Episode 35 - From ZERO to a MILLION DOLLAR Business Using Social Media?!
What does it take to build a million-dollar business while still in your 20s? This episode is for you if:
👉🏼 You’re struggling to balance business growth with your personal life.
👉🏼 You want to learn how social media can become your top revenue driver.
👉🏼 You’re curious how to delegate tasks to level up your business.
In this episode, Stephen sits down with real estate entrepreneur Vayna, She opens up about the highs and lows of her journey. Vayna shares how she built her empire without an assistant—until now. With a passion for social media, consistency, and self-improvement, Vayna’s journey is packed with lessons for anyone looking to elevate their game.
Stephen and Vayna talked about:
00:00 — Investing Strategies: Seattle vs. Midwest
02:29 — Controversial Social Media Posts
04:35 — Handling Hate and Criticism
06:20 — Content Creation and Audience Engagement
07:50 — Personal Background and Career Choices
11:16 — Challenges and Success in Real Estate
12:03 — Transition to Wholesaling
18:59 — Real Estate Market Insights
29:18 — Unexpected Real Estate Deal
29:58 — Navigating Neighborhood Concerns
30:52 — Lessons in Real Estate Investing
31:50 — Building and Leading a Team
33:38 — Training New Wholesalers
35:37 — Challenges in Real Estate
37:39 — The Importance of Focus
45:14 — Social Media Strategies
52:21 — Personal Interests and Hobbies
57:01 — Final Thoughts and Farewell
TRANSCRIPT
∎ Teaser / Highlighted Clip
[Vayna Jerabek] (0:00 - 0:51)
And that one got 8 million views on TikTok and 10,000 comments talking about what a shitty person I am because I am a landlord and I'm renting out and I'm taking away affordability and all this. And 10,000 hate comments, 8 million views, but that boosted my following by 100,000. Imagine getting 10,000 comments about how bad of a person you are when you're 21 years old.
What are you supposed to think? I would rather be in a career where my potential is unlimited. I don't want to be capped by an income.
I didn't have a plan B, so I ended up just sticking with it and I just gave it all I had. If you want to change your life and live better and do something and build a business or whatever, it's all free. It's all out there and you can find everything you need and just apply it and make your dreams happen.
[Stephen Husted] (0:51 - 3:11)
This is the beauty of real estate investing. It's like you get in these new things and you're just learning as you go.
∎ Podcast Intro:
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∎ Guest Introduction:
Hey everyone, welcome to today's episode.
I'm really excited for this one because we got someone who's not only crushing it in the real estate game, but also using social media like a pro to grow her business. Vaina Jarabeck has been in the game for years now. And let me tell you, she's already doing a million dollars in revenue this year.
Crazy, right? She's a self-made entrepreneur and what really stands out is how she's built her brand and connected with people through video content. Did I mention she's also a poker player?
She's got a few tricks up her sleeve and she's going to share some of her strategies she's learned in business and beyond. Her journey is packed with lessons about focus, consistency, and pushing past limits. Trust me, you're going to get inspired by her story and the mindset that's driving her success.
Let's dive in.
∎ Podcast Proper:
Hi there. Hello.
How's it going? It's funny that when we first met on that, while I was reaching out to you to look into investing in Seattle, you passed me Ian's contact, which basically set the stage. And then we talked about getting on my podcast and then I had Ian on first.
And then I was like, okay, you got to reach out to Vaina and get her on after all this time. And I kind of wanted to start this off. The power of social media, how some can channel it and some don't.
Did I just open a big one up right there?
[Vayna Jerabek] (3:12 - 3:12)
That's the question.
[Stephen Husted] (3:13 - 5:06)
Let's just go there. Well, okay. Here's a great example.
I know that you're a wholesaler. You speak the truth on what you do on a daily basis and that's what you do, right? And you have your opinions on how you're going to get to where you want to be down the road, right?
That's not everyone's path. Now people will get confused or say, well, everyone has a path. You want to buy real estate and you want to hold it for the longterm and stay in Seattle or in the Seattle area.
You talk about cashflow compared to appreciation, equity, these all big sticking points. And it was funny. I was kind of, I don't know why I didn't jump.
I should have jumped in there, but I figured I would just have it on the podcast. And mine was kind of similar to your story. I started off investing in California, but then it got so expensive.
It took so long to save up for a down payment or nothing with cashflow. You'd have to bring in half a million dollars on an investment. The strategies were a little different than what I'm encountering right now in Seattle.
And so I moved to the Midwest and started going down that path. And I had that light bulb moment of, okay, I can buy a cheaper house. I can fix it up.
I can make a hundred thousand in equity, in cashflow, $200, $300. I'm not retiring by any means off this little cashflow. And I know people get a little confused on, you're going to just buy these rental properties and everything's going to be hunky-dory and you're going to retire.
It's a long-term play and you're going to have a good vision on this whole thing. But that post really, it really does. But you know, you have talking points, honestly, that can be very controversial to a lot, but you frame it really well.
You don't hide anything. You tell it like it really is. And I know this firsthand.
I've told Seld, I've done all the things you're doing, and it's great to hear how you do it. But yeah, that one post, let's talk about that post. Let's talk about it.
[Vayna Jerabek] (5:06 - 7:29)
Yeah. I didn't really expect that one to go off or ruffle as many feathers as it did. I talked about why I invest in Seattle because it's high appreciation versus investing out in the Midwest.
And the comments were all here and there, but it's so expensive to invest in Seattle, but the landlord laws suck. But for us, there's just so much upside to investing here. And that's why I just tell it like it is.
It's not like I don't know what's going on in the Midwest and how it is easier. I've never not considered it buying out there, but because there's so much advantage to me and I make plenty of money doing what I do, so I can invest that into the appreciating real estate here and take advantage of that long-term. And I think maybe that's another point is that thinking about investing long-term at the age of 23 is not very common.
And so, whereas you can go buy something on the Midwest for $20,000 and it does cashflow, I'm thinking about, okay, I buy a house for $500,000 now. It's going to be worth a million in 10 years. I can keep grinding, grinding on my day job of wholesaling as long as I can make that upside.
But the benefit of posts like that, because I think the questions on social media is that the more feathers you ruffle, the more views you get, period. And more than that one, I had a video about house hacking and how I was just doing a skit. I hadn't even been doing this strategy yet, but I made a video about how people will rent out their upstairs or rent out another bedroom in their house.
And it was a skit of me as the landlord house hacker. And I was like, well, I only pay a hundred dollars a month to live here because I rent the upstairs. And that one got 8 million views on TikTok and 10,000 comments talking about what a shitty person I am because I am a landlord and I'm renting out and I'm taking away affordability and all this.
