Building Attainable Housing, Investor Trust, and a Purpose-Driven Life

Introducing Dusten and Mailbox Money

00:00Dusten Hendrickson: Hey, how's it going, everybody? I am Dusten Hendrickson, president and CEO of Mailbox Money, and I love Jesus and real estate, specifically architecture, and we help people to invest passively in real estate, so you can become an owner one day. You're listening to the purpose-driven entrepreneur.

00:19Timmy Bauer: Dusten, thank you so much for being a guest on my show. I really appreciate you coming on.

00:24Dusten Hendrickson: Yeah, you're welcome. That's actually the most challenging intro I've ever done in a podcast, so good job.

00:30Timmy Bauer: You nailed it. That was really, really good. And now I have so many different things I want to ask you about, like the fact that you put love Jesus in your introduction, that says a lot about you. So that's really cool. Yeah, there's so much that I would want to ask you about, but the first question that I just want to ask is, what exactly is your business? Like, how does it work? Who do you sell to? Yeah, what's the-

00:54Dusten Hendrickson: So the most simple way to explain it is that we build apartments, and we build very efficient, affordable workforce housing apartments that are modern and are very desirable for the next generation that it's going to be hard for them to afford to go buy a starter home. And then we put a bunch of investors together that invest in that project, so now they all become owners. So we offer two products. We offer affordable housing to municipalities for the young professionals, and we offer passive investments for all of our investors.

01:27Timmy Bauer: Yeah, awesome. And I was listening to on another podcast, because when people hear you say affordable housing, their mind immediately goes to like, oh, so like government housing. So like, and then oftentimes their mind goes to, oh, that's like that trashy neighborhood that I know about.

01:44Dusten Hendrickson: Yep, and that's not what we do.

01:47Timmy Bauer: Yeah, so how do you define affordable then?

Building for the missing middle

01:50Dusten Hendrickson: So there's big A affordable, which is what you're describing, government housing section eight, which is very undesirable. And then there is little A affordable, which just means attainable market rate. It's on the lower end of the market rate. And it's the missing middle that almost nobody builds for, because it's very challenging to build in that space, but we have designed a plan that it's actually easy for us to build. And then we just approach different municipalities that have growth prospects and have good incomes in their communities and they need housing for all their workers.

02:22Timmy Bauer: Yeah, okay. So tell me a little bit more about what do you mean by like the missing middle? What's the price range of that? And like, who are those people?

02:30Dusten Hendrickson: So the missing middle is section eight where most people actually don't even qualify because they make too much money. And then you've got all these brand new, nice A class apartments that are being built everywhere with swimming pools and huge hallways and underground parking and they're fully amenities. Well, we build right in the middle where we give you the same interior and exterior you'd get on a class A. So you're proud to live there, super nice interior. It just doesn't have all the bells and whistles. So your rent is 50% of the amount of that class A

03:02Dusten Hendrickson: and anyone, you don't have to qualify to live in it. Anybody can rent it. There's no income qualifications.

03:09Timmy Bauer: What are some examples of bells and whistles that are not like part of what you do that's part of class A apartments?

03:19Dusten Hendrickson: Underground parking, elevators, pools, gyms, hot tub, dog park, all of that kind of stuff.

03:29Timmy Bauer: Okay.

03:30Dusten Hendrickson: Golf simulators, big community rooms with all the stuff. We don't have any of that. So we have very little common space. So we don't have to have a multitude of janitors taking care of all this common space all the time. You walk into your apartment and there is 12 to 14 units off this vestibule and that's it. And then we take that same print and we copy and paste and we pop out. We just build it everywhere. We don't have to redesign this. So we save on our MEPs and our structural engineering and our architecture.

04:04Dusten Hendrickson: It's because we don't have to redesign for every single site. We just take the same print and use it over and over and over.

How the model evolved

04:10Timmy Bauer: Okay, gotcha. How long have you been doing this? So I listened to you on another podcast. You said, I think you said you were doing in 2018 something changed. I'm not sure actually.

