From Gulf War Veteran to Super Agent: Barry Overton's Real Estate Journey

Barry Overton  0:02  

In this market that we're in, you're going to see people that are highly successful in, you know, in the right investments that they make in real estate, whether it's their own personal properties, or if it's an investment properties, because they're going in it with an approach of this is a, this is the perfect time for me to purchase. And I tell buyers right now, yeah, purchase at the higher interest rate, because right now you have less competition, we can negotiate with sellers, we can get you closing costs, we can get a lower price, and deal with this interest rate for a short period of time. The thing that's going to happen is once these interest rates go down, the frenzy that we had a year and a half ago, five years ago, it's going to come back and you're already sitting in a place where now your equity is growing faster than it is right now.

Derek Marlin  0:55  

Well, welcome to raising the flipping bar. My name is Derek Marlin and I've redeveloped over 80 properties in metro Denver. I've bought and sold 115 multifamily doors in Cincinnati, Ohio, and my team has done just under 300 single family rental acquisitions for our clients. On this show. My goal is to help you make more money, save you a bunch of time and create a well oiled flipping machine. Let's dive in and if you want more information, head to fix and flip dot show. All right, perfect. Well welcome back to raising the flipping bar. I'm really excited. I've got Barry Overton with us Barry is with the Super agent collaborative, powered by exp.

Barry, welcome to show

Barry Overton  1:35  

a thank you so much for for having me. Derek. This is really an honor, again, our relationship, we're just getting to know one another. And I tell you, every time I sit down with you, it's always a pleasure. And I come away smarter from it. So I'm really excited about today.

Derek Marlin  1:53  

Thank you very much. Well, we'll try not to disappoint. And I'm really excited to kind of share with our audience. The nice thing is you've got so many different things within your career and what you're doing that overlap with our audience, which is primarily real estate investors, real estate agents, entrepreneurs, small business owners. So what we're gonna dive into today, I'm really excited about as well. But I actually I would love for you to kind of share with our audience, you've got a unique background. And I know you've been doing real estate a long time, but almost on the side for a while, tell our audience a little bit about, you know, just give us a background of who you are, where you came from what you were doing even before real estate,

Barry Overton  2:26  

you know, I grew up in Austin, Texas, and after graduating from high school, didn't go the college route directly, went more of an indirect route to college and started in the military first. So I ended up going to the Gulf War. So a gulf war veteran, wow. After that I was going to school while being a police officer in Alabama, okay, or a couple of years. And then I ended up coming to Denver and being a Denver Police Officer for 21 years spending 26 years total in law enforcement. And while I was a police officer, I had about 12 years of overlap of being a police officer, and a real estate agent.

Derek Marlin  3:07  

Okay. Yeah, nice. Well, I knew about your, your background in law enforcement. And it's funny because we always try to listen to other podcasts and see what other people are doing. But to me, you got have an interesting parallel with David Greene, the main host of the bigger pockets podcast that he was in law enforcement as well. And so I kind of want to ask you another question. Is there something about the very unique skills, whether it's military or law enforcement, that that you probably used every single day that you can translate over that, that you think parlay well into real estate?

Barry Overton  3:39  

Absolutely. I tell police officers that there is life after law enforcement, and there's so many different areas that they can go into where the skill set that you learn as a police officer will apply. And when you think you have to be think on your feet, you have to make decisions very quickly. And you're dealing with as a police officer, you're dealing with some situations that can be very dangerous. And I look at it, you know, in real estate when a deal is falling apart again, our first thing is problem solving. How do we fix this? And that's what you do as a police officer. And I think being able to stay composed when everyone else is losing their minds around you. It happens on a real estate deal if it starts to crash or something like that. So yeah, there's so many and then I think the organization and detail attention to detail is something that as it's benefited me being a police officer and being able to transfer into real estate with that

Derek Marlin  4:39  

nice, and maybe if we jump kind of back into the real estate side of things give our audience a little bit of a sense of what type of real estate you've practiced maybe some context in yours because you've got great experience. Some of our guests that have come on have only been investing a couple years have been an agent for a while you've seen market upturns and downturns increase things happen. Maybe just give us now kind of your your real estate Get resume, if you've got to put it in context.