And 10,000 hate comments, 8 million views, but that boosted my following by a hundred thousand. So while we have tons of hate coming in as creators and all this controversy, all it is, is just bringing eyeballs to my page and showing people what I do and just giving exposure to real estate and real estate investing, which is what I want. That's my big goal purpose vision with social media is to just show my generation, especially what you can do with real estate investing.
[Stephen Husted] (7:29 - 7:56)
Well, and you're leading the charge on that. I mean, seriously, it's cool to watch. And do you think that you get the hate comments because they're just not educated enough on the topic or it's a little bit of jealousy?
Because I don't know if people want, I think people want landlord, private landlords, homeowners, renting out rooms or doing whatever they're doing strategy wise, then let's say the government taking it all over. Which one would you rather have?
[Vayna Jerabek] (7:57 - 8:47)
Exactly. And that's what they don't understand, you know, in the eyes of someone and I get it, right? Because this is your average person who grew up renting their whole life.
That's all their family has done. It's all they've been able to do. They can't afford a house.
And so they're taking it out and projecting onto the people who are making it look easy and making it look beneficial. And I think it is a big amount of lack of education. And when I was in the heat of that, that was a couple of years ago now, but when I was in it and I was like 21 at the time.
So imagine getting 10,000 comments about how bad of a person you are and you're 21 years old, what are you supposed to think? But I was like, I have one house. I'm not BlackRock with 10,000, 100,000, a million rentals.
So what are you coming at me for? But it's not me, right? It's what I'm projecting or what I'm presenting.
[Stephen Husted] (8:47 - 9:18)
And how they take it in. Yeah. How they take it in.
For sure. How do you frame all your content on a daily basis? Because you're really good at that too with making it just seem very cut and dry to the point what you're doing instead of leaving out.
And I don't think everybody will catch this, but people that are seasoned investors that watch, we know exactly what you're saying and what you're doing. Even if you don't tell us, we kind of understand it. And you're good at framing it in a very straight to the point way.
I guess that's the best way to put it.
[Vayna Jerabek] (9:19 - 9:37)
I appreciate that. And that's what I try to do because on social media, the general advice is talk to the audience like they're six. And it's hard and kind of a niche that we're in to dumb down wholesaling and house hacking, especially into a 30 to 60 second video.
It's hard to do.
[Stephen Husted] (9:37 - 9:37)
Right. It's hard.
[Vayna Jerabek] (9:38 - 10:18)
So that's where I find myself repeating a lot. And I'm kind of just saying the same things over and over again, because you're catching new people every time and you have to say it a few times for people to get it. So I do my best.
And this is what I'm always working on is how can I make this more digestible for the average person? Because I don't want to talk to real estate investors. I want to talk to the average person.
I want to talk to people who haven't been exposed to this or haven't had the privilege of learning this at an early age like I did. And I want to just reach the masses. And so for me, it's always a question of how do I make this sound simple?
I don't need to make it sound easy, but I need to make it sound accessible and like anyone can do it.
[Stephen Husted] (10:19 - 10:41)
Yeah. You just hit the mark on that. So let's give a little backstory of what you do, who you are.
How'd you grow up? Because you started in a real estate background with your family. How did that get you moving from not going to college, but to go all in on real estate?
What did you see there? Was it a gut feeling or do you just say, let's just go for it. Let's see where it goes.
[Vayna Jerabek] (10:42 - 13:36)
It was hard. When I was growing up, my dad, he was a real estate broker and he was late to everything and he put work first all the time. And so when I was watching that, I was like, well, I don't want to do that.
I don't want to be working all the time. And I don't want to miss out on what my kids are doing, et cetera. And these are life choices that people make, right?
But when I got to high school and we were deciding between college and you know, it wasn't really a decision you make in high school. You just apply, you just go to college. That's what they teach.
So I applied and I was a great student. So I was like, well, I should probably just take advantage and go get my degree. And I got direct admin to the business school at university of Washington, which I hear is an accomplishment.
I didn't even know it at the time, but, and I thought about it and I was like, well, this is going to be expensive. And I don't even know what I really want to do. You know, I knew that I was smart.
I knew that I liked business. I knew I wanted to go down that route of some sort. So I, you know, I applied, but then, you know, what I realized about real estate and what dad does is that dad actually makes a lot of money doing this.
And there is a lot of potential to make an uncapped income. And so versus college can only get you so far, 200,000 a year, 250,000 a year at the executive level. And I was like, well, I would rather be in a career where my potential is unlimited.
I don't want to be capped by an income. And I also don't want to sit in a cubicle or work for someone else or have to wait to get my day off or put in for vacation time. My mom is traditional nine to five.
And I saw how she lives and what her career was like. And I was just like, well, if I have this opportunity to get my real estate license, I should just do that. And so I decided that college wasn't worth it for what I wanted to do.
College is definitely a good thing to do. If you know what you want, you know, you want to be a tradesman or a doctor or a lawyer. College is necessary.
I have been accused of saying that people shouldn't go to college, which isn't the case. It's a great thing. And it's there for a reason.
And if you want to just go around and have fun, you should go to college. But I guess I've just always been very future focused. I grew up listening to Jim Rohn tapes in the car with dad.
So I was raised on you've got to have goals and create a plan. And like, you know, all the general wisdom we hear these days in the business niche. So I decided to just forget it and go into real estate.
I was super introverted. I didn't like talking to people. I didn't know what it was.
I thought it was going to be like TV shows. And I was very disappointed. And there was probably a point or two where I was like, I don't like this.
I don't know if this is for me. I don't know if I'm going to make it here. But I didn't have a plan B.
So I ended up just sticking with it. And I just gave it all I had.
[Stephen Husted] (13:37 - 13:47)
Why didn't you think you weren't going to make it? I know you said you're an introverted. Was it dealing with people front facing with people?
What was the part you thought you weren't going to be comfortable doing?
[Vayna Jerabek] (13:47 - 14:20)
The only channel that I had to find business at that time as a new real estate agent was cold calling. And making those cold calls was brutal as someone who was like didn't have much education. I'm not experienced.
Right. And I'm calling people as a 19 year old asking them to sell their house. And I was getting the nose.
The conversations weren't productive. I wasn't connecting with anybody. And it just felt like it was never going to happen.
But then it did. And that's where I was all in. I was like, this is amazing.
I can do this.
[Stephen Husted] (14:20 - 14:33)
Let's hear about this because this is well. Well, I think what I just caught on to right there when you were telling the story, I didn't realize this part, but that beginning cold calling, that was a perfect pivot into wholesaling.
[Vayna Jerabek] (14:34 - 14:38)
Oh, I didn't start wholesaling until after three years of being a real estate agent.
[Stephen Husted] (14:38 - 14:43)
But you were cold calling. So that was your that was an easy try. Like, oh, cold calling.
Yeah, I've done that before.
[Vayna Jerabek] (14:44 - 15:26)
I can walk people through it. Yeah. When I got into wholesaling, the cold calling was super normal because I was cold calling for listings.
