EP76 From Farming to Finance to Real Estate: Ryan Hoover’s Journey to Intentional Success
The Investing in Iowa ShowMay 07, 2025
76
30:57

EP76 From Farming to Finance to Real Estate: Ryan Hoover’s Journey to Intentional Success

What do a gym whistle, short-term rentals, and house hacking have in common? For Ryan Hoover—broker, investor, and all-around real estate enthusiast—they’re all key stops on the journey from PE teacher to powerhouse property pro. In this episode, Ryan dives into the decisions that changed his life, the lessons he learned from growing up on a farm, and how he turned hustle, humor, and heart into a thriving real estate business. Whether you’re just starting out or scaling your portfolio, this conversation is packed with strategy, motivation, and a few good laughs.

 

What You’ll Learn:

 

• How Ryan’s small-town roots and early lessons in discipline and teamwork shaped his real estate leadership style.

• Why house hacking and short-term rentals weren’t just income strategies—they were stepping stones to long-term vision and freedom.

• Ryan breaks down how enthusiasm, relatability, and a bit of humor help him build trust and lasting client relationships.

• From teaching to finance to founding a brokerage, Ryan shows how following your curiosity can lead to unexpected success.

• Visualization, intentional goal-setting, and surrounding yourself with opportunity-rich communities like Ankeny can fast-track growth in real estate and life.

 

About Ryan Hoover:

 

Ryan Hoover is the Broker/Owner of Weichert, Realtors – The 515 Agency, serving clients across Iowa with offices in Ankeny and Algona. With a background in physical education and financial services, Ryan brings a rare mix of heart, humor, and hustle to every transaction. A skilled investor and seasoned agent, he’s passionate about empowering others to take control of their financial futures—one property at a time.

 

If you’re ready to approach real estate with more purpose, energy, and fun—this episode is your playbook.

Contact Info:

 

Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/ryan.hoover.984

| https://www.facebook.com/515RealEstate

Phone | (515) 341-3849

[00:00:00] I don't really know if there's a lot better places to invest, be in the real estate industry, be in the land industry, be a farmer, like you know, all these different things that I kind of have pieces of. I don't really know if there's a better place to hang your hat up at night is in the state of Iowa. 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.

[00:00:28] This show is for go-doers, action takers, and business owners. 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.

[00:00:46] 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. We've got Ryan Hoover here on the show. Ryan, welcome. Ryan Hoovers Journey to Intentional Success, The Investing in Iowa Show. Thanks, Neil. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to hear you say for the audience to say, Corey, where are you from? What do you do?

[00:01:08] Yeah, I'll give you the short version if I can. I'm a small town guy. Grew up in Taitonka, Iowa, northern Iowa. Ended up graduating high school in Algona. Path led me to UNI. Graduated at UNI with a degree in teaching. Did some coaching at UNI. Found out that I didn't want to teach after I got to the end of that road and ended up with a company called Northwestern Mutual.

[00:01:27] So I say I got my education selling life insurance and disability insurance and long-term care for five years with a great company. Worlds collided and ended up deciding that farming was going to be a part of my history again. Came from a farm family. And my then wife got into Des Moines University down here in Des Moines.

[00:01:45] And so I walked into a couple of real estate companies in the Ankeny area and said, hey, I want to do this. Tell me about it. And so I moved down here with my wife. Gave up the Northwestern Mutual thing and started farming with my dad and my brother at home, actually back in Taitonka and started a real estate career in 2014. There's a lot to unpack there. It's quite a history. Yeah. Incredible. All right. So your teaching degree from UNI, when you came out, what did you teach and how long did you do it?

[00:02:12] I'm a PE teacher. Yeah, I'm a PE teacher. I ended up, my main vision was I wanted to coach. You know, I grew up in small town. I love sports. I was a four-sport athlete, ball, ball, track, baseball, just had the vision that I wanted to give back and coach and enjoy that part of it. And I did. And I figured the best way to do that was end up in teaching. But I got to college and realized that there was this competitive piece of me that still wanted to be somewhere that I could be competitive.

[00:02:42] I got a random call one day from a recruiter from Northwestern Mutual and said, hey, you've been referred as someone that might be a good fit for our company. I called my mom and I said, this bank wants to talk to me. I don't know who it is. And she's like, that's not a bank. That's who we have our life insurance with. It's like, oh, I guess I'm going there to talk to them.

