The 5 Questions Podcast
Join us as we unlock real estate and business insights, one question at a time.
The 5 Questions Podcast
Raise Billions with the right mindset, lessons from Brad Blazar
Ever wondered how to attract high-net-worth investors for your real estate projects? Join us as we sit down with capital-raising expert Brad Blazar, who’s raised over $2 billion in his career! Brad shares his 4-step blueprint for building trust with investors and the power of mentorship. Plus, we dive into the concept of beliefology, daily habits, and the future of AI in raising capital.
Don't miss this episode, sponsored by Aliferous Academy!
Tune in now!
#RealEstate #Investing #CapitalRaising #Podcast #BradBlazar #Mentorship #Beliefology
that the level of success or the life you lead is driven by your habits.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the 5 Questions Podcast, where we unlock real estate and business insights one question at a time. This episode is sponsored by Illiferous Academy. I'm Christian Spilvogel and this is your Illiferous Academy.
Speaker 1:I'm Christian Spilfogel, and this is your Illiferous Academy.
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Speaker 2:Elliferis Academy all the experts one subscription. I'm Chad Robinson and this is your Elliferis Academy. Dive into self-paced courses, regular group coaching and stay ahead with fresh content every month. Sign up now at ElliphorusAcademycom. Welcome to the 5 Questions Podcast. I am your host, mario Lamar, on today's show. Our guest has raised over $2 billion in his career. He was knighted into the royal order of Constantine the Great and St Ellen and is the author of multiple bestselling books. Welcome, brad Blazer. Brad, thank you for being on the podcast with us today.
Speaker 2:It's great to be here, Mario Just always great to show up and deliver and, more importantly, add value to your followers. Thank you, brad. The concept of the podcast is very simple. I ask five questions about real estate or business and we get straight to the point. You ready, I'm ready to go. All right. So, brad, in your experience extensive, I should say experience in raising over $2 billion in capital, what are the key strategies you teach your mentees to attract iNetwork investors?
Speaker 1:So here's what I've learned raising hundreds of millions of dollars and, more importantly, mario, seeing other people try to raise capital that have floundered or just worse yet given up altogether.
Speaker 1:So the very first thing we need to understand is nobody will invest with us until they know, like and trust us, and really the biggest element of that is the trust factor. The thing that I see a lot of people do, which they're doing wrong, is they'll have a deal or they'll have a fund or they'll have an investment opportunity and they meet somebody or they have a prospective investor that is worth money, that can potentially invest, and they pitch the investment too early, meaning they typically pitch on the first call or the second meetup and actually the prospect or the potential investor is going to say Mario, it sounds like it could be a pretty interesting investment, why don't you send me some information so I can take a closer look at it? And so you send them everything, but they never invest. The reason that they never invest, mario, is really what they're saying to you subconsciously is Mario, we just met each other, my friend and I don't trust you enough because you haven't invested enough time yet in the relationship with me to allow me to feel comfortable moving forward.
Speaker 1:So what I talk about when I consult and coach people is certain concepts.
Speaker 1:One of the big concepts is this concept called the four-step blueprint. Think of each interaction you have with an investor as moving them forward through a process. Right, there should be an introductory call, a follow-up call, getting to know the person, then you should pitch and then you should close. And so if you look at this as a series of steps and I talk about another big concept called the trust sequence, which are six steps we should follow to build trust in another person, you'll be much, much greater at the ability to raise capital, because now you're investing the time to really build the foundation of a relationship with another person. Now, when you pitch, they can receive the information, digest it and then move forward with comfort from a position of trust, and what you'll do is you find you'll have a lot more success as a capital raiser. So the big mistake most people make is they just talk too early in a relationship. Slow down, realize this is not a sprint, it's a marathon, and you'll be a lot more successful in your capital raising.
