The Mindset Framework Behind a $2.7 Billion Real Estate Portfolio w/ Trevor McGregor

One of Trevor McGregor's coaching clients started with four single-family homes. Today he manages $2.7 billion in real estate assets. Trevor spent over five years coaching for Tony Robbins, invested in real estate for two decades, and has helped more than forty-five

thousand people navigate their business and their portfolios. In this episode, you'll learn the 4S framework state. story, standards, and strategy that decides whether an investor stays stuck or starts to scale. Why most people's focus is the real ceiling on their income and

how finding your zone of genius changes who you build your team around. Stick around and if you want more tools like this for your investing business, check out RealDealCrew.com. Let's get started. We have Trevor McGregor and you can learn what he can help you with

by heading over to trevormcgregor.com. I'm going to have that as a clickable link in the show notes. But you've just started wrapping up a book as well. It's going to be released in August called Rich Beyond Belief. And there was a subtitle there too you

probably want to share with everybody. But I always have to ask what in the world possessed you from going through that torture of writing a book? What's such a great question. And really, if I go back just a step before that, you know, as a high performance master platinum coach,

you know, after working for Tony Robbins for half a decade and after being a real estate investor for 20 years, and after helping over 45,000 people, you know, navigate their life, their business, their real estate, their franchise, I've got just a wealth of knowledge about you know what

keeps people stuck, Jack, and what allows them to achieve phenomenal success. And so I thought I'd take this opportunity to really put some of the biggest lessons into the book. So again, the book is called Rich Beyond Belief. And the tagline to it is how to create

extraordinary wealth in every area of your life, right? Because after doing this work on the planet for as long as I've done, about two decades now, I often find that people like you and I and people like the guests that you have on your show are really optimizing for financial freedom,

time freedom, location and lifestyle freedom. Right? The freedom to impact people through real estate predominantly or business and then relationship freedom where you get to hang out with people like you, people that are here on purpose and with purpose to do some amazing things.

And so I've taken all of that and put it into the book and I'm very, very excited about the release of it as I think that people are going to really enjoy it. Well, I really liked how you started that off. You know, we all talk about this concept

of financial freedom. But I actually don't think people sit down and actually define it like you just did. And what that encompasses, you know, you mentioned the time freedom and the, and the financial freedom and the and being able to wherever you want to go. I don't think people have sat down and

actually defined what what that actually means. You know, it's such a vague term as this concept of financial freedom. Well, it is again, and it means different things to different people. Some people think it's ultimately a certain net worth. Some people think it's a certain amount of

active or passive income coming in. Some people think it's about leaving a generational wealth or leaving a legacy to the kids and the grandkids. And that's what's beautiful about it. But again, I love that you share that not enough people sit down to identify what it really means to them.

nor quarterback a playbook on how to move towards it, right? Because ultimately, we often say in my coach and mentor, Tony Robbins said that people often overestimate what they can do in a short period of time. but they underestimate what they could do

in two, three, five, 10, 15, 20 years. And for anyone that's investing in real estate or anybody that's leveraging AI like you help people with, I mean, I don't believe it's ever been easier to create that plan and then find what I call who's or super who's to help you

get there. A who is a really powerful person in your life, but a super who is worth 10 who's. So at the end of the day, finding somebody that can help you to find deals, fund deals, underwrite deals, run the asset,

and literally you run your business, again, leveraging AI, I'm telling you there's never been a better time to find those professional pillars and really lean into it, because it's available to anyone who's defiantly committed to it, Jack.

I'd be curious and I'm sure a lot of people are wondering too, if you wouldn't mind sharing the journey you had there in working towards eventually working with Tony Robbins. I mean, he's probably, everybody knows he's probably the highest performer,

the first person that comes to people's mind. Well, a thousand percent. You know, and again, when I backed the truck way up prior to that, you know, I'll tell you my story because it's a very interesting story on how I ended up coaching all together.

