How did you get started?
So, I was a university professor and had bought a house in 2006 and then we went through the housing crisis in 2008.
And I talked to my bank and said, hey, I'm going to get cut back at work.
I'm not going to be able to make this mortgage. And then they said, well, we won't talk to you until you stop paying. And that was not the way I was brought up.
And I realized, oh, what we've been taught as to be good citizens doesn't necessarily fit.
That's not exactly what happens in the business world and in the finance world.
You have to prove that you can't pay. And so you think things like integrity go out the window. And I just thought, what's happening? My life is changing.
And I started that exploration of finding out how the real world works, the world that makes the machinery go.
And I've been trying to get people at least the tools for success so they don't make mistakes like I made, where you buy a house because people are telling you that's what you need to be doing.
And your realtor just wants to make the transaction. So, yeah, that's kind of how it started.
Yeah. And interesting enough, Glenn, is you're hitting home. I am a full-time real estate agent.
Nice. Yeah. When I moved to Los Angeles and people found out what my vision was, I ran into a lot of realtors and agents and brokers.
And so that was kind of an opportunity for realtors in 2008, 2006, to 2010 to leave their integrity behind because the money was so good.
And I think that that's a realization for some realtors and other. It's a world out there.
We've built a system where it's about what you can get. Yes. And some people have this idea that it's not about what you can get.
And unfortunately, those people become victims of the people that know it's really about what you can get.
And everything else, the benevolence, the altruism, that all sounds great and it makes us feel really warm. Yeah.
But life is chaos and you have to hopefully keep your integrity, but realize people are just trying to survive.
And the stability we have, the success we have is built on the backs of other's suffering.
So are you going to be one of those people that are going to be suffering or are you going to kind of navigate to maybe not be the mark?
And so I can't fault realtors. Believe me, I was really faulting realtors in 2006, 2008.
But they have kids, too. They have families, too. They have rents and mortgages, too.
We've we one of the things that I always say, the problem we just keep creating new homeless is because we have invested ourselves out of shelter.
Realty is an investment opportunity now, and it's not a necessity for human beings anymore. And so we're always going to have problems.
If we don't look at shelter as a necessity instead of something that you can passively grow income with, we will always be creating homeless people.
And I don't know the solution for how realty can can be that those two things at the same time.
But we have to work at it. We have to figure it out because I've been working on this homelessness game since 2010 and it's never gotten better.
In 2012, it kind of got better than in 2008. But then we went back to business as normal because we were the machine was running again and and values meant something and people had trust in the markets again.
And so we started exploiting people again. And so we're right back to where we started in 2008 with homelessness and or worse.
And I don't see it changing as long as we are playing the same game. Yes. And integrity is means a lot. It means a lot.
Also, I believe knowing your own morals and values and where and how you desire to be treated, do the same for others.
And I definitely like I said, when you hit home on on two notes for me, I said, you know what, this was this was great moment for me today because it definitely brings it back to understanding that being honest and not pushing people past, you know, their limits and truly understanding and pretty much doing what you're doing, you know, just trying to stop homelessness, but also meeting people where they are.
So I tell you, I truly appreciate what you're saying and what you've done and what you're doing. Yeah, I I think my my Ted X is called Small Business Homeless.
And it was looking at how entrepreneurs could use their skills as entrepreneurs to at least make a dent and using what opportunities they had and that ability to look for opportunities instead of roadblocks.
Because in the homeless world, we look at roadblocks and sadness all the time. Let's not do that. Let's celebrate the little wins.
Let's take all those entrepreneurial skills that people learn in selling and use them back towards humanity.
I just saw a tweet about the Amish being able to build small homes for twenty thousand dollars in three days where it takes Los Angeles six million dollars and three years.
And yeah, because we are trying to replace family and community with capitalism.
And that is very expensive. But the Amish know that family and community and not investing yourselves out of shelter are things that shouldn't be passively scaled.
Right. So, yeah, as long as we can figure out what we need and can scale.
I always say my my investment advice is live in a tent and buy gold because for some reason over millennia, gold never is is an invaluable.
It always some reason we like the shiny soft metal. Right. And that's an investment opportunity.
I don't know if housing should be an investment opportunity, maybe luxury housing. Sure.
But starter homes, apartments.
And I feel for the people that are that are apartment owners that are they're also trying to make it.
That's how their American dream is happening. That right.
And they have to pay repairs. I tell my landlord all the time, I owned a home and I know it's a struggle.
Something's always breaking something needs to be fixed.
It's insane. The property taxes keep going up.
You know, and and it's it we have built so many conundrums for ourselves.
And I hope I can be the inspiration to get people to back away and look for those opportunities right so we can celebrate those wins instead of being sad.
