Awarepreneurs interview - Fuzzy Jardine

Welcome to AwarePreneurs, the world's longest running social entrepreneur podcast. I'm Paul Zelizer, your host. If you could take a moment and hit subscribe and do a review on your favorite podcast app, it helps our guests help more social entrepreneurs and it costs you nothing. Thank you so much. Today our guest is Kaliah Fuzzy Jardine and our topic is how to survive in any market. Navigating the cost of living crisis. Has anybody in your network been talking about the cost of living and how it just keeps going up? Well, they sure have been in my network. Yeah.

So Fuzzy's going to help us out with that. Goliath Fuzzy Jardine is the co founder of Hui Mastermind. Empowers Native Hawaiians and locals to build generational wealth through real estate in their homeland, the Pono Way. A former drug addict and dealer who spent time in federal prison, Fuzzy built a multimillion dollar real estate portfolio including 100 plus affordable homes and a 6 million rental portfolio. He uniquely teaches investing using other people's money and time Opm opt making complex strategies accessible. Fuzzy's journey began from growing up with nothing, leading to addiction, drug dealing and federal prison. His pivotal turning point came during incarceration, igniting his pursuit of real estate investing. As a path to freedom and legacy, there is unique experiences.

Fuzzy developed a step by step HUI framework to help aspiring investors ethically secede in Hawaii's challenging market, proving that anyone can change their financial destiny. Fuzzy, welcome to AwarePreneurs.

Aloha, Paul, thank you so much. And yeah, what you're doing today will determine your tomorrow. So I just, you know, want to mahalo you for having me on and look forward to this conversation.

I'm super excited to have you here. My understanding is, Fuzzy, before we get into the specifics, when we're talking cost of living, my understanding that Hawaii is maybe the most expensive market in the U.S. certainly one of. Is that fair to say?

Yeah, it's definitely one of the most expensive markets in the world. Right. It's, it's. They gotta ship everything in. So that's one of the reasons why it, you know, costs so much. And not only that, they tax you for everything. So yes, we are in an expensive state here, but it's beautiful, right? I think the cost of living in, you know, the Pacific Ocean and just everything's green and you know, beautiful blue ocean. I think that's one of the reasons why it costs so much.

Yeah. So let's go back to the beginning. Fuzzy, as we read in the bio, you had a Bit of a bumpy start. Take us back to the beginning. What were your early experiences that shaped things, like how you saw work and money and survival? Like, how did those early experiences get you on one track that changed into another track?

That's a. That's a great way to start. Yes, Paul. So I started as a, as a youngster with growing up with a single mom, you know, and grew up with my grandparents. My mom's parents kind of took me under their wing and just all I seen was mom working two or three jobs. I seen grandfather. My grandfather always working, working, working, working. But then they always.

He always supplied food. He was a pig farmer. So I grew up on a little pig farm in Waimanalo. We lived on lease land, so lease land is basically, you know, they were just paying rent just to stay there and didn't own it. So what happened was the lease, the person that owned that property cut the lease, and everyone that lived in that neighborhood had to move away. So my grandfather and grandmother from the Big island, he decided to move back to the Big Island. My mom moved to, you know, Kailua, which was a town away from Waimanalo, and she stayed, you know, found work and I. I followed my grandparents.

So I grew up. I grew up with my grandparents, and I had a. My uncle who was the youngest of my grandparents, so they had eight children. Anyway, long story short, he was kind of a rascal guy, and I kind of wanted to be like him. Alcohol was always at. In the coolers, right at my house. My grandfather was an alcoholic, so it was. It was kind of like I made the choices.

I was in there with my cousins, drinking the beer, smoking the pocalolo or marijuana and, you know, trying to be like, you know, be like those crowds. And then eventually I got older. I wanted to become a professional surfer. And then I started hanging around with those, excuse me, those crowds. And, you know, quickly it got me into addiction. And then, you know, I was addicted to, you know, the harder stuff, which was, you know, cocaine into crack and then crystal meth. And then it just led me into becoming a, you know, selling the drugs because, you know, you can make good money and supply my habit. And not to say that I never had jobs.

