Levi Lascsak Shares His Story of Triumph and Success.

Kevin Harrington
Hi, I’m Kevin Harrington, an original shark from the hit television show Shark Tank and you’re listening to the underdog podcast.

Pamela Bardhi
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the underdog Podcast. Today I have an amazing guest here with me. Oh my goodness, so honoured to have you my friend Levi Lascak. Like you sent it to me before this classic without the see. So here we are my friend. Welcome.

Levi Lascsak
Thank you Pam, thanks for having me.

Pamela Bardhi
Oh my god, it’s such a pleasure to have you here honestly on the show and just been a blast, like I was telling you earlier. And like, right when I met you, I saw you on that stage of Bill 22. I was just a floored man, I’m like, I need to meet this guy. I need to hear his story. Like everything he’s about because I just love him. So I’m just honoured. Thank you so much, I can’t wait to because we saw little bits and pieces of your story kind of when you were talking about build. Just can’t wait for you to share it with everybody. But the question I like to ask and start off with is what inspired you on your journey to where you are today?

Levi Lascsak
Oh, well, how far back do we go?

Pamela Bardhi
How far you want to go?

Levi Lascsak
I mean, if you’re talking about current time. Which is the reason that we spoke at build was because of our YouTube journey. What inspired that was my previous business went to zero during pandemic during 2020. And so that’s what inspired it actually, when that happened, I you know, I had to take a step back and look at my life. Because I was 41 years old, and just everything went to zero again. And so I was asking myself, well, how do I start over without starting over? Where did I go wrong in my life to be 41 years old.

And then all of a sudden, you know, I’m just back to zero again, is what I felt like. Because I’ve been to zeros a couple of times in my life before. I just had to look at that and say, Okay, do I give up? Or do I move forward? Because I was at a point where financially I was okay. I could actually go live on a small Caribbean island for you know, very next to nothing and eat tacos. And you know, drink beer and probably be okay with it. You’re

Pamela Bardhi
like, I’m going to Bali see?

Levi Lascsak
I’m actually more of a Belize guy. So I love Belize. And so I these are the things I never talked about this on on stage or during webinars or guest appearances. You could say because there’s usually a very limited time. So it was one of those things where I seriously sat there and I thought is this it. I felt like I’ve been working my tail off for the last 20 years. And then to be at square one again. I thought, Okay, do I just give up and literally go eat tacos and drink beer on the beach somewhere. Because I could make it off of, you know, very, very small income that I had built up and probably drag it out. Then I’d probably opened my own taco stand down there just to supplement the bills or something like that.

And I seriously ponder that. Then I thought, well, am I giving up too soon. And I truly believe with the advances in health and technology that I believe I have a true opportunity to live at least till 120. So I had to stop there and also wait, I’m only about a third of my life, I still got two thirds of my life to go and am I giving up way too early. So that was kind of like the second spark or the inspiration to say. No, don’t give up, don’t move to the Caribbean island and be a beach bum. Because that probably would have only lasted a week anyways because I’m a worker. I mean, that’s it’s just ingrained in me even since I was a kid as just said, Okay, well, I gotta get back to the drawing board.

Went back to the drawing board and I spent and we can go back further if you want. But this is just what happened currently is I spent more money than I’ve ever spent in my life. I spent actually several $100,000 investing in things courses, stores and other things over the summer. Because first of all, I wasn’t going to go back and get a job. But what a lot of people don’t know and is that I invested over 150,000 into two Amazon stores. So I came across this opportunity where this team that I knew were successful on Amazon. And had built very successful Amazon stores were offering a done for you programme.

And they were like we’re just need the investors we’ll handle all the logistics all the backend you don’t worry about a thing just fund it. You know, they gave us projections and spreadsheets and everything looked completely legit. Plus I knew who they were at least online. So it was one of those things where I was like okay, this is something I could see myself doing. And they also said this is a two year play. So I knew it wasn’t going to be immediate returns. It was going to be a buildup of you know selling products investing that money back into the store and you reach that compound effect.

And so the first store I bought into cost me, yeah, around 80,000 $90,000. Because it was a $40,000 buy in, like just to get in and then I bought, you know, about $50,000 worth of inventory. The first three months started to really kind of started to do well. Now it went from like 5000 in sales, the first month to seven to 15,000. So I thought well, this is going to go really well. And then this was a wholesale store. I thought, well, I’m going to invest into private label store, because they came out with that option. They’re like, look, wholesaling is great on Amazon. But when you private label, actually source products from China. Put your own brand on it, buy it for $1, sell it for 25, that type of thing.
That’s where the big money was in. So I bought into four different products. Just because I wanted to hedge my bets, right, I didn’t want to just bind to one product. And if that product didn’t work out, I thought, well, I’m going to buy into four products private label for products. So that cost me another 75 $80,000 to do that. So I was all in and they didn’t accept no credit cards. So it was all cash there. Like we’re only taking cash. So I put in all that cash, then I knew that wasn’t an immediate play. So then I started looking at other options. I was like, Well, I’m gonna and I invested into this $17,000 mastermind.

And then I started to buy a couple of courses, I bought a couple of marketing courses, I bought a wholesale course. And I was sitting here actually looking at ways to not get into real estate as an agent. Because my friend Michael Reese was still on the side over here, saying, hey, now’s a good time to get into real estate. You need to come check this out, I’m telling you, and I was like, I don’t want to be a real estate agent. I mean, that’s not in. So I literally put in over 200,000 of my own cash during the summer of 2020 to figure out different ways to not become a real estate agent

Pamela Bardhi
200,000 Just so that you wouldn’t do this

Levi Lascsak
Very expensive lesson. So what happened was, is that, you know, I got into the wholesaling course well. They start teaching you they start teaching you pull all the tax all the all the tax filings and pre foreclosures. And guess what, you got to start cold calling and door knocking. And that’s when I hit the point to where I said, You know what, I’m motivated, but I’m not that motivated. I mean, I love the movie, the boiler room, but I’m not 20 years old anymore. I’m not really interested in calling a bunch of people to see if they’ll sell me their house at a 50% discount. So I was kind of like, is there an automated way to do wholesaling? I didn’t really find anything at the time.

So I was like, alright, well, I’m not going to do that. Plus, I’ve always like investing more than just being an agent. So the other courses I bought into were just some marketing things, some Click Funnels stuff. You know how to do this, and that and I developed all that. Anyways, just went through all this mess. And so at the end of it, I just said, Well, I didn’t see a path out of that. And I thought the Amazon stores were definitely going to be two years later. I thought, well, maybe I do become an agent.

But I still didn’t want to do that other stuff. So I had to stop and say, Okay, wait a second. If I’m going to become an agent, is there a way to attract business? Can I bring it to me? Is there a way to actually do that break into the market compete in Dallas, Texas. One of the most competitive markets with the highest volume of agents and some of the biggest brands out there. So how am I going to do that? Where’s the gap? So then I started to see where’s the gap? Where can I find an opportunity? And if I’m wanting to attract business, I figured well, it’s gotta be social media.

That’s how you track business. But everybody was talking about Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, especially in 2020. You know, tick tock. Every real estate agent was waking up to 10,000 Tick Tock followers. There’d be like, I went to bed overnight, and I woke up to 10,000 followers, so you gotta be on Tik Tok. And I was like, Well, how much business is really coming out of that? Well, I’ve been you know, I haven’t got too much business or no business. And I was like, Okay, well, I didn’t necessarily want to be a dancing real estate agent.

Pamela Bardhi
Or the ripped realtor like Travis was saying. He’s like, Man, I wish I could do that. Yeah, that’s what he’s going for.

Levi Lascsak
The well he’s got some work to do.

Pamela Bardhi
He’s like yeah, man. Please tick talkers and rip drill. And all that stuff. I was dying, but like it’s just so funny. What you see on tick tock. Now, some people are monetizing. And some people just are not right. So new. It’s like how do you even Yeah, right. It cracks me up. I love Tik Tok it’s hilarious like the stuff I find I’m like, how do you guys come up with

Levi Lascsak
Extremely creative people out there right I love it. I mean, you do some funny stuff,

Pamela Bardhi
Like I’m like I have to literally warn myself before but do not click the button. Otherwise you’re gonna go down a rabbit hole like forget it. You know over like all the channels. You know how have their own fun stuff like Instagram. I love the rules. Now those are super awesome, too. It’s kind of similar to tick tock, but for you, you found the niche in YouTube, which is super amazing. And I love that now were there exist? Was there existing competition here already before you started

Levi Lascsak
Learning there was a there’s a couple of channels, I would say there’s about four dominant channels. But the top one had 7000 subs, the number two had about 5000, the number three, like 3000, and the number four had about 2000. So I looked at that, and I was like, well, first of all, for agents in Dallas on YouTube is not competition. But still you got somebody who’s got a 7000 subscriber. Head Start was like, Okay, well, is there an opportunity there? What I noticed across all of them, they’re all publishing one video a week. So that just told me right there, well, I can outwork them.

