Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: Welcome to the Victory Show.
What's up, victors? Welcome to this episode of the Victory Show. If this is the first time you're joining us, I'm Travis Cody, best selling author, 16 books and the creator of bestseller By Design.
Had the privilege of helping hundreds of business consultants, founders, owners and entrepreneurs write and publish their own best selling book as well. Along the way, discovered a really fascinating pattern. Most businesses hit a revenue mark, usually around a million bucks, and they struggle to break through it. So on this show, I sit down with some of the world's most successful founders, CEOs, leaders and business owners to uncover the strategies they use to overcome those plateaus and scale their businesses to new heights so that you can do the same. So get ready for some deep insights and actionable takeaways that you can implement in your life and your business. Starting now. My guest guest today is a decorated combat veteran turned visionary entrepreneur whose mission is as bold as his backstory. Edward Buddy Rushing is the founder of White Feather, a movement turned company that's helped military and veteran families across the country achieve true financial freedom through real estate investing. Buddy's journey started in poverty, growing up on food stamps, and led him into the US Naval Academy, a degree in aerospace engineering, and multiple combat deployments as a Marine officer. But after serving his country, Buddy turned his focus to serving his brothers and sisters in uniform, helping them build wealth, security, and the American dream they fought so hard to defend. What began with helping fellow Marines buy rental properties has grown into a nationwide force. White Feather members have now amassed over $1.2 billion in real estate, with Buddy personally training over 350 veterans through his real estate investment accelerator, creating more than 30 millionaires along the way. And yes, he runs this entire operation from a converted tuff shed in his backyard. Because if that's not the most Marine CEO thing I've ever seen, I don't know what is. So, Buddy, thank you so much for being here today.
[00:02:02] Speaker A: Great introduction. Sitting there, listening to. You can tell somebody's good at what they do if they're reading your story and you're intrigued.
I'm like, oh, wow, that sounds pretty cool.
[00:02:12] Speaker B: I saw this. Who's this guy's having on right now?
[00:02:15] Speaker A: That's awesome. Well, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. Speaking of which, this is actually the tough shed.
[00:02:22] Speaker B: That's a nice tough shed. I gotta say, man.
[00:02:24] Speaker A: You see this? This is a, this is a, this is a skylight. Who has a skylight in their touch? We like blew a hole out of the Roof and, like, made a skylight and then put an AC and wi fi in here.
[00:02:38] Speaker B: So was it your. Was it your wife's idea? You're working in the house? And she bought the Tough Shed and she said, look, I cut you an office pretty close.
[00:02:44] Speaker A: It was sitting in. It was. It came with the house. And it was as old, you know, dilapidated, Tough Shed, but. But still had good bones. And.
And, you know, my wife was like, you know what? I can make that beautiful. I can make it into this great little office. And so she. And so she did. Yeah, she has a magic touch. So it's very homey and cost me Nothing.
[00:03:04] Speaker B: There's a YouTube channel here, Tough Shed offices. She could just go around to yard, show people how to do it. She's going to have a million followers driven from that thing alone.
[00:03:12] Speaker A: Not a bad. That's not a bad idea. I actually call it. I jokingly started calling it this, but then everybody really liked it. So now that's the official name. I call it the international headquarters of White Feather. It's quite literally true, because we have people in Dubai, we have people in, you know, overseas stationed in Japan, whatever, that are part of our membership, and they're buying houses and, you know, across the United States. So technically, we are international, and technically, this is the headquarters of White Feather.
[00:03:39] Speaker B: I love it. I love it. All right, so how do. How do we go from aerospace engineering into real estate? Was this, like. I want to walk me through the.
[00:03:48] Speaker A: Transition, you know, I really wish that I had some really well thought out plan that I executed, but. But it doesn't make sense to make that up. It makes only sense to tell you the truth. So when I got to the Naval Academy, my first year, it's called your plebe year. It's. It's very, very difficult. You know, a lot of hazing and a lot of, you know, legal hazing, and a lot of the academics are so incredibly hard because they don't want to. So the Naval Academy is technically free, right? Meaning they invest about $300,000 in your education, and then you repay by years of service. Right. And so they don't want to waste a lot of money if you're not going to make it. And so they really hammer you hard.
[00:04:26] Speaker B: Your freshman year, first year, they put the screws on you to wash you out.
[00:04:29] Speaker A: Yeah, there's about a. I think it's a 30% attrition rate or something like that. And show. Or at least there was back then. And so they really hammer you hard. And so I was just like trying to survive, but I survived Fleet year and I went in as a sophomore and they make you declare a major.
I promise you this is the truth. I looked at the majors and they were listed alphabetically. Aerospace engineering was one of the top majors, right. And it sounded awesome. It was like. I was like, wow, aerospace sounds super cool. That's like planes and spaceships and engineering sounds super cool. And that's what I want to do. Literally, that's the only thought I put into it. And it was the most hard. It was the hardest major ever. So hard. And I.
[00:05:13] Speaker B: You're like, I want physics. And they're like, no, man, there's advanced physics that. Advanced physics wrapped in quantum physics.
[00:05:18] Speaker A: Exactly. It's like thermodynamics and it's like, you know, differential equations and like fluid dynamic and all this stuff. Super, super hard. And I. I have this thing where I'm not super smart, but I'm incredibly stubborn. And so I was like, I won't. I was like, I'm not thriving here, but I will not quit. And I ended up graduating with an aerospace engineering degree. And in the 20 years since I graduated the Naval Academy, I have never once, a single time used that degree. Not a single time.
