Real Estate Underground

Beyond Investment: Building Real Estate Success through Mindset with CJ Ledy

• Ed Mathews • Season 4 • Episode 140

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Join Ed Mathews from Real Estate Underground as he dives into an enlightening conversation with CJ Ledy, a mindset coach and real estate investor. 

In this episode, CJ shares his inspiring journey from real estate sales to owning RV parks, and how a mindset shift transformed his life. They explore topics ranging from the importance of focus and commitment in business to CJ's intriguing philosophy about enjoying life and achieving goals. 

You’ll hear about CJ’s ventures in RV park investments, his unique approach to blending real estate with health and wellness retreats, and his deep passion for mindset and psychology. 

Don't miss this compelling discussion packed with valuable insights and actionable advice!

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Ed Mathews:

Greetings and salutations. Real Estate Undergrounders. It is Ed Mathews with the Real Estate Underground. Thank you so much for joining us today. I'm grateful for all the feedback that you give and the comments, as well as when you sign up for the subscription or the follow us. It does help us grow and I'm grateful. Today's show is interesting in that, yes, we're gonna talk real estate, but we're also gonna talk something that's near and dear to my heart and that is getting your head right mindset. And so with me is CJ Ledy. I actually discovered his podcast. I hope you don't mind me plugging it, but Mindset is Art, and I discovered it probably a couple, three, four months ago, and I binge-listening been to this ever since. CJ, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining us.

CJ Ledy:

Yeah, thanks, Ed. I appreciate you having me on. I'm excited to have a conversation too. I think we can have some fruitful ones. I've listened to a lot of your stuff too. You guys bring a lot of great content to your listeners and I really appreciate it. Yeah, thank you kindly.

Ed Mathews:

So as far as getting the ball rolling, why don't we start with? I know that you are a real estate investor, so you do qualify and we can have that conversation. Definitely want to talk about RV parks and your perspective on that, but also I definitely want to get into your ideas around mindset, and so if you could just tell the audience who you are and what you do for a living, then we can get into it.

CJ Ledy:

Yeah, happily so. Like you said, my name is CJ Ledy. I'm a mindset coach. I'm also a real estate investor. I'm also a real estate agent. I got my start in real estate sales and residential did a bunch of just simple stuff, from flips to land stuff to I've got a few single family properties that I purchased along the way. Really, my long-term goal is to build a portfolio and I knew I needed to get into the commercial space. So I moved to California about eight years ago or so and started selling commercial real estate mobile home parks, RV parks and self-storage facilities for a company called Yale Advisors. It's based out of Miami, a little boutique brokerage. It's just a small group of guys that cover the entire US and we do it really well. But through that I have diverted my focus and attention into building my own portfolio.

CJ Ledy:

And I've diverted my focus and attention into building my own portfolio and so it's been picking up some RV park investments. Partners in a park in Northern California and a town called Paradise which was unfortunately burned down and it was a mobile home park that we purchased, cleaned up the land and put in pretty basic sites, but it's a great place for rebuilding the city with construction workers and things like that. And then, just most recently, I just purchased my first solo RV park investment here, in just about an hour south of Salt Lake City, Utah, it's a little town called Nephi. It's called the Rolling Home RV Park. We just hit 300 reviews on Google. It's been fun to own it and it's got a great staff here. We're 60 spaces, which is relatively medium, a little bit on the smaller side for the RV park space, but a really good asset size for my first purchase. They're all really nice big pull-through sites 85 feet long, 35 feet wide, with two sewer hookups. Everything's really nice. It was built in 2020, so it's a brand new park really beautiful clubhouse and all the fixings on 20 acres, so it's also typically on 20 acres. We've got eight of that. That's just raw land, but on 12 acres you could typically have well over 100 sites and we've got 57. They're big, luxurious spaces that we're able to charge a decent premium for as well. So, and room to grow it's a good thing and room to grow and room to grow and to tie it into all the rest of it.

CJ Ledy:

One of my other passions in life is mindset and psychology. I had an interesting experience when I was 18 years old, I was hypnotized to no longer care what other people thought about me and it just opened my mind completely to the potential of the world. Because I was so stuck in this really fixed, fear-based mindset I didn't even realize it, but all at once I just became much more comfortable in my own skin, much more. I just had a stronger belief that I could do anything I wanted to do, that I set my mind to. I wasn't constricted by what other people thought about me or what I thought I was supposed to do All these other ideas that have really helped me in place.

