Latest / Beyond Fulfillment Podcast / Beyond The Hype: The Realities of Building Wealth Through Real Estate with Spencer Hilligoss

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Beyond The Hype: The Realities of Building Wealth Through Real Estate with Spencer Hilligoss · Beyond Fulfillment Podcast

• 0:05
  I was at a lender, real estate lender.
• 0:07
  We were lending to these really successful real estate investors and I was sitting there looking at the numbers on the other side of this thing going like, wow, like if these guys can do this, look at the economics
• 0:17
  on these deals these guys are doing that we're lending to.
• 0:20
  If they can do this, like, why can't I do that?
• 0:23
  Today we sit down with Spencer Hillegoss, a powerhouse in real estate investing and entrepreneurship with a rich background that began in tech and fintech leadership roles in the Bay Area.
• 0:35
  Spencer leveraged his experience at high growth companies and his upbringing in a real estate family to co found Madison Investing, a real estate investing club that helps others build wealth through curated passive investment opportunities.
• 0:52
  We'll dive deep with Spencer into the realities behind the romanticized vision of real estate.
• 0:58
  The obstacles Spencer faced scaling Madison Invest, especially as an introverted entrepreneur, and the key lessons from his years in fintech that shaped his approach to business.
• 1:10
  Spencer opens up about reframing success, the importance of self awareness, and the often misunderstood risks of real estate investing.
• 1:20
  Plus, he'll share actionable strategies and wisdom that fuel consistent progress and how he balances work, family and fulfillment on his own terms.
• 1:31
  As always, if you found value from this content, please like and subscribe.
• 1:36
  All right, Spencer Hillegoss, welcome to Beyond Fulfillment.
• 1:40
  Thank you Dave.
• 1:41
  Honored to be here.
• 1:42
  Thanks for having me on.
• 1:43
  Absolutely.
• 1:44
  We appreciate you taking the time.
• 1:46
  So let's get right into it.
• 1:48
  So Spencer, how did you reconcile the often romanticized vision of real estate investing with the gritty day to day reality that you faced early on?
• 2:01
  How much time do we have?
• 2:03
  You know, so I had a reference point to some version of real estate early on.
• 2:10
  My dad was a real estate entrepreneur, so he was a broker.
• 2:14
  And that is the lens most humans know about real estate, right?
• 2:18
  I mean you buy a home, you sell a home, you shop for a home.
• 2:20
  So he had me working in his business very young.
• 2:24
  You know, I was cleaning out fridges for properties he was going to put on market.
• 2:27
  I was doing open houses when I got a little bit older to be a teenager.
• 2:30
  So that was my lens, Dave, into oh, entrepreneurship means dad wakes up at 4:30 in the morning, I see him sometimes and then he pulls me into this, this hardcore really grinded out style of working and that was
• 2:44
  my touch point.
• 2:45
  And I thought, hmm, well I don't want to do that.
• 2:48
  So I went into a 13 year old career in tech companies.
• 2:52
  I live here in the Bay Area, California.
• 2:54
  And that's the quote Unquote, like local business, you know.
• 2:58
  And throughout those years I built a family, you know, a couple young boys and my co founder and wife Jennifer.
• 3:04
  You know, we started our company eventually, but there's a 13 year career of W2 hard work and you know, passion that I never planned on as a kid that played in, you know, punk rock and metal bands and
• 3:17
  thought business was silly.
• 3:18
  I never thought I was going to get into a leadership career working for these, these high growth financial tech companies or fintech companies.
• 3:25
  And that's a grind of its own, Dave.
• 3:27
  I mean like that, that is incredibly hard work.
• 3:30
  Still not as hardcore hard work as building your own business, in my opinion.
• 3:34
  But you know, 80 hours a week in an office, that's, that's pretty brutal.
• 3:39
  And I think that that was ultimately what like lit the fuse for me to go like, there's gotta be a better way.
• 3:44
  You know, we were deep into.
• 3:45
  This is around like 20, 2015, 2016, kind of looking at the whole picture and saying, wow, I was making great money.
• 3:53
  W2, Jennifer was making great money.
• 3:55
  W2 in our own careers, you know, dual income household sounds great in the Bay Area, but you have to do that, you know, it's just too darn expensive in places like this.
• 4:05
  So we looked elsewhere and ultimately it was like we got to start investing differently.