[00:05:48] Speaker B: Not even on your job in the military, huh?
[00:05:50] Speaker A: No, I was a combat engineer in the military, which had the words engineer was the same. But there's nothing a combat engineer in the military blow stuff up and build stuff. That's it. And the stuff that you build, it doesn't take an engineering degree to build it. You're trying to build what's called expeditionary stuff.
[00:06:05] Speaker B: There. There wasn't a time when you were in the field and you were getting ready to blow stuff up and you were like, now, you know, guys, if we had 1,000 times more C4, we could actually put a rocket in space.
[00:06:16] Speaker A: You know, it's. We have the only equation I ever learned as a combat engineer that. Well, we learned lots of equations, but the joke is the only equation that we care about is P equals plenty.
So like. So it doesn't matter what your equation is.
[00:06:30] Speaker B: If you.
[00:06:30] Speaker A: If you really want to this thing to fall or to open up or to disappear, pack a ton of C4 on it and I promise you it'll go away.
That was. But it was a blast. So. So no, man. The. The truth is that my first deployment, I was in Afghanistan. This was in 2006. I was in a Humvee on a long range patrol. And, you know, you have a lot of time just Sitting there waiting to clear IEDs or waiting to. For resupply or whatever. And so it's really boring as what's called an. A driver, an assistant driver. So you're, you got the driver, then you got the commander of the vehicle, which was me in the, in the. A driver's seat. And so I look between the seat and the radio mount and there's this little purple paperback book called Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And I read it and I remember just this feeling washing over me because it felt like it was speaking directly to me. Because if you read that book, he's basically talking to the average everyday person and saying, you can build generational wealth through real estate. There's nothing to stop you. It's just your mindset. His rich dad had a rich mindset. His poor dad had a poor mindset.
[00:07:35] Speaker B: One was educated and one was not educated, but non educated. One had the better mindset.
[00:07:39] Speaker A: That's right, the better mindset. And so I was thinking to myself, I was like, man. So I grew up on welfare in East Tennessee. I remember, you know, knowing where everything was in the wick aisle. And, you know, the whole government cheese thing was a literal thing. Like they literally give you these blocks of cheese. And, and like, you know, so anyway, I grew up on welfare and it just never, it never occurred to me that, that there was any option other than getting a good job. And now all of a sudden there's this, whoa, you mean I can not just have a good job? I can be wealthy? I could be financially free? I can. I could maybe not have a job, not have a boss someday? Like what? Like, that's crazy. And so I started. I don't know what it was, but I just, I drank the Kool Aid and I believed. And you know, anyway, there's a, there's a 15 year story after that, but.
[00:08:23] Speaker B: But that's where it's all right. So. So did you kind of start dabbling in real estate education then while you were serving through the, the military, or did you actually start investing while you were still in.
[00:08:34] Speaker A: So yes, I have these two. Like, I have this analogy I use. It's like education and action are like your left and right leg. In order to move forward, you need to educate yourself, then you need to take action. Then you need to educate, then you need to take action. If you only educate yourself, meaning you're only stepping forward with your left leg over and over, you're just going to spin around in circles. If you only take action, you're only going to spin around in circles. Right. So my thought is forward. You need to have both. Well, I, I read Rich dad, Poor dad and I convinced myself that I was going to get wealthy flipping. And I walked inside the real estate office and I'll never forget it. There was this probably 65 year old dude at one point when he was younger, I'm sure he had red hair, but it was mostly white beard hair sitting beside this massive stack of books and newspapers and just musty smell everywhere and just a crusty old dude. So I walked in and I said, check it out, my name's Buddy. I'm going to flip houses. So I want to buy your oldest piece of crap house in this town. And I'm going to renovate it and sell it and make a bunch of money. What do you think about that plan? Is now a good time to buy it? Goes June 2007, my friend. It's a fantastic time to buy. And so I said, roger that. So I bought a little two bedroom, two bath, 1200 square foot house on Sun Valley Drive. 72285 Sun Valley Drive. You can check it out. I still own it.
[00:09:52] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:09:52] Speaker A: I bought it unrenovated for $154,000.
I spent the next two years renovating it from top to bottom. I spent all the money I'd saved in Afghanistan and did all the work myself with my wife who she came and joined me. We got married and then she helped me finish the house. Re roo.
I mean just you know like popcorn ceiling scrape. The popcorn.
[00:10:13] Speaker B: Ultimate fixer upper. You doing all the labor.
[00:10:16] Speaker A: Ultimate fixer upper board. And all the money I had in the entire world, $30,000. Poured all the money into it.