And again, to go right back to it, I'm from Canada, right from Vancouver and ultimately, you know, born and raised in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in the prairies where You know, all you ever want to do is play sports as a Canadian kid. Hockey was my number one passion,

a little bit of skiing, a little bit of, you know, all of those winter sports. And I thought I was going to be an NHL hockey player, Jack. And I had the speed, but I didn't have the size. So I traded in that dream, went off to college like most people do our

university. I studied business and then I went and worked in corporate. And I literally was working in this hospitality company in my mid-20s, my late 20s, and in my early 30s, they came to me and said, Trevor, we love that you're on the team.

You've risen through the ranks. We'd like to offer you an opportunity to invest in the company's expansion. And so I thought, wow, what a great time to lean into it, because I was married and had two small kids. And so what did I do? Well, I took all of

my savings. I then cashed in all of my 401k. And I even convinced my own parents who believed in me and loved me to take out a six figure second mortgage on the family home. And I dumped all of that money into this hospitality expansion plan.

And for the first two years, it went really, really good until it didn't. And to make a long story short, we were expanding across Canada, five major cities. got in over our head and I lost all of that money that I put into this expansion. All of it gone

forever. And I'm sure you can imagine what that might feel like being in your early 30s, married, two kids, just lost all of that money. And you don't even know how you're going to tell your parents, you know, that the family home is in a

challenging predicament. So what do you do then? Well, I didn't know what to do. And one of my friends said, Trevor, you need to find a coach or a mentor. And I said, what's a coach? What's a mentor? I didn't even know what it was.

And he said, it's somebody that has a little bit more experience that can help you navigate no matter whatever it is you're going through. And so I found a coach and a mentor in Vancouver, Canada, who was an amazing and accomplished human being.

And he took me under his wing. And he said this, Jack, he said, I'm really sorry what's happened to you, but you're still a young man. You got to get up, dust yourself off, and find a way to keep on keeping on. And I said, yeah, but I don't know.

I'm going to pay back all of these loans or take care of my family. And he said one thing that changed my life forever. He said, have you ever thought of investing in real estate? And I said, real estate? I don't know anything about real estate.

He says, you can borrow other people's money, buy properties, fix them up, and then either refinance them or rent them or sell them and just keep going. And my back was up against the wall. I didn't have any other ideas. And so he was a very successful man and I

followed his lead. I bought one little townhouse using other people's money, fixed it up, and Vancouver was going through a beautiful appreciation. So I took the money out of that and bought another condominium. After that, I took the money out of both

of those and bought my first duplex. And I don't know about you, but that was where I literally understood what cash flow was. And I leveraged those three to buy another duplex and another one and then another one and then four plexes,

single family homes, got into small apartments. And that's when people started to come to me and say, Trevor, you're buying all this property. You're doing all this. Can you show me how? And I said, well, sure, sit down,

buy me a drink and I'll be happy to share my playbook. And that's when the coaching bug bed. And it was around that same time that I was just about to go to a Tony Robbins event in California. And a friend of mine said, you know what, let's go but let's do one

of those preliminary calls before you go. And that's when I met this coach that was working for Tony Robbins. His name was Dave. And I absolutely created this relationship with him, went to the event, fell in love with personal growth. And I said in that moment, that's what I

want to do. I want to coach people, but I want to take all of my real estate experience and help them get into what I feel is the greatest wealth vehicle on the planet. So I'll put a pin in that because that's a fire hose of information, but I'll throw it back to you.

Yeah, that is a fire hose of hose of information. It's always interesting, though, that there seems to be a like, I can't tell you how many people have been on the show who've kind of had that, that huge ebb and flow like this, where they've, they built it up,

they lost everything. I mean, this is a consistent thing in the real estate world. You're not alone on that. That's correct. And again, I felt horrible when it happened and I, you know, really, you know, felt like, you know, as a failure. But really within two and a half to three

years, not only did I create that portfolio where, you know, it started to cashflow, but I made enough money to pay back my parents, pay back the loans, pay off everybody. And I had a beautiful cash flowing

portfolio on top of it. And so as I went to this Tony Robbins event, you know, they said that they were looking for part-time coaches to come and join Tony's team because there was an influx of people that wanted one-to-one coaching. And I thought, well,