04:22Dusten Hendrickson: So in 2018 is when we found the syndication model. I've been developing since 2003. So a long time, but we started at duplexes and we were just using our own money. Maybe if you'd meet this guy or that guy he'd bring in money and fund a deal. Then we found syndication where we learned we could bring everyone's money in the deal. Then after we found that model, we realized that we could develop using the syndication model. Cause we were just purchasing, doing the syndication model purchasing. Then we realized, hey, we can syndicate and develop and there's not many people doing that.

04:54Dusten Hendrickson: And then when construction prices skyrocketed in 2020 prior to interest rates going up, we found this attainable model or this modern workforce housing model, which we call it. And that's when everything changed because it was the easiest to rent. We had it fully leased out because we were able to build one building, rent it, build the next building, rent it, build the next building, rent it. So we realized that it was super efficient. It was full before any of our other projects were full. And then it was the most profitable. So as interest rates kept going up,

05:28Dusten Hendrickson: we were still able to build this. And so as people weren't able to buy existing or even develop the A class with all the amenities, we were still able to develop and we're still able to develop now without any government assistance. And that's very rare.

05:45Timmy Bauer: That's awesome. What's the, like, what does the rent usually cost in these apartments?

05:52Dusten Hendrickson: So studios, some of them are at $800 up to three bedrooms, go up to about $2,000, depends on where you're at though. We've had three bedrooms rent for $1,500 in some markets.

06:04Timmy Bauer: Okay, gotcha. It's actually been a while since I've been in an apartment. I think the last time I lived, so I lived, so when I got married in 2021, I was like blanking. Don't blank on when you got married. When I got married in 2021, that's when I needed to go looking for an apartment. And I did not want to live in an apartment because they were just so expensive. And I was able to find like a, have you heard of or have you seen there? It's like, you can build a single family home, have a detached garage

06:38Timmy Bauer: and then have an apartment above the garage. Have you ever seen those?

06:41Dusten Hendrickson: Yeah, ADU, yep.

06:43Timmy Bauer: Yes, I was like, that's what I want. Because I feel like I'll be able to find a better price that way. And so we went out searching and we found one of those to live in. So that's technically the last time.

06:53Dusten Hendrickson: Are you living in the ADU you're saying? Or you bought that? Yeah, okay.

06:57Timmy Bauer: Yeah, no, we could not afford a house. Like when we first got married, like we couldn't afford a house. I also, as a business owner, profit is just constantly going up and down for me. And like for a while, I was like, I don't even know if I'll ever be able to buy a house because the mortgage companies wanna see two years of stable, steady, good profit in your business. And that actually ended up changing.

07:28Timmy Bauer: So in 2023, we had one like nice year of profit. And we were able to find a mortgage company that would do a type of mortgage where they're like looking at one year. And I don't even know how they did this, but they did it. And we were able to buy a house with just showing one year of our business.

07:49Dusten Hendrickson: There's always a way. That's why you gotta keep trying because you can make it happen.

07:52Timmy Bauer: Yeah, yeah. And so we bought a town home. There's something else that you said on another podcast where you were like, the single family starter home era is over. I thought that was interesting and that kind of matches our experience because we had to buy a town house. We could not afford a single family home. I don't even understand how, I don't understand our real estate market in general because I'm like, oh, so houses just cost a million dollars now and that's it?

08:21Dusten Hendrickson: Yeah. I mean, the people that are in the house, if they had to go buy their house they're in, most people can't afford the house they're in. That's crazy. Even my house that I live in that I built 10, 15 years ago, I couldn't afford the house that I live in if I had to go buy it on the market right now.

08:38Timmy Bauer: It's wild. That is wild.

08:40Dusten Hendrickson: But I think a lot of people are in that same position.

08:43Timmy Bauer: Yeah. So, but you don't sell units, right? Like this is all, like these are apartments that get rented.

08:50Dusten Hendrickson: Correct. I used to sell units and it's, selling units is a lot harder. Renting is easier because it's just more stable and you can sell the entire batch of units later on. It's also cheaper for the renter. If a renter came in and had to purchase our units, it'd be much more expensive for them because the way the buildings would have to be built and just all the fees involved with transacting versus renting, there's a lot of cost to purchasing and selling real estate. Yeah.

