PODCAST: The transition from US Navy to CEO, a lesson we can apply to law enforcement, with Nate Riggs | THE INTERVIEW ROOM | Episode 050
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The transition from US Navy to CEO, a lesson we can apply to law enforcement, with Nate Riggs | THE INTERVIEW ROOM | Episode 050
Nate Riggs
CEO, The Riggs Group
Meet this Weeks Guest: Nate Riggs
Nate Riggs is CEO and Owner of The Riggs Group, a highly successful real estate team. He specializes in residential listings and has a passion for educating younger generations on the benefits of home ownership and the pitfalls of consumer debt.
Although real estate has always been his passion he spent time in the US Navy as an Aviation Search and Rescue Swimmer. His experiences include real estate, life as a naval aviator, career transition, and raising a family all at the same time.
Nate is on a mission to break the "middle class mold" as he calls it, and to create generational wealth and leave a lasting legacy.
The Future Belongs To You!
Show Notes from This Episode
The On The Blue Line Podcast and Community has the mission of Empowering Cops in their personal lives and educating the public on the realities of law enforcement. This law enforcement podcast is focused on providing concepts, ideas, and actionable steps that can make a difference in your life. The morning roll call is a weekly monologue show with Wayne Mulder. The Interview Room podcast is an interview style format hosted by Wayne Mulder.
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CONNECT with Nate:
WEBSITE: https://www.nateriggsofficial.com
INSTAGRAM: @NateRiggsOfficial
YOUTUBE: @NateRiggsOfficial
FACEBOOK: @Nate Riggs
LINKEDIN: @NateRiggsOfficial
LINKS discussed:
BOOK: The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A guide to Wealth and Happiness by Eric Jorgenson, Tim Ferris.
Topics we discuss:
· US Navy
· US Navy Search and Rescue Swimmer
· Getting out of Debt. Robert Kiyosaki and Dave Ramsey.
· Leveraging “good” debt.
· Struggles with Military Transition
· Starting a business while transitioning out of the military.
Nate Answers:
1. The one thing you wouldn’t expect about US Navy search and rescue swimmers.
2. The one thing that causes most military and law enforcement marriages to fail.
3. What Nate misses the most from his time in the US Navy.
4. The most important thing you can do to break out of the “Middle Class Mold.”
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TRANSCRIPTION OF EPISODE. Please note this is a new service we are offering and there will be spelling, grammar and accuracy issues. This transcription is offered as a convenience to our listeners, but at this time it is not guaranteed to be accurate.
00:00:04:18 - 00:00:27:03
Wayne Mulder
Welcome, my friend, to the On the Blue Line podcast with Wayne Mulder and I am your host, Wayne Mulder. This is a law enforcement podcast where we discuss topics that will empower you on and off the job. Maybe you're tired, you're frustrated, feeling overworked, struggling to balance work and home demands, or simply you just need some encouragement.
00:00:27:13 - 00:00:47:13
Wayne Mulder
Well, if so, you've come to the right place. Be sure to listen all the way to the end of today's podcast in order to learn the one thing you wouldn't expect to know about Navy Search and rescue swimmers, then you're going to learn one of the main reasons military and law enforcement marriages can fail. Our guest is going to tell us the one thing he misses the most from his time in the Navy.
00:00:47:19 - 00:01:05:21
Wayne Mulder
And lastly, the most important thing you can do to break out of what he calls the middle class mold. If you're watching this rather than listening to it, then you can see that snow has fallen in the studio. Pretty impressive for a Florida studio. Just so you know, this is first time listening to us. We have two weekly podcast.
00:01:05:21 - 00:01:26:21
Wayne Mulder
This is the interview room in here. I this releases every week on Thursdays at 0500. And I sit down with guests from all walks of life, not only in law enforcement, just like this week's guest, but people who can offer something beneficial for our personal and professional lives. The other podcast comes out on Monday mornings at 0500, and it's called Morning Roll Call.
00:01:27:03 - 00:01:53:01
Wayne Mulder
It's a weekly monologue show. And in there, you and I, we sit down and we just discuss news, recent events, law enforcement trends in a variety of other topics that gives you something to think about as you begin your week. All shows are available on most podcast platforms. They're also available in video on YouTube and Rumble. And then the easy way to see everything that we're up to is to just go to OnTheBlueLine.com.
00:01:54:01 - 00:02:14:12
Wayne Mulder
Let's go ahead without taking more time. Let me tell you about this week's guest. It's Nate Riggs. He's the one joining me in the interview room. He's the CEO and owner of the Riggs Group, a highly successful real estate team. He specializes in residential listings and has a passion for educating younger generations on the benefits of homeownership and the pitfalls of consumer debt.
00:02:14:19 - 00:02:36:21
Wayne Mulder
I think we can all agree for the times we're going into that. It's not just the younger people that are struggling right now. It's all of us. So there's some lessons we can all learn. Although real estate has always been his passion, he spent time in the U.S. Navy as an aviation search and rescue swimmer. His experiences include real estate, life as a naval aviator, career transition and raising a family all at the same time.
00:02:36:21 - 00:02:54:01
Wayne Mulder
And we get heavily into that balance and everything that he was going through. Nate is on a mission to break the middle class mold, as he calls it. And to create generational wealth and a lasting legacy. There's so many important lessons that we can learn from Nate. So without taking any more time, let's get to this week's guest, Nate Riggs.
00:02:58:06 - 00:02:59:15
Wayne Mulder
Well, Nate, welcome to the show.
00:03:00:03 - 00:03:02:19
Nate Riggs
Hey, Wayne, thanks for letting me be on it.
00:03:03:03 - 00:03:14:17
Wayne Mulder
Absolutely. I'm looking forward to this. I like I told you offline. I really don't know a lot about you. So this is a perfect environment to get to sit down and have a cup of here and we can just get to know each other a little bit.
00:03:14:17 - 00:03:20:09
Nate Riggs
Yeah. Yeah, likewise. I skipped coffee this morning, went straight for the rock star at the gas station on my drive in.
00:03:20:09 - 00:03:28:06
Wayne Mulder
So there's nothing wrong with that. But that does lead to the first question. Are you is it coffee or tea?
00:03:29:16 - 00:03:31:02
Nate Riggs
Coffee. A lot of coffee.
00:03:31:11 - 00:03:40:17
Wayne Mulder
All right. So has any particular type of coffee is a are you like a black coffee guy or are you got to throw more cream and sugar in there?
00:03:41:03 - 00:03:56:11
Nate Riggs
Yeah. So generally black coffee. Like if I'm just drinking out of the cure egg or at home, it's just black coffee. But if I start at a coffee shop, I just get a latte with no flavor. So it's still even then it's like, what's the milk mixed in with it? And that's it? Yeah, that's how I like it.
00:03:56:19 - 00:04:16:05
Nate Riggs
You know, at one point I did get a minor coffee addiction during my search and rescue days. I thought that if I drank enough water, it would balance out the amount of coffee that was not true. And in it ended up like my wife had to take me to the, like, E.R. to get, like, bag IVs till I get rehydrated.
00:04:16:05 - 00:04:21:06
Nate Riggs
So, yeah, coffee, you know, just normal.
00:04:21:06 - 00:04:25:20
Wayne Mulder
It can do that to you for sure. Do you have a best or worst travel story and a.
00:04:26:08 - 00:04:48:00
Nate Riggs
Best or worst travel story? So the worst travels. Worst, best. I guess they're they kind of go hand in hand, right? Because you like to tell them. So what's what makes it a good story. But the experience in the moment was not a good experience. When I was young, going back to the search and rescue years, to my this was my first time, big time out of the country.
00:04:48:07 - 00:05:07:14
Nate Riggs
And I'm here in Florida and it's sunny and it's hot in February, like normal. And they're like, hey, you're going to meet a ship in Djibouti. And I'm like 20 something years old. They're like, You're going to Djibouti. And I'm like, looking up Djibouti and like on the map, it's right next to Mogadishu or whatever, you know, or like Black Hawk Down.
