RG 320 – Finding the Balance Between Your Day Job and Your Business with Andrew Schutsky
In business, rewards are not immediate. It takes time to find your groove while starting a business from scratch. Fellow entrepreneur and podcaster Andrew Schutsky is here to tell us his secret sauce to building a business while working a day job.
Andrew Schutsky is the founder of Redline Equity, a real estate investment firm providing passive investment opportunities to busy professionals; the CIO of TE Connectivity, a $700 million medical technology company, and the host of the Crushing Cashflow podcast.
Andrew found out early on much opportunity there is in real estate. Like most entrepreneurs, he started his real estate journey working through limitations before he found strategies that worked for him.
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In today’s interview, we talk about finding the balance between your day job and business, how to prioritize while starting from scratch, the importance of understanding what niche you are in, and a whole lot more.
Building a business from the ground up is not easy, nor is it quick. If you’re struggling to prioritize, remain consistent, or find where you belong on the wheel, tune into this episode to learn how you can overcome these problems.
Key Takeaways
You don’t control your own destiny, and you don’t know if your outlook will change—why not plant some seeds now?
You can’t avoid the struggles and limitations you will go through at the start.
Building consistency is the key to finding the perfect balance between your day job and business.
- Starting your business from scratch takes time; rewards are not immediate.
- Don’t lose sight of what you’re working so hard for; take breaks, then refocus.
- A support structure is essential in handling a business while taking care of your family.
LINKS
https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-schutsky-33a12b3/
https://www.investwithredline.com/
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crushing-cashflow/id1557121655
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Podcast Transcript
Reed Goossens (00:00):
Good day Good day guys. Now, before we dive into today’s show, I want you to let you know that some of you may be 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,
Andrew Schutsky (00:40):
That thing it is completely about awareness, you know, and if, and if you’re not one that’s, self-aware look to others to keep you honest, because I think matter how great your plan is, how great your routine is, how much time you think you may be spending. I know that I fall behind just being present. You know, even the time I do carve out to my family, it’s really hard for anybody that’s working a job or in a business and trying to build a business to not to have those thoughts consuming your mind day to day, right? So I think having a check in with yourself, whatever your cadence is, probably daily is the right one. Am I being present to the people that I love and support me? And that’s gotta be number one, am I, is my health being interrupted? That’s gotta be, you know, right up there too. And the answer is no, I gotta make some adjustments. So being aware of when you need to make an adjustment, I think is absolutely key to sustaining success. Success. Anybody can do stuff well for a month or two, but doing this for 10 years or 20 years and being happy while doing it is a whole different level.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
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-getters 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 (02:04):
Good day good day, 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 every with us on the show. Now I’m glad that you’ve all tuned into it to learn from my incredible guests and each and every one of them are the cream, 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 flow, 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 (02:51):
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 bots. 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 wherever you podcast on iTunes, SoundClouds 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, but 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 today’s show.
Reed Goossens (03:37):
Turn the show are the pleasure of speaking with Andrew Schutsky. Andrew is the founder of redline equity, a real estate. This syndication firm that specializes in acquisitions improvements and management of large apartment buildings. He also has over 15 years of real estate investing experience, and he actually began his experience doing a house hack on his first home back in 2007. I’m definitely gonna dive into that today for all you listeners out there who want to do house hacking he’s in the multifamily space. He’s currently involved as both an active GP and an LP in over 1100 units. And he’s also the host of the crushing cash flow podcast, which you can find on iTunes. And I’ve had that been the pleasure of being a guest on his show. So definitely go check that out. And in addition to all that, Andrew works in the technology space. He is a CIO, the chief information officer for a 700 million medical technical business, uh, technology business, I should say, based out of Pennsylvania, I’m really excited and pumped to have him on the show today to share he’s incredible insight and knowledge with us, but enough me let’s get him out here. Good day Andrew. Welcome to the show. How are you doing today, mate?
Andrew Schutsky (04:39):
Doing great, man. Thanks so much for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here.
Reed Goossens (04:42):
Hey man, my pleasure. And again, thank you for having me on your show. You as I encourage all the listeners to get over there, research it on iTunes and it’s, you know, just Google your name and I’m sure come up and we’ll have all the links from your side of the, uh, the pond on our show notes as well. So at the end of the show, but guys let’s get into it. So the first question I like to ask all my guests that come on the show is rewind the clock and tell me how you made your first ever dollar as a kid.