I did have a worker's permit as a 13 or 14 year old. I worked at Safeway as a baggage boy. I also worked as pumping gas at Chevron, so. But I just couldn't. I just didn't listen to my authority, you know, because I was going down that path. And, you know, eventually it Led into my, you know, teenager years after high school, got into more trouble, went to, you know, I had had to go to rehab because, you know, the drug took over my life and that helped a little bit. And then, you know, went right back. But I ended up joining the military and army reserves to get away.

Right. Believe it or not, Paul, that didn't even work. When I came home, I still hung around with the wrong people, the people that was in that circle. And it landed me in, into federal prison. And, you know, that's where we're, you know, I know we're going to talk more about that in, in this podcast.

So you wind up in prison after some pretty rough years. And what happened in prison that something changed and it happened while you're incarcerated. What happened there?

You know, I was glad that I got arrested and my life was always chasing, you know, running, running, running. And money was good. Addiction was the, the part that took over my life. And when I got arrested, it was a big relief because I knew that this was my time to make a shift or the epiphany of my life. Okay. It gave me a mirror to look at myself and see where I went, was doing what I was doing and where I was going to go. And I seen in the mirror that I was either going to be dead from the addiction or spending the rest of my life in prison. So while I was in prison, I took that time to better my health, you know, by working out, of course, and then also grabbed a bunch of books, one of them, you know, the Bible, of course, to get me back, back in, in line with morals and, you know, being able to be a good steward here on Earth and treat people like, you know, we supposed to, which is, you know, treat everybody like family.

And I started also reading books like Robert Kiyosaki on rich dad, poor dad, on how you can make residual them by creating businesses and having rentals and using other people's money to create that. I was like, just learning a lot of stuff. And then I didn't sit with guys that were wanting to stain that illegal pharmaceutical business. I sat with people who were white collar crime guys who yet he made a mistake by either not paying their taxes or, you know, doing certain things that, you know, of course wasn't. Didn't abide by the law, but they were very smart people, believe it or not. I was in there and Martha Stewart's broker was there for about six months. And he helped us help my family fix our taxes, which you would have never thought, right? These people that come in are so smart. And I just spent a lot of time in there thinking, okay, what was I going to do when I got out? Because I know how expensive Hawaii is and you know, just knew that somehow like real estate, I watched my grandfather, they, they, you know, they owned the rental.

I watched that. So that was kind of in my head. But I knew that that was something I wanted to do was to own my own home. And I didn't know how, of course, but then, you know, this guy named Joel who was teaching Real Estate 101, kind of taught how you can not pay taxes and do a house hack by where you would purchase a busted up house, you live in it, fix it up, and then within, you know, within two years or two to five years, you can flip it and not pay taxes. And I'm like, what? This is crazy. So my idea was I'm gonna go out and, you know, go find something that I can buy. But man, did I get a whoop in my butt because when I got out, it's expensive here in Hawaii, right? I kind of got stuck into where I had to, you know, rent for a while until I was able to get into the right rooms like this. How we're talking of other people who came from humble beginnings, just like myself, and create a multi million dollar empire or portfolio for them and their ohana.

So, you know, when I got home, it wasn't easy, right, because you're coming out of prison, a lot of people don't want to, want to hire you because you got a record. And you know, a story that I wanted, wanted to tell is when I got out, I was thinking to go become a car salesman because, you know, if you sell cars, you can make pretty good money just to get myself back on my feet. And if you make about 100k, you can live pretty comfortably here in Hawaii. And every single car dealership slammed the door, sorry, sorry, fuzzy, we can't hire you because you have a record. And I was bummed. But you know, it was a blessing that one of my friends I was locked up with had a window cleaning company. And that's how I started. I started at nine bucks an hour.