00:05:07:14 - 00:05:27:00
Nate Riggs
So if you're like, This is great, should be fine and it's hot. So I'm like, no big deal. So I set off and like a jeans and a t shirt. Well, the first leg of the flight takes us to Frankfurt, Germany, which we have, like it's a 13 hour flight and then a 13 hour layover. So now I got 13 hours in Frankfurt and we're like, Let's go outside.
00:05:27:00 - 00:05:45:17
Nate Riggs
There's ice in the streets. Who would've thought I'm all eyebrows? A T-shirt. So I'm like, shut. So I spent my 13 hours, like, shopping for jackets and stuff. And then from there, I had another 13 hour flight to, like, Ethiopia. And so we landed there and then like, those were like big jets, right? Because those are big flights.
00:05:45:17 - 00:06:04:23
Nate Riggs
And then we just kept hopping on smaller, smaller airports, smaller planes, smaller airport, smaller plane. And so in in a nobody told me like to bring extra socks because this is over. Like you think you're just flying. You know, I'm used to flying from Florida to Texas, right now. I'm flying across the world. And I didn't realize it was like a two and a half day event, you know, same clothes.
00:06:05:07 - 00:06:21:23
Nate Riggs
So but and then this is the best we get to get there to Djibouti. And, you know, nobody like they just send you their like, here's your ticket, go. So it was me and one other dude and I'm like, Who are we meeting here? I have no idea. And I'm serious. Like, go watch. Like Black Hawk Down. It's the same type of town where you land.
00:06:21:23 - 00:06:40:09
Nate Riggs
You're like, I stick. I'm wearing like an American fighter shirt because remember, that stuff was, like, popular back then. Oh, yeah. And I'm like, Oh, my gosh, I stick out like crazy. This guy literally, I say, steals our luggage, he picks up the luggage and runs with it, and he runs like, you know, ten feet and then puts them down and then they're putting out their hand.
00:06:40:09 - 00:06:59:17
Nate Riggs
Right. Because they they did you a favor and you're like, man, I could just I didn't have any other money besides like 20 on me or something because I'm like traveling, so I just grab 20. So I give the guy 20 because I want to start an international incident or something by stiffing this guy, which is kind of like finally the guy who's supposed to pick us up shows up and he's like, Oh, hey.
00:06:59:23 - 00:07:15:02
Nate Riggs
And I'm like, Do where were you? Like, We've been waiting. Our luggage got robbed. I got robbed. He's like, How much did you give him? I'm like, 20 bucks. He's a dude. You could have gave him like a quarter and it would have been fine. And I'm like, Bro, you were not here. So that's probably the worst best travel.
00:07:15:02 - 00:07:29:14
Nate Riggs
And then, you know, we got on the bus and rode into and then it's funny because you go there and then you go past like the gates where as like Humvees and machine guns to get in. And I'm like, I was just out there like nobody was there to pick us up. We didn't have no clue what we're doing on the streets.
00:07:29:14 - 00:07:30:03
Nate Riggs
Yeah. Like.
00:07:30:15 - 00:07:33:01
Wayne Mulder
Yeah. And now I'm going to be in the secure facility.
00:07:33:06 - 00:07:38:09
Nate Riggs
Yeah, yeah. So that was it, man. Early twenties travel story, probably.
00:07:38:19 - 00:07:43:11
Wayne Mulder
That's awesome. Do you have a favorite modern nonfiction book.
00:07:44:12 - 00:07:54:17
Nate Riggs
Favorite modern non fiction book? So these are books that tell the truth, right? Essentially you get those mixed in nonfiction or fiction.
00:07:54:22 - 00:08:02:19
Wayne Mulder
In it can be a favorite fiction story if you have one. But I always ask the nonfiction because usually there's some life lessons in there that the listeners could enjoy.
00:08:02:24 - 00:08:06:18
Nate Riggs
Oh, man. The Almanac of Naval Ravikant.
00:08:07:20 - 00:08:08:22
Wayne Mulder
Never heard of it.
00:08:08:24 - 00:08:27:11
Nate Riggs
Yeah, it's an easy read. It's I keep my best, so I have a record in all record player that was like part of an inheritance that came to me. And I keep like my best books up there. So it's in my bedroom. The Almanac of Naval Ravikant. It's kind of like some life hit, some of his life lessons.
00:08:27:11 - 00:08:46:00
Nate Riggs
I don't want to say it's in the self-help category, but it's kind of more of that like, hey, you live your life this way. Yeah. Or Here's a story of my life and so simple things in there. Like, one of the big takeaways is he talks about how one of the most controversial things in his family is like he'll get in arguments and he sees value in his time.
00:08:46:00 - 00:09:08:11
Nate Riggs
So as a business person, outsourcing and finding out, you know, what my skill sets are and what I'm better off paying someone else to do so that I can just focus on mine like he won't even pick up laundry at the dry cleaners. He's like, No, I'm like, you know, he gets an argument with like his mom about it because he's like, I'm worth more money our my hourly rate is higher than picking up laundry.
00:09:08:11 - 00:09:29:07
Nate Riggs
I'm better off paying someone to go to the laundromat, pick up my clothes and I'll go out. Keep focusing on what I'm good at, you know, to, like, just basically have a better quality of life. So I read that at the beginning of the year. Greenlights is another good book. Matthew McConaughey That's good on audio. Um, so if I had those two, yeah, yeah.
00:09:29:07 - 00:09:31:15
Nate Riggs
Percussive, I got some books behind me here.
00:09:31:24 - 00:09:44:19
Wayne Mulder
But yeah, well, there's nothing like a good book. That's why I asked the question. I always I'm always fascinated on the different answers I get. And what's interesting is I rarely get the same answers. Like everybody has a different book that speaks to them, which I think is kind of cool.
00:09:45:12 - 00:10:04:18
Nate Riggs
Yeah, that's cool. I was you know, it's interesting when you start reading books, most of the people who write books, they quote or mention other books. So you can kind of go down these trails of like, I try to make notes, you know, I'm reading in like, okay, that book, I'll order that one next and try to I don't know.
00:10:05:05 - 00:10:18:04
Wayne Mulder
Yeah, I do that with books and I do it a lot with podcasts. It's amazing how many different podcasts out there, always referencing different books. So my book list is probably far greater than I'll ever get through, and most of it is from listening to different podcasts and so forth.
00:10:18:04 - 00:10:18:09
Nate Riggs
Yeah.
00:10:19:11 - 00:10:26:13
Wayne Mulder
What is that place that brings you the most piece? Like that favorite spot where you just kind of stop and breathe and enjoy life?
00:10:26:22 - 00:10:58:07
Nate Riggs
Oh man, that's my favorite spot. It's got to be on the water or under it. If I'm out in the water and it could be in the swamp or it could be at the beach or it could be, you know, down somewhere like the Florida Keys or Bahama style water, but probably the river like the swamp, the river, if you get out there and it's like, you know, if you take a boat out and you shut down the motor or if your motor breaks and you're stuck out there, like normally happens, I mean, I think that's the best place to be.
00:10:58:21 - 00:11:05:05
Wayne Mulder
Yeah. And it's amazing the quiet and so forth too, especially if you get out in some of these larger swamps.
00:11:05:13 - 00:11:06:00
Nate Riggs
Yeah.
00:11:06:11 - 00:11:16:18
Wayne Mulder
That dovetails nicely into the question that I was going to ask. Kind of like your origin story. It's my understanding you pretty much grew up in the state of Florida. Is that correct? Can you tell us a little bit about your beginnings?
00:11:17:02 - 00:11:34:16
Nate Riggs
Yeah, so I was born in a small town called Sebastian, Florida. Sebastian is on the East coast of Florida. It is known for its surfing and then kind of like a little fish town. I think to this day, they say the population is only like 6000. So small town. I grew up there and you know, we had a small flower shop there.
00:11:34:23 - 00:11:53:00
Nate Riggs
And then my grandpa, who was actually kind of just my grandma's boyfriend at the time, he had the sportsman Marine Lodge. He came back from World War Two. He started the Sportsman Marine and Lodge. So he was all about that life. So that's kind of where I didn't go to a formal daycare. I went to like Grandpa Orvis Jambo and like we went fishing every day.
