RG 301 – From Basketball Coaching to Capital Raising: Why I Made the Switch with Gregory Lyons

For this week’s episode, we have former university basketball coach, Greg Lyons, walk us through how they help real estate professionals create passive income. Click on that ‘Play’ button to learn more about capital raising, passive income, wealth generation, and more!

Greg Lyons is a former basketball coach who used to lead university basketball teams to victory. In 2020, Greg and his brother Tim Lyons started Cityside Capital, a real estate capital raising firm that helps other real estate professionals make the most out of their investment dollars. More than that, Greg is the co-host of The Passive Income Brothers, a podcast that highlights the investor journey in generating multiple streams of passive income.

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In this episode, Greg talks about how he went from being a basketball coach to a full-time real estate professional. He highlights the benefits of capital raising as a whole, including the simplified process that they have created for investing in multifamily assets.

Greg also shares his experience with cancer as a teen, which eventually changed his perspective on life and influenced who he is today. 

Don’t miss out on this delightfully positive episode with one of the most down-to-earth people that we have interviewed on this show. Listen now and learn more about passive income and how you can do it, too, by investing in the right opportunities.

Key Takeaways

• The best thing you can do when raising capital is telling people what you do.

• Most of the time, the best way to take action is to do it in small steps and let time do its thing.

• While you put money in the stock market, investing in real estate helps you get that diversification and creates regular income in your pocket.

• Syndications have made it possible for the Average Joe to invest in real estate deals.

LINKS
https://www.linkedin.com/in/greglyonsva/
https://citysidecap.com/

Be Bold, Be Brave and Go Give Life a Crack!

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Reed Goossens (00:00):

Good day good day guys. Now, before we dive into today’s show, I want to let you know that some of you maybe aware that over the past eight years, I have built a substantial multi-family real estate portfolio here in the US worth over half a billion dollars. And in that time, my passive investors have received fantastic double-digit returns. And now you too can invest directly into my deals for as little as $50,000. So if you’re an interested investor, head over to Reedgoossens.com to find out more that’s reedgoossens.com. Now back into the show,

Gregory Lyons (00:41):

There’s so many different ways to get into the stock market. There’s Robin hood mm-hmm . Um, there there’s all these different apps, uh, acorns and stuff like that. You could buy fractional shares of this fractional shares of that. For the most part, people are invested in the stock market, whether it be their through their 401k, you know, but that is the traditional way of doing things. Moving a little bit of your portfolio into a real estate syndication gives you the diversification, but it also gives you some upside of not only when these properties sell, you could get maybe a lump sum, but you get cash in your pocket on a monthly or quarterly basis. That’s real. You have to, to recognize gains in the stock market. You have to sell stock there’s capital gains, stuff like that, but to get money into your bank account on a monthly or quarterly basis, you can use that for tuition. You could use that for groceries. You could use that for your vacation fund, but that’s real money in your pocket.

Speaker 3 (01:48):

Welcome to investing in the US, a podcast for real estate investors, business owners, and aspiring entrepreneurs looking to break into the US market, join Reed as he interviews go-geters risk takers and the best in the business about their journey towards financial freedom and the sheer joy of creating something from nothing.

Reed Goossens (02:09):

Good day. Good day a ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to another cracking edition of investing in the US podcast from Los Angeles. I’m your host, Reed Goossens good as always Debbie with us on the show. Now I’m glad that you’ve all tuned into learn from my incredible guests and each and every one of them are the premium of the crop here in the United States. When it comes to real estate, investing, business, investing and entrepreneurship, each show, I try and tease out their incredible stories of how they have successfully created their businesses here in the US, how they’ve created financial freedom, massive amounts of cash, and ultimately created extraordinary lives for themselves and their families. Life by design. As I like to say, hopefully these guests will inspire all of my cracking listeners, which are you guys to get off the couch and go and take massive amounts of action.

Reed Goossens (02:56):

If these guys can do it. So can you now, as you know, I’m all about sharing the knowledge with my loyal listeners, which is you guys, and there’s absolutely no BS on this show, just straight into the nuts and bolts. Now, if you do like this show, the easiest way to give back is to give us a review on iTunes and you can follow me on Facebook and Twitter by searching at Reed Goossens. You can find the show, every you podcast on iTunes sound, cloud, Stitcher, and Google play, but you can also find these episodes up on my YouTube channel. So head over to reedgoossens.com, Click on the video link, and it’ll take you to the video recordings of these podcasts, where you can see my ugly mug, but the beautiful faces of my guests each and every week. All right, enough outta me, let’s get cracking and into A’s show.

