- 12:43: The importance of constant learning and evolution for happiness.
- 16:17: Overcoming fears of success and fully committing to your goals.
- 22:27: Zach’s framework for giving value away to build partnerships.
- Email Address: podcast@learnandgrowrich.net
- Website: https://learnandgrowrich.net/
- Website: https://indianaoehlman.com
- Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/zach.oehlman
- Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/learnandgrowrichrei
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zachoehlman/
- Contact Number: 843-619-3005
- Email: corwyn@corwynmelette.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/exitstrategiesradioshow/
- FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/exitstrategiessc/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxoSuynJd5c4qQ_eDXLJaZA
- Website: https://www.exitstrategiesradioshow.com
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cmelette/
PERSON:
Do you want something more? More meaningful moments, opportunities, deeper relationships, and memorable experiences? Do you want to make a difference? If you said yes, a career in real estate could be the opportunity you’re looking for. Guiding people through one of the most important decisions they ever made, the purchase or sale of their home can be both rewarding and lucrative. Exit Realty’s revolutionary compensation model, training, and technology that provides you with the tools you need to start and build your successful real estate career. Call me today, Me Me You Bank at 843-730-3327, that’s 843-730-3327 or visit exitlowcountry.com/joinexit and make your exit today.
CORWYN:
Good morning, good morning and great morning to you guys. Welcome to another fabulous episode of Exit Strategies Radio Show. Hey, I am your host, Corwyn J Melette, broker and owner of Exit Realty Lowcountry group in beautiful North Charleston, and co owner of Exit Realty New Horizons in the mid that is Columbia, South Carolina. So guys, look, we got an awesome show for you today. As I’ve told you, as we have more over we have demonstrated, we’re out to change the narrative. We’re out to increase not only your wealth, but to grow and expand your mindset so you can accommodate all that money that we’re helping you to get for you and your family. You know our mantra here it is we are legacy building. The mission of Exit Strategies Radio Show was very simple that is to empower our community through financial literacy and real estate education guys. Yes, yes. Again, we are legacy building shout out to all of our marvelous listeners. Those that listen to us locally. Expanding from downtown Charleston, down south towards Adams run up through Mount Pleasant, and guys all the way out the Moncks Corner. Yep. Moncks Corner. I love y’all a lot because my mama live out there. Hey, I appreciate you guys tuning in. So today, we have an amazing guest. Yes, we have with us and and I’m gonna have to, I’m gonna have to take this because he said something in backstage that made me– So I want you guys to grab onto your head and grab a pen and paper so you can write down some notes. Because you’re going to be blown away by this conversation today. None other than Zach Oehlman, that is the guy he is here with us today. He is the founder of Learn and Grow Rich,. Zach, how you doing today?
ZACH:
I’m loving every second of it, man. Thanks for having me on the show. You’re welcome.
CORWYN:
So look, I gave my listeners a little tease little hint. Behind the curtain. You said something. And it was an epiphany. I’m gonna share this real quick. But then I want to get into Zack, everything about you and what you’re doing and how you’re helping people. But you share this thing that all the books and stuff are out there telling you how to think. But nobody is teaching you or imploring you to learn it. So learn and grow rich. Mind blown. That was it.
ZACH:
It’s so simple, isn’t it like the day like it hit me I was like, that’s it. I grew up on a farm in Northwest Indiana. They’re like work hard. Making me money and all these little sayings. And one day it just hit me, I was like the only way to make more money is to become worth more. The only way to become worth more is to go learn something. Now the key is: what is the skill set, you’re going to develop yourself and that’s where we could talk all day about it. But at the end of the day, you have to learn to become worth more to make more money.
CORWYN:
So Zack, that right there is the peanut butter on the bread. I mean just smooth. That’s it, right there, that’s it. Yeah, that’s it. But let’s go back and get this so you’re from a small town, tell our listeners, 50,000 foot view, who you are, what is it that you do?