Barry Overton  5:01  

So 22 years in real estate, you're right. I mean, I've seen I think every aspect of what can happen in the market. And I, I kind of pride myself on that, because once again, it's that ability to adjust and not get freaked out in regards to the changes. And we're in one of those right now, where I think I'm seeing a lot of agents that are leaving the industry, because they haven't dealt with this before. And how I look at it is okay, it's an opportunity to, you know, think outside the box and do some things different. And so, you know, like, during the time of foreclosures and the Arios, and short sales, I had to become a short sale expert. And it was good that I did because I think about 80 85% of transactions at that time, were short sale, so you either learned it, or you got out of the business. Right. And, you know, we've had, you know, probably from 2011, up until about a year and a half ago, we've had some really great years in real estate, and you know, it was kind of almost given to us to a certain degree. And now we're in a place where we have to think outside the box, I'm doing assumable loans with some of my clients and, you know, the subject two type of mortgages and just helping clients to be able to navigate the this process that we're currently in right now as well.

Derek Marlin  6:31  

Yeah, and actually, I think that would actually be great context, because so I got an investing in 2009 and start acquiring rental properties. And the guy that I was acquiring rental properties from, we would buy what he called turnkey rentals. So he was buying short sales, he was buying foreclosures, he was buying everything that he could afford, even at the courthouse steps, scooping things up, fixing them up, and then putting a renter in them and saying, okay, here, Derek, you as the end investor, why don't you buy these properties. So I knew at that point, you know, enough to kind of be dangerous, I was just getting into it. But I would love to actually hear you kind of walk us through what it was like to you know, a maybe what a short sale actually is. Because I think we might see a little indent Reynold think we're gonna see a lot because of all the equity people have maybe tell our audience a little bit about what a short sale was, or is, and then kind of what it was, like being in those crazy year to, you know, to your point surviving and adapting your business.

Barry Overton  7:20  

Yeah, you know, short sales are, I think, simply put, when you have, you owe more on the property than you have in equity. So you your ended up, but when you sell the property, you have to get in essence permission from the mortgage company to be able to sell your property, because there's a difference that they are going to some type of an agreement is going to have to be made between the owner and the mortgage company. In many cases, they will, you know, forgive you on on what's owed. But you take a hit, you know, from in many instances, people were still ending up with a foreclosure on their their credit. But like I said, at 85%, because of 2008, with the market crashing and prices dropping. If you were not in the property long enough, or you refight and took your equity out, you may have positioned yourself where you had, you know, less equity than what the property, you know, was worth at that time. So, you know, being able to navigate that, and man in 2008, you had Countrywide, who I think was bought by Bank of America, if I'm not mistaken. Yep. And they were nine months, I could go into contract, and it would be nine months before we would close those crates. Every now and then you'd find a one that could get it done in 120 days. And that was that was good. Yeah. You know, so when you think about where we're at now with 30, day 20 Day closings? Yeah. So you have to be in it for the long haul, and hopefully, in a position where you can sustain paying your mortgage payment during that timeframe.

Derek Marlin  9:02  

Yeah. Wow, gosh, I know, it's interesting. We started getting into flipping in 2014 and 2015. And I started learning about that piece of the business and wholesaling a year before that. So 2013 2014, and creative financing was just starting to actually slow down because you didn't need it. So you know, our company, we're actually having a brush up on some of these new uniques or I shouldn't say unique, but strategies that are new to the current market environment of the creative financing, maybe also give our audience a little bit about maybe some explanations of how you're helping people and you mentioned assumable loans. Just a little bit about that, that I think will become in vogue with the crazy high interest rates that we're talking about in today's environment if as we stand right now being in the sevens,

Barry Overton  9:43  

yeah, you know, I have been marketing to sellers right now of how to make their house the most attractive house in the neighborhood. If they have an FHA loan or a VA loan that can be assumed, then they can sell their house and have that first mortgage assumed, and if they're at a 3.25, or a 2.75 interest rate that's pretty attractive and the seven and a half, you know, interest rate environment that we're in right now. And I actually had two properties where we started just doing the traditional sale not doing the assumable. And no activity and no baits no offers. And the moment that we added this, this property can be assumed both of them went under contract at the asking price. Nice. Yeah. And both of them are at, you know, two 3.25 on the interest rate. So a buyer is going in and like Man, this is a win win situation, they have the cash to cover the difference between the the first mortgage and what the purchase price is. So I mean, that buyers coming in, I think both of them were like $1,000 that they're saving per month on their mortgage payment.