Doing the same thing and wondering why it's not changing.
And I know when it comes to a lot of this, we did this in communities. Right.
I visited the homeless shelter because it was in the community.
And so as we speak about homelessness, I know that it's a bigger challenge to try to get, you know, the entire city to join in.
But how can communities better support efforts to tackle homelessness?
Yeah, I'm really unpopular because the way I see it is a boots on the ground model where we are just taking a neighborhood block by block.
And you start with the homeless people you see every day and you say, what can we do to support you?
And then you as a neighborhood figures it out. And then the next neighborhood and then the next neighborhood.
The thing is, it's really dirty work. Right.
And people are busy and it's not their priority to try and be the community member for someone that they don't know.
But I'm saying it either is or we're never going to solve this.
The few wins that I had, I got a when I back when I owned a home, there was a woman that I met that even though I my wife told me I couldn't bring homeless people home.
That's why I said I can't not. And so I made a deal with my wife and and we brought her back in and she she was not she was what I guess people would call a safe homeless person.
She wasn't addicted to drugs. She wasn't hurt. She went into homelessness because she stopped working so she could take care of her sick mother.
And then her sick mother died and then she got stuck and she was in her mid fifties.
And what are you going to do? So she was living behind a grocery store and I said I can't let this person do that.
We brought her in and I bought her a bus pass and I bought her phone minutes so she could call for job interviews and then get the job interview.
And then she ended up getting a job. And within nine months of living at our house, she got her life back.
Now, I'm not saying everybody can do that. Yeah. But I also have this Skid Row Speakers series on YouTube where I go and I pay homeless people for inspirational words.
That other thing of entrepreneurs are always trying to figure out how to inspire themselves and inspire other people because that grows your groups around people and it makes you happy.
And so once I go to them and I say you have some value, please share it with the world and I will pay you that clicks them into this other headspace of not pitying themselves.
And then they want to get out. And I had a win of a lady that I interviewed in Las Vegas.
She called me two, three weeks later because that's part of the also legitimizing is I give her my business card.
I'm not afraid that she's going to call me when at weird hours of the night and ask me for drugs or whatever.
And she called me back and she said, you know, because of that experience of of you interviewing me, it made me realize my life is worth something.
And I went back into rehab. Done. I mean, that's a little win.
Maybe she didn't stay in rehab, but we get to to to grab onto those and and have those success stories as we deal with our communities that are struggling, that don't have families and communities to support them.
And that's how I always say how how many chances do you give your son or your daughter or your your your uncle or your nephew?
Look at it that way. You know, don't give them an excuse to fail.
Support them as best you can. You have to take care of yourself like lifeguard rules.
I always say, take care of yourself so you can take care of others. Yeah.
Yeah. And it's and it's definitely something you have to to learn and look deeply into.
You know, it's it's the way that you started is amazing as I read your story. And I know it's pretty well stated for me, but I want our audience to know what's your why.
Man, my why. It's the voice in the back of my head. It's probably my grandfather and my parents telling me you have to be a good citizen. You have to solve problems.
You have to be a stand up human being. And that with however I'm built, because some people get that message and then they rebel against it or whatever it is.
But I just have to I always say I have to do what the little voice in the back of my head tells me I have to do.
And if I don't, I get sad. So for some, that's my why. Yeah.
That that little voice sometimes speaks so loud where you can't help but to just acknowledge it and do it.
And you definitely get that. What's the biggest misconception of homelessness?
That it is a certain demographic. I was under the impression in 2009 that homelessness was drug addicted, mentally ill people.
Period. All drug addiction, all mental illness. That is why there's homeless people. And that is not the truth.
I say the variety of people housed is same as the variety of people homeless.
And that that's important. Important to know, just like you mentioned the other individual who stopped working to help the family, you know, decided to move out and help her family and then got stuck.
You know, and I have to say, Glenn, I have met some individuals. I'll never forget this woman.
And she stated, I have a master's degree. I mean, and I was I have to be honest, Glenn, I was I was shocked. Right.
And again, that's when I learned that the misconception that I thought, which was what is displayed to most of us, is that there's drugs and there's, you know, other things.
And and when she said that, she's like, you know, this is a choice of mine. Now, she was in a homeless shelter, that house for a couple of years, you know, but she said this was a choice of hers.
But the best way to do and understand homelessness is to ask questions, right. And not assume, which is exactly what you did.
And now going on, you know, to them and asking for their inspirational stories, which I'm sure changes your life as well.
I have learned so much from the homeless. And I my first book, Things I've Learned from the Homeless, is is from that that life inspiration and that life knowledge that I gained from people that are suffering.
And I keep telling them that homeless population, you have so much to offer. And then I keep telling the house population, they have so much to offer.
