We had the good fortune of connecting with Andrea Cwik and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Andrea, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?

After over 20 years working for various high-tech corporations in Silicon Valley, Andrea Cwik knew it was time to move on. While these years of growth and new experiences taught Andrea lots about being resourceful, working hard, and growing her personal wealth, in many ways she was left feeling as though she had not fully reached her potential; she wanted to step into more growth both financially and personally.

In 2019 Andrea and her husband made the leap. Moving their family from sunny California to even-sunnier Texas, they decided it was time to elevate the quality of their family life, and lean into smarter ways to invest and grow.

With a giant move and a 180 degree rewire, they dedicated themselves to creating generational wealth for their family and launched a real estate business dedicated to fixing and flipping both short term and long term rentals. Inspired by Chip and Joanna Gains, the couple dove head first into real estate investing. While this active investment was exciting, they decided to diversify even further and began to invest in passive investment vehicles like multifamily real estate.

Despite their success, Andrea was shocked that so few of her colleagues, friends, and many entrepreneurs and professionals had not been educated on these lucrative opportunities. This is how GoodGood Investing was born.

In 2021, Andrea joined forces with real estate investor and friend Rachel Grunn to form GoodGood Investing. GoodGood was founded to provide professionals and entrepreneurs (especially women) with the tools and knowledge to build their net worth and portfolios without sacrificing precious time. Their collective AUM (assets under management) totals over $105M, these investments are their commitment to helping others accelerate their path to retirement.

What habits do you feel helped you succeed

“I don’t know everything, but I want to learn and I want to grow.”

These are the words that Andrea repeats to herself when approached with a new or unfamiliar situation. The habit of being curious and teachable is something that so many of us leave behind in the elementary school classroom. Returning back to a state of curiosity helps us open our minds to new concepts and ideas we may otherwise reject. Being teachable means leaning into the unknown and embracing the things we desire to learn.

Making curiosity and life-long-learning a priority has become fundamental to Andrea’s professional and personal life. That is why a main pillar of GoodGood Investing is education; from their engaging podcast to their educational resources centered on financial independence, Andrea and Rachel are on a mission to educate busy professionals to multiply their money and unlock their financial legacy.

One piece of conventional advice you disagree with

Your 401k is the best path to retirement.

401ks are the most popular form of investment for Americans — nearly 60% have access through their employers. While 401ks can be a fantastic tool to save for retirement, they are volatile and rely on many factors that are unknown, such as your lifespan or true age of retirement.

In principle, your 401k is a tool to grow your savings enough to last you from retirement until you die. “The problem is no one knows how long they’re going to live; what if you outlive what your nest egg can provide?” notes Andrea, “Or the reverse: you live conservatively to stretch your nest egg when you could have enjoyed a higher standard of living and giving? It makes you question whether an investment strategy with such a large unknown is really as sensible as we may think.”

On the flip side, the default age of retirement is 65, but why force work for so many years if there are strategies to retire sooner? Rather than planning for retirement at 65, our retirement plans and financial goals should reflect a desire to live longer, and retire sooner – enjoying the pleasures of life such as traveling, spending time with children or grandchildren, and pursuing our health rather than scheduling-in more years in the office.

Beyond the missing data points and sweeping generalizations of a standard 401k, they have another downside: they are dependent on the stock market and are therefore highly volatile.

“Traditional 401ks are market-dependent when it comes to returns; as the stock market falls, so does your balance in your retirement account,” adds Andrea.

Most common 401k investments are stock mutual funds. To avoid setbacks, you must diversify how you invest your 401k. You can do this by having a solo-401k, allowing you to invest in retirement funds in a variety of different ways — not just the employer-approved ones.

This is where real estate investing comes into play. Projects and investments, such as multifamily, allow investors to utilize their 401k funds and produce over-sized returns that significantly outpace more traditional investments. These assets are also recession resistant and are not market-dependent. As the economy softens in a downturn, multifamily apartment complexes often see a demand increase, which drives the value upward.

Another option people choose is to decrease their contributions to their 401k and personally invest that amount in multifamily real estate instead; that allows them to keep the 401k they are familiar with, while shifting their mindset and dipping their toes in multifamily, or other investments beyond the traditional stock market.

“Key take away is elevate your investments beyond the status quo.”

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?

GoodGood Investing was born out of the desire to educate and empower busy professionals to supercharge their investments, elevate their financial freedom, and retire sooner. Rachel and Andrea get it because they have been there: from long hours on the hamster wheel, to a desire to create their own path and build the best futures for their families.

As they began to diversify their investments and ultimately increase their wealth, Rachel and Andrea felt compelled to share their growing knowledge and create opportunities for other busy professionals to learn about financial independence while also investing in multifamily real estate opportunities.

What role has risk taking played in your life and your career?

The definition of insanity is to do the same thing repeatedly and expect a different result. It is all too easy to get stuck on the hamster wheel, repeating mindless tasks and becoming weighed down in our routines.

Risk, at the end of the day, is breaking these cycles of insanity and moving into the unknown.

