Phil Pustejovsky Freedom Mentor: A Fresh Look
I call him the YouTube real estate guru, because he frankly owns a lot of property on the infamous YouTube. What do I mean by that? Think boardwalk and baseball on the old monopoly board game. You almost can’t help but land on something this real estate mogul owns when you type in “real estate investing” into YouTube.
Sounds kind of like an internet marketing genius to me!
Again, I recommend doing what rich people do, not just what they say to do. Is there an exception here? Nah, Phil’s good. He knows how to market. He has proven it with his channel and internet presence. So let’s do some digging.
Ready or not here we go…hang on to your hats it gets freaky.
Who is Phil Pustejovsky?
Phil was born in Baytown, Texas. At five years old he moved to Massachusetts. He went to college in Tennessee at Vanderbilt. He graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering and absolutely hated his first job.
He got into a disagreement with his boss and decided that he wanted to do something else for a living. He started reading tons of books on how to become wealthy and the one thing that stood out the most was real estate.
Wouldn’t you love to fire your boss? Not so fast says the mega REI guru. You’ll be able to read more about his perspective on this below.
(meanwhile back at the ranch.)
He quickly found out that real estate wasn’t as easy as he expected. In trying to pursue his passion and dreams he actually failed miserably. He ended up living in his car, homeless and eating baked beans out of the can. He tells his own story saying that he ate out of the can with a spoon that he got from Wendy’s. He had hit rock bottom.
Do you ever notice a trend in these stories? These guys all seem to hit rock bottom before they advance to a new destiny. I don’t know if you have ever hit rock bottom. I have, and what I can tell you is that you learn a crap ton about yourself in that place. The saying “Know thyself” comes to mind. It’s really in that place that you realize you are to blame for exactly where you are. Once you stop blaming the pants off everybody else, you realize that you are a product of your own decisions.
To this day Phil still does not eat baked beans. All of his credit cards were maxed out and his bank statements showed that he was over drafting his accounts. He was completely broke.
It reminds me of the time I was supposed to come up with $70,000 in 3 days to not be in breach of contract with some real estate I had purchased. I know I know. This was one of my ridiculous real estate blunders. Now, you might be thinking, why didn’t you just renegotiate with the seller? Uh…yeah, it wasn’t that easy. The were all negotiated out, and it was time to ante up. I remember driving around in my Nissan Maxima thinking, “How am I going to do this?” But for me there was no windfall, there was no second chance. It was a complete disaster and I lost the house. Then again, had I succeeded back then, I prob wouldn’t be dropping these lines on this page right now.
So say hello to the Pan theory. Have you ever heard of it? It goes like this. It’s all gonna pan out in the end. I learned this from a college professor. Honestly, I don’t think I learned anything else from the dude that whole semester. But then again, it’s all kind of a blur now.
Phil on the other hand experienced a miracle that pushed him further down the real estate road.
He had a “Come to Jesus” moment. He basically really prayed for the first time in his life. He wasn’t an overly religious guy, so this was not natural for him.
His prayer basically went something like this. If you get me out of this, then I will be your guy forever.
This was the point at which things begin to turn around. Coincidental? I don’t think so. I believe God is all about putting us on the right path to our destiny. Heck that may be why you are here, reading these words. I dunno. But you get choose that is the beautiful part in life.
Major Turn ahead: This kind of reminds me of the old preacher joke I heard in church (goes like this.)
-A pastor puts a sign out in front of his church. It reads, “The End is Near, You Better Turn Around.”
A belligerent car zooms by, and the sound of a crash rattles the windows of the church. The Pastor looks at his helper and asks, “Do you think we should simply reword it to: Bridge Out Ahead?”
Still makes me smile.
Mr. Pustejovsky’s story takes a major turn, and he ended up starting a friendship with another investor. He was honest with the investor and told him exactly what was going on in his life. The investor agreed to take him under his wing and work together with him. His investor friend couldn’t believe that Phil was willing to go homeless to pursue his dream. It wasn’t like he was a crazy dude either. He had a degree from a reputable school and in a reputable field.
