Ep301: Pete Lonton – Stick With Your Successful Property Investment Model

Andrew Stotz 00:04
Hello fellow risk takers and welcome to my worst investment ever stories of loss to keep you winning. In our community we know that winning investing you must take risk but to win big, you've got to reduce it. This episode is sponsored by a Stotz Academy which offers online courses that help investors, aspiring professionals, business leaders, and even beginners to improve the finances of their lives and their businesses. Go to my worst investment ever.com right now to claim your discount on the course that excites you the most fellow risk takers. This is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz. And I'm here with featured guest, mighty Pete, London. Pete. Mighty, Mr. mighty, mighty Pete. Are you ready to rock?

Pete Lonton 00:51
I certainly am. Andre, thank you so much for having me on the show. It's an absolute privilege and slightly nervous. But looking forward to

Andrew Stotz 00:57
Yes. And we were just joking before this show that you can tell when someone doesn't know you because they send you an A message and they say, hey, mighty, I really liked your latest episode.

Pete Lonton 01:11
It's true, isn't it? You know, it's amazing how you when there's not a person behind it, you don't necessarily notice the intricacy. So it's a nice way of knowing if you're getting a personal message or you're maybe just part of a system. Let's just say. Yeah. Well, let

Andrew Stotz 01:26
me introduce you to the audience. So mighty Pete, from fire in the belly show is an author, soon to be TEDx speaker, podcast hosts, mentor, entrepreneur, property investor, husband, and father of three beautiful girls. Pete's background is in project management and property, but his true passion, ladies and gentlemen, is the fire in the belly show and project. His mission is to help others find their potential and become the mightiest version of themselves. Pete openly talks about losing both of his parents suffering periods of depression, business downturn, and burnout. And ultimately, his year spent not stoking fire in the belly. In 2017, at 37.5 years of age, that changed, and he's now on a journey of learning, growing, accepting, and inspiring. Others mighty peed, take a minute and Philly further tidbits about your life.

Pete Lonton 02:31
Wow, that's lesson first. It's fantastic to be here. And I think what's what really stands out for me is I've got this obsession, this burning desire in my life. And that's come 37 and a half years of being what I would now call average, and I did less than overachieved a fair amount. And a lot of people would say, Well, as you know, is that not good enough? And doesn't matter what you say, it's quite often is, you know, inside yourself. And you know, as the last three, four years now has been so enlightening, to actually see what my potential is. And like a good asset, you know, and you let it compound, you let your lessons and your learnings compound and you grow over time, you know, when you can potentially project forward where you're gonna, I see the 37, half as almost being my midpoint in my life, statistically give or take. So I'm kind of going, Yeah, I could see where I'm gonna end up. But what I do love is when you ask the questions, what if, what if you tried something different? What if I read a book every day? What if I did this or did that? And it's sort of saying, what could the compound effect Do what? You know, could we bring on board maquila? And so that's some of the stuff I do. And I love a ton. Before I was saying, you know, I'm done with education, and Dumber right now, it's like I'll be, I'll still be reading in the grave. Till my dying day, I'll be doing it. So it's awesome. Love it in a real hunger for life.

Andrew Stotz 03:55
You remind me of the, when I was young, I fell into I stumbled into a 12 step program. And that was to deal with my addictions. And basically, they had something in it called the 12 promises, and it started like this. If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are halfway through, we will know a new freedom and a new happiness. We won't regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. Fear of people and economic insecurity will leave us we will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us, and we will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves are these extravagant promises. And so those are the promises. And when I heard those promises, I said to myself, I want all of them. I want all of them. And so you know when you said I like kind of average and you know I did okay, you know, and it made me think that you know that that moment when I heard that the first time I thought I want all of them but there was this this word called combination that came at the beginning of that if we are painstaking, in this phase of our development, and that really told me, you know, if you switch that around taking pain, you know, if we're willing to take the challenge and face the pain, then we can develop so far in our life. So I think that, you know, that is to me a lot about accepting it, saying that I want more out of life, be willing to face the challenges, the pain, the struggle, and you will get so much more.