• 4:09
  We got to start putting our money into real estate because that is one of the quote unquote ways to get passive income.
• 4:16
  But there's so many little steps in that journey to get us to where we are now, you know, and a lot of skinned knees and hustle and sacrifices and just finding the time to go do this stuff on
• 4:27
  nights and weekends when we still had to go to the day job, we still had to take care of our kids, we still had to show up as a father and a husband, you know, and so that journey
• 4:37
  was well worth it.
• 4:38
  But it started out, you know, in a much more modest like, let's just do this as a hobby.
• 4:43
  Let's do this as something that's going to be putting our capital to use, not just doing our 401ks because I needed an off ramp.
• 4:49
  I needed to go find some kind of off ramp from that, that W2 quote unquote rat race.
• 4:54
  But I do have to mention as well, like, I don't look back in that career and think, man, I wish I hadn't done that.
• 5:01
  Most of it was actually great.
• 5:03
  Like I'm not the guy who dogs on the W2 World of the relationships you build there, the frameworks you learn, the mentors you find and of course like the financial footing we were provided by that lifestyle, you know.
• 5:16
  And so I look back very fondly on a lot of that too.
• 5:18
  But real estate was something that was sparked because my 5th company I went to last W2 gig before I left and this was 5 months before COVID I quit and you know, quote unquote retired from W2.
• 5:33
  I was pulled into a real estate company and that's really what showed me, oh, there's a different way.
• 5:39
  Because I saw the inside, from the inside.
• 5:41
  Like we were, I was at a lender, real estate lender.
• 5:44
  We were lending to these really successful real estate investors.
• 5:47
  And I was sitting there looking at the numbers on the other side of this thing going like, wow, like if these guys can do this, look at the economics on these deals.
• 5:55
  These guys are doing that we're lending to.
• 5:57
  If they can do this, like, why can't I do that?
• 6:00
  And you know, seeing other people succeed like that as just a benchmark is really where I feel like so much inspiration comes from for so many of us is like, they're just other humans, they're just other people out
• 6:10
  there.
• 6:11
  If they can do it, I can do it.
• 6:12
  And that's ultimately what brought me all the way back around to real estate, like full circle style.
• 6:17
  From the early days working with my dad, they kind of scared me into tech to then eventually coming back around and being like, oh, this is actually something I should look into.
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• 8:10
  Yeah, love that.
• 8:11
  Using the success you see as inspiration and then a catalyst for action thereafter.
• 8:16
  That's great.
• 8:17
  That's right.
• 8:18
  Okay, so what was the single most unexpected obstacle that you encountered when you were scaling Madison Investing?
• 8:31
  You know, this is something I think hits different people in different ways.
• 8:35
  You know, for me, I, it might not come across this way because like we're able to sit here and have this conversation right now, but I'm an introvert and that, that doesn't mean I'm shy.
• 8:46
  That means that I can't do a conference room floor 12 hours a day like some of my friends can, who are just full blown extroverts who can go there and they, it fills their cup.
• 8:56
  That's the big difference.
• 8:57
  Introvert, Extrovert.
• 8:58
  Right.
• 8:59
  Extrovert is charged by that.
• 9:01
  They get more energy from that.
• 9:03
  I can't do nonstop conversations all day.
• 9:06
  And in a relationship business like real estate, one of the bottlenecks that I started to realize, and this is also just the entrepreneur's plight in a lot of ways when it comes to scaling is like, oh, how are
• 9:20
  we going to do this if I'm the main touch point?
• 9:22
  So we have Madison Investing is an investing club, so we invest our own money into real estate deal and we help other investors do that too.
• 9:30
  So it's all about the relationships.
• 9:32
  Like I have personally met with and onboarded 100% of our investor club members.
• 9:37
  So hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people over the years.
• 9:40
  And that you call that a bottleneck, you know, and ultimately I realized after a time I had to start looking at this a different way.
• 9:49
  It's not about, it's not a limitation, it's a superpower.
• 9:55
  Because in the end, there's different business models.
• 9:58
  You just have to play to strength.
• 9:59
  And business models out there that are more just to talk about funnels, right?
• 10:04
  You can have a marketing funnel that is very large.
• 10:07
  You can go and say, let's go generate new leads, pay per click campaigns, whatever marketing levers you want to pull, go and do that.
• 10:15
  Or you can go for a much more highly curated relationship to relationship bespoke style model like that.
