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Sept. 14, 2022

Practicing Peace with Steven Pesavento

Steven Pesavento is a real estate entrepreneur and Managing Partner of VonFinch Capital. Investing full time since 2016, he’s completed over 200 transactions, renovated nearly 100 houses and transacted over $180,000,000 in investment real estate. Steven’s investors have entrusted him with over $40 million of investor capital, delivering solid consistent returns. 

VonFinch Capital is an Investment Manager & Sponsor specializing in Value-Add Multifamily. The VonFinch advantage is financial ingenuity & deal structures targeted to preserve investors capital, while creating outsized returns. VonFinch provides their clients with cash flow & tax advantaged wealth growth in both single assets and diversified funds. Put simply: We partner with our clients to invest their capital alongside ours, where we buy, operate and manage commercial real estate - making them money today & growing their wealth for tomorrow. 

Steven is a Certified High-Performance Coach and a former Management Consultant for some of the Fortune 500’s top companies, he brings his years of process improvement, marketing and sales experiences to every project. 

Host of the top ranked podcast the Investor Mindset he interviews some of the smartest minds & authors like Chris Voss - Never Split The Difference, Jay Papasan - One Thing, Joe Fairless - Best Ever Podcast, Mark Manson - Subtle Art of Not Giving A F&#k and many others. 

When Steven isn’t focused on serving his passive investing or real estate entrepreneur clients, he enjoys running, Snowboarding, Salsa Dancing, Kiteboarding, and taking on new travel adventures. 

Learn more at InvestorMindset.com the tools and strategies of the nations top investors & subscribe on your favorite Podcast app today.

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Transcript

Josh Wilson
 Welcome to Uncensored advice for men. I love you guys. This show is for you. I've got a special guest. He's an investor. He's a really smart guy. He has a podcast show of his own, and he wants to talk to you guys about overcoming some challenges and how to find success in your own life. With that, Steven welcome uncensored advice for men. Men. 


 Steven Pesavento
 Josh, super excited to be here. Thanks for having me on, my friend. 


 Josh Wilson
 Yeah, absolutely. Let's start with this. Where in the world are you? Location. 


 Steven Pesavento
 I'm based out of and live in Denver, Colorado. Was born and raised up in Minneapolis, but after a life of living with only 160 days of sunshine a year, decided to escape. Came out here 300. Much better than 160 any day. 


 Josh Wilson
 Perfect. All right, so, Steven, if we're hanging out coffee shop or bar or something like that, and someone goes, hey, Steven, nice to meet you, the first thing they're going to probably ask is, what do you do? Right. So why don't we start there? 


 Steven Pesavento
 Yeah, well, it depends on how big of a conversation I want to have. Typically, what I answer that question typically is that I run an investment firm called Von Finch Capital, where investment manager and sponsor, we go out and buy large commercial, multifamily properties, and we partner with our investors, with our clients. People who are high income earners, people who are run a great business, and they want to diversify into real estate, we go buy, operate, and manage those properties in partnership with them, and they get typically about 60% to 80% of the profit. It's a really fun business because I get to work with people that I love, that I get to learn a lot from because they're an expert and absolutely the best at what they do. They come to me because I'm the best at what I do. 


 Josh Wilson
 Cool. Super cool. All right. When we talk about investments, let's do this. Give us an idea on some milestones that you've hit because you've run successful funds, you've done a lot of different projects. Give us some ideas on some of the milestones you've hit personally in your career. 


 Steven Pesavento
 Yeah, so milestones. If I look back in my career, it's surprising that I'm even doing this today based on kind of where I started from. We'll get to that in a second. Within two and a half years of launching von Finch Homes, bought 200 plus single family homes, renovated over 100 properties, and have closed over $180,000,000 of real estate, have purchased ten properties that are commercial, multifamily, totaling over 1500, probably closer to 1700 total units that we currently are invested in and are managing. We're currently managing about 22 million of investor capital, about 40 million total that we've cycled through. We run a boutique private equity firm, and we love working with successful people who want to put their money to work in real estate. 


 Josh Wilson
 In this journey, you had to learn firsthand what success was, because success for you wasn't handed to you as a kid. You actually have an interesting story. Kind of share some of the things that you experienced as a kid and what you had overcome. 


 Steven Pesavento
 Well, I feel really grateful to be where I'm at because I think one of the key things I'd love for people to take away is that our challenges in life are really what define us the most. Successful people see challenges as opportunities and so all of those somewhat challenging things, sometimes terrible things, are what cut me into the person that I am in a really great way. I'm grateful to be in real estate, but growing up, oldest of four kids, have an amazing family, but there's a lot of hatred between my parents. Every two to four years, we'd move to a new city, I'd have a new step dad come into our life, and there's just a lot of change that was happening. Right? When you're a kid, you really need some consistency. You need a good foundation and a base. I learned very early about how to adapt and overcome any of those challenges. 


