Buddy began White Feather Investing in early 2007 in Twentynine Palms, California. His ultimate goal is to build a passive income stream through residential and commercial properties that can ensure our financial freedom for our family and help as many fellow militaries as we can along the way.
Since the launch Buddy was pulled away on multiple month-long training exercises and four trips to Afghanistan! Despite those difficulties, WFI has purchased Single Family rentals, wholesaled, flipped, invested in Trust Deeds, executed Joint Ventures, constructed Roth IRA acquisitions, executed BRRR deals, and Short Term Rentals, purchased an apartment complex, and even launched an RV and Solar business!
He also launched a WFI Investor club and an online Real Estate Investment Accelerator that is focused on helping educate and empower military members to achieve financial freedom through Real Estate investing, which has allowed us to open new Turnkey Rental operations in Memphis, Little Rock, St Louis, Milan, Columbus, Chicago, California, Florida and Alabama and we are moving into Mississippi and North Carolina!
His most recent endeavors have definitely been a challenge but our primary goal remains the same: To help our nation’s heroes build financial freedom so they can live the American Dream they fight to protect.
Episode Notes:
Narrator  This is The Norris Group’s real estate investor radio show the award-winning show dedicated to thought leaders shaping the real estate industry and local experts revealing their insider tips to succeed in an ever -changing real estate market hosted by author, investor, and hard money lender, Bruce Norris.
Bruce Norris  Thanks for joining us. My name is Bruce Norris and today we have a very special guest Buddy Rushing, Buddy began White Feather investing in early 2007 In Twentynine Palms California. His ultimate goal is to build passive income stream through residential and commercial properties that can ensure financial freedom for our families, and help as many fellow military as we can along the way since the launch, Buddy was pulled away on multiple month long training exercises and four trips to Afghanistan. Despite those difficulties, WFI has purchased Single Family rentals, wholesaled, flipped, invested in Trust Deeds, executed Joint Ventures, constructed Roth IRA acquisitions, executed BRRR deals, Short Term Rentals, purchased an apartment complex, and even launched an RV and Solar business Outside of that he hasn’t done a darn thing. He also launched a WFI Investor club and an online Real Estate Investment Accelerator that is focused on helping educate and empower military members to achieve financial freedom through Real Estate investing, which has allowed us to open new Turnkey Rental operations in Memphis, Little Rock, St Louis, Milan, Columbus, Chicago, California, Florida and Alabama and we are moving into Mississippi and North Carolina.His most recent endeavors have definitely been a challenge. But our primary goal remains the same to help our nation’s heroes build financial freedom, so they can live the American dream they fight to protect. That’s as good an introduction as I’ve ever heard, Buddy, so.
Buddy Rushing  I can, I have to tell you, the fact that I’m here, getting a chance to talk to Bruce Norris is, I feel a bit surreal, because I remember during the very beginning, right before I went to Afghanistan, actually at the head of Bravo Company, first combat engineers. I was stationed at Camp Pendleton, Kimberly and I lived in a 800 square foot apartment on Acacia there in Carlsbad village. And it was just the two of us. And we had, we have read Rich Dad Poor Dad, and that was it. And we’d made one really bad investment in Twentynine Palms years before that was my fault and so that’s it. That’s all, you know, I had one had a job. She worked at Jenny Craig making $600 a month. And I remember going to NSDREI one time, the North San Diego Real Estate Investors Association, and I heard you speak and those things go late, right? It was like…
Bruce Norris  Yeah.
Buddy Rushing  Everybody who’s an investor there, like I guess, doesn’t have a real job. So, they all stay up until like, 10:30-11 o’clock at night. She had to wake up at four in the morning to go to work at Jenny Craig. And I remember coming home at like, 10 after hearing really a lot of the different things, but also the big part was hearing you speak. And I shook her awake even though I knew she was gonna have to wake up soon. I was like, babe, and she still verify this story. I was like, hey, babe, you have to you have to listen to me. Like, I heard this guy speak tonight and it is unbelievable. Like, what he’s done and what, what I believe that I can do because it was so like the way that you approach it. It’s so accessible, even though you’re a massively accomplished person, you make people feel like they can do it, too. And that’s an incredible, that’s an incredible gift. And I told Kimberly, I was like, you know, nothing. I don’t know what our future is going to look like. But it’s going to be amazing and…
Bruce Norris  What you just said is why you’re teaching too, by the way, like, if I got told, let’s say somebody that was in my company bought houses for us, and I got told we had a deal. If you took my pulse rate, it would not have changed. If you call me up and say hey, man, you train me and I just found my first deal. Yeah, I’m on, I’m excited because that’s why, that’s why we do it because this real estate game changed my entire life, changed my entire safety level of living and protects my family and everything. So, yeah, it’s a serious business that let me in. So, you know, who was I. had a high school diploma, you have college degrees and high school diploma two kids before I was 19 and got fired five times in a row. So, the world was saying, Yeah, you’re a real good guy. So, somewhere along the way this real estate thing caught my eye. I wanted to start by asking you a question. Because when you, when you’re a marine and by the way, I really appreciate your service to our country that’s really meaningful to me. When you meet a fellow Marine, or you don’t know that he’s a fellow Marine, but you find out that he is, what do you immediately know of him?
