A wise person once said, “A genius without a map will get lost, while an idiot with a map will get to his destination.”

This quote perfectly illustrates why you need a roadmap on your journey to financial success. We each have our unique paths to financial freedom and ultimately it is we who are responsible for it, but learning from the people who have been there can make that process a whole lot easier. Danny Randazzo helps people in this through his book, “The Roadmap to Financial Success: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be.” In this episode, Danny returns on the show with Chris Larsen to share his advice on how you can change your mindset and develop your personalized roadmap to achieve financial independence.

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How To Get From Where You Are To Where You Want To Be With Danny Randazzo

We have Danny Randazzo on the show. Danny is a real estate investor, author, entrepreneur, mastermind host, national speaker, podcast host, and volunteer with The First Tee, as well as a world traveler. Danny retired from the corporate world at age 30, after working as a financial consultant for over half a decade and building a real estate portfolio that generated monthly income that allowed him to achieve financial freedom. His company PassiveInvesting.com controls over $380 million in real estate assets. When Danny is not investing in real estate, you could find him walking with his wife, Caitlin, his dog, George, or playing competitive golf.

You are going to love this episode where Danny not only shares how to get his new book, The Roadmap to Financial Success, and how it can help you personally achieve financial freedom but also talk about why he’s written a series of children’s books. What his highlight of 2020 was, what he’s focused on going forward and how you can change your mindset and achieve financial independence for yourself.

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Danny, welcome back to the show.

Chris, thank you so much for having me on. It’s always a pleasure to be here with you.

We have done a lot of Zoom, so I know I was fortunate enough to get to see you for a brief period. We got to enjoy lunch down in beautiful Charleston, which is one of our favorite places to visit here from the mountains. For those that don’t know you, maybe they haven’t read the previous episode that you were on. If you could share a little bit more about your background and specifically your transition from Corporate America to running this empire that you guys have built in real estate.

My quick background is I grew up in a household where we were instilled to go to school, get good grades, and get a good job at a company that was not in the auto sector. I grew up in a middle-class community in Michigan, and so the automotive challenges that occurred in 2007 were a huge impact on a ton of industries that all survived around the automotive industry. Our family learned a lot throughout that process. That was why it was always instilled to get a job outside and not be in the auto industry. That goes even all the way back to my grandma and grandpa instilling in my dad and his brothers to get jobs outside of that industry. I always had the mindset of not wanting to follow that entrepreneurial spirit. Long story short, I went to school, got good grades, got a good job, worked in Corporate America as a financial consultant, traveling around the globe, helping multibillion-dollar companies improve their financial performance. I loved doing it.

It’s a phenomenal way to build a business resume, but also a personal resume. Being able to travel outside of the US, being able to travel all around the United States, meeting different people. Seeing how companies operate the ins and outs of things. What I realized is that I didn’t have control of my time. While you are well compensated working as a corporate consultant, the core value that my wife and I were building at the time was really around family, enjoying what we do, having control of our own day to day and the travel is a huge component. We made a decision within our family network and we just decided to change. We moved from San Francisco to Charleston and started investing in real estate to build up cashflow to achieve financial freedom, where our assets generate enough income to support our cost of living in our lifestyle.

We were able to do that. I was working two jobs at the same time, corporate consultant and real estate investor building up these assets. When we were nearing that financial freedom number, I retired from my corporate job and jumped into real estate full-time. I have a huge passion for building companies, buying assets, helping other people along the way. I don’t want to be the four-hour workweek guy and sit on the beach. I love what I do in a sense of working and buying properties, investing in real estate, helping other people better their financial situation. That’s where it led down the path of building this business at PassiveInvesting.com where we buy multifamily real estate. We have other financial businesses that we help people with, all while helping invest, make a return on their money, and having quality investments for them to put their money to work to help them and their families.

We love having you on the show because it aligns perfectly with our values at Next-Level Income which is how to help people make more money and then ultimately grow their money to achieve freedom. Danny, I love how many places you’ve been around the world, the lifestyle that you and Caitlin live. You guys are wonderful people and you’ve had some tremendous experiences. Tell us about some of the places you’ve been around the world. Where was your favorite place? Where did you guys end up? Where did you and your wife meet?