CJ Ledy:

Through that, I've just become fascinated with the mind and the influence that our minds have on everything that we do, especially business. The way that we approach our work, the way that we approach this important aspect of our lives, is so heavily influenced by the way that we think, the fears that we have, the beliefs that we have, the way that we have fixated our focus on things in the future, whether that's goals or hopes and aspirations. It all plays a pivotal role in not only where we end up but also the enjoyability of the path that we take to get there. So I've been trying to figure out ways to intertwine it. For a while They've just been independent. I just do personal coaching and business coaching with people and I wrote my book Tune your Mind Finding Follow-Through and Fulfillment in the Dawn of Distraction and Disruption. It's really about taking the concept and focusing your mind around it and using the different elements of mindset.

CJ Ledy:

But last little piece, before we can really do a little more back and forth, is the RV park. One of my focuses has been how do I blend these two worlds together? And the RV park is a space where I plan to host retreats and we're going to set up some cabins and tiny homes and we're going to host events here where we can come together and have space for people to reflect and to really think through and strategize, whether that's in their business or their life or their health. We're building a gym here. We're going to do a sauna and a cold plunge. It's going to be just create a space. That's a fun place for people to come, but also a place that people can gather and really be intentional about their approach on things.

Ed Mathews:

Wow, that's amazing. So I definitely want to get into that. But let's just touch briefly on the real estate piece and then we can get onto the mindset piece. So, in terms of RV parks, obviously lots of asset classes out in the world, and so I'm curious what drew you to that asset class?

CJ Ledy:

Yeah, I tripped and fell into this mobile home park and RV park sales position. I was, like I said, doing residential. I moved to California knowing that I wanted to be in the commercial space because I knew if I really wanted to understand investment real estate, I need to understand underwriting. And if you're a residential real estate agent, you're understanding the transactional element of real estate and you understand the market and how it moves. But you don't necessarily understand the inner workings of a business and how a business succeeds, and so you need to get into the commercial space to learn that. And I knew that.

CJ Ledy:

So I went to California and just looking, not really sure what I would find, a friend of mine from college said hey, we're looking for a guy on the West Coast to come help us sell mobile home parks. I'm thinking trailer parks. I don't know if that's really my cup of tea. I'm thinking trailer parks. I don't know if that's really my cup of tea. I want to do something sexy like multifamily or beautiful hotels or something along those lines. But I looked closer at the asset class, I started to study it and really look at the metrics over it of it and they're saying, yeah, we've got tons of institutional money in here. There's a lot of mom and pops, there's a lot of opportunity in this space. It's not too heavily constricted with brokers and they're like we try not to focus on any deals under $5 million and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like just doing the math on all this stuff going. This actually sounds pretty sweet and it's a really cool group of guys and gals with Yale. It's all young, hungry, really smart and thoughtful people that all work together and we have a really cohesive unit. So it just made sense for me and as I got more and more involved in mobile home and RV, I started to.

CJ Ledy:

really I've traveled all these parks. I've driven through hundreds of parks across the country and the more I went through these RV parks I'm like I like this. This is a fun way of life. It's a bunch of people who are traveling out of leisure or they're retired no-transcript of this thing. So I bought a fifth wheel. I bought a toy hauler.

CJ Ledy:

That's a massive rig. It's a 40 foot fifth wheel and a F450 that I pull it with. I'm basically the same size as a short bed, semi height and length, and I traveled around the US for the last couple of years and just stayed at a bunch of parks and just learned the industry from that side. It's been a ton of fun, been a ton of money, but it's been a ton of fun and decently cheap out there, but it's been a really good learning experience.

CJ Ledy:

So I wanted to really approach it from that angle because I've wanted to build a big portfolio around something that I really love and care about and I wanted to see if that felt right. And the more I traveled, I learned some things that I wasn't expecting and I learned some other things that were new revelations which I liked and I just said, hey, this is the way to go and I've committed and started picking some stuff up and my hope and goal would be to purchase about 10 of these over the next 10 to 15 years across the country and cool destination locations that people want to come to and create cool spaces that people want to come and enjoy.

Ed Mathews:

You mentioned some of the things you learned. I'm curious what are some of the examples of that?

CJ Ledy:

Yeah, with this specific plan that I have of trying to build parks where people come for health and wellness, I was very curious to see what the demographic of people actually on the road was like. What do people do there? Do they use the amenities? Do they actually engage in? Some of the more social aspects went to. People weren't necessarily engaging with all of the communal events and stuff, and so I went through a little phase where I was like I don't really think that this actually makes a ton of sense.

