Tony Stark Policci (00:01.016)
All right, everyone, you just heard the intro to my friend here, Joe Evangelisti, an amazing guy. thank you so much for being here on the Hero Out Podcast. I'm really looking forward to having this conversation with you today.

Joe Evangelisti (00:10.905)
Absolutely, Tony. It's great to be here and I appreciate you having me.

Tony Stark Policci (00:14.626)
Yeah, so I just want to start by asking, who are you and what do you do?

Joe Evangelisti (00:20.113)
Joe Evangelisti. I'm a commercial real estate developer and executive coach to folks that love to get into real estate and create long -term legacy wealth.

Tony Stark Policci (00:31.552)
Excellent. So you've got a fascinating background, right? I mean, you were in the Navy. I think it was the CDs before you transferred into your business career. Tell me a little bit of how your military experience shaped your approach to entrepreneurship and leadership in the business world.

Joe Evangelisti (00:52.865)
man, in so many ways, know, going before I got into the Navy, really the only entrepreneur I knew was my dad. He started a drywall company when I was a kid and he was the first entrepreneur in our family. And I think I always had the bug secretly to be an entrepreneur, but you know, I also wanted to serve my country. So I went and did that first and I got just amazing experience in, know, first of all, let's just start with bootcamp, right? Discipline, resetting the clock, you know.

getting rid of all kinds of bad habits and getting that consistency, waking up every morning early and working out every day and eating correctly and all that kind of stuff. And then, as I went through my career of six years, I started at the bottom and ended up in a quasi leadership position. I wasn't like top of the food chain, but I learned a lot of really valuable leadership strategies and techniques and getting kicked in the face and...

getting back up again and doing it again and, you know, and communication, right? I think that's, you know, one of the things as a leader, it's, you know, I never realized that my lack of communication wasn't getting me until I started having people work with me and for me. So, man, that's just the tip of the iceberg, but yeah, so many things that I gained experience -wise as far as being in the military.

Tony Stark Policci (02:11.746)
Yeah, well, that's great. you know, I've noticed some people seem to respond to their time in the military service. Like they go the opposite direction and they just completely like go crazy and go into partying and others take the discipline. And so what I'm saying is like some guys resist it. So they rebel. Like they have to go through the discipline part, but then they rebel where other guys take the discipline and make it a lifestyle. And they bring that going on. That sounds like what you've done.

Joe Evangelisti (02:41.009)
Yeah, yeah, I think it's the military is a very interesting place because it's such a vast, you know, dichotomy of demographics, right? We come from all different backgrounds and all different places and all different upbringings. And, you know, let's face it, a lot of people join the military because it's their only option. Right. And so it might be the first time they've ever left home. It's the first time they've ever been around other people. It's the first time they've ever had any type of security in their life. And so

You know, not to say that that's a benefit or deterrent, but you know, I think some people get through bootcamp and then they kind of go wild again, you know, and, you know, where some people kind of focus and then nose down and head in the right direction. But, you know, that's what makes it fun. You know, there's all kinds of different folks surrounding you with all kinds of different attitudes and thoughts and input and feedback. But also some of the, you know, greatest people I ever had a chance to work with.

Tony Stark Policci (03:36.718)
So tell me about your life growing up. You got brothers and sisters? What was your short family life like?

Joe Evangelisti (03:44.187)
Yeah, I had a I have two little brothers there, the kind of half brothers. My parents were divorced when I was about two years old. So, you know, I've always looked at that as like, you know, I don't know what the word would be, but a benefit. Right. Like I always I always I love to go back and forth. I love to, you know, constantly be on the move. I felt like I was like independent, like had my little backpack and I could go wherever I wanted. And, you know, I always thought that it kind of it forced me to to adapt.

and kind of overcome. you know, I've always, so, you know, I look at, don't get me wrong, I'm sure there's some terrible divorces out there, but I wasn't around when that happened, you know? So my life was just, I got to live in two different places with two different families with completely different, you know, and backgrounds and all that kind of stuff. So it was always, I just felt like it was a cool experience to learn how different families function and kind of be in the middle of all that.

Tony Stark Policci (04:39.074)
Yeah, how were your experiences with your step parents? I mean, it sounds like at two years old, just sounded more sounds to me like more like you've got two parents, not I'm sorry, two sets of parents, not mom, dad, stepdad, stepmom.

Joe Evangelisti (04:48.753)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I pretty much had two full sets of parents most of my life and always got along with my step parents. mean, they're good people and hard workers and definitely allowed me to have great people to look up to. so, again, it was like I had two whole different families and it was kind of a cool experience.

Tony Stark Policci (05:13.294)
biggest influence between the two families.

Joe Evangelisti (05:16.973)
You know, definitely my dad. think I think little boys gravitate towards their fathers, you know, especially when your dad's such my dad's such an amazing human being, just a hard worker, great guy, super nice, everyone, the kind of guy that everyone, you know, gets along with and loves doing business with and things like that. So he was definitely my role model and still is to this day growing up because, you know, I love construction. still love construction. Obviously, Tony, I'm doing it today, but I just love being in the dirty, you know.

drywall dust, sweeping up stuff, seeing stuff being built, seeing guys working their ass off and getting great results. I just, I don't know, I just always was drawn towards, gravitated towards the construction industry. And so my dad's always been there for that.

Tony Stark Policci (06:01.656)
Was your stepdad in the similar industry or something else?