 Steven Pesavento
 I learned also, and I made an early decision that I was never going to let my family go through the kind of money troubles that I experienced. I don't know, maybe some of the listeners can relate, but that feeling of there never being enough of parents always fighting over money, who's going to pay for it, we can't afford it kind of a mindset. I remember having some great mentors that I met early on, some friends, parents. My grandfather was one of those people, and they didn't have those same worries. They don't have those same woes. They were running businesses. They had an abundance mindset about money. And it was kind of shocking. It was kind of an odd type moment when you meet somebody and they're not freaking out about the same things that you're seeing your parents freak out about. After too many days of coming home and seeing my dad sitting in the living room crying, thinking about wanting to be able to provide for us, but just the challenges that go along with it, I can remember that moment making that decision that I was never going to live a broke life forever. 


 Steven Pesavento
 That doesn't mean as an entrepreneur, I haven't had many ups and downs along the way, but it's this decision that I feel like I was fortunate enough to have made early on, to continue to fight through no matter what. And so that's where I started. From living on food stamps free of reduced lunch, taking advantage of every program that was out there, to now managing tens of millions of dollars for other successful people like me. 


 Josh Wilson
 Yeah, I have a similar story where growing up, I saw my dad, who was a badass dude, crying about money, and I swore, ten years old, I'm going to be a billionaire so I could take care of my family financially. Right, because money solves everything. Now it doesn't, but it's d*** near close to oxygen, right? If you don't have it, you need it bad. I just remember making that promise and starting reading books and all that crap. I find the biggest challenge is overcoming mindset about you mentioned abundance, about investment, about those kind of things. What was your journey like? How did you do that? 


 Steven Pesavento
 I think one of the earliest things that I did was it was a pretty rocky household, so I was fortunate enough to get out early. I laughed, and as soon as I could get out, I was gone and kind of win, changed my environment, got around some new people. Now, along the way, some of those people weren't as good of influences either, right? You end up going into some new crew and they're partying and you're not focused on the same things. But fortunately, I kept iterating on that. I kept looking at what do I love about these people and which people can I keep in my life, but which ones do I have to let go of and move forward from? And so for me. The thing that really made the biggest difference was meeting ID community of other people who were on that path. 


 Steven Pesavento
 Finding other people who were doing what I wanted to do and were having that success or had made that money or were living that life of abundance and being able to be in their presence and start to absorb some of that energy and really what I call borrow their belief. They believe that it's possible to make bucket loads of money and that money flows freely and easily and that a great life is possible. You don't have to be in this kind of negative mindset. I was able to borrow their belief even though I didn't fully believe it for myself. I saw them, and I was able to borrow that until I could actually start living it myself. There's some other great resources that I'm so grateful for, podcast being one of them. Early on I read rich dad, Poor dad. I read The Four Hour Work Week, which is really a book about efficiency and creating a life of your desire. 


 Steven Pesavento
 When I opened those books, I mean, I read Rich dad at 17, and my dad gave that book to me. I remember giving it back to him at like, 27 and being like, remember this book? You should reread it. Sure, turn it, open up some new lines. It just made me think of things and realized that team chat I had was possible. That's really what it comes down to, is being able to put the EarPods in and listen to thousands of hours of audio of other people talking about the life that they're living and that it's possible to live that life. Next thing you're that person passing along those lessons. That doesn't mean that you've ever reached the end of your learning. I'm always still looking for those people who are at that next level. Really sitting and listening and do hundreds of hours of Tim Ferriss or Tony Robbins and being able to really absorb those beliefs allowed me to really pull myself up out of that place so that I could really start doing some of that deep work to let go of some of that trauma of that experience. 


 Steven Pesavento
 It's at that point that you can really start to see your success follow. Because when you can start getting out of your own way, when you can start letting go of those beliefs that aren't serving you, when you can start creating new beliefs that actually will drive you forward, what you end up finding is that more people are attracted to you. You end up having better employees, better team members, better partners, you have better clients, you have people who they want to do business with you because they see that light that's inside of you that you were hiding because you thought at one point team chat was the way to protect yourself. 


 Josh Wilson
 It's so interesting, right? This idea of this attraction, this energy, this light, however you want to say it, right? Like there's books written about it and when I first came across those kind of stuff I was like man this is bullshit. I'm a tactical guy. You want something you got to go hustle. You got to work at it, you got to show people how hungry you are. What I found is the more humble I am, the more open I am to conversations, the more cool people come in my way and the bigger deals I'm doing. Do you find that similar stance? 