09:17Timmy Bauer: What do you see? I know this is outside of like what your business is, but what do you see as the solution to that problem? Or do you think that's-

09:24Dusten Hendrickson: There is no solution. If you go to Europe, I think that we were super blessed in the United States for a hundred years or however many years. If you go to Europe, you don't see any young kids buying a home. That's unheard of. Even go to Canada now, same thing. We're just a little bit behind those communities. And so USA is a little different. America is a little different, I should say, because it's such a capitalistic society. There's ways to get around things. But if you go to most places, most places 22-year-olds are not buying houses.

09:59Dusten Hendrickson: It's just not how it really works in the world. So most people are renting almost everywhere. And I think that we, as globalization happens, you're just not going to be able to buy a house. And I think older, more established, wealthier people are going to buy the houses. Even the houses that you think aren't even that nice, these littler houses, they're super expensive now that are kind of in the middle of towns that used to be cheap.

10:23Timmy Bauer: That's so sad.

10:24Dusten Hendrickson: Yeah, it just is what it is. I don't know.

10:27Timmy Bauer: Yeah, yeah. I was having this conversation with a friend of mine and I was like, I wonder if we just need to like go back to some sort of frontier lifestyle where it's like, all right, if you want to, if you want to own something when you're in your 20s, that means that you got to go buy a piece of land and build it yourself.

10:45Dusten Hendrickson: Yeah, some people are doing the off-grid thing, but most people don't want to do that. They want to be in the middle of everything. So they're going to be renting. If you go off-grid, you can buy a piece of land out in the middle of nowhere and dig a well. But then that requires you to be so much more capable. If you're super capable, you can still do it because there's ways around it. But most people don't want to do the work. They don't want to learn all these things. They just want to go and work their trade and then live in a house, which they can't do. So they just live in an apartment. Yeah. We like to be comfortable, you know?

11:15Timmy Bauer: Yeah, we do. We do. So people nowadays, it's like they're living in apartments until when usually. When do people end up leaving the apartment lifestyle?

11:26Dusten Hendrickson: Well, the average is 40. In 2024, I believe it was 40. And so I think 2025, it was 41 or 42. That's an average age of a first-time home buyer.

The entrepreneurial challenge: constant change

11:38Timmy Bauer: Man. All right. How do we get off that depressing topic? Tell me about your business, Dusten. So one of the questions I always like to ask is, what is the most challenging, as an entrepreneur, entrepreneur to entrepreneur, what have been the most challenging things about creating and growing your business over the years?

12:02Dusten Hendrickson: The rapid change of business. So you'll be doing business and you think you have something figured out and a year later, that technique doesn't work and you have to pivot on the fly and figure out how to make it work. So you constantly have to be pivoting and changing. You got your systems all figured out and now they all change. And so now you gotta rewrite all your systems. That's what I think is the most challenging is that nothing's ever figured out. And just when you get something figured out, then there's a big change on the horizon and now you gotta start changing. To be successful, you always have to stay ahead of everything

12:36Dusten Hendrickson: and it's constant change and movement and nothing's really, there is no true security, I don't think. So you just have to be okay with the ebb and flow of everything always being different.

12:48Timmy Bauer: What's a recent example of that for you in your business?

12:52Dusten Hendrickson: So interest rates go up and then interest rates come down and you think, oh, interest rates are coming down. It's gonna be easy. We'll be able to refinance everything. Well, then at the same time, rents start coming down. Well, that doesn't make sense. Rents have never come down the entire time I've owned real estate. So why are rents coming down? Well, there's a whole bunch of people borrowed money when interest rate was at zero and built these apartments and now rents are coming down. So now you've got the challenge of, okay, now how do we refinance when rents are coming down? And so that's a whole different ball of wax

13:25Dusten Hendrickson: because then the lenders don't even understand why are rents coming down. Even though they're coming down across the entire nation, they don't really get it because they've never seen it. So now it's way harder to refinance than it used to be. So this is why I also say people wait for a crash, but it's super hard to buy in a crash. It's easier to buy in an overinflated and just hold onto that asset versus it first to try and buy when prices are low because banks don't wanna loan any money when it's really low. So it's really hard to ever to buy in a crash. And usually that's when the investors come in

14:00Dusten Hendrickson: and pick everything up.