And if I ever want to catch them, or pass them up, I’m gonna have to outwork them, I’m going to have to double triple the volume. So immediately, I don’t like to just double out again, I’m a worker. I just said, You know what, if I can do three videos a week. Then there’s probably opportunity there to have a better chance to catch them. And here we are. Actually, about three months ago, we passed up every single channel. So within about 15 months, and so now we’re the top channel here with views and subscribers. Definitely in volume, as far as I know, with the amount of business we’ve generated. But that was three videos a week consistent on that over the last 15 to 18 months.

Pamela Bardhi
That’s insane. Oh my god, I have so many questions for you. Before we dive into all that I want to peel the onion a little. Just a little man, you got to make me cry. No. Okay, my might I forgot onions make people cry. But question for you. So what did you want to be when you grew up? Like as a kid?

Levi Lascsak
astronaut?

Pamela Bardhi
Oh, man, I didn’t even have to finish the question. That’s amazing. And astronaut. What was your inspiration behind that?

Levi Lascsak
Well, I’m an 80s Baby. So you know, I mean, astronauts were so cool in the 80s. And I played with Legos. I love Legos. Unless you stepped on them. Yeah, I tell you what. So Legos, space, Legos. In particular, I had the space police and I just thought they started having they come out with fluorescent visors, and, you know, glow. I mean, it was so cool. And but the thing was, is that, I mean, we grew up extremely income limited. Let me say that. I don’t want to say poor because, we had everything we needed. Three Meals a Day clothes.

Now most of my clothes being the third child that were hand me downs and a lot of garage sales. We shopped at garage sales. Every Saturday, we’d go out garage selling, and that’s where I always got my clothes. We never ever went to a department store and never went to the mall, never ate out dinner. Except for Sundays after church, we would go to Maslow’s pizza. And we could get the pizza and I’d get $1 for video games.

And you know, as a quarter a game so I could play for doors. That was it like that,that was the budget. Now the thing is, it wasn’t just income limited, I would say, although it didn’t really feel like that. It was mindset limited. And you know, I don’t mind talking about that. It’s not a dig on my parents at all whatsoever. Because we’ve had that yeah, we’ve had these discussions. They just grew up in a different mindset. They grew up in a money a scarce mindset.

Pamela Bardhi
My parents do. Yeah, it’s the same thing. And it’s not like, you know, and the hard part about that is, that’s how they were programmed. So it’s very hard. Like, unless you become that person that breaks that chain. It kind of will continue in your pattern your generations. It was the same thing with my parents. I even grew up with that for me to break that programming myself took a lot, a lot. So I get it, I get it, man. Most of us that’s how it is. And then we get to be the ones that break that chain. That’s it.

Levi Lascsak
That was it. So but not yet. And also, on top of that, they never, they didn’t encourage, I would say they never encouraged me to achieve more. So that was the other thing too. I grew up in a very strict Christian environment. And so It wasn’t just money was the root of all evil, not the love of money, just money was the root of all evil. It was you know, a different concept. They felt like earning more than you needed was kind of sinful. But also, you know, going after a job or a position or a business that would give you any type of notoriety or additional income or anything like that as well. It’s almost, I think they felt like they had to be the carpenter. The servant, the minimum wage earner to leave a good Christian life.

And so astronaut There was never hey, here’s Popular Mechanics magazine. Hey, let’s help you out with mechanical and dental, No there was no encouragement. I was like, I want to be an astronaut. And they’re like, cool. You know, it’s just all right, you know? Yeah, there was never it was Never, that ain’t so. So I don’t think that’s where I started to develop. Also they were anti college growing up, they didn’t go to college, my two older brothers didn’t. It was literally, because my parents didn’t College. Like they didn’t even understand scholarships or financial aid or anything that they just said, we don’t have the money to pay for your college.

So you’ll never go to college. And so I never even thought of oh, there’s other options or exploring different avenues. It was just very like, Hey, you’re gonna work minimum wage like we do. And that’s it, you know, and then if you earn more, that’s, that’s kind of a bad thing. You know, it’s not very Christian, like so. So that was it. And so eventually the astronaut died off because I just never pursued it. Also, as I started to get to Junior High in high school, I started to develop the mentality of Well, I’m not going to college anyways. That’s what I would say, I was like, Well, I’m not going to college. why does this matter?

Why does that matter? And so that worked. That lasted for about a year after high school while I mopped, floors and stock shelves. Then I realised, alright, you know what, play this game anymore. I gotta get out of here. And that’s why I joined the military. Because I didn’t understand there could have been other ways to get money for college. I just thought, well, if you’re broke, and you need money for college, you go into the military. So I was like, Well, I’m just gonna join the military. It’s the only way I thought I could get out of that small town and move on. So that’s what I did.

Pamela Bardhi
That’s amazing. which forces did you join? I was an Army. And that got you out of the small town. got me out of Stephenville. Yeah, yeah, a little bit. Oh, my Lord. And so what happened during that, during that experience? So, like, what year did you did you go into the army?

Levi Lascsak
1999? Yeah, the world was at peace. The last Gulf War was nine years earlier ended in eight days. So I thought, Oh, this is gonna be easy. I thought literally, nobody’s gonna mess with this anymore. So I could go in and get it, get some money for college, get out. That would be simple. And then two years later, September 11 happened, then everybody in the military gets deployed. I mean, it literally if you’re in the military, that time you’re gonna get cycled through.

Pamela Bardhi
First and foremost, thank you for your service, by the way. Especially defending our country is the greatest, the greatest honour in the world. So thank you for that. Thank you. That’s why I was asking the year I was like, Wait, like, what year did you end up going in there. And like to go in when everything was at peace, and then all of a sudden, be deployed overseas? Like, I can’t even imagine now. Were you actually I think I remember hearing in your talk at build that you were in Afghanistan, Iraq, No. Okay. You went to Iraq, and so Okay, so that’s what it was. So how long were you there? 12 months, 12 months? Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. And then you came back to?

Levi Lascsak
Yeah, I came back. And so what happened was I was in the, in the army for really a shorter amount of time, and then got out and was in the Reserves. And that’s whenever I came back round, actually, right before September 11. That’s where I met Michael Reese. Do you know Michael Reese? Michael probably heard of his and I’ve heard his name. Oh, so I met Michael race at that time and needed a job.

And he was working at Bally Total Fitness. And so I got a job there, started selling gym memberships there. So that was before he got into real estate. He made the move into real estate in 2002. I didn’t follow right away. I was going to but the time I was going to get in with him at that time. Then we got activated, And so then I my deployment was actually 18 months. So it was six months before even getting going to Iraq. So and then we spent 12 months there. So I came back in 2006.

Pamela Bardhi
oh my goodness. And now coming back from that. Did you come back? Did you go back home? Where did you kind of land

Levi Lascsak
I went back to Dallas. Okay, I went to Dallas, there was no way I was going back to Steve. You know, I went back to Dallas. I was not a good money manager at the time. And so I got back and then I got a job with selling cell phones at Costco. So that was you ever walk into Costco and yeah, that little cell phone booth. Yeah, so that was me like in 2006. Wow, that was it. And it was it looks nice now but back then it was like this little rinky dinky stand with some AT and T phones.

How big were the phones? I sold the Motorola Razor. Do you remember the Motorola Razor? Oh my god, the razor I hated that phone. that came out it was like we couldn’t keep it on the shelf like people were coming to Costco to buy that razor. It was like the coolest thing ever. I remember you talking about i remember that when the first camera phone I added this little Sony Ericsson and it had a plugin camera on the bottom. So terrible. It was

Pamela Bardhi
that damn raise They’re like, I remember putting it in my pocket. And it was like, slide out. Yeah, all the time. And then like, I couldn’t find it because it was so small. Then the testing was my favourite. Oh my God, to all of Gen X and anyone that was below. anyone younger. You guys are so lucky to text the way that you do. Yeah. Because we had that t nine. That I think was a gift, not only that, we had MySpace to remember why we were coding geniuses from a young age. This generation doesn’t understand

Levi Lascsak
you’re talking about t nine predictive text.