Buddy Rushing  Yeah, that really, that’s a fantastic question. Because it’s, it goes to the heart of what White Feather really is all about. And what I immediately know and this is, it’s like, nothing is absolute in this world. But we don’t live our life in absolutes. We live our life based off of the percentages of you know, what, get out, right, right. So, so I know, to a large degree, that, that person has a resilience, they have an at least a, a, an inner desire to sacrifice for the greater good. I know that they know how to work within a team. I know that oftentimes they’re extremely pragmatic, which man in business and you know, this in business, yeah, you have to be able to dream, but you got to be able to do the deals, you have to be pragmatic, you have to make decisions. And, you know, the Marine Corps is all about pragmatism. It’s not about beauty and flash, it’s about getting the job done…
Bruce Norris  Yeah. Right.
Buddy Rushing  …no matter what. And so that type of persistence and resilience, that gritty pragmatism is something that you know, can, can yield success by no doubt about it. I know that they’re loyal, right. I know that if I, if I call upon their integrity, and I say, listen, and here’s the deal in White Feather I say, you know, like, one of the things that makes it such a special community is that we’ve moved fast, and we move fast the speed of trust, the velocity of trust within the network is incredibly fast. And the reason is, is because two things. Number one, you can trust everybody, because in general, with our shared background, they’re going to do the right thing but they also know that they will get absolutely destroyed if they screw anybody over within our community, you will get annihilated, if you do not act with integrity. So, there’s that twin combination of ‘Yeah, sure, you’re going to do the right thing, mostly because it’s the right thing to do. But you also have that little fear that you’ll get annihilated if you don’t.’
Bruce Norris  That’s a I guess both important points. There was a book actually written about what you just said. And I’m sorry, it’s the, boy, that’s the first time that’s ever happened. It slipped my mind what you said that as far as the tying, the tying the pieces together as far as the trust…
Buddy Rushing  Velocity of trust. Yeah.
Bruce Norris  Well, yeah, just the, the price of trust or the benefit of having trust in place. It’s irreplaceable. Absolutely. And every necessary in business. What did you decide that the Marines were going to be for you? When did that occur?
Buddy Rushing  Oh, I think that the idea of service in the Marine Corps was, you know, when I was a little kid, and my dad inadvertently, sort of turned me on to my third, my dad was drafted into the army in Vietnam and he asked to go in the Marine Corps instead. And you know, he’ll tell you this, though, this is not a big secret. My dad wasn’t a great Marine right? He was busted down twice from Corporate and Lance Corporal got in fights all the time. He was the kind of guy that like I was an officer in the Marine Corps. He’s a kind of Lance Corporal you, you really wouldn’t want to have in your in your unit.
Bruce Norris  Okay.
Buddy Rushing  And this is his words, right. And so he didn’t have a fantastic experience in the Marine Corps. And so he wasn’t somebody who just pounded the drum and said, You need to serve and dadada. But what was undeniable when he talked about the Marine Corps was that he was extremely proud to have served.
Bruce Norris  Okay.
Buddy Rushing  Even though he didn’t like his time in the Marine Corps, ne ne ne told me not to go in the Marine Corps. He literally said, You do not go he said, join the Air Force. He said the Air Force is going to be a better life for you, you know, join the Air Force. But you could see the pride eking out of him that he wore that eagle, globe and anchor, you could see it, and that to me spoke so much more volumes. And so I always kind of wanted to serve. But then I think whenever I was in the Marines, when I was at the Naval Academy, so you get accepted to Naval Academy, and then you go through school, it’s four years of college, and then you don’t know what you’re going to be at the end of it, you have to kind of apply for it and get elected to different services. But 911 happened my sophomore year and when 911 happened, the amount of people who wanted to go into the Marine Corps and take the fight to the ground, tripled overnight. And so it became this really intense competition, but really that Bruce, that’s what it came down to is when the planes flew into the towers. I said I’m I’m gonna go marine.
Bruce Norris  Wow. Now how long did you serve? And when was your last year of service?
Buddy Rushing  I, well technically I’m still in.
Bruce Norris  Okay.
