3 Degrees of Freedom

Ep 171 - Wealth Building with Note Investing and IRAs with Fred Moskowitz

• Derek Clifford • Season 3 • Episode 171

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Joining us on the 3 Degrees of Freedom podcast is Fred Moskowitz, an accomplished author, advisor, and entrepreneur known for his authority on alternative asset investing—especially in real estate mortgage note buying. As a specialist in wealth accumulation through Self-Directed IRA accounts, Fred simplifies complex financial concepts into easily digestible ideas. His practical, results-oriented approach amplifies financial literacy, aiding others on their journey to financial independence.

On this episode, we discuss the dynamics of the secondary mortgage note market and how investors can manage risks when buying debt. We also stress the importance of financial education when utilizing alternative assets to build wealth over time. Fred sheds light on the powerful role Self-Directed IRAs play by enabling tax-advantaged investing and compound growth. For those just starting out with note investing, he shares practical advice on getting oriented as an active or passive investor, building relationships, and maximizing IRA accounts. Tune in to gain invaluable perspective from Fred's decades of expertise at the intersection of mortgages, notes, IRAs, and strategic wealth creation.

Connect with Fred thru the social links below and learn more about his business:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thefredmoskowitz/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thefredmoskowitz/?hl=en
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fred-moskowitz-3a92a9/
Website: https://www.fredmoskowitz.com/

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

Derek:

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. All right. Today, welcome back to the show. We are joined by Mr. Fred Moskowitz, an accomplished author, advisor, and entrepreneur known for his authority and alternative asset investment, especially real estate mortgage note buying. He's also a specialist in wealth accumulation through the use of self directed IRA accounts. Fred's superpower is his ability to simplify complex financial concepts into easily accessible ideas, which empowers many to achieve their financial goals using their retirement funds. He has a practical results oriented approach to amplify financial literacy which also aids in the journey to the financial independence for everyone that crosses his path. Fred, it's awesome to have you on board and with us on the show today. How are you?

Fred:

Thank you, Derek. It's great to be

Derek:

here. Fantastic. Well, we're, we're excited to have you. So let's head and jump in. I mean, as you know, we had a few discussion points before we hit record on the podcast here. And I'm super excited to talk about note investing, which is something new for a lot of our investors, even though they may know, and they're familiar with real estate investing, it'd be cool to dive into that. But before we do. Let's talk about first, which of the three degrees of freedom, which is location, time, or financial freedom, do you feel the strongest that you're in right now and which one do you want to pursue later and why?

Fred:

Great question. So the one I feel strongest in is financial independence. For sure, and we can dig in a little deeper about that, but, the one I want to grow and expand is location I've done a fair amount of it but I could do more, so I'm certainly looking for opportunities to grow and expand that.

Derek:

That's awesome. And just out of curiosity, why do you want, I know that you've done it before, but what's, what is particularly appealing to you about location freedom?

Fred:

So many things, so many things. The business I'm in, it's definitely possible to operate it from anywhere. Right. Anywhere that you have a internet connection and telephone service, you're good. And so the node investing business really does lend itself very well to that along, along with many other many other businesses. And for me, it's really just that I haven't taken. Steps to take advantage of it. I travel a lot. I do a lot of speaking and events and conferences that I attend. So 1 thing I do whenever I'm traveling for business is I take a good look at, at planning and. Getting strategic to look for opportunities. Who else lives in the area where I'm going to be? Can I set up some additional meetings or maybe I have clients or investors that are in the area. And so I'll stay an extra day, maybe before or after this specific event to do meetings with my clients, with investors different colleagues. Friends, relatives, and so I can really maximize the fact that I'm in another geographic location. And so do some things, have some maybe have a fun event, a fun activity to do I love. Nature and outdoors. So if I'm in a place where there's something along those lines to do, absolutely. I want to take some extra time and enjoy that. And that's part of the location aspect. And it's available to all of us. But it takes setting the intention and a little bit of planning. And then you do it because a lot of times you go travel somewhere for a conference and you know, the tendency is get in, do the thing, do the event, and then fly back and you come back home and you're exhausted, physically and mentally. So, it's a different approach and, there's always. We all have room to grow and get better, but that's definitely something for me that I'm seeking to to do more

