00:00
I've lost more money than most people have ever made.
00:04
But, like, I'm such a good investor that I've lost more money than you can dream of making.
00:18
Alright. I've got a couple interesting topics today. The biggest one,
00:23
and this is more
00:25
what we're gonna do right now is I want wanna do something that I only do privately. I'll do it publicly. I like it.
00:32
Yeah. That could go different.
00:35
That could go different ways. But you could critique me. But, basically, like, with some of my friends and some people in Hampton, I do this thing called a portfolio review.
00:44
Where I explain my financial portfolio
00:47
and you are allowed to critique it and challenge me in order to, like, hopefully make me better. Okay.
00:54
Do you know you know what I'm saying? I know exactly what you're saying. You don't have to keep asking. I know what you're saying.
01:00
You know what I'm saying.
01:04
You asked this question a lot to our guest. I think it first started with Ryan Holiday, and I thought it was, like, just the most blunt, wonderful question you go. So what do you do with your money?
01:13
And I thought that was wonderful. And so that's kinda how he, like, came up with the idea of do this. And so I figured today we can do that. Does that sound interesting to you? Yeah. Let's do it. Alright. Portfolio review. And I guess I think we're gonna do this, like, the other way I like to ask the question is if there was a pie chart,
01:29
you know,
01:30
roughly what percent are you putting over here? What percent are you putting over there and why? And I'm not like one of those guys. So our friend, Nick Huber, sent an email out the other day. And he put, like, exact numbers of everything of his net worth. And there's a bunch of people who do that. I'm not that transparent. So I don't I don't particularly like that, but I'll be very transparent about some things. Yeah. We're not going financially streaking here, but,
01:53
you know, yeah. If we can go to the beach.
01:57
I'll take my shirt off.
02:00
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're gonna go we're gonna pop the top, but we're not we're keeping the bottoms on. Right?
02:06
Okay. So,
02:08
first, let me say my strategy for this whole thing. The first thing is that
02:13
A lot of this is contingent on my previous strategy, which started when I was, like, twenty one years old, was to start and sell a business by the age of thirty.
02:22
I thought if I did that, that would give me some financial security, which was basically rooted in, like, being insecure about money for a very long time and wanting to have, like, some type of security.
02:32
So that's, like, a lot of people listening in the YouTube comments. I know they're gonna say, but how did you get, like, blank? Well, we talked about it at the time, but, anyway, it was about starting and selling a company. Another thing,
02:43
unlike you, Sean, and I think unlike most of our listeners,
02:47
I would say I am incredibly
02:49
conservative
02:50
And so that is not the right fit for a lot of people. Right. The reason I'm conservative is I'm gonna break it down into four different accounts of which my big major account I consider that account my livable money. So I don't actually draw off any of it, but my game plan was to sell a business and have that big windfall.
03:10
If I wanted to, it could just go into,
03:13
the stock market and the gains could pay for the rest of my life without ever having to touch the principal.
03:19
So that's kinda like,
03:21
the strategy on that. And then also, as of now, I currently live off of my income. So we make income from this podcast. For my other companies,
03:29
my wife works. So I live off that money, so I don't actually touch any of the other stuff. Explain because I think without numbers, it's hard. Let's pretend
03:37
for a second
03:38
that when you sold the hustle, you made ten million dollars after taxes. Let's just pretend that's true. Yeah. What you're saying is you put ten million dollars in Vanguard Index And that's your basically, like, if I need it, that's there. I'm financially independent, but you don't wanna touch it. And so you live you pay your bills off of things like this podcast or, you know, people buying your digital products or random stuff like that. That's, like, kinda money and money out. That's your that's how you fund your lifestyle, and you could do whatever you want. And then you have this nest egg that's there. That's basically what you're saying was your kind of strategy from
04:12
twenties was basically live cheap, build a company, sell it so you have that nest egg. Now you're like, I got the nest egg, And I have this income source that's that's pretty strong that pays for all of my lifestyle stuff.
04:24
What now? Specifically,
04:26
The way that I had planned on it was, let's say you had ten million dollars, you can draw out three percent of that per year. And, basically, your nut, your portfolio that ten million dollars would hypothetically
04:38
and mostly realistically based off a hundred years of data continue to grow each year. Some years, it actually wouldn't. Some years it would, but it would average to,
04:46
de each decade it would grow.
04:49
Yes. And that number is three percent. That I hypothetically would pull out. Of course, I don't, but I could. And then finally,
04:56
my strategy is to reduce stress and to make income from my private companies.
05:01
And so I am not an active investor of which we are gonna see. And also,
05:05
this is not advice. I don't know anything. Don't actually do anything I'm saying. I'm just telling you what I do. Alright.
05:11
Also, if this were advice, this is, like, the financial equivalent of, like, try missionary.
05:16
Right? It's like, you know, you're not even gonna, like, this portfolio review is not gonna be like.
05:22
So I'm like, crazy backdoor sweep. That's, you know, you know, puts over here some calls over there. Like, I'm pretty sure what you're gonna say is that by the index,
05:32
buy some bonds,
05:34
and then I try to build more wealth through my private businesses. Did I already did I spoil your portfolio review?
05:40
Exactly. Let's talk about percentages. What and and what index are you buying? Is it one? Are you buying multiple indexes? What's going on? Alright. So I'm gonna this down into four categories. Category one, I'm just gonna call it the big account. I'm not gonna say who I use because I don't want people looking after me or going after me. The second thing, so there's the big account. Which is the earnings from my sale. There's other liquid account, which I'll talk about. There's non liquid stuff and there's private company stuff. Okay. Okay.
06:07
So the big the big account,
06:10
I have seventy nine percent of that in VTI. So that's just a Vanguard total index fund.
06:18
Another fifteen percent of the pie chart is in short term treasuries, which are currently yielding, I think, four point nine percent. And I think it's like a sixty day term, meaning, every sixty days as of now, we're rebinding
06:32
rebuying them. They could be ninety days. I forget, but the short term And then six percent in a real estate fund that buys
06:38
Walgreens. I think it's called, like, oak, oak,
06:42
tree or I don't even know. Just some boring thing that, like, owns, like, either hundreds or thousands of Walgreens buildings and Walgreens
06:49
releases the buildings.
06:51
And year to date, VTI, up nineteen percent,
06:54
one year chart, fifteen percent,
06:56
five year chart, fifty seven percent. That's fine. I'll take that all day.
07:01
What what's VTI historically over the last thirty years? I think it's, like, eight percent a year, maybe. Yeah. I don't know what it comes up to. So that it's just boring stuff. And then bonds
07:10
prior to, like, when the economy was killing it, like, three years ago, I think bonds were, like, one percent.
07:16
Now they're, like, five percent And so I'll take that all day. And I think, like, a savings account, like, a high yield savings account is also, like, three or four percent.