Pamela Bardhi
Yeah, like that. That was like the most annoying text messages I’ve ever like. Like literally would take me 20 minutes to write one text message.

Levi Lascsak
Oh, I was pretty good at it. Because to do is tap the letters, you know, and hope that it’s going to pre populate the word you’re looking for. So if you wanted to say bad, you tap to the to twice and then the three. And it should give you bad and then you have to select it. But no, that’s pretty good on the tin on

Pamela Bardhi
You dial that? See me? I got like the add. So I had like, I would like change what I was saying. I was like, Oh, I forgot to add that part. So let me just delete and then go back and do this. And that’s hilarious. Motorola razors? Oh, my goodness.

Levi Lascsak
We sold, sold those at Costco. That was it. So I did that for really just about eight months. And I did so well. Then they offered me a position in New York. So I ended up going to New York and took over the nine cost goes in Long Island. I saw that I became the district manager in Long Island. And that lasted a year. First of all, I got tired in New York quickly.

Pamela Bardhi
Or you leave I know.

Levi Lascsak
I did go to Boston. Well, that’s what I did, like being in New York is that you could travel around. I mean, you could go to Philly, you could go to Boston, you could go to New Jersey. You could like get some cool spots that I always wanted to be or you know, check out and they’re pretty short drive. So you know that was it now oh my god. That’s amazing. And then from there, I got recruited by a pharmaceutical company. And they offered me a position back in Dallas. So I was able to use that as an excuse to get out of New York after a couple I learned what North nor’easters were.

Pamela Bardhi
Welcome to the northeast. Whether it’s it’s and everyone here is just so funny, because I’m like, how’s the weather going? Oh, it was cold this morning. I hated it. I was like, I’m pretty sure it was 65 degrees this morning. Yeah, that’s cool, though. I’m like, I can’t wait. If you ever go to Boston in the morning when it’s 25 degrees.

Levi Lascsak
65 this morning? We’re like, we got to bust out the winter gear already. Yeah, like, Oh my goodness.

Pamela Bardhi
The funniest story I heard was last year when I guess there was like a freeze over here because it was like 4040 45 degrees or something. Yep. And everyone freaked out in the whole city. Shut down. Is that true? Or was that just a rumour? Well, first

Levi Lascsak
of all, it was this it was 100 year storm. I mean, it completely bombarded with snow and ice. And then it just stayed below freezing for a week. So literally we had not seen that much snowfall or ice ever. And, then it just stayed for a whole week. Normally, if it snows here, it’ll be 70 degrees the next day, and it’s all gone. But it was really cold. I mean, it was in the 20s fifteens. Yeah, and the thing is, the cold in the south sucks. It’s not like I’ve been in very cold weather up in New York and Chicago and it’s tolerable. 20s is actually tolerable. 60 degrees here now. You’re freezing cold? Yeah, I remember it.

So funny story was that. So I went to the pharma company, and kind of fast forward a little bit. Ultimately, they offered me a position at corporate office in Louisiana, which took I went back to Dallas. I was in Dallas for 18 months. Then I went to Louisiana because they offered me a position there. Then they offered me a position in Chicago, another promotion. So went to Chicago for a year. Coldest city. I mean, that place is terrible. Have you ever been to Chicago in the dead of winter? Oh my god. Yeah, that is terrible. And that was 2013 which that was the winter.

That was like one of the coldest winters on record for the last 100 years in Chicago. And if you’ve never been there before, when you walk out past a building. They call it the wind, you know, the tunnels, the wind tunnels. Because the streets where the wind hits you when apps, I mean we would stop in the stores. Like literally and stop into stores just to Yeah, yeah, you could walk like a block.

And I remember one day I went to go take the trash outside the sun was out finally the trash. I went to go take the trash out and I was like, I go man, this is really a nice day. It doesn’t feel Too bad out here and I pulled out my phone to look at it. And it said 25 degrees. I was like, This is what it’s come to now look at 25 degrees a as nice as a nice day, but it had been. It was like negative three, negative four. In that winter of 2013. Yeah, it was January 2013 or so. winery, February March.

Pamela Bardhi
Oh my god. Chicago weather. I can’t. Just can’t do No,

Levi Lascsak
So luckily, I had an excuse to get out of there after a year. The excuses of I mean, you know, that’s the thing. It’s hard to take a southern boy to the north. I mean, I could I could survive in California. Or the Caribbean. There you go. Move me further south. I can handle that heats not a problem. Yeah, it’s the North. I’m definitely a warm blooded reptile.

Pamela Bardhi
I love that. That’s amazing. Well, it’s so interestingly, your trajectory and like all the different routes that you’ve taken throughout your journey. So after the pharmaceutical companies you came, went to Louisiana?

Levi Lascsak
Well, the pharma, the pharmaceutical company, yeah. took me back to Dallas for 18 months. And then they offered me a position at the corporate office, which was in Louisiana. Yep. And I was there for almost four years. Then they offered me the position in Chicago. So then I went to Chicago. That’s whenever I became sick, really sick. So you were there build, you saw my picture, right. What happened was, I came home from Iraq in 2006. With the digestive disease, it was ulcerative colitis is what it was. I went four years undiagnosed, because I was stubborn.

So for four years, I was having gut issues, you know, all other kinds of issues will save for another time. And, you know, it’s just that it always mess with me. But I was so stubborn that I didn’t even tell a doctor about it for four years. And finally, in 2009, I was like, Alright, this is a problem. So I need to go to doctors course I went to a doctor, he’s immediately sends me to a GI doctor. They do a colonoscopy, and they’re like, You got ulcerative colitis. For those that don’t know, that is similar to Crohn’s disease. It’s ulcers, you know, it’s literally ulcers.

So if you’ve ever had an ulcer in your mouth or a canker sore, imagine that in your colon or your intestines or something like that. Crohn’s disease affects you from the esophagus to your colon. So it’s anywhere from the throat to the stomach to the oesophagus, to the small intestine. Ulcerative colitis is just designated in the colon but it’s the same disease just in the colon. And that’s a problem, it’s a problem, because that’s where 90% of your nutrition gets absorbed. And the problem is that when food would get in there, if it touches an ulcer, it’s like, I don’t want to be here, get me out of here.

So that makes it a very inconvenient lifestyle. You know, when you have to when you see those commercials. If you ever see the ulcerative colitis commercials, they’re like the toilets, chasing them around. And that’s the way it was, you have no quality of life, because it’s very hard to control. Any type of bowel movement or anything like that. So that’s how bad it was, it got to a point to where, you know, you don’t want to go out you don’t want to hang out with friends.

You don’t want to go anywhere, because you know, and it’s not just, it could happen. It’s also frequency. Because if you take a drink of water, anything, any type of food, no matter what it is. As soon as it would get in your colon, your colons, like get out. Yeah, you know, that hurts. I mean, if you had a scrape on your hand, and I sit there and just poked at it. You would be like, Oh, don’t touch, you know, yeah, hanaway.

So imagine that on the inside. So 2009 I got diagnosed, they put me on medication, you know, doctors were like. Hey, no cure, you’re gonna have this the rest of your life get you on medication. And that’s it. You know, that’s it. I’m like, okay, like, does diet matter? Do I need to get in there? Like, no, none of that matters. diet doesn’t matter. You know, just you just need to be on medication forever. I was like, And that’s what I took that and 2013 Whenever I went to Chicago, it’s just one day. I remember the day I just went, my stomach started completely cramping up, it was like I never felt before.

And then the next thing I know, I’m just, there was the worst pain I started to go through. Over the next three months, it was just it was complete hell, but in that first month, I lost 50 pounds. So you go through that and you lose all that weight. And then on top of that, we just moved to Chicago, no friends, no family, nobody there for support. Then my mom and dad were going to come because my mom didn’t work. So she was going to come up but then she got Mersa which is, you know, a staph infection.

Like a you know, Skin staph infection, which she was able to get rid of that, but it’s highly contagious. And so I was like, I can’t even risk anything else. Yeah, I was like, You should come up here and kill me. So she wasn’t able to come while that happened. And, you know, you lose that lose the poundage and 30 days, I was literally skin and bones and bedridden. It got to the point where, you know I couldn’t sit up, I couldn’t lay down because my hip bones would just rub. Yeah, I mean, you’d lay down and just rub like on the bed. I was in the bathroom 24 times a day, literally every hour.