Derek:

of. That's great. Yeah, you know, I love the fact that you pointed that out because it is an overlooked thing that if you have the ability to travel or to be anywhere and continue to do your work, it doesn't really matter where you're working from, within reason, obviously. Yeah. The great thing is as long as you have an internet connection, you will be able to conduct business as if it was normal and we've been able to do that. My wife and I've been able to do that really well. And so maybe later on in the show, we can talk about how we can enable some of that freedom for you too, and how we've done it for ourselves. Also being a real estate entrepreneur, but I will say too, the other thing that's neat, one last thing, and then we'll move on, is that You mentioned that if you can go travel and continue to do business while you're traveling, you get tax write offs, right? Like, cause you can say doing business in that area. And then you also get some time freedom because instead of spending more time, like traveling and trying to get back home so that you could get back to work. If you're taking your time in these locations, you can hit multiple events like in one path, right? Instead of coming back home all the time, because if you're locationally independent, you can continue working and just stay in your location for a month and hit the next event that's in the next neighboring state, you know, a couple days or weeks later. So that's something that we found to be really cool.

Fred:

Absolutely. Or how about this? Consider this Derek, maybe there's not an event. So why not plan one? If there is a significant number of People that you know, that you have a community built up, maybe you host, host an event impromptu, find a local restaurant or facility that has meeting space available and book it and plan an event and invite everyone, you know, and ask everyone, Hey, bring someone else with you. And now all of a sudden you have a sizable room full of. like minded people and there's networking opportunities and, it's wonderful, right? And so that, always be thinking about that. Look for, hey, is there an opportunity? And if there isn't, maybe create one.

Derek:

I think that's incredible. Really, really good advice. All right, let's go ahead and jump into the actual content here. I want to make sure that we're giving our listeners some value for what we talked about before, which is the note investing. First of all, before we get started here, can you tell us a little bit about what real estate mortgage note investing is and how it works at a very high

Fred:

level? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. here's The story with node investing, a lot of people know about investing in real estate, right? Can be investing in single family houses or commercial property, or multifamily, or maybe even vacation rentals. But not too many people know about this niche area called node investing. And we can talk about investing in the paper where. It's investing in the notes and mortgages that are associated with all of these properties. And this is a really interesting part of the real estate business and for some reason, a lot of real estate investors, they never pay any attention to it. And for most people, when they think of a note in a mortgage, they think about it from the perspective of being the borrower and not as being the lender. But when you're an investor, you can buy the debt, you can buy those notes and mortgages, and when you do that, it allows you to step across the aisle and become the bank, and now you transition from being the one making the monthly payments, to being the one receiving. The monthly payments. And so the great benefit here is when you get involved in node investing, it really allows you to increase the predictability of your cashflow. And it's a wonderful thing.

Derek:

This is fantastic. And just like you had mentioned before, I've always been on the equity side and being the person that says, okay, well, you know, the debt is just the debt. It's going to be a lender somewhere. And, you know, they'll help give me a loan at whatever the fair rates are. But it wasn't until, you know, a couple of years down my real estate investing career that I realized that you could use private notes as well for this. So this is why this thing, And it's especially possible with the self directed IRA, which we will talk about in just a little bit, but I wanted to, before we go there now that we know some of the basics and the mechanics that basically these individuals or the audience, they could end up being the bank essentially, and earning a return off of the interest in any other agreement that you put together with your you know, with the note agreement itself. Can you talk a little bit about the risks and some of the dynamics that are maybe hidden, for the investors to start considering investing in notes. Yeah, absolutely.