His investor friend agreed to teach him what to do and they would split the profits 50/50.
They remain friends even today. The first deal that they closed Phil was able to make $28,000 which meant the world to him at the time. He tells the story that he went to check the ATM over and over just to make sure it was still there. It was almost too hard for him to believe given that is was his first step out of the financial ruins he was living in.
His friend was a fifth generation real estate investor so he learned a lot from his family. He showed Pustejovsky exactly how to buy, sell, and close the deals. In an interview with Phil he references a Proverbs verse that says that iron sharpens iron (and) so one man sharpens another.
I digress for a minute and just have to say that this is why it’s so important to stay connected with people that are better than you so that you can become better at what you do. I have heard people criticize the motivational giants like Tony Robbins and others, but the truth is that if you spend some time sharpening your axe through there instructions each day, you are bound to get something out of it.
I actually love this blog because I see the thread that weaves all of these gurus together, and it is making a difference in how I see the world and want to live and operate in society. You have to learn to slay the dragons in your own belief system. For years I believed I was a failure because of my real estate disasters, but what I realize now is that failing and failure are two different things. I may have failed, but really I just learned what doesn’t work.
One of my mentors, Hans Johnson says to “fail fast.” I love this statement because it encourages you to take risk and learn fast.
Back to the Dr. Phil of the real estate game. By the way, I love this guy’s spirit and relationship with God. I don’t believe that his spiritual act is a charade. It simply wouldn’t help him that much in his reputation if you know what I mean. Some may argue that it disarms people, which may be the case, but his conviction says otherwise. He may very well be the Tim Tebow of real estate.
He ended up marrying his fellow Sunday school teacher who was teaching the grade above his.
In a twist of fate for his honeymoon, he was surprised to learn that the airline tickets that he bought were no longer valid because the airline closed down the day before they were supposed to depart for Hawaii. In an effort to create a backup plan, the newlywed couple decided to go to the keys. This was a major turn of events because it was full exposure to an area that he could imagine he would enjoy investing in. It ultimately inspired him to move to Florida.
In the spirit of being coached well through his first investment partner, he created his own company called freedom mentor. It is one of the largest real estate mentoring programs in existence today. It has become very popular.
Hence, why you are here checking all this out.
Phil recognized that he was good at coaching but he wasn’t that great at marketing. So, he decided to write his own book about real estate investing because he disagreed with so many books that were already on the market.
In about six months he had his first book written. It is called “How to be a Real Estate Investor.” It became a bestseller.
The next crucial life event was that he got tired of blogging all of the time. He realized that it took so much effort to write, and he wasn’t sure that his readers were actually reading all the material he was taking time to publish. So he decided to put some YouTube videos together. He published one called -The secret to flipping houses.
The video went viral and it ended up having hundreds and hundreds of thousands of views. He recognized the power of YouTube and so he decided to create tons of videos.
Out of that was born the most popular real estate investing channel on YouTube.
His claim to fame is that he can communicate complex ideas very easily and efficiently to his audience.
What I his most popular videos with over 755,810 views and is called -How to buy real estate without cash or credit.
Real Estate Freedom Mentor
He definitely recommends that you don’t quit your job until you’re making substantial money in your real estate investment business. He said he did it and it was a huge mistake. It adds unnecessary pressure to you while you are learning. His parents tried to convince him not to, and he says now that he should have listened.
It can really cause a huge problem when you’re trying to make a living from real estate investing because you will be forced to take deals that are worse for you.
Without the proper cash flow you will lose your leverage and will have to take whatever is on the table at the time. This sets the stage for bad business.
He recommends that you have an income from your job so that you have staying power throughout the real estate deals that you’re putting together. Also one of the benefits of having a job is that you get to leave it at the end of the day. It doesn’t have to own you the way that your own company/business does.
