The Origin Story

Welcome to the inaugural edition of "Beyond Buildings with The Freeman Factor: Fusing CRE & Self Mastery." (Much longer than normal editions)

I picked this to be the newsletter's name because it perfectly encapsulates the dual focus of my expertise in Commercial Real Estate (CRE) while emphasizing the journey toward personal excellence and mastery.

• I am obsessed with learning.
• I love CRE, but I also love to optimize other areas of my life, mostly in health and fitness but also by learning and becoming smarter.
• I believe one of the main purposes in life, is expansion.

It suggests a comprehensive approach to professional development, where insights into real estate are intertwined with personal and professional growth strategies.

If you're interested in real estate, personal growth, or both - this is the place for you.

Let's get started. I'm Logan Freeman, and I'm thrilled to share with you not just the insights and strategies that have shaped my career in Commercial Real Estate (CRE), but also the personal growth journey that has been integral to my success.

My 4 Core Values are:

1. Faith
2. Family
3. Fitness
4. Future

The virtues I try and live my life by:

1. Faith
2. Hope
3. Love
4. Prudence (Wisdom)
5. Temperance (Self-Discipline)
6. Justice (Love)
7. Fortitude (Courage)

I live my life by a code.

And I will be sharing parts of that code with you as the weeks pass.

In this first edition, I want to take you back to where it all began, and how I got started in the industry. My path to becoming a recognized figure in CRE was not a straight line—it was a journey marked by challenges, learning experiences, and pivotal moments that shaped my professional and personal development.

Growing Up: Do you know what the capital of Missouri is? That's ok, not many people do. It's Jefferson City. That's where I grew up. A nice place to live. I would characterize it by using the great Carol Dwecks' definition of the fixed mindset. Let me explain: Carol Dweck, a renowned psychologist, introduced the concepts of fixed and growth mindsets in her research on motivation, personality, and development. Here's how she characterizes each mindset and the differences between them:

Fixed Mindset

• Belief System: Individuals with a fixed mindset believe that their abilities, intelligence, and talents are fixed traits. They think that they have a certain amount of intelligence, and they cannot do much to change it.
• Approach to Challenges: People with a fixed mindset are likely to avoid challenges because they fear failure. They are concerned that failing at something might reveal their lack of intelligence or ability.
• Response to Failure: They often take failure personally and may believe it reflects directly on their capabilities or worth.
• View on Effort: Effort is perceived as fruitless or even as something that reveals their lack of intelligence because if they were truly smart or talented, things would come easily to them.

Growth Mindset

• Belief System: In contrast, individuals with a growth mindset believe that their abilities and intelligence can be developed with time, effort, and dedication. They see their qualities as just the starting point and believe that they can grow through application and experience.
• Approach to Challenges: They embrace challenges, seeing them as opportunities to learn and grow. Failure is not seen as a reflection of their abilities but rather as a valuable source of information for how to improve.
• Response to Failure: People with a growth mindset are resilient in the face of failure. They don’t see failure as a direct reflection of their abilities but as a stepping stone for learning and development.
• View on Effort: Effort is a path to mastery. They understand that even if something doesn’t come naturally to them, they can become more proficient through dedication and hard work.

Key Differences

• Underlying Beliefs: The core difference lies in the underlying beliefs about the nature of intelligence and abilities. The fixed mindset sees them as static, while the growth mindset sees them as malleable.
• Approach to Learning and Challenges: The fixed mindset avoids challenges to protect the ego, whereas the growth mindset seeks out challenges as opportunities to grow.
• Reaction to Failure: Those with a fixed mindset are likely to give up or lose motivation after failure, seeing it as an insurmountable barrier. In contrast, those with a growth mindset use failure as feedback and a means to improve.
• Perception of Effort: For the fixed mindset, effort is seen negatively, as a sign of inadequacy. For the growth mindset, effort is essential and positive, a means to learn and achieve mastery.

Don't get me wrong, living in JC was great. I learned a lot. Met some of the hardest-working people I know and respect to this day. I just thought, I felt, there was more for me.

Growing up, I identified as an athlete. I found solace and purpose in competition. I had to. My home life was less than normal, or stable. My father, who was a Native American, had 13 brothers and sisters and grew up on a tobacco farm in North Carolina, battled with drug and alcohol abuse for most of his adult life. (More on that to come, later.)

This changed me. Molded me, and formed me into the man I am today. At the deepest levels, my dad, and growing up with an addict have had a profound impact on my life.

Then, there's my mom. Her name is Karen. I call here "Kare-Bear." Because she did EVERYTHING for me and our family. Worked two jobs, tirelessly to put food on the table and keep us in our Catholic schools. She sacrificed so much for me, and my sisters. She worked with me when I battled against OCD and ADHD. Read books, took me to new therapy centers, and got me right. It was incredible. She never gives up. Never gave up. And I love her for it. It is my mom, who gave me my insatiable desire to become better, my work ethic, and the value of the dollar. I owe her so much and love her dearly.