Joe Evangelisti (06:05.371)
No, he was totally different. was a, when I was growing up, he was a line manager. So he was the corporate guy and you know, he always went to work with a suit and tie. And, not that I didn't respect that, but I just didn't really understand it. You know, like, like I just thought like he has some corporate job and he's in charge of a bunch of people at a plant and that's what he does. And so, I just didn't get the same experience cause I didn't, what didn't go to work with him, you know, I didn't, you know, that type of thing. I think it took me a long time just to figure out what he did, but, but he was always very successful and very driven and very hardworking.

Tony Stark Policci (06:36.014)
Okay, so you had two like driven role model, male role models in your life. When did you first like gravitate towards the construction stuff? Like how early was that? Yeah.

Joe Evangelisti (06:47.003)
I don't know, maybe three, four. don't know. I remember being, my earliest memories of construction were when I used to walk the sites with my dad. And I mean, I think he was taking me to the sites in a stroller. But I remember being old enough that I would grip his leg and I would hold onto his knee while we were walking around job sites. he would always say, be careful, be careful, you're going to fall. There's holes everywhere.

At the beginning, remember being terrified. I love being there and I love the experience. I love seeing it, but I always like held on and gripped him because I thought I'd somehow get hurt. And those are my earliest earliest memories of being on sites.

Tony Stark Policci (07:28.216)
That's great. I remember actually having my kids do that to me. I kind of miss that stuff. all bigger than me now, which is great. Yeah. So, I mean, we're going to talk about your real estate career, obviously. What were some of the first things you did? When you first started actually working, was it with your dad? Was it in the construction business?

Joe Evangelisti (07:33.501)
Tell me about it. Yeah. Now my kids are too big to hold. Yeah, I feel you.

Joe Evangelisti (07:43.431)
Is it?

Joe Evangelisti (07:53.309)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I started out pre Navy. I was working nights and weekends and I had half days. I worked in a co -op program my senior year, so I only went to school for a couple hours a day. And then in afternoon I'd be on a job site. So I was always, I mean, I was probably taping drywall when I was 12 years old. I mean, I just always been on the job sites and always had that side job, know, cash go clean up the job site type of thing. Then towards the end of high school, I was

I was a carpenter and I was doing installs of kitchens and additions and things like that. And then Navy and then directly after the Navy, I actually went into construction project management for the government. worked in the defense intelligence agency in Washington, DC for a little bit. And then I met my wife and I've always said, we said, tell the jokingly that her umbilical cord has never been cut. Right. Because we were from New Jersey. She's from New Jersey.

pretty shortly after we started dating, she moved down to DC to live with me. It was her first time out of the house. And, we lived in the absolute greatest part of Washington, DC. It's well, in my, in my opinion, one of the greatest parts is at the time was called Clarington. it's right outside, in Virginia across, across from the, you know, where all the government buildings are. And, nights and weeks, not well, every Friday afternoon, we'd drive back to New Jersey Sunday nights. We drive back to Washington, DC. And I thought, man,

We're living in the greatest part of Washington, DC. We're not even getting to enjoy it. We work Monday through Friday, and then we spend the weekends at home. And so that didn't last too long. You know, I think within a year or two of her moving in, we ended up moving back to New Jersey and right back into the construction business for me. I worked for my dad as a foreman at that time. So I was kind of running the general contracting side. And that was 2006, 2007, I started buying real estate. And that's when I started really getting into the real estate side of things.

Tony Stark Policci (09:46.51)
So 2007, this is when you come in, that period is marked by significant economic challenges, financial crisis. So how did you navigate such a volatile market environment?

Joe Evangelisti (09:48.454)
Mm

Joe Evangelisti (09:54.809)
Yeah. Yep.

Joe Evangelisti (10:03.069)
Listen, it was, I call it the greatest time ever to get into real estate because if you can be functional and you can be successful and you can get through that, I feel like you can get through anything. without getting into today's market, because I feel like today feels very similar to that. But what I did was I started out by partnering with somebody and doing it traditionally, meaning we were put 20 % down, go get a mortgage, get the construction financing, and then try to flip these houses. And you know, in 07,

You know, you're just coming off the last two or three years of like the greatest appreciation in history, you know, in recent history. And so we thought we'd just buy these things, slap a coat of paint on them, put some new kitchen cabinets in and make a fortune. And, you know, it couldn't have been any different if I tried, you know, I went into these deals thinking we'd flip and make some money. And I remember this is the beginning of 07 when we started doing our first flip and it was already starting to soften.

Like the market didn't really crash until September of 08, but it was getting weary towards the end of 07, beginning of 08. So I was flipping these houses and looking at the prices thinking first house we're going to sell for 315. By the time we got it on the market, we listed 315 and we just dropped and dropped and dropped and dropped until we got to a point where if we sold it, we wouldn't even have broke even. We would lost money. And so we had to pivot or what I call today, I course correction, right? It's like,

We had to figure out a plan B. And at that time I had sunk all my savings from the military into that project. And I wasn't about to go and file bankruptcy on my first project. So we tried to figure it out. And luckily the bank that we're working with at the time was able to help us stabilize the loan and put a tenant in there and get a long -term loan. But what we couldn't do is get our money back out. Right. Because as you know, you put 20 % down banks not giving you 20 % back. So

I did that two or three times. By the time the market did finally crash, I was in my third deal and I had all of my life savings tied up in these three houses. And all I was able to do is get the mortgages refinanced to stabilize, but I couldn't touch any of that capital again. So I had to make another pivot at that point, started figuring out, well, okay, I only have so much of my own capital. How do I keep doing this? And I loved it by the way. Me and my best friend were physically doing the flips. We were doing the construction work ourselves. And I'm like, I want to keep doing this.