Derek Marlin  10:56  

That's amazing. Yeah, no, that's perfect. And I'd love to kind of hear a little bit about what you're doing with the Super agent collaborative that we're excited as elevation and be a part of, but you're doing some really unique things under the EXP Realty umbrella. But tell us about the subregion collaborative kind of your role, and how you see this really cool organization moving forward.

Barry Overton  11:14  

You know, what's been exciting is it gives real estate agents the opportunity to do real estate the way they want to, and build the type of business that they want. And while the super agents collaborative, I look at us as kind of the support resource, but perfect example elevations, I can very well see you guys in five years having 1000s of agents all over the country that are adopting the business model that you are creating. We're simply here as a super agents collaborative to be able to support you and help you grow in the way that you want to. The beauty of it is right now we have seven other teams that are doing the same thing, right. But they're not all in investing. Some of them are working on resort projects. Some of them are newer agents that have never even imagine building a team that are now building a team and in real estate. And figuring their way out. We're helping them to kind of walk through and figure out what their identity as a team will be. But it really gives agents the opportunity to do business in a way that we never really imagined. I mean, thinking about doing business nationally, right? You know, 22 years in real estate for 20 of those years. Before joining exp I always thought okay, well, I just want to really be have a strong foothold in the Denver Metro area. Now, today. Tomorrow, I'll go to Madison, Wisconsin, I'm going with monta ball, who's a former Denver Bronco. He's a real estate agent in Wisconsin and in Colorado, and we're growing his team in the Wisconsin market. And so I'm going out there to do a presentation of what we have to offer and share that with with agents in that area. And that's something I would have never imagined two years ago that I would be doing.

Derek Marlin  13:08  

Yeah, and actually, that couldn't have been a better segue. That's exactly what I was gonna ask about is maybe you know, you've got a really unique background, and you're a great leader, and you're a great kind of developer of talent, talk about whether it's monta ball or you've got another, you know, kind of athlete under your umbrella of helping them understand ways that they can leverage the amazing, you know, kind of first part of their careers that they've had in professional sports. But what athletes need on the back end, which kind of hits so many boxes. For me, I come from the sports world of working for the Broncos and working in CBS Television, media and all their sports properties. So when you told me about that, I was like, Man, that is such a good idea. And it shows how you're an outside of the box thinker. And a very creative problem solver, which is one of kind of our core values talk a little bit about or in whatever fashion, you're comfortable about some of the cool things you're doing to help athletes and more importantly, their clients and just do real estate differently.

Barry Overton  13:58  

Yeah, you know, another great example of being able to just do it your way No, Shawn Marino was something someone that I reached out to. When you say no, Shawn, especially in Denver, there's only one, you know, so people know that name. And he's been in real estate for five years. And that's something that people don't really know. Right? And so when we sat down we met in the spring and I really just asked him what what is your dream of what you would like to see in real estate. And on top of the investing the Airbnb is that he's doing the, you know, he's doing some fix and flips as well. He wanted to build an organization of real estate agents that were former athletes, that really focused on helping other athletes because they, they understand the culture and they understand, you know, the day to day in and day out, that athletes go go through and they want to be able to cater and build in essence a concierge service for those agents or excuse me, those athletes To be able to help them navigate purchasing and selling. And I was like, Man, that's an amazing idea. And I started doing research. And I found that there are some other companies that are doing that around the country, but not to the level that that no Shawn is looking to, to build it to. So that's what I get excited about is, again, being able to take, you know, my experiences helped him to grow that because he's been in real estate five years. And surprisingly, no managing broker or marketing team with any of the other agents, if I've sat down and said, Hey, what is it that you want to grow? And how can we help you grow it? And that's what we want to be able to help him do as well as any other agent?

