Clayton Morris Joins Us On The Steve Jobs Inspired Join Up Dots Podcast
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Introducing Clayton Morris
Clayton Morris is today’s guest on the Steve Jobs inspired Join Up Dots business coaching podcast.
He is a man who is a multi-talented ex American television show host and a real estate investor; notable for being the anchor of the podcast called Investing in Real Estate.
He is also a co-founder of Morris Investing, where he helps people across the world to find financial freedom by canny investing.
As he says ” Most people know that the number one way to build financial freedom is through real estate.
But the problem is most people don’t know how.
When they try to do it on their own they end up confused and frustrated.
That’s why we founded Morris Invest.
We believe that everyone should have the right to this opportunity.
We’ve helped hundreds of people buy their first rental property.
We’ve renovated thousands of homes and filled them with happy tenants.
Which is great stuff, but equally fascinating is as we mentioned earlier prior to his real estate career life was different a few years ago.
Clayton Morris’s Previous Life
Clayton Morris worked as the anchor of the Fox network show titled Fox & Friends Weekend; as well as the former anchor of Good Day Philadelphia and The Daily Buzz on Fox 29.
Which for me is a fascinating thing.
As for many people this would have been a dream position. The pinnacle of a life’s work.
So what made him switch from being the calm and collected star of TV, to being front and centre of the online coaching world?
And was this an idea that just grabbed him by the throat and wouldn’t let him go?
Or did it softly slap him around for a while before his eyes gained focus and he could see his future.
Well let’s find out as we bring onto the show to start joining up dots with the one and only Clayton Morris
Show Highlights
During the show we discussed such deep subjects with Clayton Morris such as:
We share how a contract can quite often be so restrictive even if it is financially very rewarding.
We discuss how his father lost his job, and downsized everything to survive financially, which set Clayton on the path to take control.
Why it is such a good idea to open a LLC for your business in the United States as soon as you can.
And lastly………..
Why being just one step ahead, of your clients is often more than enough to make a wonderful income in your life.
How To Connect With Clayton Morris
Return To The Top Of Clayton Morris
If you enjoyed this interview with Clayton Morris why not check out other inspiring interviews like Mindset, Clint Arthur, Lunden DeLeon and Jack Canfield
Or of course you can check out thousands of podcast interviews in our archives here
Please note that this podcast episode was recorded BEFORE the current legal issues that Clayton Morris is dealing with due to investors losing money through his business.
We are fully aware of the concerns of many people who have written to us and also have commented on the web.
We have also been advised by customers of Clayton Morris that his advice was spot on and they believe that he was let down by a business partner.
Until the legal proceedings are concluded we will be leaving this show live as we believe that comments, and vitriolic abuse directed at us doesn’t actually mean that Clayton Morris is guilty and a scam artist.
Please note we have no interest or investment into Clayton Morris’s business
Audio Transcription Of Clayton Morris
Intro [0:00]
When we’re young, we have an amazing positive outlook about how great life is going to be. But somewhere along the line we forget to dream and end up settling. join up dots features amazing people who refuse to give up and chose to go after their dreams. This is your blueprint for greatness. So here’s your host live from the back of his garden in the UK, David Ralph.
David Ralph [0:25]
Yes, hello, and good morning. Well, good morning, wherever you are listening to us. Thank you so much for being here. Now we have got a guest on the show who is a multi talented, yes, multi talented ex American TV show host and real estate investor, notable for being the anchor of the podcast called investing in real estate. Now he’s also a co founder of Morris investing, where he helps people across the world to find financial freedom by Kenny investing as he says, most people know that the number one way to build a financial freedom is through real estate
But the problem is, most people don’t know how, when they tried to do it on their own, they end up confused and frustrated. And that’s why we founded Morris Invest. We believe that everyone should have the right to this opportunity. Now we’ve helped hundreds of people buy their first rental property. And we’ve renovated thousands of homes and build them with happy tenants, which is quite stuff. But equally fascinating is as we mentioned earlier, prior to his real estate career, he worked as the anchor of the Fox Network show titled Fox and Friends weekend, as well as the former anchor of good day Philadelphia and the daily buzz on Fox 29, which for me is fascinating. As for many people, this would have been a dream position, the pinnacle of a life’s work. So what made him switch from being the calm and collected style of TV to being front and center of the online coaching world? And Was this an idea that just grabbed him by the throat and wouldn’t let go or softly slapped him around for a while before his eyes gained focus, and he could see his future. Well, let’s find out as we bring on to the show to start joining us.
With the one and only Clayton Morris
Clayton Morris [2:04]
Good morning, Clayton Morris. How are you, sir? I’m doing great. I’m doing great. Thanks for having me. It’s great to have you here because you have got so many sort of elements to your career, you should be about 95 but you’re still a young man, you’re still in the prime of your life. Does it look very much like two parts of your life have collided against each other? Or was it just a seamless walk through the park? No, I think you know, I really feel like I’ve been like a jack of all trades. I think this is like a deficiency in me growing up. I I just liked a lot of stuff. You know, I liked a lot of crap. I’d wide go downstairs and watch TV when my parents thought I was in bed. I’d watch David Letterman and Johnny Carson and yeah, and you know,
and and I go to school the next day and I was interested in doing stand up comedy and I like the paranormal stuff, you know, new photos and all that kind of stuff. So I did a paranormal podcast for you. years and I just did a lunch a bunch of crap, you know? And, and so you know that you see these experts, right? We all have them in our friends who are neurosurgeons, doctors, and they’re just experts in that field. Like, I don’t feel like I’m an expert at anything. I feel like I’ve just done a lot of things. So when you asked me Do I should be like 95 years old? Maybe, although maybe I haven’t done all of those things good enough.