We met in this place called Ha Long Bay, Vietnam, and we were both randomly traveling around the world with a friend separately. We both lived in San Francisco at the time but probably never would have crossed paths or been in the same circle or places. We met on this overnight boat trip at Ha Long Bay, Vietnam. We met for 24 hours, stayed in contact over email following that experience, and it blossomed from there. That is very special place to us. It’s a wonderful place to be and fate, serendipitous moment. It’s crazy, but we’re so grateful for that experience. From some of the other favorite places we’ve been to, I’ll say pre-pandemic, I guess this must have been in 2019, we had the opportunity to go to South Africa, which is just a wonderful place. It’s not on your top three hit list to go to if you’re going to do Europe or something like that.

South Africa is a beautiful place where you can get engrossed in nature and the environmental aspect. It is a very humbling experience to see how countries are different than the US and how they may be in different political environments or different humanitarian phases as countries and people continue to evolve. It’s a very beautiful place. We love that. We also had the opportunity to go to Israel and again, a clash of the cultures. It’s a real melting pot where you can have the ability to follow the Jewish faith, the Muslim faith, and the Christianity faith all in one spot. You can hear the church bells going while there’s an Islamic call to prayer, and then you have a lot of the Jewish synagogue. It’s a real melting pot in the world where you have Jewish synagogues with all coming in and out, and then you have the Muslim call to prayer, and the church bells going all at the same time, all in the same location. It’s pretty cool and a ton of history as well that you can get ingrained in. Those are some of the things that we enjoyed in a couple of places that have been a wonderful experience.

All those things in such a small area, it is a very interesting part of the world. Now, almost $400 million in multifamily and apartments. You move from San Francisco to Charleston. Tell us about that first deal and why real estate. You’re coming out of the financial world, why not stocks? Why real estate and what was that first deal like for you?

The reason to go and invest in real estate, I had read a ton of investment books in the stock market by Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett, Benjamin Graham, all about value investing, which is great. The issue I have with the stock market is the lack of control. No matter what you or I could do now, we can’t really impact or influence the value of that asset. If one person who’s very influential in that company makes a mistake or does something awesome, that could go very high or very low. That was not appealing to me and I think it’s important for individuals to determine what their goal is first before making an investment. You should figure out what your goal is and then find the investment that fits your specific goal.

You shouldn’t be investing in real estate or investing in the stock market because your friend is doing that or you hear us talking about it on a podcast. You should be investing because it meets your goal. There are hundreds of different investment vehicles out there that will achieve what you need for yourself and your family. Real estate aligned perfectly. It was an asset that we could buy that generated multiple cashflow to replace that W-2 income to ultimately achieve financial freedom. The goal was I’m going to buy anything that can produce cashflow on a monthly basis to help me replace my W-2 income. The light bulb went off that real estate is probably the best asset to do that with. That’s how we got started in the space and it served us quite well since.

For somebody that’s reading and they say, “That’s great, Danny. I just bought my first property. I’m looking at my first property.” What’s your advice to somebody looking to scale and get from say a few hundred dollars a month in cashflow to a few thousand or even tens of thousands of dollars to achieve that ultimate goal of financial freedom?

I would say you need to open up your mindset and thinking. If you have a few hundred dollars in cashflow, that’s probably maybe two single-family homes, maybe it’s $250,000 in value. You need to expand that thinking and try something that’s $2.5 million in value because it’s going to take that few hundred to a few thousand. I set a goal and worked backward to figure out how to get there. If you want to increase that value, you need to figure out, “I just bought a $250,000 house. I’m getting a few hundred dollars in cashflow.” It took me probably $50,000 to $75,000 to buy that asset. If I scale up and try to buy something that’s $2.5 million, you’re probably going to need $500,000 to $750,000 to buy that.

How you’re thinking is, “How do I get that money? I don’t have it in my bank account.” If you want to scale up and go bigger, you need more people. It’s a team sport. Working with partners where you could pool your funds together and all do different roles and responsibilities, maybe you can find an investor who just wants to have some cashflow coming to them. You could partner with them if they have the money and you have the time and the skillset to manage it and oversee it. That’s a great way to do it, but you have to think bigger if you want to do things differently. I challenge people. If you’re looking at buying another single-family home, think about if you would buy ten times the amount and that’s what you should be focused on.

I think there’s this whole 10X people like Grant Cardone. He’s like a sweet dessert to me. He’s a little too sweet, but I love to listen to him and read a little bit of stuff to get fired up. What I love about the 10X mentality, which you just touched on, Danny, is that it causes you to think differently. Think about maybe not how to do something, but who to do it with. In our book, we talk about the same thing, getting the end goal in place, working backward from that, thinking bigger, and how real estate is a team sport and making that happen.

