Dave Wolcott (00:01.166)
Chad, welcome to the show.

Chad Johnson (00:03.575)
Man, it’s a treat, Dave, to be with you. I’m so pumped. Thank you for having me.

Dave Wolcott (00:08.206)
Chad, I am you bet I am so grateful that you’re on I know the audience is definitely going to love this episode. One of the core pillars that we talk about in overall holistic wealth strategy is a lot around mindset, right mindset is just it’s just everything you know you look at people like Elon Musk and Steve Jobs I mean these major industry transformers right and what

mindset they have, right? What an example and everything. And I know that’s part of the core to your philosophy as well. So I know folks are really going to, you know, kind of enjoy this. And then also, you know, talking really about, you know, holistic wealth, right? Because, you know, wealth is really interesting when you start to unpack it, right? It’s not really about the zeros in your bank account, you know, at some point.

It’s, you know, you can add more zeros, but it doesn’t get you to that overall fulfillment, right? It’s like the four freedoms and the family, which I know is super important for you as well. So for folks who aren’t familiar with you, with you, tell us a little bit about your story. How did you get here? How did you become an entrepreneur? And, and talk to us about your amazing family as well.

Chad Johnson (01:09.949)
Wow.

Chad Johnson (01:30.819)
Well, Dave, you know, I love that you went right out of the gate to this big picture of what wealth is, right? Because I do think a lot of people narrowly define that as like, well, it’s just a number, right? If you reach your number, then wealth is yours. And I love the fact that, you know, at an early age, I guess, growing up in a big family, I was one of eight kids. And I realized from an early age that we were in arguably maybe middle class at the time, you know, in our financial situation.

I grew up in an incredibly relationship rich environment, right? Where I just was around, you know, parents who just were pouring into me in the right ways, siblings that were my best friends and a neighborhood full of connected relationships, right? And so I grew up feeling extremely rich, like never feeling like I lacked, right? Even though I knew there were people that…

lived in big houses and drove big cars, nice cars, and had big trips. And not that there was anything wrong with any of that. In fact, I aspired to see some of those kind of breakthroughs in my own financial situation at some point, right? That was part of my childhood dream. But it’s weird because you mentioned that holistic picture of wealth and what that looks like. And I think from a very early age, I don’t know where it even came to me, but I was like, man, the way I want to measure success in my life is going to be different.

than what maybe everybody else would choose. And I came up with these five priorities, right? And I call them my giant five. I used to spend much time around me. You know, you’re gonna hear me talk about my giant five priorities. And you know, the first one being my faith. I’m a believer. So like that grounds me, right? It’s my relationship with God. It’s my spiritual life. And that’s first for me. If I’m right there, then my number two priority is my key relationship. You know, it’s funny, Harvard did a study, Dave, and.

and they published this book, largest longitudinal study on happiness ever. And they tracked it for these generations. And the single outlier, you know, on what was it that actually made human beings flourish? What was it that made them so happy was that, those key relationships, whatever it was, key friendships, key relationships with maybe parents or a spouse or their partner or kids or friends, but it was those relationships that made it rich. So I said, okay.

Chad Johnson (03:49.743)
If I’m right with God, right there, now my relationship with my wife, I want it to just grow and grow and grow. I don’t want it to ever diminish, right? And it’s funny, Dave, because I coach a lot of entrepreneurs, right? And one of the key areas I see them kind of break down their wealth is through divorce. Dude, you wanna talk about a hit, you know, to financial well-being and stability. It’s like take everything you’ve been building for so long and just rip it in half, right? And rip the business in half or rip the assets in half.

and what a slow down. And so I’m constantly telling people that are wealth builders, hey, take care of those key relationships. It’s not only just gonna make you happier, right? More fulfilled, but it’s also going to make you richer long-term, right? If you continue to grow in these ways. So that number two relationship, my wife, Janiece, we just celebrated 30 years. I can’t believe it. I’m too young for that. You know that, but no, you know, but it’s, and I like her more than I ever have and she’s still pretending she likes me. No, we…

Dave Wolcott (04:39.85)
Wow, congrats. Yeah, yeah, congrats.

Chad Johnson (04:48.947)
have a great relationship, you know, and we work at it, right? So it’s fun. But that’s the second relationship out of the five for me. The third is if you have kids, for me, I’m going, man, there’s no success, no measure of wealth that will matter to me if my children aren’t flourishing, right? And you know this, when you have a kid, you literally ache if just one of your kids isn’t doing good. You know, if they’re suffering, if they’re going through difficult times, and every parent has a kid that goes through difficult times.

it just impacts your whole world, right? And you start going, ah, I’m not okay if they’re not okay. So, you know, really point into that third priority and saying, hey, I wanna see them flourish and be everything that they were meant to be. I have 11 of them, right? My wife and I, I told you I liked her a lot. We have proof, we have 11 of these kiddos, and the youngest is 11, the oldest is now turning 29 in January, right? Which is hard to believe.

and we’re expecting our 10th gram baby. I mean, it’s just like, and Dave, you know this because we’re both a part of strategic coach, right? And for years, Dan had that 10X program and I was the one guy that didn’t get what he was talking about, you know? And I took 10X home and I told my wife, hey, we only have four kids, we need to have six more because we got a 10X. And you know, we got a 10X’s family and anyways, she went along with it. But so third priority for me is those.

Dave Wolcott (05:49.422)
well.

Dave Wolcott (06:04.132)
Yeah.

Chad Johnson (06:12.407)
those kiddos and seeing them flourish, right? And then fourth, you know, Dave, it’s been said that a billionaire with a belly ache just wants to feel better, right? I mean, they just, they can’t even enjoy what they have. None of us can if we’re not a position of wholeness and health, wellness, vitality, energy, right? And I could say life, family, business, all of it is an energy game.

And so my fourth priority is how do I take care of myself, right? Physically, mentally, spiritually, so that I’m able to bring A-level energy to my best opportunities consistently, right? And so I lost my health at 12 years old, I mean, at 10 years old, and then my early 20s. And mainly it was, anyways, I won’t go into all that, but it really made me realize the value and the wealth, for lack of a better word, there is in health and vitality, high energy living.

and being able to protect that asset. And so health is number four. And then number five for me is really where the great game of business comes in or being a value creator or an entrepreneur, or for those that aren’t entrepreneurs, but it’s crushing your career, your life, right? It’s taking what you’ve been given, your God-given gifts, talents, abilities and putting them in the play in the marketplace and making a massive difference, right? Serving more people or whatever. So to me,

for me, if I go, hey, these five things are in order for me and I’m maintaining them in proper reflection of reflecting in my life, I feel like that’s such not only a platform for success, but it’s a model for sustained success, right? It’s just gonna get a bit, well, bigger, richer, fuller, year by year. So those five priorities, I literally came across them, don’t know where, I wish I could give credit,

what is it, credit to where it’s due. I don’t know if it was just something I came up with or if someone shared something with me, but I literally was like, these five are gonna be my thing. And so as I went out into my life, I had a really slow start financially. I’ll be real honest with you, my story is a windy path. And I struggled early on. I had some really, my wife and I, when we were married, couple of kids, I was jumping from one business, starting this business, seeing this one fail, you know, I had a lot of.

Chad Johnson (08:35.711)
early learning to do, to put it simply. And then had some successes along the way, but along the way I was filtering everything through those five priorities. And so when it came to my career, I said, Hey, I’ll start a business, I’ll sell a business, but everything’s going to be in service of these other five. And so on the career side, if you want a bit of that story, I literally grew up in Los Angeles. You know, I,

My mom pulled me out of public school after seventh grade. I was one of these students who turns out I was actually loved learning, but school wasn’t the environment I loved learning in. I felt extremely bored. It was frustrating. I was one of these guys that was like, my grades were okay, but I was really there for the social and for, for all the other things. And she thought she could porn into me faster, better, harder. And she did. And so she did that, pulled me out at seventh grade. Homeschooling was not cool in the, in the eighties.

in Los Angeles, but I got my high school diploma by the time I was 16. And at that point I was like, well, what am I going to do? And so I ended up jumping into a local junior college to take some classes, found out I could get my emergency medical technician certificate at 18 and I could become a ski patroller and I was kind of a ski bum, you know, I was like, I wanted to, you know, I love skiing and I’m like, Hey, they’ll pay me to do this, but my ambitions, it was funny.

Dave, because I always knew I had big ambition, but I didn’t know how my path was going to develop at all. So I’m ski patrolling, I’m working construction in the summers, and I meet my wife, and I’m like, man, I gotta get a real job. I wanna marry this woman and have a family. And anyway, so I end up going back to, at the age of 21, 22, going back to the family business.

My dad and uncle were running a company in Los Angeles, screen printing labels on glass bottles. Okay, and they were very silk screen these labels. Things, we didn’t do this particular project, but a lot of people recognize this project like Great Goose Vodka. You know, it’s a really gorgeous bottle, color screened into the glass, fired at high temperature. The color actually becomes a part of the label. It was there in Los Angeles, city of commerce. And so I start working in that environment and I find that

Chad Johnson (11:03.683)
Being there, I get so excited about the potential of that company, right? I’m seeing the opportunities for growth, for reorienting our direction, for realigning our team. I mean, I just, we had been in business since 1934. My grandfather and his brother actually started that business in the middle of the Great Depression. I was too young, to be honest with you, in my uncle’s eyes and maybe in my father’s eyes. And they’re like, hey, you know what, Chad? We love your excitement and zeal and all this passion you have, but.

You really don’t know anything from anything. So we just started biting heads, right? On what could be done, what should be done. And I realized, Hey, I need to go do some other things. And so I went back to school and, uh, I started two other companies, a janitorial service window cleaning company, right? And I started a mobile espresso and coffee bar business and, and I thought I’d made it, Dave. I’ll be real frank with you. I thought I was, I was at ski patrol there in Southern California, snow summit.

And I thought I had made it because I had a line 10 people deep at my little mobile espresso bar at the bottom of the hill right there at the ski resort. Cause I had contracted with the, uh, the resort and I’m skiing, right. With my uniform on helping damsels in distress with their broken, you know, bindings and hurt knees and, and whatnot. But the line at my coffee bar buying $6 lattes all day long was just cranky. And I had two gals in there running the machine.

And that first month I made 30 grand and I was skiing. And I was like, man, I finally figured out this kind of entrepreneurial mix. This is, I just, I started forecasting my big future around how I was gonna do this and I’m gonna set these up at other ski resorts and in this back early 90s. And at that time, most ski resorts, it was just, hey, go up to the restaurant and get a coffee. And they didn’t have lattes and mochas and all the other stuff that was coming along. So.

It’ll last two months, right? Before the owner of the resort, he’s sitting there going, whoa, Chad’s making a hand over fist down there. And he calls me into his office. Hey Chad, you know, love you. Thanks for the idea and everything, but we’re gonna go and put in our own. And anyways, but it is welcome to the entrepreneurial ride, right? And Dave, at that point, I literally, I’m on my way, but I’m just kind of doing some of this, some of that here and there.

Dave Wolcott (13:14.734)
Sure, sure.

Chad Johnson (13:24.847)
And meanwhile, I had married that woman of my dreams, Janice, and we had two kids. And my brother sat me down and he’s like, Chad, he didn’t basically say you’re a loser, but he said, you’re a loser. He says, you’re trying all these things. You have all these entrepreneurial dreams. You, you make some money, you, you win some, you’re losing some, but really you’re just all over the map and you really need to sober up and get a job. Like get some stability in your life. Right now he had, he was a firefighter paramedic. He had this stable career.

And he’s just like, you know, get a life. So it was funny. I sat down with my wife. I said, is he right? You know, am I just like, and she’s like, it would be kind of cool if we could just make steady income for awhile. And like, you know, cause we’re all over the place. And I said, okay, I’ll do it. Let’s go. So I jumped into back into school and became a firefighter, paramedic, went to fire academy, went to paramedic school. And it was interesting because at this point in my life, I absolutely found I loved learning.

I was there for my reasons. I was sitting on the front seat. I was top of my class. It was just an interesting change from my growing up years around school. But it was funny because I fought that career big time because it felt like I was a fish out of water in a lot of ways. Get hired in the fire service, realize that I’m not a good mix for the fire service. So much love and respect for the men and women who put on the uniform and go do what they

but I was not a good government employee. I was not a good union guy. I couldn’t sit at meetings and talk about how we need to get a 2% cost of living increase. And it just wasn’t me, right? So I was literally going, I was dying there. And anyways, I’ll shorten this up. I end up getting a call from my buddy. I got hired in the fire service. I’m a year off, I get off probation. I tell my wife the day I get off probation, like my chief and captain come in, shake my hand, congratulations, Chad, you have 24 years left.

Oh man, it felt like prison bars had just slammed around me, right? And I’d gone and met with a financial advisor a few months prior. And I sat down with him and he says, Chad, what are your goals? And I literally said, well, I want to be a millionaire in the next six years. And he just, he looks at me and he’s like, dude, you’re nuts. You’re like, you’re crazy. You’re like, what are you thinking? You know, and I’m like, and he says, if you saved eight times what you make.

Chad Johnson (15:51.351)
your gross income, if you saved eight times that for the next 10 years, you wouldn’t even get there. He’s like, you’re nuts. And I walked out of there and I’m like, I’m obviously doing the wrong thing. I’m in the wrong industry. What am I doing? Back to the drawing board. I get a call two months later from my buddy, Mike Willis. He’s working for UBS as a financial advisor. He says, Chad, I want to fly your Colorado Springs and I want to explain something to you.

I go up to his corner office there on the 10th floor, you know, and I’m like, wow, this is a different world, you know, and he starts talking numbers that I’m like, well, that lines up with my goals, you know. And so he’s like, Hey, would you be interested in doing this? I’m like, a fire guy can do this, you know, I mean, I’m a, I don’t have a degree in finance. Long story short, I get hired by UBS. They put me in a bullpen with seven other guys and these guys are from Duke and Notre Dame and they have finance degrees and I’m like the firefighter paramedic in the room going.

I am so out of my game, right? And it was just saying yes to these opportunities, but all of a sudden I wanted it more than anybody. I had a growing family, I had three kids, number four was on the way, right? I’m like, man, and long story, I keep saying that, but it was really cool because I found a new world and it was a results economy. And it was an economy that said, hey, if you produce, you win. If you don’t, you fail.

And the results are 100% on your shoulders. And I loved that environment and started to find ways. And it took me longer than I wanted, but I started to find ways to do the work of gathering assets. And in the financial world, I mean, the task Mike gave me, because we were gonna be quote unquote partners, was I only wanna sit down with people who have a million dollars to invest. And I realized, boy, did I have a lot to learn if I was gonna get that.

woman, that man to sit down with me, unload their top drawer, share their finances, you know, the whole picture and trust us and me in particular with that responsibility. And so unbelievable gains in my life growth curve at that time. And it was long in that I realized my entrepreneurial passion came alive. I realized I never wanted to work for somebody else. In a sense, I really enjoyed that freedom.

Chad Johnson (18:15.647)
I’m in there three years, we sit in front of hundreds of millions of dollars of assets that come in. It’s an incredible win for both of us. And I get a call from my dad. And he’s like, Chad, I’m now, before I was 21 years old, now I’m 32. He’s calling me and he says, Chad, would you move your family back to LA and take over the family business? And I’m like, absolutely not. I said, I’m loving where I’m at. I like the freedom. I like my life.

And I’m on a crazy good trajectory. I just, this is, this is good. He persisted and it was interesting because I. Well, I said yes eventually. And I moved my family in 20, 2002 back to LA. And at that point, he asked me to come in as general manager of that business. And.

I had this vision of what that business could be, right? We come into a company and you sit there and go, man, I see it being like this. I see the culture acting in this way, honoring people, really honoring our clients, doing the best work on the planet. I see us growing in these ways. And after two years of really head down, my father left the state two weeks after I got there. He was serious about retiring and getting out of the picture. My uncle, who was his partner, had a family emergency, was gone three months later. It was all on me.

which was the best thing ever, because I was really ready to carry that responsibility and do the learning, and it was hard learning. I saw linear growth over the next two years, but it was very, I’m gonna say, very frustrating growth for me, Dave. And in 2004, my buddy who I worked with in finance, Mike, Willis, calls me up and says, Chad, you gotta join strategic coach. And I’m like, what’s strategic coach? He goes, just do it. And he goes, and if you do it, don’t sign up for one year, sign up for three years. Just commit.

in your mind that you’re going to go three years. He says, this will change your life. Anyways, I jumped in and Dave, I want to say that inflection point in 2004, October of 2004 was one of the most profound inflection points in my wealth building journey in every way. You talked about mindset. I had been reading books like voraciously since I got out of high school.

Chad Johnson (20:34.399)
I don’t know where that passion for reading, for learning came from. This was before podcasts and all those other things, but I was reading. And if it wasn’t a book a week, it was a book every two weeks. I was just, you know, grabbing, I wanted to learn in books on, you know, they were almost all on personal development or mindset or growth or, you know, business or, um, how to, you know, develop customers or how to deal with team or leadership. And, and so when, when I came into the business,

I felt like I had this fairly good working knowledge of these things, but I came to coach and all of a sudden I hear concepts called like unique ability. And I was like, wow, that’s powerful. You mean there’s certain things that I could be better at than anyone in the world. And there’s certain things that I just will always be incompetent at, or I really shouldn’t spend my time doing. And Dave, you know that concept just as well as I do, but it was a profound shift for me. And

I started to orient my business and my life around those new ways of thinking. The gap and the gain. Dave, I don’t know if I’m making an overstatement when I said, I felt like it almost saved my life. I didn’t realize what a gap right was. I lived in a world of constant perfectionism. I was striving towards the ideal. Even when I get to my goal, okay, the goal is make 100 grand. You get to 100, immediately it had gone to 250.

And when you got to 250, it immediately had gone to 500. And so it was never, I was never living in the game. And it was, everything was always moving away. And I didn’t realize what it was doing to my thinking and how it was undermining my confidence. I was undermining my success. And I was one of those perpetual self-floggers, right? Just if I didn’t meet the goal or I didn’t meet the mark, man, boy, would I be rate myself internally.

And I didn’t realize how destructive that was. Anyways, Coach changed my life. We saw that company over the next 18 years grow exponentially, top line over eight times, bottom line over 18 times, right? You know, just started to see these incredible gains and anyways, couldn’t be more grateful now as I look back at the journey, because you mentioned those four freedoms, you know, the freedom of time.

Chad Johnson (22:55.235)
the freedom of money, the freedom of relationship, the freedom of purpose. And I slap myself, Dave, I wake up every day in that world realizing that I’m free to do what I was put here on earth to do, to choose those opportunities, choose those people. And so now I get to be an investor, I get to be a business owner, I get to be a coach, I get to be a dad and a granddad, and all these things in a world of…

that’s free and it’s just, it’s stuff I dreamed about as an 18 year old but now I get to realize. So that’s way too long aversion buddy. I’m sorry, that’s too much but.

Dave Wolcott (23:35.263)
No, it was. Yeah, that was excellent, Chad. No, I think you went on to all of the questions I was really going to ask you subsequently. But I, you know, just really love that. The first of all, the whole concept of G5, I think is just so powerful.

And I love frameworks or thinking tools, right? That give people guidelines and sometimes we all get lost in the chaos of the world or information overload, right? So when you can kind of just think about these five, giant five things in your life, how can I keep all of these balls afloat?

Chad Johnson (23:56.159)
Yeah.

Dave Wolcott (24:14.49)
Um, you know, that’s where you’re going to have the most satisfaction and fulfillment. And, and what I think we share in common as well, which is, which is really kind of fascinating, you know, it’s a real deep level of thinking, but you know, if you go back to Maslow’s hierarchy, right? I mean, you know, you’ve got your basic needs, which is where, you know, we’re all starting out in our twenties, just trying to figure it out. You’re trying to pay the rent.

trying to put food on the table and figure out what’s important, then you have a family and so you need more financial security. But it’s really this path to really self-actualization, right, and this growth that some tremendous people, people like Tony Robbins, right, and Gandhi, right, have potentially reached the top, although there really is no top.

Chad Johnson (24:39.523)
train.

Dave Wolcott (25:07.03)
but it’s just this constant journey of growth and things. And I think it just becomes so fulfilling and meaningful. So do you have a few concepts or things you could share with the audience in terms of what’s helped really fuel your growth, what’s been able to guide your growth through the amazing journey that you’ve had?

Chad Johnson (25:33.999)
You know what, Dave? Yes. You know, when I’m asked that question, I like to say people’s mindset comes out their mouth when they speak, right? And, and you think about, you know, I’m a real estate investor is one of the things I get to do now. And, and it’s interesting because with real estate, I say the most important real estate in the world is real estate right between your ears. There’s, there’s no more important valuable, uh, real estate and

So many of us are actually undermining our future by either looking at our past the wrong way or choosing our thoughts in the wrong way moment by moment. I think the most important thing that people do that are successful, that unsuccessful people don’t do, is that they manage the real estate between their ears. They choose their thinking. They choose their thoughts. They think.

You know, Dan likes to say they think about their thinking and they realize that a wrong thought or a negative thought or an undermining thought or a thought that dwells on the failure rather than the lesson, right, that stays in the gap is actually doing yourself brain damage. And it’s interesting because I like to tell our coach clients, I would love to see my brain scan today. What my brain went…

look like in a scan versus what did 10, 15, 20 years ago. Because I believe that successful people actually build better brains. That we’re actually, when we talk about that journey of growth and success, we’re actually becoming someone different. People say, well, no, they think, well, you landed this, you bought this business or you grew this company or you arrived at this certain destination. Well, really it was…

you became someone different along the way. And so in building our thought and building our brains by every thought we choose, I don’t know that I understood it a young man just how important that is, right? Just how fundamental and that every day I’m either building my brain for a bigger future or I’m undermining myself and my present and my future. And every thought matters, right? And there’s a scripture I love, it says, take every thought captive.

Chad Johnson (27:59.319)
And I like that thought that I cannot allow thoughts to go through my brain. And imagine you have a beautiful piece of real estate. You know, you’re trying to create an environment for somebody and it’s a resort. And if you did not make that resort, if you did not protect that resort and anybody could just come through and dump garbage on the lawn and drive through it at any time, morning, noon or night, they could play any kind of music as they barge through your property, it would destroy it in a heartbeat. And people get that.

with real estate, but our brains, we literally allow that to happen through the things we listen to, the things we see. I am fanatical about reminding people, turn off the news, right? I mean, why would you let people dump garbage in your brain if you’re trying to create a resort or this purposeful tool? And why would you let all this, and I’m the guy who used to be a junkie for all of it, news and politics and all the stuff.

But if I can’t influence it, I don’t need to know about it. Man, I wanna make a difference on the things that are in front of me that I could do. So I just, to me, that journey of building a brain and know you’re in that process, whether you wanna be or not, right? Everybody’s in the process. And for them to embrace the opportunity of it. And to me, that would probably be the single greatest factor. When I hear people talk, it just breaks my heart sometimes

even in their language, they’re beating themselves up. You know, they’ll literally say, I’m not a positive person. I’m not a good communicator. And I’m like, it’s okay if you say I didn’t used to be, but separate yourself from it. And that’s reframing it, choosing a better thought, because you can be better. And, you know, and anyways, it’s protect the number one real estate in the world, right?

Dave Wolcott (29:46.37)
So good, yes.

So good, Chad, really love that metaphor. It makes so much sense. And, and really also one of the things right that you know, people should think about too, is this, you know, this concept of basically, you know, investing and we’re not only investing in, you know, into financial assets, right. But it’s, it’s really the G five that you talk about, right, we’re investing versus having expenses. So we’re investing in relationships.

We’re investing in our health. We’re investing in our mindset. And I struggled like for years, right? Where I always used to think, you know,

Chad Johnson (30:22.351)
on.

Dave Wolcott (30:28.982)
you know, I’ve got to be the first one into the office and I’ve got to be the last one to leave. And, you know, I’ve got to be there. I’ve got to do all of this, you know, time and effort and everything. And I struggled with, you know, the time that I would spend kind of working out like, oh, I’m working out, I should really be at work. Or how can I have time to meditate? Because I got to get into the office, I got to answer my emails, I got to do all these things. But you know, now,

I mean, I’ve really been able to kind of grow from that and look back and say, you know, that is actually, you know, the 15 minutes a day that I meditate is one of the most powerful 15 minutes of my entire day. That really takes me so much further, right? You know, so I think when people can make that shift to, you know, making these investments and not seeing things as costs.

you know, like you say, keeping the garbage out of your head, right? You can just you can really 10x.

Chad Johnson (31:29.355)
It’s you keyed in on it in a way that I think is so powerful Dave and so few see it. I literally had someone come up to me and say, how can you blow, was the term, blow so much money on family trips? Because I like to ski with my family and do different adventures with my family and have shared memories and experiences. And that was their terminology, right? How could you blow? How can you do that? And it’s interesting because when you talk wealth, talk holistic wealth,

I have literally created a freedom fund, a separate account, Johnson Family Freedom. And it’s about, it’s there only for the purpose of investing in shared experiences, in renting a big house and bringing everyone together. Right before Thanksgiving, we brought all our kids, all our grandkids in, right? And it’s not an expense to me. I don’t ever even view it as a cost. I see it as this is an investment. You know?

Same thing with my wife. You know, when I do anything, when I spoil around, when I plan a trip, when I’m doing constant little things, it’s I wanna be constantly investing, yes, money, but time, creativity. And you hit on it, Dave. If we see ourselves as investing in our health, you and I were talking before the call, peptides, right, you know, stem cells. What are all the things that we wanna be? Be.

None of these things are cheap, easy, they don’t fall on your lap, they’re not provided by the healthcare system, you have to go out and find them and invest on your own, but you care about that, so you invest in it. And I just think that framework is so powerful. If we can reframe all those priorities as investments, boy, you’re gonna, I think, well, I know that. I get to live one of the richest lives of anybody I know. And it’s that mindset that everything that really matters.

deserves investment. You gave me great language.

Dave Wolcott (33:24.294)
Yeah, so powerful, Chad. I think it’s just really great to focus on that, his mindset. And we have in our holistic wealth strategy, we have five different phases to kind of getting to holistic wealth. But the first one, it’s really all about yourself. It’s all about the mindset. And you just, again, you look at some of the grades of the people who…

you know, who’ve made it really far in life in terms of, and let’s just think about, you know, true wealth, right? In terms of self actualization, right? And growing, you know, with all those giant fives, you know, they haven’t been just, you know, because there’s a lot of people that have made a lot of money, maybe they’re CEO of a fortune 500 company, but their family is broken, their health, they’ve sacrificed their health, you know, to get to where they are.

Right? So, you know, how do you really define success, right? And wealth, right? And I think it’s, it’s all with that framing in the mindset.

Chad Johnson (34:25.507)
That’s it.

Chad Johnson (34:29.323)
That’s it. And I love that each individual is going to choose their own priorities. And it’s funny, everybody has priorities. Everybody’s already chosen them, whether they’re intentional about it or not. Right. They can just look back at their calendar over 2023 and look and say, well, this is where I spent my time. This is where I spent my money. This is where I put my energy. These are people I spent my time with. These are my priorities. What’s cool is we come into the end of a year.

You know, there’s no better time to kind of sit down and say, hey, what do I want? Right? Because we all have the opportunity to level up as we go forward, man. I’m like, I’m more, as much as I’m grateful for my past, I’m so excited about my future, I can’t even see straight, right? I mean, I see so much opportunity and I can’t wait to go there, but it’s so beautiful to think that today, someone listening to this call may sit there and go, you know what, my priorities have been A, B, and C.

But I can change them at any point. Maybe health hasn’t been their priority. Maybe their faith hasn’t been their priority, their marriage or their relationship or their kids or whatever. Maybe their business hasn’t, maybe their finances, I don’t know. But they can literally sit down today and decide, hey, these are gonna be my top, my giant five, or they can say, hey, these are my top three or whatever. And I think having that filter of your own chosen priorities through which you say yes or no to things, through which you…

You know, say, yeah, this is worth my time, my energy, my money, my, my investment, um, is, is such a, a foundational skillset for really getting where you want to go eventually. And, and I just love that people can choose that. And I hear people do that. And even our coach workshops, I’ll hear them literally say, you know what, my priorities have been this. I had a gentleman in my workshop this summer. He’s like, you know what? My business is crushing it. He goes, I’m just, I’m making millions over. And he says, but what I want.

And I’m realizing right now as a change of priority, I want to 10X my relationship with my wife. And it was so cool because he came back a quarter later and he says, unbelievable, what changed his intention around his priority? That was it. He didn’t change his wife, he didn’t change his, he just said, my priority is shifting. So I just think the power of clear priorities, Dave, man, successful people get that. And as we can make, and we all have to make it our own.

Chad Johnson (36:54.975)
And we have them already, but are we choosing them real intentionally? And then are we building our day around that? Our week around that, you know, our calendar around that, our finances around that. Because if we are, man, we can make such crazy good gains and, and our richness, man, there’s a richness of soul, Dave, like you were talking about, you know, there’s this richness of soul where you just sit there and look at each part of your life and, and kind of go, man, I can’t believe I get to, to experience this life, you know.

That’s the success I want people to have. They’re gonna go, come on, right? Is this for real? I mean, come on. Anyway, it’s so good.

Dave Wolcott (37:26.762)
Yeah. Awesome. Chad, what does your morning routine look like?

Chad Johnson (37:35.747)
You know what, I’m a guy that I’ve got to roll out of bed and put on my running shoes. And I will say this, I mentioned that thinking, I choose my first thought while I’m still in bed. I used to wake up in the gap. And very first thought, I literally choose it intentionally. It’s now part of my habit. And it’s my kickoff this morning. I wake up and my first thought is, thank you, Lord, and I fill in the blank. Thanking God for, and it could be

that it’s that I get out and be on a podcast with Dave. It was one of the things I was like, I can’t wait to get on a podcast with Dave. I can’t believe I get to, I have two other calls today that I get to be on that I can’t wait. They’re amazing people and I get to be in their life. And right, and I, so I’m just start by thinking, choose my first thought. I want to start with gratitude. Next, I roll out and put on my running shoes. I got to get moving. I’m just that guy. My wife can go sit down and journal and do all her stuff, quiet. I just, no, so I get up, I go for a run. I used to run a lot.

I’ve now backing off my cardio a couple miles, maybe two miles. And then I do 15 to 30 minutes of weights because I’ve got to start putting muscle on this 53-year-old frame, man. It’s important to me, right? So I start with the fitness side and then often I’ll put in my buds and I’ll be listening to something that’s encouraging, uplifting, or when I’m running, I like to memorize scripture. But I’m really… I’m really…

concerned and concentrated on feeding my mind in that morning and taking care of my body. So I really wanted to start with this, like you said, this proactive approach to my day. Then come back and then I get out my planner and my journal and my Bible and I kind of have my little quiet time where I’m kind of looking at all the priorities of the day and I often will read a little scripture or I’ll resnip it out of a book and I just have this little

calm, quiet planning time. And then I’m into my day, right? And I build my days around free focus and buffer days, like we talk about at Coach. And so I want to really crush my focus days with just A-level value creation, driving the business forward, driving the revenue side. Buffer days, I’m doing other things. I’m doing level 10s and other meetings.

Chad Johnson (40:01.239)
cleaning up the messes, building capabilities, delegations. And then I’m really, really convinced that people that are high performance blow off free time. They don’t know how to rejuvenate many of them. They don’t know how to build an A-level or a gold, silver, free day where they can truly just replenish themselves physically, mentally, spiritually. So yeah, my morning routine, I mean, that’s kind of the kickoff and go. And I built this little slide deck also that I kind of…

It reaffirms my unique ability, you know, what I was put here on it to do my top three activities I want to do, you know, so I just kind of, they’re, I call them my affirmations. This is kind of built on, um, you know, how, uh, it’s how Elrod’s yeah. More miracle morning routine. Yeah. It’s, it’s, it, it juices me. Yeah. That’s it. It’s just, it’s yeah. Yep. That’s it.

Dave Wolcott (40:45.238)
Hallel Rods. Yeah, yeah, miracle morning. Yeah, yeah, that’s excellent. It’s so intentional. It’s so intentional, Chad, right? It’s so powerful. Like you’re controlling your day, you’re controlling your future, and just living not in the gap to someone else’s ideal. You’re living your own ideal, and it’s just so satisfying and fulfilling. So, you know.

Chad Johnson (41:04.511)
Nope.

Chad Johnson (41:11.651)
That’s it.

Dave Wolcott (41:12.822)
Bridging from that as well, tell everyone about the G5 Summit. I mean, this is in alignment with your philosophy and the G5 that you have are just so powerful. And then coming, having 11 children, which blows me out of the water. Okay. I thought having triplets and another one was a lot, but 11 kids, I mean, come on.

Chad Johnson (41:23.257)
Yeah.

Chad Johnson (41:35.339)
Hey, hey, Dave, stop. Dave, stop. Triplets are on another level, dude. Not, I’m not even, I just was talking to a parent of twins, Dave, twins are next level. Triplets blow my mind, okay? We had them one at a time the old fashioned way. We were slackers, so don’t even, don’t even. But you know what, to your…

Dave Wolcott (41:41.774)
Thanks for watching!

Dave Wolcott (41:50.527)
Yeah.

Dave Wolcott (41:56.106)
By the way, fun, fun fact though, Chad, right? So in the Marine Corps, I got EMT certified as well. But I knew that God had another purpose for me because when you have so many kids, you never know what kind of medical emergency can pop up or wherever you are. So it’s really a great skillset to have, right?

Chad Johnson (41:58.593)
Yeah.

Chad Johnson (42:03.843)
Come on.

Chad Johnson (42:10.922)
Hahaha

Chad Johnson (42:15.947)
Isn’t that true? It’s so interesting you say that. I love the confidence in knowing, hey, when something goes down, I at least have a framework. You’re exactly right. And it does go in Andy, you know, G5 summit. Yeah. You know what? Super excited. We, my wife and I, um, we, we put on this annual event. Now we call it our G5 summit. It’s around those giant fives. I tell people it’s for people who are crushing it in their life.

Dave Wolcott (42:25.054)
Yeah. So tell us about Yeah.

Chad Johnson (42:42.679)
but they wanna make sure that they’re really intentionally living their priorities. And so it’s kind of this planning couples romantic weekend is what it is, or not weekend, it’s an event. We’re doing it in Scottsdale, Arizona, it’s our third one. We typically have anywhere from 10 to 20 couples, I think it’s mostly around 15 couples that have landed. So we have some great dynamic couples that are coming and we basically walk them through some really

great thinking tools that set them up for awesome conversations. They go away, you know, really feeling like they understand each other better, like they’re aligned around not only the business goals or the career stuff, but also all these other elements that they choose as their priorities. So you know, it’s really fun. We have what we call our five by five planning model, which allows us to blow up those five priorities that they choose and map it out so that they…

they literally calendar their 2024 in a way that aligns with their priorities. And so the feedback we’re getting is just really, really solid, right? When people get super clear, get attentional, get aligned, and around the same mission and vision, it brings intimacy, right? And it brings that closeness. So our next one, like I said, is January 10th through 12th, in Scottsdale, Arizona. People could go to g5summit.com. It’s literally…

G and then the number five summit.com. And we still have room for more couples. If there’s a couple more that want to pop in, we would love to have them join us. And it’s an absolute blast.

Dave Wolcott (44:22.91)
Yeah, I mean, what better way to invest in your number one relationship, right? I mean, it’s just, it’s so powerful, right? And we talk about that, you know, investing, you know, having these relationships that are so important, but you know, are we, is it, are we really just giving it lip service or are we actually spending time, you know, with that relationship? And I think, you know, I’ve found that having some structure, uh, around that.

Chad Johnson (44:29.315)
That’s it.

Dave Wolcott (44:50.546)
is so empowering. And to your earlier point, you know, you know, these relationships are really what’s key, right, from a longevity standpoint, a vitality standpoint. And even, you know, how you live your life like day to day, you know, is that marriage, I think not a lot of people, you know, honestly, not a lot of people can talk about their, you know, marriage the way you did, when we started this, right?

Chad Johnson (45:00.127)
Yes.

Dave Wolcott (45:17.838)
So kudos to you. I mean, it sounds like an amazing relationship and it’s something for those of us to aspire to, but super important to definitely invest in that relationship. So really love what you’re doing there, Chad, and hopefully some folks will check it out. I guess the last question I wanted to ask you is,

If you could give just one piece of advice to the audience about how they could accelerate their own wealth trajectory or their life trajectory, what would it be?

Chad Johnson (45:53.871)
You know what, it’s such a good question. I wanna take it to this, what a mentor of mine told me around investing. And it just, it serves me very well because there’s so many directions people can go with wealth, right? It’s so many different opportunities. I get calls like you do probably every week with people wanting you to be a part of this, invest in this company, you know, be whatever. And this mentor said, hey Chad, three things. He says, number one,

invest in things you know and understand. And I just thought that was an interesting thing because I hear people get bit all the time because they’re like, well, I don’t know a thing about it, but it sounds great. You know, and it’s like, sounds too good to be true. Well, very good, probably is. But invest in things that you know and understand. The other one is he says invest in companies or opportunities where you know and trust the integrity of the leadership and their capabilities. He’s like, as much as the opportunity may be great, you may not understand that.

product or the offering, you know, or the market, make sure that the leadership behind it has integrity. And then his third thing was he says, Chad, invest in things that you actually like to use in case the market goes down. And he gave me his own examples. He’s a pilot. Believe it or not, he made money with his planes. He also was he liked cars. And so he made money on exotic cars, buying high end really.

You know, and he had a strategy for it and was unbelievable. And he really enjoyed using them and take them a racetrack. And then third thing he invested in real estate in, in places he wanted to travel with his family and they were, you know, they were short-term vacation places and a lot of different places that he goes. And then the fourth one he’s invested investment grade jewelry because his wife liked jewelry, but it was investment grade. And so he had this safe full of really cool jewelry that she liked wearing. And.

But it was on this, you know, and he goes, the thing with doing this and investing in things you know, in love, understand, you know, and then again, he made most of his money in the medical field because he was a doctor and he had done all this great work in that space and understood the players and understood the market and did phenomenally well. But it was an interesting thing because those three things, I’m gonna tell you, Dave, have really saved me a lot of stress, a lot of grief, and it’s made my life as an investor incredibly rich. And it’s funny because it goes, even if…

Chad Johnson (48:14.751)
Even if one of those markets goes up or down or whatever, I’m still enjoying the thing that I invested in. And I just thought it was so different because a lot of people invest in things they don’t understand, people they don’t know or trust, and things they don’t even want to use or deal with. And so it’s all becomes a number. And that’s like measuring your life in one way, in zeros. And I don’t want to measure my life in zeros. I want to measure in a holistic way. So it’s really been awesome. I don’t know if that’s in line with what you’re thinking, but it’s…

Dave Wolcott (48:43.058)
Yeah, really safe.

Chad Johnson (48:44.364)
really beneficial for me.

Dave Wolcott (48:45.638)
I really sage advice, Chad. I really like that perspective and it’s such a unique twist because again, you know, we’re, we’re really listening to all these talking heads and financial services that are all just talking about, you know, yields and ROI and all of this complexity, right? But, you know, I encourage people to really just kind of unpack that and what does it really mean to you? And, you know, to your point, you can invest in something that not only you understand, but you know, you have a little bit of passion for.

Chad Johnson (49:02.583)
Yeah.

Dave Wolcott (49:14.822)
It makes it just so much more enriching. Awesome. Chad, I can’t thank you enough for spending your time with us. It’s been so insightful. Can’t wait to go back and listen to this again and look forward to our next chat.

Chad Johnson (49:18.943)
Yeah, yeah. It’s almost like you can’t lose. Even if it goes down, you still like the thing you bought or invested in.

Chad Johnson (49:37.935)
Appreciate you, Dave. It’s an honor and a privilege to be with you. I really respect you and love the work you’re doing. Keep up. It’s awesome.

Dave Wolcott (49:45.346)
Thanks, Chad. And lastly, any other, if people would like to follow you, just learn more, connect with you, any final places besides G5 Summit?

Chad Johnson (49:54.603)
Yes, yes, absolutely. You know, if they go to G5 Summit, there’ll be a dropdown menu for people to sign up to my weekly email. And it’s really kind of encouragement, insight, whatever learnings from my week through a positive focused lens. And it goes out every Wednesday, it’s called Five One Wednesday. So people can either subscribe to that there at G5 Summit. Or also, I wrote a book and it’s again, it’s an intentional romance book, True Story of…

dating, marrying my wife. It’s called How to Win a Heart, but they could literally go to howtowinaheart.com and kind of follow along a little more of our story. There’s some other offerings along that way, but those would be the two best ways.

Dave Wolcott (50:36.91)
Awesome. We’ll be sure to put that in the show notes as well, Chad. Thanks again. You bet.

Chad Johnson (50:40.387)
Thank you so much, Dave. Appreciate you. See you soon. Bye-bye.

 

Dave Wolcott (00:01.462)
Rick, welcome to the show.

Rick Jordan @mrrickjordan (00:03.07)
What’s shaking Dave? It’s good to be here, man.

Dave Wolcott (00:05.642)
Yeah, no, really great to have you on. I know the audience is really gonna enjoy this one for sure and get fired up. So as we start, why don’t we tell us, tell everyone how you got here. Tell us about your entrepreneurial journey, which was quite a progression and pretty inspiring. So tell us, how did it all start for you?

Rick Jordan @mrrickjordan (00:27.586)
Yeah, you say tell everybody how I got here. Where is here? I think I’m still trying to figure that out.

Dave Wolcott (00:34.634)
Yeah, I think it’s this journey, right? We’re always on a journey and you actually, you never wanna stop, right? Because then you get trapped in your goals, but it’s really this journey, this evolution, right? I think of growth and listening to some of your background. I know you’ve come a long way, including building a public company. So that’s pretty impressive.

Rick Jordan @mrrickjordan (00:55.082)
Yeah, I mean, that’s the thank you. That’s why I was like, where is here? Because the company just went public just a couple of weeks ago. You know, Lisa is at the time when we’re recording this. And even that day, I was in Vegas in Blue Wire Studios filming a TV show called Office Hours. David Meltzer is the host of the show, and I was one of the co-hosts. It was a blast, man, because we were interviewing people like Randy Jackson.

Rick Mache, I mean, some big deal celebrities and a lot of people in the sports arena too, a lot of pretty cool people. And I’m sitting there in between guests and I’m texting, I’m emailing because it was like a three week push to get this thing over the finish line. And then it was like in between, I think it was right after I interviewed Randy Jackson and it was right after that I looked like, oh, the wire just hit, we’re public. It was just in the middle of the TV show. And

Dave Wolcott (01:44.274)
Yeah, yeah.

Rick Jordan @mrrickjordan (01:47.238)
It was so interesting to me because Dave’s become a good friend over the years. And I look over at him, I’m like, dude, I just got the wire. We’re public. The deal is done. And he’s like, Oh my God, that’s so awesome. And I’m like, it’s kind of weird, you know, because it’s like the question of where is here and I’m thinking, wow, why, why does this not feel any different? I’m just going to go back to the show. I’m just going to jump on with another guest and things continue as normal. So it’s just been kind of interesting, man, that for that journey to

to get to this point and still it’s just a milestone. Like you said, we never stop, right? The company going public is just a milestone because a year from now, two years from now, three years from now, who knows? But the timeframe, it could be sooner, it could be later, we’ll up list in ASDAC. So that’s another one to be like, wow, that’s another milestone. It’s like, what happens after that? I don’t really know. Those are just milestones in this journey, all the way from.

Now being poor as a kid, dad dying when I was 16, first Geek Squad agent in Chicago, starting a company just on my own, just as a solopreneur, and now this. It’s kind of mind blowing, dude.

Dave Wolcott (02:54.398)
Yeah, it’s really amazing. Can you give us a little bit of that trajectory? How did you start? How did you become an entrepreneur? And tell us a little bit about Reach Out and how you got there. Because I think there’s some great parallels and insights that people can learn from that.

Rick Jordan @mrrickjordan (03:13.002)
Yeah, you bet. I joke about it a little bit. Like when I started to reach out, like when I became quote unquote an entrepreneur was I was fired, you know, laid off, I should say, because Best Buy was downsizing an entire B2B department that they tried to build for a couple years, I helped build it, I wrote the sales playbook for this B2B division. Now they were trying to become what we call in the IT industry of VAR, value added reseller. So they started selling and nobody they don’t

this to this day, they don’t sell them anymore, but they were selling servers, networking equipment for businesses, installing it through a special division of Geek Squad. You know, not what you see in the big box stores that sit on the corners in a lot of cities. It was a very different mindset that they’re in a very different market they were trying to get into. And I helped I wrote the sales playbook to teach all the consultants on how to sell these things, coming from a background of sales all the way back when I was in starting at Radio Shack.

when I was a young, young store manager at just 18, but it’s like my sales career. I still say started when I was at McDonald’s, man, cause it’s a, I go back to this and this is, you said you listen to the podcast. One of the episodes I talked about the, the God of all sales questions, which is do you want fries with that? Uh, anytime anybody would come through the drive through or order something at the counter, you know, if it was just a Coke or a burger or whatever, it was always, do you want fries with that?

Dave Wolcott (04:30.563)
Yeah.

Rick Jordan @mrrickjordan (04:35.394)
And it’s one, it’s asking for the order, but it’s also an upsell. And that’s really what taught me sales way back when. And it’s really that simple because if you ask for the order first, and then you ask for the upsell, you’re going to make more money. A repeat customer is one of the ones that’s as we all know in the entrepreneurial space, it’s much easier and less expensive to retain and grow organically within your customer base than it is to sign on a new customer.

Dave Wolcott (04:40.077)
Yeah.

Rick Jordan @mrrickjordan (05:00.278)
but new customers are also the lifeblood of any business too. So it’s kind of a paradoxical effect, but also it’s symbiotic in a lot of ways. Starting to reach out, but the entrepreneurial journey really dates back before then for me. And I always forget to mention this. So today’s your lucky day, Dave. I’m actually gonna talk about this here. Coming out of high school, I always wanted to have something with recurring revenue.

Dave Wolcott (05:20.494)
Cool.

Rick Jordan @mrrickjordan (05:27.882)
And at that time it was like 1999, 2000, a couple of years after high school. So I was 19, 20 years old. I learned HTML, but this was during the dot com craze, right? And I went to a bootcamp to learn networking on the Linux operating system. And I started a web hosting company and a web design company. The web hosting that I saw was a way to have recurring money.

Now at that point in time, I was looking at commoditized services, very low price. I didn’t realize the business, I was 19, right? I didn’t realize the concept of a saturated market or a commoditized market at that point. So everything was low price. I signed on a few customers, but I’m telling you, I think that business might have made at its peak, maybe $400 a month. So I was still working elsewhere. I was still a project manager and then I became the first Geek Squad agent in Chicago. So I was still doing these other things.

Dave Wolcott (06:16.746)
Yeah.

Rick Jordan @mrrickjordan (06:22.986)
shut down that business because I’m like, this is never going to make any money. But I always was like, I want to have something that has recurring revenue to it, something where I can count on those funds every single month. And at that point, I was just thinking lifestyle, right? Entrepreneur. That’s it. So when Best Buy laid off 700 people nationwide in what they called Best Buy for business, that was their B2B shtick. That’s when I’m like, all right, now’s the time.

I started signing on customers right away in our industry, in the IT space. There’s a concept called break fix, which means it breaks. You fix it, you get paid. You know, it’s literally that simple. If a computer slow, you make it fast again. If it has ransomware, you remove it. You know, that’s not a good business model because I like to affectionately call that nothing against these people, the plumbers that are in the world because they do things I can’t. Right. But I call it like the plumbers of the IT industry. Because you don’t really.

call a plumber to come out and do maintenance, so to speak. You don’t have a monthly subscription to a plumber. That’s not something that exists. They’ll come out and they’ll do new construction, of course. And this is where I say I admire them because, dude, there’s pitch to drainage pipes and everything else. I mean, there’s brilliant, brilliant minds. A lot of math goes into it. And after that, the next time you see them is when something breaks.

very similar to the IT industry, the consultancy space. It’s like, we’ll do all the new stuff for you. And then when it breaks call us, it’s not a scalable model. Recurring revenue managed services is, and especially when I learned throughout the course of these times that ultra premium is the way to go. And that you plus now that I’m in the capital market space, right, recurring revenue, I learned this a few years ago, you can place a debt against recurring revenue.

So for the ultra wealthy that are listening right now, or how do you become that way, that’s a key concept for anybody that’s building a business is recurring revenue is something you can put debt against and that debt you can use to acquire more revenue.

Dave Wolcott (08:27.838)
Yeah, no, that’s such a great point and recurring revenue right on the personal side. I mean, that aligns to a lot of our investment thesis, which is, you know, passive investing.

We’re trying to create passive income that’s predictable, it’s reliable. So if the economy starts going down, we still have income coming in that’s outside our active income coming in. And it’s really the same thing in a business. You’re looking for that predictability so that you can scale and grow the business. And I’ve made my mistakes as well along the years and had a business that had tons of fluctuations to it and consulting business.

Rick Jordan @mrrickjordan (08:37.578)
Yeah.

Dave Wolcott (09:07.252)
because it didn’t really have recurring revenue. So a super, you know, super important lesson there, for sure.

Rick Jordan @mrrickjordan (09:09.442)
Yeah.

Rick Jordan @mrrickjordan (09:13.59)
There’s a lot of people that complain in the technology space now. I mean, it’s a, my space is weird, man, because it’s a, a lot of people that are IT consultants in this space are always going after the, the low price or the free tools that might exist. And they’re trying to always do things like on the, on the least possible cost, but it doesn’t service our customers well.

So when you look at the recurring revenue, like you’re talking about, you need valuable assets in order to obtain valuable assets, you have to have resources to begin with. And this is true on the investment side too. Those assets are the things that you’re talking about, whether it’s a customer, a piece of property or a portfolio of stocks, whatever it is, those are assets that can produce that cash for you.

 

Dave Wolcott (00:01.442)
Shannon, welcome to the show.

Shannon Robnett (00:03.624)
Hey, thanks, Dave, for having me. I appreciate it.

Dave Wolcott (00:06.422)
Yeah. Appreciate you being on the show today. I know you’re going to provide a lot of value to the listeners. Um, tell us how you got into this game.

Shannon Robnett (00:15.251)
Well, you know, unfortunately, or fortunately, however you want to look at it, I was born into a real estate family. My father is a builder and developer and my mother’s a third generation realtor. So I became a realtor. My son is a realtor. So we got five generations of realtor in our family and my brother builds custom homes in a resort area. And so I just kind of grew up seeing real estate deals get done. My, my parents were very entrepreneurial.

not only did they own businesses, but they understood the power of real estate and the ability of that to provide long term cash flow and wealth. And so I was always seeing mom come home and talk about, you know, the Johnsons down the street or thinking about moving their business. And my dad would talk about a lot he saw and they would put a building together and they’d put a tenant in it. And, you know, it didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me until at 50 years old, they retired with cash flow, starting with absolutely nothing.

30 years prior. So it really kind of just was part of my daily life. And I remember I even told Robert Kiyosaki the first time I met him, that his book wasn’t very impressive. And he kind of cocked his head at me and said, you know, was like, really rich dad, poor dad is one of the world’s best sellers on finances. And you don’t think it’s very impressive. And I said, Well, I realized that I grew up with poor dad.

And he started to laugh and he says, you know, I’ve gotten that response from a couple of you guys. And so, you know, it was really, I got to live out the book, rich dad, poor dad, and didn’t even realize it until much later in life that I had such a great education growing up.

Dave Wolcott (01:55.882)
Yeah, that’s really interesting. And I know, so I have a brother and he is an architect. And he knew from a very early age, you know, that he would just wanted to get into architecture and everything. And on this show, we’ve had, you know, a lot of syndicators, you know, folks coming in that are doing multifamily projects and everything, but mostly from kind of a value add perspective. So.

Shannon Robnett (02:02.571)
Mm-hmm.

Dave Wolcott (02:19.874)
So how did you know that you actually wanted to get into the development side of real estate, right? Because it’s kind of a whole different animal.

Shannon Robnett (02:29.139)
Well, it is, you know, I started my companies back in 94. And I was building, you know, I’d build a building. I built a couple of houses. I realized they didn’t like homeowners. So I began to build, I went into the commercial world and I realized that every time I finished a building, I stopped getting paid. You know, the owner continued to get all the benefit of it. I created it. I started to see owners that would come to me and they were…

you know, trying to find a value solution to the plans they had. They’d bought a very expensive piece of land or they bought a very inexpensive piece of land and it had all kinds of issues with it. And, and so I saw that by problem solving in a unique way, I was able to do that. And then I think I was 21 years old and I was working on a job and my crane operator was talking to me about needing yard space and would love an old house. And I got to know the lady that lived right next door. She was in her late seventies and had a mentally handicapped son. And,

She was looking to sell her three or four acres with an old house on it and move to a assisted care facility for the two of them. And I kind of saw what was going on here. So I put that deal together, Dave, not with my last $500, because that would insinuate that I had $500 in front of that, but it was really my only $500. And I put that together and then I had to go through the county and I had to get it rezoned and I had to get the exceptions for him.

his crane use and all this stuff. And so I saw where I could add that value because the crane operator knew about the old lady next door, but he didn’t have the ability to get it through the county to get it zoned properly and all those kinds of things. And I was able to do very well on that project. And I saw where being something different really added value because I was able to be something for the for the lady. I was more than just a realtor for her.

I was able to be something for the crane operator because I was able to solve the problem and get the zonings and do the things that were necessary. And he just got to keep doing what he was doing. So, and then from there, I just began to see in 2001, I built my first industrial complex for myself. I still have two of the original tenants in that project, 22 years later. And I just saw how being the person that puts all the pieces together, you’re actually creating the original value add.

Shannon Robnett (04:52.555)
because you’re taking sticks and stones and they don’t become anything more than just sticks and stones with a profit margin on them until you put the tenant in there. And the minute you put the tenant in there, it’s like you wave a magic wand and all the valuations change. And I saw how you could do all the steps I was already doing and one more, and you could add a tremendous amount of value to the project. And so I really kind of launched out into that in early 01.

Dave Wolcott (05:22.614)
Yeah, really fascinating. It really resonates as an entrepreneur, right? And just basically trying to solve problems, creating value for people, but doing that in this development and real estate space. And that’s what I always find so exciting about real estate, right? Is you can just have so much creativity to how you can generate revenue, how you can build value, how you can reduce costs, right?

Shannon Robnett (05:27.432)
Yeah.

Shannon Robnett (05:48.775)
Yeah, you know, and the thing that real estate gives you is not only the creativity there, but there’s the tax side of the creativity, right? And we’re not talking about the kind of creativity that lands you in jail. We’re talking about instead of viewing the tax code as a penal code, really viewing it as a guidebook on how and where the government wants to offer certain incentives to do certain things. And when you really combine, I believe the value of development with

the tax code, you really have something that’s supercharged and create some of the best opportunities in investing, which is why we’re so heavily into it.

Dave Wolcott (06:26.986)
Yeah. So let’s unpack that a little bit in terms of, you know, tax incentives on, you know, new development, right? Because if you’re using bonus depreciation on an existing property, you know, we’re all kind of familiar with that. But on a new development project, right, since that’s kind of phased in through your build and everything, how do tax incentives, you know, typically go with those kind of projects?

Shannon Robnett (06:55.455)
Well, you know, there’s something that not a lot of people have heard about, but it’s the 45L tax credit. And it’s a federal tax credit that’s worth about $2,000 per dwelling unit based on the energy code that it’s built to. And in 2003, it’s going to be as much as $5,000 per unit. And that’s just a 179 deduction.

and it’s available only at the time you put the building into service. So it really does offer a tremendous amount of tax savings. And then yes, you’ve got your cost segregation studies and your bonus depreciation that you’re allowed as well. And, you know, it really just adds something special to that. And then

you know, there’s opportunity zones. So if you were to be able to stack these three together, build an apartment complex in an opportunity zone and use the 45L tax credit, you really have the opportunity to stack some amazing benefits together that can really be the secret to making a good deal incredible.

Dave Wolcott (08:10.014)
Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head, right? That’s what Tom Wheelwright always talks about is that, you know, the tax code is actually a series of incentives, you know, for investors who know how to leverage it, right, and understanding that. So, you know, pretty, pretty unique way to kind of look at it and stack those incentives. And then how about on the industrial side? Is that is that viewed a little bit differently?

Shannon Robnett (08:37.159)
Well, you know, the industrial side, I like an industrial to like the bond of real estate, right? Not James Bond, just the regular bond, right? It’s slow and steady. You know, we’ve seen such a massive uptick in rents in multifamily over the last half a dozen years that’s really, you know, skyrocketed values, low interest rates kind of predicated that even getting better.

Dave Wolcott (08:47.534)
Thank you.

Shannon Robnett (09:04.319)
but we’re starting to see that level off. We’re starting to see cap rates come back in alignment. But if you look at industrial, industrial never really did spike like that. But if you do a cross comparison, industrial is such a more stable product. And I’m talking about the flex space where you’ve got tenants from two to 10,000 square feet. You’ve got buildings from 20 to 60,000 square feet. You’ve got complexes of four or five buildings.

things like that where small businesses get their start, whether they’re cleaning companies, storing their supplies, their delivery companies, their cabinet shops. I even have one that makes gelato ice cream and another one that Sarah coats guns, right? So they run the gamut of what businesses do, but we forget that 60% of businesses conducted in America is conducted by small business. And so you’re looking at these places and if you compare them to multifamily,

You know, multifamily, you have a one year lease, you have no way to pass on any additional increases in expenses, you’ve got a tenant that is, has a decent credit score, but doesn’t personally guarantee the lease. There’s nothing really behind it other than the one year. And the tenants move a lot because your home address isn’t necessarily as important as your business address. So if you go to the other hand and you look at a industrial.

lease, it’s typically a triple net lease, which means that all the expenses get passed through the tenant in a pro rated manner. So if the property taxes go up or the insurance goes up, which is happening nationwide right now, that’s not a responsibility of the landlord. So if that’s out of the way, you’ve got a credit tenant that’s got signed a personal guarantee that usually has a balance sheet that also is going to pay for all the increases that happen based on municipality functions and interest.

insurance functions. And then they build businesses that their address is very, very important to them. It’s kind of like our email address anymore. Businesses don’t like to move. It takes time to set up. They’re not able to just call their friends over and grab a pizza and move on a weekend. You know, they’re really investing time, money, and effort to set up their businesses and be there. And when you’re looking at a five to seven year lease, you’ve got stability there.

Shannon Robnett (11:18.811)
In most industrial leases, there’s a bump clause that says that every year your rent will go up an agreed upon percentage. We put a little bit different spin on that and nobody really seemed to care for about 18 years, but all of a sudden in 2022, they didn’t like this particular phrase, Dave, that your rent will increase 3% and or CPI, whichever is greater. And as you know, last year CPI went up almost 9% and so did all my rents.

Dave Wolcott (11:49.002)
Yeah, interesting advantages there for sure. And how many units do you typically have in buildings, right? Because I’ve seen some industrial centers, right, that might have just one really large tenant, right? Like say an Amazon type, you know? And then so, to me, you’ve got a little bit of risk, right, in terms of vacancy, right, if you have some kind of issue. But what kind of assets, you know, in tenants are you really looking at?

Shannon Robnett (12:17.387)
Well, I think that, you know, I think your analogy is very accurate, right? And if you look at who’s buying the Amazon size, they’ve usually got 10 or 15 of them, right? So the chances of one being empty at any time kind of gets them back into that 5% vacancy range for their portfolio. So what I like is I like a building of, you know, a minimum of about 20,000 square feet. I like the two to 4,000 square foot tenants.

They don’t want a lot for TI. You know, they would need an office and a bathroom and a roll-up door for most cases, you know. We just put a building into service in January that is 20,000 square feet and has seven tenants, right? And there’s, we had one custom TI, they didn’t want one of the bathrooms we were putting in. That was the only difference that we had.

We just bought another center down in Houston, Texas, that was completed in 2020. And the previous owner had put very short-term leases on it because he was filling it during COVID and he was doing whatever he could to get it full. And there was no rent bumps. So as the tenants have come up for renewal, we raised the rent about 12% and thrown in our special little clause there that bumps the rent. And…

I agree with you. I think the Amazon building is like having a duplex. One tenant moves out, you’ve got a massive vacancy, and you’ve got an occupancy problem. But the multi-tenant, two to 4,000, 5,000 square foot users are ideal because there’s a lot of them out there, and they’re very easy to refill, and it’s not a lot of headache, especially since the industrial tenant knows that if you’re…

going to do improvements on their space, they’re going to pay for it plus a profit margin. So in a lot of cases, they just, it’s just work and people treat where they work a whole lot different than where they live as far as what they require. And it’s, it’s a much simpler product to own. It goes up on a steady rate. Life insurance, money, uh, life insurance companies love to finance them. So you’re able to get long.

Shannon Robnett (14:36.863)
10-year debt with a 25-year balloon is very common, and even in today’s interest rate environments, you’re in the low sixes for final debt.

Dave Wolcott (14:46.146)
And how about from an LTV standpoint, how are you structuring in this environment? LTV and debt structure.

Shannon Robnett (14:52.544)
I’m sorry, from what?

Shannon Robnett (14:57.171)
You know, typically we’re doing, and we’ve done this the whole time, we typically don’t like more than about 65% loan to value on the debt. It does lower returns, but it increases the safety margin. And having done this, you know, Dave, when I did my first deal in 2001, I think my interest rate was right about 9%. So anything that we’re seeing over the last 15 years has been a phenomenal improvement over that.

So to look at that and look at it and say, I’m gonna bring in more equity, I’m gonna have more cash flow, less opportunity for a vacancy to derail this situation. It really, it’s just, in my opinion, it’s more prudent, even when you could have gotten more loan to value, it’s not always the best thing to do. We do have the deal in Texas, we got 4% money on that, we’re at 50, I think 51%.

LTV with nine more years left on that debt. It’s fixed. So it’s really a great product.

Dave Wolcott (16:06.774)
Yeah, it seems as if, you know, on the commercial side, right, for industrial, that it is typically a lower LTV. I’ve seen a lot of projects even with zero debt, you know, zero financing and all in them to, you know, help reduce your risk. And I think that’s a good balance, you know, in your overall portfolio for investors, right? As you’re looking to build out this, you know, this portfolio, get some diversification, right? With different risk profiles.

Shannon Robnett (16:28.555)
Completely agree.

Dave Wolcott (16:35.318)
you know, different debt profiles.

Shannon Robnett (16:37.747)
And you know, Dave, you don’t see a lot of people, you know, we saw this a lot in the multifamily space over the last couple of years, people were buying it at historic low cap rates. They were planning on, you know, executing their business plan, which included, you know, new paint, new carpet, maybe new deck chairs by the pool, and then raising the rent 300 bucks and then exiting. You don’t see that near as much in industrial. Industrial is more like the Chef Tony.

set it and forget it. It’s gonna create that constant cash flow. It’s gonna create three plus percent appreciation annually. It’s something people like to own for six to 10 years because that’s why I call it the bond. It’s really just that thing that kicks off cash, creates value, and then you maybe have other things that you do that are a little bit more speculative or a little bit more aggressive in your portfolio.

but you’ve got these in the back knowing that you’re always going to be getting this much of a mortgage payment or this much of a dividend payment.

Dave Wolcott (17:40.278)
Yeah, now that’s spot on. And do you typically have an exit plan for these? Are you looking to exit at some point or six to 10 years? Or do you try to just keep them and cashflow them for longer?

Shannon Robnett (17:52.415)
You know, I always look at an exit plan because not everybody wants to be in a deal forever, right? There’s the opportunity. We’re building a ground up facility for a 40,000 square foot international tenant in Florida that we’ve got that projected at about a seven year hold. And the reality is, you know, we’ve got a 10 year lease with the tenant. It gives the new buyer about

three years of good tenancy before they have to do a refi or anything like that, or sorry, renegotiation on the lease. So it gives them strength, it gives them bankability. You’re not looking at something where they’re gonna wind up with an empty building 12 months down the road. So it’s really kind of at its peak as far as value. We’ve written down, we’ve gotten out of any prepayment penalties that were associated with the loan. We’ve paid down good money on the principal.

seven years at 3% appreciation has gone up about 20% in value. We’ve received a 7% cash on cash in the first year and that’s continued to improve. So all of those things make for a good mix that does about 14 to 16% annually without any tax incentives as far as depreciation goes. But it really is just steady and something you can really count on. And putting an exit in there, I think is always prudent, especially when you’re using

syndicated model where you’ve got LPs involved just because not everybody wants to be there forever.

Dave Wolcott (19:25.354)
Yeah, yeah, no, that makes that makes total sense. And what do you think from a, you know, perspective around opportunity zones, right? You talked about that a little bit before, I don’t know how familiar people are with these, but are there particular opportunity zones, any markets that you like, and any asset types in those opportunity zones that you’re favoring?

Shannon Robnett (19:53.055)
Well, you know, as you know, I’m based out of Boise, Idaho. We’ve got projects going from Washington to Florida. And I’ve looked at, you know, when I look at markets, I look at, there’s nine markets across the United States that I wanna be in. And I look at opportunity zones in those. We’ve done industrial projects in opportunity zones, and we’re getting ready to do a multifamily project in opportunity zones. But, you know, just to make sure your listeners understand, an opportunity zone was something that was created during the Trump administration.

that if you do a 1031, you sell the building for a million dollars, you have to spend one more dollar than you spent on your replacement property. In an opportunity zone, you’re investing capital gains into it. So it doesn’t matter if it’s stock capital gains, it doesn’t matter if you were the one guy that was able to buy a boat and sell it and make money. However you have your capital gains, whether it came from real estate or anything.

you’re able to reinvest the capital gain. So if you use the building scenario, you bought a building for a million dollars or you sold a building for a million dollars that you bought for 500, you’re only required to invest the 500 or a portion thereof. And that allows you to defer the capital gain until 2026 when you’ll pay it in tax year 2026. And then if you hold the asset after making the improvements on it for 10 years,

then you’re able to exit that deal completely tax free. So there’s no capital gain on your exit. So it’s a pay the tax now, or pay the tax in a couple of years, and receive all the benefit of tax freedom when you come out the other side. And we bought a piece of property here, talk about tax stacking. We bought a piece of property here that’s an industrial warehouse, and it’s right by the mall. So it’s two blocks from our central mall here.

and it had 45,000 square feet of multi-tenant. They were about 50 cents on the dollar for going rate on rent. So I knew I had a backup plan if I couldn’t get it rezoned, but I got it rezoned for 200 units of multifamily. It’s right on a bus line, it’s right by a freeway exit. It’s all the things I would really like to have for a seven story project. But when we purchased it, we were able to take the bonus depreciation on the property and depreciate out.

Shannon Robnett (22:12.087)
quite a bit of the warehouse giving almost 60 cents back on the dollar for every dollar of LP investment. Next year in 24, we’re actually going to demolish the building. So we’re going to finish taking that depreciation. It’s one of the few times you can take 100% depreciation on the project, right? So now my LPs are going to be set up with a situation where they’re not going to have, they’re going to have enough tax offsets that they won’t really have any pain coming to them in 2026 when that tax bill is due. Then we’ll, we’ll build a

It’s about an $80 million project on the site. We’ll depreciate that. We’ll take the 45L tax credit. We’ll do those things that are required to get those benefits. And then from there, we’ll hold that asset for 10 years. And then when we exit somewhere around 2036, we’ll do that tax-free.

Dave Wolcott (22:59.982)
Brilliant. Love it. Yeah, that’s really solid. And is that 45L tax credit, is that a passive loss or active?

Shannon Robnett (23:10.639)
It is a it is a it is something that’s only passed on to the developer but because They’re trying to incentivize developers to build more green. So if you’ve got a zero energy ready With a prevailing wage you can get up to five thousand dollars a door But if you’ve got a 50% savings over the 2006 IEC you’re able to get a two thousand door $2,000 a door tax credit and it really

It really helps because it’s only available to the development team. So when we’re building ground up and our LPs are involved, they’re part of that development team and they get to experience that, which in a lot of cases will offset most of the gain coming out of the project.

Dave Wolcott (23:56.266)
Okay, so does the LP get a share of that tax benefit? They do, yeah, okay. Yeah. Yeah, no, that’s awesome. I love the tax stacking, putting it all together, and just kind of like we were talking about, right? It’s, the tax code is there, it’s just for those that really know how to leverage it and kind of put it together and figure this game out. So I…

Shannon Robnett (23:59.443)
Absolutely. Yeah. The way that we set it up, they do. We make sure that passes through.

Shannon Robnett (24:09.493)
Yeah.

Dave Wolcott (24:22.258)
You know, a question I wanted to ask you, Shannon, right? I mean, you’ve got quite a diverse portfolio and different projects that you’ve done. You know, you started your career in real estate, you know, early on, right, as an entrepreneur and everything. So out of all of that, have you actually developed a personal like investment thesis or a wealth strategy that you’re that you have kind of a framework that’s guiding you?

Shannon Robnett (24:48.095)
Well, I think the very first thing that everything, everything that I look at has to do is it has to cash flow. And I don’t care if it’s a value add. If you’re buying a value add right now that does not cash flow prior to your execution of the business plan, in my opinion, that’s not a deal I would look at. If it’s not a standalone income producing project or property, then it’s going to be a difficult acquisition. Because if anything goes wrong with your business plan.

you’ll find out very quickly that you’ve overpaid. When we’re doing development, we look at, we only look at specific markets. We look at markets that not only have growth as far as people moving in, but have strong wage growth. Because that’s really where the key to our appreciation comes from is raising rents. And if you can’t, if you’ve got a stagnant wage in the area, it’s really hard to make your rents defy that because.

They say that in the average C and D class property right now across the United States, people are paying 38 to 45 percent of their income. If people are paying that much of their income and you’re trying to raise rents and wages aren’t going up, you’re very quickly going to run out of blood in that turnip to squeeze. So for me, it’s got a cash flow before any strategies that I’m going to do to put additional cash and effort into it. It’s also got to be in a market that is growing both.

people and wage. And then I always like to put the tax spin on it. I mean, to me, the tax spin is like the cherry on top, right? It’s if I can get, if I can, if I can find a way to keep the government’s entitlement to my money. There’s just something about it, Dave, that just warms the bottom of my soul if I can figure out how to save that and be tax efficient in that way. But really, those are the things because, you know, markets

Dave Wolcott (26:35.245)
Yeah.

Shannon Robnett (26:41.343)
Markets are cyclical. It doesn’t matter if you’re in the oil and gas market, it doesn’t matter if you’re in the stock market, doesn’t matter if you’re in the real estate market, there’s continue to be cyclical. And if you’re not being prudent in what you’re buying, you’re gonna wind up with situations where you’ve overpaid or you’ve overextended those kinds of things. And it’s gonna make things harder than it needs to be.

Dave Wolcott (27:03.53)
Yeah, for sure. Now on the tax flow, tax or the cash flow side, right, you talked about always having cash flow in the properties. And so are you anticipating right and say, let’s say it’s a five year hold type project on a new development, because you know, you know, you have build, then you have lease up and everything. So a lot of the new development projects are actually not cash flowing for the first couple of years. So you know, how do you consider that?

Shannon Robnett (27:33.651)
Yeah, so when I look at that, you know, when I build out my model for a new development, I build to an eight cap, right? So if I can’t get to the value of what I’ve expended making that property pencil at an eight cap, then I won’t do it. Now, there is obviously that build out portion, right? There’s that time that you’re under construction, you’re not paying interest, you’re not receiving income, but you’re also not having to carry it. So you’ve got the lease up period.

But through that, we’ve got that modeled in there. So there, and these are more of an appreciation play on the ground up development side. But when you’re acquiring an asset, when you’re buying something that’s existing, a lot of people get kind of starry-eyed about, I can buy this and I can really improve it and I can do all these things and it’s gonna be great and I’m gonna raise the rents. And I’m seeing people now that did that in 21, they bought this asset, they’ve executed the business plan.

David flawlessly, right? They have really nailed it. They’ve got the rents up, everything’s done. And now they’re here to convert to perm debt and that marker’s moved. And so now they’re underwater because they didn’t have cashflow on this asset, right?

Dave Wolcott (28:43.498)
Yeah.

Dave Wolcott (28:52.275)
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. I guess I was thinking from an LP standpoint, as investors are kind of building out their portfolios, I think it’s important to just really kind of prioritize. Do I need cashflow right now or do I need growth? You want a certain percentage allocated to each and everyone kind of has a different approach to that. But…

Yeah, totally agree. You know, from your expense, you know, perspective as a sponsor.

Shannon Robnett (29:18.208)
Yeah.

Shannon Robnett (29:22.271)
Well, and Dave, I agree with you. I think there’s really three types of investors, right? There’s those that are wanting cashflow, there’s those that are wanting appreciation, and there’s those that are wanting tax benefits. And they usually break down into pretty three easy categories, right? These people are getting close to retirement. They’re thinking about converting things back into something that will sustain them. Your people that are looking for tax advantages, you know, they’re that 30 to 50-year-old.

that has really got a career, they’ve hit their stride, they’re making a couple hundred grand a year, and all of a sudden Uncle Sam is fleecing them for taxes, and they go, oh my gosh, I’ve got to change this, right? So changing the way that they make that money, changing how they build that wealth, really helps them out in a 37% way. And then you’ve got those that come to the game and they think they want cashflow, and then you explain to them the cashflow on the amount of money they have.

isn’t going to sustain them, so they really need appreciation. And I love the development deals for appreciation because they’re very strong on that. And then we usually find ways to exit tax efficiently, i.e. we move to another project, we go from a ground-up development into an opportunity zone. We do things like that are tax advantaged for our investors. We help them think through those strategies.

so that they’re able to maximize how that wealth continues to grow.

Dave Wolcott (30:48.834)
Yeah, it makes perfect sense. And how about, you know, what is your philosophy on financial freedom? I’m sure it kind of stems right off of that.

Shannon Robnett (30:57.895)
Well, you know, you’re asking the wrong guy, because I mean, you’re asking my definition of financial freedom is being able to do what I want with my time and with my energy, right? But I’m doing that, right? I mean, somebody asked me the other day, you know, what’s your goal for retirement? I said, my goal for retirement is to die with an LOI in my pocket, right? I want one last deal, you know, but

Dave Wolcott (31:21.93)
Yeah, right, right.

Shannon Robnett (31:25.247)
You know, for most people, financial freedom is that. You know, Tony Robbins’ book, Money, Master the Game, is really, it’s got a chapter in there that talks about how much money do you need to live the life that you want? And a lot of people think they need, you know, $50 million when they really need a couple hundred grand in cashflow every year. And yet they position themselves to have the big house, the big cars, all that stuff that takes that money instead of having the lifestyle.

That’s maybe a little bit more economical, but it creates the opportunity for $10,000 or $15,000 a month to really float the boat. And so being able to put yourself in that position where your company calls you and says, hey, you’re moving to Toledo, Ohio, and you say, you know what? I’m not. That’s financial freedom. It’s the ability to tell your kids, you can go to whatever college you want.

It’s the ability to decide that the family vacation is going to happen anywhere in the world that you want because that’s what you’ve decided. So for me, financial freedom doesn’t necessarily mean giving up the J-O-B, giving up the work, right? Because I love what I do. I’m really passionate about it. And I really enjoy the deals. It’s about being able to decide when you’re gonna do the deals, when you’re gonna go to work, when you’re gonna go on vacation, and who’s gonna have control of that time.

Dave Wolcott (32:44.074)
Yeah, I think investors really need to unpack, what does financial freedom really mean? Because it’s an overused term, but you have to keep asking why and peeling back the layer. Are you trying to get more time freedom, maybe with your family? Like you pointed out, it’s basically having freedom of purpose.