• 10:25
  And that was the model we leaned into, which is like fewer relationships, deeper relationships, and helping investors really get a good footing along with us to invest in great deals.
• 10:33
  And so that was one of the limitations.
• 10:36
  And just embracing that and saying we don't have to do.
• 10:39
  It's a very Silicon Valley esque mindset of like, oh, we got to 10x the growth every year.
• 10:46
  You know, when you're working for these high growth tech companies and they're all trying to become the next meta, the next Google and they want to have a huge IPO exit in years to come, the pressure is immense.
• 10:56
  You know, you get, you get VC funding and they come in and they say we gotta grow at this very aggressive multiple.
• 11:03
  And I realized we don't have to do that.
• 11:05
  What we just have to do is build a profitable, sustainable business in a way that does play to our strengths.
• 11:12
  And so you have to test into that too, you know, so ultimately that, that's really where we leaned into it.
• 11:16
  That obstacle really, it really stuck with me for a while and I, and I was beating myself up about it but I'd say that, you know, it's this, the self employed entrepreneur has to just wrestle with do they
• 11:28
  want to scale, do they want to stay lean, do they want to add headcount?
• 11:32
  And we ultimately decided we're going to stay lean and I'm so glad that we did.
• 11:35
  It allows us to be very nimble and in our unique situation, you know, I don't think everybody will want or should thrive with the, the couple, the married couple who are both leaders in the, in their company.
• 11:48
  That is not for everybody.
• 11:50
  It's for probably the very few, the selected and the few brave that are willing to take that on.
• 11:54
  And it works for them, it works for us.
• 11:56
  You know, it's a strategic advantage that we look at it now and yeah, ultimately that, that, that playing to strength was a key part of it.
• 12:04
  Yeah, no, no, you're right.
• 12:05
  And having that self awareness to know, like you said, what works for you.
• 12:11
  Do you think having that fintech experience, particularly in the Bay Area and just seeing you know firsthand what it's like in terms of getting the VC funding and that aggressive growth plan and, and maybe like you said, 80
• 12:26
  hours in an office kind of seeing this, the quote unquote dark side of that was a key factor.
• 12:31
  And once you, you got off on your own, you decided to do things a different way.
• 12:37
  Oh, good question.
• 12:40
  Absolutely.
• 12:42
  And I look at it like there's two big lessons there.
• 12:46
  The first one being whether you have a good boss, have all of us had great bosses, like formative mentors that make a positive impact for us for the rest of our lives, whether that's in sports, whether that's in
• 12:56
  personal life, business and beyond.
• 12:58
  Then you also have the bad bosses and I would argue in a lot of ways they're even better teachers and you know, those bosses or even the company cultures you're a part of, some of those leave a positive
• 13:10
  impact, some of those leave a negative impact.
• 13:12
  That ultimately when you frame them right, you know, you channel them into the right actions, you channel them into the right reflections, that becomes something far more powerful.
• 13:21
  And I think you nailed it.
• 13:24
  In terms of what you're grasping there, Dave, which is like the knowing what you want out of it, knowing what you want out of your company, knowing what you want out of your lifestyle is imperative because I have
• 13:35
  so much like respect for the founders and the business entrepreneurs who want to scale and go big.
• 13:43
  Like it's a beautiful thing.
• 13:44
  And I'm so like, I'm in awe when there's these founders that just, they're machines and they want to go big, they want to scale, they want to add headcount, they want to build systems and they love doing this
• 13:54
  stuff.
• 13:54
  Particularly like the serial entrepreneurs, right, like man, they get the idea and they can execute.
• 14:01
  Like that's a rarity.
• 14:03
  But for us it was like, well, we're doing all this because ultimately I wanted to show up as a better dad.
• 14:10
  I wanted to show up as a more present husband.
• 14:12
  And right around that time I was sharing with you that I was like working 80 hours a week.
• 14:15
  There was a time when I didn't see our second born for like, you know, he was still an infant and I didn't see him for like a two week period, you know.
• 14:23
  Cause I was going in too early and I was coming home too late and that was like a pretty rough period of time for our family.
• 14:29
  And I look back then and I'm like, you know, there's gotta be a resorting of priority here, like there's gotta be something to change.
• 14:36
  And I that that culture, I was still getting side eye from some of the teammates at this company while I was leaving at like 6 o' clock at night, you know.