Fred:

There are there are absolutely many risks. And as a lender, as an investor, it's up to you to manage those risks, right? Some of the risks that come up are, and this will resonate with most investors. It is, and you'll see why the taxes, have to be paid on the property. So the lender always is going to make sure their lien is protected because the lender is going to be, on title as a secured lien holder. And so the risks are always around threats to the lien. So unpaid taxes. Can be a threat to lean and the property goes to tax sale. This is why most lenders require setting up escrow and they're going to make sure that the lenders paying the taxes on your behalf and the insurance so that insurance doesn't lapse taxes are always paid all of those things because those Become a problem for the lender. If there was an insurance loss, or loss on the property, and there's no insurance, the lender all of a sudden lost their, their collateral there and their equity protection for their investment, other threats to the lien can be a default, of course. That's what most people think about as well as, any type of title. title related issues, other liens, priority of liens. And so this is a big area of the due diligence. When we're buying a note in particular, when you're buying an existing note on the secondary market a lot of this becomes a lot more important of doing your homework, doing your due diligence, and there are a lot of different vendors and services to help support you with that, but it's very important. So this is why you see banks when you go to get a loan, they buy title insurance and They require that as part of the transaction, escrows for taxes and insurance, even homeowners association, if that's relevant in the transaction. And so these are all areas that, yes, there are risks, however, they can all be managed by taking the proper steps and procedures to maintain that. And that's part of the responsibility of lender on an ongoing basis. I

Derek:

love it. And you know, one of the thing I wanted to mention too, and you tell me if this is not correct to, or something to not consider, but as an investor on the debt side, as if you were on the equity side, it's still the same investment that you're looking at. So if you make a, if you make a loan, or if you become a lender on a property where all of a sudden everything goes underwater, because the value of the property goes below what the note is worth. Then that's what's called underwater. And that's not where you want to be because you lose a bunch of power as the lender. Right. Because you know, if you have to foreclose or basically if you have to call the note due and they're not able to, you can take the asset back because you have the underlying debt. Right. But if you take the asset back and you're not looking at the asset itself, in addition to the taxes, in addition to the insurance and all of that, right, there's a likelihood that you may end up losing a portion of your capital, right? Because if you. If you take over the property, yes, you have the property, but you may have an underwater note, right? Because you have lost value in it. so I just wanted to talk about that real quick before we go about into the secondary market and how that works.

Fred:

Yeah, that, those are all good points. And so, yes. There can be a drop in value and so it's important to know and understand those dynamics and look at that. And notes can be bought where they're underwater. As you said, however, the pricing and valuation of them, it changes dramatically. And so it's okay to buy a note. That's underwater, but just understand what you're getting involved with and what are the dynamics around that and hey, if that's what you're seeking to buy, then you can probably negotiate a better discount because I didn't mention this before. Notes are bought and sold at a discount, so it's for less than the amount you're looking for. Of the loan balance. And so depending on the risk and different characteristics, that to chase how much of a discount you can negotiate when you're buying the debt. So

Derek:

that means that if there's a note out there, just a simple example, right? If there is a note out there, that is maybe a hundred thousand dollars and it's for, you know, a 20 year payback period with three years of interest only on it, And it's attached to a property. So, you know, it's collateral on, or the property is the collateral on it. And someone wanted to take over that a hundred thousand dollar note, even whether it's underwater or not, most likely that would be sold in the secondary market for say 98, 000 or 95, 000. Right. So the original owner of the note won't get the face or the original owner of the note can't expect to get the face value of the note because there's a risk in taking on that. note that someone else originated and an investor is looking for a profit, right? Yes. For a return. So, um, at least that's the way I think about the secondary market, but maybe you can break down what is that, how the secondary market works and how the, how defined it and all of that good stuff.