Why investor trust is the hardest part

14:02Timmy Bauer: What is harder for your business? Is it harder for you to get investors? Is it harder for you to like fill your apartments? Is it harder to find places to build apartments?

14:14Dusten Hendrickson: Like it's the hardest to get investors because that's the biggest relationship you have to have. So for someone to trust you, to put in $50,000 or a hundred thousand or even a million dollars, they really, really have to trust you. When you are going to buy land from someone, it's easy for them to trust you because they already know who you are, they've seen you operate and you talk their language instantly. So real estate of land developer or someone that owns land

14:48Dusten Hendrickson: usually talks the same language that we talk. And so it's super easy to just have a natural relationship with them. So then we can build by that land. Also, when we communicate with general contractors to try and have them build our stuff, that's super easy conversation as well. So it's always how do we get the next round of investors to come in and we're always looking for more investors. So that's what we have to work on all the time.

Visibility, LinkedIn, and public speaking

15:12Timmy Bauer: What's been your primary way of building relationships with investors? Like what's worked best for you or has it been different all the time?

15:20Dusten Hendrickson: This is where the thing comes where it changes constantly. So as you scale and grow, you need more investors and you try to build those relationships but it gets harder because relationships just take time. There's no substitute for that. So we try to just bring more people on our staff that can build more relationships with people. We try to be as visible to the public as possible so that when people come up to us, they're already comfortable with us and they know us. I feel like that's been huge advantage for us. We put videos out. We've been putting videos online for a long time. People tend to not like to put videos of themselves out

15:53Dusten Hendrickson: because they think they look stupid when really person that thinks they look stupid is themselves. No one else really judges you as much. So that's been really good for us but just getting out there more speaking events. Speaking events are super powerful because now you can speak in front of a hundred people, a thousand people, however many people and you become known as the expert in the field because almost no one wants to get up on stage and do public speaking. More people would rather do videos than public speak. So it's public speaking.

16:26Timmy Bauer: That's wild.

16:27Dusten Hendrickson: Yeah, public speaking is, most people are scared of public speaking.

16:32Timmy Bauer: Public speaking has always come easy for me.

16:35Dusten Hendrickson: Well, you're blessed.

16:37Timmy Bauer: Making videos is a little bit of a challenge for me. The hard part for me, so like with speaking, I get immediate feedback from the audience. So if I'm up on the stage and I say something that resonates, I can see it on their faces, the feedback's immediate. If I look at their faces and I feel like I'm losing them, I can usually come up with something to say to get everybody back again. But with video, you make video, you put it out and then you're just hoping like, oh, that one did terrible. Okay, what do I need to do different? Well, it's not super obvious.

17:08Dusten Hendrickson: And you might've done everything right. You just hit the algorithm wrong somehow.

17:12Timmy Bauer: Yeah, yeah. What's your experience like with that? So I feel bad. I didn't check out your YouTube channel. So I don't know what kind of numbers you guys are doing.

17:21Dusten Hendrickson: We don't do a YouTube. I mean, we have a YouTube, it's not any good. We just go on LinkedIn. Our primary source of investor relations comes on LinkedIn. We find that most of the people that are investors for whatever reason tend to be on LinkedIn in our areas. So I don't know what we have roughly 20,000 followers or contacts. And people come up to me all the time in the community and just tell me what I've been doing. And so then I clearly know they've been watching it, but you can't tell. I don't think the numbers are accurate because sometimes we'll put a video out

17:55Dusten Hendrickson: and it looks like nobody watched it, but I'll get 20 people come up and say, oh, I saw you were doing this and that. And then other times put out a video and it'll do really well and no one will say anything about it. So I'm not, I don't know. It feels like the numbers aren't necessarily accurate. And so we just, we don't really care. We more wanna grow our followers and we just put out content constantly because we know people are watching it because anytime that we're with a business owner that's involved in that community, they see our stuff.

18:25Timmy Bauer: That's great. And who, like, what's the investor profile? Like who are these people? Are they just people that have money or how do you go? All right, this is who we try to serve.