David Ralph [3:25]
Yeah, because I think really, if you haven’t got that competence, but you’ve nailed it when you’re always learning on you. Right? And I think that’s the key, right? I, someone the other day asked me, Do you get bored at home because I you know, I work from home, I run my business off using an iPad, and I said, No, I think there’s beauty in boredom, don’t you I mean, to be with your friend at a bar late at night or just, you know, to be able to sit out and in the afternoon where your kids are at school and just as I look off into the forest and look off into the trees and just have that freedom, that space
I think that’s what we’re all kind of clamoring for right now. We’re so stuck on our devices and our computers and our phones. We just don’t have that boredom I I actually invite the boredom. Yeah, I actually agree with you. If you go back to Episode One of join up dots when I just started doing this, we’re at about 1600 episodes. Now. The one of the first questions because I just moved from corporate land to entrepreneurial and to be honest, I missed the sort of buzz in an office, I missed the conversations. And I said to the guy, I said to him, Gino, do you ever get bored? Do you ever get lonely? And he said, No, never. And now the other night, I said to my daughter, who’s bored. I said, only boring. People get bored. Everybody else can find beauty in the clouds. And she looked at me and went back to her tablet. But it is a strange transition, isn’t it where, you know, certainly teenagers have to fill up every second of every day with something and otherwise the board the board right?
Clayton Morris [5:00]
Kids float around on the couch and like, I’m bored, I’m bored. And you know, eight years old, six years old, and I said, there’s just be bored, just sit here and just like, stare at the fire, you know, just sit here and just you don’t have to always be doing something. And that’s hard for me because I’ve certainly start, you know, suffered from, like, shiny object syndrome throughout my career. And, you know, in working in TV, I had that sort of singular path that I was just focused on being in television until I got bit with sort of the entrepreneurial bug. And then, you know, then life came off the rails, so to speak, and went in a totally different direction for me, but it’s exciting. Isn’t it a direction you went in, because, you know, I’ll be honest with you, you look like an anchor, you do look like an anchor. And if you look at the American anchors, it’s very different from the United Kingdom. That is kind of like GI Joe, they all kind of look vaguely the same. They just get they get home until I get retired and they get put into a retirement home somewhere. Like like
Clayton Morris [6:01]
But over here, it’s very different. But I’ve been flicking around your Twitter feed and here you are. You’re all unshaven. You’re all heavy man. Is it kind of liberating? Have you found your real spirit? Did you feel suppressed by teli? Or, or sort of liberated by it? Yeah, it’s a great question. I think I did because I, you know, like I said, I used to do when I was at Fox News, you know, you’re the host at Fox News Channel, you’re you sign a contract, you’re there for two years, three years, and then you get a renewed contract and you’re there for another three years and whatever, but you’re, you know, you’re living your life at the mercy of a contract and how good are you right now to the powers that be and whether or not they’re going to renew your contract. So you’re still working for a paycheck even though it seems glamorous, right? You’re amazing money. Amazing. I was on the number one morning show on cable news. And, you know, to throw all that in seems crazy people called me nuts, but because I can work for myself and I don’t have to be at the mercy of a boss. Telling me You know, we don’t want you to grow moustache. We don’t want you to grow a beard. We don’t want you to wear glasses, go get LASIK surgery, you know that kind of stuff like that that’s you know can be you feel like you’re just a pawn you feel like you’re a commodity. And so it is liberating. Now I I’ve grown a beard for the first time in my life. And my old co anchor, he works at CNN. And he sent me a man he has a beard now as well. And Fox never would let us grow facial hair. Like they’re like nope, it because we wanted to do a thing in November called Movember mustache. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
And so we Dave and I, my co anchor just said, you know, we want to do that. And our bosses were like, nope, they don’t want you to do that. And we’re like, all right now he’s at CNN, he has a beard and he sent me a an Instagram message last night. He said, Man, your beard is looking glorious. He’s like, I keep trimming my I’m gonna stop trimming my beard and I said, How does cnn feel about you? You know, growing a beard over there. And he This is a conversation that to maintain
David Ralph [8:00]
I, you know,
Clayton Morris [8:01]
I’ve had been having a lot of these gay beard conversations lately. I like
if I feel like a woman because my wife, you know, she’ll talk about cutting her bangs on, you know, and I don’t care. And now I’m like, I’m wrapped up in beard culture, you know? Because once you it’s like buying a car, you’re about to buy a car, you suddenly start seeing that car everywhere, you know, as you’re driving around. It’s the same with beards now. I’m like, Okay, do I need to get Do I need to get like a beard trimmer? Do I need to get beard oil? You know, so that I don’t get dry? At what point do I cut the beard? Do I just let it go? like David Letterman does, or what do I do? So I’m fasting. I’ve been watching YouTube videos on beard culture and I feel I feel like a woman you know, get out like a Sasquatch, I know you are you’re going to be so just a hairy individual wandering around the woods just getting on to YouTube every now and again. Which is good. I don’t know and I don’t know how that translates on you to be honest with you. My whole 18 years in TV. I never had a hair. So, this now on my YouTube channel, I’m wearing a you know wearing a winter hat. On a few of my most recent videos. I just did a video with Gary van der Chuck this past week that I published on our Morris Invest channel and I have a full beard. And I just feel I’m like, I don’t know how this is going to resonate. Does the audience care or do they think Hey, he’s a real guy. He should tell you how it will resonate. It will resonate as authentic. You know, if you if you turn up Beardy, if you turn up, show up Turner, it’s you. Why should you be worried that much about anything but other people? I was I did a podcast episode just recently and somebody through my whole life Clayton, I have operated in a bubble of flippancy, I love sarcasm, I love enjoying myself. I love showing this this side of being non professional, but actually there’s an underbelly of I’m really serious and I’m really focused on it. And this guy, once again sort of said to me, you know, you shouldn’t really be shy about
David Ralph [10:00]
You should be more professional. And I said, Who are you focusing that on? Because that next person that comes along might love that. And the next person doesn’t. If I’m worried about sort of the nuances of changing over time, it’s just going to be exhausting. Just be yourself be real and authentic, and then just go with it. Yeah, and have an opinion. I think that’s the thing that I really try to do on my show, when you know, people don’t want vanilla, and I, I have an opinion, you have an opinion.