I am very blessed to have had some incredible men in my life who showed me, and modeled for me what it looked like to be a man of integrity. A man who was there for his family, friends and community.

I sort of have my own "rich dads," and "poor dad," story. (Also, more on that to come, later).

High School: I was really into basketball growing up and wanted to play in the NBA. I topped out at 6 feet 2(maybe 3) inches but didn't want to let that limit me. However; I started to really pack on the pounds in the weight room in HS. Thus, I became really strong. Believe it or not, this didn't really help in basketball, it hurt. So, I had some knee problems running up and down the court, sort of jumping. I had a coach who had it out for me, or now, looking back at it, probably just didn't want to deal with my attitude. Anyway, I didn't even play football my first year in HS, and decided basketball wasn't going to be for me and joined the football team. The rest is history. I worked all through high school, on farms and in a catering business with a family that had a profound impact on me. They helped me to figure problems out, work har,d and become a better version of myself. I started to get some looks to play football in college and decided to not go to culinary school or join the military and pursue an athletic career.

College: Locked in a solid scholarship to play ball at the University of Central Missouri in Warrensburg. I was able to have my redshirt pulled and get into a few games my true freshman year. Then, I broke an ankle and damaged a knee. So, I was able to secure a medical redshirt to come back for my 5th year. Graduated in 4, of course, and got started on my master's degree. We had an incredible season or two, I truly enjoyed college and grew up a lot. I also made a lot of mistakes and drank way too much. At the end of college, I was able to get the chance as an undrafted free agent to go to the Oakland Raiders. That ultimately didn't. work out, so I decided to go back and finish my master's degree.

This is when my whole life changed. For the better.

Graduate School: Here was my schedule:

4:00 AM - Wake up and head to the GYM.

6:00 AM - Eat breakfast and get ready for the day.

7:00 AM - Head to work as an inside sales rep selling educational data lists.

8-5 PM - work, making 265 cold calls per day, getting told no, 264 times.

6-9 PM - go to graduate school and then to bed.

Sticking to this schedule, I lost 100 pounds in 6 months. I outsold the rest of the new salespeople by 300%.

This period of my life was transformative, not only physically, but more importantly, mentally. I listened to CDs and the few podcasts that were out at the time on the drive to and from. I learned from Tony Robbins, Zig Ziglar, Lewis Howes and John Lee Dumas. I was on fire. Focused, inspired and ready to get my life going in the right direction. While at this job, and finishing up graduate school, I was able to land a new job when I graduated as the youngest Franchise Consultant that Jimmy John's had ever hired. It was working.

Then I graduated and my whole life changed.

I still rememebr the day, my father who had a truck at the time came up to Warrensburg to help me move back home for the summer. But, as a strapping Native American, he could hardly walk up the stairs. I knew something was wrong.

My dad ended up passing away around two weeks later.

So, here I am, a 24 year old, no longer an athlete, 100 pounds lighter, getting ready to try and start my career, and my father passes is away. This is another one of those "decision points" that we all have in our lives. I had the decision to be the victim, and wallow in the situation, or choose to learn from the situation. I chose to learn. Or so, I thought. On the day my dad passed away, I had delayed starting my new job for two weeks to be with him, I went to his bedside and told him I would be leaving. I said the "Our Father," prayer over him, because he couldn't speak, he just sat there and cried, and I left.

6 hours later, I got the call that he had passed away.

I still get goosebumps to this day, thinking about this whole situation. And man, this is oine of those things that can rock you to your core. I am so grateful for my Catholic faith, and the mentors I had in my life at the time that really helped me to work through this situation. My dad left me with some amazing pieced of advice, spoken and unspoken, that I will share with you at a later date.

First Jobs: So, off I was, to Champaign, Illinois to Jimmy John's school. After passing those tests, I was off to Ann Arbor, Michigan to train in one of the busiest sandwich shops in America. After that, I was back to Kansas city. My job was to ensure that the brand was staying consistent across 25 stores in Missouri, Kansas, Iowa and Arkansas. I learned so much from this job, specifically that having a template for success and the ability to measure KPIs so you can manage them was one of the keys to success. After around a year, I started to think about what was next, so I had a conversation with my boss and he said: You will have to put your time in. Two weeks later, I left the company. I coudn't fathom not being payed off of performance and needed to be able to earn what I thought I was worth.

So, I took my first sales job. At a company that had 3 employees!