Reed Goossens (03:44):

Today. The show I have the pleasure of speaking with Greg Lyons. Now Greg started Cityside capital with his brother, Tim in March of 2020 as a licensed capital raiser, Greg partners with established multifamily and self storage operators throughout the United States generate passive in, come for his investors. Greg is no stranger to the real estate space. And before starting Cityside capital, he was a project manager for a real estate development firm in Boise, Idaho, where he helped develop a 77 unit condominium project. And Greg is a recovering basketball coach after spending six years coaching two different schools, and now he’s fully invested in the real estate world. Wanna share and welcome him to the show, but enough enemy let’s get be out here. Good. Hey Greg, welcome to the show. How you doing today, mate?

Gregory Lyons (04:25):

I’m doing great. Reid, thank you so much for having me on, uh, uh, well said on the introduction and, um, you know, happy to be in the real estate game and, uh, really happy to be meeting different people like yourself because the multifamily space is a very inclusive space and people just want to see each other do well. And that’s been, that’s been such a welcoming part of this, uh, multi-family journey for us.

Reed Goossens (04:50):

Yeah, that, that that’s exactly right. Well, mate, I want to get into your story. So before we do, can you, uh, rewind the clock and tell me how you made your first ever dollar as a kid?

Gregory Lyons (04:59):

I would have to say lemonades stand. I would say a haphazard arrangement of chairs and tables, maybe a poster, uh, but we were probably charging 5 cents at the time, back in the, uh, early eighties for some not very good lemonade. So, uh, you factor that all in and I think we may have made a dollar, uh, back in the early eighties.

Reed Goossens (05:21):

That’s awesome. And so walk us through your journey into the real estate space. I mentioned earlier, you were, uh, a basketball coach. So tell us about your upbringing with money and how you got into the entrepreneurial field.

Gregory Lyons (05:32):

My family grew up in, uh, long island, New York, and we were, we were a middle class all the way. And, um, really it was, uh, the same old story that a lot of our entrepreneurs kind of were on. It was, uh, go to school, get good grades, go to school, find a job, save, save, save, and enjoy retirement at 65. And, you know, I was kind of on that, on that path. I was, uh, lucky enough to go to the university of Virginia where I played basketball. And when I say play basketball, that means I had a uniform. I didn’t really play that much, but that’s okay. University of Virginia was fantastic. But after that, like you said, I, I went into college basketball coaching. I wanted to be the next, uh, John Kaari. I wanted win a national championship, but it was a tough space and it was a grind on the family. And we had our first child when I was coaching at American university in DC. And I had to make a life decision and getting outta coaching was tough, but I haven’t, I haven’t looked back one day and said that was a bad decision cuz I have two wonderful kids and, and a wonder full wife right now. We live in Charlesville, Virginia, but I’ll always miss, uh, the opportunity to win a national championship, but I’ll never miss the time I’ve had with my kids.

Reed Goossens (06:46):

That’s that’s that’s incredible. And what was that point where you made the decision to leave the coaching, the W2 space and try and go down this entrepreneurial path?

Gregory Lyons (06:57):

Well, it was, it was when we had our first child, my son Connor was born in, um, 2007 and that just changed everything for me. So getting outta coaching, we transitioned to Boise, Idaho, which the natural move is not usually DC to Boise, but you know, we did it nonetheless, but I was able to join forces with my, uh, brother-in-law and my father in law. And my father-in-law is probably one of the smartest people I’ve ever been around. Uh, Steve Hoak and he brought me into his firm and we worked on a 77 unit condo project because in the, in the two thousands, one of the great ways to make money was building condos. And we were, we were smart about it, about it. We built in two phases, we sold out the first phase pretty much. And we started building the second phase of our development right around the end of 2007. So going into 2008, the timing just was not on our side. So I learned a ton about, uh, the real estate industry, how to climb adversity. And I learned a ton from, uh, Steven, Ken Hoak that has kind of really helped me through my, through my real estate journey that I’m on now.

Reed Goossens (08:09):

And bridge the gap. What did you do? Did you stay in Boise for a long period of time? Cause I was 2007, 2008. What were you doing in the interim? Did you come back to the DC area?

Gregory Lyons (08:18):

Yeah, 20. We moved to Charlottesville, Virginia and kind of set up shop here with two young kids. And my wife is a wonderful real estate agent in the Charlottesville area lease Alliance. And we, I moved into, uh, real estate development for a health and fitness company that has, uh, 12 locations and three states. I was also fortunate enough to, uh, get some partners together and we built three trampoline parks. Oh wow. In the state of Virginia jump trampoline park, which just an outstanding way to not only learn real estate, but learn to start up a business. And so that was, that’s some really, really great, um, times building businesses and, and, you know, kind of expanding the, the Jim footprint from a real estate perspective, but you know, right around the pandemic, um, probably 20 March of 2020, uh, my brother and I, Tim Lyons, who’s a Lieutenant in the FDNY, he’s a firefighter in New York city. We decided to join forces and say, Hey, how do we get into this multifamily world? Because multifamily, as we were studying the, the real estate industry, multifamily just kept coming up to us as, Hey, we really need to get involved in this. So we, we took the leap and we started getting involved. All right. That’s

Reed Goossens (09:32):

Awesome. That’s awesome. And, and where, what do you, what’s your in involvement today? I know in the, in the introduction I mentioned, you’re raising capital, you’re a licensed capital raiser. So talk to me a little bit about that and how, why you decided to go down the path of being a, a licensed capital razor and, and not maybe say an operator.