[00:03:00] Yeah, I ended up in an internship program while I was finishing my teaching degree and quickly realized that that was a place that I felt like I was much more of a fit than ending up in a classroom.

[00:03:14] Yeah. Well, that's tremendous. I'm curious. Northwestern Mutual, I mean, you really cut your teeth selling there. They're five years. That tells me, you know, you got what it takes because I suspect that world, probably much like real estate, probably much like anything in sales. Most don't last. Most just don't. It's not a fit for them.

[00:03:31] Yeah. I think if you look at the retention of both, they kind of align. I don't know exactly where the retention numbers are in the real estate world now, but something tells me it's somewhere between 10 and 20% after five years. Similar with Northwestern Mutual, you know, that world, you were always kind of under the impression that if you made it five years, you made it. You know, you're right up there. And truly, I loved what I did at Northwestern Mutual. I loved what I did. It was truly just a situation where my farm background came back to me and I had always had this love for real estate.

[00:04:01] Really interesting. I'm sitting across the table. This is kind of one of those moments where you realize I may not be where I need to be. I love Northwestern Mutual, but I was sitting across from a client. We were talking about products, right? Services. How can I help you? What products are going to help? And this 25 year old kid looked at me and said, you know, I got, I got five investment properties that it doesn't matter if I'm here or not. It's going to spin off $5,000 a month for me or my family. I was like, I'd rather do that, you know? And so I had this kind of epiphany sitting there.

[00:04:29] And that was right about the time where Rich Dad, Poor Dad hit me. And I, you know, I went down the road of like other people you've heard say Rich Dad, Poor Dad changed my life. I was kind of in a six month window where both those things happened and it really got me thinking about real estate. So I always had a passion for real estate. I think that's kind of what led me to if I'm not going to do this. I think real estate's probably where I need to be. You know, even if the investing in real estate is more important than selling real estate, I'm selling insurance. Why don't I just go sell real estate?

[00:04:54] Yeah. So your wife gets into DMU here and you're moving, you're moving down. Let me back up. Northwestern, where'd you live? Where were you? Yeah. So interestingly enough, this I think kind of starts where my investing story starts. In 2009, I took the victory lap like a lot of other people. You know, I ended up at UNI at fall of 2005. And I needed that fifth year to finish everything up. But I ended up in 2009, 2010.

[00:05:24] If you remember during that time, we went through the mortgage crisis, right? And at that time, as a college kid, you're kind of immune to it a little bit. You're kind of paying attention. I'm not real worried about it because I got other things on my mind. But what happened was that in conjunction with the eastern side of the state, I can't remember exactly what time, but there was a lot of rainfall and a flood. Cedar Rapids, the river flooded in Cedar Rapids. Cedar Falls Rapids was on the side of the state that kind of got hit bad by that.

[00:05:50] So interestingly enough, when I graduated in 2010, I went full time with Northwestern Mutual out of that. And the city of Cedar Falls was offering this, I can't even remember what the package was, but essentially you buy a new construction house and you commit to living in it for five years.

[00:06:07] And they're going to relieve $60,000 or $50,000 of basically a grant that they provided. So ultimately what happened was I couldn't afford it because I'm just out of college, but they did allow a cosigner. My parents cosigned for me. And the minute I bought that dang thing, the budget was $180,000. I owed $129,500 on it. And I put three roommates in that thing with me and I didn't pay a mortgage payment for five years while I lived there.

[00:06:36] And the way it was structured was it had to be my primary for five years. And so every year I was there, 20% of that grant fell off that I owed back. And so if I would have moved it four years, I would have only owed $10,000 back, whatever that looked like. So I started there, Neil, with let's get in this and kind of a variation of house hacking, just not the duplex style, more of we're going to share the space style. Yeah. With a grant as the kicker to make the whole thing work.

[00:07:02] Okay. So then you move here from there and do you end up selling that? See, only enough, I don't mean they can't go back on me now, right? But I needed to keep my Cedar Falls houses by primary and my wife was moving down here. So we were figuring out financing or living. I said, you know what? I'm still a young kid at this point. Like, why don't we just buy a house down there? And then quickly I realized when you're exploring financing that if it's not going to be your primary, there's maybe more of a significant downstroke you're going to need than five or 10,000 bucks.

