Episode 2: Active Duty Passive Income With Eric Upchurch

While serving our nation, Eric also earned a Master’s Degree in Aeronautical Science.

He has a passion for educating the military community on how to create long term wealth through real estate investing, while personally investing across the country for the last sixteen years. 

Eric serves as Co-Founder of Active Duty Passive Income (ADPI) and is a Senior Managing Partner with ADPI Capital. 

Most recently, Eric’s team has partnered on a first-of-its-kind 100% employee-owned mortgage branch, nationwide real estate brokerage, as well as an insurance company – all with the goal of serving the ADPI community of military real estate investors.

-          General Partner experience: 1986 units (3400+ under contract)

-          Certified High Performance Coach

-          Involvement in over $95M in multifamily and storage assets with experience in sourcing, capital raise, risk capital, asset management, investor relations and as guarantor/KP

-          Co-authored Amazon #1 bestselling book, Military House Hacking

-          Accredited Investor

-          Interviewed Grant Cardone, Jocko Willink & more amazing influencers

In May 2019, with the ADPI team, Eric founded ADPI H.E.L.P.S. (Helping Everyone Live Post-Stress), which is a PTSD support and personal/professional development group for veterans.

Eric’s personal mission statement is to “educate, empower and to help people grow”. Through his trials in the military, he has clarity that anything is possible if you THINK it is. Mind over matter.

Eric recently completed a ½ Ironman race in 2022 (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run)

Short term goal achieved: raised $190,000 for Veterans Community Project while hiking 170 miles around Lake Tahoe

Longterm goal: donate $1M annually, end veteran homelessness this decade

Contact:

email: eric@activedutypassiveincome.com

IG: @realericupchurch

Clubhouse: @ericupchurch

company FB: www.militaryrealestateinvesting.com

company website: www.activedutypassiveincome.com

personal website: www.ericupchurch.com

Personal FB: https://www.facebook.com/eric.upchurch.7

LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericupchurch/

Transcript

All right. Welcome to the Optimum Ideation Podcast, our guest. Eric Upchurch he has a background in military and he's got a lot of helpful things that he does with Helping people out with PTSD is mostly what I'd like to focus on, but he does a lot in real estate as well, and helping veterans find homes.

And I'm just gonna go right into the questions here with learning a little bit about what is your story, your resume, and kind of how did you get to. . Yeah. So I thanks for having me, by the way. Yes, sir. First off, first and foremost, glad to be here and hopefully add some value. I know I will add some value to somebody listening to this podcast.

So came from the Midwest went to college in California. Met my wife there when I graduated. Didn't know what I wanted to do. Like a lot of people. So I ended up at a recruiter's office in the Army, for the Army and decided to go on the enlisted side. Most people, when you have a college degree, you'd go be an officer in the military, but I chose to be enlisted because I have been.

I knew that that would give me the opportunity to influence and, and help kind of younger Joes in the military come up. And I was, so, I was 24 years old and I knew I was gonna be able to work with 18 year old knuckleheads and try and, you know, get them on the right foot. Additionally, it paid for that ended up paying for all of my college debt at the same time.

So,  kind of a, kind of a win-win for me. Served six years in special operations aviation regiment and my whole, my whole time in service I deployed five times to combat Fort Iraq, one to Afghanistan, and then one non-combat trip to South America as well. And I'll kind of fast forward. Yeah, I'm a real estate investor now, but that came it developed slowly over the last 10 years or.

As I exited the military, trying to seek not only who I was, but who I needed to become. Now as, as military members transitioned from service to the civilian side there has to be a new self-discovery process or else you end up with things like veteran suicide, right? , and we can go into that too, because I like, there are some really amazing perspectives I think, that I can give to a civilian audience and explain why those things are happening and why sense of passion and purpose are so important and impactful to a military member and, and also to civilians.

But anyway, that's a little bit about me. Married of eight, married 18 years have two boys and we live in ca. . Very good, Eric. Yeah, I, I understand that as well. My two business partners fought in 82nd Airborne. Yep. And you know, one of 'em was a Sergeant Purple Heart recipient, and, you know, he's, he's had some tough times over his past few years.