Speaker 2:It's interesting to hear you talk about this because we can see that there's really a blueprint to success. A lot of people think you know it's about finding a great deal and then pitching it out there and people are going to throw themselves at you, but really it's not the case at all. So really you know interesting to see that if they follow your blueprint they can have success.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:You know, that's a great thing about working with a coach or a mentor. They've done it, and so if you just put yourself in their shoes and take the same approach and follow that proven blueprint, you're able to take decades and literally compress that into days. You're able to take all the barriers that are in front of you and turn them into breakthroughs. And so you know, understand that you know the coach or the mentors done what you're trying to do, and that's why I firmly believe that sometimes you know, bringing a coach or bringing an advisor into your business is the best decision you can make, because they're going to help you get from point A to point B and get you there a whole lot faster and a whole lot quicker than you trying to figure out how to do it on your own.
Speaker 2:That brings us to our second question, and I talked a little bit in the intro about it. You were knighted into the royal order of Constantine the Great and Saint Ellen. That's a very, very important recognition. I'll first of all how did it come about and what does it mean to you personally and professionally?
Speaker 1:Well, it's kind of funny how it came about. I had hosted a very large event about two years ago in Houston, texas, and you know, we had celebrity speakers. We had Kevin Harrington from Shark Tank. Had celebrity speakers. We had Kevin Harrington from Shark Tank, we had Sharon Lecter, who had worked alongside Robert Kiyosaki in creating the Rich Dad Poor Dad brand. My good friend John Shin, who has written numerous books and actually partnered with Napoleon Hill's foundation to bring to life the whole book Think and Grow Rich make it a major motion picture. You know, think and grow rich make it a major motion picture. And so John Shim, I had not known, had been knighted many years before and after the event. A couple months later, he called me out of the blue one day and, you know, after spending a couple minutes just chatting, he said I've got a very personal question for you and I said shoot, you know we're buddies, we're good friends. He said a lot of people don't know this about me, brad, but because of my tremendous success, I was knighted a few years ago.
Speaker 1:And based on what I've seen, I'd like to nominate you for knighthood. The prince has asked me to reach out to a couple of people and I would like to nominate you and forward your name as a candidate. I'm thinking, like Richard Branson, like Elton John, he's like, yes, like this is a true, noble title. This is a real prince that lives over in Spain.
Speaker 1:And you know, here I am associating this with like. Well, look, I've heard of the Knights of Columbus. Like my grandfather was a Mason, they had a Masonic lodge and they used to knight these people. He said no, this is very different.
Speaker 2:This is the real deal.
Speaker 1:So I'm like well, does it cost anything? He's like no, this is an honor. It's like getting a nobel priest prize. You're going to be knighted at a proceeding alongside tony braxton and paula abdul and you know ray parker jr that have already gone through this process. I'm like I'm in. So the first step was John had to submit my name to the Royal Order.
Speaker 1:And you know obviously there's a prince, there's dukes and things. And so the very first call I received was from a gentleman that is from Austria by the name of Duke Gerhardt, very prominent royal figure. He lives in Hawaii with his beautiful wife, nancy. And so, you know, duke Gerhardt and I got on a Zoom and he liked me and so he said Brad, you know, I'd like to forward you up the ladder here. The next thing is you'll talk to the Baron Great, so you know. Now on another Zoom with the Baron. And then, finally, you know, a couple weeks later, here I am Zooming with a gentleman on the other side of the planet that speaks four languages and he said my name is Prince Raphael and I am the great ancestor of Constantine the Great and St Helen, and you know, we'd like to obviously bring you into our royal order. So I'm like great.
Speaker 1:And so, after going through this whole process and understanding really what it entailed and really the responsibilities that fall on your shoulders with knighthood, I said I'm in. And so, you know, they gave me the dates and I had to fly out and you know, hear this huge, huge proceeding they call it a knighting investiture, which is the name they give to the proceeding on there, with all of these other people that were nominated as knights and the women are dames, knights and dames, royal regala, tuxedos and everything. I had no idea what to expect, mario. And so when the proceeding started and the United States Marine Corps color guard come walking in with the rifles and the flags and you know the regalia, and then right behind them the Scottish Royal bagpipers with paparazzi, I was like this is the real deal.