Shannon Robnett (32:50.504)
Yeah.

Dave Wolcott (33:05.382)
as well, right? To be waking up every day, you know, being fired up about what it is, you know, that you’re doing. And it’s interesting because I think there’s this whole fire movement as well, right? Where people are talking about getting to, you know, your income, exceeding your expenses at an early age. But, you know, you don’t want to go do that by, you know, moving to a low cost country and

Shannon Robnett (33:05.727)
Right, absolutely.

Shannon Robnett (33:24.394)
Right.

Dave Wolcott (33:29.962)
you know, cutting all your expenses and say, hey, I’m financially free, right? You know, my income are exceeding my expenses. Well, now what, right? Am I truly living the life that I wanna live? So I really enjoy the whole investor psychology component of this and really understanding, you know, what it is that’s driving you, right? Because all of these different assets, whether it be, you know, industrial or doing these tax strategies, all these really things,

Shannon Robnett (33:31.945)
Right.

Shannon Robnett (33:38.323)
Yeah, yeah.

Dave Wolcott (33:57.494)
You know, you need to figure out what makes sense for you as an investor in your life at the chapter you are in your life and for your family.

Shannon Robnett (34:06.727)
Yeah. And I think, you know, Dave, to add to that, you know, whenever you see people talking about financial freedom, you know, they got a big house and they got a Bentley and they got a jet and they got all this stuff. But that’s, I think, you know, when people understand what really, what they really want out of that, when they really understand that, it really affects their investment strategy, because they understand that time horizon, too. And I think a lot of people get into real estate thinking that it’s a it’s going to be a faster build.

But like I’ve watched my parents, it’s a snowball. It takes a while to get it going. I mean, investing $100,000 is the start. But being able to repeat that on a semi-annual basis or even two or three times in a decade is going to get that ball moving and rolling so that by the time you’re looking at that 45, 50 year range, which I just crossed that barrier of 50 this year. I know I don’t look it, but thank you, Dave.

Dave Wolcott (35:05.29)
Hehehe

Shannon Robnett (35:06.051)
But when you really look at that, you start to understand how you’re going to spend the rest of your time, and it really gives you the effort to push into that and make the sacrifices to get that ball rolling and get those things going early on.

Dave Wolcott (35:20.546)
Couldn’t agree more. I think it’s so important and it’s really a process, right? Investing is a process. And that’s why we like to focus on that a lot in our community is actually creating an overall wealth strategy, right? That’s supporting your goals, supports your investor DNA, right? And then you can start to look at, you know, these different asset types and figure out, okay, well, you know, how does that work for me, for my time horizon, for my risk portfolio, you know,

Shannon Robnett (35:26.679)
Mm-hmm.

Dave Wolcott (35:50.84)
perspective, right? All of those different components kind of drive it.

Shannon Robnett (35:54.943)
Well, and you have a similar philosophy to me. You know, you lead with education, right? Because the worst thing, I mean, I think that really, honestly, 2008 could have probably been entirely avoided if investors understood, if we had a more intelligent investor that understood what a negatively advertising loan does, that understood some of the things that were going on in that marketplace. And by leading with that education, it helps people that come running to the deal and go, I really want this deal, but they don’t understand

whether or not it’s the best for them. Because real estate is just like people, there’s a different deal that’s gonna fit different profiles and not everybody fits into one deal. And you and I have seen this happen where syndicators are just piling everybody in regardless of what their outcome is or what their thought process is, and then the investor gets involved and it’s not doing what they wanted it to do. It’s not providing them with the tax benefits or it’s not providing them with cashflow because they got involved in a development deal.

whatever the case may be, and it’s really educating the investor so that they truly, truly understand what their profile is and what their goals are and what their time horizons are. I absolutely couldn’t agree more with you, Dave.

Dave Wolcott (37:05.762)
If you could give just one piece of advice to our listeners about how they could accelerate their own wealth trajectory, what would it be?

Shannon Robnett (37:13.663)
You know, I really think that tax strategies is absolutely the number one thing. If you think about it, you’re going after a 12, 14%, 16% IRR in real estate. When, if you’re a high net worth individual and you’re working with a tax strategist or you’re doing, you know, advanced strategies, you’re gonna be able to save 37% of your income. And that’s gonna be your highest rate of return by far.

giving you more money to invest. In fact, there’s even scenarios where the IRS will pay you to invest in deals. And I can give you several of those that I do on a consistent basis, but focusing on the tax portion of it and paying attention to that, especially if you’re a high net worth individual in that 37% tax.

Dave Wolcott (38:00.566)
Yeah, really appreciate that Shannon. Appreciate your time coming on and educating our audience today as well. If people wanna reach out and connect with you, learn more about what you’re up to, what is the best place?

Shannon Robnett (38:13.951)
You know, the easiest place to do that is just shannonrobnett.com. You can get all my social medias there. You can even get access to my calendar. Grab 15 minutes. Let’s have a chat, see if there’s anything I can help you with. Tax books I can point you to. Opportunities, whatever it is, even just help educate you on what I’ve learned over the last 30 years in the business.

Dave Wolcott (38:34.139)
Awesome. Thanks so much, Shannon.

Shannon Robnett (38:36.267)
Thank you, Dave. Appreciate it.

 

Dave Wolcott:
Hey guys, welcome to another episode on wealth strategy secrets. Today we’re joined by Mark Hutchinson. Mark is a seasoned executive with over four decades of expertise in the steel industry. His journey has honed him into a respected authority, excelling in steel fabrication, entrepreneurship, and alternative finance advisory. His advisory work has earned him the trust and respect of clients who value his insights. Mark’s dynamic entrepreneurial career shaped by triumphs and setbacks, while building and scaling several businesses, enriches his understanding of alternative wealth strategies. His diverse experiences position him as an invaluable source of insight and guidance. In the wake of the 2008 financial turbulence, Mark’s path led him to a personal revelation, the infinite banking concept. Since then, he has been committed to reshaping clients’ financial views, uncovering hidden truths, and Mark’s dedication to financial education is evident in his fervor and the referrals he garners from satisfied clients. Mark, welcome to the show.

Mark Hutchinson:
Thank you, Dave. Welcome. I’m glad to be here. Always fun to talk to you.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, no, Mark, I’ve really been looking forward to this conversation. It’s always great. When we connect, I learn from you all the time. And I think this is going to be a special episode for the audience. Because today’s episode is really, you know, taking that investor journey, right. And Mark has had a quite a prolific journey in terms of, you know, becoming more of a professional investor. uh, actually being an entrepreneur and creating businesses, um, around that. And I think, you know, his, uh, experiences in insight are going to be incredibly valuable for the audience. So, so why don’t we start Mark for folks, you know, who don’t know you, um, tell us how things started for you, you know, what, what was the, that beginning moment that kind of, you know, got you into this space?

Mark Hutchinson:
Sure. So I have an interesting background from the aspect that I was born in the US, but grew up in Africa and grew up on a farm and ranch. And so that gave me a unique perspective. And I think the perspective was that we were always working hard, everything revolved around a tremendous amount of hard work, dedication. And I think it, it It really planted the seed for me of being an entrepreneur and I suppose a little bit of a risk taker since farming and agriculture is very much a risk. So when I left Africa, my parents stayed behind and I came to the US and I really just sort of had a suitcase and a dream and wanted to see how it would all unfold as a very young man. took some odd jobs. I did some strange things. I was a commercial diver in the Bay area. I was then a feedlot cowboy, of all things. And then that job just didn’t pay enough to basically keep me from sleeping on a floor. So I found a job as a welder fabricator. And that’s kind of where things changed for me, because I figured that I could weld. certainly from the farm and so I took that job and then one thing led to another over a period of about two years I Grew kept growing inside of that company did a lot of interesting things a lot of work in Pebble Beach 17 mile drive working for celebrities and I thought Dave I can do this myself. So so I broke out on my own started a company And that company grew over a period of 13 years into a sizable steel fabrication and erection company in California. But along the way, having no formal education in business, there were some stumbling blocks and one of them came in a very interesting way. And I think shaped. also my career going forward from that point. And it was about 1990. And I was given a contract or was issued a contract from the state of California. And it was to seismically retrofit part of the US 101 central viaduct that went down into San Francisco. And it was the first contract of its kind. to repair the portion of the freeway that didn’t collapse in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. So I knew that in order to do that job, I had to do something different. And I knew that my success was tailored to creating a piece of equipment that was required to do the work that we had to do. But the piece of equipment didn’t exist. So after I was awarded the contract, I leased a 40,000 foot building in addition to the steel fabrication plant that I had and started to create this piece of equipment. And about a month and a half into a six month project, which was the duration with a very substantial six figure liquidated damages per calendar day, I was kind of at a point where I was in real trouble. So I was either going to make it or I was going to fail right then, right there. of finalizing this design, couldn’t get it to work, kept making iterations of this design. Finally, we finally got the breakthrough that we needed and it worked. And so in the period of about four weeks, we had made up the month and a half behind in schedule and went up about five weeks ahead of schedule. So it was absolutely, it was just life changing at that point. So at that point, I knew that I was going to have success and stood to make millions of dollars on this contract. And about, gosh, it couldn’t have been a week after that. I got a phone call and they said, you’re not going to believe this. I think the state’s going to put this contract on hold. What do you mean they’re going to put it on hold? We could have an aftershock and the freeway could collapse. So we have to repair this freeway. And wouldn’t you know it? A couple days later, it came through written notification that the contract had been terminated for convenience. Now to the best of my knowledge and my lawyer’s knowledge, that was the first time the state of California had ever used that clause. Convenience clauses exist in all contracts, especially in the construction world. But… You don’t normally see them executed when it comes to a governmental agency. It’s just not, you don’t terminate for convenience.

Dave Wolcott:
Sure,

Mark Hutchinson:
You have a plan,

Dave Wolcott:
sure.

Mark Hutchinson:
you know, when you start, when you, when you issue contracts. So, um, about, uh, about a year and a hit took about a year and a half for me to finally settle with the state of getting paid, um, and, and in that period, I just couldn’t survive anymore. And I wound up losing the business of 13 years. And, and that was really an eye opening, uh, experience for me, because I realized that moment that things could change in an instant, things that are completely out of your control. And I was basically just drug down that path for that year and a half of trying to get paid and slowly releasing little bits and dribs and drabs because they’re in control. And so that was really, really a game changer for me professionally.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, yeah, sure. It’s interesting how these defining moments in our career, whether, you know, you’re, you have a particular career in W2, uh, you, or you’re an entrepreneur, how these things at the time seem so monumental and they are, uh, but we can actually grow the most, you know, from these types of experiences. Um, so next question for you, Mark was. you know, how did, you know, how did this defining moment really shape, you know, your view? Is that what propelled you to get into investing and, you know, what was your next course of action?

Mark Hutchinson:
Yeah, that’s a great questions. Uh, it, I think what happened at that point for me was that I had always been focused on building the business and, and I know professionally in, in my, my work now with client, you know, with my clients, I have a lot of business owners as clients and they’re very, very focused on investing in themselves. Right? So everything is about investing in yourself and your business and building that business. It’s not. You know, it’s not in the markets and playing and trying to do all these, you know, outside things. It’s, it’s focused on yourself because you’re, you’re betting on yourself, you believe in yourself. And, and that’s where I was. So I was just a hundred percent building my business. When, when the, when the loss of the business occurred, two things happened. One, I stumbled with my, you know, my personal confidence and I, and I thought. Who’s going to hire me? No one would want me. I mean, I’ve been self-employed basically my adult life at that point. And I don’t know how to work for anyone. I don’t, I wouldn’t know how to act. I just want to run everything. So what I then figured out was that was actually a quality that a lot of people who own businesses were looking for. And that began my career as a business builder and working inside of the industry that I had known and loved and was passionate about and building those businesses. But along with that came this component of investing where, well, what do I do now? Right? I mean, now I’m grinding all day long building businesses, but typically everything goes into it. At that time, that was really where 401ks were starting. you know, to become the mode, you know, prior to that, businesses gave you a pension and, and those types of things. So I started getting into a pretty heavy dose of market, uh, equity exposure. So that’s really where I stayed focused for quite a long time. And I, it served me, it served me well, but, but I think that, you know, knowing what I know today, that’s not what I would do. ever again, right? Because we become smarter the more we know, obviously. So I think what really was an eye-opener for me were the market events that had transpired throughout my career to that point, you know, sort of leading up to 2008. And when you look at those, it’s, you know, starts with Black Monday, I think, then we had the Gulf War, we had the dot-com bubble in 2000. We had September 11th, we had the global currency crisis, the European currency, European crisis. When you look at all of those that have transpired, it just seemed to me like it was three steps forward, one and a half steps back, or even two steps back, depending on what the timing was. So I knew that as I was working through my career and having more and more exposure to these events that I had to find something else. So that was, I think, my big revelation for me.

Dave Wolcott:
Interesting. Yeah. That was your last straw moment. And

Mark Hutchinson:
now.

Dave Wolcott:
I can definitely, that resonates with me and probably a lot of other folks. I mean, having gone through, yeah, I mean, back to 2000.com. I mean, you name it, all of these things. And I think what’s at the heart of that, you know, a lot of people don’t really talk about as much, but it’s actually having control, you know, and trying to have a sense of control over your financial freedom. know, your destiny and things like that. And, and I felt like, you know, it was just like going to the casino being completely exposed into the equity markets. And, you know, typically when something happens wrong, like, you know, you, you want to adjust, you want to make something happen, right? But you, you know, you just have, you know, no control there. So Yeah, so that’s pretty interesting that you were able to make that shift. And then, so have you refined an actual wealth strategy that you’re leveraging today?

Mark Hutchinson:
Yes, I would also add though, Dave, to that, that I figured out during that period that there’s this strange thing that happens in traditional Wall Street and brokers and things like this, that they like to talk about average returns, right? So that’s really a big thing that they will… always talk about as well, the S&P average over 10 year, 20 year, 30 year period, or the Dow Jones average. And they talk about all of these. And so if you took the example of a 10% return per year for 10 years, so we sum up the total of the returns. And so 10 times 10 is 100. And then we divide by the number of periods that we’re talking about, divide by 10. That is an average 10% return. I think we can all agree on that, right? But if you apply that a different way and you say, okay, well, let me take minus 10% for the first period and then plus 30 and then minus 10 and plus 30. And we go for a 10-year period. Well, when I add all those numbers up, it’s still 100 and I divide by the number of periods of 10, we’re at 10%. The problem with that whole logic is that when you take million dollar account and you compounded at 10% per year for 10 years, that’s like 2.59 million dollars. If you do the second iteration, which I just said of the minus 10 plus 30, that 10% average return is actually about an 8.17% return. And why? Because of volatility. And volatility, any volatility. negatively impacts the return. So while they would take that sum and tell you had a 10% rate of return, that 10-year period, the difference between those $2 million accounts is $400,000. So it’s these half-truths or misnomers everywhere in the financial industry that I found very, very frustrating. So that’s what… sort of led me on my path to get back to your question

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah,

Mark Hutchinson:
of,

Dave Wolcott:
totally.

Mark Hutchinson:
you know, what

Dave Wolcott:
Totally agree

Mark Hutchinson:
it’s

Dave Wolcott:
there,

Mark Hutchinson:
crazy.

Dave Wolcott:
market. Yeah, it

Mark Hutchinson:
Yeah.

Dave Wolcott:
is. And that’s actually why stock market losses are actually one of the top three biggest wealth destroyers. But no one has it. No one puts on that lens and looks at it that way. But just look, you’re up 15%. You’re up 18%. Everyone was thinking things were going good. but then you just lost 20% last year, right? And that’s on that total compounded value, as you were saying. So to get back up to where you were, you know, is sizably different, right? And the other thing I’ll even add, to add insult to injury, that I think, you know, I think advisors are not really, you know, helping their clients out by really talking about taxes, fees and inflation. So you just pointed out what is the actual rate of return, which is closer to 8%. But when you factor out, you’ve been paying at least a one to 2% fee over that time. So now you’re at, okay, let’s call it six and a half percent, right? And taxes, you know, everyone says defer taxes, defer taxes. But the only thing that I’m probably certain of in the future is that taxes are likely going to go up. And we don’t control that. The government controls that. So why put yourself in that risk? So once you take the taxes out, you’re probably looking at like a 4% to 5% return, right? Which is why we really kind of have this, I think, a real crisis in this country.

Mark Hutchinson:
I would agree with that. Yes, I really would. I see it all the time. I talk to people about these issues and it seems that people are really not aware. And I think people are so caught in just life, Dave. Just the W-2 job, everything that’s going on, kids are so active now in all of the sports. So parents are running in every direction. They just don’t have time to really… learn these things and then certainly, you know, apply great concepts to their life, their financial life.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, such a great point, Mark. It’s exactly true. There’s just so many things going on. And look, we all learned this, right? We learned this from our parents, from our peers, from our employers, every time you start a new job. Well, it’s mandatory. You have to sign up for the 401k program. And they’re giving you, and that’s the other thing, they kind of sucker you in by saying, hey, we’re gonna give you a free match of whatever points it is. but you should still do the math and look at the net income of what you’re going to get, even though they’re saying it’s, Oh, it’s, well, it’s free money. I’m getting, you know, uh, free points here, right?

Mark Hutchinson:
Absolutely, absolutely. And then you’ll be taxed at a rate that you have no idea what it’s going to be at some point in the future, however old you are, right?

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah,

Mark Hutchinson:
And then

Dave Wolcott:
exactly.

Mark Hutchinson:
the, and then the RMDs kick in and whether you want that money or not, it’s time to pay up.

Dave Wolcott:
Right, right.

Mark Hutchinson:
Yeah.

Dave Wolcott:
So Mark, tell us a little bit about the infinite, how did you come across infinite banking concept in 2008? What was your revelation there and what problem did it really solve for you?

Mark Hutchinson:
So, you know, 08 was really the, you know, as you had said, the final straw for me. I had enough at this point. So I set out on a journey to see what other way I could interact with the financial system. There had to be something out there for me. And I stumbled into this letter called, it was an advisory letter called the Palm Beach Letter. And they were talking about this thing called income. for life, the IFL. And the way that they did it was they just drip, it came out in dribs and drabs. So it took me a good probably six or seven weeks to get enough information fed to me that I could then go out on my own and go, what are these guys doing? I can’t wait for six months for you to tell me what this really is. So I got enough information and then I discovered what. what we call, you know, the infinite banking concept, IBC. But when I, when I figured out what this was, uh, Oh man, I, I went down the rabbit hole day. It was, it was bad. So I,

Dave Wolcott:
Hehehe

Mark Hutchinson:
I tried, uh, to figure out everything I could about this. And I wanted to be a part of it. Uh, I had to get my capital deployed because there were just too many things that were resonating with me. Too many things that in my past years of working and investing You know is like pouring salt on wounds. So What struck me though about this was that I Have dealt with a lot of insurance professionals in my life in my own business other businesses You know, I’ve always been insured as an executive and all the companies that I’ve been involved in And not one person had ever said anything to me about this, which means they probably didn’t know about it. And literally every single one of them never considered any type of a permanent insurance. It was always term, rent it. And that really stuck with me. I was just wondering what was really going on. Well, later on, I figured out what the issue was. But boy, at that time, it… It was a little bit of anger involved. I’m not gonna lie. It just didn’t.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah. So what do you think the issue is?

Mark Hutchinson:
I think the issue is training. So the insurance companies train agents to sell products in a very specific way. And they just do not expose them to something like IBC. Their most profitable products are not permanent. Their most profitable products are things that expire and go away without an event occurring.

Dave Wolcott:
like

Mark Hutchinson:
So.

Dave Wolcott:
term insurance, yeah.

Mark Hutchinson:
like term insurance, tremendously profitable for the insurance companies. Remember that every time you sell a permanent product, as far as they’re concerned, there’s going to be a payout. Just the way the product is structured.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, good point.

Mark Hutchinson:
Now, you know, you have situations where there isn’t necessarily a payout. So that’s when someone surrenders a policy, but there, you know, that’s, there’s not a lot of that going on. People surrender policies. No one that I would work with would ever surrender a policy. Because we’re, you know, we’re trying to educate people on why that’s just such a horrible idea. But it happens. It does happen.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah. So let’s just go rewind. Can we just rewind for a sec? Because I

Mark Hutchinson:
Yeah.

Dave Wolcott:
want to go back to those earlier comments that you made and help the audience understand, you know, when you were first coming across this concept, what were the things that really struck you that’s that said, Wow, you know, this, this is resonating, you know, this really makes sense for me.

Mark Hutchinson:
So when I discovered that I could actually put money into an instrument, let’s just call it a financial instrument, that would grow every single day that I’m alive, irrespective of what the market does. Not tied to markets, not tied to anything that I knew that I was not going to go backwards. I had done too much of that in the past. And so… I thought to myself, if I could know every day that I’m going to be wealthier, right? Wealthier than I was the day before, that really means something to me. So that really struck a chord with me. And then as I started to understand like how the actual product could be utilized and all of the, what I call living benefits of these products and properly structured, I was just blown away. that you could, you know, take a policy loan and then go invest that somewhere else at a higher rate of return. So in essence, your money is kind of working in two places at the same time. Then I started to build models that would illustrate some of this stuff. Well, what if I, what if I took $10,000 and I bought a dividend stock and I did that every single year and I just took one, you know, so I started to figure out. what that would look like. And then, well, what if I took my 401k plan and, you know, and started to take penalties in IRAs and fund this? And so I just started to explore and build examples, Dave. And the more that I did that, I was just like, okay, I get it. I get it now. I understand

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah.

Mark Hutchinson:
why people are doing this.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, no, that’s such a great explanation. You know, when I came across it, for the first time, right, I was seeing investors who are using it, you know, the use case was basically to, to amplify your returns by, you know, as you talked about, you know, using the same dollar twice in two different places. But you know, I can really relate to your story early on, you know, with your business as, and as an entrepreneur, and even in, in my days of, you know, career building, you know, when I transitioned in between jobs, um, you know, typical financial advice is to just, okay, do you have, you know, three, six months of savings and it’s in savings, uh, you know, and that’s your, that’s kind of your, you know, sleep at night capital, right. But. you know, now, you know, people talk about, you know, is there like an impending recession or all of these unknowns or all of this uncertainty, let’s say in the market? Well, the ultra wealthy are literally have three years of personal, you know, operating capital that they can go through any economic downturn before they have to actually sell their assets, right? So to me, and I don’t think Mark, people really talk enough about having a liquidity strategy to your portfolio, right? Because you can be so much more efficient with the existing capital you have. So let’s take that six months or 12 months, whatever that amount is, and then if it starts exactly like you defined it so well, which is my wealth is growing every day in this vehicle. And if I need that capital, It’s there for me to borrow against. But in the meantime, you know, what a great like sense of security, you know, to just know that, Hey, if something unpredictable happens, which it does happen and that’s life,

Mark Hutchinson:
Mm-hmm.

Dave Wolcott:
um, you

Mark Hutchinson:
Right.

Dave Wolcott:
know, now you have kind of a resource to do that. And then you start adding on like some of these other additional benefits, like, you know, it’s asset protected, right? There’s asset protection around it. it’s actually a legacy strategy because you know, you can give it to your heirs, right? Without paying taxes. So I, I know the audience, I get fired up about this stuff because it gets, it’s kind of geeky here. I mean, we get really

Mark Hutchinson:
Mm-hmm.

Dave Wolcott:
excited, but when you can take, you know, $1 and you can do multiple things with it, I mean, it’s super powerful, right?

Mark Hutchinson:
It absolutely is, Dave. And, you know, when I talk to clients who are in these products and I’m working with them and, you know, they’ll have a large real estate portfolio that they’re investing in and using policy loans to fund the real estate, you know, and I hear comments like, I can sleep at night, Mark. I can sleep at night knowing that if something, heaven forbid, happens to me. all my real estate’s paid for. It’s all paid for. We can’t do that at the bank. So you save up the money, you put it in your bank account, then you drain your bank account, right? And then you go buy the real estate and then something happens. Well, maybe if you had some term insurance, you know, that might help. But, um, think about it from that respect, that every investment that you might make, where you take a policy loan, that, that you know that that your spouse or partner is taking care of, your family’s taking care of if something were to happen to you. That’s powerful stuff, you know? And I just don’t think that people really understand. Like when they really dig into it and start pulling back the layers of the onion, there’s so much there. And I understand why a lot of advisors don’t want people to get into these types of products. There’s a lot of bad rap about them.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah.

Mark Hutchinson:
And

Dave Wolcott:
And

Mark Hutchinson:
I understand.

Dave Wolcott:
why, I was going to ask that way. Why, why do you think that is from your perspective?

Mark Hutchinson:
So I think it’s all about assets under management.

Dave Wolcott:
Mm-hmm.

Mark Hutchinson:
You know, and look, I realize there’s a lot of advisors who are fee-based. That seems to be more and more the deal out there. But regardless, they’ll place products, but they really want you in the markets. That’s where they want you. I mean, it’s clear. It’s absolutely clear that they want you in the markets because that’s where all the action is for them.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah.

Mark Hutchinson:
And so,

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, it’s.

Mark Hutchinson:
yeah, I think that’s honestly the primary thing. I think honestly though, Dave, a part of it is a lack of understanding as well that hangs in there. And, you know, there are commission structures with life insurance and at the end of the day, everybody has to be paid for their time and their expertise. So it’s no different than advisors, no different than going to a lawyer or to a mechanic. You’re going to pay. for their expertise and their ability. And so it’s the same in life insurance and it gets a bad rap. And what I find very interesting about fees is, if you were to take, just pick a number, right? A hundred thousand or let’s say a hundred thousand dollars worth of insurance premium that gets paid into a policy over 10 years, let’s call it, and take the exact same money and put it with an advisor. I guarantee you that after 30 years of you having your insurance policy and having your advisor that your fees with the advisor are probably 10 or 15 times the fees that you will have paid to your insurance agent.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah.

Mark Hutchinson:
It’s just the nature of the beast.

Dave Wolcott:
Yep.

Mark Hutchinson:
They’re front loaded on the insurance side and they are not on the other. The other is just, let me manage it for the rest of your life and I will have, as long as I have enough of it, I will have a fantastic life.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah. No, it’s

Mark Hutchinson:
Yeah.

Dave Wolcott:
interesting. And then if you bring that back full circle to what we were talking about earlier with that 10% return, if you actually look at it on paper with the compounding, you know, it’s, you know, here, here’s the question, right? Is, is a 6% return in the insurance policy better than the 10% return that Wall Street is advocating? Right. And the, you know, the life insurance, right. It does compound, uh, tax free, but you know, why don’t you, why don’t you unpack that? Right. What that, what that looks like.

Mark Hutchinson:
Sure. So on the life insurance side, you know, your money technically, we’re going to say technically, it builds in a tax deferred environment because if you were to surrender your policy at some point in the future, you would owe income tax on the difference between your premiums paid and your cash value. So if you paid a hundred thousand in premium and you have a hundred fifty thousand in cash value. you will receive a 1099 from the insurance company upon surrender. They will issue that and they notify the IRS that you have a $50,000 gain. So it’s not tax free, right? You were, you earned it tax deferred. Now we don’t surrender policy. So, you know, in people who are in the IBC world, you, me, all of our, you know, everybody wants to keep that policy forever. And then what we can do is we can take policy loans in the future and we can structure those policy loans for a steady stream of income and we can do that for 10, 15, 20, 30 years, whatever, whatever period you want to structure payments for. You can take that money out of your policy and never repay it. And the reason that happens and people get very confused by this. Like. Well, how can I take a loan and not repay it? The reason is, is because the insurance company is in the long game. Unlike us, they’re in the long game. So they know that eventually you are going to meet your maker. And when you do, that’s when they’re going to get their loan repaid with all the interest that’s due to them. Because when upon your death, you receive the death benefit minus any outstanding loans or accrued interest owed to the insurance company. So they always get paid and being in a long game, they don’t mind waiting. So, uh, I think a lot of clients find that, uh, strange, but it’s that mechanism, Dave, that gives us the complete use and control of our money to where we are in control of the repayment structure of our debt. So if you were going to go and invest in oil and gas, let’s say, and you needed $100,000 investment, you could take a policy loan. And if you need to wait for three years for that investment to repay you, you can just sit back for three years with $100,000 open loan and nothing negative is going to happen to you. So you do not have to repay that. You are in complete control. of your loan repayment system. We want you to be an honest banker, right, if we’re going to use the word banking. We want you to be honest because it’s in your best interest to always repay those loans because we need them in the future, right, if we’re going to have a retirement strategy where we’re going to pull some capital, take loans, and give ourselves a stream of income in retirement. So we want to use our policies. while, you know, before we get to retirement and then when we get to retirement, we’re going to change the way that we use our, our policies. And I’m speaking in general terms, obviously.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, for sure. No, it’s such a great example. Um, and then I’ll just add another point that also I think is such a misnomer, uh, from, you know, traditional planning, uh, which is, you know, they use this Monte Carlo simulation and they basically age you out. So, you know, whatever you’re, you’re a male age 55 and they think, you know, based on your genetics, you are going to pass at 91. So if you’ve taken that route and you’ve gone with this accumulation theory approach, to try to build up enough of a nest egg, and then you start dwindling that down every year, you run the risk of outliving your money. With the advancements in technology and where we’re heading these days, I think it’s completely possible to live past 100. Well- Would you want to be scrambling for how am I going to have income at that point in your life when you’re say you’re 96, but

Mark Hutchinson:
Right.

Dave Wolcott:
the life insurance, it continues, correct?

Mark Hutchinson:
Correct, correct. It will continue on basically forever, however

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah.

Mark Hutchinson:
long you live. Yep.

Dave Wolcott:
So it continues to compound and you continue to

Mark Hutchinson:
Yes.

Dave Wolcott:
draw the income off of it, which is that’s what everyone’s looking for anyway, right? However you get there, it’s income, whether it’s passive income or you’re selling your equities to get income or you’re getting income from this. But I mean, this is such a more strategic way to do it. And after I’ve really spent so many years like uncovering the strategies of you know, family offices and ultra high net worth. This is a complete cornerstone to their strategy and what they’re using. Right.

Mark Hutchinson:
It is. And you know, with so many people have brokerage assets, and the reason obviously is the 401k, right? Or those type of qualified plan, I’ll just put it that way, qualified money. But what people I think fail to realize, until they get there, Dave, they don’t realize the issues you could have with sequence of return. and the risk associated with sequence of returns. So you have this qualified money, you’ve got a million, two million dollars worth of qualified money, you now have to lean on it because it’s your only source of income, and you start to lean on it, and the market goes down 20%. Well, now what? You know, you’re now in a position where you’re going to be drawing off of an account. that is losing value. And so you’re taking a double hit. And you might be in a position where you have no choice or, heaven forbid, you’re in RMDs and forced to take out your RMD. But let’s say you’re not yet at RMDs. You’re in that position where you need to protect that asset. And I’m telling you, there’s no better asset that you could have than the cash value of your life insurance. Because I can show you a strategy where if you’re drawing on your qualified money and we get a negative year of returns in the market, you would take, let’s say you’re taking 45,000 a year out of your brokerage account. You would not take the 45,000 for the year of the negative return. So if it looks like this is a terrible year and the markets are bad, you do not take the return this year or next year. Instead, you go to your policy, you take $45,000 this year, you take $45,000 next year, and then in the third year, you then take out the $90,000 to repay your policy loans and the $45,000 that you take for yourself. You can take all of that out of there and I can model it up with actual market returns where if you don’t do that, your policy collapses. And if you do use the sequence of return by utilizing, you know, pools of capital somewhere else, if you use that strategy, the account remains viable. It’s an absolute game changer, but people don’t even know this until they get to that point and then it’s too late. Right. You need to understand these strategies early. Take the defensive measures, put these tools in place to protect your retirement.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, such a great strategy, Mark. So many great insights. As I said, I’m always learning from you and love these kind of, you know, discussions as we dive in. I know the audience is going to enjoy this one. So can you tell us, Mark, what would be if you could give just one piece of advice to listeners about how they could accelerate their wealth journey? What would it be?

Mark Hutchinson:
So I think that what I’ve experienced both in business and with my client base and people that I’ve worked with is to take action. I have seen this as the number one issue over and over and over, Dave. People do not take action. They’ll analyze and analyze and analyze. And I think people are looking for… Um, having a greater understanding, you know, having complete knowledge of a subject or whatever it is. And I just think there’s so many problems with that. I think that, you know, all of us are really good at trusting our gut. You know, you, you just get that gut, that gut instinct. So what you need to do is gather enough information that you can make an intelligent decision, take action, trusting your gut, and then you course correct. So if. If it wasn’t quite what you thought, or maybe it isn’t playing out the way that you thought it would play out, then you take the time to course correct from there, but if you don’t take action, there’s, there’s no shot, right? I think that that’s the number one thing that I see with people that they could change that would, would really change their trajectory.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, great advice, Mark. Really appreciate that. I also wanted to ask you, Mark, I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know you and you’ve been part of the Pantheon Mastermind and Virtual Family Office. And just wanted to get your thoughts in terms of your experience, how that’s been so far for you.

Mark Hutchinson:
I have absolutely enjoyed it. It has exceeded my expectations. I’ve enjoyed, I just think you’re an incredible curator. The things that you bring to the table are really interesting. You’ve always got good salient points that are impactful, meaningful. I’ve always known about… you know, goal setting and things like this, you know, just being in business. I’ve had so much business training as well. Um, but, but I think your approach to it was very interesting. I love your, uh, the, you know, hundred list, what you want to be, right. Good. You want to have who you,

Dave Wolcott:
Be do

Mark Hutchinson:
right.

Dave Wolcott:
and have, yeah.

Mark Hutchinson:
Be do and have, yeah, the be do and

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah,

Mark Hutchinson:
have, uh,

Dave Wolcott:
yeah.

Mark Hutchinson:
wow. What you learn so much by doing these things and, uh, You know, I just, I wouldn’t know these things without having come across this. And I cried, I find it incredibly valuable and I’m very grateful, actually very grateful that, that our paths have crossed. We’ve come to know each other and, uh, that we’ve come into each other’s lives. So.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, really appreciate that Mark. And, and I think, you know, it kind of ties for me, this kind of ties a little bit to what you were saying is, you know, people struggle with actually taking action. And, and I think part of that reason is, is because, you know, look, as humans, we follow the pack and 95% of the pack is putting their, you know, capital into 401ks and IRAs, right? That’s what they’re doing. So when you talk about a new concept, I think it’s scary for people. They’re like, wow, I gotta do something completely against the grain. And so this was one of the reasons why I really wanted to create this mastermind in family office is to say that you’re not alone, right? We have shared peers who are going through similar experiences where everyone says, that’s an excellent idea, right? And look. you know, look at the, you know, experiences Mark has just shared, you know, from his journey. And, and then that becomes inspirational to the whole group, as well as plugging into these advisors. I mean, I just can’t talk enough about like some of the advisors that we’ve had that I’ve spent 20 years pounding my head whether you need an attorney. for something such as asset protection, you need a CPA. I’ve fired so many CPA firms like over the years. Nobody really gets all this stuff. But when you can kind of bring it all together, you know, in one room, right, with like-minded people, it’s just really amazing. So appreciate those thoughts, Mark. I really appreciate your time

Mark Hutchinson:
Yeah

Dave Wolcott:
coming on to the show today. And if folks would like to, you know, learn more about you, connect, to learn more about the insurance, what’s the best place?

Mark Hutchinson:
places to reach out to me via email. My email is livingbenefits at mail, m-a-i-l dot com. That’s the best way.

Dave Wolcott:
Awesome. Well, thanks again, Mark. Really appreciate it. Uh, and thanks to the listeners out there, uh, spending your most valuable resource with us, your time, uh, really appreciate it and we’ll see you next week.

Mark Hutchinson:
Thank you, Dave.

Dave Wolcott:
How’s it going everyone? Welcome to today’s show on wealth strategy secrets. Today we’re joined by Corey Peterson. As the CEO and founder of Kahuna Investments, Corey has acquired over 225 million in real estate nationwide and raised over 95 million in private equity. He’s the bestselling author of Copy Your Way to Success, Standing on the Shoulders of Giants, and hosts the Multifamily Legacy Podcast. His company’s mission is to partner with passive investors to create award-winning apartment communities. Families are proud to call home. Corey, welcome to the show.

Corey Peterson:
Yeah, thanks a lot, Dave. Thanks for having me.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, no, looking forward to the discussion. I think the audience is definitely going to enjoy this. You have such an interesting background and journey, to get where you are today. So why don’t we start there and share your background with the audience.

Corey Peterson:
Yeah, I love to man. So I started off, you know, I was a used car salesman and the kind you’d picture in your mind, that was probably me. Until my wife said I couldn’t do it anymore. She’s like, she couldn’t marry a used car salesman.

Dave Wolcott:
And

Corey Peterson:
But really,

Dave Wolcott:
what age was this? I mean,

Corey Peterson:
this

Dave Wolcott:
okay,

Corey Peterson:
is, I was probably about 25,

Dave Wolcott:
okay.

Corey Peterson:
27, right?

Dave Wolcott:
Yep.

Corey Peterson:
And something magical, it was like 23 years ago, I’ve been married for 21. So two years before I got married, That’s when my life changed forever. My mom was married to a man named Bruce and I call him Bruce Wayne. He wasn’t Batman, but he did have a lot of money. And so we go to Hawaii to stay with him and he’s got a home right on the beach. And I’d never seen a guy that had time and money. Bruce had both. And so I had to ask, what do you do? And that’s when he said the magic words. He said that he was in real estate and that he owned apartments. Well, I left that island thinking he was the big kahuna. Like he had something that I’d always wanted. And so I had to go kind of figure out what I wanted to do. And I started reading a bunch of books on real estate. Finally, I read that little purple book called Rich Dad Poor Dad, and the light went on for me. And so from that moment on, I got obsessed with real estate. And I went full-fledged into it. I started off as a single-family fix and flip guy. And that lasted for about three deals, right? I did my first three deals and I ran out of money. I was like, oh my gosh. And at that point I didn’t really know how to get past it. So luckily, sorry about that. Luckily, my wife’s friend, she had a guy that was, he was a financial advisor. And so when I ran out of money, I was like, I gotta go back and get a job, because I’d quit my job, I thought it was so great on those first three flips. And then I realized I had no income and like I couldn’t survive any farther than that. And so I got a job as a financial advisor and up with, with Edward Jones. And that was around 2004. And what happened was it was a, it was a crazy time because, you know, I put my dream on hold of real estate, but the financial world took, you know, taught me everything about money, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, insurance, the whole gamut. And. I was like, that’s what I’m gonna do. I was all in all of a sudden, a change kind of moved my cheese a little bit. I still wanted to do real estate, but I thought if I could make enough money being a financial advisor, I could go buy more real estate. And that was great. 2005, six, seven, all of a sudden, 2008, 2009 happened, the great recession. And at that point in time, I had built a pretty solid book of clients and business. And I realized that I had… No control, Dave, right? I’m telling you, I had a client that was, him and his wife worked at Intel, they retired at 65, had about $4 million in retirement funds, right, from 401k between the both of them. I mean, they’d done a great job saving, and we, you know, this was like in 2006, we diversified this portfolio, and in 2008, they come to me and it’s worth half. And I mean, they don’t just come in, they come in. I mean, she’s sobbing, the guy looks distressed, he doesn’t even know what to do. And they’re looking at me for advice. And here I was, I told them I was gonna watch over their money. But I realized as a financial advisor, Dave, I had no control. I had to say it’s the market. And here I was, I was a younger, I thought I was king hot, hot dingling, yet I really hadn’t, there’s nothing I could do. except say it’s the market. And then they’re like, well, we want to move our money. And then I had to charge them a fee, like adding injury to insult. And so when that happened, my heart just left that business. I realized there is no control on the roller coaster of being a financial advisor. And it is truly indeed a roller coaster. It goes up and down for no reason. And it’s emotionally stressing, I think, on my investor pool. Probably a lot of people are listening to, they know what they can understand that ride, it’s scary. And so I actually got fired from that job. When your heart leaves the business, so does your cells. And so that was the best thing that ever happened because it forced me to go full time in real estate. And all I did was take what I learned in raising capital for stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, and I applied it and did, I started doing single family fix and flips, ultimately to start buying apartments. I realized that… I could not scale single family homes, but I could scale multifamily investments. And so the goal was then to partner capital and put it in the right kind of cash flowing deals that made sense, that could give our investors kind of better returns that they were getting in the stock market. And we’ve done that very successfully, but here we’ve come into another storm. And that’s the one thing about real estate is always going up and down and kind of crazy, Dave. What I realized in real estate is we have levers. There’s lots of things you can do to manipulate your property, to make it more profitable. I think for your audience, if you’re looking at syndicators like me, these are the things you’re looking for, some of the clues you’re looking for is how have they performed in down times? Because anybody can look great in a good period of time, Dave. It’s when the storm comes, what are you gonna see? And when that tide comes out, some people are naked. And so you wanna make sure that you’re understanding what that operator can do. And really it’s the things you’ll have to navigate. So we’ve just come through COVID. Now COVID was a blessing for most of us in the multifamily sector. But for Quarry, I have a lot of student housing, right? I rent to colleges or to the kids that go to colleges by the bed. So COVID for me was… horrible. It was a very hard time. We went with properties that were 100% three years in a row and all of a sudden went to 45% Dave and 45% occupancy is a death wish. It really is. And so we immediately that school year for when it was COVID because no one showed up to go to school. They’re all doing it remotely or at home. They’re not staying at my, you know, at my property now. And so we had to immediately get slim, right? We you know, we got a skeleton staff. So we started pulling levers. And I’m very thankful to say that we didn’t lose any of those assets and it could have been really bad, but we just, we consolidated. And this year, something extra that we’ve done is we’ve vertically integrated. In other words, we’ve taken over property management. And so property management, it’s a little bit different. Like, why does that matter? Why should you be… me pay attention, is it good or it’s bad? Just understand that most syndicators in this space, like me, they’re usually using third party management companies, and I’ve done it for the 15 years that I’ve been doing real estate, that’s what I’ve done. It’s only to this point now that I’ve, and I said I would never self manage or create this thing, but I realized that what became more important as I’ve gone on this journey, and I’ve kind of grown my portfolio, and what I realized is like, man, control. is more important now than ever. Understand, and really it’s not about, it’s about your people. People make or break your business, Dave, right? It’s your staff at the property level, it’s your ground troops that are on the pavement. Those are the ones that will make or break your company. And when you are using a third party management company, you do not have access or really control on the people aspect. And so we just knew that we had to get that part of it under control and then influenced them with our culture, with our code of ethics, the way we want to do business. And then all of a sudden, and the magic thing about that, and as we move through it, Dave is that we started seeing all our costs. I mean, almost across the line start to go down. Our general GNA, admin costs started going down. Our payroll started to go down. because we weren’t really wanting overtime. And so we said, hey, one of our policies is we can’t, we don’t want overtime. And all of a sudden things started getting done in the allotted time. Well, because we mandated, we kind of created stuff like that. And so those little simple things produce NOI, right? You save money, you’re gonna increase your NOI. And in a time like right now where we’ve had interest rates double, 100% increase, even though some of us, we have cap rates, That’s an expense that none of us really perform it. And so again, you gotta have, this is about being lean and mean on your current assets. I think for a lot of people that are invested in guys like me in the last three to four or five years, it was great. And this last two years, it’s been very different. It’s been very difficult because you have to get lean. You have to get very price conscious integration. I call it Six Sigma, your supply chain, you want that thing dialed in, so you’re not got a bunch of stuff sitting on the shelves. You gotta be efficient. And efficiency is what’s gonna win the race right now.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, such a powerful lesson, Corey. And I think not enough people really talk about it, right? It’s that it’s just having control. And I think this alternative strategy is very new to a lot of people to be investing in real estate, to be investing in private equity, because most of us were frankly taught by the financial services industry that we’re going to outsource our wealth to someone who is smarter than you. And, you know, they’re going to manage it for you. Um, but what you get with that is, you know, you basically get average returns for the retail investor. So if you’re looking to outperform that, you know, part of the equation is really taking back control. So you have decisions in terms of how you’re, uh, placing capital, right? How are you allocating today? How are you managing your risk? uh, into your point when you’re starting to purchase tangible assets, you know, there’s so many knobs that you can push, right? It’s a, it’s a living business. And the operator, the other thing that’s, I think, very different than the stock market, right? Is you have mutual alignment with your investors. So as an operator, you’re not going to make money, you know, the investors aren’t going to make money. If you don’t make money, we’re like, we all make money together.

Corey Peterson:
Yeah.

Dave Wolcott:
Right? So So you’re incentivized to turn those knobs, look for new, you know, revenue ideas and new creativity, cutting costs, you know, doing all those things. So I think that point of control just really can’t be understated.

Corey Peterson:
Yeah, it really is. And I always say this too, like, when I think back to the investor base is like, who’s going to care more about your money? You know, is it you or is it somebody else? And I always say it’s you. And if you really once you understand that you’re like, okay, so then taking a little bit more control a little bit more active, you can still be a passive investor, but control what you’re putting your money to don’t just give it. I mean, you think about it, you get to a financial advisor. And what that financial advisor does is he has, you know, growth fund of America, you know, and he shows you this, uh, you know, 20 year track record history. And so you invest in it. And I always say like you invest in that fund and then how many people does it go to tell finally that there’s the one guy that says we’re buying blank shares of this company and who is that person and can you call them? You can’t. And so you’ve, again, you’ve settled for average returns. when the rich and wealthy people understand this, I think more than ever, is that they understand that if they control their money, they can make it work a lot faster and a lot better most of the time, right? So there’s still understanding your risk profile, I think is more important than ever, but I find that most investors, when they start taking a little bit more control of what they’re doing and understanding the kind of investments they’re putting, the alternative investments out there, They can do a lot better than what the average stock market return of 6% to 8% is.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, for sure. And the other thing that, you know, as I went through that journey myself, I mean, I just got so tired. I’d be at the gym in the morning, you know, and all you see is a sea of red because something happened in China, something happened politically, and you just kind of throw your hands up. You’re like, I, you know, I want to do something. I want to get involved, right? How can I, how can I do something? And it’s, you know, that feeling of helplessness, right? Just, just really sucks. But when you can get into, you know, investing in tangible assets and real estate, you know, I see it really as mitigating your risk really three dimensionally. Right. Because if you have a thousand bucks, let’s say you have a thousand bucks worth of Amazon, the only thing that you’re actually hoping for is that stock value can go up in price. Right. But when you have real estate, you’ve got tax efficiency, you’ve got passive income. And just like you pointed out, you’re driving value every day into that asset to increase your net operating income.

Corey Peterson:
Yeah, I always say Everybody expense rents to go up and we never disappoint them, right? You’re always gonna make a rental increase every year even as if it’s, you know, ten or fifteen dollars That’s typically the train and real estate is we’re all conditioned From the very young age that we pay our rents, right? We if you want a place to stay you got to pay rent and so and if you look at the economics, too This is what I love about the numbers because the numbers are the numbers and they don’t really lie if you look at the supply and demand for What we do in this real estate space and particularly multifamily space There is such a demand for housing for what we do because home affordability is Through the roof. It’s hard to get it’s hard for new home owners to actually buy a new house It’s almost priced out of the range. And so what are they going to do? What are their options? They’re going to look for places to stay, right? Apartments. And that trend is happening more and more than ever. And then there’s a good amount of the population that don’t even want a home ownership anymore. They want flexibility. So as you start seeing now, not every market’s the same. And this is where you got to understand the business of real estate. And this is why when I say, you know, from your, your tribe’s perspective is you’re going to look for either syndicators or you got to learn it yourself. So you either do the work and learn how to invest yourself or you learn enough about the business. And then you find operators like me that you can partner with and then come into their deals with that have spent, you know, the last 20 years. That’s all I’ve been doing is real estate. So I kind of have my PhD in it and, um, we help get everybody there a little bit faster, right? But you always have the option to do it on your own. But what I’ve found is. What most people want is they want some stability, they want the income, the tax depreciation. Like that’s not as great as it was a couple of years ago because of cost segregation and the way it’s played out, but it’s still pretty decent. And so more and more, it’s not about what you make, it’s about what you keep.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah,

Corey Peterson:
And

Dave Wolcott:
for

Corey Peterson:
so

Dave Wolcott:
sure.

Corey Peterson:
just trying to be understanding the long game of real estate. For us, it’s been a great partnership to partner with passive investors. and create the opportunity for everybody to win. And that’s the thing is, and I think you said it Dave best is we all win together. And that’s really the beautiful part of what we do.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, that mutual alignment, I think is so key. Cause as you pointed out again, you know, if you compare that to, you know, Wall Street, um, you know, they’re still collecting fees, even if you’re losing. Right. So,

Corey Peterson:
Yeah.

Dave Wolcott:
um, you know, they’re, it’s, it’s really their agenda that they’re winning. Right. So any way, anytime you can really bypass Wall Street and invest in Main Street, uh, is a good thing. Right.

Corey Peterson:
Yeah. You think about how much money they spend, you know, why is there a financial advisor, you know, in every corner in every street? It seems like, you know, it’s the, and they lobby this like they’ve, they’ve conditioned a lot of people’s minds to say, no, like if I was, I already like when I have people that are, I know they’re in the stock market and that’s all they’ve done. And they’re going to go pitch the idea to their financial advisor. I said, here’s what he’s going to say. He’s going to say this is a bad idea. And I was like, That’s exactly what I was trained to say when I was a financial advisor. Why would you do that? That sounds really risky. Are they going to report, you know, this and this, and you’re going to do it with your IRA? Boy, what happens if they don’t do the reporting? You’re going to be, you’re going to lose your, um, qualified, uh, tax shelter there. And we would just scare the hell out of them because really every finance advisors, their job is to keep assets under management, right? That’s how big is your book. You keep money at your place. You don’t want everyone to leave. So you scare the crap out of you. You say, well, we would have, you know, we would offer it. Well, why don’t you just get this REIT, a real estate investor’s trust. It’s like real estate, even though it’s not, right? It’s paper asset. But that’s the conditioning. And honestly, this is the, I’m gonna give you guys an insider look of what they taught us. Those are the words. And so is that not a slick oiled salesman? you know, are they really working on your best behalf? Because if I’m telling you, when I, when I got together with a bunch of my guys, you know, when we were, when I was at F and A, we were not talking about our clients good. We’re talking about how much money we’re putting in our pockets.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah.

Corey Peterson:
And so it is a, it’s a direct conflict of what we’re telling and what they’re saying. They’re saying one thing to the customer, but it’s all about Asset center management, 12 B1 fees, how big’s your book, and what kind of money are you making off your client base? And are you churning that enough, right? I mean, and that’s, even though they’re not supposed to, but they’re like, hey, you should be offering and moving money every, a certain percentage of everybody’s money so you can just create new fees. Scary, but that’s the truth.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, it really is. And I think that’s why, I mean, we have a significant problem in this country, you know, in terms of retirement, financial education, you know, and really the lack of, you know, assets that people are holding right now that, you know, is definitely a little bit scary. And I think, you know, the more you can take back control, as you pointed out, start to invest in some tangible assets, you know, things like real estate, right, that really can make a You know, you’re going to start to see some massive gains, right?

Corey Peterson:
Well, that’s why podcasts like yours, they have a more important than ever to, is to, is to alert people and let them know that there is alternatives. And they’re, you know, that to talk about the things that we’re talking about now, um, is more important now than ever because people need to be saved. They need to be retirement for most people is not good. And so how do we make it better? You got to take control in what you’re teaching. Dave is exactly what people need to listen to.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, 100%. So tell us a little bit about the markets that you’re in.

Corey Peterson:
So we primarily invest in the Midwest and the South. We find that in the Midwest and South, they’re more stable. They’re more affordable. And we only try to buy for cash flow, Dave. This is, I learned my lesson. So in 2000, I bought properties in 2005, six and seven, single family homes. I’ve sold most of them, but I owned them way through the. downturn of 2008-2009 and they survived. And why did they survive? Because they cash flowed. And so I’ve learned that, and I’ll never forget that lesson because I know a lot of people lost their shorts because they bought things that couldn’t cash flow. If you can cash flow now, you can normally cash flow tomorrow. The markets go up and down and they’re crazy, but cash flow is key. So we find that in the Midwest, They don’t go up too high, they don’t go down too low. That’s stable, we like those types of deals. And these are like Oklahoma, Iowa, Indiana. And then we also have a pretty healthy portion of our portfolio is in student housing. And so where we rent, we butt up to colleges. And typically that’s almost recession proof, Dave, except it’s not COVID proof,

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah.

Corey Peterson:
okay? So we learned because usually with student housing, no matter what the market’s doing, it doesn’t matter because when your kid’s 18 or 19 and they’re ready to go to college, that’s where they’re going. And so then it’s about what we look for is D2, D1, we wanna be closer to D1 schools if we can. We prefer D1s, but we’ll do D2 if it makes sense. If our location is very close to the college. So proximity. college is very important in that aspect of what we’re doing and make sure we have the right amenities and right structures. But again, though, even in those markets, we typically try to buy assets that are, you know, 90% occupied, that are already kind of doing what they need. And then we like to make the micro improvements, right? Let’s go and do a remodel refresh kitchen refresh, right? We’ll replace the flooring. and redo the kitchen, paint the cabinets, new knobs, stuff that’s really very easy for what I call turn kind of items. It’s kind of like you can do it in your sleep. We like those. We don’t like to move walls. We’re not trying to redo wiring or plumbing. It’s just cosmetic stuff. And those are micro repositionings that we can do really well. And we force appreciation in that case.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah. Any other types of differentiation besides your vertical integration? You know, what you’ve learned over the years that really sets you apart.

Corey Peterson:
Yeah, we’ve learned that, um, funny, we’ve learned, we’ve learned, you know, you have these lessons and it’s like, wow, okay. Um, we only try to buy in markets where there’s a regional airport. Right. Um, I don’t know why that’s a big deal, but we’ve done it where there’s not. And, uh, those have not worked out well. We really look for the, uh, the trend for growth. We want to see more people moving in the moving out and we want to see the, uh, our median house pricing, we want to see that just, we don’t need to see it taken off. We just want to see a steady growth, right? If our home values are just over time, just nice and steady, that helps us a lot. We like that data point. We also like more people moving in than moving out. That’s another data point that’s really important for us. And then we’re also looking at employment centers, Dave, who are the main employers? And are they growing or contracting? And so sometimes we’ve been on a property, you know, we’re in Warner Robins, Georgia. For that proper, the location, there’s a base. Well, so there’s one big base and that’s a big employer. And so we’ve got to really watch, we’re watching that base to make sure that it’s not going to be part of any closures. Right. And it’s a big enough air force base where it’s, it’s actually a, a transport base where they have the big planes like C one thirties and that’s not, that’s always going to be needed for what we do. So we’re like, we felt really good with that location, but we did a lot of research in those areas. And so at the end of the day, understanding your markets, you have to really go into your, with your eyes wide open and you’re looking for those metrics that those data points, crime, there’s a crime statistic that we look for. And we want to make sure that our zip code is better than the, It has to be a certain metric that greenlights it for us. And because crime can ruin, you know, and crime is so weird, you really have to look at it from a zip code perspective because you can go across the street and there’s no crime over there, but on this side of the street, it’s bad. So trying to understand that is super important when you’re buying these assets. We’ve had it where we’ve went on site to properties and our primary goal when we think we have a deal, Dave, is to go kill it. Like we go do a site visit. Our job is to say, let’s kill this thing. And if it doesn’t get killed, then it’s something we still want to do. But that has to be, I think for most syndicators, I’m not gonna speak for everybody, like that’s our drive. Like we go there to kill deals and only the great ones select because our goal, our job is to find needles in the haystack. It always has been. It’s always to find the needles in the haystack. And so to do that, you’ve just got There’s no special recipe in my mind, Dave. You just got to do the work. You got to, in the markets that we track, we try to underwrite 98% of the deals that come up. Now, we’re not perfect, but that’s our goal. We want to really do a good initial underwriting to say, does this work or not? And most of them don’t. Well, honestly, most of them don’t. And then from

Dave Wolcott:
Yep.

Corey Peterson:
there, the ones that do, then it merits a site visit. We always do site visits before we make any offers. I know there’s a lot of investors that just do sight unseen. We just don’t do that. It’s not, I’ve never done business that way. I’ve got to physically put my team on site. We want to, because most of the times you’ll go there and you’re like, Oh, that’s a deal killer. We found one. We had a great property, great location, but we get there. There’s this little seven 11 right next to it. And you wouldn’t think, Oh, it’s just seven 11. But at nighttime, that seven 11 is like lots of foot traffic. And usually foot traffic is not good at night. You want people, in home, locked up tight. And so we think we actually saw a drug transaction, right? So we’re like, nope, this property is not gonna work. There’s nothing that we can do to fix that problem.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, great point. I mean, there’s certain things you just don’t know until you’re actually physically on the ground, right? Kind of surveying things. So a great, great due diligence step. And what do you think? I mean, you know, given today’s market dynamics, right? With, you know, higher in unprecedented interest rates, right? Kind of this reset going on between buyer and seller expectations. How has any of that, you know, changed your business model and what are you looking for today?

Corey Peterson:
We are stepping on the gas right now, Dave. So we’ve not bought anything for the last 14 months, right? So we went on a hiatus. We needed kind of everything to play itself out and we are now starting to see things drop because people that are in these adjustable, you know, rate mortgages, they’re coming due and they either have to sell I mean, if they’re selling, no one’s selling right now because they want to. It’s usually because they have to. And so that’s opportunity. So when do you buy? You buy when there’s opportunity. And we may not be exactly at the bottom yet, but we’re close enough that we are. Um, and here’s the play. I believe the play right now is if you can buy something now and cashflow in today’s interest rate, right. And you can still, and you still have some micro repositioning that you can do. Then you can buy. And then, you know, we look, we have a five to seven year time horizon on anything we buy. So we believe that in our future interest rate down the road is going to be better. We don’t know what it’s going to be, but we believe it’ll be better than it is today. And that’ll be a, just a micro little piece that’s going to happen that from, you know, 6% to four and a half or even to five, six and a half to five is a huge step in valuation and profitability. So Our goal is to buy as much as we can in today’s dollars, in today’s pricing, with today’s rates, and just make sure that our deals qualify in cash flow. If they can do that, then it’s a green light for us. We’re still gonna add our micro repositionings. We’re gonna add some value along the way, but we’re gonna get a nice little reset somewhere down the road. We’re gonna be able to refly our properties, and it’s gonna smell like Nirvana.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, makes sense. So Corey, what do you say the future looks like for you and Kahuna Investments? Talking 10, 15, 20 years out.

Corey Peterson:
Our goal is to become a family office. We have a very robust team. As we started, we’ve been buying deals. We have 10 active projects right now, pretty good size projects. And so as they start to mature, our goal is to keep partnering with investors, but our long-term goal is to become a family office where we’re starting to use all our own monies to buy all our own properties and just keep that machine running. I don’t think I’ll ever stop doing real estate, Dave. I love it. My kids, my son is turning 19. He wants to be in the business. My goal is to find a way to, he can’t come work for me till he’s about 24. But the goal is once he’s kind of matured and learns from somebody else, he’d come and go into all my departments and get everybody’s respect and then stand with me by my side for a minute. And then my goal is to eventually give him the keys and let him do better than I ever thought I could.

Dave Wolcott:
Excellent. Creating a nice legacy there. Love it.

Corey Peterson:
Yeah.

Dave Wolcott:
Corey, if you could give just one piece of advice to the listeners about how they could accelerate their wealth trajectory, what would it be?

Corey Peterson:
Take control. Don’t stop learning about things that you’re interested in. Find things that you’re interested in the alternative investment arena, right? Whether it’s real estate, maybe it’s singles family, maybe it’s lending, maybe there’s so many different aspects that you can get into, but find something you’re passionate about and then just get involved with it. I’m telling you, you can make so much more money. understanding just a little bit. You don’t have to understand a lot, but just understanding the fundamentals of what, of what wealthy people do. They make their money work so much better than the average investor just going in the stock market. So, uh, by listening to podcasts like yours, Dave, to getting knowledge, um, and then take action. Most people are, you know, they listen to these podcasts and they don’t do anything. And man, it’s a shame because I know if, if you would take action, it would just, It would change your life. For most people, it’s a life-changing thing when they take action, especially on the things that we talk about, Dave.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah. Well said. Really appreciate you coming on the show today, Corey, giving so many valuable insights to the listeners. If people want to connect or learn more about what you’re doing at Big Kahuna, what’s the best place?

Corey Peterson:
Yeah, actually, I would love just to give it I’ll give away my book for free. Copy your way to success. If you’ll text the word book the OK to 480-500-1127. We’ll send you the book for free. Other than that, go to Kahuna Investments.com. You can look us up see, see about us to see what we’re doing.

Dave Wolcott:
Awesome. Thanks so much for coming on the show, Corey.

Corey Peterson:
All right, thanks Dave.

Dave Wolcott:
Alright.

Dave Wolcott:
Hey everyone, welcome to today’s show on well strategy secrets. We’ve got another excellent show today. Today we’re joined by Josh Cantwell. Josh in 2004 took his knowledge of raising capital and financial markets and started investing in real estate full time. He was able to combine his knowledge of financial planning with real estate to create a very successful business, which quickly grew into closing over a hundred wholesale and short sale deals per year. Since 2019, Josh has invested in commercial apartments full-time, having completed 19 apartment syndications and taking nine of those deals full cycle from acquisition to sale. Along the way, Josh has taught thousands of investors how to replicate his success. He’s the founder of a variety of successful businesses, including Freeland Ventures, Strategic Real Estate Coach, creator of the Maverick Multifamily Master. and also the host of the Accelerated Investor podcast. Josh, welcome to the show.

Josh Cantwell:
Hey Dave, thanks for the intro. I appreciate

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, you bet.

Josh Cantwell:
that a lot. Thanks for inviting me on.

Dave Wolcott:
You bet. Always great to connect, Josh. Really looking forward to this discussion. I think it’s gonna provide a lot of valuable insights for the listeners. So for those folks who don’t know you, just tell us a little bit about your journey and how you got into real estate in the first place and investing.

Josh Cantwell:
Yeah, I think like a lot of people, we all kind of know that real estate is a great way to build and hold wealth. I’ve been an entrepreneur my whole life. My father was an entrepreneur, so I get to see entrepreneurship in my own house growing up. My dad started, founded, and built an amazing financial services company. It was focused on employee benefits when I was in high school and college. So I was able to watch entrepreneurship in my own home. And so when I graduated from college and I became an entrepreneur, I became a basically a 1099 all commission, uh, salesperson and financial planner. My dad freaked out. It’s like, why did I bother sending you to this expense college if you’re going to work at 1099 and not even have a salary? And I said, well, dad, I’ve been watching you for the last six or eight years. Uh, I can’t believe that you’re even really surprised by this. And so, you know, I got into that and I quickly also started studying and learning other financial kind of services and other different financial programs like real estate, oil and gas, you know, forex trading, those different kinds of things. And I would go to the weekend warrior boot camps, right, Dave? Like, so, and I learned everything my dad said. He’s like, listen, get in and out of college in four years, everything you really need to know, you’re going to learn on the job. Well, being an entrepreneur, I started at 22, 23, 24 years old, going to the weekend warrior boot camps and learning about Forex trading and learning about real estate and overfunded life insurance and all these different kind of amazing wealth accumulation strategies. And of course, I immediately started learning about real estate investments, started going to all kinds of boot camps and strategies and learning from gurus, getting pitched their coaching programs, all that kind of crazy stuff. And now you fast forward 25 years, I’m 47. And that’s been my whole life now, is just studying wealth building strategies, primarily in real estate, pivoting from single family to multifamily and now big commercial strategies. And it’s really, I think a lot of the same journey that most people should take. I think I have a very kind of replicatable, duplicatable journey of jumping from Wholesaling to larger rehabs to a private equity fund and now into massive apartment syndication So that’s been a little bit about the journey man over the last so long 25 years to kind of cover in a few minutes

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, it is too to summarize it like that, but such an interesting background Josh, right? I mean the fact that you kind of grew up with traditional, you know financial planning right with your dad and then starting to Invest and look at you know, different asset classes and understand, you know What you know, what are some of the pros and cons of some of those things? and then to become an entrepreneur and Also to then, you know kind of niche down and focus in on real estate So you have a nice 360 degree view, I think, of the world. And what have you really learned from that? And have you developed an overall investment thesis or a particular wealth strategy that you follow today?

Josh Cantwell:
Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And I think it’s taken me the better part of the last 20 years to sort that out. When I was a financial planner, we were selling traditional financial services products. We were doing fee-based financial plans, charging clients 500 to $1,000, and then implementing all the strategies, primarily manage mutual fund accounts, overfunded life insurance policies. disability insurance and things like that. I felt out of love for the traditional financial services world one, because I knew that primarily if you’re gonna buy mutual funds, which is what your average person does in their 401k and in their brokerage accounts, 96% of the time they’re better off buying an index fund, having lower costs, lower fees. And they’re also going to get a higher return one of the books that really changed my View of what I used to do as a financial planner is Tony Robbins book unshakable Where he interviewed like 20 or 25? the world’s best money managers and wealth builders and to hear I believe his last name is Swenson. He’s the Yale Endowment Fund manager say that 96% of all mutual funds underperform their related index, and the typical financial advisor charges a 3% fee and then a 1% additional fee to the mutual fund. There’s 13 hidden fees in actively traded mutual funds, and you can wipe all that out and get a higher return. I’m like, okay, so I discovered that over time. So I do own a lot of index funds inside of overfunded life insurance policies. That’s going to leave a massive legacy to my family. That’s important. From a real estate perspective, I went from wholesaling because I didn’t have a lot of extra money to buy. I didn’t know about private lending. And then eventually pivoted to raising a lot of money and doing a lot of rehabs and rentals in the single-family space. And then we decided to scale that into a fund where we did private lending. Well, Dave, the problem with all of those is that You have flipping houses and there’s ordinary income. You have private lenders that are getting 1099s for interest income. It’s great to get a 12, 15% return, but interest income is taxable. Flipping houses is taxable. So I eventually stumbled into multifamily because I was underwriting and lending to other real estate operators and they needed funding. And so we were doing their basically underlying debt. through our fund and through brokering for other people. And I still realize the income that we were making, although it was relatively passive, was still interest income. It did not have any ability to wipe out that income through depreciation. Well, in 2017, we started to joint venture in CoGP and buy and own apartment buildings. And that led me to my current, and I believe my final investment thesis, which is to… buy and syndicate multi-family apartment buildings, which then allows us to get eight different fees, but primarily it’s about cash flow and equity and that ownership allows us to have a significant amount of depreciation. So Dave, it’s almost embarrassing because we own a 250 million dollar real estate portfolio, but because my taxes show a loss, I actually qualify for financial aid. at my kid’s high school.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Josh Cantwell:
So, because all of my income from the cash flow and the equity gets wiped out by depreciation. So when you know that you look like you’re poor, but you’re not, that really at the end of the day, really just kind of popped my head off my shoulders. And that’s where we’ve landed for the last six years. And we really love it.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, no, that’s perfect. The only challenge, right, once you get this figured out is when you’re trying to talk to traditional lenders about getting financing, even if it’s for your existing house or another

Josh Cantwell:
Right.

Dave Wolcott:
house, they’re like, you have no income, we can’t qualify this at all. So

Josh Cantwell:
Right.

Dave Wolcott:
I guess it’s a good problem to have though, right?

Josh Cantwell:
It is, it is. And you know, I also own my education business, so we do still run this mastermind program. We’ve got about 100 members, and I take a W-2 out of that, but I take a very, you know, very low W-2, and so all of my losses still wipes all that out. But I only take the W-2 to show some income in case I need to get some loans at some point. But at this point, you know, we’re just focused on cashflow and equity. That’s it. I’m not really worried about buying. the next house where I have to walk into a bank or a credit union and fall into their box. I know that I’m not in their box. Like the last 25 years of my life, I’m not in anybody’s financial box. It’s going to lend to me on a traditional basis. So I’ve got to be very creative.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, for sure. So Josh, what would you say, I mean, we have a lot of sophisticated investors in our community, right? And people are always looking for different tax strategies, wealth acceleration strategies. And oftentimes a CPA might say, okay, let’s say you’ve got a great strong income year, or maybe you even exited a business, right? And, you know, CPAs out there might just say like, okay, go purchase some real estate. Right. So you can, you know, get that, get that office offset. Um, but I think if you’re dealing with, especially if you’re dealing with say six, you know, high hefty six figures, maybe seven figures that you’re trying to actually offset, um, you know, it can be a little bit scary to say, Hey, I’m going to go do my own multifamily deal and, you know, go buy even a $5 million asset, uh, to, you know, just to offset the taxes because You know, now all of a sudden, you know, there’s, there’s a lot of competition, uh, for that market. There’s people doing it every day. You know, does it make sense? Are your assumptions right? And then do you really want to become now an active investor, you know, in that, uh, versus say doing a syndication. So what are your thoughts there?

Josh Cantwell:
Well, look, I think if that person has a big income or they’ve exited a business, it’s because they really focused on that and it worked out, right? They’re making a big income, they’ve exited a business. And so I would say, look, unless they can focus on real estate the same way that they focused on that exit or focused on their current job that pays them a big W-2, I would say don’t buy the real estate on your own. I work with a lot of groups, investor clubs, doctor groups, family offices. Primarily my deal still, when we syndicate a deal, when we raise five or ten million dollars, those are primarily just retail investors, guys that are writing checks for a hundred to five hundred thousand dollars as part of their investment strategy. But to your point, I work with a doctor group and several other family offices and different high net worth groups. And they usually have a lead sponsor that lead person, kind of leads the investment group, finds different operators, finds different syndications, find different opportunities. They can collectively then go and bring their collective horsepower to an operator and say, look, we can stroke a check for 10 million, 20 million dollars. And then collectively, because we can stroke the check, they’re gonna typically want a little bit extra, a little bit extra equity, a little bit extra cashflow. And then typically, because their main plan is get equity, deploy cash, but get depreciation, accelerated depreciation, bonus depreciation, then they come to an operator like me and say, this is what’s most important to us. So I would say to that guy or gal who’s exiting a business or has a big income is not to do it on your own, but to get comfortable in a community. Dave, maybe it’s your community, other investment clubs, other communities. where you know that you’re collectively working together, have a similar goal, cashflow, equity, depreciation, whatever that is, and then put yourself out there as a group with more horsepower, and then like we craft specific investments, and we look for specific apartment deals that we can then park with certain groups, like a certain doctor group, or an investment club, or a family office. So we know what their goals are. and we try to find an investment that matches their goals, we still remain as the operator, but we’re essentially kind of like that middle man, that middle operator, connecting the investment group to the deal where they don’t have to be the operator. They don’t have to be the boots on the ground. We’ll handle that and we will all partner up together. So I would say instead of going and buying that one deal, first of all, if you’re gonna be exiting a business, you probably know that’s happening for at least a year or two ahead of time. In that year or two, you need to do some planning. You need to make sure that you either get with some investment groups, investment clubs, you need to make sure that you can qualify as a real estate professional to take the depreciation or have your wife or your spouse become a real estate professional. Like I have a friend of mine that does that. He’s a high income earner. His wife is in real estate. She’s a real estate professional. They do a joint tax return. So collectively they can use the write-off. That’s another way, but I would say you know get involved with the group a collective investment group So you don’t have to do it all on your own

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, no, it makes perfect sense. And I think you really hit the nail on the head, right? When you said like, if an entrepreneur or a high income earner, right, they’re doing well, then, you know, focus on what you do well at, right? Because that’s where your strengths, you know, truly lie, right? And your unique ability. And so you want to double down on that. And then you can get leverage by working with these other groups, right? You get the power of the group or getting into a syndication. You have someone who. You know, for instance, on the acquisition side, you know, has been doing it for 20 years and they have relationships inside and out of particular market. They know exactly,

Josh Cantwell:
That’s right.

Dave Wolcott:
you know, how to identify off market deals and things like that. So you’re getting some really great, uh, leverage by being able to move up, you know, into the syndications and such. So,

Josh Cantwell:
No

Dave Wolcott:
uh,

Josh Cantwell:
doubt.

Dave Wolcott:
you

Josh Cantwell:
Dave, I would

Dave Wolcott:
know,

Josh Cantwell:
give

Dave Wolcott:
appreciate

Josh Cantwell:
you one more example.

Dave Wolcott:
that.

Josh Cantwell:
Like we have a friend of ours who’s a billionaire. I’m not close with him, but we know each other pretty well. And he has basically another group that he partners with that underwrites and makes the decision. And he will often say, if they’re in, I’m in. Right? So he’s essentially offloaded that responsibility of the underwriting, the decision making, selecting an operator, selecting an opportunity because his expertise is not in real estate. His expertise is in his current business that’s made him a billionaire. So he just says, look, I wanna invest in these real estate opportunities because of the cashflow, the equity, but primarily the depreciation. And in some cases there’s some. you know, historic tax credits that are involved and they’re able to get access to those as well. But he essentially says, if that underwriter, that group is in, I’m in. So I would encourage your group as they listen to this to say, okay, who’s that one person who’s a really good underwriter, really good at due diligence, really good at selecting groups, partner up with them, build that personal relationship. And then, hey, if they’re in, I’m in. If that guy’s writing a check for a half a million, I’m in for a half a million. That guy’s written a check for $5 million. I’m in for $5 million. That is that personal relationship. And often, that underwriter should be an attorney, someone who has a legal license to lose if they screw it all up, right? If you have attorneys that partner in real estate deals or attorneys that buy out real estate deals, they have that added layer of fiduciary responsibility, that added layer of underwriting. plenty of real estate guys who have attorneys they work with. And I think that gives you that insulation to say, look, if that guy’s going to invest, and he’s a lawyer, and he’s helping this group, he’s not going to screw things up. He’s going to go the extra mile to do the right underwriting. So that’s some really niche ideas right there that I think people, if they really want to be good at this and deploy a lot of money, they need to be niche. They need to be really well-schooled in those things.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, no, great points. And, and again, just getting leverage, we all think of leverage typically as a rookie real estate is great. We’re going to get, you know, leverage with the lender, um, you know, to amp our returns here. But can you think about the human capital leverage factor, right? How much that kind of ties into the success of this. And it’s interesting as well, you know, working with family offices, ultra high net worth, right? A lot of this is also about, you know, not losing capital, right? Um, you know, being, being very defensive in nature, making sure you’ve done your due diligence properly, the risk mitigation, right? To make sure that the, you know, investment is going to be successful. And in some cases, you know, you may, you may hit a home run, uh, but sometimes just, you know, hitting and meeting, uh, projections, you know, is great. Uh, so Josh, what do you think about, you know, let’s talk about a little bit about the current market, uh, today. You know, we’re discussing a little bit earlier. Um, you know, I guess at the time of this recording, right, we’re kind of mid August right now, it’s been super slow in the multifamily space. Um, you know, a number of transactions has been down considerably, uh, this year, you know, primarily due to, uh, you know, the fed increasing interest rates really unprecedented, you know, that’s never been happened before in history. Uh, we have a lot of, um, you know, uh, A lot of that debt is coming due if people underwrote, say, three years ago. So what are your thoughts? What are you seeing in the marketplace right now?