CJ Ledy:

There are companies doing it well, though, and I don't know if you've ever heard of like. Autocamp is. Yeah, it's a group that they I've worked with them in the past. We've done some deals and they come in, they buy RV parks and they just bring in a bunch of Airstreams and they rent them out like hotels and they do great. They do really well. They've got some really kind of smart ways that they go about doing their business.

CJ Ledy:

So I had to change my perspective a little bit of these tiny homes and I've seen this across a lot of the parks that I've studied is these tiny homes do really well and the RV market is more of this ebb and flow. Especially with COVID, we saw a huge boom. Now we're seeing a little bit of a pullback, but the cabins are continuing to rise and as people are becoming more remote not everybody RVs, obviously so having the ability to engage in this kind of lifestyle and go and stay in the cool little tiny homes and glass domes and all that kind of stuff people really like that. The glamping is a fun thing. That I think is hot right now and makes sense in the future as people want to get more towards nature, have more remote and flexible lifestyles. That's been the biggest learning.

Ed Mathews:

Yeah, sorry, it's an interesting blend of approaches too right. You get the transient folks in the RVs who are coming in for a few days to a week or two, and then you have the folks that are coming into GLAMP Actually. So I live in the Northeast Island, Connecticut, and that is something that has really taken off here in the Northeast, particularly even further North. So you get into Vermont and New Hampshire ski country. Even that's a lot of what is off-season on Is hiking, biking, glamping, and Vermont in particular has finally figured that part of it out in that the fall off that they would have come mud season and what is that? I guess end of March, early April, is certainly tempered now because of the fact that they figured out how to draw it may not even be the same people. It's likely different folks that are looking to be outside and enjoy that part of the country.

CJ Ledy:

Yeah, yeah, and a hot take on that too, something that I'm trying to perceive as I'm looking at the RV space and real estate classes in general and the trend of where everything is going. I think that automation is going to play a large role in what people desire from their experience in life and the way that they go about business and all that. I think we're going to see things go more remote, but I think we're also going to see we're already seeing this a little bit, but I think we're going to see a desire for realness. Things are going to become more and more automated. Movies are going to become less and less real. Instagram and all that kind of stuff. It's going to be really faker and faker. It's going to be hard to tell the difference, but people are going to yearn for real experience.

CJ Ledy:

That's why you're seeing events go up like crazy, like tickets for NFL games and concerts and all this stuff. These live events, these in-person things, are going to hold a lot of merit and I believe that, as automation continues to play a larger and larger role in our lives, it's going to free us up from some of the confines, of some of the space that we used to be tied to. So it's going to give you more flexibility, but I think it's also going to create this desire for real experience, for real like actually being in nature, actually going out and doing events and experiential things. That's why I think something like RVing, that's why something like glamping actually has a lot of long-term allure, because I think that more and more people have access to it and also desire to do things that are a little more experiential.

Ed Mathews:

Yeah, I think you're on to something, because it's so. You and I are different generations, I suspect, but one of the things that the Gen X world is always looking for is I don't need stuff, I've got stuff right. Next world is always looking for is I don't need stuff, I've got stuff right. What I'm looking for is time and experience with my kids, my wife, my friends, my family, and because that's the stuff, you take along the ride with you, right, okay, a new car or something else materialistic, that's nice, but I'd much rather hang out with my daughters, who are in their late teens and early twenties, and I know I'm only going to get a few more years with them before they discover that it's way more fun to live somewhere else. And, yeah, so I buy into that.

Ed Mathews:

That's interesting, okay. So let's use that as the opportunity to get into mindset. You have an interesting take, and actually I was listening this morning, as a matter of fact, into mindset. You have an interesting take and actually I was listening this morning, as a matter of fact, to your most recent podcast about marrying your goals and no more one night stands, which isn't what it sounds like, but it's certainly relevant to folks Entrepreneurs in general tend to have ADD or ADHD and we jump around a lot to the next shiny thing and we date a lot of goals right and I'm going to leave it to you to explain, because you'll explain it better than me, but it's, that episode certainly resonated with me because I'm like, yep, I've been that guy. I recognize that behavior.

CJ Ledy:

Yeah, no, I love that. Glad you brought that up. I was actually having a conversation with one of my best friends who's a really inspiring guy. He's had a lot of things that he's gone after and he's very talented. He could be successful in all of them and he has been successful in quite a few. But we had a deep conversation and for whatever reason it just came to me of man, because he's also very committed to the woman that he loves. Just like they're engaged. They've been together for seven years and they're like they're planning this whole life together. They have a beautiful relationship.