ZACH:
I was born and raised in Indiana, 3500 people and my dad died when I was 12, took over the family farm before school, after school. I can tribute my success to growing up on the farm responsibility, work ethic, character all of the things it takes to have success. And I really didn’t value education at all until I graduated high school. Then I said What am I going to do with my life? I had these three things: I want to travel the world, make money, and help people. So I started reading books. I picked up this book by Peter Lynch who is a hedge fund or mutual fund manager one of the best in the world. And I started learning about this concept of making money. And I said I want to buy and sell businesses, this is what I want to do. And everyone said go to college. I went to Indiana University, took it very serious, graduated top of my class in 2008. With a degree in Finance and Business Admin, if you guys remember 2008 was a horrific time to be anybody, let alone a fresh graduate with a finance degree. So I spent the next three years miscellaneous job I work for two years for free one year for a real estate investor. I drove from Northwest Indiana to Chicago every day for free. The next year was I worked on at Chicago Board of Trade, I didn’t make a dime, I worked every day. It was sales and I was horrible at sales. And then I got a job working as a financial consultant valuation console. I didn’t even know what it was, but it offered me 35 grand a year. And it was on how to value companies. And I said, Okay, this is going to help me buy companies in the future. By then I knew it was like, Okay, I gotta get my skill sets up. And I told the lady, I said, I’ll work for free. I just needed some. That’s why I work for free for the previous two years to get my resume built up. And it was Noah’s effort to pay 35 grand a blur, whoo. And I just worked. It was like the door was open and I just outworked everybody. And I was doing partner level work within a year or two. I ended up parlaying that into working for one of the best job, best companies in the world Willamette management, became a published author had the six figure salary every bell and whistle you could think of and I hated it. And I said, this is going to be the rest of my life like question mark. And a friend invited me down to this real estate investing community said try this out. I was scared to death of it. But I was more scared to death of sticking in that office the rest of my life. So I jumped. And 18 months later bought my first property had six properties right after that, bought a business, quit my job, and I bought a business out in Arizona started my own real estate investing community. And then I rolled that into what we do today is we work with high functioning, high producing W2 employees and founder led companies, financial strategies, we help them buy businesses, sell businesses, buy real estate, sell real estate, we do all the tax planning everything finance under the sun for him. And so that’s how we spend our time today.
CORWYN:
So that’s interest. He used to say that, Zack, there’s a piece in here that you talked about, which was more afraid of I literally interviewed an agent recently with join our group here. And in that conversation, they were expressing how fearful they were in getting started in the business. They’re going to go to school, with all of this stuff, and how fearful they are starting this process. But I asked him, I said, Well, hey, you need to be more fearful of staying where you are, because you want your daughter happy. So that’s the Epiphany, right? Yeah, man, when people are afraid of success, man.
ZACH:
Oh, yeah, I see it every day. Because I trained. So I have calls six days a week. And I’ve been doing this for 10 years, almost. I’ve trained 1000s of people in real estate investing. And the number one thing is fear, I don’t care, whatever you disguise it as whatever I like you said peanut butter, whatever peanut butter you put on it to make it sound good. It’s a lie, you’re afraid. And the sooner you realize that, the sooner you can move forward.
CORWYN:
That is very true as I was having that conversation, and I’m gonna get back around off of this in a moment. But it’s the mindset piece, it’s got to go into everything. If you don’t get the mindset piece, nothing’s gonna work. And all you’re going to do a support and confirm that your fear. Because, okay, I had this fear going in. And in turn, because I had this fear. I didn’t fully commit. So I didn’t go whole ho. Matter of fact, I’ll give you this Zach. I think you’ll appreciate this one. And I said this one a long time. So you can feel free to use this. I love it. So I tell people, This thing here about being about commitment, right. So you work on a farm. I don’t know what y’all have. But my assumption is you probably have some homes. And you have some chickens. Is that fair?
ZACH:
No, we have strawberries. We had strawberries and flowers.