Speaker 1:So you know, they call my name. You know, bradford Ares Blazer, come forward. And so you bow to the prince and you put one knee down, like we've all seen in the movies, and he says something in Spanish and takes the sword and says now turn around, sir Brad, and present yourself to the world as Sir Brad Blazer. And you know, take your picture and everything. It was really. You know, when you look at an honor like that, I kind of equate it to you know getting a.
Speaker 1:Nobel Peace Prize. It's like the pinnacle of recognition, because I'm not a royal I mean I'm not related to the royal family but royals have what they call the font of honor. The font of honor is a Latin word which means we have the honor to bestow nodal titles upon citizens of the general public. And so to you know, to be called to that recognition and now to use my nobility for good. You know philanthropy things of that I'm able to call organizations that are philanthropic and say you know myself, sir Brad, and our royal order, our royal family of celebrities that have been recognized, would like to help either raise capital for you or bring awareness for you. It's just been an absolute blessing. You know the network of people I have globally that are the Knights and the Dames, are world-class individuals and I am just, you know, one phone call or one connection away for many and all of them.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. Uh, you know, I can't even I don't think I have words to to explain how I would feel to to be in a walk in the lineup like that and get, get that honor. You know it's a, it's it's very unique. Yeah, uh, and they probably, you know, take very they're much careful to choose individual before they choose them, so but it comes with Absolutely.
Speaker 1:You know, when I realized that I would be knighted alongside people like Tony Braxton, paul Abdul and, you know, Ray Parker Jr, I said to myself okay, they have agents and they have lawyers Like they're checking this out to make sure it is the true, real deal. If there was anything Mickey Mousey about it or it wasn't legit, they certainly would not be moving forward. When you have a major global celebrity whose reputation is on the line getting knighted right alongside you, it was an honor. Most people don't realize that Paula Abdul is Lady Paula. She's got a true royal title. Same thing with Tony Braxton, lady Tony Braxton.
Speaker 1:Sir Ray Parker Jr, who is, of course, the global entertainer probably best known for the song and Ghostbusters Right, we all know that it's in the movie.
Speaker 1:But to meet these people face to face and be right there in a big gala, you know, shake their hand, have your pictures taken it really was amazing, you know.
Speaker 1:And my, my wife was there, my daughter was there, you know, and so you know, to have your daughter who obviously at that age was 11, you know, see her dad getting knighted. You can only imagine, you know, what that does for a very impressionable child to say, wow, you know my dad's up there, he's. You know he's a celebrity, and so you know it's unfortunate. I mean, we're here in the United States as a nation that fled England and fled nobility, so here we don't recognize noble titles. But you know, when I travel for example, if I went to Monaco or I went to England, or if I went over to Liechtenstein and I said, hey, sir Brad Blazer is going to be arriving at your hotel, boom, I mean, the red carpet rolls right out. You know, and so you know I hate to say this, but we've milked it every now and then for upgrades at hotels and first class seats.
Speaker 1:It's a lot of fun and it's just a great group of people.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it's just amazing. That brings us to our third question. You founded the art of beliefology. Can you explain what this concept entails and how it helps individuals overcome limiting belief to achieve greater success of writing a book about 25 years ago.
Speaker 1:And you know, it's because I was the CEO and founder of an oil company that I started at the age of 23. And I built it up into a pretty nice size business and obviously there's not many 23 year olds running multiple million dollar oil companies. And so I kind of started this book to chronicle, you know, what I had accomplished and to just share that story. And I never finished it. And literally about four years ago I was cleaning up my office and I found this floppy disk and I'm like, oh, there's that book I started 25 years ago that I never finished.