[00:07:32] So I started to think outside the box and I come from a farm family and my grandpa was, I believe at that time in his eighties and he was sharecropping. He was a farmer, you know, and at that time we had been kind of around those years that $8 corn hit. And some of those guys were, you know, making more money, you know, making more money sharecropping than they ever made while they were actually doing the labor.

[00:07:54] So I actually, I just went to my grandpa and I said, Hey grandpa, you're getting 1% in the bank right now. What if I loan $30,000 from you and I pay you 3% or 4% or whatever, whatever you want. Right. And he's like, how much do you need? So I ended up going and borrowing a down payment and we ended up buying a house down in Ankeny for dollars. And then I put two classmates of my wife's in the basement.

[00:08:49] I think it was exactly, um, I think it was exactly 40 minutes to dyke that dyke elevator on highway 20 and then another 15 minutes to my gym. And so it was an hour and 35 minutes to my gym on Monday mornings. And so I'd get up at 4am and, uh, I'd hit the, I'd hit the, uh, five 30 or six o'clock class. I can't remember what it was probably the six o'clock class, uh, and start my week in Cedar Falls. And I'd be back here on Wednesday night. That's what that wake up call.

[00:09:14] So you come to town and then eventually you've had enough of that life and you go on and I'm going to, I'm going to hang up with my, my, my retire, my shingle, Northwestern Mutual and decide to get into real estate. I like, tell me more about what you did because I think we, you and I have a similar path. You went and started talking to multiple real estate brokers. Yes. So I didn't, I didn't know, you know, you, you, you know, I think from our industry, a lot of people are like buyers or liars and all this. And I relate this back to, I only did what I did because I didn't know what I was doing, you know?

[00:09:41] And it was 2014 and I actually had a business coach at that time that I was sitting talking about growing my, my financial services practice. And she looked at me, she put down her piece of paper and she said, why are you still here? Your heart's not here. Your wife isn't living here. It's time to go. And so that next week when I got to Ankeny, I decided, you know what? I'm, I'm gonna go door knocking.

[00:10:00] So I actually walked into Iowa Realty. I walked into Coldwell Banker in Ankeny and I actually had a client at the time in Ankeny was a young guy by the name of Anthony Lynn, who's still a realtor out there. Maybe he's listening, but he has a client of mine. He said, Hey, come check out our, our brokerage. So I went to Molden and Associates. So I walked into three different size brokerages and three in Ankeny. Um, and really kind of just said, I'm going to do this. Tell me what you have to offer. Ultimately, um, I ended up at Coldwell Banker and that's where I started my real estate career.

[00:10:30] Talk to me about what that first year was like. Um, it was interesting. I go back to, I say, I got my education from Northwestern Mutual. I believe things happen for a reason. And I believe that, um, going through Northwestern Mutual sales program and building a financial practice overly prepared me for what I faced in real estate.

[00:10:50] I mean, I remember a specific time thinking to myself at two in the afternoon after I had done many follow-ups in my real estate world. Right. Um, go like, what do I do now? I guess I can go home and mow the lawn, you know, because I was used to the financial services world where you got 25 appointments on the, on the books. You're going to keep 50% of those appointments. So you're seeing three people a day.

[00:11:11] And by the way, if you're not seeing people, we're getting back on the phone to make sure we've got 25 appointments scheduled for the next week. When you get to the real estate world, you realize, man, if I'm working with three clients at the same time, I'm stacking, you know, and, and again, everything's relative to what your sales expectations are. But as a new agent, you got three clients active. You're, you're excited. You know? I mean, so I think for me, it was kind of backing off my expectations that I don't need to work 14 hour days. I can, I can back off and still work hard, but it was kind of like,

[00:11:41] man, I need to get intentional with my time as opposed to just feeling like I'm in the business all the time. And so part of it was maybe retraining my brain as opposed to what's the intentional, uh, days look like, or what do my days look like from an intentional standpoint? And it's not seeing 25 people a week, finding people and, and, you know, backing off on the number of clients, but me and more intentional with those people that want to go buy a house.