18:36Dusten Hendrickson: Typically, this is the most typical. I would say it is a 50 year old male Christian most of the time. Just, I mean, everyone, you know, we have, we do partner with a guy that's Muslim and he primarily brings more Muslims in. So it is funny because you tend to just, your same groups kind of click together and that's who you tend to attract. But usually business owner, if not business owner, professional or just real estate investor,

19:08Dusten Hendrickson: and they have, they're almost always investing for tax purposes. That's the most, that's the most of the biggest commonality between all the investors. But yeah, when I was first putting a demographic together, I'm like, oh, you shouldn't use this, you shouldn't use that, but you actually should use as many things as possible to get the tightest demographic you can and it's easiest to go after them.

19:34Timmy Bauer: Gotcha. So in your content, do you target that specifically? Like, do you go like, hey, Christian, business owner, here's how you mitigate your taxes.

19:45Dusten Hendrickson: No, but I talk about my faith all the time. So it just tends to draw those people in. But I still have contact with lots of other faiths.

19:55Timmy Bauer: Yeah.

19:56Dusten Hendrickson: So Hindu, Jewish, Muslim.

19:58Timmy Bauer: But in your, do you, in your content, are you saying, are you going after the purpose of like, hey, you know, if you're trying to mitigate your taxes this year, have you considered da, da, da, da?

20:10Dusten Hendrickson: Yeah, we talk about taxes all the time.

Purpose, calling, and task

20:12Timmy Bauer: Yeah, I figured, okay, gotcha. Well, speaking of faith, I have a deep question that I always ask everybody. So Dusten, you seem successful. You seem like you've really built something incredible. And for a while, I would ask this question just kind of going, yeah, what is the purpose behind it all? The show's called Purpose Driven Entrepreneur. It's one thing to build a big business, but I've met a lot of people that have built big businesses, but they're not clear on what their purpose is. They're not, they're not even necessarily sometimes clear on the purpose of the business.

20:47Timmy Bauer: And then oftentimes they're super unclear about their own personal purpose. How have you thought about this in your life? So personal purpose and business purpose.

20:55Dusten Hendrickson: Well, I believe everyone's purpose is the same, to know God and get others to know Him. Super simple. And it took me 45 years to figure that out. I mean, I just figured that out last year. Wow. Because I was like, what is my purpose? What is my purpose? And something came up on YouTube actually and said, this is everybody's purpose. And I was like, oh, that's so simple, but it'd take me so long. And then you have your calling and your immediate task that God wants you to do. And so my calling, I believe is just helping

21:30Dusten Hendrickson: other business owners. And then my task is to build housing for people that need better housing.

21:37Timmy Bauer: Gotcha. Yeah, that is so simple. Yeah, super simple. It's great when you're a Christian, because you can just be like, well, what does God want? He wants more people to know Him. That's not necessarily what I spend all my day doing. So how do I cross that? Well, we all have a purpose, a calling and a task.

21:58Dusten Hendrickson: Right, correct.

22:00Timmy Bauer: That's really, really good.

22:02Dusten Hendrickson: Yeah, it was very simple for me when that came across. I was like, oh, that's so simple. Then since then I've heard many people say the same thing. I missed it before. Because I know people are saying it because it's a very simple purpose.

Dusten’s account of conversion

22:15Timmy Bauer: Have you pretty much always been a Christian and you just now figured out purpose or?

22:21Dusten Hendrickson: I was not really a Christian. I thought I was a Christian, but I was saved May 1st, 2024 is when I was born again. So my whole life changed then.

22:33Timmy Bauer: Wow. Can you talk a little bit about what your life was like before and after?

22:38Dusten Hendrickson: Drinking and smoking weed all the time. Lots of work, more distracted. I just try to distract myself constantly. I would try to, I was always in it for joy. I loved joy the most. Not joy, feeling good. I love to just feel good. So I would just participate in sin and I never wanted to suffer. And so now I kind of embrace the suffering. It's also a huge piece to my life because I understand that I'm not in control of anything.