 Steven Pesavento
 I find that for sure. It's very interesting. Like what I found is the more successful people that I hang out with, the bigger their success is. The more they're leaning back in their chair, the more they're relaxed, the more they exist in the room. Somebody else is the guy who reaches over and says, hey, you know that guy is worth like a billion dollars. You know that guy exited his company for 250,000,010 years ago or this or that. You start noticing how those people carry themselves because they're carrying themselves from a place of security, of that secure foundation in themselves if they've actually reached that place. There's billionaires who have not reached that place of being able to be comfortable with who they are. When you can find those people it's such a big motivator to just take a moment and let some things happen, right? 


 Steven Pesavento
 I've been a big action oriented guy and I think at this point in my life I've got a lot more success to have. What I'm starting to realize is that instead of having so much resistance about making things happen, it actually is more about allowing things to happen, creating that environment, to allow people to step in, to attract them in and to just be that kind of beacon of pulling that kind of energy towards me. It sounds woohoo, but I promise you when you get to this level of thought you'll really start to see it happen. That doesn't mean I don't fall back into fighter mode right. Like when you're growing up and you're gritty and you've got to fight for everything, you got to fight for that $10 doesn't matter. You're going to make it happen. You are going to work twice as hard as everyone else. 


 Steven Pesavento
 That works for a while, but at a certain point, you have to shift out of that hustler mentality into that mentality of believing that it's all there and you're just inviting a bunch of people along for the ride. 


 Josh Wilson
 Yeah, that shift from hustle, I hustle and I've worked myself into the hospital to letting things happen. That's the hardest thing, man, that mindset shift of let things come, let things the right things pop up. Because when you hustle, here's what I found, and I'd love your advice and input on this. When I hustle, when I'm forcing things, it attracts it shows that I'm desperate and it attracts sharks. The sharks, no matter how hard you hustle, they will eat more meat off your bone and it'll set you back. You think you're getting traction, but it sets you back. Have you seen that in your journey of learning how to let go, how to surrender, how to make things happen or let things happen, you say, have you experienced something like that? 


 Steven Pesavento
 Yeah, absolutely. I think this idea of surrender, michael Singer talks a lot about it. He's got some great books. He's got a great eight hour audio program that I highly recommend everybody check out. Because this idea of surrender, being able to let go instead of having that forceful grip on it, is such a big concept for us drivers. What I've noticed from it is that when I'm able to actually just lean back when I'm able to lean away from that tension, that feeling, when I'm able to let go of the rope, from a metaphorical perspective, my response to a problem or a situation is much better. I could go in and when somebody's messing with my money and someone's trying to change the terms, I could go in and I could hit them hard with some stuff. I could come back around and try to take action on it. 


 Steven Pesavento
 I could throw a lawyer at them. I could throw some venom. I could say some things. Or if I lean back and just let that energy settle and come from that place of meeting ID of the outcome needing to be exactly the way this exact moment that I want it to be, what I've noticed is that all of a sudden, then you're coming from this much more centered place. You're coming from a place where it's easier and maybe the solutions is very simple and there's no need for any of that conflict or any of that hardcore action to actually show up. What I will say is earlier in my career, before I got into real estate, I was a management consultant. When I was a kid, I grew ups. I either wanted to be a chef like Emerald Lagasse, or I wanted to renovate houses like Bob Villa. 


 Steven Pesavento
 I worked in kitchens from twelve until 20 and realized I'd rather own the restaurant and then obviously renovating lots and lots of properties and units. All that HGTV absolutely paid off. What I realized coming out of it was that each time I kept going, just only after the money. Management consultant, you're making great money, you've got that title. It's a sexy thing in the business industry to be a hired gun to come in and solve problems. That was fun. What I noticed was that I had continued to double my salary, but my happiness wasn't there. I realized that, yes, it's much better to be rich and unhappy than broken unhappy, I guarantee you that. What I realized was that a lot of the work that I needed to do was internal. I needed to let go of some of those things from the past. I needed to reach in and address some of those traumas. 


 Steven Pesavento
 I needed to understand my attachment style. I needed to understand how I connect with other people. I need to understand what kind of challenges and problems and things they've dial with and really release a lot of that energy and as a result of that created so much of an easier life. Much so that what I'm noticing at this point is this phase of my life is absolutely about growth and income and revenue, but really it comes down to community. It comes down to the people that I'm working with and attempting to attract really great people into my world. As a result of really focusing on that go giver mentality, what I'm noticing is it comes back ten fold without expectation. It's really cool to be able to look back and see kind of that shift of mentality and maybe some of you guys are still in that hustler mindset. 


 Steven Pesavento
 Heck, sometimes it's where you got to be, sometimes you got to put in the work. However, I also experienced working myself to the point where my body was not functioning right, where I had migraine style headaches, pain level three, four, five, every day for two or three years. No matter what I did, I couldn't get rid of it. I couldn't solve that problem. No doctor could fix it. People don't necessarily believe in Chris Cook stuff, but a friend of mine was really good friends with this energetic healer who was coming back to the US. To work with some celebrities. He had actually been working with Richard Branson when he was coming back to California, and so he stayed at our house and he was going to go meet up with Maria Shriver and Oprah. He sat down and he did some of this work on me and I never really believed in it. 