Gregory Lyons (09:47):

Yeah. There’s so many different ways to make money in real estate. And we decided that just kind of where our lifestyle was with our, with Tim being a firefighter, young kids, you know, I have a couple of kids being an operator, uh, just wasn’t in the cards for us at this point. So as we kept networking in the real estate industry in the multi-family world, people needed help raising funds. You know, people have wonderful deals. Some people have great deal flow. Other people, you know, do not, but inevitably people need money to close their deals to renovate their deals. So we kind of found our niche saying, okay, we get that. How can we be a solution to your capital problem? We went out and, uh, joined a broker dealer and we, uh, we were licensed through FINRA and the SE and what we do is we just raise money for established operators and there’s, there’s some positives and, uh, some negatives to becoming a licensed capital raiser.

Gregory Lyons (10:47):

The negative is all the, uh, all the testing and the, all the fees you have to pay. But really for our investors, there’s an added layer of security. Our broker dealer just doesn’t throw out deals in multifamily and self storage. There’s a third party, uh, underwriter, there’s a third party legal check. Our broker dealer goes to each and every project that we raise money for goes through every unit does a market study. So there’s that extra layer of protection and thoughtfulness that we have that we can pass along to our investors that say, Hey, we’re not just taking the operator’s word for it. You’re not just taking my word for it, but we have professionals looking at each and every deal that we’re raising money for.

Reed Goossens (11:31):

That’s awesome. And, and I, I know the gentleman who you’re speaking of the, the, uh, is it capital one investors,

Gregory Lyons (11:37):

Uh, phase phase one

Reed Goossens (11:38):

Financial phase one financial phase one, and I Desmond and Dave. Great, great guys. Uh, absolutely. I’ve used them personally on my deals. Uh, you’ve probably been involved somehow. Mm-hmm through, through osmosis really, really, really awesome stuff. Talk to me in that space of, of how to get accredited, because I think a lot of people don’t, they wanna raise money there. There’s been a bit of turbulence in the, in the SE world over the last probably two or three years. What, what, what is it that you learned coming out of your training and decided to go down the broker dealer route?

Gregory Lyons (12:11):

Well, more than only thing, Tim and I at Cityside capital, we wanna sleep well at night, right? And, and that means getting the licenses and joining a broker dealer, we felt good about, Hey, we we’re above board on our capital raising duties. And a lot of people raise money for multi families, self storage deals. And it is, it’s actually illegal just to raise money and not participate in the general partnership. So we didn’t want any part of, we didn’t wanna be in a gray area really. Uh, we wanted to be kind of above board with the whole thing. And we knew we weren’t operators at this point and capital raising was our thing. So going down the licensing route again, with all that third party infrastructure in place, we really thought it was a good place to bring our investors along.

Reed Goossens (13:03):

That’s awesome. And, and talk to me about how you built out that investor database, having the FINRA and the S sec securities license behind you and going out and starting Cityside capital.

Gregory Lyons (13:14):

You know, the, the best thing you can do when you’re raising capital is tell people what you do first and foremost, when you’re talking real estate, people wanna talk to you at a cocktail party, right? Mm-hmm because, uh, you, you’re not selling insurance. You’re not, you know, selling encyclopedias, you know, stuff like that. Everyone thinks they’re a real estate investor, but no, most people are the daydream real estate investor. They hit Zillow, they hit, they hit, uh, realtor.com, see how much their house is worth. See if they could buy their neighbors house and really become moguls. But, you know, taking that extra step and kind of bringing the daydream investor along on a journey of education, that’s really what city saw I capital’s all about. And we’re saying, Hey, real estate syndication is a real thing. It’s a tangible thing that you can get involved with. It’s not just some secret, you know, society that, that some people do. It’s the education piece to say, Hey, this may not be your whole portfolio, but make this, make this real estate syndication a part of your portfolio, just for diversification outside of the stock market bonds or whatever else you invest in.

Reed Goossens (14:21):

You know, it, it’s so important to have a diversification and being myself involved in the space since 2014, it’s, I’ve seen it evolve so much. And, and really the impetus of that was jobs act changing in 2012, where, you know, we can, people can go out and start soliciting, uh, regular investors for investments into securities. And I’m sure, you know, probably a lot more about the, the actual wording and the reg regulations, but from a high level point of view, the S sec, to change their laws for the jobs act, and that caused a lot of people to open up their eyes about the possibility of investing directly into these real estate deals that historically weren’t available to the average, Joe, right? So you are really acting as a conduit between the average Joe investor, the average mom and pop who wants to invest in real estate. Like they invest in the stock market, uh, and get the same returns. Because historically it’s been a bit of an old boys club where, you know, these, these bigger real estate transactions have gone down where you’ve only gotta be on the inside to understand what goes on. Right?