CJ Ledy:

It's really inspiring in a lot of ways and, for whatever reason, it clicked to me right there. I'm like man, he's like why am I not having successes in all these different business ventures I'm doing? Look at you. Why are you successful with your wife, your soon to be wife? That's because you chose her. You focused, you cut off all of the other girls that you're talking to and you had a little thing with, and this, that and the other thing. Cut it all off when you focus and you chose one thing and you picked it and you've put all your energy, all your creativity, all your love, all your efforts into that. It's like you got to quit having one night stands with your hopes and dreams and you're just. You're flirting around with all these ideas, but you haven't picked one to follow it through to fruition. Of course it hasn't gotten there and it, just out of that conversation, kind of an idea for the podcast really spawned, which is exactly that concept.

CJ Ledy:

It's just that in life we really need to. There's a lot of things that we can do. Most people can be successful in a lot of different ways a lot of different areas, a lot of different businesses, a lot of different real estate investments, a lot of different everything. But you can't be successful in everything Until we really get good with AI. We can clone ourselves into 16 different people, but you only got one of yourselves and so you better figure out how to allocate your time and energy the most effectively. And typically that means you got to focus in on a couple things that are really meaningful to you and you got to see them through to fruition. You got to go through the hard times. You got to deal in sickness and in health Until death.

CJ Ledy:

Do you part with that thing that you choose that you really want to go after? You got to see it with that perspective to really follow through and I was fortunate at an early age I was dancing with a lot of different one night stands on some of my hopes and dreams. As far as my entrepreneurial ventures, I was doing some real estate photography and some painting of houses and all this stuff. I'm like, oh, I'm going to do all these businesses at once. And my dad just looked at me and he's a really successful business person. He said you know what? I've seen a lot of entrepreneurs and the difference maker is the ones who just choose one good idea and they see it through to fruition. And I see you right now and I get it and I love the fact that you're being creative and stuff.

CJ Ledy:

But you got to decide, you got to pick something, you got to go follow through with it, and so I took some time. It took me a couple of years to really commit and to marry what I wanted to do. But for me that's to build a real estate portfolio and the goal that I've set is $100 million income producing real estate assets. So I don't know exactly what that will contain. Maybe that's all RV parks, maybe that's a mixture of something else that won't inspire me down the road. I'm open to that changing in the way that it comes to me, but I'm very committed to that.

CJ Ledy:

I that changing in the way that it comes to me, but I'm very committed to that.

CJ Ledy:

I'm very committed to that specific goal.

CJ Ledy:

And then, within coaching and within the mindset stuff, I want to deeply impact a thousand people and in a way like similar to how it's changed my life, it's completely redirected my path.

CJ Ledy:

If I can give that to a thousand people, I will feel more than accomplished. And I know that the rewards of that, from all different angles from a fulfillment level, from an income level, from the way that I'm able to interact with my future wife and kids and all of those different pieces and have my lifestyle and all of those things I've thought through the way that these goals can truly bring me to all the things that I'm looking for. So I've married those and I married those 10 plus years ago and I really have been committed and I haven't haven't broken that loyalty and that I haven't been sleeping around in my dreams and that's. There's been tough times, there's been times where I've questioned it, but I've stayed committed and so if you believe in it, that the path is what the destination and the path are, what you're worth it and what you're after. It makes the journey. It helps direct you in difficult times. I think that's the biggest piece.

Ed Mathews:

It's amazing the power of focus and what it can do for you. People look at our business, right, Clark St? They say, okay, you're in. They see that we're in multifamily and that we flip houses and we've just started an agency to help with virtual assistants and we've launched a fund, and blah, blah, blah. Like, how do you do all that? I said, understand, we launched one, we did it, somebody's in charge of that not named Ed Mathews. Then we launched something else, and somebody's in charge of that not named Ed Mathews, and so on and so forth.

Ed Mathews:

So I come from the tech world and one of the one of the people that had a huge impact on me was a guy by the name of Jeffrey Moore who's a venture capitalist and he's written a ton of books, but one of the things he talked about was the bowling pin strategy and it's a very simple concept and it's more. I'm going to get geeky on you for a sec, but it's. It is related to what you're talking about in that. Look at the set of 10 pins and, yeah, you want to do everything in that rack, right. Eventually you want to get to all 10 pins and all 10 ideas, right, but the fact is that you can only do one and do one. So do the thing that is going to have the most impact on your customer base or your audience or your constituency, or whatever. Do it exceptionally well, master it.