Clayton Morris [10:27]
And when you put out content when I put out YouTube videos, or our podcast, you know,
I really try to make sure that I have an opinion that I’m presenting not just the middle of the road, vanilla opinion, because you can get that anywhere. You know, I I’m telling people in a video recently, like, you know, owning a house that you live in is not an asset. It’s not you I want to get an argument with people about it. Like, you know, I’m sorry, but it’s not putting money in your pocket every month. It’s taking money out of your pocket, and people like to argue with me about it. I’m like, well, you’re just going to lose that argument. You’re not gonna win that argument. Now. I always felt a while.
Clayton Morris [11:00]
And children were an asset but I’ve now realized but they’re not ever no absolutely not no I mean the periods of time that I get like right now to be able to talk to another man or just be quiet or you know just talk beard culture that’s an asset but the the the two hours this morning that my kids were delayed because of a snow snow storm here and they had to stay home for two hours. I mean, I locked my office door and hid hid from them. And I just take money out your pocket as well. You lose you lose. So we got you on the show not talking about your previous life but talk about your new life your transition into investing in real estate most investing because I’m fascinated by that moment. And I’ve got to take you back to bring you forward. But that moment when you’re sitting there on the couch, on good day Philadelphia, with your your, your plastic looking lady by the side of you, and you’re thinking, I want something more than this. I want something more business and normally I
happens maybe two or three years before the idea hits, you just kind of get this flat feeling. Was that the case with yourself? Well, I grew up, you know, I saw I grew up with a lot of fears around money, and I saw my dad lose his job when I was like 12 years old. And you know,
Clayton Morris [12:18]
he came home that Friday and they had just downsized him. And he was sort of pacing around the kitchen and I remember being terrified because I grew up with a lot of you know, we don’t you know, we can’t afford that money doesn’t grow on trees. We’re not the Rockefellers. I don’t know what would be like the what would be like the English version of the Rockefellers? What would you guys say? What would you
David Ralph [12:40]
that’s it that’s a very good one because we are extremely poor over here compared to how our neighbors across the pond who can just build billion dollar walls all over the place and not even blink? beckons? What about the backups? The backups? Okay, that’s a good one. Yeah. You know,
Clayton Morris [12:58]
I was gonna say Ricky Gervais that your faces and yes guy kid.
Yeah. So I would say, you know, we’re not the faces we’re not the we’re not the backups and I would hear that growing up all the time and and so when I saw my dad lose his job I just remember thinking like are the whole sort of trajectory of our family has just been altered because of this, this boss telling my dad that he wasn’t good enough anymore, and they’re downsizing his department. And as you guys would say, what made redundant, right? So.
So it was it was it was terrifying for me. And so flash forward a number of years later, I’m in host of good day Philadelphia at the local news in Philadelphia. And they downsized me, they said they weren’t going to renew my contract. They had encouraged me to buy a house in downtown Philadelphia, my home city while I was back, and they said we’re going to take the show in a different direction and we think you’re the fun funny, sarcastic morning guy and we want to take the show and if it bleeds, it leads kind of hard news direction and
Goodbye. And I said what, you know, I bought a house like what am I going to pay and you encouraged me to, to live here, you know, and all of this and, and so I vowed then, although I didn’t quite know it, but I vowed then that I was never going to be, you know, a slave to somebody else in a paycheck telling me what to do. And so I started to really study real estate investing and, and from there, I just started buying properties, and I buy single family properties. And while I was at Fox News Channel, the network called me up and said, Hey, come on up to New York City. And I said,
Wait, didn’t Fox just late lay me off? And they said, No, no, there’s a big separation between church and state that this is the network that’s a small market TV station. We’ve been following your career for a while, come up to New York. And we’d like to have you host this morning show fox and friends and I said, okay,
but I didn’t you know, I was still getting a paycheck and had a contract. And so while I was there, I started to acquire real estate and it got to a point
David Ralph [15:00]
were, you know, at some point it was just, I don’t really need to be here anymore. I have enough passive income coming in from the rental properties that I own that I don’t have to be scared if I’m good enough for them renewing my contract ever again. I was so scary even though because I imagine you laid in bed with your wife, or somebody else’s wife, whatever having a conversation. And you say, yeah, I’m thinking of doing this because certainly with me, my wife was so reluctant for me to do it. Even though I said, you know, there’s no downside. There’s only ups and chickens and even six years down the line. My mom I spoke to the other day said to her, yeah, yeah, it’s trouble with you your job so airy fairy, and I went how’s how’s it airy fairy but I create my own income. Surely That’s better. Right and my wife is very much the same. You know,
Clayton Morris [15:49]
it’s so crazy. We’ve been just like your Sammy, we’ve been like you. I think we and our families. We’ve been so conditioned to think that you know, having a paycheck to paycheck and
In the United States, and then having a like a 401k retirement plan is how you build wealth. We’ve been so conditioned by TV advertising and everything else to say that that’s the way you do it. In fact, to me, that’s scarier than scarier. You’re beholden because because a boss can just yank the rug out from under you at any time. Like I saw with my dad, like I saw what happened to me and unless you’ve built something that belongs to you as a business that you can then you know, reduce your overall tax burden actually have passive income coming in from assets that you own. You know, you’re you’re you’re you’re beholden to somebody else.