Josh Cantwell:
Yeah, yeah, great question. So a couple things. First of all, things are definitely starting unthought, meaning the transaction volume is starting to pick up. I do believe that, look, if you were an investor in 2021, and 2021, August of 2021 is well known by many people to be the peak of the market. And if you were buying at that time when interest rates were super low because of COVID and everybody was in the market in liquid. then you should be buying now. Because cap rates are up, which means values are down. It means that interest rates are up, values are down, transaction volume is down, which means there’s less people involved in the industry, there’s less competition. So if you were gonna invest two years ago, there’s no question that you should be investing now. Now, what we’re planning on doing is getting deals under contract now. in Q3 and Q4, and waiting until Q1 or Q2 of next year to close. Because we do feel like by that time, interest rates are going to be flattened out, maybe not going up or going down, but they’re going to be flat. We don’t feel like the Fed has a whole lot more reason to raise rates anymore. The labor market is starting to soften. The labor market was so strong the last 10 to 14, 15 months. the Fed had to continue to raise rates, even when property value started to peak, you know, a lot of people were still hiring and the labor market was on fire. So incomes are going up, which is causing more inflation. That’s starting to slow down. You’re seeing CPI basically dropping back down to the levels that the Federal Reserve wants to see. They’re gonna wanna see that for the next several months. but I don’t feel like the Fed has a lot of reason to raise rates anymore or raise rates significantly. They’re gonna be maybe flat or maybe 25 basis points. And then I think by next year, if we saw some shines of recession, some cracks in our economy, remember, interest rates, it takes nine to 12 months for that to actually hit the economy in a real way after the rates been raised. Well, those rates went up last summer. We’re finally seeing that impact our economy today. So. I do feel like there’s a lot of deal flow out there that’s getting a lot less offers in multifamily. I do feel like the area that was overbought where there’s too much competition we want to avoid because those markets are coming down, including Dallas, Houston, Nashville, and Phoenix. I wouldn’t touch those markets right now because I think there’s some ways for them to come back. So I think the Midwest, places like Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Kentucky. those types of areas, Missouri, those types of Kansas City, those types of areas that are Midwest or landlord friendly. There wasn’t as much competition before, and there’s even less competition today because now interest rates are up. So that’s our strategy. I also feel like next year, there’s going to be some more cracks and some more deals that, from a lending perspective, we’re going to have to sell. So I think you ought to be patient. I think it’s another six months to nine months until we really see great deal flow. It’s truly a buyer’s market. The interest rates might be going down a year from now. Cap rates will continue to go up because that hasn’t totally adjusted yet. Values will still coming down. But I do think, look, if you can find a good deal today in Ohio or one of those Midwestern markets or the Southeast and it pencils. you’re only going to be three to four to five years from now in a lower interest rate environment. Nobody thinks we’re going to be in a higher interest rate environment three to five years from now. So if you acquire that deal now, even with higher interest rates today, three to five years from now, when you go to refire sell, I think if you have a great value add strategy, that property is going to be worth a lot more, because interest rates will be down, cap rates will be back down, and values will be back up. So I think people are making a mistake just totally sitting on the sidelines. If I had to guess to me at an exact time, that would be the right time to buy. The perfect time to buy is gonna be Q3 of next year. But that’s not to say that we’re gonna sit on the sidelines right now either.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, interesting. So given all of the market dynamics, especially over the past 12 months, how have you changed your underwriting around lending and what type of lending products are you really looking at today for a solid deal?

Josh Cantwell:
We’re trying to really do loan assumptions where we can. If there’s a good loan that was refinanced a couple years ago, somebody bought a property, let’s say in 2018, 2019. They refinanced in 2020, 2021 when rates were super cheap. And that product has some sort of fixed rate financing or interest rate cap. And we can get that financing in the mid-fours. There’s several deals that I’m underwriting right now. A couple deals I’m going to look at tomorrow, a deal I offered on yesterday. We have a $22 million on a deal yesterday. 37 we offered on a deal on Monday. We have a $5 million deal we’re looking at tomorrow. A lot of those, the smaller deals will still pencil with bank or permanent financing, new financing. The bigger deals are really hard to pencil, Dave, with 6% new financing and possibly triggering a tax reassessment. So those deals that have some sort of loan assumption opportunities are fantastic. So the deal that we looked at yesterday is not have a loan assumption opportunity. It looks like it’s gonna get reassessed. You know, whisper price on that thing was like 28 million. We offer 22, okay? I don’t know if we’ll get it. I don’t know if the seller, I think their loan amount, their basis is more than 22. So the bank would be taking a pretty major short sale. that if we could get it, but we also have another deal that we’re going to look at next week a big 400 unit deal That had really good financing put on it two years ago. It’s got long-term fixed rate debt And because the values were so high back then they got a very high appraisal very high loan amount now values have come back and So that loan to value is in the word between 80 and 85 percent So that’s a really good deal for us to buy because we have high leverage, we have to recruit less equity, we have fixed rate financing in the fours. And so those are ideal deals when it comes to the financing that’s in place. If we can find stuff like that, you gotta look a lot, you gotta dig through a lot of deals to find those, but they are out there.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah. Tell us a little bit about the market in the Midwest. I mean, typically, you know, everyone just talks about, you know, the smile states really, you know, southwest, southeast, but, you know, tell folks a little bit more about why you like the Midwest.

Josh Cantwell:
Yeah, so the word is boom bust. Okay, boom bust. So I was investing in 2007, 2008, 2009. There were five states that were responsible for 50% of the foreclosures. Those were all smile states, right? It was Florida, Vegas, Arizona, and California. And then the last one was Michigan because of what happened in Detroit with the car business. But those four states had the biggest run up, the biggest boom, and had the biggest bust in 2007 and eight. Well, I lived through that. I was investing in that, primarily in real estate, but also in the financial stock markets and also in the currency markets and in physical gold and silver. And so I know that that’s going to happen again. The boom bust markets are exactly the markets where we saw all the activity in 2020 and 2021. It was Southern California, it was Vegas, it was Arizona, it was Texas and Florida. Maybe even in Colorado you could add that, maybe Nashville, you add that. Those are boom bust markets. And so when that happened in multifamily, you saw so much activity, so much pushing up of the prices, so much low cost money. And those are the markets that are now already getting pinched. Like I would never buy something in Phoenix or Nashville right now. Because not only is there not going to be a lot of appreciation in the price, but there’s also not going to be a lot of appreciation in the rent because they’re building so much inventory. Okay. So in order to avoid the boom bust, we focused in our backyard. I’m from Cleveland, Ohio. I like the Cleveland market, even though it’s not a super high growth market because it’s a cashflow stable market. Okay. So in 2007 and eight, Values went down. Yes, but they might want to down 8 to 12 percent depending on which outlet you’re paying attention to Depending on which data that you’re reviewing If you look at Kentucky if you look at Indiana if you look at Pittsburgh if you look at You know, Missouri look at a lot of Oklahoma a lot of states in the middle of the country. They’re not boom bust So if I’m trying to create an investment strategy in a thesis that I can stick with for the long haul I Want to remove as much bumps? Rollercoaster as I can I cannot remove it entirely I’m gonna have some volatility no matter what I invest in but if I can flatten it out I’m okay with buying a property Having it appreciate in a very methodical way Getting lots of cash flow in a methodical way and letting my residents pay down my mortgage Okay, Dave. There’s a guy that I’ll never forget. I looked at this portfolio This how this property I was trying to buy was 112 units. I pulled up This little old guy in a Cadillac gets out of his Cadillac gets in his gets in his golf cart His name is Turk and he is showing us around his properties Well, he owned almost a thousand units in Youngstown, Ohio Which is a not growing at all C class city But you know what he played the long game He invested for cashflow and equity, and he had a $95 million real estate portfolio that was paid off.

Dave Wolcott:
Well,

Josh Cantwell:
So for me,

Dave Wolcott:
nice.

Josh Cantwell:
I’d rather be Turk than a guy that’s going to play the markets in a boom bust area. So that’s why I prefer the Midwest and some markets in the Southeast. I like Atlanta a lot. I like Oklahoma, Oklahoma City. I have a 216 unit in Lawton, Oklahoma. I’ve got over a thousand units in the Atlanta market and some markets in Atlanta. But I also like if you’re going to do multifamily, you should be investing with an operator who’s investing in their backyard. Because when stuff happens like COVID, you wanna be able to manage that really, really well. And so we like the Midwest for those reasons, try to avoid the boom bust.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, great insights. Appreciate that. I definitely wanted to ask you also, Josh, I know you have this 10 step peak performance success formula, which resonates with me. So let’s unpack that a little bit for the audience.

Josh Cantwell:
Sure, absolutely. So there’s a few things that I really feel like are really important when I think about what I call the ACER exercise. The ACER exercise for me is about peak performance. It’s about really understanding what we want to accomplish. It’s about, it’s a 10 step process and I don’t have time to go through it all, but. That to me has really identified what I want to be, who I really want to become down the road. And that formula for me is about understanding the end result, okay? I’ve heard a lot of people talk about their why, their why, their why, like why do I do things? The why is the reasons, it’s the passion for what we really want. Well, for me, it’s not about the why. A lot of people are like, They post pictures of their family on their Facebook or their Instagram and say, this is my why. I said, that’s great. Those are your reasons, okay? But when you got married and you had kids, you sort of became obligated to those people, okay? So that has to be your why, okay? It has to be. Now, when I look at what do we really want, what I started doing years ago, peak performance success for me. The most important step is really step number four. And I’m gonna, so I’m gonna skip to that. The ACER stands for absolute clarity of the end result. So when I talk about Turk, and I talk about having $100 million portfolio that’s paid off, that’s part of the end result that I want. So I’m willing to be patient. and work methodically towards my goal, instead of being hyper active, trying to force that goal to happen in a super short amount of time. I want my end result to be happening in my lifetime. It doesn’t have to happen tomorrow, or three years from now, or five years from now. Of course I’m working hard, of course I’m motivated. But I have this vision of what I want my life to be like. And so I encourage people to close their eyes and on their perfect day, their perfect average day, what does that look like? So if we have 365 days a year, let’s say 50 of those are amazing days where we’re like walking through a rainforest or we’re on the beach in Hawaii or we’re going on a European vacation. It’s this unbelievably crazy experience. We’re parachuting or we’re whitewater rafting. These are the special days of our life. in a one year period, maybe at 50 amazing days. And maybe you have 50 unbelievably terrible days, crappy days, horrible days. You fight with your wife, you lose money in business, your kids are fighting with you, you can’t get through to anybody, you’re not motivated at all, you get rid of those. Well, there’s about 250 very average days left. And the question now becomes, what do you want your ideal average day to look like? And your investment strategy, your investment thesis needs to support that. So the end result of what we’re trying to get to in the peak performance success formula basically is trying to create an investment strategy that supports that average day, that ideal average day. Because this whole idea of living this amazing, crazy, wild life is not true. We’re going to have 250 days a year where we’re having an Average ideal average day. So what does that look like? So if everybody closed their eyes and thought about that What does that look like? When do you wake up? What do you do? What do you eat? What do you drink? Do you go to the gym? Do you play with your dog? Do you go for a walk with your wife you go for a run go for a bike? Like you go to the beach. Where do you live? What do you see when you wake up? What’s the scenery? Where do you live on the beach or in the mountains? This is the average day. This is the end result And that to me is all that’s important is having a true vision for what that looks like. That will then determine the investment strategy. Like people that were chasing these multifamily deals in Phoenix and in Nashville and in Orlando were chasing a quick nickel. They lost sight of the long term investment that multifamily should be. They fell in love with the quick nickel of cheap money, rising rents, COVID, low supply. But did they really buy something that met their ideal average day and met the end result that they were really trying to pursue? So again, for me, Dave, I go back to the Midwest because that supports my long-term vision of what I want my ideal average day to look like and what I want my regular life to look like, right? This whole sexy idea of the boats and the cars and the parties, like everybody gets sick of that. I’ll give you 50 days of that fun and crazy life. really depressing, horrible days, the middle 250 is what we’re working for. That’s what this ACER exercise and this kind of 10 step peak performance successful and it was really all about. There’s a bunch of steps in the middle, cover that some other time, but that’s really what I’m trying to accomplish in my own life and for other people that follow along in that process.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, absolutely love it, Josh. I mean, that is essentially the underpinning of our entire holistic wealth strategy, right is creating a vision for yourself and having crystal clear clarity on what that vision is, right. And if you think back to, you know, Napoleon Hill’s thinking grow rich, right, how he has so many affirmations of, you know, every day you’re talking about, you’re waking up, you’re meditating, you know, you’re thinking all of these affirmations around you’re going to achieve that goal is, you know, what it looks like for you. And really, you know, when it comes to investing, again, I think you hit the nail on the head, right? Because really, what are we after anyway? Right? You know, money just buys us stuff, right? It buys us time. It buys us certain freedoms and everything. Right. So, so you have to define what it is that you’re actually going after. Right. Or if you don’t have a target, you’re basically going to miss every time. So getting clarity on that is absolutely critical.

Josh Cantwell:
Yep, absolutely, I love it. No, you talked about that when you came onto my show about having a holistic strategy. I think that’s unbelievably important. And I think it’s like, especially if you have a partner, spouse, you know, it’s really important that the two of you get together and talk about that and make sure that, you know, in my life, my wife is pretty much out of the business taking care of our kids and all the crazy things that they do. And so I want to make sure that I’m engaging the people who are important to me, my wife, my business partners, my CFO, and what’s important to them because the apartments are again, are just like you said, Dave, a tool to help not only me as the CEO and entrepreneur hit my goals, but it’s also impacting all of our investors, all of our staff, all of their spouses and all of their children. And so the more we can know about the main operator, the main sponsor, and what their goals are, now these investors and staff and spouses and partners can all align there. I think that’s really important. So going all the way back to the beginning of this conversation, Dave, if you were a limited partner making a passive investment, the more you can know about that sponsor’s ultimate goals, not just with that property, but with their life. then you can decide, does your ultimate goals line up with them? Does their Acer, their absolute clarity of their end result, does that line up with yours? And if it does, I think you have a much more higher likelihood of a successful investment.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, no, such a great alignment, such great point that you make there. Um, so many good insights here and good takeaways, Josh really appreciate it. If you could

Josh Cantwell:
Sure.

Dave Wolcott:
give the audience just one piece of advice about how they could really accelerate their own wealth trajectory, what would it be?

Josh Cantwell:
Look, so I have a very personal story. I can’t go through it all, but I’m a pancreatic cancer survivor. 12 years ago, I was given, I was 35 years old, I was given this wild diagnosis. I had a major surgery. And the surgeon basically saved my life on the operating table. I’ll never forget. after the surgery about six weeks later, I went to meet with my oncologist and I was sitting in front of a computer kind of like we are today. And my oncologist walked in the room and he went through this post surgery summary report. So Dr. Ali is reading about what Dr. Walsh did to me on the operating table. 10 hour surgery. They took out my gallbladder, my spleen, my stomach, most of my pancreas, most of my liver. They had to reconstruct the arteries in the back of my, your back of my pancreas and back of my liver because they were crushed by the cancer, take arteries out of my leg and put them back in. I had to relearn how to eat because I had no stomach. I lost 50 pounds in four weeks. Dave, on the operating table that day, I lost 21 units of blood. To put that in perspective, you and I, as we sit here today, we have seven units of blood in our entire body. So I have everybody else’s blood in my body except my own. I’m literally everybody else. Like none of my blood cells are mine. And I’ll never forget Dr. Ali, he sat back in his chair and looked over at me and he said, Dr. Walsh is a daring surgeon. And I looked at Dr. Ali and I said, what do you mean, is it daring surgeon? And he said, Josh, he’s like, I’m reading this report and now I realize what a miracle you are. 95% of surgeons would have never even tried this surgery. They would have opened you up and saw how complicated it was. They would have sewn you up and sent you home and said, there’s nothing we can do. And I said to Dr. Ali, I said, hey, so you’re telling me the only reason why I’m alive is because Dr. Walsh was daring. And he said, yes. And I cried. I sat there and cried because I didn’t realize the magnitude of what had happened that day. And so I would say, look, life in general, investing strategies, your investment thesis, is going to require two things. One, you have to be daring. You have to be willing to get out of your shell and do something that nobody else has done, because it’s your life. You’re in control. You have to be daring enough to try new things, go and do new things and meet new people. The second thing is I would say, look, in the theme of being daring, you can mitigate some of that risk, because that might sound risky, being daring, but you can mitigate that, like you said, Dave, earlier, with the human and relationship capital. Every good deal I’ve ever done was because I was either referred, I was brought in, I was introduced. or I got some special information from someone else. All right? And so I would say be daring in your relationship building. If that was the one piece of advice to kind of bring all that together, be daring in your relationship building. Be willing to put yourself out there. Go to events, go to dinners, go to be on podcasts, meet new people, be part of investment clubs and build up your relationships. Build up your relationship capital because That will introduce you to incredible investment opportunities and incredible people who are doing wild amazing things with their lives, but you have to put yourself out there. You have to be daring just to put yourself in these new rooms and these new groups and these new clubs. That is going to create so much flavor and color in your life. So many people though just want to live, stand by house and be a hermit. No, be daring, create new relationships. and then new investment opportunities will come.

Dave Wolcott:
Awesome. Such a powerful story, Josh. Thanks for sharing. If people want to connect with you and learn more about what you’re up to, what’s the best place?

Josh Cantwell:
Oh look, I’m really active on LinkedIn, really active on Facebook. You can just look me up there, but you can go to our main website, freelandventures.com, I’m the CEO. And that website is kind of like our home base for everything we do. You can go to freelandventures.com slash passive to learn more about our investment strategies. Freelandventures.com to check out our mastermind groups and our YouTube channel. We’ve got over 700 free videos online. We’ve got 500 podcast episodes. So I would just go to FreelineVentures.com and check out everything we have to offer there.

Dave Wolcott:
Perfect. Thanks again for coming on the show, Josh. Look forward to next time.

Josh Cantwell:
Absolutely, Dave. Thanks for having me. This was fantastic

Dave Wolcott:
You bet.

Josh Cantwell:
and fun. Thank you.

Dave Wolcott:
All right. Thanks. And for all you listeners out there, if you’re enjoying the show, getting good value out of it, please do us a favor and give us a rating and review. Really goes a long way to get awesome guests like Josh on the show. So until next time.

Dave Wolcott:
Hey guys, welcome to another episode on wealth strategy secrets. Today we are joined by Travis Watts. Travis is a full-time investor, passive income advocate and public speaker. As the director of investor education at Ashcroft capital, he’s on a mission to empower investors who want a hands-off approach to real estate investing. Recognized for his outstanding contributions, Travis received the prestigious Lindas industry impact award in 2022. Travis, welcome to the show.

Travis Watts:
Hey Dave, thanks so much for having me. Thrilled to be here.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, no, it’s really awesome to connect Travis. We were having such a good conversation. You, me and Jeremy Roll at the Charlotte’s multifamily conference and really thought, you know, we’ve got to bottle this and take this out to the community because there were so many, you know, pearls of wisdom in there and everything that we could unpack. So for folks who don’t know you, why don’t we start, you know, the discussion off with little bit about, you know, your background and your journey. Um, and then, you know, that we could pick it off from there.

Travis Watts:
Sure, happy to share. So first thing I would say is, you know, I didn’t come from a family of wealth or real estate or investing. My parents had split when I was five years old, got a divorce, I was raised by each of them independently and I learned a lot about frugality. Anytime we brought up finance or the term, we were talking about saving money. So grateful for that humble upbringing, but at a certain point from doing my own self-education, I realized that You know, your potential only goes so far if you’re just gonna pinch pennies your whole life. You know, the real reward comes in learning how to multiply your money and learning how to invest. So try to multitude of small business ideas early on that didn’t work out for one reason or another. And I landed on real estate when I was 20 years old, bought a single family home. This was in 2009 and you know, about 40% discount to previous pricing. And I rented it out. You know, first I lived in it a little bit. I furnished it, you know, I updated it. And then I made that my very first rental. And that was the first thing that really started to get the wheels turning. I thought, okay, I’m making whatever I was making, you know, $600 a month cash flow at that, how do I amplify this? And I knew I needed to make more money, or at least I thought I needed to make more money in order to become a serious investor. So I went seeking. jobs that just paid well, that didn’t require a lot of background experience or, you know, a specific college degree. So I ended up in the oil and gas industry and I ended up working 14 hour days, 98 hour work weeks, months away at a time working overseas in the Middle East. It was a crazy time in my life, but that’s where the frugality really paid off and I was saving tons of money, paying very little in overhead for my lifestyle. And I was dumping all of that into real estate, specifically single family for about six and a half years. I did flips, vacation rentals, buy and hold rentals. I had roommates back home that would effectively pay my mortgage when I wasn’t there. And, um, it was an interesting time. I don’t necessarily recommend people take that specific approach, but that was my, my 10 years of darkness, if you will, of just kind of grinding it out and trying to get ahead. And in 2015, I started transitioning my portfolio into multifamily private placements or syndications in layman’s terms and other passive income generating assets as well. And so it allowed me to basically get my time back, something I refer to as time freedom so that I could go pursue still active work, but work that I truly enjoy and that I benefit from and being in a position to really help people. And that’s really what I wanted to do from the get-go, but I had to put in those dark years.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, for sure. Did you have any particular like pivotal moments where you either learned something or you had a conversation or you read a book that really just said, okay, now I’ve got to take action on this?

Travis Watts:
Yeah, so I would say my biggest personal regret in my investing journey was starting out thinking, I’m a do-it-yourselfer because my parents were and that’s how I was raised. Why would I pay somebody $30 to mow my lawn if I can do it myself? Why pay a painter when I can paint? So I went into real estate with that kind of mindset. It was very naive. to think, you know, I don’t need a team and I don’t need to be an expert and I’ll figure this stuff out. I can do it. And I realized after six and a half years that real estate really is a team sport and it can be extremely beneficial to partner with people that are more of an expert in one area or another compared to you. So what changed is I started reading books more, I started listening to podcasts more, I started joining real estate meetup groups in person. This was out in Colorado. And I ran into a couple of gentlemen. They run a very big investment club in Colorado and they had become financially independent, probably 30 plus years prior to me meeting them. And I was kind of picking their brain about investments. And I said, what are you guys primarily investing in? Is there one thing that you really focus on? And they said, yeah, it’s well, as a general, uh, you know, bucket, it’s private equity. And more specifically, it’s multi-family apartment communities. And we’re limited partners in other people’s deals. And I had never heard of that before in my entire life. And that was a huge pivotal moment because I was starting to reach a point where I thought, if I sell all of these properties that I currently am operating and I pay all the tax and broker commissions, and I just look at what I might have in cash. and I went to invest that passively, it started to become meaningful passive income, right? So in the example of someone getting started, they got 10,000 to go invest, they go look at a passive income deal that yields them 8% a year. It’s like 66 bucks a month, right? It’s not very meaningful. What are you gonna do with $66 a month? Fill up your gas tank once on your car. So it’s not very motivating to be in that particular position. But if we take the same example, with someone who has a million dollars to go invest at 8%. Now you’re talking about $80,000 a year in additional supplemental income. That starts to be a game changer for a lot of people. And I was approaching that level in my personal journey. And I surprisingly ended up making more as a passive investor than I even did as an active investor. And so that was a huge pivotal moment to realize the power of passive income and what that can do for you.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, no, really great points there. And I think so many people struggle with, you know, actually taking action. You know, you, you might hear a good podcast, you know, you read a good book or something, and then you’re trying to overlay that into your own situation, you know, and you might be in W-2, you’ve got a career, you’ve got a family, you’ve got all of these intricacies involved. Um, but it’s really, you know, just having, I think that, that moment, that epiphany. where you can take action and then as you take action, you know, you can start to bear the fruits of your success, right? And then that’s going to open up, you know, new doors you didn’t even think were possible.

Travis Watts:
Yep, 100%, that’s right.

Dave Wolcott:
So Travis, I love your passive investor journey, right? And I think there’s so many different elements of this to really unpack, but let’s really talk a little bit about the psychology, right, of passive income first, right? So it’s a term just like financial independence, right? Financially free, right? What does that actually mean to you? What does having your income exceed your expenses mean to you? Because if your expenses are only $4,000 a month, maybe you’re actually still living in that frugality world, right?

Travis Watts:
Mm-hmm.

Dave Wolcott:
But you’ve technically achieved that financial freedom. So tell us a little bit about what did that actually mean? to you to achieve financial freedom and how has that evolved for you?

Travis Watts:
You know, for me, I was in a job, which was the oil and gas gig that I really didn’t enjoy. I knew this wasn’t going to be long-term. I knew I couldn’t, you know, physically withstand that type of work for, you know, 30, 40 years and make it a career. So my goal was to get out of that job. And I think, you know, what’s cool about passive income is You can start immediately. You can start with low dollar amounts. You can start with that example I gave earlier of $10,000, 8% a year, 66 a month. That’s just step one and you can build upon that. And passive income creates a backstop for you. So what’s cool is as you kind of climb the ladders of wealth, and let me identify that for your listeners what I mean by that. So I think of the wealth pyramid kind of like an upside down. So at the bottom is self-sufficiency. This is where you’re basically your paycheck to paycheck. You have an active source of income, but at least you can pay your own bills without having to be supplemented from some other source. Then you move up to stability. And this is what a lot of the gurus in the finance space are preaching, whether it’s a Susie Orman, a Dave Ramsey, these types of people. So stability is like… you know, pay off your debt and cut up the credit cards and have an emergency fund. And, you know, only at that point, can you start to think about investing right above that is flexibility and flexibility is where you have some investments. You have some passive income rolling in, maybe not enough to live on, but maybe a few thousand per month, you know? And so the flexibility is, what if I get fired or lose my job? Well, at least I have this other source of income over here. What if I want to try a new career and make a pivot? Well, it’s not so scary knowing I have a financial backstop over here. Maybe you want to take some time off and travel. We were just talking about traveling to Italy, you know? Something that both of us value. Financial independence is right above flexibility and that’s what I really teach people how to create. So financial independence to me is the ability… to solely live off of your investments, whether they’re cashflow, passive income investments, or whether they’re just owning some stocks and making sales to live on, however you want to approach it. It’s just that you don’t need active income anymore. And the highest tier is financial abundance. And these are the people, of course, in all the headlines. These are your Mark Zuckerbergs and your Jeff Bezos and your Bill Gates. And they have so much money that they could not. even live on it if they tried. I mean, you can’t spend that much money reasonably. So they’re gonna end up donating, most of them, the majority of their wealth back to society. So that’s kind of what I mean by working up the wealth level. So I think everyone can reach, in my opinion, most people can reach flexibility to financial independence. It’s just gonna be about how long does it take you? So to answer your question about mindset, I would ask your listeners to think about this. How many of, you know, did your parents teach you about passive income investing? Did the school system teach you about passive income? Did Wall Street teach you about passive income? I mean, the answer is usually no to all of those. So it’s a journey of self-education. And yes, it takes willpower, drive, motivation, you know, repetition, consistency. And a lot of people don’t talk about those factors, but they’re extremely important. And I’ve seen this unfold over the years. You know, you go to a conference, there’s a hard sales pitch on the stage. People buy these $10,000 programs and statistically the majority never even use the program, right? They, they attempt it and then they change their mind and go in other directions. So you got to get clear on your why. A lot of people talk about that kind of cheesy, but kind of true. What are you really trying to do? Is it really about money? Cause I hear people all the time talk about their money goals. I want 10,000 a month passive income. I want to be a millionaire. I want this, that, and the other. But what do you really want? So think about if you had a million dollars cash in your bank account, or you had $10,000 a month passive income right now every month, what would you do? Why do you need 10? Maybe you only need five, maybe you need 20. And is one million really the goal? Or is it just generational wealth that you’re looking to pass down? So start by identifying your goals and objectives, and then kind of reverse engineer into them. what types of investments can help you reach those goals, what kinds of companies or people are offering those types of opportunities. And so you kind of start to learn the game backwards. At least that’s what I did.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah. And why do you think there is such a challenge in this country in terms of basically financial education, understanding passive income, understanding alternative investments, understanding, you know, investing in real estate? Why do you think?

Travis Watts:
I think it all roots back to, you know, why was the education system even created in the first place? It was to have a formalized way to train people to become employees and work for companies. So why would it be in anyone’s best interest as a company owner to empower people to have that kind of knowledge and to go create competition for them, right? Or to quit the job because now they’re financially free through their own investments. So I think it kind of rooted there. And as we’ve moved forward into the more modern era, marketing has really taken a hold of people, especially in America, in terms of you need all this crap. You need the Gucci bag, you need that BMW, you need that McMansion house, you need these things, but do you need them? Or are you just trying to impress other people or feel some kind of elevated level of status? And so again, it takes a little soul searching, but… You got to figure out what really brings you, um, you know, satisfaction and happiness, you know, and, and I’m the type of person that when I did this with my wife, we’ve done it numerous times over the years, we sit down independent of one another, we write down the 10 things that bring the most happiness and fulfillment to us. And I would say 60% of my list requires almost no money, right? It’s like walking in the park with our son. It’s going on a bike ride. at sunset, right? It’s going to the beach, which happens to be 45 minutes from our house, like very minimal stuff. And so when you start to identify that, I think you can kind of lessen the consumerism side of it, which is what’s caused a lot of people to go to paycheck to paycheck living. You know, it’s very interesting to look at excess cash that Americans have leading up to the pandemic. Most people be in paycheck to paycheck, all of a sudden stimulus checks come out. and the percentages fly up. Everyone’s got all this money, right? They’re 1400 bucks or whatever it was. And then two years after, everyone’s back to paycheck to paycheck again, because people spend their money because we live in a capitalist consumerism society. So I would just question that individually and just say, do I really need these things or are they just wants that aren’t really necessary? And it’s worth the internal dialogue with yourself

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah,

Travis Watts:
or

Dave Wolcott:
no,

Travis Watts:
your partner.

Dave Wolcott:
I think it’s really fascinating, right? Because, you know, I was raised in a middle class family as well. And you know, they’re starving children in Africa all the time.

Travis Watts:
Yeah.

Dave Wolcott:
You know, it puts you basically into a scarcity mindset

Travis Watts:
Mm-hmm.

Dave Wolcott:
with everything you do. So like you say, you know, you’re trying to do it yourself. Because if you can do it, if you’ve got the energy, the will, then you know, you can do it. But what’s interesting, right, is as you start to scale and look at things with an abundance type mindset, right, you can realize, as you pointed out, that you start to work with a professional team and now you’re getting leverage by the team, right? And then you’re also now focusing your time instead of doing, say, you know, active management of assets or whatever. Maybe it’s a side hustle or whatever you’re doing. But now you can really focus on what you’re actually good at or your unique ability. And then you can really exponentially grow, you can be more fulfilled, right? Because I think what most people are looking for in life is actually, it’s not only freedom of money, but it’s freedom of time, it’s freedom of purpose, to be able to wake up every day and be fascinated and motivated about the work that you do. It’s also freedom of relationships, like, who do you want to spend your time with, right? You know, you’re a product of the five people that you spend your time with. So are those people, you know, exciting you or are they taking you back, you know? But I think it’s, you know, I think this really shouldn’t be underestimated is that deep thinking around, you know, your why, as you point out, which is such a great, you know, exercise to do with your wife. Another way people could look at it is, you know, instead of creating a bucket list, you know, create your top 100 list of things that you either want to be, do, or have. Right?

Travis Watts:
Yeah,

Dave Wolcott:
So

Travis Watts:
I love that.

Dave Wolcott:
then it takes a little of the consumerism out of it. And then that’s what gives you the drive to move forward.

Travis Watts:
I love that. That’s a great point. And, you know, just to add real quick onto that, it’s like, uh, you know, I use the, the wealth pyramid example, but it’s like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. At the very bottom, we need food and shelter, and then you start to move up after that and you’re looking for safety and you move above that and it’s relationships. And then, you know, at the very top, it’s self actualization, which is what you’re talking about. Who do you want to be? What do you want to do with your life? What’s your why? What’s your mission? and who do you want to hang around with. So great points.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, no. And I think that’s why it deserves some thought, right? Because let’s say you do reach that passive income goal, and this is why it can also be a trap, right? It can be a double edged sword. So if, if I only had, you know, whatever that amount is, 5,000 a month, 10,000 a month in passive income, exactly to your point, what is that going to enable me to do? Right? Because, you know, you don’t want to have abundant complacency. where you say, and there are a lot of people in that fire community that reach that passive income number and then they’re like, hey, I’m just going to sit on a beach and I don’t need to work anymore. I don’t need to do anything, right? But that’s

Travis Watts:
Yeah.

Dave Wolcott:
not necessarily fulfilling. It’s actually rewiring those things that you want to do. So Travis, let’s bridge that also into this dichotomy really of… active versus passive investing, because I think this is also something people really think about a lot. They say, and from the first times that I even got into real estate as well, I thought, okay, I’m going to do active investing. I didn’t even know what passive investing was either. This is like back in 2000, Rich Dad, Poor Dad just came out.

Travis Watts:
Yeah.

Dave Wolcott:
So I’m driving around with my kids at night looking at properties and how is this really going to scale? and it’s that component of time, right? You know, how do you want to spend your time? But how do you really view that and how do you talk to folks about that? Because you’ve clearly lived both sides of the coin.

Travis Watts:
Yeah, pros and cons. I’m not here to bash active investing. It was successful for me. I did it for six and a half years as I talked about. I tried a lot of different things in there. I would say that if that’s truly what you want to do, first of all, maybe try it out. Maybe get one rental property or try to do one flip and just see how it goes. It was a lot of self-reflection for me. So I started realizing that I’m really not the best at this. I’m not finding the best deals. I’m not finding… the good off-market deals. I don’t have the best connections to contractors. I’m not getting the best pricing on things. And so as more institutions started moving into the space and the market started to lift off again, I was getting squeezed out. And that was kind of that self, you know, realization that, you know, maybe this isn’t really your thing. And the other thing I was naive about is to think that I could really scale that business. Meaning, you know, let’s say I bought, I don’t know. one property a year for the next 30 years and then I retire. Well, let me tell you, having 30 single family homes that you manage is more than a full-time job. And even if you have a property management company, it’s a full-time job. And there’s a lot you have to do that’s still active. You’ve got to still find the deals, underwrite the deals, show up to closings, you know, know the markets, be attractive to lenders, you know, have good credit, have solid down payments. I mean, there’s just a lot to it. Managing tenants is only 10% of the equation. There’s a lot more to it. So, the biggest pro, there’s two big pros to go inactive. One, you’re calling the shots. What color do I wanna paint this house? How do I wanna furnish? What’s the business plan? What do I wanna do with the rents? Do I wanna refinance? Do I wanna sell? Full control, that’s awesome. So if you’re a person that needs that or wants that, then consider that. The other thing was in general, I had pretty high returns, you know, go inactive. Now, some of that had to do with where we were in the market cycle, right? We’re talking about 2010, 11, 12, 13, 14, you know, the market starting to recover and bounce up. A lot of my properties, I just lucked out and made a lot of money because the market went up in my area. Passive, though, is way more scalable. it, whether I have one limited partnership investment or I have 300, it’s not that complicated. I’m going to get probably a monthly, uh, email that says, here’s how your property is doing, and I don’t have to make any decisions on anything until we go to sell, you know? So it’s, it’s much easier to scale, much easier to diversify. Uh, I can be in markets I otherwise wouldn’t be in because they’re too far from where I live, but it’s a market I really like and would like to invest in. And to your point, I really get a maximized leverage on true industry experts that live it and breathe it and are trying to build a brand and build a legacy for themselves. And I was never really at that level, uh, on a personal note, you know, to do those same things. So, um, you know, and a lot of our investors, just to be clear, are a hybrid of the two. It’s like, I talked to investors all week long. It’s like, yeah, I got a couple of rental properties, you know, a couple of short-term rentals, whatever. And I’m just looking to diversify and try some of this, you know, passive income stuff. So you can be a hybrid. And in fact, Joe Fairless at Ashcroft where I work, he is too. He’s obviously a GP at Ashcroft, but he’s an LP in a lot of people’s other deals as well. So it’s just a way to maximize your time. We only have so much time and resources and energy in a given day, week, month, year, this is just a way to keep amplifying your income without having to put extra. work and time into it.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, totally agree. Do you have a particular investment thesis or a wealth strategy that you’re using personally?

Travis Watts:
I mean, the simple thesis for me is just invest for passive income. And it sounds simple, but if you think about it, again, back to what I was saying earlier, how many people taught you about that, you know, how many people are preaching that, how many ads or commercials and billboards do you see about passive income, right? Hardly any. And most people are investing with the mindset of buy low and sell high, you know, put a thousand bucks in my IRA. And when I’m 65, I’ll take a peek and I hope it grows. You know, or I’m going to buy a house for 200,000. I’m going to flip it for 300,000. That’s buy low, sell high, a lot more risk and unpredictability and that type of investing, nothing wrong with it. A lot of people do it. You mentioned the fire community, you know, doing their index fun thing and selling off shares, whatever. But I like to just live off passive income, keep my initial investment preserved in the deal. So that’s how I’ve always approached it. I’ve, I’ve averaged about over time, about an 8% average, um, cashflow yields. So some deals I’m going into today might be a little bit lower. Some deals I’ve been in for five years are significantly higher. So I just try to average 8%. And then when I have a sale happen or refinance and all of a sudden I have extra liquidity, that’s kind of just the icing on the, on the cake, right? I can, I can pay taxes with that money. I can pay for other things in my life with that money. I can choose to reinvest all of that into more deals and just compound the passive income. So my main focus is just on monthly cash flow. And I think if people really could see it through that lens, really experience it themselves, kind of start at that $66 a month and grow it to $666 a month and grow it to $6,666 a month, you would start to get the big picture that, you know, this is what the ultra wealthy And this is a very viable, long-standing strategy that people have used for decades and decades and decades.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, I think the problem really stems with Wall Street and what was frankly told to all of us, to our parents, to our employers, to our peers, which is this whole investment thesis around a 60-40 portfolio consisting of stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. They talk about this accumulation theory, which is getting to that nest egg number at retirement. what is that really then converted to? It’s then converted into income, right?

Travis Watts:
Yeah.

Dave Wolcott:
But you’ve had to actually wait 35 years, right, to either, you know, to access any of that income. So I think that’s where a lot of it really stems from. And people just, you know, aren’t really aware of, you know, passive income kind of strategies. And then also, you know, let’s just talk, you know, more about how you really you create this strategy, right? Because it’s a process of investing.

Travis Watts:
Mm-hmm.

Dave Wolcott:
It’s

Travis Watts:
Yeah.

Dave Wolcott:
not just invest in one deal or another, right? We wanna be doing multiple deals a year and it starts to snowball, like

Travis Watts:
Right.

Dave Wolcott:
you said.

Travis Watts:
Yeah. Yeah, happy to highlight a couple of things on that. So if you think about it, I’ll just kind of pull this example on a whim, but if you start with, let’s say $50,000, you’re investing in something that gives you a 10% return a year in passive income. So what that means in year number two, if you’re gonna just continue this investing journey, you only have to put in 45,000 the next year, because you… had received 5,000 from the previous year in distributions, right? And every year gets a little bit easier because then you only need to put in 40,000, then 35, then 30. Now, as you zoom forward and we look at a decade or so, your investments are, are funding themselves in theory, right? Cause now you’re making 50,000 a year in passive income and you can make an entirely new investment at that point by putting no new money into the deal. And this is obviously just compound interest example, but You know, that’s one approach, right? If you’re looking to truly build up a high net worth over time and you’ve got an active career that you’re happy with and all that good stuff, that’s, that’s one way to do the passive income game. I use the rule of 72 all the time. You know, 72, uh, or the, the yield that you’re receiving divide by 72. So, um, you know, what a 10% return takes, what, seven years to double your money or something like that. So I kind of look at it like that is every few years I’m just adding. new investments without having to put new capital into them. Even though I do put new capital into them. The other thing

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah.

Travis Watts:
to all… Yeah, go ahead.

Dave Wolcott:
I was just going to say, I mean, on the rule of 72, right, with the S&P average, right, it’s about seven years before you double your money, right? But

Travis Watts:
Yeah.

Dave Wolcott:
typically looking at multifamily over the past decade, you could do that in a five-year stretch.

Travis Watts:
Yeah, and many deals have, and I’d like to actually talk about that a little bit. So the reason I’ve got the bulk of my portfolio in value add multi-family private placements is to me, it’s one of the best combinations of benefits that you can have as an investor. You can get monthly cashflow. You can get equity upside participation. You can get tax benefits the whole time. And so you’re utilizing both. the buy low and sell high philosophy, but even if it doesn’t work out on that end, you still have the cash flow side of it, right? And then again, the whole time you’re getting tax benefits to offset that income, or at least having long-term capital gains upon sale if you’re holding longer than a year. So it’s really a fantastic strategy in my opinion. So you look at other things like, oh, I’m gonna go buy some bonds for passive income. Well, no equity upside. or I’m gonna buy the S&P and hope it goes up. Well, no cashflow, very little, right? So that pays like 1% or something a year. So this is just a great hybrid approach. And just real estate in general is, if you treat it that way, it’s an intermediate to longer term play with a lot of packed benefits into it.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah. And do you think that the asset class, it’s still the right time for it? Clearly, there’s a lot of distress kind of building in the marketplace right now with people who had poor loans, say a couple of years ago, when they took out floating rate debt, they’ve gotten and with interest rates kind of where they are. in the market changing, do you still feel like the fundamentals are strong or what are your thoughts on the current outlook for multifamily?

Travis Watts:
Sure. Happy to share a few things. The first thing to realize, whether we’re talking about a real estate cycle or stock market cycle, the saying goes that the bull takes the stairs and the bear jumps out the window. Meaning it could take 10 years plus for a bull market to fully develop, but then a recession comes and it can collapse in 12 to 24 months and then start a recovery phase again. So I think that we are in the midst of seeing the final. developments of this real estate cycle reset, meaning the Fed went the most aggressive that they’ve gone in US history on raising rates that directly impacts the purchase price of these properties. So we’ve seen cap rates reverse. We’ve seen pricing come way down. We’re about to close on two deals that we’re getting about a $50 million discount on relative to pricing 18 months ago. So if you can still find a cash flowing asset and maybe you can put some fixed rate. dead on it and you’re still going to be cash flowing day one. It can be a great opportunity this year because if the fed stays near the top, you can still execute a business plan like you did in years past when interest rates were three and four percent up and down. If they taper rates back down because we hit a recession or we hit the inflation goal or whatever you might be able to refinance early maybe sell a property for more than what you projected. So I think 2023 is now a much healthier market. than 2022 and 21. I mean, even I was very skeptical in 21 as the stock market’s up 30% and real estate’s reaching all time highs and stimulus money’s flying everywhere. People are gambling, crypto’s going crazy. I thought this is not sustainable. I’m a little nervous to see what’s on the other side of this because markets don’t just go up 30% a year, and rent growth at double digits is not usual. So we’re seeing a… Uh, you know, a flattening, a reset, whatever you want to call it at this moment in time. And yeah, I’m still investing this year, uh, just like I did in previous years. I may even go a little bit harder this year, but I’m very bullish on the future from here. We know the fed can’t take rates, you know, double them again, basically. Right. Or the fed funds rates going to be 10%. I mean, you would implode the economy and the whole world for that matter. So we’re nearing the top. And like I said, you got three scenarios and two out of three can be very bullish. for real estate. And the only one that’s not is if they keep going up and up and up with rates, but again, their other obligation, the Fed is to help the economy in the event of recession. So they go much higher, they’re gonna force a recession, then they’re gonna have to cut rates to bail them out. So you get back to the third scenario of cutting rates anyway. So that’s

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah.

Travis Watts:
just kind of my personal opinion on it. Who knows? I don’t have a crystal ball, but that’s how I look at it.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, exactly. And I think one of the things that I’ve learned as an investor over the years is that so much of investing is around expectation management.

Travis Watts:
Mm-hmm.

Dave Wolcott:
If you’re forecasting a certain pro forma to return something and then it misses, what is the attitude that you actually have towards that? Is it that the operator did not execute according to plan? Or are there market dynamics that are outside of your control, such as the Fed doing unprecedented interest rates that we didn’t underwrite to, you didn’t know about for so long? So I think that expectation management is such a key part of investing and really knowing that as you get into these investments, I mean, look, there’s risk and… any type of investing that you do. I mean, look at bonds. I mean, look at the banks, SVB that just failed and everything, with investing in bonds, which was supposed to be one of the safest things. We’ve had two occasions where my wife, and I wrote this about this in my book, my wife was generously gifted a portion of Kodak stock by her dad to

Travis Watts:
Mm-hmm.

Dave Wolcott:
her. You know, a blue chip company that would be recommended by every financial advisor, right across the country, across all firms, they go bankrupt and there’s no recourse, there’s no nothing, right. And what’s Warren Buffett’s number one rule. Don’t lose money. Right.

Travis Watts:
Right.

Dave Wolcott:
But I think, you know, you have to realize that in this, you know, game of investing, not everything is going to be a home run. Right. And I think, you know, managing your expectations that, you know, sometimes there’s some things outside of your control you can’t kind of manage to, and that will actually make you, you know, a better investor and as you kind of allocate capital and build your portfolio.

Travis Watts:
Diversification, those are all great points, is to me the only approach to use, to your point. I mean, there could be a bad actor out there, there could be a fraud case out there, there could be an economic thing, there could be a natural disaster in a particular market, there could be a GP that fails to do their job. I mean, these are all risk points, right? So this is why, number one, I recommend that people invest in what they know and understand the best, primarily. Right. So the more, you know, the less risk you take on a particular asset type, but that you also pay attention to branching out a little bit. So over the years, um, for no other reason than learning other asset classes and having a step to pivot to, if I need to, I’ve gotten more into car washes and ATM machines and self storage and mobile home parks and, you know, covered calls with my brokerage account and ETFs that do it for me and different things. Right. So that. If my primary asset class stops making sense, let’s say a multifamily deal in 10 years says, hey, we’ll pay you 1% cash flow and 2% upside. No, I’m just not gonna do it. So I need to know what else I can do to get a healthier yield and not be a one trick pony, so to speak, but those are all great

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah,

Travis Watts:
points.

Dave Wolcott:
yeah, no, totally agree with that. What do you think is the biggest risk in investing in multifamily right now?

Travis Watts:
it’s gonna come down to debt structure and operator. So it’s the ability that the operator can actually execute the business plan that they’re proposing to you, okay? So that’s usually like, if I look at a multifamily syndication, I’m looking at really three macro level things. I’m looking at the operator, the market and the deal. They’re all really important, but I put about a 50% emphasis on the operator and that’s based off my own experiences of seeing a newer operator that couldn’t execute and what happened to our overall returns and getting into like a so-so deal, but the market was just crushing it. And we all did well. What impact that’s had in my single family days, things like that. And then the common sense of just doing a good deal, you know, that makes logical sense that cash flows day one and stuff like that, the debt structure, a lot of people now, of course, are moving to fixed rate debt on a longer term than doing these, you know, one to two year floating rate. Um, deals, you know, but what was interesting about 2021 and 2020 is if you really looked at the forward projected curve on interest rates and you really tuned into quote unquote, some of the smartest people that are out there, none of them predicted what happened. I mean, and when I say none, I’m sure there was someone that’s, you know, taking claim to fame there, but the majority were saying, yeah, they might ease up a little bit, but it’s not going to be crazy. And then all of a sudden we take them up to what? five, five and a quarter fed funds rate. So a lot of people were caught off guard with that. And that adjustable rate debt had made logical sense in all the years prior, and it had been working and working and working, just like the bond example with SBV, it had been working, but all of a sudden, things quit working because you’re gonna have a cycle reset. So something to be mindful of, and to again, just diversify if you can.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, totally agree. So if you could design the perfect investment, what do you think it would look like?

Travis Watts:
Ooh, it would be a real estate deal because I always like to think of things like, is what I’m investing in really needed? Is it really necessary? And this is the problem I have with so many stocks that are in the stock market. Do you really need Coca-Cola? I don’t know. Do you really need McDonald’s? I mean,

Dave Wolcott:
Tesla.

Travis Watts:
truth is we just don’t. But do we really need affordable places for people to live? Has that really been around for a long time and been working and have a long track record of success? It has. And I’ll tell you a quick story. Two weeks ago, we were out in Colorado. I was visiting some family. I grew up in Fort Collins, Colorado, and we were downtown Fort Collins. And I hadn’t been there in years and years and years, but I’m looking around at all the retail shops that I remember as a kid. And I would say at least 50% have changed hands. You know, they’ve gone under for one reason or another, and we walk by the store and on the window it says, we’ve been here in this location for 90 years in Fort Collins. And that happened to be a flower shop. So,

Dave Wolcott:
Hmph.

Travis Watts:
you know, it’s worth considering, you know, are people always gonna want flowers for one reason or another, whether, you know, wedding, funeral, Valentine’s Day? The answer is yes, you know, that usually works. The same with like a liquor store, generally speaking. you know, if we exclude the prohibition days, but you know, those typically work in up markets, down markets and sideways markets. So to go into an investment of like, I have this new trendy idea. No one’s ever thought of it’s a little hipster bar and we’re going to have little sparklers in the martinis and neon lights. I I’m not going to invest in something like that because that’s a fad and a trend and doesn’t have a proven track record of success. So back to your question, it’s a real estate deal. It’s got a hefty amount of cashflow to it. It’s got fairly low leverage, maybe 60% leverage. It’s got fixed rate debt on it. It’s got great equity upside. We’re buying it off market at a discount and it’s going to have some lucrative tax advantages that are in the tax code currently. And I just personally don’t think it gets better than that for me and what I’m trying to accomplish.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, yeah. No, well said, Travis. And I think really, you know, understanding the, you know, macroeconomics and fundamentals of an asset class is really where you should start. Right? We’ve

Travis Watts:
Yes.

Dave Wolcott:
had countless people talk about, you know, people always like to talk about, okay, what was your worst investment? Right? And why did that go wrong? And in a lot of cases, people really just point out they invested in something they didn’t know enough about.

Travis Watts:
Yep.

Dave Wolcott:
Right? So you’ve got to be kind of smart on that. But when you can start from that kind of macro view and realize we have a shorting, housing shortage in the country of, what is it, six million units,

Travis Watts:
Yeah.

Dave Wolcott:
currently something like that, right?

Travis Watts:
Yep.

Dave Wolcott:
You’ve got some supply demand imbalances. And then, we talked about earlier, markets like Florida, Texas, Arizona, right, some of these hot markets where people are just leaving, you know, the north and tier one cities because they want to pay lower taxes, they want a better lifestyle, you know, so a lot of things kind of driving that. So appreciate that point. Travis, if you could give just one piece of advice or your biggest insight that you could share with the audience in terms of how they could accelerate their own wealth journey, what would it be?

Travis Watts:
Oh boy, that’s a tough one. Um, a mentor of mine years and years ago said double down on what’s working. And I guess I would just happen to be at a time in my life where really nothing was working except the real estate. So I, I shut down all these little small businesses I had and, um, and I just, I went full force into it, but again, I had to do a little reflection on what we just discussed, you know, is it necessary? It doesn’t have a track record of success. Like you want to try to put. the odds in your favor. Pretend like you’re the casino in Vegas and not the consumer, right? So the odds have to be in your favor. So I like to look at any investment with maybe three outcomes and two being in my favor and one not being. But the fact is when people go try experimental businesses, the majority of those fail. So you’re starting from the opposite perspective of… Everything’s stacked against me. I hope this works. And I would just say to that person, why?

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, really sage advice there, right? Because and I think there’s a lot of misnomers and people just need to get smarter out there. And just look, you know, Wall Street is really, you know, such a culprit. And this is why I get really passionate about this topic too, because there are certain things, right, that they talk to you about, which is, you know, that accumulation theory, right, and save and save and save and defer your taxes along the way, by the way, right? Well, the only thing I’m certain of is taxes are going to go up in the future. So wouldn’t you rather pay the taxes now versus at the harvest time?

Travis Watts:
Well, you look at like a traditional IRA, which a lot of people have been sold or a traditional 401k, and you’re like, so you’re gonna make investments that otherwise would be treated in a favorable tax way, right? Long-term capital gains, things like that, real estate having all these tax advantages, and you’re gonna put it in an account where you’re gonna get taxed at ordinary income levels. So again, why? It’s like, if you just did it in cash, you might pay 15% on your tax for example purposes. but now you might pay 30 or 40% tax because it’s in an IRA. And the whole name of the game, I worked for a very large brokerage firm, one of the biggest in the world for a short period of time, is assets under management, man. Here’s the business model. And if this doesn’t make sense from a business perspective, I think you’re crazy, but here, give me your money. Let me take a 2% fee, no matter what happens to your investment or your money,

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah.

Travis Watts:
and just give me all of it for the rest of your life. How about that?

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah,

Travis Watts:
That’s the business model.

Dave Wolcott:
exactly. Yeah. Well, and another one that’s even better. Think about the government.

Travis Watts:
Yeah, right.

Dave Wolcott:
We want you to put all your money in 401ks, IRAs, all of these different vehicles. And then when you turn 65, I know exactly how much revenue you’re going to pay me. And if I’m short on revenue, I can actually tell you, you need to pay me more. And

Travis Watts:
Yeah.

Dave Wolcott:
then I can even You have to take out so you can pay me. So talk about the ultimate passive income scheme, right? It’s a beautiful business plan, like you say, on the other side of the fence for basically for the government and for Wall Street.

Travis Watts:
Yeah, yeah. And you know, there’s always, you know, not to bash these accounts entirely. Like there’s reasons you might have them. There’s opportunities, let’s say your employer matches dollar for dollar on your 401k. Like there could be a reason to do that stuff. You know, you put in a thousand, your employer puts in a thousand, you know, whatever. But as far as like going hard and heavy and maxing it out to its max potential and putting all your eggs in that basket, like to me, if you read the book, 401 Chaos by Andy Tanner, It’ll vastly change your perspective. Let’s just put it that way

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah. Awesome. Travis, such a great conversation. I know the audience is really going to enjoy this one. If people would like to, you know, connect with you and learn more about you know, what you’re up to, what is the best place?

Travis Watts:
Yeah. So whatever your preferred platform is, I’m on Instagram and Facebook at passive investor tips, and I’m on bigger pockets and LinkedIn and other platforms, Travis Watts, and I have a landing page it’s Ashcroft capital.com forward slash Travis, and I’ve got my calendar on there and we can talk about whatever you want to talk about. You don’t need to be an accredited investor. It doesn’t have to be a conversation about Ashcroft capital. Just that’s where I put my calendar publicly. So I encourage you to reach out with any questions. that you didn’t fully understand, that I didn’t do a good job articulating or anything you want to learn from here and be happy to help.

Dave Wolcott:
Awesome. Really appreciate the discussion, Travis, and we’ll see you the next time.

Travis Watts:
Thanks, Dave. Thanks, everybody.

Dave Wolcott:
Hey guys, welcome to today’s show on wealth strategy secrets. Today we’re joined by Lewis O’Connor. Lewis is the founder and principal of Strategic Metals Invest, providing a unique opportunity for private investors worldwide. They’re the sole industry supplier that allows individuals to purchase and benefit from owning strategic metals. With their Europe-based operations, they offer North American clients the much needed advantage of geographic diversification. Lewis, my friend, welcome to the show.

Louis – Strategic Metals Invest:
Thank you very much, Dave. Delighted, very happy to be here with you. Thank you.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, no, I’m super excited, you know, to talk about this, you know, really unique offering that I think most people probably aren’t aware of. You know, most folks are just kind of inundated by, you know, Wall Street and stocks bonds and mutual funds. And I think, you know, the first thing that comes to mind when you talk about precious metals is people will think about, you know, gold and silver. So really looking forward to kind of understanding, you know, the market dynamics and the specifics around some of these precious metals. But before we start to unpack the precious metals, you know, tell us a little bit about, you know, your background, your journey, and how you really got into the space.

Louis – Strategic Metals Invest:
Sure. Well, as you can probably tell from the accent, I’m not Ohio based or born. I’m Irish. I’m from Dublin originally. Coming to you today from Tipperary. Our business is European based, but we’ll talk about that more in a minute. So, yeah, I’m just back to Ireland, Dave, actually, after 25 years traveling the world, really. I lived in Germany for 10 years. and speak German. And then I went to Latin America and mostly based in Panama, Central America, but also sort of had some did some business and stuff in Columbia, Nicaragua, Belize, and actually usually are mostly working with North Americans and Canadians. Central America was more property and real estate. And but although I’ve never lived in the US, funny enough, I’ve worked with North Americans most of my life, even when I was in Germany. So, so, um, I came back to Europe three years ago specifically for this business, because it’s a sort of a relatively new asset class and, you know, there’s a great story behind it, which happens to be true in terms of supply demand, which, which we get into. But yeah, that’s, that’s pretty much it.

Dave Wolcott:
Interesting. So was there something that kind of got you into the precious metal space kind of in your career that led you this way?

Louis – Strategic Metals Invest:
Um, it was just really, you know, I always, you know, I, we, we always live in an age where there’s something new coming around the corner. Right. Not everything works out, but I mean, you know, we look at just the last 20 years, some of the companies we know so well today probably didn’t exist maybe 20, 25 years ago. So just, you know, I’m thankfully still curious, you know, although I’ve traveled all over the world, I love to hear anything, a new book, new movie, whatever it might be. From a business perspective, I’m always looking for a niche, I suppose, something new and something where there’s a real story of, you know, in this case, it’s the demand supply dynamics. There’s a genuine, nobody in the world would argue demand for these raw materials is increasing, while at the same time, we have one country that monopolizes the market. And the next sort of five, 10 years, I mean, the last 10 years have been very profitable. And As we discuss, there’s about another 5, 10, 15 year window of opportunity there as well, specifically in rare earth elements.

Dave Wolcott:
Right. So why don’t we start with kind of just talking about, you know, what are precious metals specifically, which ones are you talking about? Where can you find them? And let’s kind of begin there.

Louis – Strategic Metals Invest:
Yeah, well, I’ll break it down because you’re using the right term there. Precious metal. So they do come under that umbrella term, right? My company is called strategic metals. And the reason for that simply is strategic. Obviously, it’s not a scientific term, but strategic is strategic to our daily life. I mean, just to give you one example, like the same my smartphone here. There’s in every smartphone today, there’s 12 or 13 precious metals. And there’s some gold in your phone, there’s a bit of silver, but the other 10 are the ones that we offer as physical assets. And the same, for example, you know, you couldn’t, we see and touch them and feel them every day. One of them is indium. You can swipe your phone because of indium. There’s gallium, germanium, hafnium. And, for example, the metal or the oxide in the speaker. in your smartphone, to be more precise, in the permanent magnet, is the same metal that’s in permanent magnets in electric cars, in wind turbines, in solar. So they have multiple, multiple applications, yet we just sort of rarely think about them. We generally just think about gold and silver, and you know, gold, you know, is most, does have some industrial use, but mostly jewelry, but silver has more industrial use. But these raw materials are specifically used in the industry. And you quite rightly said, Dave, most people wouldn’t have heard of them as physical assets. And the reason for that is, as I said, it’s a relatively new asset class. It’s only since about 2010, private investors can physically purchase them. It’s the exact same paradigm as gold and silver, except you’re buying and purchasing rare earth elements, which are, you know, supposed to have an intrinsic value as opposed to… In many ways, gold has a sort of an extrinsic perceived value because it’s mostly purchased as a store of wealth, whereas these raw materials have an intrinsic value. And, you know, there’s probably not an industry they’re not used in. I mean, you know, semiconductors for computers and, you know, all modern technology, medical devices, electric cars, aviation, rods for nuclear reactors, you know, the space exploration has become a fully fledged sort of space industry over the next sort of 25 years, so they’re critically needed there as well. So yeah, we just, you know, a lot of people are surprised and go, yeah, how come I didn’t think of that before? Because in your phone, you touch them and see them every day, you know.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, sure. So where do you typically mine these, right? And what is the supply side actually look like? Are some of these, you know, plentiful? Are they still rare, you know, like gold would be, for instance?

Louis – Strategic Metals Invest:
Yeah, good, great question. So despite the name, they’re called rare, the scientific term is rare earth elements. So they come in metal form and oxide form, which is powdered, even liquefied and in nitrate form. But despite the name, they’re not all that rare. And there’s plenty of them in North America. And Mountain Pass in California, actually, until the 1980s, was the largest producer of rare arts in the world. But what happened was, Rare Earths really, we only found applications from them, believe it or not, in the 1960s, when we went from black and white TVs to color TVs. That’s when we really started to use them. But I mean, as we all know, 20 years later in the 1980s, when the technology, this is when they really came in to being needed in just about everywhere. So, since the 80s is when they’re… Everything from a toaster to a microwave pretty much nowadays has a mini computer in it. And these are critical in all technology. But where the supply demand dynamic comes in, and I’ll just tell you, like China is responsible for 90% of the world’s rare earths. And obviously, that’s not a good thing, because I suppose really what happened, Dave, as an unintended consequence of globalization. I mean, for the last two or three decades, when the world was sort of high on globalization, we sort of didn’t worry too much about the fact that it wouldn’t be a good idea for one country to control one raw material that’s critical to any nation’s economic prosperity and increasingly military capability. So what happened during the 80s was China actually did People can Google and you’ll see this, the premier of China at the time, Deng Xiaoping, standing on a rare earth mine, said that the Middle East has oil, China has rare earths. Now that was a very, very shrewd statement in 1987 because right after that, you know, the technology industry sort of exploded or was already happening. And really what happened was China understood before Europe and before the US, that these rare earths would become literally the backbone of manufacturing in the 21st century. So they were about 25, 30 years ahead. Now at the time, and I’ll speak about the US just because I know your audience is North American, but at the time the US government thought, you know, because we were a little bit high on globalization, we thought, well look, what China started to do was move all the refining from actually from Mountain Pass in California to China. Now, at the time, I think the US government thought, well, look, separating and extracting and refining these raw materials, it’s complicated, it’s messy, it’s expensive. Why don’t we let the Chinese do it inexpensively and we’ll just buy the raw materials cheaply for them? So what happened then though was the US set up… a bureau of mines to keep an eye on, so the US could remain competitive. And that bureau was defunded in 1996. And literally what happened since then is China now monopolizes rare earths. And the key thing I need to tell you why is the refining important is because rare earths don’t occur naturally. And they’re always a byproduct of another raw material. So for example, gallium. is a byproduct of aluminium or you guys say aluminum, we say aluminium. Gallium is a byproduct of aluminium mining. Hafnium, which you need in jet engines and rockets, is a byproduct of zirconium mining. To give you some context, the ratio is 50 to one. So for every 50 tonnes of zirconium, you can only get one tonne of Hafnium. So they’re rare in that respect, although you could find them in any continent. finding them in sort of high grade, you know, they don’t occur naturally and that they’re chemically, they sort of exist together. So they have to be extracted, they have to be separated, they have to be refined. That’s complicated, it’s expensive. And we’ve allowed the Chinese to sort of run away with the circus there. But very, very recently, both Europe and the US have realized, you know, we have to wean our dependence off China. And that’s why they’re a good investment right now. and over the next five or 10 years, I think I covered everything there.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah. Okay. So that’s, that’s pretty interesting, right? So where can, I mean, you talked about California as one of the mining locations. I’m assuming there’s others kind of across the world outside of China. Talk to us a little bit about the infrastructure. It’s kind of interesting that it’s really a byproduct, right, of something else. But tell us a little bit about the infrastructure. I mean, is it, is it miners, you know, similar to, you know, gold and other things that you hear, how we’re actually extracting these precious metals. And then what does the supply chain look like? How are they getting it to market? How are they making it? You know, are they selling them direct to semiconductor companies, car companies like, you know, like Tesla or whatever? How does that work?

Louis – Strategic Metals Invest:
Okay, so, yeah, you’ve just touched on a good point there, like, first of all, like who we are as well, and what we have an offer. So it’s probably the most important thing I might say today, and is the fact that, and it just might sound like a little contradiction or a paradox, but the most important thing about us is, is not this investment offer that we have. It’s the most important thing is that our core business, what, you know, 80% of our activities on a daily basis. is we’re a supplier of rare earths. So we turn over on the industrial side of the business about $100 million a year. So our office is in Frankfurt and the vault is in Frankfurt. So what we’re doing and what we have been doing for the last 30 years is we buy the raw materials directly from producers who are mostly in China, but also in other places as well. And then we resell them to industry buyers. So to be exact, We’ve 2000, at last count, we’ve 2480 industry buyers in 70 different countries. So we’d have plenty of clients in the US, plenty in Europe and the Far East. So, so that’s our core business. That’s what 80%. That’s what we’re doing 80% of the time. And it’s only because of that, that we can offer, as you guys in America like to say, the side hustle, the side hustle is the investment. And, but if we weren’t in the industry, if I was just A sales and marketing guy in Tipperary in Ireland. I’d be crazy because I’ve no connection to the industry. The only end buyer for these raw materials are industry buyers, as you said, Apple, Siemens, Volkswagen, Ford Motor Company. So the only way this works is if you’re buying from an industry supplier, unless you’re a hobbyist and then you go to eBay or Amazon and you buy small amounts and

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah.

Louis – Strategic Metals Invest:
you would have no idea what the purity of those are anyway. But to give you just some context on what you said about the sort of infrastructure, there’s one mine in America, North America producing rare earths, and they still, which is mountain pass, but they have to sell all the raw materials to China to be refined because the human capital, the engineering expertise that existed in America in the 80s is completely gone. To give you some context on that. Now, that’s all going to change, Dave, because In the Inflation Reduction Act, there’s billions of dollars in subsidies for people to refine Earth’s North America. You will see some investment coming into North America, but the current status quo is China refines 90%. To try and give you an idea, there’s 39, the critical type of person you need is a metallurgist. You need geologists and a metallurgist, which is the degree needed for the refining. China has 39 universities graduating degrees in critical minerals. You know, they’ve probably got about 200 degrees, 200, um, metallurgists graduating in a week, every week for the last 30 years. The U S only has a handful of universities with degrees in critical minerals. So I suppose to give you further context, there’s about 300,000 metallurgists in China. There’s maybe. 400 in North America and none in Europe were completely dependent on China. At the moment. Now Europe wants to change that America wants to change that. And this is why it’s such a good opportunity for investors right now is, it, you know, it took China a generation to become a sort of a global rare earth superpower so much so that they can weaponize rare earths now they just by restricting them. So we’re in this sort of very unique window of opportunity for the next five, 10 years. and where investors can hold them, physically store them, and just watch them go up in value and then liquidate them, you know, once they’ve, you know, realized, you know, whatever number they want.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, got it. So how does the investor participate, you know, in this type of opportunity?

Louis – Strategic Metals Invest:
Okay, so it’s the same paradigm, as I said, as gold and silver. So the investor physically owns the asset. They, it’s not a, you know, a share or a piece of paper. They physically own the asset. And so what I suppose you could say we’ve three guarantees or maybe our warranty statement is three things. One, we guarantee that the client is purchasing industrial grade, high value gallium or germanium or indium, whatever it might be. We’re guaranteed to purity levels, we’re guaranteed to chain of custody, and we’re guaranteed that what they purchase can be liquidated to an industry buyer at any time. So they qualify for that industrial grade. And obviously, as an industry supplier, we know what industry buyers want. Just like gold, there can be different purity levels. There’s also different forms. Some of them are in powdered form, but we know what we can liquidate, and we also provide the exit. But in the meantime, there’s storage. We have a storage facility in Frankfurt in Germany. It’s in the banking district. It’s two levels below ground. It’s one above. It’s a bank level secure vault with two meter walls and two meter door. It actually was a bunker in World War II and then after during the Cold War. And we bought it in 2010 and invested in it. And now it’s a fully sort of secure. fully insured, you know, we store precious metals there as well. So we also provide storage, um, in a sister company of us. And then the last part is the exit, which is we guarantee to liquidate the raw materials when the client is ready to sell. Now that’s not their only option. They own the raw materials. If they want to find the buyer themselves, they can, but, but since we’re an industry supplier and that’s really the only end buyer we do obviously. responsibly have to provide that option. So we guarantee to repurchase them at a current pricing, whatever that might be.

Dave Wolcott:
Okay. So how is the investor really, you know, kind of making money? Are they looking at appreciation off of these metals? Is that the primary play? Is this a hedge play by saying, you know, okay, now you have strategic metals in your portfolio, right? If the dollar continues to devalue, you know, now I have a certain allocation set to these strategic metals. So is it more of like a hedge play? Or is there anything else in terms of, you know, how investors really can profit from

Louis – Strategic Metals Invest:
Okay, so at the very minimum, it definitely is a hedge against inflation. It’s a store of wealth because you own an asset, a hard asset that has an intrinsic value that’s in demand in every country in the world. So at the very minimum, yes. However, because of the political instability, because of trade tensions, there’s other dynamics that come into play. But just to give you an idea, there’s 10 of them that we offer. If you’d purchased say $100,000 of all 10, so it means you’re diversified in different sort of industries, five years ago, your portfolio would be up an average of 34.25% a year. Some of them are up one, one metal is up 500% in the last three years, one’s up 6%. So that’s just the average numbers. So because of this, you know, supply demand disparity. They actually have been historically increasing in value. Now, what’s coming next? What does the future hold? Well, as I said, just three weeks ago or less than three weeks to August 1st, China has restricted the export of gallium and germanium probably to the US, Japan and Holland because they’re sort of in a retaliatory situation at the moment. So, you know, it’s a speculation, you know, much like everything else. There’s no guarantees. But if you do your homework, if you really see what’s hidden in plain sight, you’ll see that demand is off the charts. And gallium, as an example, between now and 2030 in Europe alone, we’ll be consuming somewhere between seven to 26 times more gallium than we are today. And there’s probably just not enough of them. What’s very interesting for the moment, Dave, in the next 10 years is what we call the energy transition metals. There’s five of them. which are the raw materials for electric cars, solar power and wind power, also needed in batteries and stuff. There’s going to be huge growth there because there literally will not be enough of those raw materials for every car manufacturer to go electric, which is what they want to do. So I can’t say, oh yeah, they’re going to go up X amount in value. I just can’t because they can also be sort of volatile in the short term because China China sort of controls the pricing. But in the long term view, and we suggest to anybody that’s purchasing them, please, if you do purchase, plan to stay in for at least three to five years. And then, if you look historically, you’ll see the gains.

Dave Wolcott:
Got it. Is there any tax efficiency strategies in terms of purchasing these metals or like you had talked about, or is the government putting out any subsidies or incentives in the form of

Louis – Strategic Metals Invest:
Well, if you store with us in Germany, our vault is a zone lager, which is a duty free zone. So it’s exactly the same as if you’re storing in Switzerland or Singapore. And if you hold the raw materials for a minimum of a year, then there’s no taxes when you purchase and there’s no taxes when you sell or when you liquidate. However, obviously, Uncle Sam, I know, has global taxation. So… And you know, capital gains would come into it for North American clients. And we have had recently a number of our clients go to a custodian and use a self-directed IRA, a checkbook, I think they call it a checkbook IRA to purchase, which means when they sell, then I guess the gains and the profits go back into the, into the pension and the taxes either deferred or I’m not sure obviously you don’t have take tax advice from an Irishman in Tipperary. But yeah, I mean, I do know the US is one of the, maybe one of two countries that has global taxation. So they’re tax free in Europe if they’re held for a year, but after that, then the client has to do their own reporting in their own jurisdiction.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, got it. So you’re basically looking for, uh, that appreciation play and within a three to five year period is.

Louis – Strategic Metals Invest:
Exactly. Yeah. I mean, gallium and germanium in the last sort of three weeks are up 10% and 15% since China announced these restrictions. So yesterday, US president announced some sort of retaliatory measures. So we think things are really going to escalate. The last time China restricted the export of rare earths was over 10 years ago. In 2011, the the Japanese detained a Chinese captain of a trawler who was fishing in sort of disputed waters. And in retaliation for that, China restricted the export of rare earths to Japan. And we saw prices sort of, you know, 5X, you know, in the space of a few months. So for the first time in over a decade, China is now weaponizing rare earths again, this time against the US, Holland and Japan again. So like… Mostly my conversation with clients is to say, look, for sure, at the minimum, this is a good store of wealth. And then in the middle, likely, you should comfortably see maybe 15%, 20% a year, just because demand is increasing and supply is limited. However, if things escalate and China decides to really weaponize them, you could, like I said, like Turbium is up 500% in three years. even without restrictions, they’re outperforming precious metals, you know.

Dave Wolcott:
Lewis, what would be the biggest risk in this type of investment?

Louis – Strategic Metals Invest:
Okay, so I’ll start with the business itself. I mean, you know, you’re purchasing from an industry supplier. Any business can experience difficulties or go out of business. What all I would tell you is that, you know, we’re in business since 1999. We’ve held a ISO 9001 QM management certificate, quality management since consistently since 2003. Our product is a product that’s in demand worldwide and is increasing. So the business itself is as safe as any business can be. I mean, it’s actually growing. We’ve moved to a bigger office this year, or we’re purchased land where we’re actually gonna build another storage facility, another vault also in Frankfurt. So the business is growing, and I would say it’s as safe as any business can be. It’s a German company. Germany is one of the most industrialized nations in the world. and revenue is continually going up. So that respect, I think it’s as safe as anything can be. In terms of the metals themselves, you could find, for example, indium, let’s say the one I mentioned that you need to swipe your phone, possibly, you know, better technology might come along that will make that easier. So demand then for indium could go down. So you could find one of the raw materials being replaced or being substituted. you can possibly, you know, I mean, supply demand. You know, the US and Europe, I mean, they reckon there’s a lot of rare earths in Vietnam. They’re saying down north of Sweden or the Arctic Circle, there’s a million tons, you know, down there. You know, in fact, Japan is mining the seabed for rare earths. There’s companies talking about mining them off comets in the outer space. So, you know. They are the backbone of manufacturing in this century. So there’s a huge demand for them. And there’s a sort of a very manifest poignant sort of an effort everywhere to where can we get more rare earths? So, so you will see more come in to the supply chain, but it’s just going to take time. I mean, this, this thing in Sweden, they mentioned, I mean, it’ll be at least 15 years before they, they reach, you know. production, you know, or sorry, before they’re in into the market. And you’ll probably hear in the US of some mines and Linus Corp from Australia just signed an agreement with the US Department of Defense to build a refining facility in either Florida or Houston. Not sure, but this is the US Department of Defense just basically securing their own, nevermind private industry. One F-35 fighter jet has three quarters of a ton of rare earths and is not one refining facility in North America. So we will see more come into supply, but prices will still rise because one, you know, labour costs in the US will be more than China. I mean, the reason China took over is we know they can do things cheaper, right? But that is not going to work anymore because, you know, they’re critical to… to each nation’s economic prosperity. So either way, again, the next five, 10, 15 years is a very good time to own them. And also you can use, our clients can use our platform, if you will, like an exchange, they can buy and sell, it’s a tax-free zone, so they can buy like 10 rare earth metals, they can buy PGMs, the platinum group metals, they can buy gold, silver, they can buy and sell. tax free within what we offer. So yeah, and that’s really, I think, the risks covered.

Dave Wolcott:
Got it. So if an investor was trying to make a decision in terms of, okay, hey, I’ve made the decision now that I want to hold strategic metals in my portfolio. But do you guys create any, you know, guidance or anything to say that, hey, you know, based on, you know, your risk profile, your timing, your outlook, we recommend like these three metals, or, you know, you should just go into one or something like that. How does that work?

Louis – Strategic Metals Invest:
We recommend two things. One, diversification is purchase maybe all 10 metals. And two, what we call maybe an extreme view, which is three to five years minimum, even 10 years. I mean, a lot of our clients now using self-directed IRAs, it’s a perfect vehicle because they won’t use the funds anyway for seven or 10 years. But what’s interesting is the clients that are sort of excuse me, are coming to us mostly are people who are probably using the raw materials. So we’ve a lot of, for some reason, we’ve a lot of surgeons, plastic surgeons, I guess they’re using a lot of reverts, engineers, and from NASA we’ve some clients who are, you know, with NASA, Google engineers. So a lot of people come and they already know a little bit about them and they probably know demand is sort of increasing. But if somebody’s not that familiar I’ll talk privately and individually with each person and they might like a particular industry, for example. They might say, well, electric cars or solar, this energy transition, there’s five metals and I tell them which they are. Somebody might be more interested in aviation or the space industry. But the safest bet, as you know, Dave, usually is diversification. But having said that, if a client knows something we don’t, wants to buy just one metal and buy X amount, we’ll happily accommodate that as well. But yeah, we tend not to give to say buy these ones because to be honest, because the market is purely driven by supply and demand, we really don’t know what’s coming from one week to the next. You know, they can go up and down a little bit in the short term, but in the long term, they’re always the arc is over, the trajectory is already… is always upward, you know, since about 2010. If you’ve held them, you know, you might have had some dips, but you would always be ahead.