[00:12:06] How has being an agent better served you in your investment business as an investor? I think, um, making it your day to day thing. I think it kind of goes back to whenever you have to teach something, you have to know it better than when you're just learning it. And so I think one thing that I've done is I've kind of shaded myself towards, I'm, I love to have those investment conversations. So I do work with a lot of investors and, and really a lot of them are first time

[00:12:36] investors. I have this passion around getting people in to investing. And so I think part of being in real estate helps me from an investment standpoint, not only because I'm rubbing shoulders with other people that are like-minded as me, but when you're teaching yourselves all the things you need to know about helping other people, specifically investment stuff, it also helps you when you're, you're actually the butt in the seat trying to figure out what you're going to do with your, your situation.

[00:13:00] Hey, Iowa investors. This is Ava Boutkamp, chief of staff at Legacy Impact Investors. Have you thought about adding real estate to your portfolio, but don't have the time or desire to play landlord? At Legacy Impact Investors, we do the heavy lifting. Our team finds the deals, manages the properties and handles all the day-to-day operations. Our select group of qualified investors co-invest with us, gaining ownership equity without opening a tenant email or responding to a maintenance call.

[00:13:29] They just share in the income, appreciation and tax benefits. These opportunities are for everyone. They are for qualified, accredited investors only. If you want to learn more, please visit LegacyImpactInvestors.com to apply. All right. So you house hack two houses and two at the same time. Talk to me about the next, you know, where did you go from there in the investment?

[00:13:51] Yeah. So the next piece was my wife and I were talking about, you know, having a family and what, what our next steps were. And, and I fell into, I guess I wouldn't say I fell into it. I worked for it, but I met a business partner at Colo that we partnered up and we kind of went after a couple of builders because we really liked the idea of the new construction side of things.

[00:14:10] And we ended up with a great builder, MJ Properties in Ankeny. And so I had the pleasure of working with MJ Properties and got an opportunity. They had a lot on Otter Creek Golf Course that my wife and I were like, Hey, I think, I think this would be a great place for us.

[00:14:23] And so we decided we were going to build instead of just keeping the house we had or doing something standard. Okay. Why don't we just go, why don't we just go buy an investment property, buy a condo, get into, you know, make it our primary. Cause I was, I was past the Cedar Falls five years thing now. And actually I ended up, let me go back. I ended up selling that. We decided that instead of keeping that and rolling in another property, we did pretty well on that.

[00:14:50] And we had some college debts and, you know, just, just some things like, Hey, let's just clear some stuff up. Let's get rid of that house. So we sold that one. And the one we had in Cedar Falls or in Ankeny, we decided they let's use that as our down payment for our new construction home. And so we did, we decided that's what we were going to earmark that for. But in the transition, we decided, let's go, let's go put 5,000 bucks down on a condo. It's only you and me right now. I believe at that point we were, but we were expecting our first.

[00:15:16] And so we decided to go put $5,000 down on a condo on the South side of Ankeny. I think it was 89,000 bucks. And we lived there while our house was being built. And then once our house was built, that was obviously our primary. So we financed that thing and we rented that thing out behind us.

[00:15:30] And so we actually got rid of some of that stuff or the two properties we had and kept that condo. And I'll just, the life of that condo ended up being, we rented it out one time and the tenant stayed with us for four years.

[00:15:48] And then we got an opportunity. I can't even remember what year it was. I actually speed up to where we are in COVID a couple of years ago. We're from the Northern Iowa area, big fans of Okoboji. Ended up there, been researching the short-term rental stuff for a long time, hadn't pulled the trigger on anything.

[00:16:02] But we had the opportunity to sell our condo for the exact dollar amount we needed to buy a short-term rental in Okoboji. And so we actually, if anybody's familiar, we bought a place in Bridges Bay, the townhomes on the resorts on East Lake Okoboji. And so we ended up moving our money. So that $5,000 down for that condo ended up turning into a place in Okoboji that now, hopefully in 10 years, we'll have enough money and we'll be at a point in our life where that gets us on the lake.

[00:16:32] Yeah, right. It rolls up. Yeah, that's kind of. So you realized that today is a short-term rental? Yes. How do you manage that? You know, I thought about different ways to do that. I didn't want another job from a far away. So we actually found a really good property management company up in Okoboji that basically handles everything for us.