00:11:53:10 - 00:12:23:11
Nate Riggs
So that was part of my grow up. We moved a little bit further north to Titusville, which was in the Space Coast, right? So right across. So I then all the space shuttle launches, I got to experience that. And then by the time I was in high school, we moved to the Tampa Bay part time. And that's when I first started teaching swimming lessons and being a lifeguard and kind of go and just kind of I mean, it just progressed when I talk about the water in my life, it's like it's always been there.
00:12:23:19 - 00:12:49:12
Nate Riggs
And so it's a one place where I'm really comfortable. And then all the way through Left High School went to university of North Florida in Jacksonville for real estate marketing. You know, was pretty young to get into something like that where you're talking about, you know, big financial numbers and responsibilities. And so I kind of knew I needed to grow up a little bit in order to really be a valuable asset to somebody in that arena.
00:12:49:23 - 00:13:09:05
Nate Riggs
And so that's what led me to join the Navy for, you know, I never tend to do it for a career. I was like, I'm going to do this to get some life under my belt, basically. And so the natural progression there was you combine all those things. I just talked about your aviation space and water and led me to the helicopter search and rescue world.
00:13:10:01 - 00:13:18:08
Wayne Mulder
Very cool. So when you say you love the water, I'm assuming all of the from scuba to surfing to fishing. Do you have any favorites?
00:13:18:17 - 00:13:47:06
Nate Riggs
Yeah. So I own a surfboard. Used to surf a lot, but as you get older and you have kids and then, you know, it's a little bit different. So I never actually got into scuba. Most of it was like surface world stuff. A lot of snorkeling. I do like snorkeling, you know, I don't hold any like breath holding records or anything, but I'm pretty comfortable to get down into a reef and kind of check it out for, you know, maybe a minute or something before having to come back up.
00:13:47:06 - 00:14:04:14
Nate Riggs
So never got into scuba. Just, I think just like time and money, you kind of as you progress through life, you have to kind of decide which hobbies you're going to hobby, skill sets, you know, activities you're going to hone in on. Yeah. And put your time and money into.
00:14:05:01 - 00:14:15:00
Wayne Mulder
So very cool. Do you have a favorite trip where you've gone and done the snorkeling and favorite?
00:14:15:00 - 00:14:32:20
Nate Riggs
You know, I did go snorkeling in Belize. That was pretty cool. That was a fun. Went on like a cruise ship. And I think it's supposed to be like one of the top places. Of course, as you get older, your memory kind of fades. So the most recent times were down in just like Key West, man, just going out on the little day.
00:14:32:20 - 00:14:46:08
Nate Riggs
CHARTERS And you got to be careful, though, because most of those come with like complimentary drinks or whatever. So and then you're like out in the sun, you're snoring. So, like, it can your afternoon can be rough if you don't pay attention to what you're doing.
00:14:46:11 - 00:14:53:04
Wayne Mulder
But I had a rough bout with dehydration in the Keys and the alcohol wasn't even involved. So I understand completely.
00:14:53:04 - 00:15:02:00
Nate Riggs
Yeah, it's if you make a little bit. But my wife, Sean and me, we went down there, that's probably the most recent time. And so that was, you know, that was great fun.
00:15:02:16 - 00:15:07:13
Wayne Mulder
Awesome. What what led you to want to go into the Navy and what was that? How many years were you in?
00:15:08:01 - 00:15:32:18
Nate Riggs
Okay. So I was in the Navy for ten years. What what kind of made me go? So like, I've always been relatively patriotic as well. And so when the time came for me to go, like I graduated high school in 2006, so like probably like height of, like the Iraq and everything. And I was, I was like pretty prepared to just like, go in the Marines and, like, go there.
00:15:32:19 - 00:15:53:09
Nate Riggs
Like, that's where I wanted to go. I just wanted to go there. I guess. I didn't want to go there bad enough that I didn't go to college. I didn't really know. So to back up, my family doesn't really have any experience outside of like World War Two, which is a totally different world. You know, my dad, my, my other grandpa, nobody was really like a career or military.
00:15:53:09 - 00:16:12:09
Nate Riggs
So I didn't have like any figures to influence me or suggest. And so I wasn't I didn't really understand it. And I think because I had set up appointments for like ASVAB, it was like the army and other groups. So I had had those conversations. I just didn't really like feel comfortable enough to know what I was getting myself into.
00:16:12:10 - 00:16:41:04
Nate Riggs
So I went to school and said, I think those few years I got a little bit smarter and wiser and then by the time I came revisited, the idea, I think at the time the Navy was like, jumpstart your career. And that's what I was like more interested in at that point. But this was like 2009, so I was kind of more interested in like, how can I like grow and learn and build skill sets that will help me all throughout life versus just like sign up for the first job.
00:16:41:13 - 00:17:12:14
Nate Riggs
So I looked at the Navy's special programs and aviation rescue swimmer was on there as one of their, you know, kind of you you got a bonus. It was a instead of doing a four year commitment, you have to do a six year commitment because the first two years are schools alone, where most people go to boot camp and get spit out to the fleet and they just start doing whatever I was going to do these two years of school and then enter the fleet like, you know, you're you get some push button ranking or whatever they call it, and then you get bonuses.
00:17:12:14 - 00:17:31:16
Nate Riggs
So I was like, Yeah, that's, that's for me. Although I will say I learned, I think I knew this. Like I still didn't trust the system to where I was like, I signed up for this job, but I got a feeling that right after boot camp, they're going to send me to the fleet. But it paid off. It actually panned out.
00:17:31:23 - 00:17:37:06
Nate Riggs
You know, as long as you complete all the training, then you're they're very cool. Yeah.
00:17:37:06 - 00:17:58:15
Wayne Mulder
What is what's something about the search and rescue world in the Navy that people wouldn't know about? Like, what's something that you could talk about that they wouldn't expect like that? Because people's people's ideas of all these careers, whether we're talking law enforcement, whether we're talking the military, where we're talking search and rescue, swimming, it all comes. Really, it's influenced by Hollywood, right?
00:17:58:15 - 00:18:06:03
Wayne Mulder
Yes. Really. Most people's that unless like you said, there's someone in the family who's done it previously. So what's something that maybe people wouldn't expect?
00:18:06:03 - 00:18:07:15
Nate Riggs
Yeah, the mundane. That's right.
00:18:07:15 - 00:18:09:00
Wayne Mulder
So there's that.
00:18:09:05 - 00:18:34:10
Nate Riggs
Monotonous I wouldn't expect. So the Navy search and rescue program is different from Coast Guard in a sense that ours is built around like downed aviators and, you know, foreign wars or relations where back here, you know, you really get like coast like even here flying on the coast. We flew all the time on the coast. Most of it was for training hours.
00:18:34:10 - 00:18:59:01
Nate Riggs
And if there were actual like search and rescue calls, even here in Jacksonville, there might be a search and rescue call like in the Atlantic Ocean and Coast Guard station Clearwater would take that call and fly over and run those things versus us taking them because our like area of responsibility just wasn't there unless, you know, there were a couple of instances here where, you know, a plane went down and our helicopters were in flight like 5 minutes away.
00:18:59:07 - 00:19:17:18
Nate Riggs
Then like those guys jump on top of that. So that pan out. The other thing is Multirole. So you're Navy helicopters. Multirole So you sign up and you're thinking, okay, I'm a search and rescue swimmer and you graduate rescue swimmer school and you're like, sweet. And then they're like, okay, you're going to this a school and you're like, okay, cool.
00:19:17:18 - 00:19:40:02
Nate Riggs
What is this? And then they're like, oceanography, and you're like, Oceanography was this. And they're like, Actually, your helicopters are also equipped with sonar and you're going to do anti-submarine warfare. You're like, Whoa, okay, so now you're learning anti-submarine warfare. And then we had radar, so we ran surface, and then we were also door gunners. So we had 762 and 50 caliber machine gun on the door.
00:19:40:20 - 00:20:02:10
Nate Riggs
Now the cool thing about that is you're multirole. So you're kind of like jack of all trades, master of none. However, throughout your time, guys tend to kind of branch off. So some guys have like a real passion for the search and rescue side, so that becomes their like identity. Other guys are real geeks and they're into like radar in the submarine stuff and then like the guns.