Joe Evangelisti (12:26.333)
And so it forced me to learn how to use what I call OPM or now, now everyone calls it OPM, but it other people's money, right? Trying to find private lenders, connect the dots, do deals. And that's when things really took off. I started doing, you know, private money lending deals and we were able to really take advantage of, you know, unfortunately an opportune market, you know, things were crashing. Short sales were super prevalent from, from 09 to like 2013.

I became a short sale specialist. got my broker's license during that time. And I was really able to, you know, it sounds like we were like stealing people's houses, but really we were able to create short sales that were able to get them out of mortgages that they couldn't afford. And so it was kind of a win -win. could come in as an agent. could, I could literally help them negotiate the deal. And then the buy side, we were able to buy the deal as well. And so it was a really interesting time, but it's also probably one of the quickest times that I built the most.

worth the most wealth during that time as well.

Tony Stark Policci (13:26.296)
Yeah, you know, I was dumb during that time because what I did during that time was I created a course for another guy on short sales and foreclosures and got a very small percentage of all the money that he made selling that course. And what I ought to have been doing is focusing on actually doing the stuff myself, you know.

Joe Evangelisti (13:35.132)
Mm

Yep.

Joe Evangelisti (13:45.511)
Mm.

Joe Evangelisti (13:49.551)
exercising. Yeah.

Tony Stark Policci (13:52.862)
Hard one lesson, but I was stuck in doing what I knew how to do which was marketing and copywriting and product creation, but okay, so you're You're in this period and you know what it sounds like you were really Smart and had maybe some blessings too because a lot of folks lost their asses During that time because they bought into these houses and then everything tanked right? You know, I had I was able to

like refinance my house, but it took a long time. At one point, my payment, because of the loan they got me into initially, had almost tripled. It was insane. But okay, so did things accelerate? Because I mean, you came up, you got this nickname, right, from flipping. So how did things accelerate?

Joe Evangelisti (14:43.101)
Yeah.

Really fast. You know, I think our first couple years we would do two or three deals a year and then we worked up to five deals a year. When the short sale boom happened, I was starting to do 20, 30 flips a year. And, you know, some of those were what people call wholesale today. We didn't even, we didn't even have a word for that back then. We just called them assignments. I would just, what I would do is I would get so many approved short sales and foreclosures. And at that time we were marketing all different directions. were

you know, at the doorsteps of the courthouse for, you know, foreclosure auctions. So we had all these different resources at that point and the world was in turmoil. So it was like, if you had the investors that would support the outcome, then you can go and you could solve a lot of these problems for these sellers and you could create upside. And I remember at one point, and this is early on in the short sale world, now you now are back, you know, towards the end, you had to have an attorney represent.

the short sale negotiation. Well, at the beginning, you didn't. I mean, I could literally call myself and say, I'm the listing agent on the house and you we want to make, we want to offer 50 cents on the dollar, get back to us. And we would have banks email us back a month later and say, you're approved. And so you didn't have to have any third party people negotiating. You could literally just call the bank and negotiate. And it was because frankly, they just weren't built for them for, short sales at this, at this level, right? They didn't even have departments for short sales or workout departments where

A lot of local community banks generally will have some kind of workout plan. Banks weren't ready for this in 08, 09, 2010. They just didn't have any way to set up for it. we really quickly accelerated by working the brokerage side at the time to help list these houses and then help negotiate them. And very quickly we went up to that 20, 30 a year mark and I didn't have the bandwidth myself to go and flip all these houses or the investor base to go buy them all.

Joe Evangelisti (16:41.597)
I would get to a point where I would say, okay, I got to close three houses next month. Which one do I want to close? I'll take that one. And then I would call my friends that were in the business and say, Hey, can you take this off my hands? And I never forget a guy named Mark. called him one time, probably after I flipped, I don't even know 10 other houses to other friends of mine. call my buddy Mark and I go, Hey, I can't take this deal down. You want to take it down? And he goes, perfect. How much do you want? And I said, the bank's going to take 150.

And he says, OK, great. How much do you want? I'm like, what do mean? What do I want? He's like, well, you're bringing me a deal. How much do you want? And I'm like, I just want you to buy it because if you don't, like I'm in trouble. I got it under contract and I can't execute on it. And he's like, no, dude, that's not how this works. And he was about 10 years older than me, so he's advanced. He goes, if you're going to give somebody a deal like this, you should make something. And I go, OK, well, what's it worth to you? And he goes, I'll pay five grand. And I thought to myself, you're going to give me five grand and I didn't even do anything? All I did was.

call the bank and negotiate it. He said, absolutely, I'm happy to give you five grand on every one of these that you bring me. And I think I sold him five houses that year. And then I quickly realized what an assignment fee was all about and where the value was. And of course, we took that to a whole nother level in the coming years.

Tony Stark Policci (17:58.06)
Yeah, that's amazing. How you just, you thought that what you were doing was nothing for you. It was kind of passe, but for most people have no idea how to go and actually negotiate with the bank. Like even what to say or to have the courage or the confidence to do it. You know, one of the things that I love about you is you have this can do attitude. Like you live in the world of possibilities, right? Where did that come from?

Joe Evangelisti (18:13.511)
Hmm.

Joe Evangelisti (18:27.995)
I'm so, it's so funny that you said can do attitude because the CB's motto is can do, right? Like it was so ingrained in me in the military that nothing's impossible. In fact, the CB's have a slogan and I'm going to misquote this so embarrassing, but it's essentially like the difficult, the difficult, we can do it once the impossible will take a little longer. Right? Like it's, it's, we're, getting it. I actually think I quoted it right. Actually when I said it out loud, that's, that's the idea.