Fred:

Yeah, that you've hit the nail on the head, Derek. That's exactly what happens. Now think about this lenders. When they originate notes and this question comes up all the time. Why do banks sell notes? Is there something wrong with them or yeah, is it a bad note and they want to sell it and get rid of it? Not necessarily Think about these lenders and loan originators Their business model is to originate loans. And so they'll originate the loan. And then within one to six months, they'll turn around and sell the loan. They'll sell it at a discount and move on because they want to recapitalize. Because their business model is the next day they're going to turn around and originate a new note for someone else and they made their money. The originator made money on the points and the fees and they collected a couple of months of interest of payments. Which, by the way, if you think about an amortization schedule, those first few months, it's all interest completely. And yeah, they'll offer a little bit of a discount to sell the note, but they still need some money. And because they're doing this at a very high volume, that's how they stay in business. And they're focused on that. And so that's why there's this whole secondary market. Loans are bought and sold every day. They're bought, they're put into different bonds and mortgage backed securities and Wall Street products. They just go in all different directions and loans typically will change hands multiple times, over many years and we see that we, I look at loans all the time, every week to, to buy, and it's not uncommon to have seven, six, seven, eight lenders. In the chain of ownership from the past. so this is very common and that's a little bit about the secondary market and how that

Derek:

works. That's awesome. Just so that I know in my me and my listeners, is there a place to go where you can actually look up notes that are for sale, or notes that are available is like a place on the open market, or do you have to go to a broker? how does that work?

Fred:

It's all of those. I would say the biggest thing to consider in, in the node investing industry is a lot of transactions happen through personal relationships. Yes. There's some sites, there's some different things. Platforms that you can look at loans to buy. You can go on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's website where they have to publicly disclose each quarter all the loan sales they've done. I mean, those are giant transactions, but they're all there. And, and so You have everything, whether you're buying one or two or ten or twenty notes up to the giant pools, the multi million dollar pools. And so for for the average investor, the best way is through personal relationships. It's, buying notes from other investors, from, people in real estate groups from maybe there's a note fund that typically sells off a portion of their notes from time to time because they need liquidity. And so these are all different options, but the biggest thing is building those relationships, getting involved in the note investing business in the industry, establishing yourself. And now you have contacts. You have people that you know, you talk to. We all do business with each other all the time. That's how it works. Back to your original question. It really is a mixture of those different scenarios. Okay,

Derek:

great. Yeah, that, that helps me a lot to help understand like how I could get involved in this. And I know you probably have some more information, to help the listeners out, which we can get into later on in the show. But let's go back to the basics again. Let's start focusing on the fundamentals for the listeners and also for me, selfishly, so I can understand this better. When you talk about wealth building and you talk about using these types of investments, which, you know, our debt notes, and, you know, mortgage notes and all types of things, this is an alternative asset. So when you talk about the importance of financial literacy and education, before people get involved in, you know, deciding to sign up to buy a, buy some debt or buy a mortgage or something. Yeah. Or

Fred:

buy rental property or anything, right? Anything at all. It all starts with education. Right. All starts with education. Most people I've found, that are working in a professional world. They're exposed to the traditional 401k plan that has a half dozen different options, and they're all Wall Street offerings, mutual funds, and that's fine. But for some people, that's all they know about investing. And there's so much beyond that. There's so much. There's real estate. There's mortgage notes. You can invest in small businesses and private equity. There's there's no limit at all and what it takes to do that it's relationships and education. You got to learn and it's on you to go and pursue that. There's books, there's conferences, events, and workshops, trainings you can attend. Like, yeah, podcasts. This is when I got started in this 20 years ago, there weren't podcasts back then. But now, yeah, we have this great medium where we can dig, dial into exactly what we want to learn about and find that if you want to find podcasts about node investing, you can do that or about multifamily investing, get involved in the syndications, There's, lots of options, but it comes down to this famous quote from, Jim Rohn is that, formal education will make you a living, but self education will make you a fortune. And this is exactly why. It's when you learn these different strategies and techniques and build relationships with the right people, it opens up so many doors, so many doors and possibilities. And hey, not everything is for everyone. And so take time, find what's right for you, what's right for your personal situation. Node investing. is great. There's different ways to get involved in it and they're not all right for every single person. And so it just really is important to take some time to work through that and think through that. What are your goals and objectives and what's the outcome you desire?