00:20:02:10 - 00:20:22:16
Nate Riggs
So the guns became my thing. So I volunteered to go get extra qualifications on the guns, ended up being a helicopter door gunner instructor and you know what I mean? So I kind of like went down that path. I kind of like just abandoned the other. I was good at the other stuff, but my like focus and what I cared about was, you know, being a door gunner instructor so very close.
00:20:22:20 - 00:20:25:22
Nate Riggs
That's probably something most people probably wouldn't see.
00:20:26:10 - 00:20:45:01
Wayne Mulder
Yeah, no, not at all. And I love how you started it because it's so true. I say it a lot with law enforcement that it's hours of boredom with moments of terrifying excitement. Yeah, it is essentially the same. People see the lights and sirens and, you know, the police chases on TV. And yeah, the reality of it is writing reports and explaining why you did what you did for hours.
00:20:45:15 - 00:21:14:05
Nate Riggs
And taking on. You're like, Oh, and then not to mention to, you know, to keep it simple, to level up, you've got to take on those. What do they call them? Not extracurricular, but we call them collateral jobs. So you had to take on like, oh, they're like at the at the squadron there was like, for example, they call it MMW AR, but basically you had like a snack shop at the squadron and what you would have to do and like volunteer to like be on the board for running the snack shop.
00:21:14:05 - 00:21:30:13
Nate Riggs
So that that was a bullet point on your like eval. Like if you'd, if you could be the best rescue swimmer there was, but if you didn't sign up for all that stuff, you're not going to promote. You're not going to move up the chain, you know, climb the ladder. And so, you know, that was something I wasn't very good at either.
00:21:30:13 - 00:21:35:15
Nate Riggs
That was part of not being a career person was like, Yeah, I'm going to focus on my thing.
00:21:35:15 - 00:21:40:17
Wayne Mulder
Forget that. Exactly. And then they interpret it as you not being a team player and round and round we go.
00:21:41:05 - 00:21:41:14
Nate Riggs
Yeah.
00:21:41:23 - 00:21:55:00
Wayne Mulder
So you talk openly about struggles you had with deployments, divorce, that those struggles come into play during these years in the service? Or how did those struggles kind of begin and then lead to the path that you're on now?
00:21:55:11 - 00:22:18:21
Nate Riggs
Yeah, so really, really. I did a lot of living in those ten years. Yeah. So I got married not super young. I think it was like 26 or something. So now I'm like super young. But yeah, most of the problems were centered around financial problems, which I think sometimes people, they think about infidelity and other things being an issue.
00:22:18:21 - 00:22:41:14
Nate Riggs
I having experienced a lot of different things, you know, without I guess I'm in a position where I don't necessarily ever want to like point finger blame or anything, you know, because it's like life happens and you move on. But, you know, when you experience all those, I think financial stuff is the worst because if if something if some sort of infidelity or something happens, it may be a recession.
00:22:41:14 - 00:23:01:11
Nate Riggs
But to me, I'm like, okay, this happened and we can acknowledge it and we can forgive, forget, move on or something. But like you rack up a bunch of credit cards for years, month over month. I'm I'm working hard to just send my money to that interest rate, to that debt and when it's like so that was more painful to me than anything else.
00:23:01:11 - 00:23:21:22
Nate Riggs
And so, yeah, I was gone on deployment and a lot of that stuff was going on and that's, that's really hard. So when you're in, I think maybe you take it more personally because you're like, here I am like missing out on the first like my kid turned one two days after we went on deployment. So you're like, I'm gone for eight months.
00:23:21:22 - 00:23:48:06
Nate Riggs
I'm gone for my kids, basically entire second year of life, you know, to be a sole provider out here off the coast of the desert, you know, doing stupid stuff, dangerous stuff. And the money back home is just getting, you know, wasted. And so it's almost like you feel like a dishonor, like like it's bigger than just like, oh, I mean, it's taking money and, you know, you come home and you try to work through all that.
00:23:48:06 - 00:24:19:04
Nate Riggs
But sometimes, too, I think we we know what we know already, what the results are going to be in our head. But to keep others happy and to say, well, I did everything I could, you go through all these steps and all you did was like law length and the problem. And, you know, my thing was like I and I did do I guess and I guess you can look back and you can be like, Yeah, I put a lot of work and effort into that, but yeah, I mean it's, it's a lot.
00:24:19:04 - 00:24:38:21
Nate Riggs
So I try to take it and so what I do now, being open about it, there's a lot of other people that go through it. There's a lot to do to go through it. And so I kind of like I field, field a lot of phone calls from other guys that are going through it, man. And I'll say that's because I reached out to guys that I knew went through that.
00:24:39:04 - 00:25:00:00
Nate Riggs
And so I was able to like, I kind of want to return that favor. There were guys that were like, Hey, make sure you're putting the kid first. Make sure, you know, when you're emailing, you know, you don't need to be, you know, don't be mean. Don't be hurtful. Just be black and white. Here's how things are when you're communicating, healing and things, life lessons like that kind of.
00:25:00:11 - 00:25:04:05
Nate Riggs
And so now I'm kind of passing that down to other people. Find themselves in that situation.
00:25:04:24 - 00:25:30:14
Wayne Mulder
That's awesome. Yeah, I think that's super important and it's true in both careers. I see that as well as another parallel with law enforcement especially, you get these guys, in fact, one of the things we do at a local law enforcement academy is we train on something called Academy Resiliency Training, and as part of that, we talk to them about, hey, don't go, don't be the guy that before you, even because you're going to be on probation for a year once you start with an agency.
00:25:30:21 - 00:25:49:06
Wayne Mulder
So they'll be running out from the moment that you get hired and you'll see these guys show up with these jacked up four by four trucks that, you know, cost $100,000. And, you know, right now the prices are insane and you see them show up and these vehicles are going by these houses. You don't even have the surety of a career yet.
00:25:49:17 - 00:26:05:13
Wayne Mulder
You're out spending all this money and then you see the same thing happen where the stress comes from the job, the stress comes from the relationship. Then you have the added stress of the debt. And then five years down the road, seven years down the road, it seems inevitable that you are going to get divorced. You're going to be miserable.
00:26:05:13 - 00:26:12:07
Wayne Mulder
You know, we tell everybody this is the inevitability of this career, but it isn't inevitable. It's the decisions you made on day one that got you there.
00:26:12:24 - 00:26:30:20
Nate Riggs
I don't know if it's in our personalities, but I almost feel like we in those early years too. You live kind of like checklists like and maybe it's part of our training. So much of our training is like by the checklist, so much of that, and it was like, okay, I did my two years of school check. Okay, now I got shipped to my first squadron check.
00:26:30:20 - 00:26:46:15
Nate Riggs
Now I got to an apartment with my roommate check. What's next? I need to go find a girl I spend my time with. And you just kind of it sounds it's kind of like, coldhearted to think of, but you're like, maybe do that as a checklist, and maybe that's what leads us into a higher probability of getting ourselves in that situation.
00:26:47:12 - 00:27:03:07
Wayne Mulder
That makes a lot of sense, and I think that's true, like you said, with the training that comes with the career. And I think males in general, like that's the way a lot of men think is with the checklist type mindset. So yeah, that I think the two of them together, that makes a lot of sense when you look back.
00:27:03:07 - 00:27:15:13
Wayne Mulder
So how did you get out? Did you follow any particular plan? Because you talk a little bit about how you got out of debt. So did you follow any plan or anything specific that you did that you would encourage others to consider?
00:27:15:24 - 00:27:37:10
Nate Riggs
Oh, man. Well, you know, of course, there's there's get out of debt greats like Dave Ramsey or something. And I'm not I don't want I don't stand on the Dave Ramsey soapbox because there's a lot of things I don't like about being in real estate because I'm all about leveraging good debt to make you money as well. But to go back before you can do that, you've got to have your personal stuff in order.
00:27:37:10 - 00:27:55:20
Nate Riggs
So he's a great guy to start with. I mean, just really cutting back and if what gets tough is like I was never one of those people that, you know, you realize stuff and it's like, well, stop going to Starbucks every morning and you're like, okay, I don't do that. So how do I save money? Right? It really you just got to want it.