We had like a thousand dollars left in the bank whenever it was all said and done and did all the work ourselves. So let me recap for you. Bought it in June 2007 for 154, 000. Put $30,000 into it and two years of my life. So 184,000 now into it and two years of my life. Got it appraised after renovation. In 2009 it appraised for $68,000 after renovation. So my first house was negative. I told my wife, I said, here's the deal. Because we got married right around the same time. Got married at the courthouse. So I write it around the same time. And I said, here's the deal. I have a negative net worth. We live in the desert and we're in the middle of this great recession. I promise you that it'll only get better from here is what I told her. And so to her credit, she was, she was amazing. She was amazing. And we took the money. So the reason we got married at the courthouse was because we had saved $16,000 for, to, for our wedding. Right. That wasn't a part of the 30. That was just for our wedding because our parents really don't come for money. So they weren't going to be able to pay for our wedding. So we saved it together and we decided instead of using it for a wedding that we would get married at the courthouse and we would invest that money. Because right now it was 2009, the whole town had vaporized like 50% off. Yeah, every single house was 50, 60% off. So we use that $16,000 and we put down on a three bedroom bath, 1300 square foot house that was about eight months old. It had been built and the builder had gone out of business and gone bankrupt. And so the bank foreclosed on it. We picked it up at foreclosure for $69,000 and it rented for 950 bucks the next week. So our mortgage was 380amonth. EITI, 380amonth and we were making 950 in rent. So those were our first two decisions.
[00:12:07] Speaker B: That was kind of a big jump, like oops. And then like, hey, this is fun.
[00:12:11] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. And it, I mean, I don't know why we didn't give up after the Sun Valley disaster. Yeah, I don't know. I honestly don't know. I mean, I think we looked around and said, hey man, that I don't even have to know math to know that a $950 a month rent on a $69,000 house is going to cash flow. Right. And so we did that. And then we, every year we would buy one or two more depending. And then we started going to, you know, educating ourself and doing the educational programs and all that stuff. And then it just kind of snowballed from there.
[00:12:43] Speaker B: So when in this process then did. Well, first off, when, when did you, where were you when you realized you, you finally hit a million dollar net worth?
[00:12:50] Speaker A: I know exactly where I was. So yeah, that was an interesting situation because that's kind of the holy grail for everybody or at least normal people when we start out. It's like, oh, once I become a millionaire, everything will change. Of course we all know that once you become a millionaire, not much changes. It's not right. And it's, it's a whole process.
It's not great.
[00:13:08] Speaker B: I have a friend who grew up in poverty like you did. He was in rural Ohio, and his whole life, the measure of it was, you know, the measure of success was the, you know, the Rolex. Right. And so, like, he was just worked and worked, and he was a police officer for a while, and then he got into direct response marketing. And he's like, I. I still remember I went out and I got that $12,000 Rolex, and I had it on my wrist, and I was, whatever. And he was like. And I was happy for exactly 32 minutes.
[00:13:35] Speaker A: And then I.
[00:13:36] Speaker B: He's like. And then I went, why did I just spend $10,000 on a watch?
[00:13:40] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. You know, it's funny because nobody. People actually tell you that kind of stuff, but you never believe it, so.
And so, anyway, I do. I know. I remember exactly where I was because I had a spreadsheet. It's the same spreadsheet I still have. I've just updated the numbers.
But at the time, I had a spreadsheet of, you know, income, expenses, assets, liabilities. Right? And so assets minus liabilities equals your net worth. And so, you know, I started looking, I updated, and I would update it. And then I remember we were actually in this house, like, seven years ago, and I updated the spreadsheet, and I basically went on, like, Zillow or whatever to, like, get the updated value of all our houses. And so then I would go in and plug it in and update it. It's kind of a fun little thing. So I updated it, and then I updated the last house, and then it ticked over $1 million of net worth. And I remember sitting there and I. I didn't feel anything. Like, I looked at it, and I was like, feel something, like, go, right? Like. Like, like, all right, let's. Let's. Let's feel the amazing rush that's supposed to come from being a millionaire. And I was like, okay, this isn't working. It wasn't like, I was sad. I just didn't feel anything. And so I took the spreadsheet in to our bedroom where my wife was in bed reading. And I said, babe, I just wanted to let you know we're millionaires. And she goes, what? Like, yeah, it's like. I mean, assets minus liabilities. You know, we're. We're millionaires. And she goes, wow, cool. And then she went back to reading and, like. And it's so funny because, yes, I do remember exactly where I was, and I remember it being unmemorable. Right. But the things that I do remember are the time that this guy reached out to me and he said, I just want to let you know that. And he was 64 years old. He said, before you and I started working together, it had been a couple of decades since I was really excited about my future. Now my wife and I, every single day, we're like school kids again, talking about our future, talking about this journey we're on. We're alive, we're excited for the first time in two decades about what lays in front of us. And I just wanted to say thank you. That email stuck with me. I still have it. Right. I have it in a little folder called Nice Emails, and there's like a couple hundred emails in there from over the years of people who have reached out unsolicited to just say, you know, something, some type of impact that's like. So what I'll tell you is, don't get me wrong, financial freedom is extremely important. Very, very powerful. You couldn't do all of the things you want to do if you don't have money. So it's. So money is important, but ultimately, money doesn't make you a better person. It makes you more of what you already are. So if you're an asshole, you're going to be a bigger asshole. If you are a kind and good and wonderful person, which there are many, many of those people in this world, despite what you see in the news, there are way more good people than bad. Imagine helping tons of really good people become financially free, and then they become even better people.
[00:16:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:26] Speaker A: And that's what we're seeing in white.
[00:16:27] Speaker B: I was joking with my wife. It's a good thing I didn't get rich when I was in my 20s.
[00:16:30] Speaker A: 100% agree. Yeah. Because, I mean, I would have been. It would have been a disaster. I for sure would have just been all about me, me, me, me, you know?
[00:16:38] Speaker B: Well, we see that a little bit on social media.
[00:16:41] Speaker A: Right.