Then eventually I got got to do what my passion was to go surf, which teach surfing lessons in Waikiki. So I got to meet a lot of people from all over the world and, you know, make them happy by pushing them into waves and get it on camera. And then I got a third job as far and it was a valet job. So I had three jobs but guess what? I had no time and I was still looking for something to be able to help me buy my place because that income I was making, it wasn't enough, right, to buy my own home. And how was I supposed to do it? So what happened was, you know, searching, searching. There was nobody here locally teaching. You know, there, there are a lot of scarcity mindset people and there was no abundance mindset programs out there. But it was by chance, Paul, that a commercial came on the radio station when I was ready and it was this, these guys from Fortune Builders, Stan Murrow and you know, these guys from Connecticut, but they live in San Diego and they were on the commercial scene or a radio station saying, hey, we're coming to Hawaii, we're building houses or we're finding properties, fixing them up and selling them and making, you know, six figures by using other people's money.

And we're looking for people to be part of our team. And I was like, what?

Really?

So I went to the event and that was the turning point of, of changing every single thing in my entire life. And it, it set, set the, I guess it set the, you know, the bar of, you know, coming from where I came from to become successful where I'm at today building, you know, affordable homes for local, my local community at affordable prices. And, and you know, the prices is like 350 under 400k when other places here in Hawaii is, you know, one point something for a busted up home.

So how old were you and when are we talking about? When you first start, you're coming out, you're like, this is what I was talking about, real estate. This makes sense. The light bulb goes off when are we talking about.

Yes, I got arrested When I was 20, I think it was 23 was when I went in and I came out. I turned 31. So it was, it was a while, right?

31. So you're in for about eight years.

Yeah, yeah, I was, I was in for a bit. You know, I got arrested and I had to go to trial. All that stuff, you know, waiting for that, that to happen. And then, you know, all my 20s were gone because of the choices I made, you know, but that was a, I guess that was the road, you know, got the path I needed to be able to. I guess the story that, you know, I'm telling today that even if you do make mistakes, you know, we go down the wrong path but choose to change to become a better person. And you know, I, I guess that's my mission now is to help Others that you know, think that they cannot. You can, you know, if you put your mind to it, you have really, really burning, really burning. Why in your life or a really solid, you can see the, the goal or, or dream that you have and not let anybody stop you.

You can accomplish it.

So your early 30s, you're come out of prison, you get this opportunity. Real estate. Like what was it like to start to get involved in this whole new world of real estate and flow, flipping homes and thinking about housing and building wealth when that was something you had never really been a part of before?

Yeah, I mean I've always seen being around construction all my life I worked on construction job sites during, you know, high school and stuff. My grandfather was a sandblaster and painter. So we always work, you know, on the, on the jobs, but never seemed seen how, you know, these investors do it right where they're, you know, finding these properties and, and, but it's a lot of information. So in the beginning I was actually ready when the, when the teacher, you know, came. Yeah, so that's what they say, right? The, you know, the, the, the teacher. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. And that was, excuse me, that was me. And you know, good thing about when this Fortune Builders came through my, my town, they had everything to create your own business.

It wasn't a cheap program. It was $26,000 and I did not have that money. But what I had was good credit because of the three jobs. So I was able to borrow the 20k from a bank with Malama loan. It was a loan that they give for education for native Hawaiians and then also a six thousand dollar credit card. So that's how I paid for my education. It wasn't my money, it was borrowed money. So all of this that I'm doing today was off of borrowed money, other people's money, you know, and, and we, a lot of us think that we need the money to do stuff which we really know in a way.

Yes, but we don't. You just got to be creative like you were saying earlier, you know, creative ways to do, do business. And it, I'm in a way better place than I was, you know, since 2001 or you know, when I was getting, getting myself into trouble. And you know, I'm blessed to be alive today because I'm, you know, basically how many accidents I got into and you know, living on this borrowed time. And I think God kept me here for a reason to, to tell my story.

So you start learning about real estate, you Take this course. It really helps you get some tools. Like, what were some of your first steps when you said, okay, I'm gonna do this now. What?

Yeah, okay. At that time, I signed up, my parents were going through foreclosure. So I got to experience what people deal with when they're going through foreclosure. You know, the forbearance letter, all that stuff my. My parents were going through because they couldn't cover. They. They kept refinancing and adding more debt, but then they couldn't cover the mortgage. And I.