Andrew Schutsky (05:08):
So, uh, it, it’s funny. Uh, I find myself reliving my experiences through my kids. You’re now six and eight and I take my BA myself back to that same age and maybe my daughter, uh, I remember shopping the neighborhood selling candy door to door, and that was my first kind of dose of dopamine around entrepreneurship. And honestly, since then I’ve been hooked. You know, I did, you know, a bouts of DJing at my kindergarten and first grade dance, you know, I sold in, uh, installed car stereos to the years. Oh, wow. So it was really just trial and error, but it was always chasing some, something new and something, something exciting for me. That’s how it really started.
Reed Goossens (05:41):
Right. And, and walk us through your, your background into the world of real estate. I was, I mentioned the intro that you actually, you currently have a W2 job and we’re gonna get into the, the nuances of, of balance. And we’ll talk of, you know, big, uh, topic of today’s show. We’ll be around balance, but yeah, walk us through the sort of uni days and, and, and coming out and, and getting a job and then wanting to gravitate towards entrepreneurship and specifically real estate.
Andrew Schutsky (06:03):
Yeah. So it’s interesting. I started my, my professional career just like probably thousands of others listening. I came outta college. Technology degree, always had a passion for technology. And within the first six months of working, I had one profound insight really well, actually a couple one is I didn’t wanna do this entirely forever. I didn’t wanna do the typical, Hey work till you’re 64 and a half, whatever the 401k distribution age is and wait until that point to have some freedom. Right. And I also knew I was very passionate about real estate, always had been from my probably really grade school years falling along. My grandfather had a sixplex at time and I was like, Hey, this is really cool. Didn’t really know what to do with all the energy. So fast forward to my first year at a college, I was actually in management consulting.
Andrew Schutsky (06:45):
So if there’s listening or familiar with that type of career profession, I was on the road 50 weeks, a year, just grinding day in day. I really wasn’t home a lot. I’m like, wow, my, my house is sitting idle and empty one. I put an ad out on Craigslist, which at the time seemed maybe creepy to my, you know, my wife or my fiance at the time. But nonetheless, it actually worked out really well. I found a guy who was willing to come in. He had an opposite schedule, right? So he was in town in Delaware. I was during the week and when, on the weekends he would go home. So we really never saw each other. And I’m like, wow, let’s put some cash in my pocket. Why don’t I try scaling us a bit, uh, from house over house. And I started looking in Delaware and Philadelphia area, and I quickly realized, uh, the amount of capital you needed from an individual perspective was monumental, especially being in your early to mid twenties.
Andrew Schutsky (07:26):
You’re not making, you know, unless you’re really, really fortunate, half a million dollars, a million dollars a year, cuz you’re needing, you know, quarter million dollars to close. Each one of these properties, cash flow was slim. So I was like, okay, fast forward another four or five years. Let me try a different angle. I really like the beach and you know, vacation stuff. Let me try the vacation and short term rentals. Uh, and that started to click for me. And I still do that actually a bit. Uh, the limiting factor there for me was again, cost of deploying capital was very high. The ability to scale and, and kind of free your time up while working a job was really, really limited. It continues to be limited, a lot of pros around that space, but really my, my burning desire was to kind of rebuild what normally you’d have in a pension 10 years ago.