I don't have any form experience, but they said you don't need it. You come in if you've got a passion for business, a passion for real estate, and a passion for people. We'll let Tony and the team coach you on

what you need to know. And so I dove in head first, Jack. I flew down to Orlando, Florida. I did my coach training. I went to all the events. I read all the books. I listened to all the CDs about 10 times that Tony offered. And when the dust settled, I went to work

for the man, the myth, the legend, Tony Robbins for over half a decade. And it was amazing because they sent me all of the people that had a real estate background. So whether you are a real estate investor or a real estate agent

or real estate broker, it had something to do with real estate. And so literally, I started to coach people all over this beautiful country where I met some pretty spectacular people. mean, one of my clients, you probably know him,

his name is Joe Fairless. Right? Joe Fairless went from owning four single family homes when I first met him to now having $2.7 billion in AUM. $2.7 billion. And it wasn't a straight line, but I helped Joe for the last 10 years really go up,

identify his skill set, his heart set, his mindset, and execute to where now life looks a lot different than it did a decade ago. And I've got story after story of doctors that wanted to get into real estate, attorneys that wanted to get into real estate, Fortune 500 executives. I mean,

you name it, because I believe that high performers have multiple streams of income. And if you're a high performing professional who's probably got a tax problem, real estate is the answer to your prayers. And so as I got into more and more and

more of this, I started to do one to one coaching, group coaching, masterminds. And now we do retreats all over the world. In fact, I'm speaking to you today from Asia. I'm in Japan. I'm in Tokyo today. After this, we head to Europe for another

one this summer, then back to Australia for some this fall, then back to North America, because I'm a big believer in what I shared before, that when you start to find financial freedom and get a little time freedom, it gives you what I call location and

lifestyle freedom. and my wife and I and our three sons are blessed to be able to now do life differently and it's not us beating on our chest, it's just we identified, you know, what are our highest values? What's important to us?

And so helping more people, whether it's in a one-to-one or a group setting or a mastermind or a retreat is something we love to do. And ultimately we make a lot of income, but most of all we make a lot of impact. Yeah. Well, let's let's dive into some of the things you've learned,

especially regarding these real estate professionals that you've been working with. Are there some recurring things that you run into? Like whether it's, it's a mindset issue or just kind of low hanging fruit that you run into fairly common?

Yeah, you're singing from my song sheet Jack because I'll tell you it's pretty consistent across the board and most people come to me as a Coach and they say Trevor give me a strategy show me how to buy real estate Show me how to identify the markets show me how to identify

the job growth or the you know All the different metrics that go into choosing and I'll say that's great But we're gonna start with that after we first of all check in with your mindset Because I'm telling you strategies are available to anybody that wants to buy real estate. But where most people

get stuck, whether you're new to real estate, maybe you're an intermediate in real estate, or maybe you feel like you're an expert, there's another level for us to ascend to. And I find that people really, before you get to that strategy,

have to first look into what I call the three previous S's. And so the three previous S's are three words that also start with the letter S that literally talk about your state, which is your focus, your story, which is whatever narrative

you're telling yourself, and your standards. That's what level are you going to play at? Because most people that come to me that just want to jump into the fourth S, which is strategy, need some work on the first three because the focus is number one. Most people are focused,

Jack, on what they don't want or why it's not going to work. or why their Uncle Bob told them, away from real estate, it's risky, or interest rates are changing, cap rates are changing, different people are migrating from different places to different places, and their focus is on

the problem instead of focusing on the solution. That also plays into the story they tell themselves. They might say, well, I'm a doctor, what do I know about business or real estate? or I'm a lawyer, or I'm a Fortune 500 executive at Microsoft or American

Express. And so they tell themselves they're too old, they're not educated enough, they should just stay in their lane. And so when you have a challenged state and a challenged story, I'm telling you, that's where we've got to

right the ship before we ever move on to the third or the fourth S, because that third S is their standards. And the standard is really just a question. mean, do you want to maintain where you're at, or do you want to raise the bar?

