Ep56 Building Strength Inside and Out: Ryan Irwin on Fitness, Real Estate, and Personal Growth

[00:00:00] Surround yourself with people that make you better in any way, shape, or form. Just like, all right, I don't want to be the smartest person in the room. I want to be around other people. Hopefully, I can bring value to them, but I'm certainly going to get a lot of value from them.

[00:00:11] From cornfields to high-rises, office to industrial, houses to hotels, and every other asset class in real estate, we cover the people, the projects, and the profit. Welcome to the Investing in Iowa Show. This show is for go-doers, action-takers, and business owners.

[00:00:28] It's for people like you who are sick of Uncle Sam taking a huge bite of your apple. If you're looking to get ahead of what's taking place in Iowa, learn who is doing what and how you can get in on the action, you're in the right place. Hosted by Neil Timmins, an Iowa native who has been involved in over $300 million in real estate right here in Iowa. Recording in studio from West Des Moines, here's your host, Neil Timmins.

[00:00:56] I've got Ryan Owen here on the show. Ryan, welcome.

[00:00:59] Oh, thank you, Neil. Really appreciate this podcast, and thanks for having me on.

[00:01:03] I'm excited you're here. Say, for the audience's sake, who are you? Where are you from? What do you do?

[00:01:07] Yep. So, I've grown up here in Iowa. I'm an nutrition and fitness coach. Among other things, I promote bodybuilding competitions. I wrote a book. I also compete in bodybuilding competitions.

[00:01:18] And, hey, I'm an entrepreneur and a real estate investor.

[00:01:23] How are you led with the physical side of everything and bodybuilding? How did you get into that arena, that world?

[00:01:29] Yeah, I'll give you the quick version. But basically, I started when I was in high school.

[00:01:33] Like, I was always the small, sickly kid. When I picked up a bodybuilding magazine, I knew somebody that did it.

[00:01:38] And I asked him, I said, hey, what do you need to do to make that happen? He said, you just got to be consistent.

[00:01:42] I'm like, okay, I can do that. And so, that started more than I ever thought would start.

[00:01:48] And I just started doing it. And since then, I've been immersed in the industry.

[00:01:52] Again, putting on competitions, coaching people, helping them attain that.

[00:01:56] Not just bodybuilding, but just healthy physique, whatever that looks like for an individual.

[00:02:01] Wow. All right. So, you got into it in high school. Walk me through post-high school, where that led you and what life looked like for you.

[00:02:08] Yeah. Went to Iowa State, graduated with a sports and exercise science degree and with an emphasis in management.

[00:02:15] And so, all throughout that, doing bodybuilding and fitness, got into the business side.

[00:02:20] My wife and I, we got married young, started having kids right at the gate.

[00:02:23] And so, I needed a job. I needed to make some money.

[00:02:25] And so, I focused on the business side of things. And so, while doing that, continuing the bodybuilding and fitness as a hobby,

[00:02:33] and then through multiple different finding myself careers, if you will, one of which was in banking for about five years,

[00:02:40] which now as a real estate investor helps me out quite a bit.

[00:02:43] But then I was able to eventually leave corporate America.

[00:02:46] I built my coaching platform to the point where I do that full-time now.

[00:02:51] My wife and I, she's amazing. She supports me in all my craziness.

[00:02:54] But yeah, now I'm doing that. And then it gives me the flexibility to do real estate investing as well.

[00:03:00] I still want to stay in that.

[00:03:01] Yeah.

[00:03:02] Who do you coach? What do you do?

[00:03:03] Yeah.

[00:03:04] And I've been coaching for 20 years. And the ones that get the most attention are the competitive athletes,

[00:03:10] because they're all over social media and their physiques and stuff. But that's about 40% of my clientele.

[00:03:16] The other 60% are just people who want to look and feel better.

[00:03:18] And then I oversee their nutrition, their training. Most importantly, keep them accountable.

[00:03:24] Because I don't care who you are. That's as humans how we operate best.

[00:03:28] And so then, of course, make an adjustment and coach them along to make sure they're seeing the results they want.

[00:03:33] Yeah. It's incredible. I always see your social media stuff.

[00:03:35] You put out some incredible in so many competitions, and it's just mind-blowing to me.