[00:16:41] Speaker B: I call them the marketing Bros. All right, so in this process, when did was first off, when does start to kind of come into awareness of something that could be. And what's that phrase mean?
[00:16:52] Speaker A: Yeah, so my wife and I, when we were first getting started, right around the Sun Valley time, actually, it was right around the El Dorado. That was the second property that we. That we bought was the.
[00:17:01] Speaker B: You know, the six is an appropriate name for your second house that turned a profit.
[00:17:04] Speaker A: Yeah, it didn't. That didn't even sink into me until years and years later. But, yes, I agree Printed gold. And you know, so we were like, hey, this is interesting. Like we feel like, I mean, at that time, man, 2009, all you had to do, you didn't even need MLS. You didn't even need Zillow. You could street point at a house and be like, I'm going to buy that. And it would cash flow. So White Feather didn't exist back then and neither did the real estate accelerator. I just fantasize sometimes if it did and I was able to join it back in 2009, I would have gotten 10, 15 houses a year. Creative financing, up to seller financing other people's money. All the stuff I didn't know existed, I would have been able to stack. I mean, dude, everyone was afraid you could buy houses for $50,000 that could rent for $1,000 a month.
[00:17:52] Speaker B: So I live in Las Vegas. When I moved here, we were renting and hired a handyman to come over and do some work for me. And I'm just chatting with him and I'm like, oh, is this your job? He's like, no, I'm retired. He's like, I just like, he's like 40, right? And I was like, you just do this for fun? He's like, yeah, I just get too busy. And I was like, what did you retire from? And he's like, well, my mom's a real estate agent, so I grew up back in Rhode island working with my mom in real estate. And I moved out here in, in 2000. And he's like, in Rhode Island. Actually went through that cycle earlier. Their collapse happened in 2007. And he's like, so I was looking, he's like, I moved here in 2008 and I'm looking, I'm like, everything's overpriced. And he's like, I just, this just saw this in Rhode Island. And he's like, so he knew it was coming and he started saving all his money. And he's like. And so when it hit, he's like, I just, he's like, I just, I would just start calling around and I would just start buying everything I could. Now his thing was he was doing condos and he's all, Travis, he's all, I was buying two bedroom condos at $25,000 a pop. And he's like, in over a two year period, he bought 40 of them. And I did you pay 25? He's like, now the first year, nobody knew what's going on. And to your point, he said everyone was scared. And he's like, so I was. I wasn't even looking at him. I was like, who cares? For $25,000, I'll just buy it. And he's like, my last three. He's like. I was. It went to 50, 65, and then 100. And he was like, okay, my run is over. I'm good.
And that's. Now he's got 48, 40. Now those condos are worth 350. Right?
[00:19:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:15] Speaker B: So anyway, it's your point. It was. But it was like you said, right? He had an experience where he was able to see what to do, and nobody else had that. Right. And so it allowed him to do something that most people wouldn't. Were not even aware of.
[00:19:27] Speaker A: Yeah, Yeah. I mean, that was it. And. But we, like, we saw that there was something to it, and we saw that we were never going back. So we'd gotten hit in the face really hard, and it hadn't stopped us. And then we struck gold with the El Dorado House. And so we were like, all right, so we know we're going to do something, so why don't we just create a company and, you know, figure? And the company was nothing but an idea. But we were tossed around, different ideas. And we were driving. There's a. There's a road right by the police station headed to 29 palms called White Feather Road. And we were driving past it, and she saw it, and she was like, what about White feather? That's a cool phrase, right? She was like, I love it. It's angelic. I can think. I can envision in my head, you know, just like, these beautiful feathers. Like, you know, soft and beautiful, and what a wonderful thing. And I was like, well, you know what else is really cool? The deadliest sniper in Marine history, Carlos Hathcock, used to wear a white feather in his boonie cover as he stalked the Vietcong. And that was. That became the nickname they had for him, because oftentimes, the last thing that people would see before they died was a white feather. I was like, that's badass. And. And I didn't know at the time that we would eventually, a decade later, focus our mission entirely on veterans and first responders. I didn't think it's the time.
[00:20:39] Speaker B: I do think it's funny. Your wife is like, oh, angelic and white floofy, soft feathers. And you're like, deadliest sniper ever. This is awesome.
[00:20:46] Speaker A: Yeah. I was on a podcast one time, and the guy was like, you know, that makes total sense. It's like love and death. It's like, you know, and if you, if you ever met my wife, you would realize that it's, that's a perfect encapsulation. She is, she is the most non military, pacifist type, like wonderful, peace loving person ever. She's not a hippie, but she's like, she's like super peace loving.
[00:21:09] Speaker B: Just love everybody, man. Come on.
[00:21:10] Speaker A: Love. Just love, love, love. And you know, obviously that's why.
[00:21:13] Speaker B: Sounds like the perfect person for you.
[00:21:15] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That's where the name White Feather came from. And then for 10 years, man, it was just, it was just us buying properties and then we learned how to do it more creatively, then learn how to self direct our ira, how to raise money, all this other stuff. And so we built up this thing ourselves. And then about seven years ago, a bunch of my Marine buddies were like, hey, we're seeing what you've been doing this whole time, what you've been talking about. It looks awesome. We want to be a part of this. How do we be a part of this? And that led to the idea of creating a coalition and all the rest.