Derek:

I really appreciate you mentioning that because there is never a one size fits all type investment, either an asset class or a strategy that works for. It just is, that's why there's a whole bunch of different ways to invest out there. And so to your point, to go a little bit deeper in it, I think, for some people, there's a natural affinity towards a note, towards being a note investor, there's a natural affinity towards being a real estate equity investor, or, you know, just an owner, or there's some people that want to invest in stocks or some that want to buy businesses or some that, you know. Want to do other things, right? Like buy commodities and gold, but it's all about the education and a risk tolerance perspective about what are you comfortable with? What do you know about? And I think that's why it's so important for it to have guests like you on this show, because sometimes there's new approaches that people don't even know about that may even be more in alignment with their values and their risk tolerance. Yeah, then what they currently understand right

Fred:

now what are your objectives right? What are your objectives and all of these different factors Derek they change? They change over time for everyone. And for me, I feel it's a very important be diversified. Like I like a lot of those different asset classes you mentioned, and I don't waste any time getting into arguments or discussions about one's better than another. No, the ones that are better are the ones that, that you can get in at the right time. And you're going to make a profit on it. And so usually that's all of the above. And so why not have a diversified collection in your portfolio, so that you have a lot of strength and resilience during Turmoil in the markets and in the economy so that you're going to be doing very well. Everything's strong. that's a great place to be. And so there's definitely so many factors that come into play. But for me, I love notes. It's my main business. It generates steady cashflow, but I also like doing, being involved in real estate where there may or may not be cashflow, but maybe there's more of an appreciation play in a particular deal and that's fine. Just know and understand that with notes, there's no appreciation at all. Actually, the value of the note goes down over time, because if you think about it, you're getting part of your principal back each month. And so that loan balance is going down, but you're generating cashflow all along the way. And so that those are some of the important distinctions, right? And having a well balanced assortment, is what's really going to put you in a strong financial position because every asset class goes through its own cycles of increase and decrease in value and, having a well rounded. assortment really sets you up for success.

Derek:

Yeah, that's awesome. I appreciate you shedding some extra light there. I was going to ask you, can you talk a little bit about how self directed accounts or self directed IRAs work in this or help like kind of contribute to this whole approach to note investing and your general philosophy towards wealth creation? Yeah,

Fred:

absolutely. This is one of my favorite topics and there's a few reasons why. First of all, note investing is a very capital intensive, activity. Notes are purchased, usually all cash. So you have to have. The full amount of your purchase, there's not, like leverage available or anything like that. And so you need to have all the capital in your account ready to deploy. And for many people, having self directed IRAs is a great source of capital for that. Now, another reason That I love this so much is node investing is an activity that generates a lot of tax liability. You don't have depreciation. You don't really have so much deductions. And so all you end up with is interest income and capital gains. And so if you're having a successful node investing business, you're going to generate, some significant tax bills. So what about the idea of doing deals in your self directed IRA or your Roth IRA, even better, right, where it's not subject to any tax at all. The growth over the long term is significant. When your, account and your portfolio is not being, constantly eroded through taxes. And I always encourage investors to look at that. Is that an avenue that you can incorporate in some capacity into your investing? Because the results are powerful. They really are. And for many people, that's the best way to do node investing. It's doing it in a retirement account so you can offset those tax advantages.

Derek:

I think that's awesome. There are many people out there that are misinformed about what they can do and creating a self directed IRA. So you can talk a little bit about that as well because maybe there's some misconceptions behind that.

Fred:

Yeah, self directed IRAs can own notes, they can buy notes, they can originate notes, any of those. I know people that do hard money lending where they're originating the notes out of their retirement account constantly. I have relationships With many of the, leading custodians, the self directed IRA custodians. And this is consistent. They tell me that the biggest asset that their account holders own in their accounts are notes more than properties, more than syndications. It's notes. And it totally makes sense because it's a great, it's a great way to do it. And the way it's set up. is you have the note, you own it, you buy it or originated out of your retirement account. And then you couple that together with professional servicing by a note servicer that will manage the hands on details of owning the note and all of that. And then the payments. They go from the servicer right back into your retirement account. So it comes, becomes completely a hands off transaction that's compliant with all the IRS rules and regulations, and you're earning that high rate of return in your account, which is a beautiful thing. It is.