And when I got that first, it was probably like my fifth or sixth appointment when I finally won the listing. You know, I had made appointments before, which are a big accomplishment for the new real estate agent, because we're actually getting the opportunity to be in front of people and are in their business. And after hearing, no, we signed with someone else a few times, actually watching that listing agreement being signed and earning my first listing, it was great.
And then I sold it. And the first check was like $16,000. And I was, you know, I was overjoyed.
And I just was really satisfied that I had proven to myself that I could do this business.
[Stephen Husted] (15:26 - 15:47)
That's cool. That's really cool. And then how did it go from there?
You continued. So you worked with Tom Ferry. Yes.
Okay. And he obviously was talking about making your calls. That was a big part of it.
So you continue to do that. And so how did you build your client base moving forward? Was it a combination of things?
[Vayna Jerabek] (15:47 - 16:55)
It was mostly those cold calls, you know, by starting out with cold calling and just building the pipeline and keeping all the leads who are going to say they're going to be ready in three months, six months, nine months, 12 months. I just kept all of those, you know, organized in my little CRM. And that was my pipeline for the next couple of years.
So between that and then I also started working as a buyer's agent. And there was a program back in the day called Home Partners of America. And it was basically help finding houses for a hedge fund.
And so I was doing a lot of buyer's agent work, finding houses and investments for this hedge fund. And I made a bunch of money that way, too. So it was a combination of the two.
And I was doing really well as an agent, but I was burning out like most agents do, which, you know, sounds crazy as someone who was only an agent for two, three years. But I was working out for weeks and I was just tired. I was like, there's got to be something else.
And I always had investing at the forefront. So I bought my first flip like two years in and then I bought my first rental. And right around then is when I got wholesaling and just moved my whole business over to wholesaling.
[Stephen Husted] (16:56 - 17:00)
And then completely stopped dealing with the buyers and sellers.
[Vayna Jerabek] (17:00 - 17:04)
Pretty much. I refer all that business out now because my focus is wholesaling.
[Stephen Husted] (17:05 - 17:21)
So you're a forward thinker and you have a vision of what's going on in the future. Where do you see yourself like five years from now? What can you see at that point?
Are you still think you're going to be wholesaling? I guess that's a big question. Five years.
Oh my gosh, so much can go on in five years. You could be pivoting two years from now.
[Vayna Jerabek] (17:21 - 17:24)
Well, the answer is not in real estate.
[Stephen Husted] (17:24 - 17:25)
Really?
[Vayna Jerabek] (17:25 - 17:55)
No, I love real estate and I love what we do. I've built a team here and I love helping them and watching them grow and succeed and find deals and everything. Five years, ideally, I'm just out traveling the world.
That's really the plan is that I'm out and traveling and seeing everything and enjoying all of this hard work I'm doing right now before I settle down. A big dream of mine is to be a stay-at-home mom. Then once the kids are going back to school, then I'll get back in the game is kind of the general plan.
[Stephen Husted] (17:55 - 18:10)
Okay, that's a cool plan. I like that. You're just going to grind it out, make a ton of money, travel, get the traveling in before you start the family, get the family, get back into the game and then travel more later on in life.
[Vayna Jerabek] (18:11 - 18:13)
I hear that when you have kids, you're trapped for 18 years.
[Stephen Husted] (18:15 - 18:18)
You're so right. I hope my daughter doesn't listen to this, but she just turned 18.
[Vayna Jerabek] (18:19 - 18:19)
It's funny.
[Stephen Husted] (18:21 - 20:04)
It's exactly that. We'll take her somewhere and go, well, you're an only child and we'll see how you do on this trip. Then she'll go off the rails and like, nope, we're not going to Europe now.
We're not going to Thailand. We're going back to Kauai because you can't hang. We like to go on adventures, my wife and I, so we'll go on our own.
We'll take her. She's stay-at-home, oh yeah, she'll stay-at-home and do her thing. I think something that I've noticed too, by following you, I always will look back at your age.
I was like, God, I was just partying at your age. I had a career. I was a hairdresser and I was DJing and having fun, but not that level of giving the financial freedom was definitely not on the radar.
Now in this era of social media and watching the younger generation come up with whatever field, it's not just real estate, just other things. I find it to be so unique and so intriguing to me. I've been following Aidan Ross, that streamer.
Do you know who he is? Yeah, he's crazy and it just builds an empire. I'm streaming, so there's so many cool opportunities these days.
I think this leads back to watching videos of yours and learning pieces. I think some people can take a piece of content and dismiss it, where somebody else, like myself, I'll take it and I'll use it to my benefit. It's like that little thought process goes in the back of my head and I move it forward.
It's such a wild thing to think about. Oh, okay, she just taught me something. I'm going to walk away from that.
Then this person taught me. It's like little bits of knowledge. Do you find that from content?
[Vayna Jerabek] (20:04 - 21:16)
Absolutely, for sure. I go online to learn a lot of the time, YouTube, Audible, podcasts. Probably 80% of what I consume is education.
I'm really into Tony Robbins right now and just eating up everything he has on YouTube. Then 20% is just doing scrolling and going for the funny stuff. With social media and being very education forward, what I've found is that during COVID is when a lot of these creators took off because people had nothing else to do but sit at home and consume content all day.
Now my opinion and in general what the content, the GaryVees of the world are saying is that it's a little tougher now. It's a little more competitive now. It's not that it can't happen and it's happening every day.
People are getting big, but competition is fairly high in the social media space just in general. That being said, my humble opinion is that because there's so much information, there's no excuse. If you want to change your life and live better and do something and build a business or whatever, it's all free.
It's all out there and you can find everything you need and just apply it and make your dreams happen.
[Stephen Husted] (21:16 - 22:01)
Yes, absolutely. On anything, you just have to find that content because these big platforms, they're going to bring you everything. You click on something, you start watching something, they're like, oh, let's give them everything.
I'll tell you a pretty crazy story. Ian and I just closed on two properties in Seattle. Yeah, thank you.
He was amazing and just a great guy. I get ready to get on a plane and I'm sitting at the airport and I watched one little clip on something about building an ad in Seattle. Then I found Jimmy Tang, binge-watched his videos.
[Vayna Jerabek] (22:01 - 22:03)
He's got a lot of good content right now.
[Stephen Husted] (22:03 - 23:32)
A lot of content on YouTube. It was all YouTube. I watched him waiting for the plane, on the plane when I landed.
Then I had a moment of, I don't know what I'm getting myself into. This is crazy because Jimmy's on the ground. He's driving around to all his different sites and all his developments.
He's making all these videos and he's seeing what's going on. I'm following into, once again, being an out-of-state investor, but now I'm developing. The big difference between a burr deal in Kansas City compared to a dadu in Seattle are night and day in my eyes.
Do you know what I'm saying? I can let a contractor build it out and get some videos and stuff and put a tenant in there. I'll be good to go, but it's a whole different ballgame.