Derek Marlin  15:42  

No, I think that's great experience. And something that I've been really excited to kind of ask you about is a little bit about where you feel like we had some other prior guests in here talking about the market in general, obviously, nobody has a crystal ball, you and I would be far more wealthy if we didn't know exactly what's going on. But just in general, as we kind of come to the closing half of 2023. And really looking at 2024, where do you see the Denver Real Estate market over the next 15 or so months here coming up?

Barry Overton  16:11  

You know, I think probably the next 12 months or so we can probably expect pretty much what we're experiencing now. Hopefully some some adjustments with, you know, there's been talk about the the interest rates going down, but it was expected that we would be about a year ago, they thought we would be at 5%. Now, right? And so, you know, I think we have to, you know, hope for the best prepare for the worst. And once again, in in preparing, it's finding those those different avenues of how we can adjust with the market, one of my back in 2008. What I learned in saying that I've kept since then has been someone is always buying and someone is always selling real estate, as a real estate agent is my job to be able to connect the two and do it where whoever I'm representing I'm getting the best deal for them. So that's why I think it's it's very important as a real estate agent that we do stay apprised of all the different opportunities that are coming out. One of the things that I'm noticing, I take meetings with mortgage brokers all the time, because they're filling it as well. And their companies are figuring out different types of programs and things of that nature to counteract what's going on in the market. So as an agent, I want to be on top of that, so that I can share that with with my market. I think that's where, you know, it's our duty to provide that value to our client base and customers that are, you know, feeling like they're stuck because you listen to the media, they will make you it's doom and gloom, and they make you feel like, you know, I can't do anything right now I can't buy or I can't sell. And I think that's further from the truth. I think there's some great opportunities, you know, if you're looking in the right place, and looking with the right mindset,

Derek Marlin  18:03  

yeah, and actually, that is exactly where I was just about to go. Because right there are, I mean, whether we define it as, quote, unquote, good and bad to me is the mindset of the individual executing their business plan. So you could look back in the 80s. I remember talking to my folks, some are from the East Coast, and they're like, Oh, we were so pumped to get an 18% mortgage. Conversely, everybody says, well, those were cheap homes. So 18% on $100,000 mortgage versus a 7%. On a $700,000. Mortgage, I get that mathematically, there are some challenges, but in general, high interest rates, low interest rates, tons of competitors in the market, you know, in our space and the fix and flip space when there's so many people gobbling things up. There's hedge funds, buying stuff. There's opportunities everywhere. And there's also ways for people just to kind of get down in the dumps, maybe talk a little bit about how you view mindset because after that, I want to talk about some of the other cool things you're doing from a speaking in a book side of things, but talk about mindset, and just how important that is, with your agents and maybe even with your clientele through the markets going to be up and down. It's the market it's not, you know, flat.

Barry Overton  19:06  

You know, I'm going to give you an example from something that happened last night, nothing real estate related, but it's the talk right now. Aaron Rodgers right for game four plays into the season and he tears his Achilles. So when I you know, watch the game, I really felt bad for him about that. But at the same time, I, you know, felt like okay, well, he's gonna come back next season and still, you know, have an amazing career. And I looked online after the game and I noticed people saying, oh, that's the end for Aaron Rodgers. It's over for him. And just, I don't know him personally, knowing enough about the way he thinks he will not go out with an Achilles tear being, you know, what he's known for being his last play. So I think that really comes to the difference of where you can See people that the what I call ordinary thinking. And they're they're having ordinary thinking for an extraordinary person, right. And so they're not getting to the level of his thinking in regards to what he's going to do. And I think that that's what we have to look at for ourselves. Because, again, in this market that we're in, you're going to see people that are highly successful in, you know, in the right investments that they make in real estate, whether it's their own personal properties, or if it's an investment properties, because they're going in it with an approach of this is a this is the perfect time for me to purchase. And I tell buyers right now, yeah, purchase at the higher interest rate, because right now you have less competition, we can negotiate with sellers, we can get you closing costs, we can get a lower price, and deal with this interest rate for a short period of time, the thing that's going to happen is once these interest rates go down, the frenzy that we had a year and a half ago, five years ago, it's going to come back, and you're already sitting in a place where now your equity is growing faster than than it is right now.