I presented this to the coaches when all the people that I signed up with and they put me in touch with coaches and the coaches walked me through the process of what, you know, they will do to help show the options of people that were in that situation firsthand, right? Jumped in the car with them. We drove around the neighborhood. They showed me the comps step by step on, you know, looking what. What the ARV or after repair value would be of my mom and dad's house would be after, you know, it was. Was fixed up. And then we went into the house and like, I was able to listen to the conversation, all the documents they had, and then they presented, you know, all the options that my parents would do and then how they could help. And, you know, after that meeting, you know, my parents didn't make the decision then, but after that meeting, you know, I jumped back in the car and I was like, you know what I told the coaches, I was like, anything you guys need me to do, I will. I know people who do construction, you know, blah, blah, blah.

So I ended up becoming their go to person or brought value to them because they had a bunch of projects, right, that they were doing, but they. They were, you know, moved in. The wife was from. In the military, and the husband was, you know, I basically stay, you know, running his construction. Not construction, but real estate business. And it went hand in hand. I stuck to them. And one of our first deals came true.

Another student who, you know, and I talk about this, I have a book, but in this story is the Pono Way, right? What we did was the deal came from a student. He didn't have money. He didn't know what to do, but he presented it to me because he knew I worked with the coaches. I presented it to the coaches. Then what we did was we did. We helped this lady who had no family. She couldn't pay for her mortgage. This big, big house, beautiful place.

And we agreed to pay her a price that she was, you Know, comfortable with. But what we did was we paid her up front some money, we took over her mortgage, which is subject to. And then we did a owner finance on money that, you know, the equity that was in the property. And we promised to pay her some money in the back, plus interest. And we fixed it up, right. While we're fixing up, we put her into a rental unit, got her a car and set her up, you know, and not like other investors, the sharky, right, they'll come in and just kick her to the curb. We came in with, with aloha and everybody won. So the student won, which my, you know, was one of my partners.

I won because I, you know, was in. In the middle of everything. And then my coaches, they put up their own money, and then we use hard money to fund the deal. And with that opportunity right there, it just opened my, you know, mine on all the options you could do with not even using your own money. And like, I didn't even do all the work to fix the house up. We. We hired other people to do all the work. So it was like, you know, the first opportunity just, just.

Just opened my eyes, man.

Beautiful. So fast forward a few years in, like today it's a hundred plus houses and you're doing that, but like, give us two years in. Like, you're all right, you're starting to do this. Like, how many houses were you doing in a year? And what was it looking like for you financially as you're starting to head down this path?

You know, financially, I still was working, but what I ended up doing was quitting my three jobs and work for my best friend who's a general contractor, so I could learn the numbers, how the different trades came in, what they charged, so the whole process. But while I was doing that, you know, it didn't happen overnight, right? The second year, third year, I think the third year is when I started. In fact, the first year is when I was educating myself. And then I found the first deal with. With that student or did the deal with my coaches, coach and the student. But while I was doing that, I had strategies that the coaches taught me, which was go put up bandit signs. You know, signs on the side of the road like realtors do, and then also put ads on Craigslist that, you know, we buy houses cash. But I instead I put fuzzy buys houses cash.

Put my. My number. And then a developer called me, a local developer, and he reached out and he said, hey, you buy houses? I go, yeah, we buy houses. And I'm like, I don't have money at that time, but I depending on my coaches, right? So I presented this, this his deal because he was selling a brand new home to the coaches and they were, you know, it was like, I think he was trying to sell the thing for like 2, 210 or something like that brand new home. Like, I was like, holy crap, this is super affordable. Anyway, long story, you know, short, the, the developer and my partners, which was the coaches didn't, didn't do the deal. He ended up selling it to somebody else. But I kept in touch with him because I knew if I could learn from him, I would be able to be, build new homes and build these houses, you know, because when he was saying the prices he was building them for, I was like, holy moly, that's affordable, right? And I gave him a call, I said, bro, I wanna, I wanna learn from you.