[00:21:47] Speaker B: It's so interesting, like for what I do with book stuff, I was just writing and publishing books and then one of my clients one day was like, how did you do that? I was like, I just shared it with them and then they did well and they told their friends and like, hey, can you help me do that? Here I am a couple hundred books later. So what a. Well, one, I mean, it's cool that it's because it kind of chose you. And then two at the same time. Like, what a remarkable way to be able to give back to the veterans community.
You know, because my, my grandfather was career Navy, you know, 35 years. My aunt was career Marine, her brother was the Air Force. My brother's Air Force. Right. So I come from that. And that's one of the things that does sometimes get to be a challenge in the, in the United States is like, we have a lot of gratitude for, for our veterans, but man, there is so not support, especially as you're coming out of the military and transitioning back into the, into civilian life. So the fact that you've got something now that like you can give back, and not just give back, but I mean, really change people's lives is fantastic.
[00:22:46] Speaker A: Yeah, it's the empowerment piece of it.
One of the things that I've noticed is there are a lot of programs that are out there. Sure. And they're, and they're really important, but it's for helping you with your mental health or helping you write a resume, which is fine, nothing wrong there. Or it's, or it's literally government assistance to try to help you get back on your feet and this and that. They're all charitable in nature, which is phenomenal. But there is an interesting dynamic that happens for a, especially a combat veteran. But anybody who has served. We, we do not like the idea of being victims. We don't like the idea of receiving handouts. We don't like the idea of being on the other side of charity. Because we joined the military because we wanted to embrace a challenge and to become a greater version of who we are. We joined it for the challenge. We joined it for the, you know, the, the, the personal fulfillment of doing something hard. And so the difference between Whitefield the White Feather is not a charitable organization. We donate to charities, other charities that we're passionate about, but we are about empowerment. So when somebody comes into White Feather, it's, you're going to learn this and you're going to be held accountable and you're going to build this yourself. We'll help, but you will build this. You will build generational wealth and financial freedom and a life of significance and purpose and passion yourself. And you are the CEO of your own life, right? And that empowerment is something that really resonates with people because, you know, I mean, I've been shot at, I've been blown up. I've been, you know, like, I'm technically diagnosed with PTSD from the VA and all that stuff. But I'm not a victim, right? I'm not a victim. And there's, there's something that General Mattis, who's basically every Marines hero, said a while back. He was like, you know, the tragedy and like adverse situations are going to befall everyone, especially military people. But you only have two options on the back end of something like that. You have post traumatic stress or you have post traumatic growth. And it's a choice that you make. You can use it to make you stronger and learn from it, or it can break you down.
[00:24:51] Speaker B: It's interesting that it takes a 40 year veteran to just coin the phrase post traumatic growth, because that's all from my own experience. And the people I know in the military, most of them have post traumatic traumatic growth stress part. There's very few of them that have the stress part. And they get, like you said, they get frustrated. Like you're calling it ptsd. But I'm okay. Like, I've processed this and I've gone therapy for this, and I have that. Like, can we. Let's move on. Like, I can let that go and do this other thing. Right. So. Wow. And so. All right, so walk me through the first couple of years. Then when you were kind of bringing White Feather, you know, the accelerator online. What. What did that look like for you and your wife?
[00:25:27] Speaker A: Yeah, it was.
[00:25:28] Speaker B: Did you kind of look at each other and be like, we've been doing this for a decade now. Can. How do we teach it?
[00:25:32] Speaker A: Kind of. It really was an idea that another guy gave me. He said, hey, I've got this big group of people. I think they really dig what you're doing. Can you teach an accelerator? And I was. I was like, I don't. I don't know what an accelerator is, for starters. And he was like, well, it's just, you know, you're just. It's a training program. I was like, sweet. So I said yes. And we enrolled 18 people in the first pilot program. And it was going to be six months long, so. Six.
Six months. Two modules for each month, and then there's going to be various parts of each module. And so I literally wrote it down on a word doc, and I was like, this is what we're going to do. This is all the stuff that I would have wanted to know when I was first starting out that I've learned over the last 10 years. But I collapsed it into six months. And hopefully we could take what took me 10 years and help some people do it in three or four, that kind of thing. That was the whole idea. So we enrolled 18 people in it, and I was building the presentations during the week, and then on Saturdays, we would have a cohort wide call. And that's what it was. And the whole idea was, this is not an education course. This is an action course with an educational component. It's about action. It's about buying properties. And this was 2017, and so, you know, turnkey businesses were in full rage. You know, we were helping people buy tons of properties.
And that's what it started me. It started with just that idea. People got a lot out of it at the time. It was 500 bucks a month. No big deal. Just like, you know, da, da, da.
And people loved it. They got a ton out of it. They did a ton of deals. The average person bought, you know, like, it was like a property and a.
[00:27:04] Speaker B: Half across the 18 people in 16 and six months.
[00:27:08] Speaker A: In six months? Yeah.
[00:27:09] Speaker B: Dang.
[00:27:09] Speaker A: So from zero. And these are not investors.
[00:27:12] Speaker B: So 18 guys, six months later you've got 30 properties. They've already properties.
[00:27:16] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
So and then we had a tax and legal month in month five, and the average person saved more money in taxes than they were paying for the accelerator because they just don't know how to mitigate taxes. Right.
[00:27:29] Speaker B: And we were in a country that doesn't teach that.