That's the concept is like, you put me on the ground with 10 or 15 of my, my CBs. I'm building anything, anything anywhere. so same thing goes into real estate. It's like, there's always a solution. You just got to keep digging. You got to keep finding it, you know, and effectively you start to create these things.

Tony Stark Policci (19:14.744)
Yeah, you know, I think that it's so important. One of the goals of this show, The Hero Up, is like, want people to be able to be the hero in their own lives, right? In their business, in their families, in their personal life. And there's like this crisis of confidence. As I've gotten older and I've, you come to terms with like some of the trauma in my life and like I've had to deal with like victim mentality and low self

confidence and imposter syndrome. mean everybody deals with some of these things. But I feel like there's this crisis of confidence in the younger generation where people don't believe that they can do things. And as like one of the things I've noticed in my career as a marketer, when it comes to selling somebody something, especially if it's a course that teaches them how to do something or self -improvement, they may fully believe that it works for somebody else, but that it's not going to work for them. So.

You you having this mindset, this can -do attitude, this belief that things, everything is possible, anything is possible, it's really powerful. Now, how do you instill that in the people that you work with? Because you have an amazing team, or do you just attract those kind of people?

Joe Evangelisti (20:28.309)
Yeah.

No, I mean, yeah, I think in some ways you attract it. listen, know, Ed Mylett started saying this a couple of years ago during COVID and he said things are caught, not taught. Right. And so what he means by that is people will follow you if you do the right thing, if you have discipline, if you do the work, if you're you're at it every day, if you're solving problems, if you're remaining positive, it's, know, people want to emulate that type of stuff. And so

I actually think the only reason that I do a lot of that stuff is because of my people, right? It's funny. It's almost like counterintuitive. You're like, how do you attract these people? I don't think it's about how you attract them. I think it's about how you step up and lead for them. And the more you do the work that you're supposed to be doing, the more they look and go, shit, Joe's nonstop, man. He's seven days a week. He's doing it. Like, that's how it needs to be done. And then of course that starts to...

that starts to wear on them and they start to become more of that person. I mean, man, the thing you at the beginning that you just said is so common, right? I think all of us are trying to find confidence. All of us are second guessing everything we do. All of us are worried about what people might think about us if we screw up. so I think the really big challenge for a lot of us leaders is we just have to continue to drive because

You do not fail unless you quit. And let me tell you, I've wanted to quit a million times in the last 20 years. I mean, I've wanted to quit almost every day this year and I'm still here. You know, I think that that's the difference is as long as you don't quit, there's, there is no lose.

Tony Stark Policci (22:11.918)
Yeah, so tell me about one of those times that you wanted to quit where you felt like, it, man, I'm just done with this.

Joe Evangelisti (22:19.325)
I mean, listen, Tony, to be completely frank, we've done, you know, I only had 11 people, but I'm down to four people. You know, I had to do a lot of layoffs this year really just to get to a point where we can stabilize the business because, you know, I'm a developer on that business, that particular business. You know, we get paid when we buy and we get paid when we build and everything is slowed down to a halt right now. So there's just no, there's no income to substantiate.

that payroll for that business. And that's one of those that I've been struggling with all year long. But the reality of it is the adversity that's happening around us, that's a lot of the ways that's keeping us, that's forcing us to do the things that we probably should be doing anyway. Right? So it's like, you see a lot of people struggle to get through things, but what they're not looking at is, you know, am I holding on to this business because I feel bad?

for these people or am I holding on to payroll because I feel bad for what might happen to them? The reality of it is when you let go and you control the things you can control, right? Because I can't control everything. Like I can't control the markets, I can't control the interest rates, I can't control the banks, I can't control any of that stuff. And so what happens? Well, you know, people are going to be miserable if they're not doing deals. People are going to be miserable if they're not getting things done. They're not going to, you know, they're out there making offers and we can't find the funding to close them, right?

Those people really deserve to be in a better environment at this time, right? But when, when you have the tough conversations and you explain to people that they're absolutely awesome and you love them, you just can't afford to have them right now. Guess what? That leaves an imprint on them as well. And when the market changes and we're back to, you know, going vertical and, know, 12 different self -storage facility, guess what? think half of those people would quit to come back to work for us because we didn't drag them all the way through the end and

keep them from being successful. that's hard as a leader, right? It's really hard. And I think a lot of people struggle with that type of thing because they feel like they have to be the support structure for all the people around them. So that's made this year very, very difficult, but it's also, I think it's made us sharper. It's made us faster. It's made us stronger. And I'll tell you what, the few remaining that I have could probably do almost everything that the people that weren't here couldn't do. You know, when we had a full team,

Joe Evangelisti (24:40.893)
So it's amazing how you see more efficiencies come in and effective action being taken and so on and so forth.

Tony Stark Policci (24:49.198)
You're the key strength that I see in you right from the, one of the first times I ever talked to you was leadership. And being a leader is oftentimes my judgment is people look at folks that are leaders and they got it. It's so great to be a leader, you know? And what's the saying, know, leaders go first, right? Leaders state late.

Joe Evangelisti (25:18.375)
Mm

Tony Stark Policci (25:19.104)
And as a leader, we're all leaders. Everybody's leader. Everybody listening, you're a freaking leader. You're leading something. You just don't know it. And it's how we choose to lead. A lot of this is about intention and choice, right?

Joe Evangelisti (25:25.447)
Absolutely.