 Steven Pesavento
 I've been kind of introduced to it by a family member, my sister. After that, all of a sudden, for the first time in years, I had a release of that pain that I was experiencing. You could call it a placebo, you could call whatever you want. I tried calling it that for a long time, but I realized that there was actually physical change that this person was doing within my body. What it really came down to and I'm sharing this with you because maybe you might be experiencing some of this resistance yourself was that at that time, I was trying to be somebody different than I naturally was? My head and my heart were out of alignment. Meaning my head was saying, this is the person you need to be. This is how you have to show up. This is how you have to look. 


 Steven Pesavento
 This is what you have to say. This is what you have to think. My heart was saying, hey, that's not you. There's a different version of you. And so there's this conflict internally. As a result of that, we obviously cleared that energy. That's when I launched the company three months later. We bought 75 houses that first year. The point is, wherever you're at in your journey, appreciate it, because that's where the lessons come from. Now every time I ever feel any of that kind of similar pain coming back, I know it's a signal that I'm off. I need to recalibrate. I need to sit back. I need to meditate to connect. 


 Josh Wilson
 Yes, this sounds super booboo. However, it works, right? In so many different interviews that I've done about 1000 of these things, and a lot of people, some people, if you have a Christian or you have a belief system of God, prayer and meditation, right? Maybe God did create energy to go at a certain frequency and that we're supposed to let go of things. Like the Bible says, cast your burdens on the Lord. Right? I grew up in a church, as you probably could tell. Were taught growing up, like, that stuff evil, right? It's like but I have all these internal issues that I don't know how to deal with. So kind of walk us through. This is so good. How do you know that you're off internally, right, that maybe there's an internal conflict of your identity? The person that my head says I want to be versus who I'm supposed to be, how do you know that there's a disconnect? 


 Steven Pesavento
 Well, this is what's so beautiful, right? Like you mentioned, you grew up in the church. I grew up in the Catholic Church. Kind of a religious refugee, but very spiritual. I believe in a lot. What I've done over the years is really study a lot of different flavors of what those beliefs are. What's cool about it is most of them are all very similar. They're all kind of drawing from this concept idea that there's a greater source and that source is on our side and we can ask it for advice and we can ask it for support, and we can ask it for energy, and it will come and it will support us, right? From Christianity to Judaism to Hindu to Buddha to New Age religions that aren't really religions, they're more like belief systems. The way that I know that things are out of alignment is I start to feel tension, right? 


 Steven Pesavento
 Many of us, maybe we actually feel tension every day, so we don't know what it's like to not have tension at the time of this. I'd go and I'd see a neurologist or a pain management specialist or a massage therapist or you name it, I saw them. I spent money I did not have trying to solve this pain problem and all of it. Everyone would always say, well, are you dealing with stress? And the answer was yes. My whole life I've always been stressed. I can never remember a moment I wasn't stressed. That was just the life I lived, was in kind of constant at gunpoint type living where your nervous system is just going massive all the time. It wasn't until doing this type of work. Actually experiencing that moment of relief. Of being in that calm place. Not using a substance to be there. 


 Steven Pesavento
 Not using alcohol or wheat or some other kind of drug or substance to get to that place. But actually. Through meditation. Through energy work. Through being group. Things like this. To be able to feel that tension release. And then as it builds up. It's going to naturally build up and you're going to feel that kind of happen for me. That triggering moment. As I start to have those headaches again and I remember what they were like. Unfortunately enough. For me. They were painful enough that when I see them and feel them. I take immediate action. Oftentimes it's like the frog boiling in a pot of water that you feel that temperature move up slowly and you don't really notice it until it's kind of too late. Now I've got to the point where I'm quite sensitive, self connected, intuitive. I can feel when something's off, right? 


 Steven Pesavento
 It can be a blessing and a curse, because I might also feel something's off with a friendship or relationship and it's not really the time to broach that subject. When you can get that connected to what's happening in your energy field, and the next level, of course, is being able to let go of it, even if that's happening, you can actually start taking action and listen, go and do some self care or whatever that might be for you. That could be meditation, that could be some energy work, that could be massage, could be going and doing a sauna or workout, whatever that is, that's going to move that energy and allow you to come back to that place of stability. 


 Josh Wilson
 This is so interesting because growing up with massive amount of stress and trauma and being in the field that I was a firefighter medic. It's like you're always on high alert, waiting for the bell to go off. Right. I was always on high stress, and I didn't know what stress less felt like. Right. What was the first time you felt like a calm peace? When s the first time you felt peace in your life? 