Right? Do you want to continue to have Groundhog Day or are you ready to get a second stream of income, meet new people, have a new adventure? Because I tell you the state, the story and the standards and the quality that the people that come to me have by improving those absolutely totally change

how they go after real estate when it comes to that fourth S, which is the strategy. So state, story and standards is mindset, strategy is execution and ultimately I've thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people no matter what asset class they're in,

right? Maybe they buy a portfolio of single family, maybe they're in small multifamily, maybe they're in apartments, could be self storage, assisted living, mobile home parks. I've got people that flip land, I've got people that make money off

historic buildings. I got people doing something in real estate in about 38 different states in the US right now and they're all optimizing for the same thing. Growth, success, freedom. Because when you go after growth, success, freedom and you got the right

state, story, standards and strategy, I'm telling you it's a beautiful recipe for success. So you well now you're gonna get me on my soapbox here in a second. But before we do I want to remind everybody head over to Trevor McGregor

I'm gonna have that as a clickable link in the show notes if you found some value in what we're chatting about so far do us a favor share this episode with somebody that needs a kick in the butt and then the Second is if you found some value in what we're doing a like and subscribe really goes a long way

into feeding that algorithm. So, Trevor, this is one of those things that I've been, you know, and I'm going to say I struggle with it myself. There's this there's this ceiling that everybody kind of puts in place on our earning potential. And I think we

see it as our in our society, regarding like, we just kind of go with the status quo, we might have a nine to five job, and we kind of just accept the little stipend increase we get every year. And that becomes our expectation. How do we break through that? What do we

have to do to reset our mindset to be in a proper value so that we feel like we can earn the level that we can? Well, it's such a great question, Jack, and thank you for asking, and thank you for being a little bit vulnerable because I'm the same way. mean, ultimately, it becomes our beliefs,

our values, and our rules that dictate who we are and how we show up. But you got to start with the first one. What do you truly believe? And ask an even a better question. Where did you get those beliefs from? Well, you probably got them from your parents.

And where did they get their beliefs? From your grandparents, right? Or growing up at a different time. And so you got to really think of it as like a supercomputer today or AI today, where if you used information from your parents' era or your grandparents' era and tried to run today's

supercomputers or super AI computers, it would laugh at you because the world has changed. It's sped up. It's different, right? AI has leveled the playing field as you know and ultimately as I know that anyone who rewrites that first thing we call beliefs has

potential. And when you rewrite your beliefs to have potential, right, then you can go out there and identify not just what do you want to do, but who you need to be to do it. Because at the end of the day, it all comes down to your identity and

your self-worth, your self-wealth, and your self-esteem. And most people throw themselves under the bus. They say, I'm not worthy of more success. That's for other people. Or I'm not worried of more money, right? I should be happy with what I have.

Or I'm not worthy to go out there and crush it, right? I should just be, you know, happy to be a doctor, an attorney, or you know, a business owner. And I really challenge people's thinkings because really, when I say that all decisions are belief

and value decisions, what if we go over to the other side of the page and we ask better questions? What if we identify that, you know what, this is the greatest time in history to create wealth? What if we identify that, you know what, you're not just doing it for yourself,

you're doing it for your family, for your spouse, for your kids, for your grandchildren? Because when people have a big enough why, Jack, the how starts to show up. And so what I really ask people out of the gate is, you know, which three positions are you

really in? Do you want to maintain the status quo because position one is maintenance? Or do you want to go to position two, which is growth? Because in order to move from maintenance to growth, you got to take intelligent and inspired action.