Derek Marlin  21:11  

Yeah, I totally agree. And I think the thing that people don't really look at is, well, one statistics, I think, everybody, we should all work on gut feel to make that final little tipping point of a decision of do I go, you know, with Plan A or plan B, for example. But to me, I'm kind of a data nerd, and we try to look back at data. And seven out of the last eight recessions. Typically, actually, housing prices didn't go down, the only time they went down was the 2008 crash, and rightfully so it should have that they were, you know, fake loans were given out, and people didn't really have the income to support those. But typically, you know, real estate value didn't go down. And then when the recession came about, the interest rates came down, on average, just about one percentage point. So for us to not see that I would be shocked. And to your point, I think it's going to be there's so much pent up demand, because home builders are not overbuilding. And then there's household formation. So we will now have had probably two years or so of people that have, you know, gotten married, gotten divorced, had kids done whatever they need to do, you know, grown up into want to be out of their apartment, they're going to need housing of some sort. So we have all this pent up demand. And to your point, we're not going to see this, in my opinion, this mass exodus of movement, because not everybody will give up their 3% interest rate. So I love your strategy of how do you help people in today's current environment? How do you help yourself become successful? And it's it's all a mindset thing, because the exact same thing is gonna happen next year where people will bitch and moan about oh, man, there's so much competition and there's bidding wars. It's like, hey, we told you so. But we told you so to some degree, but you just got to find a way to thrive in any market condition. And that's business in general real estate is this weird microcosm where people think that it's the only thing goes up and down. I mean, think of stock traders that are trading every single day. It's the same thing. Yeah,

Barry Overton  22:55  

yeah, you're right. Yeah. And I have to remind people that, you know, three years ago, we were saying, well, as a buyer is saying, I want to wait until the prices go down. Well, this is about as good as it's gonna get as far as prices going down. And now you want to say that you want to wait until interest rates go down, you can't have both, you got to figure out which one is going to work best for you. And you know, when people say when is the best time to buy, the best time to buy is when you are ready, and figuring out what's once you're ready, what's going to be the best loan program, what's going to be the best scenario for you to purchase. And I you know, so I think today, this market is still a great time to buy. If you're a seller, and you're you have that 3.25% interest rate, but you have a ton of equity that you've made, there things that you can do to you know, maybe not get back to the 3.25 I get a lower interest rate than what everyone else in the market has, because you have the equity to be able to do it on your next purchase.

Derek Marlin  23:59  

Yeah. And I'm kinda love to hear about your personal strategy of what you're doing. And you're building in Denver, but you've also got your eyes on another market that you want to both spend some time in and live in, maybe talk to our audience, because I think there's a lot of people that want to live in one place, but do business in multiple areas in multiple markets. Tell me a little bit about your foray into California what you want to do between, you know, kind of going dual markets, if you will, because that's super interesting.

Barry Overton  24:23  

Yeah, so we purchased a property in San Diego, downtown San Diego, California about four years ago and just love it there. So my son will graduate from CU in two more years. Once he graduates our plan is to move to San Diego. And we'll likely sell our property here get something smaller, we have a small condo there which will sell and put that money into the new property and then buy something smaller here. Because you know, one of the reasons that I went to exp was because of the fact that it was a national company. Previously, I was with a local company. And that's where the idea of realizing, okay, if I live in San Diego, how do I do business in Denver, and exp really kind of provided an answer for that. And now it's going beyond just being here in Denver, the super agents Collaborative has grown into six different states now. And with within two years, I'd love to be in half the country at that point, and have all these different areas that I can, again, help agents grow in, and I can visit and continue to do real estate, but also having a team in place that will take care of my production side of real estate. So these next two years are really kind of laying the groundwork for the preparation of being able to really just see see my real estate business in an entirely different light. And about two years from now.