Andrew Schutsky (08:07):
Right. And build that and accelerate that journey to have some freedom flexibility into your late forties, early fifties, to do whatever you want. Right. I’m fortunate to be in a position where I really enjoy my, my day job right now. A lot of flexibility work from home, get the travel to cool places, but inherently there’s a couple things that come to mind there. One, uh, you don’t control your own destiny. Uh, and, and two, you never know when that your perspective or outlook may change on that, on that journey. So why not plant some seeds now, you know, fast forward to the 2019 timeframe, you know, I stumble across this massive thread on bigger pockets of site. You may have heard of
Reed Goossens (08:42):
Just a little site. Just a
Andrew Schutsky (08:43):
Little, just a little bit. Yeah. It’s a little blip in the radar. I don’t know. A few million, just
Reed Goossens (08:46):
A start, you know, you, don’t just a, just a, there’s a little blog, like, like a mum and pop blog. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Andrew Schutsky (08:51):
Yeah. You may have you just Google it. You may get a couple of hits there. Anyway, I found this 60 plus page thread on there. My wife, and are on vacation and I’m like, this is what I’ve been looking for. You know, this, this multi-family journey. I found that the story of a local syndicator who lived down the street from me ironically, was a CPA, corporate professional, uh, enjoyed what he did, but really found this, this niche, you know, at the time it doesn’t seem like a niche to you and I, cause we’re in, we’re in the midst of it. But for those listening or may not be familiar with this, this multi-family investing commercial real estate side. A lot of the cons I’ve found in the single family and short terminal space, this really addressed a lot of the career career accelerating opportunities that would kind of distance yourself from just your limitations of your own income and your own, you know, personal time commitment were offset. And there was new possibilities being carved out like a light bulb, a light bulb went off, you know, from that point I, you know, hired a mentor, joined math from several mastermind groups and just really, you know, pushed my way into finding the first few deals together with partners and from, you know, from there the next couple years, it’s, you know, a lot of, a lot of different deals, a lot of different partners and meeting lots of great people like yourself in the journey. So
Reed Goossens (09:57):
Mate, it’s, uh, it probably resonates a lot with, with people listening to show obviously resonates with me because I have been there, you know, we’ve all start out. And we, we, before we were at press record, we’re like, you can’t avoid this part of where you’re at right now. This is building stage. It’s the I’ve stumbled across it. I’m passionate about it. Oh crap. I can’t just go leave my day job tomorrow. Right. I I’ve gotta build something from scratch. And that is this sort of call it gray period where you are, you, you you’ve, the blinkers have come off. You want to do more and be in it 24 7, but you also gotta keep the roof over head. You gotta keep the kids, you gotta keep the misses happy, you know, like all those things still matter. And, and so today in today’s show, I want to get into that balance because I’ve been there and I can talk about some of the, you know, the trials and tribulations that I went through, but I want to hear like where you are right now. How’s, how’s it going, building something, just give it, just give us sort of a, a sense to the listeners about where you’ve started and what you’re doing. What does your week look like when you’re trying to balance it all?
Andrew Schutsky (10:58):
Yeah. And I know there’s number one. There’s no magic bullet for everybody. So you gotta kind of find what works for you. And for me, you know, my schedule is pretty well set. I mean, life gets disrupted pretty much regularly, but I’m an early riser. Um, I don’t mind getting up early. I know that, you know, I work a lot with Ireland and Europe and my day job. So I’ve got some quiet time to myself before the family wakes up either during the day or during the weekends, actually I get all, I get those two or three quiet time hours before anybody in the house is up. And I try to take full advantage of that. And the keyword there is consistently take advantage of that. So consistency is key. It, it, sometimes it feels like I go 2, 3, 4 weeks at a time and I’m putting all this work in, I’m doing these, writing all these blogs and, you know, launching podcasts.
Andrew Schutsky (11:41):
And then it’s like, it’s quiet, crickets, crickets, crickets. And then I might back off for, for a week or two. Then I started getting new emails, engagement for investors. And I’m like, oh, okay, cool. Maybe this is working. So, you know, sometimes you’re putting in the work and the rewards aren’t immediate and that’s part of this game. That’s one thing I’ve learned. Uh, and one of the things I’ve learned is, you know, keep the work came in consistently, you know, whatever your schedule allows, whether it’s, you know, five to seven in the morning or seven to nine at night or nine to 12 at night, whatever your schedule is, know what the, the valuable activities you’re going to engage in our and stick to them consistently for a period of time, wherever, whenever no don’t, you know, don’t give up in a month or two or three or six months, or even a year, it takes time to get results.
Andrew Schutsky (12:21):
Right. And another, another tip I’d say for those listening is kind of know your niche. When I started out, uh, I was trying to do everything, you know, engage with brokers, find the deals, run asset management calls four 50 hours a week, get the two kids off to school. And it’s insanity. Honestly, I just don’t put yourself my advice. Don’t put yourself through that. Pick. One thing that you enjoy doing will, can bring value to the majority of, of people in the business and stick to that, and then master that for nine to 12 to 18 months and then move on to something else, right. As you feel you master that. But that, that would be my advice is don’t try to, you know, cure cancer, solve the earth, uh, a world’s problems with in trying to do four or five roles while you’re working a job. That’s just insanity. It’s setting yourself up for exhaustion.