Gregory Lyons (15:20):

Yeah. You know, we’ve absolutely taken the veil off of it and made it available. There’s so many different ways to get into the stock market. There’s Robin hood, mm-hmm, , um, there’s all these different apps, uh, acorns and stuff like that. You could buy fractional shares of this fractional shares of that. For the most part, people are invested in the stock market, whether it be their, through their 401k, you know, but that is the traditional way of doing things. Moving a little bit of your portfolio into a real estate. Sy gives you the diversification, but it also gives you some upside of not only when these properties sell, you could get maybe a lump sum, but you get cash in your pocket on a monthly or quarterly basis. That’s real. You have to, to recognize gains in the stock market. You have to sell stock there’s capital gains, stuff like that. But to get money into your bank account on a monthly or quarterly basis, you can use that for tuition. You could use that for groceries. You could use that for your vacation fund, but that’s real money in your pocket. And I think that is such an important thing that, that people don’t understand, because a lot of times, 20 years ago, they know a guy that got into a deal and they got screwed out of this that it’s not like that anymore. And, um, the real estate syndications are a wonderful part of people’s portfolio.

Reed Goossens (16:40):

That’s exactly right. No, talk to me about how you are going about building out the business day. Are you doing any sort of outreach marketing to, to investors? Are you allowed to do that? Are you, you know, doing online Facebook ads, how are you growing your database to, you know, people about what you do? Because I’m sure people like myself, when I went through a transition out a, a W2 job into this world of cap raising and, and, and doing deals, you gotta tell em a few times, right. Mm-hmm how have you gone about how you and your brother gone about reeducating, your friends, your family, to increase the awareness of what you’re doing in and around education and in and around marketing online?

Gregory Lyons (17:16):

Yeah, I would, I wouldn’t really call us a, a Cityside capital, a capital raising company. We’re more of an education company and, um, kind of taking people, it’s taken some people a year, a year and a half of seeing our stuff and seeing our blog posts to, to really get comfortable with what we were doing. It’s, it’s, it’s organic like that. You’re getting people on our mailing list talking to people, but we also started the passive income brothers podcast. We started that in December of, uh, last year. And that has been another great way to kind of blast out the message. And we have guests on, uh, one day we’ll have, uh, a podcast investing in the USA, uh, that, that, that mirrors the success that you’ve had. But, uh, but not just yet. So it’s, um, the podcast it’s telling people what you do, and more than anything, we’ve helped, you know, a lot of investor get into, I think, 11 deals by 10 or 11 deals. That’s great. People are getting real returns and, you know, that makes raving fans out of our current investors. Right? Yep. So they tell the next person, Hey, you need to talk to Tim and Greg. And a lot of times that’s a, that’s a phone call, introducing people to what we do, putting them on our mailing list. And then it’s that education journey that people have to go on to get comfortable with the process.

Reed Goossens (18:33):

That’s, that’s exactly right. And, and, and the word of mouth is so important. And I even I’ve seen in my portfolio, I’ve actually just come right now, six or seven years into it. I’ve started to now cycle deals. And that’s so important to show invest, Hey, you invested in my deal as an operator, what has been the impetus of asking people for that capital it’s trust, right? They trust you. They, they, they know that you and your brother are trustworthy and they, they can then go and invest you. Like when I asked for capital in the beginning, I remember that first, my first deal I ever lead syndicated, I sold last week and we made people like a 1.9 X on their money. It was, it was fantastic over

Gregory Lyons (19:10):

Saw that. Congratulations, congratulations. That was fantastic.

Reed Goossens (19:13):

But, but what, what I’m going, where I’m going with that is some of the lessons learned along the way, like you are learning as well as you’re building out your business is that trust, right? And trust comes from doing what you say you’re gonna do returning people’s money, whether it be through pre returns or cash flow. And, you know, hopefully you guys are gonna get to some big exits and you can, you know, Hey, here’s your money back investor. I, I, I, I was a secure, I was a really good steward of your money. Do you wanna roll it over again? Right. And that’s the beauty of this business so that you can keep, um, rolling these 10 31 exchanges into bigger and bigger money, making people more and more wealth that the average investor probably just didn’t have access to in the beginning. So I think it’s ex incredibly awesome space to be. And you can obviously tell that I’m jazzed about it, but I’m sure you are as well.

Gregory Lyons (19:57):

Yeah. You know, it’s the no like, and trust factor. Right. And, um, you know, Tim and I are, are nothing special. We were not born with the silver spoon in our mouth. And, you know, you could liken us to average Joe’s, but we we’re taking action. And that’s the biggest part of, you know, people are scared about they haven’t done this before. Mm-hmm . So when, when they, when they finally have that, no, like, and trust, and they take action, get into a deal, kind of see how it’s going. That that’s really where the magic is.