07:26
Which is where I keep cash. Which is basically all a way of saying wealth preservation at this point, which is not where most people are at. Wealth creation is where most people at. Wealth preservation is where you're at, where you're basically like,
07:40
you're just trying not to lose the nest egg, the big the big account. Let's say, it's about
07:46
just keep up with inflation, maybe beat it a little bit.
07:49
Okay. If the whole market goes down, I'm diversified.
07:52
I will also go down, but less so than somebody who was concentrated bets trying to make a bunch of money.
07:59
Yes. My opinion is that most people, if they are trying to make a lot of money, should try to make money through starting a company or owning equity in a company,
08:08
And then
08:09
as their cash flow comes in, as long as they don't need that to start another business, they should mostly do what I'm doing, which is what I've done before I did this, I was just in Wealthfront. And by the way, you said this on a different podcast. I think it's worth saying. So you were like,
08:22
I wanted to be kind of like rich by thirty ish.
08:26
And you're like, to do that,
08:28
you basically have to start a business.
08:31
And not only that, I think you the the likelihood selling a business and getting there is probably higher because if you start a company at the age of twenty one and you wanna earn ten million dollars,
08:41
you can assume that more likely than not. Your first three years, you're gonna make minimum wage, or in my case, I made twenty grand a year. I made two thousand dollars a month is what I paid myself for the first two years of my business. So that gets you to, like, the age of twenty five, which means you have to average something like two or three million dollars a year in profit,
08:59
because you gotta get taxed, and that will accumulate to, like, ten million dollars. I think that's very, very challenging. I think it's a little bit It's about selling. Yeah. That's that's the differentiation here. It's about selling versus,
09:11
you know, cash flowing your way there. That that's my opinion. Yes. And the way that my, like, quote, big account works is I keep roughly one hundred to two hundred thousand dollars in my checking account, any number or savings account, whatever I yield use, Any number above that goes straight into my investment
09:27
fund of this big account. Alright. The second one,
09:31
I got a sugar mama. Have I told you that?
09:37
How is she? What's her name?
09:39
Her name's Sarah. I've been with her for nine years, and she's my sugar mama. My wife actually
09:45
made money before I did. My wife,
09:48
went to Penn, very, very smart woman, went to an Ivy League school, got a job at Facebook,
09:54
and then worked at Airbnb. She's been there for, like, six or seven years. Airbnb went public in December. I think of two thousand twenty one.
10:02
We thought that they were gonna go out of business. We didn't think Airbnb was gonna work out. Turns out, they did awesome. I think when she started working there, I think The her, the the valuation of Airbnb was ten billion. It could have been eighteen. I don't remember.
10:16
When it IPO, I think it was a hundred billion know what it is today, but it's tens of billions. Her stock did wonderful. So we own a bunch of Airbnb stock of which we have sold none of it. Are you looking at Airbnb stock right now? Ninety three billion. Ninety three billion. So I think it was, like, eight billion during the pandemic. If I remember correctly, I don't remember exactly.
10:36
We haven't sold a look at that. The other stock of which we own
10:40
is HubSpot. When I sold to HubSpot, I was given a bunch of stock I have not sold any of it other than the amount that I had to take out to pay taxes,
10:50
and that's like a legal thing. Like, they they they automatically take that out My intention
10:54
is to not sell any of that in the next five years.
10:59
Maybe I will, maybe I won't as of now, I don't need the money. I like both Airbnb and I like HubSpot. I'm not selling any of that at the moment. I also have a four zero one k that I've always maxed out, and then I had Bitcoin that I bought in two thousand fourteen that basically had just sat there dormant forever. And I don't even know what it is now, but Right. I have not sold any of it. Have you ever sold Bitcoin? Yeah. I've sold Bitcoin at a couple different points. Each time I sold
11:24
was a poor decision.
11:26
I don't know. I don't know if I told you the first time I sold. So I bought Bitcoin, like, back was, like, three hundred dollars, something like that. That was my original original buy. I think four hundred was my average. And,
11:35
it shot up to, I don't know, three thousand, four thousand at one point. I go to a wedding,
11:40
and my aunt I think I told the story before. My aunt who's, like, you know, an Indian auntie
11:46
is,
11:47
I walk into a conversation she's having with her friends, and she's
11:50
She literally goes, oh, yeah. Ethereum is very good. And I was like,
11:56
I was like, my hands talking about Ethereum and saying it's very good. And I was like, How can you say it's good?
12:02
Tyriam, it used to be this price. Now it's this price. It's very good. And I was like, oh, it's good because the price is going up. And I was like, pretty sure there's bubbles. I've read something about this. This is, I think, the moment when, like, your Indian auntie, you know, on the East Coast is talking about assets, like, you know, are good because they go up and telling her friends they gotta buy. And I'm like, this is gonna be a bubble. And,
12:25
I was right and wrong. So I I immediately go and I try to liquidate everything. I try to sell the whole thing. I everything I have, coin based limits you. Wait. Was it really because of that? Literally because of that. I so I that night, I go try to sell everything. Coinbase is limiting me because you can't just sell, like, lots of lots of stuff at once. They're like, you can only sell, like, fifteen grand at a time or something like that. So I'm trying to max it out every day and try to sell.
12:49
And,
12:50
and at some point, I got time by the fifth day or whatever. I was, like, okay. Let me just leave whatever else is there. It's fine.
12:56
It kind of wore off.
12:59
Bitcoin shoots up to nineteen thousand in, like, the next two months. And I was like, oh my god. Then what am I doing? I'd mistimed the bubble.
13:08
And then it goes back down to, like, whatever three thousand. I was like, oh, feel good now. And I was like, This is stupid. I shouldn't just feel good and bad. I shouldn't try to time this, basically.
13:17
I either believe in this or I don't in the long term, and I should just Dude, I can't believe
13:21
that you let your aunt that one story swayed, like, change your actions. Oh, that's happened to me multiple. I told you about the Tesla one too. I basically own a ton of, like, the only stock I owned early on was Tesla back in Tesla was, like, very, like, kind of, like, a a young stock. It was, like, maybe a, like, a two or three billion dollar evaluation, maybe five.
13:39
And,
13:40
I looked at now, like, six hundred billion or a trillion or something. It went up to basically close to a trillion.
13:46
Now I don't know what it's at. I could even do that math. So what's a thousand dollars in Tesla? It's two billion dollars. I I had a very small amount of money out of college. I had, like, made, like, twenty five k at my first job or something like that, saved enough to, like, invest that much or twenty five thirty k or something. And I did the math once Yeah. It's at nine hundred billion now. So it would have been basically
14:05
I remember when I had done the math,
14:07
it was like, oh, that twenty five k would have been, like, six million dollars by now.