I got a little nervous there, but then I met with Ian at the properties and the videographer, I caught his voice. He was the videographer, Jimmy. I had him in front of me.
Then I reached out and I said, hey, can you connect me to Jimmy? Jimmy's on the podcast on Thursday. All this information, he's already pushed me forward.
I guess what I'm trying to frame here, this comes back to content, is I found you from a one-minute clip. I made a phone call. You referred me out.
I closed on two properties. Do you know what I'm saying? It's wild.
Then I get really irritated when I see people just complain about stuff online.
[Vayna Jerabek] (23:34 - 23:56)
Well, I'll tell you what, this is just a fun little factoid. Jimmy and Ian's videographer came from yours, truly. Oh, really?
That's so funny. So just to say that, because my videographer made me a video that you saw that went to these guys that the whole circle completed.
[Stephen Husted] (23:57 - 24:00)
That's so crazy. That's so wild.
[Vayna Jerabek] (24:00 - 24:01)
I don't know.
[Stephen Husted] (24:02 - 24:16)
I know a lot of people don't look at it that way, but tell me a little bit about your wholesale business, how you're running it. Do you feel like the real estate, becoming an agent, that kind of helped you with somewhat of a foundation, I would imagine?
[Vayna Jerabek] (24:17 - 26:09)
I would definitely say so. Being a real estate agent first helped me a lot in my wholesaling business. I don't recommend it to the person who wants to become a wholesaler to work as an agent first.
You can, but the way we're set up, and well, I'll start this with the way the typical wholesale company is set up. They have offshore callers. They have people in the Philippines or Egypt calling for leads, and then they have people local who are their acquisitions team, and they're closing on the deals and writing contracts, and then they're selling it to investors.
My model, and I have played with the idea of hiring VAs. I've never hired VAs for cold calling. I have a couple administrative now.
My team model since I was an agent has always been local people, and so I just took what I was doing as an agent, and I applied that over to wholesaling, and what I have is a team of people who are local. Most of them are young guys who just got out of college. They don't know what they want to do, or they don't want to go work the normal job just like I was, and it's pretty much a mentorship model where I am providing the leads, and the training, and everything you need, and you are providing your time, and you are making the calls, and finding the leads, and then we close them together, and we make a split.
I've got 18 people who are doing this. I give them the lead list. I give them the training, and they are calling every day, or door knocking, or sending out mailers, whatever it is they choose to do, and they bring in the deals, and we close them.
We'll probably do 30, 35 deals this year. I've started wholesaling three years ago now. I've done like 50, 60 deals total, but our average fee is $30,000, and so we make a lot more than I was making as an agent, and with a lot less effort.
The good deals that come in, I can buy myself, and it's a fun time overall.
[Stephen Husted] (26:11 - 26:28)
It seems like Seattle has those opportunities too, like the markets. What I've seen, actually, I just caught something in one of your videos. You were doing a walkthrough of three houses in the basement, and I saw one of them, that's Beacon Hill.
Yeah, I was like, I just saw that one on MLS.
[Vayna Jerabek] (26:28 - 26:29)
Oh, that's nice.
[Stephen Husted] (26:29 - 27:20)
Yeah, yeah. Well, there's your walkthrough. There's your tour.
Yeah, she just gave me one part of it. I could even tell by the neighborhood. I'm like, oh yeah, that's the one on the corner lot.
That's a perfect buildout. Yeah, and I noticed that about Seattle. The whole Dadu scenario, they obviously passed that in California, and we can do exactly what Seattle's doing, but these properties don't lay out the same way.
We don't have alley accesses to our neighborhoods for the most part. I'm trying to be a team player in figuring it out for doing what I'm doing in Seattle and California, but it seemed like Seattle, there's more properties. There's more opportunities, not to mention you have a single family with a basement that you can build out, and you can do the Dadu, and then potentially down the road, we'll be able to do a secondary Dadu.
[Vayna Jerabek] (27:20 - 27:43)
It's crazy. It's a very unique product, and we're fairly lucky to have so many properties that are eligible to just create really a lot of density of housing, plus all the advantage of condoization and the refinance. It makes the investing very accessible here for appreciation, force equity, and cashflow.
Yes.
[Stephen Husted] (27:44 - 27:50)
Yes. I mean, you maybe have to not be the most landlord-friendly state, but hey, it is what it is.
[Vayna Jerabek] (27:51 - 27:52)
It is what it is.
[Stephen Husted] (27:52 - 27:59)
Yeah, it is what it is. If you're an investor, if it sits or there's some issues, that's just another loss write-off.
[Vayna Jerabek] (27:59 - 28:03)
Yeah, no, exactly. You're making your 10% appreciation. You're fine.
[Stephen Husted] (28:03 - 28:11)
Exactly. Are you developing too? I saw a house on one of Thatch's videos.
So did you just buy your project?
[Vayna Jerabek] (28:11 - 28:41)
Yeah, I bought that one last year. I'm working on my next one. So right now, and I have to talk to Thatch about this, but right now what I'm doing is just stacking the properties while the real estate's cheap, and then I'll probably worry more about building later.
Maybe next year, I'll start on my first Dadu. We're going into winter right now, so there's not too much sense in building right now. But yeah, that's the goal is everything I buy needs to have Dadu potential because I want to take advantage just like everybody else is in Seattle.
[Stephen Husted] (28:42 - 29:25)
Yeah. Well, especially if you get it at a decent price. Even with the Dadu, the numbers make sense as a rental.
I mean, the 1% really hits. Oh, yeah. That part is so crazy to me.
I wish it was like that. I got to take that back. It's funny.
The first time I was talking to Ian, I don't think we can do Dadus in California. He's like, you got limiting beliefs. He's like, what are you talking about?
I'm like, no, man, really. You have to come out here. I got to show you properties and what these neighborhoods look like.
We might have the lot, but it's butted up against two houses, and there's people in the backyard, and where are they going to park their cars? It's just different. It feels more private in Seattle.
You can put fences up and somewhat separate the density.
[Vayna Jerabek] (29:25 - 30:25)
You'd be surprised. We saw someone cram a 450 square foot little thing in the backyard where you didn't think you could put something. I was in California a few months ago with Batch actually doing a little tour type thing and visiting all the stuff down there.
Yeah, it was fun. It was really cool and crazy at the same time to see what they were doing because you're right. There are plenty of fixers, but there's not much alley access, super prime, just built.
It's ready to be built on. What we saw is that there were a few properties with alleys we saw, but most of them were side access back to the detached garage, and you're knocking down the detached to build the daddy, which we do here as well. It did make me realize that we're pretty lucky again here to have lots that are ready for it.
The issue is that it's getting so popular here. I don't know how it is in California, but every freaking listing on the MLS now is advertising the daddy potential, even if no one even knows.