Reed Goossens (20:25):

Yep. That’s that? That’s exactly right. Um, what is the plans for 20, 22 and beyond? What, where do you wanna grow this business? Who, where I, I know I met your brother in person at the I, IREC event LA uh, two weeks ago in Manhattan beach hunter Thompson’s event, incredible event, intelligent investor, real estate conference, highly recommend people get to the 20, 20, 23 version, but was meeting your brother, was chatting to him about it. Where do you see yourselves going in say, five years time?

Gregory Lyons (20:50):

You know, that’s, that’s a great question. We are having such a good time talking to people about what we’re doing. It’s been an incredible journey, but it’s, but it’s only been about 1820 months, which we can’t believe because we we’ve, we’ve kind of cultivated a, um, a great investor list. I think people are having good experiences, but for 2022, we are, uh, we’re actually doing our first 1031 exchange some from someone outside of, uh, we’re not rolling money over. We are, we’re working with a 10 31 person right now. And, uh, and that’s been a learning process, but what we’re we’re doing is we’re leveraging other people’s expertise. Uh, you met, you mentioned, uh, Desmond, uh, west and Dave Thompson leveraging, leveraging their expertise to find solutions for people is really what we’re looking to do in 2022 finding solutions for people 10 31, Hey, I just had an exit out of another deal I was in, I just got a big bonus at work. We’re looking to provide solutions. And I think if we keep stacking more and more solutions together in 22, I, I think we’re gonna have some success where it goes after that. I don’t know, you know, do we have big dreams? Of course we do. But right now, I think if we just keep helping the individual investor, I think it’s just gonna start building on itself.

Reed Goossens (22:11):

For those of you who are interested in staying up to date with all the latest happenings in my business, or to learn more about passively investing directly into my multifamily value ad deals, then head over to reedgoossens.com and sign up for my monthly newsletter. By signing up, you will automatically be not about my new up and coming investment opportunities. You’ll be able to stay up to date with all the latest real estate news here in the United States, and much, much more. So head over to reedgoossens.com and sign up date. Now back into the show.

Reed Goossens (22:47):

I, I honestly love that because I’m very much a person who I like to look into the future, but I know from my journey, like 10 years ago, moved to this country as an expat, didn’t even have a plan to invest in real estate. And now I have, you know, I’ve built a company of over 650 million, and I don’t say that to boast. I say it to show an example of someone, exactly what you are saying, Greg, is that you you’re focusing on the next two or three steps. You’re not focusing too much on the target or the goal. And I think that’s really important because in 10 years time, you’ve gotta look back on this stay and say, I remember being on the podcast for three, and we’re just talking about trying to help that first person get that, that 10 31 or that bonus in, into the real estate market.

Reed Goossens (23:30):

I’m working for them. And actually looking back in 10 years time, you’re gonna be like, wow, we’ve come a long, long way. And, and I just, I wanted to pause there on that particular note, because it’s so important for people and then building businesses to really understand one are those next two or three steps. Yes. You gotta know, understand where you the north star is, but not, but really being defined on what those next two or three steps are in the next six to 12 months is super critical. And focusing on that being hyper focused and then executing on the next two or three steps for 2023.

Gregory Lyons (23:57):

Yeah. You know, read the success you’ve had is because you took action, right? Decisive action. And action is not this big, massive thing you’re doing every, every day. It it’s the small steps. Right? It’s the baby steps. Yes, yes. And you just keep stacking those it’s um, you know, we tell a lot of investors, you know, we talk to people that have a couple bucks and it’s like, Hey, you don’t have to make a million dollar investment. Right. Right. We like to tell people, Hey, what, what if you made a $50,000 investment once a year and did that for five years in, in five years time, you’d have quarter a million dollars invested. And you just keep turning that over for the rest of your life. Right. And, and the cash flow and the, and the exits that you’re gonna have are gonna, are gonna be fantastic, which you make that commitment to $50,000 a year. Right. That’s my goal. Right. Do it for five years. And then you just let real estate and time do its thing.

Reed Goossens (24:52):

That’s exactly right. No, I, I, I completely agree. And a lot of people don’t talk enough about that. Exactly what you say. They’re setting the goals for the investor to think, oh, I can only get involved in real estate. If I have a million dollars or have a half a, that’s the beauty of syndication, that’s the beauty of what the jobs act allowed, what you are doing right now, how you got licensed. It’s all, it’s all in. And around that, that the spark from that 2012, uh, change in the legislation to help the average investor invest $25,000 or $50,000 mm-hmm and do it consistently over time. And the compounding effect of that will grow a, into a very impressive nest egg. And again, taking the same steps and adages that you go and invest in the stock market, but applying it to real estate investing.