Yep. You know, and you know, I think we all have. You know, but just, you know, helping each other make it through and, and yep. And, and that's what it's all about. That's right. What layers did you have to reveal to become who you are now and what is the next layer that you need to remove? . Yeah. I mean, it just introspection in general, learning about yourself.

If I'm 42 now, I mean, I, I feel like I didn't even know who I was until I was 30. Yeah. You know, and, and a lot of people can probably relate to that, but as far as layers go, it's going through life just doing what you think you're, you like to do. Looking back, realizing. Each layer, each, each step of the way.

What I was actually doing was what I was drawn to do. And so oftentimes you look back and you go, man, I've always been a leader. I mean, since I was 12 years old, I was working in the cornfields in Iowa and I was ended up as a team leader. Or if I was, started washing dishes at a place, being a manager, and then retail, I was the supervisor.

And so looking at that progress, I didn't choose that, that was part of my personality. I didn't realize that that.  that I was being drawn to those things. Well, I was well into my career in the military, and I was like, man, I was made to do this. I was made to work on teams and build teams, and you've got two, two arms for a reason.

One to pull yourself up and one to grab other people and bring 'em up with you. Yeah. So that probably ties in really well to the podcast here, . Yeah. You know, and Reaching out and, and being able to help people has been a great additional layer to who Eric Upchurch is. Yeah. And really helps me move forward day to day.

Yes, sir. That's great. What trials and tribulations have you been through? Just a couple. I'm just saying that kind of jokingly. . So I, in a special operations unit we lost 19.  the, my unit is one 60 a special operations aviation regiment. So the big black helicopters with the refueling probes on 'em.

And we're out there 306 days a year, deployed in several theaters of operation and getting the next bad guy every single night. And what that means is we have to train a lot, we have to fight a lot and. , we lose a lot of people because of that. So we lost 19 guys in the six years that I was in across the regiment.

And I, in my battalion, I was the, the burial detail, N C O I C, the non-commission officer in charge of burial. So we'd lose a guy overseas and we would have to go to their hometown and.  put our friend in the ground. It wasn't a, you know, random military guy from some other unit or something like that. So not that kind of burial detail.

So folding the flag over your friend, listening to his mom cry was one of the hardest things I've ever done. And I had to do multiple times. So trials and tribulations, there's been a lot. Makes you also think it actually makes it more difficult to adapt to civilian life because trials and tribulations as a civilian without that experience, you've gotta understand that the people around you didn't have that experience and that their trials and tribulations are their own and it's their own set of challenges.

So there has to be that, that level of empathy, but it's hard for a transitioning military member to recognize that someone.  and traffic is pissed off because they can't make it to their meeting on time and how irrelevant that actually is, right. Compared to some of the other things. But, but it's not, it's not their experience that, that, that they didn't have your experience.

So, you know, balancing that out and realizing that your experiences are yours, you've also gotta find your tribe of people who can relate to that. Right. And that really helps out. Yeah, quite a few. To answer your question, quite a few trials and tribulations, I would say. Thank you for sharing. Yeah. Who, who are you at your, at your lowest points, and then the inverse of that question will be who are you at your, your greatest points?

My lowest, I'm I'm probably a.

self-seeking, narcissistic, lazy I don't know how else to say it, but I mean, this is a fantastic question because the reality of it is we all probably have some part of us that that gets in a rut. Yeah. And but what pulls you out of that is that version of yourself that you may have had a glimpse of.

Yeah. At your best, you know, and, and that best of me is,  inspiring as many military members as possible to go do great things because they are capable of it. They just need some direction. And new sense of com comradery and team. Yeah. Re reengaged mission and yeah, just inspiration and hopefully, you know, we're ending veteran homelessness this decade, so Yeah.

I love that. That's, that's me at my best. I saw that on your bio and I love that. Yeah. Happening, I mean, for, for us to share who we are at our lowest it, it, it just, someone else is, is just probably lower, way lower than we have been. Yeah. And, and just to hear that, you know, this person's doing this and, but hey, you know, at our lowest we've been down there, you know?