[Stephen Husted] (30:25 - 30:26)
They don't even know.
[Vayna Jerabek] (30:26 - 30:28)
Exactly. It's like, come on.
[Stephen Husted] (30:30 - 30:32)
Daddy potential, but there's 20 trees.
[Vayna Jerabek] (30:32 - 30:42)
No, literally. Seattle loves their trees. The trees, I think it's 18 inches is the rule.
If it's wider than that, you can't cut it down unless you kill it.
[Stephen Husted] (30:43 - 30:56)
Yes. I'm going through that right now on a project. We have one tree and it's 80% on our lot and 20% on the neighbor's.
There's no fence. This neighbor had came over.
[Vayna Jerabek] (30:56 - 30:57)
They love their tree, don't they?
[Stephen Husted] (30:58 - 31:44)
Well, we don't know yet. Well, it's kind of a crazy story, so I'll tell it to you. So, we wrote this offer in my partner and I's name.
We didn't have it in our LLC and there were six offers on this property. We wrote for $870,000 and really didn't think we were going to get it, but we wrote it anyways. We had just gotten a contract on another property too that was about five minutes away, but it was a corner lot, 8,000 square foot lot.
I like the location, so I'm like, all right, let's go for it. The highest offer was a builder and he wrote for $1,015,000. Holy wow.
The homeowner didn't want to work with the builder.
[Vayna Jerabek] (31:45 - 31:46)
Yep. We've seen that.
[Stephen Husted] (31:46 - 34:39)
So, they went with us. They didn't counter us. They just accepted our offer because it was in our names, not knowing that basically we're going to develop too.
So, we got done. We closed on it and the crazy part of the story is we had an escalation clause, so we actually knew who the builder was too. We could have closed on it and basically just sold it back to the builder for $1,015,000 in a week made a hundred and something thousand dollars.
I kind of felt bad a little bit in the beginning. I'm like, well, it is what it is. That agent is working with the seller and the seller could have done some due diligence on finding out about us.
No one asked anything. So, we got it for $870,000 and she must have let the neighbors know. Hey, we're going to keep this intact and all of a sudden they see the survey getting done and that lady comes out and starts talking to our contractor.
What are you guys going to do? We heard nothing was going to get built. He's been really good at talking to her and saying, look, we are going to build.
It's going to blend in really nicely with the neighborhood. We're going to keep trees and things like that. She's like, yeah, that one over there needs to go.
It's been falling down. So, what I'm trying to do is position it. We're going to remove one tree and it's the trees she's probably not going to want to remove, but it's 80% on our lot and that's where the fence will go to.
That one tree also stopped us from doing a three-bedroom to now we have to do a two-bedroom parking to the single family and everything. All these little nuances that I'm learning, which is great. This is the beauty of real estate investing.
It's like you get in these new things and you're just learning as you go. You just got to go. It goes with anything.
It could be wholesaling. It could be buying your first single family. There's all these little things that happen, which is really cool.
But I told him this morning, let's get in front of the neighbor. I want to plant more trees. We're going to remove that tree, but I want her to help pick the trees.
There's going to be a fence going up. So, let's talk about what can we do that can enhance both yards and that's hopefully what's going to help. Fingers crossed, that's going to be what's going to help it.
Or it could be the next stories could be this one tree is the biggest stick of wood. I can still build. So, even if I don't remove it, we can still do what we want to do.
But yeah, pretty wild scenario in itself. So, do you find yourself a good teacher when it comes to... Well, I find you're a great teacher, so I'm answering my own question.
But with your team, are you good at building your team out and walking them through how to cold call and how to door knock and all that? The psychology too, because there's a lot of psychology too.
[Vayna Jerabek] (34:39 - 36:35)
Yeah, that's the thing. I don't know if I'm the best teacher. I'm definitely a driver personality, so I'm very direct and to the point.
And it's hard for me to go through the A, B, and C for the people who need the A, B, and C. Because I'm very much just, if you want to come do this wholesaling thing, go make your calls and come back when you've got a lead. I've been running a team for five years now and I love it because I love teaching, and I love educating, and I love helping people and seeing them win.
And I know that when they're winning, I'm winning. And when I'm winning, they're winning. And one of my big focuses and what I'm learning as a leader is to lead by example.
So, the more that I'm pouring into myself and making myself better, the more that they'll see it or model it or be inspired to keep making things happen for themselves. And that's what I because my vision for my team is that they all become independent wholesalers. I don't want them strapped to me for their entire careers.
That's just not realistic anyway, but I want them to build their own wholesale business. So, when with training and educating, a lot of it is babysitting because people, when they're new to this, they need their handheld. They need to see how it's done.
So, we're motivating a lot or training. I have a sales manager who's helping me out because my personality is not very rah-rah. It's very, let's just get the work done.
So, I hired a rah-rah man and he's helping with the motivation. But right now, the goal is really to just be able to scale up the team model. And so, I'm building a lot of backend stuff out to get people onboarded efficiently and so that they know what they're doing and they can have all the tools they need to just start because the most effective thing that a new wholesaler can do with their time is go out and find business.
So, we're just building out everything so that they are empowered to go out and find business and that's what we're working on.
[Stephen Husted] (36:36 - 36:46)
Walk me through that because you're just building systems to kind of automate things and make it a little easier to bring somebody on without having to redo this repetition.
[Vayna Jerabek] (36:46 - 37:17)
Exactly. We're doing, you come on, you do your interview, you get an onboarding email, you get your script, you got to memorize your script by this time and do your script test with us. And then you get your lead sheet and then you get the videos and the course on how to go through leads and how to deal with everything and all the objections and going through it.
Once you get a lead, you bring it in to me or the manager and we'll take a look at it and then that's when things get interesting is we'll go on the appointment together and go on to the next step.
[Stephen Husted] (37:18 - 37:30)
How are going in these appointments with a newer wholesaler or somebody on your team? Because I would imagine you get some pretty tense moments at some points I would say with some people or do you not?
[Vayna Jerabek] (37:31 - 37:32)
Not necessarily, not really.
[Stephen Husted] (37:32 - 37:35)
No? It's pretty chill and generally you're just trying to solve a problem.
[Vayna Jerabek] (37:36 - 38:06)
Exactly. We're just coming in, we're having a conversation with the seller. You know, we have our different types of sellers, the ones who they don't want to talk, they just want an offer or they want a yes or no if we can do their price.
And then we have the more ideal sellers who don't really know what they're doing and they need some education and so we're walking them through the steps and the options. That's where the new trainees, if you will, get the most out because there's a lot of talking back and forth and answering the questions and just seeing how it goes down with the seller. So yeah, it goes both ways.
[Stephen Husted] (38:08 - 39:12)
Yeah. I did wholesaling for a couple years in Kansas City and really why we started it was just to get our own properties in front of us and if they didn't fit our buy box then we would assign them out and move on and we put a team together and we did have cold callers out of the country and started that route. But it felt like I was the one micromanaging the whole team.