Derek Marlin  26:02  

Nice. No, that's awesome. And kind of looking at things differently. Maybe tell us a little bit about your strategy? Have you put out fantastic content? I think definitely people are starting to get on the content train, obviously, we're sitting here in a podcast studio. So we're big proponents of that. But maybe just tell me a little bit about some of the unique marketing things you're doing putting out content speaking, you've got books, like you've got a lot of media things going on. So maybe just give our audience a little kind of summary of what you're doing right now. That's unique, in my opinion.

Barry Overton  26:27  

Yeah, you know, I think for real estate, one of the things, you know, they've said, there's 30,000 Real estate agents in Colorado, you have to set yourself apart, you know, when you're dealing with that many agents. And so one of the big areas for me was the the media side of things. And that actually started for me in 2017, which was really interesting, because there are very few real estate agents that were putting out content, very few that would even you know, were willing to get in front of the camera. And I realized that for me, over these past few years, I can go to different places, and people recognize me, and we'll, you know, locally here in Denver, you know, we'll mention they know me, and I don't necessarily know them. So and I learned that probably 10 years ago, because there were people on on Facebook at the time and YouTube that I was following. And, you know, you almost have an idea that this person is a celebrity, because you're seeing them on their social media, and you're following them, you know, you become a fan of just as ordinary person, and having the opportunity to meet them in person, and then just realizing that they're ordinary people doing extraordinary things. But the power of social media gives them a platform where it allows them to grow from that that level. And I mean, now we're seeing it with kids are just exploding on social media. And so I think it is a very important part of any business, if you're, you're building a business to have that type of presence. Especially because in most instances, there's a lot that you can use without paying for ads. I mean, it's free media. And when you think, you know, growing up in the times of you know, television, or print or radio, I just looked at a radio spot, and it's gonna be like, $25,000 for a three month spot. On a morning show. Yep. So you know, and when you can look at social media and the same level of people that you can hit with just a few $1,000 I mean, it's just such a powerful tool that I think, you know, we all have to be able to use and that podcast or, you know, once again, I think another area because, like yourself, there's so many people that have knowledge that can be beneficial to the masses. And I think the the whole concept of podcast is amazing for that to be able to spread this message to the masses, and you never know who's listening and who you're going to inspire to take their life and business to a whole nother level. Right? No,

Derek Marlin  29:19  

it is it's definitely pretty astounding. And, and it's interesting to see what people kind of the the true personal brands that people are creating and driving and getting things going in the right direction is amazing to me. And at first it took me a little bit of time to to jump on that train. I'm thinking who cares? A lot of people actually care. Yeah, you know, and if you can share that information or in our world, if we're flipping something and we're putting out content about here's what to look for, for structural problems that could actually save people 10s of 1000s of dollars or make sure things get fixed properly for the back end buyer. So yeah, it's almost like a civic duty is the way that we look at it is it's not just getting in front of a camera and putting stuff out to have, you know, likes and subscribers and whatever else like my Teenagers care about as you know, numbers, it's really like that community and that content that we want to put out to help other people. You know, what goes around comes around, in our opinion.

Barry Overton  30:07  

Yeah, yeah, I agree. And I mean, I think you said it, duty, I really feel like when people ask me, What is my purpose, I've lived in my purpose pretty much all my life, you know, serving in the military serving as a police officer, how I operate, my real estate business is I'm serving clients, I'm even serving other real estate agents. And it's that service to others, that's really just important to me, that's what gets me excited, being able to, you know, like what I'm doing with no Shawn and being able to help him to grow his business in a way that no other agent or broker had taken the time to do. I'm excited for him, you know, they had an event, they had a Bronco tailgating event, right, I think is about 80 or so people there, it was an amazing event. And he really shined in that that environment. And I think he, you know, he's been in a place where he felt like, he didn't know enough about real estate to really talk about it. But in that environment, when, you know, it's fans and things of that nature, you know, I saw a whole different side of him. And I shared with him how we were going to transfer that over into real estate, because he has more knowledge about real estate than he realizes because he's doing deals himself. Yeah, you know, all the time.