• 14:46
  And I'm all about occasional pushes and working in the office.
• 14:49
  But I kind of looked around and I realized like, this is not what I want.
• 14:52
  And frankly, I'm not going to be made to feel bad knowing that this is what I want.
• 14:57
  Because I think a lot has changed in work culture too in the last 10 years.
• 15:03
  I mean, Covid changed everything on that front.
• 15:06
  You know, the work from home movement and all this other stuff.
• 15:08
  So I think that was the first comment.
• 15:10
  I think the other comment I want to share is like just so grateful for this learning because it applies to entrepreneurship so much, Dave, is that the, the value of frameworks and by by that I mean I remember
• 15:24
  I was at the most hardcore startup possible.
• 15:26
  And this wasn't a fun time.
• 15:28
  Like it was the most I learned in probably a year and a half at this company.
• 15:32
  But I got the privilege of like joining this place, super hot startup, you know, and they, they brought me in and I was surrounded by people that were academically incredible.
• 15:42
  Like, like they had gone to these top five Ivy League schools.
• 15:44
  I went to Colorado, I went to University of Colorado, Boulder.
• 15:46
  Go Buffs.
• 15:48
  You know, snowboarded a lot, got a degree right, had a good time.
• 15:51
  But when I got to this company, I was just shocked by the pedigree and how smart and quick that great decisions were being made.
• 16:01
  And these are pretty high stakes decisions.
• 16:03
  So like that the big learning here on frameworks was like, how the heck is that CEO or that VP making decisions of that gravity quickly and making a good one.
• 16:15
  Because like great decisions are made slowly.
• 16:17
  Usually like big, big hairy life decisions are made when you have time to really reflect on them and think about them and think about the implications and the first and second and third order consequences and all that stuff.
• 16:28
  But that's where I learned about frameworks.
• 16:30
  And frameworking is, makes it sound too vague.
• 16:32
  It really just means like, how do you quickly put together a construct to think about something and make a great decision about it.
• 16:39
  And we apply that in our business every day, you know, and most importantly, when it comes to do we want to partner with this particular team, like this real estate operator based out of Kansas or out of Texas.
• 16:55
  So we put together a framework and we use the same types of frameworks now that we did when we started our business about eight years ago.
• 17:02
  But we've built on them, we've leaned into them and we still do that now, whether it comes to making a small decision or making a really big, big decision.
• 17:10
  And so I look at that fintech experience as vital, you know, and so when people talk about, you know, I'll catch up with other folks in like the entrepreneurship community or in the real estate investing community and they
• 17:23
  tend to go, not everybody but, but a lot of folks tend to go pretty hard and, and critique hard on the W2 World saying like, I don't know how transferable those skills are.
• 17:32
  And I think that that's just a bunch of bs, you know, because in the end they're as transferable as you can make them.
• 17:38
  And in my experience they're highly transferable.
• 17:41
  Like, like you can, you can use a lot of that stuff.
• 17:44
  It just depends on, on really reflecting and Thinking through how.
• 17:48
  Absolutely.
• 17:50
  Okay, so what's the most common misconception that, that you hear about real estate investing that you've seen?
• 18:03
  You know, I think that the dinner table conversation so many of us have had, you know, whether it's like at Thanksgiving when we were kids or like, you know, visiting with family and like Uncle Bob as it were,
• 18:15
  just using, making that name up, like some person in our family tells us a story about the time they lost their shirt on that real estate deal, you know, on that one deal.
• 18:24
  And the big takeaway is, oh, real estate is risky inherently.
• 18:30
  I, I think of course that is true.
• 18:32
  Of course.
• 18:33
  I mean, I've invested in some stuff and I have, you know, lost some capital before.
• 18:36
  So, like, does, does risk exist?
• 18:39
  Of course it does.
• 18:41
  But if you sit there and you're like, hey, do I buy this rental property, this duplex, or do I invest?
• 18:47
  When it comes to any type of investing, what if I go invest in a, an like angel invest in a early stage startup at a seed round?
• 18:55
  I mean, you're talking about a fundamentally different risk profile.
• 18:58
  I mean, you're also talking about understanding risk is like an ongoing, lifelong pursuit.
• 19:03
  And I don't claim to have all the answers whatsoever, Dave, but I just know the moment we step out of our front door, we're taking a risk.