Reed Goossens (13:05):
Yep. No, no. I, I love what you said and rewards. Aren’t immediate. So many people start in this business, you know, they start the podcast, they start start the blog. They ultimately, we talk a lot about in the show being a KPI, key person of influence. Um, if you’ve not read the book, uh, Dan Priestley has written that book KPI didn’t I didn’t make that up, but ultimately what you’re doing is you’re investing in yourself. You’re creating a company from scratching you the way you build, which you’re building that trust is through blogging is through podcasting is through, you know, making sure you’re getting, you’re building your email database and starting from scratch, starting from zero. It is tough and rewards. Aren’t immediate. It takes time. And so many people I see start it. They wanna start the podcast. I wanna start the blog or they wanna, you know, you know, be, be a contributor to bigger pockets or whatever to, to, to, to write books and, and constantly be a thought leader. It takes years, you know? And I think so many people think that, oh, I’ve been at this for six months. Nothing’s happening.
Andrew Schutsky (14:09):
Yeah, no, I totally
Reed Goossens (14:10):
Agree. But, but that it’s, it’s, it’s the, it’s the taking the bet, but then having the long term gain vision, I should say, to say that this will take a period of time because those rewards are not immediate. And we’re both, if you’re listening to this, we’re both telling you it’s take, we’ve both been there. It takes time. But what, what I’m interested about is in, and around what you said before about making sure you understand what niche you’re in, right. And what you can, you know, you can’t solve cancer in the world’s problem. Right. So how long did it take you to realize that like, was there, was there, was there, was there a dark point in time where you’re like, this can’t work like, oh, I’m yeah, I’m gonna burn out because I, not, this is not sustainable.
Andrew Schutsky (14:51):
You know, embarrassingly, I think it took me a year and a half to admit because I’m kind of a, I have a DIY hands on approach, go getter, go after everything hard and you know, quit complaining. And honestly, it probably took a little coercion for my wife too, to realize that like, dude, you gotta slow down, like enjoy the journey. And honestly it took, like you said, it took me a year and a half to realize, Hey dude, that’s, that’s, that’s kind of doing a mind map of all the things that like took it on my whiteboard. It was probably in the February timeframe of this year. I’m like, let’s pause for a second. I’m feeling stressed out. There’s a couple options, completely give up, which I’m like, Hmm. It might feel good for the next week, but you’re gonna regret this decision. Or let’s kind of let’s chart out four or five ideas or concepts or, or roles that you could fill.
Andrew Schutsky (15:35):
Let’s highlight one thing that you could do. Well, you know, so for me, I decided, Hey, I’d love to engage on the investor relations. You know, capital raising side. Let’s go hard on that. Like I clearly have no one, no one really. I wouldn’t see anybody’s master this. Right. There’s always there. You’re always a student of the game, but like, why not dial in your marketing, you know, dial in your, your copy on your website, get all that stuff tighter and tighter and follow those. doing that really well. And then, you know, lets somebody else, you know, partner with those who are willing or are, you know, are doing this full time that have the, the energy and desire to go after brokers or, you know, off market director, sellers or wherever you’re generating your leads, let them do what they do. And just realize it’s going to take you a little bit longer time, but that’s okay.
Andrew Schutsky (16:17):
You know that that’s completely fine. That’s completely normal. There’s you’re not the first or the 10th or the thousandth person to do this and real and make this realization. But like that’s been, my epiphany moment is like, holy crap. There’s not there. Wasn’t one moment. There was probably multiple moment. I just wake up on a Saturday morning. I’m like, what the heck am I doing, man? Like, this is this insanity. Like, why am I going through this? I already have a great job. Like my wife’s got a great job. Then I remind myself like, Hey, that flexibility, you want 10, 15 years out, five years out, whatever the time may be, this is not going to happen on its own. So stick, stay to the course is dial it back for now and just keep, you know, keep your eyes on the prize this few years out.