[00:03:40] I mean, how committed somebody must be to look as good as they look, and I suspect it feels good as they feel.

[00:03:47] Yeah. And sometimes I'll have individuals come to me and they'll say,

[00:03:51] Ryan, I want to compete. That's fantastic. And then other times they'll just come to me and they'll say,

[00:03:55] I just want a transformation. And then who knows where that leads to?

[00:03:59] Sometimes it's just, and this is fantastic, but they just, they look amazing. They feel amazing.

[00:04:03] That's great. And some of them will say, you know what? I'm going to try this whole competition thing.

[00:04:07] And whatever that path looks like to them at the end of the day, like you said, Neil,

[00:04:11] they just look and feel better.

[00:04:13] Transformation. Use that word. Yeah. I suspect it's not just physical.

[00:04:17] No, a hundred percent. In fact, one of the categories we have in these contests is called

[00:04:21] transformation. And part of that is about the journey. And I read these essays and I see these

[00:04:27] folks and they've overcome huge milestones. Yes, they physically have usually transformed,

[00:04:33] but the bigger thing is they've overcome these obstacles in their lifestyle and their mindset.

[00:04:37] And then it just snowballs. And it's amazing because it's inspiring. It's great to see somebody

[00:04:42] with like huge biceps and a six pack, but you see somebody has overcome some major hurdles in their

[00:04:47] life. That's huge. And that's what life's about. Yeah, no doubt.

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[00:05:32] I suspect there's also mental clarity along with this in probably every study I can imagine would

[00:05:38] indicate if you do these things, you stay consistent, you get clearer in your mind,

[00:05:43] you make better decisions, ultimately better business decisions. Ultimately, it leads to

[00:05:48] wealth, probably multiple areas of one's life.

[00:05:51] Yeah. Oh, a hundred percent. I overuse the word momentum. When you've got one thing nailed down,

[00:05:57] whether it's your physical aspect, it bleeds over into others, your life, your mental side,

[00:06:01] your career, your relationships, your finances. When I work with individuals, I hope we have this

[00:06:07] rapport that they're comfortable in talking through all of those things because they all are

[00:06:11] interconnected. And so when, again, we were talking before you hit the record button, when I was 16 and

[00:06:16] I started in this, I had no idea the implications it would have, but I can say without a doubt that

[00:06:21] this helps steer my life to the success I've had and the success I'll continue to have.

[00:06:27] All right. So you were in banking for five years. What'd you do there?

[00:06:30] Yep. I did about everything. Started off as a teller, went down to operations, didn't like that

[00:06:35] because you're an expense line versus a revenue line. So I got into lending and got into sales and

[00:06:41] I did commercial loans. I did real estate loans, consumer loans. So I learned all that. And that's

[00:06:46] actually what kind of got me started on the entrepreneurial journey because I saw other

[00:06:50] business owners. I saw what they were doing. I'm like, I like that. I like that. So that's what set

[00:06:55] that stage, if you will, as far as, okay, let me get in this and be my own boss.

[00:07:00] And you stumble into or make a decision at some point to get into real estate, to do some things.

[00:07:06] Talk to me about that journey and that process.

[00:07:08] Yeah. And as working as a coach, it's a cash-based business, no tax write-off, getting hammered. So that

[00:07:14] was the first clue that, okay, I needed to do something to help offset that. The second thing is I

[00:07:20] love what I do. I love it, but it's me. I'm having the conversations, I'm doing the things. And so,

[00:07:25] okay, someday I'm going to have to step away, whether by choice or not by choice. And having

[00:07:30] real estate as a backseat then has that long-term outlook. And so I get the tax advantages and I get

[00:07:38] the security. And I think we all agree that real estate just makes a lot of sense.

[00:07:42] Tell me about a project or two or what you have done inside the real estate space.

[00:07:46] Yeah. So my first four-way was my wife and I, our first house was a foreclosure.

[00:07:51] Didn't even know what we were doing at the time, but we did that. And then we,

[00:07:54] with a starter house and progressed and stuff. But then recently I had one of my good friends,

[00:08:00] he's into real estate. He says, he goes, Ryan, you should really check this out.