 Steven Pesavento
 That's such a good question. I can't pinpoint that first time that I can say this was it. When I think back, the same story. I mean, I'm sitting with this person who had literally just come back from healing Richard Branson before one of his tennis tournaments that he does every year, which is a big donation thing to nonprofit. He faces all these tennis pros and he cares a lot about it. He really enjoys it. Nobody could heal his tennis elbow issue. All these doctors, all these people are flown in. He's a multi billionaire. Of course he's going to have the best people come in. This friend had come in and healed him. I hear that he's coming to hang out. I asked my friend, hey, well, of course he can stay at our house, but would you mind asking him would he do some healing on what I'm experiencing? 


 Steven Pesavento
 Been experiencing it for years. I was at the point, Josh, where I was at the point where I had almost accepted that this was going to be how life was, that I was going to live in this constant fog, that I wasn't going to be able to think clearly. I mean, it makes me emotional thinking back to it, because it was quite a heavy time for years of living with that kind of pain. What was so cool about it was that it was probably a week or two of him staying with us before he finally had done that work. We sat down and we did the work, and 45 minutes later, I have this relief, this sense of calmness, this centeredness, and this feeling of not all the pain being gone, but for the first time in a long time meeting that sense of peace. 


 Steven Pesavento
 And it was quite eye opening. I really believe that as a result of doing that work, that we had cleared out some energy and we had created this space for me to step into who I was really meant to be. As a result of clearing some of that space, I mean, we launched that company and had a lot of success, but I enjoyed the process through and through. When you can get to that place, however you get there of that level of place, all of a sudden clarity will happen so much more simply. And when we live in. This state of constant inputs and constant output, we often don't have the space to really be able to have those answers come to us. Whether you call that God, whether you call that infinite intelligence, whether you just call that your own mind and its power that's within it, all of a sudden, it was like, snap of the fingers, I'm doing this, it's done. 


 Steven Pesavento
 And then, boom. Years label. I look back and the vision of what was dreamt up in that moment was reality. 


 Josh Wilson
 When there's so much noise, right? Stimulations noise, thoughts, fears. Like, my mind, I don't have to, like, try to do this. It just does it naturally. I'll wake up at 330 in the morning and I'm already thinking of 100 things that I need to do, want to do some mistakes I made in the past. Like, my brain just races fast. It goes like that until 09:00 at night, right? When I find a moment of clarity through prayer, through meditation, through meeting ID the song, or going for a run, spending some time with good friends, when I have peace, it's almost weird. And I'm learning more and more. I'm reading that book right now by Singer. The Surrender Experiment. I'm learning that I need to release a lot of this stuff because it's not healthy. It's not healthy for me. It's not healthy for my relationships. 


 Josh Wilson
 I'm so glad we're talking about this, Steven. This is really cool. 


 Steven Pesavento
 What's incredible about that. Josh. Just to cut in. Is that when you're doing that meditation. When you're doing that prayer. When you're sitting in the sauna and you're listening to some spiritual teachings. Whatever version of that is. Or you're just listening to your own thoughts and you're calming your mind. What you're doing is you're practicing that space for that clarity to happen. For those answers to pop up. Because what you're doing is you're essentially saying, mind, let's not tamp down those thoughts, but let's let go of them. Let's let them flow freely through my mind. Eventually, once you've let all of the water out, that pressure coming out of the spigot will slow down. All of a sudden, you're at this place of calmness. The way Michael Singer talks about it is he talks about using meditation as a practice to allow you to practice letting go of that attachment to the thought, so that when you have something that's much bigger, you are already practiced to be able to do that. 


 Steven Pesavento
 Let's talk a real great example of something that I think is just such a beautiful thing, and I practice it myself. This is coming directly from Michael Singer. It's when you're driving in the car and you notice that the person in front of you is driving slower than you'd like. You want to go around them and you want to speed up. You want to flash your lights or tap your horn and you notice that feeling. You decide to just in that moment to just be at place. To just let go. To just be okay. Exactly where you're at and let go of that feeling of racing. For many people, you might say, hey, I can't do that. Well, what I would say is the more times that you just simply acknowledge it, maybe you aug, maybe you recognize that little thing that you're doing. What he describes what I've experienced is that sometimes emotion will come up from that, because what you've done is you've actually let go. 


 Steven Pesavento
 It's something so small, but you've created that just of space of letting go of that rope that allows that tension to go away and allows something else to come in. That way, if you practice that consistently over and over again on things that are small and don't carry as much weight when something really bad happens, you're that much more capable of meeting ID. That way, if your business partner comes to you and says, I'm leaving, and I'm taking blah, blah, you can instead of reacting in the moment with anger and whatnot, you can let go of that feeling of expectation you have for that person and then actually address it from that place of calmness. This is so important in relationships and so important in life, because life is always happening. We don't know what's going to happen at any moment. When it does, we really have to accept that this is what's happened. 