[00:16:49] And the great thing is, is that they're really easy to work with. They handle everything. They do the cleans. They report back to us and they do it for a really fair price. And we probably use it, I would say three or four times a year because they've got an indoor water park up there and I've got eight, five, three and one right now for kids. And so let's get out of the house. Let's go find a new place for the weekend and let's go to the indoor water park. We do that maybe once or twice a winter and then, you know, we try and get up there during the summers once or twice too. Yeah, that's a lot of fun.

[00:17:16] Yeah. But yeah, the property management company up there does a really good job for us. And, you know, I think if we managed it ourselves, maybe we could increase productivity just a little bit. I've got so much other things going on. I don't need another job though. It's kind of the stance I've taken on it. Productivity on what side? The income side of that?

[00:17:32] Maybe just filling it up a little bit more. You know, the property management company does a great job and not saying that there's a ton of holes in what they do. But if we're the only one, that's the only one and we're marketing it, we can make sure that, you know, that we're not sending them to any place else or whatever. If someone gets a hold of us, we're hopefully booking that specific property. So, and again, that's nothing against the property management company. I think they do a great job. But when you've got 20, it's just the way it is, right? Yeah, absolutely.

[00:18:01] We've got one of something. Absolutely. What are you most excited about this year? You know, I used the word intentional a little bit ago when you asked about starting. Think with the new year and some changes from me, from a business standpoint. I think being intentional, I think the opportunity that just the climate's going to provide to us this year. You know, we've gone through a lot in the last four years. No matter what your opinions are the last four years, it's been a lot for everybody.

[00:18:28] I mean, we went through the largest, the fastest increase in interest rates, the whole line of interest rates, the fastest that it's ever taken place in history. Plutically independent company, that's a fact. So yeah, it's been significant inflation that we haven't seen since the mid to late 80s.

[00:18:43] And I think if you look at, I kind of said this last fall, and I think it actually came to fruition is, you know, what we felt was about two months before the election, everybody was on pins and needles. You know, it doesn't matter what side you were on. You believed that the other side were bad people. And everybody was worried about what was going to happen. I think the shock factor is probably worn off a little bit on that. You know, the consumer sentiment is what I pay attention to a lot. The brokers that we work with, Weikert Realtors, really speaks about the consumer sentiment.

[00:19:12] And they believe it's, I mean, it's in a good spot now. It's in as good of a spot now as it's been in a long time. And they actually believe we're tracking it hard that if it creeps up a little bit, we're back into territory where things are going to roll. And one thing that they said about the consumer sentiment is, it's a really big survey. But I think a third to half of the questions specifically deal with finances or home purchasing.

[00:19:35] So here, you know, here's some of those things, feeling what we're feeling in the market. I'm excited because I'm getting really intentional with what my goals are and what our plans are. And I think the market is going to give us the opportunity to have a good year. I find that interesting. And I'm reading the same stuff you are, that there's a lot of positive things out there. The consumer is very strong from a feeling standpoint. That is probably political driven, perhaps, but certainly stock market driven. I mean, the economy is very extraordinarily well.

[00:20:05] But the other side of that is we are at an all time high for credit card debt. So I scratched my head a little bit to go. I'm not sure I fully understand what that looks like and how it plays out. Although interest rates are little, it's going to be interesting to see how it ultimately plays out.

[00:20:25] I 100% agree. And you know, the other interesting that's going to be or the other interesting thing about what you just said is there's so many variables to this because I think there's I think the market is going to provide stuff. But I don't think that people realize how many people are struggling out there right now because there's a there's a lot of that. But you mentioned credit cards all time high. But I don't know if you paid attention, but if they cap interest rates on credit cards at 10%, like the bill that just got put out, what does that do?

[00:20:51] I mean, that that's a significant that's a significant change in people's monthly payment that are drowning in credit card debt right now. And again, I'm not not expecting that to be something that we hang our hat on in the next 12 months. But someone's brought to the table. It's being talked about again. That could be a significant change to some of that credit card debt and consumer spending habits. Well, it's going to be interesting to see how to see how it ultimately unfolds. And like you said, there's a lot of factors at play here. One of the big positives is we're in Des Moines, Iowa, right?

[00:21:20] I mean, this has been a fantastic city. Jobs have been very good. The state has all been very strong, continue to put, you know, the state continues to put money back into the pockets of Iowans through the reduction of the state income tax that continues to roll back. So every year we get a little further, we get a few more dollars in one's pocket as that gets cinched up a little bit. It's a heck of a state.