• 19:10
  Right?
• 19:10
  I mean, the, the world abounds with risk management.
• 19:13
  It just depends on how you look at it and how you mitigate that risk.
• 19:16
  But that is the number one, I think, misnomer about, about real estate and real estate investing is that, like, it's inherently high risk.
• 19:25
  I do think that there's ways to go out and absolutely skin your knees or worse really badly if you're not careful.
• 19:32
  And it's, you know, those of us that have been doing this for long enough, you absolutely better believe we have the scars to prove it.
• 19:38
  But we also learned how to like, de risk stuff as much as humanly possible.
• 19:41
  So I think that's got to be the, the number one misnomer about, about real estate.
• 19:46
  Okay, and how has your definition of success evolved since you first started Madison Investing?
• 19:56
  Oh, man.
• 19:59
  You know, at a high level, we built this business because we wanted to help other people invest the same way that we did.
• 20:05
  You know, we started putting our money into larger deals that were like passive investment, right?
• 20:09
  Like self storage facilities, multifamily large apartments, mobile home facilities.
• 20:15
  Like, these are things that most people find boring.
• 20:19
  And I'm like, yeah, give me more of the boring stuff.
• 20:23
  I think that that's Kind of what we target.
• 20:26
  The reason why that matters is because ultimately, we want whatever we put our capital in.
• 20:31
  We want to help other people invest in, move towards some kind of version of a financial situation in a life that helps them spend more time with their families, that helps them achieve whatever higher version of themselves is,
• 20:43
  you know, that they're going for.
• 20:45
  And in the end, it's not about.
• 20:47
  Not to be blunt.
• 20:48
  It's like, it's really not about the money.
• 20:50
  It's about developing wealth in a way that then unlocks your ability to go become whoever you got to become for those that love you and, you know, and those that you love.
• 20:58
  And so for me, personally, I thought when we started this journey that it was like, we want to hit this dollar amount of inbound, passive monthly income, and we want that to hit our bank account.
• 21:10
  Because I want to quit my job and just spend my time, every day, spending time with the kids, getting in a great run and train for a marathon, pluck my guitar, play some songs and spend time with those
• 21:23
  I love, friends and family.
• 21:25
  And I thought, man, that sounds like a great day, doesn't it?
• 21:28
  And then you get closer to your goal, and you really realize humans are not, like, I'm not built.
• 21:35
  And most people are not built to sit on a beach.
• 21:38
  They're just not like, fulfillment comes from, in my opinion, adding value back into the world somehow.
• 21:46
  And if you can overlap somehow to financially profit from that, awesome.
• 21:51
  But it really comes down to my highest and best self is going to be, in some ways, still doing something productive in addition to whatever philanthropic efforts that we do as well, like Jennifer, or sits on the board
• 22:03
  for a financial literacy nonprofit for Bay Area youth, you know, and so.
• 22:08
  So she.
• 22:08
  She focuses on that.
• 22:09
  We both focus on philanthropic giving, but I still realize I like working.
• 22:14
  And it's a weird thing to say out loud, frankly, compared to the version of what I thought I was going for at the beginning of this journey.
• 22:20
  Like, I was like, I want to sit around and like, yes, balance is more achievable now.
• 22:27
  But there's times of push.
• 22:28
  There's times of absolutely hard work grinding, and I don't shy away from it, you know, like.
• 22:33
  And a quick anecdote I'll share, too, Dave, is like, we.
• 22:36
  We spent the last two summers doing something that scared the crap out of us as a family at first.
• 22:42
  Like.
• 22:42
  Like, we actually traveled internationally with our kids.
• 22:45
  I'd never done this before.
• 22:46
  Before.
• 22:47
  This is two summers ago.
• 22:49
  We lived in Portugal for, like, six weeks.
• 22:52
  Brought the.
• 22:53
  Brought the Whole family and ran our business from there.
• 22:57
  You know, that doesn't mean we're sitting around all day and just try.
• 23:00
  We did some fun travel, of course, but we're still taking, I'm taking zoom calls at like 10 or 11 o' clock at night sometimes, because that's the time difference, you know, and, but, but finding the courage just to
• 23:10
  take those leaps forward also really validated the thesis, which is like, I'm more fulfilled when I'm still adding value when I'm still working.
• 23:19
  It's not about sitting on a beach.