Pete Lonton 05:32
It's gotten so bad. I mean, is yourself in five years? Gonna thank you for what you did today? Amen. No,

Andrew Stotz 05:39
let's hope so I think ourselves are going to thank us for we're about to do. And I believe that our listener is going to thank five years from now is going to thank himself for listening to this, to make sure that they have not made a major mistake. Well, now it's time to share your worst investment ever. And since no one ever goes into their worst investment, thinking it will be. Tell us a bit about the circumstances leading up to it, and then tell us your story.

Pete Lonton 06:07
Well, thank you for the opportunity. And what I'm about to say has not been said publicly, that happened not that far away. But to give you a little bit of background, I started investing in property 20, over 20 years ago, 21 years ago, now, the 20 years of age, and that's always been something that's worked for me in the background. For me, property investing is a bit like monopoly, you collect the rent, you pay the mortgage, and everything is left over there and is nice, you get a few rates and taxes and a few things that sneak up and catch you out. But that's the principle. So through my life, that's essentially what I did. And it was a side hobby, I had my own professional career. So the hub, the houses were just there in the background and negative. So it was a perfect, beautiful way of just letting people go through that. And, you know, building that up to the more has a hard year, someone said to me, if you got one, you might as well have four, if you've got four years, we'll have 40, that's kind of principle I worked on, in fact, scale happens, and it gets better. So really, that's that's what happened to me, I built it up and built it up. And luckily enough, really, I had a full professional career and the houses and the properties all sort of walked away. So it was quite simple that I always said the properties. As long as they supported themselves and I had a job and I supported myself then that was sort of a great investment vehicle. That was all great. And then a lot of things started happening. And as I mentioned 37 and a half years of age, I had basically depression, we lost the business and what we were doing and a number of reasons. But that's another story. But what happened is I found myself with a bit of time on my hands. Now we had a very successful property formula. And like 70 formula was super simple. So to give you an idea, I generally have two factors, I look for a 10% growth yield, and we look for our money back out in three years, we retain the asset, but we add value, or we buy undervalued to bring it back up to value. So anyone who used investing will understand that, that's my fun, very simple. So you could drive up a street and you could pick out which hose is mine, because we're very clear. You know, I buy med terrorists, it's always two or three bad, we always add value, we do this, that's fine. It's great. Fast forward, then to July, June, June, last year, June 2019. And suddenly, I find myself with a little bit of time on my hands. Because like any good investment, the best thing you can do is invest and leave it alone. So suddenly had a better time, our business have been shot, a little bit of cash around and few opportunities. And I'm doing a lot of networking and finding out what my sort of my fire in the belly is. and funny find the valley had been born just before that. So like any investor, any entrepreneur, when you have time and you've a little bit of money, you suddenly become a bit of a weird animal. So that's when an opportunity came to me, I had the opportunity to meet somebody who was a much bigger investor than me. Now, they were a very interesting point in their life, but they were sort of what should have been heading towards retirement. So into the radies. portfolio wise are probably 10 times the size of my portfolio. And but they were very, very humble, very open individual. So I got a chance to meet this person. And there was a lot of talk of, you know, potentially, you know, let's just say we resonated, we able to have a great conversation, and things like that. So that's actually the first thing when you're sitting down with someone, you get rapport. Okay, so any sales just started going, Okay, I like you. Yeah, this is fun. We can have a chat, you know, that's fine. So very quickly, then it sort of the conversation expanded and there was opportunities, let's just say, you know, there was a desire to start offloading his portfolio there was other things coming up. And then like I say, that's when the opportunities start to come. So there was a number of things were ring fenced and I was invited to go and have a look at the properties With a view of potentially doing a deal, that was fine. And one in particular, because of there was an event that was going on locally at the time, and it was the, the, the open, the Gulf open was coming to a location in Northern Ireland. And as a result, the accommodation was under severe demand. You know, when I say severe demand, you're basically taking a normal rental figure, and multiplying by 10, or 20. something crazy, right? So straightaway, you have a, you've got another factor come in. So we now have rapport we have the actual issue of unbelievable returns, you know, so you can start seeing what's happening here. Fast Track, we're on a time crunch