[00:08:04] And so my in-laws actually, they were able to inherit their parents' house. And so I'm like,

[00:08:10] you know what? If there's not a better opportunity to buy a good deal, I don't know what it was.

[00:08:14] And they loved me enough. They gave me a decent deal on it. I knew the house well. And so that was

[00:08:20] my first property over in Urbandale area. And so from there did a syndication because at the time

[00:08:26] I'm like, okay, this is my limit. This is all I've got. Syndication, easy entry point. All right,

[00:08:31] we'll call it good. Then the gears started turning and you start learning things. And since then I've

[00:08:37] done a couple of Burr properties. One was a duplex. And then most recently I'm started flipping houses as

[00:08:42] well. Yeah. What have you learned during the early times, the Burr, the rentals, the keeping the

[00:08:50] stuff versus the flips? Because they may both be houses, but that's a different process.

[00:08:54] Right. I think the similarities there are, it's always how you buy it. You're always how you buy

[00:09:00] the value. One Burr was an REO when it was in bad shape. A lot of people walked away from it because

[00:09:07] of that. The other one definitely needed some rehab. And so that's the same with a flip property

[00:09:11] or a Burr. But the difference is that when you're Burr in it, you're looking to hold it and refinance

[00:09:16] the rehab looked at. And I wanted to also make it a solid rental. I wanted to make sure that, okay,

[00:09:22] this isn't going to give me problems down the road and just make sure that it's set up because both

[00:09:27] of them are actually not in Des Moines. So I've got a little bit of a drive to get there. And so I

[00:09:31] wanted to make sure that I set myself up from that standpoint too.

[00:09:34] So yeah. And you got a shirt on BP Con. Oh yeah. Is on BiggerPockets 2022. They put on a very

[00:09:41] significant annual conference. When you go, as we were talking before we hit record, you've been to

[00:09:48] multiple conferences with BiggerPockets. So let's take specifically with them. Why do you go? What

[00:09:54] gets you to go? What keeps you coming back? And what are some of the nuggets that you get out of this

[00:09:58] you've been able to ultimately implement in your practice? Yeah, no. It's one of those things where,

[00:10:02] so probably about the time I was doing the syndication, I'm like, you know what? I don't

[00:10:07] know a lot, but I know enough to get education and surround myself with people that elevate me.

[00:10:17] And BP Con, I heard about it. And so I'm like, okay, this is the place I need to go. So I knew

[00:10:22] nobody. I flew down there to San Diego, knew nobody, knew very little about real estate. I know a little

[00:10:28] bit more now. But my goal down there, one of the nuggets I took away from one of the first days,

[00:10:33] thankful for it, was creating a network. And so I went down there with the attention,

[00:10:38] every day I wore something from Iowa, purposefully, Iowa State, by the way. And so people would know,

[00:10:43] okay, that guy's obviously from Iowa. And so I met about three dozen individuals down there that I

[00:10:48] felt like I had a good rapport with. And so as I was flying back to Des Moines, I was making a list

[00:10:54] of people who I thought would be a good person to be on a mastermind group. And so I reached down

[00:10:58] to, of that three dozen, about two dozen, and out of that, about a dozen then accepted it.

[00:11:03] And so ever since then, so we're going on a third year now, we have Zoom calls each month,

[00:11:07] couple times a month, and we're holding each other accountable. We're all real estate investors

[00:11:11] from different parts of the country. Ironically, a couple of them live here in Des Moines.

[00:11:15] And we joke because I had to go to San Diego to meet them, but it's been great because we have

[00:11:19] different geographic points, but also different focus groups. There might be a guy who's doing

[00:11:24] STRs. We got some commercial guys. We got an agent in there. So it's just great. And it's like our

[00:11:29] own little mini mastermind board of directors, and we bounce things off of each other.

[00:11:34] Yeah. It's incredible to have that group and a diverse knowledge base. People are seeing

[00:11:38] different things and they all come from different perspectives. I don't know about you, but to me,

[00:11:43] this community, the real estate community as a whole, such a giving community.