23:11Dusten Hendrickson: And so it's easy for me to, if a deal goes sour, it's just, no, who cares? I wasn't supposed to have that deal and I can move on very easily. I tend to not really get upset with people anymore because I don't know, I just, something. I know I tend to also, I'm a lot more bored now than I used to. And I'm just, I say, well, I guess I got to suffer. I used to never be bored at all. So there's a few things, I'm still working out a bunch of stuff. I'm kind of a baby in my faith. But I've-

23:43Timmy Bauer: How did it change?

23:46Dusten Hendrickson: My faith or-

23:47Timmy Bauer: Yeah, did you become a Christian?

23:48Dusten Hendrickson: Well, I was just seeking, seeking, seeking, but I read the Bible from cover to cover and as soon as that happened, then I actually came home and me and my wife were having some disagreements and I was like, I know what, I'm gonna do a deliverance on you. Okay. Ready? She said, yep. And so then I turned to her and I grabbed the Bible because all these YouTube videos popped up on how to do deliverance and I didn't understand why this would come up.

24:23Dusten Hendrickson: And I started to do deliverance on her and nothing happened and all of a sudden my daughter was in the corner of the room and it started working on her.

24:32Timmy Bauer: Whoa.

24:33Dusten Hendrickson: Yeah, so I saw demons manifest and she had all these problems. Wow. Way too many health problems for someone that should be in perfect health. And she just released 70. Well, she thinks it was seven demons and her life completely changed instantly. None of her, she didn't have any of her health problems and she was instantly, she was immediately saved. We were in a culty church too though and they had, I took the oath to that church and my daughters did too.

25:03Timmy Bauer: And my- Oh, you were in a church that made you take an oath?

25:05Dusten Hendrickson: Yeah. Oh man. Lots of them that are cultier like that. It's similar to, kind of similar to Mormonism and some other things, but.

25:14Timmy Bauer: Okay.

25:15Dusten Hendrickson: Yeah, so we went through that whole thing. That was super traumatic. We were scared of demons for a month at least. I couldn't sleep at all. It was wild. It was very wild.

25:30Timmy Bauer: Wow.

25:31Dusten Hendrickson: And so- So yeah, instantly transforming. So then I basically got to see, during that whole process, I got to see Jesus and talk to him for a bit. And so everything changed after that.

25:43Timmy Bauer: Do people think you're crazy? Do people in your company think you're crazy?

25:47Dusten Hendrickson: No, I mean, they're all around here right now. No, it's a very faith-driven company. I mean, yeah, everyone thinks I'm crazy a little bit, yes. But I don't really care. It doesn't bother me. And I'm very transparent and genuine. Yeah.

26:01Timmy Bauer: But I usually-

26:02Dusten Hendrickson: Yeah, that knows me, knows that my life immediately changed totally different person. Because I used to be the life of the party and now I'm totally not like that anymore.

26:12Timmy Bauer: Wow. That's incredible. And your family, are they like, it sounds like your wife and your daughter, I would say that they're Christians now, yeah?

26:23Dusten Hendrickson: Yeah, yeah. It's awesome. I think my wife was before, because she had never affected her. The deliverance didn't work on her and immediately went to my daughter. Gotcha. But yeah, all of our faith has strengthened. And my wife really likes it because she was pretty much at her wits end because I was so wild. Yeah, I mean, a bunch of people had told me, you need to stop drinking or whatever. So I had stopped drinking. And because so one thing that happened is

26:56Dusten Hendrickson: I went out with my buddies and I was driving home with my buddy and all of a sudden I was doing 160 in my Porsche. And he told me the next morning that he was basically scared to death. And then I kind of like, I got to change something. So then I quit drinking. And then about six months later that happened. And then I basically quit smoking weed immediately from that moment on. And I've never even wanted any more weed or alcohol.

27:30Timmy Bauer: Wow. I had a kind of similar experience, but different. So like I went through a really awful divorce and that kind of wrecked my faith for a little while. Like I basically deconstructed and reconstructed in the same year and got into all kinds of things that I shouldn't be getting into drinking a lot and just awful, awful stuff. But then I also read the Bible cover to cover for the first time, like started that year. It took me a while to finish it. And by the time I had finished it, it was like,

28:05Timmy Bauer: I don't know, it's hard to describe. It's really hard to describe. I feel like God very slowly put pieces back together and also started over on things that never really got built up in the first place.