Ed Mathews:

And then do a one-off, and then another one-off, and as you create mastery with each one of those bowling pins, as you marry those pins, you leave someone who's in charge behind to own that for you on your behalf, right? So you, as the person who runs the portfolio, that for you on your behalf, right? So you, as the person who runs the portfolio, becomes the person who you're operating from a very specific value system. You're operating from a mission. You've got a clear mission, right $100 million in assets and help a thousand people. That's crystal clear.

Ed Mathews:

I hope I would love to have that clarity, try as I might, sometimes not so good, but the fact is that you build, you commit to something, you build it well, you master it. That is the point where you consider the one-off, not as you're going along dabbling in five different things and hoping one pops. And I'm speaking from experience as an old guy, older guy In my 20s and 30s that's what I was doing. I was dabbling, and until I stopped dabbling. That was the point, that was the inflection point that allowed me to really see some success in my own career. So anyway, Absolutely.

CJ Ledy:

Yeah, no, I love that and I love that. The pinball idea and going after one pin and that's something I talk about in the podcast briefly, is I have married these two different goals in tandem at the same time, which I don't necessarily recommend and I only will say do that if you can really understand the way that you function and how you can set yourself up with your workload and time management a lot of different pieces. I would I advise people go after one thing. That's like trying to marry two girls at the same time. Like you better be ready to handle a lot. Like I don't know what you know exactly. Yeah, exactly, so you got to know what you're getting yourself into.

CJ Ledy:

I've, for me, it's been. I've been inseparable from the coaching. It's been. It felt so integral to me, it's been such an important part of fulfillment for me and it feels like something I can't leave behind. But it also is something where I didn't see a clear path to profitability to the point where I could do it in the way that I wanted to. There's a lot of successful coaches, there's a lot of ways to make good money coaching, but whatever the way that it felt like it was supposed to come out of me just didn't feel like a way that I was ready to really profit on substantially. So I was like I need another vehicle, and real estate was always something that I had been around and known about and been interested in. So it was like these are the two things that I'm going to work with, and it's been a little bit tough because sometimes I dive deep into I was diving deep into my book, into my coaching and stuff and my real estate starts to fall off and then I dropped this stuff with the book and I focus on the real estate and then that it's this constant like game of trying to keep two things up at once.

CJ Ledy:

I love what you're talking about. You go after one pin and once you knock down that one pin, now you can translate that into something else. So I think for people out there who are trying to figure out what is it that I want to do and what's important to me, if you have a calling like I feel like I've had, you got to honor that and you got to figure out how to bring that along with you. But if you're still in that space where you're like I'm not necessarily sure I have that it's like just find that one thing where you know if I put in the next five years just really driven, really focused, take the right steps, learn the right information, I can knock down that pin and then you can translate that into something new. You know that, I think, is absolutely the easiest and most effective path to really finding success in something that's important to you.

Ed Mathews:

Yep, I totally agree with that, and it's so for me. Coaching and mentoring I get. So I always tell people I'm a cheap cup, I'm a cheap date. Right, I'll gladly spend 15, 20, 30 minutes grabbing a cup of coffee, virtually or otherwise, with someone. If someone raises their hand and says, hey, I need help, I'm happy to help you. It may be immediately, it may be tomorrow. We'll get you on the schedule and we'll have a conversation.

Ed Mathews:

The challenge is that I love coaching, from sports with my daughters or professionally with some of the folks that I've worked with over the years. I don't care about making money at it, and it warms my soul. That's the only way I do explain it. And yes, I charge for my time because it's valuable, but I don't charge probably what it's worth and I want to charge just enough so that the person I'm speaking with values it. Right, because they won't value free the cup of coffee. That's free, that's fine. I'll meet you at Dunkin' or at Starbucks and we'll have a nice cup of coffee. But the folks that really want to dig in and get serious, it's something that nothing makes me happier than.

Ed Mathews:

I've been asked the question dozens of times why do you do this. All you're doing is creating competition, and I said I've been doing this since 2010, 2011. So I'm 12, 13, 14 years ahead of you. So good luck catching me? I hope you do, but by the time you get where I am, I'm going to be somewhere else. Have at it and I wish you well. That whole abundance mindset and concept has been revolutionary in my mind in terms of me being able to contribute and feel good and help a whole bunch of people, and I see it in what you do. Admittedly, I have not read your book, but I will read it, but it's something I'm looking forward to because it's an interesting way to talk.