Reed Goossens (25:35):

So no doubt. So absolutely love that stuff. And I, no doubt that you guys are gonna be super successful because you are down to worth, I met your brother, we just met today, but it seems that you both have a genuine, um, sense of coming to wanting to help people. And that’s really, really important. First and foremost, I do wanna pivot a little bit to talking about, you mentioned in the, in the greenery, if you wanna talk about it, cancer survivor, it’s a big thing that a lot of people don’t talk about. I’ve talked a lot about on the show, my mom passing away a couple of years ago in 2017 and how that was a really, really grounding effect for me in this journey to building stuff. And it’s, and it’s gonna relate back to how you are building your company with your brother. Right. I also lost my sister when I was 12 years old to cancer. So I’m, I’m very, very, you know, aware of cancer as a whole. So you can tell me to shut up and we don’t have to talk about it at all, or, or we can, we can, we can dive into it and, and, and, and, and unravel what these, you know, know vulnerabilities, help us create clarity in our life in order to go out and pursue things that mean the most to us.

Gregory Lyons (26:35):

Yeah. That’s well put it’s, um, it’s gonna be 26 years in July when July 17th. Um, wow. It’s gonna be 26 years since I was diagnosed with cardio carcinoma, which was basically a big grapefruit size tumor, uh, knocking my stomach and my, uh, spine outta place. So I had back pain and I wasn’t eating. So I was losing weight and the, um, the cancer spread all over my lungs wrapped around my aorta valve. It was on all of my organs, but it didn’t go into any of my organs. So that was the lucky part. Right. And, you know, chemotherapy 25 years ago, uh, is not what it is today. It was, it was a little bit rough, but, you know, I, you take the positives out of a lot of this stuff. And I had a wonderful support system. Um, uh, my mom, dad, brother, uh, Brendan brother, Tim, and, um, you know, great friends, Willie D um, uh, wall street ma now, but we, I had a great support system.

Gregory Lyons (27:36):

It’s been able to gimme some perspective over life. I, uh, I wake my kids up every day and I tell ’em, it’s a great day to lions. And I do mean that because, you know, you know, not every day is guaranteed, but, and I had it at, I had cancer at such a great time. It was, it was in July right after my senior year in high school. So I missed a year, but yeah, it took me a year to go to college, but, but that was fine. And it just gave me such a wonderful perspective of nothing’s guaranteed. Mm-hmm, take action when it’s right in front of you and just enjoy every single day. So being on this podcast, talking to the, your millions of listeners, this is, this is all, this is all additive to me, this is just so much fun and why not do real estate where I have a passion for it, helping people and getting, you know, stacking wins on top of each other,

Reed Goossens (28:28):

Man, that was turning, she was down my spine. That was, uh, thank you for sharing that. I, I, I could only imagine at such a right young age, going into manhood and, and leaving col high school, going into college, you know, wanting to have that be the, the coming of age, sort of, you know, what, what most Americans think care and most, you know, most people in the west world go to university for, at least for me, it was very coming of age. I was turning 17 going onto 18. I could only imagine at the time that how it would’ve rocked you and your family, um, to, to, to, to experience that. And, and, and the Castin, I I’m very familiar about that, that strain of, of cancer. Um, my mother had UUs uterus cancer, so it was also carcinoma. So very, very aware. And thank you. Thank you very much for sharing. I really appreciate that, uh, opening that vulnerability up. I, I, I, I echo everything you’re saying, you know, being, being grateful, being present, understanding what your wires and, and, and I think you said you just, even your attitude towards, against you. Like, I got it a good age. Like I was like, that’s something really positive to say, like, you’re taking the positives outta that. Cause it helped you set your life up to what it is today. So, um, yeah.

Gregory Lyons (29:34):

Hey, things happen for a reason and it’s not always positive and they were tough days. And, um, you know, it’s still hard to talk about, but

Reed Goossens (29:44):

I could imagine.

Gregory Lyons (29:44):

Thank you. It’s um, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, but it is just, you know, it’s, every, everyone goes through something, right. If there was smooth sailing, you know, anyone could do it, right.

Reed Goossens (29:54):

Life would be easy, right. Like

Gregory Lyons (29:56):

Life would be easy, but it, but it’s not, but it it’s what you do with those setbacks and, um, and, and things in your life that happen. And, and what do you make out of it? And, uh, I say it was, it was good to get it when I was 18 because my body was able to take it. It was able to take the chemo and it was able to recover a little bit better than, you know, and then I am now at 43 and I’m, I’m not sure how the body would react to, to something different. So it was, it was a, it was a huge part of my life, huge part of my family and friends life. And, um, it’s something that’s with me and something that I, I use to propel myself forward every day.

Reed Goossens (30:33):

And, and, and, you know, just, just to round out the conversation, it’s actually, it was non-genetic, uh, right. It’s one of those weird freak cancers that you just find out and you’ve got it and then got to go deep. Gotta good deal with it.