Reed Goossens (16:55):
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, add deals, then head over to reedgoossens.com And sign up for my monthly newsletter. By signing up, you’ll automatically be notified 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 (17:30):
Mate, that’s really powerful. And in one word that I just wrote down in my book here is, is the word surrender, right? I think there’s so many people and I’m the same way as entrepreneurs. You, you, you get so passionate about something you like, this is it again? The blinkers have come on this, this is it. This is what I’m gonna do. And you just throw everything against the wall, everything. Yeah. Like, and it is burning you out. My I’ve got a gray patch in the back of my head and my wife said, that’s my real estate gray patch. And I’m 36 years, 36 years of age. So I shouldn’t be having any grays just yet. But the idea of just like doing it all, but I love what you said about taking that pause and realizing one, what are you doing it for? Mm-hmm two that it’s gonna take you a bit of time, but three then also, how do I make it enjoyable so I can keep it going because ultimately if you burn out too quickly and you want to give up, yeah.
Reed Goossens (18:21):
You’re not gonna do anyone. Right. You, you, you feel, you feel defeated because you, you can’t go and you didn’t achieve what you set out to do. So can you maybe just unpack that a little bit more because I think so many people want to hear, so what did you do? What, what, like on your whiteboard, what did you do to say like, okay, there’s the underwriting, there’s the asset management, there’s the deal finding there’s, you know, the capital raising, there’s the marketing. How did you sort of break it down to, to, to come to the conclusion that I wanted to focus on this one thing
Andrew Schutsky (18:48):
I actually had, uh, fortunate enough to have access to a tool. It was kind of a, a planning tool through a mastermind program. I’m part of, and it was a wheel. It kind of, for those that could see the visual well, just, you know, for those that are only on audio, I’ll describe it. It was kind of a, a spoke and, and hub concept where you had the, just all the roles you just described, you know, capital raising, asset management, deal, finding, uh, investor relations, yada, yada, you guys know, listening, know all the different roles. And then on the outside was kind of your level of, of, uh, there’s. There was two dimensions, one, there’s a line for something you enjoy doing, but it’s like from one to five, how much do you enjoy doing it? And then from level of capability, from one to five, uh, shade in what you’re, what you’re most comfortable, most comfortable, more capable, feel, more com capable doing, sorry.
Andrew Schutsky (19:32):
And then you shaved in the two. And when you saw the biggest spikes between the correlation between those two, a axis that there were some ideas to like, Hey, maybe I should focus on this or that. And for me, it was, there was a couple of different areas, even like, you know, social media and podcasting was another one. So I, I, I came to, to drill down on one. I said, look, I can always expand into the next darkest spear in the next, you know, six to nine months, but let’s really dial in for this. Let’s go hard. My commitment to myself is a hundred, you know, 180 days first, you know, let’s finding the deal, let’s start, let’s start building that out more and more and just focus my attention and energy on that one thing for now. And Hey, the realization is gonna be, you’re not gonna have a 50%, you know, percentage of a GP going in, but you know what, that’s per that’s fine. You know, there’s, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. It’s much better than burning yourself out exhaustion and, and taking 0% of zero
Reed Goossens (20:22):
It’s, it’s so important you say that. Cause I, I have to mention it over and over again. I remember one of my old bosses at a real estate development company that I, you know, when I was leaving that company to go pursue what I was gonna pursue. Mm-hmm
Andrew Schutsky (21:05):
Uh, you know, I will, I can grab that for, you can put it in the show notes.