CJ Ledy:

I also have the audio book. So I know obviously this is a podcast. We've got a lot of audio listeners. It might not be as hard copy of them. The audio book is out there too, but no, I love that and I think everybody has something that they can give back to others and be a mentor in certain different ways, and I think that's an important part of fulfillment, regardless of your age.

CJ Ledy:

It's something I struggled with for a while. I felt like I had a lot of things that I could help people with and I was having a lot of those conversations in ways that I could help. I didn't feel like I could go out and pioneer like, hey, I'm a coach, I'm going to help you because age got in the way. I just felt like I'm too young. Who's going to look at me and say, oh yeah, you know what you're talking about and I respect that, because there are shortcomings, so you don't have from experience and knowledge and all that kind of thing too. But everybody has something to give. I don't care how old you are. You can listen to little kids and you can learn from them. Everybody has something to give to others and can be mentors in certain ways. Don't tell yourself short on that.

Ed Mathews:

Agreed, we're all reading the same book. I just may be a couple chapters ahead of you, and that's all I have, totally.

CJ Ledy:

Or reading different parts of the book you know what I mean everybody.

Ed Mathews:

All right, CJ, let's start to land this plane. I'm going to get into the final five. So first one is one of my favorites. I want you to finish this sentence.

CJ Ledy:

Yeah, so my purpose is to help myself and to help others unlock an excitement and a love for life, and I think that takes a lot of different forms, but I like that it's open because that it doesn't have a stuck meaning necessarily. I think that that's part of my coaching. It's. I do focus a lot on business and I help people with a lot of entrepreneurial type ventures, real estate stuff but ultimately it's so much deeper into your personal life. It's understanding how you work and what's driving you, and so to help people to uncover what's meaningful and important to them is of the greatest importance to me, because life isn't just about dollars and achievements that you hang on the wall. It's about how you felt during the journey and the process of it. To me, it's really about connecting to why things are meaningful and understanding that for yourself and helping others to do the same.

Ed Mathews:

Wouldn't agree more. No one has ever sat on their deathbed wishing they'd worked more or made more money Guaranteed. Yeah, I'm a huge believer in mentors and coaches, like we were just talking about, so I'm curious what was the best advice you've ever been given and who gave it to you?

CJ Ledy:

Yeah, the first thought that comes to mind is what we just discussed with my dad of staying focused on one thing and avoiding that shiny object syndrome. But I'd like to give something else. The best piece of advice, I think, it's really just to slow down and to listen. I'm not exactly sure where I've gotten this. It's been through a lot of different resources.

CJ Ledy:

I really spent the first my early twenties digesting as much information as I could through personal development books and these kinds of stuff podcasts, youtube, all that kind of stuff and I think the nuggets that I was continuing to find that wasn't even specifically explicit is more implicit in the way that people were talking about what really worked.

CJ Ledy:

You'd hear from people who actually were finding fulfillment in the things that they were doing. It was that they had a good starting point, that they really figured out who they were and what they were supposed to go after. So under like listening to the universe, but listening to yourself, listening to the way that you feel in different environments and what's really sparking your enthusiasm. Because I think that when you can really refine that down to a core element and discover who you are and what you're meant to do, the rest just happens naturally when you feel a very sense, a very clear sense of direction after what excites you and what you believe is important in the world. That's such a deep, foundational level understanding and belief that's hard to be shaken. A lot of things can happen in your life at the surface level, but you know where you're going. You know why it's like things just tend to happen. Your subconscious mind finds the things in your reality that help push you along the path and before you know it, you end up where you wanted to go.

Ed Mathews:

Yeah, I saw Tom Bilyeu speak

Ed Mathews:

last spring actually, and he was talking about how to be unstoppable and they started the talk with. It was a group of probably a few hundred real estate investors and capital raisers and folks like us, and he said 95% of the people in this room will have quit this time next year. And he just let it sit there and he said okay, so here's how you become unstoppable. And he basically spoke about two different things. One was which I've found both very profound One I knew and that was that having a clarity of purpose will allow you to. It turns a I would like to do into. I must I have to do this right. It turns a I would like to do into I must I have to do this right.