28:15Dusten Hendrickson: Yeah. It's incredible. It is crazy how when I meet people that read the Bible cover to cover, they don't, there's not really something that just instantly happens, but something does instantly happen at the same time. And it's not like you all of a sudden know the Bible cover to cover, you know? Like I've read it three times, I think. And I still hardly know anything from trying to still put all the pieces together and there's so much knowledge in there. But most people that have read it cover to cover have a totally different perspective.

28:49Dusten Hendrickson: I do find that.

28:51Timmy Bauer: Yeah. Yeah, everything changes and everything's constantly changing. It's like, it's always, there's always something being built on the layer before. And I like look at things that I used to say and think three years ago, and I'm like embarrassed. I'm like, why did I say that? Why did I think that?

29:08Dusten Hendrickson: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, it's like the time speeds up, but it also slows down because you look back, you're like, that was only two years ago and I was still doing all that stuff.

Legacy, ADHD, and communication

29:17Timmy Bauer: Yeah. Wild. Man, I usually ask one or the other of these questions, but I'm actually curious how you would answer this. So I usually ask either the purpose question I just asked you, or I'll say, how do you wanna be remembered? If you think about your death and like who's being left behind, how do you hope to be remembered when you die? Have you ever thought about that question and what comes to mind when you think of it?

29:43Dusten Hendrickson: I used to think I'd want to be remembered, but now I realize that mommas, no one is remembered and most people aren't really remembered for that good of stuff. But I would just probably wanna be, I don't know, and hope that I bring more people to Christ. That's what I would hope.

30:01Timmy Bauer: That's awesome. All right, I have a fun question to ask you. I am a kids book author. And if you or your company were to make a kids book, what would the subject be and why?

30:14Dusten Hendrickson: It would be how to make, how to invest in real estate for the ADHD brain. That's what it would be.

30:23Timmy Bauer: Yeah, nice.

30:25Dusten Hendrickson: I've actually thought about it. How do you, and it would have stick figures and it would just be a very simple book that you could just rip through it or you could immediately get the concept. It would be very short, not too many words. I mean, some, quite a bit of words, but more concept-based, more high-level thinking.

30:45Timmy Bauer: Yeah, the average children's book is like 600 words. So it doesn't have to be a lot of words. It's actually harder to write fewer words. There's this quote, I can't remember who said it, but it was somebody, some famous person who wrote a letter and he said, I'm so sorry, this letter is long. If I had had more time, it would have been shorter. It's like, it always takes more time and more effort to make something shorter or simpler.

31:09Dusten Hendrickson: Yeah, I think one of the great philosophers, Nietzsche, I think he says something like that too. Something about, I can sum up in the sentence what most people take thousands of words to say.

31:23Timmy Bauer: Yeah, yeah. Why that book specifically?

31:28Dusten Hendrickson: It just came to me as an idea and I have never seen anything written about it. I've read almost all the self-help, business help type books, not self-help, but just self-help for business and expanding your mindset. And the theme is the same. They're all exactly the same. What are they on that? Aren't they all based off the Jim Rohn or something like that. There's one author.

31:55Timmy Bauer: That wrote like the definitive self-help book.

31:57Dusten Hendrickson: Yeah, basically he's the first author and then everyone just piggybacks on that. There's one, forget what it is. It's super famous book that everyone reads. It's super dense and kind of boring. It was written in early 1900s and kind of everything piggybacks off of that. And I think Jim Rohn wrote a more modern version of that. They're all the same though. You pretty much read one and you've kind of read them all and they just break down things a little different, easier to understand. So I read all that stuff and I realized

32:31Dusten Hendrickson: that they're all kind of the same and no one's really wrote in a book for ADHD investors cause ADHD people can't even read a book. They get sick of it after 10 minutes and they'll be done reading.

32:42Timmy Bauer: So I was diagnosed as a kid and I have such a hard time reading. I actually, the last time I like wrote like a red page for page a book, it was a long time ago. Most of the time I listened to books on like 3X.