Derek Marlin  31:30  

No, that's awesome. Well, and one of the things that I want to kind of hear a little bit more your opinion about is we really, we just got done, we record a couple of sessions normally at one time, and obviously release things in different weekly increments. But we had my business and executive coach Doug on earlier and we talk about people working on their business, meaning what are some of the strategic things that you do? What are some of the things you allocate time towards to just growing the overall business versus what we call in the business which is okay, I gotta wake up today. I've got three meetings, I gotta meet with two sellers, I gotta get to social media posts. So that's kind of the crazy in the business, what are you doing to kind of work on your business that I think helps really set you guys apart?

Barry Overton  32:08  

I think a big part for me is going back to that mindset. So you mentioned me being an author, I've written three books. And one of them I was actually co author with Les Brown who allow Yeah, it's my idol. Absolutely public speaking world. And, but I driving here, I'm listening to never eat alone. So I think working on the business is working on me the my mindset, first and foremost, because, again, I think we can turn on the TV, listen to the radio, and there's so much negativity. So it's very important to me that I'm constantly feeding my mind positive things. One of my mentors once told me, the most important real estate that you own are the six inches between your ears love it. Yeah. And it's about what you're feeding your mind in regards to growth. And I think, you know, thinking of the the mind is real estate, I'm always looking at it from a standpoint then of you know, am I need to do a rehab, I need to do a remodel there, and continue to grow and get better. And what I can do with that is help others to grow. And I think the other part that I it's been very important to me to work on. And I'm really seeing the importance of it now in this time that we're in is relationships and connecting with others. One of the things that this Never Eat Alone, it talks about super connectors. And one of the things that I love being able to do is when I meet someone, I'm already thinking, Oh, they have to meet this person that I know. And so I'm always looking to connect good people, so they can collaborate may not have anything to do with me. But if it helps the two of them benefit in some way. That's exciting for me, and I love being able to bring that value to other people

Derek Marlin  34:01  

no love it. And I think that mindset is so important, because one of my favorite phrases is you become what you think about all the time. And so to your point, if we turn on the traditional media, and it's doom and gloom, and everything's hard, and there's, and I don't want to make light of it, that there are wars going on across the country, there are people that don't have homes. I mean, there's some really serious stuff going on that I think is definitely a pretty strong undercurrent, and we're not really as aware of it as we should be. But if you get mired down in that you will become that in my opinion, versus if we flip the script, and you think about how can I overcome adversity? Or how can I achieve what I want to achieve? It's just that, you know, behind the scenes thought process and mentality that will help you succeed and get through it. It's just that subconscious thing, you know, I mean, let's all work on that while we sleep. And so to me, it's like if you become what you think about if you just think about doom and gloom and crap all the time. It's not gonna be fun plus, that's not fun at all. Anyways, yeah.

Barry Overton  34:55  

Yeah. My my first personal development book that I picked up was thinking grow rich? I love it. Yeah. And the first line in the book, it says thoughts are things. And so I've read that book six times, I was told that most millionaires have read that book seven times more nice. So I'm working on that seven times. But it was in that sixth time that I realized, Okay, I've read these principles, and I understand them, but let me actually start to apply them. And that is when I saw the changes in my life and my thinking, when you talk about, you know, being a police officer, I always tell people, people do not call the police when things are great, you know, they call when they're at the worst parts of their life. So as a police officer, you constantly deal with negativity, right? And you become jaded. And I realize, you know, at 40 years old, I had not done Personal Development at 40. I picked up thinking Grow Rich. By 45, I realized that my my circle of friends had changed. Yes, because I could not be around negative conversations, when just five years prior, I was leading the negative conversation. So it is powerful, how, again, making those changes in your thoughts will change everything on the outside your environment around you, because it changes your behavior as well.