His perspective is that you should not quit your day job and that you should just learn how to manage your time better. He believes that if you do quit your day job then you’ll just spend your time in useless manners.
He says you will fill up the added time that you gain by not going to work with things that are not income producing activities.
I can relate to this. You really have to be able to focus to be as efficient as you would be if you were in an office full of people moving the proverbial ball down the field.
But I can also relate to the reason you are most likely here which is to “kill your job.”
He also recommends David Allen’s book called getting things done. This is a book that I personally read and I can agree with him 100%.
I don’t even know if there’s a such thing as 1000% button but if I could I would click it right now.
David Allen basically says that you should organize your life into five categories. They are
1. Inbox
2. Active action
3. incubate
4. Reference
5. Someday maybe.
David Allen even recommends that you organize all of your files just like this. Your goal is to get everything from the “inbox” of life into one of these other 4 folders. The only place that you can sub categorize the items into sub folders and projects is in the reference field. He suggest that you even create this on your computer. The archiving system in today’s computers is so advanced that you can practically use any keyword to find the information that you’re looking for in seconds.
The idea is: why waste your time with thousands of folders when you can just simply type in a search and get instant results.
When it comes to income producing activities, I also agree with him that it is so easy to get sidetracked when you’re working full-time from home but you have to be disciplined in the discipline starts when you’re working at a job and trying to run your business on the side.
Then again, I couldn’t wait to quit my job. I am so glad I did. A day working at home is better than anything I have ever experienced. Being my own boss is similar. I wouldn’t want to ever go back.
I opened my company in 2013 and did not begin working at it full-time and two until 2015. Should I have made the transition sooner? Uh, maybe, but everything had its timing.
He suggests that no matter how bad you want to kill your job, you need to stay there to prevent yourself from becoming destitute broke. It will take time for you to learn the real estate process and how to invest well. You don’t need the added pressure of trying to figure out how to eat while learning. I believe this to be true especially in real estate where the money is often big and can be slow.
Overall I like the way that Phil thinks. I will say however that he is quite an online marketer even if he professes to be the Real Estate Investor that he is. His method of marketing has been primarily through YouTube.
It’s a bit coincidental, but years ago that is what actually got me started looking into online marketing.
It was the power of a simple YouTube video that I put together on how to say the German alphabet.
Within a short amount of time I had over 600 views. I remember thinking, “People are watching this video while I am sleeping” I was simply intrigued.
It is an absolute leveraged income concept and it works. That is why Phil has focused primarily on this although he admits that he still does real estate deals on the side.
On Phil’s website he says that he’s looking for six apprentices.
This is the law of scarcity playing out in my eyes. You really can’t expect to have thousands of people visiting your website and then only have six positions available. It’s kind of like the auction concept where they drive the price up based on the availability of a product or service.
It’s brilliant marketing and pretty much everyone is using this method to close the deal.
As far as I can tell the cost of getting started in his program, it is on a sliding scale between $1,000 and $8000 with a monthly fee and a 50/50 profit split until you have become successful.
Overall he is making a name for himself he was recently interviewed by the Huffington Post and called the hiring guru. He basically asked him how he hand selects the right people to run his organization.
It seems he has his hands in lots of things and is showing a track record of being a brilliant mentor.
USRELI, LLC and Freedom Mentor, LLC Complaint Investigation
I took a look at the Better Business Bureau related to freedom mentor and came across another name listed above. Apparently they had three complaints related to advertising and sales and also to complaints related to the product itself five total complaints.
However, I could not find the actual complaints posted. This tells me that most likely they were able to settle any outstanding issues and so I would not hesitate to do business with this company.
I also found that the USRELI company site is on the Better Business Bureau and has a website called shortsaleteaching.com but I believe Phil’s team is mostly promoting and driving traffic to freedommentor.com.
On sunbiz.org confirmed the discussion I mention above regarding the business entities.
God bless, Phil!