“When we walked away from Silicon Valley, my husband and I were actively choosing risk,” says Andrea. “Had we not pushed ourselves to look further and dig deeper for our family and for our careers, we would likely still be stuck in our old routines, rather than building the new life we have grown to love so much.”

Instead of viewing risk as an unstable, or a fear-driven state of being, Andrea has rewired her thoughts to view risk as opportunity. From learning something entirely new, to refining your understanding and gaining more knowledge, risk is the only way to move forward.

Factor to Success

“Success is the product of a relentless desire to be more,” says Andrea, “By not giving up, we train ourselves to work hard even when things don’t go well.”

The ability to push through hard times does not mean being stubborn, but rather confident in your ability to reach the goals you have set for yourself. Beyond a desire to see a better end result, being relentless is a sign of faith.

For Andrea, faith is a huge part of being relentless in the pursuit of something better.

No matter what my journey is, I know that it will end up ok because God has me and I have God,” she says.  “He is looking for, and helping me, with the good.”

Regardless of what motivates you, being relentless in your goals and priorities is critical in building success in your company, and in your life.

Most Important Lesson your business or career has taught you

There is more than you could ever imagine when you apply yourself to something. When we begin a project, we tend to have an idea of what we expect to happen or evolve. Given our past experiences and existing knowledge, we make quick assumptions about how things may turn out.

For Andrea, her biggest lesson in building GoodGood has been patience and openness. Being open to new ideas, new opportunities, and new pathways has allowed the venture to grow more quickly.

“It is also so important to not fall into comparison,” says Andrea, “focus on your own journey, someone else’s success is not your failure.”

In many cases, the success of others can also be a win for yourself, as well. At GoodGood, Rachel and Andrea prioritize the wins of their clients, and work hard so that they feel educated and empowered to make the best decisions for themselves and for their families.

Balance

At GoodGood, Rachel and Andrea define balance as what happens when you work because you want to, not because you have to.

Rather than spending hours working around the clock on salary, GoodGood Investing prioritizes passive investments so that busy professionals can use their money efficiently in ways that work for them – creating income and impact. Rachel and Andrea work in the background while their clients are doing more important things like spending time with family, or starting a new project.

“At the end of the day,” says Andrea, “It comes down to goals and priorities. If we do not have these things in place then we will be burning time and resources on things that don’t matter or are not relevant to what we truly want.”

Idea for your business:

GoodGood Investing was born out of the desire to educate and empower busy professionals to supercharge their investments, elevate their financial freedom, and retire sooner. Rachel and Andrea get it because they have been there: from long hours on the hamster wheel, to a desire to create their own path and build the best futures for their families.

As they began to diversify their investments and ultimately increase their wealth, Rachel and Andrea felt compelled to share their growing knowledge and create opportunities for other busy professionals to learn about financial independence while also investing in multifamily real estate opportunities.

What are you inspired by

At the heart of her goals, Andrea is most Inspired to help her husband retire early, while also increasing the amount of giving, service, and contributions that her family makes.

“We want to show our children the importance of giving back,” says Andrea, “We want to increase our generosity and lead by example because we care about our communities and want our children to understand the value of uplifting the people around them.”

 Helping others gain financial freedom so that they can then have a greater community impact is central to the mission at GoodGood. By helping their clients define their investment priorities, redirect their funds, and grow their wealth, Rachel and Andrea in turn help their clients find space and balance for the things that matter to them.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I live in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex (DFW) and there are so many places I love. One stop is a must, the Perot Museum, it is a museum that has a little bit of everything for everyone including a dinosaur exhibit, robotics, 3D movie experience, and other active learning exhibits. I absolutely am a fan of The Star in Frisco which has restaurants, unique shops and a piano bar. So definetely stop there for fun! Legacy West in Plano is another favorite location! It has a food hall (small food stands from every cuisine imaginable), luxury shops, and fun concerts. Also I highly recommend the Winspear Opera House for all things Dallas Broadway Musicals. The best part of DFW though hands down is the people. Really, everyone is so nice!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I would like to shoutout my husband, JJ Cwik and my three boys Aiden, Ethan and Dylan. JJ is the main reason why I am full time in real estate today. He is my number one supporter and collaborator. On my first fix and flip I was set back by a crooked contractor but JJ told me to not give up and to see the project through. This launched my career into full time real estate investing, being a real estate mentor and podcast host. We have now invested in multiple types of real estate assets together and have become experts in passive real estate investing. Whether it has been my real estate value-adds, podcasting, TV appearances, or giving me time to be a mom and a daughter, my husband has been a constant. So, I just want to give a shoutout to JJ as a leader, real estate mogul, best husband imaginable, tech director, homework helper and best dad in the universe. To my 3 boys, I am beyond thankful for your love and always supporting me and my dreams. You make me want to be a better person. Thank you for your patience when I’m working or traveling. I do it all for you, your future and to build a legacy for you to continue to spread generosity and bless others in this world.

    

Website: goodgoodinvesting.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goodgood.investing/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/goodgood-investing/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/watch/goodgood.investing/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3TqO860ZX0exSKCEpy3vfQ

Image Credits
Dylan Grunn

Nominate Someone: ShoutoutLA is built on recommendations and shoutouts from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.