What, what can I do? Like, you know, can I pay you or you know, what, what's the deal? So he ended up telling me, if you can bring funds to, you know, to the, you know, to me, we can build, we can build houses and we'll, you know, I'll teach you and then we'll split profits. Guess what I did, Paul? I went, there's, you know, in Fortune Builders, there's a community and there was a Facebook group. So I brought the opportunity or the pitch deck and presented it to our Facebook, you know, community. And what happened was a bunch of people message. And then, you know, a couple from Maui, they're still in investing with me today, they brought the funds, right? They brought the funds to, you know, purchase the lot, build the home, and then we split profits at the back end. So after that first deal, the brand new build, I was like, holy moly. So we bought the property for like 20 grand, but we're all in like $165,000 in Hawaii. Back then, I think this was 2014 or 15.

And yeah, this is how this was.

Like in half a million or 600.

The ARV was 100k more. Okay, right. So 165. And then we were all in. You know, when we sold it was 260, around 265,000. So we walked away. We're about, you know, 100, 100K, you know, and, and it was like, what the heck can we do more? Right? And that same investor, you know, we did, we did a couple more and that's, that's how I learned, right? That's how I was learning. And you know, the developer and I, we, we did a few more projects but you know, things change and you know, he went his own direction, I went my own direction.

But the, the thing was proof of concept. You know, I learned everything, everything was in the binder. But I mean I was able to make it my own and you know, hire other people, the general contractor, all the subs and then the, the money followed because the, the, the system we had just worked and I'm doing it till this day, you know, I'm still doing, yes, the cost of everything has gone up after the COVID you know, prices for materials. But the system that we have or use is the same thing. We build the same home, three bedroom, two bath and, and we, we selling them at affordable prices. And my mission or my passion is to, to sell them to local families first. You know, of course I can't like block anybody else because this, you know, we have, it's the fifth state. Right.

So anyone can buy properties that are in these communities that I'm building in. But I try to give our, our local community, you know, a first crack because, you know, they're from here. I, I hate to see people move away.

Right, absolutely. So let's do this in a minute. I want to come back and hear what it looks like now, how you're financing things now, how you're finding those local community members. I live in New Mexico, the second highest native population outside of Alaska. This is some of the same issues. You go to Santa Fe, you could be telling this story in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I want to hear more about that and how we can think about applying what you're doing to other places like Santa Fe, New Mexico and other places where native folks and folks who've grown up on the land and a long history with that land are getting pushed out because of pricing. Before we do that, I just want to take a quick break, hear a word from our sponsor.

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So welcome back everybody. I'm here with Fuzzy Jardine and we are talking about how to survive in any market navigating the cost of living crisis. And before the break, Fuzzy, you broke down. Thanks for being so detailed. Kind of how you went from, you know, as you said, selling illegal pharmaceuticals to fund a not so helpful lifestyle to getting into real estate. And it started, you started to get the flywheel going. If we use startup language, right? Tell us what it looks like today. Here we are in 2025.

You've been at this for a while now, more than a decade, right? Like what does it look like today?

Yeah, I mean I have that same system that I found my niche and you know, when I first started I was all gung ho and doing, trying to become a fix and flipper, you know, and, and some, some how, some way like that developer I linked up with just, you know, it's, it's much cleaner to me. Foreclosures suck because there's this stories behind people that live under those roofs and, and sometimes it can get sticky and it's, it's sometimes painful to, to watch the situations that I see other people, you know, just kicking people, you know, with, with those. So I, I'm super grateful for the path that I was, I'm in now to be able to build these, these affordable homes. I just, how I got involved with what I'm doing is just like I said earlier is I found a developer but I grew up in an area that's rural and the land is a little bit more cheaper. You know, there's water catchments instead of city water. You know, you have this huge water, you know, cistern like that's above ground. You have metal roofing and then gutters to catch that water. It gets pumped into the home with a, with a pump and through filters so you can drink the water if you do it correctly.

So it's definitely different, not the norm. Right. And that's why it's a little bit more affordable. But, but now, you know, fast forward today, like, there's a bunch of more buildings going on because it's affordable and a lot of people that's like, how.