Joe Evangelisti (25:34.919)
Mm

Tony Stark Policci (25:36.59)
Tell me about, how do you get up and lead every single day when your back hurts, when you're sick as shit, when you'd rather just stay in bed with your wife, when there's not money going on you got these people that depend on you. How do you fix your mindset?

Joe Evangelisti (26:00.471)
That's a one. I think it's a lot of things. I'd love to just sit here and say it's all discipline, but that's not really the case. There are times when discipline is that idea that you're supposed to be doing things when nobody's watching and you're doing the things you need to do, whether you feel like doing them or not. I like to create internal accountability. It's funny you said back pain. I'm going through one of the worst. I got spinal stenosis diagnosed last six months ago. It's it's excruciatingly painful.

Tony Stark Policci (26:01.453)
Yeah.

Joe Evangelisti (26:30.685)
and so I know the best way for me to maintain that is the, is to get up and walk every day. Like if I do two miles, I'm like normal for the day, right? Because, but the first block is absolutely excruciating, just being able to walk. and so one, one, you know, kind of trigger that I built in, my dad happens to be next door, right? My dad's 70 years old. I'm his next door neighbor. And so,

He wanted to get a little bit healthier and lose a little bit more weight. So I started to create this routine about two months ago where we walk every day together. So every morning we get up, we walk five days a week. and so that type of thing, that's the type of accountability. I can't tell you how many times Tony I've gotten out of bed where I would not have gotten out of bed to go for a walk by myself, but knowing my dad's next door, knowing my dad's 70 and he's walking two miles and knowing that he's waiting for me in the front yard when I, when I'm laying in bed in pain.

I push through it. So I think sometimes discipline is important and you have to have it. think other times you got to find ways to trigger your discipline, to hold you accountable, to do that thing. And that could be how you eat. It could be how you take care your body. It could be how you do your job. It could be a million different things, but sometimes we have to create these, what I call manufactured motivations, right? Ways that we're going to motivate ourselves and triggers to do that.

And you hear this all the time, you know, people can't get out of bed. put their alarm clock in the other room. Like that's a manufacturing motive. You know, you're going to get up eventually and go turn that thing off. Right. So there's a lot of ways we can create this, but I think for each one of us, we have to determine like what's, what's going to move us if we, if we don't move ourselves.

Tony Stark Policci (28:10.872)
Yeah, so the, I think I mentioned the back pain because a year ago, July, I got diagnosed with spinal stenosis and it is, is hell. And like right after that, I went to Pennsylvania to rehab a house that I bought from my wife, one that she's wanted since she was in elementary school. And I spent three weeks

Joe Evangelisti (28:20.039)
Dude, for real.

Tony Stark Policci (28:40.526)
Every day, 12, 16 hour days, tearing out flooring and a little, I was crying. I was in the house working and crying. I was in so much pain. Well, my wife is out with the girls and doing other stuff and crying and praying and just, it was miserable. So every day I got up and I didn't want to, you know, I got up and I would hope.

And I hope it doesn't hurt today. And I'm working in a back brace. literally, was, you know, the reason I'm bringing this up is I had a deadline, right? We had made the plans to go. We bought the house in April. This was July. It had sat for a few months. We made the plans to go work on this. And I had a deadline. It had to be done.

Joe Evangelisti (29:23.783)
Mm

Tony Stark Policci (29:41.274)
And at the time, I couldn't hire somebody else to come in and do it. My wife wanted to do lot of the work ourselves too. And it was just grinning and burying it, guess. anyway, so part of this mindset, I love what you said. There's a great quote that I heard Mike Tyson say. He said, discipline is doing the stuff that you don't want to do as if you loved it.

Joe Evangelisti (30:07.128)
Mm, yeah.

Tony Stark Policci (30:08.878)
I hang on to that because there's a lot of days I get up and I don't want to work out and I work out six days a week. And I'm always arguing with my head. me if this is true for you too, Joe, part of what I think it takes to be successful is to beat back that voice that is constantly trying to tell me,

Joe Evangelisti (30:16.253)
Mm

Tony Stark Policci (30:38.712)
to take it easy in different ways. Now, look, I try to find balance. I don't know that this work -life balance is a real thing. I've heard of it. But I do have, you know, set things in my life that I do. Like I honor a Sabbath, you know, I do a biblical Sabbath, sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. I don't work. I don't work on those days. It took me a few years to get to that, but now I'm going on close to three years of being consistent with it. So, but I have to deal with

Joe Evangelisti (30:39.9)
Mm

Tony Stark Policci (31:08.11)
like getting up and dealing with that voice like, worked out yesterday, you don't need to, I mean you're sore, come on, look, you're in better shape than most guys your age, you're in better shape than most guys 40 years younger than you. You know, like all these excuses. Do you have that voice in your head too that you contend with?

Joe Evangelisti (31:27.727)
Absolutely. And you know, you're kind of reminding me of, know, we talk in coaching, we do state story strategy and standards, right? These are the four S's that control just everything in our life. And so a lot of that piece of state is made up by our language and language is internal and external, right? And arguably the internal language is way more powerful than the external language. However, we don't really control the internal language, right? The external language makes up

the internal language. So the more we say a certain thing, your subconscious starts to learn that that's the truth. That's the reality. Right. So it's funny. It's almost like I was in a meeting yesterday and one of my coaching clients kept saying, if we can do this, if we can do that, if we can do that, I when we do that, right. It sounds so trivial, Tony, right. It's like so, you know, basic, but it's

It's really, it's defining your belief structure internally, right? So, you I find when I'm in that funk and I don't feel like doing things, I have to constantly remind myself, I get to do it. I get to do this, right? I might not even want to do it, but I get to. I don't want to go walk two miles in the morning because my fricking legs hurt so bad, but I get to walk when so many people aren't even capable. I get to walk when...