So you know, my wife grew up watching her grandparents get to spend time with them because they lived off the their the passive income from a bunch of warehouses and rental properties that they owned in California. So she understood this and we were buying properties and it was still scary, you know, because our
I think maybe it’s mostly scary. I think as my ego, you know, you’re, you wonder who you are. And you know,
someone asks you who you are, you’d say, I’m a news anchor. But that’s not really who I am. Right? Who are you? And so I had, I think my identity tied to the thing that I’d spent my whole life cultivating, which is to go on TV, and you know, and I was, you know,
and so I, my, my mind was tied to this idea of being a news anchor. And once I had peace with that,
then it was okay for me to leave. And it was actually at the same time that I don’t know if you recall, but the Charlottesville sort of riots here in the United States were. And, you know,
I was on the air and I was just sitting there saying to myself, how is this president, you know, not coming out and immediately denouncing this? And how do I have to go wake up at three in the morning, go into a TV studio and talk about this and talk about like white supremacy like, No, I’m not going to be a party to this.
in any capacity anymore, and that was it so and you had to get it was three o’clock in the morning, right? I mean, I, you know, I,
I’d get up at like 330 the car would come grab me Take me into in the New York City and kind of go through the stories of the day that we’re going to work on and we go on the air at 6am. You know, and that’s when the world is there’s not enough news. 24 hour news doesn’t exist. It’s just 30 minutes of news repeated 24 times, you know, exactly. And it is info news. It’s entertainment. And I thought to myself, I’m not helping anybody here. You know,
I never talked about real estate on the show. I never talked about taking control of your financial future. on that show. I never talked about rental real estate investing, I would do stories i’d interview you know, senators and people doing funky stunts, climbing off buildings, whatever they you know, it was just like info news, you know, and the entertainment news and I was like, you know, I’m not helping anybody. And now like you said, like I get to talk and do a show and help my YouTube channel.
David Ralph [19:00]
specifically help people get out of debt and build wealth. And I’m talking right to that audience with a beard. Yes, even though women have got beards about that’s how it’s how focused it is. But let’s see some motivational comment. And then we’re going to delve back in with Clayton Morris.
Jim Carrey
My father could have been a great comedian, but he didn’t believe that that was possible for him. And so he made a conservative choice. Instead, he got a safe job as an accountant. And when I was 12 years old, he was let go from that safe job. And our family had to do whatever we could to survive. I learned many great lessons from my father, not the least of which was that you can fail at what you don’t want. So you might as well take a chance on doing what you love.
David Ralph
Oh, I tell you what that ties in well to our conversation the net? Yeah, absolutely.
Clayton Morris [19:53]
I love love listen to that was Jim Carrey right I mean, I you know, I it’s interesting to listen to Jim Carrey because he has gone through I think something similar to what
I have gone through over the past number of years where this awakening and you know, I’ll sit out on the porch at night with back in my hometown of reading Pennsylvania and sort of sit there with my buddy Andy and talk about this sort of stuff and how we live in a constant state of fear and anxiety over things that we you know, that we give, we give words to them we it’s our reaction to things that happened to us the thoughts around certain things that we then live our lives in fear of our anxiety around our whole life. And I think Jim Carrey understands that you know, and moving out of Hollywood not being a part of that, because his ego was so tied to his success in movies and you realize it’s all just garbage. It’s that that whole that whole mindset that’s just garbage and he I was surrounded by it in TV, you know, that’s why people thought it was crazy to leave like you’re leaving this great job. Why would you do that? Are you insane? Now I’m not as enlightened as Jim Carrey is and as awakened, but I’m working on it.
David Ralph [21:00]
Every day yeah I’m sure you are and you are now doing something as he said that you love so let’s sort of Delve back into that. So Morris investing investing in real estate give us a preview of what the listeners out there for example, I’m from the United Kingdom Could I dive into your program and and do it or is it only Are you a US based thing? Now we have a lot of investors who start watching you know, our YouTube channel Morris Invest. They start listening to my podcast, the investing in real estate podcast, which is the you know, the most boring name of a podcast ever, but it works for Google searches, right? And so we have people all over the world that listen to the show and will get emails from people from Australia from the UK like Will this work here? Will this you know can I do this from afar and there’s just a few more steps that they have to take they just have to establish like a US business LLC, which is not hard like we we have a reference right on
Clayton Morris [22:00]
Our website on how to do it. It’s super simple. So there’s like one or two additional steps and then you get an Ei n number for the bank or the bank account for that business and then you can buy real estate. I mean, heck, the Chinese have bought up half the United States, you know, so you can do it. And, you know, we just started it really started organically. For us, I was starting to buy my first two properties in Michigan. They were, you know, 900 square foot homes, you know, very small three bedroom, one bath, affordable housing in blue collar neighborhoods, that people that work down the street at the hospital, the local school, the post office, etc. And they have a yard, they have a driveway. And you know, it’s not the Taj Mahal, but it’s a great house that we would we would renovate, we fix the floors, fix the windows, put in a new kitchen update, you know, electric and plumbing and mechanicals. And now I’ve got a tenant in there who stays you know, who signs a five year lease and stays and is happy because they’re in the school district. They want to And we rinse and repeat, just do it over and over again. And now we’ve gotten, you know, we own over 50 properties personally in our portfolio. And then that’s what our company sort of grew from, we just help we have friends coming to us saying, hey, I’ve got 50 you know, $50,000 I’d like to buy one of those houses, can you help me? And then before long, I was like, wait a min, we actually have a company, like we’re helping all these other people do that. Then let’s kind of formalize this and kind of turn this into, you know, a turnkey providing company because we’re we’re making referrals and helping people do this with our contractors. So that’s kind of just kind of grew organically from there.
