December 15, 2023
“It’s created time, energy, and space to design my life. It’s allowed me to direct the play, write the script. And I do it every day.”
David Lucas, a Long Island native, lives and works in Columbus, Ohio as a neuromodulation technique practitioner for his own business, Resonate NMT. A long and winding road brought him there and David sees his investment journey as a series of leaps guided by one principle.
“I am very focused and passionate about service, about community, about helping people,” he says.
It all began in New York City where David was working as a digital advertising consultant and producer. He then suddenly lost his job. “After being laid off, I was shaken and depressed,” he recalls.
“I had read Jack Kerouac’s On the Road as a young man, and in 2011, I decided that I was going to go out and fulfill that fantasy. I rented a car for eight weeks with unlimited mileage, and I went out to see the whole country.”
Overcoming Roadblocks
Upon his return to the city, David developed some unfortunate health concerns. “I developed food sensitivities, wrestled with anxiety. I was confused. I was frustrated. I was angry. And I couldn’t eat anything. Everything made me so incredibly fatigued, I had to lay down. For the next 10 years, I was laser focused on reverse engineering this.”
David says he saw every type of doctor, with no relief. “I was physically, mentally, emotionally broken.” Yet in spite of his condition, David was able to gather the strength to plan for his future career and financial stability. “After the shock of losing my job, I realized that there’s no guarantee. There’s no job security in corporate America. I could be in a position where it happens again when I’m much older. What would be a backup plan at that point in my life?”
It was then that David made up his mind to start his own business and find the right place to invest the nest egg he had built over his career. “I wasn’t going to have access to a 401k, and I couldn’t just keep all my money in a checking and saving account.” Serendipitously, the answer to both was real estate investment.
“I was studying investing to do something with my money,” David explains. “I purchased a bunch of books on investing in the stock market. One of the books compared investing in the stock market to investing in real estate, and that caught my attention. Then the vision just appeared to me: I’m going to provide housing for families.”
Making the Leap
With his business established, David soon made his first acquisition. “I purchased a 16-unit property straight away, with no experience at all,” he recalls. “I continued to acquire more and more fourplexes, duplexes, single family homes, and nearly doubled in size in about five years. So that’s really what led me into investing.”
By this time, David had moved to Columbus to be closer to his properties and leave the big city (and all the struggles it represented) behind. Along the way, he discovered The Best Ever podcast. “It was 2018 and I was ready to take another leap. I wanted to do something that required less energy and time than my current business model providing housing in C-class neighborhoods to lower income families.”
David became excited about the investment vehicles he learned about on the podcast, but that’s not what convinced him to work with Ashcroft. “What really inspired me and made me comfortable and confident enough to do this was Joe,” says David.
“I hadn’t met him, but I felt like he was in my living room for 1000 episodes. My sixth sense told me that this guy is very honest, very authentic.”
Trusting his new financial savvy, David took his first leap with Ashcroft with a multifamily residence in Midtown Dallas.
“We had a really successful exit, faster than we all originally expected. I just continued after that and started investing in the Value Fund. That’s how I transitioned from my own company, which I still own and operate, to syndication and passive investment.”
A Chance Encounter Pays Off
Real estate syndication may have given David some time back, but he was still searching for an answer to his health problems. In a lucky twist of fate, he was taking a course in Arizona in 2020 when he crossed paths with someone who offered a path to healing.
David underwent a session of neuromodulation therapy (NMT), and says it was life-changing. “That was it. I was able to eat anything I want, anywhere I want, anytime I want. About a month later, I was so inspired and impressed by this transformation that I felt it was my purpose to go to study NMT and find the other people like me out there, struggling with something and stuck.”
It was time for another leap. David opened his own practice, Resonate NMT. “I work with about 10 clients per week. I spend the rest of my time providing housing to lower income families in Class C neighborhoods and managing that process.”
Paying It Forward
Renewed health and a passive income stream have enabled David to work less and pursue his passions. “It’s allowed me to spend more time with my girlfriend and her son. I spend more time e-biking and hiking, and I’m able to meditate twice a day and do yoga once a day. It’s allowed me to feed the homeless.”
More than anything, David is “excited about making a lot more money and doing good with that money.” For those looking to make a leap of their own, David has some words of wisdom.
“My advice would be to be courageous, but also do the research. Understand what you’re getting into, but you’ve also got to get your hands dirty. You’ve got to try it.”
David is just one of our 3,000+ investors. Hear what passive income has meant to over 100 of our investors.