00:27:55:20 - 00:28:17:04
Nate Riggs
First of all, another thing is, is make more money. And I know that's kind of hard. There are a lot of things out there. And I knew guys, even when I was in the Navy, they were like doing Uber eats on the side while they were in the Navy and different things. And so there are guys building furniture in a little bit, but you know, start with like kind of looking inward, being responsible with your own money.
00:28:17:04 - 00:28:34:16
Nate Riggs
If you got cars, get rid of them. I mean, I had given I had a brand new Dodge Charger that then the payment was I gave it to CarMax and I had to take like a $13,000, like high interest loan on the balance that we owed. I just had to eat it. But I went from a $608 payment down to a 375.
00:28:34:24 - 00:28:54:23
Nate Riggs
And yeah, it took me a few years. It took Shawna and me five. It basically took five years to like chip away. It does take time and it gets it gets frustrating as you get older and you're like, I just want a boat or I want something cool. But the trick is just to kind of free up that money and now start putting that money into other things.
00:28:56:05 - 00:29:23:09
Nate Riggs
Then you need to look into like things like rich dad, poor dad, where that's good leveraging. So in that book he talks about, oh, he wanted, you know, to buy, he wanted a new car, but he didn't want to pay the car payment. So he waited and bought an investment property. And then the, the, the money he was making on an investment property like, say, it's $200 a month, you know, is what you're making now you go get that car that's a $200 a month payment.
00:29:23:09 - 00:29:35:17
Nate Riggs
You're not paying for it the year. That's that's general wealth building. Then what's the other book. What's the BR I thought I had here. Oh rental, rental property investing the bigger pockets.
00:29:35:22 - 00:29:36:09
Wayne Mulder
Yes.
00:29:36:24 - 00:29:46:17
Nate Riggs
So you know, you kind of like graduate from like Dave Ramsey and then roll into like to go from pay your stuff off into the like leverage good that you know.
00:29:47:06 - 00:30:11:16
Wayne Mulder
Yeah I like how you draw that dichotomy between Dave Ramsey and Robert Kiyosaki because I think if you start with the discipline that Ramsey gives you, like you said, the advice your grandmother would give you, and then you take that discipline and then bring it into the understanding what's a business and what is personal. And really that quadrant mindset that Robert Kiyosaki provides, I love that that's that's kind of like the best of both worlds.
00:30:11:22 - 00:30:36:00
Nate Riggs
Yeah. You kind of go if you get them in the right order, you know, you can maybe break that. A big thing about me too, which we haven't got into in May, well, is kind of like breaking that generational cycle, that cyclical cycle, that very either middle class or blue collar cycle where it's like a, you know, when I was younger, I stood in a food stamp line with my parents.
00:30:36:00 - 00:30:59:02
Nate Riggs
By the time I graduated high school, we had like a camper and a pool with a hot tub, right? So like my dad had what walked that path from nothing to figure it out. But then by the time I got spit out in the world, it was just to start that process over again. So how do we get to where my kids don't start from zero and repeat my life, but start where I left off and continue it?
00:30:59:19 - 00:31:12:19
Wayne Mulder
I definitely want to get to that. In fact, you've got a statement that I want to ask you about that I've got a few follow up questions on. Let me back up a little bit because I want to get listeners to understand your story. So you get out of the Navy and at some point you go, you start a business.
00:31:13:02 - 00:31:18:03
Wayne Mulder
Can you just walk us a little bit through that process into what you're doing now? And then we'll kind of segue into these other questions?
00:31:18:12 - 00:31:39:21
Nate Riggs
Yeah, sure. So actually, 18 months before I got out of the Navy, so by this point, I have two kids, I'm remarried and I have two kids. And I'm an instructor at HSM 40, which is when you when I first talked about those two years of school, there's five schools total. It's the last one. It's a whole it's a whole year almost itself, nine months to a year.
00:31:40:02 - 00:31:58:10
Nate Riggs
That's where you finally start getting in a helicopter. So you've you've kind of passed all the other tests. And if usually if you fail out of that school, like, I don't know, it's weird to make it that far. Usually once you get to that part of the program, like you're going to go to the fleet. So I'm an instructor there, but I knew, I knew I was getting out.
00:31:59:10 - 00:32:21:18
Nate Riggs
And this is where an added challenge is because all your boys, all the shop, you really find out who your advocates are and who isn't so much. So because a lot of them take it really personal. Unfortunately, some of them are your biggest cheerleaders that are excited. Hey, okay, you're getting out of the Navy. We're excited. Anything we can do to help you, we're going to send you on your way.
00:32:21:24 - 00:32:33:17
Nate Riggs
And then others kind of they're frustrated that you're leaving. I don't. I don't I don't really know why. Maybe they want to leave themselves, but they're they don't I don't know. Anyway, that's not what we're talking about.
00:32:33:17 - 00:32:34:19
Wayne Mulder
A lot of truth to that, Nate.
00:32:35:03 - 00:32:54:04
Nate Riggs
Yeah, so, but 18 months, the Navy gives you a form that says, I mean, they're going to stay or I'm going to leave so your cover, you can fake it all you want, but 18 months you sign that sheet of paper and you know, so at that point, those collateral jobs, all that extra stuff we talked about before, you might as well quit those and start focusing on the future.
00:32:54:04 - 00:33:16:02
Nate Riggs
So I told them I'm going to be the best instructor in the classroom and in the aircraft. Don't don't expect to see me. I'm not coming in. If I'm not flying, I won't be here. I'm working on my real estate. So I reactivated my license because remember, I had got it earlier, so I reactivate it. And that was part of like, you know, if you have a contract job where you get a paycheck every week and then you're moving to a sales job, it's going to take time to build that up.
00:33:16:02 - 00:33:35:19
Nate Riggs
So I knew I had to do both. So I was working literally any time I wasn't in the aircraft, I was out, you know, showing homes, trying to do that, and on the weekends, going full speed. And so basically that's when, you know, the rickshaw came about. So I partnered. You have to put your real estate license with a brokerage.
00:33:35:19 - 00:33:55:21
Nate Riggs
So partnered with Keller Williams. They kind of had all that. They they cost the least amount of money and they give you the most amount stuff at the same time. So it makes really sense. They have good culture. Gary Keller is a great leader. He's all about back to the financial stuff, lead with profit, you know, not starting a business, not taking out big business loan, but just kind of slowly building, chipping away.
00:33:55:21 - 00:34:24:16
Nate Riggs
So to this day, my business, the Riggs Group, we still are relatively debt free. We use Amex and stuff for travel and points and that kind of thing. But I didn't I never took out like a $50,000 business loan. I never I don't buy leads. It's all relatively organic growth over the years, which I think is important because especially now as we shift from a seller's market to a buyer's market, and that shift period is pretty intense for people.
00:34:24:16 - 00:34:42:14
Nate Riggs
You see a lot of agents kind of freaking out and they're freaking out because they have thousands of dollars a month to these lead services. But they're not getting any leads right now. Where I don't pay those lead services. So I have money in the bank and I'm not worry about it. But building the business, man, I think the biggest thing is consistency.
00:34:42:20 - 00:35:08:05
Nate Riggs
Just doing it consistently. A lot of social media growth, a lot of a lot of phone calls being made. And I think so many there's another book called Start Ugly. I never read it, but I know about it. And so the premise accounts, the premise of that book is like if you sit around and try to get everything in order, everything perfect before you start, you'll never get started, you'll never pick up speed.
00:35:08:05 - 00:35:26:24
Nate Riggs
So I just kind of was like, it's a little bit of it's a little bit of studying the greats and duplicating what they do. If somebody else already did something successfully, then don't waste your brain space being creative. Just kind of duplicate what they do, but make it your own right. So a lot of that now we're up to.
00:35:27:00 - 00:35:53:20
Nate Riggs
I do. It's not a huge number either, but there's a couple in real estate. There's a couple sweet spots. It's not necessarily that you want to do hundreds of units, which is homes, transactions, hundreds of transactions a year, because in order to support 100 plus transactions a year, you're going to have to have staff and team members and all kinds of people where like right now I'm floating around like 25 transactions a year.
00:35:53:20 - 00:36:15:04
Nate Riggs
But remember, this is only I left the Navy January 2020, so or two years. So 2021 and 2022. It's 2021. We did 25 units and then this year we're up when I look at the numbers were up 37.5% year over year. So you would think we would do more in 25. But some of that is volume, not units.