Speaker 1:And here I've been telling my daughter we always start what we finish, we never leave something we start behind. And I'm like I got to finish this damn book to show my daughter that what I started I'm now following through to its natural conclusion. So we self-published this book called On the Wings of Eagles Learning how to Soar in Life, and it's more of a mindset book about understanding what it takes to be successful, about understanding what it takes to be successful. And so you know, in the book I share the success stories of people like you know George W Bush, you know Shaquille O'Neal, rudy Rudiger, joe Namath, and what I come to find with all of these people is the lifestyle or the success that they have acclaimed and reached was not because they were born any more gifted or that they had any quote embedded natural talents. It's the underlying habits of what they do every day. And so the art of beliefology, which I've trademarked so that no other author, no other person in the world can use the phrase or use the word beliefology without my express permission is really this concept that the level of success or the life you lead is driven by your habits. Your underlying daily habits create a new belief system and then that belief that you have in yourself, at whatever level, is what creates and defines the outer reality that we now reach.
Speaker 1:And a great example of this is somebody that I was coaching a couple years ago and he hired me and every time we did a consultation via Zoom, he never had his camera on and he said you know, brad, I want to write a book, I want to coach other people, I want to do what you don't like, great, do it. And so he did it, but he never had any success, like nobody would ever hire him as a client. And finally, after struggling and kind of after breaking down, I said well, why do you think this is that nobody wants to hire you as a coach? He finally turned his camera on and this very heavy, obese gentleman that probably weighed about 480 pounds was now on screen. And I'm like that's the reason. It's like, if you can't take care of yourself, how in the world are you going to transform and help other people? And I said the first thing you need to do tomorrow morning is wake up and go for a three mile run and do this consistently to get down to a reasonable rate, right when people can. Now, you know, see what you've done. And he just kind of like, I can't do that. And I said, well, let me ask you a question Can you walk? Yes, tomorrow morning I need to have you walk for 30 minutes and just briskly swing your arms. Do that for a week. The second week you're going to look for the telephone poles or the light poles in your neighborhood. You're going to walk from one to the next and then you're going to lightly jog and then you're going to walk, and you're just going to alternate walk, jog and then you're going to double the distance every week. Well, here we are now, three months into this, and we're on a zoom.
Speaker 1:And he had already lost now at this point, roughly 90 pounds. And he finally came on. He said you remember when we started this process, brad, you told me that I should basically every morning, as I look at myself in the mirror, have positive things to say. You know, you know I really struggled, I couldn't do anything. And finally this morning I was able to wake up and I was able to actually make some positive affirmations. And I kind of leaned in like here comes, and I said what were some of those affirmations?
Speaker 1:He said I finally said to myself I am an athlete. And I was like, wow, you see yourself now in the mirror as an athlete. Yes, why? Because I work out every day. I've lost close to 100 pounds. And so what happened is the underlying habits that we had created, which was the walking and now the jogging, and you know, now the working out created this new belief in him that, hey, I'm an athlete, created this new belief in him that, hey, I'm an athlete. And that guy now went on to lose over 220 pounds and get down to a weight where he's under 200 for the first time in many years, proved his health, probably saved his life, because obviously the stress on his heart. And so it's that story that those daily habits created the belief in him that he was an athlete. That fostered the reality of now he's living that life. And so that's really the whole premise about the art of beliefology. It's understanding this methodology that habits define belief systems which define the outside reality of the life we live.
Speaker 2:This is great because, you know, as human beings, often not often enough we believe that we are stronger than we are, than we believe in ourselves, we can accomplish so much more than we think we can. And, like you mentioned, it all starts with small habits. You don't need to wake up and start running the marathon, but, like, like your gentleman, you start walking to the first telephone pole and the next day you add the second step and it's it becomes, you know, life-changing steps.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I mean, you know I look at superhuman people like David Goggins or I have a good friend that literally you know swam what we call the ocean seven, the seven longest channel swims in the world. Imagine swimming 20 miles in the ocean in cold water, where you don't even get a wetsuit. All you get is a speedo, your goggles and a swim cap so the boats can see you.
