Julian McClurkin: Hey Tribevestors! Julian McClurkin here, your Chief Storyteller. Today I met up with Paul David Thompson. Now when he was 37 years old, he actually left his corporate job with the goal of creating passive income through real estate. Let's find out what his secret sauce is on today's episode.

What is the name of your tribe?

Paul David Thompson: It’s REI Freedom Fund.

Julian: How’d you guys come up with that name?

Paul: I run a community. We help people create financial freedom through real estate. And so, REI, real estate investing… The model of our business is that we basically are a very closely held private hard money lender, where we raise money together, put money into the tribe, and then we turn around and listen back to each other in our tribe that are actively flipping properties. So we're basically creating a hard money lending business as a tangential approach to our own flips.

Julian: You have me really thinking about how you can use Tribevest and empower these other people; as they pour the money into you, you can pour the money right back into them, and they can do their own ventures. That's amazing. One overarching thing that I’m seeing is that people aren't just getting a return financially from joining the tribe, they’re gaining boldness and knowledge.

Paul: One of the things we refer to is number confidence. Once you have number confidence, you know, “Okay, this is how much a this costs. This is how much is a good buy price for this particular asset.” And then once you start developing that, you gain a confidence in your confidence, and you just kind of establish these building blocks for success. And it's really hard to do that by yourself. So when you're able to be inside of a community instead of a tribe that has this common goal and you bring a variety of levels of expertise. Some people may know how to acquire property. Some people already know the bookkeeping part, which I'm terrible at. Somebody who knows bookkeeping please come help. Somebody who is a lawyer knows really what these documents really are set up for. When you bring those kinds of different personalities and experience levels to a tribe, you can kind of build out a nice little company that doesn't have to be this huge company where you have tons of employees. It's an investment company and that's what I like about the concept.

Julian: What is a goal, maybe a five year and a long-term goal with this investment tribe?

Paul: So, with this investment tribe, we’re going to continue to add capital to it. Then we can basically provide a preferred return to everybody who puts their funds into it. And they don't have to get involved in the deals, if they don't want to. But it's also an opportunity for them to learn how the paperwork and mechanics of everything works. So everything that we're doing, the paperwork is going to be stored in Tribevest. So, I don't have to show everybody how it works. If they want to see it, it's there. Then I'm basically the manager, and I’m the one that’s deciding where the money goes, and people just send in deals. Long-term, five years from now, we may have over several million dollars piled away into this freedom fund. That just is an ongoing hard money lending business.

Julian: You've got these 12 tribe members. Can you tell me a little bit about them as individuals like... It sounds like you're kinda like a mentor figure to a lot of them. 

Paul: Many of them I know personally. Some of them I only know through Facebook and the Internet. They've joined a community that I run called “My Freedom Foundry.” The whole idea behind the kind of avatar of the person who’d be involved in Tribevest and this specific LLC that we’re in… They’re people who are trying personally to change their family tree. They're trying to not rely on just the W-2 wage. They're trying to invest for the future and kind of create their own financial and geographic and personal freedom.

I used to be in the corporate world. I kind of started climbing the corporate ladder. I was an engineer by training. It’s not a bad life. I was able to make a good living for my family and had an ok life. There's nothing really to complain about other than, I wasn't free. I had to always exchange time for money, and I was not making any extra money or improving my station in life unless I was physically working. So it took me a while to figure it out. At about 37, I was like, “What am I doing?”  I’ve got to do something where I'm actually doing something actively to create passive income or what is often referred to as this kind of horizontal versus vertical income. So, how can I make money while I sleep? So that's why I want to get into investments so that I can put my money to work versus always putting me to work.

Julian: Alright so Paul, where can people find you?

Paul: The best place to find me is at my website PaulDavidThompson.com. I'm on Facebook and Instagram under those same names, “Paul David Thompson.”‍

Julian: Well, thanks man. I appreciate your time today.