Derek:

And I think the easiest way to think about it is that it is like its own entity, like it's operating on behalf of you, but it's its own company, right? That's the way it looks at. And because it's a retirement account and it's tax advantaged, or, you've either paid tax on it already with an IR with, with the Roth or you're deferring the taxes until you withdraw it later on. The investments inside of that account, they don't pay any taxes. You only pay taxes when you withdraw it out as income to use when you're retired or, when you hit retirement age or whatever the rules are, for using the IRA. And one other thing I wanted to mention too, Fred, is that for people out there, cause I've done this also, if you don't, if you have a bunch of 401ks, You may be able, even if you have a 401k with a current employer, you may be able to separate the 401ks from your current employer versus your previous employer. And if you have 401ks with an employer that you're not active with anymore, you can very easily roll that into a self directed IRA at either Advanta. Or equity trust or a bunch of different custodians out there so that you can get full control of your capital and not just have, you know, the standard fidelity or just the stocks. And that's all you have to choose from. And not even the full range of stocks. Like that's how crazy it is. Yeah. You have the ability to make that conversion. So if you have any questions, just Google it. Or I'm sure Fred would be happy to help you get a self directed account set up or steer you in the right direction for which custodian. I don't know if you wanted to add anything onto that

Fred:

before we move on. Yeah, no, that, that's a great point. I I'll tell you something, Derek. I came from the tech industry. I had a very long career working as a computer engineer in the tech industry and in that industry, We moved around a lot, right? It was not uncommon for changing jobs every two to three years. And so you end up with, you have these, retirement plans at all these different places, different accounts. It's very common. And, you made a great point. When you leave the employer, you always have the option. You can leave the money there in their plan, or you can move it. To a custodian of your choosing, whether that's wherever, self directed or one of the traditional brokerage custodians, but you have that option. And so a lot of those funds. You can move them into a self directed account, and now you have a lot more control and can dictate exactly what are the investments you want to participate in. And so that's something not to be overlooked for sure.

Derek:

And a lot of people don't even realize it because notes is definitely a, as you mentioned, it's aligned with the tax strategy and just the overall like nature. It's like it was built for self-directed IRAs. Now you're talking about it. But, there's a lot of different options that you can open yourself up to with it. So I highly encourage people to at least get yourself a self-directed IRA, where the fees are clear. Because in a 401k account with fidelity or some other, account. It's not so clear because sometimes they take it in the transactions or sometimes it's just, you never know, like what's actually happening with your capital. You never really know whether it's fully employed or they're taking, you know, some sense out. I never understood that fully and never did the math to figure it out. Exactly. That's on purpose. Yeah, exactly. That's a hundred percent.

Fred:

It's totally intentional that the 401k Company, they're never going to send you an itemized bill at the end of the year saying, here's all the fees charged you. Yeah, it just gets buried and buried and buried so that you never able to find it. And, you know, that's unfortunately a huge lack of transparency there. And so that's a big area. So this is why custodians. encourage you to keep your money there so they can keep, hitting the account with fees or hidden. That you can't even see. I love it. Yeah, that you don't know about. Exactly. Like any, any consumers, right? You need to know what you're paying and have an understanding of that. And of course, I totally get it. Companies, custodians, they need to charge fees to cover their costs and operate a business. Right. That's totally understandable. But be transparent about it. Be transparent about the good custodians. They will be very clear. They'll give you a, schedule of fees for all of their fees. So you understand what those are. And now you're educated consumer and you're properly set up to make decisions around your accounts that way. Yeah,

Derek:

totally agree. Yep. So I want to move on. This is the last question I have before we move into the rapid round, which is any practical advice that you can give to those who are just starting with note investing? What would you recommend to beginners?