Many houses are you doing in a year in, in 2025 or 2026?

So, yeah, when I first started, it was about 1 to 1 to 6, right. And then eventually it just grew. But I, I got to do at least 24 a year to be able to keep my guys with work.

They're doing like two a month at least.

Yes. So. But the process, the process is, it's the same thing. You know, I'm looking in the neighborhoods that I've been building in for, you know, over a decade, but I'm, I have to have a, you know, a set price to purchase because my cost to build, to be able to make it, you know, affordable at the back end. And then not only that, to pay, you know, to pay from my time. And it's. Did I notice when I first started. No, but I, I knew the areas, right, is you could be in your backyard, like New Mexico could have different neighborhoods if you can know your market and like the macro, like the big news you hear, oh, real estate going down, interest rates going up.

Paul. It didn't matter where the market went. It didn't matter where the interest rates were, because I knew how to purchase properties in these neighborhoods at the right price or how to do it as well, and then how to communicate with general contractors or subcontractors to be able to be in a certain price point to build these homes so that when I, when I go to sell them, I have this huge gap to be able to drop the price, you know, giving the, the market that I'm in, right. So no matter what, it was profitable at the back end because my cost is, is low enough to drop the.

Price if, if the really new year market. Well. And you also knew, you had looked at your costs and where you were sourcing things, everything from the land to the labor. You really got smart about each piece of, of who you're selling to, what, where there was some flexibility. Like not every. I live in New Mexico water catchment is pretty common here in more rural areas than New Mexico. But not everybody would even know what that is, let alone be comfortable living that way. But you knew for that flexibility of being able to live in a community that somebody was from or that they had big connections with, they were willing to be a little bit out of the box, be a little more innovative, and you were able to put a number, stack those where the location was how you did water, how you constructed.

You still came out with a quality product, but you found innovative ways to reduce the cost. And who you were selling to, they were good with that. It was a good deal. It was a real win win. And not everybody does that. Some people think building a house is building a house is building a house. But you found innovation and that allowed you to do something really unique. Is that fair to say?

Yeah, that's super fair to say. And you know, in the beginning it was all about like, oh man, like, like, you know, I want to make money because it's like I see this HGTV guys, they're making six figures and all, you know, like it didn't happen quickly. And that's the thing what people, you know, fail to realize. Like anything that is gonna stand for time, you got to put in work.

Yeah.

You know, and then you got to educate yourself. The education part is the most important thing. And then your, your mindset, right? I had to change my mindset because I didn't have the money. Right. And when I had the mindset, there's no way I can buy a home for myself, which was true, but because I wasn't thinking like using other people, people's money. So when I started surrounding myself with these, these people who are investors or you know, think creatively and I was like, oh my gosh, I didn't think about it that way. And then my mindset started changing. My why in the beginning was to be able to make 10k a month from residual income.

Mind you, I didn't hit that till like years six or five or six. Right. When I started buying my. Keep buying and fixing it up and keeping, you know, to build my rental portfolio, which I'm doing every year, just adding one or two more homes to my rental portfolio where I, I've built, you know, built a $6 million portfolio to be able to, you know, pay for my retirement. Right. Like I don't have to depend on Social Security or whatever, you know, whatever people are, you know, depending on. And because of the education and the time I put into my business, I was able, you know, I was able to do, accomplish what I have today for my family to leave when I'm gone, you know, for generations to come.

So one of the questions, as I was mentioning earlier, my first career was in community mental health. And I did a lot of work in the native communities of northern New Mexico, other land based communities, on other like communities where place is really valued. It's not in a lot of the U.S. whatever. You get a job across the world, you fly. Like, that's cool too. But you know what I'm talking about. You know very, very well there are some communities where place really matters.

And a lot of those places are beautiful and there's a mystique around them. Again, I can use Santa Fe or, you know, New Mexico as an example. People want to be here and they want to spend time here, and a lot of people want to move here, which raises the price. Given what you've learned other communities where place matters, but it's getting expensive, what suggestions would you say, not just for an individual, but. But a community that wants to learn from the journey you've been on. What would you say to a that's struggling with some of these same issues?