And I couldn’t hold in food or water, which is another reason. So I’d go to the hospital, they IV me, I’d feel amazing. As soon as I get home, and that IV dissipated, it was all over. So it’s either just stay in the hospital the whole time. Anyways, that just happened for three months for different I went to four different gi doctors. And by the end of it, they said, Look, you need to talk to a surgeon, you know, we need to cut out your colon. Like, cut it out. That’ll cure you. That was their solution. They said it will cut it out, you know, I mean, it’s crazy what they their solutions are. That was it.

I mean, that’s all they had, every single doctor told me the exact same thing. None of them wanted to deviate, I asked one specifically I was like, Well, can we try this or that? And he goes the New England Journal of Medicine tells me that this is what yeah, we’re gonna put you on this medication. When that doesn’t work, we put you on this medication that doesn’t work, we put you on this medication. When that doesn’t work, we cut out your colon. Like it’s like that,

Pamela Bardhi
Like how is that even like a ligat in you know, messes me up about these medications. The side effects, you know what I mean? Like they take a mental health patient who’s struggling with depression, say, for example, and you give them these antidepressants. And you look at the side effects, and they literally say suicide. Why the hell would I even risk tick? What it’s like that is not even remotely addressing the problem. It’s almost like sedation. Wow, no, no, and keep going. I just like I can’t even imagine just be like, Oh, no, it’s only this or this or this or this. I can’t even imagine what the side effects were on the other.

Levi Lascsak
Fortunately, well, the harsh stuff was bad. The medication they had me on was really, it was really kind of like, capsules full of milk. They’re designed to actually break up in your colon. So they’re really thick capsules to make it through your digestive system. And then they break up in your colon. It’s kind of like, you know, spreading milk coating, that’s what it was, was like a milk formula. And it would coat your colon to reduce the symptoms doesn’t cure you, right, just reduces inflammation for a time period. Which is why you have to continually take them every single day.

They never really truly worked for me. I still, you know, had issues. But that was their solution. So there wasn’t really any major side effects to that because it wasn’t going through the liver and getting digested and all that. Then whenever they put me on steroids, you know, steroids, that’s all that stuff is bad. Other medications, they were going to put me on Remicade, which Remicade is a low dose chemo infusion. And that’s what they do to a lot of Crohn’s and Colitis patients is they? Because they say it’s an autoimmune disease, and you need to kill everything.

I mean, it’s just bizarre. So but I didn’t go that route, I found a natural doctor, and the natural doctors like, Well, hey, let’s just change your diet. And again, the whole time the doctors were, that doesn’t matter. You know, eat what you want, go have some salsa and jalapenos and you know, everything else you just doesn’t matter. So the natural doctor is like, well, let’s change your diet and put you on some vitamins. And you know, and that’s what we started to do inside of three weeks. I started to get better.

Pamela Bardhi
All just off of diet. Yep. And every single other

Levi Lascsak
and supplements. Yeah, he put me on some supplements. So and every other doctor said you basically have no choice. So three weeks I started to get and he told me he goes it’s probably going to take about two weeks. And during that three months, I was still having the the cramping. Which was that was one of the worst things because it was almost every 10 minutes. I would just cramp up I mean, like buckling makes me clench tears in my eyes type of cramping. And it lasts for like one to two minutes but it’s so painful and the natural doctor. He’s like, this is going to take about two weeks I predict this supplements and I was like well, these cramps are killing me.

He said put peppermint oil in coconut oil. And anytime you get a cramp just rub that on your stomach. And I was like okay and went home and kept a little little thing of coconut oil with peppermint oil in there. Anytime I’d start to cramp I would just like grab a glob. Didn’t start rubbing on there and it would, instead of a cramp lasting two minutes, I’d get rid of it in like 2030 seconds. I mean, it was crazy peppermint and coconut oil with the peppermint oil in there.
So if you Yeah, if you suffer from some stomach cramps that, you know, clearly there’s a deeper issue but that was like a temporary fix. Yeah, but it was, you know, that was a game changer. So it made I made it through the two weeks, and then the cramping stopped. Once the cramping stopped. That’s whenever I was able to kind of gain get my appetite back and actually feel hungry. Because before I didn’t want to eat anything, I couldn’t hold anything in. But then I started to then I went on an elimination diet. Whenever after that happened, I ate chicken broth for two week.

Just straight chicken broth, no meat in there, just just chicken broth. So and then after two weeks, you know, put an egg in there and two eggs and then got some avocado. So very soft things absorbable things. And so that’s how I started to get myself back on that diet. Was eliminating everything and just started to kind of slowly work back in foods. After three to four weeks, all of a sudden, within a week I gained back 20 pounds. Then my appetite came back. If you ever heard of Michael Phelps diet? Yeah, you know, 5000 calories or something?

No, like 10,000 for breakfast? Michael Phelps would eat 10,000 calories for breakfast you ever see. Like, he would literally go to IHOP and get, you know, 20 pancakes and 20 strips of bacon in a row. And he would literally like 10,000 calories for breakfast because I mean, he would burn off like 20,000 calories swimming. So in the morning session, and then he’d go eat lunch. So I started eating probably 5000 calories a day. And easily I was started I was two breakfasts, two lunches, two dinners, almost. I’d eat a dinner and I’d be like, give me more, you know. I would wake up in the middle of night start and my appetite just came roaring back.

That actually before I gained the 20 pounds back that went on for three weeks, and I didn’t gain a pound. So for three weeks, I was eating just nonstop. I was so hungry, and deprived, natural doctor, you know, he was just like, he’s like, yeah, he goes, your body is so deprived. It’s just immediately consuming all those calories. And the thing was, it wasn’t my colon, you know, was was better. It was the supplementation, everything that he put me on that protocol. Yeah, and literally within a couple of weeks, like snuffed it all out.

So I was not only able to eat it. I was able to start going to the bathroom, like a regular person. Yeah. Then after three weeks, all of a sudden that next week is like I just popped on 20 pounds, like it just all of a sudden, Boo Boo. And then from there, it took another two weeks I gained back and now that my other 30 pounds within about the next 30 days. Because I’ve always been right around 190. I dropped down to 140. That picture that showed up on the screen, I was 140 pounds there. So that was it. And you know, came back from that.

And that’s whenever I started my financial services business, because I lost my job with the pharma company, I’d been there for eight years. At a job, they’re like, Hey, you can have 90 days off. And that’s it, they want you to come back to work. Clearly I wasn’t physically able to do that. So I ended up losing that job. After you give somebody eight years of your life, everything moved to three different states because of them. Then after 90 days, they’re kind of like, well, jobs a job, right? No, no, it’s okay. You know, well, yeah, have a position when you come back. It was like, what are you gonna do? You know,

Pamela Bardhi
right. Well, what were you supposed to do during that time? You couldn’t even I can only imagine what that feels like. And well, that’s the thing about you know, when people tell me, oh, you know, Job is financial security. And it’s this and it’s supposed to be like the safety belt to all things and it’s kind of like,

Levi Lascsak
well, that’s the other thing. So the natural doctors, they don’t take insurance. So that was all cash anyways, so my medical insurance. Yeah, would have been great if I got my colon cut out. But I’m glad I didn’t do that. So I ended up paying cash with that. It wasn’t just that doctor though, over that next year. I ended up seeing five different natural doctors, which the cool thing about that was each one of them. The first doctor, I kind of after like two or three after about three months, I hit a plateau with him.

And I found the next doctor at the right time and came into my life and then he kind of got me to the next step. Then from there, and when I kind of plateaued there, found the next doctor. So each one of them really helped me in a different progression of my recovery, but it was all cashed the whole time. But the good thing was is you know that’s why you want, you don’t want to be too conservative on your money. But it’s always good Have a little setback for emergencies. And that’s what got me through all that was having the savings the emergency fund.

Pamela Bardhi
Absolutely. And to anyone who’s listening right now that’s maybe going through a medical issue and doctors are telling me this and telling you like, this is your only options here. Yeah, to go out and look at different avenues, right? Because the same situation happened with Tony Robbins when he collapsed on stage in 2019. He went to every doctor in the world, nobody could help him. Then he went to Dr. Tennant here in Dallas. Actually, he’s out in Irving. really is life. Yeah.