[00:27:32] Speaker A: Exactly, exactly. And so anyway, that went really well and then we scaled it up and we made it more formal and now it's this, you know, much more formal and rigorous training program. And we've got 430 graduates now, so we only put a maximum 50 every six months through it. And most of the time our cohorts are more like 35 to 40 because we really vet hard because it's the. We want people who can handle six months of training who, who will take the appropriate amount of action. And that's where you're. And it's kind of funny, I think the, the numbers that you talked about in your intro, I haven't updated the website in a while. So it's actually $1.6 billion and 430 graduates. But that's. But those 430 graduates, plus a few other people that were grandfathered in over, over $1.5 billion of real estate. And these are normal people, right? Like, yeah, I mean, yeah, we have like 60 something millionaires that have been created at this point. But, but like they started as a, an incident or, or a captain or whatever. Right.
[00:28:30] Speaker B: Didn't matter. Rank didn't matter. Experience didn't matter.
[00:28:33] Speaker A: Nope, nope. I tell people all the time, it does not matter where you start. It matters that you start. Right. So that's.
I've got a sergeant, a guy who was a sergeant in the Marine Corps. His name's Jacob. He literally handed me a check for 136, 000 yesterday. He drove to my house and handed me a check for one because we did a deal together, invested money with him. He created a million dollars of equity in this house in Oceanside. And then my return was my principal plus my interest.
And so I mean, what kind of a sergeant, like hand somebody a check for $136,000, you know, except one who's taking action. So you're right, it doesn't matter what the rank is.
[00:29:09] Speaker B: So was that a little more exciting to you than seeing your net worth being a million dollars?
[00:29:13] Speaker A: Yes, it was. And the reason is because he was beside himself with excitement and he's like. He was talking to me basically about all the stuff that he was doing next and he and his wife were not financially free yet, but they have an ironclad belief now that they will be. And that was extremely exciting.
[00:29:29] Speaker B: That's amazing. So do you remember where you were when you realized that your students had crossed the billion dollar mark?
[00:29:36] Speaker A: Yeah, I was in this office a few years ago and basically I was like, I was telling Greg, my operations officer, he's another Marine, I was like, I was like, we need to figure out how much people have actually acquired because like it's a self reported type of thing. And by the way, that 1.6 billion way, way, way lower than the real number because that's only what they've reported to us. And there's tons of people who don't just, they just don't tell us what they do. Sure.
So, so anyway, I said let's, let's pull together, let's send out a survey, let's pull together, let's ask people what they purchased. And we've tracked all the big ones, but like, let's get an idea. And he said, sweet. Roger that. It took, it's, it's harder than you think to get people to brag about themselves. It's wild. It's wild. It's like, hey, sent you three emails and a text asking you to tell me like all the great stuff you're doing, you know, it's like, just tell me, you know. And so anyway, it took several weeks, but we pulled all of it in and we were like, you know what, we're just gonna go with what we got. And we added it all up and it was like, it was like 980, if I'm being totally honest, it was like 980 million. And so I rounded up to a billion.
[00:30:41] Speaker B: Yeah. At that point, you know, what's 20 million now?
[00:30:43] Speaker A: 20 million between friends. Right? And so I, so I saw it and I was like, I was like, Greg, do you realize that, that we've purchased about a billion dollars? Like, and here's what's powerful about that. There are no ultra wealthy to the man or born individuals in White Feather. Like every, every single person in White Feather is bootstrapped. Like they made it themselves, they joined the military, they built it themselves. I can't think of a single one that comes from wealthy, wealthy family. And now almost all of them have families, wife, kids, you know, that kind of thing. So now imagine so every single one of these houses that make up this billion dollars, they're rental properties, which means that you're somewhere in the vicinity of a hundred million dollars. A month of rental income that's going into these families. Right. So a billion dollars a year of gross rental income going into military families. And that grows, that grows over time. But also, what's the average annual appreciation rate for the last hundred years or so? 5%.
[00:31:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:31:41] Speaker A: Right.
So what's 5% of a billion dollars? Public math is not my strong.
[00:31:46] Speaker B: 50.
[00:31:47] Speaker A: 50 million. Right. So $50 million is going into the families of roughly 500 people in appreciation alone. So you, you know what that means? That little quick math thing that I did back in the day, I was like, what that means is that you have hundreds and hundreds of families and by proxy, thousands of kids and, you know, spouses who's, who are building generational wealth. And these are people who serve this country, who sacrifice for it, who believe in the cause of freedom and who ultimately believe in taking full ownership of their actions. And the one thing that I tell everybody in the community is when you achieve it, your role is now to bring along the next person. Right.
And that's what I saw when I saw that. So yes, I very much remember it and I remember the implication of it. And the implication was far. When I saw that I was a millionaire for the first time, I felt nothing. When I saw that the white feather, the coalition, this community, this movement that we built has crossed over a billion dollars, I felt a wave of euphoria, which was interesting. Right?
[00:32:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:50] Speaker A: Maybe if it's not about you, that's the real ticket.
[00:32:53] Speaker B: I don't know. Could there be a lesson in there somewhere?
[00:32:55] Speaker A: Maybe it's the same lesson that everybody.
[00:32:57] Speaker B: Well, I mean, it comes back to.
[00:32:59] Speaker A: Tony Robbins just said, I wanted to say.
[00:33:01] Speaker B: But even, even just the core of who you are as a soldier, did you do, did you go into the military for yourself or did you go into the military to serve?
[00:33:09] Speaker A: Yeah, that's exactly right. And that's by and large, I mean, with the rare exception of a few bad apples, which is in anything.