CORWYN:
But think about this. So breakfast time. if you put bacon eggs on a plate, that hog was committed. So he was fully committed. That chicken made a contribution. So when I talk to people, I do this a lot with my agents. I say to them, Hey, look, I need you whole hog. Whole Hog, because that person is committed. The other person is a chicken. They come in, they give you an egg and a goat. You know, I’m saying they used to run around the yard picking, bothering people doing whatever they do. But that hog was coming he had to fully give up an appendage, probably gave it to be frank about to get bacon he had to give up. Mostly because the way the bacon come from he had to give up more than just an appendage, you can cut off the shank, or cut off a foot, you know, I’m saying it probably still keep going. But look here, you got to give up where he gave up that bacon from? Well, you got to be fully invested. And people have to be fully and should be fully invested, and what they’re setting out to do. So is that coming in? So you overcame the fear, if you will, because you have a greater fear that not and you had a greater fear of being stuck in this rut of Wait a minute, this is what my life is gonna be. So in doing so, what was that was a trigger. So that was the why. So what was the bigger thing and what keeps you motivated now to keep going.
ZACH:
So as life progressed. So did the why. And so my first one was obviously my mom, she still was very important to me growing up on a farm, she didn’t have a traditional retirement plan. Her retirement plan was three kids. And so that motivated me. And then that pushed me through school, and then that got me the job. And then once I had the job, I was like, well, this sucks. And from there, it was why I want to quit this job. And I want to start my business. And when I got there, it was just kept perpetuating. And then finally I reached a point where I set out it was travel the world help people make money. And I was doing all three of them, and making great money traveling the world helping lots of people. And I was sitting in Dominican Republic. And with my coach and I was on down I was at the beach and I got on my coaching call with her. She goes What’s wrong, I was like, I’m just I’m not feeling it. She goes, I’ll sum it up, I quit asking what’s next. And if you don’t have something else to live into, it’s like, I don’t care how good your life is. Enjoy the journey, the destinations, only good for a quick little drink. And then you gotta get back on the road to the next destination. And for me, I just created a big enough life, and that is my lifelong purpose. Now it’s empowering people have an amazing life and all aspects of their life. And it starts with finances. Because if you don’t have your finances in order, the rest of your life is going to be in disorder. And so I help people get their finances in order, then I help people find their purpose and their passion and something to pull them out of bed every morning. Because as you said earlier, you got to have something greater than that fear that keeps you from doing something. And so that’s what I spend my time doing today is inspiring people to go live in a fantastic life. And it starts by me being a product of that, like I have a pretty fantastic life. But I work hard at it every day. I coach three times a week to get over my own internal fears.
CORWYN:
Man, so I just had this whole vision over here of traveling people the journey in the destination and I’ve said this, so I’m not going to man, look at this and all the stuff I want to get to. So I don’t want to stay here too long. Because Zach, you just hit something else. So I feel like we’re kindred spirits over here, man. Because seriously, I always talk about the journey, the journey. And then when people get somewhere they achieve a particular thing. And they want to rest in that place. And then when you look, they don’t accomplish anything more. And to be frank, they’re miserable. Because they got to this one place and Allah made it. But then pretty soon the ticker tape gets bad. It’s wet. That’s look here. I ended up being but I don’t watch it so you don’t watch them drop that ball in New York, New Year’s Eve, ticker tape, all that stuff. Somebody’s got to go clean that mess up because it ain’t right. It’s similar. So we want the ticker tape parade experience when we achieve something wonderful. But then what happens after that the ticker tape, once it’s done shot, once it hit the ground, you ain’t picking up it throwing it up again. It’s on the ground, it’s already dirty, is getting wet. Whatever it is, and becomes a mess. Now you got to clean it up and clean it up. Are you gonna clean up and stay? Do you want to clean it up and move on to the next place where you can have another ticker tape parade? Yeah, I heard you saying Go ahead, go
ZACH:
Well, I think for me, I think people are sold a lie. And that lie is retirement is going to make you happy or doing nothing’s gonna make you happy. And that is the farthest thing from the truth. If you’re not evolving as a human being, you will be not happy. I don’t know how else to say it. Because I personally experienced I have that proverbial beach moment that proverbial do nothing moment. And it’s nice to take a break. I’m not saying that. It’s like nice to take a break and catch your breath. But to sit there forever. It’s not fulfilling at all. And I see all these programs. I have a love hate relationship with high ticket coaching programs. Because I’m a product of them. I’ve sold on my bottom. There’s some great ones out there, but I think the majority of them are selling a facade. And that facade is make money quick, do nothing. They’re just not the reality of it. And so it takes some you have to become somebody that makes that money and the only way you’re gonna do that is by learning and then it’s the constant evolution of what it means to be a human. And just like what’s next. That is where my most joyous moments come from is finding something hard, and going for it and then accomplishing it.