I've had friends get killed in the military. I get to walk with my dad of all people, my favorite guy in the world. I get to walk with him every morning. So the pain is almost irrelevant, right? Because I don't know how many more times I get to walk with my 70 year old dad, hopefully a fricking lot, but who knows, right? So I think that's the thing is just changing, reframing the language of how we're saying things.

And you said something a minute ago, like sometimes you felt like you feel like a victim. That language creates the victimhood in us, right? By the way, we all feel that way. I'm not saying you're alone, but like we all feel like victims sometimes. But the deeper we go down that rabbit hole, I always say where focus goes, energy flows, right? So if I keep focusing on negative, focusing on negative, focusing on lack, focusing on I wish I had, focusing on

Joe Evangelisti (33:46.673)
You know, I wish I was more like Tony or I wish I had more money like my neighbor or I wish I had that car. Guess what? You get more lack, you get more negativity, you get more shit and it feels worse. Right? So, you know, it might feel fake at the beginning to say when I have, it, you know, when I do this or when I achieve that. But the reality of it is you're convincing yourself that it's going to happen. It's not here yet, but it's going to happen. So.

The more I think that we use the correct language or at least try to, I think that the results change for us.

Tony Stark Policci (34:21.004)
Yeah, you know, that's really powerful, Joe, what you just said there. So true. We are now in probably a phase in technology and knowledge and the sharing of knowledge where we start to recognize that the power of our subconscious and the way that we talk to ourself, know, guys like Joe Dispenza and other people that are really talking about this. Years ago, a movie came out, What the Bleep Do We Know? Right. And there was the experiment in there where the doctor put the labels on water.

and how a negative label like hate or jealousy or anger changed the structure of the water molecules and they became very ugly and you put love and peace and joy. Just the words being on the bottles actually shifted that. I don't know that people think, I sure as hell didn't, about saying things like, I'm not even gonna say it, I avoid saying it now. But we talk to ourselves.

And the things that we say to ourself all day long, if you're listening to this right now and you're depressed, if you're unmotivated, if you are failing, if you're not getting the kind of results that you want in your life, I encourage you to take a look at your inner dialogue, that inner language that that's how you refer to it, right? Yeah, because for me, it was insidious. I got to this point where things weren't going the way that I wanted them to in my life.

And slowly, like water dripping on rocks, I started eroding into this negative self -talk. And pretty soon, I was like, when somebody pointed it out to me, was like, wow, how did I get to this? So now I love the language that you use there. I do the same thing. There's no more I have to. I get to, you know?

Joe Evangelisti (36:12.765)
Yeah.

Tony Stark Policci (36:14.912)
And it reframes and structures everything. gets us out of that victim mentality and into the victor mentality. That's good. Such gold, Joe. I so appreciate that. I want to. I want to like cover the shift that you made from flipping to storage, because I think that's important in so far as like why you did it, because

Joe Evangelisti (36:43.342)
Mm

Tony Stark Policci (36:44.366)
Tell me about that. I tell me about your life. Obviously, you became known as the flip king. So you're doing tons of these. Life's unmanageable. What made the shift?

Joe Evangelisti (36:50.289)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Joe Evangelisti (36:57.029)
I think one of the biggest shifts was, I think, I think actually this, I might be quoting your brother, easy, lucrative and fun, right? The elf model that we ever talk about this. And so I was at a mastermind meeting years ago and someone started saying like, you know, you want a lifestyle in a business that's easy, lucrative and fun, right? You're always going to work, but how do you create more simplicity? And you know, at the beginning when I was flipping houses, I loved it. It was my baby. did it all myself. And I, know,

Tony Stark Policci (37:06.466)
Yeah.

Joe Evangelisti (37:25.757)
was there, I was doing the work and fast forward, you know, about 12 years later and we flipped 88 houses in one year and I had, didn't even step foot on probably 80 of them. I never even saw them, right? had a, know, but, it's because I was behind the scenes working on hiring people and checking on sub sub contractor bills and, know, trying to figure out how the payroll is getting paid every single Friday. And, you know, we had 45 employees and

It really, it really resonated with me that it's not easy at all. Terribly difficult. I've scaled chaos is what I did. I created a chaotic environment. was quasi lucrative, right? But the problem with flipping is it's so transactional that you never have any money. You know, I would get these tax returns and I would go, I didn't make that like, where did that all go? So it was like every time I made it went right back in the business, right back in the next deal. And you find yourself on this mouse wheel.

Tony Stark Policci (38:02.776)
Okay.

Joe Evangelisti (38:23.741)
of big money spending and big money making, but you're left with the breadcrumbs when it's all said and done. And I wasn't having fun. I had 45 employees. didn't really, and it was my fault, by way, I was a terrible leader seven, eight years ago when I was towards the end of all that. I just had this entitlement issue. Like I'm a CEO and I make all this money and I do whatever I feel like. And I don't need to be your friend. I don't need to be, I'm your boss. And I would walk in the office at that point.

I didn't even know some of the people that worked for us because the line manager hired them or something else, right? And so I was not who I needed to be. And so part of that was how do I reset the clock and find something that's more scalable that we can build with a smaller team that I can be involved in, that I can actually help grow and create a mission out of, and ultimately also create long -term wealth.