Ed Mathews:

And the second thing was recognize that this is a human experience and every emotion, every anger, the happiness, the joy, whatever that feeling is, you can recognize it so that you can put it in the right place and not have it affect your judgment. And he said if you can accomplish those two things, you stand a pretty good chance of surviving this year. And he's right. Now I'm six, eight months beyond that and life happens, and it's been a common refrain in that timeframe of Ooh, okay, this is a stressful situation, yep, that's adrenaline. Yep, okay, now I understand what's going on and, all right, let's think about this, let's not do anything stupid, don't react, just putting in the moment, right.

Ed Mathews:

So I'm a big believer in lessons, right, life lessons. And so personally, I think and I use my own life experience as a guide here but I find that I learn more from mistakes than I do from successes, and so I guess it's probably the Irishman in me, maybe, but the fact is that I think you learn a lot from mistakes, and here at our company, mistakes are fine, right, no one gets in trouble, but don't make it twice, right? Let's focus on why it happened and let's fix it. And so I'm curious about your view on mistakes and specifically, what was a mistake that you made, that a decision you'd like to have back, and how'd you recover from it?

CJ Ledy:

Yeah, I love that. It's a great. I think it's such an important avenue of life that I think a lot of people shy away from. They don't want to face their failures. They don't want to look at the things that they did wrong. It's easier, certainly, to look at the stuff that lifts you up, but you got to learn. Yeah, that's the most important thing. That we're all on here is just a path to learning, and when times are not what you wanted them to be, you have to look it in the face and understand why and break it down and take accountability and learn the future. But for me, it's.

CJ Ledy:

There's a lot of different things that I could pick here, but the what stands out the most to me and this is more of a personal thing and I don't really share this often but when I was a few years this is before I'd really committed to marrying my goals and all that I had a time, about a year and a half after college where I was starting to sell real estate, and this was when I was dabbling with a handful of different things with these other businesses. I was trying to start, but I had this feeling inside of me that I was supposed to go to California. I didn't really know why, but I felt like I was supposed to go do something. My heart was just calling me to leave and to go do what. I didn't know what, but I had this really clear, obvious path in front of me. It was set up for me, just here it is. You just do these things and you'll be fine. You'll have a successful, happy life, whatever. And I fought with this feeling for months, really months, and I didn't go. I didn't go, I didn't explore that feeling and I've grappled with that a little bit over the years and I'm not upset that I didn't go, because my life has turned out incredibly and I'm very happy with everything.

CJ Ledy:

And I do believe that even mistakes so to call it or times that you maybe didn't go in a direction that you thought you should have, you can always pick up from it and as long as you look at that and you, like we said, you analyze what did that mean? You can use that as massive power moving forward that you might not have had. So I've taken that moment and I've said whenever I feel this feeling in my stomach or my heart or whatever it is, I put logic on it. I'm not quick to just jump from thing to thing and float like that, but follow your heart, follow, uncover what's under those stones. You could always come back. I could have gone to California and decided it wasn't it and I could have picked back up right where I was and it would have been just fine.

CJ Ledy:

But I didn't, and it haunted me for a few years until I wrapped a perspective around it of no, you know what. I'm going to use this as motivation, that the next time I feel this and I really know that it's there, I'm going to run with it and I will follow that. And I have since I've had it a lot of different areas in my life and I've followed it and it's been a beautiful guide. There's something inside of me that knows, something that I can't see consciously, but it's so important, it's usually something so beautiful. So that's probably the biggest, one of the most important lessons that sticks out to me.

Ed Mathews:

Nice. It's a nice way to live, I can assure you. I wish I'd learned that way sooner than I did, and I'm happy for you that you learned it pretty early in your life, so that's good. I'm always curious about leaders. Almost always are readers and in some way, shape or form, they're always sharpening the saw, as they say. I'm curious about the book that's on your nightstand, virtual or otherwise, and who are you paying attention to these days? From an author or creator?

CJ Ledy:

Yeah, I love it. Yeah, certainly big reader, obviously wrote a book and I based it on the works of probably 300 plus personal development books that I've loved and deeply digested and pulled the nuggets out of. I love to read and I have obviously enough to write a book myself, but the book that I'm currently into I like paper books, I really do. I do like audio books, but it doesn't stick to me as deeply as when I read it and if, especially if I write, if I'm really loving a book, I'm going to be writing in the margins, I'm going to be taking notes afterwards, and when I do that it sticks to me like glue, and but I don't do it with everything, because I only do it when I really feel like this is something that I need.