 Steven Pesavento
 That doesn't mean we have to like it, and that doesn't mean we aren't going to do something different to try to bring greatness back into our life. We do have to accept what is right this exact moment before we can actually see a change happen. 


 Josh Wilson
 Yeah, I absolutely love this. I look at it as practicing peace, right. You helped me create the methodology or that terminology, right? Practice and peace. Like, someone pulls in front of you singer says this, right? Instead of trying to force your outcome, what if you just enjoyed that spot? Or you San Jose sit in that spot? What other ways? One of the ways that I practice piece, and I'm trying to teach it to my kids, because my kids nine, five, two, and they're always on the go is we don't mind going to a line in the grocery store that's long. Like, there's an empty aisle over here. I won't try to jump lines. I'll park far away from the grocery store, and we'll go on the line and we'll just sit there, look at newspapers, talk to people, right. So I'm trying to practice place. 


 Josh Wilson
 Do you think that's smart? Do you do that in certain instances? What are your thoughts? 


 Steven Pesavento
 I think that you either have the choice of practicing in advance or dealing with it when it comes. Right. I'll tell you a really great example of this is that if you spend the time practicing it, then you're going to be that much more capable of handling whatever comes, because you've actually desensitized yourself to that feeling of what's happening. Right? This is a tragic story, but there's a lot of great lessons that come from it. I'm running this business, I'm spending all of my time building this phenomenal business, and I have this realization that it's time to make a change. I delay and I delay, and I'm working on a new project and I'm fortunate enough to have my sister come out and spend some time with me for a week and a half, but I'm grateful to be able to spend that time with her. 


 Steven Pesavento
 She leaves after spending a week or two with me, and she's driving and she gets into a car accident and she dies. It's hard to talk about, but the reason I'm bringing it up is because it's those moments that take the rug out from underneath you that end up being a moment that you can either decide that this is going to be the reason for greatness, or it's going to be your excuse of why you didn't go and do the things you wanted to do. In that moment, I remember hearing the call and being told what had happened. I remember thinking to myself, well, this is it. Life is different from here on. That moment when you lose somebody that is that close to you, what's surprising about it is that it happens every day. It happens probably every hour. It's probably happened ten times since we've been recording. 


 Steven Pesavento
 At the very least, we can't control the fact that happened. It's a freak accident. Nothing she could have done, nothing anyone else could have done. As a result of Team Chat, practice has allowed me to strengthen my inner being at a whole another level, to be able to connect and continuously remember about what's important. All of that work that I had been doing for the last five, seven years, all that personal development, all that mindset work, and I'm laying on the floor of my living zoom, crying every day for months because it's just so overwhelming. What's incredible about this, and the reason I bring this up, is that through going through that process of grief, through feeling those feelings, I was able to release the power they had over me. I was able to let that flow through and then I was able to let love flow back in. 


 Steven Pesavento
 I was let gratitude flow back in. I was able to come to life with a perspective that's different, one that when I walk out of my office today, anything could happen. This may be the last time we connect. What that does by practicing this and being reminded of that tragic event, that experience that loss, that thing that you never want to have happen, that thing that you think only happens to other people, it can happen to you at any time. By going to that place and practicing that feeling of knowing that it allows you to live more in the moment. It allows you to do less of the things that you don't like doing and spend more days doing the things that matter. Spending more days with the people that you love. Doing the things that you care about. Might make you quit that job that you just don't love. 


 Steven Pesavento
 Or leave that relationship that isn't serving you. Or dive into some support to help make that relationship something that's going to bring you forward. We can either choose to deal with things in that moment that they come up, or we can practice a life so that when those things come up, we can be there to support other people. That's why I think it's so critical that you do that you stand in long lines, that you reflect on the losses that could come, that you appreciate the life that you have. Because in reality, life is quite short and things change in a moment. 


 Josh Wilson
 Dude, this is so good. What's your sister's name? 


 Steven Pesavento
 Her name is Catherine. 


 Josh Wilson
 Catherine. So, Steven, as you approach the personal loss and this idea of letting energy and love and gratitude flow back in after a personal loss, because that was quick. You didn't see her again, there's a lot of people in the audience who are listening in and who I've recently gone through a loss and such. How do you go back and letting love flow back in, letting good things flow back in because experiencing a personal loss can cripple you for a bit. 


 Steven Pesavento
 Yeah. I want to make this applicable to everybody, regardless of how big that loss is. It could be the loss of a dream, the loss of a relationship, it could be the loss of a job, of a career, of a contract. Anything in our life that we expected would be there or is not, or is different. There's a moment to grieve. Right? One of the things that we don't do well in our society is teach people how to grieve. We don't teach people well how to support people who are grieving. It's a very interesting thing. People don't know what to say. They don't know how to reach out. They don't know how to support or when to support. It's a very independent, driven community we have in the US. What I would share with folks, it's a really powerful tool is first and foremost, don't use substances or things to hide from that feeling. 