Levi Lascsak
Is he a natural doctor? Yes, he is. He is out to get that information

Pamela Bardhi
plug in for the

Levi Lascsak
amazing. I’m about to buy a whole bunch of Gary brecha stuff. Oh,

Pamela Bardhi
yeah, that’s amazing stuff. But like what’s so cool in this day and age now is to see these things. Like, how can you move forward in life when your mind body and spirit are not aligned? Right? The body part? It can be so debilitating. I can imagine during that time, like what kind of quality of life could you have had that continued?

Levi Lascsak
Oh, I was I mean, it broke me mentally and physically. I thought Iraq was tough that Iraq was a cakewalk compared to those three months. That was it was absolutely horrific. Right. Terrible, terrible. And I was broken mentally. I mean, it was bad,

Pamela Bardhi
And like, how do you pull yourself out of that. Because there’s people that get stuck in that and then they make whatever is going on with them. Kind of like part of their identity, and they don’t even want to move forward with it. I’ve seen it a few times. I’m like, How can I help you man? Like, I don’t know what to do, you know what I mean? Because sometimes that illness takes over and you just don’t like the mindset because like you said it, it affects your mental mindset. And it’s like, how do you

Levi Lascsak
know that? For me? You have to keep looking? Exactly. You have to keep looking for answers. And then when you find an opportunity, you have to take action. It’s the same thing with the whole YouTube stuff right now. I mean I had a choice. Do I give up, you know, move to a Caribbean island? Or do I move forward and take action, find a different path. And then when you find that path, take massive action. So you know, when I found a natural doctor, I’d never considered a natural doctor.

I just, I didn’t even really knew they existed, probably. It was, but I was open. And whenever I met with him, and he was just like, he told me later, he thought I was gonna die like in his office. I mean, that’s how he bad he was. But he didn’t show that to me. Thank God, he was like, Alright, it goes, I think I can help you out. You know, he seemed. And that’s all I needed to hear. Whenever he was like, look, let’s get you on the supplements. He was extremely optimistic. Although we have a good relationship. We’re still friends.

And he’ll tell you to this day, he was like, I did not he goes, I didn’t think you’re gonna walk out of my office that day. Because I was just skin and bones, you know, and he said, I was definitely the worst person he’s ever helped. But he believed, you know, and he thought, Okay, I’m gonna, I’m gonna do it. And he didn’t show his cards to me and say, Oh, my God and the medical doctors. They would just look at me and be like, no cure.

Take this medication. Nope, nope. No, that I mean, they were so closed minded about everything. Well, what can I try? No, no, New England Journal medicine doesn’t say to do that. So therefore, you know, I mean, they’re just they used to call it practising medicine because they practised medicine. didn’t just do what they were told from a journal, you know? And so it is what it is.

Pamela Bardhi
Well, it’s just crazy. And thank God, you are open data that right? Because some people aren’t right, they don’t think to look at an alternative solution. And thank God you did. To anyone who’s listening right now that might be struggling with anything. If doctors are telling you one thing, please go out and try to find some alternative solutions. Because you just never know. Yeah, look at your case. I mean, two, three weeks, like what a freakin miracle. You know, and then like what that did for you, to heal you. Yeah, that’s incredible. That’s incredible.

Levi Lascsak
And that was almost 10 years ago. Actually, this will be the 10 year anniversary and not a single sign or symptom or issue ever since then. That’s God’s work right? That no medications. I haven’t even taken an Advil or Tylenol, Tylenol in 10 years, because I’m so naturally minded now. If you look at the long term side effects of that stuff as well, I’m just it’s just not worth it. But I really don’t get the funny thing is as immune compromised as I was back then, I haven’t even other than COVID.

I did get COVID Three times, but up until COVID I have not been sick, though, for the six seven years before that. And I used to get colds and flus all the time. Until I stopped getting a flu shot. And then I got my diet and actually, by the way, this is not medical advice at all whatsoever. I’m not a doctor and I don’t claim to be a doctor. I’ve just been through a lot of that. It events in my life so that’s why when COVID came around, I wasn’t even really concerned about it. Because whenever I looked at it and you looked at who it was really affecting.

Then I was like, Well, I don’t fall in that. And I felt so like, my immune system is so strong now, which I do believe is based on diet, you know. So now and I’m about to get my genetic tests back from Gary brecha. Actually, I am doing a one on one consultation with him as well. Because I’m all about it. If you don’t have your health, you can enjoy your wealth. And so what’s the point of making money and working your tail off if you’re not going to be in optimal health to enjoy it? so I’m willing to spend the money on health and good food. I know people say I’m not buying organic, because that’s stuffs way too expensive. I’m like, hey, that’s an investment in me.

Pamela Bardhi
Absolutely. Well, look, it brought you back. And I look at all the things that you’re doing now. What’s really amazing is, so you mentioned that you had a shift during COVID, which a lot of the world did. And you made this choice to go into the YouTube side of things. during a pandemic, not the easiest time to make any major decisions, right. But you did that and you went all in. Now, to anyone who’s maybe in a shift like this in their own life. What would be your recommendations on some action steps to help them and kind of model what you’ve done in your business?

Because now you guys are slaying it. Like it was a like top channel here in Dallas. And just like sales volume and everything, like your educational courses? I mean, you guys are just killing it on all angles. And when you look at it, what’s been 15 months? 18 months? 18? Yeah, 1818 months? Yeah. t’s like, it’s amazing. That’s like an entrepreneur’s dream, right. So just some tips and advice that you would give an entrepreneur is looking at transit and maybe start something new.

Levi Lascsak
I love whenever I encourage people that you can hyper learn any subject in 60 days. Because the amount of information that’s out there is available. And blogs and videos and YouTube and Google and books, I mean, the books are more plentiful than ever. And that’s what I truly believe. So I don’t know, YouTube’s not for everybody. But you if you’re struggling, you’ve got to find something you’ve got to find one way or another generate business is what it’s I don’t care what business you’re in. If you own your business, if you’re an agent you are, well, if you’re an agent, there’s ways to be a business owner. there’s ways to be a real estate agent.

So that’s the one thing I wanted to make sure is I didn’t come in to be a real estate agent I came in to be a business owner. And so that’s why I had to ask myself different questions and look at it a different way. I wasn’t going to come in and shake hands and kiss babies. Nothing wrong with that. But especially during COVID You know, there’s no meat. Yeah, you can’t shake hands and kiss babies anyway. So it’s like come within six feet, ya know? Am I gonna network with people? Alright, so that’s out.

So, yeah, so I had to think differently. And so once you find something, and this is what I really encourage people to do is follow the path of least resistance. Which is determined, first of all, are you a people person? Are you phone call person? a writer? Are you video person? Well, if you can put yourself in one of those categories, which I think everybody can, okay, let’s say you’re a people person. Well, if you’re a people person, and you’re in the real estate business, what can you do to meet people. You can do open houses, you can do networking events, you can join a club. You know, you can go rub shoulders with a lot of people in a lot of different ways.

And if that’s your thing, go all in on that learn how to do the absolute best Open House possible. You know, there’s trust me, there’s books on how to run an open house, there’s YouTube videos on how to run an open house. Somebody has a course on how to run an open house. I didn’t watch Tiger King during COVID. Okay, so let me leave it. Well, I think you’re already successful by then. So, you know, hey, if I was at where I was at right now. I might say, Oh, this is a good time to watch some Netflix.

If COVID were to happen, right? Or something like that, but I wasn’t in that position I was starting over. And so I said, this is not time for me to catch up on every Netflix show. This is time for me to figure out what am I going to do with the next chapter in my life? And so I sat on my computer for 12 15 hours a day, you know, researching, looking looking for answers. And ultimately, what led me down to YouTube is I was looking at all the other social platforms.

And then I just had to stop and I was like, okay, if I’m going to be an agent. Then I had to take a look at the brokerage now because Michael was with exp. He wanted the brokerage model made sense to me. But at the same time, I’m like, yeah, alright, so I was like, I’m gonna make this work. Okay, how do I do this? Well, I started to look at who’s the top up agents, the top attractors in exp. And so when I started looking at the top five, top six, top seven, I found one common trait. All of them had a really strong presence on YouTube. And so I thought, well, maybe YouTube is the way to go.