Right. Because I mean, I stacked up some rental properties, I accumulated some equity, I got some net worth during that 12 years, but it's nothing in comparison to what we can create in commercial development. You know, I could do one of these deals and make as much profit as a hundred houses, but obviously it's a slower pace, slower churn, longer time period, longer hold period. so it effectively started getting me looking at short term, medium term and long term.

equity building, Short -term cash, quick flips, wholesales, building residential houses for that medium thing, flipping houses might be a medium. I didn't have any of the long -term. I wasn't building really the long -term legacy wealth that we all talk about because I wasn't spending enough time keeping the houses. I was just selling them all off. So really wanted to make sure in this next iteration of my life that we were really building long -term wealth. And so now I've got more focus on that.

Tony Stark Policci (40:03.756)
Yeah.

Joe Evangelisti (40:16.825)
and less focus on the quick, easy money stuff.

Tony Stark Policci (40:20.472)
Got it. you, how did you look in the mirror and say, wow, man, I'm like, full of myself. I'm not a great leader. Like how did that shift happen for you?

Joe Evangelisti (40:31.485)
Yeah, it 100 % was coaching, right? Tony. mean, I've been in mastermind groups for a long time. I really started hiring one on one coaches probably four or five years ago. that at that time it was really like a kick in the face. I think I knew a lot of that stuff that the coach was trying to, like, I don't want to say I knew he was trying to teach me. I knew that I had the problems, but then he was poking the problems and he was like, and effectively it was like, man, I got to look in the mirror, right? I'm not, I'm not hiring the people I want because I'm not the leader I need to be.

I'm not getting the results I want because I'm not paying attention to certain things. I'm not getting the outcomes I want because, and it all came back to me. it was like, talk about like a total responsibility and accountability. I never blamed any, by the way, that the 45 employees we had, I never thought they were bad people or they didn't do their job. I was just a terrible leader for them. So we had a terrible culture, not terrible, not a great culture at the time.

I look back in the mirror and I'm like, well, who, who drives culture? Holy shit. It's the visionary. It's the owner. It's me. I drive culture, but yet I don't show up. I don't talk to them. I don't engage. I don't ask them about their kids. You know? So it was like, man, in order to be a really good leader, I started to find was I had to coach my people. had to know my people. had to learn about my people. had to encourage my people. And not only that, it becomes more of a, how do I help you become a better mom?

so that you can become a better project manager? How do I get you to become a better husband so that you can become a better acquisition specialist? And that's what really occurred to me was, man, when I work on my people and I help them become great people, they become great team members.

Tony Stark Policci (42:17.176)
Yeah. So, that's fantastic. That awareness, that shift. I know that building a legacy is very, it's like one of your main passions, if that's the right word. I mean, you still have the Legacy Blueprint podcast, right? And so, one of the great things that comes out of coaching,

Joe Evangelisti (42:40.379)
Mm -hmm. Yep.

Tony Stark Policci (42:47.116)
I know for me, when I've been coached and there's a shift and I start to see that everything I've gotten in my life, I chose, right? Whether or not that's really true or not, because any other perspective is a victim stance. I take ownership to where I'm at. So you move into this coaching. Now you talk about creating lasting legacy. So what are the key components that you impart to people when it comes to creating a legacy?

Joe Evangelisti (42:56.455)
Mm -hmm. Yep.

Joe Evangelisti (43:17.723)
Yeah. yeah, a lot of the things we just talked about, but, know, effectively, in legacy builder coaching, the first rule is if I teach it, you have to reteach it. Right. So it's like this downline of education, right? I don't want people to just take the information and it's like, that's Joe's proprietary information. No, it's stuff that my coaches have taught me over the years. And I want you to reuse it in any way you feel possible. You feel necessary, but it's not just go teach your team. It's teach your kids.

It's teach your friends, it's teach whoever's around you and try to share this wisdom in a way that makes sense to you. Like I was saying yesterday, I was with a coaching client and he was asking me, he's a new client, he starts in a couple of weeks and he was like, what happens in the first couple of months? And I told him like, those are the foundational tools, but the foundational tools are meant for you to figure out how to use with other people. Because we all know that when we teach, we learn more. I learned more as a coach.

then I impart on my students, right? I mean, they get excellent results, don't get me wrong, but I love hearing about their problems, hearing about their challenges, helping them overcome obstacles, helping them create opportunity and helping them become great leaders only because that's what's happened to me. And I'm not perfect by any means at this point, but it's the change that I've made in the last five or six, seven years. I know what it's done for...

I know what it's done for my family. I know it's done for my team and I know what it's done for my network. So if I can help create that for others, that's a huge impact for me.

Tony Stark Policci (44:50.68)
I think you have a saying something about aces in their places. Yeah, talk to me about that.

Joe Evangelisti (44:57.429)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, aces in their place is very simple. It's kind of like the old adage that I think good to great said this, can't think of it. He's actually sitting over here. Jim Collins said this. He's the one that talked about the seats on the bus, right? It's a similar concept, right? It's like aces in their places are you have amazing people. Your job as the visionary is to pull out of them their unique ability.

Tony Stark Policci (45:10.318)
Jim, Jim, yeah.

Joe Evangelisti (45:23.919)
It's to pull out of them their unfair advantage. Like what are they great at? And sometimes you might move seats on the bus, right? You might be the acquisitions guy and you find out that you're the, you're a great underwriter or you're great at sales or you're great at marketing. And so I don't ever want people to be pigeonholed in a title. You know, you're the marketing represent that and you can't do anything in sales. It's not the truth, right? I want people to accelerate at the best thing that they're good at. And you know that when you put somebody in the right place.

man, the spark, the energy, the passion, the, you know, when you find people, and by the way, don't ask people to work nights and weekends, but you find when your team members are all of sudden texting you at eight o 'clock on a Tuesday night, hey, what's the answer to this thing? It's like, they're not doing it because I have a gun to their head or there's a bonus, you know, you know, dallied around or there's a carrot somewhere. They're doing it because they love what they do.