at this point. So you out in time restrictions. Okay, so here we go. So this deal has come up, and I'm getting, you know, a lot more sort of brought into it, and a lot more going on. And so then we start to actually work out the potential structure of a deal. In the space, all this all happened over 12 days, from me meeting this person, to eventually the conclusion that I'll bring you to, very quickly I saw the property as I would do, it's now outside of my normal profile of investment. That's the other thing I need to say. But we're feeling good, we're seeing lots of opportunity, we're getting lots of nods, lots of green lights, and lots of hope. Okay. And this is where hope is built on hope. And that's another thing I would say to people just be mindful, faster, Fast Track forward, we basically then start, we come to a deal, okay. And the deal is that it's structured in such a way that it becomes like a payment plan. So suddenly, it becomes affordable, huh? Okay. And that's another thing and suddenly is kind of gone? How can I have something that's really outside a region? Oh, look, we have payment options. Okay, so suddenly, we have this. So the deal that was structured was basically a five year lease, with an agreement to buy. So that gave me five years of a head start on that on the lease agreement, then basically, the sale price in five years was pre agreed on the commitment for them to buy, and the opportunity for me to or for them to sell. And the opportunity for me to buy start mandating investment we did was to our benefit, that's great. So suddenly, you've actually broken down the deal is something larger than normal. So this is a property that basically could, you know, it had the opportunity to be in about a sort of 30 to 40 bed, Guest House type of accommodation, you know, many, many hotel if you like. But also it had another extra deal, a little deal bonus, it had the opportunity for the bill, willing to be knocked down and built into 10 apartments. So here was, you know, at this point, I'm sort of saying this is great. So we have a potential upfront cash flow, we have a long term prospect for, you know, a cash, you know, seller, the buyout, etc. So there's at HUD, short term potential and long term potential. So at this point, you go on less than the worlds that the universe is bending, for me, this is brilliant, you know. Now, as you do and you start walking up your fingers, and things are going along, and you think fantastic. And then the coffee is flowing and the opportunity flowing. And I'm starting to I'm enabling teams. So I have teams of people who are looking at it, I have teams of your legal guys who are doing what they do. And everything that was impossible suddenly became possible contracts that I said, You know, I need a drone up within 10 days. So that gave us the time to practice at the building ready for these exponential returns fermenting at this particular time. So we have this. So again, so suddenly, there's people that couldn't do it, but they had a colleague who could do it, and they were actually able, they were versed in bringing all this paperwork and contracts together. So suddenly, we were finding stuff that should have taken a month was suddenly getting done in three days. And as the universe just wants this to happen, for how fantastic you know, even even getting fun. So I have funds and going there, but I didn't have the cash available short term, but I was able to get the cash short term, and again, something else and people were willing to do it. So how many songs from university you need before eventually you go, wow, this is just fantastic. I could go back and say this is outside of my Exactly. It's outside of my normal portfolio, but everything's happening for me. Okay. The numbers only worked. Okay, if we had that sort of premium income. So that's the one thing I was aware of there was, you know, after that was hopefully, you know, it was you know, could should maybe, hopefully, okay, so that's the one thing. And very quickly things started going together and I was conscious of and this is the one thing I'm supposed to have learned in 20 years of property is like, if something is a rush, why is it a rush? You know, because contracts. Take time, things need to mature things need to ferment and some people are very quick decision makers. I'm slightly I can be very easily influenced. But I do like to sort of retract back into my cave, I have the committee of me, we all get together, we have a chat, fill up, this is right and then come out, I do not respond well to being pushed. But what was happening here is I was actually pushing me as much as the client was giving me the opportunity to do it on the outside environments doing so everyone was in this sort of forward motion. Brilliant. Okay, life is fantastic. So we've got unbelievable time pressure, we've got, you know, opportunity, we've got distraction, because I'm not necessarily thinking about the big picture, I'm thinking about how do we get this done. So I'm straight into doing phase I'm not trying to, you know, I'm not looking at the bird's eye view, I'm on the ground, I'm sort of pushing the phone calls and making it happen. You get a bit of pride, suddenly, I can swell the portfolio. Nice. But then you've got this and sort of promises of golden fortunes and you know, everything's glistening around me and

Andrew Stotz 15:51
damn smart when this deals done.