Reed Goossens (21:08):
Sure. Please do. Yeah. Cause I think it’s such a, it’s such an, I’ve got another one that I was sort of taught such learnt and it’s the same thing, but it’s in a X and Y graph, right? Yeah. And the, the, the X is what’s the X, the X is, moves the needle in the business. Yeah. So the Y is the move, the needle in the business. Yeah. I
Andrew Schutsky (21:25):
Remember this
Reed Goossens (21:26):
And the X is, is, is on the, and then you, you got quadrants, right. And then there’s, uh, the black time, the blue time, the red time and the green time. Yeah. And then it helps you. And I try and do that process once a year to recheck in, to say, what am I still am I spending enough time in the black time? Right. Of moving the deal forward. Now in the beginning, you are in all the times right now. But the goal is as you grow and you, you, you, you, you hire out for roles. Yeah. This, this Gantt chart helps you identify like that stuff in the red time. Yeah. You need to be finding someone who can do that for 15 bucks an hour. Like you shouldn’t be doing like the podcast editing all the posting or the, you know, whatever that might be. And as the Bo, as the business evolves, you’ve gotta keep checking in on that. So I love that you have your wheel and it’s all wheels, charts, whatever it is, but it’s, it’s a discipline, as you said earlier of doing it, because you don’t, you just, you’re just running in a direction
Andrew Schutsky (22:23):
And I should also add, like, the wheel is kind of, you’re a foundation. And then I, I just take it down to a weekly level of just, what am I, what are my, what are my goals for the week? Doesn’t have to be, you know, monumental, what am I doing to build my business this week or next week? And if I have on my vacation or next week, let’s double down the following, which is keeping that consistency. It’s not, it’s much less overwhelming saying, Hey, I wanna close 3000 units and 300 million, you know what, let’s break that into a weekly. And that’s checking. I like your idea of the, the yearly check and maybe even biannually like, Hey, how am I tracking? And what’s being done. Do I need to dial up? Do I need to dial down? Am I happy with my progress? Yada, yada, you got the idea. Yep. So
Reed Goossens (23:01):
I wanna pivot and talk about the other side of the balance, the wife, the kids, the, you as a, a human, you know, how’s that thing. Cause I know for me, and when I, I, I think back to my days when I was working fulltime yeah. At a development firm, which I was surrounded by real estate, 24 7 plus I was doing my side hustle and the podcast and all the things I don’t, I didn’t, I only just about to have my first kid, I didn’t have two kids. I didn’t like, how’s that been for you because that’s, that must be tough on the, on the family front, you know? And, and in creating the time to be there as a dad and as a husband and, and for yourself, you know, whatever that you might, you know, exercise or, or, you know, golfing, whatever that might be.
Andrew Schutsky (23:38):
Yeah, yeah, no, like I said before, there is absolutely no magic bullet and as much of a structured agenda, I think I may have for a week, life gets in the way kids get sick. The wife will travel, you know, and if it wasn’t for an extremely understanding wife, there’s just no way I could pull all this off. Right. And I have the flexibility in the job. I mean, that’s where I think I have a unique advantage and I’m, I’m very fortunate to have that. Not afraid to admit that though, if I, if I had to be on the road every week or I had to go in the office, you know, 12, 10 hours a day, uh, it would be a lot more challenging, but for right now, you know, having my wife and I both work from home kids, we have great, you know, childcare options for them, you know, for those that don’t definitely look at whatever, whatever options you may have available to have parents to live nearby. We purposely stayed in this area to have help with the kids. That they’re all part of my support system. And having for anybody trying to do this, you’re crazy to think you could do it on your own, on your own. I mean, it just, without having that support structure in place, it just wouldn’t be possible. I’m not afraid to admit that at all. You know, mm-hmm
Reed Goossens (24:37):
Mm-hmm. Yeah. And then what do you do to keep you saying, you know, what is your, what, what do you like to do to wind down and blow off a bit of steam?
Andrew Schutsky (24:45):
Yeah. So for me, uh, exercise and, and, you know, specifically weightlifting and fitness has been a part of my life for Ooh, since I’ve been an early teenager. Right. So I, I think that mental exhaustion to me leads to mental refreshment. Right? So without that, uh, you know, that, and then I, I really enjoy, I’m a big automotive, not hence the redline equity name inmy, in my brand, my, uh, company name and electronics. So they’ve been all parts of my passions of my life. And when they all come together, it’s great. But like, I, I love, you know, talking hobbies with people, you know, going out to lunch, you know, traveling. And again, like I mentioned, the exercise in my DNA longer than anything. So that’s awesome. That’s what makes life fun.
Reed Goossens (25:24):
Yeah. No, but it, it, again, the whole purpose of this show is about balance and showing balance across many pillars, because I speak again on the show a lot about, like, I see so many people who, who, who focus on the business. And I was, uh, guilty of this earn my early career path building. Yeah. Where I just focused on the business, that one pillar and then relationships and health and family. Yeah. Weren’t being as far. I didn’t, I didn’t make them a priority. And, and I did a podcast years ago after my mum passed away, talking about goals versus priorities and having it more balanced because if you lose that pillar of business and, and you know, let’s, let’s face it, there, there is that possibility and you don’t have the others balanced. Yeah. You, the only one, the only way you’re gonna fall is down.