 Steven Pesavento
 Now I was really fortunate. I was doing of a sober October experience that I do every single year. I happened to be in a place where I wasn't really drinking. As a result, although her death had nothing to do with substance or alcohol, I haven't drank in quite a long time because I was using that as a tool to really fully feel that experience. That's the number one thing, is that you want to feel those feelings 100%, right? Oftentimes people will feel grief at 10%, they'll try to hide that. Other 90%, they'll say, hey, how are you doing? I'm doing okay. I'm fine now. I'm terrible, I'm doing awful, but I'm going to be fine. I'm going to make it through it. But I'm not doing so hot. You can actually go into this place, I call it grief and gratitude together. What you do is you turn on some music or something that can be like anchor, and you use the exact same song every time you sit down. 


 Steven Pesavento
 You think about the loss. You think about the things that you lost, the feelings, the things that person will never experience, the thing your company will never experience. Whatever that grief is that you need to let go of is an opportunity. You feel that fully during COVID, great opportunity for people to feel that grief. A lot of people still haven't fully processed it. So you feel that 100%. You go to that place, you have the ugly cries, you do whatever it is that's going to allow your full body to feel that. Some people think, Why would you want to do that? Because what you're doing is that if you're blocking energy in or out, you can't get love in. If you're blocking the grief from getting out, if you're blocking the anger, the sadness, whatever that is, you've got to open yourself up to it. 


 Steven Pesavento
 You've got to let it flow. You empty your cup of those negative emotions or feelings, and then for an equal amount of time so maybe that's a three minute song. Maybe you do it for 15 minutes. Depends on you. Whatever your feeling is about what's right, then you equally spend time in gratitude. Now, early on in your grieving, especially of Rhett ross of a loved one, you're probably not going to be in a space or a place that you're going to be able to think gratitude thoughts related to that person without going into a place of grief. You're thinking that gratitude, early on, you're going to think that it's a beautiful day, the sun is shining. I'm alive. I have some great family members. I've got a great business. I'm going to overcome this. You feel those feelings of gratitude, and you essentially fill that cup back ups with gratitude. 


 Steven Pesavento
 When you come out of this after the equal amount of time, say ten minutes and ten minutes, then you go on with your day. When you're really in a heavy place of grief, maybe you have to do this every hour. Maybe you have to do it twice a day. You schedule it just like you'd schedule a workout so that you San Jose those emotions, and you can feel that. What you'll notice is that after you do this for a period of time of moving those emotions, you'll notice that there's less there to pour out. That doesn't mean you don't love or care about that person, or that doesn't mean the thing that you were grieving isn't important. What it means is that you're actually processing that pain. When you can get that out of your body, you can actually put yourself in a much more receptive place to bring in those feelings and emotions that you're actually really looking for, which for most people, that comes down to happiness and joy, and that can be a lot of different things. 


 Josh Wilson
 Dude, so good, man. We got probably ten minutes left, and I promised that we would talk about some success principles and things like that, but I think maybe we do a follow up chat and maybe we could go over those quickly. I think this is that there's someone out there who's struggling deeply with some grief, and this was the message for them. And the idea of practicing piece. I'll tell you, man, the last two years, we're recording this in September of 2022. The last two years have been h*** here on Earth, right? Like, people just sick and fearful and all this crap. Politically and health wise, peace has been something that has disappeared. I think that this is helpful for people to regain that piece. Thank you for sharing that, but I think it's a muscle that we must practice and capture. So you get to choose. 


 Josh Wilson
 Choose your path. Mr. Steven, do you want to quickly go over the five success principles, or do you want to give people a way to connect with you later on and they could get that maybe in an email or something like that? What do you want? 


 Steven Pesavento
 I think staying on topic of this level of depth and vulnerability I think is a better choice. If people want those five success principles, they can grab them@investorminset.com success, that's investormindset.com success. There's some great stuff. It's some stuff we'll talk about in a future episode that are really those principles. I have to say to anybody who's listening that is resonating with what I'm talking about. It doesn't matter how deep that level of grief is. It could be a variety of different things that you're feeling, but it's so important to feel those feelings, because what I'll say is this happened a few years ago. I look at those family members and friends and people who were close, who did not follow this advice, who did not feel those feelings, who did not process what was going on. Maybe they were allergic to the thought of working with a coach or a therapist, or maybe they're allergic to the thought of being able to really personally put themselves in that place of sadness. 