Speaker 1:20 miles in open water with what? Sharks, jellyfish. But see, the human body can do whatever the mind tells it to, and so if you're powerful here, you can be very powerful here. And now that he's done that and swam the seven longest channels and is in the Guinness Berger World Records, what is he doing now? He's doing ultra marathons, not 50 miles. I'm talking about 100 mile road races. Can you imagine running 100 miles?
Speaker 2:I have trouble running to the corner of the streets.
Speaker 1:But guess what Mario People do that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 1:There's a guy that did 50 marathons in 50 days in each of the 50 states. They call him the Iron Cowboy. The mental strength of what's up here is amazing, but unfortunately most people don't know how to tap into that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But when you learn how to do that, you can accomplish anything. That's the promise of the art of beliefology. That's what I wrote about in my first book on the wings of eagles. It's sharing the success. What made Joe Namath great as a quarterback was his mindset.
Speaker 2:Mindset. That brings us to our fourth question. You mentioned some names during our interview and you had the opportunity to hear and learn from them, like former President George W Bush, shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary. What is the most impactful lesson that you've learned from these interactions?
Speaker 1:So here's an important lesson for everybody, and I hope that what I'm about to say will transform and change your life forever.
Speaker 1:Whenever we have a decision to make about doing anything, we always pre-frame that decision to do something based on our past experiences, because that's all we know so anytime we're moving forward with the opportunity to do something, because we're pre-framing that decision with everything that's happened before and, more importantly, all of the people that have been in our lives that have said, mario, don't do that. Like, why would you leave the security of your job, and you know, to go start a business? There's risk. Well, they're saying that out of the love and the caring, but you buy into that and then you're like, well, okay, so I'll never start that business that I really have dreamed about for many, many years. And so you never reach a level of success that you potentially could.
Speaker 1:The big secret that I've learned from very successful people is they have trained their mind to not listen to the noise.
Speaker 1:They just commit, they act and they go forward.
Speaker 1:Because every time you do something, your level of confidence slowly notches up to the extent where you say there's nothing now that I believe I can't do.
Speaker 1:I'm bulletproof, I'm oblivious to the noise. For example, as a social media influencer, I get all the naysayers, I get all the haters on social media and I just smile and I chuckle, you know, and I say to myself, wow, I really need to empathize with this person, because what I've learned is that when they see me and all the successes I've had, I say to myself hurt people, hurt other people. Like if in the moment you have to make a comment like that to make you feel a little bit better, it's kind of the bully on the school playground I'm like. What I know is you must really be hurting inside, and so I kind of empathize with that person and say, man, I'm really sorry that you feel so bad inside that in the moment you have to project that onto somebody else that's at a level of success like myself. But you know, the biggest thing that I've learned from all of these people is they're able to block out the noise.
Speaker 1:They've really mastered their mindset and you ever read the book the Seven Habits of Highly Successful People by Stephen Covey. He talks about this concept called the whole person theory, where there's four elements in us as humans mind, body, a spirit and a soul. And I always tell people what good is it to have a lot of money if you're very weak in your health? Because your health is your wealth, and so you know you should be working out every day, you should be eating nutritiously, you should be focusing on putting money aside and investing wisely. You know you should be focused on how you treat other people.
Speaker 1:So if you ever meet any one of these tremendous athletes, man, they're the most humble people. They're wanting and willing to help others. Why? It's because of that whole person concept. They want to be pros in everything they do, and so really that's kind of what I have fostered in my mindset in the relationships. It's block out the noise, commit to do what you want to do and don't listen to anything. Don't even listen to your mind trying to talk you out of it.
Speaker 2:Just do it Such great insight. Thank you for that. That brings us to our fifth question. You, somebody like you who raised a significant amount of funds in your career. What are the maybe emerging trends or changes in the market that entrepreneurs today should be aware when they see capital in today's market?