David Ralph
Now, I know there’s a lot of listeners out there that would be going Yes, I’d like to do this but they have. They have concerns. One of them is if I were buying property in America, do they have to come across? Did I need to know the area did I need to know the geography and also the bigger one, and I suppose this is a little bit for myself, because I remember many years ago, Michael Keaton did a film called Pacific Heights were he was a tenant but became an absolute nightmare and the people couldn’t get him out and he was just taking the thing apart is that are they real concerns or are they things are actually know if you do it right you don’t really have those issues?
Clayton Morris
Well, I like to think of real estate investing is starting a business you are going into business you’re opening an LLC in the United States to buy a property so now you’re in business right so now you’re in a lower tax bracket automatically because of that. Now you are buying an asset for your business. You’re setting up maybe a home office to kind of track your rental properties that’s a business expense maybe you paid for your your iMac, your tablet, your phone, your internet service provider, you know, that’s a right off now for your business. That’s a real estate investing business. And there’s like with any business, there are hiccups. I’ve got four vacancies on four of my properties right now. And we’re getting them turned over I have to go down and we have to do you know some renovations at to rip out some flooring. we’re updating some windows.
We had an eviction on another property, we just got the eviction through the tenant wasn’t paying rent. So there are speed bumps. It is ridiculous to think that just like with any business, you’re not going to have, you know, issues. But I think the key is if you build them into the beginning, like if, you know, at the beginning there was a great sales sales teacher, I think his name was Chet homes. And he wrote a book years ago, which is an amazing sales book. And he says in the book that when you’re making a sales call for the first time, it takes eight times of contact with that individual before the sale is going to happen. So if you know ahead of time that you can build an eight points, so don’t hang up at the first phone call doesn’t go well. Don’t throw in the towel, you’ve got seven more times that you need to reach out to this person or connect with this person to get the sale. So
Just like like that as it is with rental real estate investing, you are going to have a vacancy. You may have a city may send you a letter saying you need to fix the sidewalk, you may get a high grass violation. Okay? But as long as you build that in and know upfront that you are going to have this, to me The upside is way higher, because now you’re creating passive income. But just like with any business, you’re going to have things to deal with. With every business. You’re absolutely right. There’s ups and downs and even something like that I do from here, which is sounds like I open my mouth and I have a chat with someone but there’s a lot of hassle that goes on behind the scenes. Now, right you move through the hassle and you get to a point where the business can become boring. You kind of know it inside out and you think to yourself, I thought this was what I wanted. This was the dream. Can you see that occurring with yourself? Or is it the variation of the old skills to the new back and keep it alive?
For you, right, because I’m an entrepreneur at heart, I love creating, you know, and so I’ve created this business, it’s done very well. We’ve decided Actually, this this year, we’re going to shift the company away from doing just a lot of house flips, which we we still do. But we’ve now really focused on building out our media side of the business, Morris media, where we, you know, we have a lot of affiliate relationships, we have our videos, we have, you know,
our course that we launched our financial freedom Academy course, which is like 10 modules where we help people get out of debt and, you know, get rid of their liabilities and turn them into performing assets. It’s not real estate specific, we just realized we weren’t, we weren’t serving a huge portion of our audience that maybe didn’t want to invest in real estate but had debt and wanted to maybe start a business you know, so there are other ways to create passive income. So we really started to shift our attention towards that writing books. We have a book that we just published. It’s done very well, on how to pay off mortgage in five years. And, you know, I think we’re trying to shift more into that lifestyle, you know, being able to travel and talk about how we travel for free because we use our credit cards to pay our contractors and so we haven’t had to pay for a flight in three years, you know, so I want people to learn about that stuff. And that’s new and exciting for me. So it’s not just focused on real estate. So that’s kind of how I stay young. You know, with with like creating these things because I’m always like drawing on my whiteboard with different project ideas and video ideas and I can’t sit still, you know, I don’t know about you, but I just can’t sit still I want to create,
David Ralph [29:00]
I want to create, I also want to create in a quiet way, when I first started is I was everywhere, and I’d be blasting out left, right and center. And now I do very selective creation. You know, I’m more focused on the quality van. What I used to do, well, I used to sort of blast it out into YouTube. Because if I go over to YouTube Now, the good guys shine. You know, you just see they’re like little movies. And they’re just like really? There’s a guy called Matt Davila, who I’ve watched quite a few of his videos, and they’re just classy. It’s sort of like I love his videos he had to about minimalism. Yeah. And beautifully shot and I’m jealous of his videos. Yeah. It’s amazing. Now what you’ve done, you’ve pulled in into the classic join up dots mantra, really, where you haven’t left behind your old skills, you’ve taken the bits you like from your old skills, and transition them to a new way of operating. And I certainly see in join up dots, a lot of people kind of think, but I’ve got to go, I hate doing this. I want to go over there. But actually, they don’t hate all of it. They just hate parts of it that become the painful bit. So you might be a boss. It might be the hours it might be whatever. And you’ve done that very well and you you transfer the skills that you love to somebody
Clayton Morris [30:00]
Elsewhere y’all want to control? Yeah, I mean, you know, broadcasting and being able to communicate, I think in contextualize for a large audience, something that is a complex topic. And so on our channel, my wife, and I, you know, she joins me on there as well. And we’re talking about really complex topics and how to lower your taxes, by depreciating your assets and things like that. So that’s what I’m able to do. That’s what I was able to do in the news business, which is take a complex topic like a North Korean summit meeting, you know, and in condense it and be able to contextualize I always like try to put myself in the position of where these people are, they’re making breakfast, they’ve got their kids yelling at them, they’re trying to have coffee there, you know, or tea, they’re trying to get out the door for school or work, and they’re listening to the TV in the background. Can they be informed enough in those moments by by, you know, with my help to kind of help winnow down a larger topic and so I’ve been able to take that to YouTube and to our podcast and
in some small way, try to help people take action. You know, I don’t care if people ever buy a house through us at all. In fact, I get emails and YouTube comments. If you read through our YouTube comments, you’ll see like, Hey, I watched this video. Last year, my wife and I are now on our third rental property thanks to you, and they’ve never worked with us, you know, never bought a property through us. But I don’t care. I’m super thrilled that they’ve made a change in their life, they may be able to get out of the rat race and leave that nine to five job.