Gregory Lyons (30:43):

It was the first time I won the lottery and only time .

Reed Goossens (30:47):

Yeah. Well, mate, look, thank you so much for sharing that and being vulnerable over. I just, I like to get those stories out on these podcasts one, because it’s personal to me as well. I’ve had a very close to my family. Um, but also how it just reconnects you with what your, again, what your wires, why you’re on this journey and also how you take risks. I think there’s a little bit of, like, you’ve been so close to, to death and, and, and, and facing these challenges early on that you, as a person will have a different risk appetite. Not that it’s a bad thing. People think of risk appetite as bad things, but you’re gonna go out and give it a crack, right? Give it a go. And I think that is so what I, what I stand for, you know, my whole motto on this show is be bold.

Reed Goossens (31:26):

Be brave, go give life a crack. Like we’re here being put on this earth to, to, to enjoy it. And not, you know, you mentioned earlier, not just, you know, get into a job and retire at 65 and then start living life. And so you wanna be there for your kids. You wanna be able to enjoy your time. You wanna be to go on holidays and do whatever makes you, you tick. Thank you again so much for, for sharing that with us. Um, at the end of every show, we’d like to dive into the top five investing tips. You don’t know what those investing tips are gonna be. There’s five questions lightning around that. I’m gonna ask you, are you ready to get into it, Greg?

Gregory Lyons (31:56):

Let’s do it,

Reed Goossens (31:57):

Mate. What is the daily habit you practice to keep on track towards your goals?

Gregory Lyons (32:00):

I try to work out and move my body every single all day. Some days that’s, that’s as little as a couple pushups or a walk in the neighborhood, but I try to move my body every single day. It’s a move or to lose its situation.

Reed Goossens (32:13):

That’s awesome. And I’m sure that comes from

Gregory Lyons (32:15):

Your oh, absolutely.

Reed Goossens (32:16):

Your time, uh, battling cancer. So I, I could only imagine, I’m sure you’re eating very healthy, right. As well. Like you,

Gregory Lyons (32:21):

Uh, you know, that’s a little bit more of a rollercoaster and, uh, you know, that’d be a whole nother podcast, but, uh, I try to, I try to do the right thing. That’s awesome.

Reed Goossens (32:29):

That’s awesome. Uh, question number two is who’d be the most influential person in your career today.

Gregory Lyons (32:34):

Wow. You know, um, you know, a couple people that, uh, I don’t even know Robert Kiosaki for writing rich Dadd poor dad, Jim Rome, just for, um, just for his mindset and, and, and changing my, my mindset to want this multi-family journey even more he’s, he’s had an incredible, um, effect on my, um, both my brother and myself and our mindset, the, uh, the Jake and Geno community, Gina Barbara has been wonderful to us and, you know, has, has taught us so much about the industry and, um, has been able to establish, uh, you know, a network for us, which has been fantastic.

Reed Goossens (33:14):

I, I know Jake and Geno very, very well. Uh, and, uh, they’re good guys. They’re really good guys

Gregory Lyons (33:20):

At heart. Absolutely.

Reed Goossens (33:21):

So, so awesome. Big, big, thanks there. A lot of people there that you’ve pulled inspiration from, but I think that’s really, really important. Yeah. Um, question number three is what is the most influential tool in your business? Now, when I say a tool, it could be a phone, a physical tool, like a phone notebook computer, or it could be a piece of software that you can’t run the business without. What is the most influential tool in your business?

Gregory Lyons (33:44):

I, you know, I think the, I think that one of the most influential tools in our business is Tim and I’s personality. Mm. It is, it is, you know, we’re, we’re on this real estate journey to make our lives better. And we’re not just telling you, you know, what you should do. We’re living the journey right. Alongside of our investors. Um, you know, we, we’re not, we’re not living in mansions or anything like that one day, maybe. Yeah. Who knows, but we are living the journey right next to our investors. And we believe in it so much. We invest in all these deals that we do our personality, I think helps us tell the story of not only ourselves, but why real estate syndication and putting your money to work in syndications is important.

Reed Goossens (34:30):

Right? Yeah. I, I, I don’t think I ever had someone on this show after doing it for six years, over 300 episodes say personality. So I think that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s freaking awesome. Cause I, personality is why people invest in you, right? Mm-hmm they trust you. They like you, they’re drawn to you. They’re drawn to your story. They’re drawn to your personality and that’s, what’s gonna build that ability to say, yes, I wanna invest in your deals.

Gregory Lyons (34:50):

So now, you know, a cell phone, um, having a podcast, having a website, all those things really, really help, but it’s um, but everyone has that. And you know, why are you going to invest with, with certain people is, uh, and I think that’s what makes a difference.