Yeah, that's a, that's a definite good question, Paul. And it's. I would go to aloha, right? I mean love and work together. Together. Like, and that's what hui mean. Hui whoi is a community of like minded individuals or people that, you know, work in a group to help each other. And that's how, you know, Hawaiians, Hawaiians lived here in Hawaii so that, you know, from the mountain all the way to the ocean, there was a Kuleana. So each individual had certain jobs to, to.

To, you know, tend to. And that was their, their part to be able to live. Live here in the islands. So a community is huge and working together. So I would say like big goat to. Or, you know, create a, a group. You can do Facebook groups, you can do all kinds of groups that can, you know, get together and, and help one another. I mean, that, that would be a great way to start and then look for other people that you want to be like and, and educate yourself or, you know, sometimes you might have to pay that person or, or try to bring value to that person, you know.

And like, for me, I did a lot of free stuff to. Through my coaches, like, you know, brought the. I did the marketing, I did the band design, I did the door knocking. I did a lot of stuff for free just so I could learn how to do what they was doing. So I mean, I would say, you know, think. Think of how you can help your. Your brother or sister first, you know, and how you guys can help that community. Because we see outsiders coming in with money and it doesn't only happen in Hawaii.

Like, it's everywhere, right? I mean, not, oh, everybody's. They're taking the money out of the stock market or, you know, those markets and Investing it in assets that, you know, they can see, feel in touch, which is real estate. And it's, it's happening everywhere. And it's going to keep happening because real estate and land, they're not making it no more. Besides Hawaii. Right. The lava is still going, the land is still growing. But you know, to be honest, once locals start selling their property to people or outside people, you can't get it back because the cost just keeps going up, you know, and, and we got to be mindful of that.

And sometimes the drugs, the alcohol and you know, kids get past this, the parents passed down to the kids, but then the kids are not good stewards. So I think trying to educate our, our children earlier on, you know, about, you know, financial finances and you know, how to try to keep what you got and then just keep trying to pass it back down so that it doesn't get lost, you know.

Yeah, I love what you said. I couldn't agree more about community. And I love, I want to just highlight fuzzy about providing value to the community. Communities that work like this, in my experience, and interviewing literally hundreds of social entrepreneurs. If we create a community only thinking about, well, let me see what I can take and how fast I can take it, even if our intentions are good, it's probably not going to work that, that, you know, we give, we look for ways to provide value. I heard you say, whether that's knocking on a door or using your network like you were from the community that these coaches were coming into. And maybe they didn't know the reliable contractors. We've all heard those horrible contractor stories, right? You know, where somebody pays somebody to do something and they either don't do it or they do a really poor job.

Somebody I know recently paid somebody to do something and it cost them twice as much as they paid them to undo it because they did it wrong and then they had to pay to do it again and now they're trying to sue in court and you know, like, it's a really expensive situation if you don't have the right people. And so you maybe didn't have the money at the start, but you could help them find the reliable contractors who would do it. Right, Right. I just, I want to highlight how you were smart about providing value and then created the long term relationships by bringing what you did have instead of focusing on, well, I don't have a million dollars that I can invest, so therefore there's no business to be done here. I can knock on doors. I know some people, I'm going To find a way to provide value. I just want to highlight what you shared there. I couldn't agree more.

Yeah, I mean, if you sit and keep doing the same thing over and over every day, you can just still be in the same situation. You know, like in the beginning, I said, what are you doing today?

Yeah.

Will determine your tomorrow.

Absolutely. You know, like, speaking of your tomorrow, Fuzzy, like five years from now, what, what do you think? Where's this going? Where do you see five years? The community that you've built. You're currently at two houses a month, 24ish a year. You've got, you know, your own investment properties, and you keep growing that by one or two a year. Like five years from now. What's your sense of where you could be?