Buddy Rushing  I, Yeah. So I, the Marine Corps has a really funny way of they know exactly what carrots to dangle when. So, I did 16 and a half years active duty, I transitioned into the reserves so that I could keep my family here in California because they wanted to move me. I wanted to keep my family here in California, as well as do real estate full time. But I am technically in the reserves.
Bruce Norris  Okay. I’ve spent a little time on your Facebook page, and the one word that would not come to mind would be boring. So, it seems like whatever you get into has a level of excitement, so skydiver on the spur of the moment you say, I think I’ll go along to the 300 mile bike trek. All right, you’re walking with your wife in shark infested pool water. And then you decide to become, you’re gonna own a plane because you can make a profit while you get your pilot license. So…
Buddy Rushing  Essentially, yeah.
Bruce Norris  Yeah. That’s, I just, it’s interesting that, have you always had that bent? You know, because a lot of times, and I do ask these questions of entrepreneurs, I love stories about okay, like, if you’re a dad, you could see that working, you know, like, Oh, look at that, that’s, that’s an unusual trait. Did you have some of that going on when you were kid, this are entrepreneurial? Or just, I don’t care what happens. I’m gonna give it a shot.
Buddy Rushing  Yeah, not the entrepreneurial part. Because, you know, my family was not, it wasn’t an environment that really fostered entrepreneurial spirit, because it was really more, kind of, you know, hard-working, but hard-working in that particular lane.
Bruce Norris  Yeah. My, mine too, by the way. Exactly.
Buddy Rushing  Yeah.
Bruce Norris  And that’s, that’s one of the reasons I was asked a question because I’m always, I’m always just amazed at some of these beginnings of people have when they’re like six or eight years old, doing something that’s quite business-like going, holy cow, okay, so you and I are very similar in that we sort of had to get this one, get that one step on our own, you know.
Buddy Rushing  That’s right. That’s right. And it had to, and it, and it was a significant break away from conventional wisdom, like, so I mean, and not without pain, and not without fear, right? I mean, it’s, people don’t, people in our world, in our entrepreneurial world, it’s like, okay, that’s obvious. Why in the world, wouldn’t you do that? Because blah, blah, blah, but, but the rest of the world, most of the world thinks that we’re not.
Bruce Norris  Yeah, right. Yeah, I can. I mean, I can remember I’m 28 or 29. And I’ve worked in the, you know, buying business for a month and I, I’m basically telling my family and my dad especially ‘Hey, I’m gonna quit my job and he’s like, what?’ So, there was a lot of pressure to stay W2 and you know, don’t be entrepreneurial because that’s not the way to go. So, yeah, sort of broke out of the, out of the box myself.
Buddy Rushing  Think about…
Joey Romero  Bruce, really quick. I’ve heard Bruce’s story with you know, with Marsha. His his you know, his wife while he was you know, beginning. You’ve got to have a partner that’s willing to go along with that ride. Can you talk about that a little bit?
Buddy Rushing  Yeah. Oh, that is such a fantastic point. Kimberly, if you Google Kimberly rushing real estate, you’ll see the little like newspaper articles and stuff that they wrote about her. What you don’t know is that she was doing that stuff when I was deployed to Afghanistan. So, what whenever we first started like buying houses than we were buying them to hold but, but they were old and dilapidated and needed to be renovated. I was in Afghanistan leading Bravo Company and then later engineer sport company in camp Leatherneck, Kimberly was in Twentynine Palms, she would drive up to Twentynine Palms, and we would buy these houses, very small, modest houses, $65,000, you know, maybe $15,000 renovation budget, and she would run the contractors and then inevitably, whatever the contractors would not finish in time, she would stay in the houses, paint for 40 hours straight, stage everything, get it ready to go right before the renter’s came in. It was she would sleep in like with little Charlie, Charlie, our little, little dog, she would paint all day long and then sleep in the closet, and then get up after a few hours of sleep and continue that’s Kimberly, and she, I will tell you this. Number one, she trusts me implicitly, which is a gift it’s a blessing, right? Because that is not extremely common for a spouse to truly trust the other person to make decisions. That may be scary. I know because I’ve helped hundreds of investors alike try to, you know, work toward building financial freedom and their spouses either passively supportive at best or openly hostile, which is the most common.
Bruce Norris  That’s yeah. What’s funny, it’s funny you say that I was teaching a Bible class one time, and the suggestion was divided the guys and then the women. And I said, What would be your take if you came home? And a new car was in the driveway? You know, and so there was like, the sort of like, a support level. So, there were maybe there were 20 men and 20 women there was, there was one woman who is the husband, her husband was a friend of mine. And he was an entrepreneur, and she said, that would be fine with me. What was my wife’s comment? He buys houses every week, I’ve never know.
Buddy Rushing  Yeah.