And then I’m kind of an old school person. So the first thing I did was buy all the YouTube marketing books I could find. And that book right behind me YouTube secrets. Yeah. Which were featured in, by the way, hey, yeah, well, here’s the other thing. We weren’t 18 months ago, they just came out with the second edition. we’re in that book. Let’s go. Can you believe that? I mean, I can’t Yeah, that’s the drastic change you can have from going nothing. To featured in one of the best selling YouTube books now because I picked up that book. when I picked up that book, Benji had one small paragraph and like chapter nine. it said, you know, he had a real estate channel in 2009.

So you talk about the OG of real estate possibly could be Benji Travis. And he had a channel called home deals TV, I believe. He said he was a struggling agent, you know, barely doing 10 deals a year, we’re about to get out of real estate. And then HUD approached him because of his YouTube channe. gave him the contract for the Pacific Northwest. He ended up listing all the HUD homes and next year sold over 100 homes because of his YouTube channel. so that was like, Oh, that was in attraction model,.

It was putting the information and that’s what he talked about. But it’s only he only mentioned that, like two paragraphs in that book. So then I thought, Oh, okay. So YouTube, but all they talked about is YouTube’s a search engine. I was like, that’s the problem. I’m looking at these other platforms or social media platforms. And because I’m 41 I’ve got this love hate relationship with social media. You know, didn’t grow up with it in high school wasn’t there? You know?

Pamela Bardhi
Yeah, that’s what we did. Yeah. So damn, kids used to never had

Levi Lascsak
I still had not bought into social media. Because yeah, we look at it and we go, alright, it’s people just bragging posting their lunch and silly cat videos. Yeah, that’s dancing. But then then we’re like, well, the 20 and 30 year olds are like making some money off of this stuff. So now we’re going okay, maybe we should take a closer look. And so that’s why I was like, Alright, if I’m gonna do this. I’m gonna do it through social Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok. Because that’s what everybody was talking about. And it just didn’t sit well.

In my gut. I was kind of like, it’s, it’s not me. It’s like, how am I going to jump on there? And then all my friends and family are gonna be like, Oh, you’re in real estate. Now you’re dancing real estate agent. Oh, you make pointy videos. You know, I’m like, is that what I’m supposed to do? And I couldn’t, I just couldn’t see myself doing that. And so that’s whenever I stopped. I’m like, Okay, let me look at the top agents. At exp, what are they doing? I just noticed, I was like, Okay, you see some up there.

I’m like, Oh, they’ve all got strong presence on YouTube. What? Let me buy YouTube books. Benji is talking about a channel providing value. And YouTube’s not a social media platform, it’s a search engine. If you can create content that people are already searching for. They’re going to find it a lot better than me trying to dance on on tick tock and try to you know, convert somebody 12 months later. So that was the aha moment. And from there, it was like, Okay, well, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m going all in, I’m not going to try to be everywhere.
Because if if you try to be everywhere, everywhere starting out. guess what, you’re gonna put 20% effort into five different platforms. Pick one platform go all in. And I think it’s easier after you master a platform to branch off and the other ones and build your brand, too. So I just went all in on YouTube, and started that and a ride around in the 90 day mark is I’d met Travis a little bit earlier than that. But we weren’t working together in the beginning.

But at the time when clients started to come in, that’s when we started to hang out together. And I didn’t want to show homes either. That was the other thing. I was like, Well, how am I going to be a real estate agent not show home? Probably need a partner and whenever I met Travis. Travis was like, Hey, man, I want to sell 100 homes a year you know, I’m just gonna close them home. I want to sell some homes,I don’t you know, I’m like wait, but he didn’t want to prospect for it. You know,

Pamela Bardhi
they’re like this dynamic duo. I was like, I don’t want to be out there. I’ll get him for you. I’ll go fish you just take the fish yeah, go go.

Levi Lascsak
He didn’t want to fish he just wanted to close it actly and so we’re like okay. Well maybe we got something here. so the when the client started to come in, I was like, let me. I’ll go show him homes I will take them around and then he started closing deals

Pamela Bardhi
as pineapple shirt.

Levi Lascsak
Oh my god. Yeah. We still go back and forth a little bit. We have discussions all the time. It’s funny because he sometimes he calls me his dad sometimes. I gotta do a little regulate you know? Ah, Gotta try to I appreciate I definitely love him for who he is. And I never want to have somebody present themselves who they’re not right. But at the same time I do find there’s a, there’s a line of professionalism sometimes. But it’s, he knows it’s yes.

He has some interesting sweat shirts and things like that he would wear to conferences. And I just be like, I don’t know if that’s the best. let’s How about we not wear that to the conference? And he just be like, Oh man, I don’t see anything wrong with this at all. I’d say, well, let’s rock and roll. Can you do me a favour? And you know, he’s, he’s super cool. He’s like, all right, man, if that’s he’s like, it’s important to you. So you’re like,

What Would Levi’s Older Self Tell His Younger Self

Pamela Bardhi
well, that’s a dynamic duo right there too. And I mean, like, it’s just so amazing to hear your trajectory of like, where you’ve been. all the different pivots that you’ve taken. And like, now you’re here, I mean, you guys are blowing up. this is just two years in, which is incredible. So like one of the things that I would ask you based on your journey, and everything that you’ve done. What was your older self tell your younger self, based on what you know?

Levi Lascsak
So I believe I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. Amen. There is only one thing. If I could change one thing that would be to take the internet seriously in 2000. To take Facebook seriously, in 2005, to take Facebook advertising seriously in 2009. You know, that’s the only thing I would have. But I don’t know I that see all of that, if I would have done that, I might have went down a different path. And I might have never met a natural doctor, and I might have a colon today.

And I might be the sickest rich guy ever, and maybe even dead, you know, right. But so that’s why I feel like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. But the thing is because I still had that mentality of that limited mindset of the internet, that’s just, it’s silly, or that’s a fad. I literally thought that Facebook came out, it’s like, oh, well, Facebook, it’s stupid. It’s for college kids, you know of instead of being curious. instead of saying, let me take a look at this, maybe there’s something to that, right.

Whenever Facebook advertising comes out in 2009, you know, what, maybe I should study how to run a Facebook ad. And although they had the absolute best data points on anybody at any time, given. You know, even possibly better than Google at the time, I think Google’s far superior now. But at that time, yeah. And so this is a big reason why right now, like blockchain, and FTS

Pamela Bardhi
just gonna ask you how you felt the know. Well, that well, that’s,

Levi Lascsak
that’s why I’m a big advocate for it right now. Because I’m not going to put myself in that position again. So right now, we need if you’re a real estate agent, I’m telling you right now, you need to take it seriously. Don’t be the agent in five years that is like, well, maybe I should start learning about this NFT thing. because, you know, that’s where everything’s going to be moving towards.

Pamela Bardhi
Well, every house is going to be on an NF t. So I’m part of consortia which is the only sec certified blockchain designation for real estate period going out in the country. I don’t know if you’ve heard about it, consortia. Yeah, yeah, we do some stuff. So the blockchain is you know, web 3.0. that’s gonna be a whole new that’s gonna be a whole new world. Yeah. You know, and it’s like, if everything’s moving on there. you better move fast because the first ones to the gate. always win.

Levi Lascsak
Yeah. It’s funny, you know, like Gary Vee. You know, Tik Tok was musically before Tik Tok. Right.

Pamela Bardhi 
Was it? Was it really? Oh, snap. No, I didn’t.

Levi Lascsak
Okay. Had you heard of musically? No, that was Tik Tok. And I remember Gary Vee talking about musically. because Gary Vee is like, the ultimate curious guy. he’s like, I’m gonna futurists Yeah, he’s like, I’m gonna get it. So people would be like, Oh, musically stupid. And Gary Vee would be like, it’s a social platform. I’m gonna get on there, I’m gonna play with it. I’m going to use it.

I’m going to learn. I’m going to understand it. Will it go out of business? Six months, maybe he goes, but I’m gonna learn things about it. And I’m going to understand it and what happened. It turned it turned into tick tock, It had actually the same. It wasn’t the tick tock, It had the what’s the Tick Tock logo. Now it’s like a little it’s still a symbol is what do they call that? The treble clef? The treble clef?