Dave Wolcott:
Hmm. Interesting. So how would an investor really engage with you if they were looking to, you know, uh, make a purchase in this strategic matter?

Louis – Strategic Metals Invest:
Okay, so they could go to the website, which is strategicmetalsinvest.com. They can come visit if they want to come to Frankfurt and see the vault. But my suggestion would be send me an email. It’s louis at strategicmetalsinvest.com. And I’ll happily schedule a Zoom call or a phone call or just, you know, our first suggestion is for people just to go into information gathering mode. just to, you know, and we’ll happily educate people. We, you know, a lot of what we’re talking about, everything we’ve talked about, it’s not hidden anywhere, but it’s sort of hidden in plain sight. But once you do a little bit of digging, you’ll see, you know, the dynamics of it. But what we like, first of all, for people just to sort of inform themselves, go into information gathering, and after that, then when they feel they’re sort of fully informed from us, but also maybe independently. then maybe start to think about a purchase and you know, we’ll be with them all the way.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, such a fascinating asset class, Louis, and all you have to do is look around to see the demand that’s increasing. And like you say, in the 21st century, all the metals that are going into all of the products that we’re using and with technology advancements, that’s only going to be accelerating over the next two decades. So what would you say if you could give only one piece of advice to our listeners about how they could accelerate their wealth journeys? What would it be?

Louis – Strategic Metals Invest:
question. I don’t like to, you know, the expression advice is the worst advice. I really don’t like to give advice. But I suppose if you’re asking me if there was one word, I’d say diversification. I’d always come to that. I mean, my first purchase was property when I was in my early 20s, 23. which is my first apartment, and I sort of honed in on property for about 10 years, and bought properties in Ireland, in Germany, in Panama. And then I think I got a bit more curious maybe, and learned a bit more, maybe a bit more educated. I’m always, yeah, diversification. And, you know, I think that at any given time, there’s always a niche where there’s a product that’s coming in or maybe already exists, where the demand is increasing and the supply is limited. I tried to stick to that little formula, which I found in the metals. I’m also into agriculture as well, but it’s the same sort of red thread that runs through everything I do, which is, you know, demand and supply. And there’s always sort of maybe one door closing, but usually another one opening. But yet diversification, yeah, I don’t think, I mean. It’s up to people’s personal preferences as well. They get a good feeling about a certain asset class, you know. So, yeah, definitely diversification.

Dave Wolcott:
Sure. Yeah, no, if you don’t call it advice, I mean, you could call it insights, right. But, you know, part of our mission on the show is really to, you know, try to help investors get these unique insights from, you know, people who have been super successful investors and, and it is always fascinating to look at different asset classes like, you know, strategic metals, and then you’ve had experience in other asset classes and what are the parallels. right, that even stand out between the asset classes. What are the things that we can kind of take away to become better investors ourselves? So point well-made in terms of diversification, right? I think that’s key. And then that’s even a subset, right, that you talked about earlier in the strategic metals themselves is diversifying even within the asset class. So amongst asset classes and even within the asset class. So… So really appreciate your thoughts today, Lewis. You know, super, super interesting asset class, something that I think people should kind of look at and consider in terms of their portfolio. But same thing, we’re not offering advice on our show, just trying to provide some different insights and ways to think about it. And then can you just throw out one last time the best place for folks to find you?

Louis – Strategic Metals Invest:
Yes, my email, louis. at strategicmetalsinvest.com or they can just go to the website, again, strategicmetalsinvest.com and they can download a digital prospectus and if they leave their number or email, I’ll get back to them and mention they’re on the show or that they came through you, I’ll be happy to take care of them.

Dave Wolcott:
or probably at the local pub in Ireland, right? Yeah.

Louis – Strategic Metals Invest:
Well, I knew we’d have to talk about the pub at some point.

Dave Wolcott:
You’re Irish for sure. So Lewis, thanks so much for coming on the show and really providing great thoughts to the audience and look forward to keeping in touch.

Louis – Strategic Metals Invest:
Yeah, thank you very much, Dave, for taking the time. And I mean, as you said, even just having a conversation like this and taking advantage of the technology we have, you know, to talk about stuff like this is a great service all by itself, even if, you know, it’s just good to be to be getting the information out there. So thank you.

Dave Wolcott:
Awesome, thanks again, Louis.

Dave Wolcott:
Hey everyone, welcome to today’s show on Well Strategy Secrets. We’ve got another awesome show for you guys today. Today we are joined by Paul Carger. Paul is the co-founder and managing director of Boston-based wealth advisory firm TwinFocus, where he manages an over $7 billion portfolio for ultra high net worth families and individuals. Before founding TwinFocus in 2006, Paul founded the Carger

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them through a broad range of complex business, financial and life decisions, including generational wealth transfers, extreme tax planning, investing and more. Paul also leads the firm’s direct investing efforts in private equity and real estate. Paul, welcome to the show.

PK 🥋:
Thanks, Dave. Great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, no, awesome to have you on the show, Paul. I’ve been really looking forward to this discussion. I knew we both grew up in the New England area and have some similar values and I think some shared experiences and really some, you know, powerful learning lessons that you’ve had through your journey that I think you can impart to the listeners to, you know, help them get some value out of the show. So So why don’t we start things off and for folks, you know, who haven’t heard of you or TwinFocus, you know, tell us about your journey, how things started for you, how you even got into this space of wealth building.

PK 🥋:
Sure. Again, thanks for the time. Great to be here. So TwinFocus, as you mentioned, today is a firm that I founded about 17 years ago. I was previously, well, early days a broker at Payne.

Dave Wolcott:
I think you’re back in now. We can edit that if, yeah.

PK 🥋:
Apologies. Do not disturb. I really apologize on that.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, no problem.

PK 🥋:
Okay, we’ll try again. Dave, thanks for the question. So as mentioned, and as you mentioned early on, I founded TwinFocus about 17 years ago. I was previously an investment advisor. The early days were called brokers. I started my career at Payne Webber in the late 90s. Payne Webber was subsequently bought by UBS around 2000 or 2001. And I was a young broker. I didn’t have the benefit of having a deep network of folks. I really started my career. Dialing for dollars, I started with a phone book and working nights and weekends. Back 25 years ago, you could actually cold call people. Today, it’s become much more difficult. But I built up a small book of business. I think like all of our careers, you have these lucky breaks along the way. You meet interesting individuals or folks that are able to change the trajectory of your career. I had a couple of those lucky breaks early on. tend to be a pretty good storyteller and I hit some early success within a few years or 23 or so, 24 years old, I became a vice president. And I went on to at a young age around maybe 25 or 26 start my own group within UBS. We were pretty different than a lot of the other folks that were kind of in my role at that time. I pursued getting a CFA, which is pretty different for a financial advisor. Most of that happens really on the buy side or money management side. But pursued the CFA and added to my credentials and slowly, slowly climbed the curve of learning the industry and garnering bigger and bigger relationships. I met a gentleman through a referral through another client that had just sold his company for $150 million. In those days, I was managing clients in the $1 to $10 million range. So it was a pretty foreign subset of clients for me, but I jumped at the opportunity to work with this gentleman. As luck would have it, it turned out that another advisor in my office had actually cold called this gentleman about a week before I was introduced to him. Nonetheless, I went down to see him from Boston. He was based in New Jersey. And he asked me what I thought he should be investing in. And I actually told him I had no idea. I think he needed to really think about building a team first and putting a plan together. And I said, I want to do that for you. And because this other advisor had met him before me, my managing director actually called me into the office after I got back to Boston and said, listen, I want you to split this relationship. And I said, not for me. I think that margin is going to be too skinny to split. I feel like I’m going to do all the work, but good luck. Have at it. I wish you guys the best of luck in trying to capture the relationship. At that time, I went to my twin brother and I said, Wes, we should leave UBS. I said, there’s got to be more people out there in the world like this that have big issues, big issues on and above what goes on inside a brokerage account. It took some convincing, but after about a year and a half, I convinced my brother. that we needed to leave and we charted a plan to launch our own advisory firm and put that plan together kind of early days 2006 and then subsequently resigned from UBS in June 2006. I was sued by UBS. It was the first time in my life that I had ever been sued or pursued legally and learned a bit about that and pretty quickly settled with them. And it was kind of off to the races. It was my brother and I, a couple of interns that were working for free, an assistant, and a couple thousand square feet of office space atop one of the big buildings in Boston that we could barely afford. But I cashed in my 401k, which I wouldn’t normally advise folks to think about doing. But I cashed in my 401k and Wes and I were able to borrow some money from some friends with our own savings to get the business off the ground. Shortly thereafter, you know, once I settled my lawsuit with UBS, I called that gentleman up that I had met a couple years before and said, you know, hey, remember me? And he said, yes, where’d you go? I told him the story of internal, some internal politics. And I said, what did you end up doing? He said, well, I split the money across four or five different brokers. He said, I can’t track it. Everybody’s giving me conflicting advice. I really need somebody to help me oversee the big picture. And so my brother and I went down to see him in New Jersey. And inside of a couple of our meetings, he signed up with us. And that was our first $100-plus-million relationship. And it was a lot of learning. Seventeen years ago, this industry of working with the ultra-high net worth and developing this kind of family office model was very new. This was just kind of the earlier days of this large proliferation of wealth that we’ve seen really over the last 15 or 20 years. And so, you know, there are just, you know, 25 years ago, you know, to have a $100 million relationship in Boston, there was only a few folks in Boston with that kind of network. And today, you know, there’s many families that have worth of $100 million, not just in Boston, but around the US and around the world. And so there’s been this just big proliferation of wealth globally. And families like this have, you know, institutional type complexities. We often call them internally, individuals, because they have these. institutional type complexities while they’re still being individuals and at least in the U.S. paying U.S. taxes. So really, the last 17 years, starting with that one significant family, we built the business really brick by brick, client by client, to where we are today, overseeing little shy of about $8 billion for about 40-something families.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, wow, that’s such an awesome story. Did you, as an entrepreneur, did you have a certain light bulb moment or burning passion to say, hey, I wanna solve this certain problem or I wanna deal with this certain clientele and so I have to break free from UBS in order to do that?

PK 🥋:
You know, I noticed it when I, as I became kind of senior at UBS, running my own group, I noticed that my challenge in competition was not the other brokerage firms. It was not the Goldman’s and Oregon Stanley’s and Merrill’s. I’m sure they were at the table, but I felt like we were differentiated enough to, you know, to compete against those types of offerings. I continued to feel that the competition was the folks that were truly independent. that we’re not trying to hawk product to their clients. It was kind of product of the day that was being pushed down by the sales managers. And I also noticed internally, the fee structure issues were just very confusing for clients. And I said, in and around 2004, when I had met this large individual, I said, geez, there’s got to be a better way to do this. And so I spent about a year and a half meeting with other firms. thinking about, you know, should I open somebody else’s firm in Boston? You know, should I be there? Should I franchise? Should I, you know, figure that out? And pretty quickly, I realized that, again, this was early days of this family office concept. I said, I can do this myself. I’ll figure it out myself. You know, I’m willing to take the risk of myself. You know, always, my brother and I have always had, you know, very kind of an entrepreneurial spirit. And, you know, probably because of our upbringing, where we didn’t, we never really had a safety net with, you know, wealthy parents who were raised really by a single parent, a mom, that taught us the value of kind of hard work. And I never really considered like failure an option in my life. It was always, I knew I would just keep figuring things out. And sure you have little failures along the way in life and that’s kind of how you learn, but you just, you know, you just got to pick yourself up and kind of keep going and kind of learn from that mistake and say, geez. I won’t do that again or I won’t do it that way again. I think all of that is really in the ethos of our firm today. Any company is really the genesis of the founders. I think that’s very true of TwinFocus, this kind of hustle mentality. Frankly, our client base reflects that because I say all the time that people do business with people they like and people do business with people like themselves. And when you look at a lot of our clients at TwinFocus, they’re folks that are, in many respects, just like my brother and I.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, no, 100% Paul. So can you tell us also about, you know, your journey into the investment world? Because I know for me, you know, I was the same thing, right? I was raised as a middle class family in Connecticut. Once I got into the working world, all I was told that the only option was to invest in Wall Street, stocks, bonds, mutual funds, right? And that was really the option. Until I really started studying the 1%, right? And how they’re truly building wealth, how are they allocating capital? And that’s when I began to discover other asset classes like real estate, private equity, alternatives, right? And how to then really create a

PK 🥋:
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Dave Wolcott:
portfolio. And I know that you guys focus on real estate and private equity in addition to equities. So can you tell? tell the audience a little bit more about your journey and how you view the different asset classes.

PK 🥋:
Sure. Yeah, I mean, listen, we learn over time. And as much as I would love to tell you that I started my career working with $100 million plus families, it’s just not the case that my first relationship was the local liquor store owner that bought $20,000 of stocks from me, and I got a commission on it. But slowly, slowly over time, you kind of upgrade your relationships and your client relationships over time. And you learn, you learn based on what their needs are and trying to offer really a differentiated offering and services and products. And I learned over time as a function of what I needed to do. On the real estate side, we were investing in direct real estate opportunities on behalf of clients for the last. decade or so, but not really formally. We were kind of co-investing until 2008, I’m sorry, 2018 when the Trump administration brought this qualified opportunity zone program to the forefront. And it was a really an ideally suited program for many of the families we work with. And so we formalized our efforts around investing in real estate. You know, on the general alternative side, you know, for sure I understood alternatives, getting you know, investing in those types of products as a broker, as a financial advisor while I was at UBS. But it wasn’t really until I started my own firm that I needed to formalize our research efforts around identifying those types of managers and being able to diligence those managers. And as you know, that opportunity set is constantly shifting. You know, when you look 20 years ago, long short equity investing was very substantial. And today, it’s become harder to differentiate as a long short investor. And frankly, from an after-tax perspective for US taxable investors, it’s really hard to make sense of long short returns, even if you’re delivering north of 10% or mid-teen returns after taxes because of the way the tax profile works today. You basically don’t get to deduct the fees you pay. You actually end up, for most investors, you end up receiving a net return but paying a tax on a gross return. which is a killer. So it was really out of necessity, learning those various asset classes. And it’s interesting when you look at the CFA curriculum, how the CFA curriculum changes over time based on what the current opportunity sets are. Maybe this is reserved for a little bit later in our conversation, but today, with the rise in interest rates, there’s a significant opportunity in credit. There’s different managers playing different areas of the credit world and the spectrum of credit, whether it’s real estate credit or corporate credit. But it looks like, especially as the Fed is indicating higher for longer, there’s going to be some stress in the system. And companies that finance their businesses or finance assets in a much lower interest rate environment decades ago, 15, 20, or even 10 years ago. are now facing this day of reckoning where they’re going to have to finance assets at higher rates. And some assets may not make sense to finance at higher rates. So there’s going to be a lot of interesting opportunities out there and probably some pain for some folks.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, agree. So have you formulated a particular wealth strategy that you guys have or an investment thesis or current mandates that you pretty much, you know, operate with for the man, the families that you’re managing?

PK 🥋:
Yeah, so we largely split our allocations in kind of three buckets. Obviously it’s going to shift from client to client and clients that have just come into wealth and are starting today with a pile of cash is very different than a legacy portfolio that you’ve been investing for a decade plus. But largely we look at the world in terms of kind of equity, general equity exposure, cash, fixed income. provide liquidity and not take a lot of risk. And then last, this kind of alternative bucket, which is a very wide-encompassing bucket. On the equity side, we try to keep it simple. We try not to overthink it. There’s too many other things that can go wrong in the investing world and running family offices. So we use a lot of tax-managed products. We are able to harvest losses regularly, and you maintain some type of cheap exposure to beta. We use a lot of ETF type products, low cost mutual funds where we’re looking to get some kind of satellite positions with inequities. But we just don’t overthink it and we rebalance those allocations on a regular basis. On the fixed income side, obviously, the world has shifted there and you had to reach for yield the last 10 years. That’s all changed in the last 18 months. And I mean, even as of today, you’ve got the… 10 years is topping three and a half. 30 years looks like it’s going north of four. It is north of four today. Very different world, right? I mean, historically, there was no cost to investing in riskier assets because you were getting no return on your cash. Today, there’s a big opportunity cost. You could sit in short-term treasuries and make five or six percent, which is interesting. I’m not sure how long that short-term trade lasts. The Fed seems to be indicating higher for longer, so maybe it’s here longer than most folks think. But I think now is a time to think about kind of broadening out or kind of reaching out in terms of duration. I think it’s pretty interesting to be able to lock in almost 4% risk-free on 10 years. You were trying to get that in real estate a few years ago. You were buying for capital estate. Today you can get that in risk-free treasuries. And then this last bucket is alternatives. And we think of that as a bit more tactical in terms of looking at kind of what’s working today. We’re big believers as I think, you know, most allocators of capital are in terms of diversification. You know, as they say, diversification is the only free lunch. And, you know, I think one of the advantages of working with ultra high net worth families is the ability to take. really long-term views on things and to make long-term bets, you know, where you don’t necessarily need capital tomorrow to meet living expenses. You’re budgeting for those living expenses in other areas. And so, you know, today as mentioned, you know, I think the stress credit is pretty interesting. Commodities are pretty interesting as well. And you know… We’ve gained exposure to commodities in all different types of ways, from liquid to illiquid to trading managers and such. And then of course, real estate. We believe in the benefits of real estate, especially for US taxable investors, where you’re able to ostensibly lock in a yield that has some type of inflation protection, right? That’s, you know, with hopes is going to increase as rents increase over time. But that world has been turned upside down with the current state of interest rates. It’s probably going to take some time for the ship to be righted there and for some opportunities to emerge that are more evident. Today, you kind of have to take some risk on some of the hairier stuff. With the pandemic and… with shifts in kind of where folks are living and where they’ve migrated to. It’s also changed the game in terms of opportunities in multifamily and industrial and so on.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah. And so for your clients, do you actually, you know, have some type of return profile, like an average kind of return profile that you say, you know, you’re yielding maybe an average, you know, IRR or something like that, or rate of return across all of these assets? Or are you more talking about basically, you know, wealth preservation strategies, you know, risk mitigation, in addition to you know, capital appreciation.

PK 🥋:
The answer is all the above. I think, as the old saying goes, if you’ve seen one family office, you’ve seen one family office. I would say the majority of the time, our clients don’t show up with a pile of cash. The majority of the time, they show up with a legacy of investments and a pretty fully built-out investment portfolio. So yeah, can you give me a minute? I’m sorry.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, yeah, no

PK 🥋:
Yes.

Dave Wolcott:
problem.

PK 🥋:
Sorry, Dave.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, no worries.

PK 🥋:
Yeah,

Dave Wolcott:
We can

PK 🥋:
we can

Dave Wolcott:
edit

PK 🥋:
edit

Dave Wolcott:
that

PK 🥋:
this. Yeah,

Dave Wolcott:
and we’ve

PK 🥋:
cool.

Dave Wolcott:
also got,

PK 🥋:
Cool.

Dave Wolcott:
we can up convert on this platform.

PK 🥋:
Good,

Dave Wolcott:
So we’ll be

PK 🥋:
good.

Dave Wolcott:
able to pull out all the background noise. So no worries.

PK 🥋:
Amazing, amazing.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah.

PK 🥋:
So, should we start again? Yeah.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah.

PK 🥋:
Yeah, so as mentioned, we look to diversify across these asset classes. But I think the other thing to keep in mind, when you’re dealing with family offices, despite the fact that you’ve got the ability to really think long term and make long term bets, you really need to manage liquidity. And liquidity profiles are different from family to family. And as a result, portfolios look different. Certainly over time, there is some continuity across our portfolios because we’re pursuing similar trades, similar themes. But as I said, some clients have legacy positions. So it wouldn’t necessarily make sense of doubling up exposures or telling clients to sell one type of exposure that they may come into our relationship with if it doesn’t make tax sense. And the beauty of the family office model, at least our model, is that we can think really objectively and independently. And from kind of an incentive standpoint, we’re paid on the broader relationship. We’re not paid on based on the investments that we’re making necessarily. And so we’re paying just as much to tell our client, no, don’t make this investment or keep an investment you may have had before our relationship as we are, yes. And so, we don’t have any kind of perverse incentive to push them into any specific sector, product, fund, or whatever.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, that’s a great model because frankly, the majority of typical advisors out there just collecting that assets under management fee and not really having mutually aligned interests with investors, I think is not the way to go. We want to be advocates and real fiduciaries to the clients so they can objectively make the right decisions. Tell us Paul, a little bit about, so you mentioned extreme tax planning. It’s one of my favorite topics. I never thought I’d be so excited about talking about taxes, but over the years I’ve figured the more taxes you make, definitely tried to determine tax mitigation strategies and having exited a business myself and having some significant mitigation to go there. Are there any typical strategies that you guys are advising clients on that you can share with the audience?

PK 🥋:
Sure. You know, in building that kind of foundation for a complete kind of wealth management solution, family office or otherwise, I often say that it’s analogous to kind of cooking. I love to cook. And you don’t just show up in the kitchen and start throwing stuff on the grill. There’s a lot that goes into cooking before you actually… do the cooking, right? I mean, it starts at the grocery store, right? And you’re thinking through how many guests you have and who eats what and any restrictions that may occur. I apologize. I apologize.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, no problem. No worries.

PK 🥋:
And yeah, and you know, and so analogous to cooking, you know, again, it starts in the grocery store, you’ve got to think about who you’re feeding, you know, if there are any preferences, any restrictions, you know, you’ve got to think through, you know, various types of ingredients, because you’re trying to offer a diversification. From the grocery store, it goes into the house and, you know, it’s all about the prep work before things go on the grill or on the skillet. And maybe the fun part is on the grill, the fun part is eating the cooking. But it’s the same thing with wealth management. I say to folks that come into a windfall of cash that the last thing that you should be thinking about initially is how to invest the money. That’s kind of the easy part. I don’t want to diminish the fact that investing is not completely easy, but it’s a little bit more formulaic. You know, the harder part is really planning around the wealth and thinking through what are your longer-term objectives? Ensuring that you have suitable estate planning documents, you know, if you were to get hit by the proverbial Ferrari or bus and And you know and how those assets would flow over time and so when new families come to twin focus We spend a lot of time initially on setting up the estate infrastructure and ensuring that estate infrastructure is consistent with our clients’ goals and objectives. And a lot of that is your thinking through tax planning, you know, efficient transfer of wealth to next generation, charitable planning, you know, around charitable intentions. And then, you know, only then, once you’ve got that infrastructure established, those various buckets that will, you know, receive piles of cash over time, can you really think about investing? Because undoubtedly, those various buckets in your life, whether it’s charitable vehicles or trust for kids, they’re probably going to have very different risk profiles and liquidity profiles because you’ve got different time horizons and different beneficiaries in mind. And then you can think about how you’re going to invest the capital, but you’ve got to really kind of lay the groundwork. You’ve got to understand the tax profile. In terms of tax strategies, for sure. us and most of the high net worth world is thinking through how you efficiently pass down wealth to future generations. It was much easier in a lower interest rate world. There’s a lot of techniques that really rely on interest rates, on interest rates being low because effectively what matriarch and patriarch look to do is effectively kind of loan the money in certain ways to future generations and then receive back an interest payment. And then hopefully that future generation is able to make the spread tax-free, estate tax-free. So, on one hand, on the investment side, perhaps you benefit from higher rates because you’re able to invest in fixed income and assets hopefully yielding higher returns. But on the estate planning side, there’s a higher cost to doing so. And so some of these, the Gratz and Klatz and these types of vehicles are not as efficacious in a higher interest rate world. That said, there’s still lots of interesting estate planning techniques that you can use to kind of push assets to future generations and help mitigate taxes. I mentioned earlier in our conversation the Qualified Opportunity Zone program that has come into effect really over the last five or six years brought on initially by the Trump administration. It really received bipartisan support. investors to take gains, capital gains that are generated in all sorts of ways from selling your Apple stock or selling your widget manufacturer or even capital gains that you receive on a K1 from investing in a hedge fund or a private equity fund. You’re able to take those gains, roll them into investments, not pay a tax on that initial capital gain until 2026. And then there’s all sorts of tax benefits on the investments that you make. And so if you north of 10 years, you actually receive the benefit of having to pay no tax on your gain on your gain after 10 years. So we’ve used that quite a bit for our families that have had recent windfalls from selling businesses or certain types of assets, as well as many of our clients are actual professional money managers, hedge fund managers, private equity managers, and receive their annual paycheck or their annual income via K-1, via gains. So that’s been really kind of a tax nirvana over the last five years. And it’s been great for our country and it’s been great for our communities that have been able to kind of foster economic development and housing and infrastructure needs in areas that have needed the most.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, that’s exactly what the tax code is, right? It’s 6,000 pages of really a series of incentives, right, for business owners and investors who can understand it and then really put it to work. And sadly, there’s not enough good CPA firms out there that are really providing the right advice to help clients with that. But such a key part of really preserving and growing wealth you know, if you’re high net worth, ultra high net worth, right? The taxes are everything and especially the way the government is spending money. Uh, that’s probably the only one thing I’m certain of in the future is that taxes will continue to go up. Uh, so that tax planning is so key. And as you point out, um, you know, going down to, you know, G2, G3, G4, right. And, and really having that long-term view, I think is critical to success.

PK 🥋:
Even, you’re seeing this significant exodus of high tax states in America. As you know, folks

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah.

PK 🥋:
leaving Massachusetts, leaving

Dave Wolcott:
I live

PK 🥋:
Connecticut,

Dave Wolcott:
in one. Yeah.

PK 🥋:
leaving New York, leaving California where Massachusetts, for example, at the beginning of this year recently instituted this millionaire’s tax. So you end up paying an extra 4% on all income over a million dollars. And income is characterized by any kind of gain that you may have had if you sold a business or whatever. And so Florida, for example, Texas, Tennessee, these states have been huge beneficiaries where folks, back to our conversation around real estate, folks are leaving these high tax jurisdictions and moving to places like Florida where they don’t have significant estate taxes, they don’t have significant income taxes. So those states have been beneficiaries. anecdotally that actually moved from Boston down to Florida. They told me they were waiting in line at the RMV. When they got up to the RMV window, the woman said, what is it with Massachusetts? You’re the 24th person today I’ve seen

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah.

PK 🥋:
relocating from Massachusetts and needing to get a Florida license. So.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, I’ve got a friend in Maryland who actually had an $80 million exit. And he was able to purchase a $20 million home in Florida and still have money left over versus had he stayed as a resident in Maryland, you know, paying the state taxes there. Right. So he was able to put that money to work, you know, for him, uh, and do some of that, you know, geographic arbitrage. So. another key strategy. And, you know, I appreciate you sharing the insights because I think, you know, everyone is trying to get educated, right? We’re trying to learn, you know, how are the new tax laws changing? How does that impact our wealth long term? And as you so well pointed out earlier, Paul, like this all should be designed, you know, around your long term goals, your vision, you know, does the family have this vision? And really how can you align your portfolio to do that? So, you’re really living that ideal wealth, that life that you actually set out to create in the first place.

PK 🥋:
Yeah, Dave, thinking about charting a strategy for folks that come into money or have funds and are thinking through how best to allocate. Of course, it sounds like I’m talking my own book here, but I can’t stress enough. You need to hire good advisors. Analogous to getting sick, and you’re not going to go to medical school if you get sick. You’re going to go and find a great doctor and somebody you trust, somebody that you think knows what they’re doing, but somebody you trust. It’s the same is true with a wealth advisor or a tax advisor or a legal advisor. Absolutely, you should be educated on the issues, but you’re probably not going to go get a law degree or get a CPA in the time that it’s going to take you to come up the curve and make some good decisions. It’s really about going hiring some good advisors that are around the table and can help you think through really all of the issues. Because many of these issues are just, they’re multifaceted. It’s why firms like mine exist, because we’re able to help our clients think 360 and solve for these blind spots, where it’s not just legal, not just tax, not just investment, but it’s really all of these issues at once.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, it’s, it’s the upstream, the downstream effect, right of making one chess move. How’s that going to impact something else? And having that visibility is key in my book, the holistic wealth strategy, we talked about that as basically building your own dream team, right. And it’s so hard to find great advice, especially when you’re talking about, you know, this whole world of you know, alternative wealth strategy, wealth building, right? That’s beyond, you know, your typical advice that’s kind of coming out of Wall Street. Because like you say, you need to look at things holistically. It includes the lifestyle. It includes health, right? It includes tax, right? All of these different components. But when you get it right, and it’s such a great analogy around cooking, you know, you get all of these right ingredients together, you know, the outcome, you know, can be just, you know, really elegant.

PK 🥋:
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it’s hiring the right advisors and then going slow. You know, you spent your whole life trying to, you know, earn these funds or, you know, you build a business and you have a big exit. There’s no rush. You know, of course, it’s easier to say today in 2023 where you can get 5% sitting in a bank account versus a few years ago where you felt like the money was burning a hole in your pocket. But it’s When you’re high net worth, ultra high net worth, you should not be trying to optimize to a benchmark. The S&P or whatever, it has no relevance to your life. You should be optimizing to sleeping at night and ensuring that you can sustain the lifestyle that you want. You can’t reach for return. Returns are really a function of what the markets give you. You really need to just kind of manage risk and manage liquidity is really what it comes down to.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah.

PK 🥋:
So, and that’s easier said than done, but that’s really the goal.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, well said. And it’s, you know, I think it’s just so challenging in today’s world, right? Because it’s worse, it’s so reactionary, right? And if you’re, you’re running a business, you know, you’re working at a high stress job, right, it’s hard to really carve out that time to determine what is it that you really want to have in life, right? One of the exercises that, you know, we help clients with is, you know, talking about, you know, build 100, you know, your 100 list of things that you want to either be, do, have, right? And try to get some clarity on that because it can really be your guiding compass, right, in terms of how you achieve these things. And like you say, once you really kind of hit a certain threshold of wealth, making more money isn’t necessarily going to change your life, right? So what are those levers that actually can drive towards those things that are really meaningful to you and important to you?

PK 🥋:
Absolutely, absolutely.

Dave Wolcott:
So Paul, if you could give just one piece of advice to our listeners about how they could accelerate their wealth, what would it be?

PK 🥋:
That’s a good one. Maybe because I’m always thinking about the downside for my families and I kind of say I let the upside take care of itself. I tell folks all the time when they’re looking at investment opportunities, number one, don’t fall in love with any investment. It doesn’t love you back, so don’t fall in love with any investment. And number two, everything in life takes more money and more time than we think. And you need to think about that when you’re allocating capital, especially the earlier stage opportunities. You may be like, oh, I’m getting in at an amazing value each year. I should put all my, I should go all in. And the truth is everything’s going to take more money and more time than you think, so there’s going to be another bite of the apple, you know, a chance for another bite of the apple. And so I think it’s really about being kind of measured and ensuring that any of these investments you make, especially once you’ve made it, quote unquote made it, that it’s not going to materially impact your life. Negative or positive. You know, you don’t want the investment to be so small that it doesn’t move the needle, but you also don’t want it to be so large that you’re gonna have to think about going back to work.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, well said. Paul, really appreciate you coming on the show today and sharing your wisdom and sage advice with the audience. If people want to learn more about you or Twin Focus, what’s the best place they can connect?

PK 🥋:
You can go right to our newly launched website, just www.twinfocus.com. I think you’ll find it pretty informative and there’s a contact button there if you want to get in touch with us. So really appreciate that, Dave. Thanks for watching.

Dave Wolcott:
Awesome. Thanks again, Paul.

PK 🥋:
All right.

Jason Nees:
Yes, I mean, to that point, Dave, I mean, I think my first experience with kind of credit was at a subprime consumer company that I worked for a number of years where I was responsible for both bringing in capital, but also responsible for overseeing the delinquencies. But I got my real first taste for how the underwriting was done and how to manage a collections team and things of that nature. And it’s kind of what drew me to merchant cash advances in business. Merchant cash advances. as a industry that didn’t even exist 20 years ago, but is doing about 20 to $30 billion in this year. And there’s a very natural progressive reason for that is that it’s traditionally hard for banks to move quickly or as quickly as a small business actually needs. So starting my own business, I experienced this myself. If you think about a business that needs capital in a short period of time, there are many, many reasons why Getting a merchant cash advance while it costs a bit more is just a much better decision for the business than it is to wait three or four months to go through underwriting. And so we participate in merchant cash advances and do so in a very diversified way in that we’re participating on a platform that a number of other hedge funds or other institutions will participate in. Our credit funds will traditionally participate in five to 10% of any specific deal to provide that. diversification, but also to provide that kind of asymmetric upside where it’s an investment that has a high rate of return, but is spread out and diversified across a number of industries.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, no, I think the point that you make right about the industry, right? I mean, this was a really a nascent industry, right? That’s just been growing. You know, the combined annual growth rate is well over 15%, and continues to accelerate, you know, all of the issues with the banking crisis that happened earlier in the year, you know, just further propel, right, the business case for merchant cash advances. So You know, we expect as a sector that this is going to continue to develop. And, you know, as you rightly pointed out, I mean, you know, being a business owner, you realize like how important capital is, right? It’s the lifeblood to expanding a business. And, and that’s the type of capital that’s being lent, right? It’s it’s businesses that are growing. right? So, so they’re doing well, they have a proven model, they’re looking for additional capital to be able to scale their business. And if you go to a traditional bank, you know, it might take three to six months to actually get the funding if you can even get the funding. And in the meantime, you turn around, you know, cash advance, they’ve got the capital in a week. they start paying that back to investors pretty quickly. So I think it’s a really nice play for a couple of reasons. One, really nice diversification across asset classes, that you’re in something else. And then the risk mitigation in this is interesting as well. So tell us a little bit about the default rate and how that kind of works. What has it historically been and how does that work?

Jason Nees:
Yeah, so, you know, kind of historically, if you kind of look over the last five years, the default rate will run anywhere between, you know, five and six percent, sometimes a little cooler, sometimes a little hotter. That’s been the general average. You have to think about the fact that a business is repaying a loan kind of on a sometimes daily, weekly or bi-weekly basis. So you have a lot of factors playing in that you can see play out and you can see that if a business hits a… a road bump or a speed bump or something happens, we have the ability to adjust and say, okay, business, you have a week or two to kind of get your affairs if some one-time event happened, and then they get right back on track. And so to that point, from a delinquency standpoint, as soon as a payment may be having NSF, we have a third party team that immediately reaches out to the merchant. tries to identify what the issue is and figure out how to solve it. In some cases, it’s something silly, like they blocked a checking account from a large check coming in or something of that nature that can be easily quickly mitigated and got back on track. We’ve experienced a couple of those. But it’s the nature of lending is that so there will be delinquencies, they will be cured and things will default, but there is a reason why we’re mitigating risk and spreading that over a number of… merchant cash advances. And we deploy new money on a daily and weekly basis to continuously doing that and participate in the asset class. But obviously risk mitigation is very important to us and providing that and doing that in a reasonable fashion, making sure that they go through all of our underwriting criteria before we actually participate. All things are there to kind of protect the portfolio, the health of the portfolio, as well as protect the returns for our investors.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, so that’s a great segue. Why don’t we transition into just, you know, overall how you’re really analyzing investments. How are you mitigating risk? What are the things you’re looking for when you’re trying to identify opportunities?

Jason Nees:
I will tell you this is one of the more interesting markets that I’ve seen in a number of years. And I’ve, again, I’ve been watching the market in all facets for a number of years. And it’s a unique time in investing for us in that we’ve had interest rates rise kind of faster and higher than they ever have before. We’ve gone through a period where 13 years of near zero interest rates has suddenly just kind of been over. And so, you know, Dave, we get a number of deals that we look at on a weekly basis. And it is a tough environment in that when I even talk with other allocators, I hear the same phrase over and over again, I just can’t make this pencil. And so part of that is an adjustment in the market, I think, that cap rates will naturally start to go up as we go through this and there will be pockets of stress in the market. But doing that work of kind of… due diligence, so Pantheon has a 50-point due diligence kind of framework that we go through to analyze these deals and make sure we’re considering all the factors before we put capital to work. And I will tell you that of the ones that we’ve reviewed, most of them at this specific moment haven’t passed. But I have the fundamental belief that when you find yourself in a market like this, if you just continue to look for opportunities, there are opportunities out there. We just have to keep searching for them and keep doing the work behind it. There are good deals and there are good places to place capital.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, what would you say would be like, say your top three, if it’s a 50 point, you know, kind of cycle around due diligence points that you’re looking at, what would you say are some of the top three things that you look at?

Jason Nees:
Yeah, so I think it’s always very important, especially if you’re participating with another general partner is, you know, who is the actual sponsor and what is their track record? You know, kind of always the big red flag for me. If you’ve only got, you know, maybe one full cycle under your belt, you’re probably not going to be where I’m going to be looking to allocate capital. So track record is certainly important, but character is another one. I mean, obviously, if you’re entrusting somebody as an expert. having reliable references and investors who have successfully invested and participated with them is a big deal. And moving past that would go down to kind of the property as well as the debt structure. I would say debt structure today is more important than it’s been in the past. Again, with zero rates moving to five, five and a half, it makes for a different market. And so, you know, trying not to identify properties that aren’t in variable rates. with shorter timeframes because as we go through this period of adjustment of higher rates and cap rates come down and prices come down, it’s just a reset of expectations. And so what we’re really looking for is a margin of error for the unknowns that are going to happen in the next three, four or five years. I would look at it from the standpoint of kind of character analysis and track record, property specific and what’s the business case? Does it align with real? realistic expectations and overall debt structure. Does this financially work and make sense?

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, for sure. And then in terms of, you know, other asset classes, do you see any other opportunities, right? So, you know, given the interest rates, right? You know, real estate multifamily has definitely been impacted, right? You know, based upon the interest rates, but any other sectors that, you know, have less exposure to interest rates or that, you know, you’ve been kind of tracking that look to be good asymmetric opportunities.

Jason Nees:
Yeah, I still keep an eye out for multifamily because as we progress through this, I expect to see some distressed assets that we may have an opportunity to pick up some bargains. But the same would apply in self-storage. There’s going to be some, as we look through, moving these interest rates from zero to five. For anybody who structured a deal that was over leverage, we may find some diamonds in a rough there. But I do think, you know, kind of self-storage as an asset class, car washes are a unique opportunity as well. I have a number of investors who kind of talk about different ATM funds. So as I start to look through them, some of them have all of the characteristics of the things that we typically look for in that upside value, that passive income, as well as the tax benefits. And so I do see opportunities out there. it’s again, it comes back to the overall structure and continuing to look at new and different asset classes because real estate is going through kind of a transition, but also because it’s important from a diversification standpoint to help our investors not be too over leveraged in any sec.

Dave Wolcott:
What would you say is your current take on the market? There’s just been so much kind of going on this year. It’s almost mind boggling, right, when you really think about all of the different, you know, from geopolitical events that are happening across the world, bipolarization, you know, rise in interest rates. I mean, just so many different things happening at the same time. How do you make sense of it all? And what would you say is your outlook for the remainder of the year going into 2024?

Jason Nees:
Yeah, so when it comes to the stock market, it is one of the most confounding things to me at this specific moment. And really, as the year progressed, I mean, if you looked at the start of the year, everybody was kind of universally bearish across the board. And the market just, you know, first half up 18%. You know, a lot’s been kind of speculated and talked about on kind of the big eight, the big eight stocks essentially driving the entire market higher. S&P would be flat to down if it weren’t for those eight specific stocks. It’s been talked about quite a lot. But, you know, one of the things that does confound me is that, you know, theoretically, as Fed rates move up, the risk premium generally for investing goes up. So your risk-free rate, which was zero, is now five and higher. But investors continue to plow money into the stock markets at very high elevations. You could take Nvidia, for example, you know, at the… to earnings that you pay for that. It would take 40 years at their current rate to actually get that money packets. And now again, the expectation is that the E part of that multiple of earnings goes up through AI and demand. But I see this at a lot of places in the market where the valuations just don’t make sense. So, I don’t have a favorable outlook for the latter half of the year. I don’t see the risk reward there. It seems more risk than potential reward on the upside. Historically, when we get to the end of kind of a zero market cycle, you’ll get a reversion to the mean. I may be wrong on the timeline, I may even be wrong on the direction, but that’s my personal outlook is that I think there are better, more efficient places to place your capital with less risk.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, good, good observations. You know, one of the things Jason, for me along my journey was, you know, you hear some good podcasts or some people talk about things, you kind of get some ideas, you get a little excited to take place in an opportunity or something. And, you know, there comes this point where you just kind of have to, you know, you can’t be in this mode of paralysis by analysis, right? You just have to kind of, you know, move forward. But one of those things that really helped me do that was just objectively looking at the numbers, right? And really trying to break down a particular investment and then compare that versus another investment and then make some assumptions based on your comfort level, based on your risk tolerance and what you think kind of works for you. And then when you do that, and you can kind of compare apples to apples, you know, for instance, when I exited my 401k, I thought it was really interesting to compare that against, you know, if I progressively invested in multifamily assets, you know, for a period of time, I would, I would reduce my taxes, I would increase my return. And then that return just becomes kind of exponential, right? With a compounding kind of over time. And I’ve been so excited to bring to investors in our mastermind and virtual family office community, the wealth strategy dashboard, right, which is essentially a software tool that helps investors make those types of decisions. So for instance, you know, if you’re looking to achieve, you know, your income exceeding your expenses and have that financial independence number, let’s say in 10 Okay, what’s the quickest way to get there? And then if I reallocate my portfolio from say an equities position to moving into maybe a combination of single family rentals and some syndications, how can I get there quicker? If I can reduce my taxes maybe by 10% by doing something particular, I can get there. But when you get that objectivity… you know, in the software and the calculator, and you can kind of see that, you know, then all of this stuff really starts to kind of materialize. So can you share with us, you know, some of your initial thoughts, especially, you know, as a prior financial planner and working through something like this to look at, you know, not only equities holdings, but other, you know, asset classes in your portfolio.

Jason Nees:
Yeah, great question. And I think it’s a very, very powerful tool that we created. It’s one of the first times I’ve ever come across a tool that says you can actually manage a whole number of investments, but put it into a holistic picture and get an idea of where you are today and make a plan for where you want to go. Again, being from the financial advisory side, you know, on that side of the business, you only get one half of the equation, and that’s stocks and bonds and maybe some mutual funds or ETFs, and that’s it. But if you wanted your financial advisor to evaluate your business or your rental properties, they don’t generally, those are line items on a financial plan. And it’s not even considered as far as does the value go up or rents going up? What is your passive income look like? It’s kind of left out of the equation. It’s just a frozen asset in time. where the wealth strategy dashboard provides a lot of value is that we realized that this is the real world where these valuations change. The passive income may increase from one month to the next higher than your projections. Your multiple on exits may move higher than what you were anticipating. So it’s a real world tool that allows you to see the adjustments but apply rational logic to how am I moving from here and how do I actually get here? If my goal is to 10x my wealth, I need a plan to start moving accordingly, but I need to see where I am in a full picture first. So I think that’s the power of the dashboard. And I think I know that it’s been useful. I’ve used it with a number of our clients already and have already started developing plans to kind of 10x their wealth and move them down that path. But it’s a concrete tool that allows you to visibly see it, but also track the performance as we go through.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah. And I think so key in that too, is just really understanding people’s goals, right? Because you’ve got different goals. Everyone has different goals, right? But how can you track towards that and make incremental progress? Because if you want to get to some real exponential growth and you have really big goals, you know, it’s not going to happen overnight, right? When we want to really put a system in place and kind of have a methodology. to how you’re investing. And in fact, that’s why the majority of people lose money over time, right? Because of the emotion in it, and they’re changing course, midstream because of something’s happening in the market or in their life, versus if you have this strategy that’s outlined for the next 10, 20 years, you just keep building on that, right?

Jason Nees:
Absolutely. Yeah. Investing is a lot like a marathon. You don’t just run a couple 10Ks and expect to run a marathon. You’ve got to do that repetition and put in the work. And that wealth strategy dashboard is the one thing that can help kind of keep you disciplined and moving forward, but also celebrating your successes and being able to adapt and adjust to the market.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, 100%. So Jason, on a personal development perspective, what would you say has been the one practice that you’ve done that’s actually yielded the biggest results for you?

Jason Nees:
You know, this is probably not a popular answer, but I would say treating due diligence like a religion it’s the one thing that’s helped me to Avoid pitfalls for things that I was personally attached to that I really wanted to make something work and I didn’t really do it the times when I’ve done that in my life is usually when I’ve lost the first money. I was emotionally attached to something so I would say due diligence is one but also kind of having a fast filter to be able to know that these are my experiences and this is what I do understand, but I can look at something and make a snap judgment and probably have a higher than average probability of being successful. But again, it’s only by doing it over time. So those are probably my two big ones.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, great. And tell us, we have so many parents in the audience, right? And, you know, our children are our pride and joy. And, you know, you get out of them what you put into them, right? And, you know, family is really everything. And I know I had challenges, right? Having triplets, as everyone knows. But but I mean, tell the audience, you know, having a child with autism, you know, much must create some extraordinary challenges for you and your wife and the family and how you guys operate. So how have you been able to manage through that? And do you have any kind of strategies that you can help other listeners with?

Jason Nees:
Yeah, I mean, from a strategy standpoints for any parent with a child with special needs, planning is utmost importance. There are special rules for social security and how you navigate that for somebody with a disability. Financial planning, everything needs to be in trust. You need a team of special needs advisors to kind of help with that. And I think, I would say that very early on, it was probably something poor that I used to say. But one of the things I used to say to my wife is, you know, Some days when it’s really tough, I’m kind of thankful that I don’t have a choice in the matter because it forces you to kind of work through it and go through it rather than to, you know, maybe run off and hide. But it’s been interesting. I’ve learned far more from him than he’s probably learned from me. Patience, I’ve learned. So a lot of things.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, that’s, that’s awesome. Well, kudos to you, man. It takes a really courageous person to be able to do that. And you know, your wife must be a saint as well. And, you know, keep the family strong. That’s, that’s really awesome. So, so appreciate that. And then I guess, you know, final question for the audience is, if you could share just one piece of it light advice, you know, to listeners about how they could accelerate their own wealth journeys, what would it be?

Jason Nees:
action, take action, move forward every day and be better than you were the day before.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, awesome. Fourth phase, right in the holistic wealth strategy. Take take massive action, right to get there.

Jason Nees:
Absolutely.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah. Awesome. Well, Jason, really appreciate you coming on the show today having the opportunity, you know, for listeners to get to know you and everything. And if people, you know, want to inquire more, kind of connect with you, what’s the best place they can reach out to you?

Jason Nees:
Yeah, so you can send me an email, go to PanteonInvest.com and you can find me there. You can reach me by email at jason at PanteonInvest.com. That would be the easiest way or just pick up the phone. My number is 913-961-4361.

Dave Wolcott:
Awesome. All right, guys. Thanks again for tuning in today. Really appreciate you spending your time with us. Please do us a favor if you’re getting value out of the show. Please go in give us a rating review. It really helps us amp up the level of guests. And we’ve got an awesome lineup for the rest of the year. But we continue to expand on that. So really appreciate your support there. And again, we’re always here. If you want to work through some well strategy on your own to take your game to the next level. Until next time, thanks again.

Dave Wolcott:
Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Well Strategy Secrets. Today we’re joined by Adam Carroll. Adam is a renowned financial literacy expert, celebrated author, and captivating speaker who has delivered over a thousand speaking engagements worldwide. With his thought-provoking TED Talks, which have amassed over six million views on YouTube, Adam has become a prominent figure in the field of finance. His groundbreaking documentary, Broke, Busted, and Disgusted, aired on CNBC and continues to be screened in numerous high schools and colleges nationwide, inspiring young minds to take control of their financial futures. Adam’s expertise extends beyond the stage as he is the visionary behind the Shred Method, a fintech company that empowers individuals and families to achieve remarkable debt freedom in their lives at exceptional speed. Adam, welcome to the show.

Adam Carroll:
Dave, thank you for having me. I’m super pumped to be here. And let me just first say thank you for your service to our country.

Dave Wolcott:
You bet. Uh, super appreciate that. Uh, really grateful for that, Adam, for sure. Um, I, you know, I think the folks are in for a treat, uh, today and, you know, a lot of what we talk about in terms of, you know, wealth strategy secrets and, and building wealth and preserving wealth. Um, a lot of this is around financial engineering, you know, if you kind of think about it, right. And, you know, I kind of come from the consulting background, so I always think about, you know, How do we solve problems, right? What are the problems? How can we look at different ways to do that? And in the world of finance, right, there’s all these different tactics and strategies that you can do that sometimes aren’t all necessary commonplace, right? People might not have necessarily heard about them. Their financial advisors aren’t really talking about them. So

Adam Carroll:
Yep.

Dave Wolcott:
really excited today to unpack the Shred method, understand that and other, pearls of wisdom that you can share with the audience. But before we jump into that, tell folks who aren’t familiar with you, tell us about your background, your story, and how did it start for you, Adam?

Adam Carroll:
Yeah, I love telling this story because I really tried to make my mess my message. And I was a debt statistic when I graduated from college. Having grown up in a household that it was sort of like the mindset and methodology was, well, we’ll figure it out. So we would go buy things and then little did I know my parents were putting that all on a credit card. And at the end of the year, there’d be this big ballooning credit card bill that would have to be paid off. And so when I graduated from college, I had $30,000,000 in student loans and eight grand in credit card debt. I was upside down on my car and I realized that was not where I wanted to be. Um, I happened to meet a woman my senior year in college who said, get rid of your debt or I’m going to get rid of you. And, um, we, we together learned all the lessons we needed to learn to blast away that debt in the first couple of years of marriage. And as you know, and can attest and probably teach your clients, it’s amazing what happens when you have a significant amount of discretionary income at the end of every month. And so we strove for that. And then once we got there, I realized, well, this is easier than most people think it is. I should go teach people how to do it. And so that was, oh gosh, in the early 2000s, Dave. And since then, I’ve presented on over a thousand stages. I’ve been a guest lecturer at over 700 colleges and universities. And my passion deep down is just helping people create freedom in their lives because I’ve gotten to experience so much of it in mine.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, I really love that. And, you know, that, that word freedom, this is really what it’s all about, right? If you kind of, if you go a little bit deeper on the things around, you know, financial, you know, financial independence, right? Getting to retire, all these things people talk about, right? I mean, isn’t retirement really is just having, you know, enough income coming in that you’ve got the time freedom to do what it is you want to do. You’ve

Adam Carroll:
Yeah.

Dave Wolcott:
got freedom of purpose. to spend the time how you want to. You’ve got freedom of relationship to choose who you want to be with, right? So totally agree with that. And it’s interesting that you had the courage as well at such a young age to go to that next level of teaching other people. Because if you really look at the trajectory, right, of learning a subject, you know, true mastery is actually teaching other people. So you

Adam Carroll:
Absolutely.

Dave Wolcott:
were really at the top of your game at that. And if turned that into a great career, so, you know, kudos to you for that. So it’s really cool. So tell us about, you know, what, what is your business look like today?

Adam Carroll:
Yeah, today I have a fairly even split between speaking and doing some consulting work. Largely, it’s in the line or the industry of financial education of some kind. So, candidly, this last year, 30% of my business has been in the ag industry. Don’t know where exactly that came from other than, you know, once you get into one kind of pool of business, other people hear about it and start. requesting you to come present. So I’m also in the Midwest. So there’s a lot of ag companies around. And this may not come as a surprise to anyone, but families everywhere are challenged by what they don’t know about money. And so we have folks who are striving to get ahead or striving to create wealth, but they may have been raised in a family that never talked about it. And so the core message for me when I get out and I speak is around What’s our psychology of money? How do we grow up? And did we grow up learning that money was abundant? Actually, it’s one of the most abundant things in the world. Because, I mean, candidly, they’re printing more of it every day. So all we have to do is figure out how to dip a teaspoon into the river of the $4 trillion a day that’s flowing through society, and we can become multi-multi-millionaires. Um, but we have to figure out what is that teaspoon for us? How do we find it? So about 50% of my business is speaking and consulting and about 50% of my time is spent building the shred method, which I’m sure we’ll get into. And this is a cashflow technique and technology that we leverage and help people leverage to create freedom, to pay down debt, but ultimately to create massive passive permanent streams of income. that allow them to do what you’re talking about, have money freedom, time freedom, relationship freedom, purpose freedom. So that’s kind of my world in a nutshell. And then we try and sprinkle a month or so of vacation in a year. And I’m a guy who really likes mini-retirements. So if I can get all four weeks in one lump sum, I can work for six months, go take four weeks off, and then come back and go, all right, let’s get after it. Because I’m refreshed and ready and… still purposeful about what I’m doing in my life.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, that’s excellent. Being able to reconnect with your vision and your purpose. And I just had the opportunity to take some time off with my family as well. And, um, it’s just so rejuvenating, right? To be able to, uh, unplug and it’s almost like putting on a different pair of glasses, right? When you

Adam Carroll:
Yes.

Dave Wolcott:
come back and now you can kind of see the world a little bit differently. You can reprioritize things. Um, you know, you, you just have this new level of thinking, which I think can be very powerful. especially in today’s world while we’re kind of inundated with, you know, being reactionary, right? There’s just so much information that’s coming at us, you know, but if, if we can actually unplug, we can actually scale and grow and learn, you know, a lot more. So that’s, that’s really cool that you’ve been able to do that. Um, before we jump into, uh, shred stuff, um, you know, what do you think is really the problem, right? At, at, at the root cause of this problem around financial education in this country.

Adam Carroll:
Well, it goes back to what you just said about how many messages are flying at us every day. I mean, I’ve heard that there are as many as five or six thousand marketing messages a day that we’re getting and many of them are subconscious or unconscious, right? It might be the ad we hear in the background on the radio or the series of ads. It could be on TV, it could be the internet, it could be the fact that Instagram is, you know, showing us what we, or what, what they believe we need to see in terms of the algorithm. But we’re getting those, whether we know it or not. And a guy that I used to work for, he would call any kind of digital distraction device, mental chewing gum. So whether it was the radio, the TV, the internet, social media, he’s like, it’s just digital. It’s just mental chewing gum. They’re just giving you something that to chomp on and distract you. And a friend of mine was a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and he sort of affirmed this idea and said, when we build an app, if you are distracted, we win. That’s what our goal is, is to distract you. And so I think from, to answer your question about what is the problem with financial education is that people are counting on the ads they’re seeing as practical financial advice. And if you trust the ads, the ads are telling you debt is normal, natural, and good. Go into debt, drive as big a vehicle as you can, as much house as you can afford. Uh, keep up with the Joneses, take lavish vacations. Instagram itself celebrates rich lifestyles, but as you and I both know, most of those are probably either borrowed to pay for, or they’re fake. There are people who are renting the jets and the Ferraris and all those things posting. their first class life, when in reality, we’re seeing the highlight reel, not the behind the scenes. And so I think from my perspective, one of the things that’s really set my family and I and our clients apart is we tell them, hey, look critically at the messages that you’re getting from the world. Look critically at what the bank sends you, at your banker’s desire to see you do well, right? Banks, I’m seeing pop up all over my neighborhood. and you can’t drive a two mile radius around my house without hitting a $10 million bank building. And they’re building them constantly all around me. And so I kept questioning that, like if the banks are able to afford brand new $10 million buildings and it takes them years to be profitable, what is, who is paying for it? And the answer is us. And what did they know that we don’t? And if we start digging into that, Maybe we can flip the script and start acting like a bank, like our own bank, and creating the kind of wealth that most banks enjoy. So deep down, a simple answer to your question is the messages that we’re getting are not intended for us to be wealthy. They’re intended to keep us deeply mired in debt.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah. Now, I really love the whole psychology of money. I think a lot of people just don’t really spend enough time kind of thinking about it. And then like you say, we get pulled in different directions, right? It becomes aspirational that we’ve got to go get that new car or whatever it is, that thing

Adam Carroll:
Yep.

Dave Wolcott:
that you’re looking for. So as part of our wealth strategy and part of our framework in the book, you know, we always talk about creating your vision first. You know, what does

Adam Carroll:
Yes.

Dave Wolcott:
that vision look like? for you, right? Because it could be, you know, having more time to spend with your loved ones, right? It might

Adam Carroll:
Right.

Dave Wolcott:
literally be that simple. And it doesn’t even

Adam Carroll:
Yeah.

Dave Wolcott:
really take much money to actually get there. But what

Adam Carroll:
Totally.

Dave Wolcott:
steps are you taking today, you know, to be able to put that into place. So I think that the

Adam Carroll:
Yeah.

Dave Wolcott:
vision and understanding your target is a really key place to start. And then there’s also this other aspect that I found that I kind of encapsulate in the book as well around that is You know, there’s, there’s elements, you know, you pointed out, right? Like limiting beliefs. I mean, I grew up as well where, you know, there’s starving children in Africa. You’re going to eat every scrap of things on your table. Uh,

Adam Carroll:
Yes.

Dave Wolcott:
we were vegetarian because we couldn’t afford to buy meat at the grocery store.

Adam Carroll:
Right?

Dave Wolcott:
Right. You know, all of these different things. Um, that just kind of get drilled into your head, right? So,

Adam Carroll:
Yep.

Dave Wolcott:
so it’s, you know, you’re now in this scarcity mindset, you know, versus an abundance mindset. And

Adam Carroll:
Yep.

Dave Wolcott:
it takes some time to be able to, to really kind of, you know, assimilate that and then figure out how can I, you know, how can I bridge right to the other side

Adam Carroll:
No doubt.

Dave Wolcott:
and, and see the right examples. And the other thing I’ll say as well, Adam, that’s just so important with all of this. It’s mindset. Right. I mean, what is the difference between certain people like, you know, Elon Musk, Steve jobs, I mean, you know, these, these big prolific entrepreneurs, right. Who are taking on the world and the people, let’s say you went to high school with who are in the same town, same circle of friends, same

Adam Carroll:
Yeah.

Dave Wolcott:
job for the past

Adam Carroll:
Yep.

Dave Wolcott:
20, 30 years, what is the difference?

Adam Carroll:
Right.

Dave Wolcott:
Right. I think it’s mindset.

Adam Carroll:
Absolutely. To that end, Dave, I want to add that a story that supports what you’re saying is that a friend of mine grew up in a household where the logic and the narrative was, well, we’ll never have a lot of money, so we might as well spend it now because we’re never going to have a lot of money, so we might as well spend it now. If you grew up hearing that, or in your case, if it was, we are vegetarians by need, not by desire. What happens is people will fill in whatever lack they’re experiencing, whether it’s, you know, there’s insecurity around housing, there could be insecurity around food, there could be insecurity around education. And so what they’ll do is they’ll fill that in first. And it’s an interesting kind of psychological experience or observation. When you see someone who is who is in poverty or trying to get out of poverty. But as soon as they have a little bit of money, they fill their pantry or they prepay their car payment for X number of months. And I always know what it is. It’s like, well, this was an insecurity you had at some point that you’re just filling in. The idea that mindset of what it is you’re after is an interesting one. And the vision, your comment about vision is 100% spot on. I believe that people underestimate, I’m sorry, they overestimate what can be done in one year. but they underestimate what could be done in three years because most of us could achieve some level of financial freedom or security within three years if we truly set our mind to it. And when you see other people do it, you go, oh, that’s possible. But when you’re surrounding yourself with people who are saying, well, we’ll never have a lot of money, might as well spend it now, it’s hard to fathom that kind of thing is even possible. And it’s, I mean, in all honesty, it’s why I love shows like yours. because it exposes people who are willing to listen to these stories. It exposes them to the fact that it is possible to change your state financially in short order, but you got to change your mindset first.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, 100%. So let’s jump into the shred method. Tell us what it is, how did you develop this, and let’s peel back the onion on this one.

Adam Carroll:
Yeah, this is one of the favorite, one of my favorite things to talk about because of the difference that it made in my life. And then as I started sharing the method with other people, just how many success stories we found. It goes back Dave a little bit to in 2009, it was one of the coldest winters on record in Iowa. And we just had snowfall after snowfall after snowfall. My wife and I were living in a home that was about 16 or 1700 square feet, but about 800 square feet of that was unusable because it was so frigid. It was a split foyer. So you’d go half upstairs, half downstairs. And the part downstairs was so cold. Literally, I’d have to have space heaters on in an office down there all day long to work. And it just wasn’t usable space. While we had three kids, we were just bursting at the seams. And I said to my wife, we have to find someplace else to live. And so I drove around through a neighborhood that I thought I’d never be able to afford, found a house that we loved and we made an offer. It was accepted and they allowed us to rent back because our home sold relatively quickly. So we moved into this house, had not closed on the mortgage yet and we’re settling in feeling very grateful that we’re in this house, plenty of room for the kids to play and spread out. And I was in a business where the income wasn’t I mean, I had a very creative tax person at the time, let’s put it that way. And so I was making money, but it didn’t look like all my taxes that I made that much. And the underwriters were having an issue with me getting approved on this loan. And my wife one night was crying in bed and she’s like, they’re going to make us move out Adam. They’re going to make us move out. And the next day I swallowed my pride, called my father-in-law and said, would you be willing to co-sign on a loan with us? And graciously, he did. Uh, we closed on the loan, but it was in his name and my wife’s name. I wasn’t even on it. And I vowed to myself in that moment, I would never be in this situation again. That number one, we would figure out how to verify income so we could get, uh, I could get qualified. And secondly, I never wanted to be in the situation where I was asking someone to either vouch for me or ask for money. And it was about six months later, I was introduced to the Shred Method, Dave. And essentially the model, the method itself is widely known. There are a lot of different versions of this, if you will, out in the public. What we’ve done is we have taken the software that powers the algorithm and made it very, very user friendly for people to just follow the prompts, do what the system tells you to do, and you’ll be out of debt. in serious equity and then leveraging that into other investments in no time. And so fast forward, nine months, I got qualified. My name was on the loan, my wife and I’s name on it. And that was in around late 2010. By 2012, September of 2012, on my birthday, I made the final payment on the mortgage of $260,000. So we had blasted away 260 grand in debt, saving about, I don’t know, it was close to $180,000 to $200,000 in interest over those years, right? Extrapolated over 30 years’ time. But that’s money that we weren’t sending to the bank. It was money that started accumulating in our accounts. And we were realizing the power of having an extra $2,000 a month, not making that mortgage payment and started figuring out what do we do with this now? How do we start creating? just massive passive permanent streams of income. So that’s a little bit about the origin. And since then we’ve shared it with thousands of people. We have hundreds of shredders using the system and we’ve probably had close to, well, dozens at this point, close to a hundred people that have either paid off their home or nearly paid off their home since they’ve started working with us.

Dave Wolcott:
That’s awesome. Can you give us an example of how that works?

Adam Carroll:
Yeah. So the best example is almost a metaphor. Um, so I asked this question of a lot of people, Dave, when we first started working with them. So play along with me, if you would, if, if you got up on a Saturday morning in Sarasota and you drove to the grocery store and you knew that you’re going to go home, take the groceries in, but you had to go back to the post office. It was probably going to be three, four or five hours before you went. Would you leave your car idling in your driveway during those four or five hours? You wouldn’t. Why would you not?

Dave Wolcott:
uh, to save on the environment, to save on energy. And then that probably goes back to, yeah, the way I was raised, you know, everything was about efficiency. Um, so.

Adam Carroll:
Exactly. So efficiency, we have care for the environment. It’s crazy to leave a car idling that long. Someone might steal it. In Iowa, someone would take it and get it washed and then bring it back and park it in your driveway. That’s how that works here. But what most people do with their paycheck, Dave, is the money gets deposited in checking and it sits there for days or weeks and sometimes months on end. Little by little, it’s drawn down with debit card transactions and ACH transactions. But nine times out of 10, when I talk to individuals, particularly high income individuals, and I say, do you have a significant amount of money just sitting idle in an account? And they’ll say, well, yeah, it’s my emergency fund or it’s this fund or that fund, sinking funds, vacation funds, whatever it may be. And I say, do you have amortized debt hanging out there? Well, yeah, of course I do. I’ll always have a mortgage or I’ll always have a car loan or whatever. And I’ll say, what if there were a way that you could create a maximum amount of efficiency where you could get rid of all those debts, not change your spending one IOTA, but leverage the system like a bank would to save yourself tens and most cases, hundreds of thousands of dollars in interest. And they go no brainer. It’s an absolute no brainer. The difference is. that we’re not taught to do this by the bank because number one, the bank wants us in debt. They want car loans,

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah,

Adam Carroll:
they

Dave Wolcott:
for

Adam Carroll:
want

Dave Wolcott:
sure.

Adam Carroll:
mortgages. We are their compound interest vehicle. Secondly, it is an asset for them to have that loan on the books and it’s a liability to have money in a checking account or a savings account for the lender. But know this, that the money that we put in checking savings money markets, That is what affords the bank the ability to go out and lend the way they do. So when you see a bank say, Hey, we’re increasing our CD rates or we’re increasing our money market rates. What they’re doing is saying we need more liquidity so that we can turn around and lend it out because we have a lot of loans coming in and we go, Ooh, yay. I’m making 4% on my money market account. And they’re saying, this is awesome. This person just put 50 grand in a money market account. and we’re going to turn around and loan out $500,000 on that 50 grand. It’s called fractional reserve banking. And so when you understand that, you realize that having money just sitting idle in an account is incredibly inefficient. And what we actually want is available or accessible money, but it doesn’t need to be money sitting there insured by NCUA or FDIC, right? That’s their benefit. That’s not necessarily to our benefit. And so we teach people how to alter their cash flow where the income comes in. It goes into a simple line of credit. The software calculates how much is coming in, how much is going out. And then it says, based on these interest rates, send a lump sum of, I’ll create a number, $7,258.36 to your mortgage on this month. And when you do this month after month after month, you’re actually accelerating the amortization table of your mortgage by years, decades. And so the average American today could be out of their mortgage within three to seven years depending on the level of their debt and the level of their discretionary income.

Dave Wolcott:
Hmm. But so let’s say you’ve got this predetermined amount that you’re going to pay towards the mortgage, a car loan or whatever it is. But

Adam Carroll:
Mm-hmm.

Dave Wolcott:
let’s say if it was sitting in your checking account, it might have been allocated for something. You know, you knew you had, let’s say a vacation or medical expenses

Adam Carroll:
Yes.

Dave Wolcott:
coming up within the next 90 days. Let’s call it a quarterly basis. And so you’re kind of trying to manage cash flow. So is that reducing? you know, your flexibility to have that liquidity for cash flow or how does that work?

Adam Carroll:
Yeah, great question. And what I heard in your question is what if you are earmarking funds for future travel or car repairs or what have you, right? The reality in our world from our perspective with Shred is that line of credit that you’re taking out in our case, we tend to direct people, excuse me, to a HELOC, a home equity line of credit, it’s usually the easiest to get. But it could be a personal line of credit, a PLOC, could be a BLOC, a business line of credit. or it could be a cash value line of credit that is taken against whatever the cash value and a life insurance policy is. And so we’re deciding what that might be based on the lowest interest rate available. And in many cases, it’s going to be a HELOC or a CVLOC, a cash value line of credit. The way we look at the line of credit, Dave, is it is a liquidity pool. So it would be no different than $5,000 sitting in a… money market account waiting to be spent on a Hawaiian vacation and $5,000 that’s put against your mortgage but available in that line of credit when you need it. And candidly, the five grand sitting in a money market account might make you, I mean, call it three and a half or 4% on the high end, right, on an annual basis. But if you dropped five grand on your $400,000 mortgage, what it’s going to do is it’s going to shave five or six months of payments. off of your mortgage and five or six months of payments might equate to thousands or tens of thousands of dollars in interest that you would have otherwise paid against your mortgage.

Dave Wolcott:
Yep.

Adam Carroll:
So we tend to say, this is another metaphor analogy question we’ll ask. If you wanted to borrow a hundred dollars from me and it would cost you five dollars, but you knew it would save you $2,000 on the backend, would you do that? Would you pay five dollars in simple interest to borrow a hundred? If you knew it, it’d save you 2000. And most people would say all day, every day.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, so here’s another question for you. Right. So our audience is very sophisticated, right? A high net worth, ultra high net worth investors. We understand that debt, I mean, debt can be a double edged sword, right? It

Adam Carroll:
Yep.

Dave Wolcott:
can actually accelerate failure, right? And, and real estate or certain things that people get over leverage. And

Adam Carroll:
Indeed.

Dave Wolcott:
then, you know, to your point, right, you know, it can kind of reduce. your liabilities, right? And you can shorten those times, freeing up cash flow and such. But

Adam Carroll:
correct.

Dave Wolcott:
let’s compare that to an investment, right? So let’s say you can make 15 to 20% on a particular investment. And my deployment cost is whatever the rates are, 6, 7%. You know, so

Adam Carroll:
Yep.

Dave Wolcott:
does it completely make sense to allocate towards, you know, reducing that mortgage when

Adam Carroll:
Right.

Dave Wolcott:
on the other side, right, I might be able to make 20% on

Adam Carroll:
Yes.

Dave Wolcott:
that money.

Adam Carroll:
It is not an either or in my opinion. It’s a both and situation

Dave Wolcott:
Okay.

Adam Carroll:
And and the reason for that dave is I don’t disagree at all that some people who say Yeah, but I could make more if I deployed that money elsewhere And I and I would say wholeheartedly. I agree with that However, there is some amount of discretionary income that’s still flowing through your household

Dave Wolcott:
Mm-hmm.

Adam Carroll:
that for most people particularly the affluent right that are or a high income earning family. If you’re a six figure or high six figure earner, it’s not like you’re living right up to the line. Hopefully you’re not living right up to the line every month.

Dave Wolcott:
Right.

Adam Carroll:
There’s some amount of money that’s going somewhere and it’s probably just being like, there’s always 10 or 20 or 30 grand sitting in an account somewhere.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah.

Adam Carroll:
That is the money that if I said, well, let’s flip a switch on efficiency and just begin shredding some of these loans that you have.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah.

Adam Carroll:
What we’ll do is in this moment right now where we’re at in 2023, we’ll take a six or six and a half percent interest rate mortgage down to about a point and a half as the effective APR. And when people tell me, you know, even a three percent mortgage rate, when they go, this is the cheapest money I’ll ever have, why would I ever pay this off? What I often will tell them is because the effective APR that we can give you in a matter of 24 months in most cases is like 0.6. on 3% because of how fast we’re paying

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah.

Adam Carroll:
it down or off. And then this is a secret and this is one of the, I hesitate to even share it because it’s one of our secret sauce in our system. But we give people a strategy of, okay, so you’ve bought a, and let’s take an extreme example, you’ve bought a million dollar home. You’ve got a mortgage payment on that million dollar home that Maybe at this point in time, it’s $8,000 a month or 8,500 a month, nine grand, whatever it may be. Let’s say it’s 8,000. And not that it’s a stretch necessarily, but it’s a burden. I mean, eight grand a month, eight grand a month, right? And over the course of a year, out of that 8,000, 6,000 of it a month’s going to interest. So that’s $72,000 a year that you’re sending to your banker, not keeping for yourself or building equity with. So there’s a little bit of a misnomer when we go, oh, well, the interest rate’s 3%. That’s super cheap money. Well, it is, but on a million dollars, it’s not like that’s $30,000. It’s all of that upfront amortized on the front end of that mortgage. You know this

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah.

Adam Carroll:
as a finance guy, when you look at a 30-year fixed mortgage, the first 10 years are like the red light in a traffic stoplight. And the next 10 years are yellow, and the third 10 are green. And that reflects how much principal you’re paying down. So if in 18 to 24 months, we could go from red to green on your mortgage. And you went from a million to let’s say 600,000 or 500,000. And at that point you recast the mortgage, not refinanced, but recast it. In which case you would say, Hey, I owed a million over 30 years. Now I only owe 500,000 on 28 years. What would my payment be? And the lender will say, oh, based on that, your payment’s going to be $3,685. And you go, oh, well, that’s way easier than eight grand a month. And now I can afford to go buy a rental property or my second home or whatever. So, and you’ve got the equity in that property that you can leverage however you see fit with that line of credit. So if you want to borrow it six or 7% and deploy it at 15 or 20, by all means, do that.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah.

Adam Carroll:
because the majority of your payments going to principal anyway on your primary mortgage. Does

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, love it.

Adam Carroll:
that make sense?

Dave Wolcott:
So yeah, totally. So we’re basically what you’re talking about. It’s, it’s really efficiency and velocity, right?

Adam Carroll:
Yes.

Dave Wolcott:
With your existing capital. And, um, I mean, I think this is such an important, uh, point for people, not only in your personal economy, uh, but also in businesses, right? As, uh, as a business owner, right? You’re always keeping cash on hand for operational expenses, certain things that you have. Um, but you know, there’s a lot of lazy cash, right? That’s sitting

Adam Carroll:
Yes.

Dave Wolcott:
in there. You’re

Adam Carroll:
Totally.

Dave Wolcott:
paying for that liquidity. So if you could, I’m assuming you can do this in the same example of the business. Let’s say you have, you’ve purchased equipment or you purchased vehicles, right?

Adam Carroll:
Yeah.

Dave Wolcott:
But

Adam Carroll:
Right. Okay.

Dave Wolcott:
you’re keeping 90 days on hand for capital

Adam Carroll:
So, we’re

Dave Wolcott:
and

Adam Carroll:
going

Dave Wolcott:
maybe

Adam Carroll:
to

Dave Wolcott:
you only need 30 to 45.

Adam Carroll:
go ahead and

Dave Wolcott:
You

Adam Carroll:
start

Dave Wolcott:
could

Adam Carroll:
the next one.

Dave Wolcott:
much more efficiently manage that. Is that fair?

Adam Carroll:
You are absolutely correct in that. And we work with business owners all the time where we are trying to help them manage and strategize their equity and their debt, because many of them will be sitting on, you know, again, three months, six months, whatever the proclivity of the owner is all the while they are at the early stages of amortized debt or paying off

Dave Wolcott:
Right.

Adam Carroll:
equipment or whatever it might be. And we can show them. you know, in a matter of months, you could knock that down and not really have any threat of liquidity in the grand scheme of things. So there is a question we often ask, which is, you know, let’s look at your accounts receivable. What’s the aging report look like? Are your clients paying on time? Then do you really need X amount when you’ve got six months in accounts receivable coming in six months worth of expenses? You’ve got three to six months in the bank. And then you’ve got all this debt that you’re trying to pay down. What if we just re-engineered that a little bit and you chomp through the debt in no time, how much extra cashflow could you create? And, um, most business owners are shocked by the numbers they see.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, I’m sure. You know, it’s interesting. I mean, having run four different businesses now over the past 15 plus years, you know, I’ve always struggled with, you know, how do you manage cashflow, right? And then that

Adam Carroll:
Yep.

Dave Wolcott:
ties into your personal economy as well. And it does come into efficiency, and that’s what always drives me crazy. Now, You know, we’ve been a big proponent. We have a lot of investors using the infinite banking, cash

Adam Carroll:
Yes.

Dave Wolcott:
value, whole life insurance, which is a great way to get a multiplier on your capital. So you can,

Adam Carroll:
Confirm.

Dave Wolcott:
you can get some of that efficiency going. You still have the liquidity.

Adam Carroll:
Indeed.