Pete Lonton 15:53
Oh, listen, I mean, and it's this I'm bearing in mind, this is the start of a beautiful journey with this particular client, because they have so much more where this comes from, you know, so I'm suddenly I'm fading away at the trough and I'm having a great time and things are good. So as we get to the stage and and we're literally the stage where the solicitors, and the lawyers are picking up the phone, and we're good to sign on Friday. But by the way, the head lawyer, he's not around on Friday. Okay, you kind of gone okay, but I've got my number two is lined up, and we're good to go. Okay, at this point, finances are already sitting with my solicitor ready to transfer. That's how you know we were committed to that was a year's lease payment up front always had to be so you know, you're talking 10s of 1000s is not just a small payment. And everything else, the commitments have gone with it. Few things just start to feel a bit funny. So we had asked for access to the building, that's fine to enable some of the trades to actually quote, we get one of the first quotes back from the cleaning company. And this is where the building that was sort of prepped and was I was sort of told and I have viewed the property at this mind. But my glasses are very rose tinted. I'm looking at this thing of going I'm seeing it all. And listen, you don't understand I'm seeing big picture here. And I'm seeing this and the opportunities are coming down the pipeline. So my rose tinted glasses come back and I get the phone call from the cleaning company. And the cleaning Bell alone is 10 times what I had budgeted 10 times, I am sitting here and I'm going you don't understand. I'm trying to do this. You're not making it happen. Bla bla bla bla bla, it's your fault, not mine. What's going on? Okay, that's the first thing, right? We need a new cleaning contractor. These guys are not cooperating, okay, they basically just they're just pricing themselves out, okay. It's not me, it's them. You know? That's fine. So a number of things start to happen like this, and you can go That's a weird bit of feedback. And then you know, but again, we're still getting good, good, sort of responses from the universe and feeling okay about it. But certain things are starting to jar a little bit. Thankfully, because of the delay, with the solicitor getting things lined up, I had the gumption to say my mains, Lester, listen, nothing needs to be done that quickly. You know, I don't care who you are. We have you know, we have a principle and agreement or an agreement in principle, we had a handshake, okay. Now, depending on where you're at, handshakes can mean different things in Ireland. The handshake is as good as your bond. Okay, so I now have emotional commitment. I have some financial commitment, I have commitment to the people around me. You fast track to the Friday, the Friday where the head lawyers away, we've just we've taken the decisions. And it can wait till next week, I want to just let this sort of let the dust settle a little bit because it's nothing's that urgent, things are just going to happen. So be it. That's fine. We've told the cleaning company to disappear because they're basically trying to rob us blind to do this. I then decide go on. I am conscious that I am so far into this deal that I can't see my own backside and kind of go on I need I need to break the echo chamber. You know, I need to break March here. And I just need someone else to come in and give me a fresh pair of eyes because I know my head is so far in the trench I'm not seeing anything. Because we were down to doing the deal. Do the deal. Do the deal. Opportunities are gold is going to flow and everything's going to come. So come the Friday thankfully I assemble friends, family, peers, conference colleagues, etc. Down at this particular building and gone. Give me what am I missing here? What's one of the things that are going to catch me out. The feedback within minutes was it's a peg. It's a peg and lipstick, it's basically you're seeing something you're seeing this thing that can be dressed up on a budget on a small budget. It can be brought to light in a very short period of time that it has this sort of flowing of gold. You haven't shown for that. This has not happened, certain licenses have expired, certain things have not happened. And suddenly, my ego is going, what do you guys know? You know, you don't understand you don't see the big picture, you don't see all this. Over the next two hours, I had the biggest wake up call. And it was the whole thing got Paul, and it was enough of a shock. To actually snap me out of this. You know, it was almost like the perfect sales process. I was and I was heading is the deal. The deal, the opportunity is the timestamp we've stacked hope on hold on. I was like, I hope when we get that to happen, and that will happen. And that'll happen. And like I say, I'm just and I've got my big picture, I've got a short picture I've got, you know, I can run it all the risks that can do this. And I'm literally bending the universe. I'm bending the universe to make this happen.