CJ Ledy:

So right now, actually, I've been just sucked into the book the Way of Zen by Alan Watts and it's just completely blown my mind and I mean we haven't really discussed this and there'll be a different podcast for that, but I'm in a spiritual growth stage right now.

CJ Ledy:

I'm trying to discover some stuff about that element of my life. This book has just opened the door to me for a whole different lens on the way to look at the philosophy of life. I grew up very in a much more Western religion and Christianity and all of that with school and all of those things. And this is Eastern, it's Eastern philosophy, it's a different way of looking at life and I but it connects so closely with how I've thought about stuff that I didn't know other people were thinking about.

CJ Ledy:

And so this book I've read it three times, cover to cover, right now, without picking up other books, and I've written all over the margins, like this book it's blown my mind and it's not just spiritual, because I believe that the spiritual, like we were saying before, becomes the foundation for everything else. That you do philosophically about life ultimately triggers what you go out and do, how you run your business, how you think and feel in your business and within your career, and your health and relationships and everything else too. Yeah, that's what's got me going, alan Watts way of Zen.

Ed Mathews:

Funny Amazon. Thank you, I'm going to put that in the show notes as well. The last question success. I want you to finish the sentence. Success means what ?

CJ Ledy:

Success means enjoyment. I do believe that I've won my.

CJ Ledy:

The only goal that I truly hold myself to is enjoying my life deeply. And it might sound, maybe even shallow to some. I've told it to. They're like oh, there's so much more life, but it's a truly enjoying my life is a very deep and complex process and there's a lot that goes into that, and I believe that you have to follow the right path. You have to do the things that are good towards humanity and in your heart and all that kind of stuff to really love your life and to really enjoy the path.

CJ Ledy:

So success to me is truly enjoying it. And I think when you get to the end of the road and whether it's a conversation with yourself or God or the universe or whatever it is they're going to look back and they go. Did you have fun back there? Did you enjoy it? Did you enjoy the ride? And you're either going to go oh no, I was so focused on getting all this stuff done, or I was like caught up in this drama, or I got whatever else. It's like, oh man, you missed some of the fruit of life. I really believe that if you, just if you love and enjoy your life, that you will feel fulfilled and that you will find success. Quote unquote it's success is enjoyment.

Ed Mathews:

I'll tell you, man, if people thought the way you did it, this world would be a way better place. So, when talking about RV parks, or mindset in terms of how you approach the world,

CJ Ledy:

I'm an enthusiast of a lot of hobbies. I'm a pilot. I'm a pilot's license, so I fly a lot. I'm a musician. I love to play guitar and you see all my stuff. I got my piano back here, my guitar's on the wall and all that. I do public speaking too, and I just did a speech where I also sang a song at the end. So I like to incorporate some of the different hobbies.

CJ Ledy:

I like to ski and snowboard. That's part of why I wanted to be out here in Utah, close to Park City. I'm heading up there tomorrow. Actually the mountain's not open yet, but I got to get a feel for the mountain. Lots of adventure, sports and hanging with friends and family is really some of the fruits, and I love concerts and music festivals. If you're into that, you'll probably see me at one or another, because I'm at a lot of them. I was just at in Arizona. Actually, one of my best friends has been up and coming DJ and got a DJ set at a festival called Dusk, and so we went out there to support him and it was an absolute blast. A bunch of different things, but anything that ignites the enjoyment and the enthusiasm for me.

Ed Mathews:

Fantastic. So if people want to learn more about you your podcast, your book what's the best way to get in touch with you.

CJ Ledy:

Yeah, so you can find me at my website, which has links to everything, which is just cjledy. com, so from there you can find links to my book, which is also on Amazon, so is my audio book, is on Audible. And my book, which is also on Amazon, so is my audio book, is on Audible. And my podcast, which is on all major podcast platforms, is Mindset is Art, as you mentioned earlier, do speeches from time to time, so I typically have them on my website If I've got stuff coming up. I haven't been good about getting my schedule up there lately, but you can find me public speaking as well. Also, people are welcome to reach out to me directly. You can reach me at coach@ cjledy. com. That's my email. I would love to interact with anybody who's maybe been inspired or gotten ideas or has questions about anything I'm doing or working on. I love connecting with people, so I'd love to hear from people.

Ed Mathews:

CJ Ledy. I've really enjoyed this conversation. Continued good success and I look forward to your next book, and I have an idea we're going to talk about as soon as we hang up.

CJ Ledy:

Yeah, let's go. Thank you, Ed. I appreciate you having me on.

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Ed Mathews - Clark St Capital

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