00:36:15:04 - 00:36:46:04
Nate Riggs
So we didn't necessarily do more units, but we did a higher price point. Right, which makes sense. Also because the whole market went up, right. So kind of goes hand-in-hand. I use a showing agent, so and there's different splits there and then I use outsource it like a transaction coordinator does all the paperwork. Remember going back to Naval Ravikant I am terrible like I give so I have my MacBook and Anna does all the paper like I'm great at the phone calls and face to face and doing this right here, meeting and talking and teaching.
00:36:47:08 - 00:37:01:20
Nate Riggs
And I literally take my MacBook to Anna and I give her it and I'm like, Can you go through my emails and forward yourself? The important stuff? Like, I mean, it's like I don't even forward the emails. I just give her my, you know, she logs into my email and forwards them to herself.
00:37:01:20 - 00:37:02:07
Wayne Mulder
So yeah.
00:37:03:06 - 00:37:04:17
Nate Riggs
And that's what keeps me efficient, man.
00:37:05:03 - 00:37:11:22
Wayne Mulder
That's awesome. Very cool. That's a hell of a year to have had started. A company was January of 2020.
00:37:12:07 - 00:37:29:07
Nate Riggs
So that's what was crazy too, because I got my license the first time, remember in like 2007, that's what happened. I went to college and I've quit college twice now, by the way, so I quit. So, okay. So I went to college in 2006 and then found out you don't need a college degree to get your real estate license.
00:37:29:14 - 00:37:49:01
Nate Riggs
So I quit college and just got my license. And then of course, all that was the biggest housing recession ever. And so that was part of, you know, I still lived at home with mom and dad. I didn't really have any skill sets. I'm trying to convince people that like this squirrely headed, like Beach Kid is trustworthy with your home during the worst.
00:37:49:04 - 00:37:59:01
Nate Riggs
It's just not going to happen. That's how I ended up in Navy. And then, of course, I leave the Navy in January 2020 and two months later is the COVID thing. And I'm like, you know, are you kidding me, man?
00:37:59:04 - 00:38:05:07
Wayne Mulder
I it's almost like the universe wanted to give you a challenge. You were going to do this.
00:38:05:13 - 00:38:27:01
Nate Riggs
And it's exhausting. But you know what? I'm I like it. And and you're right. Like, at this point in life now, at 20 years old and you live with mom and dad, how bad do you really want something when your 30 years old and you've got two kids and a wife and you own a house and you do have a car payment and you're trying to pay off your divorce debt still.
00:38:27:06 - 00:38:42:05
Nate Riggs
I mean, you want it bad, so you're going to make those calls, you're going to do the work. And along the way, the skill set is built. So as long as you're if you're starting some sort of business or this is the business starting plug, if you're starting a business, the most important thing is just to be consistent every day.
00:38:42:15 - 00:38:58:11
Nate Riggs
Don't worry about your skill sets. You're going to fail. You're going to make mistakes, but you're going to you know, there's all kinds of slogans. You're going to fail forward, that kind of stuff, you know what I mean? And so as long as you're being consistent in doing it every day, you will get better and better. Every day your network will grow your client base, your friends in.
00:38:58:11 - 00:39:05:07
Nate Riggs
It'll all come and then you'll look back and then everybody's like, Oh, he's an overnight success. And you're like, You didn't see the, like, five last five years.
00:39:05:19 - 00:39:28:06
Wayne Mulder
Yeah, exactly. That's what I keep saying when I think about what I've got going on here as well. It's jokingly because you look at these numbers and stuff and you're like, Yeah, this is an interesting world to. Try to build something in because this is what I want to do for like, I love what I'm doing for my actual career, but obviously I'm trying to build something here that's going to become my actual career and awesome.
00:39:28:08 - 00:39:51:11
Wayne Mulder
I've had that same thought with, you know, at some point here, you know, if at any point it blows up, which is what happens in this online environment, then that moment it's going to feel like an overnight success and no one's going to have seen I, I started this in 2019, so no one's going to have seen the three years or five years that you're working full time in law enforcement and doing this on your days off and then get.
00:39:51:13 - 00:39:55:02
Nate Riggs
Crossing them over. Yeah, absolutely. I understand that.
00:39:55:16 - 00:40:11:10
Wayne Mulder
So out of curiosity, before I switch gears, is the switch head. So I also live in the state of Florida. So I have seen what housing prices have done plus and one of the hottest market counties in the state. So out of curiosity, is that switch happening? Are we moving from a seller's to a buyer's market, in your opinion?
00:40:11:22 - 00:40:35:04
Nate Riggs
Yeah, so I would say we are. And based on inventory alone. So actually on the 10th is when our data comes out, which is tomorrow month over month. So right now we still only have July data. August data will come out tomorrow. So we'll be able to see that. But when you're looking at it, you know, in the springtime, we had as low as 1200 homes on the market.
00:40:35:04 - 00:40:58:14
Nate Riggs
That is very low for Jacksonville. And right now we're up to 6000 homes on the market. So the inventory alone so before like without even having to say anything else, supply and demand tells you like, hey, the demand has slowed and those homes are on market. So now we went from and it really were not to a bad market we're just to kind of a more normal healthy market.
00:40:58:22 - 00:41:16:11
Nate Riggs
The weird thing that we're seeing is even though our inventory is up and this is why I mentioned the August data, because I'm anxious to see like it used to be days on market, like a normal market is a 5 to 7 month supply of homes like this is a balanced market, not a seller or buyer just kind of balance.
00:41:16:19 - 00:41:40:16
Nate Riggs
And 5 to 7 months supply of homes. We've been sitting at like a two month supply at home. So heavy sellers market as inventory goes up, homes are going to sit on the market longer, which is going to raise that. So and from June to July, we were up like 84% days on market, but that still just meant we went from like 24 hours on market to like two days on market.
00:41:40:16 - 00:42:02:17
Nate Riggs
So I'm anxious to see if the data has shown that, hey, this actually is increasing and our month supply is going up. And that's that's based on Northeast Florida site market analysis report that they put out. So we are seeing that. And so from what I've read, when your market shifts, when you go from a seller's market to a buyer's market, it's usually abrupt.
00:42:02:17 - 00:42:21:19
Nate Riggs
And we saw that in the spring and it just hit like overnight and one week and it typically takes about a few months to do that shift. It's a really fast kind of like a golf swing. It starts slow and then it's just like, who got to go back from a buyer's market to a seller's market? It's like a 3 to 4 year, so it's less gradual.
00:42:21:19 - 00:42:48:20
Nate Riggs
So what happens is inevitably the shift from seller to buyer because it's so abrupt, the news gets on to it and the media and they really like sell fear. And so what starts as and I think this is part of it what starts as a little bit of like oh inventories up then the media pushes that kind of it's like a fear set and then people who are kind of on the edge, they do get afraid and they back out, which leads to even more lower demand.
00:42:48:20 - 00:43:09:24
Nate Riggs
Right. You see, kind of like interesting like catalyst itself. So the most important thing that I do is kind of share information and data and even like interest rates. So interest rates are up like midwives right now. Well, they've been down at the twos like 2.75, you know, under three, which for us will we might not see those again in our lifetime.
00:43:09:24 - 00:43:30:12
Nate Riggs
I don't know when you look at the data in the long run, the average interest rate over all time is 7.8%. The average in the last 30 years is 5.7%. So we're right at like we're so we're good interest rates. But if you look at the news, it's like, well, rates are on the rise and you know, it's the doom and gloom, right?
00:43:30:12 - 00:43:46:06
Nate Riggs
And then and then people hear that because they weren't they didn't buy a house year over year over the last 30 years. They don't have that data. So my job is kind of sharing that information. But I think we're definitely seeing a swing from I mean, we're definitely shifting from from where we were, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.
00:43:46:06 - 00:43:50:09
Nate Riggs
It's been it's like, oh, I can catch my breath, right? And, you.
00:43:50:09 - 00:44:00:13
Wayne Mulder
Know, no, I like how you laid that because you are right. There's a lot of fear on both sides of the equation. So, no, that's interesting. Go ahead. I'm sorry.