Dave Wolcott:
It’s compounding tax free and everything. Um,

Adam Carroll:
Yep.

Dave Wolcott:
but it looks, if I’m understanding what you’re saying is that You know, this can be a complete amplifier. So you could use your cash value life insurance policy as the store of capital,

Adam Carroll:
Yep.

Dave Wolcott:
but then you just start making allocation decisions towards some of your debt payments, you know, based upon some of the algorithms, um, to really reduce that debt quickly and free up cash flow.

Adam Carroll:
You nailed it. You nailed it. And furthermore, for most people that are being pitched, and I say pitched loosely, being presented an insurance product, there are a lot of agencies out there that will say, well, it’s only $3,000 or $5,000 a month to put into this premium, or they’ll do a quarterly premium or semi-year premium. I prefer, and we tend to coach our clients on, it’s a once a year premium. 25, 50 grand, 100 grand at a time, because it’s coming out of your HELOC anyway, or your line of credit. And because of the cashflow tool that we’re creating, your income cycling through that line of credit. So though we ramp up the balance right away, over time, it’s just trending down. So the interest expense on it is negligible. It doesn’t feel like a big burden. And automatically in your policy, you’re creating a compound interest effect quickly,

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah.

Adam Carroll:
because the key, as you know, um, in infinite banking is we want to get to compound interest velocity as quickly as humanly possible. And so that means if you’re making four and a half, five and a half percent on a hundred grand, 200 grand, 500 grand, a million, the faster we can do that, the better. And with shred, what happens is folks who normally would say, well, 50 grand is kind of a stretch. They use shred for six months, 12 months, 18 months. They go, this is a no brainer. I would put 50 grand in here. every six months if I could.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah.

Adam Carroll:
And then you realize really the power of that, and I’m sure you share this with your clients, but when you begin to realize you have buckets of money that are available to you to put into investments that can make way higher than the S&P 500 index averages, we’re talking 12, 15, 20, some cases 30% returns, and you have no payment on the money you’re putting in there. because you’re borrowing against a policy that doesn’t require a payment. To your point, we’re just stacking

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah.

Adam Carroll:
efficiency and productivity

Dave Wolcott:
It’s

Adam Carroll:
and

Dave Wolcott:
a

Adam Carroll:
it’s

Dave Wolcott:
complete

Adam Carroll:
like

Dave Wolcott:
snowball

Adam Carroll:
putting nitrous

Dave Wolcott:
effect,

Adam Carroll:
oxide in your

Dave Wolcott:
Adam. Yeah, absolutely.

Adam Carroll:
gas tank. Yeah,

Dave Wolcott:
And

Adam Carroll:
you just

Dave Wolcott:
we,

Adam Carroll:
put nitrous oxide in your gas tank.

Dave Wolcott:
yeah, we, we’ve helped clients. We, we built some calculators out and we’ve actually, we’re developing a software product right now, uh, which is a wealth strategy dashboard. But when you start to look at it as like a CFO would, and you’re looking at your financial view, and then you start looking at these things, you know, over time, over a 20 year period. And as you like to buy, I love that multiple permanent streams of income,

Adam Carroll:
Yeah.

Dave Wolcott:
while you’re reducing, you know, your debt, right, that you burden that you have, that yeah, the snowball effect is absolutely exponential. And I think I heard you on another show give out a quote around Warren Buffett, which was, which was really fascinating. I hadn’t heard that before. The, his 5 billion. Can

Adam Carroll:
Yeah.

Dave Wolcott:
you remember that?

Adam Carroll:
He at 65 Warren Buffett was worth $5 billion. And at 85, he’s worth something like 85 or $100 billion. So the majority of his wealth, 12 times what he was at 65, he’s now at 85. And the idea and this I think this is a Warren Buffettism, but the idea is to get to compound interest velocity as fast as possible.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah.

Adam Carroll:
And and what that means for Again, this goes back to mindset a little bit, Dave, is that if our goal in making money and being mass affluent is like, I want all the stuff, you’re missing the point. The idea is have the stuff, but have plenty of money left over to begin to get to this point where the money makes far more than you do. I used to going back in time, I read a book, I’m sure you’ve read it or have it on your bookshelf, The Four Hour Workweek by Tim

Dave Wolcott:
sure.

Adam Carroll:
Ferriss. When I read that book, The question that I kept asking myself was, how do I make as much money in an hour as most people make in a month or a year? The answer that kept coming back was public speaking because if I can go present and make 2,500, five grand, 10 grand, 15, 20 grand in an hour, I’m going to do that. Over time, things have continually tracked higher and higher in terms of income on that front. I still have to travel. I still have to be away from my family and go do that. So what would it take to make that kind of money without any work at all? What would it require? How much either would I need to invest? What kind of deals am I finding to get there? And I encourage your listeners to think through that. Not, oh, how much less could I work to make this? But what would it take for you to not work at all and still be able to live at a lifestyle that you want to live at? Is it 10 grand a month, 20 grand a month? And now you just have to put the machine in place, if you will,

Dave Wolcott:
to get

Adam Carroll:
to

Dave Wolcott:
there.

Adam Carroll:
churn that money

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah.

Adam Carroll:
out. And we, you know, going back to the vacation conversation earlier, we spent two weeks in Italy and a couple of weeks in Hawaii recently. And as I was there, I’m listening to podcasts and reading books and just, again, disconnecting, but thinking at a high level of what I want. And I saw this video and someone said, pretty comfortably anywhere in the world on 10 grand a month. And 10 grand a month, wherever you’re coming from at this angle, it’s not that difficult to create $10,000 in recurring passive income. There are methods and ways of doing that. And if that’s what you’re focused on, you could have it in no time.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah.

Adam Carroll:
So this is where our mindset is today and where we’re trying to. kind of bring people to is, you know, what’s the vision, how much does it cost? Let’s get to creating it and get you to that lifestyle as fast as possible.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, totally agree, Adam. And one thing that I really love about this, and I think all the listeners can really take advantage of this is this is low hanging fruit, right? Even if you’re not an accredited investor, wherever you are, you know, our kids in our twenties, wherever you are on your trajectory, this is completely

Adam Carroll:
Yeah.

Dave Wolcott:
low hanging fruit that you can take advantage of and reposition. right, to drive

Adam Carroll:
Yes.

Dave Wolcott:
greater efficiency, right, to really kind of accelerate your wealth. So I think that’s awesome. And, you know, my mind is really lighting up with use cases here. Like there’s so many good use cases for our audience. So one, folks out there who’ve got short term rentals, Airbnb, single family rentals, right, you could apply this to them, right? So you’re

Adam Carroll:
All the way.

Dave Wolcott:
reducing, you know, the… to debt on those. You can do it with obviously your own home, as we talked about, the mortgage or any of those kinds of liabilities,

Adam Carroll:
Yeah.

Dave Wolcott:
potential college payments, any of those kinds of things that you can do. And

Adam Carroll:
End

Dave Wolcott:
then

Adam Carroll:
of the.

Dave Wolcott:
in your business, like we talked about, having more efficiency and managing that liquidity. And then also just this way to really magnify the results of your cash value life insurance policy and kind of put it on steroids, I would think,

Adam Carroll:
Yeah.

Dave Wolcott:
by doing this. So really, really fantastic ideas here.

Adam Carroll:
I want to touch on one of those you said, and that’s the short term rental and somebody who has some properties. What we find when we work with real estate investors is they’ll say, well, I’m just stockpiling cash waiting for the next opportunity. And if you think about this, what they’re doing in stockpiling cash is they’re creating this liquid but non-efficient pool of money. And you would still have access to the funds if you’re paying down that debt over time using shred as you wait for the next deal. But then you’d have access to the capital, the equity that you’re creating in that property by having a line of credit on it. So to your point, this is low hanging fruit, no matter what you’re doing, even doing it for three to six months, 12 months, you are going to be years ahead of where you would be otherwise. And so when folks start to see the And they go, Oh, I don’t have to lock into this for seven years. I need to do it for a period of time to achieve the goal I’m after. Um, though I will tell you that for my wife and I, this is a lifestyle. We will never not use a shred method technique where money’s going into a line of credit because there is always money being deployed about every two to three months, there’ll be tens of thousands of dollars that goes out somewhere. because some is always coming back in. And I know you know this, you teach your clients this, but if you’re in a syndication and it’s a three or four year syndication, that money’s coming back in. It needs to have somewhere to go

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah,

Adam Carroll:
when it comes back in.

Dave Wolcott:
yeah, exactly.

Adam Carroll:
And with Shred, you start to do that. This flywheel is just like always, always moving. And I don’t mean to make this seem simpler than it is. but it becomes like a video game that you can’t lose.

Dave Wolcott:
Right.

Adam Carroll:
You remember playing Nintendo and

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah.

Adam Carroll:
the cheat codes on Nintendo?

Dave Wolcott:
No,

Adam Carroll:
This

Dave Wolcott:
it’s

Adam Carroll:
is the

Dave Wolcott:
a

Adam Carroll:
cheat

Dave Wolcott:
rinse

Adam Carroll:
code.

Dave Wolcott:
and repeat strategy for sure. Right. I mean, once you get your head around some of these things, it’s, it’s not really that complex. You just need to take action, right. And actually get involved. You start to see the results for yourself. It’s the same with, you know, investing in alternatives and real estate, right. You start to see the

Adam Carroll:
Right.

Dave Wolcott:
results and then you say, wow, you know, let me now extrapolate this. And I think we could do a lot better than. than we were doing.

Adam Carroll:
Indeed.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah. Awesome stuff, Adam. If you could give listeners just one piece of advice about how they could accelerate their wealth trajectory, what would that be?

Adam Carroll:
I’m going to go ahead and turn it off. If I were to give one piece of advice about how to accelerate your wealth trajectory, it would be, and this is, this is proven true in my life. It is the very first thing you invest in is yourself. So take the courses, uh, buy the class, go to, you know, go grab the book and study it intently. Um, and I say that with a bit of an example, I, I was a huge fan. I’m still, I am a fan. of Phil Town who wrote rule one investing and payback time. And I opted to go to Phil Town’s program and watched him sort of dissect what he was doing in the market. And obviously he’s an equities guy. So there’s a portion of our wealth building plan that is in equities, but in watching him do what he did, he was dissecting Chipotle Mexican Grill at the time. And he said, this is a six or $700 a share company. And it was about $300 a share at the time. And I’m sitting here going, this is a burrito company, dude. How is this six or $700 a share? And he said, all of the metrics, you know, meet this out that this should be a six or $700. His whole mentality is that if you can buy a dollar for 50 cents, you’ll never ever lose money. And so he’s looking for those deals. How do you buy a dollar for 50 cents? And today, if you look at CMG, Chipotle Mexican Grill, it’s at 13 or $1,400 a share. And that day, he bought 10,000 shares of Chipotle Mexican Grill at $300 a share. And we are all watching him do it, kind of like, this is a huge bet. And it clearly paid off. Now this is a guy I followed and studied. And I think that is the piece of advice simply stated, is find the experts. that you want to either live by or live like, or that you appreciate their model and their methodology, track them, follow them, do what they do, because the people who have gotten to that level, they know of which they speak. I mean, success leaves clues. So invest in yourself by following the people that you wanna live like.

Dave Wolcott:
Awesome. Appreciate that Adam. Um, and really appreciate your time today and coming on the show, really sharing your wisdom and your sage advice with the audience. I think that’s definitely something worth, uh, you know, investigating further. If people want to learn more about you, the shred method, uh, what is the best place that they can reach out?

Adam Carroll:
Yeah, thank you for asking the shred method comm is our website our domain and on that domain We have a master class that you can watch that will teach you everything you need to know about it We have the ability to schedule a 20-minute call with folks who are interested in just having their numbers run, seeing what kind of savings they could experience or what’s a potential opportunity for them. So theshredmethod.com is the place to go for that. If you want to know more about me, Google my name. I’m everywhere on the internet. And what you’ll probably find right up front is a TED talk that I delivered at the London Business School that went viral. And I would encourage people to watch that as sort of a primer into who I am. It’s all about a game of Monopoly. I played with my kids with real cash. So we had a $10,000 game of Monopoly and the lessons learned were very profound.

Dave Wolcott:
Very cool. Love it. All right, guys. Thanks so much for listening today. Hope you enjoyed the show. Do us a favor if you’re really getting value from the show, please give us a rating and review really helps us out. Bring in stellar guests like Adam bringing on. So would be grateful for your participation there. Thanks again and we’ll talk to you next week.

Dave Wolcott:
Hey everyone, welcome to today’s show on wealth strategy secrets. Today we have a very special guest for you, Michael Sonnenfeld. Michael is the founder and chairman of the ultra wealthy investment club, Tiger 21, with over 140 billion in assets under management. Michael is the author of think bigger and 39 other winning strategies from successful entrepreneurs. He is an American entrepreneur, philanthropist and political activist. Currently he is the president and founder of Tiger 21. the premier peer membership organization for high net worth creators and preservers. He is also a board member of earth justice and is the president of the Goldman Sonnenfeld foundation and on the boards of several other philanthropic and political organizations. Michael, welcome to the show.

Michael Sonnenfeldt:
Thanks so much. Thanks for having me.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, you bet. I’m really grateful to have you on the show, Michael. I think this is going to be super valuable to the audience, especially in the time period that we’re in, right? There’s so much going on in the world, geopolitically, politically, right? The investment climate seems like we’re really just, there’s so much uncertainty out there right now. So, you know, and you’ve had an amazing journey and background as an entrepreneur, as an investor. And so really looking forward to, you know, unpacking some of the wisdom and insights, you know, from your journey. So why don’t, why don’t we start there, Michael, if you can share with the audience who isn’t familiar with you, a bit about your background, a bit about your story and how you kind of got into eventually getting into Tiger one. starting right back from your real estate days and MIT and such.

Michael Sonnenfeldt:
Sure. So I’m what would be called a classic serial entrepreneur. I’ve had four or five or six different business lives, some overlapping, some sequential, and maybe a little more unique as I’ve split my time between business and my philanthropic activities. They’re all related right now as an example. For the last 15 years, climate has primary concern and I mix it both politically, philanthropically and in terms of the investments I make. But my career really, the thing that made my career was that when I was 17, I was working in a warehouse that was on the waterfront of New Jersey directly across from the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan. And I was a meditator at the time. And I used to go out to the end of the pier, which was a warehouse then. And it was a thousand feet out in the water. Imagine the Empire State Building laying on its side. That’s how far out in the water the pier went. And when I looked to lower Manhattan, it was, it felt like it was actually closer than the land behind me. And behind me was a warehouse that had been the largest warehouse in the world, largest building in the world when it was built in 1929. But the times had changed and I had a vision for that to become a mixed use office, condominium, hotel, retail center and what was then the Harborside terminal. Seven years later, I acquired with a partner and began the redevelopment, which became the largest redevelopment in the country at the time and converted into the Harborside Financial Center, which was a great first project. It was fun that my first real estate project was the largest commercial renovation in the world. And it’s kind of good to make a career when you have a success that way. And I sold it just after I was 30 and went into the real estate business, excuse me, went into trying to figure out what to do next and went into the real estate information business, which was really technology. That didn’t work out so well, but a few years later, I went back into real estate and created a billion dollar merchant bank for real estate called MS, E-M-M-E-S. It means truth in Hebrew, and my initials are MS. And then when I sold that in when I was 43, I had my second successful exit. And I started Tiger 21, which was about 23 years ago. grown into the premier network of high net worth investors around the globe with, as you mentioned, just about 1,300 members who manage their own money. We’re not a money manager, but the collective personal wealth of our members is now about $150 billion.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, that’s really amazing. I actually had the opportunity to live in Harborside right when I transitioned out of the Marine Corps and it was my first job working for an international supply chain company.

Michael Sonnenfeldt:
Wow.

Dave Wolcott:
So very familiar with Harborside and all of the freight and all of the activities. And just as you say, and I was there, I guess, early 90s, but still, you know, there was still a lot of development. to happen and you look at it today and it’s just, it’s an unbelievable piece of land and what it has grown into. But tell us some of the decisions that went into that. I mean, at your age, at your experience level, all of us as entrepreneurs, we wanna make big moves on the chessboard, but you had to have made some very big thoughts and kind of manage your risk to you know, to get into this. Can you tell us a little bit more about the transaction?

Michael Sonnenfeldt:
Sure. As I mentioned, I had this sort of vision, for lack of a better term, just call it an idea, when I was 17. But the building had been owned by my wife’s family, which is a large real estate business. But they ran it as a industrial warehouse. And it wasn’t very successful as an industrial warehouse. But. When I graduated college, I went off with an MBA from MIT. I went off to Goldman Sachs for a year and then went to work for my father-in-law for three years. And one of the things I was running was that building as a warehouse. And I had this real burning passion. So I developed some plans about what it would look like and how you would go about it. And I found some mentors, very important. was an architect who had unusual financial skills named Rick Baer. And he taught me how to think about world-class development or redevelopment. But one day, a man walked into my office named David Fromer, who was twice my age. And I showed him all the plans that I had been working on. And he said, oh, let’s do it. I had been introduced to him by a common acquaintance. but this was the first time somebody saw the plans and really bought into them. And so it took about a year and a half for David and I to find the right formula that would allow us to acquire the building. In those days, you could have purchased money mortgages and we were able to get financing, David was able to get financing the… The deal that we had between us is because it was my idea and I had the plans That’s what I brought to the table and he had to bring the financing to the table And so we became 50 partners uh where the project was completely leveraged we acquired a building for 25 million dollars with literally two hundred thousand dollars down and the rest multiple layers of debt and the sellers were happy to take back the debt because they were getting a much higher price. So one lesson is that sometimes a win-win is when one person gets what they need and the other person gets what they need. In our case, we needed financing and in the seller’s case, they wanted a high price and we were willing to pay a higher price with the advantageous financing. So we closed in 1982, August of 1982, and in one of the great strokes of luck, and maybe this is the second thing, luck tends to favor those who are ready, willing, and prepared to take the risk. So we closed in August of 82 on an industrial building that was losing money with a vision that it could be converted into modern computer centers. And six months to the day later. in one of the great gifts of life, Bankers Trust, which was then the eighth largest bank in the world, leased a section of the building to put half of their worldwide data center. The minute they did that, the rest of the building became unfinished office space rather than industrial space. As they say, the rest is history.

Dave Wolcott:
Wow, that’s really definitely an amazing story. In terms of, from a wealth perspective, Michael, I mean, even before you got into, you know, really setting up Tiger 21 and creating that community, we know that as an entrepreneur, right, it’s a different skillset to build capital than being an investor, right, and preserving and growing your wealth. Have you created a particular wealth strategy for yourself or some type of, you know, guiding thoughts or parameters that you have as you’ve been building your wealth over the years?

Michael Sonnenfeldt:
You know, what comes to mind is in order to do what you’ve just asked, you need knowledge and perspective and discipline because 90% or more of entrepreneurs who are successful entrepreneurs but then have a liquidity event and all of a sudden they no longer are running a business. but now they have a pool of capital, they go from being managers and entrepreneurs to wealth preservers or investors. And for people who don’t have capital or haven’t built businesses, maybe being a wealth creator and a wealth preserver seem like the same thing, but they’re radically different. All of the things that allow some of the most successful entrepreneurs to be successful. predispose them to be mediocre investors. An example, most entrepreneurs are very emotional about the one thing that they’re working on that they’re so excited on. And so to those entrepreneurs, being an investor is kind of watching the paint dry because investing is much more dispassionate. As an entrepreneur, you focus on one opportunity. As an investor, you have to prudently diversify. And I’m saying all of these things because today the single most important issue for somebody with a wealth strategy is one asset allocation and what it What it suggests about your view of the world how you There’s lots of studies to prove that if you can pick reasonably successful investments in each asset allocation the asset allocation is more important than the investments themselves. In other words, if you have a certain percentage in stocks and a certain percentage in private equity and a certain percentage in real estate, getting the allocation of those big buckets correct over the long term is more important than the individual investments. Of course, as long as the individual investments are at least in the median of each of those areas. And in my case now, The strategy that I find most compelling is to think of my assets in three buckets. One is cash, and the cash is for both a rainy day, meaning if the market’s downturn, can I survive on the cash I have without having to liquidate investments at exactly the wrong time? In the case of Tiger 21’s members, that number is about 12%. Tiger members as a whole have about 12%, 11 or 12 in cash. And if you spend 2% a year of your wealth, if you have sufficient wealth, that’s the number. That’s about five years of reserves that you wouldn’t have to liquidate other investments in a major downturn. The second thing is what I would call my passive investments. Those might be index funds, stocks, investment in private equity funds, real estate. We’re not operating it. We’re just investing. And then the third part, and this is the biggest choice that an investor has to make, is active businesses. Do you have enough of an edge to own or participate directly in businesses that will provide superior returns, but also provide significant risk if you don’t know what you’re many people don’t have that option because they don’t have either that skill or that interest. And so then they have to say, what’s realistic if I have stocks and bonds and cash or some variation of that? But the point that I’m making is that unless you have some demonstrable, outperform the markets. And historically, that would be sort of an 8% to 10% return in the stock markets, which will be reduced by whatever cash you have. I’ll just end by saying, there’s a study that shows the stock market since 1910, I believe, has had an average of a 9.6% compounded return. But individuals have only earned in the 4% to 6% range because individuals who aren’t disciplined sell at the wrong time. They tend to sell at the low and they buy at the wrong time. They tend to buy at the high. And that’s why long-term ownership of index funds provides benefits that stock picking and even many managers can’t match.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, that was a really great summary. And then from your perspective, you know, why is it that you think, um, you know, certain asset classes, like let’s talk about real estate and private equity specifically. Um, you know, most people don’t really have that in their portfolio, even entrepreneurs who’ve been successful and then they’ve had their exit and then they get exposed to those S asset classes, which, you know, as you start to understand them and analyze them a little bit more, provide multiple benefits at the same time, especially if you’ve had an exit, right? You’re able to offset with taxes, getting into real estate, investing in energy, some of these other asset classes that can have multiple benefits at the same time. But most people are still looking at things from the viewpoint of, hey, I can only invest into the stock market and a mixed type of portfolio.

Michael Sonnenfeldt:
Sure, so I’d say that’s the largest distinction between both tiger members, but family offices and some of the wealthier families that if all your available investment is in the stock market, the bond market as an example, it turns out you can actually do quite well if you’re smart about it, meaning, if you had invested just in index funds that mirrored the performance of the stock market, you’d be one of the great investors. As I mentioned, you could be earning in the sort of 10-ish, 9% to 10% compounded range for a long period of time. who inherit money or they come into money for one reason or another have the hardest time understanding is how hard it is to outperform that simple index fund that is earning over a long time, nine to 10%. But if you have access to and the knowledge about and are willing to take the risks of… the two categories you’ve talked about, real estate and private equity. If you can perform in the top half and maybe the top quartile of investments, that will bring up your yield, but it’s not without significant risk. There was a very famous investor named Swenson, who was the head of the Yale endowment that really revolutionized endowment investing. And he came up with what was called the endowment model. And it turned the world upside down. It used to be 70% equity and 30% debt. And he started diversifying Yale’s investments into natural resources, forests and minerals and other forms of natural resources and private equity and real estate. And We could go into any level of detail, but the bottom line is that he pretty regularly generated in the mid-teen kind of returns as opposed to the high single digits. And the cumulative impact of that is to make, you know, five and ten times as much money over a period of time because of the power of compound.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah. And what do you think in terms of a percentage that you see with your members in Tiger from a, you know, let’s say more of a defensive, if you have those three different buckets, right? You know, how much are they putting allocating towards, you know, defensive type plays versus looking at equity appreciation?

Michael Sonnenfeldt:
So the current asset allocation for Tiger members is about 25%, 24, 25 in real estate, about 31% in private equity. Those two add up obviously to 54, 55%. And public equities are only 22%. Well, when you add those up, that’s 76%. And the rest is largely defensive, it’s cash. at 11 or 12% and fixed income in the 7% range, some currencies, commodities, Bitcoin might be in there, and hedge funds. But the overwhelming point is that Tiger members are relatively unique in the very high allocation to private equity and real estate. if you can find the best opportunities, whether it’s through funds or directly, you can pretty regularly achieve returns that are higher than the stock market or at the very least diversified from the stock market. But I think one way to think about it is it’s a bit of a barbell, very long invested in long-term assets between the what we call the three equity buckets, private equity, public equity, real estate can be seen as equity. And then a lot of safety with 12% cash and another 6% or 7% in fixed income. And the cash really is there for the rainy day and the three equities are there to build value over time.

Dave Wolcott:
And would that strategy hold up during different economic periods, right? Especially where we are today, would that hold up for you as where we’re going to be in the next five years, say?

Michael Sonnenfeldt:
Well, what I would say is, first of all, nobody knows where we’re going to be. That’s for sure. And, you know, the most difficult form of investment trading is macroeconomic, trying to take the biggest macroeconomic trends and translate them into specific investments. You know, if you want to… read from the Dean of Macroeconomics, Ray Dalio is the man, and he’s just come out with a book in the last year on the great powers and the changing world order. And if you read that, you’ll see how China is accelerating and the United States is growing less strong, so China is catching up faster and in certain areas actually beating us on the statistics. And the point about that is interest rates kind of have a mind of their own, but over the last 20 years, interest rates came down and over the last year or two, they’ve been going up. So if you were a betting person, you wouldn’t want to bet that interest rates are coming down or you wouldn’t want to bet your entire portfolio that interest rates are coming down. And if you think they’re more likely to go up because of the inflation story, you’d have less fixed debt and you’d look in your equity areas for things that are inflation proof. So a simple example is if you’re in a real estate business, if you want inflation protection, many retail real estate leases have a pass through of sales to the landlord. tenant, whatever they’re selling raises their prices because of inflation, you get more and more rent as the landlord. Well, that’s as opposed to many other types of leases that just have a fixed rate and don’t have that pass through. So if you were concerned about inflation protection, you would lean a little more towards having that kind of pass through rent where you participate in the growth of your tenants’ receipts. But it’s not always available. And on the private equity side, within private equity, we don’t track it. Although anecdotally, we think why private equity has grown so much over the last 15 years is because of the venture capital component. And when a company starts out, it normally doesn’t have debt. You can only qualify for bank debt when the company is up and running and may be successful and has a track record, and that sometimes takes a couple years. Well, what that means is when the company is in its early stages or its venture capital period, debt is not that important because you don’t use debt to grow little baby companies, you use debt to grow much larger companies. So if interest rates are rising, you’re gonna be less exposed to that as a venture capitalist than as a leverage buyout guy. Leveraged buyout guy uses debt for everything. So in each of the categories there are areas that are More dependent on debt and less dependent on debt and obviously in a rising interest rate market Uh, if you could fix Interest rates at a low rate. You’ll get a benefit for many years But if your interest rate is floating Then you’re going to be exposed to the rising interest rates if that’s your concern

Dave Wolcott:
Makes sense. Any other guidance you can give on the current economic outlook from a strategic perspective?

Michael Sonnenfeldt:
You know, these are the strangest times. There are many metrics that are as good as they’ve gotten. Under the current administration, inflation has come down dramatically. Employment has continued to surge. The stock market is strong. And yet, we have this sense of unease. And it’s a very, very difficult time. It probably has to do at the very least with three or more factors, each of which is a study in itself. I think the competition that we’re now facing with China has truly profound ramifications because just look in the chip area for advanced chips. advanced chips that go into all sorts of machinery and so forth. But China has an advantage in the rare earths that are the minerals that go into making chips. So they can squeeze our ability to manufacture and we can squeeze their ability to use these advanced chips. So in many different, as an example, most of us think of Tesla, probably when we talk about electric vehicles and Tesla is accelerating at a mind boggling rate, doing amazingly well, beating all the records. But most Americans have never heard of BYD, which is a bigger electric vehicle company than Tesla. And the growth in electric vehicles will be at the smaller end through Southeast Asia, and there BYD has a huge advantage. So just generally China, America. The dynamic is changing. China has caught up in many respects and is catching up faster. You then have the polarization in America, politically, which really can take a toll on how people’s well-being feels. We’re polarized more than we’ve ever been in recent, certainly recent history. And climate change, all of a sudden, we’re starting to see. the devastating effects of climate change. And many people really haven’t thought through. This isn’t the new normal. This is just on the way to things getting a lot worse. And that’s going to have a huge economic impact. So there are a lot of different factors that go into thinking about these issues. But obviously, interest rates is the one that many of these gets translated to. And I think one of the things that we really want to do is not be prognosticators, but meaning don’t bet the portfolio because you think you know whether the stock market is going up or down. Create an all-weather portfolio that can survive in the downturn and maybe even prosper and better prosper as the world gets better.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, really sage advice, Michael, and would wholeheartedly concur with that. Because I think once you have a strategy and you’re following these parameters, right, of those buckets as you outline that you’re investing in, you have the ability to manage different economic conditions and things that frankly no one can predict, whatever it is that’s kind of coming across the bow for us. Also, I think it’s fascinating as well that meditation is really important for you. Um, as it has been for me, I mean, I would define it as actually one of the top three skillsets, uh, to have in life and started out trying to teach our kids even, you know, that, you know, how important that was. And you find that with, uh, you know, very successful, you know, business leaders, entrepreneurs, investors. People who have really evolved have only gotten better at skills such as meditation, regardless of the different techniques and everything, but it’s really mastering your mind, being thoughtful, being intentional about making decisions. And really when you tie that to investing as well, and Ray Dalio does like to talk about that a lot, is that we lose a lot based on the emotions. We’re making decisions based on our emotions and that’s when we’re losing and investing. Can you share with us your thoughts on meditation and how that’s helped you as an entrepreneur, as an investor to be more intentional, maybe make better investment decisions?

Michael Sonnenfeldt:
You know, there’s lots of ways to both tame, and I don’t know if I would use the word master your mind, but at least kind of wrap your head around it for lack of a better way of saying it. And one of it is through analysis. Some people think of psychoanalysis as a negative, if… Psychoanalysis is a way to open up into your unconscious and reveal issues that are on your mind. And meditation is another way. How many times have you heard people say, I was in the shower and I had an idea come into my head, or I woke up in the middle of the night with an idea and I wrote it down? It was so important. These are all variations on a theme. meditation of course being one of the most important of them and You know for me I don’t I do get some mastery as you mentioned from meditation But the more profound impact For me is that The more you can clear your mind the more things can surface that are being held below the surface. Think of it as a meditation is kind of removing a blanket from something and revealing things. I very often, when I’m meditating, something will come into my head that I have absolutely no idea where it came from. But I remember I forgot to respond to an email, or I’ve been working on a problem that I can’t quite figure out the right solution to and the solution pops into my head. Really what it means is that our brains are really working on multiple levels and we’re not in touch consciously with all of the levels that our brains are working and our brains are working on some problems that we’re not even aware of and sometimes you can’t put all the pieces together but both meditation and being in the shower and For some people, it’s hiking and so forth. Finding ways to calm and clear the mind allows some of those problem solving to come to the fore with extraordinary solutions. And sometimes I find I’ve been working on something for weeks or months, and I just, I can’t get there. But with a meditation, literally a solution pops into my head. and it feels like it’s the right solution. So there’s lots of reasons to do meditating. There’s lots of health reasons. And I guess the other one is that when you’re an entrepreneur, your ideas are important, but your execution is more important. And execution almost always involves working with other people. And one of the things about meditation is to have what’s called an observing mind. Most people are in the moment. So if they get upset, they’re experiencing the upset. Or if they get angry or they’re obnoxious or they’re arrogant. But with meditation, you start to learn how to observe what’s going on. So you’re both in the moment and you’re observing the moment. And in every personal interaction that an entrepreneur has with an employer, an employee or a customer, the more they can be aware of how they’re acting and how they’re being perceived, the more they can adjust to a more productive mode. And I think meditation is one way to build this observing mind. So you’re not just in the moment, but your mind is observing you being in the moment. And we’re all human. If I come into a room and I’m feeling insecure, because as an example, everybody is more successful than me, if I can be aware that I’m feeling insecure, it will moderate my behavior in a way that I don’t behave in a counterproductive way. Whereas without that monitoring, I might not behave as well as I’d like.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, yeah, no, totally agree with that. It’s such a powerful technique. And as you say, I mean, it can really benefit so many areas of your life, you know, in business, with your relationships, with your health, and with investing as well. So appreciate that. Michael, why don’t you tell us a little bit about Tiger21? I think some folks might not necessarily be aware. We have several of our partners, folks in our community and friends of our community, our members. But for folks who aren’t familiar, tell us, you know, how it started for you. What is the make-up

Michael Sonnenfeldt:
Sure.

Dave Wolcott:
today?

Michael Sonnenfeldt:
So I mentioned that I had built and then sold this very large project when I was a little past 30, I may have been 31. And I was successful beyond anything I would have ever imagined. But when I sold the project and now I had the millions of dollars that I made. I had no real thoughts about preserving the capital. In fact, I thought that if I had been so successful the first time, the second time would be just as easy. And so I didn’t have well thought out strategy about protecting capital. And I started some new businesses and I just wasn’t thinking straight in hindsight. I overestimated my success, which is very typical when people who win the lottery think they’re geniuses and forget that they won the lottery. On the other hand, they took the risk and bought the ticket, so they deserve some credit, but it’s not the whole story. And so I had some setbacks in the next round of investments and realized I needed to be smarter about it. So I went back to the real estate business where I knew something and built a billion dollar… Merchant bank called MS and company EMM ES my initials are MS and it means truth in Hebrew and And then I sold that business when I was 43 So I’d had two really terrific successes and I realized the second time I sold the business I didn’t want to ever have to go back to start a third business Because I had made stupid mistakes and I wanted to avoid the mistakes that rookies make And I wanted to learn from other people who had been very successful and then learned how to preserve the capital and maybe even enhance it without unnecessarily risking it. So I wanted to create an organization around six other people who were in similar situation to me. We were all in a Vistage group that’s an organization like YPO, two great organizations, that their members are mostly CEOs of businesses. And their peer-to-peer learning is about being great CEOs. But once you sell, kind of it’s like the Harvard and Stanford undergraduate or the Oxford and Cambridge, and then Tiger 21 today is the graduate school after you sell a peer-to-peer learning model. So I started Tiger really wanting to learn from other people how they were preserving wealth and thinking about legacy and. estate planning and most importantly children after they had been incredibly successful as entrepreneurs. And that was an idea 23 years ago and today that’s grown into the premier network of high net worth entrepreneurs around the globe. We operate in a half a dozen countries growing a few more out. When you join Tiger, you join a group. So we have over a hundred groups around the globe. 95 of those groups or more are geographically located. So you might be in New York one or London three or Tel Aviv one or, you know, Vancouver two because in many cities we have two, three, four, five groups. But now we also have global groups where you could live anywhere in the world and join a group and then you meet by Zoom every month. 11 months a year except three of those meetings you actually meet in person depending on where most of the members in the global group is You might meet in new york and then london But uh, it’s a it’s a global group, but regardless Each of these groups have about 12 to 15 members. That’s the size and the reason is that When you meet months once a month One person each month does something called a portfolio defense Where they’ve worked? very often for weeks, if not months, with their accountants and advisors to put together a way to explain their portfolio decisions to get the input of 12 peers that they just can’t get from anywhere else. It’s sort of the defining experience. It’s all subject to confidentiality. And so today at the core is a little over 100 groups, about 1300 members managing. about $150 billion. We’re not money manager, we just the organization that puts all these people together in these groups. We curate the activities and then they meet and it’s a full day meeting focusing on, as I mentioned, the portfolio. We obviously have speakers, but it’s sort of like a personal board of directors. You get 12 people who you meet with. every month for years. I was in a group yesterday that I’ve been meeting with for 20 years. It’s just an extraordinary way to get information about how other really smart people are investing, how they’re thinking about their legacy, how they’re thinking about tax planning, how they’re thinking about their children. But you’re learning from peers. That’s the model. It’s not a consultation. The groups are run by chairs, those are our facilitators, but their job is to make the magic happen between extraordinary members. And our members are uniquely successful, on average about one in 10,000 by success. What that means is if you have 1,300 members worth close to 150 billion, our members have net worth between 20 million and a billion. and on average in the middle there at about 110 million. And that makes them about one in 10,000. And the best way to understand that is if you’re in the major league, football, baseball, or basketball, you’re about one in 17,000 by accomplishment. And if you take the All-Stars out of any one of those leagues, so you have the majors minus the All-Stars. Think of the All-Stars as the billionaires. And what’s left is an extraordinary group of people. That’s about one in 10,000.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, excellent. And what do you think in terms of members from a, um, you know, a team perspective, right? One of the things that, you know, we see in family offices, right? That everyone is basically creating a team of superstars and expertise around you, right? To build your wealth plan. So, um, our members are typically doing their own, making their own investment decisions, you know, with members such as a CPA and everything or you know to what extent are they outsourcing to you know traditional wealth advisors?

Michael Sonnenfeldt:
So this is a core question because some wealth advisors were nervous about Tiger 21 for fear that somehow it would harm their business. Tiger 21 is a confidential community where people can share best practices. And what that means is that when one person has a wealth advisor or a broker or… somebody who’s helping them make money in a productive way. They share that information with other members. And so for the best providers of services, whether it’s legal services, wealth, investment, et cetera, for the best providers, Tiger is a way to crowdsource business because one member introduces another and another and another and another. But obviously, Part of our discussion is for two people to say, hey, my advisor is giving me this advice and producing these results and charging me these fees. How are you doing? And none of these things are black and white because you might’ve earned less but taken less risk, in which case that’s a good thing. But in the discussion, 12 really smart people can pretty much identify who the better performers are and who the worst performers are. And it’s not a surprise that the worst performers get less and less business and the best performers get more and more business, although performance is very hard to quantify. And one of the greatest benefits you have is when you sit and talk to another member and say, how are you thinking about this issue or that issue, you start getting into the nuance that either excitingly or unfortunately is at the essence of investing.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah. Michael, if you could give just one piece of advice to listeners about how they could accelerate their own wealth trajectory, what would it be?

Michael Sonnenfeldt:
I don’t think there’s any one piece, but there’s three quick ones if I could share them with you. The first is that in the book I wrote, I mentioned that if you line 100 people up in any industry, not just finance, and line them up from least successful to most successful using any reasonable metrics, so it doesn’t just have to be. profits or returns. It could be academic papers. It could be there’s lots of different ways, but use any reasonable basis. And the half that are the most successful will overwhelmingly have had mentors in their life and the half that are least successful will overwhelmingly have excuses for why they couldn’t have mentors in their life. And peer-to-peer learning is a variation of that because If you’ve just sold your business and you go into a group with a couple people who had sold their business three or four or five or ten years ago, you’re going to learn things you couldn’t learn anywhere else. But mentors in particular was the big learning for me. I’ve been as lucky as can be to have had about a half a dozen mentors across my 50-year arc from when I was a teenager. helped me along the way. So I would say mentors is almost certainly the number one. The second is many of your members may be aware of something called the marshmallow test. It was a test with young kids, two and three year old, I think three year olds, where they put kids around the table and one marshmallow in front of each of them and said, I’m going to be back in a little while if the marshmallow is still there. I’m going to give you a second marshmallow and you can have two. And it wouldn’t be a surprise that if you had 10 kids, not all of them can wait. Most of them might want to eat the marshmallow first because they’re not sure when you’re coming back and how long they’re going to wait and they’re not even sure if they believe you. And there’s always a few kids who are disciplined enough or smart enough or wise enough to wait and then they get the two marshmallows. And it turns out as silly as this little experiment. seems they track these kids for the next 30 and 40 years. This has been going on for decades. And it turns out that the few kids who could wait for that second marshmallow learned about delayed gratification. And in almost every important endeavor, delaying gratification, making the investment upfront, but not reaping the reward for some time. those who know how to delay gratification through discipline or personality are predisposed to be far more successful because people who want to take the rewards out of an early career don’t have the resources to reinvest them and use the power of compounding to build great success. I think I’ll stop at those two.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, really, really fantastic. So many things kind of come to mind personally off the top of my head from that. So really appreciate you sharing those with the audience, Michael. Really appreciate you coming on the show today, giving so much value to the audience. If people would like to learn more about what you’re up to at Tiger, some of your other companies, some of your philanthropies. or would like to get involved, what’s really the best place to reach out?

Michael Sonnenfeldt:
Through the tiger website www.tiger21.com that seems to be sort of the best portal to Just get a snapshot and dig in and I’m available on LinkedIn as well

Dave Wolcott:
Super. And then how about one more last question, Michael, a trivia question. How did you came up with the name Tiger 21?

Michael Sonnenfeldt:
It stands for the investment group for enhanced results in the 21st century. And, you know, there’s a for people in finance, they’ll know that there was an amazing investor named Julian Robertson, who was the founder of the Tiger Group of Companies, Tiger Management, and so forth. He went out of business in 1998 as one of the greatest legendary investors just when we were starting. So I wasn’t taking my name from him because he had basically said he was through and he didn’t understand the way the markets were working. But he’s been the greatest father of what are called tiger cubs. There’s literally dozens of his proteges who have gone on to build multi-billion dollar funds, some of them the most successful. But we had to accommodate one another. And so we can’t sell securities the way Tiger can, and they can’t run high net worth learning groups. We have what’s called a mutual recognition agreement that has worked fine for the last 10 years, and I expect it’ll continue to work fine.

Dave Wolcott:
Wow, that’s great. Michael, thanks again for coming on the show. It’s really been an honor to learn from you and the community that you’ve created. Super impressive what you’ve done, how you’ve been able to give back is really impressive as well and an inspiration to others. So I encourage listeners to definitely reach out, follow what Michael’s doing, what Tiger 21 is doing. definitely the elite group in the space and very well aligned with our thinking here as well. So thanks again and talk to you next show.

Michael Sonnenfeldt:
Thanks so much.

Dave Wolcott:
Hey everyone, welcome to today’s show on wealth strategy secrets. We’ve got another awesome show for you guys today focused on taxes. Today we’re joined by Mitch Day. Mitch is a specialty tax manager with Provision PLC out of Tempe, Arizona, with over 20 years of taxation experience. He has worked in a variety of roles in both public accounting and in industry with an emphasis on tax planning in the real estate construction, banking and multi-state sectors. Prior to his career in accounting, Mitch was an investment advisor in Canada. In addition to being a CPA, Mitch is also a certified management accountant, a certified financial manager, and a chartered financial analyst. Which, Rich, Mitch, welcome to the show, good to see you.

Mitchell Day:
But to see a day, pleasure, great for having me on to this morning.

Dave Wolcott:
I’m gonna do that over really quickly. This is the beauty of editing. I don’t know why

Mitchell Day:
Yeah.

Dave Wolcott:
I had that screwed up. Mitch, welcome to the show.

Mitchell Day:
Thanks, Dave. Thanks for having me on. Great to be here.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, awesome to have you on the show and have been really looking forward to this one. I know our investors are always looking for tax strategies, tax tactics, getting smarter on taxes as I have over the years. And I’ve found it to be such a fascinating journey. It was always frustrating for me for many years. And I know I’ve told the story to many in my book. that I’ve actually fired five different CPA firms. You know, I progressed up the ladder in terms of, you know, working with more prestigious agencies and, you know, paying more and more and fees, but never really getting that, you know, strategic advice, right, from a tax provider and saying, you know, where are you today? Where are you heading? You know, let’s move pieces around on the chessboard that are most… going to align with your tax strategy. And it was such a key insight for me. And now I’ve had the opportunity for, gosh, almost a decade now to be working with folks such as yourself, to really get those insights and then kind of incorporate that into our overall wealth strategy. And I’ll give the other caveat to that as well is that, I’ve definitely identified that you know, taxes are the number one tax destroyer bar none, right? It’s the biggest expense on your income statement, whether you’re a business owner, whether you’re W2 or anything. Uh, and I love how Tom Wheelwright talks about it, you know, that, that really hits home, which is to say, you know, you could, you know, you may be working five, six months out of the year just to pay your taxes. So that’s, that’s pretty sobering. So. So Mitch, tell us a little bit more about your background and also, you’ve got such a unique background into how you got into really taxes, accounting, financial planning, and kind of just give us a perspective of your view of the world.

Mitchell Day:
Okay, well I came about, it’s kind of the securitist route I took. So I was born and raised up in Northern Ontario, a town called Sudbury, Ontario. My dad was a chartered accountant, so basically he was a CPA up there, he had his own firm. So I grew up understanding the business. And I learned from him where he was a very, where he focused more on advisory, where it’s like, and obviously in Canada where basically California looks like a tax shelter, it is tax planning is very important up there. So a lot, so he always took the perspective that it was a large part of that. And as I went through university, I wanted to take a different route. And originally I did my undergrad in statistics and chemistry, and then I did a second degree in accounting and I wanted to go into finance, basically investment management, because I loved understanding balance sheets, understanding how to create wealth and that. And I did that. Basically when I came out of college, I worked for a firm that ultimately merged in with Merrill Lynch Canada, then I worked with RBC, and I basically got my chops there, basically being a deep value type and management investments out. That was my style on it where I was trained, where I learned grand, dot, classic margin of safety, income, and growth that way. And then after the dot com bubble, basically… the entire industry changed and it basically, it was this mass carnage. And with me being basically, everybody was being like, oh, it’s like, well, I’m out of a career. It’s like no one’s hiring in the investment side. And because of my accounting background, I was able to immigrate to the US and I started working for a CPA firm in the Detroit area. And I was fortunate enough to work with, I basically got in there with my college roommate. And I started learning with him and a couple of managers, it’s like, look, tax returns isn’t just a form and it’s, it is basically a way for you to arrange your affairs so that you’re paying the bare minimum on there. And you have to look at it in terms of when you look at a tax return, a lot of people just look at it, does everything tick and tie? Is everything fill out? And that’s really a failure of our schools, of the way education is, with how colleges prep people, is that they show them how to do it correctly, but they don’t show them how to think beyond that. And I was lucky enough to have mentors, and also growing up in a family where it’s like, no, you gotta look at it different, where you look at a tax return, and you can kind of see, here’s money left on the table. Hey, if I did this, I could’ve lowered this number. Hey, if I did this, this number could have been done. So I was fortunate enough to get into a set of circumstances where I got to look at things that way, where because I had a period of time where I was away from it, I was basically starting over from scratch doing this. So I got to learn from a new perspective. And then after being in public for a couple of years, it’s like I had an opportunity to go work for Bank of America and their corporate tax department. And then I learned how large like basically the largest taxpayer in the US how they do it and their perspective is The tax department is a lot of people think of it as a cost center But you can also look at it as a revenue center Where if you organize your affairs within the structure and how you deal with counterparties? You can save You you can create significant tax savings on it. So after seeing how the big boys do it and the way they look at it, the way large corporations look at it is, CFO goes to the chief accounting officer and goes, what’s the lowest effective tax rate we can get at? And gives them basically a mandate to here’s your target effective tax rate, what can we do inside here with the tax attributes we have here to lower our effective tax rate, what are things we’re doing here or if we’re below it. Are there ways to harvest gains, take advantage of it because we’ve had an off year or we have some advantages to take advantage of things to keep within our target tax rate. And that really opened my eyes because what we’re doing, we’re no different than a business. It’s like we have a P&L which is our personal and in all our businesses and how they all flow up. But the idea is we have a P&L and probably our largest line item on there, as you’ve said before, is taxes. And so we should be thinking about it no different than a business. This is an expense that needs to be managed. The problem is we’ve been conditioned from since our first paycheck as a teenager working that it’s taken off the top. There’s nothing you can do about it. And no one tells you otherwise until you have that epiphany where it’s like, hey, wait a sec, there are ways to do it. So we try to take that approach where it’s like, OK, Here’s our expense. First, we have to learn how to measure it. How do all these pieces flow up into our return? How does it create the expense? You have to be able to measure it accurately, because if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. So once we measure it, it’s like, okay, here’s the elements involved with it. Then how do we manage this going forward throughout the year where we set a target effective tax rate, how do we achieve it? Now every person is different because they have different ways of making money, spending money, investing money. They also have different goals with regards to effective tax rates. And then ultimately you only have, and especially when you’re deploying capital to create cash flow and tax efficiency, we don’t have printing presses in our basement. So we’re also constrained by that. And the question is, is for everybody’s unique situation, how do we put all these traits together and within our circumstances on a year in year out basis and optimize that based on what our goals are, what our risk tolerances are, and all those other types of non-financial constraints and how do we implement the year in year out so that we are always have our finger on a pulse of what our tax bill is. And if we do it right, the tax return is the end of the process where it’s like we already know what we did during the year. All it is truing up the numbers, and we have the return, we have our projections. There shouldn’t be much variance, there’s no surprises on it, and then it’s basically repeat every year.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, that’s such a great summary. So why don’t we just back up a little bit, right? And I think some of the, a lot of the misunderstanding comes for folks where, you know, everyone out there probably has a CPA, right?

Mitchell Day:
Mm.

Dave Wolcott:
And they’re getting their taxes filed and they’re doing different things and they feel like maybe they’re doing, you know, making some deductions and things like that. And they’re calling that really a tax strategy, which isn’t in fact a strategy. But what… Tell us why is the industry so bifurcated really, right? Because what you’re talking about is a very strategic advice versus a lot of, I would say the majority of planners are just looking in the rear view mirror.

Mitchell Day:
Well, I think there’s a couple of reasons. As I said earlier, I have to put a lot of criticism to the university system is that when you take a tax course, it’s like, here’s the code, here’s what the numbers are, here’s how you prepare a return. And they don’t teach people to think out of there. Now, let me qualify that. I went to school in Canada. And that was the same here. And what I’ve seen from people here, it’s the same here. I don’t know about a master’s level, but what I’ve noticed is there’s not an emphasis on changing the mindset of people where it’s just, it’s very much an assembly line where it’s like, here’s the form, here’s how you do it. And the problem is that a lot of firms look at the tax return as basically a widget. It’s basically their entire business model is, Input process output input shoebox of receipts process put it into the software output. Here’s a return Pay me my fee pay the irs. See you next year because it’s just It’s a it’s just a simple model because a lot of people don’t necessarily want to do it and the other thing is that a lot of people don’t want to pay for it as One of my clients once said a lot of people Are will balk at well that’s going to cost me money but but the problem is they’re basically stepping over dollars to pick up nickels. And we as an industry don’t do a good job of explaining how we add value. And one of the things I tell people is like, look, yes, you’re paying these fees for planning and strategy, but the idea is that with us sitting together, figuring out a strategy, figuring out what your needs are and your preferences are. We can create a return on investment on those fees by tax savings. Well in excess of what you’re doing. That’s always the goal and people have to change that. They just look at, oh you’re charging me this much for a return and they go no, no. But the way I explain it is, well I’ve been doing this for 20 years. I know how to save you money if you’re willing to invest the time, which is time is money based on just the way CPAs charge. we can create a delta there for you. We can create savings well in excess of what you’re paying. And that’s the other problem, it’s just changing that mindset on people because a lot of people, when it comes to professional relationships, and you’ve seen this on your field too, where some people will spend more time in doing research for buying a TV or a cell phone than they will looking for a professional advisor. and trying to educate people on that where it’s like, no, this is how we add value. Yes, there’s a cost to it. This is the value. This is how we’re gonna create return for you.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, it makes sense. So, and to give you a specific example, right? You know, we just finished this tax season. We have an oil and gas fund, and a lot of our investors had submitted that to their CPAs, and a lot of the CPAs came back and said, wait, you know, you can’t offset active income, right? And they didn’t totally understand, you know, how it works. And then, you know, they were up against the deadline. You know, what would you say in terms of, you know, CPAs out there that feel like something might be risky, let’s call it a home office deduction or something

Mitchell Day:
Mm-hmm.

Dave Wolcott:
where they feel like something in a gray area, or, you know, you’re trying to, you know, take this active income and offset it based on this type of investment and they just don’t really understand it or they think it’s risky.

Mitchell Day:
Yeah, well, it boils down to what is risk. And it’s like, I’ve heard that throughout my entire career. Oh, home office will get you audited. I’ve never, 20 plus years, I’ve never seen anyone get audited on a home office. And it’s understanding, and the other part is about tax risk is like, look, if you can document it and you’ve got a fact pattern and you can substantiate it, and it’s in the code saying, hey, this is what the rules are, you take it. Because the key thing is, it’s just, you have to support it, you have to understand the code. And the problem is a lot of these guys, they don’t have exposure, like let’s just use your oil and gas one. They don’t understand working interests because they don’t see it very often. They don’t understand that the 469 rules have a specific carve out for oil and gas interest whereby if your money is at risk and your general partner, This is considered ordinary. The code did that to encourage exploration. And it’s the same with home office. It’s like, no, it’s fine. It’s just documents substantiated. It’s the same with the Augusta, well, I shouldn’t rent my house to myself. It’s like, look, as long as you have a proper rental agreement, you have a valid business purpose, you basically document what you’ve used your house for, and you have comps where you can show, hey, look, I pulled up all the comps. This is what… what the market is for my house, you’re fine. It’s just some CPAs, and I don’t wanna say this to be disparaging, some aren’t as intellectually curious to go look it up and find out what it is, spend a few minutes on Google, reading up what working interests are, and they just wanna stick in their silo, which is give me your W-2, give me your 1098s, and leave me alone. Because they don’t

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah.

Mitchell Day:
wanna spend the time, they don’t wanna spend the time, or they don’t wanna charge for the time.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, no, it makes sense. And I think that’s a perfect backdrop for folks. And then also just to kind of add to that, I think, you know, in creating some context around taxes and, and my journey as well was, you know, just really making that paradigm shift to understand that the tax code is actually a roadmap of incentives for business owners and investors. And when you can think of it that way. You just need to understand the code a little bit more and do what the government is looking for you to do, which is, you know, investing in energy, investing in real estate and doing these different things, because you’re creating jobs, uh, you know, you’re supporting the economy and all of these types of things. And I think once you make that paradigm shift, you know, then you can actually start looking for, you know, where are the opportunities, whether it’s in investing or in your business and try to be, you know, a proactive partner with your CPA in the journey.

Mitchell Day:
Oh, you nailed it right there. The Internal Revenue Code is basically a guidebook on how not to pay taxes. If you, ultimately, the other way it says, well, it tells me what to pay. The other way is, hey, if I do it this way, it’s giving me a roadmap on how not to pay taxes. And you gotta look at it that way. You’re right, it’s a whole paradigm shift. And once you understand that, you understand how do I manage my affairs? to do that because now it becomes also part with understanding to go, how does this impact my investment decisions? How does it impact how I work? Do I work as a W-2? Do I have an option to be 1099 and set up my own business? How to do those things? Like once you start thinking it that way, even if it’s like, hey, there might be another way. And that’s where we come in where it’s like. Ask the question. There’s no dumb questions here where it’s like, hey, can I do this? If I change my affairs this way, will this work? And often the answer is yes with an if, if we can do the X, Y, and Z, absolutely. Now let’s figure out how to implement it and let’s show what the impact is on your return.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, absolutely. So what have been the changes that we should be aware of in 2023 or going forward into next year in terms of our.

Mitchell Day:
there’s a couple of bigger things coming on. Because the biggest one that you’re starting to see is, and this all comes back to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act when it came out in 2018, was that the problem was in order for them to pass it, it went through reconciliation so that the Senate couldn’t filibuster it. And because of the reconciliation rules is that it’s like it couldn’t increase the deficit by so much over 10 years. So in order for it to meet those rules and get past, basically a lot of the elements within their phase out over the next couple of years. And the classic example that everybody knows about is bonus depreciation. So when they change it, they’re like, hey, 100% expense. And this is huge for people who invested in real estate. The problem is now it’s starting to phase out. So it was 100% through 2022. Now it’s 80. It’s going to drop to 60. It’s going to drop to 40. And then it’s going to be gone. So that’s gonna change a lot of ways, because now it’s like every dollar invested in real estate, for example, or in depreciable equipment, it’s not gonna get you the same tax impact on there. So there’s that. And then it’s also gonna impact where if I have all these investments in let’s say real estate syndications at 100% bonus, and they sell, and I’m gonna have this huge recapture bill, when you reinvest, now it’s like, because it’s a lower bonus, I’m not gonna get the same offset on there. I gotta figure out other ways to mitigate that. So that’s gonna be a big one. Another big one is a qualified small business deduction, that 20% deduction you get for pass-through income. That’s gonna start phasing out in a couple of years. So now we gotta start thinking, it’s like, okay, as this goes through, how’s this gonna impact my business? How do I need to structure my affairs? Where… I can keep my effective tax rate down. And then a third one, which is not income tax related, but the estate tax exemption, it went up to $10 million per person. It dropped back to 5 million in a couple of years. So now if you’re a high net worth person, you’ve got, it’s like you’ve got $5 million as an exemption where to use it or lose it. So now you also gotta start thinking, do I wanna start get… moving assets to my heirs or into a trust now while I still have a couple of years. So there’s a lot of things going on. And the other problem that you have is what’s the tax code going to be starting in 2025? Is the composition of the house and the presidency, is that going to change things? What are the things with the finances? There’s a lot of moving pieces to it, but we do know that a lot of these things are starting to phase out and we got to start planning accordingly.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, really good insights. So what do you think, I mean, you know, just given what you know today, what are some, you know, good strategies? And I’d like to break this down into two parts for the listener. So the first one being, you know, why don’t we cover business owners first, and then let’s cover W-2. Secondly, those high income earners out there. for business owners, are there any top strategies, investments, things like that, that business owners should be looking at?

Mitchell Day:
Well, one of the things that I look at for businesses, obviously one of the bigger things I take a look, what I look at is, okay, let me see what your operations are. Let me see the variability of your revenues and your income. And I have some clients where they’re consistent, they have a consistent floor, a significant floor, and it’s basically stable revenues and income every year now. And we start looking at things based on the nature of their business and it’s like, okay, do we wanna look at benefit plans? Do we wanna max that out if you and your spouse are the only employees? That’s a big one there, we’re maximizing those. Other clients I take a look at is, I really like captive insurance companies. That is a great way to create deductions on your return and basically keep all that capital via captive insurance now. That’s a little bit of a longer story, but it’s a way to basically create deductions and manage your claim liabilities depending on what type of insurance it is. Well, a longer story on it, but that’s another very valuable tool on creating tax savings on there. The other thing is taking a look, reviewing your fixed asset purchases, understanding that is if you’re limited, do we need to set up a separate leasing company and lease your equipment back to yourself? Do we need to look at having a separate C Corp and running some of the operations through there where we can take advantage of the delta between personal and corporate rates on there. These are all things that we need to discuss and basically you have to make, you got to make a business case for it first because one of the key things I always tell people, don’t do something just solely for tax purposes. You have, if the cash flow doesn’t make sense, the tax benefits almost all. almost all the time will not more than justify that. So we have to make a business case on it that this makes things more efficient. And then basically the tax benefits is basically is gonna goose your return a little bit. So those are the things that I kind of look on there it’s like reviewing the operations. Are there ways to create expenses? Are there ways to create additional deductions? Is there anything within the structure that we need to look at? because some people might have it as a partnership where there’s self-employment tax, do we need to do an S-Corp? Do we need to even consider doing a C-Corporation because sometimes it’s counterintuitive, but sometimes it makes sense to do it that way. It’s having a discussion of what’s going on in the business, what do you need from the income from here, what are your cash needs and tailoring it so that we can kind of optimize it based on your tax, business and risk needs.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, it’s such a good point you make. And admittedly, I’m guilty of this one too, is having the tax tail wag the dog, right?

Mitchell Day:
Mm-hmm.

Dave Wolcott:
Sometimes we’re in such pursuit of some kind of tax efficiency, that we underestimate, right? The overall impact, right? Upstream, downstream, does it make business sense? Like you say, whether that’s in your business or for an investment and everything. So, you know, this is why we always advocate really creating a comprehensive wealth strategy that’s looking at everything end to end and also,

Mitchell Day:
Mm-hmm.

Dave Wolcott:
you know, downstream. You know, we’re planning for 10 and 25 years into the future. So you’re making the right decisions now, not just for this quarter or this year.

Mitchell Day:
Well, exactly. And as you

Dave Wolcott:
Is there…

Mitchell Day:
know, it’s like one of the things you say with your clients is like, what is our investment criteria? What’s the minimum return? What’s our minimum return on our investment that we’re looking for? And you got to have that discipline on there because it’s back to what my whole thing was when I was investment advisor, I’m a value investor. Here’s my criteria. I stick to it. Because when you when you drift away from it, bad things often happen because you gotta stick with what you know and you gotta stick with that criteria. And it’s like, hey, if this doesn’t meet your investment criteria before taxes, why are you touching it?

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah.

Mitchell Day:
That’s the key takeaway.

Dave Wolcott:
So, so here’s a question for you, Mitch, right? You know, how can investors really, you know, more quantifiably, you know, measure tax impact right into the future as part of their overall wealth plan? So, you know, let’s say today, like if you were, you know, going with your example, and, you know, as the CFO of your own personal economy, you said, look, you know, I want to hit a marginal effective rate of 20% this year, right? That’s,

Mitchell Day:
Mm-hmm.

Dave Wolcott:
that’s my target. You know, what are we going to do to, to try to get there? But then let’s say, you know, you make some decisions, you know, you’re investing in some real estate things, you get the bonus depreciation, but you do have that recapture coming in, say three to five to six years, you know, and how can you actually plan for those types of things in the future? Or another use case for this is, we have many entrepreneurs here who are selling their businesses, having really big liquidity events. So they’re having kind of a massive liquidity event with tax implications, right? So how can you kind of proactively plan for some of these things in your strategy?

Mitchell Day:
Well, what we normally try to do is like the first thing is we have to assume that, okay, here’s the knowns because there’s no knowns, there’s known unknowns, and there’s unknown unknowns, as Donald Rumsfeld once said. So we do know the facts that it’s like here’s the code where it is, here’s what tax rates are going forward, here’s how the rules are going to change. And you can model things out like three, four, five years out saying, okay. I’ll use the example of your liquidity event. So it’s like, okay, we’ve done the sale. Here’s what we’re gonna do to basically offset the initial impact of the gain. And then ultimately part of it is going to be, because it’s like, because I’ll use the example of real estate. So let’s say we sold the company and you basically invest in real estate, use bonus to offset it. And it’s like, okay, we know down the road you have all these assets creating cashflow. And depending on what you’re in, you also have to define what your hold period is. Because it’s often, depending on how you invested, some people are like, nope, this is buy and hold, which means, okay, that’s fine. We already know what this is. Some of them are value add three years in sell. So knowing I’m gonna have another liquidity event coming in a couple of years, this is going to impact in two to three years. How do I reinvest? Do I reinvest it? Do I take the tax hit? Take a look at things that way. We have to have that discussion now where it’s like, okay, if we know in three years, we’re gonna have this. The first question is, we have to understand, okay, how are we gonna reinvest it if we have investments that meet our investment criteria? How much of this can we, if we will defer or push down the road further? Or the other answer might be how much, or if it’s like, if we don’t have it, what’s… What’s our tax expense if we can’t find anything on there? So at the very least, we got a deferral where time value of money is. And hopefully due to where the liquidity event and where everything’s in the top bracket, where if we do have a hit, it’s at a lower bracket. So it’s really trying to figure out what the time horizon is, how willing are we gonna do that? What’s our outlook on the markets? What’s our investment outlook for the next couple of years? because that’s something else we’ve got to take a look at because as an aside, it’s like one of the big things that I talk to people with in real estate is… Real estate is basically an offshoot of the long-term bond market and is basically just a derivative of interest rates So the question is where interest rates gonna be three four or five years from now Are we in a rising rate environment or dropping rate environment? That’s gonna drive a lot of your decision Because if you’re buying now and rates are here and they’re gonna be a lot higher you’re gonna do a lot higher cap rate lower valuation different cash flow you have to plan accordingly and That’s where a lot of the back and forth is trying to figure out. What is your outlook? What are we gonna do in this case? And then try to model it out because one of the big things that we want to do is just Put it on our tax projection software try to model it out under different scenarios show what the impact is So at least we can kind of make start tapping the basis of informed decisions going forward and try to have a map Where it’s like if you will a decision tree saying well if this happens, we’re gonna do this if this happens We’re gonna do that So at least we’ve had the outline of the things that we’re going to do going forward, and we know what the financial impact of them, general idea of the financial impact going forward is, so we’re not caught off guard.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah,

Mitchell Day:
Yeah,

Dave Wolcott:
no, that makes

Mitchell Day:
that

Dave Wolcott:
sense.

Mitchell Day:
makes sense.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, you’re really looking at everything comprehensively and end to end. Um, any, just off the top of your head, any, you know, top three strategies, if you are exiting a business and, you know, and you have a lot to, you know, a lot of income to try and offset.

Mitchell Day:
Well, the first question is, what are you doing after you sell the business? Because the first question is, because if it’s like, hey, I’m done working and I have free time, the biggest one right there is real estate professional. And I’ve seen a lot of people do that, where it’s like, they’ll structure their sales so it’s in January. So they’ll have the money in January. They have a whole year to be a real, to… basically put their hours in as a real estate professional, meet all the criteria, find properties, deploy capital, get the cost segregation to get that done. So that’s a big one right there. So because time is another constraint. Well, if you’re in a situation where it’s like, okay, I’m still working, I can’t qualify as a real estate professional, then what do I do? And some of the things we’ll throw on is Do we want to look at short-term rentals? Because you don’t have to, there’s different rules to deduct real estate losses on short-term rentals than long-term. Do we want to take a look at that? Is there a business, first, is there a business case to make sense on that? And if so, well, here’s a way we can create deductions. Obviously, what you’ve talked about with some of the oil and gas working interests, that’s another way to do it. Another way to do it is when you’re negotiating a deal, break it into installments. consider doing an assault where it’s like, if you’re doing late in the year, half now, half in January, break it over two periods if it makes sense in order to mitigate the bracket impacts and also that gives you a little bit more time to basically mix and match your assets for risk purposes as well as tax. So that gives you some more time as well. You can look at qualified opportunity funds. because that takes time to find. It’s hard to find ones that have a good business case that also provide the tax deferral. So the more time we have to structure that, the more time we have to look for investments that meet your return criteria that have those tax benefits.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, such a great point really. You do not wanna be doing this while you’re in the middle of a transaction because having gone through, you know, selling a business before in the past myself, I mean, it’s just, it’s really demanding. It’s so many different levels. You know, you’re trying to run the business, you’re trying to do so many different things. And then tax planning starts to become a little bit of an afterthought. And the last thing that you want, is to be forced into some kind of position, right? Where you have to deploy capital or you’re kind of making that decision, like you say, that doesn’t align with your investment criteria just because of the timing of it, right? You’re just trying

Mitchell Day:
Mm-hmm.

Dave Wolcott:
to do it from a tax perspective.

Mitchell Day:
Well, yeah.

Dave Wolcott:
So, that’s a valuable lesson there.

Mitchell Day:
It’s

Dave Wolcott:
Mitch,

Mitchell Day:
like

Dave Wolcott:
can

Mitchell Day:
the

Dave Wolcott:
you

Mitchell Day:
first

Dave Wolcott:
also…

Mitchell Day:
thing is as soon as you get the

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah.

Mitchell Day:
LOI we need to talk because you got to look

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah.

Mitchell Day:
at the timing and you got to look at the term because You can structure the sale so it’s much more contagious tax wise. It’s just it’s part of the negotiation Because

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah,

Mitchell Day:
there’s

Dave Wolcott:
100%.

Mitchell Day:
always

Dave Wolcott:
And

Mitchell Day:
a difference

Dave Wolcott:
I would say, I would say you should be having the conversation, you know, number one, you should have someone on your team, like, like Mitch, right?

Mitchell Day:
Mm.

Dave Wolcott:
So you you’re, you’re proactively creating a group of, you know, subject matter experts in this space that can help advise you when you get to this point that you are exiting your business. So you’re thinking about it, you know, way in advance.

Mitchell Day:
Well, yeah, because I’ll give you an example for a lot of our dentistry clients. Like one of the things that I always throw is like, get a price on your practice. There’s a lot of PEO, there’s a lot of DEOs that are looking to acquire more practices. It doesn’t mean you have to buy, you have to sell it, but at least talk to these people who are in this sphere and say, how much is this worth? Because that’s the first question is, because the first question is you don’t know what the value of your business is. So you need to have a value. And it’s like, and then you understand where it’s like, okay, this is kind of like the figures we’re looking at, and at least you can start having discussion. Well, if I sold for this, what would it look like? So at least going forward, you already know where somebody comes up to you with an offer unsolicited, and it meets your criteria. You already kind of know. here’s what I gotta do for taxes on a high level, and then it’s just part of the negotiation to get the details done.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, a hundred percent. And then the second thing I was going to say, you know, from a learning experience as well, was that when you have that relationship in advance and you can start that conversation, when you go to the table with that LOI, you,

Mitchell Day:
Mm-hmm.

Dave Wolcott:
like you said, you can start negotiating and you have someone on your team. Cause what I found is, you know, when you start talking taxes and everything at this level. boy, you’ve got corporate, their corporate attorney, their M&A person, they’re all corporate, right? So they wanna do everything that’s like, the way 95% of them really do it. They’re not looking

Mitchell Day:
All good.

Dave Wolcott:
for things outside of the box. So it’s up to you

Mitchell Day:
And it’s a

Dave Wolcott:
to

Mitchell Day:
negotiation

Dave Wolcott:
do

Mitchell Day:
in

Dave Wolcott:
it.

Mitchell Day:
there because if

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah.

Mitchell Day:
I’m a business owner, more often than not, I want to just sell the stock because then it’s just straight capital gain. I’m selling it at E. If I’m a buyer, I’m like, no, I want an asset sale because I want to push as much of the purchase price into depreciable assets where I basically can get depreciated and kind of get an offset on there. Now obviously as a seller, I don’t necessarily want that because I might have recapture, I could have all this, I have different tax rates. And then it starts coming into part of the negotiation because you adjust the price accordingly. Well, if I’m going to take this tax hit, well, you’ve got to give me something. And then that’s part, it’s like understanding that, that this is all part of the bargain process.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah. Mitch, can you explain your concept of a passive income generator? How that

Mitchell Day:
Okay,

Dave Wolcott:
works?

Mitchell Day:
all right, so a lot of us here, and I’m just gonna use real estate syndication. So a lot of people invest in real estate syndication, saying they’re passive, they’re a limited partner, they’re not real estate professionals. So they get their K-1 from year one, they have this huge loss, it’s suspended because it’s passive. You can only use passive losses against passive income. Now the problem that a lot of people get into is they start getting really heavy into real estate syndications and things like that, ATM funds, stuff like that. And they have all these lot passive losses. Like I’ve seen people with hundreds of thousands of dollars of passive losses that are suspended, they’re doing nothing and they’re going to sit there and do nothing until either the property, until the property sells or to expedite things, you start deploying capital into investments that generate passive income. That’s don’t have the benefits of bonus depreciation. So the idea is I have this taxor attribute. I have all these suspended losses. If I can invest in something that just generates passive income, doesn’t have losses, doesn’t have depreciation or whatnot, just has income, I can invest in this. I’m getting this cash flow, and I’m using the losses to basically shelter it from tax. So it’s a way to complement. your passive income portfolio. You have a, you know, basically you’re getting the diversification where you’re in different sectors and all that, you’re not stuck in one sector and all that. And you’re generating this cash flow where you’re using these losses to offset it so you’re getting the time value of the money and the tax savings on it. That’s the idea of a passive income generator is we call them PIGs. So the idea is that if you have a whole bunch of losses, And it’s also part of a larger portfolio strategy of diversification, getting into different sectors, different return profiles, economic functions. It also has the benefit where that income is going to be sheltered because you got all these losses. You put them to work.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, no, that’s a great explanation. And that was exactly our strategy on creating the credit fund that we have, right? A great diversification play. You’ve got great cashflow and, you know, from the tax standpoint, you just offset right there. So appreciate that clarification. Why don’t we jump into, I don’t want to leave out W2 or active income earners. They’re always looking to offset. They have sometimes a little bit less flexibility

Mitchell Day:
Thank

Dave Wolcott:
than business

Mitchell Day:
you.

Dave Wolcott:
owners do. But could you tell us a couple of your key strategies of how you’re helping W2 earners?

Mitchell Day:
Okay, well the most common one is, I’ll use the classic example, high W2 earner, physician, executive, whatever, spouse becomes a real estate professional, okay? And I always couch it where it’s like, here’s what you need to do first is, okay, so you wanna do that, but we have to put a dollar cost on your time. So… The idea is that if you want to do this, well, first of all, we’re assuming you want to do it. So I always put a dollar value on people’s time because this is the most valuable resource that we have because time can be converted into money. It can be converted into memories and you have to put a value on it to basically warrant whether something is worthwhile or not. And then because it’s like, I don’t want you to do something that you’re miserable doing because you’re not going to do it or it’s just going to. The whole reason of doing this stuff is so you. we can create happiness, give you the resources for happiness. So the idea is that, okay, I’m high W2, okay, spouse is going to be a real estate professional, I have this much capital to deploy, I can create this much in deductions. Well, if I can create this much in deductions, this is my tax reduction. I say, okay, well, let’s say I’m creating this, I’m creating $10,000 in tax savings. Well, divide it by 750 hours. You’re getting paid this much an hour. Your spouse is getting paid this much an hour. Tax savings divided by 750 to do it. And the question is, what’s that hourly rate? You’re basically paying them to do a job. Would I do it for $20 an hour? Probably not. Would I do it for $200 an hour? Oh, yes I would. So that’s the first, you gotta ask that question. You gotta put a value on that time because it’s like I said, tax. the tax tail chasing everything. It’s like, I don’t want you guys to be miserable doing this just for saving a little bit of money. It’s gotta be worth your while. You gotta wanna do it. Because it’s just, it’s a pain in the butt. You’re tracking your time. You’re looking for investments. You’re figuring out, does this meet my return requirements? What, how is this gonna impact for funding? How much leverage I’m gonna use? How am I gonna deal with tenants? What am I going to invest it in? because it’s like those are all things you got to look at where I’m going to deploy my capital and I’m going to create these savings. It’s a very effective. I’ve seen some dramatic drops in tax liability as a result of it. That’s the big one, but that’s a discussion as a family you need to have first and foremost and figure out do I want to do this? If it’s not, or it’s like I don’t want to do it on that scale, short-term rentals, different things. But You have to understand the business case. You’re not getting consistent income. It’s not like a long-term tenant where you’re getting a rent check every month. It’s volatile. It’s basically, it’s seasonal depending on where you are. It’s dependent on consumer discretionary income. So if the economy’s good, you’re probably doing better. If the economy’s bad, you’re not gonna do as much. You have to plan for your cashflow on that. And the question is, after you look through all that, Does it make sense for me to get this tax benefit? That’s another question. The oil and gas funds, that’s another way. Here’s what the deductions are. What’s my view on oil? What’s my view on the people who are running this? What’s their track record? What’s the risk return? Because it’s obviously working interests. There’s risks involved. Do I understand this? Does this make sense as part of my overall portfolio wealth strategy? Because the idea is that we want it to… We don’t want to put all our chips in one part unless you’re such an expert on it, where it’s like, you know what you’re doing. But if you don’t, you got to diversify and you have to understand all these different tools and how they work.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, it’s really such great wisdom, Mitch, that you’re providing. I really appreciate you sharing this with the audience, right? Because you’re having people do some deep thinking about this and really looking at it with a lens that’s 360 degrees, right?

Mitchell Day:
Yeah.

Dave Wolcott:
Because to your point, it might be really advantageous to set up your spouse as a real estate professional. But if all of a sudden it becomes you helping her, you know, say manage that, you know, the property in your spare time that you have, or, you know, you become hating it, or you have to travel somewhere to

Mitchell Day:
Yeah.

