, you may be clean up, you know, and it talks about where you’re at in the lineup and where you want to go. And then it talks about earning fees and the different approaches you want to take in real estate, whether you want to go commercial or residential. And then it talks all about the syndication. And the beauty of it is is the book applies after I wrote it, you know, to any business, right, because it has systems. And it’s all about the premise. And the foundation of the modern wealth building formula is how to find funding facilitate. And you can find funding, facilitate anything, you can find your head, your health, you can fund it, you can facilitate it, everything requires a little funding, you have to find what you want to do, whether it’s a business, you have to find out how to buy a business, you have to find a real estate, you don’t have to figure out how to fund it. And facilitation is, you know, whether you’re managing the process or just managing your life, but find fun to facilitate my three F system, which came out of my first program that I created a figure deals with no money down, which is now real estate development made simple was the evolution of you know, ultimately the modern wealth building formula. And, you know, as I went in reverse, I said, you know, what was the foundation of the modern wealth building formula and that’s when I created financial freedom protocol, which was what I believe the foundation for many, many people which is my residential expertise where I did 137 deals in one year, and we created that program for people that don’t have the the opportunity To start building skyscrapers and work in reverse, they can at least watch how I did it get started in residential build himself up into commercial, multi use development. The bottom line is is what we have in our global real estate, investment enterprises, everything you’d ever need to succeed in business, real estate, and life. And that’s what it’s all about, you know, when I went to the Life Mastery event in 2001, with Tony Robbins, the day the World Trade Center collapse, 911, I was with them. You know, it just changed my life that, you know, I was gonna come back and make a difference in the world. And I just, you know, I thank God every day that I was with him, when World Trade Center came down because my best friend worked for Cantor Fitzgerald, I had done a summer internship at the Port Authority worked on the 51st floor. And it was heart wrenching and heartbreaking to lose my best friend and see that happen. And, you know, I could say today that another one of my good friends that I worked with, he was the project manager. I was the project super on the Brooklyn unit gas headquarters is actually building the World Trade Center right now for Larry Silverstein. So Dave was a huge man.

george grombacher 21:13
That’s amazing. 10 people are ready for difference making tip, what do you have for them?

Unknown Speaker 21:18
You know, I briefly snuck it out there, but I have to say, on time blocking has really changed my life, you know, I have a time blocking system where I could, you know, at a moment’s notice, see, like how much percent I’m doing at different areas of my life. And as you know, as a dad, George, you got to spend time with the family, you got to get up on Saturdays and cook those pancakes for the kids. Right? And, you know, those are the things that make a big difference, you know, little things making coffee breakfast in bed for the wife, but you know, you need to balance yourself out with spirituality, health and fitness business, because life is not a balance, right? You’re always out of balance. It’s a great cliche, let’s all have a balanced life. But you have to monitor what I call the time blocking and time blocking on what you’re doing every day is the time allocated to your mission critical items, right, you know, if if you you know, action and inaction if you know, if you want to be somewhere in five years, you need to be taking action today. So you’re at that place in five years, and that’s where you want to time block and go you know, okay, if I want you know, $5 million in the bank or if I want to own 100 units, you know, today you got to be learning how to put the sources in place to find the deals, right, because, you know, you got to find 1000 deals to get 100 Right, and you just reverse engineer so, you know, I would say time blocking and a little bit of reverse engineering, you know, figure out and get clear you heard me say earlier, people don’t know what you want so you tell them that requires deep thinking deep work, you know, it’s okay to sit there and an action could be deep work and deep thinking and taking notes and then time blocking to execute and when you get there when you get added and deep work make sure you stand up and take that first action

george grombacher 23:04
Well I think that that is great stuff that definitely gets come up the more we can be aware of how we’re actually spending our time it’s probably terrifying for for most of us but it can be really powerful exercise thank you for that. We can’t thank you so much for coming on. Where can people learn more about you how can they engage with you?

Unknown Speaker 23:22
Yes, can van Lew calm you could actually get me on the phone there’s free planning sessions and you could also check out my 11 millionaire secrets calm which will get you started with some free value and we will see you soon.

george grombacher 23:37
Love it. Well if you enjoyed this as much as I did show can your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciates good ideas go to Ken van lew.com That’s knvanliew.com And check out 11 millionaire secrets calm as well and pick up a copy of modern wealth building written down on my sheet somewhere Ken modern wealth building formula. I love it. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 24:03
And you can get that for free on my website just pay for to ship and you know we’re here to pay it forward. And you know giving is receiving and let me make a difference in your life. Give us a call and let’s make it happen.

george grombacher 24:16
Love it. Thanks again, Ken. Thank you, George. And until next time, keep fighting the good fight. We’re all in this together.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai