3 Degrees of Freedom

Ep 168 - Freedom at the Intersection of Blockchain and Real Estate with Michael Flight

• Derek Clifford

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Meet visionary real estate entrepreneur Michael Flight, the “Godfather of Blockchain Real Estate” renowned as a pioneer in the tokenization of retail property investments. As co-founder of the world’s first Net Lease Security Token Fund and host of the Blockchain Real Estate Summit, Michael bridges blockchain and real estate to revolutionize how people access and profit from commercial assets globally.

In this value-packed episode, Michael unpacks the moment he discovered the synergies between blockchain technology and hard assets, sparking his mission to democratize retail real estate investment. He provides sage advice to navigate the transformative blockchain sphere amid fluid regulation and legislation across different global markets. For those seeking financial freedom, Michael recommends starting with blockchain literacy, then learning from trusted sponsors tokenizing high-quality real estate funds to diversify outside of traditional dollar-denominated assets. Ultimately, Michael shares an inspiring vision of blockchain enabling billions worldwide to store and grow wealth in real estate on just a phone.

Connect with Jason thru the social links below and learn more about his business:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michael.flight.9/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-flight/
Website: http://iom.ai/

Unlock 3+1 degrees of freedom (time, location, financial + health) with our 5-Point Blueprint! https://elevateequity.org/podcastgift

If you really enjoyed this content and are looking for more, you can continue to learn more about us in several different places for free!

If you'd like to have a FREE copy of our 7 Ways Commercial Real Estate Syndications Protect and Build Wealth, simply click the link below. We are here and vested in your long-term success! elevateequity.org/7waysEbook

Welcome to the three degrees of freedom podcast, where we explore lifestyle engineering with our expert guests to bring you in alignment with your own three degrees of freedom, location, time, and financial independence.

Derek:

Hello, everyone. Welcome back to the show. Today, we have a super fantastic treat. Today, we've got Mr. Michael Flight on the program with us. How are you,

Michael Flight:

Michael? I am doing fantastic today, Derek. Thanks for

Derek:

inviting me. Amazing. Glad to have you on. For those who don't know Michael Flight, I don't know which rock you're living under, but he is the visionary real estate entrepreneur known as the godfather of blockchain real estate. And he's a co founder of the Liberty real estate fund, the world's first net lease security token fund, and also the mind behind the blockchain real estate summit, which I first found out about him back a couple of years ago, actually in 2021 in September, around that timeframe where he did one of his block state, his real estate blockchain summits. He is at the forefront of revolutionizing retail real estate investment, and he has a career spanning back to 1985, co founded Concordia Real Estate Corporation in 1990, which is also a company renowned for its successful partnerships with major financial institutions. And he is an expert in navigating the realms of retail real estate, triple net, and blockchain real estate slash tokenization. Michael, it's an honor to have you on the show. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks again, Derek. Really appreciate it. Absolutely. So let's go ahead and get started like we normally do with all of our guests. And we want to ask you, Mr. Michael Flight. Which of the three degrees of freedom, that's location, time, and financial, do you feel the most strongest in right now? And which one do you want to develop further on down

Michael Flight:

the road? Well, right now, I'm feeling pretty weak in all of them since I have to pay my real estate taxes on my house. And, I really want to relocate out of Illinois, but, I've got some family commitments here that, I feel stronger about. And, my time. I do really want to like get back some of my time, but honestly, I love all the stuff that I'm working on right now. So, and we're working on a lot of stuff and a lot of different projects and I'm meeting people all over the world that are really, I believe going to change the world. So, my time, the great thing is that my kids are all grown up. So, and the only thing I've got is this and, you know, taking care of the house and things like that. So I love doing what I'm doing. So, you know, that's, I'm pretty good on the time and like I said, the amount of stuff that we're working on requires a lot of capital. So I've got a lot of capital out there. And you know, a lot of people tell me at my age, it's like, well, you know, why don't you just kick back and take it easy a little bit? I'm like, I really don't, I, number one, I can't golf. And if somebody went out and golfed with me, they would actually end up like strangling me with a club. So, this is what I love doing. And like I said, I'm meeting people, as I told you. She's on a call. You know, and one guy was in South Africa. The other guy's in Slovenia. And, you know, there's another guy that's living in London. And, you know, there's two guys here. So I'm loving it. And that's kind of where I'm at. Sorry for the long explanation. No, I think,

Derek:

The common thread that I got behind all of that, Michael, is that you're choosing all of these things. So, in my mind, since you have the full ability, if you needed to be able to drop everything and just be, you know, change your location or change your time or, you know, just not do anything at all, you have the ability to do that, but I think that. The spirit of this is that you are choosing the life that you have right now. And I think that's what I'm getting from all of the stuff that you're talking about right now. At least that's a

Michael Flight:

little bit, but I want to choose to change my location. So especially going into winter in Chicago,

Derek:

that makes sense. That makes sense. Very cool. Well, the first thing I want to talk about here today, I've got a lot that I want to discuss. but because tokenization and this is my show and tokenization is one of the things that I felt was. Just an incredible game changer in terms of, you know, how real estate potentially could move forward in the next century or the next couple of years, even depending on what your timeframe is, I wanted to talk a little bit more about what is tokenization for the audience. So maybe you could take a minute just to explain what that is in your eyes.

Michael Flight:

Sure. When I talk about tokenization, I am mainly talking about tokenizing real estate funds. So, and I like to separate that because there's a lot of people out there that say, oh, At some point, you know, real estate title is going to be on a blockchain and you'll be able to trade real estate like you trade NFTs. Now, number one, I don't believe that is going to happen. It might happen, but I don't believe that's going to happen because there's a lot of things that. Are deliberately designed in real estate to slow it down a little bit so that you don't, you know, do a 1, 000, 000 dollar purchase, you know, uh, and then realize that there's a whole bunch of problems wrong with the building and stuff like that. So. I don't know if you're ever, I think you might be able to get to like a three day close or you know, you could do a one day sight unseen close, but so that's one part and one part is putting title on the blockchain and to give a better concrete example, the state of california put all their car titles on blockchain so that every car that's registered in the state of california they can point to it on a blockchain and they, you know, you can verify that it's a real asset in a real vehicle. And I think that's going to happen in real estate. It's just going to take a lot longer where I'm most interested in where I think it is a game changer is raising capital for real estate and raising debt for real estate and ways to invest in real estate. So what we do. Is tokenized real estate funds, either real estate equity funds or real estate debt funds, and it kind of breaks up the so it's basically if people are familiar with syndications, this is exactly like a paper syndication where you combine together with other people to buy a property. But these the syndication shares are tradable. So after a one year lockup period in the United States, those shares can trade. Or the other thing that it opens up is that you could potentially borrow against your shares because you have a provable asset there. So in a nutshell, that's kind of what I'm working on.

Derek:

That is incredible. And I've always wondered, is that what you said about the one year lockup period? Cause I'm wondering about like depreciation and some of those things that real estate investors know about, right? Like you got, you have bonus depreciation, you have that type of thing. does all of that stuff go away when it becomes a tokenized asset or how does that work? No,

Michael Flight:

It's exactly the same as a regular paper share, but you know, somebody could potentially. Invest in the property for, you know, and you would have to, I am number one, not attorney and I'm number two, not an accountant. So you'd have to, but somebody could potentially invest in something, take it all the depreciation in the year that they have it. And then sell it to somebody else that might be a cash flow investor and might say, I, I don't need the depreciation. I just need the return. So, but it's, these work exactly like a paper syndication, all your traditional, you know, syndication. This is security you just have this extra, you know, optionality and also you have, you know, I believe for sponsors an extra way to raise capital because it expands your capital raising horizon.

Derek:

Just out of curiosity again, this is for me as a syndicator myself. If you have someone, you know, that's a major partner in, in your fund or insight as an equity holder of your asset. And they decided to tokenize after about a year or two of operation. Right. Do the new owners of those tokens, do they take over the ownership so that when the property sells, those tokens also are reassessed at the fair market value when the property sells, or do they end up carrying through to the next? Or how is that? So,

Michael Flight:

Your syndication, let's say you're the GP and I'm the LP. So, and we go out, you specialize in multifamily, correct? Correct. Yep. Yeah. So we go out and you find a multifamily property and I say, I'm going to invest in it. So my shares of that normally would just be paper shares, you know? And so I'd sign the subscription agreements, everything else. These are tokenized shares. You still do the docu sign, sign the subscription agreement, everything else. It's just that my tokenized shares are exactly the same. And so if I chose to sell all or a portion of my shares, those shares would just be in the exact same position. As the LP that I had. So let's say I invested a hundred thousand dollars into one of your deals. And after the one year lockup period, I decided that I needed, you know, to cash out 50, 000 of it. And let's say that the shares are 10, 000 a piece. So I sold five shares for 50, 000. That new investor comes in and they're in the exact same spot that I was. So your position as GP doesn't change and their position as LP doesn't change.

Derek:

Amazing. And when the property is sold, those shares go along with the, with the sale, correct? So they're essentially liquidated? Everything.

Michael Flight:

So it's exactly like the, again, the paper shares, the same, trajectory, you know, the same, pathway that you would as an LP investor. I find you. I trust Derek. I like the deal. I invest in the deal. I happen to, like, need a liquidity event. So I sell part of my shares. So now it's me and these other new investors in the deal. Once Derek decides he's either going to refinance or he's going to sell the property, those shares either get, you know, money back into distribution, and they're getting the cash flow at the same time, you know, all the way through. And then once it sells that token and the entire token goes away because the life cycle of the token is done.

Derek:

Excellent. Okay. This is like

Michael Flight:

the life cycle of a syndication is done once it's sold. Makes

Derek:

sense. Okay. And you have a fund. We'll get into this a little bit later on, but you have a fund. where you're able to essentially do this exact type of thing where you're investing in these particular assets. And then, you know, after the year lockout period or something, you evaluate whether it's a good investment, and then you can decide to share it to sell these, these, these shares, so to speak in the forms of a token, to investors who may want to take part in that. Is that correct? Right. But

Michael Flight:

like I say, the shares are all tokens. Yes,

Derek:

of course. Excellent, man. This is so cool. This is right up my alley. I made sure when I was creating my PPM to ensure that there was a tokenization clause that allows me to be able to do that with my phone.

Michael Flight:

You're like way ahead of the game. This is what I tell all sponsors. Like they say, how do I start? I'm like, Well, you don't have to go tokenize right away. What you should do is every new deal in your subscription agreement and your offering documents, just have the language and there's, you know, probably about, you know, five or six clauses. Just have the language in there that. You know, these can be tokenized and they can be issued at some date in the future as a token. So Derek is way out in front of everybody.

Derek:

Well, I'm just trying to catch up to you, Michael. That's, that's basically it anyway. So what I want to do, I want to back up a little bit now that we know a little bit about what tokenization is, and hopefully the audience has a picture of what they can do with this and the potential that's there, okay, let's back up a little bit and talk about the moment that you discovered this. When did you come across this concept? And when did you put this all together to be like, you know, man, like I could take this here and do this here. I know you have a lot of experience, but I just want to hear about that moment that you put the two and two together, or you came up with the idea.

Michael Flight:

It was, you know, it was over a number of years and it was like, it wasn't one of those instant aha moments. It was like, you know, here's this piece of information here. Here's this piece of information here. And I'm still getting new pieces of information. That you know, you plug into the model and see if it works. But originally, a guy that I know we were at a conference and he was a libertarian guy. And I think it was around 2014. But he's telling me about this magic Internet money called Bitcoin. And we went out to dinner. I had no idea what he was talking about, and nor did I care. You know, because it's like, what does that have to do with me? And so I just kind of filed it away. And then around 2015 to 2016 most of the really smart people that I know, we're talking about this thing called blockchain. And so I remember, you know, telling my kids who were in high school and college at the time, I said, I don't know what this thing is. But you guys need to figure it out because these guys are not only really smart, but they're really wealthy. And, you know, if they're on to this, like, trend, I said, so you should go figure it out. Well, they never went and figured it out. And then, Adam, we were just talking about it earlier, Adam Carswell. And I are citizens of a startup country called Libra land. It's, in the middle, in the middle of the Danube in between Croatia and Serbia. And the entire, you know, country is run on blockchain. So through that. I was introduced to these guys that were creating what's called an ICO, which is an initial coin offering And they were based in romania at the time and they just basically I don't even think they own the airbnbs I think they just managed airbnbs But they did this thing called bed coin. And they needed a real estate advisor. So I don't know how they ended up contacting Adam and Adam ended up introducing him to me. And so I helped them their white paper had the word awesome in it like 400 times. And so we cleaned up their white paper a little bit. But anyways. It was during the height of the crypto boom in like 2017, 2018, these guys raised a million, two, and there was actually nothing behind it. And so I'm like, if these guys can raise a million, two, I should be able to raise a billion dollars, you know, cause I could actually do it with real estate and have real estate experience. And I just heard a, podcast today where real world assets are now the thing in crypto. And these guys who are major venture capitalists are saying, well, real world assets aren't going to take off unless people with experience in real world assets, start doing them instead of the technology guys that don't know what they're doing. And I'm like, yes, I've been saying that since 2019. So anyways, to make a long story longer, around 2019, well, actually. when these guys did this and then I kept seeing people investing in Bitcoin and I'm like, why wouldn't you just invest in real estate? I mean, because I don't know what's behind Bitcoin. And to me, there was nothing backing Bitcoin and I'm not saying anything bad about Bitcoin, but I actually own Bitcoin and I like Bitcoin but I couldn't see anything behind it. And so I'm like, why not create a real estate stable coin? And so that was my vision in 2018, 2019. I kept playing around with it. We went out and tried to do it and realized that we had nexus in the United States. So it's actually a security in the United States. So you have to do everything legally because in, so that's how we ended up. Doing Liberty Fund, spending a ton of money, getting not only the, legal part right, because it was like completely novel and there was only a few attorneys out there that would do it, but we also spent a ton of money getting the accounting part right? Because it was very difficult to figure out the accounting part of it. And also we were looking at, and we, you know, did set up a fund for non U. S. investors. So, hundreds of thousands of dollars, and it was an experiment. It didn't go as well as I would like. So that's when we started the Blockchain Real Estate Summit to educate people on how to do this, because, and I was just on a call earlier today with some venture capitalist guys, and he explained, it's like, yeah, you want. At least 30 to 40 different companies in the space doing things to create a market. And I'm like, well, I did that with the blockchain real estate summit. I just didn't know I was doing that. So, but I had this intuitive sense. It's like, this isn't going to get adoption unless investors know what it is. And unless sponsors start issuing it. So that's, we went out and did the animal house. We need to go do something really stupid. So we created the blockchain real estate summit to educate people. And so that, that's what we've

Derek:

been doing. That's amazing. Yeah. No, thank you for all of that. And I'm glad that you walked us through exactly what, how you discovered it and then where you got to today, because I was very curious and because the thing was, is for me, I found out about it. Through Adam and then I was also just looking because everything was going crazy with Bitcoin and Ethereum and all these cryptocurrencies a couple of years ago, even in like 2020 and that time. I've always had a passion for computing and technology and also my distrust for the fed and distrust for the current monetary system, drew me towards cryptocurrency. And yet I also had this love of real estate. And as soon as I saw your summit. Which I think, was it an Austin in 2021? Yes, it was an Austin. Yeah. Ironically, I was an indie pending, you know, tending to all of my investments and now I'm actually here in Austin. And so, but in any event, when I first saw that, I was like, I have to attend this. So I attended your first event and, you know, I remember. Learning a lot about like, you know, what platforms to build under and the different layers, like you got the first layer, the second layers of all these different, you know, coins. And I forgot exactly which one was talking about doing these, like almost title, like transactions underneath it. But there, there was all kinds of real stuff and just opened up my eyes a lot. And so I got super excited about all of this.

Michael Flight:

And to go back with the, you know, concept of your podcast freedom. Yes. I still believe in. You know, a lot of people in the United States don't understand, blockchain and crypto and don't understand a lot of this stuff because they don't need it. They have, you know, what they see as a stable money, even though, you know, you and I can see that the money isn't stable if it's losing 10 percent every year. But there's people out there like Argentina and Turkey and, you know, Venezuela, I mean, their inflation went 1400 percent last year down to 400 percent this year. Wow. Inflation's coming down but I believe there's so many people in the world that are unbanked or under banked that this is going to change the world. And so if people can invest in real estate anywhere in the world, and you don't need, you can, you can just invest 10 in it. That's a game changer. And, you know, like, for example. We had all kinds of people from Turkey that really wanted to get out of the lira and didn't want to leave their money in the bank. Because if you leave your money in the bank in Turkey, your money actually just loses money. So that at the end of the year, there's nothing left. And so if they can get out of that. And put their money like, so that's why so many people are investing and putting their money in like tether or, you know, another dollar stable coin, because at least they can get their money into the dollar, which is stabler than their money. So, like, look at it, if you could just disintermediate the banks, and I'm not saying, you know, disintermediate, but if you could just create a wealth coin, which is what, you know, we're trying to do. Yes. They can have their wealth protected and what's the tried and true, the most proven asset in history, it's real estate. And I'll just bring up one more thing. I was talking to this guy out of Egypt and he said, most people, as soon as they get extra money, they don't put it in a bank. They go out and buy another house because that's the way they store their wealth. Because everybody in the world stores their wealth in real estate. So anyways, I'm sorry, I just get really excited about this because to me, if you can get billions and billions of people financial freedom, and they can all do it on the phone, because there's 95 percent penetration in the world with phones, it's a huge game changer that's going to improve a lot of people's lives. Yeah,

Derek:

you know, I couldn't agree with you more and, you know, to add another layer on top of this as well, is there are people in the United States that have gone back three, four generations. We're talking, you know, to the silent generation, to the greatest generation, to the 1900s. And at the time, if you were to hold your money in dollars, they would, for the most part, appreciate nicely or because, because the U S was growing in power, right? Like it was, you know, it was one of those rising empires. So as the United States won world war two, the currency kept strengthening and obviously there's blips here and there, but in general, it was a safe place to put your capital. But nowadays we, as a younger generation, or as people heading into this new age, who knows what will happen in the future. Right. And people are still under the impression that if they save their money in dollars, they're safe. Right. Want to break that mentality because Just like you mentioned in different countries, right? Like in, even in the Euro or in Japan, or in these other places, if you put your money into the government central currency, how is it that you, why would you trust the government of that? So much because you're really just putting your trust in the government. When you ever, when you're holding money in dollars, yes, we transact in it, but you don't have to hold your net worth in dollars when you save, when it's being inflated away and you have no control over how much inflation goes there. Instead you can buy tokenized. Real estate right through the blockchain in a very easy way, which is why I love what you guys are doing here. So anyway, I hope I didn't go on a soapbox for too long, but I just wanted to add on top.

Michael Flight:

I want to add to the dollar part of it because our smartest founder, Benjamin Franklin, wanted to tie the dollar. It was a little bit complicated and it probably wouldn't have worked, but he wanted to tie the dollar to land. Wow. I did not know. Yeah, and that's where I had that was also 1 of the pieces in the back of my head that it's like. Also, you could make land coin like what Benjamin Franklin originally wanted to do.

Derek:

That is so cool. Oh my gosh. The founding fathers would be so proud of you.

Michael Flight:

You have to execute on it. They executed. Then they executed very well.

Derek:

Absolutely. So, okay. I want to turn a little bit to current events with a little bit of an eye going back to recent history. So today we're recording this in the middle of You know, middle ish of November, 2023. And as you know, in the news, Bitcoin has just jumped quite a bit. I have a feeling it's because of, some of the instability in the world right now, and some of the. You know, politics and lots of things happening in the world right now. And the world's feeling a little bit unsafe is my thought. What do you think, regulation is going to be doing to blockchain and cryptocurrency investing, or does, is that something that you're even worried about? Is that something that's on your radar as tokenize real estate?

Michael Flight:

All right. And number one, I'm going to argue with you a little bit about people jumping into Bitcoin because of instability. I think the major jump, has been that the SEC will finally approve a Bitcoin ETF. And so they, the SEC lost a lawsuit, which is, this gets at your regulation point of view. So that was one of them. And then. Next year, there's going to be another Bitcoin halving. So I think the 2 of those, and we might see Bitcoin fall down a little bit, but the major jump was somebody falsely had said that, you know, BlackRock had gotten their Bitcoin ETF approved, but it was off to the races. And, you know, I think, you know, I still believe that Bitcoin is a good buy. and that's why I believe if you start dollar cost averaging into it now. It's going to be a great asset. Now let's get back to your regulation part of it, because if everywhere else in the world, like Europe and everybody else has a spot, Bitcoin ETF the United States, doesn't the United States. To me is painfully backwards in terms of regulation. I heard this from somebody else a long time ago and it's resonated with me so much. Was the guys that started fund rise. And this is when crowdfunding had just started and I met, you know, those guys and they've just done a fantastic job. But anyways Ben had said, you know, anybody can go out and buy a lottery ticket and it's not regulated. But you have to be an accredited investor to get into a quality deal. And so I'm like, yeah, that's true. It's like, why is that? And it's and I've got you know, slot machines and everything else all over the place, or they want to funnel you into you know, some of these stock indexes and things like that. It's like. Why can't I just invest my money with Derek, who I trust, who I know, and everything else? Oh, I have to be an accredited investor. I might not be able to so that, that's the type of stuff. But the regulation here in the United States especially the regulatory uncertainty is driving a lot of new industry offshore. So Singapore, if you see most crypto foundations, they're all In Singapore or someplace else the European zone just did new legislation that makes things much easier to do. Switzerland has always been a great destination for new investment products and Luxembourg to Dubai has, it has these really cool things where. They've got like these free trade zones where you can actually if you locate your business in those free trade zones, they have special financial regulations that aren't even in Dubai. It's just okay, I walked across the street. Now I'm in this free trade zone and there's these special regulations. But the other thing that Dubai is also setting up in the United Arab Emirates is they're setting up Like world courts that can adjudicate, you know, and it's based on English common law. So we I believe are in danger of falling behind. We created the United States. I say we because I'm a citizen United States. I've been born in the United States. We created most of these technology industries. And a lot of them are going to go offshore because of this regulatory uncertainty

Derek:

that is, that's really a shame. And I've actually been hearing the same thing from, from other people in the technology space. again, I'm not really in the tech space very much, but you know, from the podcasts that I'm listening to and, from the people that do know those folks, I'm hearing the exact same thing, which is very worrisome. Do you feel like. This legislation,

Michael Flight:

well, and I just want to, you know, one additional thing, the regulatory uncertainty also has created problems with creating capital. So, you know, the only way that we are going to grow out of whatever debt that they're printing is through creating new jobs, new industries, new stuff and new companies. And if you screw up your capital formation and that capital formation markets go offshore, you've just lost that too. That's the reason why the dollar is the dollar. Number one, because at one point, and it still is backed by the U. S. Army, but the other thing is it's like got the deepest, liquidest markets in the world. So I'm sorry to interrupt you, Derek, you just hit on something that we as a country need to like figure out, you know, what makes things work and, you know, business makes America work.

Derek:

Yeah, being a productive society, right? Like solving problems, doing things, cutting out like inefficient processes and doing things better and quicker and easier is not something that's synonymous with regulation. At least that's my take

Michael Flight:

on it. And also the most fundamental thing, which regulation takes away. Yes. Is property rights. The more you regulate, the more property rights you have taken away. And we have fundamental rights to property. And you know, now all of a sudden they say, oh, you can't own that or you can't own that crypto. It's my crypto. I chose to buy it. And it's like the money in my hand. is it my property? You know, so I'm sorry to keep interrupting you, but you really got me on the soapbox today, Derek. I really

Derek:

appreciate that because it is something that needs to be heard and said. And, if there's anyone out there that is. Listening to this and picking up what you're saying then I think it's important people to hear this because this is almost fundamental to the values of a country, right? Or the values of a people. And so that's why I think there's so much passion behind this, which I'm on, I'm a hundred percent on the same page and I'm just glad that we're touching on it. And one thing I wanted to take us to after saying all of that and going down that rabbit hole there is how would you advise. people who are just getting started right now to look at tokenization and be a part of this ownership thing where they're basically outside of the U. S. dollar directly and more into, you know, getting themselves into alternative assets without being pegged to the dollar. How would you advise people to start looking at getting into this?

Michael Flight:

Now, are we talking about investors or sponsors? And are we talking about people in the U. S. or people in the non

Derek:

U. S.? We're talking about a U. S. citizen who has modest capital that's just looking to get started and diversify themselves.

Michael Flight:

rIght now there are tokenization platforms that you can invest in. the granddaddy of them all, and the one that's been around the longest, and I believe they've got, the best operations is Realty that's realty. co but they in the United States will only deal with accredited investors. And the other thing that. I'm not exactly excited about with realty, but this is their business model is they invest in crappy houses. they invest in good houses and crappy neighborhoods in Detroit, South side of Chicago and stuff like that because their investors are looking for high cap rates. I returned. Yeah. I think that's a tough way to make a living. And I really, you know, as I said, coming from Chicago, believe that Chicago will steal, you know, your property one year at a time, you know, through high property taxes. But, anyways, those guys are doing it. Well, there's other competitors out there. That are also doing it. Most of the successful ones out there right now are investing in single family houses, you know, to rent. But there's some up and coming tokenization platforms that I think, you know, in 2024, we're going to see a lot more properties and a lot more funds that are tokenized. So, you know, I think what people should do is educate themselves about what tokenization is. And the other thing is that I think it goes back to exactly kind of what we were talking about initially. They need to know the sponsor behind it. So I need to trust Derek. And that's more important than the technology part of it to me because if you trust and know Derek and you know, Derek knows what he's doing with multifamily or if you trust me and know that I've been around the block with shopping centers and know a little bit about shopping centers and other people have trusted me with millions of dollars. That's really more important than the technology part of it. Thank you. And then once you're comfortable with that, so I said, get some education on it. And then also I would say in order to learn a little bit more about tokenization is maybe buy some Bitcoin and buy some Ethereum so that you are outside of the dollar asset class and your money. If you can imagine this, if your money is in a wallet. It's actually, you know, and it's in a an electronic wallet. It's kind of like money on your phone or money on your computer, but it's actually not in the banking system. So it's outside the banking system So I would you know do that if you're a gold guy there's a coin out there called pax gold so you can invest in tokenized gold There's a few different tokenized gold things so I would just do that just to get comfortable with the technology because at some point It's not going to be as hard as it is now to create a wallet. It's just going to be, I sign up for Derek's investment. I don't even know that there's blockchain behind here, just like we're on, you know, a zoom today, we don't know that this is going over a TCP IP protocol. We don't know how, you know, an email gets sent. All we know is we press send. But just familiarize yourself with it and go out there. But the most important thing is. Is it quality real estate? Is it an operator who knows what they're doing?

Derek:

Yeah. Very well said. I think that for the listeners out there to summarize Michael's what Michael's point was is I think that you can never go wrong with investing in your own education. And that goes with everything, especially when it comes to investments. And taking, Michael's advice to buy some Bitcoin or Ethereum in a wallet to see how it works and see how it feels to own an asset that's not pegged by U. S. dollars. Or I guess it is in a way because, usually people will trade in U. S. dollars right now, but it may be something else. But it's a way for you to, you know, even value how much the asset's worth. One Ethereum token is one Ethereum token. And the amount of money that it's worth is... Yeah, it's very interesting. So highly recommend it's

Michael Flight:

outside the Yes, it's outside the dollar system and it's outside the banking system.

Derek:

Yes. Do you think that's absolutely right? So if the dollar hyper inflates, then the value of your token goes with it as well, right? So it's a relation to just that,

Michael Flight:

or theoretically it's uncorrelated. Correct. So that you know, if the dollar hyper inflates and you lose. You know, 50 percent of your, you know, dollar value your Bitcoin could, you know, either stay the same or keep going up or not go down as fast as the dollar. So you're in an uncorrelated asset.

Derek:

100%. Awesome. So I have one more question for you before we head into the rapid round here, which is it, which is five questions that we ask every one of our guests and meant to be answered quickly. But let me ask you one last question. You're, can I talk with you a little bit about your personal philosophy and getting aligned with long term success and fulfillment? Because you've had a long career, you're constantly pioneering and, like basically trailblazing a way for a lot of people here. while still doing some of the things that you know best, which is, you know, retail, triple net leasing, all of that, but then also doing your fund here, tokenization. Can you talk a little bit about fulfillment and long term success while you're doing these different things going through life?

Michael Flight:

I'm a Christian, so I'm guided by, a Christian worldview. And, you know, one of that is, is that, um, you know, not only that Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior, but also it's like, how do I, you know, make the world a better place after I realized that, you know, I've gotten this gift. So that's one of the things that that's always driven me. The other thing is that. I guess I never listened to a lot of people because a lot of people told me not to become a real estate broker and work on commission only. And then they told me not to start a company and then they told me this and that. And I just, I haven't listened to people to my detriment. I will say, because, you know, there was a lot of things that I should have listened to people are not plunged into a lot of stuff and it's been an expensive education. One thing I will say is that when I was starting out in the business, we started out with regular phones, and fax machines. And then the internet. Was just being invented, so it was dial up modems my first computer I bought like in 1988, it was 4, 000, and I've got a phone that's like 50 times better than that, so, it wasn't like it is now, it is so much better now, people complain about how bad the world is, and you know, what's going on, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, You only know how bad the world is because, like, the world is constantly at your, you know, right on that screen on your phone. The really cool thing is that you can get the best minds in the world on your phone, you know, and you can get all kinds of, like, really cool stuff, which I had, if we were buying a shopping center down in St. Louis, Missouri or something, I had to, like, fly down there. You know, and like, actually see it because there was no Google Maps and you had to use a paper map. So I'm not just saying this to say, oh, I had to walk uphill both ways to school because I'm so old. I'm saying it's the world is in a great place right now. Take advantage of it and, you know, just keep learning. And so that's, I think, you know, my biggest thing when I see something cool and I see something that's going to change the world. I'm like. Yeah. You know, how do I adapt this to my paradigm? And as I told you, I didn't understand Bitcoin and I couldn't, you know, adapt it to my paradigm because I was a hard asset guy. And so I'm like. Oh, well, maybe you could do this to get the benefits of that and then get the benefits of the hard asset. So I, I don't know if that answered the question, but it's long and rambling it's keep learning. Keep growing. Yeah,

Derek:

I, I think, I think what I got out of that is the, again, I think a common theme here is just like the hard work, right. And just the not giving up piece. Taking advantage and just being grateful for what you have right now, because even though yes, the world is a difficult place to go to be in, the quality of life has also improved quite a bit. And I would agree with you there. You know, like you could have any book essentially in the world that was ever written inside your pocket within five minutes, you know,

Michael Flight:

you can also listen to it, whereas you had to have to read it. That's very good. Exactly. Yeah. Before I, I'm a subscriber to audible, you know, and this is not a paid thing, but originally I subscribe to books on tape and books on tape would literally mail you a box of cassette tapes, you know, so, and then they turned into, you know, they were bought by Amazon and audible.

Derek:

Yeah. And then Netflix came along, right. And we had these DVDs getting mailed out and stuff. And, um, then, then that goes, that's the end of blockbuster and yeah, just, it's very, very interesting. interesting stuff. And so I love your take of gratitude onto it. Like all the incredible blessings that we have to be able to continue learning and continue growing and being more productive and helping more people all at scale. So I think that's amazing.

Michael Flight:

All right. A lot more gratitude if I lived in Austin with you, but anyway,

Derek:

yeah, it's amazing. Anyways, let's, jump into the rapid round. We have five questions that we ask every one of our guests here before we end up end the show. Question number one, name any resource that was or is essential in your journey to pursue freedom

Michael Flight:

jeez, this is a hard one. I would say the Bible.

Derek:

Yes, I get

Michael Flight:

And it's not only for, you know, the real examples. I'm going to say first and foremost, in Genesis We were created in the image of God. And so if you're creating the image of God, you're created to be free and you're created out of love. So, and then there's some, a great quote in Samuel, one of them where, you know, Samuel was disappointed that they wanted a king. And that God wouldn't be their king and God lays out this whole thing is like, well, the king is going to take, you know, tax them. The king is going to take their sons and make them go to war and everything like this is like exactly, but it also has a ton of information on property rights in there. So I'm sorry to go off, but that's, you know, why I say that. Great.

Derek:

No, good stuff. Excellent. Okay. Number two, if you woke up and your entire business was gone. And all you had was 500, a laptop, place to live, and some food. What do you think you would do first?

Michael Flight:

Probably say a prayer and then get to work rebuilding. And what would

Derek:

that rebuilding look like? Would it be Colin folks and, trying to put like an investment together or how would that look for you?

Michael Flight:

It wouldn't be. Trying to put an investment together, but I've got a really wide network. So I would, you know, more than likely just try to restart the business, you know, or maybe the business didn't work. So I, you know, probably try to redo it. I feel confident that at my age with my connections. that, you know, I, I really am blessed with a lot of resources right now. And I tell the people that work for me, that you not only, are working with me, but, you know, when you tell me that you don't have money to buy your own stuff, I mean, you've got my network. You know, so it's like, as long as you're not an idiot, just go out and use my network. And some of them have surpassed me, you know, in terms of skill doing that. So

Derek:

amazing, amazing, very cool. Number three, what does your, if you have one, your self reflection and goal setting practices look like?

Michael Flight:

I try to set goals every year. I, you know, try to take a look at where I'm at. On a weekly thing, but I'm also a lot of times not rigid with those goals because I realized that, sometimes the goal. Isn't the right goal. It has to be moved in a different direction. So it's also being contemplative that, you know, if I'm spending time on something that I shouldn't be spending time on that, I might need to move that goal or say, you know, that goal is probably not, you know, a good goal for me right now. You know, maybe it's this over here from what I've learned from these particular failures or

Derek:

setbacks. Would that be something that you look at just, you know, randomly, or, do you have like a standardized process where you take a look at things every quarter or every

Michael Flight:

year? I do journaling and write down every day. I have a set amount of things that. You know, every day, this is what I'm working on. This is what I'm working on. And what are the action items that I need to do every day to move those forward? And, you know, and what are the things that I need to, give up so that I'm not wasting time on other things that are ministerial or, you know, that number 1 can be done by somebody else or I should just say, no, I can't do this.

Derek:

Yeah. Love it. Great. Thank you very much. So what core work habits do you attribute to your success? Like what parts of your personality do you feel really have gotten you to where you are?