And hopefully that changes the hearts and minds to get some of that engagement going to both help people that are housed and and help people that are not housed so we can kind of become a community that raises people up because people do get stuck for one reason or another.
I've been really fortunate. I've had a stable family throughout my 30s and 40s that when I got stuck, I knew they were there for me. If everything else went wrong, I could at least go back to Sacramento, where my family is.
Not everyone has that. And everyone gets stuck.
Right. So can you be that community for someone that doesn't have a family?
Yeah, yeah, that that that's that's beautiful. That's what I think about that. That's beautiful.
What are the greatest joys of what you do?
The greatest joys of what I do.
I get to see the light turn on in people's minds.
Especially working with the subject of homelessness, because it's just a sad thing. Yeah. And people that are on the street are just living this sadness. So what I do is I get to bring some opportunity for them to think differently about it and to not be sad about it and to watch that light come on in their eyes or that brain switch into a positive thinking wavelength is just
it keeps me going. It keeps me it keeps me wanting to think how can I how can I change more hearts and minds? How can I get the message out there? How can I make actual boots on the ground difference?
A friend of mine said, well, what you're doing is really nice, but do you actually help the homeless? Like, do you give out socks and whatnot?
And and those techniques are always what I considered just techniques to keep people homeless. You know, you're you're you're spending resources to give people day to day needs, which they need. But you could you spend those resources getting people out.
But those things really inspire people. So, all right. Yeah, I am going to walk L.A. and hand out what I called the bag bags. My last short short film is called bags. So I handed out the bag bags.
And yeah, those images of me handing out bright orange care packages to homeless people in North Hollywood and Burbank. People gravitate towards those naturally. They give people joy on on Instagram and Twitter.
They are the most viral posts I have ever posted because that that kind of inspiration, I thought, don't give people don't give my friend an excuse to say, well, you're not really really helping people. No, I am. Oh, you want me to do this? Well, this is valid, too.
And then it it it feeds on people and it hopefully it feeds into people and hopefully gives them inspiration to do something themselves, because I can't do it all right. I would love to find a way to put my money where my mouth is.
And I've got my boots on the ground plan. And I'm still looking for ways to do that, but I'm not there yet. So until then, how can I get other people to also think about ways that they can support their community?
And if I may ask, is that the goal of being on podcast and doing more podcasts?
I am constantly as an entrepreneur and as a creative, I'm looking for my ticket to scale passive income so then I can burn money on supporting communities and have kind of a proof of a more you never have enough proof. I've noticed you always have to prove your legitimacy.
So even though I've done things, I need to do more things to say, no, this this program is what I have an idea of doing. And I want to document it fully so then we can pull it apart and say, well, this work and this is why it worked or this didn't work.
And this is why it worked and really make that public because so many people, especially homeless service providers, are so worried about judgment that everyone walks around skirting liability.
And I think the only way to make success is to head into liability, but to do it in a really open way where you can justify your decisions and get support from people that would normally say you shouldn't have done that.
You know they're drug addicted. You know that that was going to be a bad thing. Right.
And it's definitely data. That's the first thing I thought about is data in order for someone to invest or to be invested. They want to see data and that like you said that's proof.
And I think that even as you mentioned, being an entrepreneur and a businessman and with the you know your your boots to the ground. It's all about data for other individuals.
But this is such an important thing that you're doing. And I know it's not about you, but I do want to say congratulations on your US today.
Thank you. Yes, yes. And which means that that you're getting it out there and you're doing.
You're listening to the voice behind your head and I want to tell you, Glenn, I'm super proud of you.
Thank you so much. You're welcome. If I could be and do what you do on a daily basis, I would. But guess what I can do?
I can use I can use my integrity as a real estate agent and I can make sure that I'm meeting people where I am.
And that's where your community and my community will join so that I make sure that I'm not doing the wrong thing.
And I tell you, I can spread this with all my friends to let them know, hey, this is a big deal and we love it.
And yes, we do get money for it, but it's such an important thing to make sure that that person is being met where they are.
So, yeah, absolutely. And just it's OK to make money. That is what we bought into.
Right. That is that is the society we live in. You have to make money to survive. So figure out how to do it without exploiting people, hopefully.
But someone there's all this system is based on someone winning and someone losing.
It's just and that's the way nature is, too, in order for one animal to eat, another animal has to die.
So it's a it's a hard one. But be the best person you can be.
Do what you can. Stay on the happy side of your brain as much as you possibly can.
Help as many people as you can and just try not to walk away from people because that's what we have now.
We have freedom equals neglect. Thank you for being here today.
I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live.
I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward.
This is going to get more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well.
We'll invite people to participate in the show.
And thank you for giving us your time and attention.
Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.