Bruce Norris  So, now I’m just curious, because you just said something that’s really important that she participate in the education process, because that would be a valuable, coupled team, if you would go in, wow, that’s who I need to become.
Buddy Rushing  Let’s call her out on that, because I’d like her to listen to this podcast. She, she has all of the capability in the world. And there’s a lot of people that want to hear from her. But because, and you brought me on the show, so I’m just going to be real and honest. Whenever we started having kids, we said, Okay, you focused, I said, Okay, you focus on the children, I’ll focus on the business. And so it’s been about four years, and she’s really actively engaged in the business. Now, the kids are a little older. And she can’t actively, we had this conversation this morning of how, where does she fit in now? How does she bring her talents to bear and I agree with you, Bruce, a lot of people want to see that dynamic, because it inspires other people and I tell people all the time, if your spouse is on board, and more than on board, if they’re actively engaged with you, you’re a powerhouse. There’s nothing that can stop you if the two of you are shoulder to shoulder marching in the same direction. So, yeah, I agree. I think, Kimberly if you’re hearing that, Bruce just called you out.
Bruce Norris  Well, I think that’s missing from a lot of people. I mean, I honestly, I honestly do. And I know I had that support. And that was just important, because there were things that would go wrong, of course, you know, and I never got beat up for that. It was always a it’s part of the process. You know, let’s walk through it.
Buddy Rushing  Fantastic.
Bruce Norris  Yeah. And one of the messes we had, I actually came home and said I, we had built a custom home. And I was, I was facing, like $20,000 month payments on homes that we had built and other investors couldn’t make the payment on. And I said, we may have to sell our custom home and she said, whatever you need to do, well, we never needed to do that. Because this business can allow you to make that kind of money if you work your butt off and decide you don’t want to sell your home. But, but I still had the support. And that’s kind of the point is to have, that kind of support is unusual. But boy, is it beneficial.
Buddy Rushing  It absolutely is without question. And I tell, here’s something that you might find interesting people, the mindset that you get over time, obviously, it grows. And it’s a it’s a critical part, like you can, you can create an investment strategy that will make you lots of money. But unless you grow yourself and your mindset to that different level of income or wealth, you’re never going to be able to sustain it, you’re going to do self destructive behaviors. That’s called the upper limit problem, right? So, it’s common. So, one of the great benefit of me having overnight success, 15 years in the making has been that it’s been incremental, it hasn’t been this flash in the pan kind of like, wow, look at all this. It’s been monthly and yearly. And, you know, over a long period of time. So, I’ve had the ability to grow incrementally. And I tell Kimberly, all the time, that the things that we have, the house that we have, and the cars that we have, and everything like that, it’s all dead. It’s just things. And so, if the thing that matters the most is, you know, the two of us and our family, and the journey that we’re on together, because, you know, there’s you know, this, things can get taken away, like you can lose things. I could have everything go wrong, I could get sued, I can you know, get sick, whatever. There’s lots of things that can happen that can take away your things, right. And I took I took Kimberly, I said, you know, uh, yeah, we’re doing well right now. And you know, we are blessed to have all of this stuff and this opportunity that we’ve worked really hard for, and I’m not diminishing the work, but understand something very, very clearly. I grew up on food stamps, and it wasn’t that bad, right. So, what I’m saying is that…
Bruce Norris  I was, I was on food stamps and it wasn’t that good.
Buddy Rushing  I’m not saying that it’s good or that it’s fun. What I’m saying is you can survive.
Bruce Norris  Yes.
Buddy Rushing  You can survive on beans and rice five days a week I’ve done it, right. So, yeah, we may have all of this stuff now. But if something happens, and for whatever reason we lose it, we’re not going to lose our minds at the same time because our identity is not tied up in this I told Kimberly the first two things that will go if we hit really hard times are the Tesla and my pride, and I will get it and I will work and I will protect my family and we will build it back. But what we won’t do is deny or point fingers or destroy each other because we lost a nice car.
Bruce Norris  Yeah, well, you know what? There’s like a switch that clicks into an entrepreneur when when it hits the fan. That’s how you know who you have. That’s when you show up and when it’s when you accelerate and defeat something that’s completely ridiculous. And you do it because you knew you would, you knew you had to.
Joey Romero  Okay, that’s gonna do it for part one of our interview with Buddy Rushing. Please stay tuned next week for the Norris Group Real estate radio show and podcast for part two.
Narrator  For more information on hard money, loans and upcoming events with The Norris Group, check out thenorrisgroup.com. For information on passive investing with trust deeds, visit tngtrustdeeds.com.
Aaron Norris  The Norris Group originates and services loans in California and Florida under California DRE License 01219911, Florida Mortgage Lender License 1577, and NMLS License 1623669. For more information on hard money lending, go www.thenorrisgroup.com and click the Hard Money tab.