Yeah, you know, I, I'm just trying to add way more value to our community by educating other people that's maybe not from Hawaii that have deep pockets, you know, that see the story of how. And not only Hawaii, but other, other places and just educating them on the, the culture, the, the lifestyle and, and trying to keep it so that it doesn't get lost. Like, you know, there's a lot of people that, that's out there that have money but don't want to put in the time to go, you know, build homes, you know, and then they can see where, oh, wow, we can buy these properties by the land and then we build these homes and then we can either rent them to these, these families that are either on Section 8 or Hope Service or, you know, on HUD or just regular, you know, families that's not on that to help house people, because not everybody can purchase homes. Not everybody has that mindset or are ready for it. And it's okay to rent, you know, because then you don't have to maintain the home and all that stuff. You can just, you know, live. But, you know, becoming a part of the movement to give back to the community, I believe is, you know, a positive way to help, you know, other people that, you know, are doing good stuff for the community.

Beautiful. Buzzy, I could hang out with you all day, and I know you're busy and our listeners are busy, so we'll tell people how to get ahold of you in a little while. But as we start to wind down, if there's something we didn't cover and you were hoping we were going to cover it, or there's something you want to leave our listeners with as we start to say goodbye, what would that be?

Yeah, just, you know, whatever situation you're in today, just know that there's help. It's just asking, right? Always Ask is always seeking knowledge. It's a great acronym that I learned in prison. And, you know, if you just. Just stay in that, you know, like in between your ears can be your worst enemy or can be your best friend, depending on how you speak to yourself. Right. And I had a lot of time to think about in between my head of when I got out, what I wanted to do. And I'm super grateful for where I'm at today, but because I was able to learn from these people who were positive, wanted to uplift me.

So try to stick around people like that and of course, a lot. So there's a bucket mentality, right? Crabs in a bucket, right? There's. And most of them are your friend, your best friends, and your family members. When you start wanting to elevate where you're at or want to make, you know, better your life, sometimes your family and your friends will pull you back down in the bucket. Yeah. And not because they don't love you. It's just they're at that. They're at this level.

Right.

And when they see you want to, you know, they don't want to see you get hurt. But the people who take the risk on their goals and their whys in life are the ones that created these businesses out of their garages. Coca Cola, you know, McDonald's. You know, all these businesses started because someone took the risk. Look at our light bulb. You see the light bulb? How much people laughed at that guy? What if he didn't? We would be in the dark today, you know, so just choose to not let other people dictate who you are or who you want, who you want to become in life. And when you have something that you want, don't let no one stop you from obtaining it. Just find the right people that can help you get what you need.

And I think you can become successful in anything you. You want to be. It doesn't have to be real estate. It can be anything you want to be in life. But you just need to focus the focus on what you need or need to do to get that, and you'll be fine. You. I'm telling you, you'll be successful because I did it. And you can, like this.

This rascal boy from Waimanalo went to prison, got into trouble, and found my. Found my why in life. And here I am today speaking to you guys. And I really appreciate you guys, but spread aloha. I mean, any way that you can, you know, help out someone. You just might not never know what people are dealing with. You know, someone might be had passed away or mom's sick or, you know, you just never know. So always try to treat people with respect.

And aloha, beautiful Fuzzy.

Fuzzy, if somebody wants to get a hold of you, what's the best way to do that?

Yeah, they can reach me on Instagram, I'm at H I F U Z Z. Or you can go to my website, it's fuzzyjardine.com f u z z y j a r d I-e.com and that's the two ways you can reach out to me. And if you guys ever come to Hawaii, you want to go surf, let me know. I'll push you in a couple waves.

I will put those links in the show notes. Buzzy, thank you so much for your time today and for sharing your story with us.

Okay, mahalo Paul. You have a great day. And.

So listeners, you know what we do here. Please, if you know somebody who's dealing with the high cost of living, does anybody not know somebody? Let's tell our friends it's something you can do. Again, it costs you nothing big. Thanks again to Fuzzy for joining us and for sharing story. I want to remind you if you could use some help developing a bold strategy for your impact business. Whether you're navigating uncertainty or stepping into something new, you can take a look at my support@paul zelizer.com and until next time, please keep working for positive impact and letting your values guide your business. Sam.