EP 318: My 10-Year Retirement from Real Estate Investing & What I Learned w/ Brady Grohne

Don’t defer your life, it may not be there when you get up from your desk.
– Brady Grohne

My 10-Year Retirement from Real Estate Investing & What I Learned w/ Brady Grohne

Read the Full Show Notes Below…

So many people get caught up in the income, that they forget what it’s all about. When Brady Grohne realized he was working himself to the bone, in the hopes of an escape, he took a break. That break turned into a decade of epic adventures all over the world. Today we’re going to see what he learned from 10 years off and exactly how he was able to do it.

How He Did It

Right out of college, Brady dove into the real estate game. He hustled hard and found success, but he wondered what was next. The things he enjoyed doing required him to be young, healthy, and in good shape. He didn’t want to have to wait until he was 60 to ski the Alps.

So after taking a good look at his portfolio, he rethought his strategy, hired a property manager, and moved from NC to a little town just outside of Jackson Hole. He put the real estate business on auto-pilot while he worked nights in a restaurant and spent his days on the slopes.

Brady’s zest for life, the way he sets his priorities, and the way he lives in the moment is something we can all take notes from.

What Brady Learned From 10 Years Off

The goal is the path. I believe that you can’t get fit by working all the time, you can’t improve relationships with family and friends by working all the time, and you can’t get close to your dream life by working all the time. You have to build these other muscles, bonds, habits, passions, and ways of life along the way.

Otherwise, you’re at serious risk of finding yourself old, unhealthy, worn out, bored, and trying to remember what it was you were hoping to do when you finally got to quit working. Don’t defer your life, it may not be there when you finally get up from your desk.

b)I don’t strive for retirement. I like work, particularly in the context of entrepreneurship, and the learning, excitement, and growth it provokes. Quite frankly, retirement seems boring and usually precipitates a rapid decline in quality of life as far as I can tell. Maybe if we didn’t work ourselves to death, we wouldn’t resent it so much and be in such a hurry to get it over with.

Beware of getting too caught up in the game. Having passions and goals that you actively pursue can help to keep career and financial goals in perspective. I love James Patterson’s quote “Imagine life is a game in which you are juggling five balls. The balls are called work, family, health, friends, and integrity. And you’re keeping all of them in the air. But one day you finally come to understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop it, it will bounce back.

The other four balls…are made of glass. If you drop one of these, it will be irrevocably scuffed, nicked, perhaps even shattered.” And yet work is where most of us put our best energy and justify its impact on our other shattered balls with thinly veiled martyrdom. No offense, but that’s not the life I’m striving for, personally.

This ability to tailor your career around your life is one of the things I love most about the real estate game. Our own little island of misfit toys.

About Brady

Brady lives in a little town in SE Idaho called Victor, right at the base of the Tetons, with his wife Monica and their dog Lox where they spend a slightly gluttonous amount of time playing in the mountains. He started his real estate investment career in Asheville, NC in 2003 armed with the print Iwanna classified ads, a flip phone, some Carleton Sheet’s Professional Education Institute contract forms, and the bravado of a 22-year-old.

Things went really well. But then he decided to take an “early semi-retirement” while his body could still handle the abuse he enjoyed putting it through. That ended up lasting a little over a decade and led to countless outdoor adventures all over the world.

He has since reentered full-time real estate investment with a combination of wholesaling, flipping, Airbnb, and agency and a goal to set up his second “semi-retirement” when he and his wife plan a sailing circumnavigation in 2028.