14:11
If I just held, and instead,
14:14
I went on Reddit and there's, like, I don't know if you're on Reddit. There's all these, like, it's called, like, test Q. It's basically, like, a group of people who that believe that Tesla is, like, going to zero slash, like,
14:23
maybe it's, like, fraudulent.
14:25
And there's, like, all these people sending. They say that they have fake cars. Right? Like, like, they're it's photoshop images. Not fake cars, but, like, lots of other things like that. Like, there would be, like, guys, you'd be like, gosh,
14:35
there's this garage in Phoenix,
14:37
and look at this. And he would go to this garage, and it was only Tesla parked on six stories that he's walking up, and he's like, they're stashing them here so that you can't tell where they're like because if they just leave them in the factory lot, it's clear they're not selling this piling up. He's like, look at this. This one has and he's like, put his finger on. It's got dust. He's like, look at this. This hasn't moved in months. And I was like, he's right. Thank you.
15:00
U slash three three three kitty kitty.
15:03
Like, you know, and I was like, just taking all these signals from people on Reddit that were like, look at it and I think at one point they had had like fifteen different CFOs.
15:11
And I was like, that does seem fishy. Why why have so many CFOs come, looked at the books and left in a very short period of time. That doesn't sound right.
15:19
And
15:20
I basically took all these signals, and I sold, and I was like, so I had tripled my investment or put up a mind message, and I was like, yeah, I'm getting out of the top boys. And then,
15:31
you know, in, like, hundred x since then. So, yeah, it wasn't familiar. Was And that's the second time that's happened to you. The first time it happened to you was with Stripe when you had a job offer, I think, at Stripe. No. No. I blew the the interview. I didn't get the offer. The guy was like,
15:46
I only applied to one job. It was striped back in two thousand and, eleven or twelve. So I would have been, like, employee twenty at Stripe.
15:53
Which is like a guaranteed,
15:55
like, if you it's if you stick it out and, you know, you're there for four or five years or seven years and you and you kinda, like, work your way up a little bit. Even as a junior level entry position, probably would have ended up over, like, a seven year period making
16:06
somewhere between ten and twenty million dollars.
16:09
And,
16:11
my mentor
16:12
is the mentor of the guy who's interviewing me. He that's his mentor. Right? The mentors have like a pretty big influence. If the mentor says, hey, this person's amazing. You're like, oh, thank you sensei. Like, I'll I'll listen.
16:24
I hear my mentor had written a blog post saying,
16:27
I met this kid. He's twenty one years old. He's an entrepreneur, and he's got the highest, like, bias for action of anybody I've met in the last ten years. And it I was like, wow. Globing five star review, basically. I hand it to this guy. This guy's like, wow. If John thinks this about you,
16:43
Let's do the interview anyways as a formality.
16:46
Yeah, we gotta do it, but, like, I'm so excited to talk. And we talk, and somehow,
16:52
I blew, like, a thirty thirty thirty point lead during the interview where I,
16:57
he's like, okay. So, like, you know, let's is kinda like a sales position. Like, you know, sell me a piece of software that you really like.
17:04
I was like, I was like, sell me this pen.
17:07
And
17:08
I was like
17:10
I was like so what I would do is I would basically just ask him a bunch of questions. He said, no. No. Like, ring ring. Hello? Like, just do it. Pretend.
17:17
And I was like, ugh,
17:19
and I just I don't know. Like, I don't know what I said, but whatever I said at the end, he's like, yeah. That wasn't very good.
17:25
Yeah. I don't think this is a sales probably not your thing. You're probably not that good at this. So, you know, maybe there's another position we could look for and I was so embarrassed at that point or whatever. I was just like, god, this this guy basically rejected me and said, maybe there's some other role for you, like, you know, down in the basement. Yeah. Maybe you could fold someone's laundry, one of the engineers' laundry. And I was like, Alright, fuck it. I'm gonna go for this other job instead. And the the the guy was like,
17:48
he was like, so Sean, what do you know about Stripe and like the banking system? Sean's like,
17:53
Well, I like money.
17:55
I would like I would like to have some more of it.
18:00
Crest wiping stripes. Those those strips. Sorry. Sorry. Those are strips. Let's see. Adidas's logo.
18:08
You ever been Stripe's convenience store? Love it.
18:11
Yeah.
18:12
That's how that interview went. So that blew it. You blew that one, but that's okay.
18:16
You let emotions
18:17
sway you. And I'm gonna give you a a lesson here in that I never do that. So it's okay. Your weakness is my strength. So it's good because I don't sell anything. As I like to say,
18:30
I've lost more money than most people have ever made.
18:34
With my I'm such a good
18:36
that I've lost more money than you can dream of making.
18:42
I can't find this client info. Have you heard of HubSpot? HubSpot is a CRM platform, so it shares its data across every application.
18:50
Every team can stay aligned. No to sync spreadsheets or dueling databases.
18:54
HubSpot, grow better.
18:58
We, when we sold the HubSpot, I think the stock was three hundred sixty seven. I think it went up to, like, eight hundred and sixty, and then it was it was amazing. And then it went down to, like, two hundred and fifty. And I remember thinking, like, Oh, man. Is this right? Is this right? What do I do? And so, like, that that that definitely impacts me. Like, I definitely wanna sell some stuff. I literally did it with the HubSpot thing. I bought HubSpot stock
19:20
you know, right around when you when you sold and then it went up and I was like, oh, and everything was going up during that period of time. And, then when the whole mark crashed. I was like, you know what? I don't really wanna be in the stock market right now. This isn't very fun. I don't know, like, there's all these war again, Tesla few. There's all these warning signs about where the economy's going.
19:38
I think I have a much bigger edge just like in my own businesses and in private businesses. Let me just get out of, like, public market stock picking which I'm not, like, I don't know if I'm very good or very bad at it, but I just think generally is a bad strategy to to take to to your investing.
19:52
And,
19:54
Yeah. I basically sold almost the exact bottom of the markets. Right?
19:59
Like, the little bottom.
20:01
Like, I sold them and there's a guy somewhere in air traffic control. He's like, the bottom's in. He's out. He's out. Let's go.
20:11
Most people only hit rock bottom once in their life. That's like the point of the phrase. Right. Actually, you've done it many times.
20:17
Yeah.
20:19
Somebody was asking me the same day. They were like, they're like, oh, so what are you doing with your kind of like investments? I'm explaining what I do, and they're like,
20:26
So what do you, like, you know, what do you do for your, like, your safety net or whatever, like, and I was, like,
20:32
safe? Like, you're looking at it. He's like, what do you mean? I was, like,
20:36
Am I still me? If I'm still me, I'm safe. Like, what do you want? I can lose all this. Who cares? I can get I can lose all of it. I'd make it all back. Like, who I have no I am the safety net. I, you know, a bond portfolio is not my safety net. My four zero one k that's locked up till I'm sixty five, I don't think of that as my safety net.