Andrew Stotz 20:51
Interesting, because earlier you said the universe was bending for you. But now you're starting to see you're bending the universe.

Pete Lonton 20:57
Exactly. And that's so key. I wanted it too much. I want you know, it was not. I was blindsiding I was blasting through all the roadblocks and things like that, and people go and listen. And that was the thing you know. So I very quickly got this sort of slap in the face with my ego and suddenly gone. Maybe you want this too much. Maybe you're not seeing it for what it is, you know, everyone else is gone. I don't know what you see here. But this thing and this is a pagan lipstick, you know really is and it's like, this is not getting made into a nice price any day soon. So we have all this going on. Suddenly, I'm getting this realization because financial commitments contracts are literally setting them we have, we've committed to the lightest form before we actually commit as in paperworks being prepped, money setting on starts to get harder

Andrew Stotz 21:47
to get out.

Pete Lonton 21:49
Yeah. And it's without swearing on your show. It's kind of like time to do the proverbial or get off the pan. Right. Yeah, you know, so it's gone through and not that's the thing. Now I've had this before in deals where you know, it can be a flood of excitement as a butler kind of gone and either stuff coffee because it's an investment and yes, I've stacked my risks and I've done all that but I've had time I've got myself okay with it. Yeah. Steph golfing, right sign the paperwork. Good, I feel good. At this point, I've now got this negative feedback thrown into the mix. And adjusters that drop of water in this diesel engine. This thing is chugging along, it's coming in its dealings begun it's opportunity, but something's like a misfire in your car, it's enough to snap to snap my mindset and gone. Whoa, hold on, for one person around me to see it. And I don't almost know how it's you know, whether it's maturity, whether it's luck universe, whatever you want, I had enough people from different angles. So I had my wife was there, I had a trusted friend that was there I had people I've done business with there was there. And there are certain here and there, they're actually echoing the same thing. So I broken march in my own echo chamber, you know, we talked about this is when you have your committee of 12 over your committee in your mind or whatever, you need diversity of opinion, because otherwise, you're just going to get this echo chamber. It's brilliant. You're brilliant, fantastic. How to not be in for that either and have a very hard and long drive to go down to see the client I'm rubbing my head, like that's one of the reasons I've left her than ever. I'm sitting here Go on, I'm in this Where do I go What do I do and then my head it's screaming Get out. Get out, get out get out. I've shaken the man's hand. So suddenly now I've got my other core values that play my ego my pride, my integrity, everything else has come into play. Now I have done deals in the past where you can go Okay, wasn't quite what I thought but suck it up and go to actually emphasize how much this what this was coming into probably the commitment to purchase the building the five year lease all the on cost everything else we were probably talking well over five 500,000 pounds which is fixed $700,000 and you know so this is not just a thing that cash flow or not drive alone is enough to probably put my latech from a cash flow point of view not from an asset but you know, it's enough to dismantle the structure and cause some fierce damage. So this is not just a case of you shook the hand just suck it up and go so I know having the wake up call and gone. Holy moly. This is okay, this is pretty significant. I've got apparently this has all happened in 12 days 12 days. So I made certain my investment profile I've got all the hopes and wishes and nothing bankable. I've got all the legs and nothing that bank you know, Vol is dreams, ideas, opportunity potential and all the rest and suddenly it just, it just smells wrong. I have a long drive down to see the client at which point I sit down I go, I can't believe I have to say this, but the dealer we have struck I cannot honor. And that heart that really, really, really hard, it broke all my values to do that. And I'm scratching my head. And I don't know how it's happened. And I don't know how I've got so blindsided. And the client, all he could say was, I'm so disappointed. I thought you're a bigger person than not. He's not helping. Yeah. And why would he help? You know? To say I was shell shocked, is an understatement. That takes a lot for me to say it out loud. Because my pride my ego has got I mean, Bosch from pillar to post that whole weekend. And actually, we decided to refresh and revisit back the following week. So I sat down the client again, so he's another chance to have a comment. Now, things that make your suffering

Andrew Stotz 25:53
twice.