Dave Wolcott:
properties that, you know, you don’t want to see, or you don’t understand the market or something, um, you know, then it doesn’t make sense, right? But, but,

Mitchell Day:
Oh yeah.

Dave Wolcott:
you know, you really have to kind of think about it end to end.

Mitchell Day:
Yeah, it’s a non-cash cost because remember, the whole reason you’re doing what you’re doing and we’re trying to help people is that we have goals. Money is just a tool for us to achieve those goals. And it’s like what I put it, it’s like we’re trying to create wealth so we have time to do things. Like the way I look at it, it’s like… One of my big things would be, it’s like, I wanna create wealth where I can spend time with my family. I don’t wanna be working. I wanna have memories with my children while they’re still younger. I don’t wanna see them off to college and say, where have you been all these years? That’s something you gotta ask yourself. Or if it’s like, I wanna spend time with my wife, we wanna go travel, we wanna do this. Well, you can’t do that if you’re working two days a week doing real estate professional. You gotta ask yourself, is this worth? There’s a trade-off, so this is why I always tell people, put a dollar cost on your time. It’s so important because there’s so many non-financial things you have to look at, and you gotta ask yourself before you go down to these, because sometimes it might be, and this is an honest answer, is that, I wouldn’t do this because you’re gonna be miserable and you’re gonna lose all this. Yes, you’re gonna pay some more money in taxes, but. You’re going to be miserable. That’s not the point for living. That’s not the point of our existence is to be miserable. We want to create happiness and memories and it’s like you got to throw that in there.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, 100%. It’s all about creating that freedom in your life is what we’re

Mitchell Day:
Amen.

Dave Wolcott:
really after, right? Freedom of money, freedom of time, freedom of purpose, freedom of relationship, all those

Mitchell Day:
Mm-hmm.

Dave Wolcott:
things. And then if you jeopardize achieving those, just to make a tactical move on the tax side, you’re really shooting yourself in the foot. And again, it kind of points back to our overall thesis around just having this strategy that’s taking all these different dimensions. of your life into perspective, you know, so that you can, you know, you can be a better investor. And you can also realize that vision, right? Because that’s what it’s all about at the end of the day, you know, living life, you know, the way the way you want to what to meet your vision.

Mitchell Day:
And that’s why our onboarding process, it’s kind of like the first questions are, and there’s two ways to think about it is one of the sarcastic ways, what do you want to do when you grow up? Or the other one is the more, as I put it as an Aristotelian question, what defines the good life for you? You have to define that first and foremost, because then everything comes off of there. for the roadmap. Like the roadmap you create for financial wealth, you have to understand what’s the good life for them. And for me, for taxes, and to compliment what you’re doing as well, it’s like I need to know that because I don’t wanna be recommending tax strategies that don’t meet your investment criteria, don’t meet your risk criteria, don’t meet your time criteria, because then that’s, I’m not adding value there. I have to understand who you are, what makes you tick, how things work. in order to get to that goal, like not only financial, but the more holistic point.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, absolutely. Mitch, if you could give just one piece of advice to our listeners about how they could accelerate their wealth trajectory, what would it be?

Mitchell Day:
The biggest one, and I’m gonna context this just from my own markets experience and just from also from my other career and just seeing things from like 20, 30 years of just being, seeing markets and all that. The biggest thing I try to understand is like understand risk. Have a larger perspective on it. Because one of the… This like I said, this is my personal opinion. It’s like understanding where you are in the interest rate cycle understanding leverage how it works Leverage is a double-edged sword. You can make money on the upside or it can wipe you out twice as fast So one of the big things I have is once you understand where you are in the market cycle Where you are in the business cycle where you are whether it’s positive or negative you have those facts and you can deploy capital appropriately where you’re not over leveraging yourself or over allocating things on there. Cause that’s the first thing, it’s all business case. You’ve got to look at risks on the business case. And then once you understand that, then we can start layering in, how do we put this in on a tax basis? But the first thing I always say is just, understand your business, understand risk, understand where you are in the economic cycle, three, you know, two, three, five years on a longer horizon. Understand that. Because remember past results are not indicative of future returns and we’re now in a new cycle where we’ve gone from 40 years of dropping interest rates. And now it looks like we’re starting a cycle of rising rates. These cycles are often 10, 20, 40 years long. Understanding where you are on that will drive a lot of your investment decisions and allow you to succeed. Because if you go under the old paradigm, you could get white.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah. Awesome. I really appreciate the time today, Mitch, coming in and providing so much value for the folks. I know I’ll be listening to this again. I never thought tax would be so exciting, quite honestly,

Mitchell Day:
Okay.

Dave Wolcott:
but it’s really kind of, you know, it’s this like complex web, right, of all these different incentives, like you say, and different strategies, and then how you can incorporate that into your life. You know, I think I’ll share with the folks as well. You know, one of my learnings and something that, you know, everyone can do out there as well, is not only create someone on your team that truly understands having a proactive tax strategy like Mitch does, right? But it’s also being educated, you know, yourself,

Mitchell Day:
Thank you. Yeah.

Dave Wolcott:
right? And understanding all of the different options that you can do. Because what that does is, You know, every day, every week, when you make decisions, whether you buy something, whether you travel somewhere, whether

Mitchell Day:
Mm-hmm.

Dave Wolcott:
you’re making an investment, you’re always thinking about tax implication. So, you know, this really changes the way you do things and that way you can be an active partner with your CPA

Mitchell Day:
Mm-hmm.

Dave Wolcott:
and changing your entire picture. So I’ve found that to be very valuable versus just the flip side would be waiting till the end of the year and saying, hey, here are all my statements. Just do the preparation.

Mitchell Day:
Well, yeah, think about it this way. It’s kind of like, do you ever think that understanding philosophy would be the basis for everything going out of here? It’s like, I would have taken more philosophy courses back in school. But the idea is they’re concentric circles. The first thing is knowing yourself, knowing what your goals are. Then it’s like, the next circle is understanding the finances, how do I create the financials on this? Then the next circle out of the, how do taxes implicate this? And then it’s like the other circle. What are other non-financial things that I have to look at? It all waterfalls from that. So once you understand that process, you’ve come to that next level of realization. It’s like Maslow’s Hierarchies of Needs. It’s self-actualization. So you start understanding where it’s like, it all fits in and how it all interrelates. It’s… It’s really good because then it’s like now you’ve now you’ve reached that higher level of consciousness when it comes to wealth in your own personal goals And then you know what you don’t know and it’s like, okay. I know there’s a tax impact. I know there’s a financial I know what question I might not know all the questions to ask But I know that I got to start asking questions and it’ll lead me down the path to the solution

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, love it Mitch. So if people wanna reach out to you and connect with you or learn more about your firm, what you guys are doing at Provision, what’s the best place?

Mitchell Day:
Okay, well the easiest way is our website is www.provisionwealth.com. That’s our website. You can take a look at it there. If you want to talk to me, I’m happy to have a half hour call with you, talk about your situation, figure out how we can help you, whether we’re a good fit. Give us a call, 480-467-4400. Happy to have a talk with you, talk about your situation and kind of go from there and figure out what you can do. What’s next step on our journey is.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, that’s awesome. I’d also like to share with folks that Provision is actually one of the faculty members in our mastermind and virtual family office. So if you’d really like to take your wealth to the next level, right? And get this type of, you know, advice and strategy in your overall wealth planning situation, check out our mastermind group as well. Mitch, thanks again for coming on the show today. Really appreciate it.

Mitchell Day:
Thanks a lot, Dave, this was a blast.

Dave Wolcott:
awesome.

Dave Wolcott:
Hey everyone, welcome to today’s show on wealth strategy secrets. Today we’re joined by Joel Friedland. Joel is an accomplished real estate professional who provides clients with comprehensive solutions for acquiring, selling, leasing, and investment. Joel manages a portfolio of properties on behalf of investors, which include individual investors, trusts, and families. Joel obtained his extensive experience as co-founder of Epic Savage Realty Partners. and completed hundreds of transactions while being responsible for leadership development at the firm for over 20 years. After Joel and his 10 partners sold Epic Savage to an international real estate firm, he founded Brit Properties and Brit Asset Management where he oversees leasing, sales and asset management for numerous property investments. Joel has been a member of the Society of Industrial Realtors since 1990 and the Association of Industrial Real Estate. Having served on the board of directors and moderating panel discussions of industrial real estate topics, Joel attended San Diego State University where he was a member of the ATO fraternity and is a graduate of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Joel, welcome to the show.

joel:
Thanks Dave, it’s great to see you.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, no, great to connect as well. Um, you know, quite, quite a background you’ve had, and I know you’ve, uh, been in the market for many, many different years and, and have been through many different cycles, which, you know, should be an interesting topic, you know, that we can kind of get in today. Um, but as we get started, you know, maybe to help the listeners learn a little bit more about you, you know, why don’t you tell us a little bit more about your background and how you got into the space?

joel:
Sure. First of all, I’m glad we’re doing this because we’ve been watching each other on podcasts. We’re finally meeting in person. This is great. So yeah, my background started in real estate when I was 22. I went to work right out of the University of Michigan for a family, not my family, but a family. Their name was Podolsky. And they were one of the bigger. owners of industrial real estate in the Chicago market. They owned 84 industrial buildings and I was looking for a job in real estate. And I cold called Mr. Podolsky. And I said, I’m looking for a job in real estate. And he said, come in today for an interview. So I went there that day and he said, my 84 building portfolio is 6 million square feet. I’ve been very successful for a lot of years, but in 1981. which was my first year, interest rates were 17%. Companies were scared to death that they were gonna go out of business. And the last thing they wanted to do was move from an industrial building that they were into a different industrial building because the moving costs and the disruption could put them out of business at a difficult time in the economy. So Milt said in the interview, he asked me, what would you do to fill up my 10 vacant buildings? And I said, I would… cold call in the industrial parks. I’d go door to door in person. It was summer, so the weather in Chicago is better in the summer, obviously. And I said, I’m just gonna go out to the industrial parks and I’ll find tenants in other buildings and I’ll convince them to look at your vacancies and I’ll try to put deals together. And he asked, what qualifies you to do that and how do you know that that’s a good idea? I said, well, when I was 14, I went door to door in my neighborhood in Highland Park, where I lived, and I convinced 70 people to let me landscape their properties for the summer. I said, I’m a really good cold caller. I said, my hit ratio when I’d go door to door, I’d meet with a husband and wife and sit with them for 20 minutes. And my hit ratio was every bit of 70%, yes, probably because I was doing it for such a low cost. I was 14, so I wasn’t charging enough. So they said, oh, let’s give this kid an opportunity. So it was similar because going and getting a new tenant at a tough time, the way to do it is to say, I’ll give you a better rent. I’ll reduce your rent because times are tough. And I filled up that first year, all but one of the 10 buildings. There was still one left. Um, but I really went crazy. I cold called thousands of companies all over the Chicago. And I worked for the family. My mentor was Milt’s son and another guy named Richard who took me under their wing. That to me, that’s the secret of all success. Having a great, great mentor or having multiple great mentors. And I had that and I was so lucky to have these incredibly brilliant, experienced people who were major players in our market.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, that’s really awesome. I think a lot of people just, you know, don’t really think about that in terms of mentors. And it seems to be more prevalent in certain industries versus others. You know, so I think there’s a lot of folks in real estate and you know, as my kids are, you know, starting their careers and everything, I’ve been advocating that for them as well to really just kind of latch on, right? Because it’s creating those, you know, relationships that can really, you know, up-level your game and getting the hands-on experience that you’re just not gonna get from any type of schooling, which is interesting. So Joel, tell me a little bit about, I mean, obviously, you know, you got into the real estate space at a very early age. It can be a very lucrative industry for those who excel in their specific spaces. So did you start to create a, you know, particular wealth strategy for yourself? You know, once you start to create, you know, your vision and realize, wow, you know, I can really scale this. And what did that really look like?

joel:
Well, let me give you this summary. First of all, yes. When I was working for Milt Podosky, I looked at him and I said, one day, I said, Milt, I’d like to learn to do what you do, which is being a syndicator. At the time, I was an industrial real estate broker. So I was an agent for Milt and for other people to do leasing and sales of industrial properties, which are manufacturing buildings and distribution buildings. We can talk about industrial. It’s a very different niche than most people know about. But I learned it over this period of time that I worked for the Podolsky’s as my mentors. And I said to Mill, I don’t think you made all your money being an agent. He said, he laughed and he said, I did not. I said, well, I’d like to be like you, whatever you did is what I want to do. So he said, I’d be happy to help you learn how to build a portfolio. Uh, like mine, starting with the first property, I’ll be your first investor if you put together a syndication. So I said, that’s a great offer. So I went and found a property and I said, this will be my first of many. And I put together a group. It was a $560,000 deal in a place called Gurney, Illinois. We did a 14,000 square foot industrial building. two loading docks, 18 foot clear ceilings, a little office in the front, a drive-in door so they could drive vans inside. And we bought it and we leased it and we had a tenant and I brought in a bunch of investors for $20,000 each. And they said to me, how much are you putting in? Because we’re not going in unless you do. So I put 20,000 in as well and it worked. And I went and did more and Milton invested it again in his son, Stephen, my, my mentor to this day, who’s still my partner and my close friend, went into the deal with us. And I kept expanding the network of investors through people that I knew by being an agent. I dealt with a lot of companies and owners of companies have money. So I convinced many of them to invest with me. And over the years, we bought about 100 properties up until today. Um, all really similar, uh, industrial buildings, single tenant, primarily net least and my 200 investors. I know every single one of them. And when I do a new deal, when we buy a property, I go to the same group and. Not everybody invests in every deal. So it’s good to have a good, a big group because maybe 30 or 40 will be in a position or. be interested in investing in one of our new deals. But I built up a portfolio and we self-manage. We do a lot of the leasing with a brokerage company that we’re close with. And it’s been great, but I had a disaster in 2008. Everything was going great. I thought I was like the biggest hotshot. That’s like, I was a, uh, I was a country club guy. I had a fancy car. I had a big house and I thought this is going to go on forever. And then we got slammed, uh, with the great recession. I had seven banks. I had borrowed money from. people promissory notes, I had 63 people I’d borrowed from, I owed $70 million. That’s

Dave Wolcott:
Wow,

joel:
a

Dave Wolcott:
it’s

joel:
lot

Dave Wolcott:
a big

joel:
of,

Dave Wolcott:
number. Yeah.

joel:
it’s a big number. And boy, if, if 1981 was tough, Milt had 10 vacancies. 2008 was 10 times worse. If you ask anybody out there, because the banks weren’t lending, you couldn’t refinance. Tenants were going out of business. Tenants were coming back and asking for reduced rents. So I don’t know if you’ve heard of a forbearance agreement, but I had seven banks and I had forbearance agreements at most of them, which is that means let’s let these people try to pay off the loan over a longer period of time with lower payments so that we don’t have to foreclose. It was really miserable. And I always… point to my couch in the back. That’s the couch I was lying on when I was depressed and thought I had lost 200 people’s money. My investors, I thought were gonna just be disappointed and I was just ashamed of myself. What had I done? How could I be in a position when I was doing so well that all of a sudden, bam, it stops and it looks like I’m gonna lose everything? So I literally couldn’t get off the couch. I have to tell you that I did think about taking my life and being done. I was so ashamed and embarrassed. It was hell. And with a lot of help from family and friends and some therapists and a little medication, I got off the couch and I went to work and I saved the portfolio. Not everything worked. There were still some deals that never came back, but a bunch of the deals came back. And I started rebuilding. My net worth went from millions of dollars to negative millions of dollars. And I had to work just to get back to zero. I had to borrow, this is one of your things. I had to borrow from my Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance whole life policy. I was lucky I had $200,000 at that point of cash value and I borrowed it all. And we lived on that until we came back from the depths of despair. And after that, I changed the way I do things. And some people think that it’s crazy that I buy properties now, all cash, no mortgage. I know you like leverage. I know a lot of real estate people like leverage, but for me and for my mental health, I can’t tolerate losses and I can’t tolerate the feeling of shame and embarrassment. And I’m vulnerable enough to admit that I know who I am. So now when I put deals together, we buy them all cash, no mortgage, with no intention to ever put a mortgage on. And the wealthiest people I know like it. Who knew? I had no idea that it would work. About five years ago, maybe, I went to my accountant and I said, I want to do deals all cash. And he said, you’ll never get investors. I said, well, then I’ll never get investors. And interestingly, there’s a group of people who are extremely wealthy who wanna preserve their wealth as opposed to trying to make a big return on money because they need to do it to build up wealth. They’ve already got it and they wanna make sure they don’t lose it.

Dave Wolcott:
Well, such a powerful story, Joel. Uh, I can’t imagine what was going on in your mind. And it’s so interesting how people, it really at the top of their game, you know, whether that’s, you know, sports or entertainment, you know, or business, right, have some type of, you know, massive event like that, you know, that really changes the trajectory of, you know, how you think. how you go forward and you know, thankfully, you know, you had enough support and were able to kind of get through that and Move on to the next level But what would you say in terms of you know? What do you think was the most important learning lesson kind of coming from that experience?

joel:
Well, I think it’s that mental health is everything and how we make decisions is more important than anything. And I believe that most people, if they’re honest, make a lot of their decisions based on hunches and on their mood. And that’s not good. You need to make it on due diligence and math. And so I had three partners when I built up this very large portfolio of dozens of buildings. And I trusted them and they trusted me. And some of the buildings that were bought were buildings I never even saw. And I just trusted that my partners knew what they were doing. They might’ve, but maybe they didn’t. Maybe they needed some more experience and maybe they needed to be more conservative. So I now get involved in just even the most minute details of every deal because if you let mood drive your decision to buy a property, it’s a terrible strategy. It has to be the math and it has to be thinking through what you’re looking at down the road 10 years and where you want to be as opposed to. Let’s do the deal real quick and make a lot of money and go to the next thing. So we buy long-term hold properties where it takes an awful lot to find them. I go door to door still, and I have a son in the business and a partner in the business. We still cold call to find deals. If we find a great deal, why would we wanna sell it in three years? You know, all these people who put together these offerings and… They say it’s a three-year hold. They must not be very happy with the properties of its three years, because why would you sell a great property in three years if you could hold it for a long time and make great cash flow and it appreciates? Where are you going to get something better than the thing you worked so hard to get? And so that’s my philosophy is buy for the long term, have great staying power, pay attention to the details. And in terms of mental health, don’t ever make a decision. when you’re elevated and you’re in a good mood and don’t ever make a decision when you’re struggling and in a tough place because there’s nothing better than knowing that you’ve thought something through and gotten great advice. So I have a group of advisors, I have eight investors that I run everything by before we buy a property. I never did that before 2008. I went to my three partners and said, hey, this looks great. Let’s buy this one. Sometimes we got lucky. I mean, there are deals where we made a lot. And then because of 2008, we saw where the holes were. So I think that’s the answer really, really pay attention. And it’s our micro focus. Also, we only own properties, industrial properties in the Chicago area. We don’t want to go to some other town where someone’s going to eat our lunch because they know the market and we don’t. So that’s a big part of it too, is just really being focused on one thing and doing it well. If I can’t do something really well after 43 years of doing it hundreds and hundreds of times, there’s a problem. And now it just comes down to how do we make the best decisions to protect our investors and ourselves?

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, really sage advice, Joel. We were just talking about that in our mastermind group the other day. And it’s really, it’s that emotional factor that really gets the majority of investors, regardless of the asset class. Right. And, you know, you could be on a high, like you said, and be, you know, bullish about a particular opportunity, but you haven’t, you know, done enough due diligence, had, don’t really understand it enough and kind of be caught, you know, there. or on the low side, right? I mean, right now, fear sells, and people are trying to put you into certain assets based upon fear, right? Based upon kind of what’s going on. And this is kind of why we like to advocate creating a proactive strategy around your wealth so that if you know clearly where you’re going in the future in 10 years and 25 years, you can align to that. You know, we’ve definitely seen more success like that. And you’ve seen obviously key investors like Buffett, right? Who have just very, you know, key strategies lined up. So such an important part of, you know, being a professional investor is right. You know, having a strong strategy in place. So let’s unpack the, you know, industrial space a bit more, right? We’ve had a lot of guests on the show that we’ve talked about. multi-family opportunities, self-storage, land, I mean, all these different types. But I think a lot of people might be new to the industrial space. So if you can kind of unpack that and just kind of start as if we were at a 101 and just talk about some of the main elements of industrial.

joel:
Sure. So industrial is property that’s generally right on the highway or right on the tollway, or it’s hidden away behind other things. It’s hidden behind multifamily. It’s hidden behind retail because industrial is manufacturing and distribution. And these are buildings that the consumers don’t need to show up at because they sell through business to business as opposed to business to consumer except for e-commerce, which is a huge part of industrial. So if you drive down the highway and you see a giant Amazon building and it’s got a bunch of truck docks and a big area where trucks are parked and it’s got big high ceilings and there are these huge buildings, that’s industrial. And we call that A industrial. These are large modern buildings with high ceilings. very sophisticated, deluge sprinkler systems in case there’s a fire. They’re actually very attractive. They’re usually made out of tilt-up or out of what’s called precast concrete. And that’s a industrial. We own some of that, but that’s mostly owned by institutional owners like pension funds and insurance companies. And Blackstone and Blackrock and so forth. They’re huge, they’re expensive. A level below that is what’s called B and C industrial. And those are older buildings, smaller buildings, lower ceilings. And those are properties that don’t cost as much and are not favorites of institutions. They’re favorites of ours. So in the Chicago area, there’s 1.3 billion square feet. of industrial and most of it’s B and C. And what I love about industrial is every building has a different kind of tenant that’s in a different business. They’re all fascinating. In our case, we have a tenant that was on Shark Tank in year one who makes protein bars. He makes $18 million a year of protein bars. So the building that he’s in, he’s got 50,000 square feet, he’s got 80 employees, he built it up from nothing. When he was on Shark Tank in season one, he was doing $50,000 in volume, and he was doing it out of this little bakery. So now he’s got this big business, and you walk in there, it’s so impressive. Everybody’s wearing their white suits and their little hair nets so that the hair doesn’t fall into the protein bars. And there are machines and there’s rooms. And this is a typical tenant of ours. And he pays net rent. His net rent is $8 per square foot. So that’s $400,000 a year. Now, for us, we buy buildings all cash, no debt, and our investors insist on an 8% return. So in a building like that where the rent is $400,000, that means that… we can afford to be in for five million, that would be the value of the building because 400,000 is 8% of the five million. And then every year the rent goes up a little bit, we call those annual escalations. So our investors invest with us for cashflow and appreciation, but they’re these smaller buildings and many of them are made out of brick, some of them are metal. We’ve got so many fascinating tenants. One makes exhibits for children’s museums. We have distributors. You’ve eaten yogurt out of the yogurt cup, the little white cups that they come in.

Dave Wolcott:
Yep.

joel:
Those are made somewhere. That’s one of our tenants. So we got a guy who makes safety products for the welding industry. You know, if you’re a welder and you’re wearing the protection and you’re wearing

Dave Wolcott:
Shield,

joel:
something so

Dave Wolcott:
sure.

joel:
sparkly, they’ll get you. He makes the suits so the sparks don’t catch you on fire. And he makes the screens because if you look at the flame, when someone’s welding, it hurts the retina in your eye. So he makes these screens so that when people walk by, you can see through the screen, they’re different colors, but they’re somewhat clear. So you can see, but it protects your eyes. He makes those screens. I mean, we’ve got these amazing tenants and they pay rent and they’ve got good credit. We rarely have a tenant that we have to kick out of a building because usually they’re their divisions of much larger companies or their family-owned businesses that have been around for decades and They’re sticky our tenants are sticky manufacturers don’t like to move Because they can’t afford to lose their employees. They can’t afford to move their machines. They can’t afford the downtime so I’d say the average tenant stays in our buildings for 15 years and longer. And every year the rent goes up. Except in 2008. Again,

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah.

joel:
that was hell. Rents did not go up. So you can’t count on rents to always go up, but those are our kind of buildings. And, um, it’s, it’s so interesting because it’s the people more than it’s the companies, almost every one of these companies is owned by a family. or it’s owned by a person who’s got partners, but the family’s still involved because it’s all part of their estate. So I get to know the individual tenants and I get to know people who are in their family or who are their partners. And those are interestingly the people who become my investors. The Shark Tank guy is an investor with a million dollars in another deal. We just made a lease with somebody, they got to know us, they trust us. and the CEO of the company just invested in one of our deals. So we’re creating this synergy between our tenants and our investors. A lot of the same people are both. And I just love the business. Every day is a new adventure and learning something.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, really interesting. Tell me about tax advantages. Are you doing cost segregation studies and what does the depreciation typically look like?

joel:
Yeah, in a cost segregation study, there’s virtually no tax on your income for the first two years. So the 8% is tax free. Now in the third year, you don’t have that, the jump. It starts coming down to a normal level. But yeah, we do take advantage of every tax law we can on behalf of our investors. The normal building without a… tech without a segregation study. About half of the cash flow is sheltered. So there are losses. Milt Podolsky told me when I asked him to help me invest, the first time I asked him to do that, he said, yeah, I’m making about $4 million a year on my cash flow, and I pay zero in taxes. And I said, how do you do that? He said,

Dave Wolcott:
Exactly.

joel:
you’ll learn. You’ll learn.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah,

joel:
So I’ve learned.

Dave Wolcott:
that’s part of the wealth strategy for sure. What about risks, Joel? Especially 2023, we’re in right now, lots of different things. Obviously you don’t have any interest rate risk, but tell us about what are some of the key risks in this industry?

joel:
So there are two kinds of industrial properties. The ABC, those are the property types, but there’s two kinds of properties. One is multi-tenant, which is more similar to multi-family, and one is single-tenant. A multi-tenant building, usually in our business, has three units, five units, and it’s not like where there’s 100 tenants in a building, that’s not really industrial. And then there’s single-tenant. A lot of companies want their own building. They don’t want to share a common wall with anybody. They make noise. They make some kind of smell. They just don’t want to share. So these freestanding buildings that we own, the risk is vacancy. Because if it goes vacant, it’s 100% vacant. And even if there’s not a mortgage, there’s still taxes, insurance, maintenance, and utilities. So when it’s vacant, we have to pay those. And when it’s vacant, there’s no money coming in. So I say there’s really three risks in industrial. Vacancy, vacancy, vacancy. And it happens. There are times when we have vacant buildings and we have to get through a period while we’re marketing them to find a new tenant.

Dave Wolcott:
You guys are vertically integrated though, so assuming you’re doing, you know, all the leasing and everything is run internally then.

joel:
Well, we do the property management, which by the way, is a loser. Property management generally is a loser business. Uh, the cost of managing is very high because if you do it right, it takes, it’s, it’s a daily thing. It’s a lot of accounting, but it’s also a lot of problems with a roof, problems with the HVAC problems with the parking lot and the management. Um, so run our management company. Each individual manager makes close to $100,000. And to get a good one, that’s what you have to pay. We’ve had sub-par people, but then our properties don’t get managed well. And we have all the other overhead. When you add up how much we pay people to manage properties, because they have to be sophisticated as property managers of industrial, they have to understand all the physical systems. And it’s very expensive. I would say the funniest thing is when an investor said to me, you charge 4% management, you’re making a fortune. I said, you take the management company, you manage it, and you cover the loss. He said, no, you do it. So yes, we do self-manage, and

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah.

joel:
it’s a lot of work. It’s my least favorite part of the business. My son came into the business about a year and a half ago, and I put him in management. After a week, he said, I can’t do this. This sucks. He went into brokerage or into finding deals and putting deals

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah.

joel:
together.

Dave Wolcott:
So,

joel:
But we

Dave Wolcott:
and

joel:
don’t.

Dave Wolcott:
where do

joel:
Yeah,

Dave Wolcott:
you

joel:
good.

Dave Wolcott:
think? Sorry, I was just going to go on. What do you think about where we are in the cycle for industrial specifically right now?

joel:
The market is as good as it’s ever been. Values are higher than they’ve ever been. We have a building that we paid $6 million for about 15 years ago, and today it’s worth triple. Depends on where the buildings are. We do infill, which is near the city and near the airport, and that’s where they go up in value the most when there’s an increase in asset values. I think it’s gonna… blow up. I think it’s going to be a disaster, which means I think there will be vacant buildings. It’s all about supply and demand, and they’re building too many new buildings, and I don’t think there’s enough tenants in the market to fill them all up. So I’m expecting a downturn, which is one of the reasons I’m so comfortable with no debt, because if there’s a downturn, we don’t lose our equity, we just have to get through it.

Dave Wolcott:
You’ve got that flexibility, which a lot of people are going to get caught out if they financed three years ago and weren’t anticipating this.

joel:
Yeah, it’s the opposite of what’s happening with office buildings. As office buildings are being given back to lenders and refinancing becomes a problem for the owners. I feel like they’re going through right now what I went through in 2008. It’s just a terrible time for them. And it’s

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah.

joel:
a terrible time for a lot of the malls too. But industrial is picking up a lot when retail goes bad, industrial goes well. Because Target Online and Amazon and Wayfair and everybody else who’s got products in a warehouse, online sales are booming and that means they need warehouse space. And because there’s a huge problem politically with China, a lot of companies that used to make their products in China are bringing them back. It’s called reshoring or on-shoring. So manufacturers are coming back. and that’s filling up industrial. So industrial has been booming and there’s been no let up. It has not gone down at all. But I think the interest rates are starting to affect it.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah. Interesting. Joel, if you could give just one piece of advice to our listeners about how they could accelerate their wealth trajectories, what would it be?

joel:
Find a person who is the avatar for what you want to be and where you want to see yourself, let’s say in five years, and convince them to teach you what they know, like Milpadovsky taught me. If you work with somebody who has all the knowledge and all the judgment that made them as wealthy as they are today, and you can convince them that you’re worth their time to train so that you can help them do what they’re doing, but they can help you become successful like they are now. To me, that’s the answer. Everyone I know that has literally millions and millions of dollars started that way. People didn’t start fiddle farting around trying to figure it out on their own. Those people just, I call that wide but not deep. And they struggle.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, excellent. No, I think that’s such a great piece of advice and also, um, you know, in all aspects of your life, right? What you’re trying to get better in. You can have a mentor in, you know, whether it’s, you know, whether it’s your health or, uh, you know, sports or something like that, right? We always want to be, if you’re trying to uplevel your game, right, you have to make an effort to do that and you need some type of mentor to get there. So it’s not only in business. And that’s why we view this whole thing holistically, because back to your point about mental health earlier, those things are really key. How you think, how you can work through challenges, right? Because we’re always gonna have challenges in life, right? I mean, there’s so many things going on this year, but I mean, think about it. When haven’t there been so many things going on, geopolitically, environmentally, all of these different factors, but what you can control in life is you actually meet those challenges, right? And do you have the leadership and the perseverance to really get through it? So having a mentor is key to be able to grow that.

joel:
Yeah, your holistic approach, I think, is really right on target. And the things you talk about are really important. I think this, this mental health thing is a huge component. And that, that means you have to be physically healthy and that means you have to have good relationships and that means you have to have goals. And so what you talk about and the things that I’ve heard you say and understand that you help people with. I don’t think there’s anything that’s more important than what you’re talking about.

Dave Wolcott:
Yeah, appreciate that Joel. Really, it’s been such a great conversation enlightening us about your journey, I think has just been super insightful Joel, and I appreciate the transparency, you sharing that with the audience. There’s so much to learn in those lessons that you’ve shared, and as well as all your expertise around the industrial space, I think it’s a super interesting asset class. and one definitely worthy of looking at. If people would like to connect with you, learn more about you, what’s the best place they can reach out?

joel:
Sure. Our website is BritProperties.com. On our website it talks about our risk-averse philosophy and how people can invest starting with $25,000. Most people don’t, but some do. We have a few case studies in there. We have one very interesting thing. We have an article that’s called Why You Should Not Invest With Us. tells all

Dave Wolcott:
Nice.

joel:
the reasons why people should be careful and what questions they should ask.

Dave Wolcott:
Love it. Joel, thanks again for coming on the show. Really appreciate your time.

joel:
Dave, thank you.

Dave:
Hey everyone, welcome to today’s show on wealth strategy secrets. We’ve got another awesome show for you guys today. Today we are joined by Tom Burns. Tom is an entrepreneur, retired orthopedic surgeon, and a physician for the U S ski team. He has over 25 years of real estate experience and has acquired or developed over 700 million of real estate locally and internationally. He is the co-founder and principal of Persario ventures. a private real estate company focused on apartment development and private equity in Texas and the Sunbelt. And Dr. Burns is the author of Why Doctors Don’t Get Rich, a bestselling personal finance book for those who want to live life to the fullest. He’s a sought after speaker and mentor and has been financially independent for over a decade. He’s the founder of the Rich Life Mastermind created to help people create financial independence so they can control their future and travel to exotic places with him. Tom, my friend, welcome to the show.

Tom:
Dave, great to be here, man. Appreciate the invitation.

Dave:
You bet, Tom, this is long overdue to have you on the show and have a conversation. And I must share with the audience as well that we really go back pretty far. You and Darren, I’m really grateful for the opportunity to have invested with you guys at such an early on time and really get into real estate and alternative investing. So it’s been a great journey, but I’m grateful for that.

Tom:
And likewise, you know, it’s nice to, you know, as you know people for a long period of time, it’s comfortable, it’s nice to work together and that makes life a lot more fun.

Dave:
Yeah, absolutely. So you have such a diverse background, Tom. We do have a lot of docs and dentists and folks that are entrepreneurs as well. And I think, you know, the common thread, right, I think we’re all looking for that, you know, financial independence or really freedom in our lives, right? Freedom of purpose, freedom of time, freedom of money, to be able to do the things that we want to do. And I find that that’s so unique about how you got into this space as well. So can you share with the audience more about your background? I mean, being the US surgeon for the ski team, how you got into real estate investing and creating this journey for yourself.

Tom:
Yeah, I think it ended up by default. You know, when I was a kid, I was an athlete and had all those dreams, right? And soon found out that nobody was gonna pay me for it. So it’s pretty good in school, so I thought I’ll become an orthopedic surgeon and a sports guy so I can hang out with athletes. That was kind of the decision process. So I went through the, and you know, medicine is a prescribed process. You do your undergraduate work at college, you go to med school for four years, then you do a thing called a residency, is where you get all your training. So I’m flowing through all of that and all I knew was sports and a little bit of medicine. And I got about halfway through my training as an orthopedic surgeon. And, you know, I, I, I tell you, I think it was just blind luck or touched by an angel, but I started watching the doctors that were teaching me and we trained with the apprenticeship model, you know, like blacksmiths and plumbers, you know, you work with somebody that’s done it for years and you learn the trade. So I’m looking at the folks that are supposed to be me 10, 20, and 30 years in the future. I didn’t like what I saw. You know, they were, they had lots of money, but they were unhappy. They were on their second and third marriages. They were complaining about their situation. And, you know, it finally, I saw that enough times. I thought, man, I don’t want their money if I got to have their life. So. I’d always intended on having a good run through life, meaning my wife and I actually sat down and said, we’re gonna have fun no matter what we’re doing. Good times and bad. So I figured I needed something else. I was looking for some sort of income. I figured I need some sort of income that’s not correlated with medicine. This was a long time ago. I’ve got a few birthday candles on my cake now, you know? So I looked at a lot of things. I ended up settling on real estate because You know, I didn’t have the money or time or smarts to trade stocks and start a business and all. Real estate was nice and slow, low barrier to entry. I could do it part-time, full-time. I could use partners, things like that. So at the time, I didn’t have two nickels to rub together, so I did what I could, which was I got as much education as I could. I read about it, learned about it, talked to people, started practice, got a little bit of an income, paid off whatever debts I had. And then at the time, the only thing I knew how to learn how to do something was to do it. So I went and bought something, you know, I just bought something, jumped in and, you know, small, uh, an impressive single property and, uh, you know, things kind of grew since then. So it was really just a, an urge to control, you know, kind of control my own life. And quite honestly, narcissistically, I didn’t want anybody telling me what to do. So I figured if I had income coming in while I was sleeping, it would work out. So. So it grew after that. It grew from that one small property to more than one small property.

Dave:
Yeah, that’s really amazing. I think before we dive deep, there’s just a couple of things that are really exciting about your background I think we should unpack. Tell us what was it like to be the surgeon for the US ski team?

Tom:
Sure, and I’m not the surgeon, I’m just one of the doctors for the

Dave:
One

Tom:
US

Dave:
of the

Tom:
ski

Dave:
docs,

Tom:
team.

Dave:
okay,

Tom:
So

Dave:
yeah.

Tom:
you know, I’m not that cool. So I did my training, after you finish all your doctor training and your orthopedic training, you have a choice to go do what’s called a fellowship, which is what I did, a sports medicine fellowship. And it was in Bale, Colorado with a really famous guy, a famous couple of guys. And the one guy, the knee surgeon, was sort of the father of ski medicine. And so because of him, got to meet a lot of the skiers, got a lot of connections with the team. And so decided that, you know, I really liked taking care of the team. So actually, before I had it, before I ever made a dime moving back to Austin, Texas, I went from Vale to Lake Placid, New York, and I was a doctor for the Olympic Training Center for a few weeks. And so. took care of all the athletes, but one of the groups that was there was the freestyle team. Those are the guys that jump off of ramps and do flips and twists and things like that. They also do moguls. I was young and had been an athlete, so I trained with them, so I jumped with them. Really liked the guys. I actually qualified to compete, but was never

Dave:
Well.

Tom:
dumb enough to do that. So I stuck with them. So I had traveled with them for over 30 years, just, you know, went to Sweden with them this year, you know, just in December. So it’s just been a nice way to give back. It’s a volunteer thing, but it’s a nice way to see the world. So it’s been, it’s, I’ve really been honored to do it. And even though I’m retired, I’m still taking care of the team, at least for a few more years.

Dave:
Wow, that’s really cool. And so that was my next question is, tell us a little bit about your love for traveling international and you’ve done some international investments, you like to travel to exotic places. So tell us a little bit more about that passion.

Tom:
podcast. Yeah, that’s my biggest

Dave:
Ha ha.

Tom:
hot button, Dave. I mean, it really is. So part of that fun thing for me is traveling because, you know, I grew up pretty simple. We went to Disneyland once and went camping in Colorado another time. So that’s the vacations I remember as a kid. You know, my dad traveled internationally because he was a Secret Service agent. So once I got the means, we went to all the places we’d never been and we intend to go back. So, you know, if I had my way, I’d put a pin in every country in the world. I don’t know if that’s ever going to happen, but I like to travel. I think it opens you up. It gives you a lot of perspective. It lets you realize, you know, when you’re complaining about your cable bill or not being able to stream something and you realize that, you know, there’s a lot of people that are trying to find their next meal, that sort of thing. So a lot of great perspective. a lot of, again, perspective on how other people live. You know, we assume that our bubble is the way life is and it is for us, but people live a lot differently around the world and I’m just fascinated by how they do it, fascinated by history. This past weekend I was in Panama, but a couple months before that went to India. So I would travel anywhere just to learn what the people are like. So I intend to keep doing that. I’ve been on top of mountains Nobody will be on top of for any sane reason, but I don’t know why you’d be on top of a mountain in Tajikistan if you didn’t have a specific reason to be there, but it was pretty cool.

Dave:
Wow, that’s awesome. And do you have like, you know, do you have a certain list of, you know, experiences or destinations that you’re going after right now?

Tom:
I kind of, it’s kind of like my financial world. I kind of have this vague thing where I kind of want to do it all. But, uh, you know, I haven’t, uh, so next is either Middle East or Southeast Asia. Haven’t done Cambodia, Vietnam, Cairo, that sort of

Dave:
Hmm.

Tom:
stuff. So that part of the world, I haven’t been to, I’ve been to Japan and missed my trips to China. Supposed to go to the ski team during COVID, but they kept canceling it. So

Dave:
Yeah.

Tom:
I think we’re going to head that way next time and see what that part of the world looks, uh, live like, see how they live.

Dave:
Yeah. Well, I

Tom:
Alright. Ahem.

Dave:
definitely share your passion with travel, Tom. I’ve been to six continents over 40 countries and it’s just been such a phenomenal way to learn the world. And like you say, like it gives you a different lens on things, you know, when you, you know, when you view everything from the economy, the culture, you know, the way people are living. And so it really has made an indelible mark on me. I love to travel as well. I know a lot of the listeners know my story and how we were able to actually incorporate that into our wealth plan, which is we bought 10 years ago, we bought real estate in Italy. We’ve had the wonderful opportunity to bring our kids for the past 10 years to Italy, to our rental property. We’ve got income. We’ve got depreciation. and then get to go, you know, a place that we really love. And then every time we go there, we go visit somewhere else. We can go to France, we can go to Switzerland, you know, we can travel all over. We have some amazing friendships there. We’ve been learning the language, but I think that’s also really helped our kids, you know, learn these same, you know, valuable lessons and really not enough people in the U.S. I think really travel abroad.

Tom:
Well, and we’re blessed to have the means to do that. Everybody has that. But I tell you, you mentioned the kids. For my kids, it really opened things up for them. When you do a report on London or the Eiffel Tower or whatever, when they’ve actually been there, it just makes a difference. And helps them a bit in school, but also broadens their horizons. When they see how people are living in very, I spent a lot of time in Africa and had the kids with me, and that was very helpful for my kids to maybe complain a little less about certain things.

Dave:
Yeah, for sure. So what type of international investing have you done?

Tom:
So I’ve got, you know, the biggest one was I owned a ranch in Africa. That was in South Africa. So we had a lot of acreage and we bought it kind of raw and some of it was very wild and some had been inhabited. And so we removed all the internal fencing, any buildings that were falling down and fenced the whole thing and stocked it with animals because, you know, in South Africa, if it’s not behind a fence, it’s going to get poached and eaten. because people are having some food insecurity there, a lot of food insecurity. So we were able to bring back a lot of species. So we fenced off 6,000 acres. We had a river that went out to the ocean. We had beautiful cliffs. And so we stocked rhinos and giraffe and zebra and waterbuck and bushbuck and kudu. And it was just beautiful. I’d run around there on a motorcycle and eat meat pies and drink South African beer. It was a great trip. We had that for probably 10 or 12 years.

Dave:
Well.

Tom:
Then a little bit of stuff in Panama and that’s really it internationally. Most of it’s been domestic.

Dave:
Okay. Yeah, that’s amazing. So do you have a particular wealth strategy or a framework that you’ve been following to build your wealth?

Tom:
Yeah, and it’s never been really complicated. Again, going back to the sort of initial touch by the angel, I just wanted some income coming in that I didn’t necessarily have to provide my time for. I was a doctor, so I either had to do surgery or see a patient or do something. So I wanted something coming in extra, and eventually what I wanted was that to cover certain expenses, then I wanted it to cover all expenses, and then I wanted it to cover my lifestyle, which is actually a different number than expenses. So that’s been pretty much the philosophy was to always make sure that the passive cash flow eclipses the expenses and costs of having a life traveling around the world. I continue to do that. You know, there have been some… some gaps where I’ve had several years where I didn’t add to that passive income, but I keep trying to do that. Never looked at net worth. Granted, I had to all the time because we get underwritten a billion times a year for projects, and so I’d see the number, but that was not important to me. It was more the cash flow. How can I pay my bills? So… That’s still the primary focus. There’s a little bit of a securing state. I secured most of my stuff with real estate. I’m securing it with a few other things, a little bit of precious metals, things like that. It took me a long time to decide to buy precious metals because it didn’t produce cash flow. So you can see where my primary focus was. Always more cash flow.

Dave:
Yeah. Tell us a little bit more about that thought process, right? That you had as a doctor and moving into passive income and really understanding that. Because I think a lot of folks in the audience, whether you’re actually practicing medicine today or you’re in some type of career that it’s highly specialized skills. So essentially getting paid for your time, right? And the time and effort economy. what was it really like to kind of go through that thought process to think about, you know, what’s, what could it be like on the other side? And how do you really frame that up? Cause I think a lot of people probably struggle with that.

Tom:
Sure, and sometimes it’s because people think, oh, if your doctor, lawyer, engineer, ditch digger, whatever, it’s like, wow, you know what it’d be like not to do this. You don’t have to not do your job. You might, well, there’s a lot of people that like their jobs, so. The way I framed it was that I wanted control, right? And, you know, money’s not the most important thing in the world, but like Zig Ziglar says, it’s right up there with oxygen. You know, money buys a lot of stuff. It’s a lot more fun to have it than to not have it. So I knew that if I could get to a point where something else was paying for my bills, I could decide what I wanted to do. And quite honestly, Dave, I practiced medicine for 12 and a half years after my income eclipsed my expenses because it was fun. You know, I eliminated the annoying stuff. So that’s the one thing people think, ah, I’ve got to make this huge amount of cashflow. How am I going to get out? You know, I framed it in that, you know, as every little bit of cashflow came, I did the, you know, I took it small chunks at a time. I always use the example that I had everything on quick and I knew what my utility bill was for the year, pushing a button, I could tell what it was. Well, I one time looked at that number and realized how much passive income I was making. I thought, hey, I’ve covered my utilities. And so the next one might be, yeah, I’ve covered my grocery bill for the year. Small bits like that. Then all of a sudden one day you realize I’ve covered everything that I need to survive and I can do what I want now. I can grow that side hustle or that real estate business. business or whatever it is, I can grow that larger if I want to, or I can enjoy my job or my profession or my passion more, or sit on the couch and binge Game of Thrones if you want to. It’s just you have the choice. I just felt that there was more to life than being tied down to having to produce effort for every bit of money. And no matter how much you get paid, and the title of my book is Why Doctors Don’t Get Rich, it’s basically a metaphor for the fact that no matter how much you get paid per hour or per service, if you get sick or get hit by a bus, the music stops. And so you wanna have security for your family, you wanna have fun in life, you might wanna have fun in life. And so that’s how I looked at it, that’s how I thought about it. Now I wasn’t in any pain and a lot of people in my previous profession are in quite a bit of pain now. They’re a lot more amenable to thinking outside the box because, you know, back then you got paid a lot of money. And the thought process from, you know, I was told once by somebody that’s like, well, you know, I can just do another surgery or I can just take call and get paid for it, which is true. And it’s more immediate and it’s a lot more fun. Investing takes a little deferred gratification, but the question is what do you do next month? You still got to do do that surgery again You got to take that call and the next month and the next you know and so I Think the freedom that the passive income gives you gives you it gives you choice We all want choice in life. We’re humans We want to you know we want to have indoor plumbing and have a roof over our heads You know we like to control our environment, so why not control our financial environment and really get everything we can out of life

Dave:
is such an important distinction, Tom. And I know I’ve had so many conversations with docs as well that, you know, talk about they say, you know, they love, you know, 80% of what they do, but sometimes it’s the 20% that’s just really frustrating. And I know a lot of us can, you know, really relate to that. So even achieving that passive income threshold that covers your expenses, you know, I think a lot of it is around the psychology, like you say, you know, you framed it as choice. right, but yeah, having freedom of choice, right? And, you know, many have said that it’s like, I still wanna practice, but I wanna practice on my own terms, right?

Tom:
Right. Right.

Dave:
And there’s such a difference between doing that and that and not having a control working for somebody else, and like you said, being kind of stuck with, you know, that next surgery or whatever it is that you kind of get in this rat race that you can’t get out of.

Tom:
Yeah, people, you know, the word some use is trapped. You know, you gotta keep working because the income’s gotta come in. And, you know, of course our expenses rise to reach our income, but it is really nice to have some control and medicine can be a lot of fun when you practice it the way you want to, as you just said. That’s all

Dave:
Yeah.

Tom:
I did. I just eliminated the stuff that was annoying. You’re able to tell hospitals or insurance companies, I don’t need you, and spend more time with your patients. Actually makes you a better physician if that’s your profession, because you can spend more time. You’re there for them, you’re not there for the fee or the paycheck. And it changes your mindset and your patients see it. And it’s a really noble way to give back is to be able to heal suffering and not need to be paid for it.

Dave:
Yeah, for sure. So has any of your passive income taken a hit recently with some of the stress in the real estate market? And what are you thinking about the market and your strategy these days?

Tom:
Yeah, we’re, you know, certainly at our firm, we’ve, you know, we’ve, we actually about 15 months ago backed off the pipeline because we didn’t like what, what the horizon looked like. And so that was a good call for us. I thought we’d always made great calls, but we’ve really backed off the pipeline. We’re We’re trying to look at as many stable projects as we can, typically strong partners, great locations, things like that. So the concern, you know, you always want to say you’re conservative. We’ve even really kind of dialed up the conservatism meter, so to speak. Passively, none of my stuff has… Because of market forces, none of my stuff has taken a hit because I favor fixed debt. So I haven’t been… hit too hard by the change in rates. Some of the projects that we do, we do development. So some of those projects were in process. So it didn’t affect my passive income, but it will because a project that takes 14 months to build is now taking 30 months to build because of this COVID and supply chain issue. So as you stretch out timelines, you increase expenses, you start amortizing loans occasionally, and prices go up. So that’s where our focus has been to keep those things going. They’re all doing fine, but those timelines are longer. So I guess by extension, the payback is going to be later. So it was an effect. And then there’s the human element. So occasionally, there’s been some bad actors out there. They’re there. As Buffett says, when the tide goes out, you see who’s swimming naked.

Dave:
Yeah, there is a lot going on for sure.

Tom:
Yep.

Dave:
Just one question on that, are you guys still pursuing HUD type financing? Because I know that was quite a niche for you at some.

Tom:
Yeah, we did a lot of HUD early, a long time ago. In fact, that’s where we cut our teeth. And then in the run up to 2021, speed was much more valuable than HUD. So we ended up, our process that maybe have half of our portfolios, merchant bills where we sell it, three to five years and the others are designed for long-term holds. And so. We actually sold three HUD projects in the last two years that were on 40-year debt just because the numbers were so crazy from buyers. So with that, we are re-engaging with HUD for certain projects because that’s still some of the best debt out there. We haven’t done one yet recently. Still able to use the life codes and some of the banks for our debt. So… We actually have one HUNT project running right now. So, and it’s stabilizing at the present time. But haven’t initiated a new one since COVID.

Dave:
Yeah, no, that’s a nice niche. I don’t

Tom:
Great.

Dave:
think many operators have gone through the undertaking to get into that, so there’s a nice barrier to entry there.

Tom:
Yeah, and that’s why we went with debt that was easier to get. I mean, HUD is wonderful once you have it. It’s a lot of brain damage to get. And it used to be six to nine months. And we’re looking at nine to 12 months now to get HUD projects approved, but they still have money. So if your planning is good, you go through the process. It costs a fair amount. It costs you upwards of a million bucks to get to final approval. But you pretty much know after about 100,000 that you’re probably going to get approved. And so we will go through that process if it makes sense, but none of the current projects are looking at HUD debt. But once it’s there, it’s fixed for 40 years, and it’s wonderful. And in fact, the construction debt is fixed for 20 months, so it’s a great product.

Dave:
Yeah, definitely provide some certainty in this

Tom:
Yeah.

Dave:
uncertain market

Tom:
All

Dave:
on

Tom:
right.

Dave:
the debt side for sure. And are you focused primarily in Texas right now or are you looking at other markets?

Tom:
We pretty much stay home. We used to have some properties in the surrounding states, Oklahoma, New Mexico. We divested those a while back, realized that for our firm, we had plenty of business in Texas. The whole world’s moving to Texas, right? And so bringing jobs, bringing people, and jobs and people equal the need for housing. We’re- We’re pretty selective though. We tend not to work, we don’t work at all in the urban cores. We work in the secondary markets and on the fringes of those urban cores. And we watch the deliveries and the absorption. So in particular around Austin right now, it’s a bit of overbuilding, surprise. But we think that’s gonna get absorbed over the next 18 to 24 months. So we stay in Texas. We do have one portfolio that has properties in Alabama. and that’s an Alabama Texas portfolio. It’s a portfolio of five properties. So that was our most recent foray outside of Texas. We’ve looked at Florida, where you reside, a great state to build things. We almost did something a few years ago. Almost doesn’t count, but we like that state. We just need somebody good on the ground there, and we did have somebody. We just didn’t pull a trigger on that one.

Dave:
Yeah, yeah, it is fascinating. You hear certain things in the news and what the narrative is, but just driving around here in the market, it’s amazing. Multi-family assisted living, build to rent, you name it. There’s just, there’s so many people coming in. I think Florida is now the fourth largest in terms of GDP in the country. So, I really think, Tom, from the macroeconomic standpoint, I mean, I still think there’s a very strong case for multifamily, despite the headwinds we’re seeing in the debt markets. But when you look at the shortfall around housing, and especially when you multiply that by some of these strong markets, it still seems quite compelling.

Tom:
Yeah, as you know, we’re still close to 4 million multifamily units underbuilt between now and 2030. You know, you see numbers anywhere from 6 million to a million housing units short. It just depends on who you listen to. But there is not enough housing. The young folks coming out that would maybe would have liked to have bought a house or have been having great difficulties now, so they’re renters. So the high interest rates are certainly working for apartment developers and acquirers. So it’s in the long term for multifamily still is good. It makes you sound like a homer, but you just look at all the data out there, all the articles, you know, people that have nothing to do with multifamily say, hey, this is probably the asset class to be in. I even saw somebody said it ought to be its own asset class. So. In the short term, as I mentioned, we’re a little overbuilt in Austin, but Austin’s the darling of the country, the darling of the world for some people as far as where people want to live. Not that we haven’t had lots of layoffs and people not using their office space. We had a lot of shadow inventory in Austin, but people are moving and there’s still a large net migration and there’s been a slowdown in development. Rightfully so. I mean, even Hartford writes, we pulled back on our portfolio, but we’re still looking to develop. And, you know, there’s going to be a gap. There’s a 74% decrease in apartment starts in the area in central Texas. give it time and there’s going to be a gap at some point because not enough product was produced. So those that can weather the storm now and get their projects going by the time that gap is there they’re going to have a lot less trouble stabilizing their properties. So I think multifamily has a great future. Ours is as we talk about development but the acquisitions, workforce housing, you can’t make more of it and it’s always going to be needed and so I think it’s going to be a good class and you see a lot of big money going into multifamily, waiting for some opportunities. And there are some out there, you know, just had one the other day that’s, you know, seller in trouble, but I don’t think it’s going to be as many as there were in 2009 and 2010.

Dave:
So tell us a little bit more about

Tom:
Thank you.

Dave:
new development, right? I think most of the audience is very familiar with value add, class B type model, which is typically what’s talked about most on the multifamily

Tom:
Right.

Dave:
side. But can you tell us about some of the differences in doing new projects? And sometimes people see it as a more speculative type option. So how do you really manage the risk on a new development?

Tom:
Yeah, and I think in everything in life, I think you had your risk with your education and experience, right? So yeah, it’s certainly kind of fits the brain better to see something and realize, hey, I can put countertops, cabinet fronts, and new flooring in, this thing’s going to run for more. And that’s a fabulous business plan. And that’s… We’ve done that a time or two, but I think by default we ended up in the development world. It wasn’t planned, it just sort of happened. And neither one’s better or worse than the other. They’re just different. So in a development, there’s a gap. There’s a good two-year gap before everything’s stabilized and the rent’s recovering, debt service and there’s some cash flow. on a value add in a good market that can come in a quarter, two, three quarters. Right now I’ve seen a lot of people waiting at least four quarters before they end up putting out any cash flow because they’re holding it back. Rightfully so. So cash flows may be a little later in development, but on the good side we know it’s behind every wall. You try to do as much inspection as you can on a property that you acquire, but you can always run into surprises. there’s still, no matter what you find, there will still be deferred maintenance on a development property, pretty good for about 10 years with minimal deferred maintenance. But on the risk side, it’s just how, it depends on how many of these things you do. Somebody that’s doing value adds, they know, particularly now, we’re gonna go in at lower leverage, we’re gonna over raise a little bit, make sure we have a little more contingency. We’re gonna plan on… higher interest rates, or we’re gonna buy a rate cap, the things that you would do to hedge your risk in a value add, we do the similar thing in development. We exercise GMAX contracts, which means our contractor will eventually give us a contract, a bonded contractor that says, here’s the price. With the exception of a few small things, if we go over budget, it’s on us, so the cost is run through the contractor. You do the same thing with your assumptions. We try not to assume rapidly rising rents and all that’s the same value add for development. So it’s more in the experience where you found out where you’ve run into trouble in the past and what you maybe should have looked at on that project so you incorporate it into the next one. And so I think you can, it’s not really so speculative because lumber’s lumber. It’s going to have its cost. You’ll know what it is before you pull the trigger. and you know what your number is. It may be high or low, but you know what it is. Same thing when you’re doing a value add. It may cost you more to rehab a unit than you thought. So once you do the numbers, they’re still pretty much the same. And so the numbers kind of tell you what to do. If they’re thin, you often don’t do the project, or you bring in more contingency. And if they’re nice and robust, then off you go.

Dave:
Hmm. How are you able to actually project then like, you know, let’s say you pick one of those sub markets that you were talking about, right? You know, I’m sure you’re doing a lot of data analysis in terms of, you know, the population growth and what’s to expect. But do you have a formula or something that you go through to look at that?

Tom:
Yeah, we have a process. You know, I mean, we’ve

Dave:
Yeah.

Tom:
got a pretty robust subscription to CoStar. So we look at CoStar’s numbers and deliveries and absorption. And we’re still aware, always aware, that CoStar’s still got a lag. It gets its information from the management companies. But we’re still aware there’s a lag. But that gives us a good broad picture. We do the same thing that you do if you’re buying a value add. We still do the boots on the ground and see what people are getting for their properties. We see how leased up they are. But they will do a feasibility study. And that’s basically a third party that uses growth projections. numbers of units in the pipeline, that sort of thing, to see how many are in the pipeline and how many are needed. And, you know, if it says, hey, we need 2,000 units and there’s 1,900 in the pipeline, they back off for a while. If it says there’s 2,000 needed and there’s, you know, 500 being built that we know about, you know, so we’ll, that means that we’re part of that need that’s coming up. So that’s, it’s data. And then we look at, you know, we look at population in migration. We look at the job growth, the population growth. We’ll talk to this Chamber of Commerce, if it’s a small municipality, what’s going on, what kind of projects do you have going on. We try to go outside and see who’s maybe looking to move there. And you know, when you’re in Texas, it’s pretty exciting because some of these small towns are, you know, they’re getting large manufacturing plants or large warehouses, you know, we’ve got Tesla just right next to the airport here. Right. Just got something like 5,000 employees in this mile long building. Well, that’s awesome. That’s a lot of employees, but something like that requires. a lot of support. You know, somebody’s got to do battery support and somebody’s got to help with the bumpers. I mean, I’m making this stuff up, but something like that brings in a lot of people. So, companies are relocating, they’re bringing their people, they’re bringing families. And so, it’s the job growth and the immigration of people and jobs.

Dave:
Yeah. And any particular areas that you’re focused on, right, in this market where you’re seeing opportunities that you’re paying very close attention to right now?

Tom:
Yeah, I mean they’re all expensive, right? They just are. It’s Texas and everybody knows it. So there’s a highway that runs through Texas called Interstate 35. Goes right through the middle of the state, comes from Mexico, goes through the middle of the state. And that encompasses Dallas, Fort Worth, Waco, which is a small place, Austin, and San Antonio. So… Most of our focus right now, we have stuff up as far as Denton, which is in North Texas, on I-35. Most of our stuff, believe it or not, is between Austin and San Antonio. Sort of a golden strip. My joke is that someday from a satellite you’re going to look down and see nothing but a strip of light from Austin to San Antonio. So anything in that area is pretty hot. Lots of people move in there because they can live there and work in San Antonio or they can work in Austin or work in a small town. So that’s one thing. And there’s the Texas Triangle. Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston to the east, Austin, San Antonio in the center. That’s something like… 70 or, you know, I’m going to get these numbers wrong, but roughly 70% of the Texas population. So that’s a big, busy, popular area for companies to relocate, for people to move their families. And so we stay in that area. Kind of, you know, Houston’s a bit of a kind of occasional stepchild for us, so we know the market well. But most of our stuff’s up and down Interstate 35. That’s given us enough business. You know, we’re sitting on a nice 12-acre piece of land. We’re gonna put up a bunch of apartments right in a place where the population grows like 6.9%. So, you know, we like that.

Dave:
Yeah, yeah. Really great insights, Tom. Appreciate that. Just shifting back into your financial independence credo and everything, if you could give the listeners just one piece of advice about how they could really accelerate their wealth journeys, what would it be?

Tom:
You bet. It’s always more than one. I have to do more. But,

Dave:
Ha ha.

Tom:
you know, figure out why you want to do it. I know it sounds goofy. You want more money. But money is just the tool that’s going to get you what you really want. That’s either time with your kids, away from your job, traveling the world like Dave, something like that. That’s what’s going to pull you through the up and down times. You know, we’re not in great times right now, but that’s what’s going to pull you through. And, you know, he who stays in the game long enough wins, right? So, once you know why you’re doing it, Listen to podcasts like this, read some books, listen to other podcasts, get a feel for what you like or what you understand, and then the last one is just hang out with people that are doing what you wanna do or going where you wanna go, or even better, then where you wanna go, because that’s where you’ll get mentorship, experience, motivation, partners, people to invest with, investors, it’s just something to hang around a group of people that. kind of has the same thought process as you, because you’ll find out in the world that not everybody has the same thought process. So right or wrong, it’s nice to have a team to help cheerleading along the way, and that’s what’ll keep you going. And you can do it. Anybody can do this thing. I mean, I bumped into so many blind hallways and dead ends. And… somehow blindly stumbled my way into where, you know, the world was nice enough to give me some passive income and some choice. So if I can do it, I think everybody on this call can do it, bigger, better, and faster.

Dave:
Great insights, Tom. Can’t thank you enough for spending

Tom:
bit.

Dave:
your time with us today and sharing your wisdom. So many real eclectic thoughts there, full 360 degrees. So I look forward to listening to this episode again myself. And again, thanks for your time. If anyone would like to connect with you, learn more about you, what’s the best place?

Tom:
Yeah, you bet. I’m excited I was eclectic. That’s code for strange. No, I’m just

Dave:
Hehehehe

Tom:
kidding. The website is richdoctor.com and if you want to get in touch with me, I do see all the emails. You can send an email to hello at richdoctor.com. And so the website’s got some free resources if people want to use them. It’s kind of the stuff that’s helped me do things over the last 30 years. I always like to talk to new people.

Dave:
Awesome. Thanks again, Tom.

Tom:
Thanks Dave.

Dave:
Hey, everyone. Welcome to today’s show on wealth strategy secrets. We’ve got another excellent show today. Today we’re joined by Richard Canfield. In 2009, Richard’s life changed completely when he read the book, Becoming Your Own Banker, Unlock the Infinite Banking Concept by R. Nelson Nash. He knew this was what he had been looking for all his life. Nelson Nash became his personal friend and mentor, and Richard and his team now teach his powerful message of financial hope and control to North Americans. As an Amazon bestselling author, podcast host, and authorized infinite banking practitioner, Richard is passionate about putting people in the driver’s seat of their financial life and creating durable, dependable generational wealth. They work with families, business owners, and real estate investors to strategize how they can keep more of the hard earned money that flows through their hands over a lifetime. You may already recognize Richard as a co-host of the Wealth Without Bay Street podcast. and co-author of Canadians Guide to Wealth Building Without Risk, as well as Cash Follows the Leader. Richard, welcome to the show.

Richard Canfield:
Super pumped to be with you, Dave. I’m just so excited to be here and to be able to try to add some value to your amazing listeners, your great community. And, you know, you and I, before hitting the go button, we were talking about a lot of our unique similarities and our overlapping, you know, connections, contacts, and just the way we kind of view and think about the world. So I’m just so pumped and excited to be with you here today and talk about something I’m passionate about, but something you are also uniquely passionate about, so it’s going to be a ton of fun.

Dave:
Yeah, really grateful to have you on the show, Richard. I think listeners are really gonna enjoy this one. And like you said, just sharing these like-minded ideas with people so that they can get insights and make better decisions in their own lives and how that applies, that’s what this is all about. So why don’t we kick things off and for people who aren’t familiar with you, tell us a little bit about your background, your journey and how it all started for you.

Richard Canfield:
Well, you know, I’ll go back actually a long ways back. So when I was when I was a little a little kid, I grew up in a very small farming community outside of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, home of the Edmonton Oilers, if anyone’s familiar. And you know, so I you know, I grew up building fences, working on the farm, doing all that kind of stuff. I understood like hard work right away. And you know, that was kind of our, our vision. We had, we had a small family based business. Um, I was the heir to the portable toilet kingdom of Camrose, Alberta. So, uh, Prince to the throne, as I like to say. And, uh, so I learned a lot of lessons in that small family owned business, but we were the typical family owned business operators. We were operators tech, you know, technicians, not business owners. We didn’t understand the fundamentals and the learning about business. There wasn’t, we didn’t know about the coaching and Hey, all that stuff existed way back then, but we just didn’t know about it. It wasn’t like, You know, that today in the in the in the ecosphere of the internet and the the interwebs and the tic tacs and the Facebooks, there’s all these opportunities for people to learn those kinds of skill sets. And, you know, of course, with strategic coach, which you and I spoke about, I mean, that’s an amazing opportunity to learn how to think differently in skill sets. And so we didn’t have necessarily the access to those things. So we just kind of put our heads down and work hard, heads down, work hard, heads down, work hard. And that’s kind of all we really knew. And so I learned a lot of lessons in that environment. And when I was quite young, I was actually known as the bank in my house. I always had cash available. I kept it and stored it in my closet. And I would have family members if they needed cash. Even my parents needed cash to go out for the day or whatever, they just didn’t have any available in their wallet. They would come to me and I would make them write an IOU on a piece of paper. What I didn’t understand though, is I didn’t understand interest. There was no learning. There was no teaching about interest or charging interest or… charging fees for late repayment. Like I didn’t understand any of those components, but I understand I needed to track the money. So I learned some things really early on in that environment. And some of that’s because I’m the youngest of multiple kids. And so I got to see the experience of other people ahead of me. And I got like basically some intellectual shortcuts about things I didn’t want my life to be like, things that I maybe didn’t attract, I didn’t wanna go down. And so I recognized that I needed to really kind of hone in on the money. And early on in my life, you know, roughly when I was about 11 years old, my mom told me I had to start buying all my own stuff. We were, I was going to get paid, although it wasn’t like an official wage and it was never consistent. It was basically money that they had available based on how, you know, uh, a seasonal business kind of shifted throughout the year. But I worked like a kind of like a rented mule and, uh, and I would get paid, but I had to go buy my own things, my own clothes. I wanted extra food or snacks or things that, you know, outside of just a house over your roof and food on the table, I had to do a lot of that on my own. It was one of the best things that ever. So I started to realize the value of what a dollar could do for you. I mean, today we talk about the devaluation of dollars, which we probably won’t get into today. But I mean, fundamentally, it was important to understand that the more you manage your money, the more money you’ll have to manage. And that’s something I learned years later. A great quote from a friend of mine who’s a real estate investor. And so I was always watching the dollars in some way. And then I realized later on when I started getting into personal development at a very early age, around age 19, I started doing my first kind of personal development programs and some very high end intense type programs. I’ve done the whole walk on hot coals thing and all that kind of stuff. I started to realize what, what, what do I want to do in the world? How do I want to show up and add value into the world? And it just, what really connected with me is if people had a better understanding of how to manage their money and how to take control over their money, how to be in the driver’s seat of their money, they would have the result of that behavior with it. They would have more money. And if they have more money, well, then. What’s the ripple effect of that? What’s the reduction in stress? How does it improve their relationships with their spouse, with their children, with everything that’s going on? And if we can pull, you know, stress is probably the number one health issue that people have. And if we can reduce that in some way, well, what’s the number one cause of stress in most households? Well, it has to do with money. And so if we can solve some of that problem, even a little incremental bits at a time, because the journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. Well, in your financial life, you got to take steps to improve it. I mean, it’s just no other way around it. And so that whole drive and experience that led me into investment, real estate, it led me to become a bunch of, you know, real estate groups and organizations and continue my personal development journey. And then leading up to 2009, you know, a really good friend of mine and cohost of our podcast, you know, Mike and a coauthor of our, of our books, Jason Lowe, amazing guys, you know, without Jason, I don’t know where I’d be today, but he introduced me to this book, Becoming Your Own Banker. When I got this book in 2009 at the time I was a licensed realtor, uh, in our, in my local environment. And, uh, I, I was only into my second year of doing that, you know, really, actually it was probably 12 months into doing it. And, uh, I read this book and I had this, you ever, you ever had that experience Dave where you’re just like really, really angry and frustrated, but you can’t put your finger on it. You don’t know why you’ve had that experience.

Dave:
Yes, yeah.

Richard Canfield:
Maybe some of your listeners have had that experience. And so I was like that. And I was having a very, I got this book in the summer. It was a very busy real estate season for me. I had a lot going on. And so like a lot of people read this book in like two, three hours, I read it over two weeks because I would, you know, I would start, stop, start, stop, start, stop. And, um, what I realized is after that, I started getting, um, like kind of snippy with people. I had a chatted like a chip on my shoulder. And that’s not really a lot like me, but I couldn’t figure out what was going on. What I realized was happening later on. It came to me later is that I knew fundamentally, I needed to teach people what was in this book. I didn’t know it was in the book. I didn’t know it before I got the book. I didn’t know. What you don’t know is a big problem. And the more that you realize, the more you learn, the more you bring in knowledge into your life, the more you discover that which you didn’t know. It exposes you to so many new things. It’s like a rock and a pond and that ripple effect of expansion of your own knowledge base. And so when I read this book, A whole new doorway got open for me. The thing I had always been looking for. I always knew when I got my very first rental property mortgage at age 18, I was a, you know, technically a landlord at 12, but at age 18, I got my first, you know, mortgage on my own. And I looked at the mortgage document and I looked at the, you know, the I ran an amortization on my own and I went and bought a book. that all it had was numbers where you could flip through it and you could see the interest rate and the amount and you could calculate the payments and you could see the amortization. I went and bought that book for fun. And I, because I was just fascinated like, Hey, I get the real estate. I get that I I I’m winning in this deal, but like, what’s this? These guys, the bank, what’s their deal? What’s up with them? And I realized that’s the passive income I wanted. I want that payment stream. We’re on the wrong side of this deal. How do we get onto that side of the deal? And of course I discovered a few different ways to do that. But then when I got this book, becoming your own banker. Wow, that sounds incredible. Is that possible? Well, the answer is it is possible. And it all begins with how we think. Everything starts there. But when you understand the fundamentals, what you can create in your life is really, really powerful. And so, digging into that, I realized I would be doing a disservice to myself and I would be out of, in my own integrity, my own personal integrity, if I did not tell people about this book. So that led me onto the journey of becoming an authorized practitioner. Eventually meeting Nelson Nash the author getting to know Nelson and just wow what an unbelievable human being I’m sure you’ve got some incredible mentors in your life Dave as I’m as I suspect your listeners do Nelson is one of those people where there he was like an enigma the moment that you got into his his gravity It just sucked you in and you just he just he really managed to convey and download Information in you in a way that was just so simple and so powerful And I really respect learning from individuals who’ve, who’ve experienced life over a long timeframe. Now he passed away four years ago, in March of 2019. And, you know, so very sad day of course, but he was 88. He would say 88 revolutions around the sun. Okay. And he was still phoning people from the hospital. Ben he was about to go into a surgery. He was pretty sure he wasn’t coming out, but he was phoning people from the hospital. He was checking in with them. And he was talking about, you know, it’s all about the message. It’s all about the message. And, And he was, he was just continually giving. He didn’t believe in retirement. He believed in living a life of value and give adding value to others. He believed in mentorship and those kinds of things. So his book and what he taught people is a lot about that. And you know, he was a real estate investor. He had a forestry background. He did a lot of land deals and some of his most profitable deals were land deals and, uh, and development deals. And many of those deals came because he took a policy loan from an insurance contract that he owned. because that’s where he stored his money. You need a warehouse for money. Money’s got to rest somewhere while you’re waiting for it to go do something. You got to go on vacation. You got to buy a new car. You’re going to buy Christmas gifts. You’re going to go and invest in the next real estate deal. You’re going to invest in the next, you know, offering memorandum, the next multifamily unit project. You’re going to invest in Bitcoin, whatever it is you’re going to do. Money’s got to go from the place that you keep it to the thing that you want to do. It’s a transaction. Okay, that’s what banking is. Banking is the movement of money from one place to another in a relatively short period of time. The problem is most people in North America don’t recognize that they actually should be the one controlling the function of that movement and where they store the money. And then when they store the money, they’re storing it in someone else’s bank. You get paid for your work, you get paid for your rents from your real estate, you get paid for your business. All the money goes into someone else’s bank. and it sits there waiting to pay the bills and do the things of life. Someone else’s bank gets all of your money before you do. So if you understand the power of becoming your own banker, you can slowly and incrementally transition that money that’s resting and sitting idle in someone else’s bank into a system that you own and control with a mutually owned insurance company, which is a financial institution that is not a bank. but they have certain fundamental features and benefits when done the right way that allow you to mimic and model similar banking functions that you get to control. So it’s not that the insurance company is doing it, it’s that you’re doing it. So, you can save and borrow money over at a regular traditional brick and mortar bank, or you can save and borrow money over from an insurance company. The difference is who do you own and how much control do you have? That’s what infinite banking is all about.

Dave:
Wow, such a great overview and the epiphany that you had, right, when you picked up the book, you know, quite a story. I love how Peter Diamandis actually calls it your MTP, or your massive transformational purpose, right? You kind of figure out what it is you are to do in life. I actually remember the movie with Steve Martin and the jerk, and he’s like, mom, I found my purpose. You know, but I think it’s just so important, right, for people to kind of figure out that purpose. And I love how, you know, you actually, you know, ground everything with that concept of like, you know, you know, creating, you know, creating financial freedom, you know, creating understanding what this is before, because I really, you know, view this the same way, right? There’s lots of different products that are out there to do different things. But let’s start with your vision and what it is to you. And as Dan Sullivan likes to say, a lot of that is based on these four freedoms of how we’re driven. We’re trying to create freedom of money. We’re trying to create freedom of purpose, relationship and time, to do all these things that we wanna do. And so then you start to look at some of these alternative products or these things like infinite banking. and you talk about control, right? And you talked about reducing stress, and you talked about having your money work for you. So all of these multiple things that actually drive you closer towards those freedoms. So really appreciate that sentiment that you really come at this with.