Speaker 1:Wow, that's a tough one. You know there's so many changes and they're very exciting. You know, one big change, of course, is just the change in the regulatory environment and you know the legislation. I mean. You know, here in our country, the US as an example, they're looking at changing the definition of an accredited investor. Today, an accredited investor is someone with a million dollar net worth or an income of $200,000 a year. In the two most recent years, let's face it, mario, a million bucks ain't what it used to be, no, and so they're considering making that change. They've also recently made changes where now people don't have to earn 200 or be worth a million. Because of their financial designations, professional designations and their expertise with investments, they can be qualified as an Accra investor. Another big one, I think, also qualified as an Accra investor Another big one, I think also, is just the advent of technology and technological platforms.
Speaker 1:We now see things like investor portals. We now see crowdfunding. We now see Regulation A, where companies can literally access the masses and raise millions of dollars from small investors in the Regulation A, where people can invest a small amount $1,000, $2,000, crowdfunding platforms like Kickstarter, gofundme, and I think the other big technology also that we're learning is AI and seeing how artificial intelligence can really give you instant feedback on what an investor is thinking, or recording a conversation with a potential investor and then getting the analysis with the AI to tell you hey, man, this is how the artificial intelligence would have responded to that objection. And you learn from that as you incorporate artificial intelligence into analyzing your business and what you're saying to people and, more importantly, emails. So I think really the biggest thing that's shaping how we raise capital is the use of the technology today.
Speaker 1:You know, many years ago it was you know you had to put stuff in an envelope, send it through the postal service. Person would fill it out, send it back to you. Now it's all done digitally, right over the internet, docusign, being able to wire funds. So I think the big thing now is just the technological advances that we can use, creating funnels, using social media, to build up the awareness of ourselves as a sponsor, as somebody worthy of investment capital, and so I think those changes are really what's going to shape capital raising going forward over the next five to 10 years and really make it much, much easier for businesses and entrepreneurs to source and attract that capital, because we didn't have those things 10 years ago. We do now, and I think it's only going to get easier as we move forward.
Speaker 2:Yeah, people, you know, probably when you started you needed to go into the different networking events and shake hands physically, and which now you can, you know, do it over zoom, Maybe. I still believe it's. It's good to still shake hands because I'm I'm a big networker myself, but, but it it may, technology makes it easier for people to get access to capital.
Speaker 1:now, Absolutely, I mean I always believe that you can make an interaction this way, via Zoom. But I agree, mario, there's nothing more powerful than shaking an investor's hand, allowing them to look you in the eye and really meet you in person. So we still do a lot of meetups. I still try to meet with investors if and when I can, whether it's at my country club or they're in their office or wherever. But I'm kind of old school. I've been doing this for a long time now.
Speaker 1:A lot of the newbies that are just getting ready raising capital or just getting started, they may be raising all the money just with Zoom or with some phone calls, and that's great. We can definitely do that. But I think, getting back to what we had said earlier, I think it's those things that are really going to bring about the advances in how we raise capital the investor portals, the ability to share our data in a very elegant way and allowing the investor to feel comfortable where you know they're not sharing sensitive information like their social security number or their sensitive data. They are all encrypted, going right through a platform that allows them to wire the proceeds to the account for the fund or for the deal and then allowing us, as the sponsor to reverse that process in making our distributions back to them. So AI technology, I think, is really shaping the way that we're raising capital, plus a lot of the crowdfunding platforms where we can leverage, you know, kickstarter, gofundme, all of these other platforms that are set up and really facilitate that whole process for us.
Speaker 2:Well, Sir Brad Blazer, it was a pleasure to have you on the show with us today on the podcast. Thank you for all your insights, your years of knowledge. It's really appreciated and I hope that everybody who listened to the podcast can take a piece of your insights on their journey. So thank you very much.
Speaker 1:Great. Thank you so much, Mario, for being a great, wonderful host. You have some great questions and I really enjoyed the session with you today.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Hopefully we'll talk soon again. Thanks for tuning into the five questions podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, like and hit the notification bell on our YouTube channel so you never miss an episode. Stay tuned for more insights and tips to transform your real estate and business game. See you next time.