00:44:00:24 - 00:44:24:14
Nate Riggs
Well, and even from a sellers perspective, it's not necessarily terrible because I worked with a lot of sellers who were they had anxiety over putting their house on the market because if it was sold in 24 hours, where were they going to go? Right. And now, you know, as long as they're understanding now like, hey, we can put your house on the market and it might take 90 to 120 days to sell versus 24 hours.
00:44:24:14 - 00:44:52:04
Nate Riggs
And that's a huge mantle like for since COVID for two years. And remember, normally we have a normal cyclical, like a very busy spring and a slow fall and that's year over year. You look at data as well, year over year until COVID, we've just been steady for two whole years. And so we finally leading into this fall to be basically hit the normal cyclical pattern of, hey, it's just like there was the rush before summer school started.
00:44:52:04 - 00:44:55:21
Nate Riggs
Everybody's on pause and it will kick back in October, November.
00:44:56:15 - 00:45:13:07
Wayne Mulder
Very interesting. No, I appreciate you sharing that because I, I find it interesting and you hear all these differing thoughts just looking at what's going on across the country in general, just with a lot of craziness to that end. Let me switch gears here real quick, because I don't want to let you go till I ask you about this.
00:45:13:07 - 00:45:31:17
Wayne Mulder
You brought up what you were referring to as breaking the government or generational I'm sorry, breaking the generational cycle. You've referred to it in some of your writing as the middle class mold. Can you just. Yeah, go into that a little bit. And I find it an interesting question from two sides, kind of what does it mean to you?
00:45:31:17 - 00:45:40:11
Wayne Mulder
And then how has this definition evolved as well? Because we're kind of seeing a disappearance of the middle class. So I'm kind of curious if it's had an evolution for you as well.
00:45:40:22 - 00:46:13:12
Nate Riggs
Yeah. So that middle class pattern of, hey, I'm going to teach my kids everything, I can teach them and then spit them out into the world and they're going to have to figure it out. And I even in the Navy, I met guys that just openly kind of said that even about their kids. And I used to kind of internal I didn't, you know, in the shop it wasn't necessarily like I'm not getting in this conversation, but internally I was like, man, that's a shame that that's been what we've been taught to just I'm going to I'm going to learn everything I can, then I'm going to set out on this journey of life alone
00:46:13:14 - 00:46:33:02
Nate Riggs
at zero. And I'm going to teach my kids everything, and then I'm going to send them out at zero. And it doesn't. I think maybe that's a difference between the wealthy and the middle class. And to me, the definition of wealthy isn't just how much money you have in the bank, but it's like your lifestyle and your family and everything together kind of mix.
00:46:34:11 - 00:46:48:24
Nate Riggs
So I just didn't want to start that. I guess one day I was just sitting on the back porch and I was like, Man, so and I kind of touched on earlier. We went from nothing to like, Hey, we live in Florida and we've got a pool in the backyard and all that. And then I was sitting there and I was like, I don't have a pool.
00:46:49:10 - 00:47:09:06
Nate Riggs
And it's been like 16 years since I left home. Now it's been even longer and you're like, why? Why was, why did my lifestyle have to like go back? And why did I have to make the same mistakes and why? Why as a society do we just accept that as normal, that like, yeah, you got to make your own mistakes and stuff.
00:47:09:06 - 00:47:30:09
Nate Riggs
Like if you did and not in a way that everybody gets a trophy away. But what if you were able to like, Hey, I'm going to teach you teach my kids enough to, you know, pick them up? I think that's why I like the blue book, the real estate investor book, because he talks about themself where at a certain age he bought a rental property like his kid is like eight years old or something.
00:47:30:11 - 00:47:45:10
Nate Riggs
And he's like, I bought this rental property when my kid was eight years old. I'm going to pay it off in the next ten years. But over that ten years, I'm going to teach my kid how to manage it, how the money works, you know, what it costs, how much it brings in. And then when they're 18, I'm going to give them this.
00:47:45:18 - 00:48:10:04
Nate Riggs
And at at that point, it's their decision to sell it and cash in on it or maintain it as an income. But the lesson was taught and the child is sent out into the world already having something versus just from zero. Does that kind of make sense? So does I kind of want to create that same thing, what you were talking about as far as like middle class and maybe disappearing.
00:48:10:04 - 00:48:44:08
Nate Riggs
And we see the gap getting bigger between wealthy and the wealthy. I think it does have to do with information. I think part of it has to do with things like these podcasts where the information is so free and readily available to us that more people maybe like you and me, are taking advantage of them. That, you know, 30 years ago without the Internet, would you and I, I might have been a career Navy guy that never, never did anything extra, got my retirement, continue to live paycheck to paycheck on my pension, and then my kids set out and I was like, Yeah, sign up for the Navy and start over like I did.
00:48:44:22 - 00:49:11:01
Nate Riggs
That might happen because maybe the information wasn't as readily. So maybe we see more people, you know, heading towards that gap. And then I, you know, there's a whole bunch of social things. I think there's a breakdown, you know, from what I see. I think a lot of your social programs, they're better. They may do more of like a carrot on a stick than send people in the right direction.
00:49:11:01 - 00:49:28:00
Nate Riggs
So you may have that lower class just kind of like, you know what I mean? They're going further down that road rather than getting the true help that they need. So I don't. And what is the answer that I don't know, because I think each of us we have to want it. We have to need it. We live in a great country.
00:49:28:00 - 00:49:42:06
Nate Riggs
You know, we've been around the world. We live in a great country. Where is all this opportunity even like this? You and me are able to do this, relatively easy to do. And so, I mean, the opportunities there, if you want it.
00:49:43:04 - 00:50:05:01
Wayne Mulder
That's awesome. No, I think that's that's a good point. And I think that I've had this conversation with some other family members because even even with my upbringing and where I grew up and so forth, I mean, we were always struggling growing up and financial. You know, I had a great upbringing. My parents, you know, were together and I've got, you know, everything was good.
00:50:05:01 - 00:50:27:00
Wayne Mulder
But we've I've had this conversation with other family members about this cyclical. Exactly. You hit the nail on the head, the cyclical nature of not not just decision making. Right. So not just like the debt and so forth, but just not offering those opportunities like the example you gave with the house and so forth, and then passing that on to the next generation.
00:50:27:00 - 00:50:49:06
Wayne Mulder
So I think that's a powerful idea and I obviously I would term it right now that we kind of have a war on the middle class. In other words, to me, the middle class is kind of pushing the wrong direction. So they're kind of because if you aren't thinking outside the box and if you aren't developing these ideas, sadly between inflation and so forth, you're actually losing.
00:50:49:18 - 00:50:50:21
Nate Riggs
Just getting beat down.
00:50:50:23 - 00:50:52:03
Wayne Mulder
Exactly. You're going the wrong.
00:50:52:03 - 00:50:52:17
Nate Riggs
With that, too.
00:50:53:01 - 00:51:09:22
Wayne Mulder
So I think this is a great idea and I love this idea of breaking that cycle and moving out. What would you say is the one part of that that is the most important? Would it be mindset? Would it be like if you were going to take that and given, you know, just one actionable step, what would you say would be the most important part of breaking out of that mold?
00:51:09:22 - 00:51:28:04
Nate Riggs
Yeah, it would have to be mindset. It would it would definitely have to be mindset because you have to go in order. You can't get your finances in order until you've changed mindset. You can't you can't be creative on your business until you've got your finances in order, you know? I mean, so like you have to start at the beginning.
00:51:28:04 - 00:51:46:10
Nate Riggs
And I think changing your mindset, thinking big, believing in yourself and believing it, you know, when I was getting out of the Navy go back to the Advocate part, there were people who were like, Hey, you're really great at job. You're going to be great at any job that you do like. It's going to be awesome. And to this day, they're friends and they hire us.
00:51:46:10 - 00:52:04:19
Nate Riggs
I, I don't use the word I don't say the word use a lot of people in our industry are like use me. And it's like saying, use me, hire me because you want the best and I'm going to do great job for you like you deserve, you know, but realistically, I had other guys that when I would call them in because that was part of it, the calls and everything.