Richard Canfield:
When you can’t put a price on control and you could try, you could do your best to measure it. Some people might, you know, if they’re like super high fact finders or whatever on their Colby score, but ultimately, you know, just ask yourself that question. What do you value? What value do you place on having control, especially control around your own money, control around your own financial decisions and look at the things that you’re doing today. and write them down. Okay, well, I’m having a 401k or I’m in a IRA or I’m in a candidate RSP. I’m in some kind of a tax qualified register plan. I’m doing this, I’ve got that, I’m in the stock market, I’ve got some rental, I got all these things, these buckets of money and I gotta borrow money, I gotta do all these things. Well, to what degree do you have a measurement of control? Today, at the time of this recording, we’re dealing with some uncertainty in the banking realm. There’s been a few big collapses in the news lately and that sort of thing. Even if you just think about having your money on demand deposit. So, so first off, every time that you put your money into a bank as a deposit, they issue you a slip, basically deposit slip. Well, that’s a receipt that basically says they owe you the money. In other words, you’re a creditor, you’re an unsecured creditor of that bank. So that as soon as you give that money, you’re exchanging the custody of the money to them. It’s now their money. And all you have is a demand slip that says you can get it back as long as they have it. That’s really what you have. And the whole reason that works is because we’ve built a system of quote unquote trust. We have trust in the system. Well, as soon as that trust is broken, now you start to see the issue of bank runs and all kinds of problems that get created. And I don’t want to go down that rabbit hole too far. But when you’re dealing with a properly structured, well-designed insurance company that’s got a long history and you’re doing your business there, you have similar functions and features. It’s not identical, but similar. You still need a convenience of a debit card. But if you’re storing your money there, and that money is now in constant motion. It’s actually yours. You’re the owner. You co-own the company. When you wanna borrow and access capital, you can access whatever’s available to be lent from your pool, but you’re accessing it from the insurance company. So you’re not borrowing your money, you’re borrowing their money. So your money is constantly in motion and it never stops. It’s uninterrupted for the rest of time. The only thing that interrupts it is that somebody dies. Okay, well, that’s pretty easy to solve because you just get insurance policy on everyone you reasonably can. And then you’re diversified. in lives, lives insured. All right, so you can create this multi-generational aspect, but the key thing is you’re in the driver’s seat. You dictate the terms, the terms of the borrowing, when you’re getting it, how you get it, how much you get, when you pay it back, what terms do you want, what timeframe, what interest, all those things you determine, versus jumping through someone else’s hoops to do it. See, we’re always dealing with borrowed money. You’re gonna need the use of money through the rest of your life. I don’t know anybody that gets out of here without of it. All right? One day we’re going to graduate and up until today and that day, we need to use some money. Okay. We can agree on that. Well, we’ve got to store it someplace while we’re waiting for it to do things. Would you rather store it in someone else’s system where they earn all the profits and the revenue or would you rather store in a system where you have ownership and control where you get to share in the profits with a bunch of other people who are just like you and the worst case scenario is that somebody dies. Well, that’s always the worst case scenario. In one situation, your family’s got to deal with the money in the bank. In the other situation, they get a tax-free check. Seems like a bit of a no-brainer.

Dave:
Yeah, good points, Richard. So I’d like to actually back up a step. Okay. And I think there’s so much confusion in the marketplace on, you know, what even is infinite bank is actually called many different things. There’s a lot of confusion in the marketplace. Um, we can have that discussion on another day. Uh, but what I want to do is just make this really practical for the audience. Right. So just give us your, you know, definition of, you know, what is. infinite banking, what even is it, right? Can you explain that? And then let’s jump into some very practical examples of how people could use this in their lives.

Richard Canfield:
Yeah, so you know, I’m going to I’m going to go right to the source, which is Nelson’s book Becoming Your Own Banker right on page three. The whole idea is to recapture the interest that one is paying to banks and finance companies for the major items that you need during a lifetime, such as automobiles, major appliances, education, homes, investment opportunities, business equipment, etc. This book or the infinite banking concept is not about investments of any kind. It is about how one finances the things of life. which can certainly include investments. That’s what infinite banking is. Infinite banking is, in my definition, I would say it is a way of life. It is something that you do. You are always banking. It’s just how much of it do you control? With the infinite banking process and the concept implement in your life, there’s some mechanical tool related aspects there that are required to implement it. But the actual act of doing it is something that you do on an ongoing basis for the rest of your life. And it’s how much of that lifestyle and that mindset that you bring into your life when it comes to all of your financial transactions that will determine how much of that financial value as it’s flowing through your life, the cashflow that’s running through your life, how much of that can you contain so that you can reuse it as many times as possible while you’re alive and then leave as much of it behind tax-free to the people you love and care about when you’re gone. So it’s about harnessing the cash flow that’s running through your life so that it can do more than one job for you as many times as possible.

Dave:
Yeah, that was great. Very succinct. So let’s get into a real specific use case. You know, let’s give us maybe you know, your top two use cases of what how somebody could use this because I know sometimes conceptually, someone might hear this and say like, Okay, okay, I think I get this or I’ve read the book, but they’re still only dipping their toe in, right? They haven’t utilized it. Or we also talked to a lot of folks who say, Oh, I have, I’ve had this policy set up. but they don’t really know how to use it, right? So walk us through an example to make it real.

Richard Canfield:
So I’ll give you the first one that kind of comes to mind. I’ll use a personal example. So, you know, right now in my family system, I have 12 policies or whole life insurance policies. They’re all optimized for the purposes of this concept. And I’m looking at adding a 13th one here in the next couple of months. And so I’m always looking at a way to grow my system, just like you want to grow all of your assets. Okay, to me, it’s just an asset in my portfolio of assets that I’m accumulating as I go. Well, I did a conversion on my wife recently. My wife is an amazing stay at home mom. So I needed to convert some insurance on her and I’ve been waiting to do that. I had the original policy set up maybe eight years ago and I’ve been waiting for the right time to convert it. So I did that here about a year ago. And the policy is around $36,000 a year. Okay, so that’s the annual premium. The minimum required amount, I’ll just keep the numbers super simple, is about 10,000. It’s a little less than that, but let’s just call it 10. So 10 is the required amount that I want to contribute every year. And 26,000 is completely optional and totally flexible to me. So I dictate the terms of when I want to put in what time in the year, when I fund it, how I fund it, if I fund it, all those things are up to me. That’s control, control, control, control. You know, the three magic words in real estate is location, location, location. The three magic words in the infinite banking system is control, control, control. Okay. And to what degree do you have control over everything that you’re doing? And so the purpose of this policy was twofold. Number one, I needed to convert some permanent cover to my wife. It was something I wanted to do anyway. So they’re checking a box. And then secondly, well, you know, I have to pay a tax bill every year. You know, I don’t know too many people that get out of the, get out of the year without having something due to the, to the IRS or the CRA in Canada. All right. So, you know, with my business, I set aside, I operate with something called Profit First, which you may be familiar with. And I have accounts that I separate. every dollar that comes in and revenue and I separate that top line revenue and I, and I, you know, I put it towards this different accounts and one of those accounts is a tax account. Well, every year I’m planning for that tax bill and you know, the, the, in my case, the Canadian government’s going to get the money. They have no sense of humor about it at all. If I don’t want to pay them, I mean, they’re, they’re going to make a big stink about that. I can tell you for sure. And so, especially the way they’re spending money these days. So I’m going to go ahead and make that, that payment. Well, I want to harness that payment, that tax payment, to do something for my family before it goes to the government, all right? Well, it turns out my tax bill is, roughly speaking, somewhere between 25 and 40,000 a year for that one corporation. So, it turns out my $36,000 a year premium, I was already setting the money aside to pay the tax bill. So I just ran it through a premium. Shortly after I did that, I borrowed around $23,000 from that policy within a couple of days. And I used that along with a little bit of extra capital. I had set aside in the corporation. I was capitalized enough that I could pay my tax bill and I paid the tax bill. Let’s say that was 35 grand. So I used some of the policy funds to do that from the insurance company’s money and some excess money I had available. But the entire amount of the tax bill ran into a system I own and control for the rest of my life first. In the process of doing that, I instantly created about $120,000 of additional permanent whole life tax-free death benefit on my wife in one job. I increase my ability to earn a dividend, which is a share of the reserve profits, the divisible surplus of the insurance company, which I now co-own for every future year and time that they’re in business. I get to earn a share of their profits because I’m a co-owner. They distributed that to me one time per year. And then I get to decide how to use that, which we won’t get into today. So, that whole ripple effect came into place. So now every time I pay a tax bill, I get to run the money through a policy that I own and control. So I have constant motion on that tax bill that it was gonna go out the door. So it can do more jobs for my family before I give it to the government. Now, once that system is built, each and every year it gets better. And so if my tax bill begins to grow, well, I’ve already built a system that allows me to capture that growing tax bill because I’m being more profitable every year. Does that make sense? So I’ve

Dave:
Epsilon.

Richard Canfield:
created an environment that allows me to take the same money that would already be automatically walking away from me. Cash flow, leaving every single year, going to a government facility, they still gonna get paid, but I’m gonna dictate the terms of how they get paid and where they get paid from. They’re gonna get paid with the insurance company’s money, not my money. My money’s in constant motion. Now, the next year, I have to start saving up to pay the tax bill for the following year, correct? Well, you know,

Dave:
Yes.

Richard Canfield:
the, you know, where I put all that money before I put it in, you know, as soon as they, you know, deposits into the bank, I make a transfer and I pay down the policy loan. The policy loans repaid and then I build up what I need for the premium again. And then I pay the premium again. And then I take a loan and I pay the tax bill. So I’m in a cycle now where I control the environment. Those are all banking transactions. This isn’t an investment. I’m not investing any money in the insurance company or in this or in that. I’m not talking about a rate return. I’m talking about containment. of cash flow for as long as humanly possible.

Dave:
So you’re taking on the control there of your capital and then you’re putting it to work, adding more velocity to it by putting it in the policy before you have to make that future payment. And in addition to that, you’re also creating more value through the life insurance that you set up as well.

Richard Canfield:
That’s correct. And so let’s, let’s talk of another example of that. Something that people do and they, they, you know, a lot of people like to pay down their mortgage. Okay. And you may have different, you know, everyone has different thoughts on that. Real estate investors, you know, have different thoughts on that and they vary all over the map. All right. So, so, but a lot of people will pay down, pay down debt. Okay, great. There’s nothing wrong with paying down debt. However, wouldn’t it be better to recapture the debt? So what if you could eliminate the third party lender? It’s for your car. It’s for the family vacation. It’s for some business equipment that you purchase. It’s for your home mortgage, whatever that third party lender is in your life. Well, you’re going to send your good money to them. Well, before you send it to them, what if you ran it through the insurance company system that’s built and designed by a proper professional, access the insurance company’s money to get rid of the debt. Now you’ve transposed who has the debt. It’s not the third parties anymore. It’s now with a party that you co-own. You co-own the lender. And now you get to pay that debt off from them. And every dollar you pay back to them is a dollar that’s accessible for you to use again for some future purpose in your life. Whereas if you pay off the home mortgage, well now all the money’s trapped in there. You know, there used to be this commercial on TV. It was big in Canada a long time ago, Dave. It was these two little kids and they were walking around the house at night and they had flashlights. And the one little, they were in their pajamas and the one little boy says to the other one. says, what are we looking for equity? Dad said it’s in the walls. Okay. And then, so they’re, you know, they’re walking around, it’s a banking commercial, but well, if you want to access the equity in your property, I don’t care if it’s, you know, a house or rental house or multifamily property, commercial property. I don’t care if you want to access the equity, you got to go and access someone else’s pool of money to do that, or you have to sell the property. Well, if you sell the property, Now you give up the future potential of what that property can do for you. You’re making an opportunity cost decision. So only two ways to liberate equity is collateralization or you got to, you got to sell the asset. That’s it. There’s no, there’s no other option. So you’re always dealing with someone else’s pile of money. Well, if you’re dealing with the insurance company’s pile of money, but you co-own them and you get to share in all their profits and you have all the control of dictating the terms of when and how you reallocate money back to it based on your real estate deal or whatever deal you’ve got going on. You just have total and absolute control. See, Nelson Nash said that when you classify things properly, everything becomes very simple. And the problem is, specifically in the insurance industry, they’ve done a really poor job of classification. They never should have called it whole life insurance. What they should have called it was a personal monetary system with a death benefit on the side for good measure. But that would be a really long, silly, we need some kind of an acronym or, you know, better way to describe it. But that’s ultimately what you have. And then if you understand how to use it, the, you can have, if we had two cars that came off the assembly line, you and I, we each had the exact same car. Now we talked about Colby’s before we hit the record button. We have different Colby scores, okay? I can tell you for sure, I’m probably gonna get a lot more speeding tickets than you. And I’m probably gonna drive the car a little harder than you. I’m just gonna take a wild stab, but that’s most likely gonna be the case. Now, if we had two exact cars off the assembly line, and then five years later, we had a mechanic go and look at those cars and they assessed You know what it looks like on the outside, what the engine looks like, the braking system, the rust, all that stuff. We’re going to have two very, very different cars. But the day they came off the assembly line, they were the same. Would you agree?

Dave:
Yes.

Richard Canfield:
So the car didn’t do anything different. The only thing that was different was what?

Dave:
way we drove it.

Richard Canfield:
the way we drove it. It was 100% based on our behavior. So whether or not you get success in who controls the banking aspect of your life, which is happening now, someone is performing the function of banking in your life. Always. It can be you, but for most of society, it just isn’t. So whoever is the operator and the behavior of that person will dictate the success that they have. And that’s where good education, good podcasts, good training and coaching go a really long.

Dave:
Yeah, so how do you quantify that Richard, right? I think a lot of people are always looking, you know, we’re used to looking at yields, right? On different investment vehicles, whatever they be. So we’re always kind of thinking about what’s the ROI, what’s the yield, right? And since this is a little bit elusive, how are you able to really calculate that value, you know, from a quantifiable standpoint?

Richard Canfield:
I think that’s an amazing question. And I think what that question really matters the most is with the individual getting clear on what they value. So if you don’t have a measuring stick for what you personally value now, then it’s hard to quantify everything. It’s easy to quantify something on a spreadsheet. But spreadsheets can lie to you just as much as they can tell the truth, because it depends on what numbers you feed it. And then it depends on your interpretation of the numbers. So the numbers themselves don’t lie. but how you view the numbers could potentially lie to you. Does that make any sense?

Dave:
Yeah,

Richard Canfield:
If

Dave:
yeah,

Richard Canfield:
you and

Dave:
perfect

Richard Canfield:
I were looking

Dave:
sense.

Richard Canfield:
at the exact same spreadsheet, we never seen it before, is my vantage point, my look at that spreadsheet, and yours gonna be a little bit different, even though the numbers are identical.

Dave:
Yeah.

Richard Canfield:
And we’d have to talk through it to determine what are we actually looking at? And then

Dave:
Yeah.

Richard Canfield:
if we ran that through a filter of what we value, now you can quantify what it really means to you. So, what’s the difference between a

Dave:
Yeah, okay. So I’ve got two additional questions as a breakdown of that. But the first one being, you know, talk to me about opportunity cost, right? So, you know, you talked about putting money in here. We know that there’s a certain portion of that that actually goes against your premium. What on average should, you know, people be estimating from that standpoint?

Richard Canfield:
Uh, okay. So yeah, opportunity costs and then, you know, kind of like how much to put into premium. I think it’s kind of two separate questions there. So I’m going to talk about opportunity cost. Opportunity cost shows up to us in a lot of different ways, specifically if you’re a real estate investor, you’re an investor, you’re looking at that and a business owner looks at it differently, I think than the rest of society. But just fundamentally looking at your, at your capital, you’re going to take, let’s just say you’re going to take, um, $5,000 and put it towards a family vacation. Well, as soon as that money goes, you use your visa and then you pay off the visa, okay? So the $5,000 is gone and you get the memories of the family vacation. So the opportunity cost of not going on vacation is you don’t get the memories. So that’s one of the opportunity costs. Financially though, that $5,000, well, if you’re 40 years old and you’re gonna live until 90, well, you’ve got 50 years of future earning potential on that $5,000, don’t you? And… Let’s if we just use a very simple amount, you know, I don’t have a future value calculator on me But let’s just say was at 4% roughly just to keep it super simple Well, you’re probably looking at about a 25 to 30 thousand dollar decision So that means that five thousand dollar vacation today is actually worth Let’s say five times that amount in your future and it’s a matter of whether or not you were able to contain the money So if you have a containment facility for the money that is in constant motion and always growing for you, you can harness and capture that spending powers opportunity costs in a way that you could never do before. So that’s one way that, again, isolating IBC, you know, infinite banking concept, versus say an investment are different because investments, first of all, Nelson Nash’s definition of investment was something you know a great deal about. Anything else is speculation. Most people call the investments that we do today, they’re investment products. That doesn’t mean they’re an investment for you. What it means is it’s something you can invest in, but you’re actually speculating on the end result. Whereas if you’re well-trained and educated in a niche area and you’re highly knowledgeable about that, now you can make a fundamental good decision that is an actual investment. So that’s the big kind of defining factor. So if you’re gonna access money for a $50,000, you know, private mortgage or $50,000 and piece of investment real estate, well, the money’s gotta come from somewhere. And if it comes from your cash, well, now you’re making a decision that you can only do one job with that 50 grand. You can buy that investment property. But once it’s in that property, now you can’t really get it back out again to go do the next thing. It’s tied to that asset. Whereas if you were able to get the money into, let’s say a well-designed policy first, and then you could access the exact same $50,000 from the insurance company’s money, OPM, Well, now you’ve got money working in two places, in the insurance contract, constant motion for the rest of time, and you got the exact same investment deal. So now you can do two things at once effectively, and you also have a massive amount of protection, tax-free, wrapped around the whole environment, which you otherwise wouldn’t have in the first example. So that, it goes to control, it goes to opportunity costs, and it goes to the utilization of efficiency of your money. IBC is more about efficiency than it is about investing. Investing is something everyone should be looking at doing, but not unless they’re knowledgeable about that, which they are doing.

Dave:
Yeah, I think some people get mixed up too and think it’s maybe one versus the other, right? But the idea here, what you said, which is so powerful is that you’re actually taking the same dollar and using it twice, right? And if you follow the ultra wealthy and what they do so well is, you know, it’s all about creating multipliers, right? With your money and it’s doing multiple things. And you’ve already talked about probably a dozen different things that I, you know, I could I can talk about here, like the creating legacy wealth, creating tax-free growth, creating a tax-free income stream and retirement, having the power of liquidity, just to name a few. So when you encapsulate all of those and then think about the value of that, and then to your point earlier, how does that really align with what’s most important to you? I think that’s how you can place the value on it, which is powerful.

Richard Canfield:
I’d love to share something that you highlighted on about that legacy piece. I can tell you a quick story about something that

Dave:
Yeah.

Richard Canfield:
actually happened last night. So last night I had one of the most epic conversations with my wife. We’ve had a long time. It was just phenomenal. We actually talked about maybe launching a podcast together, which is kind of cool. But we were putting the kids down. So my kids are five and seven and they both had a karate belt test and got a new karate belt last day, which is great. And so my wife is putting my son down. Later we were talking about it and somehow the question came up about, why is our family awesome or whatever? And my son started talking about, well, you know, there’s a lot of reasons why we’re awesome. And, you know, it’s because of you and this and hey, we, you know, you’re able to stay at home and dad works from home and we have, you know, we’re able to go on vacations and do these things. And a lot of that’s because of the family banking system. So we’re late at night and my son’s volunteering this information to my wife. So let me talk to you about the fundamentals of legacy and thinking differently and how we approach things. Now I know you have triplets. I know you’ve got a number of kids and you’re probably gonna be getting into grandkids. zone pretty quick. So we can have a whole fun conversation. I’m sure about that. But, but when it comes to legacy, so I started teaching my kids, you know, as soon as my daughter was about two and a half, I have found an opportunity in a storybook. I was reading her at bedtime to start talking and introducing the idea of the family banking system, the family piggy bank. And so now when we go on vacation, we have a family banking meeting. Now my kids are still five and seven. So it’s not like we take like 25, 30 minutes to keep their attention. They get a treat. All right. This last family banking meeting, we talked about passive income. We talked about books and how the books that daddy’s been writing, they’re going to create a long-term passive income. And we talked about active income. And so when I’m standing in front of a computer screen in my office and there’s you know, a camera on that doesn’t look very active. Whereas when my wife is building a cool art piece out of wood in the garage and that she sells and someone comes and brings physical money to the door, the kids can recognize activity level that produced a result. Does that make sense? So

Dave:
Yes.

Richard Canfield:
the visual connection of that. So we talk about active versus passive income. And we talked about the family banking system. So anytime that we go do something fun, we go out for dinner, we go and the kids get to do a cool experience. We go on family vacation. We, I always bring it back. I said, so kids, why is it we’re able to do things like this again? And they said, they both go, because of the family piggy bank or the family bank. Oh, awesome. High five, high five, you know, big hugs. And it’s like, what do we have to make sure we do? We have to put the money back in dad. Oh great, why do we have to put it back in kids? So we can use it again later. Now do my kids know about

Dave:
Love it.

Richard Canfield:
what a bank is? Do they know what an insurance contract is? Do they know what an investment is and do they care about any of that stuff? The answer is no. What they recognize is that we get to do fun things. It all comes from a reservoir, a warehouse, the money pool, our money pool. When we access from the money pool, okay, we drain some of the water out. we have to put the hose back in and refill the pool. It’s that simple. And we’re operating in an aquarium, and so nothing that we work with financially leaves the aquarium, but the aquarium keeps expanding in size. That’s what infinite banking is all about. That’s what family banking is all about and the legacy you can create. So the stories we tell, the words that we use, how we show up in our conversations around money in the household, in the family, whether your kids are gone and left, or you got grandkids. The way that we show up there is gonna be the defining factor to the success of the generations that follow you. And we all have an opportunity to show up differently there, I believe. And I think, in my opinion, Nelson’s concept automatically bridges some of those gaps with people, if they can start to change the way they communicate and think. Last piece of this story is right here. Imagine for a moment, you have 45 pieces of rental properties. I don’t care if they’re buildings, 45 doors and two buildings are… 45 single family houses, I don’t care. You get 45 of them. They’re all fully paid for. They’re all producing an annual cashflow and they have guaranteed market appreciation regardless of what goes on in the market or the next presidential election. You with me so far? Okay, now you’ve aged up a little bit. It’s your time for graduation. You’re no longer with us. 17 of those properties that were all fully paid for automatically sell. the moment you die, for 100% of their highest value, their highest appraised value ever, there’s no real estate fees, there’s no closing costs, there’s no estate taxes, there’s no capital gains tax. 100% tax-free goes to the family, and a check is cut, you don’t have to worry about listing the properties. You with me so far? Now, you have 28 properties that are still fully paid for. In… Available still producing a cash flow that the family inherits with no tax consequence. How do you like my real estate deal so far? You

Dave:
Pretty solid.

Richard Canfield:
you you want to know who created that his name was nelson nash He wrote this amazing book called becoming your own banker nelson had 45 whole life insurance policies that he owned He actually had 49 at one time. He gave a couple away And he he was operating on his great grandchildren when he passed away at 88 So he had every member of the family including himself and his wife mary So when Nelson passed away, 17 tax-free death benefit checks were paid. 40 or 28 of those policies, which are property, it’s the property in the way of contract versus in the way of physical real estate, but it’s still property transferred 100% tax-free to his family members. And all of those are still producing and growing cash every single day. They’re all seasoned and they will all produce a tax-free estate value on somebody’s life. Some of those things probably are almost a hundred years out before they’ll even materialize in that format, which means Nelson created four generations, four generations of nonstop capital accumulation for his family, all because of the way he thought, not because of the product he used and not because of the investments he did, because he controlled the banking function and he thought about things different.

Dave:
Well, such a great example. I want to ask you another question, Richard, that I think a lot of people struggle with on this topic, if they want to actually proceed. It can be challenging to figure out, you know, what do I figure out in terms of my premiums? Right? What what is that size of the bucket that I want to create? And there’s lots of different ways to look at it. So love to get your thoughts on that.

Richard Canfield:
Yeah, this is a super good question. So I mean, there’s, there’s number one, I mean, everyone said for the longest time, and you know, you go back to some of these well written books, and, you know, the richest man in Babylon, etc, is that you should be saving or, or setting aside 10% of your gross income. Okay, well, so if first of all, if you’ve been able to do that, you’re ahead of the game, then most people because a lot of people just aren’t doing that. Okay, so congratulations to you. So But why would you stop at 10%? So you could start at 10%, but there’s no reason you can’t incrementally increase that. All right, so set a good goal, set a good target. If you don’t have a good goal and a target, I can tell you you’re not going anywhere. You know, you plug in an address in the Google GPS there, it takes you where you wanna go and it even reroutes you if there’s an accident on the road. Well, that’s your life and that’s your financial life. If you don’t have a goal and a target, you ain’t getting there, all right? You need to put some effort into that first. But I would say at minimum, a person should be planning on 10% of their gross household income. And that’s a great starting point. If you can’t get there, well then do what you can. Here’s the key thing though. What we find when we meet with people, and I’m sure you discover this all the time, Dave, when you meet with people and you get to dump out their financial junk drawer and sort through the mess that they’ve created in their life, which everyone has a bit of a mess, you can see things that other people can’t see, but it’s always been there for them. You can see how they’re spending money on this junk mortgage insurance, how they’re spending money on that, how they’re… spending a bunch of things monthly that could be annual and automatically could save them 10% in like seven areas of their life. And that’s all freed up cashflow that can go back into a system. They’re sending money to all of these miscellaneous savings buckets for an education fund, for a vacation fund, for the home repair fund, for the, you know, you got escrow for your rental properties, where you’re putting for future property tax and for insurance payments and for your repair and maintenance fund. your vacancy allowance, all that stuff is building up in the account, but it’s just sitting there wasted dollars that’s not being very efficient for you. So if we take a look at all these buckets of inefficiencies and we were able to pool them strategically or to strategize as I like to say, then you can put yourself in a position where you can reallocate the existing dollars to create a maximum level impact in your family’s life. And so even though you might only be able to do 10% when you get together with a good coach. we might find another five or another 10% and we can help put that to work for you because it’s flexible. And if it’s flexible, it gives you breathing room to allow you to make good decisions. You know, ad hoc, we all had these random things, tax refund, an inheritance, you sell a property, you do a rental flip, you do, um, you know, you have an investment payout, like there’s different things that happen. You get, you get money for your birthday. Like all these different little events happen if you have a place, a dedicated warehouse, to shove that when it happens strategically that’s optimized for your life, everything begins to change, but it all starts with one step. So I personally think 10% of gross income, household income is a good starting block, but people should actually be targeting something closer to 25% because you’re gonna be borrowing and using that money back into your life. So your ability to get more in is actually higher than most people can understand, but until you experience it, you won’t know. Next piece of this is I asked Nelson Nash several times in conversations with him. I said, Nelson, how did you know when it was time to start a new policy? How did you know it was time to grow your system? And he would say, uh, Richard, as soon as my feeble brain could envision doing so. And that was it. And his

Dave:
Well.

Richard Canfield:
answer was laser consistent every single

Dave:
every

Richard Canfield:
time,

Dave:
time.

Richard Canfield:
which which means your behavior. What’s in between your heirs is the only limiting factor to what’s possible to you. That’s basically the summation of Nelson’s 88 years of wisdom around

Dave:
Yeah.

Richard Canfield:
that aspect.

Dave:
Yeah. Awesome. Love it, Richard. Let’s transition a little bit for a second to the personal development side. I know you’re a huge proponent of that yourself. So if you could give the audience just one piece of advice on what practice has yielded the most results for you, what would that be?

Richard Canfield:
Well, I mean, we kind of talked about it a little bit before we hit the record button. And that’s, that’s the Colby A index. I’m a big fan of Colby. And when I say practice, what I mean by that is the Colby index teaches you about your innate instinctual way of getting things accomplished in the world. How do you actually do every day you do things? How do you go about the doing instinctually? You might inherently know some of them, but when you can be detached from that and you can read it to recognize key areas, it really fundamentally helps you think about how you can operate more effectively and efficiently in the world. And today I was having a conversation with my wife about Colby and I actually have a binder. I’m gonna be printing off a lot of that stuff and we’re gonna be starting to introduce our children to some of these types of concepts because they have colored bars, so it’s visually appealing for the kids and it’s gonna create some fun discussions in the household, I really think. And my wife and… I, my Colby are fairly different. She’s a mediator, but we have also some key similarities. And so when we recognize certain like tension or whatever comes up, well, sometimes we can just pull out this binder and we could flip through. It’s like, oh yeah, here we go. This is, this is, this is where I went wrong. I see I’m, I’m doing something in this area that really makes it difficult for you. So, so it’s really helpful tool. And what Colby really did for me is it helped me understand that I was perfectly all right. And that everything that I was doing was doing it. the way it was supposed to be done. Where the world was telling me I was out of place, I was doing things wrong, like why can’t you just do this? Why can’t you just do that? And I got all these like, okay, well, like, is there something wrong with me? Like, why is it that I can’t do it the way that you’re doing it? Well, it’s because I’m not built to do it that way. That’s why. And in fact, if I do it my way, I always get better results. And in fact, my results often outpace your results because I get more done at a faster pace simply because of the way that I’m built. And even though I might, you know, I might start a hundred projects. and I might only get 25 of them done, but where I started 100 and I got 80 of them to 50% and I got 25 of them done to 100%, someone else only started 10 projects. So there’s nothing wrong with either method and there’s nothing wrong with you. But what could be erasing with you is if you understand what’s perfectly right with you and you can amplify that as a game-changing tool in your life, Colby’s done that for me.

Dave:
Yeah. Love it, Richard. I think unique ability is definitely one of the things that’s up there. That’s one of the top things that you could really learn about yourself. And it’s been great to introduce that to our kids. If listeners are interested, we actually had Julia Waller on the show, we talked about unique ability and we got deep into the Colby test. So go back and check out that episode, which is really awesome. And I know it’s been amazing creating a team. that also works in harmony with unique ability, as well as with our family too. And as our kids kind of grow up, having that understanding of a unique ability, I think I love the word harmony, right? It

Richard Canfield:
Hmm.

Dave:
just creates so much more harmony in the household versus having friction to say, someone’s just wired a certain way and they wanna do it a certain way. And I’ve actually gone also on a couple’s workshop. with my wife and we were able to work through each of our Colby scores. And we’re just so much more congruent and understanding because of those things. And I only wish I knew that 25 years ago. So

Richard Canfield:
Right.

Dave:
thanks for sharing that, Richard. Really awesome. And really appreciate you coming on the show today, providing so much value for everyone, so much wisdom and insights. Nelson and from your own journey. I think it’s really, really powerful. And if people would like to connect with you, learn more, what is the best place?

Richard Canfield:
Well, you know, what I’d love to do is offer everyone a copy, a free digital download of our most recent book. We’re launching another one here shortly, but our second book, Cash Follows the Leader is available. It’s, it’s a nice, quick, easy read. It’s got some great pictures and images in it and then go to cash follows.com. That’s cash follows.com and they can go ahead and grab that. A ton of great resources in there. And, you know, I’m pretty easy to get ahold of as far as that’s concerned. You know, you can also go to our podcast wealth without Bay street. We’re on YouTube, we’re on the YouTubes at wealthwithoutbasedreet.com forward slash YouTube nice and simple and You know one last thing I would really recommend people do Dave if you don’t mind is you know Nelson Everything I do and all the good in my life almost all of it has stemmed somehow from getting to know and meet Nelson Nash So I really want to share what what I think that ripple effect can do for other people and there’s a great Documentary film that we commissioned on Nelson Nash. It’s called. This is Nelson Nash the creator of the infinite banking concept And you can go to nelsonnashfilm.com. It’s one hour, one hour well spent. If you wanna get connected to the idea of money and talking about money in the household with your spouse, it’s a great thing to sit and watch together, cast it onto the smart TV from YouTube and you go to that website and you’re really gonna learn a ton and get to understand the impact of what this type of thinking can really do for your family over an extended period of time.

Dave:
Awesome. Thanks so much, Richard. Really appreciate it.

Richard Canfield:
Thank you, Dave.

Dave:
Hey everyone, welcome to today’s show on wealth strategy secrets. Today we’re joined by a special guest, Rich Fetke. Rich has a passion for helping people improve their businesses, grow their wealth and live more fulfilling lives. He is the author of the wise investor, extreme success and the audio program momentum. Rich is also a co-founder of real wealth. Since 2003, the company has helped over 60,000 members improve their financial intelligence and acquire cash flowing income properties. so they can live life on their own terms. As a licensed real estate broker and an active investor, Rich was selected as a Rich Dad author for his expertise as a wealth mindset expert. A pioneer in the field of business and personal coaching, Rich is past president of the Professional and Personal Coaches Association, and his work has been featured in numerous tier one media outlets. He’s also the former owner of a large health club franchise. and has over 35 years experience in business startups, management and training. And as an adventure athlete, Rich has competed in the ESPN X Games and is a record holding budgie jumper, licensed skydiver, experienced rock climber, lifetime skier, addicted server, surfer, and wait for it, a really lame distance runner, enjoys working and playing in Malibu, California with his wife, Kathy and their two daughters. Rich. Welcome to the show.

Rich Fettke:
Thank you. Really good to be here. Looking forward to this.

Dave:
Yeah, no, I’ve really been looking forward to this, Rich. Um, like I mentioned, you know, we are definitely kindred spirits, I think, on

Rich Fettke:
Mm-hmm.

Dave:
uh, our outlook in the world and, and wealth building and what that really means. So I think listeners are in for a real treat today. Um, and just, I mean, just to, you know, unpack, uh, your bio a little bit. Um, I mean, you can easily see, right, the sense of adventure that you bring, you know, not only in, in sports, but you know, how you approach life, right, and business, and with real estate investing. So, so why don’t you tell the audience who might not be familiar with you and your story. I know it’s, it’s quite a fascinating journey that you’ve had. But if you can help the audience just learn a little bit more about your back.

Rich Fettke:
Sure, absolutely. Yeah, adventure is definitely a big part of my life. It’s really important both in business and physically and all this, I think it’s an adrenaline addiction, positive one, I hope. But yeah, I mean, if I go way back, what started it all for me in getting into this adventure and focus and business and growth and all that was I was bullied in high school. This kid kept beating me up every day in junior year. And so that summer I decided to put on some muscle. I started to lift weights and took martial arts and that just really changed things for me. I was diagnosed learning disabled when I was eight years old. I was diagnosed as hyperkinetic disorder, which today they call ADHD. But for that, it was like I had the self belief or no self belief really, because I kept getting these reports about lacks what it takes to succeed and all these things and put in these special classes. So. The weightlifting and this kid bullying me and everything just completely transformed things for me. All of a sudden I started to get bigger and stronger, but more than anything I learned about self-discipline. And until then I didn’t have much self-discipline. I was pretty much all over the place and that started me on this path of goal setting and growth and getting better and everything. So all that took me down this path of opening that health club that you mentioned when I was 23 years old, I sold that successfully after seven years. moved to California, met my incredible wife, Kathy. And then we, uh, then I started, uh, I got certified as a business and personal coach. So I was coaching people on business and growth and that’s what my degree in college was, uh, entrepreneurship and business. So I took all that and was coaching clients and honestly, it was going great. I got to sign a book deal with Simon and Schuster. I was giving keynote speeches. I was on top of my game. And then I was diagnosed with melanoma. which is not too bad really. It’s a skin cancer. It’s the most advanced form of skin cancer, but they thought it had spread to my liver because they did a CT scan and it showed four masses on my liver. And then the doctor said, this is not good. I want you to get a ultrasound and see what’s going on. And that showed four masses. So I ended up meeting with an oncologist and I said, what does this mean? And he said, it basically, it looks like you got about six months to live. So I was 37 years old, Kathy and I had two daughters. We had a 10 year old, a three year old, and it just rocked our world. It rocked Kathy’s world in a big way because she was a stay at home mom. I had to find a way, or she had to find a way to make ends meet if I died, and I had to find a way to heal this. Thankfully, the doctor’s diagnosis was wrong. It was a, just hemangioma, clusters of blood vessels that a lot of us have, it’s harmless, but. the connection of the melanoma and these scans and everything. It wasn’t until I got a PET scan, which is the most advanced form of cancer scanning that I was basically diagnosed cancer free. So we were celebrating, but in that whole process, Kathy was basically it took three months before we knew if I was going to live or not. And after three months and I got that PET scan, but in that three month period, Kathy’s like, what am I going to do? And she decided to really seek out mentors to find out what she could do to make an income. And she found out that most of these people were successful through real estate. They made most of their wealth through real estate investing. So that’s what turned us on to real estate. Once I was, had my surgeries to remove the melanoma and we had that good, positive diagnosis, then.

Dave:
Hmm.

Rich Fettke:
We started to invest and we basically we took, we did a cash out refi on our home up in the San Francisco Bay area. And we went to a little town north of Dallas called Rockwall, Texas. We ended up buying five investment properties there. And so that is what kind of led us on this path of real estate investing, which has been a great path that was over 20 years ago now. And we honestly, we had friends and family saying, how are you doing this? How are you living in San Francisco? and investing in Texas and all that. So we just decided to form a little group of friends and family and try to support people and show them how we did it and invest with them. And that little group that we called Real Wealth is now over has 70,000 members today.

Dave:
Wow.

Rich Fettke:
So that’s the company that we’ve developed now. It’s called Real Wealth, as you mentioned, and it’s been a blessing really. So that curse of the diagnosis has really turned into a blessing in so many ways.

Dave:
Wow, it’s such a powerful story, Rich. And I talk about this actually in my book as well, is that we hear really moving stories like that, right? That

Rich Fettke:
Hmm

Dave:
got you to the point where you had to just really rethink everything in your life, right? And be forced

Rich Fettke:
Yeah.

Dave:
to prioritize. I mean, literally in a six month window to prioritize everything that’s really meaningful in your life, right? So instead, I always encourage people to not wait for that moment, right? Of the chronic illness, the loss of a loved one, to be able to make that massive shift in your life if you’re not happy. Take

Rich Fettke:
percent.

Dave:
it now while you don’t have the pressure. It takes a lot of courage, right? But just go for it now and don’t wait for one of those events to happen.

Rich Fettke:
It’s a huge principle of my coaching and you know, I was continued to coach clients. I don’t coach as many clients now. I only work with three clients at a time, but it’s a huge focus of my coaching is the whole, as the Stoics called it, you know, memento mori, you know, knowing that you’re going to die, remember that you are going to die and that could be in six months, it could be tomorrow or it could be in 50 years, but it doesn’t matter. It’s like, yeah, how can you live fully and be your best self today and live your best life? It’s huge. It’s my driving force.

Dave:
Yeah, that’s awesome, Rich. So tell us a little bit about, you know, your philosophy on wealth. And I find this topic so fascinating, really, it’s really kind of the psychology of money and wealth. And I think oftentimes, you know, whether it’s the media, or, you know, culture, right, we get caught up in, you know, making more money, doing more things, right, but but we lose sight of what does it really mean? And, you know, I love in your book how you talk about real wealth and what that really means. And, and clearly you’ve got some amazing experiences to shape that. So, so help us understand, you know, your definition of real wealth.

Rich Fettke:
I mean, it really came from that diagnosis and going through three months of not knowing if I was gonna be alive and looking at my daughters, thinking, wow, am I never gonna see them get married or meet my grandchildren and all that stuff. So that is what has driven Kathy and me. And that’s why we called our company Real Wealth, because it’s not just about money. It’s about having the money and the freedom to live life on your own terms. It’s being able to be with your family. And also what… One thing we noticed and why it’s such a big purpose for us is when people don’t have those money stresses, they’re better humans, they’re better parents. They just show up better. They’re better spouses because they’re not stressed out. They feel more abundance in their lives. So money is huge. It’s a huge part of it, but it’s like, what do you do with that money and how can you have that money create more freedom of time? And so you can really live and show up the way you want to live. So it’s, it’s huge. It’s been with us since the beginning. You know, when we formed this company 20 years ago, that’s what we set out to do. It was our purpose is help people create real wealth. And now we even measure it. We track it because it’s our mission. We want to we want to help a thousand people declare that they have fully experienced real wealth. So we created this real wealth assessment that is like 20 questions that people can fill out to see where they are. And most people in the beginning, they they score like a 50 or 60. But over time with putting things in the right place and investing and getting the right team in place and all these things, all of a sudden their score starts to go up and up over time. And then that really, you know, that just, that fires us up. Our whole team gets all fired up when we see someone pass an 80 as a score is kind of our, our litmus test. When someone passes 80 on that real well score, we’re like, okay, we’re doing our work. It’s happening.

Dave:
Yeah,

Rich Fettke:
It’s working.

Dave:
yeah,

Rich Fettke:
That’s huge.

Dave:
yeah, that’s awesome. Yeah, because it’s really about a process, right? It’s

Rich Fettke:
Mm-hmm.

Dave:
not necessarily the outcome. And I also find it really interesting is that when you can get crystal clear on what your vision is and where you’re going, some things that drive fulfillment and freedom in your life actually don’t even require money, right? It might be just taking a different approach, different mindset, maybe having the time to do something. Right?

Rich Fettke:
Mm-hmm.

Dave:
So there’s so much more to it than just, you know, we also think about as, you know, the numbers in our bank account or, you know, our balance sheet.

Rich Fettke:
Yeah, it’s and that’s the biggest challenge that I’ve seen. The biggest problem is lack of clarity when I work with a new client or even when we interview the members of real wealth. It’s a lack of clarity about where do they really want to go? Where do they want to be in 10 years and 20 years? Where do they want to be by the end of their life? When I work with my clients, a lot of times I have them write their own eulogy. Like

Dave:
Hmm.

Rich Fettke:
basically to look at what

Dave:
Yeah.

Rich Fettke:
would you want people to say about you at your funeral? And it’s such a. powerful exercise that brings up tears and and butterflies and all this stuff. But so often we don’t stop. Most people don’t stop to really look deeply at where do they want to be. Even they think about maybe the year goals or they have an idea of where they want to be in 10 years. But really, I think it really starts on taking that big picture and really getting crystal clear on who do you want to be? What do you want your life to look like? All those things. That’s number one.

Dave:
Why do you think that is, Rich? What’s really holding people back?

Rich Fettke:
I think it’s busyness. Honestly, I think we get so busy and we like, we have our kids and our jobs and so many things coming at us that it creates an overwhelm. It’s like, I think we all have a little bit of ADD, right? Because of today’s society and so much coming at us that we often don’t feel we have the time to stop and really ask ourselves those questions. That’s why I wove that into the book of the wise investor where the, the mentor takes Ryan, the protagonist through this. process of meeting his future self, meeting himself in the future. And I’ve done that with clients for the last 25 years. And it’s always just, man, it’s, I love that exercise, you know, looking, meeting myself in the future and looking at, you know, asking him some questions and seeing how he lives. And so it’s, it’s having some tools and a process to clarify that vision of where you really want to go, who you want to be.

Dave:
Yeah.

Rich Fettke:
That’s it.

Dave:
Yeah. So we focus a lot on actually creating a, what we call the holistic wealth strategy, right? Which is building

Rich Fettke:
Hmm.

Dave:
a process and a plan for how you’re going to build wealth. Do you have, do you have a particular wealth strategy or an approach that, you know, you and Cathy are following or that you work with your clients on?

Rich Fettke:
Absolutely. I mean, what we decided and we got clear on is we are experts in single family, like one to four units. We syndicate as well as a company and we do residential developments. Honestly, we usually build single family homes and all that. There’s a lot of great other ways to invest in real estate, but we picked our lane and we just focused on becoming experts in it. So our whole model and what we attract, what we help our members do. is investing in single family one to four, putting together a portfolio of cash flowing properties, it’s going to benefit them with the tax benefits, all that, and the depreciation and the growth of that and the wealth building and everything. So it’s worked really well for us with Kathy and me. And honestly, it’s really worked really well for our members who just kind of follow the process. So it’s like I think in real estate, there’s so many ways to invest and there’s so many ways to. create wealth and cash flow and all. I think the most important thing you do is really pick your lane, choose what is it that you’re most interested in, and like look at all of it and then come back and say, okay, what am I gonna really focus on? And that’s what we did. And that’s what we help our members do.

Dave:
Yeah, for sure. Are there any other components to that around mindset and, you know, with your coaching background and everything and the other components outside of just, you know, the physical investing perspective?

Rich Fettke:
I mean the discipline piece, you know,

Dave:
Yeah, yep.

Rich Fettke:
you know, before we started the show today, you and I were talking about discipline and the importance of it and how powerful that is. So it’s really the, it’s the clarity of where do you really want to go? And so many people come and even like, you know, there’s so many people who look at it like, just give me the tools. What do we need to do? What should it, where should I invest in? What should I invest in? But they don’t step back and take the bigger picture. They don’t look at the bigger picture. So that’s, passionate about that is like, wait a minute, stop, let’s come back. And this is Kathy’s also certified coach. She got certified way back in 1996 when I did. So that’s what we’ve woven into the fabric of our company is drawing out from our clients and our members. What is it that you really want and how can you set up a strategic plan with the goals and milestones? So you know that you’re on track. So I think that’s a huge part of it. And really looking at. first laying out the plan, but then looking at how do you stick to the plan? I think that’s

Dave:
Yeah.

Rich Fettke:
where most people drop the ball. They come up

Dave:
Yeah.

Rich Fettke:
with this great plan, no matter who helps them create it, but then it’s following through on it. That’s I think the sticking point.

Dave:
Yeah. Yeah. I really believe that having a strategy is just absolutely paramount, you know, and if you look at, you know, the ultra wealthy and family offices and how they’re allocating capital, I mean, they have a very distinctive strategy, you know, they’re, they’re allocating capital on a 25 year horizon, you know, they’re not making short-term decisions. And I think it really helps to balance some of the things like, you know, the emotions that come into investing. right, that can kind of take

Rich Fettke:
Hmm.

Dave:
you out of your lane, right, when there are certain highs or certain lows, like, you know, right now there’s so much going on in the marketplace that might cause you to, you know, make kind of a short sighted decision, you know, based on fear or something that’s happening. But if you have a strategy in place, you know, then you can really, it gives you something to, you know, kind of rally to.

Rich Fettke:
I love that. I love that. That’s exactly it. And it’s having those things in place too, as far as a something to take the emotion out of it. Right. And just having that strategy helps take the emotion out of it. When you, when things get emotional, but you say, wait a minute, what’s my plan? Having your personal financial statement in place. So you know exactly where your net worth is, what your monthly cashflow is, having a very clear spending plan or budget in place that you’re checking in on a regular basis, at least once a month. having a bookkeeper that’s keeping up to date and all that. So that’s what Kathy and I have is a bookkeeper who’s constantly each month sends us reports on all these things. We’ve kind of got it dialed in and it’s a whole report on our properties and our portfolio and how each property is doing. It’s a report on the net worth and everything all the way down. There’s some key KPIs, if you will, those key performance indicators on

Dave:
Sure.

Rich Fettke:
how we’re doing as investors.

Dave:
Yeah, excellent. And where do you think the market is today with respect to single family, right? I mean, there’s again, so much going on, right? I mean, six month, one of the most historic rises in interest rates that we’ve had. We’ve had some of the banking failures recently. And I know, you know, real estate is very specific too, right?

Rich Fettke:
It is.

Dave:
I’m sure it’s different in California and Florida. So what are you really seeing and advising investors for 2023, right?

Rich Fettke:
I mean, right now we’re really grateful that we’re in single family. Really

Dave:
Mm.

Rich Fettke:
grateful. I have a lot of friends who are in multifamily and they’re challenged with the short-term loans and the, um, you know, floating debt and all this stuff. It’s like, it’s definitely creating some huge challenges there. I feel for them and I’m, I’m worried for some of them. Some of them got really smart and locked in some rates for the long till I have some friends who locked in debt until 2029, which I think was a really smart move. But with single family, you know, it’s it’s not getting hit. It’s there’s still a lack of inventory of single family properties. It’s still growing in some markets. Yeah, some markets absolutely going down, especially here in California. We’ve seen some some pretty solid drops. But in the where we invest is mostly mostly in the south and the southwest. I mean, southeast, I’m sorry. And like Florida, we have a single family fund that. is all investing in north of Dallas, where the whole chip manufacturing is happening. Tons of businesses moving there, tons of people moving there. The price of property is still increasing. Rents are increasing. So, you know, I think right now, single families strong and looks really good going into the future if you’re in the right market.

Dave:
Hmm. Yeah, interesting. And are you have you been participating at all in the latest trend around build to rent?

Rich Fettke:
Oh yeah, absolutely. Not like a full bill to rent community. We kind of steer away from that just because, um, what we’ve seen in the past with bill to rent communities is sometimes the, because it’s not owner based when there’s not enough owners there, people don’t often take as good care of the properties. So if a built rent community can really work, if you have one management company that’s managing the whole community, then everything’s good and they keep up with the upkeep and they make sure that people aren’t parking cars on the lawns and all that type of stuff. But we’ve done a lot of build to rent properties that our investors have purchased. So we, basically the way we work is we have brokers that we have relationships with around the country in these emerging markets. And then basically they have a lot of, you know, build to rent or their rehab, single family properties. But there was a huge shift because all those foreclosures pretty much got all gobbled up by all the flippers and all the, and you know, the, um, turnkey property providers that we shifted to a lot of kind of that built to rent, not a community, but a built to rent model. And it’s been awesome, you know, because they’re new properties, they come with builder warranties, and you don’t have to worry about them. Sometimes these turnkey properties are built back in the fifties or the forties. They can kind of come with their challenges, you know, even, even if it’s been fully rehab down the road. So Cathy and I, as as investors personally, we really focus on a new builds now for our our portfolio.

Dave:
Okay, yeah, that was my next question is, you know, tell us a little bit about the business model at Real Wealth, right? If you guys aren’t doing turnkey, I mean, how does it really work?

Rich Fettke:
Yeah, you know, 20 years ago we were referring to agents and brokers just who had new builds. It’s funny how

Dave:
Mm-hmm.

Rich Fettke:
things change, you know, that everything comes around. And but it was a little different back then. People could put no money down and they were doing these NINA loans, you know, no income, no assets. And people could just get any type of loan back in 2003, 2000, up to 2008 or up to 2007, really. So we were helping a lot of people get into investment properties that way. And then when the whole foreclosure crisis hit, Then we started to team up with brokers and property teams that would find these foreclosures, fix them up, make them like new again, and then put a renter in place. And as far as the way the business model works, the way we monetize it is as a broker, I can refer investors and clients to another broker in a different state and still get a broker to broker referral fee, just like any broker would get. Usually it’s around

Dave:
Got it.

Rich Fettke:
3% like typical real estate commission. So that’s. Our biggest thing at real wealth is kind of. It’s really vetting and finding the right brokers in the right properties, so

Dave:
Yeah.

Rich Fettke:
way out of 100 brokers and property teams that apply to be a real wealth investor, real wealth network investor or provider. They I would say it’s probably about. Honestly, it’s pretty low. It’s probably 5% of those that we accept, because you know once they. Once they apply to be a provider, then we do a whole background check on them. If they pass that, then we look at their market and really look at, is this a thriving market? Is it emerging? Is it growing? Are people moving there? And if that pass that test, then our property team managers will fly out and inspect the properties, meet that, meet them, look at, talk to some of their investors, do a whole background check. And then even before we release those properties to our members for investing, We release it to just a small group of experienced investors. So they test it out for the usually three or four months. And then if they come back in there, so like, yep, this is good. My property is doing well. The property management’s good. Work out the kinks. Then that’s when we accept them as a property team. That’s kind

Dave:
Got

Rich Fettke:
of that.

Dave:
it.

Rich Fettke:
That’s the model.

Dave:
Yeah. And what an investor own, are they buying the entire property and their name and everything? They own the

Rich Fettke:
Exactly.

Dave:
entire place, right?

Rich Fettke:
Yeah. So in our syndications, obviously not. They’re buying a unit or several units in the syndication. But with this, yeah, most people, it’s people who want to put together a portfolio of their own properties. And, you know, usually it’s like most people get into it that way. They’ll put together a portfolio of 10 to 20 properties that are cash flowing and they’re growing. And some of those, you know, do really well, like some of those properties. And In Tampa, Florida and Jacksonville, Florida, they went up 43% over the year. It was just incredible. So a lot of wealth accumulation there.

Dave:
And then how about from the management standpoint? Because I know that’s typically one of the biggest objections with people. If you’ve got a W-2 job, you want to invest in real estate, so they might

Rich Fettke:
Mm-hmm.

Dave:
go to syndications because it’s passive. But what is actually involved if they have that property? Does your team provide any resources for the property management?

Rich Fettke:
Yeah, all of the properties that we refer to always have property management in place that we have, you know, vetted and really looked at and gotten the feedback on. And, and we’re kind of become like the Yelp for real estate investors in a way for single family properties, because if one of our members comes back and says, Hey, my property management team is not following through on this, or I’m not happy with this. Then we log that we’ve called a, it’s called our resolution process. We log that complaint. And we talked to the property management company and say, Hey, we had this complaint. We, you guys clean it up. Uh, if we get several complaints about that property management company, then basically we will just say, we’re going to have to take you off our referral list because you’re just not working out. You’re not meeting our qualifications. And that usually does the trick where they’re like, no, no, we want to keep getting, you know, these clients

Dave:
Mm-hmm.

Rich Fettke:
and these sales and all that stuff. So they’ll, they’ll clean up their act, but we’ve had to let some go over the years.

Dave:
Yeah.

Rich Fettke:
They just, they can’t get their act together or they’ve grown too fast. And. You know, I’ve I’ve tried to manage properties in our own properties myself, and I realize, yeah, I can be a major pain in the butt to manage

Dave:
Right

Rich Fettke:
your own properties and, you know, deal with the sob stories and my people are late on their rent and all that stuff. So, yeah, no, I don’t do that anymore.

Dave:
Yeah. And then what do you recommend in terms of, you know, guidance around debt in today’s market? Right? Is there certain LTV structure you’re looking at? And also, you know, how about do you do put it in an entity or what? How are you advising?

Rich Fettke:
I mean, definitely putting the properties in a protected LLC just to protect them in the states that they’re in. I think that’s really important. A lot of people miss that one. They’ll just get an entity in Nevada or Wyoming and put their properties into that, not realizing that they’re not fully protected. So an LLC in the state. So I think it’s good to kind of batch your properties if you’re going to buy several single families. I think all in. like a bunch in one state, maybe a bunch in another state. So you have some diversification, like Florida gets hit with a hurricane or something like that. I think it’s good to diversify, but I think it’s, you know, we look for landlord friendly states. So I think that’s really important. And then as far as the debt, you know, it’s basically, it’s just running the numbers and just making sure that you at least get some cashflow. You know, it used to be a lot more cashflow when we had those crazy low rates, but really today it’s looking at this, this property at least has to cashflow a little because we’re for the long haul. You know, we’re boring. I guess you could say our investing model and strategy is boring. It’s long. It’s always looking at things over like a 10 year window and having it slowly build wealth over time. And then when you look back on it, it’s one of the greatest ways to grow, grow wealth. That’s what I’ve seen over the last 20 years when you do it right. So I think it’s finding the right debt. Today, there’s a lot of incentives. where people can get their rate bought down by the seller. They can wait. We have some of these builder loans now that they’re doing for the new bills. Like you mentioned, 4.75 for a for a 10 year arm is pretty darn good. That’s because it’s the builder puts money up front and buys this special rate. So there are ways to do it nowadays. You don’t have to go in with one of the, you know, 7% loans that I just don’t know how you can get those to cash flow.

Dave:
Yeah, yeah. And how about from a tax strategy perspective? Are you just looking at depreciation on these properties? Or is there any other intricacies to this?

Rich Fettke:
Um, mostly just a typical, you know, 27 and a half year depreciation, which ends up, you know, a lot of for Kathy and me, and for a lot of investors, it’s, it really gets your income, your taxes down to zero with the right way, especially if you can set yourself up as a real estate professional, or if you have, if you have a spouse that can be the real estate professional in the relationship and you can really get a lot of those tax benefits. So that’s a big way. And then, um, I think a great model, one thing that Kathy and I put in place is several short-term rentals. So we get that accelerated depreciation on all the furnishings and we get so many write-offs and we try to buy these, these rentals where there are pieces, places where we want to go like Park City, Utah is, and Kathy and I have one there. So it’s pretty good. We’d go up and check on that rental property and maybe tack on a couple of days of skiing up there too. A

Dave:
Yeah, awesome. You gotta love

Rich Fettke:
lot

Dave:
it.

Rich Fettke:
of

Dave:
Hey,

Rich Fettke:
tax benefits.

Dave:
yeah. Now that’s thinking smart.

Rich Fettke:
Hehe.

Dave:
So Rich, from a personal development perspective, what’s the one practice for you that has yielded the biggest results?

Rich Fettke:
Personal development. Ah.

Dave:
I know this is going to be hard for you because you’ve got a lot.

Rich Fettke:
I know my brain’s going all over the place, you know, I’m.

Dave:
Exactly. That’s why I said just one. You only get

Rich Fettke:
Yeah,

Dave:
one here.

Rich Fettke:
I’m trying to think like, what if I were to remove that one thing? What would be the game changer as far as like in a negative way? Honestly, I would say it’s it’s training. I would say it’s working out. It’s it’s so huge. How for me, the physical so much affects the mental so consistent working out because of the self-discipline it takes to make it happen when you don’t feel like doing it and you do it anyway. And, you know, there’s science and based research that shows that we can actually improve and develop our willpower over time. When you do something that you don’t want to do, you actually, your neurons fire to another neuron in that area of the brain that’s about willpower and self-discipline. And that connection gets stronger and stronger. So the more you do something consistently that you don’t feel like doing, it takes discipline, you actually become a more disciplined person over time. And I’ve seen that in my own life. I’ve seen that with my clients. It’s just, it’s incredibly powerful. I’ve seen it with my daughter. She loves to talk about, you know, her workouts and she even does the cold plunges and all that stuff. And she has got incredible self-discipline. And I think it comes from that.

Dave:
No, it’s so powerful. I mean, I couldn’t relate to that one even more. And it’s amazing though, because there’s this cultural tug as well, right? I can remember so many times in my career that I was always training and working out. I was always competing for something or whatever. And the whole time I was doing it, I always felt like I was under pressure. Like, I gotta hurry up and finish this run because… I’ve got, you know, I gotta get to work, I gotta get to the office, right? And because there’s, you know, all of these really important things, you know, that are going on. And I finally was able to kind of let go of that, you know, maybe eight years ago, and actually realize that, you know, when I’m exercising, it’s actually thinking time too, right? It’s actually

Rich Fettke:
Big time.

Dave:
some of the most valuable time of your day. we’re going back full circle to what we were talking about in the beginning of the discussion around, creating your vision, getting clear on your goals, reprioritizing what’s important, and just really setting you up for success in the day to live

Rich Fettke:
Mm-hmm.

Dave:
your day intentionally. So I really cherish my exercise time, not only from the physical aspect and all the benefits you’re getting there. but just also the mental aspect and really, you know, connecting with

Rich Fettke:
Holy.

Dave:
your mind and what’s important.

Rich Fettke:
Yeah, it’s a moving meditation. It’s

Dave:
Yeah.

Rich Fettke:
absolutely. Yeah, it’s, it’s huge. And you know, it’s one thing I finally committed to. It took me forever, but it finally committed to morning meditation. I started using that calm app and I would get on a streak. I’d go for maybe like 15 days or 20 days or, um, you know, 57 days was my longest. And I finally said, okay, I’m going to really commit to this. I’m just, I’m going to, I want to see these benefits that everyone talks about. Cause my,

Dave:
Yeah.

Rich Fettke:
brain would go a mile a minute and always be like, what’s next and looking to the future, like you were saying. And I finally made this commitment today was day 614 in a row, just using that calm app 10 minutes

Dave:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Rich Fettke:
in the morning. And that’s been huge for me. It’s, it’s incredible. Just

Dave:
Oh

Rich Fettke:
like

Dave:
yeah.

Rich Fettke:
you’re saying, I used to be so much about what’s next and what do I got to do next and what’s the future look like? And it’s really helped me be way more present with myself, but more important. With Kathy, with my daughters,

Dave:
Mm-hmm.

Rich Fettke:
with people in my life. Yeah, so that’s I would say that’s my number two personal development one now.

Dave:
It’s interesting you said that because as much as I like exercise too, I mean, that would be, it’s kind of a toss up for me as well. And I think about some of those people that sadly have lost the use of their limbs or veterans

Rich Fettke:
Yeah,

Dave:
coming back from the

Rich Fettke:
absolutely.

Dave:
war. And what if you didn’t have the ability to work out the way

Rich Fettke:
Hmm.

Dave:
that you couldn’t go surfing or rock climbing or cycling or whatever

Rich Fettke:
Oof.

Dave:
it might be? You know, you really just have your brain. And so, you know, the meditation is just so absolutely powerful. Um, you know, it really just helps, you know, if people out there have not done it, you know, we talk about this in our family, we, I’ve encouraged my kids. I’ve given, you can’t believe how much money I’ve given them to get into

Rich Fettke:
Nice.

Dave:
the habit of it because I’m like, whatever it’s going to take, this is literally one

Rich Fettke:
Mm-hmm.

Dave:
of the top three skills that you have to have in life to put out the noise, get clear on what’s important. Um, and just, you know, own your day. Um, it’s really

Rich Fettke:
Yeah,

Dave:
critical.

Rich Fettke:
so many benefits and I’m, I’m reading that massive book, outlive Peter Attia’s book right now.

Dave:
Yes, his

Rich Fettke:
It’s

Dave:
latest,

Rich Fettke:
a, it’s a

Dave:
yeah.

Rich Fettke:
great book. And, um, man, it just, what keeps coming around over and over if you want to increase your health span and be healthier and live a better, longer life exercise is number one. It just, it’s like, it’s the no brainer.

Dave:
Yeah, he talks about it as if he says if there was one magic pill or drug that’s out there that could cure, you know, all of the top killers, I mean, you know, you name it, it’s exercise.

Rich Fettke:
Yeah,

Dave:
Right.

Rich Fettke:
yeah, no,

Dave:
So,

Rich Fettke:
no

Dave:
yeah.

Rich Fettke:
doubt about it. Yeah. Yeah. And it doesn’t have to be crazy. It just has to be something and some movement. And yeah, so it’s, so I’m, I’m inspired. I’m it’s like, I mean,

Dave:
Yeah.

Rich Fettke:
we always need those reinforcements, right? You know, it’s like you get up and you’re like, do I want to work out this morning? It’s like, yes, I do. Because it’s like having like reading this book, it’s so inspiring for me to be like, okay, this is also for my health. This is also for my longterm. And you get everything in the dopamine benefit, you know, that natural high. Yeah.

Dave:
Yeah, and I think, you know, back to your coaching background, right? I mean, you know, this is a great, you know, point for listeners out there, you know, if you are struggling with, you know, getting an exercise regime, you know, going that that makes sense for you, right? Get yourself a coach, right? We should

Rich Fettke:
Yeah.

Dave:
actually have coaches in all areas of our business in our lives, right? Not just not just business or health, right? But also just think about it from an exercise standpoint, because I have a cycling coach and, um, you know,

Rich Fettke:
Nice.

Dave:
I’m telling you, I didn’t necessarily want to do the high intensity intervals that he assigns me every day. Um,

Rich Fettke:
Yeah.

Dave:
I get my heart rate up to 190 at 6 AM, um,

Rich Fettke:
Oh my goodness,

Dave:
is, is interesting,

Rich Fettke:
wow.

Dave:
but, uh, you know, there’s that accountability factor, you know, and you know, you have to do it, you know, and perform and so, you know, I think having a coach is really key.

Rich Fettke:
great point. I agree

Dave:
Yeah.

Rich Fettke:
100%.

Dave:
Yeah. So Rich, last one here, if you just had one piece of advice you could give to listeners about how they could accelerate their wealth trajectory, what would it be?

Rich Fettke:
Wealth. See, my brain goes from money to what real wealth is to

Dave:
Real

Rich Fettke:
me.

Dave:
wealth,

Rich Fettke:
So

Dave:
real wealth

Rich Fettke:
yeah,

Dave:
for you, yeah.

Rich Fettke:
you know, honestly, I’m just going to come back to it. Sounds repetitive, but it’s work on your self-discipline. And the more you can do that, everything from, you know, this, I kind of obsessed with this topic. I’ve read so much on it and studied so much on it. Everything from making your bed to just doing what’s best for you in the moment. And challenging yourself, getting uncomfortable. Great book called The Comfort Crisis talks about the need for us to get uncomfortable and how important and healthy that is. So to accelerate your wealth strategy and all that and your wealth consciousness, it really comes back to self-discipline because it’s doing what’s best for you and making the right choice in the moment. You can have all the tools and all the things that you could do or should do. If you’re not doing it, it’s not going to happen. So. I’m gonna go with that one.

Dave:
Awesome. Love it, Rich. I really can’t thank you enough for your time today. Sharing your insights with the audience, I think is really just invaluable. If people want to learn more about what you’re doing at Real Wealth or Connect, what’s the best place?

Rich Fettke:
It’s pretty simple. The realwealth.com is our website. And then, um, if people want to be inspired in around creating real wealth, then my book, the wise investor, it’s a parable. It’s a modern parable. As you know, it’s a story, but it carries in a lot of those key lessons on how to grow wealth, how to grow real wealth. And I really just wrote it to, to inspire people to shift their mindset and get excited about it and have some strategies that they can apply. So, uh, it’s. Everywhere books are sold is the wise investor too.

Dave:
Love it. And we’ll definitely put links in the show notes. Rich,

Rich Fettke:
Thank

Dave:
thanks

Rich Fettke:
you.

Dave:
again.

Rich Fettke:
My pleasure, thanks for having me.

Dave:
Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Wealth Strategy Secrets. Today we are joined by return guest, MC Lobsher. MC is a husband, dad, entrepreneur, investor, and educator. As an educator, MC’s passion is to share how investors and business owners can create, recover, warehouse, and multiply cashflow through advanced cashflow strategies. Having figured out how to escape the rat race and replace his income through cashflow investing. He shares how you can do the same through cashflow investing strategies. MC is also the founder of Cashflow Ninja and the creator and host of the top rated business and investing podcast, Cashflow Ninja, which has been downloaded millions of times in over 180 countries. MC is also the president at Producers Wealth, a wealth firm that assists investors and business owners to implement advanced cashflow strategies. And MC is the principal at producers capital partners and investment firm that helps investors to invest in alternative cash flow investments. MC my friend good to see you

M.C. Laubscher:
Great to see you. I’ve been looking forward to this conversation.

Dave:
100% me as well. You know, I think investors had a chance in the audience to listen to you if you haven’t. We had a great interview back at episode six. So please go back and listen to that, which has a full background of MC story and everything. But just as a quick kind of summary of your background, which is which is really fascinating as to how you really got into this space, how you’ve evolved. And I think you’re kind of global and macro view on economics, politics, and cash flow. That’d be a great place to start.

M.C. Laubscher:
Yeah, absolutely. Um, yeah, I grew up in South Africa during a very, very interesting time. So as a, as a young man, I saw, you know, the, the world in front of you just flip upside down, right. And I realized, um, that, you know, during that time, that there’s a lot of things that I, that I wasn’t aware of and that I should become aware of because I even saw adults as a young man completely like not, couldn’t make sense of what was happening. I also grew up on a homestead in South Africa would be qualified as a homestead, which is a huge like advantage in the investment world, believe it or not. I started to realize it become quite a strength because you know how things work and where things come from and how everything is connected. You know, if you don’t plant your seeds at a certain time of the year and you don’t nurture it and take care of it and manage it well and properly, well, there’s not going to be anything to harvest, you know, during harvest season. So coming to the United States, I played at a very high level in sports here. And as I was traveling, I was just, you know, reading history and economic books, that was kind of my passion. And that was my major in university. And I started to read rich dad poor dad, which leads led me to discovering this incredible cash flow investing, took action bought my first investment property. And after collecting all of the you know, the the, well, the rent and paying all the fees associated with it and expenses in cash flow. So the light bulb moment was, wow, this, this can work. I saw I read it in a book, my paradigm shifted, my thinking shifted, I took action, I implemented and executed. And now, wow, this property is cash flow, how many times can I do it? So I became pretty passionate about cash flow investing. But as an investor, I’ve always tried to educate myself of what’s going on because I’ve realized how connected everything is and especially the global economy on a macro level. So I became a student of macro economics and also I try to sharpen some of my technical skills of being This is something, this is a skill set of how you can identify things on a shorter term kind of time frame. So yeah, so as my cashflow journey evolved and grew, there was lots of lessons, there was a lot of great times and success, there was a lot of challenges and obviously failures, which helps you grow as an investor and also as an entrepreneur. And know, I started, I just, well, I discovered the strategy, this advanced cash flow management strategy. And this was as early on as a real estate investor, I had a friend that came from a very wealthy family, and they operated their own family office kind of structure. And I realized how cash flow was managed within their family office structure was completely different than what anybody else was was aware of. And this is where I discovered infinite banking and brought that into what I was doing, which really just amplified and just put a little bit of rocket fuel on my real estate investing. So in 2014, around 2014, beginning of 2015, I started Producers Wealth to help other investors implement and execute the infinite banking strategy too. there was a huge disconnect in financial services between the business owners and investors and actually the providers of it. And as an entrepreneur, when you see a disconnect or you see a gap in the marketplace, well, there’s an opportunity to provide a solution and start a business. So I did that. And we’re still active in 50 states in the United States helping all business owners and investors implement and execute infinite banking. And then with Cash Loan Ninja, my… My journey of learning continues. It’s great. I get to, I learned from the best minds in business and investing on a weekly basis doing a podcast and the podcast has turned into a full fledged education company where we have a book, the 21 best cashflow niches, sharing the best niches that folks share on the show. We also have a newsletter where we share every single month, a new cashflow niche that was shared and also have a mastermind, but It’s been a it’s been a fun ride Dave and it continues to be a lot of fun meeting incredible people and getting to getting to work with a lot of incredible business owners and investors.

Dave:
Yeah, no, I really appreciate your wisdom and insights, MC. I think it is a really unique perspective, having that global view and being, you know, brought up outside of the country, you know, coming to the U.S. and really understanding, you know, the merits of what this country stands for, right? Which, which at the fabric of it, it’s really all about freedom, right? And as an entrepreneur. Right? You’re, you’re, you’re trying to seek freedom in your life. Right. And, and I think wealth and having money and the financial means to do things is part of really achieving that freedom. So, you know, I think that’s a really unique, you know, look at things. And I think a lot of the audience can learn a lot, uh, from you in terms of how, you know, you see the world. And, you know, kind of, you know, segueing really from that as well is. I love that you’re able to study history, always look at becoming a better investor, and you’re really understanding everything at a macro level of what’s going on in the world, geopolitically, politically, economically. There’s so many different sources out there. I think it makes it very confusing for investors to say, how do I make the right decisions? What is best for me in terms of allocating capital, in terms of building wealth? And especially right now, we’re in this environment where everyone is pushing fear is basically what people are doing. There’s a lot of fear and that can be very scary. It can put you in the mode of being paralyzed and the deer in the headlights and not actually doing anything. Or it can make you irrational. right? And you make an emotional decision, right? And that’s where investors always lose when they tie in the emotion. So I think it’s great to create really a system and a strategy around your wealth. But talk to us a little bit about just from kind of a macro perspective. We’ve got, you know, a lot of failures in the banking system right now is one thing that’s really prevalent. But can you give us kind of your 30,000 foot view of of how you’re kind of seeing the worldview, the economy right now in 2023.

M.C. Laubscher:
Absolutely, and to your point, I think one of the things that I learned as a young man in South Africa was that there was a lot of uncertainty. You know, and I’ve already, and this is, I feel that the gift that I received early on in my life is there was so much uncertainty. Nobody knew what was going on, which then, you know, the herd mentality kicks in. So if there’s so much uncertainty, then obviously fear starts, it becomes hysteria. And it’s a very chaotic environment. And having already lived through that, I can see that the folks that have great frameworks and models of how things work and how the world works stay. They don’t get sucked into every single issue and become emotional about it. They just stay focused. They’re going to have a huge competitive advantage. And also from an information standpoint, you have to, as an investor, read everything and why, right? So I look at, you know, the like what’s going on in the mainstream media. And that kind of gives me an idea what the official narrative is, right? And then I read opposing views and then I read opposing views of people around the world. So that kind of makes you see things through different from different angles. And it kind of it gives you a better picture of what’s actually going on. So on a big macro level, you know, there there’s been a world order in place with with the US at the forefront and the US dollar as the world reserve currency. And that’s how the world is operated coming out of the Second World War. Right. So 1944, Britain was agreement was put in place. The United States dollar was was put in as the world reserve currency. The US came out of that war as as an established superpower. really unchallenged because the Soviet Union at that point, they were badly bruised from the war. And the US was a huge producer and creator of goods, which made its way to the warfront in Europe. And a lot of capital came back to the US and made the US very, very wealthy. And this is all cyclical. So now at the point we were at right now, so globally, there is a lot of different themes. And I mean, we could talk about that for hours, but the one thing that I want to drive home is that the world order is slightly changing. Now, it’s not in one way or another, it’s still figuring itself out. And you’re going to start to see a lot of different moves made by different countries, not just on the warfront. Most people think, oh, this war theme that’s going around, there’s a war coming. Well, wars are very, very different than what the average person perceive them to be. They can be economic. They can be financial, they could be psychological, and eventually, you know, we think of war as the kinetic form of that. So there’s already been, I mean, there’s always psychological, financial and economic warfare going on. You know, that’s kind of how the balance in the world order is established, right? So this has been going on and it’s just been taken to another level. Now how does the other theme that you refer to is the banking crisis. And this is very, very interesting. Because of the world order that was established, the US dollar was the world reserve currency, and the world’s monetary system is a debt-based monetary system. So it has been. So because of all those things changing, and especially in the system in the way that it is, this has impacted a lot of the centers of finance where banks are at the middle. So, for example, because it’s a debt based monetary system, you can see every single country just creates more debt, more and more debt. Right. And debt just keeps increasing. It’s the very nature of the system. So the system, the system depends on it. And over the last couple of years, interest rates drop really, really low, really, really low all over the world. You know, we’ve heard the terms. free money and cheap money and, you know, low rates and so forth. And people might have seen their mortgages that they could have locked in at one stage or under three percent if they were fortunate to. Well, this is this is had the result to a lot of exuberance, a lot of asset prices being inflated and inflation, which has become a huge political problem, not just in the United States, all across the world. So. Central banks across the world then started rising rights. Now back to the banks. Well, where do banks put a lot of their capital and warehouse a lot of their capital in that they use as collateral? Well, you and I will chuckle at this, but a lot of quote unquote risk-free assets for collateral is bonds, government bonds. So a lot of banks, like for example, Silicon Valley Bank, and you had Signature Bank, and even SolarGate Bank, they had a lot of bonds. which they bought at a very low interest rates. Now when interest rates double in almost six months, that the values, the value of the collateral which the banks have. Now that’s one thing if a bank can hold a bond to maturity and collect the full amount, but when they cannot do that, well, they have to sell the bond at a loss when depositors actually won capital. And that’s what happened with those three banks and specifically Silicon Valley Bank where there was. essentially a run on the bank for many different reasons, and they had to sell it at a loss. And it resulted in other banks, which was in business with Silicon Valley Bank, to sell their collateral too. So all of a sudden, they were all insolvent. And then it kind of turns out that a lot of the banks were in the exact same situation. And now there’s fear, there’s panic, there’s hysteria, there’s a run on certain banks now. And this is kind of where a lot of banks have found themselves to be. to be insolvent. So what I see happening in the banking industry is that, you know, at the end of last year already, there were, if you look at, um, there was, there’s 4,800 banking licenses in the United States currently. And, um, there is, and I’ve had conversations with insiders in the banking industry where there were banks already by the end of last year, over 700 banks that were technically insolvent. So this, you know, the insiders already knew that a lot of this was coming in this year. And of course, when the first three banks went under, there’s now a contagion and we saw First Republic Bank go under. So, and the hearings that has been held so far and questions that have been asked to the FDIC, to the secretary of the treasury, Janet Yellen, has not produced confidence at all. I know they’re coming out and saying, the banking system is sound and resilient. You know, we’ve had The president come out and say that we’ve had a Jerome Powell from the Federal Reserve came out and say that when everybody comes out and say that you know there’s panic behind the scenes. So what’s happening? Janet Yellen went on to Capitol Hill. She was questioned by a senator. I believe it was from Oklahoma. He asked her point blank, look, we have smaller banks. We have regional banks. Are the deposits in those smaller and regional banks, will they be even the uninsurable accounts or the amounts over the insured amounts as put aside by the FDIC and insured by the FDIC, will they be protected as in the case of Silicon Valley Bank? And a response was, well, they’re not insured. And he then said, well, so you’re telling me that Silicon Valley Bank was their depositors were being made hold. Side note, there was a lot of politically connected people that bank with Silicon Valley Bank, but the other depositors wouldn’t. And she said, they’re not insured. And he said, do you understand that now smaller banks and regional banks, the deposits will move from these banks into larger banks? And she said, well, we certainly wouldn’t want that to happen. That is exactly what’s happening. So since that meeting, so for folks, the big takeaway, if you’re wondering what’s happening in the banks, is deposits are fleeing smaller and regional banks and they’re going to bigger banks because people are now afraid that all these smaller and regional banks are the next to fall. So you’re going to see a lot of the smaller banks disappear and go insolvent. You’re going to see bigger and medium banks and regional banks disappear and go insolvent. And this is going to continue as deposits flee. And nobody’s doing anything to stop it at this point. So that’s what’s kind of happening there. And it’s going to play out very, very interesting. It’s the one thing that investors should know. And this is kind of like, I jokingly said, I grew up on a homestead. So I figured that everything is connected. I know where eggs came from. I know where

Dave:
Hehehehe

M.C. Laubscher:
the chicken wings came from. I know where milk and butter and all those things came from. If you think about like how things work in the banking world, well, who are some of the biggest lenders to small businesses? and smaller investors. Well, it’s smaller and regional banks. So investors are going to be affected by that because the most of the lending is done by the smaller and regional banks. So it’s definitely going to have an impact on small businesses, smaller investors, it’s going to have a profound impact in the economy. So it’s going to, you know, again, we’re seeing what’s coming from a kind of a macro perspective and looking at what’s happening inside there. So there’s not, It’s important to know this is happening. And it’s also important to know that there’s things that you can do to protect yourself from any of the chaos that’s happening in the banking system.