Fred:

Yeah, absolutely. This is a great question. And I speak with investors all the time. Advice for getting started, start building relationships, get, Get good at that. And when it comes to node investing, the biggest question to look at is do you want to be active or passive in node investing? If you're active, that means you're going to go out, buy notes, build a portfolio of notes and manage those. And yeah, it takes time and work. So if you have time. Available and you can be active now. On the other hand, if you're a busy professional or a business owner and you don't have a lot of time, then you may want to look at passive node investing, which means you're investing in a node fund. Those are set up a lot like. Real estate syndications where you join in the fund as a limited partner, you put in your capital, and now the fund managers, they're the ones that are going out to the secondary market to buy notes, perform the due diligence, and then managing the portfolio. And for the investor, now they're receiving a steady cash flow for that. And the benefit there is instead of owning one or two or four notes in your, account, if you're investing in a note fund, your investment might be spread out over hundreds or thousands of notes. And so you get a lot more diversity as well across the assets, which is nice. And so that's big thing too. Think about, I always talk about this. I spend a lot of time with investors speaking about this to get clear on whether you're active or passive, which is right for you and every person. It just depends on your individual situation. And another thing, Derek is over time. It may change. I've seen that happen over and over again as well.

Derek:

Yeah. You know, it struck me how crazy, it sounds exactly like equity investing. You'd say, get your network going, figure out whether you're passive or active, what you want to do, what's your risk tolerance. But be a student of the game and just start understanding and exploring and starting on a small scale. A lot of this advice, it's really, truly is universal. and I'm really glad that, on the debt side or on the mortgage and note side, it's the same thing. So I'd love to hear that for sure. But Fred, it's been awesome talking to you about your area of expertise. Before we go, we have the rapid round, which is five questions that we ask every one of our guests that are meant to be answered in about 30 seconds or less. And so if you're ready, we're going to go ahead and start rapidly asking them to you at the end here. You ready? Yeah, let's jump in. All right. Number one, name any resource that was, or still is essential in your journey to pursuing your freedom.

Fred:

Wow. Good relationships with professionals, attorneys, CPAs. These are your all star team that you assemble, that they're going to guide you throughout your journey as an investor in business and anything you do. This is one of the concepts that, Robert Kiyosaki teaches in Rich Dad, Poor Dad is so important and it makes all the difference. Surround yourself with professionals. And colleagues that you can support each other. This comes down to the principle of the mastermind and Napoleon Hill's thing and grow rich. It's all about the relationships and the people around you.

Derek:

Well said. Number two, if you woke up and your business was gone and you had 500, a laptop, a place to live and some food, what do you think you would do first to rebuild?

Fred:

I would reach out to my network, right? Because that's something that we spend our whole life building and nurturing, and it's something that can never be taken away from us. You could lose all your money, all of your material possessions, but the relationships that you have. And the knowledge you have, it can't be taken

Derek:

away. That's right. And you're always one relationship and one discussion or one conversation away from solving any problem that you have. I'm absolutely certain of that. Like you were someone who had a very small specific problem and you were somehow, for instance, be to be able to get in front of Ray Dalio and have a quick conversation with him. Do you know how easy it would be for him to solve your problem for you or to help, you know, come up with a mutual solution? I'm very firm on that. That like, there's always a person in a conversation that you're one step away from having to have any problem solved. So it's great. What does your self reflection and your goal setting practice look like? Self

Fred:

reflection is key to, think of it as your internal operating system. It's the beliefs that you have, and they can be positive or negative beliefs. If you leave it up to default, most likely they're going to be negative beliefs, limiting beliefs. But if you're constantly working on yourself, Doing that introspective work, you're now turning the tides to influencing positive beliefs in what you can accomplish, in the way you show up in the world, the energy that you bring into a room when you walk in, and this is, super impactful and it's something that, it takes constant work, it's just it's Going to the gym and exercising every day. You need to get clear on your beliefs, your goals. What is it that you want in the world and focus on that. And when you do, you can basically take every single decision, every single action you take all day long. It's either going to be guiding you towards your goals and objectives or away from them. And so use that as your compass. That's

Derek:

great. Love it. Number four, what do you think are your core work habits that attribute mostly to your success on a day to day basis?