20:54
I am my safety net. And that's, I think that's an approach. Honestly,
20:59
if you're, like, high caliber, I see so many people that are high, like, really high caliber people that play it so safe
21:05
with their finances. I would count it was one of these people. And
21:10
you never look bad
21:12
But I also think you leave so much room where, like, you didn't need to,
21:17
like,
21:18
have you spent a dollar
21:20
Or, like, have you spent more than ten percent of the money from the hustle sale? No way. Definitely not. Five percent. Have you even spent a dollar from that account?
21:29
No. Not I've never pulled money out of my big account. The most expensive thing I bought was a hundred thousand dollar car, of which I think you bought three, like, last month.
21:38
So
21:40
I'm not that. I'm not a version. We got India on
21:44
one car.
21:47
You've got three all white g wagons. That's all I'll say. So
21:52
so the thing, you, you know, the this is one way I think about it. Like, you,
21:57
worked for ten years every day to build this company and you sold it. You achieved the thing you exactly wanted.
22:03
And not a dollar has moved in, like, two years, three years, or you haven't, like, moved a dollar from it. In a way,
22:10
you bought you you spent ten years save up for this power tool, and then you just leave it in the case.
22:16
And,
22:17
and and I I don't know if, like, I'm not saying that my way is right, but I also know that for me,
22:24
my philosophy is money is a tool to be used to enhance your life. And if you're not really using it,
22:30
And then you work hard to, like, go get more money. It's like, that really all compute for me. What is the way you think about that to, like, make that feel right? I think that's an incredibly fair criticism. And my joke is when Warren Buffett talks about the long term view, and I'm like, dude, you're fucking ninety five. There is no long term view. Like, There that that doesn't exist. Right.
22:49
And so the it to to criticize myself,
22:52
I am horrible at spending money. Ramit Saiti, who we have in the pod. He does a really good job of, like, saying, like, look, you could earn income and you should be good at that. You also have to get good at spending.
23:02
I'm quite bad at spending, I think it's just rooted in emotional
23:06
instability and being insane.
23:08
I think that these are just, like, personality defects. And oftentimes, what makes you good at saving makes you at its spending.
23:14
And I think that it's, like, a therapist issue that you need to work out. And so I think that's an incredibly fair criticism. I think the truth is half is is not quite halfway in the middle. I think I should of what you believe and what I believe. I think it's more like I should loosen up a bit. Right. But, yeah, that's a I I think typically what I've seen people who earn a lump sum, like a startup where they are poor, and then suddenly they're not poor, those people tend to be more like me where they're really height wide, and they're frugal, and they're cheap. And that causes a lots of anxiety.
23:44
People who earn a significant amount of cash flow throughout the years and get used to it, They tend to be a little bit more offensive and a little bit less conservative, but I think it's rooted definitely in, like, childhood trauma and shit like that. Just like how you're raised. Do you know what I mean? Just like running out of money. I'm gonna share without sharing somebody's name.
24:02
Some a friend of ours sent me a presentation
24:05
that they did,
24:09
that they made kinda like about their life as part of,
24:12
like,
24:13
one of these, like, peer group things, Don Hampton, but a different one. So
24:17
we don't we don't plug no other names of no other groups on this podcast That's right. Thank you. Appreciate that. So
24:24
so, he sent me this thing, and I thought it was really great. Basically, it's like, you know, here's my life story.
24:28
And here's what I do with my money. And I he had a couple slides I thought were really good. So one was,
24:34
this person had sold their business for over a hundred million dollars. So they have, like, a nine figure exit of their business.
24:41
And the next slide is, so it's like Here's the picture of me the day we sold for over a hundred million dollars.
24:49
Next day, it's like, I bought this bike This bike is this two thousand dollar bike. It's an awesome bike.
24:55
Most expensive purchase. Most expensive item I've owned
24:59
Since.
24:59
It's been like ten years or something. Like, it's like, whoa.
25:04
And, like, until I recently bought a condo finally, like, last year, this was the most expensive item I owned. Love this bike. And then I was like, okay. Interesting.
25:14
And then
25:15
and then, there's another slide that that I like. So so it goes,
25:19
yeah, one slide that said top five financial mistakes that I've learned to cope with.
25:24
Love that title. Oh. And there's five interesting ones about basically, like, sold this too early,
25:29
sold this too early, was gonna buy this and talked myself out of it because there was a fee associated with it. I would have made, like, twenty million bucks on that. You know, so so I think that's just a a great exercise to go on, which is like,
25:41
You could survive a bunch of bad mistakes. And if you're gonna play the game, any, like, any good startup investor
25:47
has an epic anti portfolio, a bunch of businesses that they passed on that they should have invested in. And, that's
25:55
that is part of playing the game. You can't play the, you know, it's like being a basketball player and, you know, that Michael Jordan commercial or he's like, I've missed three thousand game winning shots or whatever. It's like, yeah. That's what happens when you're easy play. You're gonna miss shots. And, like, you can't Yeah. Every everyone has, like,
26:11
I literally know fifteen people that have the same Uber story.
26:14
Like that was like the that was like the famous one for years, which is I passed on Uber. I passed on Uber. Everyone said I passed on Uber.
26:22
Like, I I I know a ton of people have said that. I think Gary Vaynerchuk, like, in the beginning of his book, he, like, gives a compliment to Travis Kalinic, the founder. He calls him out as, like, you know Yeah. He's, like, dude, I thanked my wife. He he's, like, I I thanked my wife, my children, and Travis Calenic. Meaning, I was super close with them. And I still passed on that, and that cost me a hundred million dollars. Exactly. I think that's, like, a famous story he says. So, yeah, everyone has that story.
26:44
And and let me give you two other slides he says. Then it's then there's two slides called my effed up relationship with money. I think I can read this. Let me see. So it says,
26:52
I work hard to make money, and I got good at it. But then I hoard the money I make. I put it in bank accounts. I look at it constantly. And besides hoarding,
26:59
I know money I know that money is good for one other thing, making more money.
27:03
You know, like, that's, that that's something I I realized it's like, you know, I really, like, put a lot of my own self value on money. Here's some things that I do that are dumb about money. Like, I feel guilty spending on myself.
27:16
My parents were the same way. They they would spend on their kids or spend on, like, other things that they wouldn't spend on themselves.
27:22
And, that's annoying. They they did it, and now I'm doing it.
27:26
Is that I bought a business that was a cash flow business, and I said, okay, this is my cocaine fund.
27:31
All the profit from this, I must spend on something hedonistic. I must I must spend. I can't save this money. Didn't work. Still saved it.