 Steven Pesavento
 They don't want to. They don't want to go there. I would challenge you that the fastest way out of something is going through it. You really have to be able to turn to it, to go through it. As a result, what I will say is there's some beauty that comes from it. There's a lot of great processes that you'll do with phenomenal coaches or great workshops where they really bring you to this place of realizing that you're feeling a loss even if it didn't happen. What's beautiful about going through these kind of experiences, these experiences that kind of tear us down, that make us question what we're focused on, is that it gives us an opportunity to be reborn, gives us an opportunity to choose a new path and to have a really strong motivating factor on why we're going in that direction. What's beautiful about this is that it allowed me to realize that it's not worth living multiple days in a row doing something that I don't enjoy doing. 


 Steven Pesavento
 That doesn't mean I don't want to keep living. That just means I need to change the actions that I'm doing and start living that life. What I've noticed as a result, one of the beautiful things that have come from this is that one I've changed my business to really, truly serve the people that I want to spend time with. If people don't have that energy, if people are spitting venom or are really reliving their own traumas, hey, we've all been through it, I get it. I'm just not interested. I'm happy to pass on those kind of opportunities. What that does is it's allowed me to invite more people by turning away those things that aren't going to make me happier. It's allowed more of those things that really are going to continue to kind of fuel that good life. So, I mean, Josh, have you found that yourself? 


 Steven Pesavento
 That when you turn away the things that maybe when you're not in that place of desperation and you're in place that place of abundance and appreciation, that even more great things keep coming to you? 


 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. When I'm doing the things I love to do with the people I love to do, it attracts more opportunity, and it flows. When I take on something to keep the light bills on. I've worked with some clients, and I fired myself from them, right. Because I was like, oh, man, this sucks the energy out of me. I hate being on the call with them, and it's just like, I want to do a good job, so why not work with people I like and say no and no thanks to people who someone else can serve, I can't fix the world, I can't solve the world's problems. I can serve maybe 20 people a year, right? That's okay. So, yeah, I'm with you 1000%. Steven, man, we got to wrap up. You're awesome, dude. I thought were going to talk about practical, tactical tax, like, here's how to invest in get rich and this and that. 


 Josh Wilson
 I am so thankful that we talked about this instead, because I think that this is life changing for people. Money is important, right. This is going to help a lot of dudes. So. I appreciate this, man. Thank you. 


 Steven Pesavento
 Yeah, I mean, life's hard, but it gets easier when you start taking the time to find communities of people who are in it or trying to make progress towards the things that they want to in life. I encourage anybody who's getting value from this to definitely sit down and use some of the process we've talked about, but go find some communities of people who are also on that path in that journey. There are some great men's groups, both digitally and physically, where you can meet with other men who are also doing this emotional work where you can connect with people. Because what you get from that is you realize, like, you're not the only one, and that 95% of people, they want this, but they're afraid of going after it. When you start creating it around you'll be surprised at how many people are thankful for opening up a vulnerable conversation like this. 


 Josh Wilson
 Yeah. Super cool. Awesome. So, dudes in the audience, if you want to take a look and connect with our guestinvestormindset. Comsuccess, is that right? Cool. That's the five principles of success, but it's also a way to follow Steven's work and connect with him directly. Guys, let me put this out to you, man. If you need help, you're not alone. Reach out to me. Uncensored advice for men. Men.com, there's a contact form button at the top. I'll get you in touch with any one of our past guests, or if you just need a chat or maybe you have some advice you'd like to share, that's a good place to do it. I want this to be a community of people helping dudes, because that's who I'm called to serve. So I love you guys. Thanks for listening in. Talk to you all on the next episode. 


 Josh Wilson
 See, everybody. 



Steven PesaventoProfile Photo

Steven Pesavento

Investor & CEO

Steven Pesavento is a real estate entrepreneur and Managing Partner of VonFinch Capital. Investing full time since 2016, he’s completed over 200 transactions, renovated nearly 100 houses and transacted over $180,000,000 in investment real estate. Steven’s investors have entrusted him with over $40 million of investor capital, delivering solid consistent returns.

VonFinch Capital is an Investment Manager & Sponsor specializing in Value-Add Multifamily. The VonFinch advantage is financial ingenuity & deal structures targeted to preserve investors capital, while creating outsized returns. VonFinch provides their clients with cash flow & tax advantaged wealth growth in both single assets and diversified funds. Put simply: We partner with our clients to invest their capital alongside ours, where we buy, operate and manage commercial real estate - making them money today & growing their wealth for tomorrow.

Steven is a Certified High-Performance Coach and a former Management Consultant for some of the Fortune 500’s top companies, he brings his years of process improvement, marketing and sales experiences to every project.

Host of the top ranked podcast the Investor Mindset he interviews some of the smartest minds & authors like Chris Voss - Never Split The Difference, Jay Papasan - One Thing, Joe Fairless - Best Ever Podcast, Mark Manson - Subtle Art of Not Giving A F&#k and many others.

When Steven isn’t focused on serving his passive investing or real estate entrepreneur clients, he enjoys running, Snowboarding, Sa… Read More