[00:33:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:15] Speaker A: Of course, by and large, overwhelmingly the average person, it's an all volunteer force. Yeah, right. So, yeah, you may go in because you want a job, you may go in because you want to test yourself. Everybody goes in for a variety of different reasons, but one of those big core driving reasons is because you want to serve for something that's bigger than yourself. Sure.
[00:33:33] Speaker B: We just, we just talked to somebody earlier today. I say we, I did. He's also in real estate and, and he was talking about. We were just having a conversation about sort of the culture of just like the real Estate industry versus the military. But then he was talking about like the Navy SEALs, right? He's like, the Navy Seals don't have a, a recruiter, right? They got a wait list of people want to get in for something that's going to test their limits. You know that 90% of you're going to wash out. And then even if you get accepted and survive the training, the chances of you dying are very, very high. And yet there's still a bunch of people being like, I want to do that.
[00:34:09] Speaker A: Sure, sure.
[00:34:10] Speaker B: You know, it's like you said, it's that culture of service. So what, what does the next three to five years look like for you with White Feather? What is your vision for the rest of this decade? I guess that's where we're at, aren't we? Geez, how do we get here?
[00:34:21] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, so we're at, we're at an inflection point right now.
So the model of White Feather, once we started rolling out the accelerator and started training people and da da, da, it was like, okay, how are we going to do this? I started thinking well beyond myself and started thinking, okay, what, when, how can we make a true generational impact and a national level impact?
And I did some math and I learned some stuff. And there's 17 million veterans in the US that have served at some point. And then there's their family members and then there's first responders, right? So it's about 30 million people altogether. And the whole idea is, if we can impact, if we can help those 30 million people completely transform their lives via financial freedom, what are they going to do with their time? These people who are optimized to serve from the beginning, they're just going to serve in a greater capacity. And you're talking about 10% of the American population financially free with a service mentality and the capacity now to do so. What kind of a ripple impact, ripple effect and impact does that make in our nation? And if you think that that's too crazy, that's ridiculous. Why dream that big? What's the point of dreaming if you're not going to dream big? And also in the age of artificial intelligence, interconnectivity converging exponential tech, you have to dream big now because you can do it now, right? One person can actually change the world. Now.
[00:35:41] Speaker B: I just saw a quote the other day from somebody who's, who's got a multi, multi, multi billion dollar company. And it was somebody shared an email he'd sent to his employees and where he said, you people don't understand what's going on with AI right now. He's like, what was easy is now automated. What was hard is now easy, and what was impossible is now hard.
[00:35:58] Speaker A: Yeah, that's. Oh, that's so good.
[00:36:00] Speaker B: That's a good. I was like, oh, that's so. Hits it on the head, right? So we've got, like, for 30 years, things are impossible now. They're just like, no, now it's just a little hard.
[00:36:07] Speaker A: That's right. And that's the hard being easy now. And the easy being automated is so true inside of White Feather as well, by the way, now that you brought up AI. So over the past 18 months, we've adopted a full, full bore mentality that I call AI or die. Like, that's the mentality of White Feather. Like, we, we're on a full bore. And so we've infused artificial intelligence in various capacities through everything that White Feather does. The accelerator is fully riding on the back of AI right now. The boot camp, the. The network, and so on and so on. Too much to talk about right now. But basically we took the model. I stole the model from Tesla for how we roll out to these.
[00:36:46] Speaker B: I'm sure Elon Musk won't mind.
[00:36:48] Speaker A: Yeah, he, he built, he needed to change the mindset of every automaker in the world, right? In order to reach his vision of moving the human race toward an energy sustainable future. That's the mo. That's the, the vision and the mission for Tesla. It's not to build cool cars. A lot of people don't know that. So he said, all right, how do I, number one, get people on board with the electric car thing? Because the Prius ain't getting it done right. It's like too genky and like, people just don't respect it. Like, it's, it's only the super green people that love it. I need the guys that are driving the f-50s to love Tesla, right? So he's like, first he makes the Roadster. Very high price to get celebrities on board. He makes it fast, sleek, sexy, and it's like, wow, electric vehicles can be badass. And everybody was like, yes, Roger that, that's awesome. Then he makes the Model S, which is a luxury sedan, $100,000 plus car. Not for the masses, but it's for more people than just the Roadster, the $250,000 Roadster. And that was his beachhead. That was his second step in. Then whenever he got full adoption of that, he launched the Model 3, the Everyman car. And now every single automaker in the world, their fastest growing division is their electric car division.
[00:37:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:56] Speaker A: So I said, what can we do first? I have to get super credibility that this works. So the accelerator, building these, you know, 430 people and a billion plus dollars. Da, da, da. Okay. It works, right? There's no doubt whatsoever that our blueprint works. Then we want to roll out a three tier system which we're launching as we spe is when this goes live. So you're catching me at like fantastic timing.
[00:38:19] Speaker B: Love it.
[00:38:20] Speaker A: So three tiered system. Bronze, silver and gold. Bronze is a free community. We can have, we can have 30 million people in that community. And the way we set it up, AI and automation, makes it feel like you're in a vibrant live part of this. But it doesn't take any of my time. Right.
[00:38:37] Speaker B: Love it.