Pamela Bardhi
Yeah, I think so. It’s okay. Yeah, I can, that’s

Levi Lascsak
what it was. But it was music dot L EY. That’s what the app was before. And I remember Gary Vee at that time and even at that time. Because that was just before, you know, I made the shift. I was still at the time going, Oh, okay dancing on musically, you know, dancing videos. I was kind of like I’m definitely that’s definitely not me. so again, I remember I downloaded musically app B just because of what Gary Vee said. And I played around with it, but I still had a limited mindset to go. This is silly, you know, okay, I don’t see any utility for this, I don’t see use of it. of course, it turns just renames to tick tock is the same app.

And then all of a sudden, you know, who knows Kendall Jenner, and everybody else gets on there and right. then it blows up and then crazy. think about the first real estate agents they got on there and started to take it seriously. And use it as a producer versus a consumer. So if we continually look at these things from a consumer side, you’re not going to fully understand it. Which is why whenever I say hyper learn something, what I did was study YouTube for 60 days. To learn it, learn the fundamentals and principles of the platform, and how does the platform work? Then you can look at how does it apply to real estate?

How does it apply to financial advising? How does it apply to a plumber? I mean, there’s a plumber, we’ve had a plumber on, you know, he lives here in Dallas. Roger Wakefield, 450,000 subscribers. does a million dollars a year and brand deals is sponsored by Lowe’s and Home Depot. And he talks about clogged toilets on YouTube. And that’s what he does. Now he runs. It’s funny, and I call them I had a plumbing issue that day. his van pulls up, it looks like a huge YouTube thumbnail. You know, and the branding is consistent there.

But I’m saying that a plumber has an audience of 450,000 people brand deals in the millions. You know, it’s a utility. It’s a search engine, right? People watch that content love him. I mean, you know, I mean, Home Depot and Lowe’s or plumbing companies can say. Hey, this guy’s got 450,000 people directly interested in plumbing. Why would we not advertise there? Why would we put, you know, Drano on TV, whenever who knows who it’s going to hit? It’s gonna hit right? Yeah, that there’s opportunity there. And now more than ever, you could be a quilter. You know, there’s, you can make money off of quilting right now. Because there’s an audience out there. It’s insane. And they’re on YouTube.

Pamela Bardhi
It’s insane. I just, Oh, my God, the opportunities are endless. And like speaking of which, what’s up in your world in the next like six to 12 months leave? I’m like, I can’t even imagine what you guys are up to? What’s your cheffing? up over here?

Levi Lascsak
Well, we’re already caught we’re already planning for next year. So the one thing we do is we we map out conferences for the next year. Because they’re already pretty much out there. So we look at all video and real estate conferences. we determine which ones do we want to attend? Which ones you know, can we get to? Are we going to be speaking at any of them? If we’re not, is it worth it to go? but ultimately, every conference we’ve been to this year. I could write a book on this. Because of the people we meet the things we learn. or the relationships we build, based on each and every conference.

So what everybody always looks at is today’s cost versus tomorrow’s value. And you can’t look at the monetary return on a plane ticket and a conference ticket and a hotel room you can’t look at you. It’s very hard to measure and say, Oh, well, I spent $2,000 to get here. I’m going to make 3000 back doesn’t really work like that. You’re going to spend 2000 to get there and it may return you $100,000. But how do you directly connected except for the relationship or the person that I met because of this opportunity? You saw the story at Build, right? If had not been at Build last year, when nobody knew who we were crazy, right? My God.

But here’s the story to that. If you got a minute, yeah, let’s do it. So if I was not at Build last year, I would have never taken that picture. You know, and I wouldn’t have heard Jay Kinder say on stage because that’s Jay Kinder was on stage. And he said, The people that tell me they’re going to be on stage, end up on stage. that’s why I took that picture. And that’s why I sent him the picture and said no. because I was sitting in the very back row, the least expensive ticket. I said nosebleeds this year on stage next year and I sent that to him, just him. because he said he said the people that tell me that they’re going to be on stage will be on stage.

But it doesn’t just stop there. You can’t just go sit on the couch and manifest that now. You’ve got to put in the work. But here’s the deal. They release Cabo at build. So the Cabo event gets released at Build and it typically sells out because you think about it. There’s 6000 agents that build there’s only 1000 agents that can go to Cabo. Okay, so they release it a build, guess what happens? It gets all hooked up. So we booked Cabo from build last year. We go to Cabo. And what happens at Cabo is Brent, Gove and Jean Frederick are on stage. And guess what they say?

They say, if you want to be on stage or you think you should be on stage. you need to tell us, you need to let us know. Don’t be shy. Don’t think that you’re bragging or it’s ego. They said, We want to hear this. We don’t know everybody’s story. You know, we don’t hear all the successes out there. We know you’re out there. So you got to tell us. I was standing in the back again, the back row at Cabo. I was standing there and Brent got off a stage, walked the perimeter, and came and stood right next to me, not on purpose just randomly. While I was sitting there listening to the next speaker, and I looked over. I’m like, Who’s this person in my space? You know? Who’s his crowd me over here.

And I look over and it’s Brent Gove. I’m like, Hey, Brent. And he’s like, Hey, I was like, my name is Levi. He’s like, hey, Levi. I was like, We met once before, And he’s like, okay, yeah, cool. I was, like, I said, we should be on stage at build. he goes, okay. He goes, send me a video. Can you send me a video and I was like, send you a video I think I could send you. just it goes, keep it short. Tell me your results. a little bit of your story. Just send me a video and I’ll check it out. I was like, Cool. So that happened in Cabo? Well, I recorded that video was only about 10 minutes or so.

And I told him about our results. And I told him my story on the back end, I sent that to him. Well, there was an event in Dallas a one day real estate event called billionaire’s mindset. We were supposed to speak there, we got invited to speak there. then we got pulled last minute, and we got pulled last minute, but we still went. So I know that there is some behind the scenes stuff. because when you grow this fast, it’s going to rub some people the wrong way.

Pamela Bardhi
Oh, hell yeah. That’s how you know you’re doing something right.

Levi Lascsak
And so you know, but I’m just like, hey, that’s like I said, I know I’m doing something right. And if some people are concerned about it, then they’re probably just threatened anyways. So, Brent Gove is not threatened by my success at all whatsoever.

Pamela Bardhi
He’s a man, yeah, I

Levi Lascsak
love him. You’re not threatened by our success. You don’t feel like we’re gonna take anything away from your real estate business. So we got invited to speak there and then got pulled. But what I could have done is I could have said, this is a bunch of bullshit. This is not, you know, we’re not going to that instead, I said, No problem. we’re still going to go and because it was in Dallas a one day event. We invited our whole team, we wanted our team to go because we want them to be involved. I said, we’re gonna go anyways, but only Travis and myself knew about getting pulled. So we didn’t come in here and cry to the team and say all kick dirt and sand, you know, we said no, let’s go we can.

Let’s see what we can learn. I didn’t know Brando was speaking at that event. And he literally watched that video two days before he got there. So whenever I walked in, and he’s there in the event, His eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. he was just like, Levi, he goes, that you’re he’s like, your story’s amazing blew me away. He’s like, Oh, my God. And then when he spoke up there, he spoke for an hour and a half. I swear, it felt like for an hour, he just talked about us about how amazing we were, how he had been in real estate for 27 years. Never heard of a story like this and just went on and on and on. he was like, he was like, leave, I stand up. He’s like, You better talk.

And to me, that was also a little redemption, right? Because I was like, I know, we got pulled from there to speak. But then that was way better to have someone like Brian go, Yeah, talk about that. so that was cool. Now, afterwards, Brent was like, Levi, it’s not completely up to me. He said, There’s a committee for build. And we get 150 applications, we can only choose 40 people. he goes, everybody deserves to be there. So I can’t promise you anything he said, but I got a pretty strong vote. because but and he goes, I’m pulling for egos but, and I said, You know what brand I said I appreciate the opportunity.

Anyways, from there, we stayed in touch and then I get a cell phone number and then we start texting. And then next thing I know, Brent’s just like, asked me to come on Zoom calls and do trainings with his team and everything starts. so he’s so excited and so happy. And then from there, we go to shareholders, this shareholders event. It’s a conference and I go there, and somebody from there, I run into them in the bathroom. I don’t know who they are, but they’re like Levi, I heard you speak at one on Brent had you on one of our zoom calls? And I was like, Cool and goes, Can you come speak at our event in Tahoe? So cool. I was like, Yeah, okay. 17,000 square foot of cabin overlooking Lake Tahoe.