And it was amazing. I was in the startup world. Selling a product that helped to reduce fuel consumption on large overnight trucks. I met my best friend at this company and through the KC network, my future wife. I learned so much, getting back to manufacturing opportunity out of thin air was fulfilling to me. After around 2.5 years, and some product delays/pilots that didn't go to plan I decided to take the leap to another sales job. This was a hard decision for me, but it all worked out. I made the jump to a 6 figure salary - which to me, was an a lot of money. And I found out the hard way, that I am not cut out for corporate America.

Getting Fired: Around 15 months into this job, a private equity company came in and bought it (good for the owners) and I was let go. I was fired. I took quite the large slice of humble pie.

This was quite literally the best thing that has ever happened to me (professionally that is).

I called my new wife and told her the news. Her response was quite magical, yet perplexing. She told me to check my email when I got home, which I did. In there, I found the Articles of Organization for what is not my holding company, Live Free Investments. I was blown away. She was all for me starting my own company and was going to support me 100%. I couldn't believe it. Now, we didn't have any kiddos at the time and relatively few responsibilities. So, that's what I did.

I had read around 500 books on sales and personal development up to this point, and was eager to put that knowledge into action.

But, I wasn't 100% sold on being a fully commission based salesperson. So, I started a sales consulting company. I grabbed Incs fastest growing companies list and called the first 2500 companies. And landed 3 full time clients paying me more per hour than I have ever thought possible.

And then a unique opportunity came through my door.

I had been really interested in real estate, and so one of my networking friends called me up and said: I just landed a $50M fund as a client and my head of acquisitions just left.

My jaw dropped and my eyes were wide open. I couldn't pass this opportunity up.

6 months in, my wife said: "All you do is complain about this consulting stuff and all you do is talk about real estate." I was doing around 10 transactions a month, which was an incredible experience and so I set off to go full time in real estate and dissolve the consulting business. That took a bit of time, but was the right move. I ended up doing around 100 transactions that first year and finished the fund up around 265 houses. We were the 6th group in the country to do a CoreVest portfolio refinance, returned 85% of the capital to investors and was still cash-flowing. WOW. I had to know how these sponsors did this. They told me it was a syndication. I said, synda-what? I had no idea what that meant.

So, I started listening to podcasts, reading books and attending seminars. I was bound and determined to figure this out. I came back from a conference with the idea that I wanted to put my own deals together, but not on SFR. I wanted to do it on multifamily and commercial real estate. But, I had no experience doing these tpes of deals. And my broker was not on board.

Another decision point.

I decided to leave that brokerage and align myself with a company I could learn from and built out a profitable niche: Representing 1031 exchange buyers in the KC market on small multifamily and NNN retail projects.

It was a huge success. So much so, that I decided to buy some properties myself and learned another hard lesson. There is a lot of risk in real estate. Quantifying it is a skill that takes experience. To the tune of $250,000.

I sat back down with my mentors and asked, "Where did I get it wrong?" Getting outside of your zone of genius and circle of competency was the answer. They told me I needed to look at CRE investing as a business. So, I went deep in understanding what my skillsets were, what my weaknesses are and what fulfills me. Then I took that information and overlayed it with all the functions of CRE and figured out where the gaps where. I realized there were a lot of functions I needed others expertise on. I was great at some things, OK at some, and downright bad at others.

That's when I decided to take the route of finding some business partners. And getting really serious about building something that could be sustainable.

Today: Over the past 4 years, we have been able to acquire around 1500 multifamily units across 4 states in the Midwest as well as an additional 600k sq/ft of commercial space. We have a top 25 KC commercial real estate brokerage that is growing and property management in house. It has not been all ups, there have been and still are, a lot of downs. Peaks and valleys

What I aim to do in this newsletter is bring you insights on CRE, high performance and mental models that I have learned over the years to build yourself up into the best version of yourself. Success to me doesn't just look like a lot of money. It is first and foremost being a son of God, and spreading the good news. Mostly through my actions and how I live. The best husband I can be to my wife and a hero father to my 3 children. And through all of that, being extrememly mentally and physically fit. Building upon my previous athletic endeavors, I will be interweaving many lessons into this newsletter from what I have learned and am still learning from physical activity.

Conclusion: From my early days, grappling with the intricacies of real estate markets, to the lessons learned from each deal, my story is a tapestry of perseverance, adaptation, and continuous learning. But this newsletter isn't just about my journey. It's also about you and how you can leverage your own experiences, strengths, and aspirations to carve a successful path in CRE and beyond.

Each week, we'll delve into different aspects of CRE, interspersed with insights on self-mastery and personal growth, all aimed at empowering you to achieve your fullest potential.

So, let's embark on this journey together. I'm excited to share, learn, and grow with each of you through "Beyond Buildings with The Freeman Factor."

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"Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you."— St. Augustine

"Go forth, and set the world on fire." - St. Ignatius