The last thing I was going to say about that thinking bigger mindset, I think it’s important too that people challenge their thinking about money as well. I’ll ask some questions to you. We don’t need an answer, but just to think about when did you think a hundred dollars was a huge amount of money?

Maybe like five years old.

You think back that, you got $100, “I got more money than I’ll ever need.” When did you think $1,000 was a significant amount of money? When did you think $10,000? When did you think $100,000? When did you think $1 million was a lot of money? I think people need to do whatever they can to visualize that or put that into perspective and overcome some of those barriers where people think, “I need $500,000 to buy this property. I’m never going to get that,” and you’re not going to buy that property. You need to understand that $500,000 is very achievable and you just need to think a little bit differently and overcome that mental barrier of, “That’s a lot of money.” It’s got to be digestible. You need to think, “We can do this. We’ve got it.”

That’s such great advice. I’ll piggyback onto that and say if you’re having trouble overcoming that mental hurdle, find somebody who has and begin to hang around with those people. Ask them advice, find out how they did it. What was the point in time where you thought this? If you look at extreme sports these days, we are seeing just tremendous leaps and bounds in the limits of human performance. One of the reasons that science is starting to show is because we’re actually seeing it because of GoPro and this technology, and that’s how the human mind works, the four-minute mile. When we know something is possible, it makes it more achievable for us.

If you’re paying attention to Danny and you’re thinking, “I still think $1 million is a lot of money,” and $1 million is a lot of money. You could do a lot with it, but it’s not an unachievable amount. Find people that you can be around that you can go to that will help you overcome that. Danny, you just wrote a book and we’re going to get to that, but this isn’t the first book you’ve written. One of the things that you and I share a passion for is financial education for our younger generation. I work here locally in Asheville with a group called OpenDoors. I’m helping them with a financial education plan. Share with the audience why you chose to write your series of children’s books.

The two books are in my Wealth Lesson for Kids series. The real reason to writing them is that whole limiting belief or mentality where the money is a taboo subject. I want parents or adults and children to be able to sit down and talk about money and learn the six fundamentals of it so people are not intimidated, or people are not challenged by it or not scared by it. It should be an everyday conversation where you and I can talk about it comfortably to each other and not feel weird about it. That is the whole purpose. I came up with five specific fundamental lessons. Each book represents one lesson. I’ve written two of them so I’ve got three more on the docket to write. It’s just a great way for parents and adults to start educating kids and getting them comfortable around the subject of money, which all of the new things we encounter on a regular basis.

As soon as we met, I went and bought your books right off of Amazon and gave them to my boys. I think it was actually for Christmas I might’ve given them. It’s very easy to read. If you haven’t seen them yet, The Boy Who Lost His Wallet and Danny and the Ice Cream. Pick them up. They’re great for any children that are in elementary school. They’re terrific lessons. You can read them. They’re quick reads. You can pass them on. Danny and I are finance nerds, so these are like our bedtime stories. One of the other things we’ve done because we try to do the same things, we talk to our two young boys about money and make it comfortable for them. This isn’t something we teach them to brag about, but something to be comfortable having the conversation. We also picked up Cashflow for Kids, which I feel is a great board game.

The reason for writing this book, again, comes down to individual goals. Each individual person, whether you are 5 years old or 100 years old, you are responsible for your financial success and financial wellbeing. Getting from where you are now to where you want to be can be challenging. There are things that you need to learn, there are obstacles that you’ll encounter. The passion for writing this book, my coauthor, Kelli Garrett, a great friend of mine, a business partner in Charleston, we wrote it together to give a diversified story. Within the book, we set it up to be a roadmap. It’s a step-by-step guide to follow with fundamental lessons in each chapter. Kelli and I each provide our personal story along with those fundamental lessons to give people a new perspective. I’m a firm believer in understanding how people learn.

Are you a visual learner, are you an audio learner or are you both? Giving those different perspectives, someone may resonate with my story and it may help them or someone may resonate with Kelli’s story and it will help them more. That’s the reason for jointly working on this project and having that shared passion for financial success is the utmost important piece for each individual person. You have to have that burning desire to change where you’re at. Change is difficult. We struggle with it a lot as humans. However, if you have that burning desire to get to a place in the future, having a roadmap is a great tool to get you there faster to help you get there in a smoother fashion. It’s an easier trip, fewer headaches along the way, fewer obstacles and just different tools and methods to overcome challenges that you’ll encounter. Great, simple lessons that adults can learn, adults can teach to children. It’s just about how willing people to take responsibility for where they’re at and where they want to go.