27:38
And he goes,
27:39
he goes, I'm comfortable losing five hundred k on an investment. Just like that. But if you said five spend five hundred k to improve your life and I guarantee it will improve your life, I can't I can't do it. I can't get myself to do it. I'm the exact same way. I've been looking at I should be helping. I've been looking at your company.
27:55
Well, I've been looking at your company Sheppard. I think it's like three thousand a month for an assistant of which I desperately need, but I'm, like, three thousand dollars a month.
28:04
But, well, the it's not a fee. Whatever the payment is in person. And I'm like You pay thirty percent of their salary as a as the headhunter bounty once. So that's it. So it'll be like three. It'll be like three grand for the year. Is for most people. That's, like, let's say, an average.
28:18
But I mean, I have to pay this, the the the person's thing, the person's salary. And I'm like, well, that's thirty six grand a year. But if you do that over five years at the rate that we're growing right now, that's ninety thousand dollars. Like, I'm ruining the county. She might really be valuable in that might be a fifteen year relationship. Now I'm talking about a a five hundred thousand dollar investment, but I could also put that in VTI and it would compound eight percent now you've talked yourself out of it. When I was buying my wife's wedding ring, I was like, oh, man. This is the most expensive thing I've ever bought. That's a lot of money. But I guess if we're married for eighty years because we might live to be, like, a hundred and ten, that means that that's only eight hundred dollars a year. And, like, that's okay.
28:58
Do you know what I mean? Like, there's all these weird mental gymnastics that crazy people like me have to do. So this guy, is he an immigrant? Is this guy an immigrant he's talking
29:06
It's one hundred percent most immigrants that I've been around have or not most, but men this sounds like a very much an immigrant problem. Right.
29:13
Of which I'm the exact opposite of a immigrant, but that's why I that's why I like those guys. I identify with them.
29:19
You, you know, there's,
29:20
we had this this funny experience yesterday where,
29:24
another friend who also
29:27
mega mega wealthy,
29:30
when we met him when we met up with this person in person, they were like, you know what? I really wanna, like, shift into, like, family mode. Like, I'm I'm ready to, like, meet somebody, have a kid, like, you know, like, I wanna do that part of life And we're like, that makes total sense.
29:42
Good on you. You know, you did the money thing, the business thing. You you you you scratch that itch, you proved you could do it. Now you're in your thirties and you're saying, you know what? I I've not really I don't really have a partner. I don't have kids. That seems fun. I'm the I do see myself as a family guy. I wanna do that. So that was where we left the conversation.
29:59
And now, my business partner, Ben, Ben Levy. He's, like, the man with, like, checking in on people.
30:05
Checks in on everybody.
30:06
And, and so he's just always providing me the stream of updates about, like, what people are up to. And it's great. And so he's like, yo, that friend, he's like, he's like doing something new.
30:16
And,
30:17
and I'm, like, like, not just doing one thing. Maybe he was, like, got these, like, four projects he's cooking up. And I was, like, oh, that's interesting. Like, happened to the whole, like, I wanna actually focus on, like, like, finding a partner or starting a family, like, whatever that is. Like, oh, yeah. He still wants to do that. It's like, we start in four companies. I mean, that doesn't seem like that's gonna be very conducive to, like, you know, putting your focus on something. Right? And it's like, yeah, I agree. And I go, How can this keeps happening? Like,
30:43
we have so many smart friends. I said
30:46
there's a big difference between smart and wise. And I think that's what we're seeing is basically
30:52
we have a lot of smart friends that are not that wise about, like, decision making. So they're intelligent, for sure.
31:01
But they make decisions that don't really make sense if you zoomed out a little bit. How old is this person? I don't know, like, I don't know, mid thirties or something like that? I think some of that will come with age. I think that we're in a weird circle of which many of the listeners, l listening to this. They have a higher income than most people their age. And I think that, like, sometimes maybe your earning power is ahead of your brain power or wisdom power. Do you know what I mean? That's what I'm saying. I'm not telling you you you you gotta go get married and have kids. But if you told me you wanted to get married and have kids. And then instead, you're spending all your time doing these other things that are gonna completely make you busy. And if I asked you, why didn't you why hasn't this happened already? It's like, oh, I was so heads down in my company. It's like, cool. Why are you getting heads down in four companies now? That doesn't make sense either. And I texted Ben. I go, man, we're, you know, I'm guilty of this into other areas of my life. Right? Because again, if you spot it, you got it. So anytime I notice something to other people, I'm like, where in my life do I make the same stupid mistake? And I was like, oh, it'd be like,
31:58
Like yesterday, I canceled. I did something. I very rarely do. I almost never did this. I canceled my workout
32:03
because I was, like, had two doctor's appointments. And I was like, if I I do this workout in the middle of day, then I'm just not gonna get any work done today. Canceled by workout. I was like, but my number one goal right now in life is to get fit. I would get more value out of becoming more fit than making another dollar.
32:18
Yeah. Fifty four days left, I think. Right? Yeah. One day,
32:22
no, I'm on forty nine, forty nine days left. Yep. Yeah. Forty nine days left to get abs.
32:28
How many weeks away from being that guy?
32:30
So
32:31
so but I but I guess, like, the the point is, that's an area of my life where I make a stupid decision. That's an unwise decision to say, hey,
32:38
On one day, I said this is my main goal. And then three days later,
32:42
I'm prioritizing something else above my main goal. What that doesn't make any sense. And same way this person's doing that with their relationship. Their main goal is to get married and have kids, but they prioritize a bunch of other stuff. And I was like, that's not intelligence, that's wisdom. Like, that's basically having good judgment.
32:57
And,
32:58
I realized that, like, wisdom or good judgment is the thing that's most short in supply. And the most valuable because it's like a lever. You don't have to be that hardworking or that smart
33:09
if you have great judgment. If you pick the rights things to focus on, pick the right people to work with,
33:14
pick the right place to live. You don't have to
33:17
be, like, nine thousand IQ. You don't have to know everything about everything. You have to be the hardest worker.
33:23
But if you have poor judgment,
33:25
no amount of hard work or, like, intelligence really saves you. You kinda screw yourself. And so it just really emphasized that point to me about, like, you know, smart does not equal wise and the goal is wise, not smart. I think that's a good one. I like that. And it's like when you're driving and you say, everyone's such a horrible driver.
33:42
It's like, dude.
33:44
That is you you too.
33:46
It's like there there's, like, some weird emotion and logic that don't make sense there. And then my final accounts of which you can these last two, you're gonna have a lot of, opinions on. The last one or the second to last one is my non liquid stuff of which it's roughly
34:01
three point eight million dollars in real estate, of which I have a mortgage on
34:06
my house. I think my house was nine hundred and fifty thousand dollars that I bought. I have a mortgage of, like, five hundred and fifty dollars left. I own a ranch. I own some vacant lots in Austin.
34:16
And I'm a small owner in some storage deals,
34:19
a Brooklyn building,
34:21
and
34:22
one or two small things.