David Ralph [31:29]
It doesn’t need a lot. This is the thing. The big businesses I’m seeing now almost seemed to be something but you go really, that’s the world one. A classic example. There’s a lady on Netflix at the moment, a Japanese lady called Marie Kondo, and she teaches people to tidy up and and that’s it. She teaches people how to fold things in a drawer so it’s neat, and she’s gone through a slight viable over here. Every wife is ripping out drawers and folding things up and stuff but
If you think that you could create a multimillion pound business about tidying up, you wouldn’t need to start. You just think, Well, everybody knows by then what’s the point. And that’s what I love about what you’re doing and what all the people are doing on YouTube and podcasts. But taking one element, a tiny little element, and then making something remarkable. And that’s what the world needs to do. Find the thing that they love, like Jim says, and go out and do it.
Clayton Morris [32:27]
Yeah, I think you hit on such a great point, because so many people are listening to this right now who have an idea but they’re scared and they’re sort of ruled by fear. And you hit on such a great point, because remember, to be a teacher, all you need to be is one step ahead of the person you’re teaching. Yeah. And so often just like you doing this show and all of your experience in the corporate world and everything you help people and, and teach people, it’s easy to think that everyone else knows this stuff. Right?
I, you know, I can think I can drive around my neighborhood. And I think, you know, everyone probably knows how to invest in real estate and not pay to lower their taxes and all of these things, how to set up a business and, and know, they don’t know they don’t. And I’m not I’m not the world’s leading expert on any of that stuff. But as long as I’m one or two steps ahead of my next door neighbor, who came over to me, knocked on our door who I didn’t even really know. And he said, I’ve been watching your YouTube videos and I and I’m a I’m a dentist, and it’s changed my life. Like, I’m going to start investing in real estate. I’m like, here’s a dentist. You know, okay, he’s all the schooling I wouldn’t you wouldn’t want me getting taking your molar out. But this guy, so people who have an idea, you’re right, you could just even if it’s like, like my mom, I was just thinking about her the other day. She’s a CEO of a nonprofit here in the United States and she helps people who are disadvantaged or who have handicapped, who are handicapped. Get a job.
You know, whether it’s folding silverware at a restaurant, you know, whatever, she helps them do that. And she relies on grants from the state of Pennsylvania. She could literally because writing grants is hard. People don’t know how to do that. She could not only own her own brand on writing grants, she could write a book on how to write grants, she could put together a YouTube channel on the ups and downs of writing grants. And she could own that space. So it doesn’t matter how small the idea it only, you know, just matters how much motivation you have.
David Ralph [34:34]
I do a lot of training at the moment teaching people how to create online businesses and I I held back for a long while, even though I was doing very well, because there was an imposter syndrome on my shoulder that kind of felt I’d write something. And I was thinking, Oh, well, I’m doing really well. Can this translate to somebody else? And now I teach people how to find their business and create it and you can see that moment of realization in their eyes when they realize how many business opportunities out there. There’s literally you just can’t stop falling over. And they’re all sitting there going, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. And then when that Penny drops, boom, they’re on their on it.
Clayton Morris [35:16]
Yeah. And there’s so many. There’s so many versions of us out there that it just a matter of dialing in the right audience for that voice, right. Not everyone likes Ricky Gervais face, right? And so if he has a podcast that teaches people on how to start a business, people are going to find him. I think he’s one of you know, hilarious, but they’re going to people who are going to find him, he’s going to rub people the wrong way. So then they might gravitate to somebody else who teaches someone how to run to start a business, right? It’s like the webinar training people. Right. So you’ve got Amy Porterfield. We’ve got Lewis Howes, you’ve got you know, there’s so many different people that teach you how to create a webinar for your business. Well, you might, you might think, Oh, I can’t teach people how to do webinars, even though I’ve been really successful? It’s like, do you think that Amy Porterfield and Lewis house are the only two authorities and can connect with an audience on teaching people webinars? Are you crazy, you might have something to offer in a different voice and a different style than anybody else. And you’ll be able to create, you know, create that tribe, like Seth Godin talks about getting that thousand people that follow you. So many opportunities out there, you don’t have to have all of the answers as an online entrepreneur and as someone who’s educating other people, right, you might not know everything about SEO. So the people that you’re training, you might point them to somebody like Neil Patel, who you can train them about SEO better than now.
David Ralph [36:38]
And then claim it as my own one, David laughter that’s what I would do.
Clayton Morris [36:43]
That’s a good Yeah, to and that’s another good strategy. So act as if, yeah,
David Ralph [36:48]
I, you know, one step ahead. I spent years in corporate land and I tell the story a lot, but I was a presenter, I was a trainer. I used to stand up doing training courses and quite often I didn’t know the subject, but I was teaching, I only knew enough to get by. And I was just on my wits. But as long as you say something with competence enough, first of all people will start to believe it. But then once you start to realize that actually that doesn’t take you far enough, you really got to know your stuff. You realize it’s not that hard. It’s not hard to learn any subjects if you really sort of want to get down and research.