Pete Lonton 25:55
Yeah. But you know, I mean, it's one of those things you got to face it to? Yeah, you know, and that's the one that was the hardest thing I've ever done. In turn, you know, looking someone and undoing a handshake, and I listen, I I was not done lightly for one second. But it's one of those things when sometimes you got to do. So that was my worst investment ever. No, thank God, I didn't do

Andrew Stotz 26:20
beautiful. And so what lessons did you learn?

Pete Lonton 26:28
So many, don't stuck on hope, stuck on the bankable, you know, I hope that's happened. And if that happens, I hope that happens. And then Jesus will be you know, rivers of gold, and stick to the model, you know, or stick to that. Don't be rushed into deals, you know, if something is you know, there's very little in life that has to be done. Now. It's a wonderful sales technique. It's a great for action taking and all the rest. There's not a whole lot in life that has to happen. straightaway, take time, because time is an amazing thing. You get to pull together the committee of you, you get to sleep on it. I mean, how many people have said, you know, I'm great as business people talk about that sleep. Because you get to have your subconscious committee. Just decide how you feel when you know enough to be dangerous, but you don't know enough to actually know what you're talking about. That is a dangerous place. Yeah, you'll have heard of the doctors curve. You know, it's like you call it main stupid, you know enough to be dangerous. You come in, and suddenly you're preaching and can you read a book and suddenly gone? Why does no one know this, I need to tell everyone about it. What happens then is the more you get into it, the more you realize, actually you don't know. So then you go into this valley of despair, you go into this thing. I've learned enough to get me started, then I suddenly started to unpack things. And this is why then you start to come up the far side, you gain wisdom, you have had that high, you've had the low suddenly you have the wisdom of experience. And that's when you start to actually become a wise person. You've had the experience, you've had the fail, you've had the positive thought that so is knowing realizing when you know enough to be dangerous, but not to be there. Yep, not everything that shimmers is gold. Just because it looks good. And it smells good. Doesn't mean it is good. And for that I was emotion driven, not logic driven. I am so grateful for the experience. I'm so before I would have had a lot of mental chatter. And even before my 37 and a half years with depression, a lot of mental health things on the background, you know, which, for me, were causes not effects. But you know, I actually came away from that and ago, I was very, very thankful. Getting a difference of opinion breaking March, you know, so it's, you know, it's the account is not the Doppler effect, but it's, it's where there's a bridge in America that actually destroyed itself through the frequency of the wind that passed through it back in the 1940s 1950s. It's a wonderful example. You can look it on YouTube. So it goes through, but what happens is it actually it starts to actually move and it sways, right thanks to the Doppler effect when you get a car when eventually you get a perfect moment of resonance, right? And when you get that when all like your committee, no one else is saying yes, together. The problem is you then you gain momentum. But the problem is you've no outside perspective. Again, that's my perspective. That's what happens when you get that perfect frequency, it means it's either meant to happen, or you're not taking all the proper inputs, right, not to the point where I'll either take off or destroy itself. And I was at that point. Um, some of the things I've learned.