It’s come up now a couple of times in our conversation. No matter where you are, I have had a very humble beginning. I truly believe no matter where you are, we live in the greatest country with the greatest opportunity to achieve financial success. I think that anyone can do it. I’m pretty good with quotes but I’m bad with names, but I love the quote. It says, “A genius without a map will get lost and idiot with a map will get to his destination.” To your point, if you have a roadmap, if you have clarity, the coaching clients I work with, the first thing we do is put their three-year vision into place. Even if you are making $1 million a year, if you’re wandering all over the place and you don’t know what your ultimate goal is, you’re going to get sidetracked.

Even though you may achieve financial success, are you really going to be fulfilled at the end of the day? That’s what I love about you, Danny. You travel, you have a wonderful relationship, great business partners, you’ve achieved this success while still not losing focus on all these other things such as helping to educate our next generation here. In our first episode together, we asked you, “What advice would you go back and give your 25-year-old self?” I’m not going to let you answer it. I’m going to make the readers go back and read that. 2020 was a tough year for a lot of people, devastating for some, a true opportunity, and explosive growth for others. What was the highlight of your 2020?

The highlight of my 2020 was, from a personal perspective, we took action on an opportunity. We learned that our investors wanted some diversification in short-term and long-term investment opportunities. We launched a real estate debt fund that gives investors the ability to access their capital or have the liquidity to their capital if they ever need it. That was a huge accomplishment because with all of the challenges that COVID was bringing in 2020, the shutdowns, the closures, the lack of people being able to move around as we did in the previous year. I think starting something new is always great and exciting and the debt fund was a huge move forward for us to get through the year, help people out, have a new investment vehicle that aligns with people’s goals. Your individual goal is what we need to figure out and then find the opportunities that meet your specific need. We were able to help people meet those needs and that was very grateful to do.

It’s a great lesson too, continuing on the theme of things that we get to teach our children and pass on to the next generation. I tell my boys if you want to make money, figure out how to help as many people as possible. I think it’s wonderful that the options that you provide investors. People that are reading, they want to know the best place to get your books, Danny, is to get in touch with you. How can we find out more about your books that are out there, offerings that you have with PassiveInvesting.com?

The best place to go for the books, go to DannyRandazzo.com, and if you want to learn anything about what we do from an investment side, just check out PassiveInvesting.com.

You can get a free copy of my book at NextLevelIncome.com. Just click on the book link. Danny, thank you so much for joining us again and sharing your story with the audience.

Chris, thank you so much. It’s always a pleasure.

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I hope you found this episode valuable. I have one more gift for you. If you haven’t gotten my book Next-Level Income yet and would like me to send it to you in the mail for free, then go to NextLevelIncome.com and click on the book tab. If you fill out the form on that page, I will send you a copy of my book and cover all the shipping costs as a thank you for being a reader. Also, please like, share, and take 90 seconds to give us a rating on Apple Podcasts.

Important Links:

• www.DannyRandazzo.com

• www.PassiveInvesting.com

• The Roadmap to Financial Success

• Previous episode – How to Create $9.6 Million from a $200 Rent Increase in Multifamily Real Estate

• OpenDoors

• The Boy Who Lost His Wallet

• Danny and the Ice Cream

• Cashflow Quadrant

• Cashflow

• Cashflow for Kids

• Apple Podcasts – The Next-Level Income Show

About Danny Randazzo

He advised multi-billion dollar companies and helped them achieve results in areas that include improved revenue performance, increased profit margin, and enhanced technology utilization.

His passion for financial freedom started when he was five years old running small businesses to make extra money. In high school, he read real estate books and studied finance to understand the power of owning assets.

His commercial real estate knowledge (from books) gave him and Caitlin the courage to buy their first investment property, which was a $1,000,000 building.

Within the company, Danny is focused on asset management, building relationships, investment analysis, planning, and all things finance.

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Tagged: Financial Success Roadmap, Financial Freedom, Mindset Change, Thinking Bigger, Passive Investing, Financial Education, Group 2