[00:21:48] There's not many better places to be, certainly in the Midwest, the fastest growing city that we happen to be in. And you live in Ankeny. I mean, Ankeny, of course, perhaps the fastest growing city in the state. You've seen it tremendously from the day you showed up here about a decade ago. Yeah, I mean, 2014 is when I decided to make Ankeny my everyday home. 2012 was when we moved my wife down here. And from that day, you know, the 36th Street exit wasn't even a thing then.

[00:22:16] I mean, think about that from an Ankeny perspective. And I, you know, my rule, Neil, was no matter where I lived, I had to see a cornfield out my backyard. And that is no longer the case. About two years ago, that changed. But I also joked that I never thought I'd live in a place this big in my life. I'm a small town guy. And this size of area wasn't on my plan. Life takes you to different places. And we actually, we love Ankeny. We love the community.

[00:22:44] The interesting thing about Iowa and the community we live in is that it's a, not only is it a great place to live, not only are we getting nationally syndicated, I guess, whatever you want to call it, accolades. You know, we're being put in the same breath as Boulder, Colorado and Raleigh and some of these great places to live from all different reasons. But if you look at just specifically the real estate side of things, I don't really know if there's a lot better places to invest, be in the real estate industry, be in the land industry, be a farmer.

[00:23:12] Like, you know, all these different things that I kind of have pieces of, I don't really know if there's a better place to hang your hat up at night as in the state of Iowa. You can still get around. Yes. Yeah. If you're a house flipper, execute the burst strategy or do double closings and are in need of money. Little Guy Loans is your go-to lender here in the Des Moines area. Time is money. Loan approvals in 24 hours. Closings in five days.

[00:23:38] Little Guy Loans was founded by Neil Timmons, an investor just like you. Since he has been in over 10,000 homes in Des Moines, there's never an appraisal. So, houses, multifamily and commercial property loans up to 1 million. Check out www.littleguyloans.com. You ready for the final three questions? Yeah. If you had one piece of advice for your 20-year-old self. I think probably, I'm going to go back to intentionality.

[00:24:05] I think there's a lot of noise out there and there's a lot of opinions and there's a lot of places you can get training. But I think having a plan, being intentional and kind of knowing where you're going is very important. And I think if I was starting all over again, those are some of the things I would really focus on. How do you do that for yourself today? Do you do that annually? How do you make decisions about where it is that you're headed? Yeah. Interestingly enough, I've always been a goals guy.

[00:24:31] And full disclosure, there's years where I don't do it as well as I should. But I can go back. Heck, I actually open up my drawer every once in a while. And I've got plans from even when I was back at Northwestern Mutual. I've got plans of five-year, 10-year, 15-year plans, which is crazy to think about, right? But I will share one thing with you. I had a crazy, crazy situation happen one morning. And I'm a workout guy. So I get up early in the morning. I go work out.

[00:24:58] And I usually get back right around the time my family's waking up or before they wake up. And so I did my normal routine. And I ended up in the office that day digging through some things. And I found a business plan and a personal plan. And I opened it up. And I said, the year 2000, now I can't even remember what year it was. But it was basically the year, let's just use this for example. It was the year 2023. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. So I opened it up. And I read the page. And I'm going to be a little vulnerable right now.

[00:25:27] But it said, you're going to wake up next to the love of your life. And you're going to get into your brand new Chevy Silverado. And you're going to go work out at 5 a.m. You're going to return to your family of three kids. And every single one of those things was right. And I wrote it 10 years ago before I had any kids. And so I truly do believe in your mind really takes your life to a variation, right? We always have things that happen outside of our control.

[00:25:55] But I'm a big planner, vision, goals. And I'm a big believer in your thoughts take you where you're going to go. Yeah. What's the big vision? What's the goal 10 years from now? I think basically maximizing the idea that I do what I want to do when I want to do it. I've always been a guy that I've never been able to have an 8 to 5 job. One of the best things my mother did for me when I was a senior in high school after I graduated, she got me a job with one of her best friends for three weeks.