Fred:

My core work habits are, in every morning I plan out my day. That's one of the first things I do. I sit down, plan out my day, look at what the priorities are, and make sure that every day I'm dedicating a time block of time to them. The priorities are there so that every day you're making small advancements. and being mindful of that, if you don't plan your day, it'll just run away from you and then you'll be at the end of the day, you'll be exhausted and feel like you didn't accomplish anything. And most likely you didn't because all these interrupt interruptions and distractions came in and send you like, like a boat. With a sale with no, rudder and no keel, it's just blown all over the place. And having purpose and being purposeful with your time to guide you and the activities you do and your goals, that's going to be. A huge difference for everyone.

Derek:

Yeah, agreed. Well said. Last question I have for you or second to last question for you for the day is what tool or process has become one of your most important time, money, or energy saving ninja magic tricks that you use every day? For

Fred:

me, it's using a CRM, Customer Relationship Management tool. There's many of them out there. It doesn't matter which one you use, find the one that's right for you and use it, store all your contacts, keep records of all the phone calls, all the communications you have, and use that to build your network and grow and be purposeful and strategic about nurturing relationships for me. It's been a game changer having that, because over time your list of contacts grows. And yeah, maybe in the beginning, you can make do with an Excel spreadsheet. But at some point invest in a good CRM, maybe experiment with a few different ones to see which is right for you. But that's a very valuable tool. Anyone that works in sales, this is their, one of their main things they use, but you don't have to be, Just for sales, people's for anyone at all. And as investors, and what I said earlier, the importance of relationships, this is an area to really focus

Derek:

on. Agreed. Very cool. Well, Fred, I wanted to thank you for coming on the show. I know we could continue going on for hours if we needed to, because there's so much to talk about. And there's so much similarities between investing in notes and investing in equity. But before we go. I wanted you to tell the audience a little bit, how a little bit more about how they can find out where to find you online, what you have going on, and just anything that you want to share with them in

Fred:

general. Yeah. Thank you. Appreciate that, Derek. So. I love connecting with investors and we really barely scratched the surface in our conversations today, which makes me kind of sad. But, if you come to me, we can talk a lot more, again, into a lot more detail. And so I encourage everyone, reach out to me, connect with me. You can go to my website, which is fredmoskowitz. com. And if You probably prefer a little bit of an easier spelling. So you can visit giftfromfred. com and that will send you to my website. And once you're there, you can request a special report that I'll be happy to email you about Node Investing to learn a little bit more about it. And if you want to take a deeper dive, you can check out my book on Node Investing called The Little Green Book of Node Investing. It's available on Amazon. You'll find it there. And if you're a person that prefers to do texting, you can also text me by texting the keyword money to the phone number 215 461 4433 and then just follow the prompts from there. Always love connecting with investors, building relationships. It's a big part of what I do. And so, I invite. Everyone reach out, connect with me and this has been such a wonderful, conversation. Really enjoyed our time here, Derek. Thank

Derek:

you. Yeah. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Fred. And for all of you listeners who have listened to this point in time, just want to thank you guys for being all the way with us on all the way to the end of the podcast. We really appreciate you. So wherever you are listening or watching these podcasts, please make sure that you like subscribe. You thumbs up, or comment, just interact with us in any way that you can so that we can attract more people like yourselves and also get incredible guests like Fred to come on the show and share some of their wisdom and continue to add value to you. We appreciate you helping out in assisting with our, with our, offerings to the algorithm gods, in the form of data. We appreciate that. So please engage with us, and we will see you next time. And Fred, thank you once again for coming on the show. Thank you. All right. We'll see you next time. Yeah.