[00:11:46] Oh, huge. And that's, it's refreshing. It's refreshing. And on the fitness community,

[00:11:51] it's not necessarily like that. It's a little, which is crazy because so much of the population

[00:11:55] needs fitness, endless amounts, but yeah, it's not as open as real estate. And that's really

[00:12:00] refreshing. That's one of the things I noticed when I started getting into it.

[00:12:03] What do you think that is?

[00:12:04] I'm asking because I'm generally dares. I have no answer.

[00:12:06] Honestly, I think it's because everybody thinks they have the secret sauce and they're afraid that

[00:12:11] they're going to let it out. And then honestly, again, if there is a secret sauce, I'll go back

[00:12:15] to accountability. I always say I can write the perfect program for somebody, but

[00:12:18] if I can't hold you accountable and then you have the consistency to do it, it's not going to work.

[00:12:24] So yeah, it's just not going to matter. I want to back up a little bit. You mentioned you went

[00:12:28] into a syndication early on. Tell me about that. What was it? Where, where was your involvement?

[00:12:33] Is it a limited partner? Is it a general partner?

[00:12:35] Yeah, I'm an LP. So it was actually, it was another investor in Ankeny in the bodybuilding.

[00:12:39] So we started talking and he talked about the syndications because at the time I thought that was

[00:12:43] my strategy and he was actually a GP in multiple syndications. Like, Hey, yeah, he goes here,

[00:12:48] let me introduce you to some people. And so I have had some conversations and so,

[00:12:53] yeah, it was, it's a multifamily complex down Mesa, Arizona, about 275 units. So I'm an LP on that.

[00:13:00] It was funny because my wife and I, and again, she's super supportive. She's so,

[00:13:05] what happens if something goes wrong with this apartment? What happens? I'm like, Oh honey,

[00:13:09] nothing's going to happen. Like literally within a month, one of the units caught on fire.

[00:13:15] And she's amazing. She's, she didn't say I told you, but it all worked out. We all know insurance,

[00:13:21] all that stuff, but it was like, Oh yeah, here we go. So yeah.

[00:13:25] Or you are enough, enough of anything. Things are bound to happen.

[00:13:28] Yeah, exactly. What are you most excited about for 2025?

[00:13:31] Oh, so much. So much. It's only my third year of real estate investing. So I'm still very green

[00:13:36] and I'm learning so much along the way. And no, I would say one of the things I'm excited about is

[00:13:41] getting into private lending. I just actually self-directed IRA. We had to talk a little bit

[00:13:45] about that. And so starting to look down that path and dabble in that. No, I think that I've

[00:13:50] always zagged when others have zagged. I was buying and now if rates come down, okay, I'm going to

[00:13:55] pull back probably from buying, restructure some of my debt and improve cashflow. So I think

[00:14:00] there's never a bad market. It's just how do you take advantage of it?

[00:14:04] You could do what you do anywhere you choose to do it. You're in Iowa. Why?

[00:14:08] You know why? When I go to these BP con conferences, everybody's like, well, yeah, I'm in Texas or I'm

[00:14:13] on the coast or whatever. And I say, I'm from Iowa. They're like, really? And I love it because it's so

[00:14:18] stable. If you want cashflow and you get cashflow, if you want appreciation, you get appreciate

[00:14:22] STR, whatever it is, it's there. And so I just, I love the community. I'm comfortable in it. I know

[00:14:28] it. It's just when the economists talk about other areas, you just don't have the swings like you do

[00:14:33] in other areas. So if you're a house clipper, execute the burst strategy or do double closings

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[00:15:04] Check out www.littleguyloans.com. Ready for the final three questions?

[00:15:10] Yes. One piece of advice for your 20-year-old self, what would it be?

[00:15:14] Great question. So learn and understand real estate sooner. Like I said, our first house was a flip,

[00:15:21] didn't know what we were doing. We could have hung on to that thing, reduced our capital gains tax.

[00:15:25] We could have used that. There's been a couple of houses along our journey that I would have kept

[00:15:29] as rentals. Just learning sooner about real estate. Two books that changed your life.

[00:15:34] Oh man, I'm a voracious reader. I read all the time. Of course the Bible, but two business books.

[00:15:39] One would be Essentialism by Greg McEwen. It was actually one of the books that steered me to

[00:15:44] direct my entrepreneurship and my business to focus on the essentials. And then the second book was

[00:15:51] Intro to Real Estate Investing by Brandon Turner. Actually, I picked it up through Audible.