Where intelligent means smart and inspired means not because you have to, but because you get to. So to move from position one, maintenance, to position two, growth, is a huge step for some people. But I say even why stop at growth when you can move to the third and final position,

which is scale. Right? Now we don't just maintain what we're doing, we grow, but we also see a pathway to potentially, you know, 5x, 10x, 100x what we're doing. And that's where I think that when you surround yourself again with

the right people that are working in their ZOG, which is their zone of genius, and you work in your ZOG or your zone of genius, that's when sparks fly and magic happens. So to back up the truck there, some people love looking for deals and

talking to brokers. Some people love underwriting deals, right? Some people love raising capital. Some people love running the asset. So ultimately, if we really ask, what's the hierarchy of your zone of genius? What do you love to do? What do you kind

of like? I'll do it, but it's not my favorite. And what's something that I absolutely do not like? We start to see a formula. And if you can work in your zone of genius, and again, you find other people working in their zones of genius and you

Yeah, I really like what you're saying there. One of the things that I've really have learned to just kind of accept is the fact that as humans, we will do anything we can to avoid pain or perceived pain in any way. And the only thing that overrides that

is establishing the level of why that you just laid out. And And I actually think that if you actually find your zone of genius and like you mentioned, not only is that something that you feel more comfortable in and you enjoy, but it becomes your

obligation. And that becomes something that you need to provide to the people around you. Yeah, it's just fantastic. Trevor. One of the things I was hoping that we can spend a little time on today is and I this is a mindset thing where you're going to you're going

to hopefully break people's mindset break through some walls here today because I want you to tackle the concept of what we're talking about. And coaching. I would say that outside of real estate investing and any investing for that matter, investing your yourself in some sort of

coaching program is likely going to have the biggest return on that investment that anything else could provide. And you gave some great names, you know, mentioned Joe Fairless and a few others, I would make the I would guess that

they're probably would make the same argument. But for some reason, people just struggle with with that concept. Can you can you talk a little to that? Yeah, it's one of those things when real estate investing is really the only occupation I've ever had,

where the community is so open with information, and they're really welcoming, you know, it is one of those tide lives all boats. And I think there's a there's a prevalent mindset in this type of community that that's really something to take advantage of.

I mean, it's it's great in that record. I have yet to really have a of another real estate investor where I've had a question that they are not willing to just open book share it all. Well, I have to ask you about AI a little bit.

You know, that's my core thing. So I'm going to pull you into that a little bit. Because a lot of the conversations I have are people who are looking to scale and now they may be hiring people. And before they do, they're now exploring

some options. And to get them to let go of certain things, I keep running into people who are busy all day long. however they're busy with the wrong things. And it's just like reprioritizing and the

the mindset that you were talking about earlier is probably the answer to that. But what would you say to help people with something like this? Well, Trevor, this has just been fantastic. We could just keep going. I'm going to say we're going to there's going

to be round two hopefully in the near future. Just to remind everybody, trevormcgregor.com. Before we start diving into the rapid fire and start closing out this episode, Trevor, is there anything else we should have tried to hit on?

Trevor. This has been fantastic. Again, it's trevormcgregor.com. That's going to be a clickable link in the show notes. But if you're ready, Trevor, we'll dive into the rapid fire and close out this episode. What lie do real estate investors often

tell themselves? If you could go back in time and give your younger self one piece of advice, what would it be? Yeah, I'm gonna even add to that, you know, just kind of struck me too, when you were saying the 80 20 rule. But those people that consume 80 % of

that, you know, 80 % of those people that consume that content will never take the action to do something about it, too. It's that 20 % that become the next great real estate investor. Do you have a book recommendation or what are you reading right now?

And finally, what single process or tool have you implemented that has had the biggest time saving impact? Yeah, this is frankly the biggest leveling of the playing field I think we've seen since the internet. It's pretty crazy. Yeah, yeah, I've heard multiple people say you're not going to be replaced by AI,

you're going to be replaced by somebody who is using AI. So I really appreciate your time, Trevor. Again, make sure you check out the book when it comes out in August, rich beyond belief. And I'll try to update the episode to make sure that link is available when that book comes out.

But more importantly, head over to Trevor McGregor.com Clickable link in the show notes. Really appreciate it, Trevor. I hope you'll consider coming back again real soon.