Tony Stark Policci (46:16.91)
Yeah.

Joe Evangelisti (46:20.731)
And sometimes you have to, get to a point where you have to tell them like, I need you to take a break. I need to go take your wife out for dinner or, you know, but that's, that's I find that that's the, the passion point when you find people, too many people, Tony, I think, and I, again, from experience, stay in a place that they, they're not happy. They, they, they condition themselves to believe that there's not nothing better out there. They condition themselves to believe that this is, this is safety.

Right? This job is safety for me. When the reality of it is, I tell my folks all the time, if you don't like the seat you're in, your outcomes are not as good as they should be. Right? Your efficiency is way off. You're not happy. That's going to lead to you not being happy at home, not being happy in life, not being happy with your kids. The complete opposite is true when you find the right seat. And here's the deal. I don't care if that seat is in my office or if it's in someone else's office.

I'll help you find a seat on their bus if that's what's going to make you passionate and driven and get the results that you need. I don't want people in my organization that aren't passionate, don't love the seat that they're sitting in because it's not effective for any of us, right? So I think that's a realization as a visionary and an owner. It took me a long, long time to realize is that I'm not helping them by letting them stay ineffective and inefficient in a seat.

Tony Stark Policci (47:46.082)
Yeah, that is an important distinction because I think there's times where, like especially for people of faith, where they think that, you know, helping somebody along or letting them stay in a position where they're not in excellence is being kind, it's being loving, it's being godly, it's being Christian, whatever you want to call it. And it's really doing them a disservice. That shift in being...

Somebody said something to me a while back. I wish I could remember it. like on the tip of my tongue, but it's a perfect description of this. I'm fully supportive of helping someone find their next best role. And if that's not here with me right now with this, it's OK.

Joe Evangelisti (48:24.795)
Yes. Yeah.

Joe Evangelisti (48:31.133)
Yeah. I say that all the time. I say it all the time. And, you know, we hire, we hire on a 90 day probationary period, really for that reason. It's like, want to have, I want, I want the ability to, to, to say to you, I don't like the color of your shirt and you don't belong here anymore. And I want you to be able to come into my office and say, Hey, you know, I've been here for 30 days and this is not the culture I'm interested in working with. I'd rather not, you know, have that out because you find that so many people stay at jobs and so many people keep people at jobs.

that it just doesn't correlate, but they do it because they feel like they don't have another option. And so I would rather find out in the first 90 days, if this is a place you love, and if it's a seat you love sitting in, and if not, well, let's go find you somewhere else.

Tony Stark Policci (49:13.848)
great. Tell me about a time when you maybe faced a challenge with trying to find some balance between your work and your family, time that you were spending with your family.

Joe Evangelisti (49:30.525)
I, you said it earlier and I can't stand the concept of balance. I tell you why I think time freedom is the ability to be where you need to be when you want to be and do what you need to do at that time. Right. And so what I mean by that is, you know, I work seven days a week, you know, I generally take off Saturdays for the most part with the family, right. But that doesn't stop me from missing any soccer games or missing any jujitsu matches or missing any.

what did my, my daughter did stage crew last year, right? Going to all these plays and watching her run around behind the scenes. I work when I can. I'm with the family when I can. And there's a big distinction there, right? When I'm with them, I'm with them. When I'm working, I'm working. And so I think the biggest challenge is people think like, Hey, you know, if, if, if, the, in a perfect world, I would just sit on the beach with a margarita in my hand and watch the waves come crashing up.

Reality of it is that's so, it's so far from the fact, right? Like most of us are driven, any players were passionate about what we do. You couldn't spend more than two days on the beach before you got bored, right? You'd want to do something else. You'd want to do whatever that looks like for you. So I look at it more like how do I integrate business into my life, right? Knowing that it's never going to be perfect. Sometimes I'm going to have to take a break and spend more time with my wife. Sometimes I'm going to have to tell her it's nose down to the grindstone for the next two weeks. So I'm not going to see you.

That's both of those things are okay. And I think that's the thing is we're always looking for this like yin and yang and it's never, it's never balanced out. But if you control your schedule and you stay productive in the hours that you do dedicate, which is a whole nother, we can go into that rabbit hole later on, but you know, I think a lot of people that are working 18 hours would be way more effective if they worked six and they use this 18 hour thing to brag about how busy they are. And the reality of it is most of us are more effective in four to six hours a day.

And that gives you plenty of time to be a great dad, be a great parent, be a great friend, and go do other things that are gonna make you a good person.

Tony Stark Policci (51:37.518)
That's great. All right, so I just saw your chat there. It wasn't coming up. I was getting a bubble, but I couldn't read the fucking thing. how was that like eight minutes ago?

Joe Evangelisti (51:44.069)
No, it's all good. Yeah, I know.

Joe Evangelisti (51:52.741)
No, it's all good. That was like four minutes ago. I just had a three o 'clock call. I texted earlier and said I'd be late, but I didn't know how to run.

Tony Stark Policci (51:56.622)
Okay, all right. Do you want to come back and pick up like another 10 minutes and just close it out afterwards?

Joe Evangelisti (52:03.193)
yeah, we can totally do that. Yeah, gotta be on the call for 45 minutes with her. At 4 o 'clock my time is...