CORWYN:
So let’s shift the gear here. Because look at me and you, I can stay on this. Yeah, because it’s empowering. It’s freeing. You know, I’m saying sometimes man, oh, man, I can stay on this for a long time. So let’s talk about the investing strategies that you employ. You made mentioned early in that you guys employ, you’re not just doing an investment or looking at the return on the investment. You’re looking at also the tax strategies, the advantages, tax wise, the other benefits, ancillary benefits? That’s when you analyze, is that correct? Yeah.
ZACH:
So I look, I’ve been doing this for 20 years, and I used to work in m&a, I used to do financial modeling. And so I gained so much knowledge, and I didn’t realize it at the time, I just wanted to make that bait money. But what I was picking up along the trail was skill sets and knowledge and wisdom that I now today, have can use to save a lot of people money and make a lot of people money. And so in the world of investing, this is how I see the world, make money in business, reinvest it in real estate, and then use tax strategies to keep as much of it as you can. ReeseI being one of the best tax strategies out there. Now the people that I talk to, again, a lot of these guru programs out there, they’re selling these get rich quick through real estate. But what they don’t tell you is, if you don’t have money, the only way you’re going to make money is through sales and marketing of a product called Real Estate. And in that book, a lot of people that they talked to Rich Dad, Poor Dad, they always remember the real estate invest in real estate, but they always forget to become great at sales apart. Because nobody wants to sell No, I was not the person today, I have gone through so much personal development to get here. Because I was a quiet dude in the back room analyst that was afraid of the world. And I did not want to sell because I didn’t understand it. And today, everything I do is sales and marketing. Everything I do is sales and marketing. Because there’s no transaction without a sale. There’s no money without a sale. People don’t get that.
CORWYN:
So when I just heard man, Lucky man, it’s like, I don’t know, you fade man. But what I just heard is I tell people all the time, people take one little scripts or one little verse out of whatever, and that becomes everything. So you remember that one section of the book, but you forget everything else that was said,
ZACH:
I don’t want to hear that. You know, it’s like, yeah, so you checked it, your brain rejects it, because that means you’re gonna have to go out and actually talk to another human being and yeah, solve a problem and be a value. And that’s scary as heck for people.
CORWYN:
I’m over here tripping man, because that’s really what it is, like you’ve said that, so they want to give your people want to give this whole, I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna do this, okay, well, in order to get this accomplished is you got to do all this other stuff in order to make this a reality. And you don’t want to do any of this. So therefore, this is going to fizzle and be nothing. Because, yeah, like serum.
ZACH:
I mean, I was a product of what I just said, I spent years trying to become great at finance and anything other than talking to people. Anything other than talking to people. And then one day, I just like, Yeah, I’m like, There’s I flipped over everything, trying to do everything to make money without talking to people. And just ain’t it. And then I read this beautiful book is The 10 commandments of making money. I think it’s called an in there. He says, You need other people to make money and have it just like learn and grow rich. It was like, so obvious to me. After I read the book, and it was like, yeah, go, he said, if you were the last person on Earth, you’d be the richest person on earth for a short like, buy, right? And I’m like, Okay, what does that mean? And then he goes, after a while, you’d be forced to be a farmer, because all the food would go bad. And you’d have to go back to being a farmer. And then they talk about creating community, well, I’m going to be great at raising potatoes, you’re going to be great at raising corn, the third person is going to be great at raising cows for milk, and then we all economics, and then we store value through grains and the whole history of currencies and money. And all this is, oh, I have to actually add value to people. And that means I have to understand their problems and understand how to sell or solve their problems. So I can make some money. And what I got out of it was like growing up in the Midwest, there’s this negative context around making money. You’re supposed to the way I was raised, you don’t charge your neighbor you help them for free. My challenge was I was helping everyone for free. And that doesn’t serve me. And then it’s okay, so it’s okay to make money. And selling is not sleazy. If it’s done with integrity, you’re
actually providing a value. And that took me a long time to understand.