00:52:04:19 - 00:52:27:10
Nate Riggs
Hey, listen, man, I'm I'm getting out of this and I'm transitioning this. I just wanted to call it, you know, a walk. As you know, I see value in our relationship. So I'm letting you know and you and you know, guys. Oh, so you think you got it all figured out? Oh, so that's what your plan is. You know, I talked about having employees and having team members and partners and they're like, Oh, so you're going to pay somebody and you're like, Well, yeah, that's how a business works.
00:52:27:12 - 00:52:29:00
Wayne Mulder
The this thing grows.
00:52:29:10 - 00:52:49:18
Nate Riggs
But to them, it just wasn't fathomable that you could, you know, they had they're like 43, I think like I left the Navy after ten years and my like take home, I don't know that my take home was even five grand. It was probably like 4700 a month or something. And that's what fly pay and search and rescue pay and like hazard pays and all this.
00:52:50:01 - 00:53:09:12
Nate Riggs
So I was getting a lot of incentive pay and I still was like, I think I was like making 60 grand a year with my, like, W-2. But, you know, my take home was in the fours a month, and that's not a lot of money at all. And I think, you know, talking to those guys and then you're like, Yeah, I'm going to create a job that pays $50,000 a year.
00:53:09:13 - 00:53:27:02
Nate Riggs
They're like, that just didn't really make sense. So, so mindset for sure. And one last one. I remember guys saying and it's I remember like a guy coming by and like he was tapping on my desk. He was like, You'll never make as much money anywhere else. And in my mind, I was like, Well, for one, it's not about money.
00:53:27:02 - 00:53:54:21
Nate Riggs
I don't want to go on an eight month deployment and miss time with my kids anymore. So I'm not doing that. And for two I it's just wrong. Like there's a lot of opportunity out there. So, you know, to anybody who feels stuck in their job, like get in, get in the books, get in the stuff, listen to the podcast, there's and you'll just be kind of enlightened to the amount of opportunity that there actually is if you want to work hard to get it.
00:53:54:21 - 00:54:13:02
Nate Riggs
You know, I mine. So here's a different see like I don't know in law enforcement you work weekends and holidays and other stuff and we did the same too and we had duty weekends and it's but I hated duty weekend and it was only one weekend a month you would rotate into like we're working this weekend and it was like it was the end of the world.
00:54:13:20 - 00:54:38:19
Nate Riggs
I work most weekends, but I just don't feel the pain because I'm doing something I like and enjoy. And, you know, and right now, during this cyclical, slow time, it's weird that I'm like, Oh, I'm not working this weekend again. Like, and it's like it almost feels wrong to not work the weekend, right? And you know, I built a calendar for myself and to get everything done that I actually need to get done, my calendar starts at 40.
00:54:38:19 - 00:55:08:03
Nate Riggs
It starts at 48 hours a week before I even take a single appointment. And I know I've got to be taking two appointments a week to keep business coming in. So and you know, those are two hour appointments, so and another four. So my calendar starts at 52 hours week. It's not a 40 hour work week. So your mindset of, hey, I'm going to have to work more hours and work harder to get this freight train rolling, but as I start out, like I don't show homes anymore, I have a showing agent.
00:55:08:03 - 00:55:27:06
Nate Riggs
So I've already within two years alleviated that. I'm not driving around going all over town. I'm focused more in this office and behind the scenes role, creating the business. And then I'm sending others out to do that business. So it it takes time, but that's all mindset, you know.
00:55:27:13 - 00:55:48:03
Wayne Mulder
Yeah. No, that's great and it's so encouraging. I know that's going to resonate with a lot of listeners because just like this career or just like the military, this is no different where there's always those people that are trying to decide, you know, are they going to depending on when they came in, are they going to push to retirement and then do something or is there something they can do that can be a transitional job, something like that.
00:55:48:03 - 00:55:53:07
Wayne Mulder
So that is powerful, powerful stuff. Let me I got two last questions for you. I know we're going to try.
00:55:53:07 - 00:55:54:14
Nate Riggs
To keep or keep them short.
00:55:54:23 - 00:55:59:23
Wayne Mulder
Yeah, no, no, no. And I definitely more importantly, what is next for you and for your mission?
00:56:00:17 - 00:56:19:17
Nate Riggs
Yeah. So next for me, our our level. So we're at a point where we're finally kind of that at that back to zero. So we're moving into that investment on ourselves. You know, as far as the income side of things, we're at a point where when you start investing and giving back more so looking at different charities, looking at different places to put our money.
00:56:20:17 - 00:56:42:23
Nate Riggs
You know, I also grew up my dad was, a pastor, so I grew up in church. So tither giving is always a big part. And we've we've stuck with that. But we're kind of getting to a point where as you make as you make more money and if you're giving a certain amount, you're giving more money, too. So you're looking at different organizations, different groups, places where you can put it to best work.
00:56:43:16 - 00:57:02:19
Nate Riggs
I wouldn't advise just giving blind, but at the same time you've got to give from the heart and kind of you can't, you can't give and then control what you give, but just do the research and really look into the organizations or groups you're going to support or give. And that just doesn't have to be financially. And B time to there's kinds of ways to give your time.
00:57:03:10 - 00:57:12:11
Nate Riggs
So as our schedule opens up, as we're outsourcing some of the business and we're getting more time back in our lives, we're looking for different areas to get plugged in, to give back more.
00:57:13:01 - 00:57:34:23
Wayne Mulder
It's awesome to to whom much is given. So I think that's I think that's great. My last question that I ask everybody, which I always tweak a little bit when they're not in the law enforcement career, but there's obviously we've talked about a lot of great things in this conversation. But what is the one thing the one take away that law enforcement officers can do that's going to make a difference in their personal lives?
00:57:35:16 - 00:58:04:16
Nate Riggs
Mm hmm. One thing you can do differently, man, I would probably say you've got to enjoy the journey, and you've got to enjoy the moment. So the jobs that we do aren't. They're not always easy. And they're they're they're either boring or they're, like, intense at the same time. Like, we talked about. Yeah. And so enjoying that journey, enjoying those moments.
00:58:04:16 - 00:58:23:13
Nate Riggs
I think that's that's really important because once you leave that world, once you're whether you retire or whether you leave it and I will say, like, I don't know what you got. We called it a shop, but like, I still miss the shop. I went from being in a room full of 30 guys that like and going on missions or training or doing stuff constantly.
00:58:23:20 - 00:58:35:06
Nate Riggs
And now I sit in this room kind of alone. So there's a little bit of like loneliness sometimes. And so enjoy that moment and enjoy where you're at, I think is important.
00:58:35:22 - 00:58:39:04
Wayne Mulder
I love it. How what is the best way for people to connect you?
00:58:39:15 - 00:58:57:13
Nate Riggs
Yeah, best way to connect with me is definitely on Instagram and eight rig's official it's super easy. We're also on YouTube and eight rigs official made it super they're the same so YouTube and Instagram and eight rigs official there's vlogs and other things on there. So you'll get to know a little bit more about me as well as the business side.
00:58:58:05 - 00:59:15:14
Nate Riggs
And then we do have a website which is the rigs group that KW Ecom. It's centered around a home searching. But if you click the about us there's a contact and you know, you can type in your name, email, phone number and a short message that goes right to my email. So I'll for sure see that too.
00:59:15:24 - 00:59:22:01
Wayne Mulder
Awesome. I'll be sure to get all that linked up in the show notes. Nate, this has been a fascinating conversation. I really appreciate you coming on.
00:59:22:09 - 00:59:23:19
Nate Riggs
I enjoyed it. It's been great.
00:59:24:10 - 00:59:51:12
Wayne Mulder
Awesome. Thank you very much. So thank you so much for watching or listening to this week's podcast. Every episode has full show notes with all the links, more pictures, even transcriptions of every episode. And it's at the website at OnTheBlueLine.com/show-notes. Or to make it simple, if you just go down to whichever player you are watching this on and click the link right at the top that will take you to directly to the show notes page for every episode.
00:59:52:04 - 01:00:09:11
Wayne Mulder
That is all I have for today. Don't forget that. I'll see you next Monday in morning roll call. I'll see you next Thursday in the interview room. But in the meantime, I'll see you on the blue line.