[00:15:55] I didn't even know about Brandon Turner. I didn't know about Bigger Pockets. That's how I found

[00:15:59] Bigger Pockets was through Audible. So went on a vacation and just completely digested that book,

[00:16:05] took pages of notes, and that book was pivotal too.

[00:16:08] This question, in your real estate business, if you were cast away on an island for a year,

[00:16:12] you only get three pieces of data about your business each and every month.

[00:16:15] Yep.

[00:16:15] What three things must you know to know how your business is running?

[00:16:18] Yep. From my coaching business, it would be a client progress summary statement. See how my

[00:16:23] clients are doing. From a real estate business, it'd be my P&L. And then also just my, the other one

[00:16:29] would be just a summary of my bank accounts. Always looking at my accounts.

[00:16:33] Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

[00:16:35] Wow. Ryan, I've asked lots of questions. What's one question I did not ask that I should have asked?

[00:16:40] I would say, what would be the key to entrepreneurship?

[00:16:44] Oh yeah. Let's talk about it.

[00:16:45] Yeah. So I think the big one is you have to relentlessly manage your time. You have to be

[00:16:51] very intentional about it. For me, like my morning and evening routine lockdown, even when I'm traveling,

[00:16:58] that's the same. It sets the pace. And then just master your schedule, focusing on block scheduling,

[00:17:04] making sure you're very intentional and very disciplined with your time. I think the other

[00:17:08] thing would be surround yourself with people that make you better in any way, shape or form. Just like,

[00:17:13] all right, I don't want to be the smartest person in the room. I want to be around other people.

[00:17:16] Hopefully I can bring value to them, but I'm certainly going to get a lot of value from them.

[00:17:21] Are those in the fitness space typically more structured than the average population?

[00:17:27] I would say so. Yeah, I would say so because I see this a lot is especially going back to

[00:17:32] competitors. They're high level competitors. They've got stuff, they've got jobs, they got family,

[00:17:37] they've got hobbies. And they, so they're just trying to structure all that. A lot of business

[00:17:41] owners in that realm too. So I think that it's just kind of part of that discipline lifestyle.

[00:17:46] And that, again, that discipline just carries over into all different facets.

[00:17:50] What's curious is to those who compete, what's their why? What gets them to show up and do that

[00:17:55] every day? Maybe it widely varies from person to person. Yeah, that's a great question. And I think it

[00:18:01] does widely vary for some people as, hey, this is my sport. I want to go as far as I can with it.

[00:18:07] For some is, hey, I'm overcoming an illness or maybe some sort of an ailment or physical condition

[00:18:14] that I'm walking away from. For some people is, I know what my parents look like and what they're at,

[00:18:18] and I don't want to be that way. It's all across the board, but it's, to your point,

[00:18:23] figuring what that is in anything as the driver, it really is.

[00:18:27] Yeah. In anything, you're spot on. Even the people who just, as you said,

[00:18:31] they just want to get healthier. They just want to improve themselves. They don't need to compete.

[00:18:35] That is a furthest, it's a non-thought. But it's just to improve yourself, get better day in and day

[00:18:42] out. And ultimately, it has a ripple effect, isn't it? Getting healthier,

[00:18:48] being the best version of yourself. Absolutely.

[00:18:49] It ripples into all different segments of one side.

[00:18:52] 100%. 100%.

[00:18:53] Brian, I've really enjoyed this. I appreciate you taking the time. For people, they want to find you,

[00:18:57] they want to connect with you, where can they go? What should they do?

[00:18:59] Hopefully, I'm very easy to find. You'll find me on Instagram. You can also find me on Facebook,

[00:19:05] my website, Impact Action Coaching, or on the BP forums.

[00:19:09] Perfect. Links are below in the show notes for all of those. Brian, thanks for being here.

[00:19:13] Hey, thank you, Neil. Appreciate the invitation.

[00:19:14] Thanks for listening. If you're enjoying the show, may I ask a favor of you? Naturally,

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[00:19:57] Until next time, keep investing in Iowa.

[00:20:00] Thank you.