• 23:21
  Um, you know, the next summer, this was last summer, we, we, we went to Croatia and Montenegro and we took on that challenge and it was just, it was awesome.
• 23:28
  Um, and it's not, it's not like smooth sailing the whole time.
• 23:32
  There's.
• 23:33
  Kids complain a lot when they're traveling.
• 23:35
  You know, you gotta still be an active parent.
• 23:37
  You still gotta go and diffuse challenging situations on the business front, even though you're, you know, thousands of miles away.
• 23:44
  But that is the kind of like fulfillment I think that I'm realizing I am built for now.
• 23:50
  And I think a lot of people are too.
• 23:51
  When I've talked to other entrepreneurs and other investors in our club and the hundreds and hundreds of passive investors I've gotten to know now over the years, almost all of them, if it goes well and they hit that
• 24:01
  point where they have a little bit more cushion and they have a little bit more flexibility, they proactively choose to seek out challenge because it gets boring and like, it feels kind of hollow if you really are just
• 24:14
  there and you're like, well, now I got all the money, Cool, the income is coming.
• 24:19
  I think I'm good.
• 24:20
  I think I'm just going to read books all day and exercise, be like, yes, that's cool.
• 24:24
  But the idea of like this traditional retirement, like for a guy sitting here in my 40s, I'd like to think I'm going to stick around for quite a while longer.
• 24:32
  And I intend to do a lot of stuff with that time that not only benefits our financial situation, but has a way to have positive net impact on the world too, beyond our family.
• 24:43
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 24:44
  Love that.
• 24:45
  Like you said, even just finding a way, regardless of, you know, even if you're at that financial situation where you can just take it easy, finding a way to still be productive, add value and do work that truly,
• 25:00
  you know, fulfills you, is so, so important.
• 25:04
  Totally.
• 25:06
  Okay.
• 25:06
  And Spencer, what's one piece of advice that you wish someone would have given you before you Jumped into entrepreneurship.
• 25:16
  Oh, man.
• 25:21
  You know, I think that the, the building of relationships is like a lifelong pursuit.
• 25:29
  And it's not only advice.
• 25:31
  I wish I had understood better.
• 25:33
  Kicking off entrepreneurship, Dave.
• 25:34
  I think it's also something I wish someone had grabbed me by the shoulders, figuratively, when I was in my early W2 career, and said, every person you meet is an opportunity to get to know someone and build a
• 25:47
  relationship for the rest of your life.
• 25:49
  You know, and we're not talking about like becoming best buds and friends with literally every person you meet, but you're, you're sitting there.
• 25:56
  Like I would go into my day job, for example, back in the day, and I would look at that in a, in a much more, you know, like in our 20s.
• 26:03
  Everyone in their 20s tends to be a bit more self centered.
• 26:06
  Like you're thinking about, oh, I gotta go prove myself.
• 26:08
  It's about me, me, me.
• 26:10
  It's a very transactional headspace.
• 26:13
  And that is such a inverse of what I see now.
• 26:17
  It's like amazing to me.
• 26:19
  And I'm sure you've experienced this, Dave.
• 26:21
  Like, it's amazing to me how people know people and the universe just kind of comes back around and things always come back around.
• 26:28
  The way you see people navigate through life, you end up at BU into people that you meet 20 years prior, 30 years prior, and you can either help them, or they can help you, or you can help each
• 26:38
  other.
• 26:39
  And, and the way that, that ultimately plays out is remarkable to me.
• 26:44
  You know, I just reconnected, for example, recently with someone.
• 26:47
  You know, we were discussing an opportunity that she, she offered me and I was like, wow, I hadn't seen or talked to her in 30 years.
• 26:55
  And so like, it's.
• 26:56
  That idea of relationships can be long lasting or they can be transactional, and it doesn't mean you're literally doing it every single time.
• 27:06
  If you're at the cafe ordering a coffee and you're like, hey, let's build a friendship.
• 27:09
  But it does mean, like just being open and not passing judgment on it and limiting it proactively.
• 27:14
  I think that that's, that's a big deal.
• 27:17
  Okay.
• 27:18
  And is, is there one habit or routine that you would attribute your consistent progress and growth to?
• 27:30
  Absolutely.
• 27:31
  I think as basic as this sounds and perhaps boring, I think this is vital, which is just like a clean slate, blank paper prioritization exercise.