Michael Flight:

Um, my reading and curiosity and also, just working, I guess working hard. And then realizing that, you know, it's sometimes working smart, but I can tell you that I've changed so much of my work habits just by reading and the resources that have come out over the last 20 years versus. What there was before that it's just an order of magnitude better as to like, you know, and 1 of the things I can tell you off the top of my head is reading early on when it 1st came out, the 4 hour work week because there was just a bunch of things and I'm in an industry where things are old, things don't change. And when I started telling people, you know, I don't know how many years ago, but I started like working with people outside the country, you know, to be VAs or to do like underwriting for us or things like that. And I started telling guys that are in institutional real estate. I'm like, I've got a woman in Bulgaria who. is just the best underwriter ever. And if, as long as we get the stuff to her by five o'clock, you know, here, it doesn't have to be five o'clock, but they're eight hours ahead. I, you know, our stuff is done, you know, the next morning. So, and like the lights go off on these guys, like, are you kidding me? It's I'm like, yeah. And they're like, you trust people. I'm like, You know, I trust them better than some people here in the United States. Why wouldn't you? That's

Derek:

awesome. Very cool. Last question. The rapid round that I have for you is what tool or process has become one of your most important time, money, or energy saving ninja magic tricks that you use practically every day. The computer. Yes.

Michael Flight:

Yes. I'm serious. I couldn't have started, even in 1990, we could not have started our company. Without the invention of the personal computer, the PC, and like I said, when I bought my 1st computer, it had to be like, done with a floppy drive startup. You had to boot it with a startup. We had I can't even remember. It wasn't, it wasn't Excel at the time. It was a Lotus, you know, or it was some other magic calc thing. And there was a word processor, but there was no way that I could have, I mean, we didn't have a cell phone. I had a car phone, so it was installed in the car. So there was no mobile phone. So I'm going to tell you. You know, from 1990 through now the computer has been the tool and then, you know, you add on, I look at the internet and all the rest of this stuff as an add on, but there's no way I could have done it. Because in high school, I took a computer class and it was called Fortran and the computer. Filled up a giant, you know, room and the computing was done on punch cards. So there's no way. And then, you know, at the time, larger companies were using mini computers, which were, you know hundreds of thousands of dollars in the 1980s. So

Derek:

that's crazy. I remember going in to seeing my dad when, cause he was in it. And back when I was like in the early nineties, I was very young in Southern California, in Los Angeles, going in and smelling that. That and this was in like the mid nineties. So the computers had gotten reasonably smaller, but they were still in this giant room, you know, computer. And there was like fans and stuff like getting, you know, getting, moving the heat and everything out. And I just remember that smell of, what is it? It's like, yeah, it's like, yeah, it's like this metallic, almost salty smell in the air. I don't know how to, don't know how to describe it,

Michael Flight:

But I write it and they were in a special like computer room with a raised floor and everything

Derek:

else. Yes, that's exactly right. Yeah. I love it. Well, Michael, it's been a pleasure having you on and thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and telling us about what's happening in tokenization and many other things in this world. It's been great to have you on, but before. We go, can you tell us a little bit more about how the people can find you and, you know, anything you want to say to the audience right now?

Michael Flight:

Sure. If they want to learn more about blockchain, we have a, you know, blockchain and real estate report at investonmain. com. And if you just hit the report, it really explains, you know, how blockchain in real estate can integrate, and it's a good starting point. There's a ton of stuff, that I have on our social media. They can find me on LinkedIn and if they want to learn more about triple net properties and retail real estate, they can go to libertyfund. io. We have extensive information, and I also have a podcast called the Nothing But Net, Net, Net, Net Podcast. I love it,

Derek:

man. That's great. Fantastic. And we'll put all of those inside of the show notes, for the podcast page for you, Michael, for being our guest on the show. And

Michael Flight:

there's one more thing that I forgot. If they really want to learn more about blockchain real estate, , they can go to the blockchain real estate summit. com. And, they can get a replay of the blockchain real estate summit. So that's blockchain real estate summit. com. And that's like, we just had a worldwide event where we had three full days. We had one day in Europe, one day in Asia, one day in the Americas. And literally everybody that's doing, well, most of the people that are doing big things in blockchain real estate, we had them from all over the world. So if you want to like learn more and you don't have to do everything, you could just, you know, pick and choose the the topics. but, I would suggest that's a good place to start learning as well. Wonderful. Sorry to interrupt you again, Derek. Oh, you're,

Derek:

you're good, Michael. I appreciate it. It's all great information. And again, we'll net, we'll go ahead and link to all of the stuff inside the show notes. And once again, Michael, thank you so much for coming on the show. And for all of you listeners who have listened to this point in the podcast, I want to thank you guys as well. And wherever you're listening or watching the podcast, please make sure that you interact with us. Do you like subscribe, even comment, and let us know how we're doing because we want to have more incredible guests like Michael on the show and more amazing listeners like yourself to tune in. Please do that so that we can appease the algorithm gods and get to more people. That's what we want to do. So Michael, once again, thank you so much for coming on the show. Have a great one, guys. We'll see you next time. Okay.