Some of them didn't even know how to set up escrow or they would have a deal in front of them and I got this 80 year old lady, she wants to sell, but I'm like, okay, first you need to figure out what problems you need to solve for that seller. First and foremost, forget about what you're going to buy the property for. First solve the problems and then you can get into those numbers and start working through that.
But this person needed to move and she wanted to be closer to her family. She wanted to downsize. She had a ton of stuff.
She didn't know how to handle this, you know what I mean? And you have to problem solve these things first and then get down to the number because then you're- Yeah, for sure.
[Vayna Jerabek] (39:12 - 39:31)
That's the mistake people make is that they assume that price is the most important thing and I've had it before where a guy has got an old lady on the phone and she's super sweet and she's talking about, oh yeah, I raised my grandkids here and it's time to go to retirement home and this and that and I don't really want to work with a realtor. And he's trying to hammer down, well, how much do you want? That's not the point right now.
[Stephen Husted] (39:31 - 40:21)
Yeah, not at all. And I don't know, it was just something about dealing with the older public. I wanted to make sure everything got done because I think my background as being an agent is what kicked in.
Because if you're an enlisting agent, you're going to help that seller get from point A to B on multiple things, not just the transaction. There's so much other things that are going on. But I couldn't get my team all on board and I had too many things going on.
I was buying hold and I was doing birds and I'm doing this and holds. It's like, you got to really focus on what you're doing. I guess that can lead into something very important when it comes to real estate.
I'm sure we all say it, you really have to niche into what you're doing. If you're going to do a strategy, whatever that is, dive into it. Stay on it.
[Vayna Jerabek] (40:21 - 40:21)
I agree.
[Stephen Husted] (40:22 - 40:42)
For as long as you can, without seeing 10 different real estate investors on social media. Because at the end of the day, you could spend an hour on there and you don't know if you want to do Airbnb's, midterm rentals, fix and flip, wholesaling. You got so many options.
It's scary. And they're more at the forefront now, right? Because of social media.
[Vayna Jerabek] (40:43 - 41:31)
Shiny object syndrome is a disease for sure. I learned that early and I'm generally one track minded. When I dedicate to something, I'm all in on it.
I'm not really pulling out of anything. When I see people who... It's not always their fault because there is so much information out there and everything looks appealing and they have no prior experience.
What are they supposed to think? When you are purposely putting yourself in a position where you're being called every which way and you try this thing and then you do that and just you're everywhere. Recently, I've been hearing like, oh, I've already done too many courses.
Oh, I've already done that. I just need this. No, you don't.
You need to just sit down, put your head down, lock in and give it 90 days minimum and then figure out if that worked for you or not.
[Stephen Husted] (41:32 - 42:13)
Lock in. That's a big deal. That's it right there.
Lock in. Lock in. Put the blinders on.
Don't listen to everybody because people will sidetrack you because everybody's got an opinion. You've got to get in and start going for it. It's very similar to what's going on for us in Seattle.
I'm locked in at this point. I've let all my other partnerships know. I'm selling out of properties in Michigan right now.
I've started divest there. I'm trying to just hyper-focus. I know this is where I want to be and I see where I want to be five years from now.
So now it's like I put the rest on autopilot and I just focus here.
[Vayna Jerabek] (42:14 - 42:15)
Right here.
[Stephen Husted] (42:15 - 42:17)
Not a bad place to be either in Seattle.
[Vayna Jerabek] (42:17 - 42:21)
I've been doing the same shit for five years. Wake up and sell deals.
[Stephen Husted] (42:26 - 42:32)
Did you feel like real estate when you were selling for buyers and sellers was just a big grind? What are the parts that you do not like?
[Vayna Jerabek] (42:33 - 42:34)
It's a very emotional game.
[Stephen Husted] (42:35 - 42:35)
Emotional?
[Vayna Jerabek] (42:35 - 43:31)
Like I mentioned, my personality. It's not that I'm not emotional, but I'm just so direct and to the point. If I have already shown you 50 houses and you can't make up your mind about which of the four we saw today you want to write an offer on, I put a property under contract and the investor says yes or no or here's the price.
You're asking $350, I'll buy it for $300. All I have to do is go get the property for $280 and I'll make my $20,000 selling to the investor. It's all just down to the numbers.
That and then you just have more control when you're working direct to seller and you're working with sellers. It's less work. I don't have to order the photographer and follow up with the agents who show the property and do open house and all this.
Overall, it's less effort. Plus, for me, the whole thing of real estate was that this is unkept income, but commissions are going away and all of that. I don't even care because I'm in the game where what you make is dependent on how much you put the property under contract for and how much the investor is willing to pay.
[Stephen Husted] (43:32 - 43:58)
I agree with you on all that. I started shifting and being more of a full-time investor than an agent. I still do both, but because it's kind of a straight to the point, no BS, run numbers.
It's just a whole different kind of mindset when you're dealing with people. I think my personality is a lot like yours. I'm straight to the point.
I don't want to play these silly games and let's just get this done.
[Vayna Jerabek] (43:59 - 44:28)
A lot of respect for the realtors who've been doing this for 10, 20 years, just day in, day out, working with your traditional buyer and seller. I can't do that forever. Even my friend, Alex Bradshaw, who you should have next because he's a freaking killer.
He started with me in 2021 or something. He's sold a couple hundred houses. He's got 15 units now and he's 22.
What? Yes. I'm not even done yet.
[Stephen Husted] (44:29 - 44:30)
Oh no.
[Vayna Jerabek] (44:30 - 45:06)
He just got into flipping houses one or two years ago. He probably took 30 listings last year. He'll take 30, 35 listings this year and that's his main gig.
But now that he's in flipping, he's like, man, being a listing agent is just so much work. I'd rather just flip full-time. I think that's a testament also to our generation and just realizing that there always is a better way.
I don't think 40 years from now you're going to see as many realtors who have been a realtor for 40 years as you do right now. Because I think we're just overall getting smarter and investing and figuring out how to not have to do one thing forever.
[Stephen Husted] (45:07 - 47:39)
I agree. I agree. I think the difference is you guys have social media and an outlet to find things.
I think it was back in 2006, I went to a real estate investor conference on how to flip your first house. The guy would go on stage and he's hyping you up and you'd walk out and they would have CDs and tapes. You'd go home and there you go.
There were no communities online. There were no bigger pockets. There were none of these things.
Then you'd have to either try to find somebody who's flipping out, but the information wasn't around. It was crazy. You know what I mean?
It was crazy. I mean, I found out about the Midwest. I've been investing out in the Midwest.
I broke my wrist and I was home tweaking out on YouTube. I'm like, oh, you can invest out in the Midwest? Then I started telling some of the agents in my office.