34:25
And the other non liquid stuff is angel investing. Now here's what I do, and you tell me if I'm wrong.
34:31
I reduced
34:32
I value it at So the principal sum that I put in,
34:37
plus I even put a large
34:39
discount on that, of which it's now that would be around five hundred thousand dollars of startup investments.
34:45
The way that I see that is I've done roughly fifty, I think.
34:49
Forty will probably not work. Ten will work of which three might pay back everything, plus a little bit. And I've reduced
34:58
the principal by a significant amount. Just in assuming future net worth and anything above that, whatever. Maybe it will work. What what do you think about that? Yeah. I think basically startup investing is,
35:09
It's so it's so long time horizon. Right? Like, you have to
35:14
assume that these are gonna take seven to ten years before they pay out. So even if they are worth x, they're not really worth x to you yet. There are these little eggs that are that are, you know, gonna be hatching. And so I'm with you. Basically, when I calculate,
35:28
I I never calculate net worth because I think that's,
35:31
kind of useless because it takes into kind of illiquid things that are gonna either, like, go to zero or go way up in value, like my own businesses. Are gonna either go to zero or go way up in value most likely.
35:41
And they're illiquid. So what does it matter? I can't do anything with them right now anyhow.
35:45
So I I basically only calculate liquid net worth when I calculate it. And, I so that doesn't include any of my own businesses, and I also don't include any startup because it's not liquid yet. That doesn't mean it's not valuable, but it's just not liquid yet. So I don't I don't even apply the discount because it doesn't matter. It's not in my calculation.
36:02
And that's my last category, which is private companies. So those include, like, any course I do, this podcast, speaking fees, which is, like, called par media. I assume that has zero equity value. I live off that income, and then the the next big company is Hampton, As of today, I assume that is worth zero.
36:20
I've taken zero salary from it. I will likely take a dividend at the end of the year. But until that business hits, like,
36:28
forty or fifty million in revenue, in my head, I assume it's worth zero.
36:34
And I do not include
36:36
I do not include any of the private businesses that I operate or own as part of my net worth. So we are totally aligned on that part. Like my e commerce, I don't I don't I don't include it in the calculation.
36:46
Even though that business is doing great, you you include that as zero still. Yeah. Well, I just I don't mark it as zero. I just I'm not calculating total net worth. I'm only calculating liquid.
36:58
So
36:59
I tried to calculate total net worth, yeah, I didn't include it. I'd put some conservative number there, but I don't even really bother because what's the point? In fact, I think the whole net worth thing is like,
37:09
not a great
37:12
thing
37:13
to, like, I I kind of been in search of a better metric.
37:16
Well, there's earning. So an income, do you measure that? But then income is, like, only things that are, you know, it's gonna buy us way too hard to to the things that are only generating cash flow today.
37:27
So it's not gonna count really any, like, an asset. No. I mean,
37:31
do you measure your income on a monthly basis? I measure my every I, like, do, like, a report where I look at, like, alright. What was my income this month and where did it come from? Yeah. Not religiously, but it's it's mostly, like, steady. I can and I kinda know the one or two things that are variable. I'm like, oh, that's what that was at this month plus, you know, it's like in the same range roughly.
37:47
So yeah. I know I know what it's coming in every month. I know roughly what's coming out every month. I don't really keep track of spending too much.
37:54
I I'll I'll kinda calculate spending
37:57
every couple of months just to be like, am I did I add anything significant here?
38:02
What's your spend right now? I think I spend maybe twenty five or thirty thousand dollars a month. Yeah. I think I'm at thirty thirty k a month of burn, life life expenses. And I and I feel that that's a lot. That sounds like a lot to me. That sounds insane to me. We have a friend who told us that they are currently spending
38:19
three hundred thousand dollars a month
38:22
And I was, like, gasping. I was, like, I can't comprehend that. And then they listed it all out. And I was, like, yeah. That definitely adds up, but that's just, like, You do need the jet. I mean, what are what are you gonna do without it?
38:35
It was insane to me. I've got another friend that spends eighty thousand and,
38:39
I'm like, gasping. Right. But I guess, like, everything changed when you get when you get to different levels.
38:45
But the so anyway, that's kinda like my portfolio. I wanna say that, hey, this isn't advice, but also,
38:52
I basically do the most simple conservative stuff
38:56
I use Tiller. Have you heard of Tiller? I think the website is tiller h q dot com. It's like a plugin, and I tracked this in Google sheets
39:04
What do you do you track anything? Like, your accounts in the other place? These apps because I'm like, I'm not connecting my shit to these random startup apps, like, you know, I I don't wanna con I don't wanna put all my stuff into these So I because I'm not that concerned with it in general. You know, the fewer things that you're concerned about, the better
39:22
in general. Yes. But you just like Surely, like, occasional checks and balances. So every three months,
39:27
I sit down. And by hand, I write that I write out
39:31
where I'm at with liquid stuff, where I'm at income wise, and where I'm at monthly burn wise. Every three months, I do that. But there's like a there's, like, logistical problem. Let's say your wife has a four zero one k from her job from, like, eight years ago. Yeah. And you have one from each job that you've had and you haven't combined them. That's, like, six accounts potentially or five accounts, plus a checking, plus a savings, plus,
39:53
like, let's say that you each have, like, a Robinhood account or an e*trade account, plus,
39:58
her previous before you're married, maybe checking her savings. I mean, like, it kinda can accumulate whether you have money or not that you have eight or ten accounts. And, like, what happens if you die? And she doesn't know about all of them or vice versa. What I mean? Yeah. We do have that problem, which is if I die, I don't think she's gonna be able to, like, know or find her access a bunch of stuff, especially the crypto stuff. How how she could get to that? I've told her three times, and I'm like, you're not really paying attention enough to remember this.
40:21
Like, nine years from now, if something happens, it's like, I don't know what's gonna happen with that. That I am a little bit concerned about.
40:29
However,
40:30
the rest of the stuff again, I just do it by hand. And I make a day out of it. I treat it like a spa day. It's like, right? I think you talked about this concept of worry time. You're like, I just schedule some worry time in the future. That's what I do with this. I don't call it worry time because I'm not trying to feel worried during it, but same thing. I just schedule a little a day every three months. I'm like, oh, today's that day. It's basically like, let's have a little financial picnic. Right? Let me open up some of these baskets and see what's inside.
40:55
And,
40:56
and let me take stock of what's going on. And I think once a quarter for me is the right
41:01
amount of energy, just trying to spend on on this. And I just don't really wanna think about it otherwise. Do you know anyone who's crazier than you? I mean, I have viewed you as being quite crazy. I've got one friend that,
41:13
made, like, a hundred and fifty million dollars and they invested, like,
41:17
the majority of it in only two things. Their next company in a house. And they're like, I basically don't own any, like, bonds, equities. I've got very little savings.