• 27:44
  And this is applied annually, quarterly, monthly, weekly, daily.
• 27:49
  And so ideally you stop and you say, okay, what do we want to actually pull off this year?
• 27:54
  What are our goals for this year, whittle that down in simple terms, all the way down.
• 27:59
  Quarterly, monthly, weekly.
• 28:01
  But then I still do this thing.
• 28:04
  We have, of course, all the tech stack stuff you can expect.
• 28:06
  I use Notion for notes.
• 28:08
  Sometimes I use all the Google different products.
• 28:10
  I still have Evernote even though it's older, all these different tools, but I still use a literal blank piece of paper or a whiteboard and literally just write like, these are the things that must happen today.
• 28:24
  And that list is not allowed to be more than three items.
• 28:28
  And as simple as that sounds, it works in calendar blocking.
• 28:32
  Like, you know, eat the frog, as the platitude goes, like, absolutely am a believer and get the most important thing done first.
• 28:40
  And then even if that means politely and graciously saying no to a person who maybe you even had plans with, but that plan happens to not fall on the top priority at that moment, I think that that's vital.
• 28:56
  And I look at that now.
• 28:58
  In the first two years of us building Madison Investing, I would literally just take my daily top priority piece of paper with a big old Sharpie.
• 29:06
  I'd write the goals down, I would tape it directly next to my bed the night before, and I would wake up and say, okay, that's what I'm doing today.
• 29:14
  If all else fails, like that is happening today.
• 29:18
  Um, so that would be it.
• 29:19
  You know, I think that that would be the big one, Dave.
• 29:21
  I mean, I have to give the one very quick shout out, if you'll allow me, which is, I think physical fitness and health is something that is vital, you know, for over the long haul.
• 29:32
  And so I happen to be like a running nerd.
• 29:36
  And I think that it's different.
• 29:37
  It's not like everyone should run out and go running or anything, but, like, it's about someone picking what they need to for getting themselves right mentally.
• 29:45
  Because, like, it's just as much of as much a mental game as it is a physical game when it comes to physical health and fitness.
• 29:50
  And so the day that I realized, oh, I can listen to an audiobook or a podcast while I'm going jogging, like, that stuff is vitally important over time for people.
• 30:00
  So whether that's going to the gym for someone, whether that is, you know, swimming, I think for entrepreneurship, I forget who said this.
• 30:07
  It was a.
• 30:09
  It was a friend recently who said this, I think.
• 30:11
  And it was like entrepreneurship, when you are.
• 30:14
  When you do your own thing, taking care of yourself physically becomes like a ticket to the game.
• 30:20
  Like, it's not like something that you happen to layer on Top.
• 30:23
  And it's something that is helpful.
• 30:25
  It is literally part of the energy.
• 30:28
  Like you're building your energy reserves.
• 30:30
  You need that energy capacity because you're always on, you know, when you clock out of a day job and you're done and you close that laptop for the day and you stop checking your email, that is someone else's
• 30:40
  problem.
• 30:41
  That, you know, there's a.
• 30:42
  There's a boss of a boss or the CEO of the company whose problem is at the highest level.
• 30:47
  When it's your company, there is no boss.
• 30:49
  I mean, you are the last line of defense.
• 30:51
  Right.
• 30:51
  And so you need that mental fortitude and you need that physical health at least.
• 30:56
  Just speaking for myself, coffee doesn't always get you there.
• 30:58
  You have to be able to just like to build those reserves as well.
• 31:02
  So I find that super helpful.
• 31:04
  Absolutely.
• 31:05
  Okay.
• 31:06
  And Spencer, if people want to get in touch with you, learn more about Madison investing and how they can potentially be a part of that, what's the best way people can reach out to you?
• 31:15
  Yeah, they can reach us at our website.
• 31:17
  It's madisoninvesting.com.
• 31:19
  they'll just find a link on there for a form and they could set up time for us to chat.
• 31:23
  Okay, excellent.
• 31:24
  And we'll link all that in the show notes for everyone.
• 31:27
  Awesome.
• 31:28
  All right, Spencer, thank you so much for taking the time to be here and sharing all this valuable wisdom from your journey with our audience.
• 31:34
  We greatly appreciate it.
• 31:35
  Thank you, Dave.
• 31:36
  I really appreciate it as well.
• 31:37
  All right, and that's all the time we have for now.
• 31:40
  We will see you next time.