I was absolutely yeah. You get an invite in the bathroom to go speak there. I was like, Sure. Well guess what? Brent Gove is speaking at that event. so now Brian gets to see me speak for real. all of that is the series of events of showing up. And then about a week after that, I believe Brent, text me. he’s like you made it, you know, he’s like, they picked your story. So you’re gonna be up there. And that was it, And then they’re like, you gotta keep it secret. I can’t tell anybody. That was just their thing. They like to keep that stuff secret. But that was a year ago. You know, and this is what we talked about with our real estate team.

You know, if I would have said that $500 ticket last year was too expensive. And I didn’t go, none of that would have happened? Correct. None of that would have happened. Zero. so you can’t put a monetary return, I believe on these conferences and these opportunities. And just like with yourself coming in here. Hey, do you have time? Absolutely. I’ve time. You know, people asked me to be can you do? I say yes. Yep. Everything else is going to work around it. Because I don’t know. But I know that. If I can help you out, you know, provide for your show. You’re helping us out?

Because we’ll get content out of this as well. plus nine, I noticed how cool you are? Yeah, like, alright, you know, and, and that’s, yeah, that’s what, that’s what it’s about. And I cannot say, you know, so even though downstairs, you told me Hey, I appreciate you taking your time like no, this is, this is a great opportunity. I appreciate you, you know, for the invite. so that’s that’s the cool thing about it. But I can’t directly measure. I mean, my I can tell you my hourly worth, right. But I’m not going to say this hour cost me that, you know. and I can’t tell you what the return is going to be on it. But I just know that if I continue to show up and help people that the return will come back in one way or another.

Pamela Bardhi
Absolutely. And like it’s what you mentioned, it’s all relationships at the end of the day. And like those things lead to things that you will just never dream of. Yep. Never ever, ever dream up. it’s just such a gift. But when you set your intention, that’s when you go far. that’s what I love. I just can’t wait to see where you guys are next year, like a year from now. Like you’re just moving at such like light speeds. Like it’s amazing to see the growth and like. so what’s planned for the next six months for you guys?

Levi Lascsak
I said 20 minutes ago? Yeah, no,

Pamela Bardhi
no, no set conferences. Yeah, we

Levi Lascsak
schedule that. And then we work everything around it. I think for us, it’s just continued movement towards progress. Yeah, you know, I love the book, Simon Sinek wrote the infinite game. it really kind of put things in perspective. It’s you know, because I’ve always achieved goals. but I’ve never really felt like, Okay, I’m gonna sit back now. It’s always like, Okay, on to the next one we do things, we accomplish things. It’s kind of like, alright, let’s Yeah, keep moving on to the next thing. So, for us, it’s a continual motion, and staying active and progressing. every single day, I mean, there’s a lot, we got so much stuff we’re working on. but the only way you can do that is just day by day. And just taking steps towards the goal every single day.

But there’s different goals. And the goals are always moving, And that’s okay. And we talked a little bit about this the other day. I don’t really like the word failure, I think the only way you fail is by completely quitting and stopping. You know, we’ve done things that that we just learned, you know, it may not be the right path for us at the time. if we have to stop or readjust. We just learned something. but I also believe it’s better to make decisions in a position of power when things are good. Because if it doesn’t work out, or you need to adjust, it’s easier to do that when things are going well.

Because you’re either going to make position decisions in the position of power or the position of fear, yeah, or desperation, right, when your backs up against the wall. And then when your backs up against Wall usually have less resources to work with. And then also you run the risk of being desperate and making mistakes. so, you know, but also that’s the time that you can come out and you know, have the biggest success story. So I see both sides of it. But ideally, it’s like when we hired a you know, a teen real estate coach, even when things were going well. instead of waiting till things got bad or we got stuck, or we said we’re just like no, let’s hire a coach. Now because we’re growing a team.

They on track. Yeah, we’ve run businesses before but we hadn’t run a real estate team. So we wanted somebody overlooking our shoulder to keep an eye on us to make sure that we don’t step in the potholes along the way. Wait, let’s stay smooth, as best as possible. And he ran an ad person real estate team, you know, he ran a mortgage company he exited. So you know, so he’s got the experience. And that was a good fit for us, for someone to look over our shoulder. so even though we didn’t need it, or we could have said, Oh, we don’t need to take on that expense, because they’re not cheap.

Coaches, good coaches are not cheap. No, we said, this is a this is a necessary expense. Because, you know, we feel like it’s gonna keep us out of out of trouble. So, you know, the next six months is I will say this, that we’re working on a book. So the book what we’ve been told as possibly January timeframe for that. it’s called passive prospecting. And that’s what we’re building this whole concept on, of the power of video. especially through YouTube is passive prospecting. Going back to my the original story of my motivation. to not have to cold call and Dornoch and spend money on postcards.

Nothing wrong with that, again, I know a lot of agents that have built very successful businesses out of it just wasn’t for me. And I think we all love the idea of passive income. But passive income comes with a lot of work upfront. Yes. Just like passive prospecting, you know, you have to build the content, you have to build the videos. But once you do that, they work for you. 24/7 365, and not even really 24/7. We talked about the concept of compounding time. And that’s what video does for you. I mean, you know, for example, our channels watched 1500 14 hours in one day. 1514 hours in one day, that’s equivalent to 63 days.

who can compete, you can’t have a team, you can’t have an inside sales team that can compete with the return of hours from that timeframe. so that’s the power of last in July, our channels were watched 1.34 years, in one month, in 18 months. it’s been watched equivalent to 14.8 years. So we’ve gained in one and a half years, we’ve gained one and a half decades worth of prospecting. That’s insane, That’s a compound effect. That’s the compounding your time. And that is passive prospecting.

Because once we created one video, it’s now prospecting for us 20, not just 24/7 multiples. because 10 people can watch that one video in one hour. And if they all watch that video for one hour, that gives you 10 hours because you just reach 10 People over an hour. So that’s the compound effect, calls door knocking hands, that’s all one to one. You know, you can only end even if you have 10 salespeople. they can only call one person at one time. But a video can be watched by 10 people inside of one hour and return you 10 hours in that one hour.

Pamela Bardhi
It’s so mind blowing. Yes. So mind blowing, I just can’t wait to see the growth and all that I can’t wait for that book release as well. It’s gonna be so exciting. I definitely have to come back to come back to Dallas for that one for sure. We’ll

Levi Lascsak
send you one. Yeah, for sure.

Pamela Bardhi
And speaking of the channel, yep. Gotta let us know where to find you, my friend.

Levi Lascsak
Well, the best place right now is passive prospecting.com. Yeah, I would say go there, sign up for the so you can be the first to know when the book comes out. We’re compiling that list. It’s not we’re not going to, you know, sell it, we’re just going to let you know that the book is released. And of course, we want everybody’s support to go out and buy the book when it’s released. We would love to, you know, get a high velocity of sales on that. It was funny, you know, you learn these things as you go through the process. Never, you know, written a book, but we’re working with a publisher on it. And I was like, well, let’s do pre sales.

And they said, well, pre sales don’t count towards actual sales when the book is released. So if you pre sell 10,000 copies, that doesn’t count towards the velocity. if you want to make it on bestseller list, you know, wow, I was like, okay, good. Good to know right now, because that’d be like, let’s pre sell it all day. But no. so they’re like, well, so Okay, let’s, let’s collect the list. And that way we can let everybody know. hopefully within that first week, we can drive you know, a lot of traffic.

Because we I think we’ve got a pretty good audience. And I know we’ve got a lot of, you know, really great people that enjoy the content we put out there. So this will be a very consolidated and concise way. Plus, hopefully it’ll be I don’t know what the pricing will be. But you know, let’s say 20 bucks or 24 bucks, maybe it’s full on I mean, it’s going to be legit. This isn’t going to be like Amazon self publishing type, you know, paperback, yeah, we’re, we’re making it real. So that’s a cool opportunity. So check us out passive prospecting.com

Pamela Bardhi
passive prospecting, calm. Oh my god. Levi. It’s been an honour to have you here today. I absolutely loved hearing your story. I like just can’t wait to see where you go from here on out like oh my god just honoured to be part of your journey as well. And to know you guys and like just watch what happens from here. because this is you’re only just scratching the surface honestly. Yep, you really are. So thank you so much, my friend. Thank you. So that’s it for today’s episode of underdog catch us next week, always dropping on Thursdays. And remember, if you’re interested in real estate or want to learn how to create more money and magic in your life. check out meet with pamela.com and let’s chat sending you so so much love is all the time