Clayton Morris [37:26]
Well, that’s why we have this education problem, you know, teachers, for instance, right? They just have like, a curriculum, but they don’t even really know it. And they read it the night before, and they come to school and teach it the next day. So you’re, you’re right about that. It’s where we have like this education crisis, right. We’re not actually employing it. You know, there’s people who in the real estate world on the on the, you know, on the accounting side of things where it’s amazing that people are being trained to colleges by in accounting by people who’ve never been an accountant, but you’re paying them 10s of thousands of dollars to go to you university to be trained by an accounting class by someone who’s not actually an accountant. This happens. So it’s not. It’s not all together odd.
David Ralph [38:08]
I’ll tell you why we could do this without four hours and get more and more Renzi here. Because one of the things that really winds me up when we’re talking about it, is when you go into somebody’s LinkedIn profile, and they’re working for Taco Bell, and you think Fair enough, and then they go into the corporate, and you can see a progression, you can see a progression moving through different jobs. And then they go out on their own and instantly be an expert. Instantly, they’re saying that I can show somebody how to do stuff. And I was saying, I’d rather see somebody who has done it for 10 years, more than somebody who’s been doing it for two minutes. But you see those profiles and the other side of me kind of things. Well, you’ve got to get going. I can understand you got to get going. You got to put your best foot forward. But a burnt out expert, for me is more preferable than a thrash based one, because I know that they’ve gone up and down and I’ve seen both sides of it.
Clayton Morris [39:00]
Well, I mean, I had like one of the worst years ever last year as an entrepreneur and I’ve tried to talk about it as much as I can. And, you know, I’ve gone I’ve learned so much having gone through what we went through last year, having relying on a partner that was, you know, supposed to be doing rehabs and supposed to be doing the things they said they were going to do and didn’t do, you know, and,and having to deal with, like lawsuits and all of that stuff. It’s like, yeah, you know, you’re gonna and that’s, that’s how you grow. There are no problems, only challenges, right. And so, when you that’s why we’re here. I believe we’re here as a show running a little esoteric, you know, like,two in the morning talking about it. We’re here for we’re here as a show. I mean, this is all a show. And you know, we’re here with a set amount of time set amount of years. And we have an opportunity while we’re sitting here right now, to do something big to go through this soul journey. And I think we are presented with Soul journey or challenges in our lives, and you either rise up to them or you shrink, you know, and I think that’s the whole progression, like, why are we here? It’s to progress as a soul, and then you die, right? And I think we, you know, believe in the afterlife or not, I think you come back and you have an opportunity to work on the things that you were sent here to work on. And so these challenges present themselves in your life. You are you can either shrink from them, and sit on the couch and do nothing, or stand up and grow from them. And I think the young entrepreneurs who have never experienced any adversity, or who mommy and daddy paid for them to do something, and now they’re an expert. They don’t know what that’s like yet. I’d much rather get advice from somebody who has scars all over them.
David Ralph
Well, let’s hear some words from somebody who has got scars all over them and didn’t just have the ups and downs, but had public ups and downs terrible times, but led to these words, Steve Jobs.
Steve Jobs [40:54]
Of course, it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college, but it was very Very clear looking backwards 10 years later. Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something, your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leaves you off the well worn path. And that will make all the difference.
David Ralph [41:29]
But you will lead from the well worn sofa really you’re sitting there and you decided to go your own path. What did you trust in as he said, You gotta trust in something. What did you trust it?
Clayton Morris [41:42]
Well, it was worth you know what it was working for us. And I saw the success of the monthly passive income coming in. I saw that people were inspired by our words, taking action through our podcast through YouTube, and who we’re going out there and doing this on their own, whether they worked with us or not. And he’s absolutely right about like looking back, looking back, I grew up with all these fears around money, I see this as a soul journey for me that I was meant to have these challenges facing these challenges that I am going to maybe fear, you know, fear losing at all. I was meant to be shaken like that I was meant to also lose my job. I was meant to be thrust into self preservation mode and going after and starting my own company. I was meant to go through this journey last year with this company that defrauded us and, and now they’re out of business. But, you know, I was meant to go through that because it’s solidified things. For us. It affirmed that what this even if we lost everything, even if our company folded, we had built enough of a safety net of passive income and properties that will always protect us despite what the universe can throw at us. And so seeing those things and putting those things in place makes all the difference.
David Ralph [43:04]
And when you hear those kind of words, are they the kind of things that you will say to your kids? Will you say, don’t worry kids, you’ve just got to sort of have faith and have fun and go out and do it. Or are you know, you’ve got to get an education and you got to go to college? What kind of bad Are you because we kind of we, we know what we should say. But in our hearts, we want to say something else.
Clayton Morris [43:25]
I’ve always been a contrarian, you know, because someone says to me, should I quit my job? We were doing a live stream the other day, we do a live stream every Wednesday at 11am. Eastern and this woman said, should I quit my job? And I said, Look, I can’t answer that for you. That’s a personal decision. But if if I were you, and I were, you know, being beholden to this job, this w two job paycheck in thinking that my 401k retirement plan was going to be the thing that was going to create wealth for me. I’m sorry, no, I would leave you’re being taxed at a much higher level than I am. I don’t have a W i don’t have a paycheck job. The government rewards entrepreneurship in this country. And the tax code written for entrepreneurs. So I’m sorry, you’re you’re playing an uphill game here. You know, you’re having to try to so you’re like Sisyphus, I’m gonna roll a stone up the hill every day. I and I, you bring up a great question because I think about that with my kids. Now they’re eight, six and two years old and I went to college, but I don’t know that I, I really don’t care that they would go to college. I don’t see the upside to be honest with you. I’d much rather have my son when he’s old enough. He’s eight now start a business and learn that way by performing assets, because that’s what I would encourage him to do after college. So why would I waste four years and 10s of thousands of dollars on him to learn from a fake accountant on how to do accounting?