CORWYN:
That’s interesting that the evolution of learning, so that’s what we’re talking about learning. But the evolution seems to be similar between different people
ZACH:
I look at it like this, I’ve done enough, I’ve spent well over half a million dollars in the last 1520 years of my life in training and development programs. And we’re all unique, to a certain extent. But if we pull back far enough, we’re all the same. We’re all the same. Like you’re unique in your own individuality. But as a human being, you’re the exact same as me. And I’ve traveled the world. I’ve had like 22 plus countries in four years, full time digital nomad living. And everywhere I go, there’s people same thing, but they look different. They have different color skin, different languages, different essence to them, but at the core, they’re still human. And they still have fears, and they still have desires, and they’re still emotional creatures. And it’s the same thing everywhere. It’s just has its own little tweak to it.
CORWYN:
So is that you teach people how to do this, right? Oh, yeah. So what does that look like group’s training calls? What does that look like?
ZACH:
I went to this, so I’m always evolving myself. And so I started off in a coaching program, very $15,000, I had to sell some stuff and and borrow money from my mom, do you mean get into it, and then start having some success, I started my own community. And then it was like $20,000+, to join our community. And so what I’ve done was over, I’ve been doing that for about 10 years. And so I’m into my next phase is where I’m literally giving all the content away. And so we’re working on a platform called school, SKL, it’s just a platform. And my goal is to give all of my content away, because I see all these people out there selling these high ticket programs, to people that aren’t ready to consume at that level. And then they’re spending 1020 30 $40,000 on programs. And so I’m like, You know what, I’m just gonna give my content away for free. And so that’s what I’m working on doing right now. And then if you want me, we were starting a new mastermind subscription, it’s 97 bucks a month for the people that I’m on the calls. And then if you’re my desired client, either high functioning high performance W2 people, I’ll get people make half a million dollars a year in the web world, and they can hang at my speed, or you’re a founding level partner, or a founding level person that runs the company, either founder, those are the two people I work with one on one, because they have the capacity, and they can make money. And for some of the other people that aren’t there yet. It’s just a process of staying in the game. And so that’s how I develop them, I got this framework from Alex Hermoza. I don’t know if you know him, he just gives everything away. And he’s one of the biggest online marketers out there. But his goal is to eventually turn these prospective people into companies he can partner with. So I do the same thing. And so when somebody reaches a state, and they’re ready for my advanced skills, my advanced team, whatever it is that I have to offer, I’ve built all that goodwill, and they’re gonna say, hey, Zack, you really did me a solid? I want to work with you now. And then that’s how I get my portfolio companies.
CORWYN:
It makes perfect sense. I essentially get more by giving more. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Zig Ziglar has a saying that’s related to that. Because, first of all, is
ZACH:
And also, the passion in me for helping other people is, I think we could change the world. So I have this thing. It’s called the project. And the project is how do we end human suffering? And I was like, how do we feed the hungry, homeless? How’s the homeless, drinking just the necessities of life? And it’s like, well, oh, we’re gonna fund it through the program. This is not my brand. What’s the program? Well, the program is Zach teaching other people how to make money. And if I can teach them how to make money through business ownership, then they’re going to take that money they make, and they’re going to put it in their community by making a difference. Maybe it’s animals that they’re passionate about, maybe it’s elderly, maybe it’s the kids, maybe I don’t care who it is, take some of that money, make and go make a difference in the world. And so instead of Zack and my wife writing a check, we have millions of people running a check. And I think that coupled with sound principles and ethics and values, which I think are very lacking today. I think you put those on the foundation of making money, I think this world could change like that.
CORWYN:
I can agree. And that is Ah, I’m sorry, because it just went right past me. But essentially what you’re doing is you’re teaching others to fish.