[00:38:37] Speaker A: Silver is financial freedom Bootcamp. All the stuff that you should have learned in high school and college about finances that nobody teaches. Right. And self paced. And we've got mentors from the higher levels that, you know, interact and so on and so on. But that's the intermediate step. Gold levels, the Navy seals, that's your elite training, your leaders, your business owners. And that's who I personally interact with on that level. And so the idea is we can adjust. And now we have 2,000 people in the past three months into the bronze level. Wow. And yeah.
[00:39:08] Speaker B: So now are you still going to be doing your accelerators every six months as well, or is this going to replace that?
[00:39:13] Speaker A: Nope, nope. The accelerator. Accelerator is the top tier. That's the gold level. Right. So you have to get admitted into the accelerator to reach the gold level. We run those every six months. Eventually, yes, I will bring in people to run the accelerator and then start a platinum level, which, you know, as we get to tens of thousands of people, it's just unwieldy and I can't, I have to deal with it. Right. And so we have a, we have a financial freedom summit at the end of next month in June with 1500 people coming. And they're all veterans and first responders, mostly veterans. And you know, so we'll, we'll probably pull in a thousand or so of those into the bronze community. And then those guys matriculate up to the silver and the gold. As it, as it happens, we have fully automated, we got AI enabled. I've got a buddy bot that has been trained on everything I've ever said about real estate and it's their companion. And then we've Got White Feather AI, which is our fastest growing vertical, where we build people, strategic advisors that go and guide them through the community and everything and just so much other stuff.
[00:40:15] Speaker B: That's amazing. This is fantastic.
[00:40:16] Speaker A: You said, like, where will we be in five years? That's impossible to predict because of the speed of the exponential technology.
[00:40:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:40:24] Speaker A: But I can tell you, in the next six months, we'll probably have 3,500 people. White Feather, I will for sure be the biggest and most powerful arm of White Feather. Even though it's 40 days old, we went from concept to MVP to market and a waiting list in 40 days. That's how fast this is going. Right. But the mission stays the same. Help our nation's heroes build financial freedom so they can live the dream they fought to protect. That's it. If it doesn't support that mission, we don't even look at it.
[00:40:49] Speaker B: You have come a long way from welfare, my friend.
[00:40:53] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. It's. I mean, it's. It's why I love this country so much. Like, I mean, you in another, and this time this country and this time. So people ask all the time. You know, I tell them, I tell everybody. Everybody listening to this podcast, you have an unfair advantage. Right? No matter what your story is, you are living in 2025, on this earth in 2025. That is an unfair advantage. There's a book coming out by Peter Diamandis called Age of Abundance, and in one of the chapters, it's titled, Our Ancestors would View us as Gods. And that is 100% actually true. I don't even know where you are, Travis. I'm looking at you having a conversation, but I don't know where you're at physically. We've never met before. We're exchanging information and value to each other. We're exchanging emotion to each other. We can see each other, and it's free. I mean, whatever it is, like, what do you pay for Zoom? I don't know, a few hundred bucks? Like, it's basically free. This is a free conversation.
And you could be in Antarctica, you.
[00:41:55] Speaker B: Could be In Japan in 1987, Star Trek the Next Generation having video calls of people who were like, oh, my God, that's sci fi. And we got it 15 years later.
[00:42:06] Speaker A: That's right. And your chat GPT is the smartest entity in the history of the world. It's everything. Einstein, it's everything. Kurzweil, It's. It's Hawking, it's Socrates, it's. It's Jesus all rolled into one at your service for free. 24.
[00:42:22] Speaker B: There was. There was a show on Netflix a while back, and it was essentially kind of a modern revamp of Dracula. And. And. And it was three episodes. But in the. The third episode, he had been stuck somewhere for, like, 300 years. And they ended up getting, you know, brought back to life in, you know, 2024. And he's kind of wandering around, and he wanders into somebody's house that's like, basically a redneck, right? They're in a trailer. It's just really garbagey and whatever. And. And he's just looking around, and he's like, you guys have more stuff than kings.
And he was laughing because he's like, you guys don't even realize. He's like, 200 years ago, the only person that had this much stuff was royalty. And now, like, the poorest of the poor has all this stuff. All right, buddy, this has been amazing. I thank you for your time. If somebody's listening to this, they want to get involved in what you're doing. How do they. How do they find White Feather? How do they find your. Your. Your community? Where do they go?
[00:43:15] Speaker A: Yeah, it should be pretty easy to find me on any of the socials. You can type in Buddy Rushing or Edward Rushing. If you go on go and type in Buddy Rushing Real Estate. You'll find podcasts and stuff pops up. Whitefeatherinvestments.com really should ask your GPT. Like, it really should just be. You should be super easy to find. Reach out if you want to come into the community, if you've served in some capacity or if you have a close family member who served. Yeah, we've got an intake form that you can fill out, and it's like, takes 30 seconds, and then you're on the email list and you can join the calls and all kinds of.
[00:43:46] Speaker B: That's on White Feathers Investments dot com.
[00:43:48] Speaker A: White Feathers. But I don't think the intake form is on there. Just. Just reach out on any of the socials. That's probably the easiest way.
[00:43:54] Speaker B: All right, so we'll make sure we get people in touch with you.
[00:43:56] Speaker A: I love it. I appreciate it. I gotta run. I'm actually got. I didn't realize that I have an appointment in five minutes.
[00:44:02] Speaker B: All right, well, we ended a good time then, buddy. Thanks. Thanks so much. I'll talk to you soon.
[00:44:06] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:44:06] Speaker B: Cheer.