32:58Dusten Hendrickson: Yeah.

32:59Timmy Bauer: Like if I'm going to read a book, it'll be audible 3X.

33:02Dusten Hendrickson: Yeah. If I listen to a book, I have to listen at 3X. But if I, I can read a book as long as it's brand new information and I've never really digested it. Otherwise I can't read it at all. If I've already read part of it, I'm, ah, this is boring. I already know all this stuff and toss it to the side.

33:20Timmy Bauer: That's tough. Okay. Last question for you, Dusten. Thank you so much for doing this with me. What is something that you currently suck at or a goal that you have in your business that you hope is better by next year?

33:34Dusten Hendrickson: Well, I suck at a lot of things. Let's see. I'm terrible at communication.

33:49Timmy Bauer: Your team is currently listening to you right now.

33:52Dusten Hendrickson: Yeah. They know all these things. I let them know that I suck at most things. I also have ADHD. Yeah. And I get super bored easily. So I would like to get better at listening. I would think I would like to get better at listening. But I feel like so many people are so poor at communication, it's hard to listen to. So almost everyone is very bad at communication and I've fit right into that one.

34:21Timmy Bauer: Yeah. The longer I'm married, the more I realize that I am bad at communication or just that everyone's, everyone must be bad because I've taken Myers-Briggs and communication is one of my strengths. And yet we're like almost every conflict I ever have in my marriage is fundamentally a communication problem.

34:40Dusten Hendrickson: Yeah. I think that what happens is you're probably good at communicating, but then the people that are closest to you are the ones that can get you emotional and now you're blind. And now your communication level says to be up here, but you bring yourself way down here into anger and other different emotions. And now you're blocked with your communications poor. That's because I think that you're a great communicator.

35:06Timmy Bauer: Oh, thank you. Yeah. But you must be too,

35:10Dusten Hendrickson: if you're the way you're describing how you can be on stage and you can immediately take the feedback because most people can't even see the people when they're on stage. If you're not a good speaker on stage, you go into a different mindset where you're just kind of in panic mode and you can't even really comprehend what's going on. You're just trying to get through your presentation. Interesting. That's kind of my, I'm doing lots of them and I still like, I can't really change my tune by looking at the audience. I'm just, it's tough. So that's, you're really good if you can do that and communicate, but you're probably also not emotional

35:43Dusten Hendrickson: when you're on stage, you're like in your zone. So if you can figure out how to stay there and not let your wife pull you down.

35:51Timmy Bauer: I've noticed that if I just maintain the same level of like cheery, like man, magnanimity that I have, like if I'm giving a presentation with her, oftentimes we won't get into a fight cause I'll just, like she'll say something that would normally bother me maybe. And I'll just be like, what an interesting thing you just said to me. Yeah.

36:13Dusten Hendrickson: Yeah. I mean, that is, I think that that's the job for the woman is to get you, like she's going to come out and grab you and drag you down. So that you can have a fight. It's sort of like, like the, you know, like the good angel, bad angel, like the demons. I don't know if you can somehow not let that affect you and be like, just let the pressure go and then stay high level. You'll never get into an argument.

Where to connect

36:42Timmy Bauer: What a podcast Dusten. Thank you so much for doing this with me. Where are you most active online for that you'd want people connecting with you?

36:49Dusten Hendrickson: LinkedIn and it's Dusten D U S T E N. There's an E in there.

36:54Timmy Bauer: I misspelled it in one of our DMS and I felt terrible. And then I corrected it, but in the DM, it says edited. And I'm like, dang, he's going to know.

37:02Dusten Hendrickson: Yeah, I know. I could care less. It happens all the time.

37:06Timmy Bauer: Yeah.

37:07Dusten Hendrickson: One thing that I have the other day was interesting is someone addressed a different Dusten. There's two Dusten's in the thing and they addressed him with my last name. That's never happened. Or they put an E addressing the guy with an I. That's never happened. That's the first time.

37:21Timmy Bauer: Wow. Awesome. Well, Dusten, thank you so much for being a guest on my show.

37:25Dusten Hendrickson: You're welcome. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.