Yep. Absolutely. Yep. When did you become passionate about your focus?

2019, I was speaking at an event in Kansas City and I said in front of the audience, which is about 150 people or so, I said, I'm gonna donate a house next year to a homeless veteran. I didn't know how I was gonna do that, but that didn't matter. You know, it's. Big goals out in front of yourself. I mean, I have vision boards.

I have three vision boards in front of me all the time that are staring me in the face. And so putting out big ideas and big goals is important. And so I realized probably then it was December, 2019 that I need to combine my military service with my real estate experience. Ing experience and make that work in the benefit of others.

Yeah. Which ended up being, okay, well let's donate houses to homeless veterans. Yeah. And then I connected with Veterans Community Project and off and running from there. Raised probably half a million dollars for, for them the last couple years. That's great. That's great. Who were the greatest contributors to your charact?

Man, these are some tough ones. Greatest contributor to my character. I, I would say best answer I can give is I am a definite believer in becoming a product of the five people you spend the most time with. And you know, I am constantly putting myself.  rooms where I'm the dumbest guy in the room on purpose.

And and also, you know, in, in, in many different character, personality characteristic, like, put myself in a, a room full of men with integrity. That's, that's where I want to be, you know? Yeah. So being able to filter out who I'm spending time with, I think has contributed quite a bit to my character over the years.

So I wouldn't say a pinpoint one. Or, or a handful of people, but just constantly making strides to strides to be around people who are better than me in whatever area. Good, good. Now, I know you already interviewed people, but if you could interview three more people, who would it be working on?

David Goggins right now. Do you know who that is? Yeah. Yeah. I've, oh, we've interviewed Jocko Willink, but David Goggins has been the the elusive one. So yeah, one, one guy just for his just sheer grit and I, I respect his, his, his grit and stamina. And then Yeah. I'll just go with him. I, I like him.

I had seen that Joe Rogan said something about he just do, David doesn't do podcasts. Yeah. But maybe if, if you did, you know, maybe shoot him a message or something and told him what you were up to. Yeah. You know, maybe that would. That would get him going. Yeah. I've, I've been in contact with his fiance for two years now and she's told us the same thing.

We're on a, a short list of podcasts. He might do. Yeah. But not, not currently. Not currently taking people. So I understand. Yep. If you ever write a book or another book what would it be about? Oh, man. We do have a book called Military House Hacking Number one bestseller on Amazon. And which we give away a pdf version for free on our website, but fantastic book.

And then I would write a book about or maybe it would be an autobiography. And the reason I'm saying that is because. Someone asked me as I did a, I did a half Ironman in December. Yeah. I saw cold, cold Turkey, no training. Wow. And someone on the bus asked me from going from the, the finish line to the start line to, to start the race.

She asked me, what's your specialty?  the only thing I could think of, and she was talking about like, what, what part of the race do you do best at? You know, and the only thing I said to her was grit. Yeah. And and that passion and purpose to help others and to live a better life and to, you know, do hard things is, is that grit?

I like it. So it would probably be about that, just grit. Good, good, good. Mind over matter. Yeah. Do you have a networking event, a book, a product, an invention or service that we can help you promote to the audience? Sure. Yep. I've got a book called Military House Hacking. Nice little book. We have a conference coming up in the fall called a d p Con Ad.

P i stands for Active Duty Passive Income. My company. So AD p I con will be coming up in the fall. And last year we had a very successful event couple hundred people and had a Medal of Honor recipient come speak and. We're gonna do it bigger, better, and awesome. That's great. And then as far as the products go, absolutely.

I mean, anyone can go to active duty passive income.com and get a bunch of free resources. Great. Great. And then you shared some links with me, but what is the best way for the audience to support you and get in contact? . Yeah, they can email me Eric at active duty passive income.com, or they can go to the website I just mentioned or eric upchurch.com and yeah, glad to, glad to talk to anybody who needs to pick my brain.

That's great, Eric. Hey, that concludes our show for the day. I hope I hope you enjoyed it and and I look to do some networking with you in the future. We will be editing and sharing this here short. All right. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you, Eric. Talk to you soon. Bye.