They're like, don't do that. Those houses are shitty. You're going to lose all your money.
It's stupid. Invest here. I'm like, okay.
Yeah, I'm going to save up millions to do it. Then it was wild because then I'd go out there and I started learning all these different things. I'm like, wait a minute.
I managed a couple contractors and seven figures in equity now that I did in a year from my couch, from this office. I think that your guys' generation, you've got way more information that you can leverage whatever way you want to leverage it. I think that's why I get a little irritated when I see all the crap that gets put, people that just knocking down, especially like Thatch.
Thatch goes through shit. I'm like, you guys don't understand that Thatch is setting you up right now. If it's investing or whatever you're trying to get going on, he's setting you up right here.
You cannot deny his story. You cannot deny where he came from. It doesn't matter if he's got fancy cars, whatever you think.
He earned every single one of them. Stop it. Stop it.
Instead of hating, come along. Get on that train, get around, plug in. Whether it's real estate or it's something else, I think there's a lot of opportunity these days.
It's really cool. Wait, let's go back to this guy because he got me thinking about it. How old did you say he was?
22? Yep. Alex is 22.
He lives in Seattle?
[Vayna Jerabek] (47:40 - 47:40)
Yep.
[Stephen Husted] (47:40 - 48:03)
He's in the Seattle area. Wow. That's crazy.
I have a question for you. Social media content. You just said that you hired your first VA that's taking care of more of the admin stuff.
Are you your own social media content creator, editor, script writer, ideas? All that is all you.
[Vayna Jerabek] (48:03 - 48:44)
Yeah. I have a VA on the real estate business. I had a videographer locally that I am no longer working with, but I have a VA editor now.
I'm doing all of the ideas. I don't do much scripting. I'm very off the cuff.
I do all the filming. The ideas are not too hard to come up with. My purpose and my vision on social media has always been pretty clear since I started in 2020.
It's not too hard for me to come up with ideas. I just ask myself, what does my generation need to know about real estate that they don't know? I haven't run out of ideas yet.
That's what I do. I film it. I send it to the VA.
They have it ready in the next couple of days. It's a good workflow.
[Stephen Husted] (48:44 - 50:11)
I was running into a problem with mine because I was an agent. I started investing. I was putting up mixtures of content.
Instagram wasn't happy with that. It wanted me to stay in the pocket. I was getting to that point.
I was like, I really want to talk more about investing. I want to dumb it down. I hired a person to help brand.
He's a branding expert. He takes me through this whole thing. It was really deep.
It was very deep, but the outcome made perfect sense. At the very end, he's like, hey, I know you've been working hard on your Instagram page. You've got your podcast.
You've got all these different things. He's like, would you be opposed to starting a new Instagram page from scratch? He's like, you niche right into investing and go down that path.
I told him, I think it's a great idea. I think I would do it. He didn't think I was going to say yes, but we are going to start a whole new page and keep it more just on that path.
What you just said, you knew who you're going to talk to, what you wanted to talk about, and you just hyper-focused on that. I'm going to go that route because it seems like, I don't know. I bounce around a lot.
I got a lot of ideas and things I want to talk about. I'm a but sometimes it can get lost in translation too, if that makes any sense.
[Vayna Jerabek] (50:11 - 51:04)
I'll tell you something I did. I got this off of TikTok. Someone sent a screenshot of their Instagram into ChatGPT.
It asked it two questions. It said, what is your first impression of my Instagram page? I did the same thing.
It was very nice. It said, clearly, you're very educational. You're sharing blah, blah.
Then the next question is, be mean. Grill my page. I did that and oh my gosh, ChatGPT cooked me.
It came after me. It was like, you look like you're trying too hard and maybe you should actually put something out of value. I have my issues with it.
I know that I try my best to be value first, but I did take the advice subjectively. I told it after that, okay, give me some tips to improve my Instagram page. It actually gave me really good stuff.
I recommend playing around with ChatGPT on brand and all that.
[Stephen Husted] (51:05 - 51:06)
I'm going to do that.
[Vayna Jerabek] (51:06 - 51:55)
Yeah, it's a good idea. I think it was cool. I'll probably go back in there continually because I have the ideas generally.
My biggest struggle, I think, is that I have the ideas and I know what I want people to know, but like I mentioned, it's hard to put this into a 30 second snippet, a 60 second snippet, something that grabs the viewer's attention and keeps them there. My goal right now is to get to, it was 100k minimum views, but I'm just trying to get 50k minimum views consistently on my reels. To me, that is success on Instagram reels right now, is just getting those eyeballs.
I think it just has to do with your hook, grabbing the attention of the viewer and then keeping them engaged with high value content. It's hard to do when you have to post twice every day, but that is our struggle and our opportunity as creators, I guess.
[Stephen Husted] (51:56 - 53:33)
Yeah, well, that is your superpower. I can just tell you right now, you're doing a great job at it and it hits correctly. It's hitting your generation, it hits mine perfectly.
When I was talking to my assistant earlier, when we were walking in to do this podcast, that was something I was going to bring up to you because I struggle. I think what happens is I have so many ideas and things I want to talk about and then it's framing into a minute or I just get annoyed that I'm like, I don't want to just put videos out all the time. They put a video out, I'm doing a big project here in Willow Glen and I have editors, but I don't have a content strategist where they can take a bunch of content and go, okay, let's put some caption to this.
How can we give some value here? Here's the paint colors that we chose. Let's give them all that list and let's talk about, here's the name of the floor.
Instead, it goes out and it's like, here, we just got the kitchen, the floor's done. And I go back to Angel and I say, did this bring any value? She's like, well, it's an update of what's going on with the project.
I get that, but we could take it a step further. And the problem is I got a million different businesses going and different things and I'm the CEO of the portfolios and I have to tell all these fires and I'm dealing with Seattle. It's hard to frame it all into one and just take two hours a day and just work on content, which is actually what I'd love to do, honestly.
To be really quite honest, I'd rather sit around and educate and give all my experiences, all the good and the bad that I've gone through than worry about the faucet that broke for the third time in that property.
[Vayna Jerabek] (53:34 - 54:28)
That is the highest and best use of our time. That's what I realized. And that was a big driving force behind hiring the VA.
I've gotten pretty good at recognizing when I'm doing $20 an hour work. And so it's just gotten frustrating this year, four or five years in real estate, and we'll do a million dollars in revenue this year and I still don't have an assistant. And so- Which blows my mind.
All of the low money-making activities, the non-money-making activities, I was doing all that. So I finally delegated to the VA and I have all these hours in the day now to do what I do best. And historically has just made me the most money is social media because these social media is how I'm reaching the people who are bringing me deals, who are coming to work for me, sponsorships, all of this stuff.
And this is something that I've learned from Thatch is that I am the marketer. I'm up here at the top of the funnel and I'm bringing all of them in with the videos. So my job is to just keep doing videos.