Dave:
Yeah, that’s such a great backdrop. And I know that we are aligned in terms of how we share our viewpoints, right? Because again, a lot of the things you hear in the media, mainstream, there’s always agendas hidden beneath, right? And everyone is trying to push you to think a certain way. So one of the things we’re trying to do is really objectively look at what’s going on with these different types of things. And then also figure out, okay, how can we help the investor make better decisions about allocating

M.C. Laubscher:
Yep.

Dave:
portfolio, about insulating themselves, whatever it might be? So just remove the emotion from the situation. And then let’s try to figure out where are we going? Where do we want to be? So it’s kind of taking that uncertainty and creating certainty with it. So I think for people out there… You know, if you’re concerned about your bank, right, you there’s, there’s multiple things that you could do to actually, you know, redeploy that capital. Also, you know, from an overall economic standpoint, you know, what could you do with all of this certainty, right? Well, the way I like to think about it is, okay, well, if you lost your source of income, whether you’re a business owner, or W2, whatever, you know, are you going to be impacted? Do you have enough runway? right, to get you through this until you can figure out the next thing. So whatever that might be for you, maybe six months, maybe 18 months. You know, I know family offices, ultra high net worth, they actually have like three years of liquid capital to move through an entire cycle, right, of liquidity. Right. So I think a lot of this is around how do you actually manage your liquidity, right? And no one really kind of talks about that, right? You know, from a portfolio standpoint. you know, how, you know, what is the best way to manage liquidity? Um, and as you discovered, you know, we, we came into infinite banking, you know, myself and my wife 10 years ago, uh, and found the merits of that. And, and I wish actually I had known that even, you know, 20 years ago, uh, because, you know, one of, one of my inflection points was, you know, having, having a pretty significant crisis in my business and I had all my eggs in one basket. I wasn’t diversified enough and I didn’t have that liquidity to get us through. So it caused us to scramble and everything. So what can you share with the audience about trying to create certainty, about uncertainty, and how does that tie into some of your cashflow strategies with infinite banking and others?

M.C. Laubscher:
Yeah, and I think what folks should be thinking about, and you really stated it very, very well, is where do you warehouse liquidity? Because if you’re listening to this, and you’re a business owner and an investor, you do need access to operating capital, right? So you have to have some sort of a diversification strategy in place with regards to warehouse and capital, it could be uh, you know a couple of banks and different accounts it could be some credit unions But you know, I would definitely because you you know, you need in some cases three to six months at least of just operating capital uh In a bank, you know So that’s one thing that I would would highly encourage folks to think about I don’t have all of your eggs in one basket. There was a lot of folks uh in our network that had um everything, all their money in First Republic, you know, in one bank. So they were very, very nervous. And again, this brings in a lot of anxiety, a lot of fear and so forth, and just distracts you takes you away from your business and your invest and your investments. So if you have some diversification strategy in place, just from from an operating standpoint, that that’s already going to serve you very, very well. And then You know, with the infinite banking concept, and this is using mutual insurance carriers as a vehicle and more specifically, a life insurance policy, dividend paying, whole life insurance policy with a mutual insurance carrier as a place to warehouse large amounts of cash. Now, one theme that I spoke about ad nauseam last year was counterparty risk. And I said that the one of the biggest lessons that investors are going to learn, they’re either going to learn it now, and listen to me speak about it at Noaseum, or they’re going to learn the hard way in the next coming months and next coming years, is what counterparty risk is. And that is, counterparty is the other party on the opposite side of a transaction that has to make good on contracts. So for example, when you put your money in a bank, the bank is a counterparty to your capital. If they don’t, you know, if they don’t allow you to access your capital, if they default on, let’s just say their, their contractual obligations, then. You know, you’re going to lose your capital. And of course there’s a lot of different things in place with banks, right? That people should know about when you put your money in a bank, it’s no longer your money legally. Those already on the books. That’s why folks said, how can bail ends be legal? Well, that’s already legislated after the last crisis is all over the world, not just in the United States. It’s also. not there because of the fractional reserve banking model. You should know about this in analyzing a counterparty. When you look at where to position capital, look at the counterparty risks and do your research of each and every single one of them. So when I look at other places where, where you could warehouse cash, I’ve mentioned banks, how about bonds? Well, there’s counterparties there. Bond is a debt instrument. The issuer of the bond is the counterparty by definition. So if you have municipal bonds, if you have even state specific type bonds, if you have federal bonds, let’s just say US treasuries, which a lot of folks do, the counterparty is the government entity on the other side of it. So there’s a default risk. There’s also, you know, the risk there too, of course, is the interest rate risk, which we don’t have a lot of control over. We don’t have a lot of control what the federal reserve’s gonna do. So, and what the market’s going to determine that way. So look at different risks. So mutual insurance companies, when I look at counterparty risk, they’ve been around since the mid 1800s. They have been profitable and kept their promises every single year since the mid 1800s. And I look at, you know, from a historical perspective and economic perspective, like what storms have these carriers weathered? If you’re in the United States and you’re a mutual insurance life insurance carrier, you do experience the Civil War, the US Civil War, where there were literally most people are unaware of this. There were two types of currency circulating in the United States. You had greenbacks and graybacks, and they still provide a profit during that time, time of massive uncertainty, chaos, disruption, panic, and of course, hysteria. Then you go into the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913. You look at World War One, World War Two. You look at recessions, market crashes, the Great Depression, all of these things that went through. So, you know, when I when I analyze counterparty rest, too, it’s, you know, how are people going to behave in the future? Well, that’s a very tough one to predict, but there’s a very high probability that people and institutions and organizations. will behave in the future as they have behaved in the past. So that’s why we look at from where do we wear our set. And, you know, with infinite banking, what it is for folks that have never that have never heard this term before or this is your first time of hearing of the strategy, you use a very specifically designed life insurance policy. This is how they design it in family offices. And it’s designed for to increase the cash value, not just for the death benefit. Most people think life insurance, you know, is actually death insurance. Somebody has to die in order for someone else to benefit. You’re using the vehicle of life insurance, and it’s specifically tailored and structured so it becomes a vehicle of where you can warehouse capital and with guarantees, guarantee growth in the policy tax free growth, by the way, too. The dividends that you that you will earn in the policy is. And it’s not guaranteed, but these companies have paid them since the mid 1800. So there’s guarantees, tax free growth, tax free access, the dividends are tax free. And then of course, from a wealth preservation standpoint, you know, and this is why the folks might have heard of the Rockefeller family banking strategy where they’ve used these life insurance contracts, because the death benefit is also tax free and it goes tax free to. the beneficiary, whether it be a trust or whether it be a spouse or whether it be children. So this has become a great vehicle to warehouse cash because it’s outside of the banking system. I saw last year, you know, I’d mentioned this to you actually in previous conversations, I saw last year, so much capital flight from family offices with some of my my colleagues that I’m friends with in their saw. how all of a ton of capital went out to banks into these life insurance contracts at the end of last year. And, you know, full disclosure, I set up a policy for another policy for myself last year too, because I went through this exact same exercise of where would I sleep well to warehouse cash? And I just came back after going through, looking at banks, looking at bonds, looking at 401ks and IRAs, which completely… takes control away from your from you over your capital. I couldn’t find a better place. So when the crisis started hitting a lot of folks in our network just kind of smirked and smiled because the majority of their bulk of actually their cash reserves were outside of the banking system in these life insurance contracts with mutual insurance companies.

Dave:
Yeah, great point. And can you also comment on you had mentioned the other day, which I found really interesting. You were in a group with some of the executive teams of one of the large mutual insurance companies that was talking about record inflows into life insurance in the past two years.

M.C. Laubscher:
There’s been, yeah, so the executives in a lot of these mutual insurance carriers, they’ve seen it too, where a lot of folks, the smart money has realized where do we need to go to, to position capital, where it can be protected from a storm, regardless of what that storm is, and so that we can eventually access it to capitalize on opportunities. So these companies have had record profits. in the ball, you know, since since 2020. And they continue to have record profits because it’s become a safe haven to warehouse capital effectively and efficiently. And if you look at, you know, even where banks themselves buy these exact same life insurance policies, bank owned life insurance, there’s only a certain amount of their tier one capital that they can put in there. Corporations use this. It’s called corporate on life insurance. So And then of course, you know, family offices and so forth. So, you know, the inside the insiders and the smart money knows where to warehouse it. So if you look at what, you know, banks and corporations and you look at what family offices are doing, very wealthy individuals and so forth, where they’re warehousing capital, this is this has become a place for them and they’re seeing it. You know, those for folks just and this is very interesting, too, from. some of the meetings and insights that I’ve had with these carriers, they have billions of dollars of excess cash reserves. So over the amount even that what they need to pay out death benefits. So they’re very, very financially strong. They’re very sound mutual insurance companies too. This is also I think an interesting little little tidbit, which which I found very interesting is their mindset. They think in terms of, you know, 50, 100 plus years. You know, one of the things that I, that I learned is interest rates doubled, like literally in like, I think it was a period of almost like six months or maybe a little bit more, but round about there, these mutual insurance carriers don’t have to make sudden movements to adapt to that because they, they have a very long runway and they manage their organizations, their, their companies on behalf of the policy holders. So they don’t have to make any sudden movements to make their stock appetizing for wall street and all of the wall street media to promote it. They can do what is in the best interest for their policyholders. So they can, you know, wait another 12 to 18 months, see if this is a trend, see what’s happening and then make it adjustments. And that’s why they’ve been in business so long, you know, try to find a company that’s been listed on the stock exchanges. You know, how many of them are over 100 years old, right? And have been profitable for 100 years consecutively. So it’s a little bit of a different mindset.

Dave:
Yeah, for sure. And so when I started this journey myself, probably about 10 years ago, and I had first heard about this concept, and again, studying the ultra wealthy and figuring out how they’re managing. You know, I learned about this strategy, but I found that there was so much confusion in the marketplace. You know, if you talk to your financial planner who might have a life insurance division, right, if he’s a larger organization or, you know, you call in and talk to different people. So why do you think there’s so much confusion in the marketplace in terms of, you know, carriers who can actually provide, you know, the vehicle to support this? Um, as, as well as, you know, why, why is there, is there a misunderstanding in the marketplace of the infinite banking concept versus, you know, a cash value life insurance policy?

M.C. Laubscher:
Yeah, there’s a lot of confusion. And it’s also, you know, one way that I look at it is if you look at the financial world, there’s different incentives, right? So with the asset under management kind of incentive is what drives most of financial services, which this is this is not this is not a product or a vehicle where the financial professional has that incentive of asset under management. So I found. to that, you know, in my journey, when I saw a huge disconnect between financial services and business owners and investors, I find I saw that, you know, the best place for a business owner and an investor to keep their capital is where they can access it to grow their business and their investment portfolio. You know, that is the best place to warehouse it where the incentives on the financial in the financial world is well, no, no, no, your best places. Give me your Give me your capital and I’ll invest it for you in a diversified portfolio, stocks, bonds and mutual funds and investing in other people’s businesses and ventures, right? Which is kind of crazy. If you look at it that way, you should put it in a place outside of the banking system with guarantees within a tax free bucket where you can access it through policy loans or life insurance lines of credits to grow your business and your investments. And I would say You know, the confusion in the market place is and this is where you get a lot of different commentators with such strong opinions, you know, which is kind of kind of funny, right? Most topics in life, people don’t have strong opinions. Pitbulls and life insurance, very strong opinions, very, very strong opinions. It’s just the way that life insurance itself is a very, very misunderstood asset clause. And there’s different levels of strategies. So you have your very basic retail strategy. And that is all the majority of the public, unfortunately, by life insurance, I would say 99% of the public just by retail kind of life insurance, they’re going to overpay for it, it’s not going to be effective and efficiently. Some of it, you know, you could have some products that could fit the need like a good, you know, solid term or a convertible term policy for a while. But that’s about it. You have your and most folks don’t talk about the advanced kind of life insurance strategies that does exist. Right. So, um, I’ll give you an example. So we have commentators, everybody’s favorite financial commentator, Dave Ramsey that talks about and bash his life insurance all the time. And a lot of the stuff that he says are great points. When you look at how retail life insurance are sold, but what Dave then fails to. on to the question to ask himself or his audience is well, if this is so bad, and I’m just laying out all the points and bullet points why this is so bad, why do banks, corporations, family offices and very wealthy individuals buy as much life insurance as life insurance carriers would sell them? Because there’s a different type of strategy. It’s an advanced strategy. It’s a warehousing strategy. And then obviously, you know, we talk about a lot of different advanced kind of life insurance strategies from a cash flow management perspective, from a legacy planning perspective. And then also where you get to leverage, you know, third party capital to actually fund life insurance strategies creatively through premium financing. But I think that’s why there’s so much misinformation. It’s very misunderstood because the industry itself. is there’s just so many, you know, there’s so much noise just on the retail kind of sales side of it and there’s not a lot of information about advanced planning when it comes to life insurance.

Dave:
Yeah, no, appreciate that clarification. I think it’s really important to objectively look at these things. And what would you say around from capital allocation, right? If someone was looking at a policy, what’s really the best perspective you could give them in terms of, do I set this up and pay it over time for the next 20 years, the next five years, or maybe I have a liquidity event, or what’s? you know, a comfortable number or process they should look at.

M.C. Laubscher:
That’s a very good question, because everybody’s in a different situation, right? And this is very, very customizable. So this is a we’re creating a custom strategy specifically tailored for every single individual. There’s no one size fits all. There’s no cookie cutter kind of planning in this kind of, in the advanced planning space. So we will see, you know, what liquidity you have that you would want to move to safety. you know, like I shared right now, good rule of thumb is if you have three to six months of operating capital for your business, you should probably then look at positioning all other capital in different areas. And look at look at moving it into a place with guarantees. So yeah, there are some folks that come into liquidity events, whether it be inheritances, whether it be businesses that they sell, whether it be investments that they sell. There are strategies that you can quickly fund a policy within five years, fully funded, completely funded, paid up, there’s no more funding needed. Then there’s, you know, 10 pays where folks, let’s just say, want to pay a certain amount of their capital into policies for 10 years, you know, in 20 years. And then there’s folks that want to continue to buy into that with flexibility of when they can stop. So we can do that too. So yeah, the other thing I think that people should know about if you have a 401k, like or an IRA, for example, one of the biggest threats, the biggest threat that we talk about in our network quite a bit is that is taxes in the future. So if you have money and qualified plans and you’re over 59 and off, you can take money strategically with the help of a tax professional out of those plans, fund these policies and create a bucket that produces a tax free retirement for you income stream. So you can do that too. I think that’s one thing that I didn’t touch on earlier when it comes to some of the things that people do this. It produces a tax-free income stream for you for retirement or to supplement retirement in the later years. So if you have assets that are allocated in buckets that are taxable and that are subject to market forces, you wanna look at diversifying and at least putting capital. in a different place where it’s protected from market forces and taxes. Because, as I mentioned, this banking crisis that have started, it’s going to continue. It’s going to it’s a contagion that’s going to spread, it’s going to pick up steam. And eventually, this is going to lead to a bigger and bigger banking crisis, which could, which could then go into the financial markets. Now, that’s just there’s a very high probability if I see if I look at the world right now to play that out. So You don’t have to be a victim of that. You can see this coming a mile away. You could take necessary precaution, diversify your liquidity in banks, diversify your liquidity into things like the infinite banking strategy in a mutual insurance company that has a life insurance policy with guarantees and tax-free growth so that you have capital to access to capitalize on opportunities. Because with all the chaos that I think that’s coming, There’s going to be so much opportunities for folks.

Dave:
Yeah, I think we could do an entirely another episode on this MC because I’d love to talk some specific use cases. Because I’ve seen examples of how people are using this in their overall strategy, which is really, really powerful. And, you know, the other thing we talked to with folks is that this is really a process, right? you have to work on that process. You have to work on that in your wealth strategy, right, to get maximum advantage of it. And I think we’re constantly inundated with just thinking that, you know, one product is going to be the solution for something, right? Okay. You might have the vehicle to do something, but you need to understand the process, how it works to be able to maximize it. So… I think the next time you come in, it’d be great to walk through some specific use cases of how people are actually leveraging that. And then one other just quick question I wanted to ask in terms of like an age. So you’re talking about 401k at 59 and a half. Is there a certain point where this becomes too cost prohibitive based upon your age?

M.C. Laubscher:
That’s a great question and just a comment on on Nelson’s book Where he talks about becoming your own banker and he says You know, he’s the discoverer of the of the infinite banking concept, you know And he talks about unlocking and becoming you know, these are all process words and he was a stickler for words That’s why it’s becoming your own banker not become. It’s not a one-off thing. You just put a policy up and that’s it. And unlocking the secrets of the infinite banking concept because you keep unlocking them and you keep learning and you keep growing. And it’s this is part of your overall holistic wealth strategy. When it comes to age. Yeah, we’ve we’ve even had policies for folks in their late 60s, which made sense. Every situation is different. But we’ve seen that and then of course, You know, when folks are in their late 60s and 70s, there’s children, there’s grandchildren. You know, you can really set up a family legacy and a family bank, which is something that I’m very, very passionate about and talking about, because you can really change the trajectory of the financial future for your entire family by structuring and setting this up correctly. So you can be the person that… was the person that changed the entire trajectory just by establishing the strategy and establishing a structure for future generations to implement and execute.

Dave:
Excellent. And if you could give just one piece of advice to listeners about how they could really accelerate their wealth trajectory, what would it be?

M.C. Laubscher:
I think that it’s as an investor, it’s realizing and recognizing cycles. You know, folks, somebody asked me the other day, do you believe in cycles? MC? I said, well, you know, last night the sun went under and this morning the sun came back up and, you know, we just had winter and we’re into spring and summer is coming pretty soon. So the world operates on cycles and so does the financial world too. So I think the one thing that I would share with folks is recognize where you are in economic and financial cycles, and then invest accordingly. There’s different strategies at different parts of the cycle. So, you know, there are times in a cycle, um, where, I mean, that’s, that’s the time to deploy as much capital as you possibly can. Then there are other parts of the cycle where This is now your build up, build up as much capital as you possibly can, because pretty soon you’ll be able to use that. You know, if you were in 2007 and 2008 in a capital allocation mode and set up in position capital where you could, you can access it lighter, you know, you would be in a fantastic position to keep to capitalize on opportunities that became available. Really, if you think about it, the bottom was around what, 2011, 2012, but you would have had like three or four years of just capital allocation and accumulation that you can now deploy and buy at rock bottom prices and then keep buying up, you know, up into the cycle. So I think, you know, that’s one thing that I would share with folks is it’s a great time. to set up good proper legal structures, whether it’s asset protection, estate planning, it’s a great time to set up infinite banking policies to warehouse capital so that when the chaos arrives, which we could see coming from a mile away, that you’re not gonna be that affected by it and you’re gonna be in a position of strength to capitalize on opportunities.

Dave:
Really appreciate those insights and everything that you’ve provided today. I think it’s been super valuable and really, uh, you know, really relevant to the times that we’re in. So thanks again for your time. MC, uh, always appreciate the wisdom, always, always learning from you as well and getting together. It’s, uh, uh, grateful for the opportunity. And, um, if people want to reach out, learn a little bit more about what you’re doing at a producer’s wealth or anywhere else, what’s the best place.

M.C. Laubscher:
Yeah, so, um, Cashflow Ninja is just where the education things are with regards to cash flow investing as folks are interested in about infinite banking, just go to your own banking system calm, there’s a video up there about 30 minutes where we explain the entire strategy, we give you examples, we give you case studies and more. And it’s all done. I think it’s around 30 minutes. So yeah, that’s that’s how folks can can learn more and get in touch.

Dave:
Awesome, thanks so much for coming on the show, MC.

M.C. Laubscher:
Thank you so much for having me.

Dave:
Hey, everyone, welcome to today’s show on wealth strategy secrets. Today we’re joined by Pete Reese. Pete is the president of RealVest properties, a land development and investment company. With nearly two decades of real estate experience as a broker and investor, Pete has successfully purchased and sold hundreds of pieces of real estate for profit over the years for himself and on behalf of his clients. He did three and a half million in revenue in 2022 with his land flipping and development business. and he’s pushing to do 10 million in 2023. Pete’s always looking for his next deal, including his longtime dream of his own private island. Besides his professional accomplishments, Pete is a proud father to three beautiful girls, keeps up with his family by working out and enjoying a vegan diet and is the 31st great grandson of King Henry II. Pete, welcome to the show.

Pete Reese:
Well, thanks Dave, I appreciate it and I appreciate that intro.

Dave:
Yeah, you bet. And we’re going to have to just start right there and unpack that intro for a second. So first of all, love it. You know, a dream to have your own private island. That’s absolutely awesome. That’s Richard Branson level Necker

Pete Reese:
Yeah, yeah.

Dave:
Island. So so tell us tell us how you know, what was the inspiration for that? What are your what are your thoughts there?

Pete Reese:
Yeah, you know, I’ve always been a fan of Richard Branson, and I think I’ve always had that stuck in my head, that that would be kind of like the coolest ultimate thing, to kind of have your own piece of the world, and it’s kind of like your own, you know, it’s an island in more ways than one, you know, it’s actually an island, but you’re kind of off by yourself, and you can kind of create all the rules there and everything, which I always thought would be pretty cool. So I’m not looking for some island that’s on a river somewhere or something, but maybe in the Caribbean, I think that would be a nice spot, but. Maybe I’ll maybe I’ll have to use my land my land skills in order to try to acquire one in one day.

Dave:
Yeah, perfect. Well, I love it because we talk a lot around wealth strategy, right? The first step is actually creating your vision, you know, because if you don’t have a target, you’re going to miss every time. So creating that vision is so important. And that’s certainly a huge vision. So really love that. And also have to just ask about this. I mean, what a cool fact here that you’re actually the 31st great grandson of King Henry the second.

Pete Reese:
Yeah, well, I think I am. You know, I found this out on ancestry.com. Actually my daughter did, you know, they give you those clues after you, you know, after you upload your DNA and everything. So they give you those clues to keep tracing your, your ancestry back. And it just kept going and kept going. It went all the way back to him. And there’s some other people, you know, before him that were. Kings and Kings of different, you know, countries and things like that. So I just thought it was pretty cool. I have no way to verify any of that. but I thought it would be pretty cool to put in my bio just to get people talking. So I threatened my wife that I was gonna put in my Instagram bio, but she said it wouldn’t be a good idea.

Dave:
I think it’s a super fun fact and there’s a lot to learn from history. My last name is Wolcott and actually Oliver Wolcott was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

Pete Reese:
That’s awesome.

Dave:
So we actually named our son, one of our sons is named after him. So he’s an Oliver, but yeah, the lineage and history is really cool. you know, pass on some of those traditions, you know, I think that’s all part of, you know, building a legacy, right, around your family, your values and virtues. So, Pete, tell us a little bit about how did you get into real estate space and, you know, and then ultimately into land?

Pete Reese:
Yeah, you know, I’ve been in real estate for quite some time, or since the early 2000s. My wife and I were actually flipping homes way back then. And, uh, you know, we just watched some shows on HGTV and we thought, oh, that looks pretty cool. We could do that ourselves. So we started getting into it and it was going very, very well. Um, I got my real estate, my broker’s license out here in California in 2006 because I was getting all my deals on the market, you know, it’s just working out deals with, with MLS listed properties. And I did it just to kind of get better access to deals and maybe say that buyer’s commission that would help the numbers work a little bit better. But then when the market crashed here in 2007, 2008, it kind of came in handy because at that time, you know, it was the foreclosures that was what’s happened, what was happening and what was selling. And I thought, well, I can position myself to these banks as being a listing broker for these properties, an Ario listing broker. And that’s what I did for two, three years. That was kind of my, my My whole focus was just doing that. And that was a good business at the time. You know, there’s a lot of transactions happening and I was thankful to be able to have that in a time where a lot of people in real estate were struggling. So that was, that was good, but it’s not the best business to be in. There’s a lot that goes into that and a lot of emotions and things that, uh, you know, are not the best. So that, uh, did lead me to a bunch of great connections with larger companies that were buying up. foreclosure properties and just either holding them or flipping them. So for a while after that, I just sort of focused on finding them deals. And they would buy as many deals as I could bring them that fit their, their criteria. So that was kind of fun for me. I wasn’t doing any sort of investing myself after the market crashed. I guess I was gun shy. That’s the time I should have been buying up properties, but instead I was doing the opposite, but live and learn. So, so then that kind of led me to, after a while, I got a little bit burnout on just dealing with clients and things on the, on the, that side of things. And then started up a business with my wife, um, online education business related to blogging and travel blogging. So she hadn’t established travel blog and blog at that time and tons of people asking her how to do it. So we created a whole business around that showing other people how to do that. That was really successful and, uh, had a really good run. We just kind of, um, lost a little bit in interest in that. And I knew I needed to get back into real estate investing and I just didn’t know what model to choose. And then was doing some reading and research online and I stumbled into some stuff about people who were doing land flipping, so anecdotes of people buying a property for 10,000, selling it for 30,000, you know, in a couple of months. And I thought, well, that’s pretty cool. I like to buy and sell stuff and I like this, that profit percentage. So. So I just kind of bought a course on it and I went all in, learned how to do the business model and learned how to evaluate land. And then in 2021 was the first, March of 2021 was when I flipped our first piece of land and that just kind of started a whole chain reaction of things. So that first year did about 1.2 million and some change at about 50% gross profit margin. And, you know, there’s a partial year and then 2022 did about 3.5 and, uh, just shy of 50% gross profit margin and then 2023 looking to do 10 million. So I’m trying to scale it as high as I can.

Dave:
Wow, that’s really awesome. You know, I love the ingenuity and innovation, right? In this space as being, being an entrepreneur, being an investor, you know, you get to be so creative with these types of things and how you were able to kind of put the pieces together and make it work for you. Before we jump into some of the nuts and bolts, can you just share with the audience a little bit? We like to talk a lot about, you know, wealth strategy and if you have, you know, certain portfolio allocation and coming from real estate, now that you have land, is everything in land or do you have a particular wealth strategy that you’re following today?

Pete Reese:
Yeah, I guess my wealth strategy is I’ve got my land flipping business, which is the cash generator. It’s a short-term cash type business. These holds are generally 60 to 90 days, so everything’s moving quickly. There’s no real tax advantages to doing any of those types of deals. No depreciation, no long-term capital gains or anything like that, or no 1031s. We don’t do any of that stuff with this. It does allow me to then, it does generate a considerable amount of profits. And then we, we’ve been buying rental properties and different commercial type properties to use for accelerated depreciation to offset that income. So that’s kind of how we’re canceling it out and kind of the overall wealth strategy is just generate generate as much cash as we can in this business. And then funnel that other money into long. longer term holds or longer term, you know, maybe value add plays in some way, but they’re going to be long term investments. So

Dave:
Yeah.

Pete Reese:
that’s kind of the main strategy.

Dave:
Yeah, no, that’s a, that’s a great strategy. And are you buying like commercial real estate local to you or in syndications or

Pete Reese:
Anywhere, we haven’t done any syndications or anything. I mean, we bought a motel in Wisconsin. It’s not really a motel, it’s a collection of mini cabins, 18 mini cabins, so that’s a project that we’re working on. Bought some other units and things in North Carolina and just always kind of looking. I guess the good part about this is that we’re making profits, but the bad part is we’re kind of feeling under the gun that we’ve gotta buy a certain amount of properties. you know, each year or we’re going to be paying a lot in taxes. So it’s a good problem to have. I can’t complain about

Dave:
Yeah,

Pete Reese:
that.

Dave:
it’s a good

Pete Reese:
Right.

Dave:
problem to have. Do you

Pete Reese:
Yeah.

Dave:
but do you have anything any systems in place? Or is your wife helping you with manage some of these properties because they’re not local to you and you know, you have to have an active role.

Pete Reese:
Yeah. Um, you know, at this point I’ve, I had a project manager on our team and didn’t quite work out. So. Looking for a new project manager that’s going to help me manage these properties. For, but for right now it falls on me and my, my wife helps out a lot with that as well.

Dave:
Yeah, yeah. Awesome. So tell us a little bit more about the land flipping. Can you walk us through like an end to end example? Because I think this is probably new to a lot of listeners on, you know, how it actually works.

Pete Reese:
Sure, yeah, so it’s a pretty simple business in a way. We generate all of our deals with direct mail. So we send out actual letters to the people in the mail. First of all, to back up before that, we actually build a list and we pull a list from DataTree or PropStream, one of these services that collect data. And we’re just doing a basic filter. We’re looking for vacant land and we’re looking for a certain. property size. Generally, we’re looking at most of these areas we’re dealing with. We’re looking at properties that are 10 acres and above. So we’re looking at those basic filters, and we’ve got some other things that we filter out as well. But we’re building a list, and then we look at average price per acre in each of these areas that we’re mailing. So we might take a particular county, and we’ll look at the comps, and we’ll say, okay, average retail price per acre is 10,000 an acre. And then we back off a percentage from that, and then we generate an offer price per acre, basically, in those type of areas. So we send out actual offers. So the first page, it’s a two-page letter. First page is kind of like who we are, why we’re contacting them, what we can do for them. Second page is an actual purchase agreement with an offer amount on there, their parcel number, the acreage, and some real basic terms. And some people respond and say, and are really angry at me that I offered a low amount for their property in their eyes. Some people are interested in sign that offer and mail it back to me. Some people call up and are interested in selling, but they want a better price or something like that. So when they respond, that’s where we really dig into the looking into their property individually and seeing if we could work out a deal. So we do that, we buy these properties. off market, directly from these sellers. As soon as we get a contract signed, we go through a whole due diligence process. We send out a photographer, we get broker opinions, we have a whole list of due diligence things, bunch of calls and things like that that we make on these properties to try to determine if it’s a buildable property or what it is that we’re getting and make sure there are no red flags on that property. We also run every deal through an attorney, title company, escrow company, depending on the state. So there’s that title search and sometimes things come up in that title search that sometimes can be corrected, sometimes they can’t, but we just make sure that any of the properties that we’re buying are insurable and we get title insurance on those. And then after we close on them, we’ve been closing on them with our own cash, and then after we close on them, we then go ahead and list it with a local agent or land agent or broker and try to sell it as quickly as we can. And sometimes we do some minor value add stuff to these properties. And sometimes we don’t just depends on what that particular property is.

Dave:
Wow, and you’re getting a 50% margin on those flips.

Pete Reese:
Yeah, our goal

Dave:
And I’ve.

Pete Reese:
is always to double our money on the deals that we do. So buy a property for 50,000, sell it for a hundred thousand. Now it doesn’t always work out that way, but that’s kind of the benchmark that we try to shoot for. Uh, but, uh, you know, on average, you know, we’re probably our average deal. Last year we made $23,000 profit on each deal. Um, so it’s just, um, you know, and we’re constantly trying to do bigger and bigger deals. It’s, uh, you know, to. to get that figure up, but

Dave:
Sure. And on the

Pete Reese:
overall

Dave:
acquisition

Pete Reese:
it’s pretty

Dave:
side,

Pete Reese:
good.

Dave:
are you focusing on particular markets? Do you have a kind of a sweet spot or niche that you’re going after?

Pete Reese:
Yeah, we’ve been really focusing, last year especially, and a portion of this year, really focused on the East Coast, kind of like New York down to Florida, kind of

Dave:
Hmm.

Pete Reese:
all the states in there. But we really wanna expand to a bunch of different markets. How it kind of works in this business, how it’s worked for us, is that we’ll test a certain market, send some mail there, see if we get any momentum, any deals in that particular area. And then we tried to build the team and the infrastructure around there, and if we can, find good people to work with. land broker, agent, and title company and things like that. If we can find good pieces to kind of help us in those particular areas, then we try to do more and more business in those areas and kind of really start. It’s almost like a little satellite operation in all these little areas. So we’re trying to expand into as many different little areas as we can. And we’ve been expanding westward. So I’ve done deals in random other places, Washington State and California and kind of all over, but… But the East Coast has been our focus to this point, but I’m not, I’m not solely limited there. I I’ll do a deal anywhere.

Dave:
Yeah, interesting. And can you tell us a little bit like some more around the metrics, right? You know, does it take, for instance, a hundred offers before, you know, you actually get one accepted, you know, what are you seeing or 20 or, or, or what is it, what is the uptake?

Pete Reese:
Yeah, the main metric that I look at is the cost per deal,

Dave:
Okay.

Pete Reese:
mail cost per deal.

Dave:
Okay.

Pete Reese:
So it’s been averaging about $3,000 per deal, which for the volume of mail that I’m sending, it’s about 6,000 letters for one deal. So the other metrics I know that some people look at are call response rate and things like that, but that really is difficult to… kind of quantify because so much of it depends on the amount that we put on an offer. Like if I offer a certain percentage, like a higher price on these properties, I’ll get a great response rate. I won’t get as many deals, you know, but I’ll get a higher response rate. So I just kind of look at the end of the road, like what is the important metric, and it’s cost per deal. So. If it cost me $3,000 to generate one deal, on average we’re making $23,000 per deal, then it’s a pretty good return on investment.

Dave:
Yeah, yeah. No brainer. And, and what about from a time perspective, right? I mean, how, how much, how much time is involved in, in doing this?

Pete Reese:
Well, there’s a lot of different things that go into it. You know, it just depends on what kind of scale you’re doing. You know, at the level we’re trying to go to, I’ve got a bunch of staff built up that kind of do a lot of these different pieces of the business for me. When I first started, it was me and an assistant that I had that I brought over from another business, and I was doing pretty much everything, and then sort of the administrative type tasks I would sort of offload to him one by one, and then… I started hiring for specific roles. You know, I’ve got, I mean, at this point I got a pretty big team. I’ve got two acquisition managers that are doing all the communication with the sellers that call in or email in or text in whatever the case may be. And then I’ve got a head of acquisitions and he kind of looks at all of these deals that come in, determines value, determines if we want to buy the property or not, then I’ve got a transaction manager and she handles all the transactions on the buy side. And then when we resell it, you know, communicating with the attorneys, title companies, all that kind of stuff that goes into it. I’ve got a list manager. I’ve got someone that is a lead and due diligence manager that enters everything into our CRM and then also orders all the due diligence. Once we get a property under contract. Um, and then I’ve got an executive assistant. So all the, I’m, I’ve got a lot of different people helping me out at this, this point. And at this point, I’m kind of just. approving deals, I’m kind of trying to improve processes within our business, and putting out fires and solving problems and things like that. But eventually I wanna hire someone to take over that role for me, and so then I can just kind of think and work big picture. But it’s possible to do as a side hustle type thing. It’s just not sending out 100,000 letters a month like what we’re doing right now.

Dave:
Yeah,

Pete Reese:
So.

Dave:
that was exactly where I was going with this, Pete, right? Because we have a lot of investors out there that might be W2, right? And they have decent W2 positions, but they’re looking to increase capital, free cash flow to be able to invest in different opportunities and continue to scale. And this sounds like a really intriguing way to be able to do this as like a side hustle. What

Pete Reese:
Yeah, very

Dave:
would

Pete Reese:
lucrative

Dave:
you? What

Pete Reese:
side

Dave:
would you

Pete Reese:
hustle

Dave:
think?

Pete Reese:
too.

Dave:
Yeah.

Pete Reese:
Like there’s a lot of things that you can do, like if you’re setting it up that way. First of all, I have a phone service that basically they answer the phone for us 24 hours a day. I don’t have anyone on my staff to do that, I hire that portion out. And then they send an email with the lead information. Then I have my acquisition managers calling back. But if you were gonna do it as a side hustle or something, you would just cherry pick the ones that you wanna call back, that would be good potential deals. call them back, email them back, whatever the case may be, and then work out those deals. And then you can bit piece certain add-ons where you don’t have to have a member of your staff, like have a full-time staff member doing them, like a transaction manager can be a transactional type thing that you hire as needed on transactions. I would definitely recommend, as soon as you’re able, to hire an assistant that you can train maybe from overseas or something to keep the costs down. And you can train them to do sort of those administrative type tasks that are very repetitive and that would free up a lot of time. But I know a lot of people that do it as a side hustle and, you know, they’re, they’re very happy to do a deal a month or, you know, something like that. And that can be like very, very life changing, you know, to be. Do an extra deal a month, you’re making, you know, 10, 20 grand on that deal. I mean, that’s, uh, it doesn’t take too

Dave:
Yeah.

Pete Reese:
long before, before people are starting to really wonder like if they want to stay in their W2 job or not, even if it’s very high paying.

Dave:
Yeah, 100%. I think that’s great. And so do you actually offer some kind of training or program to help people do that now?

Pete Reese:
Yeah, so I’ve got a website, it’s called turningprofit.com, where every month I do a monthly income report where I break down everything that happens in our business. Basically, the revenue in our business, the profit, each and every deal that we did that month, like what we bought it for, what we sold it for, the profit on that deal, notes on that deal, how many days we held it for, everything. I try to be as transparent as I can. And the goal with that is to kind of show people what’s possible in this business. And, uh, you know, so, so if it is interesting to them, then they could kind of see if it’s a, something that might align with their skillsets, but, and then I’ve, I started up this community, a land flipping community where we’ve got people that want to learn how to flip land and I’ve got a bunch of experience in land investors in there doing over a million dollars a year. Just And I’ve got people collaborating, funding deals, like all kinds of stuff. It’s, it’s been really, really cool to see it grow. So I’ve been putting a lot of effort into trying to build that community. And I’m actually working on a training program that would probably be released in the next two to three weeks, but doing everything I can to make it as, as good as I possibly can, and that’s being released for free in the community. So I don’t have anything to sell at this point, but you know, at some point I’ll probably do some sort of mentorship program. People look. are interested, but at this point I’m just trying to put out as much value as I can. And you know, if some people find it valuable and able to do some deals, that would make me pretty happy. And plus, I want to be able to partner with my students as well, you know, so I’d love to be able to train people how to do this and then they find the deals, I’ll fund the deal for them and then we split the profits. So

Dave:
Yeah.

Pete Reese:
I think that

Dave:
Yeah, that’s

Pete Reese:
that

Dave:
really,

Pete Reese:
would be

Dave:
that’s

Pete Reese:
a.

Dave:
really awesome, Pete. I think, you know, being in a group of like-minded people, right. And always learning, always not being the smartest person in the room is really key to growing. But, you know, I think this is really an awesome side hustle. And, you know, there’s so many opportunities, right. As much as there’s so much craziness in the world going on right now, it’s also one of just the best times to be alive. Right? I mean,

Pete Reese:
I agree.

Dave:
the ability to start a business, you know, from your house, even if you’re 16 years old, you know, nowadays, it’s really staggering. So I think it’s really thought provoking for people to kind of, you know, listen to this idea and look at your scale. I mean, how fast you are able to scale is really impressive. And then, you know, if you can create some kind of side hustle, it could… It could certainly create an additional revenue stream for you, right? Which is always good, right? Having that alternative revenue stream, but it also could actually be a gateway for you into entrepreneurship, right? To leaving that W2 and really focusing on your strengths.

Pete Reese:
Yep. I’ve got, you know, kind of one example of that, which I think could be maybe interesting to people. I’ve got three daughters, two of them, 23, 20, are my two oldest ones. And they saw what I was doing with the land flipping and they kind of took an interest with it. And they, you know, we have them as employees of our company, so we have them doing some, you know, some tasks and things. So I had them doing, you know, evaluating properties for me and things at one point. So they’re very, very like interested. in the business and they said, well, dad, can we start doing some deals too? And I said, well, why not? I think, I think that would be a great thing. So they, um, they had about $8,000 that they had started with that they pulled together and they had a corporation form they were going to do a different business with, but that, that never took off, but so they had the entity form. They had $8,000 that they pulled together. And what I did was a couple of the, you know, smaller deals and things that, um, were not going to be very impactful for me. I thought, well, I’ll just let them have it if they want to do it and kind of try their hand at this. So, um, to make a long story short over the course of a little over a year, they parlayed that 8,000 into 84,000 and, uh, you know, about six deals, I believe it was, and, uh, they learned how to do the whole process and, you know, it was very lucrative for them. They live with us still, so they don’t have a lot of expenses and

Dave:
Thanks for watching!

Pete Reese:
they just were able to keep that money and just keep it rolling.

Dave:
That is so awesome, Pete. I love to hear those stories. Minor in my 20s as well. And, you know, we have household masterminds and we have since they were in high school. And it’s so great to be able to take all of these learnings that right that it took us, you know, so

Pete Reese:
Yeah.

Dave:
many decades to figure out all of this stuff and, and to be able to pass this on to our kids is just so powerful so that they can think differently. for themselves, they can be independent. Because a lot of this also is around autonomy. If you can learn at that age that you can create your own capital and income at that point, well, maybe I don’t necessarily need to take this W2 path. That’s maybe not necessarily for me. And it’s just the

Pete Reese:
different

Dave:
beginning

Pete Reese:
world

Dave:
of

Pete Reese:
these

Dave:
the journey.

Pete Reese:
days.

Dave:
Yeah.

Pete Reese:
Yeah.

Dave:
Yeah.

Pete Reese:
Yeah, it’s crazy. I always talk about that. Like I think a lot of people are kind of, you know, like thinking about things the way they used to be instead of what they are right now and what they’re gonna be in the future. And really when you think about it, work is really just a way to earn money. And if you can figure out a way to earn money and where you’re enjoying yourself and you don’t have to go work for someone else, then I think that’s a pretty viable option.

Dave:
Yeah, for sure. It’s really a system, right? I mean, they’re trying to put us into a system from grade school, right? That’s really kind of archaic, right? And it’s been around forever. But now if you have that ability to really not have someone telling you what to do, where to be, and you’re learning skills like critical thinking, problem solving, right? Creating value. you understand those kinds of skills. These are the kinds of skills is what, you know, people need in the future. So really great to see that, you know, you pass that on to your kids and, you know, we share the same philosophy on that front. So Pete, what do you think, you know, clearly, you know, you’ve accomplished a lot. I know it looks like health is your passion, which is one of our passions as well around, you know, being holistic in terms of building your wealth, but from a personal development perspective, what’s the one practice that has yielded the biggest results for you?

Pete Reese:
Consistency and persistency, I guess, but mainly the consistency part of it. I’m a very regimented guy, and I didn’t used to be that way when I was younger. I picked it up over time, and I kind of realized that whenever I could be super regimented about something, something that’s important to me, that great things will follow. And now I’ve built my life in the way that I’m super regimented about everything. to the point where my wife makes fun of me that I’m too regimented and too rigid on some of these things, which maybe she’s got a point. But I wake up the same time every day, go work out the same time every day, eat the same stuff every day for the most part. I’m very into time blocking and things like really controlling my schedule. So all these things, and the consistency of it is really where the key is. It’s easy to just kind of start something and do it for a couple of days and then move on to something else, but you’re never gonna get great results that way. You have to really consistently do the same thing over and over again to get those results. You know, like the, I don’t know if you’ve ever read the book, Atomic Habits, but it’s a

Dave:
Chains

Pete Reese:
very,

Dave:
clear, yeah.

Pete Reese:
yeah, it’s a great book about that concept. But it just, you know, you gotta put the habits in place in order to achieve those goals. It’s not like just setting a goal and somehow hoping it’s gonna happen. It’s about putting those actual steps into place. And the consistency that I’ve been able to, you know, to put into my daily routines and everything like that has helped me achieve a lot and hopefully will allow me to achieve a lot more in the future.

Dave:
Yeah, such a great point. And I think really, you know, when you think about the process of, you know, wealth building, it’s just that, right? It’s a process, you know, but but unfortunately, we were kind of trained to think that it might be a product or an event, like I might win the lottery, I might exit a business for eight figures, or something. But when you can create that consistency and focus on the process, the outcome will come. You know, but it’s so important to lay that groundwork and have that done. I should share with you, if you haven’t heard of the Colby test before, but a lot of our listeners, we have talked about this before and it’s something that measures actually your instinctual wiring and how you think in four different domains. And the second one is called follow-through, which is like how systematized of a thinker you are. So. For you and I, we actually, I can guarantee you’re very high on that one. That’s my highest one as well. And that’s why when I think about wealth, like I’m trying to put this entire process into something that’s repeatable, right? And it’s a system, right, of how you can build wealth. So just like you do that. But it’s interesting. You should take a look at it. And also if the listeners haven’t heard it, it’s colby, K O L B E dot com. And we’ve had our whole family do this as well. And it’s so cool because you can find out people’s strengths versus where they’re not so good at certain areas. And then you can build so much more harmony on your team, in your household, with how you think, because it’s more natural to you.

Pete Reese:
Yeah, I love

Dave:
So.

Pete Reese:
it. I appreciate it. I’ve heard of that, but I’ve never dug into that at all. So I’ll check it out for sure.

Dave:
Yeah, yeah, it’s a really good concept. Pete, if you could give just one piece of advice to listeners about how they could accelerate their wealth trajectory, what would that be?

Pete Reese:
Yeah, get really, really good at one specific niche within real estate. Since we’re talking about real estate and wealth building associated with that, if you get really, really good in one area, become an expert. Read everything you can, watch as many videos you can, listen to as many podcasts as you can about that particular subject. Don’t get caught in the shiny object syndrome where you’re kind of chasing all these different things. Find one model that someone’s already. figure out how to do it, don’t reinvent the wheel, learn everything you can about that and then just repeat it over and over again. It’s not rocket science at all. It’s just, you do have to get really good in one area though in order to get some of those returns.

Dave:
Awesome. And if people wanna reach out to you, Pete, and learn more, can you talk to, tell us about those links again so we can make sure they’re in the show notes for everyone?

Pete Reese:
Sure. Yeah, so turningprofit.com, that’s our website where I’ve got all those income reports on there. And that’s the name of our podcast that we have as well where we talk about real estate investing and landflipping, which our podcast is on all the podcast platforms. Just search turning profit. You can also find it on YouTube and we’ve got a bunch of other videos on YouTube. And then our land community, our landflipping community, if you just go to landconquest.com, You’ll see buttons on there that you can join the community. And then that’s where you’ll get access to the free training that I’m releasing in there. And, um, so I also do a zoom call normally once a week. I’ve got one later today, two hours about each call. And basically all I’m doing is evaluating properties. You know, people submit their deals that they’re working on and I just. Go through them live on my screen show how I evaluate deals, what I think it’s worth. And, uh, people I think find that pretty valuable because that’s really how I learned the business, you know, like how I learned to evaluate property, seeing someone else do that. So I figured it would be pretty valuable to kind of pass that on.

Dave:
Yeah, awesome. I love that ethos as well is really what’s in it for them and trying to create value for others the whole time. So Pete, thanks for coming on the show today and creating so much value for the audience. I think this was really insightful and definitely worth looking at, especially if you’re considering a side hustle or you’ve been thinking about getting into entrepreneurship. this could be like a really nice niche to get into.

Pete Reese:
Yeah, well, thanks for having me, Dave. I really appreciate it.

Dave:
You bet, Pete. Thanks.

Dave:
Lior,

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
Lior,

Dave:
welcome

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
welcome

Dave:
to the show.

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
to the show. Thank you for having me.

Dave:
Yeah, really

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
Yeah,

Dave:
looking

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
really

Dave:
forward

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
looking

Dave:
to

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
forward

Dave:
this discussion,

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
to this discussion,

Dave:
Lior,

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
Lior.

Dave:
you have

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
You

Dave:
such

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
have

Dave:
an

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
such

Dave:
interesting

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
an interesting.

Dave:
background, um, even when you grew up and really how you got into the space,

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
space

Dave:
uh, as well

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
as

Dave:
as

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
well

Dave:
today,

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
as today

Dave:
I find

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
I find

Dave:
that,

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
that

Dave:
um, you know,

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
you

Dave:
in terms

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
know

Dave:
of

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
in terms

Dave:
information

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
of information

Dave:
sources that

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
sources

Dave:
are out

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
that

Dave:
there,

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
are out

Dave:
right.

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
there

Dave:
There’s

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
right

Dave:
so

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
there’s

Dave:
many,

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
so many

Dave:
uh, media

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
media

Dave:
sources,

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
sources

Dave:
news sources,

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
news sources

Dave:
talking

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
talking

Dave:
heads,

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
heads

Dave:
you know, you

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
you know

Dave:
name

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
you

Dave:
it,

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
name it

Dave:
right, that

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
right

Dave:
I

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
that

Dave:
would say

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
I would say

Dave:
have particular

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
particular

Dave:
agendas,

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
agendas

Dave:
right.

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
right

Dave:
and that want you to think a certain way. But what I’ve found in discovering

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
in discovering

Dave:
you

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
you

Dave:
over the past

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
over the

Dave:
couple

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
past

Dave:
of years

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
couple of years.

Dave:
and following Wealth Research Group, you are one of the few sources

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
sources

Dave:
of data

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
of data

Dave:
that I’ve found

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
that I found

Dave:
that I

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
that

Dave:
allow

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
I allow.

Dave:
into my filter that’s making

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
making

Dave:
really

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
really

Dave:
intelligent

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
intelligent

Dave:
decisions,

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
decisions,

Dave:
understanding

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
understanding

Dave:
trends,

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
trends,

Dave:
providing

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
providing

Dave:
insights

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
insights

Dave:
into.

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
into

Dave:
all the things

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
all the

Dave:
that

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
things

Dave:
are happening

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
that are happening

Dave:
in the world

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
in the

Dave:
today

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
world today,

Dave:
and also

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
and

Dave:
from

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
also

Dave:
a global

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
from a

Dave:
perspective.

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
global perspective.

Dave:
So

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
So

Dave:
I think

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
I think

Dave:
the audience

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
the

Dave:
is

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
audience

Dave:
really going

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
is

Dave:
to

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
really

Dave:
enjoy

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
going to

Dave:
this

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
enjoy

Dave:
today,

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
this today,

Dave:
but

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
but

Dave:
why don’t we start

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
why don’t

Dave:
things

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
we start

Dave:
off

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
things

Dave:
with

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
off with

Dave:
telling everyone

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
telling everyone

Dave:
a little bit about

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
a little

Dave:
your

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
bit

Dave:
background

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
about your background

Dave:
and how

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
and

Dave:
it all

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
how

Dave:
started

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
it all started.

Dave:
for you.

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
Well, first of all, I appreciate all the compliments. In terms of how I got started in investing in business, the sort of the background has to do with my father’s business, which was furniture or upholstery and then furniture. But anyways, it didn’t go well. And by the time I’m 13, that business kind of goes under and I begin to work just because I can’t. Asked my parents for money or anything so some babysitting and I’m tutoring in the neighborhood like basketball like young kids six-year-olds just the fundamentals and and then I Did you know the scoreboards for for basketball games? I got paid for that handing out flyers the whole thing and by the time I’m 16 I’m delivering pizzas and sushi and this and that and just saving money just saving a lot of money and depositing it in the bank account. So at some point one of the bankers calls me into his cubicle and this is like I think around the year 2000. I’m 16 then and he says look You’re saving a lot of money. Why don’t you put it to work? He kind of prints out from a printer like a summary of why the Chinese economy is gonna blow up in a good way and this was like 2000 So he says, start looking into mutual funds. And then I buy books, I buy like Peter Lynch book and Warren Buffett books, and I’m the kid in high school that has like the history book and then inside of it there’s like an investment book. And I’m starting to put money into the stock market as a teenager. I actually had to get my parents into the branch to sign like a waiver. So I can, I don’t know if they do it today as well, but. if you’re under 18. So then because I’m Israeli at 18, you finish high school, you go to the military for three years and when I get discharged, it’s late 2006 and because my dad’s second go-around in business didn’t go well as well, he kind of wiped out all the savings he had left. So at that point, I’m 22 and there’s no cushions from Family savings or anything else I have to like figure it out on my own and At the same time the world seemed to be ending. It’s 2007-8 and You know, it looks very grim. We’re going to do a huge recession and I’m trying to figure out what to do I go to the states and I actually get into real estate but the first thing I do from the airport is go into a Barnes & Noble because I’ve heard a lot about it and it Was my first time going to the states as an adult and I picked up a gold and silver book. So at the same time that America is on sale, I also start to understand the world of the Federal Reserve and inflation and everything that has to do with that because up until that time between 2000 and 2008, I invest in a way that’s Peter Lynch and Warren Buffett, what you love and what you know, and just talks. So 2009 onwards is sort of the new investment strategy and the business strategy where you combine real estate stocks alternatives which is at that point just gold and silver but grows to be more but also that train of thought that it’s best to be more aggressive when everyone else is exiting the building or that contrarian view sort of kicks in in my brain and funny enough in Hebrew. we don’t have a word for a contrarian. So it’s even like when I talk to then people my age 25, 26, and I tell them, look, I’m trying to be a contrarian about this recession, I can’t even find the right word in Hebrew. Anyways, through that period of 2009 to 2015, I expand my businesses, I open more businesses, But in 2015, I’m 30, but I see that other 30 roles don’t investigate or don’t research, as you say, the same content that I am. They’re not even interested in that content. And I just found it insane that I can’t speak to them on the same level, most of them. And that’s how I… The idea for wealth research group… as a free financial newsletter just to gather my thoughts and put into writing came about but it attracted people that are not just my age group. So 2015 I founded Wealth Research Group and early 2016 actually the first articles go out and it’s a free financial newsletter. The idea is to three times a week. gather everything that I see and read and study in the financial markets and just life in general with emphasis on economics, investments in lifestyle and everything that I talk about with the fund managers, CEOs, et cetera, and put it in three, five minute, six minute read articles that are very generic and up to date. And if I see anything interesting that’s more actionable to also put it as a point of reference for people to learn more about. So for example, my entire portfolio is actually out in the open. If you go to wealthresearch.com.com. You can download my entire stock market portfolio. So it’s a marriage of both generic and personal.

Dave:
Wow, that’s awesome. I find it so fascinating how people’s background really shapes them. Right. And, um, I was actually in the military as well. I traveled to Israel and

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
Oh,

Dave:
I got to

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
wow.

Dave:
spend some time, yeah, working with some, uh, Israeli soldiers and it was so fascinating, you know, that they all have to serve, you know, uh, you know, growing

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
Mm-hmm.

Dave:
up and you know, that, you know, that really leaves an indelible mark on you. You know, being in the military, understand what’s going on from kind of a global perspective and also, you know, concepts such as freedom, right? Which I think is really behind the curtain to a lot of investing, right? And what money really means, it’s actually trying to create more freedom in your life. And not to mention, you know, the people you get to work with and the, the teamwork and things like that. But, but it’s interesting how that kind of, you know, shapes your view, uh, on the world as well. Um, but why don’t we talk Lior, you know, really specifically, I think investors are really wanting to know, like just how do you make sense of all the things that are going on today? I mean, it’s just. It’s almost mind boggling, although we’ve been here right for, for really centuries, it goes back in time, right? With, uh, different wars, you know, geopolitical events, um, energy crisis,

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
energy crisis.

Dave:
right, all of these different types of things. Um, but how would you kind of, you know, frame this whole thing

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
this whole

Dave:
and

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
thing

Dave:
how would

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
and

Dave:
you

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
how

Dave:
really

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
would you

Dave:
assess

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
assess

Dave:
all of these

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
all

Dave:
different

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
of these

Dave:
data

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
different

Dave:
points

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
data?

Dave:
within the economy and where we are in the cycle right now?

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
Mm-hmm. Okay. I think that when you look at COVID-19 as an event, you would think that a global crisis would have led to a massive unified corporation, G20, G7, the UN, etc. And it didn’t. There was a lot of finger pointing between countries and a very different approach to how to solve this from various countries. Sweden never closed for a second. Australia closed and went very draconian on their citizens. China went zero COVID policies for a year further than the rest of the developed, the big economies. The United States, you had… at first a brushing off and then a big problem and then a switch of presidents. You just saw that the globalization period that we’ve been in since 1945 has ended. And essentially globalization really kicked off when the United States and the Soviet declare two victors of World War II, for each for their own reason. And the clashing between them and the atomic fears that both countries created to their citizenry that the other country is preparing for a nuclear war birthed a big period of the Cold War. But economically speaking, what had birthed was the Bretton Woods Agreement. And the Bretton Woods Agreement was the underpinning idea that the United States and its allies will have the dollar as a reserve currency backed by gold. And the United States economy will help the countries that want to follow it into Western values, etc., that will fight off the Eastern Bloc or the Soviet Bloc. By 1971, that idea fell apart and instead of defaulting on a 35 to 1 ratio gold to the dollar, Nixon decided to do a trick of wizardry and just announce on national TV that they’re temporarily cutting the ties between or that gold window, the 35 to 1 conversion. But basically he birthed the fiat monetary system or the petrodollar system where the is now used as a reserve currency not because it’s backed by gold but because it’s the international way to transact with oil especially Saudi oil that will be sold cheaply to its allies. That idea helped the United States continue to thrive through the 70s and 80s and by the time the early 90s come around the war, the cold war has been won. There’s only one superpower in the world. At that point globalization should have And instead of that, it went into hyper-globalization, where countries that really had nothing to do with globalization, or with its agendas, et cetera, were now added into this idea. And that’s why you see in the early 2000s, when America goes into war in Iraq and Afghanistan, that many soldiers are asking, why are we here? What’s the purpose of this? What am I missing? By 2011 with Obama’s speech about hey, we need to shift priorities from the Middle East. We’re done here Like there’s nothing here for us to China and then with Trump’s speech in the UN in 2018 saying hey That’s it. We’re done policing everything Now everyone needs to pay his fair share and build his own military. We’re not gonna do this for you guys and then with COVID Really showing that supply chains and globalization as an economic idea, not as a political idea has fallen apart, we are now entering deglobalization. And that is a very different environment. And in that environment, the first thing you have with deglobalization is all of the existing supply chains need to be rethought. And because of that, you can think about it like a fully furnished apartment. When you have a fully furnished apartment, but your wife doesn’t like… the furniture or your husband doesn’t like the furniture and says hey we need to replace everything. That’s very inflationary if you just purchased the whole thing and now you need to dump it and buy a new, that’s time consuming and it’s costly. And that’s what we’re doing right now. We’re changing existing systems with redundancies. We need to build them anew because of political risk, because of geopolitical risk, because of economic… arbitrage is closing between China and the rest of the world because China isn’t cheap anymore and That’s creating inflation. It’s creating inflation and sustaining inflation because we have labor shortages in the Western world and In China as well. So in the cycle where we are right now is we are in probably a 5-7 year period of Re-engineering the way that this deglobalization period will kick off. So everyone’s trying to assume their positions. And by the time 2030 comes around, we’ll have a nice picture of how this world or this economic system will look like.

Dave:
Yeah, that’s really fascinating. And I really respect your macro view on really understanding the trends, right? Because a lot of times, you know, everyone gets lost in the details because, like I said, you know, certain agendas or certain things that are top of mind, you know, what’s the Fed going to do this week or this month or what just kind of came out of the White House, right, which is impacting things. But understanding these macro trends. And then how do you align, you know, your investing philosophy around this? Right. Because I think that is one of the top three reasons why investor lose investors lose is, is not paying attention to global and macro trends.

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
Yeah, I think that in general, you either are an investor that’s active and then it needs to be a passion of yours and something you love and something you put a lot of work into or you need to be a passive investor and there’s nothing wrong with that because the world on aggregate is always growing richer. over the long term, over the course of your life, if you’re invested in equities and real estate and in anything that’s productive, you’re gonna do very well. So the question is, do you wanna do it as a passive investor and kinda have a result that’s at par with the growth of the economy? Or do you wanna put a lot of effort in and see if you’re capable of creating outsized returns in terms of your personal abilities and also the amount of time that you’re going to devote to this. Or if you want to do a married approach, which is basically what I do, which is you match the passive portfolio with an active portfolio.

Dave:
Interesting. So you are really bullish then in terms of equities, real estate, just businesses investing into the future right now.

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
It always I’ve never been not bullish over the course of for myself with I’m going to be 39 in two months I in in the next 30 years I’m going to be a buyer of equities a buyer of real estate a buyer of stocks a buyer of businesses a buyer of gold a buyer I’m going to be a buyer I’m going to keep buying more assets. So yeah, I do think that the world will be far richer 30 years from now than it is today. Far more efficient, far more beautiful, far more everything. It’s just on average. Some people will lose, some people will gain, but on average, GDP of countries will be bigger. Everything will be better. And that’s if you look at the human history in general. there’s never been a period where that’s not true. Just pinpoint to any year, take 30 years forward, and you can be bullish. Now, if you’re 55 to 65, and thinking about retirement and throwing away your active income altogether and living off investments and savings, then you need to figure out something else, which is time risk management, okay? Timing, and timing the market, and things that have to do with risk on and risk off because you’re not a buyer of equities anymore. You’re a buyer and a seller. Or you’re a buyer and you’re taking money out through dividends or or other cash flowing means. And if you do that then yeah you need to think in terms of cycles way more. You need to think about are we at an end of a long bull market? Are prices elevated? Etc. But for me It makes no sense over the long term to think about that. If I look at, for example, just the easiest example is Amazon stock, which was a hundred bucks I think at the height of the dotcom bubble. It was six dollars at the bottom of the dotcom bubble. And if you split adjust it, it’s worth I think like fifteen hundred today. So even if I bought at the height. of the dot com bubble and just kept buying all the way through to the bottom and then kept buying all the way up, I will have made a fortune. And that’s because I picked the right business and I didn’t have to time anything over the long term. And so it’s just a matter of your age group and whether or not you’re just a net buyer of equities or do you need to start thinking about living off of those equities. And when you do… need to start thinking about that, that’s when you need to change your thinking to preservation and defenses.

Dave:
Yeah, good point. So if you are a buyer right now, I mean, look at, I mean, BlackRock, I mean, some of the top institutions, right? I mean, people taking money off the table, right? And,

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
Ahem.

Dave:
and they’re being very liquid. At this point in time, the VIX is really high, right? So I think people are looking for opportunities to be a buyer. Any particular sectors stand out for you in terms of buying?

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
I think that because globalization is contracting, the arbitrages and anything that benefited from the relationship between cheap labor in China and the consumer economy in the United States or anything that’s multinational in nature is going to be going through this adjustment period. Any big, big business that has… has to change a lot of its moving parts, it’s going to take a while to recover. I think that, so those are companies that I’d love to see first of all recovery and then to accumulate shares in. And if I already have shares, just to follow the core earning calls and to understand whether or not management is doing well or not. Because the ultimate risk is basically losing your competitive advantages. I don’t care about companies going through some recovery period. That’s fine. Every business goes through that. But if they are losing to other competitors, they’re doing it better, that I do care about. And then big tech. Big tech or tech in general will suffer more from these very high interest rates compared to the zero interest rates of last decade. And so what I really want is… is the same always. I want to find companies that when I listen to the earnings calls, the CEOs are incredible. Just people of vision, somebody that when I listen to him, I say that’s exactly who I want to run a business that I own a stake in. And so it doesn’t matter the sector that much. You can make money in any sector and fight off any… sort of change or crisis, it’s about the actual people running the company. So that’s what I care about and that’s what I focus on in terms of stocks. In general, yeah, I’m very bullish on stocks and so I’m buying stocks. I’m buying stocks today, I’ll buy them next week, etc., etc. So I think that that’s the only thing I do which is defensive is create… price limit. So the fact that I love a company and listen to an earnings call and I love everything that I heard about the earnings call doesn’t mean that I’ll go and accumulate more shares. There’s a price that I’m willing to pay for what I heard. So that’s the way to be defensive, right? To set a price where you think this business should be worth and sometimes you know you I listen to seven or eight or ten. quarter of a report. So a year and a half, two years can go by before I buy a share of a company that I like. In terms of real estate, you know, in America we have a shortage of homes. It’s not gonna go away. The millennials have postponed marriage a lot. First of all, because they were not comfortable financially. They live in their parents’ homes as a, you know. as a general rule of thumb for longer than previous generations. They went to college for longer periods of time because of, you know, you need a first degree and a second degree, et cetera. And then the COVID came and postponed marriages or in dating for two years. So now you have an entire generation getting married. You have the generation ahead of them, the baby boomers that are bigger in size, mass in mass retirement. So you know, the Millennials are moving up in the corporate litter, have more money, getting married, foreign families, they need homes. And builders have just not built enough homes. So, couple those two things together, and I don’t think that we are entering a 2008 environment in real estate, no matter how high these interest rates will go. It more looks like we’re going to be in a period where people are going to be very selective. And they’re gonna think twice about what you know about purchasing a home There’s not gonna be a like a hundred offers above the listing on every single family that comes to market But yeah, the market is normal right now. I’m called normal for the single-family homes As we go into these more large transactions the either the commercial real estate or just institutions buying and selling large multifamily units, three, four, five hundred doors among themselves. That’s where I see a real freezing up. It looks like buyers are saying to themselves these sellers are not going to be able to refinance and the sellers are thinking about yeah we will be able to refinance we don’t need to liquidate this portfolio just because of higher interest rate we’re going to figure it out. So because of that buyers are not buying, sellers are not selling. they’re at a standoff. And that’s creating a major slowdown in the housing sector. And that obviously plays into this recession theme in the United States because housing is a huge sector of the economy. It’s the largest sector of the economy. And it created 70% of America’s millionaires in its history, including the former president etc. so housing is a big deal in America, construction is a big deal in America and until such time as the Fed offers more clarity that they’ve stopped raising interest rates or halted it or paused it, anything that will give solace to these interest rate sensitive industries that the Fed has kind of reached whatever… point I wanted to reach. Until such time, we will have some phrasing up.

Dave:
You had such a great analogy a couple of months ago, Lior, you were talking about doing some F1 simulation

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
Okay.

Dave:
and comparing that to the Fed. And, you know, if you’ve ever, you know, taken a track car, you know, into corners, right, that it’s all about breaking before you get into the turn and then accelerating it through it. And you were making the, the analogy, right, that the Fed is just, is doing the opposite, right? of what they should be doing trying to manage inflation. So what are your thoughts in terms of, you know, where we are with the Fed right now and inflation?

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
Okay, so we are by definition in an inflationary decade. So the Fed’s role, just like any central bank, is to stabilize prices. And that doesn’t mean to do what Paul Volcker did, which is basically raise interest rates double, or double interest rates overnight. plummet the economy into a recession so that prices will come down because demand will come drastically down. That’s one approach and it was appropriate at the time that Paul Volcker was at the Fed and appropriate for the time of the 1970s when the Fed several times said, hey, inflation is under control and then it went out of control so the public was in real distress as to these failures so they had to be drastic. The Fed right now is far more gradual in what they’re doing, and yet they’ve done a lot. So I think at this point, what they will start to think about is one, whether or not continuing to raise interest rates has any benefit. In other words, does raising it to 6%? really going to move the needle and if it won’t can we just stay here for a long time can we just create a new normal for interest rates and that’s what i think they will choose they’ve obviously stopped hyperinflation which 2021 was almost it was borderline hyperinflation you saw prices of lumber going nuts all commodities went really through through the roof For a combination of reasons, not just demand inflation, but just supply chains opening up and closing the whole, you know, the core of the economy and opening back up, it created a lot of issues. But once things start to normalize and stabilize, and they just couldn’t afford to let them do it on themselves, you know, at the pace of a free market, they had to intervene at some point, and they did. And then Russia and Ukraine going to war and that brings more pressure to the prices of energy. What you have essentially is a Fed that has to do more than usual and that’s what they did. They did a lot and now I think that what they’ll choose to do is either keep it here for a very long time, so at 5% for a very long time and continue to… to sell their balance sheet off and reduce their balance sheet. Because anything they do now to reduce their balance sheet will help them later if they need to combat a recession. But in my assessment of this, I think that the Fed’s role was to just smoothen out the period of inflation. Make it… as livable as possible, but they can’t change the fundamental demographic trends and geopolitical trends that have birthed this inflation worldwide. They just help us to live with it in a way that’s manageable and not crisis or panic. So when they fail, it looks like 2008 or like 2020. When they don’t fail, it just looks like a long… very lengthy cycle that has to play out. And that’s what’s happening right now. People are just adjusting to these higher interest rates to this new employment environment. And I think that what we’ll see in the second half of the year is whether or not we’ll actually go into some sort of a GDP recession. And if we do, then I think that they will start to. Gradually cut I don’t think that they will Handle this as a crisis no matter No matter if we actually go into a recession, but I don’t see a severe recession. I don’t see a 2008. I don’t see a crazy environment happening because when I listen to earnings calls of CEOs and I’ve listened to 17 so far this earnings season so in the past five days I’ve listened to over 17 hours worth of Q&A sessions, probably 150 questions posed to CEOs from various sectors. Every company in the world is doing everything it can to transition into this new world of higher interest rates, margin cutting, all the deadweight employees out of the door, pleasing shareholders with profit margins and net income. In my world, we are already so much in a recovery that it just takes a lot of time to transition the entire economy into the recovery. But a lot of, if you think about it almost like a sleeve where you go into the sleeve and then come out, then a lot of the companies are already coming out. But there’s more that need to come in. It’s just a big, long process.

Dave:
Yeah, really interesting take on that. Um, I also find it fascinating that there’s so much talk, uh, now in mainstream media about, uh, devaluation of the dollar, right? Which, you know, it’s really the whole bricks nations has been going on for years,

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
Yeah.

Dave:
uh, and the move off of the Petrodollar, uh, so a lot of movement there. Um,

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
Mm-hmm.

Dave:
what, what do you, what are you thinking, uh, from that perspective?

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
Yeah, the BRICS is an association. It’s not even a real treaty between these countries. So I don’t see them rolling out a joint currency or disrupting the dollar for now. I do see that, I do think we entered into a bear market for the dollar that will last a few years. So I do think that the dollar will depreciate in value. Compared to other fiat currencies you can track that on the DXY. But I don’t feel threatened by Brazil and Russia coming up with the currency with South Africa and India and China to compete with the dollar for now. The dollar is sort of a, the dollar’s relationship with the world is sort of a broken marriage where the divorce would look even worse. So there’s no reason to… to go through the divorce unless you find already an alternative. And right now there is no real alternative. So that’s why central banks are buying gold at record amounts and gold is trading at all-time highs versus virtually every fiat currency in the world except for the dollar. But by the time this posts it could be also an all-time high versus a dollar. So just to kind of sum it up. The dollar has its issues. It’s not going to be the reserve currency for 100 years more. But for now, it’s certainly not threatened by other fiat currencies. I do think at some point it will be and it will probably continue as a reserve currency alongside another reserve currency engineered and brought about by the Chinese. But just keep in mind something about the yuan. Yuan is not a real currency. It’s basically pegged to the dollar. We’ve never seen a free-floating Yuan. So unless, you know, until such time as China says, hey, we want to be a currency just like the US dollar. We want to have rule of law. We want to be an open economy. We’re not going to manipulate our currency. And then we can see what that currency looks like. I think only then will… other countries be willing to really buy into this idea of buying Yuan. For the meantime they buy dollar, euro, some Swiss, some yen and gold.

Dave:
Interesting. So do you have any type of hedging strategy in place right now? I know you’re a buyer of, you know, precious metals. You know, what does your portfolio look like? Or do you have some type of hedging strategy, you know, in this market today?

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
head drinking against what?

Dave:
devaluation of the dollar like you know are you doing some foreign currencies or do you have precious metals or life

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
Purchase

Dave:
insurance

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
metals.

Dave:
or sometimes yeah

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
Yeah, I mean anything that’s valued at US dollar terms, which is everything in the world, is a good hedge against dollar devaluation to a degree, right? But what really is the hedge is the ratios between things. So for example, If I choose to buy more gold today than real estate, that ratio interests me, right? The gold to real estate ratio. In terms of saving in pure fiat or not doing that, I almost never save anything in fiat. I save enough to have a cash position that I can deploy, but for the rest of it, it’s not going to be just in pure fiat. it’s definitely going to be either in alternatives like gold or silver, short-term lending, so any debt that I can be involved in at 10 or 12%, for a year or two I will do that and mostly stick to stocks and real estate.

Dave:
Right. Lior, if you could give our listeners just one piece of advice about how they could accelerate their own wealth trajectories, what would it be?

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
partner up. I think if you can find at least one, but preferably two people that are as excited about investments as you are and form some sort of a brainstorming alliance, a business endeavor, etc. and live your life in a way that you don’t have to do all the thinking, I think that that will be… my main thing. If you look at Buffett, he is monger. If you look at Bill Gates, he will tell you that he had a lot of help, like a lot of help at Microsoft. And, you know, we all know today that Steve Jobs had Tim Cook by his side for those years. But I can go on forever. I mean, even Beyonce has a voice, how do you call it, like a coaching for

Dave:
Coach,

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
her.

Dave:
yeah.

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
Yeah. So…

Dave:
Yeah.

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
Even Michelangelo, like a painter, even he had coaches, etc. So

Dave:
team.

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
no matter what the solo sport is, you need to be around at least one more person, but preferably two more people that form some sort of alliance. And I think that will really help you in life more than anything else that I can say on a podcast.

Dave:
Love it. Yeah. It’s really increasing that relationship capital and, um, in many different ways, whether it’s, you know, with your, your business, your family, uh, the coaching, your health, any type of investments in relationship and constantly thinking about, uh, let’s like Jim Rohn’s quote, right? That you’re, you’re a product of the five people that you spend most of your time with, you know? So

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
Wow, okay.

Dave:
are those people really elevating you or not?

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
That’s a classic, yeah.

Dave:
Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Leo, I really

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
And Leo,

Dave:
appreciate

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
I really appreciate

Dave:
you coming

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
you

Dave:
on

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
coming

Dave:
the show

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
on the

Dave:
today.

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
show today. Absolutely.

Dave:
Really sharing

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
Really sharing

Dave:
such great

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
such great

Dave:
insights

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
insights.

Dave:
with the audience. I think that’s going to be super value for people. And if they want to learn more about Wealth Research Group or they want to connect with you, what is the best place?

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
Subscribe on the homepage.

Dave:
Okay. And we’ll, we’ll provide a link in the show notes to wealth research group.com. Right.

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
Sure.

Dave:
Awesome.

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
Awesome.

Dave:
Lior,

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
Lior,

Dave:
thanks

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
thanks

Dave:
again for

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
again

Dave:
your time

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
for your

Dave:
today.

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
time today.

Dave:
Really appreciate

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
Really appreciate

Dave:
it.

Lior Gantz, WealthResearchGroup.com:
it. Thank you.

Dave:
All right, take care.