Reed Goossens (35:05):

It, it comes down to your personal brand, right? People invest in who you are. So I love it. Could talk about that for hours on the show. I have talked about hours on the show and for anyone who’s listening, uh, definitely check out the book, uh, key person of influence by Dan Priestley. It talks all about being, uh, a brand, uh, in and around yourself. So, awesome stuff. Question number four is in one sentence, what has been the biggest failure in your career and what did you learn from that failure?

Gregory Lyons (35:29):

The biggest failure is probably not telling enough people what we’ve done so far. You know, we, I I’ve, I’ve changed careers a couple times being a basketball coach, being a, being a, a condo developer. You know, I think that, you know, with, with this new venture, the, you know, some, you know, we may come up short from raising, uh, X amount of dollars that we committed to. So there’s a failure of, of not telling enough people what we do. But, uh, for the most part, my biggest failures have been, um, in, in kind of past lives, you know, like, um, when, when the condo market, um, when the, when 2008 happened and the condo market went could put, could we have seen that? No. Um, and I think we did everything we can to kind to kind of hold on, but, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s really the life lessons of every day. So I couldn’t do one big failure. Um, cuz there’s been so many along the life.

Reed Goossens (36:25):

No, that that’s fine. And I love the pause there cause it’s, it makes people think about what it is that they they’ve learnt along the way. And I think I, I probably real, um, emulate the same issues when I first thought it started. I remember my first $500,000 and going and thinking, this is gonna be easy and going out and hearing crickets. Right. mm-hmm

Gregory Lyons (36:43):

and it’s

Reed Goossens (36:43):

Absolutely. And it goes back to not me, not investing enough time in the education piece, right. That’s where I double down on the podcast and all that sort of stuff. So getting that message out. So I think that’s really important for, for people listening to the show, that last piece, because you, you are, I’m more unknown than you, you think, and you need with all the social medias out there in the world, you need to have a bigger microphone and tell more people about what you do. So it owns the top two inches in their brain when they think about real estate. Absolutely. Um, last question, Greg is where can people reach to continue the conversation they wanna be in your sphere? Where do they go?

Gregory Lyons (37:14):

They should go to Citysidecap.com and um, chat, check out more than anything. Check out our, uh, educational resources, our blog. There’s a link to our podcast, the passive income brothers. And that’s where we take a deep dive with a lot of guests that we have into their real estate journey and how they get started. And it really centers around taking action. It’s for the passive investor it’s for of the, uh, operator it’s really for anyone, but it’s Hey, how do I take action to get involved in real estate?

Reed Goossens (37:45):

Love it, love it. Love it, mate. Well, I wanna thank you so much for jumping on today. Show, I just wanna reflect a few of the things that I took away from today’s show. I think thank you first and foremost, for being so vulnerable in and around your story. I think that is it’s really what we’re, we’re put on this earth to do share these vulnerabilities with other humans. So other humans can take advice and solace to know that they’re not the only ones going through , you know, and, and I, I can swear on this podcast cause it’s my podcast. Um, but, but, but it’s, but, but I do wanna thank you from the, from the, from the bottom of my heart to, to share that with people, because we talk a lot about successes and building businesses and all that sort of stuff, but it’s understanding where people come from and understanding their motivation to go out and, and live the day, day to day, be present, be with the kids, understand why you’re on this journey for business is a big part of it.

Reed Goossens (38:29):

This is what we talk about on the show, but having other pillars in your life is so important, your health, your wellness, your family, if you’re into religion, fantastic. If you’re into spirituality, fantastic, whatever it is, you need other pillars, not just the business. So being well balanced across all of it. I really get that that from you. And, and I just love what you said about your personality. You and your brother are building something around you, being genuine to people and helping them get across those first couple. You know, you mentioned earlier that you’re not, you don’t live in a mansion. You’re not focused on the next 10 years. You’re focused on the right now, the next three or four steps in the next two or three years to help move the business down the road. And I think that’s so, so important mate, to live anything out.

Gregory Lyons (39:08):

No, I don’t think so. This has been an absolute pleasure. Just allowing me to tell my story, uh, and, and the journey of Cityside capital. We’re gonna be around for a long time and you know, hopefully we’ll have around two somewhere along the line, but this has been absolutely fantastic.

Reed Goossens (39:24):

Awesome brother. Well, look again, thank you so much for jumping on the show, enjoy your rest of your week and we’ll catch up very, very soon. Although you have another cracking episode, gak with some incredible advice from Greg. If you do want to go and check out to citysidecap.com, click on the click on the link, go to what he’s doing over there with him and his brother and his podcast. Definitely give it a rate and review on iTunes. I wanna thank you all again for taking some time outta the day to continue to grow your financial IQ. Cause that’s, we’re all about here on this show and you know what I will tell you at the end of every episode, if you’d like this show, the easiest way to give back a jump on iTunes, give the show five star review, all the, no, all the notes and the links from today’s show will be up on my website at reedgoossens.com. And we’re gonna do it all again next week. Remember be bold, be brave and go give life a.