[Stephen Husted] (54:31 - 54:54)
Yeah. Not to put something on your plate, but I could see it being more than this in like a year or so. I just see more from you, honestly.
So I hate to tell you, but I just think you can do more speaking engagements or they're just- You're very unique and especially at your age too. So it's kind of cool. Well, let's finish off on some of your personal life.
What do you do for fun?
[Vayna Jerabek] (54:55 - 55:00)
I am a big poker player and I like to- Oh, I didn't know that. Those are my little hobbies. Yeah.
[Stephen Husted] (55:01 - 55:01)
Poker?
[Vayna Jerabek] (55:01 - 55:04)
Yes. I just played this year in the World Series for the first time.
[Stephen Husted] (55:05 - 55:09)
What? That's crazy. So how did you get into that?
[Vayna Jerabek] (55:09 - 55:46)
High school. I had friends in high school who we were playing with like lollipops and 25 cent chips and 10 cent chips. And we were just playing a few times a week.
And I liked it. I think there's a lot of life lessons to be learned by playing poker. I think there's a lot of like the negotiation, your poker tactics, tactics, strategy.
Oh yeah. And I think I take away a lot from poker and I put a lot of what I learned out here into poker. So they kind of go hand in hand and it's just a fun game.
I think there's a little gambling bug inside of me. I also like, I like going to Vegas and Baccarat and all that.
[Stephen Husted] (55:46 - 55:54)
Do you really? Oh, that's cool. That's good.
Yeah. And you get outdoors too. I noticed.
Do you run or are you more of a walker?
[Vayna Jerabek] (55:54 - 56:22)
I'm more of a walker. I'm trying to run and kind of dial down the mile time, but going out into nature helps a lot with the stress. I have put a lot of stress on myself in my career.
So one of the big things that I do focus on in my day to day now is lowering the cortisol level, getting out into nature, taking breaks, drinking my electrolytes. And just cause I don't want to respectfully to all the older folks out there. I don't want to look like this when I'm 30.
[Stephen Husted] (56:24 - 57:49)
It's good. Well, it's good that you recognize those things and you put those in place. I saw a video on Instagram.
It was such a great video. It was a woman, Minnesota, I think. And the first scene is her on, she's on some type of machine.
I think she's on a, I don't know. She was on something. She's running and she's overweight.
And she puts the date like, Hey, I'm just going to start running. And she's kind of running. And then they show her a little bit more progression, progression.
Then she's running outdoors and then she's doing like a 5k. But then you can see in the video that she, because she recorded all of it, she's stitched it together and she's gone from heavy to, to super thin. I think she's working out like now she's working out.
Like, I mean, she was big, like her arms when she lost the weight, she had all that SS skin and it was the craziest transformation. And it was just this one little steps of, she just started a little bit at a time and she was running so she didn't quit. She didn't quit.
And she just came, she stayed consistent with it, which I think goes a long way. I think that's a really hard trait to put in place is no matter where the outcome is getting good at being consistent on whatever it is, is half the battle and a lot of things, you know what I mean?
[Vayna Jerabek] (57:49 - 58:20)
I love a good coming up story. It's always, when I think about that and I really don't consider myself a consistent person, but I guess I kind of am. But when you think about like, okay, I want to be able to run a 10 minute, or let's say seven minute mile.
I run like a 10 minute mile right now. But if I ran every day for 90 days, it's very easy to imagine I could get to that seven minute mile within the 90 days. The hard part is going on a run every day for 90 days.
[Stephen Husted] (58:20 - 59:16)
Getting past your head. Yes. Your brain.
The brain loves to make excuses to protect us. It's like, so it's one of those things where you have to like, no, I'm going out. I'm going to do it.
Some people are better than others when it comes to, well, you are consistent. You run a business, like you do way more than you think, but yeah, we all have room for improvement. But you know what's crazy too about that, that post that that lady was, she de-aged by like 20 years.
It was so insane. And the comment section, it was, and you know, you know, usually I don't care how good the post is. It could be as heartfelt, whatever the case may be, there's going to be some people in there that want to hate on it.
Right. One way or another. So I had to go to the comment section to see who that person was.
And it was, you know what I mean? But I actually could not find somebody that had that many good comments of, you know, it's one of those moments you're like, I almost want to shed a tear here.
[Vayna Jerabek] (59:16 - 59:19)
But that's where you get some faith in humanity restored, right?
[Stephen Husted] (59:19 - 59:20)
Yeah. Yeah.
[Vayna Jerabek] (59:20 - 59:22)
All agree that she worked hard to earn this.
[Stephen Husted] (59:23 - 59:48)
Yes. And the fact that she had all the recordings, I don't even know, like it's not like she set herself up for this one video. She just recorded herself.
Yes. So it was really cool to see, but yeah. Well, I'm so happy that I found you on Instagram on that one controversial post.
And then I ended up in, you know, like reaching out to you, had my meeting. You connected me to Ian.
[Vayna Jerabek] (59:49 - 59:50)
Yeah. Like what?
[Stephen Husted] (59:50 - 59:51)
Closed on two properties.
[Vayna Jerabek] (59:51 - 59:56)
Oh, cool. I ended up working with you guys. I knew it would.
Yeah.
[Stephen Husted] (59:56 - 1:00:06)
So it's just been really cool. And I really appreciate you, you know, jumping on today. And where can everybody find you?
I know where to find you, but where does everyone else find you?
[Vayna Jerabek] (1:00:06 - 1:00:15)
Well, my name is just about as common as any other, but if you put it into Google, you will find me. YouTube and Instagram are where I'm the most active.
[Stephen Husted] (1:00:15 - 1:00:28)
Funny enough, that's exactly what we did because I think I DMed you and it probably got buried and you didn't respond. But then I'm like, well, she used to be an agent. Right.
Google her. You're going to find it. We're going to find her number.
We just have to do a little bit of research.
[Vayna Jerabek] (1:00:29 - 1:00:36)
My phone number is out there. Like I get texts every day. I'm like, how'd you?
Okay. This is the internet. You put yourself on the internet, you're going to get found.
[Stephen Husted] (1:00:37 - 1:00:57)
Yeah, exactly. Well, I appreciate, you know, keep doing what you're doing. I love to see what, you know, it's amazing to watch.
It's crazy to watch too, especially because I'm a lot older than you. And it's just cool to watch somebody at your age doing what you're doing. And I think it's just, you've got a good plan and good vibes.
So I appreciate it. Thank you so much for coming on today.
[Vayna Jerabek] (1:00:57 - 1:00:58)
Thank you. Anytime.
[Stephen Husted] (1:00:59 - 1:01:00)
All right. I'll talk to you later.
[Vayna Jerabek] (1:01:00 - 1:01:01)
Yes, sir.
∎ Podcast Outro:
[Stephen Husted] (1:01:01 - 1:01:31)
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