Andrew Stotz 29:36
Yeah. I mean, there's a few things. I wrote down a lot of notes, and it's similar to what you said, I think one of the things is, if you're on the other side of sales where you're selling the deal, you're constantly wanting to put urgency on the sale. And so I think whenever we're purchasing something we have to remember that urgency is just a sales tool. tool. Occasionally urgency is real, you know, if a property is going to be foreclosed on, and this person's got to, you know, wants to get out of it right now, and you know, the bank has given a deadline. You know, there's nothing wrong with investigating the realness of the urgency, but I would say, majority of time, it's not as real as it appears. And the other thing he talked about, and I think we hear that a lot on the show is, if you've got a system that works, don't break the system. And the only time that you know you want to break that system is this is anytime that something comes out of the system, you know, outside of the system, you're like, Oh, well, this could be different, but stick with your system. And that that works well. And I think the final thing is, you have a right to protect your own interests. And, you know, and that can even mean reneging on a contract, you know, you reading in a sense on a handshake, but you could literally go to someone and say, I need to get out of this contract and and say, for compensation, I'll pay you 5000, you know, pounds, or whatever that would be to say, I'm sorry, but I have to get out. And, you know, it is your obligation to protect your interests of a transaction. That doesn't mean that you cheat your lie, you steal. But, you know, I'll tell a story about a contract story. And that is I had an employment contract with a company. And I created a quantitative model that I used at that company. And basically, at some point, senior management, the company changed. And then they said that, you know, they didn't need what I was doing anymore. And so we had a non compete clause, I couldn't hire the guy that worked with me to develop the software, the quantitative methodology, and I couldn't, you know, publish the stuff that I had created under them. Because it was, you know, paid for by them. And so I basically went across the street, and I opened up my own company. And I implemented immediately exactly what I had done at that company using the property that I had developed at their company. Now, I use this in ethics class, where I asked the students, Did I break the contract? Did I break the ethics? And the students say, of course you did. Because you had a non compete, you hired the guy that worked with you. And you also brought the concept and the technology or the know how, and brought it straight over and use them? I said, Well, interesting that you mentioned that. But in fact, I did not break the contract. And they said, Well, how is that? And I said, because I went to the CEO of the company. And I said, you guys have already said that you don't need this and need me. I'm going to ask you right now, to release me from that non compete clause, and from the non solicitation clause, so that I can go and put this into action, it's not going to affect you, because you guys have already said you don't need it. So would you be willing to do that? And he said, Yes. And so I think that lesson from what you talked about, and kind of that story is that, yes, even contracts are ironclad, but you can as just adjust, you can break through the veil of that by talking one to one with the other person in a contract. So those are some of the things I took away from your story, anything you'd add.

Pete Lonton 33:28
It's you know, and talking, I think that's a great thing. You know, it's it's people get caught up in math, people get caught up in the contracts, and sometimes not a face to face and stuff golfing. And that person I'm actually still in touch with today, we still were looking at other opportunities under very different energy. But as you say, sometimes you sit down and go on even the contract, it's sometimes not worth the pain of what comes out of a contract. You know, my, my wife is a lawyer as well. And you know, you see sometimes kind of go on while the answer is black and white. However, the opportunity or the emotional penalty is not worth it. So, there's always things where we kind of sometimes get stuck behind the lawyers if we get stuck behind the math of the finances. So sometimes it just takes sense to, you know, be a person, pick up the phone, sit down for coffee, have a chat, and talk about what you really want, you know how you feel about it.

Andrew Stotz 34:24
So before I ask you the next question, I also just wanted to mention that, you know, the other lesson is the lesson of getting feedback and that that you did very well. So now based on what you learned from this story and what you continue to learn what one action would you recommend our listeners take to avoid suffering the same fate

Pete Lonton 34:48
I know what you're good at and stuck out. You know, have clarity. It's very less in this day and age social media 50 billion opportunity on our doorstep. Find out what you're good at. Do it And repeat till dead I can't remember who said that there was possibly Warren Buffett or some someone else, do what you're good at? Yes, you can invest in other things, but get people who know what they're doing or you know, except that you know enough to be dangerous. So find out what you do. mentioned repeat till dead and all the rest formula.

Andrew Stotz 35:20
Great. Last question, what's your number one goal for the next 12 months

Pete Lonton 35:25
building passive assets, books, podcasts, property, intellectual property, things that can basically work and be working for me while I sleep. Because if I can't have stuff that works for me while I sleep, I'm gonna always be working

Andrew Stotz 35:45
right on. All right listeners. There you have it. Another story of loss to keep you winning. Remember to go to my worst investment ever.com to claim your discount on the course that excites you the most. As we conclude, Pete, I want to thank you again for coming on the show. And on behalf of a Stotz Academy, I hereby award you alumni status for turning your worst investment ever into your best teaching moment. Do you have any parting words for the audience?

Pete Lonton 36:16
Just be mighty. Be the best version here and find and live by the fire in your belly.

Andrew Stotz 36:22
Amen. And ladies and gentlemen, go to your podcast. Look up, fire in the belly and listen to it and grow your fire in your belly. Well, that's a wrap on another great story to help us create, grow and most importantly protect our wealth. Fellow risk takers. This is your worst podcast host undisputed no challenger Andrew Stotz saying I'll see you on the upside.