Derek Marlin  36:23  

No, I think that you're right, you're spot on. That's such a good book. And what I love about that is that somebody wants said that there's different seasons in life. And I think if you read that book at a different season in your life, you get different messages from that. So not only is it great to reread it at different points in different types of reflection, but I think you took the next step, which a lot of people don't do, which is put that into action that is so important. And we had another episode where I'm a huge reader as well. And I used to kind of take pride in how many books can I crank out, and I think that's a good thing. But I'm just doing a little slight, slight nuance this year, when I'm reading four core books, and I'm reading them once a quarter to put certain things into action, because I think nobody, I shouldn't say nobody, a lot of people that are in a rut and stuck. They don't put those principles into action.

Barry Overton  37:07  

Yeah. Yeah. And that was it kind of took me back to the Bruce Lee quote, of knowledge is power when applied. And that is, I think there's so many people that are very smart and know a lot of the information that are there in different books that they've read, but have they really applied it. And for me, that was kind of the game changer of realizing once the application X started to happen, and then seeing the results actually occur from you know, applying those things. was really I mean, affirmations is I'm a big proponent in regards to daily affirmations and writing them down. And I've taken it a step further of actually, you know, Rosetta Stone, you can learn how to speak Spanish in your sleep a while listening to Rosetta Stone. Yeah, audios. So what, when I read auto suggestion in thinking Grow Rich, I started listening to my affirmations as I'm speaking them at night. Because the subconscious mind never sleeps. That's the part that we dream from. So if the subconscious mind is hearing my voice telling me what my future is going to be, then it becomes embedded that that's all my subconscious mind knows he doesn't know anything different of the current situation that I'm at in life. It only knows the direction of where I'm going. Yeah,

Derek Marlin  38:36  

no, love it. Gosh, we could probably sit here and talk for three or four more hours. But I've only got one more question because I want to be really respectful of your time. The one thing that I thought was really unique is I always ask guests to you know, come up with a fun fact, because I want our audience to kind of see behind the curtain. You have a very interesting fun facts. So if you're comfortable sharing, especially with what you I mean, just the knowledge that you just dropped in and your amazing thought process. I really would love for you to share your fun fact because I don't think anybody's gonna see this comment.

Barry Overton  39:05  

Especially looking at my head now. But yeah, at 14 I was a Michael Jackson impersonator and dancer. It was it was a really fun, you know, I always loved to dance as a kid. Yeah. I remember seeing him on this Motown 25 show, and I was just mesmerized where I think a lot of other people were and that was probably a 13. And by 14, I actually had a job there was I lived in Austin, Texas. There was a restaurant called the magic time machine. And so in the magic time machine, when you go in all the the waitstaff are dressed up like as Darth Vader or Superman, yeah. And so they had this bar with the dance floor and I was able to go in and audition and became the Michael Jackson impersonator and dancer. So when people were waiting for their table, they could come into that area and I would perform like, every 30 minutes in there and yeah, I did that for about two summers and it was great job but yeah, being bald now that's kind of the furthest thing that people would think I would be doing.

Derek Marlin  40:16  

Oh my gosh. Well, Barry, thank you so much for being a guest on raising the flippin bar we will 100% have you back. Really appreciate it. I definitely want to end with how can people get a hold of you? Whether it's your social handles? How do people reach out to you and connect with you because I really want to get your message out. So give us an idea how they can connect with you.

Barry Overton  40:33  

Yeah, absolutely. My Facebook is I'm on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Facebook is Barry l Overton. You can go there. Instagram is just Barry Overton all lowercase is the handle. And then Barry L. Overton and on LinkedIn. My website is Barry Overton realtor.com. And then my phone number is 303-668-5433.

Derek Marlin  41:01  

Awesome. Barry, thank you so much for joining us and we'll catch you on the flip side. Absolutely. Thanks. Thanks. Thank you so much for listening to raising the flipping bar. My goal is to help you successfully and profitably redevelop properties and competitive markets. And I encourage you to listen to some other episodes on this podcast. If you're a new investor, make sure you subscribe or follow raising a flipping bar on your favorite podcast platform. And make sure to share this episode with somebody you know but enjoy it had to fix and flip dot show to stay up to date with future episodes of raising the flipping bar. My name is Derek Marlin and I'll catch you on the flip side