Reed Goossens (26:08):
So making sure you create the time and the week for the kids to check in with the wife to make sure you’re showing up as a, you know, as a husband, as a partner and, and even showing up for yourself, you know, like making sure you’re having some time on your own is so important when you are in this building mode, because we’re all gonna be wanting to scale. There’s gonna always be the next mountain to scale. Right. And it’s, oh my God. It’s, it’s taking that time. And, and that self-awareness to, to just, just, I I’m, I’m, I’m doing enough.
Andrew Schutsky (26:37):
You, you took the keyword right in my mouth. I think it is completely about awareness. You know? And if, and if you’re not, not one, that’s self aware, look to others to keep you honest, because I think matter how great your plan is, how great your routine is, how much time you think you may be spending. I know that I fall behind just being present. You know, even the time I do carve out to my family, it’s really hard for anybody that’s working a job or in a business and trying to build a business to not to have those thoughts consuming your mind day to day. Right? So I think having a check in with yourself, whatever your cadence is, probably daily is the right one. Am I being present to the people that I love and support me, and that’s gotta be number one, am I, is my health being interrupted? That’s gotta be right up there too. And the answer is no, I gotta make some adjustments. So being aware of when you need to make an adjustment, I think is absolutely key to sustaining success, success. Anybody can do stuff well for a month or two, but doing this for 10 years or 20 years and being happy while doing it is a whole different level.
Reed Goossens (27:33):
Right, right, right. Do you practice any meditation or, you know, obviously working out is a, is a form of meditation that you actually do. You do any, anything on journaling reading? You know,
Andrew Schutsky (27:43):
I do. So my daily routine, uh, involves reading for sure. Every day, seven days a week, I try to do 20 minutes. Um, and also meditation. The keyword here for me is practice because I am not good at it.
Reed Goossens (28:24):
Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, no. I, I, if I don’t get my 20 minutes or 15, 20 minutes of meditation every morning before I turn on the computer and the phone, all that sort of stuff, my day is off. Yeah. And I just, I struggle through the day. So mm-hmm
Andrew Schutsky (28:41):
Let’s reed man, this do
Reed Goossens (28:43):
It, mate. What is the daily habit you practice to keep on track towards your goals and monitoring. You just answered it. But what is that number one habit.
Andrew Schutsky (28:49):
Uh, I think for me, if I had to pick one only, that’s been with me for 25 years. It’s been exercise it’s physical exhaustion just really makes me feel beaten down physically, but mentally refreshed.
Reed Goossens (28:59):
Yeah. No, I love that. I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m physical as well. If I don’t work out five days a week, I start to get a little stir crazy. So I agree. It’s awesome. That’s awesome. Uh, who has been the most influe question number two, who’s been the most influential person in your career to date?
Andrew Schutsky (29:12):
You know, it’s funny, I’ve had a lot of different mentors, both through the W2 and through the building real estate business. And honestly, the, if I had to pick one, it was probably my grandfather or, or my both of my grandfathers actually, who instilled that sense of entrepreneurship in me. And they may not realize this cuz they they’ve been long gone for a while, but uh, they planted the seed.
Reed Goossens (29:30):
That’s awesome. I love it. No, it starts at home, right? It starts with seeing as a kid growing up, seeing your uncle, your mom, your dad, your cousin, do something that you’re like, Hey, this, this is interesting. This is a little bit unique, so awesome stuff. Uh, in your business question number three, what is the number one or the most influential tool that you use? And when I say tool, it could be a physical tool like a, a journal or a phone, or it could be a piece of software that you just can’t run that business without. What is it?
Andrew Schutsky (29:56):
So maybe I, I might pivot a bit in my answer, but maybe it’s not a tool, but I would just say the power of consistent networking, whether through, you know, a mastermind program or even doing through the podcast. I think the biggest unintended benefit there was just meeting new people, professional connections, friends, they just make life exciting. So networking and the various tools behind that, uh, to get it done would be my, my first pick
Reed Goossens (30:18):
100%. And I, I could talk for hours about how this podcast I’ve been doing it for seven years now and wow. Uh, you know, just the people I meet, right? Yes. And, and, and, and you see, I got, I got a podcast to do it just like, oh, you know, but every time I get on it, you get it, that new wave, new wavelength of the other person and it’s, uh, fricking, fricking awesome. It’s like,
Andrew Schutsky (30:37):
That is really cool. It’s
Reed Goossens (30:38):
Like a drug, um, question number four is in, in one sentence, what has been the most, um, the biggest failure that you’ve faced in your career and what’d you learn from that failure?