[00:26:21] And I worked in a pioneer factory soybean plant. And it was get there at 5 a.m. and work straight through to 3.30 a.m. And that was the last 8 to 5 job I've had. I shingled. I worked for people. But it was always performance-based or get that completed and you can go. And I've always kind of carried that with me that I'll work hard. I'll work just as hard as the next person. I'll work harder than you. But if I got a buddy that wants me to golf on Friday, I'm going to work around that golf.

[00:26:48] So maximizing the idea that I can do what I want to do when I want to do it and working hard around the other times to make sure I can do that. Two books that changed your life. Got a couple. One, I mentioned Rich Dad, Poor Dad. I just think from the philosophical standpoint, it kind of opens your eyes when you're a young guy. A couple other ones that I kind of hang on my shelf that they really, really were influential. The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy, editor of Success Magazine. Great book. Atomic Habits kind of goes hand in hand with that.

[00:27:17] They're kind of the same book but a little bit different. In terms like The Compound Effect is more goal-oriented. Atomic is more, I guess, I don't know what word I'm looking for. They go hand in hand but they're different looks at basically accomplishing the same thing. And then one recently that's been a huge impact on me is Ed Milet has a podcast. Really successful guy. The Power of One More. Tremendous book. I would recommend. And any, you know, I own a real estate brokerage. We recruit agents. We help people get careers going.

[00:27:45] Those four books are always, they sit on my desk and I always point to all those four books. And then in the real estate world, Ninja Cell and this kind of the other one. So I just told you more than, those are really kind of my go-tos, have to. And then once every other year, I try and read How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. So there's a lot of them but all influential for my life. Like any good salesman over providing more value.

[00:28:09] All right, so if you're cast away on an island for a year, you can only get three pieces of data about your business each and every month. What three things must you know every month to know how your business is? Good question. I think if I had to hone in on it, I think you got to do, you got to know where your expenses are. You got to know where your expenses are. You got to know from my business, you got to know your average sales. You know, your average sales on a monthly level, what your expenses are. Not really sure. I have a third one that I would want to know. I think you're rolling 12.

[00:28:39] Basically, you're 12-month rolling numbers. That isn't honing on the exact numbers I need. But that's kind of what I would be thinking. Ryan, this has been a great conversation. I've asked lots of questions. What's one question I did not ask that I should have asked? If you're in the real estate space, why the heck do you keep going back to home to farm? It's good. I suspect there's a passion there. Yes, let's do it. Yeah, so I am curious. Can't be money. Sometimes it's a struggle. I think the word legacy gets thrown around. It's kind of one of those things that I grew up with. It never leaves you.

[00:29:09] You kind of want to continue the family. The family name, the family practice, the family business. Thinking about stepping away from it and it not being there anymore is kind of hard. Then you spend basically a whole month to two months in the fall sleeping on a couch up there with my family and trying to do two jobs at once. But seeing your kids and your little boy come sit in the combine with you is tough. It's not a money thing. It's not a money thing.

[00:29:38] But some days you wonder why the heck you're doing it. I don't know why that came to my mind, but that came to my mind. For people who want to find you, follow you, connect with you, where can they go? What should they do? Yeah, I'm not a huge social media guy, but really just my personal and business Facebook. Follow me there. My phone number, email. Really, if you want to get to know me, call me and grab me for coffee. I have coffee with anybody. I live in Ankeny, Iowa. I work all around the metro area. If for any reason you want to reach out to me, you just pick up the phone and give me a call. Cool. Mike, so be below in the show notes.

[00:30:08] Yeah. Awesome. Thanks, Neil. Thanks for listening. If you're enjoying the show, may I ask a favor of you? Naturally, subscribe so you never miss an episode. But would you rate and leave an honest written review on Apple Podcasts? It does a lot for us here at the show, and I appreciate reading your thoughts. Great guests make for a great show. If you know of another island who would be a great guest or you yourself have interest in being a guest, well, get on our radar.

[00:30:35] Visit Investing in Iowa to fill out an application or recommend a guest. And if you want to connect with me one-on-one, go LegacyImpactInvestors.com. Click on the Invest With Us button in the top right corner. And there, you can pick a time for the two of us to get on the calendar and connect. Until next time, keep investing in Iowa.

RealEstateBusiness,RealEstateDevelopment,RyanHoover,RealEstateJourney,NeilTimmins,IowaRealEstate,