I don’t know I’m really questioning this right now. Because you know, they go to school every day. We make sure they’re doing their homework and reading books, but we don’t we sit around we play a passive income game. At the sometimes when, you know, we will throw out different things like a boat, is this a liability or performing asset? And our kids will have to answer that based on what it is, you know, well and the My son will say, Well, if you’re using it to rent out, like if you’re renting and doing fishing trips for people, then it can become a performing asset like Bingo. So that’s the education I want them to have. I don’t need some fake university professor blowing smoke up there. You know, you know what?
David Ralph [45:27]
Yeah, I agree. I say to my kids, my, my daughter, my older daughter went through every part of education. She She was obsessed by it. And she’s ended up being a lawyer in London, in the top like 1%, and she earns a ton of money, but I don’t think she’s very happy. And Mike, younger kids, I’m saying, Just enjoy yourself, just go through life. And she keeps on coming home and she says to her, you shouldn’t be doing that. You shouldn’t be doing that they need a full education or go now live had enough of it. Just Just let them entertain it. So I’ve got both sides of the spectrum, and I don’t really know where to sit I think education is great if it’s something you’re interested in. But if it’s just something that you are being forced to learn, because you’ve got to go to this place, then I don’t think it’s good at all.
Clayton Morris [46:13]
Yeah, I also think, look at who you’re learning from, you know, not I don’t want to, if you’re, if you want to live the life of your dreams, travel the world with your family, explore, write the book that you want. You know, for instance, we did some whitewater rafting this summer out in Idaho, and where my sister in law lives with her family. And we were on the rapids and the guy who was leading the boat said, you know, we were talking to him, and he just lives in a tent up at the top of the mountain at the top of the river. And we’re asking him, he’s like, Oh, yeah, kind of travel around. I go to Breckenridge during the winter and I teach skiing, and I’m here during the summer, and I do guides and I’m like, Where’s your house? He’s like, Oh, I live in a tent up there. And I was fascinated by that, that he had everything he needed. And he was super happy, right? He was like the happiest guy and he was able to be on the water every day and do this thing that he loves. And I would want that for any of my kids, I would want them to do what they love, not out of fear for money. But I want them to be able to buy performing assets so that they have that safety net for their family, buying those performing assets to enable them to travel the world to do the whitewater rafting. You know, wouldn’t it be great that this guy is doing this whitewater rafting but he’s also buying rental properties in Michigan. So no matter what happens that day, he’s got $800 coming in consistently from that one property every month. That’s what I want.
David Ralph [47:30]
I think that’s what we want. And I think most of the listeners in this out there would have been convinced to look into this a little bit more. And of course, we will bring up all your links to your profile at the end of the show. But we are at a bit of the show that we call the Sermon on the mic when we’re going to send you back in time to have a one on one with your younger self. And if you could go back in time and speak to the young later. What age would you speak to and what advice would you like to give him Well, we’re going to find out because I’m going to play the music and when they chew up this is the Sermon on the mic.
Clayton Morris [48:06]
Clayton Morris. Don’t be a wimp. You’re six years old. You’re seven years old. You’re eight years old. Stop being a wimp around money. Stop being scared about not having enough. Look, I know your parents every day are telling you. You hear it every day. They’re telling you we can’t afford this, that we’re not the Rockefellers. We’re not the Beckham’s. You can’t do this. But guess what, it’s all going to be okay. And you are going to be able to learn how to build passive income someday you don’t have to live in a constant state of fear because it’s all going to be okay. You’re here. For a little time and you’re going to die, you’re gonna die someday. How much of your life do you want to spend miserable because you’re scared about money or you have anxiety, so I’m going to smack you in the face. That’s what I would say.
David Ralph [49:15]
No, Blimey, yo, yo, yo Ralph payment. Right Okay, so how do people connect with you for the audience? What’s the number one best way that they can connect with you?
Clayton Morris [49:26]
Well, I think if their fan of podcast your fan of audio please download are investing in real estate podcast that’s one way to do it. You can find me on all the social networks I’m just Clayton Morris on all the socials you know, so please connect with me there and you know, you please come on over to Instagram and our YouTube channel. And I respond to every comment so if you’re new and you know you’re listening from this show, I’d love for you to come over. watch one of our YouTube channel episodes on on YouTube on Morris Morris investors the channel and just say Hey, I heard about you on the show. And I want to learn And I will say hello to you. And hopefully we can have you kind of start learning how to build some passive income.
David Ralph [50:06]
Well, we will have over links on the show notes to make it as easy as possible. Great. And thank you so much for spending time with us today, joining up those dots. And please come back again when you’ve got more dots to join up. Because I do believe that by joining up the dots and connecting our past is actually the best way to build our futures. Clayton, thank you so much.
Clayton Morris [50:26]
Thank you. I’m honored.
David Ralph [50:30]
Mr. Clayton Morris. So would you do that? Would you work on a career, get to the top and then think actually not the right career for me, I’m going to change. If you do, then more often than not the skills that you’ve built out, you can transition where if you don’t lose those, it’s all in your head. For a long time I ran away from presenting live, but now I do more with that. And was that the past life was that the new life was just to come? It’s just life is just life. Enjoy yourself.
Whatever you do, make sure that you are learning every day and until next time, I will be here to join up more dots. Women, I’m suspecting guest. See you later. Cheers. Bye bye.
Outro [51:12]
David doesn’t want you to become a faded version of the brilliant self you are wants to become. So he’s put together an amazing guide for you called the eight pieces of advice that every successful entrepreneur practices, including the two that changed his life. Head over to join up.com to download this amazing guide for free and we’ll see you tomorrow on join up dots.