Andrew Schutsky (30:49):
Hmm, man, it’s hard. It’s hard. It’s hard to pick one. There’s there’s been quite a few throughout my journey, but I’d say, you know, if I had to pick one recent, it was at epiphany. I had a year back and just saying I’m, I feel like I’m getting nowhere. I’m burned out. Mm. I feel like I’m struggling in family life. I’m, I’m struggling physically with health. I feel like myself getting sick more frequently. Mm. And if I, you, I took myself back just, you know, maybe six months ago, it was that one Saturday morning just saying, I’m exhausted. I gotta change what I’m, I’m working. I gotta change what I’m working on. I change my priorities and just dial things back a bit. Yeah. So I know that’s not, that’s a vague way of saying it, but that’s, that’s the most recent memory for
Reed Goossens (31:23):
Me. No. And what I’ve mentioned earlier, the, the goals versus priorities, where do they show up in life? And I talk a lot about, and have been spoken about, you know, goals, sort of our, you have a time limit against it. And I remember someone telling me one time, does it matter when you’re 70 years of age sitting with your grandkids, if you’ve done 2000 units in 2019 or 2025, you know, it doesn’t matter, right. As long as you’re there to be with them. And that’s the most important part. And we, even though we’re all geared this way, we sometimes gotta just check in with ourselves to make sure that, that we aren’t losing touch with reality. And that’s, it can get hard
Andrew Schutsky (32:00):
To me. It’s just a stake in the sand, right? You gotta have, you gotta have a north star to work toward mm-hmm
Reed Goossens (32:09):
100% mate, look, final question for you is where can people reach to continue the conversation they wanna be in your sphere? Where do they go?
Andrew Schutsky (32:14):
Easy’s easy for you guys. Uh, everything funnels right through our website. It’s investwithredline.com. We’ve got a free learning course on investing there. We’ve got tons of blogs out there. Our podcast is looked there. So that’s the one kind of funnel for everything
Reed Goossens (32:26):
Investwithredline.com. Is that right?
Andrew Schutsky (32:29):
Yeah. You got it.
Reed Goossens (32:30):
Awesome stuff, mate. Look, I wanna thank you so much for coming on the show today. I just wanna reflect some of the things and thank you for being vulnerable with, with your journey. Just rewards on a media, I think is the number one thing I took away from today’s show. Yeah. Rewards aren’t immediate balance is important. And making sure that you, you know, you’re learning to understand and doing that check in with your wheel, right. Your wheel or your Gant shot, whatever it might be, but you’re doing it consistently to know that you aren’t trying to solve cancer and solve the world’s problems all at once and keep a day job because it is just not possible in this line of multifamily investing and take it from me. Andrew, Andrew, we’ve both been there. We are. Andrew’s in it right now, but the building something from scratch will take time and give yourself enough time to, to, to, to, to make sure you’re enjoying the journey and you’re not being burnt out.
Reed Goossens (33:14):
Uh, leave anything am mate. You nailed it, man. You nailed it stuff, mate. Well, look again, thank you so much for jumping on the show. We’ll, uh, chat very, very soon and have a great week pleasures mine. Well, they have another cracking episode gem pack with some incredible advice from Andrew. Remember, if you want to get over to him, his website, it’s investwithredline.com. He’s got a ton of blogs and informational stuff over there that you can get your hands on, get your teeth stuck into and learn more about this incredible space. And if you just wanna reach out to him and have a chat, you know, he is in that, that, that the balance of the W2 and we’re building the business. There’s so many people listening to this podcast that are in that space. I was there, you know, fortunately I’ve, you know, graduated into the face space full time, but you gotta start from somewhere. So if you are wanting to reach out to someone like Andrew, please don’t hesitate. Cause he’s an awesome dude and really down to work and, and what I’m sure give you, you know, bit of his time. Uh, I wanna thank you all for taking some time outta your day to continue to learn about your financial IQ. Cause that’s what we all do each and every week and we’re gonna do it all again next week. So remember be bold, be brave and go give life a crack.