41:26
So I consider that person being crazier than you -- Right. -- or a similar amount of crazy, but potentially at a larger scale,
41:32
are all of your circle of friends like you or do many of them say the same thing like I'm saying, which man, you're not conservative enough. When you say crazy, do you, like, is this kinda like,
41:42
oh, this bum on the streets? A little crazier. Is it like, wow, that She's hot, but she's crazy. Like, which one am I? My hot girl crazy or am I bum crazy?
41:52
More, like, bet it all in on black.
41:55
Like, like, Twition money or this game of roulette? Right.
42:01
I don't view myself as that crazy. I think that,
42:07
I think I have a pretty healthy view on money. I'll explain it to you in a few sentences. Number one,
42:13
money is a tool to enable a better lifestyle. That's what it's for. That's how I use it. So that's the first thing. That includes
42:20
spending on lifestyle, but it also includes learning things. My angel investments, I don't view as
42:26
the
42:27
absolute optimum way for me personally to make money. But I love them because I learn so much about where the world is going from startups,
42:35
and I like being around entrepreneurs. That's those are my people. So
42:39
of using money as my tool to, like, make my life more like how I want.
42:45
So I use money as a tool. That's the first thing. Money as a tool to enable a better lifestyle. I think I abide by that law. The second thing is,
42:53
money's no fun when you're stressed about it. So there's basically like a strategy that just says,
42:58
I don't need to,
43:00
I don't need to be stressed about this. So what is my amount of money that I know is my, like, safety net? So, like, you know, basically,
43:09
can I have two to three years of expenses
43:12
put away? That's just in, like, it it could be in nothing. It could just be literally sitting in a a big account. Doing absolutely nothing. But it's not doing nothing. It's enabling me
43:21
to be free with the rest of the money because I know that if I lost everything, if somehow everything went to zero,
43:28
I would still have three years of runway. And again,
43:31
I'm me. I am my own station. And if if you give me three years of runway, I'll have it all back and more by then. Like, you know, if I needed to,
43:38
to make money a focus. And so I do that. So to me, I'm like, if I have three years of life expenses,
43:44
put away? What what am I worried about? Right?
43:47
So I do that.
43:49
The third thing is
43:51
I know if I'm in which gear am I in wealth creation mode or wealth preservation mode. So will I view myself still as in wealth creation mode. You know, when I sold my company, it wasn't for as much money as you sold your company for. I think if I had sold my my company for as much as you did,
44:05
I might
44:06
do things slightly differently
44:08
But I
44:10
still view, like, most of my investments as, like, more on the aggressive side, more concentrated bets in things that I believe
44:17
in. And I know I'm gonna make mistakes. I'm gonna have some things that go to zero. I'm gonna sell some things at the wrong time. I would say the only leak in my game is really just that I sell things at all. I really just shouldn't sell. Like, the the only investment mistake I've made is just selling. Okay. But are you actually gonna you've just acknowledged, and and we'll go well, we can make fun of me after this. But you've acknowledged that. So are you making that? Yes. Exactly. So I made that a but Okay. So you're not gonna sell ever or often.
44:43
I'm buying things. That I basically have I basically default to say this is
44:49
only you have to break glass if you're gonna sell this. So, basically, like, you have to really have a reason. Like, either you need the money and you you gotta sell the thing. Or
44:58
something in the world has changed that caused you to, like, reunderwrite this Now I would argue I kinda did that with this,
45:06
the last time that I sold when basically, like,
45:09
the post COVID
45:10
kinda like what's go money printing is going on? What's going on in the economy? Everything all the stocks crash.
45:15
I thought, okay. We've had a thirteen year bull market.
45:19
We're probably not just gonna have six months of bad times. And then back to the good times again, like, and I still kinda believe that that's true.
45:26
But I should say
45:28
I wasn't in a place to re underwrite that that those investments because I was now thinking about macro stuff where, like,
45:35
If I'm spending thirty percent of my time on Wikipedia, that means I'm not informed enough to be making an intelligent decision about this. You know, I'm like, I'm learning about it. But where do you get the information from? Do you get it from current people? So for example, I like to I prefer to get information. I try to read books that are at least thirty or forty years old. And to figure out, like,
45:55
I try to learn about stuff. What's it called? Like, the Lindy effect, where it's, like, I try to learn about stuff that is is has been repeated many, many, many times and isn't exactly new for and and and and the counter example of that is when biology said all the crazy stuff about,
46:09
What was his argument that Bitcoin's going to a million because of this reason? I dollars in a high That shit scares me. And I'm like, I don't understand that. That's so new. And it legitimately scared me or I was like
46:19
I don't try to do that because,
46:22
what I what I find happens with that is I already have an opinion in my head, and then I just go find evidence of it. Right? I already wanna hold the stock forever. So then I go find the Lindy effect that says, Lindy effect says that this thing's gonna stay valuable because it's been valuable.
46:35
And I'll, like, cling to that evidence, but it's really just reinforcing some bias I already had in my head. So instead, what I do, And and you can't learn everything. Right? Like, you can't just say I'm gonna go learn the world of, like, finance. Like, this is too broad. It's impossible to do. So here's what I do.
46:50
I go through it and I say, what are people that I consider to be smart saying and thinking right now? And I go try to line up contenders.
46:58
It's like Here's theory a about where the world is going right now, about what yeah. Here's thesis a. Here's thesis b. Here's thesis c. And then I basically say, inherently, does one of them just intuitively make more sense to me? Does it re does it resonate in my gut that one of these just feels more true than the other? Okay. Let me that's the first test. Second test.
47:18
What evidence do they have that backs up their belief? Let me now stack the evidence. Okay. Now which one appears to be the strongest thesis. So instead of going and trying to learn about the topic,
47:27
I take people who already,
47:29
like, have strong opinions about this topic, and I go try to find what is the spectrum of opinions about this? So on one end, you have biology who's like, do you actually talk to them or just consume impurities? Not not always, sometimes, but, like, not always, like, you know, like biology, for example. He's just very public about his thesis. So you don't need to, like, talk to him. Right? It's like he's publishing every day what he believes to be true. He's like, I moved out of America. I got out of the dollar,
47:54
And here's the sources I'm citing that I'm tracking that basically says that the banking system is insolvent,
48:00
that the, you know, the money printing is you know, is out of control. Inflation is higher than they're admitting and that this is what what is the result of this? It's x. Right? And then you have Ray Dahlio that says, look,
48:10
I've been studying empires and all empires come to an end. Here's the cycles that they go through, and I think that America's at the tail end of the cycle. So you go read that book. You go watch his talks. You're like, alright, that's one another thesis. You have some people who say,
48:24
no, you know what? This is gonna bounce back because
48:27
even with all the problems America has, the dollar is still the best thing we got out there.