ZACH:
That’s the thing that came to my mind the passage and there’s this book out there is called toxic my gosh, I can’t remember the name of it, but toxic like when you give stuff away, because the first time they say thank you the second time they expect overtime and then the third time it or you know, eventually it’s like where’s myself? Yeah. And what that does is that takes away from The value creation, and there’s no more economic value being exchanged, because that value that they’re getting has to come from somewhere. And so it’s absolutely I want to teach people.
CORWYN:
I love that. I love that. So Zach, we’ve quickly reached the end part of today’s show. I look at I’m loving it. So I’m gonna have to get you back on here soon. I would love another year because I feel like we probably just pull back half the top layer of the onion. And we got so much more to go. But tell me how can listeners find you? How can they reach you?
ZACH:
Look, the best way to find me because we got a bunch of stuff out there is my blog, IndianaOehlman. So I have Indiana Jones. I said, You know what I mean, the gentleman. I mean, I love adventures. I love motorcycles. So Indiana Oehlman So, oehlman.com my blog. I write stuff. You’ll get to know more about me it has all my social media, all my businesses, all this stuff there.
CORWYN:
I love it. I love it. I’m over here cracking myself up. Because likea Yeah, I’m gonna build this website out right now. So listeners, look here. I want you to know that I’m looking this up right now. So we can find there he is right there. Oh, gosh. Man, that is so cool.
ZACH:
That’s in Brazil. Oh, wow. Yeah,
CORWYN:
man, that is so cool. So for our listeners, guys, look, you’ll find this episode on our website, please make sure that you go check it out. It’ll be up on Monday. So you listen to it. Look on Monday, it’s going to be up, please make sure you go find the link, website link is going to be there. So you can go check. I love the site, man. So you can go check Zack out and connect with them. Not only follow the adventures, but figure out how you can create your own adventure. This is a lifestyle that you live in Zach, I’m super stoked and happy for you. Because I see it as a reflection and inflection that you give an insight that you’re providing to people that how they can live the same way and how you’re encouraging people to be one, let’s make some money. Let’s help some people. Let’s make some money, so we can help more people. So right help people make money, help more people. And you keep going, I love it. I love it. I love it. So Zach, thank you so much, man for being on the show with us today. I really appreciate it. So I asked this question of all of our guests. I call it my mic drop question, right? And it’s the hindsight is 20/20 question. So if you can look back over your life, the things that you’ve done, what thing would you have done differently that would have catapulted you to the way you are now are much further down the road,
ZACH:
I would have gotten involved in personal development, the mindset work from 16. Like from a child, I didn’t even know what it was, until I was almost 30 and 27, 29. And so I was so focused on the tactical stuff, the two plus two equals four as opposed to the mindset, the visionary stuff, the planning your future, you can have whatever you want, if you like that side of stuff. Without that you need both. You need the tactical and the practical. But you also need the visionary, the dreaming aspect of the goal setting, we’ll call it the Tony Robbins type stuff because everyone knows who he is just, I would have started that soon as I could.
CORWYN:
Okay. I love that. Because you’re right. And we’re not taught that nobody knows how to teach. You know
ZACH:
I tell people I said I grew up in a small town and you dealt with your problems by drinking or going to church or not dealing with it. The truth, the truth.
CORWYN:
And I literally just click through a thought in my head. You’re absolutely right?
ZACH:
You don’t no one said, Zack, you could change your life if you want. Yeah, until I met a certain group of people in my late 20s That said, Zack, you can change your life if you want. And I was like, What are you talking about?
CORWYN:
Yeah, that is so true, man. Either you own the front pew, or the first bar stool, or you just saying whatever is one of those three, you’re absolutely positively right, positively correct. So Zach again, thank you so much for man, for all of that. Thank you for your candor. Thank you for your openness. But most importantly, we appreciate and we thank you for your time today for being on the show with us. Again, from the bottom of my heart. I really appreciate you being part of Exit radio show family, and I look forward to having the real back on real soon. [Thanks for having me, Corwyn]:. All right. So for our listeners, guys, y’all know how I feel. Y’all know what I say? Y’all know, I always put the two of those things together. And I give it I deliver it to you this way, which is I love you. I love you. I love you. We gonsee you guys out there in the streets.