48:32
And that it when when all the countries in the world get weaker. They'll actually flee to the whatever this relatively strongest currency is, and maybe that's the dollar. And the dollar's gonna drink the whole milkshake. Basically, it's like, alright. Cool.
48:44
That I I didn't make there's some something I forgot what it's called. Like, the the the straw that drinks the shake or some shit like that. People don't talk about this. From there, we'll be blood. Because if I had a long straw, all the way over there. I drink your milkshake.
48:57
I drink it up. So you basically line up a bunch of arguments, and then you kind of, like, you litigate them like a lawyer. You're like, what evidence do you have that supports this?
49:06
What examples do you have? And then you basically say, look, okay. Even if I don't know what's totally true,
49:11
Can I hedge? So it's like, you know what? I don't think this guy's right, but he might be. And if he is, what hedge would I wish I had in place? Just in case. And, like, you know, this is the most likely thing to be true. So then let me, like, allocate things that way. So that's generally how I try to approach things. I do like that. I would say,
49:29
However,
49:30
I know my my my Achilles heel in this is that I do get drawn to the to a bit of sexy underdog opinion, the conspiracy opinion,
49:39
the,
49:40
the kind of, like,
49:42
this is the con the most contrarian opinion appeals to be inside because I'm like, oh, shit. This could be the mystery that we're onto that nobody else really fully Like, people don't believe it. That makes me wanna believe it more.
49:54
And I think that's led me to make too drastic of a decision in the past of, like, selling all of my Tesla or selling, you know, seventy percent of my stocks or whatever. Like, you know, like, it doesn't have to be that dramatic. Like, I just put into place smaller hedges in those and track them and be like, cool. If that's true, then six months from now, I might be seeing more of this. So let me check-in at that time and see if the signals have grown stronger or or faded.
50:18
Right now, you're in ed a little bit in advice giving mode because
50:24
I'm asking you questions,
50:26
but to swap it
50:28
Who do you look up to? Where you're like, I need to be more like them when it comes to
50:33
personal finance.
50:37
I wouldn't say there's somebody on the personal finance like managing your own money, but there are a lot of people
50:44
that I look up to or or find, I talked to to get ideas on
50:50
what game are they playing to
50:53
generate more money. So
50:56
I don't
50:57
I don't really seek or or I'm not that interested frankly in, like, Well, who who are those people?
51:03
You obviously, like Andrew, our our friend, Andrew Wilkinson, tiny
51:07
tiny dot com. He took the company public so you can actually go and see the numbers. So you like Andrew? Yeah. I like Andrew. You like Xavier?
51:14
I like Xavier. Yes.
51:16
Side bulky, I think had real I had really interesting things to say about what he does. Like, I'll give you just a funny example. So Saeed, by the way, he owns this thing called w p well, actually, it's called Awesome Corp. He started as a blog called WP beginner, which was a blog on how to use WordPress. Now he owns
51:34
tons of WordPress plugins. I don't know how big it is, but I bet it's worth half a billion dollars of which I bet he owns most of it, and it probably does many, many, many tens of millions in revenue and probably
51:45
tens of millions of profit. Right? Yes. And, yes, as in directional, yes. I don't know the exact numbers. But,
51:52
He basically has a business that's amazing. It's a monopoly, it prints cash, and then he does interesting things with his cash. Like, he owns, like, I don't know. Forty gas stations or some shit like that. It's like, why do you own gas stations, dude? Is that a good idea, bad idea? Does that take up a bunch of time or not? He's like, No. These are triple net leases. I just own the buildings that the other people operate in, and they pay for all the maintenance. So I was like, oh, okay. Interesting.
52:15
So I did a call with him once and he's like, he's like, yeah, my he said my mentor taught me one thing, which was,
52:21
okay. You wanna you don't spend. It's kinda like the I don't know the math. I'm gonna I'm gonna say a math term even though I don't know math. It's like, you don't spend, like, the first derivative money. He's like, basically, what most people do is that cash comes in from the business that they spend that money on life expenses. No. No. No. You only spend the second derivative. It's like, Cash, let's say, a million dollars comes in from your business. You don't get to spend. That million is not spendable. The million has to be invested into something. And then the income from that investment, that's what you get to spend. You do that. You'll never go broke.
52:53
And, and I was like, oh, that's interesting. He's like, yeah. So, like, I wanted to have a kid. Before we had a kid, I bought a gas station. Gas station makes six grand a month. That pays for this kid.
53:04
I was like, wow.
53:06
What?
53:08
And that's the this is how his brain worked. And I was like, interesting.
53:11
Again,
53:12
decent, line it up, say, does that does that seem like a way of life I'd like to do? Maybe maybe not. But, like, I want I I find it interesting because he says different things than most people. And he does different things than most people. How he runs his life and how he runs his businesses and what he does with the money.
53:26
You know, he was the one who was like, you know what? I love buying businesses. He's like, but there's another strategy I do where I buy These are thirty to forty percent minority stakes and businesses
53:35
that I can help in these two specific ways.
53:38
And they're they're gonna keep running it. So they get a little liquidity they get to retain control, and I'm gonna help them break through the plateau to get to the next level. He's like, I love doing that. I I look for those deals. And so
53:50
when I invested in Shepard, it was exactly it was I've exactly that mindset. I was like, what's a great business?
53:56
That I already believe in and am a customer customer of, that I can buy a minority stake, let them keep running it,
54:03
but then help them get to the next level by doing these two things. And, Has your contribution to that already? Do do you think that that that your contribution has paid dividends in their business yet? Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Where last two months have been the highest two months of the business and the history of the business. So it's great.
54:19
And for me, that's great too. Right? Like, I've already I've already paid back, I don't know, thirty three percent of my money or something like that on on that investment. So, like, you know, -- Wow. -- that thing's gonna, you know, in terms of oh, could I put my money in the stock market? Try to get eight percent. Or this thing's clearly this thing's gonna do two hundred percent a year, basically.
54:39
I don't know, unless something bad happens. So that's, like, you know, a great use of okay. Yes. I maybe I sold my whatever Amazon stock or whatever stock, HubSpot stock, whatever it is. And I missed the kind of, like, a little bit of the bounce back, but I put that money to to work in a place where I felt like I had a little more control and and could see a a path to a much greater return.
54:58
With with more risk, of course.
55:01
This episode is like the personal finance episode. I'm very curious to see if you listeners actually enjoy this stuff Next time, we gotta get back to, like, the business building stuff because I think that that is interesting to more people. And it's also interesting to me and you But I'm very curious to see if this is useful for people.
55:19
I like it. So I think this is a good one. What do you what do we wanna wrap here? Yeah. Let's wrap it up. Alright. We have a bunch of stuff next week, but that's the pod.
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